Stolen, by Kelly Armstrong

I decided to put off reading the POD book for the time being. I started reading the first chapter, but the writing style put me off. Seriously people, if you're writing a series and you want to include back story in volume two, put it in a prologue, so people can skip over it.

Anyway, the latest book I read is Stolen by Kelly Armstrong. It's volume two of the "Women of the Otherworld" series. As with volume one, it focuses on Elena, the only female werewolf.

In this book, Elena is kidnapped by a billionaire, who is keeping supernaturals prisoner so his pet scientist can study them. The rich dude is also a bit of a psycho and like to hunt and kill the supernaturals for sport.

It's a good book. I like the characters. I like the writing. I love the action. It's a good book, but I can't think of a lot to say about it.

I give Stolen a full five yo-yos.

Bitten, by Kelly Armstrong

I started off in reading the middle of the Women of the Otherworld series., mainly because Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic were available in cheap $5 copies. Now I decided to go back and start at the beginning of the series with Bitten . This book tells the story of the only female werewolf. It's also full of action, which I always like.

Elena, the female werewolf, is a member of the Pack, which is sort of the governing body of werewolves. Non-Pack members are called mutts, and are looked down on by the Pack. In this book, one of the mutts shows up in the Pack's territory and starts killing people. Elena, and the rest of the Pack, have to track him down and kill him.

There's quite a bit more to the story too. We get to see Elena trying to fit in to the human world, and not really succeeding as well as she wishes. We also get to see her struggling to finally come to terms with her lycanthropy, and to figure out which man she really loves.

These are great books and are highly recommended. I give Bitten a full five yo-yos. Up next, I'll hopefully get around to reading that POD I got a review copy of, but I might end up reading the seqal to Bitten.

The Black Tea Experiments, by Ray Atkinson

I love getting things for free. So, when a publicist offered too send me review copies of two books, I jumped at the chance. Once I got the books, there were some warning signs that the quality might not be too high. One of the books was obviously POD book, and the other (which I'm reviewing today) was published by a "publisher" who's on Writer Beware's "Two Thumbs Down" publisher's list and is strongly not recommended by Preditor's & Editors.

The Black Tea Experiments calls itself an "airplane book," by which the writer means it's intended to be picked up at an airport bookstore, and is short enough to be read during a single flight. If that's what your looking for, then I would recommend this book. It does have an original plot and interesting characters, which can make it a fun read.

The plot goes like this: there's a Russian mad scientist/mob boss who made a serum that turned some kids into super-geniuses and altered their blood. One of these kids gets murdered on a college campus and the hero's girlfriend is blamed. Somehow the hero's super-dooper telescope managed to catch pictures of the crime. It's fairly interesting.

Unfortunately the book has some major style problems. There is way too much extraneous information. It seems like every character (major & minor) gets his own little backstory or side story, which distracts from the main plot. Then there's the fact that the POV keeps shifting from one character to another with no warning. Hell, it shifts from one character in the main plot to another character's back- or side story with no warning. There are also quit a few typos and word misuses like this one:

Your Honor, the defendant has been discovered on a security camera leaving the library with the decendent...

I suspect the author meant deceased. Also, the dialog is pretty bad in spots.

I can only give The Black Tea Experiments three yo-yos. I hope the POD book is better, but I'm not holding my breath.

Proven Guilty, by Jim Butcher

I've managed to get quite a few books lately, one of which is Proven Guilty, by Jim Butcher. It's the eight Dresden Files Book.

I love the Dresden Files books (the show not so much). Since I've reviewed vols. 1-7 in omnibus editions, I can't think of anything new to say about this one that I haven't said about the others, except that I like the way Dresden's character is developing.

It's a good book. I give Proven Guilty five yo-yos.