Saturday 31 March 2012

Review: FAEFEVER & DREAMFEVER

Faefever by Karen Marie Moning
Book 3 of the Fever series
Narrated by Joyce Bean
Format: paperback, audiobook MP3 CD

About Faefever:
He calls me his Queen of the Night. I'd die for him. I'd kill for him, too.

When MacKayla Lane receives a torn page from her dead sister's journal, she is stunned by Alina's desperate words. And now MacKayla knows that her sister's killer is close. But evil is closer. And suddenly the sidhe-seer is on the hunt; For answers. For revenge. And for an ancient book of dark magic so evil, it corrupts anyone who touches it.

Mac's quest for the Sinsar Dubh takes her into the mean, shape-shifting streets of Dublin, with a suspicious cop on her tail. Forced into a dangerous triangle of alliance with V'lane, an insatiable Fae prince of lethally erotic tastes, and Jericho Barrons, a man of primal desires and untold secrets, Mac is soon locked in a battle for her body, mind, and soul.

As All Hallows' Eve approaches and the city descends into chaos, as a shocking truth about the Dark Book is uncovered, not even Mac can prevent a deadly race of immortals from shattering the walls between worlds-with devastating consequences...
Source: Info in the About Faefever was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2702704-faefever on 30/09/2011.

Dreamfever by Karen Marie Moning
Book 4 of the Fever series
Narrated by Natalie Ross and Phil Gigante
Format: paperback, audiobook MP3 CD

About Dreamfever:
MacKayla Lane lies naked on the cold stone floor of a church, at the mercy of the erotic Fae master she once swore to kill. Far from home, unable to control her sexual hungers, MacKayla is now fully under the Lord Master’s spell.…In New York Times bestselling author Karen Marie Moning’s stunning new novel, the walls between human and Fae worlds have come crashing down. And as Mac fights for survival on Dublin’s battle-scarred streets, she will embark on the darkest—and most erotically charged—adventure of her life.

He has stolen her past, but MacKayla will never allow her sister’s murderer to take her future. Yet even the uniquely gifted sidhe-seer is no match for the Lord Master, who has unleashed an insatiable sexual craving that consumes Mac’s every thought—and thrusts her into the seductive realm of two very dangerous men, both of whom she desires but dares not trust.

As the enigmatic Jericho Barrons and the sensual Fae prince V’lane vie for her body and soul, as cryptic entries from her sister’s diary mysteriously appear and the power of the Dark Book weaves its annihilating path through the city, Mac’s greatest enemy delivers a final challenge.…

It’s an invitation Mac cannot refuse, one that sends her racing home to Georgia, where an even darker threat awaits. With her parents missing and the lives of her loved ones under siege, Mac is about to come face-to-face with a soul-shattering truth—about herself and her sister, about Jericho Barrons…and about the world she thought she knew.
Source: Info in the About Dreamfever was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6050298-dreamfever on 09/03/2012.

Review:
It seems that MacKayla or Mac is getting dumber in Books 3 & 4... in Books 1 & 2 she was kick-ass... in these books she acquired the "too stupid to live" (TSTL) syndrome! WTF!! I got so annoyed I stopped reading about halfway through Faefever. Until I got my hands on the audio formats. Anyway, I started listening to these books. The first half of Faefever was easy because I already read that part of the book. But the rest of it, I had to listen carefully because the audio quality wasn't very good. There was a hissing echo. Some parts I have to replay a few times. That is when I am glad that I have the paperback copies as well. But that is not the biggest bummer of all though... these books, both of them, ended in one huge mo**** f****r of a cliffhanger! This is the reason which made me NOT recommend this series to anyone who wants to avoid wasting their reading time. You wouldn't be missing much anyway. The entire Faefever book is all about Mac racing around Dublin in circles. There are only two salient points that happened in Faefever: one, Barrons realized something about himself. And second, the MacKeltars failed. The rest of it is Mac running around Dublin playing kick-ass heroine and killing unsuspecting Fae just because they were born Fae. Which I bet at least one or two of those were probably innocent and/or didn't have any choice seeing that they were just underlings. Who would probably get beaten to a bloody pulp if not outright killed if they don't obey. Those Fae were probably just trying to survive. Yeah, those Fae, Mac killed. The real bad guys, on the other hand, are left to run along to do bad things. Dreamfever is just more of the same. These two books' stories were badly structured that it made me think that Karen Marie Moning has lost it and is just winging it by the seat of her pants. It's that bad. In both books, the story has no substance whatsoever and no coherent structure, never mind a plot. Both books is just two chapters of a bigger book in which the 6th & 7th Book probably wouldn't get released until in several years' time. I never expected books this bad from this author! At all! I was stumped!! And then you get a pacifier at the end of Dreamfever with a whole load of shit about being true to the story and has to be written the way the story wants to be written. What a load of crap!!

If ever you decide to waste your time with this series, make sure that you have all 5 books in your possession before starting to read so that you could continue on reading to the next book as soon as you hit the cliffhangers. The good story telling quality is the only one preventing these books from getting a less than one rating.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3.5
Character development = 2.5
Story itself = 1
Ending = 0.5
World building = 3
Cover art = 3
Pace = N/A
Plot = 0.5

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Review: DEAD AND GONE

Dead And Gone by Charlaine Harris
Read by Johanna Parker
Book 9 of the Sookie Stackhouse series
Format: audiobook
Genre: adult urban fantasy

About Dead And Gone:
Except for Sookie Stackhouse, folks in Bon Temps, Louisiana, know little about vamps-and nothing about weres.

Until now. The weres and shifters have finally decided to reveal their existence to the ordinary world. At first all goes well. Then the mutilated body of a were-panther is found near the bar where Sookie works-and she feels compelled to discover who, human or otherwise, did it.

But there's a far greater danger threatening Bon Temps. A race of unhuman beings-older, more powerful, and more secretive than vampires or werewolves-is preparing for war. And Sookie finds herself an all-too human pawn in their battle.
Source: Info in the About Dead And Gone was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5161066-dead-and-gone on 20/09/2011.

My Thoughts:
Maybe I am just too fond of angsty heros... don't know... but I like Quinn... and I really, really did not like the way Sookie treated him. What a selfish bitch! And I am expected to relate and root for this protagonist? WTF!! I have to say that this book is not one of my favouritest in the series. The plot though is not so obviously weak like previous books. Another thing about this book is that it is starting to feel repetitive. This is the third war that Sookie got entangled in. First, the Weres' war. Then the vampires' war. Now the fairy war. After a while, it gets kinda old. But I guess this is a common phenomena in long running serieses. Plus the ending is sort of sad and I am an HEA (happily ever after) kind of girl... So that did not rate high with me. The undeniable truth though is that the world building is so very interesting... In view of the developing bitchiness of the main protagonist, I like the alternate story in the TV series more than the books.

Would I recommend the Sookie Stackhouse books to people? Not really. I would suggest they watch the True Blood TV series instead, as the main protagonist is less "TSTL" (too stupid to live) than in the books. I find the TSTL aspect in the character development annoying.

Overall, I would give this book a 2 out of 5.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story Telling Quality = 3
World Building = 4
Character Development = 2
Plot = 3.5
Pace = N/A
Story Itself = 3
Ending = 2.5
Narration = 3.5

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Sookie Stackhouse series:

Friday 23 March 2012

Review: REAL MURDERS

Real Murders by Charlaine Harris
Book 1 of the Aurora Teagarden mysteries
Read by Therese Plummer
Format: audiobook
Genre: murder mystery

About Real Murders:
Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime-until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims.
Source: Info in the About Real Murders was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/140091.Real_Murders on 15/02/2012.

Review:
I am obviously a Charlaine Harris fan and so I picked this book up when I saw it at the Library even though this is not of my genre. I already know that Charlaine Harris is a talented story teller. She has a magical way of telling a story which is addictive, even though I get exasperated with a main protagonist who is too stupid to live (TSTL). Having said that, it seems to me that this earlier work of hers is not the same. I mean the main characters are not TSTL! Roe, our heroine, is a librarian with her head screwed on right. She's not stupid at all! Which made me wonder what happened to subsequent serieses Charlaine Harris wrote which toted a TSTL heroine... I couldn't quite wrap my head around that... the concept that a writer got worse instead of better in her writing career... Roe here is such a sensible girl that I couldn't quite understand why Charlaine Harris would make Sookie Stackhouse a TSTL. (Sookie Stackhouse is Charlaine Harris's urban fantasy series, for those of you not familiar with the other works of this author.) The idea of it is quite baffling to me... Anyway, like I said, the story telling quality is magical and addictive. Though I have to say that it feels like it was not as compelling as it was with the Sookie Stackhouse series and Harper Connellly series. However, I put that down to the genre. I simply like urban fantasy more than fiction murder. So I imagine that for those mystery suspense readers, this series might feel like the story telling quality is more compelling than that of the Sookie Stackhouse series and Harper Connellly series. I believe that this slight decrease in the compelling quality of the story telling is a reader discrepancy rather than the actual quality in the story telling. At the end of it, I enjoyed this book so much that I was mighty glad that I have the subsequent books in this series borrowed from the library already!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 5
Character development = 5
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 1
Pace = N/A (6.25-hour listening time)
Plot = 4
Narrator = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries


Thank you to the RCT Library for letting me borrow this audiobook!!

FTC Disclosure:
This audiobook was borrowed from the library. No money received for this review.

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Review: TRANSFORMATION

Transformation by Carol Berg
Book 1 of the The Books of the Rai-kirah series

Genre: epic fantasy

About Transformation:
Seyonne is a man waiting to die. He has been a slave for sixteen years, almost half his life, and has lost everything of meaning to him: his dignity, the people and homeland he loves, and the Warden's power he used to defend an unsuspecting world from the ravages of demons. Seyonne has made peace with his fate. With strict self-discipline he forces himself to exist only in the present moment and to avoid the pain of hope or caring about anyone. But from the moment he is sold to the arrogant, careless Prince Aleksander, the heir to the Derzhi Empire, Seyonne's uneasy peace begins to crumble. And when he discovers a demon lurking in the Derzhi court, he must find hope and strength in a most unlikely place...
Source: Info in the About Transformation was taken from the author's website at http://www.sff.net/people/carolberg/raikirah.html on 06/08/2010.

Review:
I've read this book some years back so this is a retrospective review. This is the first Carol Berg work that I've read and became an instant Carol Berg fan. The story telling quality is 5 out of 5. Ms. Berg is one of those authors who can spin a tale and make it so real. Grab a reader by the scruff of the neck and sink you into a different world altogether. The world building is masterful. So vivid that I could feel the texture of his wing between my fingertips. The story itself is a well-woven fantasy that a reader can easily suspend disbelief. The book also leaves you with characters who feels like old friends. I was so taken by this book that I ordered books 2 and 3 after the first chapter. Overall I would rate this book a 5 out of 5.

Cherry's Rating: 5 out of 5 cherries


Buy Link:


Other Books In This Series:
Book 2: Revelation


Book 3: Restoration