Review of Larissa Ione's Immortal Rider

Title: Immortal Rider (Lords of Deliverance #2)

Author: Larissa Ione

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Format: Mass Market Paperback & eBook

Source: NetGalley & Purchased

Publication Date: November 22, 2011

Rating: 4 out of 5

I’m a big fan of Larissa Ione’s paranormal romances, both her Demonica series and her current spin-off series, Lords of Deliverance. In November I was so excited to find a copy of Immortal Rider in the stores early that I bought a copy, forgetting that I had an e-ARC on my Kindle (oops). But I made the mistake of reading a few negative reviews before I read the book, and they put me off reading the book for a while. I just finished the book the other night, and now I really regret having read those reviews, because I absolutely loved the book! Ms. Ione does a great job of incorporating her usual sense of humor and sizzling romance in this book, while this book is a shade darker in tone than her previous books (not unexpectedly, given the subject matter of the coming apocalypse). That said, the one issue that bothered the other reviewers did bother me as well, which prevents me from giving this a full 5 out of 5. Even so, this is a great addition to the series.

If you’ve never read any of the Demonica or Lords of Deliverance books, I highly suggest you not begin with Immortal Rider, because the world building is complex. It’s very well done, and each of the novels includes a glossary at the beginning or end of the book, but I’m not a fan of having to turn back and look up terms when I’m reading. That said, you CAN start the Lords of Deliverance  series with the first book, Eternal Rider, since that’s the beginning of a new series and the set up is explained. I reviewed Eternal Rider last year here , and it was the first of Ms. Ione’s books I’d ever read. I was able to follow along without any difficulties, but I fear that would not be the case with Immortal Rider.

Each of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse carries a seal. If that seal is broken, the world finds itself one step closer to the Apocalypse and said Horseman transforms from kick-ass immortal into scary Apocalypse bringer. This happens to Reseph, who becomes Pestilence, in the last book of the Demonica series, setting up the action for the Lords of Deliverance. The three remaining Horsemen (Ares, Limos, and Thanatos) have managed to avoid breaking their seals thus far and are actively fighting Pestilence or searching for ways to restore their brother to his Reseph persona. Limos, who would be Famine if her seal were broken, is the only female of the group, and Immortal Rider is her book.

As the book begins, the three siblings are celebrating Ares’ marriage to Cara, when human ally Arik Wagner makes the mistake of planting a very passionate kiss on Limos. Big mistake, because Limos is Satan’s fiancée, and he is a very jealous demon. Demons appear and drag Arik to Sheoul (hell) to torture him. If he says Limos’s name just once, she’ll be whisked back to hell and forced to marry Satan, who no doubt always leaves the toilet seat up.

Limos, her brothers, and their allies search for Arik, who has stubbornly refused to say Limos’ name. Once he manages his escape from hell, Limos has to convince him that he’s no longer being tortured and find a way to prevent both her marriage to her fiancé and the breaking of her seal. All of this is complicated by Limos’s penchant for lying, Pestilence’s attempts to kill his siblings and bring about the Apocalypse, and the untimely disappearance of the Horsemen’s angelic watchers, Harvester and Reaver. Oh, and there’s also the sizzling chemistry between Limos and Arik. So there’s LOTS going on in this book.

Larissa Ione’s books always have tons of action, scorching sex scenes, and lots of humor, and Immortal Rider is no exception. Limos and Arik are perfect for each other, as both have damaged pasts and are kick ass fighters. The book is chock full of action, with the Horsemen and their allies fighting off demons and Pestilence while searching for Arik. The fast pace of the action kept me turning the pages, and the smoking hot sex scenes will have you fanning yourself. And some of the characters’ one liners will have you rolling in the aisles (“Taj Mahell” and “The Biblical Horseman’s Secret Aegis Baby” were my favorites).

My biggest problem with the book (and that of other reviewers as well) has to do with a scene between Thanatos and a human ally of the Horsemen, Regan. Regan has been sent to seduce Thanatos. Unfortunately, she deceives him into having full-on intercourse when he’d explicitly stated that he did not want to have intercourse. And let’s face it – that’s rape. A lot of other reviewers have been uncomfortable with this scene, as was I, but Ms. Ione doesn’t pull her punches. The scene and its aftermath are uncomfortable for the reader deliberately. You SHOULD be uncomfortable with the scene, and the characters reflect that.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book, and I feel that the positive outweighs the negative with this book. I’m definitely intrigued about the third book in the series, Lethal Rider, which is coming out in May 2012, and will deal with the aftermath of Thanatos and Regan’s encounter.

Review of Stephanie Chong's Where Demons Fear to Tread

Title: Where Demons Fear to Tread

Author: Stephanie Chong

Publisher: MIRA Books

Format: Mass Market Paperback, ebook

Source: NetGalley

Publication Date: August 23, 2011

Rating: 3 out of 5

I think the overall message of Stephanie Chong’s Where Demons Fear to Tread was supposed to be that love conquers all, but what I took away from the book is that Good is really, really boring. Good doesn’t have fun and is about as bland as white bread. The truth is that the heroine in this book is annoyingly good, so good, in fact, that she’s pretty uninspiring. And why would you read a book with a boring heroine? I’m not at all sure why the hero, Archdemon Julian Ascher is interested in her, other than her looks, because she’s dull as dirt. All that goodness is hard to take, quite frankly. This is unfortunate, because Ms. Chong is clearly a talented writer with a well-developed and engaging plot. I really enjoyed her writing, but the heroine was so mild in her “goodness” that I just couldn’t buy into the romance aspect of it.

The premise of the book is that there’s a company of guardian angels who attempt to steer humans towards good decisions while demons work actively to encourage us to engage in the sort of behavior that will damn our souls to hell. The more souls a demon sends to hell, the more powerful the demon. Julian Ascher reached archdemon status in record time, a little over 200 years, so we know that he’s a real baddie. He runs a string of night clubs (those dens of iniquity!) when our bright as sunshine (really, she’s wearing a yellow sundress, for Pete’s sake) newly minted Guardian Angel Serena St. Clair comes traipsing into his club in LA. She’s been assigned to look out for bad boy actor Nick, who’s currently snorting coke off some woman’s body. When Julian sees Serena, he decides to toy with her and hustles her off to his office in the club, where he lays a few moves on her. She’s all, “Oh NO, I shouldn’t, but I really want to, oooh what do I do? He’s so smoking hot!” and at the last minute pleads with him to let her go, which, for some strange reason, he does.

Naturally Mr. Bad-Ass Archdemon decides to pursue Serena, because nothing wins you points with the boss like corrupting an angel, right? He’s also inexplicably drawn to her goodness and beauty – she smells like the beach! Who could resist? Julian engages in a nasty spot of blackmail, and Serena finds herself with Julian in Las Vegas. Over the course of a week, Julian finds his defenses weakening, and the two fall in love. Redemption is nigh!

The problem with this book is twofold. First, Serena is portrayed as the epitome of all that is good, but she’s also dull as dirt. Her brother tells Julian that she didn’t have fun often, and that seems to be true even after her death and rebirth as an angel. She also has a few too stupid to live moments, such as running into an empty nightclub when someone calls out to her, despite being told to wait for reinforcements. Um, hellooo!!!! Wait for the backup, dummy! This would be a great time for a blonde joke, except I know lots of blondes who would be rightly offended at the comparison.

The second problem is Julian. Julian’s working on building a new night club in Vegas with another archdemon, Corbin Ranulfson, who is truly evil. In comparison with Corbin, Julian is a woolly lamb. Corbin rips peoples’ limbs from their body, cannibalizes women while they’re still living, and murders a bellboy for breaking a Ming vase. He’s pretty darn scary. Julian, however, is not. Now, you’re thinking that no one would want a hero who’s that scary, because who wants to be with someone like that? And you’d be right! Julian’s a much milder type of demon, and yet we’re supposed to accept that he reached a status similar to Corbin’s within a record 200 years. I could almost picture Serena (a la Luke Skywalker) turning to Princess Leia, and saying “There’s still good in him. I can FEEL it.” But even with the flaws in Julian’s character, he’s still much more interesting than Serena. I didn’t hate Serena; I was just bored by her, and that’s never good for a romance.

So after all of this, you’re probably wondering why I would give the book a 3 out of 5. The truth is, Ms. Chong’s writing is smoothly executed and easy to read. The plot moves along nicely, and I like the underlying premise of the book. The “reforming the rake” trope is a favorite, and I like Ms. Chong’s spin on it, plus the portrayal of angels and demons, while not highly original, was well thought out and developed. Unfortunately the heroine was just too flat for the book to succeed for me. But because the writing IS so engaging, I would be more than willing to read another book by Ms. Chong. She managed to keep me reading her book, even though I couldn’t stand the heroine, and that takes some doing.

Review of My Dangerous Pleasure by Carolyn Jewel

I just got back from an unsuccessful trip to Barnes and Noble , which was quite the bummer. I was looking for a new release and a book published late last year, but for some reason the new release was unavailable. Even more shocking, they didn’t have several new releases that made the NYT bestseller list. I was NOT happy. Plus, I had to stand in line behind a group of kids playing with the Angry Birds stuffed toys at the checkout. (“Ooooh… Angry Birds! They’re red! And stuffed!” “Mom said not to touch, Mom said not to touch, MOM SAID DON’T TOUCH!!!!”) So a fun trip to B & N was had by all, especially the poor Mom with the kids at the front of the line. I have to confess, I never thought a trip to B & N would be such effective birth control, but there you have it.

Fortunately for my mood, when I got home I got to read an advanced reader copy of My Dangerous Pleasure by Carolyn Jewel that the publisher sent for review, so I am much happier!  This is the fourth book in Ms. Jewel’s Witches series, and it’s a fascinating world. I’d never read any of her books before, but I’ll certainly be checking them out in the future. The novel begins at Paisley Nichols’ bakery, where she meets and flirts with a sexy stranger, Rasmus Kessler. When she returns home that evening, she becomes violently ill. Her symptoms set off her landlord’s magic security system, alerting him that someone is using dark magic on the premises. He finds Paisley in her apartment and treats her. Unfortunately, for the following six weeks, Rasmus Kessler stalks Paisley, and when his actions become too threatening, her landlord has to step in and protect her. Paisley’s landlord, Iskander Philippikos, is a demon assassin sworn to the local warlord, but he’s drawn to the magic-resistant Paisley, and offers her protection from Rasmus, the mage.

The world building in My Dangerous Pleasure is complex, but I had little problems understanding what was happening in the novel despite not having read any of the earlier books in the series. There’s a glossary at the beginning of the novel, which I glanced at, but I think you can figure the terms out fairly easily on your own. Humans are for the most part unaware of the world of magic surrounding them, and both the mages and the demons want to maintain the humans’ ignorance. What was intriguing about this novel is that even though mages are presented as mostly evil, with the demons protecting the humans, the lines between good and evil are sometimes blurry. Both “good” and “bad” characters had to make decisions that could affect others, without any easy solutions. I particularly liked the character of Rasmus Kessler, because he started out as evil but as the novel progressed he became less of your typical villain and more of a more sympathetic character.

Given the title, I expected a lot more sex between Paisley and Iskander, but I was pleasantly surprised by how late in the novel the two actually got together. The sexual tension was played out for most of the novel, which I thought was really well done. Both Paisley and Iskander had difficult relationships in the past, with Iskander having been deeply betrayed, but they didn’t allow their pasts to stand in the way of a new relationship. I enjoyed seeing the two get to know one another gradually, learning to trust and develop feelings for one another before getting down and dirty.

I only have two criticisms of the novel. The first involves the scene early in the novel where Paisley is sick from Rasmus’ attempts to possess her and Iskander senses dark magic on his property. Iskander goes to investigate the source of the dark magic, and realizes that it’s coming from his tenant’s apartment. There are several pages of inner monologue, where he tries to decide whether or not he will be attacked by whomever is in the apartment or if Paisley is the one under attack. At this moment, which should be a tense one for the reader, Iskander starts to ponder his former partner’s betrayal and all it involves. I kept thinking, “Dude, stop dithering and do something!” Basically it felt like an awkward way for us to learn about his past that broke up the tension of the moment and made my mind start to wander, never a good thing. The second criticism is that the sixth chapter of the novel could have been left out completely. It involves several minor characters dealing with events that happened in previous novels and didn’t really add anything to the storyline. We meet them again later, but what’s revealed in the sixth chapter is not alluded to again, and any necessary introductions for the reader’s sake could have occurred later, since Paisley has to be introduced to the same characters in a scene late in the novel. It was a bit disconcerting, because it happened so early in the novel I kept expecting the characters to reappear and play more pivotal roles.

Either way, I really enjoyed Paisley and Iskander’s growing attraction, and the story really took off after chapter 6. I felt the pace of the action from then on was just right, and we learned more about the world Ms. Jewel has created as Paisley did, which was particularly effective. It was a fun read, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Ms. Jewel’s work after I catch up on her previous novels.