Fell into a bit of a lull this week, but yesterday when I found out the new Kresley Cole was out I blazed through it and another title I had half finished.
Demon From the Dark by Kresley Cole (NEW READ) (paranormal romance)
I enjoyed this book more than the last one in the series (Pleasure of a Dark Prince), but I think that is because PoaDP took place in the past timeline-wise, so I felt like we were retreading territory we had already seen. I'm also still trying to work out how well the events tied into the established canon.
DftD takes place after the events of previous books and avoids this problem. Carrow, the witchy best friend of Mariketa (book 3 heroine) has been captured by a mysterious organization bent on studying and eliminating immortals. Since the last book ended on a cliffhanger with quite a few characters (strangely all single...) being kidnapped, here we get to see how they are faring in captivity. Carrow learns she is now the guardian of a young witch before being sent on a mission to capture an incredibly powerful vampire/demon (vemon!) Of course this leads to destiny and sexytimes.
I liked how the book had several distinct sections, and didn't just end where I thought it would- it carried on into a full jailbreak/war that I can't wait to read about in the next book. On the other hand I was a little uncomfortable with how the characters used sex to manipulate each other (especially emotionally). Some of their fights were pretty cold, and I wished they had talked things out a bit sooner. I like that there is a big reveal scene where everyone's feelings get out in the open, but at the same time I wish it wasn't necessary and thought it was strange that that was all it took for their problems to be solved.
Overall, I enjoyed the plot, didn't enjoy some of the sexual politics as much but love the wide variety of characters present in the world. ALSO, this is the first Kresley Cole where I found myself correcting the grammar. I am not that great with editing and grammar, but I still picked out some clauses that need to be flipped and have their commas removed. Hopefully this is not a sign of declining quality.
Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa (NEW READ) (YA, fantasy, romance)
Meghan Chase has rescued her little brother from Faerie and killed the Iron King, but now she is bound to return to the Winter Court with hot hot faerie prince Ash. The Winter Court isn't a friendly place for a half human/ half Summer fey, and when Meghan is framed in a horrible crime she realizes that the Iron Fey are on the move again.
I was happy to see Ironhorse return in this book: It's a horse! Made of metal! I want one! Grimalkin and Puck all come back to join in the adventure. There's quite a bit of slow bits followed by ACTION ACTION ACTION, which made it easier to get stuck on the down parts. I found the love triangle one of the slow areas, just because it was obvious she had already made up her mind and was just stringing things along in an effort to be nice.
Iron Fey are based in Silicon Valley- perfect! I do wonder if all the Iron Fey are evil. The other fey all hate them, but they can't really help what they are. Meghan seems SO SLOW to realize what is going on with her Fey powers, and only Ironhorse had figured it out by the end of the book. I can't tell if they are willfully ignoring *SPOILER* but it left me seriously questioning the intelligence of the characters (and wondering what the author thought of me the reader, dropping such BROAD HINTS and then not mentioning them).
I'll still give the next book a go, since I want to know more about the Iron Fey- those computer nerds sound like my kind of magic.
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