Review: Urban Shaman

Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I started reading this series because of the short "Easy Pickings", a Jane Yellowrock/Joanne Walker crossover which happens in a sort of parallel universe. So basically I'm coming down off a Yellowrock high and start reading the Walker series. I'm not sure what it is, what's missing. But something is missing. Yellowrock I couldn't put down. Had to be reading it or die. Walker? Not so much. I enjoy the books, but I can stop in the middle of one and go clean house or whatever.

I like the concept- a sort of expatriate of The People (Cherokee Nation) flees the tribe to become a mechanic and eventually police officer, much to her chagrin. She inadvertently discovers her shamanic powers, mayhem ensues. It's a great concept for a story. It's a good story, as written. I think part of the problem is that it moves at a snail's pace. By book three we are still establishing that there *could* be a thing with that other character, but it's going to go sooooo slllloooooowww we can barely see movement.
And the thing with Cernunnos? SO much potential for hotness. You can see the beginning of something really really hot, but it just sort of....stops. Not as in cliffhanger stops, but just, nothing. And then there's the thing that's not a thing but that could be a thing but you never know because it just moves...soooo...slooooow.

There are a lot of points here that one can trace to Patricia Briggs skinwalker/shapeshifter series with Mercedes Thompson, who is, by the by, a mechanic. I haven't looked at the timeline for who wrote what when, and I suppose there's a good bit of synchronicity going on, but we have three series about Native American women who are all badass (nothing wrong with that) characters, and one starts to see a bit of overlap. But it's all good. Everyone is their own person.

Still, all that said, it's an entertaining series. I just wish it were perhaps a little sexier? And moved a bit faster.



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Review: Dragon Actually

Dragon Actually by G.A. Aiken

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I don't remember when I started reading this series. It's been years, frankly. And I read them out of order, so for a while I was quite confused about the whole process, I just knew I loved the weird little characters Aiken comes up with, so I decided to start re-reading them all to get it straight. So glad I did.
What fun! Dragons, distressing damsels, damsels who need no saving, lusty sexy romps...what's not to love?




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Review: Archantel's Engima

Archangel's Enigma by Nalini Singh

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Yay! A book about Naasir!
Easily one of the most interesting characters in the Archangel's series, Naasir is...different...from anyone else. He's a more primal, primitive, intuitive and sensuous being than all the other guys. He seems to get coddled a lot, people thinking he doesn't "get" modern anything. He does. He just doesn't care. He's singularly focused when he sets his mind to something. When that something is a mate, well the luck girl just better hold on to her panties.

While I do like Singh, a LOT, she has an annoying habit of repeating the same description over and over and over again. It's like she's trying to fill space. She doesn't need to. Even paring things down, doing some editing (where's her editor? What are they doing?), would make her books sing rather than hum. Granted, she has a formula and she follows it, but that's what series books are about. The guy, the girl, the conflict, the resolution. And you know he's going to get the girl, or she's going to get the guy. It's a given for most any series, but when you have as engaging a character as Naasir, it's worth the ride.

Let's just quit "honing" things, or having "silver eyes", "silver hair", "shattering blue eyes", etc. More than two or three references to the same characteristic is just a bit much. Quit padding those lines missy! We like you already!



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