Remember the Name: Melanie Nilles

I found Melanie Nilles (and many other authors) via Fangs, Fur & Fey a handful of years ago. I began following her LiveJournal, and we’ve kept in contact since. Her fantasy stories didn’t seem like my thing, but when she spoke of a young adult sci-fi romance, I was intrigued. This was when I was discovering futuristics, so it was very much a case of the right tale at the right time.

But before I read the novel, Mel shared her world-building, to test its readability. Not only did I understand it, but it was FREAKING AWESOME, and that’s not a compliment I hand out willy-nilly. Basically Mel had taken something paranormal/mythological…and made it sound somewhat realistic. This is a trait I very much admire, but can be hard to find. For example, I don’t connect with immortal vampires, but I do connect with those who must replenish their blood intake or die.

The Starfireverse is fascinating, but it can’t all be revealed in the first novel – we learn along with our protag. But Starfire Angels is a great introduction to the history and characters. Set in North Dakota, teen Raea learns about who she is, who she can and can’t trust, and faces danger – but doesn’t escape unscathed. There’s some romance, but it’s not too angst-ridden or over-the-top. And Raea doesn’t abandon her friends for a love interest, so she has a decent head on her shoulders.

The world-building is inspired by manga and anime, rather than the usual suspects, and it’s a ‘verse I definitely want to re-visit. Melanie’s currently working on Book 3, but in the meantime we can start off with Book 1. I beta-read/critiqued it some months ago and it’ll be fun to see how it’s been enhanced since.

Starfire Angels will shortly be published, but in the meantime you can try out free eBooks (and an ongoing serial) on Mel’s website, and/or purchase a paperback edition of A Turn of Curses. I haven’t read any of these, so be sure to tell me what you think of them. Also, I believe Starfire Angels might be up the alley of Galaxy Express mastermind Heather, so if you’re good acquaintances with her please pass on the news that the novel’s launch isn’t far away. And by all means start blogging about it – this is a story that grabbed me, and hopefully you’ll love it too.

Stay tuned, and I’ll share specific information as it comes to hand.

You can learn more about, and contact, Melanie Nilles here:
Website
LiveJournal
WordPress
Twitter
Facebook
MySpace

Good News for A. J. Menden Fans

Good news for fans of A. J. Menden and her Elite Hands of Justice series From here:

A. J Menden’s second book in the Elite Hands of Justice series, Tekgrrl, just came out in stores and is getting terrific reviews…And Dorchester just picked up the next two books in the series, both scheduled to come out in 2010.

No word yet on titles, but I think they’ll be Fantazia’s and Kate’s stories. Will keep you posted on release dates.

In the meantime, catch up with the first two EHJ novels:

Phenomenal Girl 5: Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Tekgrrl: Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)

[COVER ART] Scorched – Sharon Ashwood

Cover art for Sharon Ashwood’s Scorched, due for release in the US and Canada on December 1st. Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)

[REVIEW] Eclipse – Stephenie Meyer

Stephenie Meyer
Eclipse (Twilight Saga, Book 3)
Hachette Little, Brown (UK: 3rd July 2008; US: 4th August 2009; AU: August 2009)
Buy (Worldwide)

The Plot: A vampire is creating an army of newborns who are going on killing sprees. In order to protect human Bella Swan and destroy the army and its leader, the Forks vampires and werewolves realise their best chance to succeed is to work together.

The Relationships: Bella wants to shag vampire Edward Cullen ASAP, particularly before he changes her into a bloodsucker. But Marble Man refuses to shag her until they’re married. B wants to go vamp, but doing so may mean cutting off her ties with werewolf best mate Jacob Black. Also, she realises she’s in love with the Quileute hottie, but unless E agrees to an open marriage, Bella can’t have both lads. Actually, open marriage wasn’t discussed, but it should’ve been.

Genuinely Interesting Content: Jasper Hale’s history. The army of newborns plot.

RANDOM STUFF
-“For a teenager, you’re amazingly non-whiney.” Oh, Charlie, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at your naïveté/stupidity.
-“Besides, there’s lots of financial aid out there. It’s easy to get loans.” Bella, when you say things like this, you’re really dim.
-If only Bella followed the “bros before hos” rule. Friends before lovers. Jacob before Edward. Bros before hos.
-So frustrating! Bella won’t do what Charlie says, yet always does what Edward says. Fecking abusive relationship… Pussywhipped!
-I’m with Charlie – I wouldn’t want my daughter shagging a vampire. Made of stone/granite/marble. What if part of him…breaks off?
-Edward stole part of Bella’s truck’s engine. Next he’ll be cutting her brakes. Eek! Fecking abusive relationship…
-“her oddly feline face” – So not only is Victoria a possibly-Canadian vampire, but also…a werecat? I’m calling her Thundercat.
-Bella: “Alice, don’t you think this is just a little bit controlling? Just a tiny bit psychotic, maybe?” Alice: “Not really.” Bella should dump Edward’s psychotic arse. Alice is NOT COOL for thinking there’s nothing controlling or psychotic about him.
-Jacob: “You know, I saw this story on the news last week about controlling, abusive teenage relationships and –” Jacob is awesome.
-I’ve never read Wuthering Heights, but judging by the page Edward marked, he thinks Heathcliff is a vampire. Dude, what the eff?
-B: “People don’t just get married at eighteen! Not smart people, not responsible mature people!” [edit] “That’s not who I am…” Yes it is.
-Victoria & Irina want revenge for James’s & Laurent’s deaths respectively. If they weren’t undead, I’d swear they were PMSing.
-“…I wanted HIS venom to poison my system.” That’s totally a double-entendre. And/or a euphemism.
-Chapter 20 is hilarious. E gives B a gift: “It’s hard and cold…And it throws rainbows in the sunlight.” It’s not his wang.
-E shagging B may break her. So what if she gets a shattered pelvis? She’ll have had snu-snu. Amazon Eddie!
-E born in 1901. Book published 2007. E still has his “virtue”. And he’s Marble Man. Reckon he’d be a dud root.

Claim to Fame, New Book Deal & Cover Art

Claim to fame: Dorchester Publishing has included part of my review on their page for A. J. Menden’s Tekgrrl. Only a few words, but I’m credited for them

New book deal: From here: Erica Hayes’s Shadowsong, in which a knife-wielding banshee gangster’s quest for revenge on the assassin who ruined her life is interrupted when a deluded fairy sorceress steals her magical song, again to Rose Hilliard at St. Martin’s, in a two-book deal, by Marlene Stringer of the Stringer Literary Agency (World). And I’m happy to announced I received an ARC of Erica’s first novel, Shadowfae, during the week. I’m looking forward to reading and reviewing it soon

Cover art: I’ve fallen drastically behind on posting covers. For now, I’m only posting the ones I HAVEN’T seen plastered everywhere, but I don’t follow as many other book blogs as I used to. Sorry in advance if you’ve already seen these, and I’m clogging up your blog feed.

Most Wanted UK Update

Here

Most Wanted US Update

The US links on my Most Wanted page have been updated. Now to move onto the UK links…

[REVIEW] Skin Trade – Laurell K. Hamilton

Laurell K. Hamilton
Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Book 17)
Penguin Berkley (US & CA: 2nd June 2009); Hachette Headline (AU: June 2009)
Buy (Worldwide)

Vittorio in Las Vegas sends Anita Blake in Missouri a human head. To hunt down Vittorio, and keep her sweeties safe, Anita travels to Vegas with only her fellow U.S. Marshals. As the deaths pile up, Anita’s ardeur rises – but so does the Mother of All Darkness, and watch out for the Day Father…

The more powers a character has, the less likely I relate to them. It began with the ardeur, and now Anita has several animals to call, plus a vampire servant, and who knows what else.

The book’s central theme seems to be power. In order for the rest of the preternatural community to believe that Jean-Claude is very much Master of his human servant (Anita) as he is Master of the City of St Louis, Anita and all her men have moved into J-C’s crib. Anita’s starting to feel that she really needs time to herself, so she can at least think. That’s relatable. Meanwhile, Jean-Claude wants Anita to stop “collecting men”. She claims she doesn’t do that. She just uses them to feed the ardeur, and she doesn’t mean for them to fall in love with her.

The scenes tend to feel long, especially when not much seems to be going on. On the other hand, it’s somehow even worse when all that’s happening are repeated arguments, sometimes with different people and others with the same. When your book is over 400 pages, there better be a reason for everything included – unfortunately, Skin Trade could do with some chopping.

Adding to the feeling of over-length are too many characters, with too many aliases. Too many for my tiny brain to keep track of everyone, anyhoo. And these are just the SWAT and police; things get more confusing with all the wereanimals and shagging partners.

This brings us back to the power theme and repetition. The police don’t like Anita, because she won’t shag them, or otherwise. She thinks it has a big part to do with her being female, and them being male. Obviously I don’t know first-hand what the police or SWAT are like, but I choose to believe that they act like professionals: at least tolerate each other so as not to cause tension and mistrust within the group. Then there are the weretigers who are the main preternatural beings here. There’s even a power face-off between Anita and Chang-Bibiana, “goddess” of the weretigers.

And Olaf… Now calling himself Otto Jeffries, he and Anita have to work close together. But Olaf is one freaky dude. He’s besotted with Anita (aren’t they all?), but his idea of romance basically involves blood and gore. Oh, and he’s a serial killer. But he seriously is bloody scary, and he’s supposed to be, so my response is justified. It’s fascinating characterisation, and well worth applauding the author.

A particularly tricky kind of power is biological age. Crispin is “barely” twenty-one, which makes him legal but… Dude, that’s almost two years younger than me. This is kind of freaky, but then we meet jailbait in the form of sixteen-year-old (therefore supposedly legal in Nevada) weretiger Cynric. To her credit, Anita doesn’t shag him…until the Mother of All Darkness bespells her, and she only realises upon waking that the shagging occurred. Anita’s narrative says it best: “The thought of a massive ardeur feed, with a group orgy thrown in, as anyone’s first time just makes me ill.”

Further issues of power: “It was my human mind that made it dirty.” This is a big problem for me in paranormal fiction – the preternatural beings or people with psi abilities or whatever…they see humans as beneath them. (Bill Gates’ words to Michael Eisner in a particular Family Guy come to mind: “They are ants, Michael. They are ants.”) This makes the supernatural peeps come across as uppity tossers, and thus are difficult for me to like.

I leave you with a quote that I found particularly hilarious at 12:30am: “…I preferred to be sandwiched between beefcake, not cheesecake.”

July 2009 Releases

Done ordering June 2009 Releases? Now for July 2009 Releases. As usual, US = USA; UK = UK; CA = Canada; AU = Australia. If the dates are wrong, blame the publishers, from where I got the information. The Book Depository in the UK has free worldwide shipping, so they are my new affiliate for your purchasing. For a list of future titles and release dates, check Reading Wishlist.

Behind the cut, July 2009 Releases…

Stickers on a Bogan Ute

Photo This ute is usually parked a few houses down, but it happened to be parked outside my joint today. Read the many stickers. (That’s why I linked to the photo; you need a large size to read them all, and I didn’t want to take up too much space on your blog readers. I’s considerate, y’all.)