Unseemly

Unseemly by Jason Parent
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Unseemly is a short story/novella written by Jason Parent featuring a legend about an obscure Scottish Island. Peter is here for a black market payday, and another grave robbing experience. Although his true passion is archeology, he learned long ago that honest money didn't pay his bills.

He has come to the island to meet up with past unsavory partners that have teamed up on other undesirable jobs. This one features an academically researched legend into the sidhe. Against all of his intuition and instincts he continues along with the job.

This was a quick read and very exciting. An enticing fantastical horror story that ended abruptly. Made me feel like I was reading a more in depth "Are You Afraid of the Dark" tale. 4 Stars!

** I received a copy of this book for free with the For Love of a Book Read & Review Opportunity Program

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House of Leaves

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
     

I'm truly not even sure what to say about this book. Never before have I read ANYTHING like this, and in a way I hope I never do again. But do not take that as my regret at having read it in the first place. The amount of work that went into the creation of this book was immense.



I found myself constantly blurring the lines of fiction/non-fiction, going back to read what it was classified as and not sure if it was real or imagines.



This book is so many things: Crazy, witty, horrific, imaginative, intellectual, a mash of so many things, I really don't even know what to classify it as.





It touches upon the paranormal, the mythological, architecture, math, science, spirituality, abuse in all forms, good and bad passions, the imagination and what can come from it and a house that attunes to all who enter to find the darkness which knows no light.



There are 3 stories and more within this tome. The story of Navidson's Documentary and how it was made and those involved. Zapano, a blind man who worked up until his death to compile this story of the completion of Navidson, and then the unlikely Johnny Truant whose footnotes cause loads if entertainment and unrelated adventures during his own compilation of the works of those before him.


This is one of those books that could never be recreated and should be read once for the sheer curiosity of it, but it's not one you are likely to want to keep close to you in life, for it must travel on to others, and be shared as a contemplative genius of being put together. Those prone to fright from a simple horror/psychological thriller may want to shy away from this one... or let their curiosity get the better of them. 5 stars for originality alone
     

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Graeme Ing: Interview

I was given the opportunity to interview author Graeme Ing after reading his enjoyable book Necromancer.
You can see my review here: Necromancer Review

Please take this time to get to know Graeme a bit more and then also check out Necromancer as well as his other books:

How did you get into writing?

I began scribbling stories as a teen (a long time ago!) and even typing screenplays on a manual typewriter. I think it stemmed from my immersion into fantasy and sci-fi as a kid. I blame...er thank... my mother for that. As my career and life took over (like it does), I found little time to write, but returned to my lifelong dream of becoming an author about 8 or 9 years ago. With so many ideas, worlds and characters whizzing around my head, I'm not going to stop now.

What made you choose the topic of necromancy for your book?

Magic and creatures from beyond the grave are a solid staple of fantasy. To me, necromancy is a sinister subject that conjures images of decrepit sorcerers in dark cellars poring over ancient spellbooks to summon nasty creatures. I wanted to turn that trope on its head. I wanted necromancers to be protecting people from undead and spirits. I wanted a young hero, and I wanted to thrust a female into a male-dominated profession. That was the premise that drew me to writing this book. Necromancers can be heroes, right?

What was the religious background that you incorporated into the lives of your characters?

Like most books in the fantasy genre, I drew upon a "pagan" pantheon of Gods, but chose to leave it open as to whether such Gods had real power in the physical world. Like ancient times on Earth, each God or Goddess represented a sphere of life such as justice, nature, storms, or in the case of Lak (referred to many times in the book), God of the underworld and demons. In the city in the book, the temples to all the Gods are clustered in the mighty Temple Plaza, and I envisioned it likely that the populace would worship multiple Gods rather than a single one, or perhaps only Belaya, who is the mother of the Gods. I chose not to make religion a significant factor in the book, but more a backdrop. I was trying not to make any religious statements.

Is there an author that stands out to you as inspiration?  If so, what was it about this author that gave you inspiration?

Anne McCaffrey has inspired me more than any single author. I'm still incredibly impressed with the depth of her characters, her incredible imagination and how she wove in romance and tension without the need for indulgent sex or excessive violence. I found myself deeply engrossed in every character she wrote. If you've read The Harper hall trilogy and had your emotions ripped apart by the struggle of Menolly, then you know exactly what I mean. She's one of the rare authors that could make me actually cry because she wrote emotional drama so well.

Will there be another book to carry out the adventures of the characters remaining from Necromancer?

For sure! Not immediately. I have 3 or 4 other books that need writing first, but I definitely want to tell more about Maldren and Ayla's adventures together. I already have an outline for another book set in the city of Malkandrah, involving a daring swordswoman forced into a series of deadly actions to save her young daughter. Phyxia will make an appearance in that too.

What is your favorite target audience to write for?

That's a great question. Women I think. Traditionally, females in fantasy and sci-fi have had a bad rap, serving as victims or eye candy. Ayla (and Lissa from my first book "Ocean of Dust", and Majara from my upcoming romantic adventure) are free-spirited and adventurous female characters that I love to write about.

Do you have any advice that you would give to any aspiring authors out there?

Doubts and fears are a fact of life for an author, so don't let them deter you. Keep writing what you enjoy. Be bold, be creative, and keep pushing yourself to strengthen your writing craft. Despite recent successes in the Indie field, this isn't a get rich quick scheme. Writing involves long hours grappling with plot and character, building a reputation with readers one book at a time. Keep writing, even when you feel like you are writing junk. Keep writing. Keep editing. The satisfaction that comes when a reader enjoys your story is worth every hour at the keyboard. Chase your dream. Never give up.

Excerpt from Necromancer (Sinister):

She glanced at me then the ground below, but only clung tighter. A man appeared at the window, his teeth bared. Four scratches on his cheek oozed red. White drool speckled his trimmed beard. He clawed at her. She scrunched her eyes shut and wailed.

With a crack, the casement tore free, and she plummeted into my arms. We tumbled to the ground and the smoke surrounded us like a pack of wild animals.

I rolled to my feet, helped her up, and dragged her down the street, holding my breath as long as I could. She coughed and choked, resisting my pull. Murder flared in her eyes. I slapped her.

“Trust me. Hold your breath and stay with me.” I yanked her forward.

I shouldn’t have spoken. Smoke surged down my throat and I gagged.

Rage ignited inside me. I wanted to tear out her rabid eyes. My arm squeezed hers until she cried out, and I knew that I could break it with a twist, could snap her entire frail body. My gaze fixed on her pale, sweat-soaked throat. It invited me to choke the life from her, watch her struggle and finally go limp. My pulse quickened. Anger flooded my veins. Then my hands were around her throat, squeezing, crushing. She coughed and drooled thick, white saliva. Her blue eyes locked with mine but she put up no resistance. A smile twitched on her lips as my thumbs dug deeper. Ah, the sweet moment of superiority. How would it feel to kill? Delicious. It washed the tight pain from my head.

Something flickered deep within me. This was wrong.

Buy Links:

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Paperback

Barnes and Noble

iTunes

Kobo

About the Author:

Graeme Ing engineers original fantasy worlds, both YA and adult, but hang around, and you’ll likely read tales of romance, sci-fi, paranormal, cyberpunk, steampunk or any blend of the above.

Born in England in 1965, Graeme moved to San Diego, California in 1996 and lives there still. His career as a software engineer and development manager spans 30 years, mostly in the computer games industry. He is also an armchair mountaineer, astronomer, mapmaker, pilot and general geek. He and his wife, Tamara, share their house with more cats than he can count.

Connect With The Author:

Website

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Goodreads

Amazon Author Page

Enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card! This giveaway will run the length of the tour. Open internationally. Enter through Rafflecopter.

Necromancer

The Necromancer is written by Graeme Ing and features a man by the name of Maldren that is from the detested guild of necromancers.  He proudly wears his robes of office and valiantly works to save the people from things they don’t even know exist.  In his attempt to obtain a title of Master from his guild he is given an apprentice to train.  This apprentice happens to be a girl, which is rare in a mainly male field of work. 

Necromancer hits the ground running and although it is action packed, Graeme introducing many new elements in a world of his creation.  He has a different religious structure and throws around different names in curses (such as Kristach) that have no bearing on a new reader.  A prologue would be a welcome addition to give the reader a frame of reference and some background information.

When an unknown terror is threatening the lives of people in his city, Maldren must go deep into the underground below the city to try to the source.  It seems left up to him to fight this darkness with a young apprentice by his side. 

Graeme did a superb job of creating monstrous terrors of the dark.  These creatures were very imaginative and worked as great extensions of the villainous elements of the book.  The created world of Necromancer is a pleasure to visit and the suspense and secrets make for an enjoyable read.

I enjoyed getting to know Maldren and his apprentice Ayla.  Ayla was spunky and brave and a great woman-empowering character.  Out of everyone in the book, I would have to say that I was most intrigued by the character of Phyxia and wished there was more of her in the novel. 

Overall I give this book 4/5 stars.  It was definitely an entertaining story and I loved getting to know each character and element of the story.  My main complaint is the lack of explanation for basic elements that make up the story that could provide the reader with a better background of the information.  I feel that the religious makeup could be more in depth.  Usually a slight explanation of the religion behind the story and where someone stands is an additional way to understand a character’s motives and way of thinking as they go about their journey from both the hero and the villain aspects.  If you enjoy fantasy, paranormal, dark fantasy, fiction, woman-empowering, mystery, suspense, horror, or thrillers you will definitely enjoy this book.

*I received this book for  free in exchange for a fair and honest review
 

EXCERPT  - (Underworld creature)

“This is dangerous,” I whispered. “I know what I’m doing.”

Did I? I handed her the lightstick and crept forward, nudging loose stones with my boot to clear the way, never taking my eyes from the archway. The room was filled with heaps of rubble. The spectral rope snaked behind a huge fragment of a fallen buttress lodged against one wall.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.
I drew a sizable ball of magic from my core and blasted a massive Dispel into the room, bathing the entire area in a purple flash.
The grak leaped onto the ceiling, sending rubble clattering in all directions. It scuttled toward me, upside down, hundreds of barbs along its ten legs clinging to the bare stone ceiling. A razor-ridged carapace protected an abdomen the size of a barrel, yet the thing stretched eight feet in length, counting its forked, bony tail and oversize head. Two spheres of flylike eyes reflected a distorted version of my look of horror. Saw-toothed pincers clacked repeatedly and its antennae quivered, probing the air in front of it.

I stumbled backward, my heart thumping in my ears.

Kristach. I’d hoped it’d be smaller.

Please take the time to also check out my interview with the talented author of this novel: Graeme Ing.

Graeme Ing Interview

Buy Links:

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Paperback

Barnes and Noble

iTunes

Kobo

About the Author:

Graeme Ing engineers original fantasy worlds, both YA and adult, but hang around, and you’ll likely read tales of romance, sci-fi, paranormal, cyberpunk, steampunk or any blend of the above.

Born in England in 1965, Graeme moved to San Diego, California in 1996 and lives there still. His career as a software engineer and development manager spans 30 years, mostly in the computer games industry. He is also an armchair mountaineer, astronomer, mapmaker, pilot and general geek. He and his wife, Tamara, share their house with more cats than he can count.

Connect With The Author:

Website

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Goodreads

Amazon Author Page

Enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card! This giveaway will run the length of the tour. Open internationally. Enter through Rafflecopter.

Little Things

I received this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest response.

Little Things is the first book in the Second Chances series and written by Madison Street.  It is told from the point of view of two high school seniors Duke & Raya.  Raya has an abusive step father and Duke is the all-American lacrosse player. 

I have waited a few days upon completion of this book to write a review, mostly because, I really had a hard time with this book.  I don't want to start out with negativity so I will start with pointing out the positive aspects of the story.  Madison did a good job of showing a timeless love from the point of view of Duke.  She also did a good job of describing scenery.  In times of abuse there was a great amount of detail, that perhaps speaks of personal knowledge. 

Apart from the abuse, the book starts out quite explicitly, but not in the sense of a romance novel.  The sexual scenes (apart from abuse) seem to be written in a way that does not make the reader feel knowledgeable about the passion.  Also HUGE issue for me was that we know Raya is 17, but we don't know the ages of Duke or Melanie, who are in a weirdly abrupt sexual experience that may or may not be considered child pornography in many states.  Not knowing for sure if they were of legal age was very awkward and uncomfortable for me to read.  I almost put the book down at this point, it made me feel gross.  I tried to revisit it and give it another try with the vow that if anything started to get explicit that I was immediately deleting it from my kindle and giving up on it.

Luckily there were no more sexual encounters for the duration of a possible underage issue.  The beginning of the book was quite awkward unless it was speaking of well-detailed abuse.  The flirting and relationships came off as quite immature.  I couldn't tell if this was deliberate or just the take that I got from the book.   The story gets dark around the 30-40% mark and then goes on to get worse.  There were a lot of detailed and horrendous scenarios and I almost feel bad for saying that the dark parts are when Madison wrote the story at its best. 

When in dark times, I could really see Madison's talent shine through to the point that I the thought of whether or not personal experience was intertwined was relevant or not, given the excellence at getting the feeling across.  Unfortunately (well fortunately of course, but not for the story telling), there is some light, but the events in the the third part of the book didn't really add up with a realistic timeline of how someone going through such awful things would recover and move on with life upon  actually opening up about them. 

I tried to write this in a way to not spoil anything for anyone else.  Suffice it to say that Madison does have a gift for story telling,  but it seems to be limited to darker content.  Perhaps she should focus more on this in future writings, because she does so fabulously.  Unfortunately the rest of the story just wasn't doing it for me.  I felt like the rest of the book was written almost at a middle-grade level.  It made the rest of the novel feel abrupt and awkward in many places.  I would request more villains from Madison as she paints them beautifully.  Overall though I have to go with a 2/5 stars given the weirdly possible child porn the awkward abrupt shifts in the story and the typos scattered throughout. 

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

My sister gave me this movie awhile back since I had never seen it, and it was alright, better than I expected, especially when I found out that MTV films played a role in the making of it.  Barring Vaarsity Blues, their track record isn't the greatest.  I was quite surprised to see Jeremy Renner in this one as well, especially with his talent.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was released in 2013 and is a German/American horror/action film.  It is meant to be a continuation on from the Grimm's fairy tale of Hansel & Gretel.  In case you know nothing about the original fairy tale, two children get lost in the woods from their dad and end up at a cottage made of candy that is owned by a witch.  The witch is force-feeding them candy, trying to fatten them up so that she can eat them.  As the witch is trying to put Hansel into the oven, Gretel kills the witch, hence the witch hunters.

The cast includes:
Jeremy Renner as Hansel (The Bourne Legacy, The Avengers, MI: Ghost Protocol, Hurt Locker, American Hustle)
Gemma Arteton as Gretel (Prince of Persia, Clash of the Titans, Quantum of Solace, RocknRolla)
Famke Janssen as Muriel (X-Men Series, Hemlock Grove, Nip/Tuck, Taken, Rounders)
Peter Stormare as Sheriff Berringer (Constantine, 22 Jump Street, The Last Stand, Killing Room, Prison Break)
Thomas Mann as Ben (Beautiful Creatures, Fun Size, It's Kind of a Funny Story, Project X)


Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was originally supposed to be released in March 2012, but due to Renner's busy schedule with the Avengers and The Bourne Legacy, it ended up getting pushed back.  Although it was not well received by most outside of the horror genre in the US, it garnered international attention and was a hit in Germany, Brazil, Mexico and Russia.   It ended up grossing $225 billion on a $50 billion budget, making it a box office success.  Although I can't personally say it is deserving, a sequel is currently in the works and scheduled to be released in 2016.

The film is written and produced by Tommy Wirkola, a Norwegian director with a love of horror.  This is his first American film and he originally wanted to make the story a short, but ended up selling it in Hollywood as a franchise with the goal of trilogy.  Witches are definitely portrayed as villains and the costumes were done by the same company that did Harry Potty & The Ghostly Hollows.  Filming took place in Germany in a forest near Berlin. 

This movie is entertaining for a B movie, there is weird attention to detail such as Hansel having diabetes from all of the sugar and the drawings on the home cottage wall.  Then there is the inattention to detail in the horrendously out of place weapons for the era, especially the guns, and the fact that at least one of the beginning witches is definitely a large man.  Also, I felt like for 2 people whose occupation it is to hunt witches that they would have a much better aim haha.  Gretel was the worst, she couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.  I also wonder why in the heck no one was pointing out the obvious with the grand white witch's heart and where it now resides.  Overall, I give this movie 3/5 stars.  It is a good movie if you don't want anything too serious and just feel like being entertained by something from the horror genre. 

 Here is the link to the movie's site: hanselandgretelmovie.com/

Dark Luminance

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Dark Luminance is written by E. M. McDowell and is a Sci-Fi, Horror, Action novel.  McDowell writes with the knowledge of technology and science.   The book revolves around the main character Mack and his friends/coworkers as they are thrust from Earth into a parallel dimension of a similar world, that is like our own on the surface.  Unfortunately, that is where similarities end, as they actually end up meeting someone who has the same name and face as someone they knew on Earth, and yet is a completely different person. 

Mack is plagued by guilt and ghosts of his past and is craving a release, but in his search for a greater energy source, he ends up dragging his friends and another person working at his lab along for the ride.  It is not long before they are encountered and attacked by untold horrors.  I must commend McDowell on this book because he has taken a lot of traditional science fiction ideas and given them an original twist that claims them as his own inventions.

Dark Luminance is fast paced from the beginning and doesn't let up until the end.  It is written in a way that it could easily be recreated as a horror movie.  The possibilities of where this story could go are endless.  The ending is very open-ended in that the reader can be left wondering if this is the end or if there is more to come.  Personally I am hoping to see several more books with these characters to explore what they may encounter next.

McDowell has introduced characters that are realistic and have doubts and emotional issues.  He has also introduced characters that make you cringe and keep hoping they will die and that you will figure out what their ulterior motives may be.  It is easy to follow along on this journey with the characters that are brought to life on the pages.

Admittedly I was hoping that with the concept of parallel universes and that possible parallel selves may have been pulled back to Earth in our lifetime that we would have been able to get to know those characters and what they will be.  I kept wondering if they are dead in one world will they transport?  What if they are some of the horrors encountered in the new world, what would that do to Earth as we know it?   This was on thing that I really felt was missing in the story, but perhaps it could be a second part so as not to confuse the reader.  The only other negative aspect that really stood out for me was in the last 10% of the story, it seemed that the counting of the characters was sometimes off.  Sometimes referring to the group as three and sometimes as four, wasn't always adding up for me. 



Overall I give Dark Luminance 4/5 stars.  It was an enjoyable read and had a lot of innovative ideas.  I hope to see more books about these characters and concepts and hope that the ending will be a start to a new "chapter" in this story.  If you are into Sci-Fi, Horror, Action, or Thrillers, you would enjoy this book!

Corcitura

I was given this book to read for free in exchange for an honest review.  

Corcitura is written by Melika Dannese Lux is a mythological, thriller, suspense, historical fiction novel.  It entertains the reader with a lot of new and in depth vampire mythological ideas, as well as a surrounding environment that you can imagine being in.

I feel like this book had a lot of great ideas.  I loved the vampire mythology and having the book told from the perspective of the “victim.”  It was also interesting to have nothing told blatantly about a vampire type until about a quarter of the way through the book.  With that being said I had a lot of problem really connecting with the story.  There are wonderful landscapes and buildings described, but it felt like the characters were lacking and that the events had a lot of holes.  

Given the longer length of the book it allowed for the characters to slowly come out over time, but there were many déjà vu moments, and I had a distinct problem with the scene in the first Part of the book where Eric was in the wax museum and it described him taking the necklace and then after an action filled romp he returned to the same wax figure and took the necklace again…  It felt like there were a lot of little sections of the book that would have ended up in a “movie errors reel” if this was a movie to show different things that didn’t add up. 

The biggest problem I had with this book was that there didn’t seem to be any backfill between some of the characters.  There would be a scene with something going on and then skip forward and be into another scene like walking into a room halfway through a conversation and never getting filled in on what was missed.  Reading this book was like watching a movie about a book but there were certain parts that had to be cut and so they were just left missing.  

Don't be discouraged, it was still quite an interesting story.  Lux did a lot of extensive historical research and mythological research in regards to different creatures of the night, with her main focus on vampires.  I enjoyed reading from the different perspective, but by the end of the book, I still felt like the relations between characters were lacking somewhat, and could have gone more in depth.  I still think it is worth a read, but I would love to see an edit of it with more character relationships expounded upon and brought more to life.  I wanted to feel more of the connection with Leonora; I wanted to feel more of the betrayal that Eric felt from other characters.  I wanted to feel the anger and the rage and the in depth emotions that were talked about, but not brought to life enough for me.  

Description of environment was superb; character ideas were great, but just give them more life and more depth and this would be a phenomenal book.  Given the way things stand right now I did enjoy the book, but it felt like some parts were missing, so I leave it at a 3 out of 5 stars and love this start to the story. 

The Birth Of Vengeance

I received this book for an opportunity to read for free in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of the Birth of Vengeance is that the main character Jonathan Harper is a teenager that has been bullied and beaten up all through school. An attack by bullies against his friend leaves him in a compromising situation and in fear for his safety. His father immediately relocates the family

As a vampire lover, I was definitely intrigued by the description of this book. The Birth of Vengeance (Vampire Formula #1) wasted no time in immediately throwing the issue of bullying to the forefront. I don’t think that I have ever read a book that did that before. I felt like there could have been a lot more expounded upon in the bullying situation, especially on the attack that changes Jonathan’s life forever. It took about 30% of the book to set up the story before it really started to get interesting and flow at a more exciting pace.

The story itself was quite interesting. The author P. A. Ross faced bullying head on in many different forms. I also commend him for taking a completely new and interesting look at a different facet of vampires. The last part of the book made the whole story worth reading. However, with that being said, it was really hard to get to that point and read this story. I have edited books that were more polished than this version. There were constant typos, grammatical errors, and just plain missing or extra words that would cause me to pause and try to determine what the author was trying to say. This felt like reading a rough draft.

P. A. Ross obviously has a story worth telling and some compelling characters but the constant errors dulled the shine of his creative mind. I also feel that at some point the bullied became the bullier, which may have tarnished the lessons of the book. He needs to polish up this copy and add in some more detail in the scene setting of the beginning and he would have a very great book on his hands. At this point, it took me so long to read such a short story by the constant stopping and frustration in reading. For that reason I give this book 3.5/5 stars. I hope to see this cleaned up and re-released to obtain the reception that it deserves.
from Leeds to London…. Before long, Jonathan finds himself as a victim between a new gang of bullies which leads him to events that allow him to be a vampire for one night and he uses his power to extract his vengeance.

Terminated: Revivalist Review

This is merely the latest novel that I have read by the immensely talented Rachel Caine.  This is the 3rd book in the Revivalist Series and comes behind the amazing Weather Warden Series that made me fall in love with her as well as the offshoot OutCast Series that followed along with the end of the Weather Warden Series and another Young Adult series that should not be discounted, the Morganville Series which will soon be turning into a high quality web tv series which I am extremely excited about!

Rachel Caine falls into my Top 5 Female Authors of All-Time List and for good reason.  She has been writing and publishing novels since 1990 and amazing was also a professional musician.  She is an international bestselling author of more than 30 novels and luckily for us returned to full-time writing in 2010 to bring us even more great stuff in each series! 

Back to the book.  Terminated is the 3rd book in the Revivalist Trilogy.  This trilogy takes an entirely different approach to zombies than anyone has really even touched upon previously.  It is about a woman named Bryn who served time in the military and in a war zone and then doesn't really know how to fit back into society.  She starts working a funeral home and ends up int he wrong place at the wrong time where she is killed.  She is then given a shot of the drug Returne' which puts little machines (nanites) into her body and keeps her alive.  However without recurring shots, she will start to decay and decompose until she turns into nothing and does really die.  Having this condition obviously puts her largely indebted to a huge pharmaceutical company and some 3 letter agencies that want to equally use her and destroy her.  Luckily Bryn is able to make some allies along the way and even find a man that she begins to feel interested in. 

I hate spoilers and if you have not read the Trilogy yet, I don't want to ruin it for you, just wet your appetite.  Therefore I will say that this third book definitely takes things to a whole other level in the troubles that Bryn is faced with and that there is a lot of running and espionage going on.  There is a lot of action and even some vivid horror.  Rachel Caine is tasteful in her approach to sexuality and does not overdue it in her books.  I will say that there is at least one brief sexual encounter per novel.  The least of which would be in this novel.  Seems that there is not enough time between the action and evasion and trying to save the world to really have any sex haha.

I have enjoyed zombie movies in the past but thus far I have not really gotten into reading anything on zombies, unless they happened to make a brief appearance in other series that I have read.  This trilogy is engaging and fresh and keeps you guessing.  You have a hard time thinking of Bryn as a zombie or undead. Bryn plays a great role as a strong, independent, empowering woman while still needing saving from time to time thanks to the ever adaptive and deadly friends that she makes that happen to save her butt when she can't save it herself.  The latest book sees Bryn really coming into her own and doing a lot more saving than being saved.  I definitely commend Rachel Caine on her imagination and would suggest this book to anyone who may shy away from a "zombie" novel.  Don't sleep on this one my friends, it is worth the read. 

A created commercial for the drug Returne'

Rachel Caine's website for Terminated