Books in the House Monday - 7 Feb 2011

From B&N:
ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE - Wm Mark Simmons, paranormal, MPB, author recommended by Charlaine Harris
A BRUSH OF DARKNESS - Allison Pang, UF, MPB
ARSENIC AND OLD PAINT: An Art Lover's Mystery - Hailey Lind, amateur sleuth, TPB
NIGHT'S COLD KISS - Tracey O'Hara, UF, MPB
DEATH'S SWEET EMBRACE - Tracey O'Hara, UF, MPB

GRAVE SECRET: Harper Connelly #4 - Charlaine Harris, narr Alyssa Bresnahan

From the back of the BOCD: New York Times best-selling author Charlaine Harris pens darkly inventive paranormal tales, including the immensely popular Sookie Stackhouse novels. With GRAVE SECRET, Harris returns to her beloved Harper Connelly series to deliver a thrilling mystery.

Ever since Harper was struck by lightning, she's been able to see and hear the last memories of the dead. Going on the road with her stepbrother Tolliver, she uses this unwanted gift to solve crimes and bring clients closure. Now, besides handling a budding romance with Tolliver, Harper is on the trail of a particularly gruesome killer in rural Texas, and she must act quickly before more lives are lost.

A tale of dark desires and even darker intentions. Harris' fourth book in the series shows why she's become a household name in fiction. A gripping performance by Alyssa Bresnahan will have readers tingling in rapt anticipation.

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This defnitely is the best of the series.There isn't as much of the searching for bodies with Harper's ability. I missed this aspect a lot, but what this reader/listener got in return is a heavy duty look at Harper's background. The poverty, the drug addicted parents, the kids all trying to keep the family together as best they can. There is also a look at the time of the disappearance of Cameron, the oldest sister.

This had the feel like it could be the last of the series. A lot of issues are addressed, but it could also clear the way for Harper and Tolliver to move on, so there could be more books. I hope so, cause this one was a humdingah.

Harper is hired by a wealthy family in Texas and the trouble begins. Someone is shooting at Harper and people around her are getting hurt.

GRAVE SECRETS has some serious twists and turns and many "Holey McCrappes!" left my lips.

Five if this the end it's a humdingah way to go beans.......

Books in the House Monday - 12 April 2010

From B&N to show my support for the Debut Urban Fantasy Author Challenge
at Dark Faery Tales:
EMBERS - Laura Bickle
MASTER OF NONE - Sonya Bateman

From my super sweet book buddy, Marie-Louise:
THE CURSE WORKERS: WHITE CAT - Holly Black, ARC (release date 4 May 2010)

From RecordedBooks wishlist:
SEPTIMUS HEAP: Book One MAGYK - Angie Sage, BOCD, YA fantasy
A TOUCH OF DEAD: Complete Stories of Sookie Stackhouse - Charlaine Harris, paranormal

DEAD AND GONE - Charlaine Harris, narr Johanna Parker

I love this series, it's my favorite of just about all of the various series I read and/or listen to. This one exhausted me. There's always a lot of fightin', vamp/human-blood/love swappin', shapeshiftin', witch magickin' in the series and I can keep up. Now we have Sookie's great great grandfather, a Prince in the Fae world, soon to be at war with a rival Fae prince and Sookie is likely to get in the middle of it and this group of Fae aren't anything like Tinkerbell.

The shapeshifters of the world have come out of the proverbial paranormal closet and the world is in uproar over shifter rights and thoughts of deception. Sookie's sister-in-law, the werepanther and devious Crystal, is found dead in Merlotte's parking lot. Is it a hate crime or retribution?

Sookie's been tricked into becoming 'bound' to Eric and she feels conflicted between being pissed at being tricked and being sort of relieved.

Then there's Bill. There will always be Bill, Sookie's first love.

I love this series, especially listening to Johanna Parker's vocal interpretations of the characters. And I have the mental images of the HBO series'True Blood' to help move the story along with images of Eric and Sam and Bill.....

Four fab, but exhausting beans.....

CLUB DEAD - Charlaine Harris, narr Johanna Parker

I know I have likely said this before, I've read 1-8 of the series and now I am working my way through listening to 1-8 of the series. Listening to Johanna Parker telling the story is a lot better than what my mental narrator comes up with.

I've listened to the last few of this series with DH on our commute for work. The boy is hooked. His favorite character is Eric for obviously highly way different reasons than mine (thankful am I or Lady K would not have happened to this world)....Eric makes DH laugh when Eric expounds on his various views on this world. Eric just makes me shiver deliciously. Woof. And laugh...but mostly shiver....

CLUB DEAD is #3 in the series and has Sookie once again, at the behest of Eric, helping out the vampires by going down to Jackson, Mississippi to locate her boyfriend Bill. Bill has been working on a super-secret project for the Queen of Louisiana and has now gone missing, possibly kidnapped, while doing research for the project. The last anyone has heard or seen of Bill, he was enthralled by and with Lorena, evil bitch vampire who made Bill. This breaks Sookie's heart, but good person that she is, she goes in search of the cheating Bill.

The search leads her into danger, of course. Wouldn't have it any other way. She's just healed from her injuries from her trip to Dallas and here she is working on possibly getting her ass handed to her again. Thank goodness for Bubba, (vampired Elvis), Eric, Alcede, and a trusty stake, so the ass-handing isn't fatal.

Not my favorite of the series, but it has some excellent parts to it...and there's Eric.....

Four vampires in Mississippi beans.....

DEAD TO THE WORLD - Charlaine Harris

This is my second time with this book. First time was reading it and I enjoyed it a lot. This time was listening to it in the car with DH for our commute. He is hooked on this series now. He was nibbling before with the last listen, LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS, but he is now a bonafide fan and asked when we can listen to more of the series. He likes the action, the writing, the action, the paranormal angle, the action..... you get the drift....He has watched some of the HBO series, True Blood, and likes what he's seen of it, but I think he likes listening to the book series even more.

This one is my favorite. Eric loses his memory and his sense of self thanks to a witch's curse and he is much less arrogant and appealing. Now don't get me wrong, arrogant Eric is appealing to me, but it's nice seeing a different side to him. Sookie is made responsible for his welfare.

Sookie has enough on her plate, though. Her brother goes missing, there's the witch coven trying to take over the businesses in Shreveport and somehow she gets pulled in to help. There's a pissy were-lynx who has it in for Sookie....

Five somebody-cut-Sookie-some-slack beans......

AN ICE COLD GRAVE - Charlaine Harris, BOCD

The Harper Connelly series is my third favorite series written by Charlaine Harris. First will always be Sookie Stackhouse and the vamp/shapeshifting gang. Second is Lily Bard and her non-paranormal peeps.

Harper and her companion, Tolliver, are called out to Doraville, North Carolina. There's been a significant number of young men gone missing in the small town and the grandmother of the latest missing young man has hired Harper to come out and use her special talent to see if there is death involved. If you haven't read this series, Harper senses where human corpses can be found. She's been able to do this since she was struck by lightening as a teenager.

Harper does find bodies and also stirs up a hornet's nest of malice. A lot of action in all manners of the word....

All that said, I wasn't as fond of this listen as I usually am. I think it was a mixture of hearing the tune, Doraville by Atlanta Rhythm Section, throughout my listen. It could also have been DH groaning at each perceived error in research by the author...."It doesn't get that cold in North Carolina!", "They have the death penalty in North Carolina!They wouldn't just put that a**hole in prison for life!"....sigh.....

It may have also been the narrator. She had irritating ticks in speech that grated at the edges. Not enough to turn her off, but just enough to cause some dismay. I would have given it one more bean, but for those factors.

Four ghostly beans....

LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS: A Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mystery - Charlaine Harris

The Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series is among the top ten, if not top five, of my favorite series. I read this second in the series a long while back, but have decided to add them to my keeper shelf as audioboks. The narrator, Johanna Parker, is absolutely superb for this series. I rented this one from RecordedBooks and will keep it with a coupon I received.
Sookie is trying to get along in her small corner of the world in BonTemps, Louisiana. She has a job she enjoys and a boyfriend, Bill Compton, in her life. He happens to be a vampire, but that's okay. She happens to be able to read minds and it's a treat to be with Bill since his mind is completely blank to her and he treats her wonderfully.
The drawback with being attached to vampires and with her ability, or disability as she calls it, is that she is often requested to help Eric, the sheriff of this particular area of vampires.
Sookie is loaned out to go to Dallas Texas to help another big dawg vampire find out what happened to one of his nestmates. This seems simple enough, but Sookie and company find themselves enmeshed in a soon to be battle with a new church called The Fellowship of the Sun. The followers of this church don't think that vampires should be allowed to exist.
There is another mystery to solve, too. Sookie's friend, Lafayette, the flamboyant short order cook at the bar where Sookie works, has been found dead in the car of a local law officer. Sookie isn't especially fond of the officer, but knows he didn't commit the murder and she did consider Lafayette a friend and wants to do what she can to help find his killer.
And then there's the maenad....In Greek mythology, Maenads (Greek: Μαινάδες) were the inspired and frenzied female worshipers of Dionysus, the Greek god of mystery, wine, and intoxication, the Roman god Bacchus. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". So this makes for an interesting storyline....

All told, this was a great listen. It made carpooling with DH quite bearable. He enjoyed the story, too.

Five southern vampire beans.....

SHAKESPEARE'S CHRISTMAS: Lily Bard Mystery - Charlaine Harris

SHAKESPEARE'S CHRISTMAS was my only holiday read this December and it was a good choice.

Lily resists going to her hometown of Bartley as often as possible, but this is a chance to get over the past that has haunted her and colors the way her family and friends look at her in her hometown. She moved to Shakespeare to move on and hide her scars, but now she is asked by her sister to be her maid of honor at Varena's upcoming Christmas wedding.

Lily's private investigator boyfriend is also in town, following a lead in an eight year old baby kidnapping case. This case will affect one of three families and also leads to murder.

Five Christmas beans....and the bookmark, thank you SuziBell!

FROM DEAD TO WORSE: Book 8 Sookie Stackhouse series - Charlaine Harris, BOCD

I LOVE this series!!!! This is book 8 in the series and it just keeps getting better.

Sookie's first act of bravery is to stand in as a last minute bridesmaid for a friend. Then it gets even scarier.

Werewolves are getting picked off and it's only the females. Sookie is asked to broker a peace deal between the rival packs. All hell breaks loose....

There's a new vampire in town and he wants to be king....Sookie is asked to assist introductions....

There's a new handsome mysterious man in Sookie's life, too.

And then there's the cat, Bob.....

Five superior supernatural beans....