The Darkest Pleasure - Gena Showalter

The Darkest Pleasure by Gena Showalter

Reyes is a man possessed. Bound by the demon of pain, he is forbidden to know pleasure. Yet he craves a mortal woman, Danika Ford, more than breath and will do anything to claim her - even defy the gods.

Danika is on the run. For months she's eluded the Lords of the Underworld, immortal warriors who won't rest until she and her family have been destroyed. But her dreams are haunted by Reyes, the warrior whose searing touch she can't forget. Yet a future together could mean death to all they both hold dear....

Despite the fact that the books are sort of getting repetitive, I'm still roped into this series. They all sort of fall into the same storyline though. Handsome (in one way or another) demon possessed warrior falls for some girl, so far all of which have something extra special about them. They decide because they are a "monster" with a demon stuck inside them, that they cannot have the girl and fight the urge to be with her. Girl fall for guy as well. They have wonderfully beautiful....bedroom talk...and both parties decide that the have found their other half and will do anything it takes to be together. That's it in a nutshell.

But then there is the underlying storyline, the one that has got me hooked. Where there are two (or three if you count the gods) sets of beings hunting for these treasures so that they can find Pandora's box. I KNOW (just judging by the way the books have gone so far) that the Lords of the Underworld are going to do it some how, some way, but I like it anyway.

Danika was better female lead than Anya was for me. Although, Anya was still a big part of the book, and she still annoys me. She's like an overgrown spoiled brat. Just my opinion. I'm sure there are those out there who love her. Danika has a unique ability, that was amplified through sex, which wasn't my favorite part of their story. I like sex, but I'm not a fan of "sex is how my power shines through" or "sex IS my power" type things. I think it's silly. Anyhow, I did like that she wanted to be everything that Reyes needed her to be, no matter how disturbing it might have been.

Paris...he's the character I'm really waiting to be resolved. And I'm interested to find out how the "pet demon" is going to play out in the future books as well.

My favorite Lords book is still the first. There was just something powerful about Maddox and Ashlyn's story to me that just made it the best. Now the wait is on for book 4, coming in the fall. Until then I'll just continue through the Highlander Series, and I have a few other books that are waiting to be read as well.

The Darkest Kiss - Gena Showalter

The Darkest Kiss by Gena Showalter
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Form: Book

Though she has lived for centuries, Anya, goddess of anarchy, has never known pleasure. Until Lucien, the incarnation of death--a warrior eternally doomed to take souls to the hereafter. He draws her like no other. And Anya will risk anything to have him.

But when the merciless Lord of the Underworld is ordered by the gods to claim Anya herself, their uncontrollable attraction becomes an anguished pursuit. Now they must defeat the unconquerable forces that control them, before their thirst for one another demands a sacrifice of love beyond imagining...

I am enjoying this series. I enjoy equal parts action mixed in with the romance, it makes the stories fun and active. Unfortunately, I thought I had started from the beginning, but having checked Gena Showalter’s website I found that that just isn’t true. I am also excited to find out that there is another book coming out in September. So something else to look forward to, and add to my “must read” list – which I need to publish soon so I don’t forget. I’m thinking of adding a mini-calendar too, of the releases of books I’m looking forward to. Guess I am going to need to go back to a 3 tier blog set up.

While I did enjoy The Darkest Kiss, I liked The Darkest Night better, mainly because of Ashlyn. Something about Anya was all wrong. I didn’t like her pet names at all, or her repeated use of the word “Twinkies.” Her language and mannerisms were just annoying to me, I guess. Perhaps, because she was everything I’m not, and I could not really relate to her. I didn’t feel the attraction between her and Lucien or the desire as I did with Ashlyn and Maddox. I did like Lucien’s character a lot, and found him much more relatable and agreeable character. I loved their flash fighting. In fact, I enjoyed the fighting between Anya and Lucien a lot. I’ve said before, I like girl’s who can kick a little butt. I loved Lucien’s half-hearted attempts (most of the time) at catching her, knowing he really didn’t want to kill her. That was fun.

The book left me feeling especially sorry for Paris. I’m not sure what Gena has in store for him, but I hope there is something to make up for his loss.

I am looking forward to Rene’s and Danika’s story – I hope I grow to like Danika more than I did Anya. It is next up on my list..so I’ll find out soon enough.

Certain Girls - Jennifer Weiner

Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner
Fiction
Form: Audiobook

After her debut novel -- a fictionalized (and highly sexualized) version of her life -- became an overnight bestseller, she dropped out of the public eye and turned to writing science fiction under a pseudonym. She's happily married to the tall, charming diet doctor Peter Krushelevansky and has settled into a life that she finds wonderfully predictable -- knitting in the front row of her daughter Joy's drama rehearsals, volunteering at the library, and taking over-forty yoga classes with her best friend Samantha.
As preparations for Joy's bat mitzvah begin, everything seems right in Cannie's world. Then Joy discovers the novel Cannie wrote years before and suddenly finds herself faced with what she thinks is the truth about her own conception -- the story her mother hid from her all her life. When Peter surprises his wife by saying he wants to have a baby, the family is forced to reconsider its history, its future, and what it means to be truly happy.
Radiantly funny and disarmingly tender, with Weiner's whip-smart dialogue and sharp observations of modern life, Certain Girls is an unforgettable story about love, loss, and the enduring bonds of family.

(Yes, I finished two books today!)

This was a very good book about family, about life, about death, about growing up. I found this touching and familiar on more than one level. I could relate to Joy on some parts of her life. I remember being a teenager, and questioning everything including my very own existence. I could also sympathize with Candice, as a mom - just trying to do the best you can do, make the right decisions. Protect and love your kids to the point that you are smothering them to death.

I found all of the characters to be believable and fun. I laughed a lot while listening to this. Candice was especially witty, and I think that made her even more real to me. Humor was how she dealt with a lot of hard issues in her life. Although it seemed that she would eventually face the inevitable, she side stepped all the hard stuff with jokes until she was prepared enough to deal.

Joy was so teenager! She knew where she wanted to be - pretty, popular, to belong. She also had no clue who she was. She gave into peer pressure, and suffered the guilt of it. She went a little far when she jumped a plane to California, at which point I was glad that it was just a book. I honestly felt that in the few months we got to see of Joy's life - we literally watched her grow into a young woman. It was beautiful.

The last several chapters of this book really threw me for a loop, and honestly I didn't like it much. I had the perfect picture ending in my mind - and while there was completion, there was a feeling of happiness and peace at the end, I'm still not happy for that twist.

A Kiss of Shadows - Laurell K. Hamilton

A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton
Paranormal Romance
Form: Paperback

Meredith Gentry, princess of the high court of Faerie, is posing as a human in Los Angeles, working as a P.I. specializing in supernatural crime. But now the queen's assassin has been dispatched to fetch her back - whether she likes it or not. Suddenly Meredith finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt's plans. The job that awaits her: enjoy the constant companty of the most beautiful immortal men in the world. The reward: the crown - and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty for failure: death.

Before I started this book I sort of knew that Laurell was an...imaginative writer. I had borrowed one of the Anita Blake audiobooks from the library. I was oblivious that the book was one of many, and that I was jumping way in the middle of something, so I wasn't really understanding a lot. About the time her and her vampire lover started "feeding" on another vampire by having 3-way sex with him - I was done. Weird. Anyhow, I decided to give this book a chance anyway. It was another Christmas gift and, well, I like books about faeries.

Laurell did not disappoint in the creativity of the story. Actually, for the most part the story line was semi-okay. But it was a weird book none-the-less. Meredith (just like many of her other female leads I'm assuming) is something of a slut. She has sex with, or at least seductive mostly bare kisses with pratically every male in the book. Yes. I know I got a romance novel. Well, I don't think "romance" is a good catagory. It's an erotic novel. And it wasn't even that entertaining in that aspect. I don't like so much - putting out - with so many people. Crazy. The book was filled with all sort of different creatures (mostly varieties of Fae) that look anywhere from human to monster. And Meredith is NOT PICKY AT ALL what you look like. She has a very compassionate heart.

The parts of the book that I did like was basically the politics. The scenes in the Fae court. Figuring out what her Aunt wanted from her (which wasn't all that surprising really considering the type of book..she wanted her to have lots of sex..go figure). I need to be somewhat nice. There is a lot of insinuated sex, but only actually a few sex scenes. Lots of fooling around. Lots of weirdness. I liked the evil cousin, and I wanted to see Meredith kick some cousin butt.

Parts I didn't understand, the ending was so sudden. It was like, 'OH I'm over my alloted 450 pages, time to wrap things up,' and she did. Another part I didn't get was her weird healing by sex power. I understood the power itself, but the fact that she could do it, did it twice, but did NOT do it with my favorite male character, Galen, who had his male parts picked apart by some other vulture-like character. Dag-nabit, heal the cool green guy, Meredith!!!

I had a real hard time keeping up with all the characters. More than once I had to go back and re-read parts so that I could remember which guy was the rhino-guy, and which one had tentacles under his shirt. That was annoying.

I'm sure there are sequels to this book. And unlike the Highlander books, where I said I didn't know if I would read more and did anyway, I will not be picking up the sequals to this book. And I doubt I'll read anymore Laurell K. Hamilton either. I know she's really popular with some, but she's just not my type.

The Dark Highlander - Karen Marie Moning

The Dark Highlander by Karen Marie Moning
Form: Audiobook
Reader: Phil Gigante

From his penthouse lair high above Manhattan, Dageus looks out over a glittering city that calls to the darkness within him. A sixteenth-century Scot trapped between worlds, he is fighting a losing battle with the thirteen Druids who possess his soul, dooming him to an eternity of sexual pursuit. When Chloe Zanders, student of antiquities, is drawn into his world, she finds the insatiable alpha male an irresistible lure.

I liked this Highlander book more than Beyond the Highland Mist. I thought perhaps jumping to some of Karen Moning’s latter highlander books I may enjoy them better, and I was right. I also, for whatever reason, seem to like the guy to be kind of dark and evil in a way, as this Highlander is. I kind of like the animalistic nature portrayed – it makes for fun sexy men in my opinion.

The tension and sexual frustration between the two main characters in this book is great. There were many parts where I literally laughed out loud (and when you’re listening to an audiobook at work, it can cause some weird looks). I liked Chloe much better than Adrienne as the female lead – she was fun and she also wasn’t going to take any crap. I like it when the girl is not completely helpless, and even the better when she’s willing to kick a little butt.

Some of my favorite points of the book; one would definitely be listening to it on audiobook as oppose to reading it. The reader, although I was a little leery of having a male reader for such a sexual book, was great! He did a beautiful Scottish accent. His girly voices were awful, but he definitely made up for it with the Scottish accent and his animated reading. He really got into the part, making it very very good. Another favorite part of mine was the way Dageus would look at Chloe and bite his lower lip and slowly release it. It caused sparks to fly, and near the end of the book ended up being their own sort of sexual dialogue. The story line was good to, filled with myths and druid histories and all sorts of fun little tid-bits. I don’t know if Karen made up a lot of that stuff, or if she got the information elsewhere, but I always like depth. I like the stories of the past that play into the here in now (in books). I like it when you can see a lot of though and effort went into making the book as real as it possibly can be, without being real of course. (Because, you know, time travel..just isn’t happening…yet.)

I’m growing attached to these romance novels. I’ve already got the library sending me The Immortal Highlander because I’ve been dying to know what happens to Adam Black after reading the excerpt from Beyond the Highland Mist. I’m going to have to go back to some normal books sometime soon to get some variety in my system. I also don’t want to be pegged as a “romance reader” or people to think of my blog as being mostly romance novels. I like being a semi-well rounded reader, although the romance is becoming a favorite. Especially when it is mixed with dark/evil or the paranormal/fantasy aspects. I’ve been having fun in make-believe worlds.