Finished Playing Easy to Get, an anthology featuring novellas by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Jaid Black, and Kresley Cole. I won this one a few weeks ago during a contest over at The Good, the Bad, and the Unread.

Kenyon’s story is about Allison, who wins a book contest and gets whisked away to an island where she gets to pretend to be her favorite romance heroine for a week. Also on the island is Vince, an ex-Mob hitman. But when Vince’s employers track him down, Allison finds herself on the run with the sexy Vince.

Black’s story features Sofia, who travels to Alaska to bury her brother. Sofia gets kidnapped and taken to a lost Viking world underground, where she’s sold as a bride to a warrior named Johen. Cole’s tale is the first in her Immortals After Dark series. This one features the Valkyrie Myst and the vampire Wroth who fight, feud, and eventually fall in love.

I entered the contest because I wanted to try Cole’s Immortals series. I’ve heard lots of folks in blogland raving about her books and wanted to see what the fuss was about. I found her mix of Valkyries, vampires, fey, and more really interesting. Myst was a strong character, along with her sisters, which I appreciated. I also liked the fact they could be transfixed by shiny objects. Something I can relate to. 😎

I liked Wroth okay, until he used a magical chain to control Myst. “Taming someone” is not my favorite story device, especially when Wroth thought about commanding Myst to never go into battle again and forget all about her sisters. Not cool. But he had his reasons, and he eventually came around and redeemed himself. And Cole hooked me with her world, so I’ll be reading the next book in the series.

You can always count on Kenyon for a fun, action-packed read, and she delivers another one in this anthology. I liked the fact Allison kept her head and was really cool when facing down the Mob guys at the end of the story.

Then, there’s Black’s story. Oh my. I did not like this one at all. The writing was fine, but I could not get past the plot. Maybe it’s me. I don’t like stories where women are completely, utterly powerless, and Sofia was exactly that in this story.

Basically, because of their gods’ decree, the Vikings believe women aboveground will eventually die out one day, so they kidnap them, take them underground, and sell them off naked to the highest bidder to strengthen their race against the coming blight. The women are flatly told they can never home and that there’s no chance of escape. That’s bad enough.

But the Vikings claim to love women, to prize and cherish them above everything else. If they respected/loved women so much, why would they kidnap them in the first place and take them away from everything and everyone they love? That didn’t make sense to me. Also, another woman slips Sofia an aphrodisiac before she goes on the auction block to make her more receptive to Johen’s, ahem, advances. To break Sofia into her new life, as it were. Ugh. Other folks out there might like this novella, but it was not a good story for me. I think I was just the wrong reader for it because of the powerless angle. That’s something that really bugs me as a reader.

But then again, I’m sure there are plenty of folks out there who are bugged by superheroes and the campy books I write. So live and let live.

I’m splitting my decision for this book. Thumbs up to Kenyon and Cole; thumbs down to Black.

Up next: Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas.

Books in my TBR pile: 17.

Finished Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost. Someone (I believe Chasity) recommended this book in another post. So I snatched it up when I saw it at RT in the goodie room. Warning: there be spoilers ahead.

This is the first book in Frost’s Night Huntress series, which stars Catherine Crawfield. Cat’s mom was date-raped by a vampire, which means Cat herself is half-human, half-vampire — and on a mission to kill every vamp she can. Cat goes out to local nightclubs in her Ohio neighborhood, waits for a vamp to pick her up, and stakes them when they go for her neck. Until she meets Bones, a master vamp who offers Cat a deal — die or work with him to hunt down a particularly nasty vamp who’s abducting girls for a slave/blood ring. Cat chooses to work with Bones, who begins training her and teaching her that not all vamps are evil.

I liked a lot of things about this book. Frost has a great voice and a very easy-to-read style. Cat is a likable character, who’s only trying to get her mother to love and accept her by killing vamps (which her mom hates more than anything else).

Then, there’s Bones. Ah, Bones. He totally made the book for me. Loved everything about his character. Someone (again, I think it was Chasity) commented that he’s a lot like Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah, I can see that. Bones is British, has blond/white hair, and is just super-cool, just like Spike (who was always my favorite character on Buffy). But I think Frost made Bones her own character. He was definitely the highlight for me. 

I also really liked the way the romantic relationship developed between Bones and Cat. The progression felt natural, and by the end, you felt like these two would do anything for each other.

I felt like the end spiraled out of control just a bit. Surely, there would be more consequences for killing the governor of your state, which Cat does. I would think it would be hard to remain incognito after that, even if you were recruited for a secret government task force. But it did set up the storyline for the next book and made me want to see more of Cat in action — and how she reconnects with Bones.

The only thing I didn’t like was Cat’s mother (but I imagine Frost intended it to be this way). What a harpy. She wasn’t a good mom, and I didn’t feel that she really loved Cat. I know the mom was severly traumatized by the rape, but what kind of mom would let her teenage daughter go out, kill vamps, and risk her dying? If the mom was going out with Cat, I might have understood it. But it felt like she was punishing Cat and withholding her love for something that wasn’t Cat’s fault and something she can never change. Gotta say, I was rooting for the mom to get it in the end.

I also wanted Cat to stand up to her mom. It didn’t happen to the degree I’d hoped (because she chose her mom over Bones), but perhaps in the next book.

Overall, a solid urban fantasy read. Looking forward to getting the next book. Thumbs up.

Up next: The anthology Playing Easy to Get.

Books in my TBR pile: 18.

BTW, this is 100th book I’ve reviewed on the blog. Quite a milestone, eh? :ww: