July TBR challenge
Jul. 29th, 2006 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksAngieW’s July challenge was romantic suspense. I can do that, right? I’ve got all kinds of R/S in my TBR pile. Couldn’t get interested in any of them. I read Crazy Love, which is romantic suspense and was on my TBR list – but it wasn’t in my TBR pile, I read a library copy when it was release. Does that count?
Another book that had been on my TBR list but not in the pile (again) was Keri Arthur’s Full Moon Rising. It was on my reserve list for three months and arrived via interlibrary loan at last! It is an erotic paranormal urban fantasy romantic suspense novel.
Title: Full Moon Rising
Author: Keri Arthur
Copyright: 2006
Sorry about the white space, couldn't get rid of it
no matter how much I fiddled with the image.
Why did I want to read this book? I like werewolf books. I think I put it on the TBR list because of a favorable comment over at Smart Bitches when Dayton's The Compass Rose was reviewed and polyamory was a topic of discussion.
How was the cover? Liked the cover. Candle, wolf, shadows, woman in profile, it brought in elements of the plot.
Did I like it? I’m not sorry to have read it, since her paranormal world is a little different from some that I’ve read. Plus it was set in Australia, which is different (although there was no real sense of place, I thought). But the constant boinking veered too close to Anita Blake for me -- it wasn't all sex, but there was a whole lot of it. First, the naked vampire? He’s nominally the hero, but he appears and then disappears; they don’t have sex until well after the midway point of the book, after Riley has begun to experience moonlust. I get that Riley is a were and the full moon is approaching – open sexuality and polyamory are part of were culture -- I don’t have a problem with that. The multiple partners didn’t squick me out. It was the description of the sex itself – all of the “pounding” sounded painful, even for someone who likes rough sex. Kim Harrison’s blurb on the back includes "unabashed, unapologetic, joyful sex." I didn’t get that Riley actually enjoyed it that much, more like she was at the mercy of her hormones and the men who wanted her, and there wasn’t much joy in some of the sex. Frankly, several of the sex scenes seemed like rape to me. No consent at all. With a regular partner, yes, and she came, but it was sex after she had been kidnapped, drugged, and bound; worse, it was after she refused to have a child with him, and he removed her contraceptive implant and injected her with experimental fertility drugs.
More world building would have been nice. Information was dumped occasionally, rather than being worked into the story.
This book screamed “intro to series” to me. All kinds of bait for future books was laid out: who’s the bad guy who got away? What about the naked vampire? Will Riley’s powers enhance because of the experimental drugs she was given? Will she become a Guardian?
Suspense? Yes
Romance? Not so much.
My grade: C-.
New to me author? Will I read her again? Yes, new to me. I'd be willing to read her books again, but from the library until/unless future books work better for me.
Keep or return? Library book so I can’t keep it. But no, not a keeper for me. Too much was left unresolved, waiting for the next book. Series bait. Too much sex, not enough of anything else.
Anything else? I had never seen a copy of KA’s books in the bookstore before (I looked before requesting it via ILL), until this weekend, when I saw several of her ImaJinn trade paperbacks at the WaldenBooks in the Gallery at the Inner Harbor. They look similar, in terms of urban fantasy/paranormal suspense.
Another book that had been on my TBR list but not in the pile (again) was Keri Arthur’s Full Moon Rising. It was on my reserve list for three months and arrived via interlibrary loan at last! It is an erotic paranormal urban fantasy romantic suspense novel.
Title: Full Moon Rising
Author: Keri Arthur
Copyright: 2006
Sorry about the white space, couldn't get rid of it
no matter how much I fiddled with the image.
A rare hybrid of vampire and werewolf, Riley Jenson and her twin brother, Rhoan work for Melbourne’s Directorate of Other Races, an organization created to police the supernatural races – and protect humans from their depredations.
While Rhoan is an exalted guardian, a.k.a. assassin, Riley is merely an office worker – until her brother goes missing on one of his missions. The timing couldn’t be worse. More werewolf than vampire, Riley is vulnerable to the moon heat, the weeklong period before the full moon, when her need to mate becomes all-consuming.
Luckily Riley has two willing partners to satisfy her every need. But she will have to control her urges if she’s going to find her brother . . . . Easier said than done as the city pulses with frenzied desire, and Riley is confronted with a very powerful -- and delectably naked – vamp who raises her temperature like never before.
In matters carnal, Riley has met her match. But in matters criminal, she must follow her instincts not only to find her brother but to stop an unholy harvest. For someone is doing some shifty cloning in an attempt to produce the ultimate warrior – by tapping into the genome of nonhumans like Rhoan. Now Riley knows just how dangerous the world is for her kind – and just how much it needs her. (Book flap summary. © to Keri Arthur and/or Bantam
Why did I want to read this book? I like werewolf books. I think I put it on the TBR list because of a favorable comment over at Smart Bitches when Dayton's The Compass Rose was reviewed and polyamory was a topic of discussion.
How was the cover? Liked the cover. Candle, wolf, shadows, woman in profile, it brought in elements of the plot.
Did I like it? I’m not sorry to have read it, since her paranormal world is a little different from some that I’ve read. Plus it was set in Australia, which is different (although there was no real sense of place, I thought). But the constant boinking veered too close to Anita Blake for me -- it wasn't all sex, but there was a whole lot of it. First, the naked vampire? He’s nominally the hero, but he appears and then disappears; they don’t have sex until well after the midway point of the book, after Riley has begun to experience moonlust. I get that Riley is a were and the full moon is approaching – open sexuality and polyamory are part of were culture -- I don’t have a problem with that. The multiple partners didn’t squick me out. It was the description of the sex itself – all of the “pounding” sounded painful, even for someone who likes rough sex. Kim Harrison’s blurb on the back includes "unabashed, unapologetic, joyful sex." I didn’t get that Riley actually enjoyed it that much, more like she was at the mercy of her hormones and the men who wanted her, and there wasn’t much joy in some of the sex. Frankly, several of the sex scenes seemed like rape to me. No consent at all. With a regular partner, yes, and she came, but it was sex after she had been kidnapped, drugged, and bound; worse, it was after she refused to have a child with him, and he removed her contraceptive implant and injected her with experimental fertility drugs.
More world building would have been nice. Information was dumped occasionally, rather than being worked into the story.
This book screamed “intro to series” to me. All kinds of bait for future books was laid out: who’s the bad guy who got away? What about the naked vampire? Will Riley’s powers enhance because of the experimental drugs she was given? Will she become a Guardian?
Suspense? Yes
Romance? Not so much.
My grade: C-.
New to me author? Will I read her again? Yes, new to me. I'd be willing to read her books again, but from the library until/unless future books work better for me.
Keep or return? Library book so I can’t keep it. But no, not a keeper for me. Too much was left unresolved, waiting for the next book. Series bait. Too much sex, not enough of anything else.
Anything else? I had never seen a copy of KA’s books in the bookstore before (I looked before requesting it via ILL), until this weekend, when I saw several of her ImaJinn trade paperbacks at the WaldenBooks in the Gallery at the Inner Harbor. They look similar, in terms of urban fantasy/paranormal suspense.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-29 08:20 pm (UTC)In fact, I believe the next 3 books in the series will be released back to back in three months in the first half of next year.
I've not picked it up yet because I refuse to buy hardcover.
Series
Date: 2006-07-29 09:49 pm (UTC)I noticed that the hardcover price comparatively low -- $20ish. The ImaJinn trade paperbacks that I saw at the bookstore this weekend were $13.95. I'm wondering if the tpb price (and success?) was why the publisher chose to print this book in hardcover rather than putting a relatively new author (to the NY-pubs) in paperback.
Re: Series
Date: 2006-07-30 06:29 am (UTC)There is precedent for a debut hardcover author (as in first hardcover, not necessarily first book) to have a contract that states the cover price will be lower than your typical hardcover.