Magic Unchained
Jessica Andersen
Signet, Apr 3 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9780451236425

Once a party animal adrenaline junkie, Sven the coyote mage Nightkeeper tracker has only one “friend” his coyote familiar Mac. As a teenager, her father bound Cara Liu to Sven as his winikin. She ended that unwanted relationship though she fell in love with Sven, who she knows always walks alone.

Under four months to go, Cara returns to lead the winikin as the Doomsday Clock is counting down. She knows how difficult her assignment is as the group is divided between the old and new. Additionally the fears and unpredictability of the end of days has devastated the bond between the winikin and Nightkeepers. Cara and Sven begin a tryst that could end the alliance between their respective groups. Worse they fail to realize the current threat comes from a betrayal within the ranks.

Magic Unchained is a great Nightkeepers urban fantasy (see Storm Kissed, Demonkeepers and Blood Spells) as time has nearly run out, yet the power struggle continues. The fast-paced storyline grips readers from the moment Cara comes to New Mexico and never slows down as the loner and the leader know they belong together while on the underground side of the barrier demons prepare for the inevitable. This series remains one of the sub-genre’s best.

Harriet Klausner

Chrysanthe
Yves Meynard
Tor, Mar 13 2012, $15.99
ISBN 9780765330260

Her Uncle told Christine when she was little that her Father was gone. Because of her violent tendencies she began seeing Dr. Almand. He persuaded her into believing her Father was abusive. At seventeen, Christine sees a young man hitting his brakes abruptly seemingly upon noticing her. Quentin of Lydia sends her note to meet him at Telzer Park. She knows who the author is and decides to confront him. Quentin says he searched for her for nine years as the lost Princess and heir to the throne of Chrysanthe. He explains she was kidnapped.

Quentin escorts Christine home. However, she loathes her sire King Edisthen, as she has the thoughts planted in her brain by Almand of her father sexually abusing and abandoning her. Christine also has an enemy lurking nearby; as Evered, who abducted her years ago, plots to take the throne that he believes is rightfully his. He refuses to accept the Law that deposed his father from the throne.

This is a complicated fantasy that philosophically questions what reality is. The fascinating storyline leisurely (and too poetical with so much darkness) peels away the false from the truth. Though none of the cast comes across fully developed as even the protagonist is limited to her flawed “memories”, fans who appreciate a metaphysical psychological thriller will ponder whether the truth is Christine’s implanted recollection since she believes them as being her own.

Harriet Klausner

Soul Bound
Mari Mancusi
Berkley, Mar 6 2012, $9.99
ISBN: 9780425245477

Identical twins Sunny and Rayne McDonald have totally opposite desires as one is all sun and the other is all rain. Rayne desperately wants to become a vampire; while Sunny wants to live a normal life. Due to Magnus the vampire biting Sunny instead of Rayne, the “wrong’ twin is changed. Drinking from the Holy Grail returns Sunny to normal. Sunny and Magnus are on the run because they disobeyed a direct order from Pyrus, who plots to control the Vampire Consortium and then the world.

Pyrus hires Slayer Inc. to bring him the treasonous duet. Slayer Inc. assigns Rayne and her boyfriend Jareth to capture Sunny and Magnus to deliver them to the Vampire Consortium. Rayne is distraught as she would do just anything for her sister, but failure to complete the mission means the deaths of all the Blood Coven vampires as well as herself and her boyfriend. Complicating matters for Rayne is when she learns another slayer with a grudge is on the hunt too. Her life turns even more hellish when a god orders her to choose between Sunny and Jareth.

The latest A Blood Coven Vampire urban fantasy (see Blood Ties) continues the bloody darker spin that started when the twins attended Night School in Switzerland. Rayne tells the tale as she faces increasingly impossible dilemmas that shake her inner soul. Her growing maturity (she has come a long way since Boys That Bite and Stake That) shines through the darkness as she struggles with choosing the lesser of two evils. This is a character driven, fast-paced exciting teen urban fantasy.

Harriet Klausner

Emperor Mollusk Vs. The Sinister Brain
A. Lee Martinez
Orbit, Mar 5 2012, $19.99
ISBN: 9780316093521

Throughout the solar system and beyond, Emperor Mollusk is perhaps the most hated creature ever with one exception; that inane third planet’s so called sentient species worship the retired former Warlord of Terra. However, the evil genius cannot relax in his retirement due boredom that rivaled his ennui when he ruled Earth.

Meanwhile assassins want to kill him and Venusian Intelligence sends Commander Zala and his guard to arrest Mollusk for crimes against Venusians when he invaded their planet. Realizing the Venusians provide a fascinating scenario, Mollusk cooperates with the arrest, but soon leads his captorrs on a bloody romp as he, his pet Snarg, and his new “allies” follow a trail set up by a brainy sinister enemy who takes no prisoners.

This is an amusing satirical spin on the save the universe science fiction thrillers. The storyline has a 1950s pulp fiction feel, but done so with a humorous wink. Fast-paced and entertaining even with knowing the twisted ending relatively early, fans will enjoy touring the solar system with the obnoxiously superior evil Neptunian emperor and the dedicated Venusian Commander.

Harriet Klausner

The Thirteen
Susie Moloney
Morrow, Mar 27 2012, $14.99
ISBN: 9780062117663

In Haven Woods, The Thirteen witches run the town. Each has sacrificed their soul to their Master in order to insure their family goals are achieved. When Bill Henderson dies in an accident, his wife Chick, one of the thirteen, grieves deeply before dying in an inferno, At about the same time, Chick dies, another coven member rebellious Audra Wittmore suffers a heart attack while a third witch Isadora Riley watches gleefully.

Izzy arranges for Audra’s “exiled” for over a dozen years daughter Paula to come home to care for her mom. Paula who has had bad luck since her banishment arrives back in haven Woods with her child twelve years old Rowan. The witch sisters need a thirteenth to sacrifice; their first choice is the granddaughter coming to town for the first time in her life.

With a darker nod to The Witches of Eastwick, the key to this super horror tale is the little things that make Haven Woods seem like a quiet safe suburb. However, beneath the beneath the family oriented veneer is a nasty place in which human sacrifice, demonic assaults and blood flow are the norm. Readers will relish The Thirteen as Susie Moloney provides a bewitching thriller.

Harriet Klausner

The Slayer
Theresa Meyers
Zebra, Apr 1 2012, $6.99
ISBN: 9781420121254

In 1883, although he was trained from childhood like his siblings (Remington – to follow and Colt – see The Hunter) Winchester Jackson prefers being the sheriff of Bodie, California than fighting vampires and demons. His Vampiric Imperial Majesty sends Lady Alexandra Porter to persuade Winn to work with her in retrieving a part of the Book of Legend that his sire hid decades ago.

Though he has doubts as his mantra has been the only good vampire is a dead vampire who cannot rise from the grave, Winn agrees to join Alexa on her mountainous quest in Transylvania to save her people. With steam gadgets created by brilliant inventor Marley Turlock to assist them on their journey, the pair confronts many adversaries demonic, vampiric; gizmos and mortal, but the most challenging is love.

The second Book of the Legends Chronicles is a terrific steampunk historical romance starring a western sheriff and a vampire battling a variety of paranormal and normal foes. Fast-paced from the moment Winn thinks he is rescuing a damsel in distress and never slows down as the twisting exciting storyline will prove a fan favorite with the only subtraction being the wait for Rem’s entry.

Harriet Klausner

Exogene
T.C. McCarthy
Orbit, Mar 1 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9780316128155

As the war between Russia and America continues unabated, both sides use genetic warrior exogenes. Imprinted in these lab-created teen killers is strict adherence to “faith and death”. These soldiers know deep in their DNA that death is their only path to honor and salvation.

Sixteen and half years old Catherine is a killing machine; the greatest lab produced soldier made in America. However, Catherine begins to doubt her suicidal mission as she wants to live. Her phobic fear of dying appears to be early ramifications of the “spoiling” that exogenes suffer when they reach their eighteenth birthday. Catherine flees her sisters in arms and takes a chance she will survive the spoiling though her creators insist that is impossible. She encounters Russian male genetically created soldiers, learns of the Russian Exogenic Enhancement and observes firsthand the folly of armchair warriors when she looks at the North Korean nuclear wasteland. As she struggles to control flashbacks of her violent past that leaves her vulnerable, Catherine wonders if her only choices are death, the Americans or the Russians; she loathes all three options.

Though filled with plenty action especially combat, the superb second Subterrene War military science fiction (see Germline) is a great character study as readers get inside the mind of a former zealot born again as a doubter. Ironically Catherine’s doubts are not about killing as that is wired into her brain; but instead she questions killing as a weapon of mass destruction deployed by fat cats rather than her selecting who her enemy is. With a profound look at organized governments and religions tenet to kill in God’s name as a stairway to heaven for expendable soldiers, readers will relish learning who Catherine is.

Harriet Klausner

Magic Without Mercy
Devon Monk
Roc, Apr 3 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9780451464484

In Portland, Hound Allie Beckstrom always was proud that she and her team rigidly adhered to the strict rules of the overseeing of magic Authority even when risking their lives and souls in support of the practitioners (see Magic at the Gate and Magic at the Hunt). However, to prevent a magical plague from spreading and end a serial killer’s reign of terror, Allie Beckstrom shot the new Authority Chief Bartholomew Wray (see Magic On The Line). Her dead dad keeps reminding her inside her head that she had no choice, but filled with Shame, Allie, her lover Zayvion Jones, and other friends have been declared outlaws for violating the rules even if their cause was just as the end never justifies the mean.

As Allie struggles with the Shame of the killing, she and her team elude the Authority and the cops while seeking a means to cleanse the poisoned magic and finally end the plague; the answer seems to rest with a lunatic. At the same, they must cope with the Veiled murdering people.

This is a great entry in a superior urban fantasy series, as conscientious Allie knows logically she did the right thing with Wray, but emotionally feels Shame as she broke the Authority rules, which run deep in her brain. Fast-paced and loaded with action, fans will relish this direct sequel (need to have read at least Magic On The Line) as guilt wracked Allie and her cohorts struggle with doing the right thing as hostilities turn heated with the doomsday clock striking the midnight hour.

Harriet Klausner

Assassin’s Code
Jonathan Maberry
Pocket, Apr 10 2012, $14.99
ISBN 9780312552206

Stealthily entering a top security Iranian prison, U.S. Department of Military Sciences Captain Joe Ledger and his Echo Team liberated three young Americans hikers taken by an Iranian patrol that crossed the border into Iraq last year. The mission is not finished as his team still must take the trio from Teheran through deadly terrain to Kuwait City. Joe waits in the Islamic Republic of Iran capital for further orders.

At the Starbox Coffee, Joe receives a call from a woman while two red dots appear on his chest. While she gives the hook as a stand-up comic, she gives him instructions to follow. Once done, he drinks coffee at Starbox waiting until Jalil Rasoli of the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Islamic Republic of Iran arrives. Jalil explains he needs the help of Joe and his team to prevent mass destruction devastating the Middle East. The Iranian assigns assassin Violin is to accompany Joe and Echo Team as they hunt for six stolen nuclear bombs planted in various regional oil fields by traitorous genius Hugo Vox and his super team.

This is an exhilarating over the top of the Burj Khalifa building paranormal thriller with Joe quips while facing danger against genetically-engineered mass murderers and that adds a noir feel to the mix. The storyline is fast-paced and loaded with action from the fist coffee cup to the last and contains a stunning twist involving Joe and the Book of Shadows. Fans will enjoy the Ledger horror thriller (see The King of Plagues, The Dragon Factory and Patient Zero) as John Maberry keeps the caffeine-adrenalin tropospheric.

Harriet Klausner

The Half-Breed Vampire
Theresa Meyers
Harlequin Nocturne, Feb 21 2012, $5.50
ISBN: 9780373618798

In the Cascade Mountains, wolves attack hybrid vampire Slade Donovan. Game Warden Raina Ravenwing rescues him from a pack of werewolves; killing one of them. She explains she hunts this pack for abducting Robbie two weeks ago with a plan to transform the teen. He agrees to help her complete her mission because it coincides with what he is doing for the Cascade Vampire Clan who took him off the streets of Seattle.

Raina knows her instant attraction to her new teammate comes at a bad time as the task must come before her need. He feels the same though he also knows he offers nothing, not even his heritage to Raina. Complicating their pursuit, the rogue pack leader knows the officer is his mate.

The third Sons of Midnight Cascade Vampire Clan romantic urban fantasy (see The Truth About Vampires and The vampire Who Loved Me) is a fresh tale with terrific twists including what the hero is. The storyline is fast-paced from the onset as the rogues prove to have unique power that places Slade and the other vampire security members in peril for their lives and Raina as the intended soul mate of the evil Bracken. Theresa Meyers provides a great thriller.

Harriet Klausner