Friday, February 20, 2015

Book Review & Blog Tour: The Adelheid Series by Mia Darien

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Vampires are people too...

That's what Sadie Stanton has been trying to get people to understand, and what the business she's setting up in the paranormal hotspot of Adelheid, Connecticut, is aiming to do. Cameron's Law has made all supernatural creatures legal citizens, and the boy next door has suddenly become the werewolf next door.

Not everyone likes that.

Now vampires have started attacking werewolves without provocation, and as if her fledgling business and preternatural rights poster girl status isn't keeping her busy enough, people are looking to Sadie to help keep these events from giving their enemies the ammunition to repeal the law and push them back in the shadows.

But her notoriety comes with an even higher cost. Can she find a way to keep the city's two biggest paranormal populations from descending into chaos and war, while her very help shoves her into the crossfire?

3 STARS

My Review

A book about supernatural beings becoming legalized citizens is certainly a new one for me. I thought the whole thing was well done and certainly a unique storyline. I enjoyed the character of Sadie right from the start and the supporting cast was interesting. Some scenes were a bit more abrupt than I would have preferred and there were a few cases of random characters showing up briefly and then sort of disappearing without much explanation. For the most part, this was a fairly interesting supernatural story with plenty of action, mystery, and a splash of romance. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series to see what kind of mess Sadie finds herself in next.



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Forever...is a long time.

Dakota's life has been long, hard, and lonely. Now she's a hunter, and alone by choice. She's the best at what she does, and what she does is hunt down the things that go bump in the night that no one else can get to. But no matter how hard she runs or how many walls she builds in her heart, the past is always hunting her.

For the first time ever, she agrees to take on two cases at once: an ex-lover for murder, and an Ancient vampire the cops can't touch. Both cases will reveal things that shake the very foundation of her existence and break the walls she's worked so hard to build around herself.

These events will bring the past, present, and future into a collision course. Will she survive it like she has survived the past four centuries, or will she go down in flames?

3 STARS

My Review

Another fairly good paranormal novel. I enjoyed this one more than the first because of all the shapshifter action. As far as supernatural beings go, I'm partial to shifters. Also, I found Dakota's story to be more interesting and engaging than Sadie's. Again, some scenes were a bit more abrupt than I would have liked and the surprise twists were not exactly surprising, but the narrative flow was much cleaner in this second installment in the series. When Forever Died is a decent read and I look forward to the next one.



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Sometimes, life doesn't begin until after you're dead.

Days stretch out in a series of predictable steps. A to B to C to A. Work. Friends. Life. But for some people, it's not enough. It's not enough for D. Possessed of a ravenous hunger for more, he's at a loss for how to find it.

Until he meets Cielle. She's everything he's looking for: new and exciting.

And a vampire, which he's less crazy about.

But when "new and exciting" Turns him, D is forced into an undead life he never anticipated. Trying to adjust to this new existence is hard enough, but he's about to get more than he ever bargained for.

Will it be enough to sate his hunger?

3 STARS

My Review

For me, three stars for this book was a bit of a stretch. It's all right, but the storyline isn't as interesting as in the previous books. I liked D well enough, and Cassandra too, but I felt, again, like too many things were rushed. I didn't feel like I was following a story so much as little episodes with pointless transitions in-between. Abby was interesting and I hope to see more of her in future books. I also liked the fight at the end, but other than that and a few other instances, I was kind of bored.



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One word can change the story of your life forever.

Abduction. Torture. Surrender.

Eleven months from her adolescence have framed thirty-one years of Detective Nykk Marlowe's life. Despite the trauma of her past, and the unique physical scars it left her with, she's built a career as a detective for the Adelheid Police Department.

Her personal life might only consist of caring for her sister and a pet rabbit, but she accepts that.

She accepts that she'll never be able to be like "normal" people, even the supernatural ones. As long as she can keep the past where it belongs, she's okay.

But when the body of a teenage girl shows up with the same scars that Nykk sees in the mirror every day, her "okay" life gets turned upside down and she's forced to confront the past she's been looking away from for sixteen years.

And when it turns out there's already more than one victim, the pressure's on to stop the killer before any more girls are tortured, mutilated, and murdered.

3 STARS

My Review

I liked Written All Over Her better than the last installment in the series. It was interesting to see the world of Adelheid from the viewpoint of a human and I had wondered what Nykk's story was. Turns out, it was pretty awful. Her quest to track down a killer reminded me of the TV show Law & Order, though with a supernatural twist more reminiscent of Grimm. This is a decent story and very character oriented, which I like. I did find the little flashbacks between a young Nykk and a character written in second person a little weird, but other than that I liked the book okay. My main problem with this series is that the final confrontation with the 'villain' is too brief. There's never enough build up of tension. I would have liked that last scene with Nykk and the killer to last a little longer than it did. But I have to say, it was a good final confrontation, much better than in previous books.



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Even Adelheid has a dark side...

Detective Vance Johnston has a lot going for him. He's got good friends, a job he likes, gets to play tiger every now and then, and is getting ready to propose to his long time girlfriend, Sadie Stanton. Things are looking pretty good.

That is until a shocking turn of events sends him into a case at the last minute that threatens not just everything in his life, but his life itself. Thrust into the seedy underbelly of the preternatural organized crime world, Vance is trapped, a prisoner to the entertainment and money of a darkness threatening to undermine Adelheid.

But he's not alone. Not just in the prison he's kept in, but on the outside too. He just has to hang on until help comes, but that's going to be anything but easy as his own beast within is used against him.

3 STARS

This is by far the best book in the series. It gets off to a good start right from the beginning and had me eagerly turning the pages all the way through to the end. Vance is a fierce character and what he and the others forced to fight against their will go through is truly awful. We don't really get to spend much time with the secondary characters Vance meets during his imprisonment, but several of them still managed to make an impression on me. Especially Lucia. I like shifter stories, which is a large part of why I enjoyed this book most out of all the books in the series.

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