This novel, a prequel to book 2 (which was a prequel to book 1) is the origin story of two of my favorite characters from the previous novels, the suave king Shoryu and his grumpy kirin Enki (here called...Spirits! Too many Evil Spirits to sleep, A lonely Evil Spirit, I Don't Want to Become an Evil Spirit! Don't Call me an Evil Spirit, I don't mind Evil Spirits 1 and I don't mind Evil Spirits 2.

A promising beginning to a manhwa (Korean comic) about an old woman who’s a village shaman (their translation – a note says the Korean word is mudang), her young grand-daughter who’s inherited her skills...with the possibility of human-spirit romance. Though the translation is clunky, I liked this quite a bit overall and will continue reading the series. See it on Amazon: Dokebi Bride Vol. 1 (v. 1)

...public school, with the echoes of the fairyland with a dark secret that typically populates novels of such schools, is a perfect way to make the reader uneasy without questioning the plausibility of his fantasy. The reader knows the unreality of the setting and expects some calamitous twist... but they don't expect a twist that challenges the humanity of the heroes. They don't expect such a confrontation...

Though set in the same world as the first Twelve Kingdoms novel and possessing a few of the same characters, this is not a continuation of Yoko’s story, but about events a number of years before that story...and character development than wall-to-wall action. Akihiro Yamada did the gorgeous interior illustrations. View on Amazon: Twelve Kingdoms - Paperback Edition Volume 2: Sea of Wind (v. 2)

This novel prompted the following conversation, held with oyceter via cellphone: Oyce: The angels-make-vampires writer also wrote a book about shapeshifter condos! Me: Did you say shapeshifter...detest all 69 of Anita’s love interests.) I… oh, I confess it… will undoubtedly read more of the Psy/Changeling series, and even went online to find out the release date of the next angel/vampire book

The links lead to longer reviews. 22: Skim : This is very good, but not my sort of thing. An understated graphic novel about a teenage girl dealing with various Stuff. Others have reviewed it better... but even as a white australian woman the idea of a black African man whose predator nature shines through his magical eyes as he turns into a leopard a bit..dodgy. It didn't put me off too much, YMMV

12 and 13. Knife Edge and Checkmate by Malorie Blackman I can't talk about these sequels to Noughts and Crosses without hugely spoilering that book, so don't read on if you want to be surprised...that they are destined to conquer new ground. None of this makes it a bad book or unbelievable that the character would believe it, it is just a question of how far I can go along for the ride.  

The Devil's Kiss was previously reviewed on the comm here so I'll just put my personal response here and skip the summary bits. I read a review The Devil's Kiss today which seemed to put it in with...but it's also a fully self-contained story (another nice change!) Particularly recommended for teenage girls who like action-adventure and are sick of having their gender relegated to secondary roles

Freedom in the Family , Tananarive and Patricia Due This is a fantastic book! In alternating chapters, Patricia Stevens Due and her daughter, Tananarive Due, talk about their histories with the Civil...these qualify. You get to see the lives and choices of people caught up in the seemingly endless war between human-settled worlds and the alien strits -- and the pirate ships preying on both sides

She's a fiddle player with Voodoo magic, he's a sex slave Merman. They fight crime! Overall I thought this was ok but underwhelming. I wrote a short review on my lj . A question for people who've read...it in this one, and I vaguely recall someone complaining about a similar problem with another of her books. Given that these are romance novels it's not much fun if I find the romance unengaging :