When Blood Calls
J.K. Beck
Bantam, Aug 31 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9780440245773

Manhattan-based government attorney Sara Constantine is euphoric following her win in court. She celebrates her victory by spending a heated one night stand with stranger, Lucius Dragos; who is at the tavern because Braddock, who he will kill later that night, is there. Sara is rewarded with a promotion to Division 6; whose lawyers prosecute vampires, werewolves, hellhounds and demons.

To her chagrin, fate deflates her enthusiasm when she is assigned to argue the government’s case against alleged killer Lucius Dragos. He likes Sara and not just because of the great sex. She somehow abates his demon. He argues she needs to take the blindfold off as he insists justice is not a blind legal adherence to the law because where evil deserves death; while she insists the law is the law even as she wonders if the man she prosecutes and loves is a vampire.

Ignoring conflict of interest based on the Judge Scalia defense of not recusing In Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia Supreme Court case, this is a fascinating legal thriller inside an urban fantasy setting with a touch of romance. Though there is plenty of action in the first Shadow Keepers thriller, the story line is owned by the lead couple who debate justice. Readers will believe the Beck universe is real while pondering the same questions that disturb dedicated prosecutor Sara. If someone murders a serial killer they may be legally a criminal but morally are they delivering justice to an amoral ergo inhuman predator? That is the essence of Lucius’ argument as he insists he killed a malevolence that deserved death, but as Sara (and the audience) ponders should he be judge, jury and executioner as a seemingly vigilante. Their falling in love enhances the legal vs. moral argument.

Harriet Klausner

Coronets And Steel
Sherwood Smith
Daw, Sep 7 2010, $24.95
ISBN: 9780756406424

Bored Los Angeles graduate student Kim Murray’s French only speaking grandmere is ill. As grandmere recovers from the debilitating fever, she remains mute; but encourages strongly for Kim to travel to Europe to learn her family’s genealogy. Before leaving the States, her grandma gave her minuscule bits of information about their heritage, but refuses to go into any depth.

After Paris proved fruitless, she reaches Vienna lacking information as to where to start so she visits a genealogist. Kim goes on a tour when she notices what looks like a ghost. Soon after that, a suave male treats her like an old friend he has not seen in a while although she swears she never met this sophisticate before. She and this Alec go for drinks, but when she awakens she is on a train though she is unsure how she got on it. However, the biggest shock of all is to learn she looks so much like missing cousin Ruli, they could have been twins. Alec wants her to pretend to be Ruli so he can find her.

Told by the third generation American, this is an exciting at times jocular but always action-packed thriller as Kim digs up her roots in Europe. Fast-paced, fans will enjoy the heroine’s European adventure as she is 200 proof American believing she can do anything while also being facetious and irreverent when she is drugged, abducted, and confronting family ghosts. This is her tale as the rest of the cast supports her escapades as a young brash American trashes her kidnapper and taunts the spirits that haunt her and her family.

Harriet Klausner

Noise
Darin Bradley
Spectra (Random House), Aug 31 2010, $14.00
ISBN: 9780553386226

When the country converts from analog to digital, Salvage broadcasts underground stations in the lower frequency airwaves. It tells the populace what to do to survive in the face of the collapsing society and the words are bound in the Book. In the college town of Slade, Texas, best friends Hiram and Adam collect the wisdom of the Salvage so they can be ready when the collapse of American civilization occurs.

The predicted Event happens leaving America rudderless as the country declares bankruptcy and the government loses all control. The Narrator calls himself Hiram and Adam renames himself Levi. They gather other people amongst the homeless of the dead society to go to Amaranth. It is an isolated place where they will be safe. Other groups join them on the bloody journey to the Promised Land.

Reminiscent of the Lord of the Flies merged with Deliverance, Noise is a deep look at civilization spinning out of control into anarchy before leading to a rebirth. The cast is solid with plenty of violence and gore. This makes the aftermath effort to get to Amaranth feel plausible. Darin Bradley writes an entertaining futuristic cautionary thriller as out of the death of America rises the Phoenix of a new order.

Harriet Klausner

Hero
Cheryl Brooks
Sourcebooks, Aug 1 2010, $7.99
www.sourcebooks.com
ISBN: 9781402229411

Since his brother Tychar found his soul mate (see Rogue), Trag the Zetithian is depressed though he feels great for his sibling as he wants the same thing for himself. An outlaw on many planets, he is careful even when he offers to pay for sex; his talent insures he never has to remit any money as women find him to be the sexual encounter of a lifetime. Still he dreams of meeting a female especially from his now destroyed species, but fears no soulmate exists for him. He is especially despondent when he is with his few surviving male brethren (including his brother) as each has found their females.

Micayla leaves her home world of Earth for the first time in her life. She feels lonely but accepts a truism that men or women don’t turn her on and that somehow she is different than her family and friends. That changes in an instant gut changing observation of the back of a stranger who she finds desiring. However, when she meets the hunk who she wants, instead of jumping Trag’s bones as her inclination screams inside her, she rips his skin off blaming him for her unwanted desire.

While the overarching story line involving the pandemic destruction of a race and their planet moves forward with insight into who committed the atrocity, the latest Zetithian science fiction romance also contains the most powerful Cat Stars Chronicles coupling to date. That says a lot as previous tales like Fugitive, Rogue, and Slave are excellent. Readers will relish this pairing of two of the universe’s loneliest people; as Micayla makes Trag dance the Macarena to snare his soulmate.

Harriet Klausner

Blameless
Gail Carriger
Orbit, Sep 1 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9780316074155

Lady Alexia Maccon is a soulless, forever denied an eternal home because she was born without a soul; her touch renders supernaturals (vampires and werewolves) human for a period of time. She is the only known female soulless and her husband Scottish Earl Maccon, a werewolf, denounced her and tossed her out of his pack because she is pregnant. He knows the fetus is not his as werewolves cannot procreate so she obviously cheated. She is fuming at her spouse as she knows that she was only with him.

Alexia returns to her parents’ home in England and they are upset because of the scandal she caused; which she notices does not include her spouse. When they learn she is pregnant, they throw her out as they know she cuckolded her husband as werewolves cannot procreate.

In London, vampires try to kill her and ladybugs attack her so she flees to the continent where the supernatural are uninterested in human affairs. She ends up in Florence captured by the Knights Templar because she can be a weapon. However, when they learn of her condition and what she might give birth to they want her dead. Only a miracle can save her and her unborn as everyone she encounters fears the abomination she carries.

The third Parasol Protectorate tale (see Soulless and Changeless) is an action-packed, at times amusing, but always suspenseful historical urban fantasy. Readers will root for the intrepid unsinkable heroine who does not adhere to Victorian societal rules. Usually mild mannered, only her husband can raise her ire, which leads to her landing in out of control dangerous scenarios. This alternate Victorian world is an enthralling thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Heiress to a Curse
Zandria Munson
Harlequin Nocturne, Aug 2010, $5.25
ISBN: 9780373618415

In the sixteenth century in Romania, a witch placed a curse on the Drakon family that turn each one into gargoyles. Centuries later Marius Drakon knows he is next to change unless he can earn the trust of the witch’s descendent and then kill her.

Twenty-nine days remain before his conversion. Marius meets reporter Alexandra and knows he must make her believe in him before he murders her. There is only one problem, he is attracted to her. She is working a child abduction case in which he joins her. When she learns who he is and what he must do, she is heartbroken as she loves him. As they trust in their love, they fight off his family who see her death as redemption and seek another way to overcome the curse.

This is a great romantic urban fantasy due to the apparent star-crossed lovers as each understands the curse. The first Hearts of Stone story line is fast-paced from the moment they meet and never slows down as his days tick away. Readers will need to set aside time for this fabulous thriller as Zandria Munson provides a strong tale that means little if any nocturnal sleep.

Harriet Klausner

Lord of the Desert
Nina Bruhns
Harlequin Nocturne, Aug 2010, $5.25
ISBN: 9780373618408

The Kilpatrick family hires historian Gillian Halliday to find the grave of their ancestor, English lord Lieutenant Rhys Kilpatrick. He died over a century ago in the Nubian Desert of Egypt. As Gillian follows clues she is taken aback to what they lead her to.

Instead of a tomb, she encounters the breathing Rhys who remains alive though he vanished one hundred and twenty five years ago. Shapeshifting Rhys explains that he serves immortal vampire demigod high priest Seth-Aziz, a five millennia being, as he has for decades. When Rhys and Gillian fall in love, he risks everything to be with her even when his owner demands he turns the woman over to him. Their only hope is to find her mother, who vanished twenty years ago.

Placing a vampire romance inside of Egyptian mythology, Nina Bruhns provides romantic fantasy fans will a great read. The Immortal Sheikhs story line is fast-paced from the moment the star-crossed lovers meet and never slows down for an instant. Lord of the desert is a winner as fans will root for the lead couple as they go up against impossible odds with love their strongest yet also weakest weapon.

Harriet Klausner

Ghost of a Chance
Simon R. Green
Ace, Aug 31 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9780441019168

In a deserted supermarket in Bath, England are the Ghost Finder agents powerful in magic JC Chance, technological geek who disdains magic Melody Chambers, and telepath Happy Jack Palmer. The place is haunted and between psi and tech skills, they locate a stone age settlement miles beneath the parking lot. A woman’s murder led to the haunting, but they obtain justice and dispatch the victim to the next plane and malevolence lingering from ancient times is destroyed.

Shortly afterward, the team, who are part of the Carnacki Institute, is summoned to meet with their boss. A massive supernatural event occurred at London’s Oxford Circus Tube Station. The team is to learn what supernatural essence caused the incident, kick its butt, and send it back to whatever hell it calls home. They realize “it” is a Power so potent no one can defeat it. Adding to their difficulty is two dark arts practitioners from the Crowley Institute; the mission of these operatives is to kill the three Carnacki agents. When they comprehend that the otherworldly entity can terraform the planet into its environs, the adversarial pair of earth groups unite though none of the five field operatives believe they have a ghost of a chance to prevent the extinction of their world.

The newest series from urban fantasy grand mage Simon R. Green is as good as the Nightside and the Secret Histories sagas. Each of the three Carnacki heroes have their own personalities, which feel believable as they fight the supernatural; their human enemies become frenemies because they may practice dark magic but are not suicidal as they do not want to be devoured by otherworldly powers. Filled with action, no one turns London into a horror-fantasy playground better than Mr. Green consistently does as the city has a Ghost of a Chance of surviving the writer’s latest magical mayhem.

Harriet Klausner

Dust
Joan Frances Turner
Ace, Sep 7 2010, $24.95
ISBN: 9780441019281

After not buckling her seatbelt, she died at fifteen in a car accident and was interred in a zone void of humans. She wakes up inside her coffin and though she has only one good arm as her right was almost severed off in the accident, she pushes her way out of the coffin and digs through the dirt. The teen immediately knows what she is: a revenant (zombie) and joins a pack of her kind. They live in a human-free zone where they hunt animals for food.

Jessie is an undead who does not suffer from zombie amnesia as she remembers her previous mortal life though nine years have passed since she passed. She has feelings for those she considers family (past and present) though humans lock them away with putting electrical security fences their homes as if they were illegal immigrants and the police have standing orders to kill at first sight. However an inexplicable plague arises like none before as this pandemic disease can kill human and revenant. If a miracle cure is not found soon, both species will go way of the dinosaur turning into fossils and Dust.

This is a first rate urban fantasy that “humanizes” zombies who are not mindless shark like predators, but a different sentient life form with feelings for others. Jessie is a strong willed resolute soul who thrives on coping with whatever splitter fastball life throws at her head. Readers will root for her while enjoying Joan Frances Turner’s sensual revamping of zombie fever.

Harriet Klausner

Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege
Karen Miller
Del Rey, Jul 6 2010, $16.00
ISBN: 9780345509000

Strategically, the planet Lanteeb is a nothing microdot in the Outer Rim; far from anything of minor significance. Yet for some unknown reason in the minds of the Republic, the Separatist Alliance has invaded this meaningless orb. Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker travel undercover to learn why.

The truth lies with research scientist Bant’ena Fhernan, who is being held captive by Separatists demanding she work on a super virus to cause a pandemic never seen before. To fuel this biological weapon of mass destruction, the Separatists require damotite found deep in the mines on Lanteeb. Thus Separatist General Lok Durd and his force enslave the beleaguered locals. He also knows Jedi are on the planet and hunts for them with pleasure while the prey are alone as the natives cannot risk helping them and their communication with their allies are severed by the their adversaries.

The second book in the Gambit duology (see Stealth) is an exhilarating Star Wars entry as Obi-Wan and Anakin risk their lives to prevent a pandemic disaster that could leave the Republic teetering on the brink of extinction. Fascinatingly the audience sees deep inside Skywalker as he struggles with the end justifying the mean pondering “The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic” (Stalin) since the Lanteebians may have to be sacrificed for the rest of the Republic. Fast-paced and loaded with action, readers will enjoy this solid military science fiction in spite of being somewhat similar in tone to its predecessor with the heroic Jedi Knights going beyond exhaustion with no aid in sight and everyone after them, but ironically should read Stealth first to understand the set up..

Harriet Klausner