Dracula in Love
Karen Essex
Anchor Books (Random House), Jul 5 2011, $14.95
ISBN: 9780767931229

After reading Stoker’s account of her relationship with Count Dracula, Mina Harker decides the author failed to obtain the truth or more likely revise what happened. The Count has been Mina’s lover though she is unaware of this in their present relationship and that he would willingly die permanently for her.

In 1890 London, the human men in her life feel she is a porcelain doll needing their protection. She loathes the gilded cage her husband Jonathan keeps her inside of abetted by obsessed by Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward. They are inane Victorian males who are wrong. Instead she and her dearest Count are in love as her supernatural powers begin to rival that of her beloved.

This entertaining retelling of the classic horror tale has a strong-willed Mina relate her interpretation of what occurred in England. In her mind, Dracula is the hero and her so called protectors the villains. Character driven, the plot is turned upside down as Mina sees the doctors and others assuming they know what is best for her, which is contrary to what she believes is best for her. Vampire romance fans will enjoy Dracula In Love as Mina tells her version of her passionate relationship with her Count and the murderous intruders who interfered.

Harriet Klausner

Conspiracies
Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill
Tor, Jul 5 2011, $10.99
ISBN: 9780765317629

Teenager Spirit White attends the Oakhurst Academy for orphans with magical skills where they train to fight in a war against an alleged evil. She and her new friends (Burke, Lachlan, Muirin and Adelaide) recently defeated the Wild Hunt (see Legacies).

Though still grieving the deaths of her family in a car accident before she was enrolled at Oakhurst and feeling survivor guilt because of her doubts about what really happened to cause the deadly tragedy, Spirit and her BFFs look forward to time off to shop during the winter holidays. However, something feels off to her, but her buddies ignore her warnings except to ridicule her as alumni have taken charge of security. The only one who believes what Spirit says is the new lunatic student who insists the war between Arthur and Mordred has come to Oakhurst. When the homicides begin waking up everyone, Spirit fears it is too late.

The second young teen Shadow Grail urban fantasy (see Legacies) is an engaging thriller starring an angry despondent anti Potter teen whose inner rage brings realism to the mix. For the most part the story line is fast-paced though it drags when relationships are explored with one late twist adding depth. Although her BFFs still remain out of the DC Teen Titan handbook, fans will want to attend the Sadie Hawkins Dance at eerie Oakhurst Academy.

Harriet Klausner

Never Cry Wolf
Cynthia Eden
Kensington/Brava, Jul 1 2011, $14.00
ISBN 9780758242150

A charmer reads the thoughts of animals, Sarah King flees vicious werewolf Rafe Santiago. She was undercover for the Feds as Rafe’s lover but he uncovered her identity.

Knowing Rafe and his pack seek her out and distrusting her agency the FBI as she does not know who she can rely on, Sarah turns to the man who killed her ex-lover’s father, the Alpha of the Los Angeles werewolf pack Lucas Simone, for safety though he lingers in jail on murder charges. Her theory is her enemy’s enemy is her friend. She gets him out of jail on bail, but Lucas distrusts her motives as he believes she has an agenda beyond just asking for his protection though to his chagrin he is attracted to her. Rafe has waited a long time to avenge his father’s death and with a betrayal inside his adversary’s pack, the time is now to kill Lucas and maybe Sarah.

The latest Cynthia Eden romantic urban fantasy is an exhilarating thriller filled with lust, lies, and traitors. Readers will understand why the lead triangle trusts no one as perfidy is the norm, leading to a wonderful twisting plot as fans will ponder whose side Sarah is on?

Harriet Klausner

The Plain Man
Steve Englehart
Tor, Jun 21 2011, $25.99
ISBN: 9780765324993

Many people thought Cheney ran the country during the Bush 43 presidency. However, that would be far from the truth. Instead the FRC cabal was in charge as Bush and Cheney were their puppets. With the election of Obama, the FRC had a few months to keep their power in place by strategically planting operatives in key federal positions. Seemingly as of June 2009 the right wing cabal succeeded.

Their only opposition comes from alchemists like timeless mortal Max August and Pam Blackwell. Max obtains reliable information from his computer hacking guru Dave that two of the nine heads of FRC (Michael Sainan and Diana Herring) are attending the Wickr festival in Arizona for a forbidden tryst. His plan is for him and Blackwell to use honey to get one of the leaders to betray the others. However, the FRC has a different scheme to force obedience as they understand domestic terrorism being behind much of it. They plan to blow up a nearby nuclear waste facility as a warning to those in the new Administration and concealed alchemists to obey; if millions will die so be it.

The latest August political science fiction thriier with fantasy elements (see The Point Man and The Long Man) is an entertaining thriller that will remind readers of Steve Englehart’s comic book work on Doc Savage. The story line is faster than a speeding Superman as time is running out on mortal Max and his sidekick. Although the villains seem interchangeable, fans will enjoy the battles in Arizona and on a mystical plain, and the references to the Matrix of modern America.

Harriet Klausner

The White Devil
Justin Evans
Harper, May 10 2011, $24.99
ISBN 9780061728273

Due to heroin use, seventeen years old Andrew Taylor is expelled from elite Frederick Williams Academy, a Connecticut prep school catering to the affluent. His father provides an exorbitant gift to Harrow in England, which gets Andrew into the school. Andrew is excited over one thing, the Housemaster Sir Alan Vine’s daughter Persephone.

Andrew is at a nearby cemetery on Harrow-on-the-Hill when he witnesses the murder of a student Theo Ryder who resided in the rundown haunted Lot dorm. The culprit is a gaunt skeletal person wearing a very old style frock coat. Feeling ill Andrew suffers from nightmares. He also learns that an emaciated person looking like the killer appeared in a performance of John Webster’s The White Devil at Harrow in 1803. At the same time, he struggles with what his senses imply; Andrew plays Byron in acrimonious alcoholic housemaster Piers Fawkes’s play because the American looks like the late romantic era poet. However, the American exiled teen begins to assimilate Byron’s exotic life while tuberculosis spreads amidst those at the school and the bizarre takes control of Andrew’s section of Harrow.

The connection between the modern day and the romantic period is clever as Byron’s “true” love ties the American with the late poet in this harrowing haunted school story. Although requiring a leap of faith over Big Ben as too many of the cast easily accepts the existence of a ghost, readers will enjoy this spooky fast-paced tale of an American attending Harrow.

Harriet Klausner

The Crippled God
Steven Erikson
Tor, Mar 1 2011, $19.99
ISBN: 9780765316561

What is left of the Bonehunters Army of the Malazan Empire is a battered unit who were devastated by the Chain Nah’Ruk. Their resolute leader Adjunct Tavore Paran knows the morale of her soldiers is mutinous as most want to go home to die. However, though she expects treachery and assassination from within, she relentlessly marches on with one last prayer that she hopes grasps victory from certain defeat.

She understands humanity has to prevent the pandemic annihilation by the Forkrul Assail Elder Gods, who plan species cleansing through the liberation of Korabas the Otataral Dragon. The only chance Paran and company have resides with another deity. Paran and her army must liberate The Forgotten God, imprisoned by the Elder Gods for over 15,000 millennia. The Adjunct like the Watch expect to die, as Paran knows even if they somehow succeed to free the Crippled God, they still have no binds to control the enraged deity.

Although it behooves the newcomer to have read the decade in the making ten book saga, at a minimum the audience needs to peruse the previous tale (see The Dust of Dreams) as that is the pre-set up (The Crippled God has a lengthy set-up anyway) to the ending novel. Loaded with action, fans will enjoy the climax once Steven Erikson starts the final days. Once again the theme is a person’s heart as symbolized by courageous Paran who offers nothing to make her an extemporary leader except her soul. She and her everyman soldiers, though they will be forgotten by history as no minstrels will recall their names, are the heroes of the wars declared by elder armchair leaders.

Harriet Klausner

Demon Marked
Anna J. Evans
Signet, Jan 4 2011, $14.00
ISBN: 9780451232106

Emma Quinn was Demon Marked as a child. To survive, Emma gains sustenance from the life forces of others. She chooses victims who are abusive and cruel to others.

In the wee hours of the morning at the Demon’s Breath bar and Grill south of the 14th Street barricade in Manhattan, Emma feeds off of a Death Ministry gang member, but he dies probably by her siphoning away too much of his life force. The gang comes after her with a vendetta as no one lives after killing one of their members. She flees hoping her sister Sam’s Conti Mafiosi in-laws will help her. Their lawyer Andre Conti offers his assistance, but she has never trusted outsiders yet also is attracted to the attorney who does not believe in her powers.

The second Demon Bound romantic urban fantasy is a terrific thriller that has a different type of intensity but contains the same level of passion as Sam’s starring role in Shadow Marked. Emma and Andre are polar opposites who deal with the gangbangers and their attraction. Fast-paced from the opening over siphoning until the final altercation, fans will enjoy roaming Anna J. Evans’ dark vision of lower Manhattan.

Harriet Klausner

Eternal Flame
Cynthia Eden
Kensington Brava, Dec 1 2010, $14.00
ISBN: 9780758242136

In New Orleans, Night Watch Zane Wynter rescues a female from a fiery death; he was unable to save the other occupant vampire serial killing demon Henry Jacobson who he came to arrest. Zane kisses the vamp’s bitch he rescued. His mistake was not realizing who and what she is as she took out a malevolent demon and destroyed the evidence. Using an ambulance she leaves the murder scene.

Zane’s boss Pak believes an Ignitor set this flame and several others that killed the supernatural. Pak assigns Zane his best bounty hunter who can handle the fire to capture the serial killing Ignitor. Abashed as he was duped, Zane goes after Jana Carter who flees for Baton Rouge. Zane actually feels sorry for Jana; as he shares a similar horrific upbringing being forced to kill to survive as a half-breed demon-human child. However, he will do his duty. Instead he joins her flight from a deadly secretive cartel whose goal is the genocide of all monsters. What neither knows is that the group wanting them dead has plans to use Jana as a weapon of mass destruction to murder the Others before killing her.

This is an exhilarating Others urban fantasy (see Eternal Hunter) as two obstinate individuals play a deadly game of cat and mouse unaware that in the shadows lurks a deadlier predator manipulating both of them in a bigger game. The story line is fast-paced and filled with action from the first scream of help by the vamp’s bitch and never slows down as the couple must trust one another to watch their back or die, which may happen anyway. Although the romance feels more of a sub-genre requirement that is forced into the plot; readers will enjoy the gender war of survival between the Ignitor and the Night Watch enforcer.

Harriet Klausner

The Wolf Age
James Enge
PYR, Nov 9 2010, $17.00
ISBN 9781616142438

By nature an extreme pessimist who in spite of his adept skills knows he cannot live up to the legend of his father except when he is intoxicated. Enchanter Morlock Ambrosius wonders what else could go wrong as nothing seems to be going his way. In the werewolf city-state of Wuruyaaria, he figures he hit rock bottom when he is confined in a prison inside Vargulleion, a werewolf fortress. Morlock soon learns he has not bottomed out when he is forced to kill another inmate who attacked him.

His new cell mate is Rokhlenu the werewolf, whose life he once saved. They become friends watching each other’s back in the dangerous dungeons. However, Morlock also struggles with his sanity as the glass spike pounded into his head blocks his Sight leading to out of control paranoid rages. Working together, the pair escapes, but being on the outside in a city boiling over with angry werewolves divided in strife during an election year proves more dangerous than lock up.

Making last summer’s Tea Party look like tea partiers, The Wolf Age is an excellent political fantasy as James Enge paints balloting skewered by the sword and claw; making Wuruyaaria seem worse than 1850s Bleeding Kansas and that of 2008 violent Kenya. The taut story line is character driven by the honor of blood werewolf voters as democracy proves deadly. With morose Morlock as the guide (see Blood of Ambrose and This Crooked Way), readers will appreciate the dark, grim and gloomy portrayal of democracy.

Harriet Klausner

Venom
Jennifer Estep
Pocket, Sep 28 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9781439148013

In Ashland former assassin Spider turned restaurant owner Gin Blanco hides her Stone and Ice magic as she keeps a low profile after killing an associate of the deadly Fire Elemental Mab Monroe. However, she still loathes Mab for murdering her family seventeen years ago and remains dedicated to killing her enemy.

Recently to her shock, Gin has found out that her sister Bria, who she thought died in the massacre, is alive. Gin wants to tell Ashland Police Detective Bria Coolidge that they are siblings, but their respective occupations make her hesitate especially with her plan to destroy her family’s killer. Meanwhile Mab’s prime enforcer gigantic Elliot Slater stalks vampire Roslyn Phillips. To keep Roslyn safe may mean putting her own life at risk from Slater’s humongous fists and delay implementation of her vengeance scheme.

The latest urban fantasy Elemental Assassin saga (see Spider’s Bite and Web of Lies) is a great entry as the killer heroine learns her baby sister is alive, but ironically a cop. Loaded with action from the opening Slater fists to the finish, the key to this exciting thriller is the paranormal seems genuine due to little touches; for instance Gin recovers from the flu. Readers will be engaged with Venom as Gin returns for another exciting elemental escapade.

Harriet Klausner