A to Z book tag!

You know what I haven’t done in a while? A book tag. So here’s one, taken from [PerpetualPageTurner]:

Author you’ve read the most books from:

• Probably Anne Rice books. Or Charlaine Harris.

Best Sequel Ever:

• I dislike most first books, so, second book of Captive Prince, and many more.

Currently Reading:

• “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself” and “Stuck in Central America“

Drink of Choice While Reading:

• Sweet, carbonated, and preferably in a can. Or just tea.

E-reader or Physical Book?

• Both are fine!

Fictional Character You Probably Would Have Actually Dated In High School:

• Any one of the three main characters from “Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue”, Stephan Day from Magpie Lord, Lord Crane, Lila from Shades of Magic…

Glad You Gave This Book A Chance:

• N.K. Jemisin “The Fifth Season“

Hidden Gem Book:

• Jim McDoniel “An Unattractive Vampire“

Important Moment in your Reading Life:

• Probably starting blogging about books. Or finding well-reading friends.

Just Finished:

• – Chloe Neill “Friday Night Bites“

Kinds of Books You Won’t Read:

• I refuse to spit into this well.

Longest Book You’ve Read:

• I don’t even know tbh, many are very long nowadays, from Anne Rice’s stuff, to Martin.

 

Major book hangover because of:

• Hangovers are good things, right? Because I think then, the book I had to take a break after was Captive Prince trilogy.

Number of Bookcases You Own:

• Two. Three if we count the one that is not purely mine.

One Book You Have Read Multiple Times:

• Witcher saga, but the most time per book was the very first that made me realize how amazing books can be, that being John E. Stitch book “Reckoning Infinity”

Preferred Place To Read:

• Other side of my bookshelf (this side is my work place), on the couch, in front of the window.

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you’ve read:

• Oh there were many, there are many, and there’ll be more, sadly I can’t recall one from the top of my head.

Reading Regret:

• I’ve none. If it was bad – I know it was bad, because I’ve read it myself.

Series You Started And Need To Finish(all books are out in series):

• There’s many still. Nightrunner, Chicagoland vampires, Night Prince, Anno Dracula…

Three of your All-Time Favorite Books:

• V.E. Schwab “A Gathering of Shadows“; C.S. Pacat “Kings Rising“; K.J. Charles “The Magpie Lord“

Unapologetic Fanboy For:

• K.J. Charles “A Charm of Magpies” trilogy, and C.S. Pacat “Captive Prince” trilogy.

Very Excited For This Release More Than All The Others:

• V.E. Schwab is writing second book for “Vicious“, it’s gonna be called “Vengeful“

Worst Bookish Habit:

• I guess, like most, I just add to the already infinite to-read list, by physical copies, e-books, or mere “want to read” button on goodreads.com

X Marks The Spot: Start at the top left of your shelf and pick the 27th book:

• Henry James “The Turn of the Screw“

Your latest book purchase:

• Martynas Starkus “Stuck in Central America“

ZZZ-snatcher book (last book that kept you up WAY late):

• Andy Weir “The Martian“

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A.C. Bextor – Empires and Kings [1]

Sometimes I pick a book up just because, because it sat there, taunting me or whatever. Sometimes due to such an action I even find good reads. Sadly, “Empires and Kings” by A.C. Bextor (Mafia 1; ASIN B01MZA0MS5; 322p.; Goodreads) is not one of those. It’s just a book about a Russian Mafia Family head, portrayed as the most vile and ruthless monster, who, beside the few base things he did that’ll make you roll your eyes, rather than fear him, hardly did anything.

The book is told from two perspectives. One, the first, belongs to our scary mister Vlad Zaleski, the head of this Mafia Family, one of the most powerful men in the underworld. Back in the day he was required to exterminate a family of a traitor. Wrong time, wrong place, the traitor’s daughter, a mere child, runs into the room, scared by all the noises. Vlad makes her watch the killing of her family, and, due to reasons unclear, takes her with him, and puts her into his own family. Maybe he took pity on the child. Maybe he wanted her there, as a reminder to anyone else who’d like to try and betray him, what’s left of the last man who did: a single girl devoted, loyal to him.

She’s better known as the Traitor’s Daughter. She grew up fearing and revering Vlad as some sort of a god. His son became her best friend, her brother. His sister became her sister, and best friend. Growing up among the mafia men has changed her perspective on life, has given her a different rhythm to things, a certain sense of power, even in captivity, where no one could touch her, for she was jailed and protected by their boss. The only truly bad outcome in this is that she fell in love with her god, she fell in love with Vlad.

Talk about Stockholm Syndrome, right? The book has a good idea, even for a romance novel it’s a pretty fair one, for I am sure there’s many who’d enjoy a creature like Vlad, the mafia boss, the gangster, the mister danger in the modern world of darkness. Yet the story, the way it was told, the fleshing out of the small ideas, making them seem artificially bigger felt a bit weak. So for the time being I can only offer this book a 3 out of 5, and we’ll see on whether I can pick up the second one.

Promo: Vernossiel

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Jeaniene Frost – Twice Tempted [2]

You didn’t think I’ll quit Night Prince series by Jeanine Frost just because it was a silly-ish romance, did you? That never happened, and there where’s Dracula – never will. So let’s get into the “Twice Tempted” (Night Prince 2; ISBN 0062076108; 360p.; Goodreads), the second book on Leila the lightening woman, and Vlad Basarab Dracula, the fire-starting vampire.

As much as Leila loves Vlad and his people, the treatment he’s offering is rubbing her the wrong way. He disappears without a word on why, where, when. He acts a bit cold. Makes her adjust to his vampiric life, making little effort to adjust to hers. And the final straw – he offers her vampirism in a party he threw, before all his subjects, when both she, and her sister thought really, he’s going to propose. In a state of anger Leila rage-quits everything, sparing no words or actions. She packs up, breaks it off, and leaves. And if she thought her broken heart was bad enough, wait ’till she finds out Vlad’s ex is back on the radar.

Not too late after this whole nasty drama, an explosion meant to kill Leila nearly succeeds, in her stead killing innocents, her friends. Who’d want her dead, and who’d take such indirect, gruesome measures to kill her? Well, honestly the list isn’t all that short, and she can put Prince of the Darkness on it too. Lucky for her, Vlad’s right arm man is ready to help her, and defend her if need be, even from Vlad himself…

This one, to be honest, was pretty good. While the petty things author tried to make you believe are not very believable, the other stuff, like that small little plot twist, gets the job done. Apparently there’s more than just vampires, heck, there’s whole witchcraft and wizardry thing going on. I can give this book a well deserved 4 out of 5.

Chloe Neill – Friday Night Bites [2]

So here goes my last German edition of the Chicagoland Vampires book by Chloe Neill, which is merely the second book in the long series. “Friday Night Bites” (Chicagoland Vampires 2; ISBN 045122793X; 357p.; Goodreads) went a little slower, and the title was sadly the only amusing thing. The whole substance of the book was spread too unevenly for me. Too much was caked on relationships, Merit’s, and other people’s. And much too little on the fun, and interesting stuff, like how are raves – vampire thing, why does a human have to die to become a vampire, what happens if you don’t die fully, etc.

Your friendly neighbor vampire will always ask for your consent before biting. Maybe that’s the reason these vampires didn’t get too aggressive outlash when they came out of their coffins, seeing how they don’t have the luxury of True Blood. This same lack of luxury has made vampires put rules and laws on drinking from living donors. It is no wonder thus, that they were the first to react when the safety of their own being in this human world was threatened by rave parties sprouting all around. Big deal, rave party, right? Well, apparently the very title “rave” was taken from vampires, for it’s less a human party, and more of a one big trap party. Humans have fun, rage, dance, use substances. Vampires feed themselves silly on them, and any stories that leak outside the walls of the illegal parties are rendered bogus told by junkies who got too high. It’s only a matter of time before these parties leave more than trash behind… (yes, I do mean dried corpses)

The rest of the book was mostly about Merit’s work for her liege. He wants connections, her family has those, so here start the parties, designer dresses, and overdescribed snacks. To add more salt on those, Merit tries her best to keep a relationship going with the vampire from the other house, the same one her liege has basically forced her into to begin with. The same one he’s now so very much trying to disrupt.

 

The books are very easy to read, so I can’t complain. I believe I’ll just get myself a little audiobook collection of them, and listen to them while doing work around the home. I feel like they’re perfect for it, especially if you listen on higher speeds. For the time being I can give it 3 out of 5, but we’ll see how things go.

Lynn Flewelling – The White Road [5]

Here goes another Nightrunner book by Lynn Flewelling. Honestly, I don’t know why the books are called that way, when there’s far more, far greater things happening in them, and nightrunning is a rare occasion. But I digress, as I often do, let’s instead talk about “The White Road” (Nightrunner 5; ISBN 055359009X; 385p.; Goodreads), for this, sadly, is the less interesting book, again. Can’t be helped, the previous one was pretty great.

Sebrahn, a homonculus child, created out of Alec’s blood, was considered a failure by his maker. Alchemist was prepared to chop the kid up in pieces if it failed it’s primal purpose of healing, for that’s what the client, one of the Aurenfae clan leaders, has requested for. Yet here he is, more unique than any other homonculus ever made. More useful, and far more dangerous than any before him too. But before his maker could figure all that out, Seregil and Alec made a run for it, grabbing Sebrahn with them, and killing the alchemist. By doing so, tho, they condemned themselves to be hunted once more.

The dying clan leader, at the very least, wants the books back, and is willing to take any measures necessary to get them. If he could possibly get Sebrahn too, it’d be even better, for one can never know how much time one has left. But that’s by far not the greatest of dangers Alec and Seregil are about to meet. The magic that created Sebrahn belongs to Alec’s people, and they want it back. These secretive, secluded people, ruthless with their rules, and unbelievable with their magic.

The book was a bit unpleasant to read. While we were assured that homunculus is more a dragon that looks like a humanoid, everyone around Alec treats it like it is a child, especially Alec himself. So when they start pondering whether to give the kid to whoever promises not to kill it, how difficult it is with him, etc., it just strikes all the wrong cords for me. And in general – there was oh so much traveling, walking, riding. I’ll give this book 3 out of 5, but I do expect the next one to be better, as tradition sorta demands now.

Chloe Neill – Some Girls Bite [1]

I recently received the gift of books, first two in Chloe Neill series “Chicagoland Vampires“. Lucky for me, they came in German too, and believe me, there’s no better way to refresh your memory on a language, than something as light as these kinds of books: the Sookie kind, with vampires out and about. So I went ahead and read the first one, “Some Girls Bite” or “Frisch Gebissen” (Chicagoland Vampires 1; ISBN 0451226259; 341p.; Goodreads). It’s not a masterpiece, true, but if you need a light read that leaves little to nothing in your brain afterwards, it’s always better to have vampires, than not to, right?

Caroline Merit was never good enough for her New Money family. They finally have the New American Dream life, and want to show it, while she doesn’t care all that much, and prefers making her own life, for herself, not for show. But she was coping. Up until everything went to waste on that bad night, when she got attacked, and had to be turned to have her life saved. To her family it’s just another silly, and rebellious act of hers, as if she asked to be turned. Tho, mind you, that does happen. And to Merit this is a start of a very annoying series of events.

For from now on Merit belongs to an infamous house of supernaturals, the kind that still drink from humans. She has to swear fealty to their insufferable master, learn their rules, learn to fight, learn their history, learn the history of other supernaturals… And then also deal with the murders somehow connected to her house, house rivalry, and the angry scent of war in the air, for by far not everyone’s happy about this whole coming-out thing.

I both liked, and disliked the book. I didn’t like it, because there’s just no simpler than this. But then I also liked it for it. Really, there’s worse things than vampires who always want to chew on something. And the little detective story wasn’t too bad. Too bad was that whole scene with the favors and oaths… Anyway, 3 out of 5, and I’ll go read the next one.

Kell – Shades of Magic

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Jessica Day George – Silver in the Blood

Sometimes I just type “Dracula” into the bookstore search engine, and see what comes up. This time it was “Silver in the Blood” by Jessica Day George (ISBN 1619634317; 358p.; Goodreads), and it might be the weirdest bloodline story I’ve read so far. That’s telling, seeing how I’ve read a story of Dracula with fae blood…

Dacia and Lou are well born society girls from New York. For their seventeenth birthday, the girls get to go on a trip to Romania, and visit the more mysterious side of the family, and preferably – find themselves suitable husbands. Soon into the trip – odd things start to happen. Wolves interfere with the train ride. Mysterious figures appear in their paths. They keep hearing these strange epithets aimed at them: The Claw, the Wing, and the Smoke. And even their companions start acting strange.

By far that is not all in this strange land of Romania, once home to Vlad Dracula himself. Their heritage is here, and one of them is to be married off to a prince, even if one only by formality. But whether they’ll want this cursed thing is still in question…

This was a pretty damn boring book. It’s rarely this dull when it comes to Dracula, but then, he himself wasn’t present anyway. I can only give this book 3 out of 5, due to too same sense as Caraval, but with actual shifters.

Monday: Stuck in Central America [LT]

Currently reading a book by Lithuanian author Martynas Starkus “Stuck in Central America“, of their (him, and his great friend Vytaras Radzevicius) adventures in Central America.