Guilty Pleasures (2)

Ora, em Dezembro não houve Guilty Pleasures aqui no blogue, mas já estamos em Janeiro, é um ano novo e chegou a altura de vos apresentar outro dos meus vícios mais ou menos secretos: manga.

Manga é banda desenhada japonesa. Geralmente é um produto direccionado ou para homens (shonen) ou para mulheres (shojo), mas devo confessar que algumas das minhas mangas preferidas (ou será 'dos meus mangas'? hmmm...) são shonen. Aqui estão alguns dos meus títulos favoritos. ^_^

Prontos para confessarem os vossos Guilty Pleasures?

A rubrica "Guilty Pleasures" é da autoria da Jo do blogue Cantos Quebrados.

In my Mailbox (46)

Estas 'mailboxes' nem parecem minhas, mas são! Esta semana, recebi mais uma pre-order: o 3º volume da Sailor Moon... e foi só. ^_^

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, vol. 03 - Naoko Takeuchi

E vocês o que receberam na vossa Caixa de Correio (What did you get in your mailbox this week?)?

"In my Mailbox" is hosted by The Story Siren.

Review: Mark of the Demon (Diana Rowland)

Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland

Publisher: Bantam (2009)
Format: Mass Market Paperback | 370 pages
Genre(s): Urban Fantasy

Description (GR): "Cop and conjurer of demons, she's a woman in danger of losing control—to a power that could kill....

Why me? Why now? That’s what Beaulac, Louisiana, detective Kara Gillian was asking herself when an angelic creature named Rhyzkahl unexpectedly appeared during a routine summoning. Kara was hoping to use her occult skills to catch a serial killer, but never had she conjured anything like this unearthly beautiful and unspeakably powerful being whose very touch set off exquisite new dimensions of pleasure. But can she enlist his aid in helping her stop a killer who’s already claimed the lives—and souls—of thirteen people? And should she? The Symbol Man is a nightmare that the city thought had ended three years ago. Now he’s back for an encore and leaving every indication on the flesh of his victims that he, too, is well versed in demonic lore.

Kara may be the only cop on Beaulac’s small force able to stop the killer, but it is her first homicide case. Yet with Rhyzkahl haunting her dreams, and a handsome yet disapproving FBI agent dogging her waking footsteps, she may be in way over her head..."

This one should have a Goodreads shelf all to itself named "what urban fantasy should be but often isn't". No, really. I enjoyed this book a lot; it wasn't outstanding in terms of plot, world or characters (it's still only the first book, though), but overall it was pretty good on all three aspects.

Kara Gillian is a detective... and a summoner. She calls on beings from a different realms and works spells with arcane magic.

She lives a moderately normal life (for a summoner, that is) until she transfers to the violent crimes unit. A serial killer is on the loose and it looks like he knows some magic too.

This first book in the Kara Gillian series was pretty enjoyable. The author balanced mystery, paranormal elements and some romance pretty well and in the end she had an engrossing read. I was never bored. Of course there was this one character that annoyed me a bit, but overall it was good.

What was good:

- the nice mystery plot: it was much more developed than mystery plots usually are in these kinds of books and it wasn't just about the 'paranormal angle'. It was refreshing.

- good pacing: I repeat, I was never bored.

- the heroine that wasn't tough but also wasn't a whiner: she was actually quite likable.

- the mysterious paranormal hot guy who wasn't totally annoying: I adored Rhyzkahl's 'otherness'. He was a bit typical of paranormal male leads, sure, but also cool. Just... cool.

- the hot, sexy scenes that didn't take over the entire story (read: nice balance, romance didn't turn this into a paranormal romance parading as urban fantasy). Enough said.

- an interesting world (still not well developed, but as I said: first book).

What wasn't so good:

- the somewhat annoying male that will be part of a love triangle (BUT he wasn't too bad, which is good): the FBI agent was not needed really. :P

- the cookie-cuter villain: the bad guy was so boringly evil. Mwahahah evil.

- the heroine's aunt was annoying: a bit too out-there and very stereotypical of the ditzy character. I didn't like her much.

Overall: thumbs-up!

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Desafio: Uma visita guiada às estantes 2012

Ah! Leram bem. Ainda não desisti de pôr toda a gente a fazer vídeos das suas estantes. Este ano, renovo o desafio a todos os bloggers e amantes de livros por essa internet fora. Colecções empilhadas, desarrumadas, arrumadinhas. Mostrem-nos os vossos livros em vídeo ou em fotos (ou ambos).

Para saberem mais sobre este desafio cliquem aqui.

Quando terminarem, deixem os links nos comentários para mostrarem a vossa colecção (eu adiciono-os a este post). Podem fazer posts em blogues, adicionar apenas os links para o youtube (ou outros sites de vídeos) ou mesmo para galerias onde tenham as vossas fotos. ^_^

Review: Blood Rights (Kristen Painter)

Blood Rights by Kristen Painter

Publisher: Orbit (2011)
Format: Mass Market Paperback | 392 pages
Genre(s): Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance

Description (GR): "The lacy gold mapped her entire body. A finely-wrought filigree of stars, vines, flowers, butterflies, ancient symbols and words ran from her feet, up her legs, over her narrow waist, spanned her chest and finished down her arms to the tips of her fingers.

Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle’s body bears the telltale marks of a comarré—a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal world…and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.

Now Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen will threaten to reign."

This one was another impulse buy of sorts. Vampires in a fantasy (not urban) setting intrigued me enough to want to read this.

I think I kind of misunderstood, because this is not classic fantasy; it's urban fantasy. In a way it's not even urban fantasy; it's paranormal romance.

Near future. There is a world hidden from humans by several covenants made hundreds of years ago by powerful forces. These magical contracts protects humans and 'othernaturals' alike making sure vampires, shape shifters and fae remain hidden from the general population. Vampires live in hidden cities and feed on willing humans and comarré - a race specifically bred to provide vampires with pure, powerful blood.

Chrysabelle is a comarré, one of the most expensive of her kind. When her vampire patron is killed she is forced to flee the hidden city and hide in Paradise City (USA, New Florida) because everyone thinks her guilty of murder. Plus she seems to have acquired a vampire relic (ring) by pure mistake. So she has to run and predictably ends up with a cursed vampire, a ghost that is not really a ghost and yet another cursed shape shifter.

Blood Rights' strong point is the world building. Even if it's not fantasy after all, I liked the idea of comarré, the origins of the othernaturals and the covenants. On the other hand, I didn't like the characters or the story that much.

The story because it was simplistic. The author uses very common plot devices like the kidnapping of a loved one and the reckless rescue. She did take the time to develop other storylines that will probably be important latter, but the main story of this book... was not very interesting. Painter was more interested in describing all the attraction between the two main characters.

Now, for the characters. They weren't horrible, they were just... not interesting (again). Mal was suitably tortured and Chrysabelle was suitably defiant; and most of the time they only thought of how attracted they were to each other. These two protagonists were wrong for this story somehow... they are definitely paranormal romance characters and it felt weird to have them in a book that is not so much character as plot driven (or it should have been, if the world building is any indication). Also, I didn't really connect to them, didn't care much for any of the characters since they were so stereotypical and sometimes even a bit annoying. Fi and Doc, the sidekicks are barely worth mentioning because they were very one-dimensional.

So, overall, Blood Rights has great world-building and a good enough concept but the story and the characters were so average they kind of ruined the book. I find that I'm not very interested in the rest of the story since I couldn't really connect with the characters. A standard urban fantasy book, nothing special.

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In my Mailbox (45)

E em contraste com a semana passada (quando vieram o resto das encomendas de Dezembro), esta semana só chegou uma pre-order, a sequela de "Across the Universe" de Beth Revis. Pena este hardcover já não ter os esquemas da nave na sobre capa, como o primeiro. ^_^

A Million Suns - Beth Revis

E vocês o que receberam na vossa Caixa de Correio (What did you get in your mailbox this week?)?

"In my Mailbox" is hosted by The Story Siren.

Review: Dante Valentine - Books 4-5 (Lilith Saintcrow)

Dante Valentine: The Complete Series by Lilith Saintcrow

Publisher: Orbit (2011)
Format: Paperback | 1280 pages
Genre(s): Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction

Description (GR): "Necromancer. Bounty hunter. Killer. Dante Valentine has been all three in her life. But in the beginning, she was a Necromancer for hire. And while she was choosy about her jobs, there were just some she couldn't turn down. Like when the Devil showed up at the door and offered her a deal. Her life - in exchange for the capture and elimination of a renegade demon. But how do you kill something that can't die? Dante Valentine, one of urban fantasy's hottest series, is compiled into one volume for the first time. Included in this omnibus edition are: Working for the Devil, Dead Man Rising, The Devil's Right Hand, Saint City Sinners, and To Hell and Back." 

WARNING: SPOILERS and somewhat ranty review ahead

BOOKS 4 & 5: Saint City Sinners & To Hell and Back

These books are part one and two of the "epic" (not so much) conclusion of the Dante Valentine series. In book 3, Lucifer decided to randomly appoint Dante as his 'right-hand' (read: assassin and/or catcher of rebellious demons), the post held before by Dante's Fallen (read: boyfriend) Japhrimel. At the same time Gabe, Dante's Necromance friend calls her with a request to return to Saint City and help her with an investigation. Chaos (and I mean it, it's plot! chaos) ensues.

The pacing of both books is frenetic and because book 5 is a direct continuation I decided to review them both. They are too similar in plot style and character development, really.

A lot goes on in these books, but mostly it's in Dante's head. She pulls an "Anita Blake" on the readers and spends most of these last two books deciding if she can or can't trust Japhrimel, who is (still) a bastard. So it's kind of a valid question, but Dante is pretty weak willed and it's annoying. Japhrimel with his "trust me and don't ask questions, just do as I say" speech is also annoying; I mean he could have learned, right? His 'beloved' is always telling him that way won't work with her.

Since all this emotional angst is unresolved, much of the books is a collection of Dante's anguished inner ramblings. And then something really bad  happens to our heroine and she's left near madness (really everything happens to Dante. Too much!). So we get to read what's happening through her fractured mind. And maybe that's why the plot seemed so thin, convoluted and really random sometimes. Everyone's plotting and there are plots within plots or so the author would have us believe but in the end it's all very simple: there's a rebellion and since Dante is the 'right-hand' she's being used by everyone. And everyone gets this but her (of course if she did get it, the book would be a lot shorter). It's kind of... annoying?

Overall, I thought the author was just giving us the same old storylines she gave us in books one and two; there was nothing innovative in the last three books and the main characters were pretty aggravating with their attitudes. The plot was thin although the writing was meant to make the reader think it was complex.
Saintcrow did create a passably original and engrossing world and you can tell she had the history of it all figured out, but she only explored a tiny part of it. I'd love to read more about the world although maybe not through Dante. It's a pity the author focused so much on one race of supernaturals when there were so many others to know about. And we never got to understand more about Jado or Abracadabra or the gods.
A nice futuristic urban fantasy series that could have been so much better. The world-building is good but while the main character starts out ok, she turns into an exasperating whiner who can do little by herself. 

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