BAMF Girls

This webseries is too great not to share. The premise: Hermione, Buffy, Katniss, Bella, Lisbeth and Michonne sharing a house in a Big Brother-esque reality show. The ladies who write and act in this are hilarious and smart and fun. Check it out now!

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The Immortal Rules

 The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

"In a future world, vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity."Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of "them." The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked--and given the ultimate choice. Die...or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend--a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what--and who--is worth dying for." -Plot summary borrowed from Goodreads

Hmmm.... Ok, I'm still not sure about this book. There are plenty of things to love: a tough as nails Japanese-American vampire heroine (with a katana, no less), a well-developed and intriguing post-apocalyptic setting, vampires that are depicted as monstrous (yes, even the "good" ones), and a set of vampire rules/logistics that make a good amount of sense and haven't been seen in this combination before. Oh! And a human/vampire relationship where the vampire is female. It makes for a very nice change of pace.

But on the other side of the coin, there's the bland and Too Good Male Lead, the fact that Allie is basically Supergirl, especially when compared to the Lesser Females in this book, a sometimes dragging pace, and the length. 500 pages. Oof.

Is this one worth your time? Well, that depends. If you like vampire stories more along  the lines of Vampire Hunter D, Blood the Last Vampire, I Am Legend, and Daybreakers than Twilight or The Vampire Diaries, and don't have a "to read" pile one hundred books deep, then, sure, go for it. It's a pretty solid adventure and hits a lot of popular notes (dystopian, post-apocalyptic survival, vampires, etc). Speaking of which, I wouldn't be surprised to hear about a film/tv adaptation of it sometime in the Not Too Distant Future.

If, like me, you've just got too many things to read already, you can safely give this series opener a pass.

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Lips Touch: Three Times

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor, illustrated by Jim DiBartolo

Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers' souls:

-Goblin Fruit: In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today's savvy girls?

-Spicy Little Curses: A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

-Hatchling: Six days before Esme's fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons? -Plot summary borrowed from Goodreads

*Swoon!!!!!* This book is gorgeous and lovely and thrilling and, in every sense of the word, FANTASTIC. A friend recommended this to me after I read (and fell completely, madly in love with) Daughter of Smoke and Bone. It sat on my "to read" list for almost a year-mostly because I thought the cover was really underwhelming and I was afraid this wouldn't live up to my internal Taylor hype. I was very wrong.

Each story is unique, but each is full of lush details, inviting/exciting settings, and fascinating characters. I would love to see a whole novel in the setting from "Goblin Fruit"- think Appalachian gypsies. And the world-building of the novella-length Hatchling blew me away. When it comes down to it, some of the aspects of that story were familiar (children snatched by fey creatures, an icy queen, wolf men), but everything still felt new and magical. 

This would be an excellent collection with "just" Taylor's prose, but as an added bonus, you get her husband's illustrations as well!

If you are also counting down the days until Days of Blood and Starlight is released, this will be a great way to keep busy in the meantime.

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The Madness Underneath Preview

The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson

The much-anticipated sequel to The Name of the Star will be released February 26th, 2013. If, like me, you're going a little crazy waiting, please enjoy this preview!!

First look

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Anna Dressed in Blood

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life. -Plot summary borrowed from Goodreads

I had meant to wait on this one until closer to Halloween, but I'm glad I couldn't wait because it was just SO GOOD. Cas is an immensely enjoyable narrator (he's got a very "young Dean Winchester" thing going for him), and I loved pretty much every other aspect of this book. It's got a great cast of characters (including his Wiccan online store owner mother, a completely atypical Queen Bee female friend, a crotchety old antique store owner/occult adept, and Anna, a terrifying ghost I dare you not to fall in love with), a seriously spooky atmosphere, some genuine scares, and plenty of humor. 

I've already got the sequel, Girl of Nightmares, checked out and waiting for me. I wonder if I can make it to October this time... 

I very much doubt it.

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Dark Companion

Dark Companion by Marta Acosta

When foster teen Jane Williams is invited to attend elite Birch Grove Academy for Girls and escape her violent urban neighborhood, she thinks the offer is too good to be true. She's even offered her own living quarters, the groundskeeper's cottage in the center of the birch grove.

Something's not quite right about the school -- or is it Jane? She thinks she sees things in the birch grove at night. She's also beginning to suspect that the elegant headmistress and her sons are hiding secrets. Lucky is the gorgeous, golden son who is especially attentive to Jane, and Jack is the sardonic puzzling brother.

The school with its talented teachers and bright students is a dream for a science and math geek like Jane. She also loves her new friends, including hilarious poetry-spouting rich girl, Mary Violet. But the longer Jane stays at Birch Grove, the more questions she has about the disappearance of another scholarship girl and a missing faculty member.

Jane discovers one secret about Birch Grove, which only leads to more mysteries. What is she willing to sacrifice in order to stay at this school...and be bound to Birch Grove forever? -Plot summary borrowed from Goodreads

I'm really torn about this book. For everything that irked me or made me want to just walk away and read something else, there was something that I loved. Completely. Argh.

-The cover is just gorgeous. But then, there's something about the book's construction that seemed distractingly cheap or hurried or something. 
 -The character portrays herself as smart, independent, and clever. BUT, she tells you that constantly, and then acts contrariwise.
-One of the love interests is sweet, unique, caring and genuine. The other is waspish, entitled, creepy, abusive and horrible- But guess which one Jane spends faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar too long of the book swooning over? While being unconvincingly dense and inexplicably harsh to the other?

Seriously, the romance in this book almost put me off completely. Imagine if Elizabeth had spent pretty much all of Pride and Prejudice being an absolute brat to Mr. Darcy, while following Mr. Wickham like a puppy dog, and that you, as a reader, know and understand more about these two men from their introductions than Elizabeth will know for 3/4 of the book. Argh.

On the other side, I loooooooved everything in this book that alludes to gothic novels- from the premise of the book (down on her luck but intelligent orphan is given a plum spot in a wealthy but mysterious place), to the swoony, gothic romance, to all the extremely well selected and placed quotes at the beginnings of chapters. These are culled from Shelley, Radcliffe, Byron, Polidori, Le Fanu, and, of course, Brontë. There's even a course taught at the school (Night Terrors, I believe. It's all very subtle) where these and similar works are discussed, which adds to the story. 

I wouldn't give this a whole-hearted recommendation, but I will say that if the idea of a modern day Jane Eyre with even more mystery and darkness appeals to you, this could be worth the read. It does get better the further you get into it, and the Big Reveals were actually pretty neat.

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Win a Writing Critique (50 pages)

Calling all writers:)
Want a chance to win a 50 page critique of your manuscript? Ru at And then she was like blah blah blah (love the name) is hosting a drawing! Enter by this Friday at noon. The manuscript can be polished or unpolished, finished or incomplete. What a cool opportunity for aspiring authors. Click here for your chance to win. Good luck.

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