Amberkatze and Jaye Wells Interview & Contest

Amberkatze has an interview and contest going with author, Jaye Wells. Jaye's debut, RED-HEADED STEPCHILD, is out on 1 April. You have a chance to win a free copy. Click here and get in on a super interview and contest opportunity! Contest ends Sunday, 15 Mar @ 1600 (4pm)

ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE - Jeaniene Frost

Ahhhhhhh......a nice fast trip with Cat, half vampire/half human, and Bones, all Master vampire.....not much better for a bedtime read. Makes for some interesting dreams, I gotta say.

It's been four years since Cat left Bones to keep him safe from the military peeps who gave her a pretty good deal she couldn't really afford to ignore. She works for them, leading a team of vampire slayers.

She discovers a price on her red-haired cranium and she can't find out who has it in for her. And she finds out that Bones is back in her life...and how. How is she going to break to her mother, her boss, her team?

What a yummy action packed, some vampire sex...some more action...some more vampire sex....

Five Cat luh-huvs Bones beans....

UNDEAD AND UNWED - MaryJanice Davidson

Lordy! I love this series! It's like a nice smartass vampire sorbet between heavier paranormal, thriller, suspense courses.
UNDEAD AND UNWED is the first in the Queen Betsy series and I can't believe how long it took me to find this one and finally get a chance to read it! Thank goodness Our Lady of the Books had a copy and I snagged it before anyone else could. Then it became my purse book for the longest time. Now I am no longer on shift work, I couldn't get any 'me time' to sit-sip-read, dagnabbit! Finally made this one my bedside book and smoked through it in short order.

Poor Betsy, aka Elizabeth Taylor, has just lost her job, been attacked and then run over by an Aztec (the car I must avert my eyes when I see on the street). She wakes up in a cold sterile looking place and discovers she's in a funeral home ready for burial! WTH??! AND, she's shod in a pair of inferior Payless shoes and a non-quality fabric outfit! Her evil stepmother has 'splainin' to do....
Betsy hightails it out of there and finds she is attractive to all men and dogs. Her best friend is not overly dismayed to see her alive-ish and kickin'. Her mother is overjoyed, her father and stepmom go into denial when Betsy arrives to take back her high quality shoe collection that her stepmom, Ant, stole.
Betsy also learns that she might could possibly be the Queen of the Vampires. She learns this from Eric Sinclair, vampire yum supreme and his minions, Tina and Dennis. Betsy has pissed off the reigning main vampire dude, Nostro, in all his bad vampire cliche splendor. Nostro doesn't take kindly to being laughed at and ignored as Betsy quickly does.
It's a battle to the death-death....
Five smartass vampire beans.....bookmark....

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....

FEAST OF FOOLS: Book 4 MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES - Rachel Caine

HOT DAY-UM! I swear, this series just gets more amazing with each volume.

There's a new vampire in town and he's an even bigger evil badass than all the others combined. Mr. Bishop's also the father of Amelia, the Founder of Morganville, so you know he's honkin' ancient and powerful.

All in town are to swear fealty to the sinister old guy in town and there's still the cure for the taint that is causing the old vampires to go mad after so many years. It's caused Amelia to put a stop to making new vampires until the cure is found. It's what's helped keep the balance (as much balance as can be in the town of Morganville), so what is going to happen to the status quo if the cure is found.

Then there's the relationships of the four in the Glass house. Claire and Shane are still in teen love. Shane being a gentleman, and Claire being 16, has put a halt to anything further than some heavy smooching. Claire is really wishing Shane wasn't so much the gentleman....but respects him for the person he is....just wishing 17th birthday would hurry up and get here.

Eve and Michael are massively enamoured and are old enough to act on it. Shane is coming to grips with Michael being a vampire now instead of the ghost of the house.

OH, and there's the arrival of another set of parents....Claire's mom and dad move to town!

Claire is hard pressed to decide which of all of the above is the most mind-numbingly stressful.

I will read anything Rachel Caine writes! She left me hangin' at the end of FEAST OF FOOLS and I didn't even get mad. I just want her to write faster!!!

Five smokin' hot beans!!

HALFWAY TO THE GRAVE - Jeaniene Frost

Can I get a YOWZAH??!! Holy Schmokes this was a good 'un! I so cannot wait for the next in the series. Seriously tough action, excellently hot characters...and the sex scenes...whooftah!

Catherine 'Cat' Crawfield is a half breed, half human, half vampire. Her mother was raped and bitten by a vampire and Cat is the result of that union. Her mother hates all vampires and Cat has been on a mission to kill all vampires....until she meets Bones. He is about to become dust, but strikes a bargain and becomes her trainer and partner in the killing of bad killer vampires, in exchange for helping Cat find the man who is her father so she can kill him for her mother.
And did I mention the sex??!! Hot-cha-cha!!!
Bones and Cat...what a match!


Four holey schmokes beans....

BLOOD DRIVE: AN ANNA STRONG VAMPIRE NOVEL - Jeanne C. Stein

I was a little disappointed when I started reading BLOOD DRIVE, but only because I found out I'd picked up the second in the series instead of the first, THE BECOMING. I have become a little weird about starting a new series with the first book. Ya know what? Once I got into the first few pages, it really didn't matter. The story stands on its own and it made me definitely want to go back and read the first one! And I will soon since I won the prize from Jeanne, but that's another blog....
Anna Strong is a private investigator who was turned into a vampire. She is still working on getting used to being someone who can only drink fluids now and must take steps to move out of the sphere of her living family and friends. She's reluctant, but knows it's necessary since she'll be staying the same age as they continue to age. No one knows she's what she's been turned into, so you can see where it would cause some issues in the future.
She gets involved in a case to find a missing teen who may be her niece. There are some very unsavory folks in the mix as well as one savory folk...Frey. But is he who he says he is, a teacher who only wants the best for his students? Or is he involved with a child pornography ring? Anna isn't sure and is ready to tear him a new one if he is.
This is a definite keeper shelf book, along with my Charlaine Harris collection and soon to be Kat Richardson collection.
Four savory beans!

R.I.P. III Challenge...here I go again....

http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/?p=993#comment-132529

Yep, yep, yep...here I go again. Not with this particular challenge, never done this one before. No...I am going to try my hand, or eyes or ears as the case may be, to another challenge in general. This one is mellow. The rules are loose as far as listing or not listing the authors or books to be read in the challenge. It runs from 1 Sep to 31 Oct and the genres are already what I read anyway. Genres being mystery, thrillers, paranormal, horror. Yay. And only 1 to 4 books to read in that timeframe. Not like my other challenges I join and overwhelm myself with. So much so that I made up another blog to keep track. I'll post this over there, too.
So anyway, run over to Stainlesssteeldroppings and sign up!

GREYWALKER - Kat Richardson

DUDES!! I keep hearing so much about Stephanie Meyer's series. Everyone is reading and anxiously waiting for each installment. I read the first one (you know its title, I don't have to post it here). I liked it fine for the mellow vampire loves a high school girl story it was.
But why more people aren't going on and on and waiting just as anxiously, if not more so, for Kat Richardson's GREYWALKER series, having honkin' cool midnight release parties in front of the bookshops with Greywalkers, vampires, necromancers....and all that hellah cool schtuff, is beyond my comprehension.
GREYWALKER starts with a headbang and almost squished cranium in the elevator and it never lets up.
Harper Blaine is my kind of main character. She's a PI, strong, smart, fast on her feet. All of this stands her in good stead once she dies for two minutes, just long enough to become a Greywalker. Greywalkers, she learns, can walk in the real world as well as the other world of the ghosts and all things that we know haunt the closets and under the beds. Harper resists this 'gift' of walking among the undead, but people she meets along the way make her realize she doesn't have much choice.
Along the way, she meets a witch, a fascinating jack of all trades, a newly turned vampire, many oldly turned vampires, a necromancer, a freaky pipe organ....
This is such a good book on so many levels! I was graciously loaned the first two of the series by my bookbud, Jenna. They are from her keeper shelf. I am going out to get my own copies for my keeper shelf. I don't do this for many books or authors.
Five spooky beans!!!

MIDNIGHT ALLEY: Morganville Vampires, Book 3 - Rachel Caine

I tell ya, this series just keeps getting better! They are exhausting reads since everything and anything keeps happening to these four in the Glass House in short amounts of time. And they are scrappy! They get back up and face the big bad.

Morganville is a town run by and for vampires. It also a college town...hey a vamp's gotta eat, yeah?

Claire is the main character. She's learned a lot for a new in town 16 year old college freshman. She knows to stay away from the mayor's daughter, Monica, a mean biotch (and that's being nice), who would as soon push Claire down a flight of stairs as look at her. There's Jason, brother of Claire's best friend Eve. He is a puh-sycho of the most evil kind and after Claire. Then there are the vamps. Even the nice ones have agendas and Claire plays a part in most of them. Cannot wait to read #4, FEAST OF FOOLS.

Four enthusiastic beans!

DEAD GIRLS' DANCE: The Morganville Vampires, Book 2 - Rachel Caine

Sat on the recumbent bike for an extra 30 minutes this morning just so I could finish this book. The first of the series, GLASS HOUSES, was fantastic and my introduction to Rachel Caine's work. I couldn't wait to read the rest of the series, but I also wanted to savor them. They are like dark chocolate. So now I have the third on in the series on Mt Git'r'Read and not sure how long I can stay on this diet. I will have to move MIDNIGHT ALLEY up to near top of the stack. I think I can wait until next month. Maybe a good Valentine's Day read....

Synopsis from B&N:
Claire has her share of challenges. Like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains; homicidal girls in her dorm, and finding out that her college town is overrun with the living dead. On the up side, she has a new boyfriend with a vampire-hunting dad. But when a local fraternity throws the Dead Girls' Dance, hell is really going to break loose.

Without giving any sneakpeeks, I think the above synopsis says it all and you will have to read it for the whole wicked cool story.