Fresh new YA vampire series -- Action!

Rival
Lacy Yager
Aspendawn Books
Dec 2013

A new approach to a young adult vampire story: The focus is on action, and the story engages the reader fairly quickly.  With a great kick-butt female lead (expert in martial arts) and a likeable male lead who is equally compelling, the story sets off quickly and develops the scene for the plot quickly.  Family figures strongly in the equation, and the reader will be pulling for --and empathizing with-- the characters drawn by the authors.

What's different about this book 
A fresh approach to how vampires and humans co-exist (or don't) in Yager's world.  While the conflict in this story shows only the Chasers killing vampires, the series itself involves good and bad within both the human and vampire communities.
      The novella format serves to introduce the reader quickly to the Unholy Alliance context while providing an entertaining short story from that context.  This will be an easy sell to young adult readers who appreciate action and drama, but don't need the angst or extreme language.  There's a clean but convincing romance that tops off this enjoyable, strong plot-driven story.

What I'll do now that I've read the book 
The dilemma for series books often is the Kindle-only novella that adds information about the series. My libraries don't use Kindles, but we'll advertise the availability of this addition when we book talk the titles in the Unholy Alliance series.  As a result of my opportunity to review these titles, we have purchased the print titles in the series and look forward to sharing these with our readers. I predict high demand.

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Short stories for Christmas -- and more books to come

A Christmas to Remember
authors Hope Ramsay, Molly Cannon, Marilyn Pappano, Kristen Ashley, Jill Shalvis
Forever (Grand Central Publishing)
December 2013

It's snowing outside, cold, and in the shut-down of the day, this compilation of short romance stories was a quick and pleasurable read.  The NetGalley version that I read also served to promote some full-length books soon to be released.

What's different about this book?
Anthologies are always fun -- you get some reading you like, some you love, and new authors you didn't know. 

What struck me as different was the promotion of the new books coming: a chance to read excerpts of the authors' new titles (Pappano, for example, has her new book coming out in February).

What I'll do now that I've read this
I'll move on to the next book in my to-read list.  Nothing here for my various libraries, so this reading was more a personal pleasure read. Great if you like themed collections of stories.

 

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