[REVIEW] Deadly Desire – Keri Arthur

Keri Arthur
Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson, Guardian, Book 7)
Random House Bantam Spectra (US & CA: 24th March 2009); Hachette Piatkus (UK & AU: 2nd April 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)

Hellhounds, zombies, and a freaky crow? There’s trouble afoot in Melbourne, and the Directorate’s Riley Jenson is on the case. That is, when she’s not in heat – and even when she is. She’s half-werewolf and half-vampire, but also has a lot of psi abilities. And she can shape-shift into a seagull. If all this sounds like it follows the Kitchen Sink Theory, it does.

The werewolf stuff is mostly just the randyness. There’s a single paragraph halfway through the novel, and after the big climax, there’s a page and a bit. All in all, less than two pages in a 352-page book. Lupine fans, prepare to be disappointed.

The serial killer case is actually quite fascinating, as are the murder investigations in the other installments of this series. But what really brings the quality down is Riley’s personal life – I just don’t care for it. Well, I do care for it in the way that it’s pissing me off, and it’s a bit same-old, and really the novels would be better off without it. Others may very well disagree. The love/lust interests all run together, and they even all have names with a K-sound: Quinn, Kye, Kade, and I think there’s Kellen…Their personalities just don’t differentiate, so here’s the rundown:

-Quinn: rich vampire
-Kye: werewolf
-Kade: horse-shifter (yes, I found that absurdly hilarious when we first met him in…Kissing Sin, I think)
-Kellen: ?

Still, the villains are well thought out and fascinating, Salliane’s a gem, and it’s nice to see Riley kind of look after a street kid. In short, the Riley Jenson series has cracking investigations, but characterisations are rather shallow.

April 2009 Releases

Done with purchasing March 2009 Releases? Now you can move onto April’s:

Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Fate (Bailey Morgan, Book 2)
Random House (AU: 1st April 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
It’s been a year since Bailey, Delia, Annabelle, and Zo bought a set of enchanted temporary tattoos at the mall, and life is proceeding as usual. Almost. As the third Fate, Bailey has the lives of the world in her hands, and even though she’s gotten used to weaving lives, she’s not at all prepared when her own life – and the lives of her friends – take some unexpected turns. Delia sets out on a crusade to find a geeky boyfriend, and for the first time in her life, she finds herself being turned down. Meanwhile, Zo’s mother reappears after a twelve-year absence, and Bailey, suddenly immersed in a world in which the Furies are catty Sidhe teenagers and Aphrodite, the Love Sidhe has a strange obsession with Annabelle, is helpless to get her friends’ lives back on track. But when Aphrodite possesses Annabelle, the friends must set aside their individual problems and work together to save their world – and their friend – once more.

Keri Arthur
Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson, Book 7)
Hachette Piatkus (UK & AU: 2nd April 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (CA)
Guardian Riley Jenson always seems to face the worst villains. And this time’s no different. For it’s no ordinary sorceress who can raise the dead to do her killing. But that’s exactly what Riley expects to find at the end of a trail of female corpses used – and discarded – in a bizarre ritual of evil. With pressure mounting to catch the fiend, the last thing Riley needs is the heat of the upcoming full moon bringing her werewolf hormones to a boil – or the reappearance of a sexy bounty hunter, the rogue wolf Kye Murphy. Riley has threatened Murphy with arrest if he doesn’t back off the investigation, but it’s Riley who feels handcuffed by Kye’s lupine charm. Torn between her vamp and wolf natures, between her love for Quinn and her attraction to Kye, Riley knows she’s courting danger and indulging the deadliest desires. For her hunt through the supernatural underworld will bring her face-to-face with what lurks in a darkness where even monsters fear to tread.

Ann Aguirre
Blue Diablo (Corine Solomon, Book 1)
Penguin Roc (US & CA: 7th April 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Eighteen months ago, Corine Solomon crossed the border to Mexico City, fleeing her past, her lover, and her “gift”. Corine, a handler, can touch something and know its history – and sometimes, its future. Using her ability, she can find the missing – and that’s why people never stop trying to find her. People like her ex, Chance… Chance, whose uncanny luck has led him to her doorstep, needs her help. Someone dear to them both has gone missing in Laredo, Texas, and the only hope of finding her is through Corine’s gift. But their search may prove dangerous as the trail leads them into a strange dark world of demons and sorcerers, ghosts and witchcraft, zombies – and black magic…

Kelley Armstrong
The Awakening (Darkest Powers, Book 2)
HarperCollins (US: 28th April 2009); Random House Doubleday (CA: 28th April 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl – someone normal. Now my life has changed forever and I’m as far away from normal as it gets. A living science experiment – not only can I see ghosts, but I was genetically altered by a sinister organisation called the Edison Group. What does that mean? For starters, I’m a teenage necromancer whose powers are out of control; I raise the dead without even trying. Trust me, that is not a power you want to have. Ever. Now I’m running for my life with three of my supernatural friends – a charming sorcerer, a cynical werewolf, and a disgruntled witch – and we have to find someone who can help us before the Edison Group finds us first. Or die trying.

Libba Bray
The Sweet Far Thing (Gemma Doyle, Book 3)
Random House Delacorte (US & CA: 28th April 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds. The Order – the mysterious group her mother was once part of – is grappling for control of the realms, as is the Rakshana. Spence’s burned East Wing is being rebuilt, but why now? Gemma and her friends see Pippa, but she is not the same. And their friendship faces its gravest trial as Gemma must decide once and for all what role she is meant for.

March 2009 Releases

Got all your selected February 2009 Releases? Good, now it’s time to organise your March purchases:

Caitlin Kittredge
Second Skin (Nocturne City, Book 3)
Macmillan St. Martin’s (US: 3rd March 2009) – mass market paperback
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
When werewolves from Nocturne City’s oldest packs start showing up shot through the head execution-style, police officer Luna Wilder must find out what’s killing them and why…before she becomes the next victim. Luna traces the killings to a band of shapeshifters made of smoke and shadow who drink the blood of their victims for strength. Believed to exist only in legend, their race is all too real – and now their leader, Lucas Kennuka, is out to wrest Luna’s heart from her beloved Dmitri. To make matters worse, Dmitri is suffering from a mysterious illness brought on by a demon bite, and his condition grows more grave with each passing day. Now Luna must rely on Lucas to defeat an invisible enemy – a serial were-killer bringing death and destruction to all who stand in its path…

John Ajvide Lindqvist
Handling the Undead
Quercus (UK: 5th March 2009) – paperback
Buy (UK)
Something very peculiar is happening in Stockholm. There’s a heatwave on and people cannot turn their lights out or switch their appliances off. Then the terrible news breaks. In the city morgue, the dead are waking up…What do they want? What everybody wants: to come home.

Kit Whitfield
In Great Waters
Random House Jonathan Cape (UK: 5th March 2009; AU: 15th March 2009) – hardcover
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
In a tense, divided court, a young princess watches her mother struggle to hold the throne. On a remote coastal estate, a scholar finds a child washed up on the shore. Anne. Henry. A Christian princess of the royal blood. A pagan bastard, groomed all his hidden, lonely life to make a grab for the crown. Since the ninth century, when the deepsmen invaded Venice, an uneasy alliance has held between the people of the land and the sea. That alliance was brokered by the warrior queen, Angelica, half landsman, half deepsman, the mother of the royal houses of Europe. Now, centuries later, no navy can cross the seas without allies in the ocean – and without deepsmen guarding its shores, no nation can withstand invasion. The hybrid kings keep the treaty between both sides, protecting their people from the threat of war. The royal blood is the key to peace, and ferociously protected. The penalties for any landsman who tries to breed with a deepsman are severe; the fate of any ‘bastard’ child, born of such an illegitimate union, is terrible. But the royal house of England is staggering, collapsing under the weight of centuries of inbreeding. Anne prays for guidance, a way into the future without hatred or bloodshed. Henry holds with fierce certainty that only the strong survive. But if either of them is to outlive the coming conflict, they may need more than faith alone.

Trisha Telep (ed.)
The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance (Anthology)
Running Press (US: 8th March 2009) – paperback
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
If love transcends all boundaries then paranormal romance is its logical conclusion. From the biggest names around, here are 24 tales to take you to another time and place. Let Alyssa Day, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Cheyenne McCray, Jeaniene Frost, Ilona Andrews, Kelley Armstrong, Maria V. Snyder, Carrie Vaughn, Allyson James Marland and others show you powers beyond your wildest imaginings. Within these pages mythical beasts, magical creatures of all shapes and sizes, heart-stoppingly handsome ghosts, angels, and mortals with extra-sensitive sensory perception play out the themes of extraordinary desires.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Fate (Bailey Morgan, Book 2)
Random House Delacorte (US & CA: 10th March 2009) – trade paperback
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
For the past two years, Bailey Morgan has lived a double life: high school student by day, ancient mystical being by night. As the third Fate, Bailey literally controls the fate of the world, but as Plain Old Bailey, her life is falling apart. She’s got a tattoo that was supposed to be temporary (but isn’t), friendships that were supposed to last forever (but might not), and no idea what her future holds after high school graduation. Then Bailey meets the rest of the Sidhe, an ancient race defined by their power, beauty, and a sinister habit of getting what they want at any cost. Before Bailey knows it, she’s being drawn into an otherworldly web more complicated than anything she weaves as a mortal Fate.

Carrie Ryan
The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Random House Delacorte (US & CA: 10th March 2009) – hardcover
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
In Mary’s world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future – between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

Eric Garcia
The Repossession Mambo
Harper (CA: 11th March 2009; US: 31st March 2009) – mass market paperback
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Twenty years in the future in Toronto, two disturbed veterans who have returned from war in Africa take up lives as repossession agents for a union company who makes artificial organs, pursuing customers who are unable to make payments for the implanted organs.

Keri Arthur
Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson, Book 7)
Random House Bantam (US & CA: 24th March 2009) – paperback; Hachette Piatkus (UK: Date; AU: Date) – mass market paperback
Buy (US) Buy (CA)
Guardian Riley Jenson always seems to face the worst villains. And this time’s no different. For it’s no ordinary sorceress who can raise the dead to do her killing. But that’s exactly what Riley expects to find at the end of a trail of female corpses used – and discarded – in a bizarre ritual of evil. With pressure mounting to catch one fiend, another series of brutal slayings shocks the vampire world of her lover, Quinn. So the last thing Riley needs is the heat of the upcoming full moon bringing her werewolf hormones to a boil – or the reappearance of a sexy bounty hunter, the rogue wolf Kye Murphy. Riley has threatened Murphy with arrest if he doesn’t back off the investigation, but it’s Riley who feels handcuffed by Kye’s lupine charm. Torn between her vamp and wolf natures, between her love for Quinn and her hots for Kye, Riley knows she’s courting danger and indulging the deadliest desires. For her hunt through the supernatural underworld will bring her face-to-face with what lurks in a darkness where even monsters fear to tread.

Cassandra Clare
City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, Book 3)
Simon & Schuster Margaret K. McElderry (US & CA: 24th March 2009) – hardcover; Walker (AU: 24th March 2009) – paperback
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
To save her mother’s life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the Shadowhunters – never mind that entering the city without permission is against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been thrown in prison by the Shadowhunters, who are deeply suspicious of a vampire who can withstand sunlight. As Clary uncovers more about her family’s past, she finds an ally in mysterious Shadowhunter Sebastian. With Valentine mustering the full force of his power to destroy all Shadowhunters forever, their only chance to defeat him is to fight alongside their eternal enemies. But can Downworlders and Shadowhunters put aside their hatred to work together? While Jace realizes exactly how much he’s willing to risk for Clary, can she harness her newfound powers to help save the Glass City – whatever the cost? Love is a mortal sin and the secrets of the past prove deadly as Clary and Jace face down Valentine.

Richelle Mead
Frostbite (Vampire Academy, Book 2)
Penguin (UK: 30th March 2009) – paperback
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Rose loves Dimitri, Dimitri might love Tasha, and Mason would die to be with Rose…It’s winter break at St Vladimir’s, but Rose is feeling anything but festive. A massive Strigoi attack has put the school on high alert, and now the Academy’s crawling with Guardians – including Rose’s hard-hitting mother, Janine Hathaway. And if hand-to-hand combat with her mom wasn’t bad enough, Rose’s tutor Dimitri has his eye on someone else, her friend Mason’s got a huge crush on her, and Rose keeps getting stuck in Lissa’s head while she’s making out with her boyfriend, Christian! The Strigoi are closing in, and the Academy’s not taking any risks…This year, St Vlad’s annual holiday ski trip is mandatory. But the glittering winter landscape and the posh Idaho resort only create the illusion of safety. When three friends run away in an offensive move against the deadly Strigoi, Rose must join forces with Christian to rescue them. But heroism rarely comes without a price…

Yanni Kuznia (ed.)
A Fantasy Medley (Anthology)
Subterranean (US: March 2009) – hardcover
Buy (US) Buy (CA)
In “Zen and the Art of Vampirism,” Zoe Takano, the only vampire in Toronto, a city filled with supernatural creatures of Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld, finds her place in the hierarchy threatened by two interlopers. “Riding the Shore of the River of Death” returns us to the world of Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars. Kareka, daughter of the begh of the Kirshat, hunts to take a man’s head. It is her last opportunity to prove herself as a man or else she will find herself restricted to the role of woman and wife in the clan forever. Robin Hobb revisits her Farseer world in “Words Like Coins.” Mirrifen, a failed hedge-witch’s apprentice who has married to find security finds that threatened by a severe drought and the appearance of a pregnant female pecksie. C. E. Murphy takes us to frozen Moscow in “From Russia, with Love.” Baba Yaga’s daughter is a barmaid at a dive when Janx and Eliseo Daisani walk in. They discover, as they compete for the girl’s affections, that Baba Yaga has plans for Janx and that her beautiful daughter had merely been the bait.

[COVER ART] Deadly Desire (UK) – Keri Arthur & Pre-Order Pimping

(From here.) Hachette/Piatkus in the UK (and Australia et al) has thankfully gone with a new look for Keri Arthur’s Riley Jenson series, starting from the upcoming seventh book, Deadly Desire. “Thankfully?” you ask. First of all, I know nothing about art and design, but when I look at something, I can pretty much tell straight away whether I like it or not. And the earlier UK covers for the series were…quite obviously PhotoShopped. Like there was no pretence of Riley actually being at Southbank or wherever. So while I very much appreciated the publisher putting in an effort to include a bit of Melbourne in the scenery, otherwise I wasn’t too impressed. And they made Riley a brunette instead of a redhead.

But let’s forget the past, because Hachette/Piatkus has improved their design, and I approve. Well done, folks 🙂

And Jes Battis’ A Flash of Hex is now pre-orderable. I know I mention a lot of books, but I really want you to consider buying this author’s OSI series (starting with Night Child). I’m the first to admit to being under-whelmed by a lot of books, so when I find something I’m genuinely impressed with, I want to share my enthusiasm. There seems to be a lot of urban fantasy stuff published of late, but Night Child is one of the genuine stand-outs. There’s a lot of intelligence and smarts in it – and not just street smarts or what the CIA calls “intelligence”. And I actually connected with the characters, which doesn’t usually happen for me.

Okay, bed-time now…

More New Books to Pre-Order

Keri Arthur
Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson, Book 7)
Hachette (UK: 2nd April 2009)
Pre-order

Patricia Briggs
Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson, Book 4)
Penguin (US: 3rd February 2009)
Pre-order

Jim Butcher
Turn Coat (Dresden Files)
Penguin (US: 7th April 2009)
Pre-order

Rachel Caine
Lord of Misrule (Morganville Vampires, Book 5)
Penguin (US: 6th January 2009)
Pre-order

Rachel Caine
Undone (Outcast Season, Book 1)
Penguin (US: 3rd February 2009)
Pre-order

Cover Art, ARRC09 & Organisation

(Images taken from here and here.)

Keri Arthur‘s seventh Riley Jenson novel, Deadly Desire, has a slightly different look to earlier books in the series. There’s no image of a couple this time, and there’s no longer specification that it’s a Riley Jenson novel – but it is. Can’t seem to find a release date or anywhere to pre-order, so you’ll have to wait.

Cassandra Clare‘s third Mortal Instruments novel, City of Glass, will be released in March 2009, though I’ve also been unable to find a pre-order link.

Australian Romance Readers Convention 2009
Just received this note that authors may be interested in:

Realistically, we know not everyone will be able to jump on a plane and fly to Melbourne for the convention next year. With that in mind, for those not able to attend the convention in person we have various ways for you to still be involved, either through items in the goodies room or as giveaway prizes, via cross promotion or advertising in the convention handbook or the convention satchel. Although if you are looking for an excuse to visit Melbourne, we’d love to see you here next year!

For authors who are tempted to take a plane trip, we have additional ways for you to participate at the convention including two book-signing sessions, mini-interviews and as a panelist. 🙂

If you would like to read additional details of the various ways you can be involved, whether you’re here in person or not, as well as giving details of when author discount pre-registration will open, please email Juleigh Start, Author Liaison, at arrc.authors @ gmail.com

Organisation
Yesterday’s major task was dealing with my GoogleReader. I have two accounts, and I’ve fixed things so that the music and trashy celebrity gossip news are in one account, and everything else is in the other. I’m doing the same with my email addresses, and I’m telling myself I’ll only check those accounts at the end of the day if I’ve achieved all my tasks. Whether I’ll stick to this or not is anyone’s guess 😉 But it’s almost midday, and I’ve been good so far.