‘Alternative Romance’ is a where we review a book outside of the blogs focus of horror, urban fantasy, paranormal romance. Although these genres are our first love, we also, on occasion, delve into the worlds of contemporary and historical romance, and romantic suspense. Thus our ‘Alternative Romance’ feature was born. We will be posting our reviews of alternative romance on a Saturday as and when we read a book outside of our usual paranormal fare. TRADE WINDS (Trade Winds #1) by Christina Courtenay PUBLISHER: Choc Lit RELEASE DATE: Sept 2010…
Title: I Don’t Want To Kill You (John Cleaver #3) Author: Dan Wells Publisher: Headline (UK) / Tor (US) Publication Date: 13th Jan 2011 (UK) / 29th March 2011 (US) Paperback: 310 pages Genre: Supernatural Thriller/Horror Young Adult Source: Review Copy Reviewed by: Carolyn RATING: 7/10 – very good. GOODREADS SUMMARY: Sixteen-year-old John Wayne Cleaver has always known he’s different, but not because he only has one friend (and doesn’t much like him) and not because he regularly helps out in his mother’s mortuary. He’s different because he recognizes the…
Dark Slayer (Carpathian #20) by Christine Feehan | Piatkus Books (Sept 2009) Ebook: 416 Pages | Paranormal Romance This is the best Carpathian novel that I have read for a while. Of late I’ve found they’ve become very repetitive with the characters lacking originality, seeming more like copies of one another. But Dark Slayer really picks up the pace and is more rounded and engaging. If you have not read any of Christine Feehan’s Carpathian books, they are about a race of people – Carpathians – a paranormal species, think good vampires. The…
Title: The Unholy Cause (Supernatural #4) Author: Joe Schreiber Publisher: Titan Books Publication Date: April 2010 Paperback: 320 pages Genre: Supernatural Thriller Source: Review Copy Reviewed by: Jo RATING: 7/10 GOODREADS SUMMARY: Way back in April 1862, Confederate Captain Jubal Beauchamp leads a charge across a Georgia battleground… Fast forward to 2009 and a civil war re-enactment becomes all too real. When Sam and Dean head down south to investigate they find that history has got somewhat out of hand… REVIEW: I’ve been a…
The Twilight Before Christmas (Drake Sisters #2) by Christine Feehan | Pocket Star (Nov 2003) Paperback: 284 pages | Paranormal Romance In probably the stupidest reason a person has ever had to read a book, I took the ‘Which Drake Sister Are You?’ quiz on Christine Feehan’s website and came up with the heroine of The Twilight Before Christmas (I got Hannah the second time, but anyway). So, thanks to that quiz, this was my introduction to the sweet, occasionally dark Drake Sisters series about a family of seven sisters with…
Title: The First Love Cookie Club Author: Lori Wilde Publisher: Avon Publication Date: November 2010 eARC: 255 pages Genre: Contemporary Romance Source: Review copy via NetGalley Guest Review by Zosia RATING: 7/10 BOOK COVER SUMMARY: “On Christmas Eve, if you sleep with kismet cookies under your pillow and dream of your one true love, he will be your destiny.” The townsfolk of Twilight, Texas, believe the legend, but not Sarah Collier—not since she was a pudgy teenager, running down the church aisle on Christmas Day in a jingle bell sweater…
Grave Surprise (Harper Connelly #2) by Charlaine Harris Gollancz (Sept 2006) | Paperback, 295 pages Supernatural Mystery “If there were an emergency room for psychological shocks, we could go there,” he said. Harper Connelly – struck by lightning and now able to find dead bodies and see the details of their deaths – is back for a second book. This was another solid, quirky and fun mystery, with a lot of suspicion thrown Harper and Tolliver’s way this time. They’re caught up in so many coincidences that it definitely looks to outsiders…
Title: Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy #3) Author: Richelle Mead Publisher: Penguin Publication Date: Feb 2010 (UK) / Nov 2008 (US) Paperback: 443 pages Genre: Paranormal Young Adult RATING: 7/10 – very good, leaning towards an 8. GOODREADS SUMMARY: Rose Hathaway knows it is forbidden to love another guardian. Her best friend, Lissa-the last Dragomir princess-must always come first. Unfortunately, when it comes to gorgeous Dimitri Belikov, some rules are meant to be broken… But since making her first Strigoi kills, Rose hasn’t been feeling right. Something dark has begun to…
Title: The Taming Of The Wolf (Westfield Brothers #4) Author: Lydia Dare Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca Publication Date: November 2010 ARC: 384 pages Genre: Historical/ Paranormal Romance Reviewed by Laura RATING: 7/10 – Very good, would definitely recommend GOODREADS SUMMARY: Lord Dashiel Thorpe has fought his true nature his entire life, but whenever the moonlight proves too powerful, Dashiel is unable to control the werewolf within him. It is on one such moonlit night that Dashiel accidentally bites the beautiful Scottish witch,…
Shakespeare’s Champion (Lily Bard #2) by Charlaine Harris Berkley (Dec 2006) | Paperback, 244 pages | Mystery Maybe if I took this step by step it wouldn’t be so bad? I glanced over at the still figure on the bench. No way to ease up to this. I’d just plunge right in. “Del Packard is here, and he got squashed,” I said. This is Charlaine Harris’ second Lily Bard book, but can be read as a standalone. The strength of the series builds with each one, with the complex and scarred…
Title: Dante’s Journey Author: JC Marino Publisher: Star Publish Publication Date: February 2010 Paperback: 368 pages Genre: Urban Fantasy Source: Review Copy Reviewed by: Laura RATING: 7/10 – Very good, would definitely recommend GOODREADS SUMMARY: A flash of light and Detective Joe Dante steps through. No longer on the cobblestone streets of 1961 Boston, Joe finds himself in a horrifying new world-Hell itself. Joe was in hot pursuit of his family’s killer, drug lord Filippo Argenti, when both were killed, and isn’t about to let a little thing like death…
Title: The Poison Throne (The Moorehawke Trilogy #1) Author: Celine Kiernan Publisher: Orbit Publication Date: April 2010 (first published 2008) Paperback: 512 pages Genre: Fantasy Source: Review Copy Reviewed by Laura RATING: 7/10 – Very good, would definitely recommend GOODREADS SUMMARY: Young Wynter Moorehaw returns to court with her dying father – but she finds her old home shadowed with fear. The king has become a violent despot, terrorizing those he once loved. His son and heir Alberon has fled into exile and now there are whispers everywhere of rebellion….
SHADE (Shade #1) by Jeri Smith-Ready PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster Children’s Books RELEASE DATE: May 2010 FORMAT: Paperback, 320 pages GENRE: Paranormal, Young Adult Like everyone born after The Shift, sixteen year-old Aura can see and talk to ghosts. She’s always found this mysterious ability pretty annoying, wishing only that she could reverse it and have some peace. But when her boyfriend, Logan, dies unexpectedly, Aura is forced to reconsider her connections to the dead… Devastated by Logan’s sudden death, Aura realises that her ability to see ghosts might actually be…
PLAGUE OF THE DEAD (The Morningstar Strain #1) by Z. A. Recht PUBLISHER: S & S (UK) | Permuted Press (US) RELEASE DATE: May 2010 (UK) | Dec 2006 (US) FORMAT: Paperback, 303 pages GENRE: Horror, Zombies THE END BEGINS WITH AN UNPRECEDENTED VIRAL OUTBREAK: Morningstar. The infected are subject to delirium, fever, violent behavior…and a one hundred percent mortality rate. BUT THE END IS ONLY THE BEGINNING: The victims return from death to walk the earth. When a massive military operation fails to contain the plague of the living dead, it…
Title: Cursed (Werewolf’s Tale #1) Author: David Wellington Publisher: Piatkus (UK) PublicationDate: Sept 2010 Paperback: 305 pages Genre: Urban Fantasy, Horror, Werewolf Source: Review Copy Reviewed by: Carolyn RATING: 7/10 – very good GOODREADS SUMMARY: When a wolf’s teeth slash Cheyenne’s ankle to the bone, her old life ends and she becomes the very monster that haunts her nightmares. Worse, the only one who understands what Chey’s become is the man – and wolf – who’s doomed her to this fate. But he also wants her dead . . ….
