Waiting on Wednesday: Blood Rose

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine which
spotlights eagerly anticipated upcoming releases!

This WoW is the first paranormal romance book by one of my favorite authors!  It sounds fabulous and I can't wait to pick it up!

Title: Blood Rose Buy Link

Authors: Riley Shane

Series: Realm of Nine, Book 1

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Release Date: 29 November 2011

Book Description (from Goodreads):

To save his people, a half-mad prince must enlist the aid of a woman who has no reason to help him...and who he has every reason to desire.

At sixteen, Rose Carrison lost both her parents and her freedom. Since her father’s death, Rose has had to pick up the mantle of her family’s legacy and guard an object of incredible power, one the monsters who murdered her parents would kill to get their hands on. After ten years on the run, Rose’s luck finally runs out. A fate worse than death threatens to consume her. Then, out of the darkness, comes the most unlikely of rescuers...

Grayson van Court is a man skating on the edge of damnation. He’s a revenant: a powerful, blood-drinking, returned-from-the-dead, magical creature that no other magical species wants anything to do with. For centuries, Gray has bargained and fought for the revenants’ right to survive, but his efforts are hampered by his sociopathic mother and the madness that permeates his own soul. When Gray rescues Rose from his mother’s machinations, his intention is only to stop the attacks against his people that would surely come if Rose were harmed. But then he sees her, and everything changes. Two people who should never have met soon find themselves fighting side by side for the chance at a love that could prove to be their salvation.

Review: Shadow Kin by M.J. Scott

Title: Shadow Kin
Author: M.J. Scott
Series: The Half-Light City, Book 1
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Release Date: 6 September 2011

On one side, the Night World, rules by the Blood Lords and the Beast Kind. On the other, the elusive Fae and the humans, protected by their steadfast mages...

Born a wraith, Lily is a shadow who slips between worlds. Brought up by a Blood Lord and raised to be his assassin, she is little more than a slave. But when Lily meets her match in target Simon DuCaine, the unlikely bond that develops between them threatens to disrupt an already stretched peace in a city on the verge of being torn apart…

First, this book is told in alternating first-person POV. There are, apparently, character-specific symbols that mark the beginning of each section, but I'll be honest and say that I never paid attention to these. Resulting in it taking me a couple of lines (or paragraphs sometimes) to get into who's voice it was.

I think that there's potential with this author, but unfortunately it just didn't hit the mark for me.

Lily, the main character, is a Wraith. A fae half-breed, with some special powers and has been turned into an assassin by the Lord of the Blood (think vampires), Lucius.

Simon, the other main POV character, is a sunmage. I have to admit that his powers seem pretty spectacular actually, but like Lily's they just came off as boring.

I think my biggest problem throughout the whole books was the lack of urgency about anything.

We're told that the wars between the Fae, Blood, Beasts (werewolves?), and Humans were so bad that they eventually had to make treaties, which are renegotiated every 3 years. So we're thrust into this quasi bad world, where no one is really fighting for anything.

The world building was...erratic at best. Was it medieval? Victorian? Victorian steampunkish? Modernish? I don't know. I stopped caring part way through.

Unfortunately, the characters didn't make up anything for me. Lily was the weakest assassin I've ever had the occasion to read. Not only was she completely under someone else's control (which wouldn't normally bother me so much), but she could barely make a decision to make a decision.

Simon came off as naive and petulant. And, even, at the end a complete and utter asshole - who didn't grovel nearly enough to gain the heroine's forgiveness, much less mine.

In the end, I may try something else by this author in the future, but I certainly won't be looking forward to it as much as I did this one.



Grade: D+

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