I mostly listen to books (mainly because my eyes suck). I love Audible, despite the fact that they clearly know my weakness and play upon it regularly. My weakness is the $4.95 sales. (Even though I’m an Aussie, I use the USA store. There are two reasons for this: there was no Australian store when I signed up, and unless the exchange rate is particularly bad, it’s cheaper for me to go through the US store).
I picked up these two during one of the recent sales.
Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs – Molly Harper.
New vampires are discouraged from trying to return to their normal human routines. Especially if those routines include tanning or working as a fireman. Your day will not end well.
From The Guide for the Newly Undead
Jane Jameson doesn’t think life can get any worse when she is fired from her job and given a meal voucher rather than severance pay. Boy is she surprised when she is mistaken for a deer and shot and left for dead. Thanks to the nice older man she had been sinking cocktails with, she won’t have to worry about death again. But being undead is a whole new challenge. She has to come out to her family and friends, come to terms with her new powers and figure out who is trying to frame her for murder.
This book is good fun with lots of laugh-out-loud one liners, and many pot shots at polite Southern society. Each chapter starts with a quote from The Guide for the Newly Undead, which offers helpful hints and tips to new vampires such as how to avoid being staked or from whence they can ethically acquire their blood.
Apart from the seemingly obligatory “I’m suddenly in love with the older vampire even though he annoys me and I don’t want to be” trope , this book is great fun.
2 1/2 out of 5 bags of synth blood.
A Power Renewed: Sentinels of Creation – Robert W Ross.
This falls into the “it’s so bad it’s good” category.
Ross is clearly a card carrying member of the Superwholock fandom – fortunately I am as well or most of this story wouldn’t have made sense.The story is filled with Doctor Who quotes and a couple of plot points, some quotes from the BBC Sherlock and also contains a 1967 Impala called ‘Baby’.
Kellan has been selected y the Archangel Raphael to be the next Sentinel of Creation, the point of which seems to be to ensure that free will is still a thing. Kellan ends up taking on a superbad Archangel with the assistance of his female companions.
The character development is choppy (read virtually non-existent), with the three female characters not being allowed in a room together until close to the end of the book (resulting in a similar scene to when Martha and Donna meet in season 4 of Doctor Who). Despite this, Kellan is a smart mouth and we are privy to his stream of consciousness, which is laugh out loud funny at times.
For me this book was completely saved by the brilliant narration of Nick Podehl, who I would happily listen to reading a phone book.
If you like a fun and frivolous urban fantasy and are a Doctor Who fan, dive right in. If you aren’t sure what a Superwholock is, maybe give this one a miss.
1 1/2 out of 5 Fandom T-Shirts.
