Syahira's Literary Obsession

I think Harlequin rejected me from this galley for a good reason. The romance is meh, the sex scenes bores me, the characterization is meh and virtually unlikable. There's too much characters to keep track on and its not helping when the prose is so convoluted and dragging and the plot is abysmal. For a kindle freebies from an established publisher, its just a waste of space in my ereader. Hmm...

Another kindle freebie. A fast read since I did skip some of the pages (the repetitive sex scenes which are getting boring when the characters doesn't seem to verbally interact) and by the end of it, it left me in the state of meh-ness. I do like some of the Tina Folsom books but she doesn't seem to be consistent with the plot flows and characters.

I'm not sure why I even read this but I've been reading most of the Amazon freebies in my Kindle and frankly this is quite okay for a 1-star. Apparently there's a virgin werewolf princess and then there's an alpha wolf and there's an evil werewolf king and werewolf prince. There's load of sex and foreplay but the book was painfully bad that I can't help but becoming entertained by it. I just deleted it after reading it. Gosh, to think people actually buy this.Full review much later. Still in raya/lazy mood.

This book made it worth to reread the whole Kate Daniels series just to prolong the enjoyment of reading. Set a couple of months after Magic Slays and Gunmetal Magic, Magic Rises began with Julie's friend Maddie suddenly turned Loup. Loup is a term when a shapeshifter's Lyc-C virus overwhelm the host that it drive the person made into violent, madness, rage, and hunger for human flesh. For children facing loupism, they're usually being killed by their Alphas. In 'Magic Slays', a rogue loup attacked Julie and infected her with Lyc-V but because of her magic the virus consumed her body and she began to Loup. The only way to cure Loup was a very rare panacea but Kate was able to cure Julie with her magic but with a price. This time, a European pack offered the Beast Lord several barrels of panacea provided that he could protect the Alpha's heavily pregnant daughter in a dispute between land inheritance in the Carpathian mountain because she was pregnant with twins from different father. 10 years ago Curran had gone to the Europe for panacea but was unsuccessful and decimated most of his group. This time, he had Kate and his pack was stronger now and they're determined to save Maddie and the future of the pack. The fear between all of the characters are not unlike Torchwood's Children of Earth. We had it in 'Magic Bleed' when Erra attacked a Wolf clan and Kate having to kill a child who had gone Loup and many of the characters including Aunt B who had killed most of her children who had succumbed to Loupism. None of the characters are willing to give up on the children's life and Kate's decision on saving Julie have an effect on Curran's determination to secure the panaceas. But the world building was expanded in this book as most of the scenes in this book occurred in a Mediterranean island and we are introduced to more types of shapeshifters and the politics outside the Beast Lord's dominion where Kate was judged to be unworthy companion to the Beast Lord and they're dying to kill her. Its hard not to gush about this book. I'm going to reread this book again just to soak myself with its awesomeness. Unlike most UF/PNR series I've read like Mercy Thompson or Anita Blake or Dresden Files, Sookie Stackhouse or the Carpathian series, Darkhunters etc, there are bound to be a moment in a series where the author just fell apart and give mediocre storyline in between a series but the Andrews managed a perfect magnificent momentum of balancing mythology, action and romance into each of its installments. There's never a moment while reading through the series that I became bored or that it became repetitive. I've anticipate the relationship between Curran and Kate will get predictable or it will be about Atlanta facing another potential threat again but no. You're definitely in for a ride with this book and you'll be like me ; pissed off, gasping and crying and more sobbing in public and wanting to read the whole series again.I'm also quite a fan of the mysterious Hugh D'Ambray and I'm dying to read more about him and finally he became a more prominent character in this book and frankly he did provide an added tension between Kate and Curran. I'm looking forward for the next year's installment of the series and I am really glad that there are four more Kate Daniels' novels in the series. Best Urban Fantasy series ever. I won't be surprised if someone is trying to make this into a movie or tv series.

Gunmetal Magic is the novel set right around Magic Dreams and is one of the spin-off from Kate Daniels series about her Cutting Edge's partner, Andrea Nash who is an ex-knight who got forcibly retired after the order found out that she's in fact a bouda (werehyena). Andrea carried a horrible past where she spent 11 years being abused by a bouda clan and after she and her mother ran away, she became highly efficient gunfighter who hid her identity until she was forced to reveal her true self. Her abuse were mostly centered on the fact that she's a beastkin, her father is actually a hyena who was infected by Lyc-v which changed it into a male human and Andrea's abusive clan forced him to rape her mother and hence she was born out of it.Now, she's working as a highly trained private investigator for the Cutting Edge along with Kate Daniels, the skilled mercenary who is secretly a powerful mage and a consort for the Beast Lord, Curran. In the couple novels before this, Andrea was involved with the Atlanta pack's bouda clan's Raphael Medrano, who is her mate but after being faced to choose between the pack and her life-long career in the order, Raphael left her when she decided wrongly and neither of them parted their ways peacefully. The novel started directly from Magic Dreams with Jim calling Andrea for help about the murder in one of the pack's establishment which is unfortunately owned by Raphael. Still hurt from their separation, she decided to take on the case even knowing that she will be facing her former beau and soulmate. The establishment is actually a ruin from a skyscraper after being felled by the magic waves and Raphael's team was working to excavate the area looking for precious metals like copper. The team found a vault in the underground with its items intact but all the shapeshifters guarding the site were killed by a multiple snake bites. Since venoms are biological matter, the Lyc-V were unable to differentiate the poison until its too late, hence a powerful snake venom would kill any shapeshifter. Andrea decided to investigate the motives surrounding the buyout of the properties and found out more than what she had bargain for.I was highly entertained by this book. The reactions and relationships between the side characters in Kate Daniels were further enhanced in these spin offs. Raphael is initially a cocky jerk in the beginning of this novel and reacted childishly as one would expect from someone being hurt until he came back to her in full vengeance. I hate him and love him in this book and the banter between Andrea and him was unexpected but it does bring back pre-Consort Kate Daniels vs Curran motion that I enjoyed in the last several books of series. The dynamic between the characters are fascinating as with the action packed drama surrounding more death and near death experiences by the main character.Surprisingly, although there was an overwhelming heat between Andrea and Raphael in this book, it doesn't shake the fact that this book was exclusively an urban fantasy since it was without the unnecessary ten pages of smut. The action are unpredictable, the mystery are intriguing, the suffering and the torture within the psychology of these characters are the things that made the series fantastically a class of its own.If you are new to this series, I would recommend reading the whole series because nothing is better than guns and supernatural violence in this detective-like drama series. So far, its still one of the guy-friendly novel I've ever read and all the hype surrounded this series are true, and its a fine book at its start but it definitely does get a lot better (read: guns and gore and mythological lore) as you go through the books.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a part adult drama and part children horror fantasy. It started with a nearly middle aged man going over to his childhood home and then found himself at a farmhouse with a pond he remembered being called an Ocean. He remembered the time he was seven and started to reminiscing on the things he had forgotten.I've been reading The Ice Palace which was frankly a perfect novel written by an author in his sixties writing a POV of 11-years old girls perfectly. I can't say this much about Neil Gaiman because his child characters seems older than they seem. I don't think Gaiman could handle innocent and naive well. I kept forgetting the narrator's age but its not a primarily inner-character driven story so I could let it slide. Almost an autobiographical in nature, I however do think this book have the same universe as Neverwhere especially with the mythical elements in this book. Its not hard to draw parallel between Richard and George and Door and Lettie and the parallel between the hidden city like London Below and the hidden secrets in the country. Much of the book seemed to be influenced by employing Tabula rasa much like the Neverwhere's setting. If Hayao Miyazaki would want to work on another fantasy adaptation for his anime movies. I think this novel would find itself the same atmospheric league as Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and Tales of Earthsea. I've decided for some time that Neil Gaiman's works are best in audiobooks or movie adaptations than reading his actual prose (plus Gaiman does edit it some of the chapters while reading). It does take me a while (several of his books, I mean) to handle his writing style (which tend to go on weird, flat and continuous until you listen to it) but I do think the adaptations of his work are more splendid than just reading them on paper. Plus, you will missed out on the character's intonation, the accents, the lingo, interactions etc and Gaiman does keep things out of his writings that are hard for him to put in his writings. Normally, reading this book would get a 3-star from me but the audiobooks does add more to the book. So if you want to read this book and appreciate its content more, you better get the whole audiobook and listen as Gaiman tell you his story in his own words.

Two words : Dwemer and Draugr. S-K-Y-R-I-MDamn, I'm obsessed about that game. So as the readers of Kate Daniels know, the authors love to include mythos into their books; this time its nordic. Which is kind of cool btw; helps with the imagery. This was a stand-alone Kate Daniels (which you can skip on read this) and its started innocently, Kate and Andrea bringing a kraken-like jellyfish back into their PI HQ, Cutting Edge, and Curran brought Kate to dinner in a korean place called Arirang. Then while they're waiting for their menu, a journeyman guy in love gave his girlfriend a necklace which gave a crackling noise and kill her off. What a bad way to start a date, I'd say. So, after 5 second or five page worthy of insta-kill two vampires on rampage (the lovebirds'), they found the necklace had stuck to the girl's neck until the girl's family came over and the mother grab the necklace and slapped it on her son's neck (right after the necklace kill her daughter, mind you). So, with the necklace got himself a fresh kill, it was now taking its moment to kill the boy, and Kate-Curran duo must go find a viking, battle a giant zombie (dont you love them?), and get a clue about why the asshole of a mother would do something like trying to kill off her 5 years old son?The book's short but pretty entertaining. I would have wanted more Kate Daniels instead of Andrea's summer book. I know Kate was happy with Curran definitively even with her daddy issue (like if-your-dad's-voldermort issue). Although I like Andrea but I dont really want to go into the ping pong love problem she and her mate have. But naturally, I'd still read their books whether I like it or not.

Not a bad read while having a flu. Quite intense too.Full wordy review up later after raya. Ramadhan diminish my writing mood quite effectively============Kate Daniels, the wife of the Atlanta Beast Lord, can never seems to stop trouble from leaving her alone. Curran often gets overly protective around her, Julie has been ditching out of school, her PI business is barely standing, a vampire on the loose and she nearly got rained by bullets, lies revealed, secret family relations unearthed and a neutron bomb is on the loose and it can kill anyone with magic including children. It was another days of work, to fix the mess and save mankind or die trying.More intense, dramatic, thrilling ride and a bit psychopathic. The book series deserved a series of movies with it.

3/8/13 : not going to re-review this. haha goodnessMagic Dreams is an urban fantasy novella for the Kate Daniels' Series which I had gotten into last year. The story is however about Dali and Jim, not Curran and Kate so somehow I can be a bit lost since there have been many novellas in between the novels. The novella was featured in an anthology Hexed which I haven't read yet, luckily.Dali Harimau is a Hindu Indonesian white weretiger who is fluent in japanese (or chinese since usually they use kanji) calligraphy and mostly familiar with Japanese yokai. Frankly, mixing cultures in this book is giving me a headache. One thing that bugs me, the story told a great lengthy detail on how she had to hide herself since she's a rare magical creature that everyone wanted a piece of her literally but ironically her last name is Harimau (Tiger), which is really an off kilter. But its fictious, I'm fine with it. Jim the feline alpha is the character that is most prominent in Kate Daniels series. In this book, he came to Dali's house for help and was cursed by something when he investigate their pack's house.I had trouble remembering Dali when I started the novella but some days ago, I had a Legend of Korra marathon and remembered Dali in one of the Kate Daniels' book when I watched the pro-bender arena scene. There's an italicised section which Dali talk to her mother in Indonesian about the situation that Jim interrupted them with "Mengapa" that I had a bit fun reading the whole scene in sinetron style - in my head, of course. At some part of the book, guess the authors confused the Asian culture but the slight things doesn't bother me much. I'm half Javanese and half Bugis Malaysian who are fluent in English and Malay and can read and understand Japanese, so in some way, Dali is a bit like me.Overall the storyline is classic of the husband-wife duo that was well-written and well-structured for a short reading. It does made me miss reading their books because the action and drama is well balanced and entertaining.Magic Dreams is a stand-alone story. Even if you skip the novella, I don't think it will highly affected the canon and main arc. Despite the pairing, the novella only hinted that Dali had more feelings for Jim than either of them let on so the book isn't a classic paranormal romance. I warn you first because it can be disappointing for those who wanted some steamy short readings.The female main character was more prominent in this novella instead of the male main character. I don't really think its a waste to read the short novella since I really like reading about smart girl who save the day. There are also some added characters and settings which might be further explained in the future series. Like Andrea and Raphael novella, I don't think the Dali/Jim pairing will end with this novella and I'd expected there will be some conflict in the future.Having this novella re-released does give some time to waste for the next month's novella, Gunmetal Magic. Kate Daniels' next novel will be out next year so I wouldn't recommend you to read the whole series in full marathon mode like I do because the wait is so painfully excruciating.

Probably one of the best book in the series of an already generalized 5-stars series by me. Kate's relationship with Curran was tested with Kate's hidden insecurities and such. The story started a few weeks after the Midnight Games, around the time when Curran stood up Kate and after. A new player came into town and decided to wreck havoc with magical mutated pathogens which would make Fringe's Dr Walter Bishop giddy which turns out to be a Babylonian legend who destroy cities and brought apocalypse on earth through several millennia who also turns out to be related to Kate.Full review to come.

I still haven't done the reviews on this series since 2011. Sue me.I think Gordon had a grand time working on this novel. There's a lot of fight scenes in this ebook than the rest combined. The Andrews should do more Gladiator-type fights. This book is also where Kate and Curran really did come together as a couple. Every encounter they had are priceless including her threat about giving him a dinner involving her being naked. This book also introduce us to an Indonesian character Dali. Nobody ever make an Indonesian character. Nobody. Sure, she's a white tiger and did calligraphy and probably not a good example of a satisfyingly Asian character but I like her as it is. Full review to come. Its july and I'm still in no mood. And my review-to-write is piling alongside my ARCs.

I think I just give up on the ratings. Can't really help it though. This novella was set right after the previous book (aka Supernatural Battledome) and is an Andrea and Raphael centric story. This time, Kate was recuperating from her stomach injuries after saving her teammate from total slaughter, Andrea was handling Kate's cases with the Order and she received a call about a giant dog terrorizing a shapeshifter. The shapeshifter turns out as Raphael and the giant dog is a giant three-headed mythological creature, Cerberus. Apparently, someone kidnapped Raphael's late-stepfather's body who happened to be a priest for Hades and the Cerberus couldn't get to the body and attack whoever trying to take it away from it.Full review to come.

I'm enjoying this time of the series where Curran was slowly seducing Kate and the books basically stretch their sexual tension taut to a string. Curran's patience have no limit. I did forget who is who in this book especially the early characters and the mythology. I particularly enjoy the moment when Kate being bombarded by zombie mermaids. I'm sick like that.Full review to come. In the month of review writing blockade.

Arrow is a CW's action-adventure tv series based on the Marvel character Green Arrow but rehashed much like Batman Begins. Marc Guggenheim wrote this companion graphic novel to complement the first 23 episodes of the tv series. If you haven't watch the full tv series, some of the content in this book can be spoilerish and out-of-place as it is intended to be a side story of sort that was omitted out of the television run.If you followed the tv series, it also was filled with a lot of backstory but most of it was focus on Oliver's 5-years time in the Purgatory island. The novel acts as an additional bridge to the events from the show and it add more to the existing character development especially from the side characters (Laurel, her father, Ollie's family, etc). The TV focus more on what Oliver does more than it does around the characters around him. This graphic novel show how Oliver and the people close to him was affected by the events that made him 'The Vigilante' which from the season two promo, he won't be using that name either.There were a lot of vital character's story that wasn't included inside this novel and most noted Malcolm Merlyn and his backstory and a lot of the main recurring cast like Felicity, Laurel herself, a lot of the villains. So I think they're saving it for the second season. By far, I enjoy the graphic novel immensely. If you're the original Green Arrow fan who don't want to watch the tv or you only heard about the show and went through this novel, you won't get much of it as its intended to be a companion and not a graphic novelization. There's not much a tv spoiler inside this graphic novel as most of the story revolve around The Dark Archer and the Undertaking so there's not much inside this comic would spoil that for you.The ARC is provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I thought that I would change my mind about the series after all these years. But nope, its still the same marvelous UF series I've ever read. Review later after Raya. No mood for it.=====2011 review=========I would have let rate it lower if I don't have the rest of the book. Basically the whole book functions as an introductory for the readers to the characters of the series, like a pilot episode of a tv series. If you read Keri Arthur's Riley Jenson series, Richelle Mead's Dark Swan series and a manga called Alice 19th by Yuu Watase, this book had some elements similar to them.We are introduced to the main character, Kate Daniels, a lone mercenary-slash-mage who wields a magical sword called Slayer and the unfortunate day when she found out her guardian died a horrific death. Feeling rather vengeful, she used her investigative skills and connections to track down the killer. Located in a futuristic world where technology was dying and all things that are wicked came in magical beasts, shapeshifters, zombies and no sparkling but bloodthirsty vampires, the book is very intriguing and more action packed than a rerun of Spartacus : Blood and Sands. Add in a dose of supernatural and hint of seduction in it, never-ending thrill of an adventure is guaranteed.

The volume is just a collection of two short novella and several excerpts from the author's books. I pick this up since I haven't read the first novella of Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series but I've read all Edge series so the rest of the excerpts are quite unnecessary. I've read Once Burned by Jeaniene Frost but even with the Nighthuntress's snipets, I don't think I want to pick up the series. Jeanine's storytelling with first POVs is nowhere near to the Andrews. Besides her novella is too cliched. Cat are nowhere comparable to Miss Kate Daniels. Even without Curran in the novella, its enough with just Kate in it. I simply don't care about Cat and Bones and neither do I care about the rich girl they were hired out of their vacation to protect.Full review to come. Ramadhan is simply not a good month for reviewing.