I'm a co-blogger at All Things Urban Fantasy, while Read Fragment is where other genres wash ashore.
Once again, this series takes familiar romance tropes, creates three dimensional characters with depth and charm, then adds smoking hot kink that absolutely knocks my socks off. BEAUTIFUL STRANGER is an unequivocal recommendation, and once again I'm left anxious for anything more by this fantastic writing duo.
I love Illyria, but most of her appeal comes from her interaction with the group. Though she's the star of this standalone, she spends too much time, well, being alone.
Wow, I did not see that coming... but how did I miss it? Love Buffy and Spike, also love that the heartbreak looks like it's coming to a close.
Love, love, love it. The art is back, the dialog is snappy, and this ending has me on the hook for more. Fingers crossed that Buffy, Angel & Faith, and Willow will be easy to follow from issue to issue. On to Angel & Faith!
Not my favorite Angel anthology, though Illyria was a highlight. The change in art in the middle was odd, and the one offs at the end were cute.
Oooh, Spike. I laughed, I read, I laughed some more. Glad to know how Spike became king, loved the dialog in this one.
I think I may have missed some Spike development, prior to him captaining a spaceship of insects. Hate when I skip a step, but loved the high stakes and ambiguity of the ending.
Hahahaha, so much shipping and fan angst is wrapped up in this book, with a most satisfying bang. Could not stop laughing, love the super hero sex. I've gotten ahead of myself on Angel canon, however, this means I'll have to stop reading here and go back to catch up on Angel and Spike. Can't wait!
Though not groundbreaking, this book took reminded me of excellent elements of my favorite series. Less grim than Poison Study, more magical than The Hunger Games, I'm filing this under "girl kicking butt".
While Solo and his brothers-in-arms had me on the hook from the get go, his heroine was a bit too relentlessly Mary Sue for me to enjoy. While I was onboard initially, having so much of the book's drama and development focus on how misunderstood this perfect woman is was rather boring. An old school love story dressed up with modern Alphas, this book was well written but not what I was looking for.
As charming and quirky as Gail Carriger's Soulless series, CURTSIES & CONSPIRACIES delves back into all the ways that society, science, and magic can collide. As interesting for the social dynamics as for the dirigibles and mechanimals, Sophronia's perspective on manners and intelligence gathering is a fantastic window into this world.
Holy cow. Cara McKenna has a gift for blending gorgeous characterization and explicit sex, offering a window of compassion into these flawed but lovable lives.
RAGS & BONES is a gorgeously currated collection of short stories, as satisfying for the glimpses of each story's origin story as the final product. As favorite authors distill classic tales to their essence, this his anthology was immersive and thought provoking, a masters class in the creative process with an all star attendance list.
Despite being number three, Ward has kept this series very fresh. I wasn't expecting Veck's particular problem at all, and I'm really looking forward to the next soul.
I've jumped back into this series to prep for a POSSESSION ARC review (of course, it won't be advanced by the time I get caught up). I enjoy the present tense action, but the demon and archangel seem needlessly silly. Still, this series captures some of my favorite aspects of the Black Dagger Brotherhood (alpha men, romance, violence) without some of my less favorite items (exaggerated street cant, designer obsessiveness, and endless bad guy POVs and politics). Of course, I guess Devina's silly POVs count as a downpoint for this series as well... we'll see if she gets to the point of feeling interminable.
I'm about 25% done, and I'm really struggling with this book. I like John and Solo and Blue, I'm invested in their fates, but I don't have much interest in the romance. Blue and Evie have all sorts of misconceptions about each other, but still manage to rub their crotches together on frequent intervals, and I'm not at all curious about what arbitrary chain of events is going to lead Evie to rethink Blue or lead Blue to understand Evie's pain. Furthermore, the "otherworlders" powers seem completely... random. Blue, as the heir to family's powers, which makes it seem like Q designed him in a MI5 basement somewhere. He can sense emotions and shoot out a beam that paralyzes people and burn away impurities and regenerate his skin and... ok, fine. Whatever happens, Blue will handle it. So I don't really need to worry about that, clearly.