His Dark Bond
Anne Marsh
Kensington Brava, Feb 1 2012, $14.00
ISBN: 9780758266798

Three thousand years ago, the revolt in Heaven by the fiercest warriors the Dominion led to Michael the archangel tossing them down to earth with their wings removed. The only way back to Heaven is if they bond with their specific soul mate. In 2090 the first bonding occurs.

In M City, Zer the leader of the Fallen knows Michael’s lieutenant Cuthah is raising an army of the Fallen who have turned rogue. They also learn he has killed their soul mates for centuries. Currently Zer’s number two Nael has a list of four names of alleged soul mates. On it is university Professor Nessa St. James who is studying genetics. Zer insures her funding and lab are shut down even as she is coming to identifying a thirteenth tribe of Israel lost in history. She turns to the Genecore Foundation for support, but Zer grabs her; she tells him to F off. He kills two rogues and takes her to his club. She is upset he killed two rogues, but he insists they came to drink her dry. Zer says she is a bond mate who will be matched to one of the Fallen; any of them except him.

The second Bond futuristic urban romantic fantasy (see Bond With me) is a terrific thriller as the concept of a bond mate saving a fallen angel is cleverly developed making along with the genetic research the storyline feel plausible. The lead protagonists are a solid pairing of a leader and a scientist both in denial. Although the villain proves weak and futuristic dystopian Moscow underdeveloped, fans will enjoy Anne Marsh’s second bonding tale.

Harriet Klausner

Immortal Hope
Claire Ashgrove
Tor, Jan 3 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9780765367587

In 1119, the archangels warned the Knights of the Templar not to dig beneath the Temple Mount. They ignored the archangels and excavated holy relics. Their punishment for their disobedience is to combat Azrael’s demons until they become evil Knights of Azrael; as each demon slain places a darkness on their soul until they are engulfed. By 2011, six Templars remain loyal though time is running out. Their only salvation is to find the Seraphim before Azrael obtains the eight remaining relics needed to defeat the Almighty.

In Atchison, Kansas Professor Anne MacPherson has six weeks left to complete her Knights Templar thesis. Cursed Templar Knight Merrick du Loire believes Anne may be his salvation; as she possesses a relic that Gabriel gave to her to protect when he saved her from her Salem witch-hunt. Attracted to Anne, Merrick must take her to the Temple Mount for her to heal whomever she is supposed to save. If she chooses him, she has marked him for death while he fears for his cousin who is on the edge of turning. Meanwhile Azrael is coming.

The first Curse of the Templars urban fantasy is a super tale in which readers will believe in the curse, centuries old knights, demons, and a brave bookworm professor who cannot hurt a fly but carries a sharp sword. Claire Ashgrove deftly sets her background especially the curse and the Templar past in the first page. With a deep mythos, sub-genre fans will relish this action-packed thriller as Merrick faces twisting paradoxes before and after he meets his beloved salvation. Sub-genre readers will appreciate this terrific tense thriller as Merrick has a reason to live, but believes death not love is his salvation.

Harriet Klausner

How to Worship a Goddess
Stephanie Julian
Sourcebooks, Dec 6 2011, $14.99
ISBN: 9781402251504

Lucy Aster happens to be Lusna the Etruscan Goddess of the Moon. She is a big hockey fan going to She goes to every Railers’ game as she enjoys the gracefulness of the sport even at the minor leagues’ level of her favorite team; as she has for the past two years. However, Lucy knows Brandon Stevenson born in 1976 as opposed to her two millennia plus life is the puck she follows.

Most fans are unaware that the players perform bird watching. Brand has only looked at one fan in the stands for the past two years. Feeling like a stalker, he finds her remote quaint bar, Brand and Lucy meet following her singing. They make love, but she erases his memory though he has quite a hangover. The next day while playing Trenton he is distracted because his goddess is not in her seat. After the game and a vicious hit, he works his way through last night and returns to the bar he should not have remembered. At the same time, an underground stalker plans to devour Lusna whose power is waning. However neither her hunter from hell or the Etruscan Goddess of the Moon factored in her brave soulmate; who is ready to do more than hip-check their opponent.

The latest Forgotten Goddesses (see What a Goddess Wants) is an entertaining amusing urban romantic fantasy starring two wonderful protagonists and a vile villain coming for her. The sex mixes enhances the improbable pair in love as he remains resolute as her defenseman against a seemingly invincible foe. Stephanie Julian writes a delightful twisting paranormal Stanley Cup winner.

Harriet Klausner

Immortal Rider
Larissa Ione
Grand Central, Nov 22 2011, $7.99
ISBN: 9780446574471

As the world turns ugly, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride once again. One brother Reseph has turned into Pestilence as his agimortus broke his seal, but another Ares was saved by his fiancée Cara Thornhart (see Eternal Rider). A third rider Limos, though she, Ares and Thanatos defeated Reseph-Pestilence for now, fears she will fall to the dark too as Satan demands she become his wife and her seal if broken frees Famine.

U.S. Army R-XR solder Arik Wagner attends the engagement party of Ares and Cara. He walks outside onto a beach to get away from super-powered a-holes, but the object of his penis follows him. Limos challenges him to fight, which leads to a kiss. His final thought was her shouting at him not to say her name. The other two horsemen explain to human Aegis leader Kynan Morgan that an angry jealous Satan has captured Arik for kissing his bride and will torture him in Hell until he says her name, which will make him one of the lost minions. Limos cuts a deal with Pestilence to save the world and Arik though her cost is her soul.

The second Lords of Deliverance romantic urban fantasy is a superb post apocalyptic thriller that grips the reader from the first apparently fatal kiss to the final confrontation. The story line is fast-paced and contains the twist of a Horsewoman as Famine. The cast is fully developed and the twisting story line is loaded with action at time fueled by betrayal. However, it is the dark world of Larissa Ione that readers will want to ride alongside of the Horsemen (and horsewoman) of the Apocalypse,

Harriet Klausner

In The Bleak Midwinter
M.R. Sellars
E.M.A. Mysteries/Oak Tree, Nov 1 2011, $16.95
ISBN: 9780979453380

On December 22, 1975, Santa sexually assaulted her at school. He threatened to kill her parents if she told them what he did. That night while her mom purchased groceries, her little sister wanted to visit Santa. Merrie Callahan never wanted see Santa ever again, but was forced to escort Elizabeth to visit him. He turned out to be her predator and Merrie vanished for thee days.

Decades later, the residents of Hulis, Missouri are living out a nightmare just as they did when Merrie was abducted. FBI Special Agent Constance Mandalay investigates. She learns that though thirty-five years passed since the rapes, Merrie believes it is December, 22, 1975 before Santa brutalized her. Sheriff Skip Carmichael explains to the Fed that every anniversary of Merrie’s trauma leads to her falling into a catatonic state for three days. On Christmas Day in the shack where Merrie was sodomized, someone chops up a man using an axe exactly like Merrie did and the body parts are in the same place when she counterattacked her abductor years ago. Constance senses the townsfolk conceals something critical from her; when the FBI Agent learns what it is, her belief system is shaken to the core in spite of her case work with Wiccan practitioner Rowan Gant.

M.R. Sellars has written an exhilarating supernatural mystery that will have readers wondering what is going on in Hulis, and when we figure that out, the author twists the entertaining police procedural into a new direction. Constance has been a recurring support character in the RGI whodunits (see Blood Moon), but proves she can run the show as a pragmatic independent investigator who prefers denial of the supernatural though the supporting evidence in this case and her work with Gant forces her to accept an inconvenient truth.

Harriet Klausner

The Infernals
John Connolly
Atria, Oct 18 2011, $22.00
ISBN: 9781451643084

In Biddlecombe, England a few years ago, tweener Samuel Johnson and Boswell the dachshund prevented the demon Mrs. Abernathy AKA Ba’al from opening The Gates of Hell. She craves revenge for her humiliating defeat at the hand of the mortal child and his mortal dog and her demotion by the Great Malevolence who rules Old Nick’s Place.

Nearly blind Samuel asks Lucy Highmore for a date before his friend Thomas Hobbes tells him he asked the letter box out. The opportunity has finally arrived after a few years of impatience for Mrs. Abernathy to claw the punk who thwarted the invasion. The Large Hadron Collider has been reactivated allowing Mrs. Abernathy the energy to pull Samuel and Boswell, Police Constable Peel and Sergeant Rowan, Mr. Happy Whip the ice-cream man, and the performing troupe of Mr. Merryweather’s Dwarves into Hell where she has him on her home turf where her allies the Infernos wait no longer. Once again, Mrs. Abernathy underestimates her young opponent who has a contingent of supporters brought from earth accidently by the demon and one friend Nurd the hapless demon on his side.

This is a whimsical young adult lighthearted fantasy filled with satirical and slapstick humor competing for top billing against the encroaching evil darkness. Fast-paced and loaded with jocularity as puns are everywhere, readers will enjoy the rematch between the powerful demon and her Infernals vs. Samuel and his retinue because at stake is two realms.

Harriet Klausner

The Immortality Engine
George Mann
Tor, Sep 27 2011, $24.99
ISBN: 9780765327758

Although special agent Sir Maurice Newbury and his assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes have solved some complex cases (see The Osiris Ritual), he has turned to opium. Part of his rationalization is the drug gives him psychic powers. However, deep down he knows the cause is his belief that his sidekick is an informer to Queen Victoria. In fact Veronica remains clueless that she is a prime cause for her partner’s addiction as her focus is on her frail sister Amelia who suffers from seizures that include prophecies. At the Grayling Institute, Dr. Lucien Fabian provides Amelia with special experimental care to induce her visions.

Scotland Yard Chief Investigator Sir Charles Bainbridge drags Newbury from an opium den to identify a murder victim; the CH believes the corpse is that master thief Edwin Sykes. Newbury confirms the deceased is Sykes, but something seems off kilter though he is unsure what. When a robbery that only Sykes could have done with the technology deployed leaves the three sleuths stunned.

The third Victorian Newbury-Hobbes mystery is an exciting alternate historical thriller. The lead protagonists have personal issues as he has become an opium eater and she is paralyzed by fears for her failing sister. The Sykes enigma is deftly handled as The Immortality Engine is a wonderful steampunk who and how investigation; vastly different yet as much fun as the occult themed The Osiris Ritual.

Harriet Klausner

The Iron Knight
Julie Kagawa
Harlequin Teen, Oct 25 2011, $9.99
ISBN: 9780373210367

The last surviving son of Mab, Queen of the Unseelie Court Prince Ash fell in love with half human daughter of the Summer King. He swore allegiance to her but fate has twisted their relationship when she became the Iron Queen Megan. She released him from his pledge as iron kills purebred fey, but he vows to return to her even if it takes eternity.

Ash refuses to not try to return to his beloved, but knows only one way he can achieve his heart’s desire. He must turn moral so iron will no longer burn him. With his partners Puck and Grimalkin, Ash sets out on a personal odyssey, but the trek proves much more difficult than he and his allies imagined as it is not simple to gain a soul though it is easy to lose one.

The final Iron Fey fantasy provides a wonderful refreshing twist as Ash is the lead instead of Meghan who starred in the previous three thrillers (see The Iron King, The Iron Queen and The Iron Daughter). Character driven but filled with action, Ash’s odyssey is an entertaining tale filled with moral convictions that if you love someone with all your soul than you must first do what is right for them and second do what is right for you before you can do what is right for both of you. This is a great finish to a superb teen fantasy saga.

Harriet Klausner

I Robot: To Protect
Mickey Zucker Reichert
Roc, Nov 1 2011, $24.00
ISBN: 9780451464194

In 2035 Dr. Susan Calvin accepts a psychiatry residency at Manhattan Hasbro Hospital. However on her first day at the research facility, she walks through protesters who believe the hospital violates God by creating “designer babies”.

She soon learns of a top secret project in which nanobots are injected into the spinal fluid of selected patients. When the chosen begin to act erratic, Susan becomes concerned. She raises her worries to her supervisors, but is told to be quiet as this program has strong funding and political backing. However, the program supporters fail to use proper due diligence especially security as the technology is taken over by death mongers out to prove their righteousness at any cost.

Paying homage to Isaac Asimov by updating the science, the technology and the three rules of robots; Mickey Zucker Reichert provides a strong thriller that will elate fans of the I Robot saga. The cast of humans and robots seem genuine while Susan holds the exciting story line together with her obstinate need to do right. The late Dr. Asimov would have appreciated this updating of his classic.

Harriet Klausner

Inferno’s Kiss
Monica Burns
Berkley, Oct 4 2011, $15.00
ISBN: 9780425243145

Sicari assassin Cleopatra Vorenus has had her world rocked with two revelations that leave her raging at her mother Prima Consul Atia for concealing the truth from her. First she learns that she had a brother Gabriel abducted when he was two years old by their enemy the Praetorians who raised him to loath his birth people. Cleo calms down and apologizes to her parents for her angry behavior and the loss of Gabriel who Marcus the Eminence Sicari Lord sired and had to kill. However, her mother shocks her further with a new revelation that her father whom she thought was dead is Marcus.

Irate with her mom, Cleo asks for an assignment in Rome where she hopes to rescue her kidnapped friend Marta from the Praetorians. In Rome, she and the Heir to Marcus as the Sicari Lord Dante Condellaire meet with an instant attraction. However, Dante has a celibacy oath to remain pure to the Absconditus that has never been challenged in all the years since he took his pledge until now. They team up to destroy an enemy encampment where kidnapped fertile Sicari females are held but unaware a traitor plans to sell them out to the Praetorians.

The third Order of the Sicari urban fantasy (see Assassin’s Heart and Assassin’ Honor) is a deep look at relationships between a mother and a daughter and between two sets of lovers as duty and desire battle inside the souls of the quartet. Readers will relish this character driven saga as a dangerous rescue attempt turns even more perilous by a trusted one’s betrayal.

Harriet Klausner