My Man Michael
Lori Foster
Berkley, Feb 2009, $7.99
ISBN: 9780425226292

Twenty-six years old Michael “Mallet” Manchester is a month away from his SBC title shot that he and most pundits believe he will win. That was before the car accident left his right leg mangled, his fighting career over, and since he knows nothing else he is moping and bitter. He believes his life is over.

Kayle Raine enters his hospital room calling him a loser as a warrior never mopes regardless of the conditions of her limbs. She offers him an intriguing deal. Though Mallet believes he must be hallucinating from the pain medicine, he accepts her transaction; she will heal his injuries in exchange he will go back to the future with her people have become weak couch potatoes. She hides her real mission in taking him to 2220, which is his mating with a woman; but the rules forbid Kayle from being that lucky female.

This is an entertaining major twist to Lori Foster’s SBC contemporary romances as the story line is a fascinating futuristic science fiction romance. Mallet is fabulous as he goes from total sulking ready to withdraw from life to stunned champion. Though the early twenty-third century does not seem quite real (could it be his drugs?), fans will relish the love between the rescuer and the rescued if they can each overcome their inadequacy fears.

Harriet Klausner

Mortal Sins
Eileen Wilks
Berkley, Feb 2009, $7.99
ISBN: 9780425225523

FBI Agent Lily Yu and her soulmate California’s Nokolai clan werewolf Rule Turner are in North Carolina planning to bring home his son, Toby, who lives with his grandma. While on a wolf run near the Lediolf clan’s home, he smells death. He follows the scent to a grave containing three corpses and the lingering infection of death magic.

Since Agent Lily is already at the crime scene, she is put in charge of the official investigation. Another “death magic” homicide occurs; leading Lily to believe that something new at least to her is the serial killer. Werewolf sorcerer Cullen tells Lily someone has created a deadly wraith, but offers no clues how ends the reign of terror.

The latest Agent Yu “Mortal” urban fantasy police procedural is refreshed by the family element and by a unique serial killer who the FBI operative, her werewolf significant other and the sorcerer have no earthly idea how to defeat it. Thus solving the whodunit turns out relatively easy while solving how to prevent further deaths proves seemingly impossible. Eileen Wilks provides a strong entry in her Yu thrillers (see MORTAL DANGER).

Harriet Klausner

Night’s Pleasures
Amanda Ashley
Zebra, Feb 2009, $6.99
ISBN: 082178062X

Journalist Savanah Gentry first met the magician when she was a little girl and her late single dad took her to watch him perform as the Remarkable Renaldo. Sixteen years later he still works the small town circuit but calls himself Santoro the Magnificent. In the Northern California audience he recognizes Savanah who somehow seems to follow his shows. Savanah wants to interview the magician, but though he wants her and has for years, vampire Rane Cordova has avoided his need to taste her blood. This time when she waits for him, he surprises both of them by asking her out.

Humanity has achieved universal peace until Vampires and Weres each believed they should run the earth so they finally went to war to decide who would rule (see NIGHT’S MASTER). Their fragile ceasefire is teetering as both sides seek the hunter who possesses a special reference book that lists all vampires. Savanah inherited the tome from her late mom, a renowned vampire hunter. Rane keeps her safe even as they fall in love.

This is an exciting paranormal romantic suspense starring star-crossed lovers as he is vampire and she’s a slayer. The story line starts off at hyperspeed, get a bit anemic in the middle, but accelerates to the finish. Fans will enjoy this fine urban romantic fantasy as the paranormal species and Amanda Ashley’s alternate earth seem real.

Harriet Klausner

Deathwish
Rob Thurman
Roc, Mar 2009, $ 7.99
ISBN: 0451462629

Cal Leandros is half-human and half-Auphe; he looks human, but has the power to move about space and dimensions so he can travel from one plane to another. He denies his Auphe heritage and does not look in the slightest like the pointed ears, pale skin, razor claws and crimson eyes of that evil species. Mortals know the Auphe as elves from mythology. They want Cal but he and his brother Niko defeated their efforts to snatch him. Soon eighteen more arrive; Cal notices they are all females, which worries Niko as he thinks the enemy has switched tactics from muscle to something worse.

While trying to figure out how get rid of the latest infestation Cal and Niko are handed a case by the latter’s vampire lover Promise. Her former lover Seamus the vampire feels someone is stalking him and he wants the brothers, who have opened up a preternatural private investigator firm, to find out who and why. They learn the Vigil who clean up supernatural messes are watching the flamboyant vampire; they feel he is coming close to exposing himself to humans. Their mission is to keep humans and monsters separated. While the siblings deal with these two problems, a third issue surfaces. Promise’s daughter Cherish the thief and con artist stole something from a monster who is in town to retrieve it. Between the Auphe, the Vigil, and the theft, the siblings feel they are back in the MADHOUSE.

This is an excellent urban fantasy due to the two brothers, who love one another and will do whatever it takes to keep their sibling safe. Readers will feel the story line is moving at the speed of light as the Leandros brothers move from one escapade to another adventure without a respite. Told in the first person rotating chapters between Cal and Niko, fans know up front and in person what motivates each of them. They make a great team as they battle against overwhelming odds leaving the audience to root for them to succeed and wait for their next misadventures.

Harriet Klausner

The Warlord’s Daughter
Susan Grant
Harlequin HQN, Feb 2009, $ 6.99
ISBN: 0373773617

The two powerful civilizations are on the brink of the final battle to determine who will dominate the galaxy. The brutal Draaken Empire informs Battlelord Aral Mawdarr that none of the Coalition fleet is to get past the Warlord’s Flotilla. However, he has switched alliances and plans to see the end of the brutal empire that his father worships as a man of power. Aral expects his award will be THE WARLORD’S DAUGHTER, Awrenkka promised to him as his bride ten years ago when she was thirteen.

His treachery works leaving the Warlord dead, but the offspring in danger as everyone wants her; the Draaken to begin a revival while the Coalition to end that revival; even earth is interested in her. Forging a Triad, they seek her while Aral also searches for his vanished fiancée, who plans to destroy a mythical treasure to keep it out of the hands of any warrior regardless of loyalties. That was her intention until she reconsiders when Aral finds his Wren.

The latest Borderlands military science fiction romance (see MOONSTRUCK, YOUR PLANET OR MINE, MY FAVORITE EARTHLING, and HOW TO LOSE AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL IN 10 DAYS) is a terific entry as betrayal for various reasons is the norm. Aral is a fascinating character who has played the dangerous game of traitor for several years while inside the inner most advisory circle to the Warlord; his stealth skill might seem implausible but espionage cases like Ames and Walker prove otherwise. In many ways Wren is the more intriguing protagonist as she goes from total isolation to being the most wanted person in the galaxy. Fans of the Draaken-Coalition War will enjoy the latest saga as the battles may be over for now, but the hostility remains heated.

Harriet Klausner

End of the Century
Chris Roberson
Pyr, Jan 2009, $15.00
9781591026976

In 498 a bizarre vision sends Galaad journeying to Caer Llundain. In 2000, American teenager Alice Fell suffers from epilepsy; during her seizures she has strange dreams that send her to London in 2000. In 1897, Detective Sandford Blank and his partner Roxanne Bonaventure investigate brutal serial killings.

Fifteen centuries apart yet all three people share much in common. There are three eras including Camelot, late Victorian and contemporary as diverse individuals struggle with visions that make no sense to any of them.

Compelling from the onset, but not easy to follow especially when the timelines “converge”, END OF THE CENTURY is a complex somewhat convoluted thriller that brings the past, present and future together in the space-time continuum. The bewilderment of the prime players make each feel genuine as they struggle to understand what is going on yet they sense the time has come but not what or why. With a story line that is fascinating but paradoxically not fast-paced, set aside plenty of time to read this engaging multifaceted thriller.
Harriet Klausner

The Vast White
Jason Walters
Blackwyrm, Jan 1 2009, $11.95
www.blackwyrm.com
ISBN: 9780982006702

In Northern al-Muttaqiina Mountains bordering on the Vast White in the Year of Ascension 327, the Sultanate and the Etrisian Empire prepare for war over who annexes the Spice Cities into their monarchy. Both sides covet Salt, the unconquered Spice City that neither has been able to bring under their rule. The winner of this battle will invade the city that has never been occupied by outsiders.

Padisha the Sultan has his army of Bedune units growing; each new arrival comes with his camel herd to show off his worth. On the other side of the upcoming battle is the Etrisian forces led by Horsehead the terror wizard who recently destroyed the Spice city Saffron. Murdering mercenary Highdome, leader of the Red Regiment of killers, mutants and monsters, observes his leader Horsehead patiently waiting as if he wants more of his enemy in his way.

Both sides release new magics to totally annihilate their opposition. Neither considered the consequences of sorcery on the edge of the Vast White. Both sides soon find monster issues as the suddenly awakening Vast White ignites in retaliation. Horsehead and his Red Regiment struggle to survive the raging expanding desert with no hope except perhaps unleashing the uncontrollable Murderer’s Edge force not knowing the subsequent consequences, if they can even perform this seemly impossible task, may prove worse than the raging assault of the awakened Vast White.

Part of the fascination with this exciting military fantasy is there is no hint of a concept of good and bad warring. Instead survival not necessarily of the fittest is what the war turns into. The Red Regiment is an intriguing group as murdering misfits must band together whether they are monsters, mutants or mortals if they want to stay alive once the Vast White begins its “cleansing” of the Sultanate and Etrisian forces. Narrated by roguish Highdome, the audience mostly obtains his viewpoint of what is going wrong. Fans will enjoy this entertaining tale though the print copy contains a very small font size that detracts from the enjoyment.

Harriet Klausner

A Drop of Red
Chris Marie Green
Ace, Mar 2009, $15.00
ISBN: 9780441016815

Limpet and Associates have traveled to England to wipe out another vampire underground. Many centuries ago, Costin exchanged blood with a man who made a deal with the devil; like a bloody Ponzi scheme, he turned his closest advisors into master vampires who go out and create armies. So when he wakes up from a centuries-long sleep, he has soldiers around the world waiting to do his bidding. Cortin hated what he has become and merged his consciousness with the body o f Jonah Limpet to destroy these underground pockets; praying his soul will be returned to him.

Muscular Hollywood stuntwoman Dawn Madison is believed to be the “key” to Costin regaining paradise lost by destroying the underground vampire units as he did in Los Angeles (see the first Vampire Babylon trilogy). The Romanian psychic Natalia who hears the dead joins the Limpet group and, Dawn finally accepts her. The group learns about young teens attending the Queenshill School in St. Alban’s. They were turned by a master who is training them to take their places in the underground’s main hive. The new vamps love night stalking searching for bodies to drink from and mutilate. They are confident that no one can defeat them, but Dawn and her crew are going to test that premise.

This is the start of the second Vampire Babylon trilogy saga and it is radically different from its excellent predecessor though as superb. The key is the California and England undergrounds are dramatically dissimilar from one another as are the creatures of the night. Dawn remains somewhat uncomfortable in her role, but has adapted mentally; she was already strong before her new task so physically her adjustment was easier. A DROP OF RED is urban fantasy at its best; filled with interesting characters and a fast-paced story line in which death has several outcomes but is always a bite away.

Harriet Klausner

Blood and Ice
Robert Masello
Bantam, Feb 2009, $24.00
ISBN: 0553807285

In 1856 British 17th Lancers Lieutenant Sinclair Copley and Florence Nightingale’s Harley Street Hospital Nurse Eleanor Ames are in love. However, on the 28th of December the pair falls overboard from the HMS Coventry sloop in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. Neither body is found.

In November of the present in Seattle, writer Michael Wilde needs time away from to escape a tragedy that haunts his sleep since he lost his beloved Kristin who lies in a coma; her residence being that ward of Tacoma General Hospital. Whereas her parents believe she will soon come home; he knows she is no longer there as in his mind her soul moved on. Thus he accepts an assignment from Eco-Travel Magazine to write an article on Point Adelie Research Station in Antarctica. Michael finds two bodies frozen in a block of ice; each chained. Shockingly once the ice is melted, Sinclair and Eleanor are alive.

This excellent paranormal thriller hooks the audience even before the rescue as both the present and past rotate somewhat perspective with each subplot fascinating. The story line is fast-paced and filled with chills; not all from the weather conditions as readers and Michael need to know the facts re the mysterious nineteenth century couple for personal reasons perhaps more than simple curiosity.

Harriet Klausner

Call of Chaos
Carol Hightshoe
Double Dragon, Jul 2008
ISBN: 1554045983

Kyrianna Dalynne was climbing a wall when she is caught by her brother a guard. He wanted to let her go free, but others arrive. Her father keeps her out of prison, but also throws her out of his home.

While traveling in a forest a fog engulfs her and a voice demands she find the Artifact of Order and Chaos. Not one to follow orders, Kyrianna ends up with other women at the temple of Thynitic, The Lady of Chaos knowing she is captive as those who guard the portals tell the females they will be freed once they locate the ancient artifact. Kyrianna wonders why she, as a nonentity daughter of a nothing Kilenter noble, is being used to search for the relic. Once they succeed on their mission with retrieving the artifact, they are all set free.

Though no longer stuck in a portal at the temple, Kyrianna knows her hosts did not return her to her home. She has no idea where she is when her fellow prisoners arrive as well soon after. In nearby Raspa, one of her formerly imprisoned peers is accused of murder leaving it up to Kyrianna and her sisters in arms to prove otherwise. Native Tristan Duvall, who has family issues involving demons that have kept him from his peerage, knows he must confront his dead blood kin, but offers to assist the outsiders in exchange for their ad with his paranormal relatives.

This is an entreating fantasy thriller starring a fascinating lead protagonist who would find heaven to be hell. The story line is action-packed, but feels choppy as Kyrianna leaps from one escapade to another in too rapid of a sequence. Still fans will enjoy following her adventures across worlds as she is an engaging rebel without a cause.

Harriet Klausner