Fin­ished Candy Houses by Shiloh Walker. This is the first book in her Grimm para­nor­mal romance series.

This short e-book (around 100 pages) focuses on Gre­tel, yeah, that Gre­tel from the Hansel and Gre­tel fairy tale. Only now, she calls her­self Greta and is a Grimm — a war­rior who pro­tects humand from demons. Greta is feel­ing a lit­tle bored when she comes across a girl who’s in seri­ous trou­ble — and Rip, another Grimm. Greta has been try­ing to for­get about Rip for years, with no such luck. When she teams up with him to help the girl, Greta finds that she doesn’t want to fight her attrac­tion to Rip any more …

I like fairy tale retellings, and this was an inter­est­ing take on both Hansel and Gre­tel and Rip Van Win­kle. Fairy tale heroes bat­tling demons — it’s a cool idea, and Walker exe­cutes it well. Even though the book is only around 100 pages, there’s a nice mix of action and romance, and the reader is treated to some flash­backs as well that tell the real story of what hap­pened to Greta. My only quib­ble is that I would have liked even more back­story and see­ing how Greta actu­ally became a Grimm – but this is designed to be a shorter book.

Over­all, if you’re look­ing for a quick read, you might want to check out this e-book.

My grade: B.

Would I read this author again: Yes. I like fairy tale retellings, espe­cially when there’s a twist on the char­ac­ters or story.

Up next: Noth­ing to Lose by Lee Child.

Books in my TBR pile: About 20.

Fin­ished Beastly by Alex Flinn. This is a young adult retelling of the clas­sic Beauty and the Beast fairy tale.

In this book, Kyle Kings­bury seems to have it all — good looks, a rich dad, and the hottest girl in school. But Kyle isn’t a very nice guy. After he plays a cruel prank on a witch, she turns him into a beast — com­plete with fur and claws. The witch tells Kyle that he has two years to find some­one to love him — or he’ll remain a beast for­ever. Kyle’s dad, being the jerk that he is, sends Kyle off to live with a blind tutor and a maid. Of course, Kyle doesn’t think that any­one could ever love a beast until he meets Lindy …

I loved this book. Seri­ously — I loved it. I’m a sucker for fairy tale retellings, and this is one of the best ones that I’ve read. It’s witty and breezy and charm­ing and emo­tional all at the same time. Kyle starts out as a jerk, but over the course of the book, Flinn trans­forms him into a car­ing guy who’s wor­thy of being loved. You really feel his pain, des­per­a­tion, and long­ing for Lindy to love him just as much as he loves her. To me, the mark of a great char­ac­ter is some­one that you want to read about even if he’s not being very nice or heroic. Kyle is def­i­nitely not nice or heroic in the begin­ning, but Flinn makes you care about him regardless.

I also liked that Lindy had her own prob­lems, namely her junkie father. Lindy wasn’t fleshed out quite as much as she could have been, but this is Kyle’s book, not hers. Also among the sup­port­ing cast are Kyle’s tutor, maid, and the witch who cursed him, all of whom get their moments to shine. In fact, there’s a really cool twist at the end with one of sec­ondary the char­ac­ters that I didn’t see coming.

Every so often, the story takes a time out, and the reader is treated to an online chat tran­script for fairy tale heroes and hero­ines, like the Lit­tle Mer­maid, the Frog Prince, and others. I thought the chat ses­sions were cute and quirky and tied in nicely with what was hap­pen­ing in the book at that point.

Over­all, this is one of my favorite reads of the year. It’s just excel­lent from start to fin­ish. If you like fairy tales, you can’t go wrong with this book.

My grade: A.

Would I read this author again: Absolutely. Flinn has another fairy tale book, A Kiss in Time, that I’m look­ing for­ward to reading.

Up next: Candy Houses by Shiloh Walker.

Books in my TBR pile: About 20.

I have some more cool news to announce — both Spider’s Bite and Web of Lies have gone into small sec­ond print­ings. Huzzah!

So what does this mean? Well, basi­cally that sales of both titles have been steady enough for my pub­lisher to print more copies of the book beyond the ini­tial print runs. In other words, there have been enough sales/interest that my pub­lisher printed addi­tional books in hopes of sell­ing even more of them.

Admit­tedly, my ini­tial print runs weren’t very large — cer­tainly nowhere near the hun­dreds of thou­sands or even mil­lions of books that are printed for the big-name authors like Nora Roberts or J.K. Rowl­ing. Still, this is the first time that any of my books have gone into sec­ond print­ings, which is really cool.

I just want to say thanks to all the read­ers out there for mak­ing this pos­si­ble. I write the books, but you guys buy them, and I appre­ci­ate everyone’s inter­est in the Ele­men­tal Assas­sin series and all the pos­i­tive e-mails and com­ments that I’ve got­ten from read­ers. I hope you guys enjoy Venom when it comes out on Sept. 28 even more than the first two books.

For those of who you didn’t like the books, I appre­ci­ate you giv­ing them a chance in the first place. I know my books aren’t for every­one, and that’s cool too. Dif­fer­ent strokes for dif­fer­ent folks, and all that.

Any­way, I’m doing the happy dance.

I acci­den­tally sent out my Sep­tem­ber e-newsletter last night before it was ready. I hit send when I should have hit save. Just ignore it if you get the newslet­ter. I’ll send the real, final, corrected one out around the first of Sep­tem­ber like usual.

I have some cool news to announce — the first three Ele­men­tal Assas­sin books are going to be turned into dig­i­tal audio books. Huzzah!

The dig­i­tal audio books are being done through Audi­ble, which is part of Ama­zon. The way that I under­stand it, the audio books will be avail­able for things like iPods and MP3 play­ers. This is the first time that any of my books have been turned into audio books, and I think it will be really cool to hear Gin tell her story.

And before you ask, no, I’m not nar­rat­ing the books myself. Believe me when I tell you that I don’t have the voice for that — peo­ple would cringe if they had to lis­ten to my South­ern hill­billy drawl for hours on end. LOL.

How­ever, the folks at Audi­ble and the book’s nar­ra­tor have e-mailed me a few times about how I think the char­ac­ters sound and for tips on pro­nun­ci­a­tion. I think it’s really cool that they’re ask­ing for my input on things like that, and I appre­ci­ate being involved in the process.

I’m not sure when the audio books will be avail­able. The nar­ra­tor started record­ing a few weeks ago, but this is a new area for me, and I have no idea how long it takes to go from the record­ing stu­dio to a fin­ished audio book.

Any­way, I’ll let you know when I get more infor­ma­tion. Right now, I’m doing the happy dance.