Because It's Never Too Late: My Favorite Books of 2014

Image Credit: Abhi Sharma

I don’t know about you, but I always thought that January  February  March needed more “Best of” lists. I mean, why so greedy, December?  Why do you hoard all the lists? Since I’m contrary like that (and didn’t have time to write this thing in December when I should have and then the months kept passing and it became The Beast to Be Defeated! GAH!!!) and because it’s never too late to annoy people with my choices, today I present you with my The Most Memorable List of Bestest Books that Ever Booked in 2014. It’s not going to be predictable or repetitive at all, so get ready to be blown away by so much awesomeness!

On a more serious note I must say that I always have good reading years, so you won’t hear me complain about having a hard time finding good books or coming up with ten titles to put on the list, but this year my productivity was so lacking and my reading so scattered, that even now, after I’ve had time to think about what I read, what I loved and why, I can’t even find the energy to remember. So memorable is a good way to describe these books, because they were the ones that first came to mind when I was having a hard time mustering the enthusiasm to blog.

That One Time I Finished a Serial and Liked It: The Kraken King, Parts V-VIII by Meljean Brook

Last month I was over at Dear Author guest reviewing the first half of Meljean Brook’s first serial, The Kranken King, and today I’m guest reviewing the second and final half.

Reading this serial was an interesting, choppy experience. I received surprise ARC’s of the first four installments back in May, but I didn’t get the two final parts until last week. So I did get to read the serial as a serial, but not in the way it was intended (although obviously there’s no right or wrong ways to approach a serial). This didn’t really affect my enjoyment because I really liked each part, so not knowing when or if I would be getting early review copies only increased my anticipation. I’m very happy with the final product, and I feel like it was money well spent (I pre-ordered all the parts months ago), but as much as I loved TKK, I haven’t changed my mind about serials, even though I’m more willing to read them as serials (as opposed to just waiting to read all the parts at once), so I guess there’s that.

I hope you enjoy my vague, gushing, slightly repetitive review. And if you decide to try the book, come back and let me know how you liked it!

That One Time I Read Half a Serial and Liked It: The Kraken King by Meljean Brook

Tentacle!

I’m guest reviewing the first four parts of The Kraken King serial over at Dear Author. This is a spoiler-free, general review of the first half of the serial, so it reads like a review of the whole thing. I’m not a fan of the format, but I really enjoyed this one, even though I’ll probably wait until I have the final four parts to read them all at once.

I also feel like I should warn you that this is a very positive review. You guys know how much I love Ms. Brook’s books, but I actually struggled with finding things to criticize, something that didn’t even happen with Guardian Demon. Part of it is that what I read was all very, very good, and part of it is that I haven’t read the whole thing yet, so I’m missing half the information. In that regard, writing the review was an interesting exercise, just as interesting --and slightly frustrating-- as reading the serial. I probably should have serialized my review instead of looking at it as a whole, but even then I think I would have had a hard time finding something to criticize, because each part has enough individual merits to stand on its own. And don’t worry, the book I will review next is one of the worse I've read this year, so I’ll will bring balance to the Force.

For those of you interested in the series, all the books stand alone ridiculously well,  but I would read them in order just to build the sense of the world in the order the novels were published. Also, The Kraken King offers a perspective of the world that’s pretty different to the one we get in The Iron Duke, so having that contrast makes the experience richer.

That’s it! Go read the review and let me know what you think. I’m also interested to hear how you feel about serials: love them, hate them, meh!, is there a serial that changed your mind about the format, etc.

2013: A Year in Books | The Favorites

Image Credit: Abhi Sharma

The year is almost over, and you know what that means: it’s time to write our “Best of” lists and anger people with our terrible choices. But fear not! My impeccable taste guarantees a list filled with nothing but great recommendations… That, and I’m aware of how obnoxious and pretentious some of these lists are, which is why this year I’m going with “Favorites” instead of “Best”. So even if you violently disagree with me, at least you know that I consider this my list and not the list.

Before I get to it, though, I wanted to thank you all for the wonderful year I’ve had. I know I was a bit of a slacker, yet you’re still here even when I only blog once a month. But consistent or not, 2013 was a lot of fun and that’s all thanks to you blogger/twitter/reader/author friends who make the Internet welcoming, interesting and highly addictive.

I’ll resume my not-so-regularly scheduled blogging next month, but in the meantime I leave you with my favorite books of the year (in no particular order). Let me know if any of your favorites made the list.

An Illustrated Review: Guardian Demon by Meljean Brook

Source: A review copy was provided by the author. 

Warning: One spoiler for the previous books and one somewhat vague spoiler of something that happens in the first chapter of this one.

As you guys know (because I keep telling you), this is my favorite series, and the final book, Guardian Demon, was one of my most anticipated book of, well, ever. So it's a bittersweet moment for me, because as much as I enjoyed the book, saying goodbye to a beloved series is never easy. The good news is that I read the book in May, so I’ve had time to get over the book hangover, and this review won’t be a blubbering mess.

Remember how Nath and I wrote a post filled with theories about the book? Well, it turns out that we suck at guessing, because of all our theories the only one we kind of got right was this one:

Heroine Week, Day 4 – Demons, Warriors and Machiavellian Caregivers: The Women of Meljean Brook’s Guardian Series

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead, especially for the third book, Demon Night.

To me, Paranormal Romance* has fairytale quality. The stories feel fantastic beyond the obvious, probably because, in some ways, it sticks to traditional genre conventions and gender roles. The men are strong, dominant and possessive; whereas the women, regardless of strength, most of the time need to be saved and are visibly weaker than their male counterparts.

However, in the past few years this has started to change. The women have reclaimed their agency, the heroes have discovered their sensitive, respectful sides, and the different relationships established between heroes and heroines have moved towards a middle that begins to resemble true partnership.

Meljean Brook’s books perfectly fit this developing pattern, and we should stand to attention and take note of it. Her heroines push boundaries, defy expectations, and question conventions. They have agency and know their strengths and limitations well. They save the day, but also know when it’s wise to let someone else do the saving. These are complex and interesting characters that make their heroes work hard to become worthy of such wonderful women.

Review: Fire & Frost by Meljean Brook, Carolyn Crane, and Jessica Sims

Source: A review copy was provided by the authors. 

Fire and Frost is the newest collaboration between authors Meljean Brook, Carolyn Crane and Jessica Sims. The novellas are unique and almost impossible to compare, but they do have two things in common: the charming, compelling characters and the way the “hot and cold” theme has been cleverly incorporated into each story.

In Speed Mating by Jessica Sims we meet Estrella, a mixed tiger and lion shifter (or liger) who is about to go into heat and asks her clan’s alpha to help her find a suitable male to have sex with. Hilarity ensues. Well, not hilarity exactly, but as the title suggests, this is a light, tongue-in-cheek story that’s all about having fun while still managing to sneak in an interesting and welcome take on the ubiquitous shifter romance.

2012: A Year in Books | The Best

Winter Berries by Michelle Buntin

This year I tried to choose books that were both the best and my favorites (although “best” is still quite subjective). The end of the year is plagued with awards, but most of the time the winners are the popular books and not necessarily the best. I want this list to reflect entertainment but also quality, because one of the reasons this year was less than stellar, was because of the rise of many books that were more unfinished product than anything else. And one thing I wish 2013 brings is higher standards. I believe quality and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive, and all the books on my list should reflect that.

Book Talk: Guardian Demon by Meljean Brook (A Long Post with Crappy Pictures)

Image credit: Horia Varlan

Important Note: this post is filled with very significant spoilers for the Guardian series by Meljean Brook. If you haven’t read the books, don’t read it (it won’t make sense if you’re unfamiliar with it, so you’re not missing much).

Today, our friend and fellow blogger, Nath, is joining us to talk about the last book in Meljean Brook's Guardian series (you can also find this post at Breezing Through). We're huge fans and can't wait to read the book, so in the meantime we're going to speculate all we can. 

Nath: If you've been around blogland in the past weeks, you’re probably aware that Ms. Meljean Brook finally unveiled the cover for her last book in her Guardian series, Guardian Demon. But the cover wasn't alone, we also got a blurb. Brie, being a huge fan of the series, was so excited that she shot me an email wanting to discuss and do some guesswork about what might be happening in this final installment. She also had the bright idea to share this discussion with fellow fans and have you join us! So feel free to add your two cents on the comments!!

Review: Riveted by Meljean Brook

Source:  we received a copy of the book from the author for review purposes. 

Is no secret that I’m a fan of Meljean Brook. Her characters are compelling, the worlds she creates are complex and reading her books is a wonderful experience. That’s the reason why Riveted was one of my most anticipated books of the year. Now that I’ve read it, I can tell you that the anticipation was deserved.

Annika grew up on an isolated village in Iceland, a very uncommon village. What makes it extraordinary is also the reason why it must remain a secret. So for years its inhabitants have fueled the mystery with legends and stories. But one day Annika’s foolish mistake endangered that secret and her sister, Källa, took the blame. As a result, Källa was exiled and Annika left the village to bring her back.

Review: Angels of Darkness (Anthology) by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Meljean Brook and Sharon Shinn

I wonder if angels have replaced vampires as the supernatural creatures of the moment. Lately there’s been an explosion of books about angels or with angel-like beings, and they seem to have taken the romance world by storm -or maybe these creatures have always been a popular subject and I’m just catching on-.  Whatever it is, it’s clear that they are here to stay and I’m glad because they make fascinating book characters, as this anthology clearly proves.

I’m not a huge fan of anthologies and it’s unusual for me to find one where I actually am familiar with all the authors involved (I haven’t read anything by Shinn but she has been on my TBR list for ages), which is the reason why I wanted to read this book.

WINNERS!

This week we had several giveaways going so I've got a little list of winners to announce. I’ve already emailed the winners so if you didn't get an email from me please check your spam folder just in case. If you didn't get it let me know through a comment here or send me an email. 

Thanks to everyone who participated! 

Here are the winners: 

Meljean Brook’s Guardian Series: wanderinghues 

Cate Lord’s Lucky Girl: Maria 

Karen Rose Smith’s Reunion Brides Series: Marina M. 

Congratulations guys! I hope you enjoy the books as much as I enjoyed doing the giveaways.

Review & Giveaway: Demon Marked by Meljean Brook

In case you didn’t know, Meljean Brook is one of my favorite authors, not in the romance genre, or the paranormal genre, one of my favorite authors period. Not only that, but I’m pretty sure that the Guardian series is my all-time favorite book series. I don’t usually preorder books because I mostly only read on my Kindle, but I made an exception with this one just in case they ran out of e-copies (impossible right?) that’s how much I wanted to make sure that I was getting this book as soon as I could.

Demon Marked is book seven in the series -not counting several novellas that are in between- and if you go to Brook’s webpage you will find an extensive guide to the series so you can have an overall idea of where the story is at should you decide to start with this book instead of the first one. But, to be honest, the reason why this series is so good is because the story is complex and full of twists and turns, if you don’t start with the first book (actually the first novella) then it won’t be the same experience, not to mention that if you read that guide then all the surprises will be spoiled for you. So what I’m trying to say is please read these books in order, besides, this is the second to last book in the series and why would you want to start here? Go back and read the Hot Spell anthology and Demon Angel and read the whole thing.

Review: Here There Be Monsters by Meljean Brook

I've been a fan of the Guardian Series for ages so when I found out about Ms. Book's new series I was eager to read it. Here There Be Monsters was a complete different experience though, I can’t believe that one single person can come up with such different worlds and do it so well. I’m actually in awe of people like Meljean Brook, Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews and so many other brilliant writers and storytellers.