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Viking Warrior Rising
Viking Warrior Rising by Asa Marie Bradley is 99c at select vendors! It’s currently nominated for a RITA® in both the Best First Book and Paranormal Romance categories. It also spawned this hilarious DNF review from Reader K Smith:
Let’s see just how bad the epilogue is. Ooh, there’s a Valkyrie initiation ceremony?! Ladies, tell me more! Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm, thigh high boots, yup, let’s rub our hair together, okay! And…set it…on…fire…you know what, forget it, this is not going in the direction I had hoped.
And Reader Harper Gray gave it a C- grade with a very well-researched review:
When I read the blurb I thought I was going to get a Viking Age novel, not a revived-to-the-present Viking and super-human suspense novel. I’m not disappointed on that score; I’m disappointed that it started so well and then didn’t seem able to follow through on the promising beginning. The insertions of Swedish felt more out of place than atmospheric, and I thought it really strange that they would call Leif their king, and not their chief or leader. I think that Bradley’s narrative voice will likely smooth out in future books; she’s clearly a clever and capable writer. But I found the characters all pretty bland, the romance totally unconvincing and bordering on Stockholm Syndrome, and Irja, the most compelling of the Good Guys, pretty much thrown away both as a person and as a character.
Immortal Vikings are among us
Leif Skarsganger and his elite band of immortal warriors have been charged to protect humanity from the evil Norse god Loki.
Under attack from Loki’s minions, Leif is shocked to encounter a dark-haired beauty who fights like a warrior herself. Wounded and feverish, the Viking kisses her, inadvertently triggering an ancient Norse bond. But when Naya Brisbane breaks away and disappears before the bond is completed, Leif’s warrior spirit goes berserk. If Leif doesn’t find her fast, he’s going to lose himself to permanent battle fury.
But Naya doesn’t want to be found…and he’ll do anything to find her. Because they’re both running out of time.
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Slave
Slave by Cheryl Brooks is $1.99! This is a scifi, paranormal, erotic romance. The hero is part of a feline race and has to pose as the heroine’s master so she can infiltrate a society to investigate the disappearance of her sister. Some people found the mix of genres didn’t quite work, while others thought it was a fun, sex-filled read. Several other books in the series are also on sale!
He may be the last of a species whose sexual talents were the envy of the galaxy
“I found him in the slave market on Orpheseus Prime, and even on such a god-forsaken planet as that one, their treatment of him seemed extreme.”
Cat is an enslaved warrior from a race with a feline gene that gives him awesome beauty, fearsome strength, and sensuality and sexual prowess unmatched by any other males in the universe. Even filthy, chained, and beaten, he gives off an aura of power and virility and his feline gene gives him a special aura.
Jacinth is an intergalactic trader on a rescue mission and she needs a man she can trust with her life.
She has spent years pursuing her kidnapped sister from planet to planet. Now her quest leads her to a place where all the women are slaves. “Jack” needs a slave of her own-one who can masquerade as her master.
Enmeshed in a tangle of deception, lust, and love, they must elude a race of violent killers and together forge a bond stronger than any chains.
The first book in wildly popular Cat Star Chronicles, a paranormal romance series featuring heroes with a feline gene that gives them remarkable sexual powers.
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Strange Neighbors
Strange Neighbors by Ashlyn Chase is $1.99! This is a paranormal romance with a heroine who moves into an apartment building full of supernatural races. Some readers thought the cast of characters was a little too big. Others thought it had a good blend of light humor and romance. Have you read this one?
He’s looking for peace, quiet, and a little romance…
There’s never a dull moment when hunky all-star pitcher and shapeshifter Jason Falco invests in an old Boston brownstone apartment building full of supernatural creatures. But when Merry MacKenzie moves into the ground floor apartment, the playboy pitcher decides he might just be done playing the field…
A girl just wants to have fun…
Sexy Jason seems like the perfect fling, but newly independent nurse Merry’s not sure she’s ready to trust him with her heart…especially when the tabloids start trumpeting his playboy lifestyle.
Then pandemonium breaks loose and Merry and Jason will never get it together without a little help from the vampire who lives in the basement and the werewolf from upstairs.
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The Paper Magician
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg is $1.99. This is book one in a series, and Sarah mentioned it in a Whatcha Reading? post from January 2015:
It’s got a mix of gothic, magic/fantasy, and mystery that I like.
The heroine, Ceony, went to a school of magical training and wanted to apprentice to a Smelter, a magician of metal. Once a student is apprenticed, they’re bonded permanently to that form of magic. Due to low numbers, Ceony is forced into Folding, or paper magic, and is apprenticed to the requisite mysterious, slightly broody, slightly secretive dude, and begins learning about what Folding is all about.
Then bad shit happens and she flies on a paper plane to go kick ass – and I haven’t finished it yet, but so far, my brain is really happy.
For an update, Sarah says, grade-wise, she’d give it a B: “The fantasy world is terrific and Ceony is awesome. The progress to relationship happened REALLY fast, though, and I felt let down by the lack of development. Still, paper folding as magic? Pretty rad.”
Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic…forever.
Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined—animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.
An Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic—invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.
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“Even filthy, chained, and beaten, he gives off an aura of power and virility and his feline gene gives him a special aura.”
Heh! Even the book blurb for SLAVE is badly written! This one sure sounds like a winner…
Omg, Slave! There is some seriously memorable crazy sauce.
Suuuuper high concept: someone was basically like well, ladies like sexy romances and ladies like cats, so…
It was hilarious, Wrong, over the top wtf-ery, and I neither know nor care if that was intentional on the author’s part.
Brooks’s Cat Star Chronicles were silly as all get out and often annoying, but I confess that I still liked them for the most part. I’m sure I permanently lost some brain cells reading them, but there were things my juvenile brain found amusing (Moe, Larry, and Curly).
Am I the only one who immediately thought of Dara Joy and “Rejar” when reading the blurb for “Slave”? Also, the current cover for “Rejar” is horrendous.
That book does remind me of Rejar (I was a huge Dara Joy fan in my teen years). All of the current covers are soooo bad.
Riptide’s entire catalog is 50% off at Kobo through Monday. Use code 50JUN.
Riptide, like a lot of LGBTQ publishers, tends to be expensive so this is a good sale.
The Paper Magician: Bought it, started it yesterday, finished it today, thank you for bringing it to my attention.
This book is so wonderfully written, the plot so excellently developed, the characters, even minor ones, are three-dimensional. Even the paper dog is amusing which is saying something because I am most definitely a cat person. I loved it so much, I immediately purchased the other two books in the trilogy as well as pre-ordering a related book in that it is in the same world. I think Charlie N. Holmberg has become an auto-buy author for me. Fortunately, I don’t have to wait too long for the pre-order to arrive on my kindle. It will come tomorrow.
The world-building is flawless. Holmberg’s England is one where magic is simply a legitimate career choice. Some might choose to be stockbrokers, musicians, others magicians. No biggie. Unlike Harry Potter’s world, magic isn’t a sub-strata within the culture but very mainstream.
Our heroine, Ceony, has just graduated from the magic school. It is one year of intense learning and she was at the top of her class. She wanted to be a Smelting Magician and work with metals but the world of magic can’t do without its Paper Magicians and she is unfortunately, in her eyes, apprenticed to Magician Emory Thane, a somewhat eccentric Paper Magician. Unbeknownst to her, he had taken an interest in her a few weeks before she began her studies at the school. She was catering at a magicians’ banquet and a Dirty Old Man of a magician groped her under her skirt and she poured a pitcher of wine on him in a Most Embarrassing Spot. I leave it to the gentle reader to guess where. Her actions charmed Thane, but unfortunately for Ceony, the drenched man was also the person who decided who received the scholarship for which she applied and without which she could not pay her expenses at the school. But in the Very Nick of time, a scholarship from a different source is provided for her. She joins Thane in his home to begin her apprenticeship.
She soon discovers that Paper Magic and Folding is not merely decorative but highly functional. The butler of this household, Jonters, is an animated skeleton made of paper Folded by Thane. When Thane realizes Ceony left a much beloved Jack Russel terrier behind due to his allergies, he makes an adorable paper dog for her. Much study is required from human anatomy, watercraft, aircraft, animating childrens’ stories and more.
I gotta tell you, the writing is so flawless I found every page enchanting. Then the plot thickens and a crazy woman bursts into Thane’s home despite the wards, charms, and locks. She reaches into Thane’s chest and pulls out his heart and departs. Ceony, remembering the anatomy books, Folds a new heart and inserts it into Thane’s chest seconds before it magically closes. Thane regains consciousness enough to know it is a badly Folded heart due to her inexperience and he requires her to make a Vitality chain which she wraps around his torso. At that point he instructs her to call for help.
Two magicians arrive, Ceony explains what has happened. Despite wanting to stay she is banished to bed. Naturally, she slips off her shoes and sneaks downstairs to eavesdrop. Not liking what she hears, especially that Thane will probably only live another two days, she decides to act when the others won’t. Ina bag she packs many sheets of paper, some food, and her little dog too. In the attic where the “big magic” is, she finds a large paper glider. She and the dog hop on, and following a paper bird who had scouted the evil woman’s location, she Animates the glider and they fly off.
At this point, I wondered if I was about to encounter a trope I simply can’t stand: the Too Stupid Too Live heroine. This is the type of woman who is determined to help regardless of her lack of skills, capabilities, or training. She does a buncha stuff with the best of intentions, only to get entangled in events she did not foresee because she did not have the skills, capabilities, and training to adequately assess the situation. In reality, it is a plot device so that the alpha hero rescues her.
But no such thing. Not only is Thane not an alpha hero, Ceony is trapped by Lira, the evil woman, inside Thane’s heart where she learns all his secrets, sweet and dark. After several adventures within the various chambers of his heart, which is a metaphor, she meets Thane himself. There is an important conversation and Thane personally expels her from his heart even though it will cost him, but there is no other choice if she is to restore his beating heart to his body.
Ceony has to battle Lira nd in desperation uses the very first spell Thane taught her: animating words. She grabs the heart of the magic bowl that sustained it, wraps it in a Vitality chain, finds the glider and swooshes back to London. The heart is inserted, Thane lives. They return to their studies but, of course, things are changed enough between them that the very next thing I do after I finish this review is read the Glass Magician, the second volume in the trilogy.