Dark Need at Night's Edge by Kresley Cole

I finally stopped dithering around about picking a book and went with another Cole.

YUMMMMMM.

Cindy Blurb: There's this ghost see, and well, that would normally have stopped me cold in my tracks but I know that Cole writes books about 'the Lore' so I figured it's not like one of those ghost stories where everyone is human and something weird happens at the end of the book for a convoluted HEA.

Okay, right, a ghost named Neomi who died in the 1920's on what was supposed to be the best night of her life. Neomi wanted to live so badly and fought her death so much that she was stunned when she came too and no one could see or hear her. For 80 years she lives in her dream home, wearing her gorgeous dress without anyone knowing she exists.

Meanwhile, three vampire brothers are trying everything they can to save their 'rogue' brother from being killed. In the Lore, there are good and evil vampires and the ones with red eyes are those who have killed while taking blood and are deemed evil. These vampires are tormented by the memories of those they have killed and end up not knowing their own thoughts from those that end up there from others. In the end, most of these vampires go insane and become nothing more than killing machines.

Conrad Wroth is considered a prime example of this. Add to this he wants to kill his own brothers and things get complicated. In order to save Conrad, his brothers lock him in an old gothic house where he sees a beautiful woman who enchants him and makes him wonder if he has finally gone completely mad.

I love lost causes.

Conrad is almost completely lost and the early parts from his point of view show us how disjointed his thoughts are. Conrad is clinging to his sanity or the parts he recognizes for no other reason than to kill his own brothers for cursing him to the ghastly immortal life he is forced to live. The good news is that he doesn't seem bitter as much as just determined and with good reason which you find out over the course of the story.

(note to readers: I just took a gravol so things might get dicey)

Conrad's brothers Sebastian, Murdock and _________ refuse to give up on Conrad and after 300 years of separation they have finally figured out a way to save him. They need him to stop drinking blood from the vein (you know, I'm not sure how it's different from drinking blood from a glass but I think they mentioned that taking from the vein is 'live' blood so the victim's memories come with it). Conrad, not being rational and believing his time is almost up anyways wants nothing to do with this 'cure' and so the brothers kidnap him, have some witches put a spell on an old gothic mansion to keep him from escaping and begin his treatment.

He sees a ghostly woman the night they capture him. Is she a fragmented memory, his final stages of insanity or could she really exist.

I really liked Neomi and even though she is innocent when it comes to the Lore, in life she lived to extremes. She is surprised to discover the men in her house are vampires, that there are such things as witches and others called Valkyrie and the like. She is moved the most by the 'crazy' man the brothers have brought to cure. He is savage, covered in blood and filth and yet, she wonders as he sleeps if he can really see her. She longs to be seen and acknowledged and if this be her only way then so be it.

I have to admit there are some weird otherworldly things at work through the later half of the book. At one point you're thinking 'really!? Again!!' But hey, it's a Cole and I enjoy her stories and I liked the crazed Conrad and his ghost Neomi much better than I've liked some of her other characters.

B

September Should Be Good

Hey, hope all is well with you guys. Special hugs to Kristie - I'm not sure she can surf the net yet but I know I'm not the only one thinking of her and wishing her a speedy recovery.

I just finished Dark Need at Night's Edge by Kresley Cole and will hopefully post my thoughts in the next few days. Dang if I'm not meeting more and more interesting characters that I want to know more about but I'm going to try and resist the urge to pick up another Cole until at least October. Seasoned reader that I am, I know I'll start to see similarities if I read all the books back to back so I'll savour them better a bit at a time.

I don't know about you guys but I have times in my life where things just seem to pile on. I don't even have that much I need to do but I tend to bend to expectations a bit too easily and the past 3 weeks have been hard on the body.

Okay, more like 6 weeks.

Let's just say that in order to sleep when I need to I've been concocting just a few too many potions to get me sleeping and back up in time for things to happen. This past weekend my body told me it was done. I won't type out what I took (cause it's a touch shameful) but it didn't touch me. Not even a little bit.

Since I'm far from crazy I told Bob to just let me be for the next few weeks. I don't want to hear about 'you should get up at noon' or 'hey, you going to get up today' or nothing. I swear I have had to be up all summer at specific times to do this, that or the other and I'm done. Turns out you can have too much of a good thing cause I'm ready for Fall this year!

This morning I climbed into bed naturally tired for the first time in a looooooong time. Bob comes to kiss me good-bye before leaving for work. Imagine my shock when I hear Bob at the bedside and I ask if he's off to work - 'Uh, no, I just got home - it's 5 o'clock'. I'd slept for 10 straight hours and it had felt like I had just blinked my eyes.

I'm looking forward to feeling stable again!

Other than that complaint summer was excellent! The heat had us using our pool more in one summer than probably the last few summers combined. Also, my youngest Godson (9) and my best bud's guy (7) both learned to be fearless in the water. Watching these two finally break through their fear and become two water lovers was way too much fun - and active for Aunt Cindy who tread tons of water and learned she was strong enough to hold up at least 60 lbs in deep water - cause kids are afraid of grabbing onto you when their not sure of their safety and the 2 mommies aren't swimmers like me.

Anyways, I'll dust off this old blog of mine and see if I can be more fresh and observant (doubtful) on a more regular basis (hopeful).

Afterall, Wendy reminded me of what blogging should be about and sometimes I forget.

How 'bout you? How you doing?

Demon From The Dark Kresley Cole

How does Kresley Cole do it?

I should have hated this book but again, Cole pulls it off.

CindyBlurb: Carrow the _____(crumb, can't remember her moniker) is a witch who has been kidnapped and pulled into a super secret, super hidden jail run by mortals who are gathering all sorts of lore creatures to dissect and learn about. Carrow can't use her powers (usually powered by happiness) because of a collar around her neck. Turns out all the lore are helpless with this thingamajiggi round their necks good or evil, allies or warring factions.

Carrow is normally a 'whatever' kind of woman and doesn't really sweat the small stuff. Until the small stuff comes in a package of Ruby, her 7 year old cousin whose mother was just killed. The Order (as these new baddies are called) what something from Carrow and in return they will release her and Ruby from the jail.

What do they want?

They want Carrow to go to hell.

Yep.

At least, I think I have that right. Basically another plane of existence that is hell like with drought, famine, fire and demons. There are a ton of new creatures also but vampires are also part of the landscape.

What is Carrow retrieving from hell? A Vemon - a creature that are only rumoured to exist by the lore but are believed to be mythical. But hey, whatever, Carrow needs to get the hell out of Dodge so to the hell plane it is. And the Order will turn off the collar do-hicky so she can use her powers. Woohoo. Except how much joy can there be in hell? Yeah.

The Vemon Malkom meanwhile was created by an Evil and has lived in isolation for much of his existence. He is a demon and vampire and believes he is an abomination to all. He has been betrayed by every single person he has ever met (yep, includes mommy) and killed his best friend in a fit of rage and betrayal. Malkom is way beyond acting even remotely human has become more of a Neanderthal over the past 400 years.

What's the only thing that's going to save Carrow from a gory death? She's Malkom's mate and he scents her as she approaches.

And the chase is ON.

Lord, there is so much I want to explain about the story and stuff but wow, it's just really involved and yet so simple.

So where did I have problems? Pretty much the first half of the book. Could I put the book down? No.

Explaination to follow - so hang on!

My problem head on was Malkom. He's 7 feet tall, got horns and sounds like a huge mother. In fact, I couldn't get this image out of my head.

Sorry, I find this guy freaky and not even remotely attractive. In fact, you need to add more hunch to his back and no wings.

This image fought along side an image of a seriously huge body builder - trust me, I was trying to find him attractive and even though I like leaner heroes I could at least work with a overbuilt man-like being.

None of my mental images were helped by the early interactions with Carrow. He's brutish and animalistic in the extreme and about rapes her the first time he catches her. Hell, he breaks her wrist in his enthusiasm. Yeah, not winning any 'ooohhh, you're so hot' kind of awards.

Carrow bolts and who can blame her. He follows. He catches and brings her back to his lair.

The good news is Carrow understands the things that neither of them can communicate because they don't speak each others language. Carrow knows only stupid stuff in Demonish and the Demon despises English so taught himself to forget all he learned. I guess 300 years is good enough to forget something you want nothing to do with.

For me there was definitely a vibe of Carrow being so much more intelligent than Malkom and I'm not sure she isn't even now.

Malkom became more of a character I could understand once he showed he had a logical side buried under all that brute strength but boy, he really had to concentrate to get there.

So why did I like this book?

I'm not sure I know but the last half was awesome.

I understand the allure of Beauty and Beast like stories but when the beast has very simplistic views of how things will be, I'm not so enamoured. Malkom did prove he could be logical but his beast side won out on more than one occasion. In the end, it was Carrow and even Ruby who made the book great. Seeing fleeting images of love stories coming and those that had already happened were also a great boon.

And since I'm not great with words, just know that after reading this story I want to read the few books I have in the series that I haven't read. Thankfully I can't find them at the moment so I can't gorge on them all at once and then have the great book blues.

Still, I may need to dig one out for next week.

B- (I have to say I would probably re-read this book as it was sexy as hell once my brain stopped trying to beat me up with the image above)

Edited: I found the three books I haven't read in this series and I'm fighting with myself not to grab them all up and gobble them down.

Anne Stuart's Ruthless

Sybil from TGTBTU was super kind and asked me to do a guest review of Anne Stuart's Ruthless.

Yes, the squeeeing was undignified when that ARC arrived but, I tried real hard not to gush my way through a review of *my* author.

If you don't trust me you can read the review here.

Bonds of Justice by Nalini Singh

Okay, I love this series but I'm starting to find the sexual tension in the Psy books not so, uh, hot.

Cindy Blurb : Max Shannon is an excellent human cop and has even been noticed by the Psy who notice barely anything but themselves. Max has just caught a serial killer (Bonner) and is ready for the next stage of the case. Next stage? Justice Psy - J's for short - these are Psy who can get inside a criminal's brain and search out the true information of a crime from the distorted memory of the killer.

Sophia Russo is the J that shows up and is on the short list to be rehabilitated (basically stripped clean of everything - vegetablized). Apparently J's break and it's common for them to have to go to the rehabilitation center often for 'repair'. Sophia knows she doesn't have much longer and her cracks are obvious even to the medics but they want to keep her around as long as possible.

Max and Sophia notice each other and then work a case together. Sophia is all but dead and knows that she wants to explore the fascination she has for Max and hey, Max is already all for it.

And the dance begins.

Yep, there is a bunch I have left out buy hey, read the book. That said, how did I like it?

Ho-hum and I don't like saying it. I don't know, there is a sameness in the way a human/changeling has to approach a Psy and it has been covered in previous books in the series. It's slow because Psy are rarely touched so a simple kiss can cause them to black out. We've been there and seen it and sure, there are different Psy designation but we've seen the female Psy being seduced. Which might be why I loved Judd's book (male Psy) who had to overcome his sensations to be at least equal in dominance with his changeling mate.

Scary enough the parts of the book I really liked were with the secondary characters who have already had their stories told. In the end, I enjoyed the overall story arc about the Psy and what will come next in their fight for survival. Hell, I'm more intrigued now about members of the Psy council and I've always found those parts hard to figure out.

In the end, I think this series is supposed to be more about the Psy and their collective future but for me, it's more about the changelings and having read the excerpt for the next book all I can say is YEAH BABY!!

And Hawke and Sienna's book can't come fast enough.

All that said, this is not one of the books I'll remember in the series which makes me sad, but there it is. It's a good book but I felt I already knew the story.

C+

Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole

OMG!!

Like seriously, I need you to join me in a moment of silence for the rocking blockbuster this book is!!

I'm not sure if you've noticed or not but I don't give out perfect grades for books much if at all. I can call a book a keeper, one I will re-read with great joy but I also can see it's imperfections and will easily call 'em as I see 'em.

Well, let's just get this out of the way:

KEEPER, KEEPER, KEEPER, KEEPER, KEEPER!!!!

A+

No really, an A friggin' plus.

Did I love this book?

Oh hell, yeah.

I want this book to be with me forever. I actually wish I could follow MacRieve and Lousha (like swoon) through more books! I love romance books granted, but it's rare for me to like a hero and heroine separate from each other and damn if I didn't like these two immortals like best friends.

MacRieve - Garreth - where to start? He's a werewolf without all that 'alpha asshole' crap going on and he wasn't whiny or over bearing or illogical, which I have come upon with many paranormal characters. The last book I read by Kresley had a heroine I loved with a hero I could have clubbed with a 2x4 for being such a dense piece of work.

I also don't normally care for charm in a male. It can come off squirm inducing, like he's played the game many times before and knows the outcome. Garreth had charm but it wasn't because he was a lady's man, or believed he was all that (although he was all that), he had an earthy sense of humour and darn if he wasn't like me when angry. All mad and huffy and then just fine. For me, he made no mistakes and I love him for being smart and calm and not a huge thunderhead that erupts in anger.

Lousha (Lucia) was also a gem with a soft heart, although she didn't believe she had one. Her past is horrorville with a capital H and is something kept secret from all but 2 who know her. The secret is kept from the hero for a long time - longer than I like in a story but really, if I had that history, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to share that with the man I lusted for.

Once again Kresley Cole used the 'mate' idea and plays with it till both H/H don't know if they are coming or going. I love that Cole tests the 'mate' concept and allows her characters to wonder if they even like each other let alone love each other. Some authors use 'fated mates' as a shorthand to love forever and ever the end.

In Cole's world I think there could be mates (not that I know this or not) who don't really like each other much at all but who have to be together at the very least during the full moon. I don't want to read that story as a romance because I have to assume there would be no romance there but the concept is interesting and it would be neat if Cole could allude to mates who didn't like each other but had to carry on regardless.

You know me, I don't like to tell too much of a plot because I want you to read it without me spoiling something I didn't mean to. Let me just say that I loved the setting as I think I may have a thing for river boats. That's all I'm saying.

Oh! And honour. Don't you just love a man of honour. Garreth keeps his word and he's so funny to me because he'll mess up and be all 'shite, I really cocked that up.' even though the one thing that happened wasn't something I considered his fault.

So yeah, this book is going in a special place - probably among my Anne Stuart's. I'm also glad that I have a few of her books I haven't read yet because I am chomping at the bit - but I'll wait.

In the end, I think Kresley Cole will be able to keep knocking stuff out of the park because she doesn't seem to recycle her characters. Each hero and heroine have been so different from each other that it's impossible for her characters to have similar stories because each set reacts completely different from another.

I'm all awed and shit. Seriously.

Kresley Cole, welcome to my auto buy author list. You have only two others in there with you and at this time, you're kicking the stuffing out of both of them!

Go forth and read!!