Intertwined

Series: Intertwined (#1)
Genre: Adventure
Author: Gena Showalter
Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Sometimes, I run into books that put me in a quandary. Sometimes I'll read a book and like it, but have much more to say about what it does wrong than what it does right. I've got a lot of complaints about Intertwined. But for all that I'm about to heap on it, the one thing I can't say is that I disliked it. In fact, it was a lot of fun. Admittedly it was sometimes a RiffTrax kind of fun, but I kept reading, and even finished ahead of schedule, so Showalter must be doing something right.

Stray

Series: Shifters (#1)
Genre: Adventure
Author: Rachel Vincent
Publisher: MIRA

I try my best to keep Lupines and Lunatics on-topic, but when your topic is as niche as mine is, you find yourself straining to find a good read on occasion. So for the next few weeks, you might see us drifting a little off-topic. Stray is not the first step. It's billed as a werecat novel, but makes no mistake, these kitties are just werewolves by another name. All the cliches of a UF werewolf book are here: the rigid, chauvinistic social structures, the anger-management problems, the superstrength and metabolism, etc. etc.. The only real difference is that when the heroine gets called a bitch, it's not clever and meta. Not that there's anything wrong with this. A story is a story, after all, and whether you're a cat person or a dog person, this one turns out pretty good.

Kitty's House of Horrors

Series: Kitty Norville (#7)
Genre: Adventure/Horror
Author: Carrie Vaughn
Publisher: Hachette

By now I'm very familiar with the fact that Kitty Norville is a sequence of ups and downs. None of the books thus far has been a bad read, but the generally episodic nature of Carrie Vaughn's storytelling means that different books -- or even parts of the same book -- will fall somewhere in a range between awesome and mediocre. I'd have to say that Kitty's House of Horrors falls in the mediocre category. There's enough good stuff here to make it worthwhile, but a lot of it also has a phoned-in quality to it, and it comes off as an idea that seemed a lot better than it turned out.

Frostbite

Series: Frostbite (#1)
Genre: Horror/Romance
Author: David Wellington
Publisher: Three Rivers Press

I try to go into each book I read with a kind of presumption of innocence.  I flip the front cover for the first time with the idea that the book will be good, and as I read the evidence is presented for or against that point. With Frostbite, it wound up going in the other direction -- I started to hate the book in short order, but slowly warmed up to it as the story progressed. The result was a read that was kinda lumpy -- the bad stuff is piled at the beginning, and the good stuff at the end.  I found it rewarding overall, but having to slog through the first half may be too much for some readers.

Wolfbreed

Series: Wolfbreed (#1)
Genre: Fantasy/Romance
Author: S. A. Swann
Publisher: Ballantine Books

I picked up Wolfbreed more or less on impulse. I chanced upon it while I was browsing the local public library in search of the copy of Frostbite that I knew was there. From the cover, I figured Wolfbreed for a fantasy novel, which is not I genre I read extensively, but that was part of what drew me to it. After a long string of Urban Fantasies punctured by the occasional YA paranormal, I was interested in something a little different. Well, I kinda got that, and I kinda didn't. Wolfbreed has a very by-the-numbers plotline, but it's also a testament to the power of a writer's skill to make even predictable stories interesting. In fact, the quality of the storytelling in on such a high level that I'm annoyed that the book languishes in relative obscurity while lesser books are better-known.

Tantalize

Series: Tantalize (#1)
Genre: Romance
Author: Cynthia Leitich Smith
Publisher: Candlewick

Sometimes in literature, the hero will have a poorly-written love interest. You know the type: not a really defined character, little personality, even less agency in the story. She hangs around the hero a lot, just kinda being there, not really contributing anything except maybe a sex scene or two (If it's an adult book, instead of YA). Then, in the last act, she finally serves some purpose in the book by being kidnapped by the bad guy, prompting the hero to get really steamed and race to the rescue. Tantalize is this girl's story: the story of the shallow, uninteresting, totally-irrelevant-to-anything love interest. Who thought this was a good idea?

Kitty Raises Hell

Series: Kitty Norville (#6)
Genre: Adventure
Author: Carrie Vaughn
Publisher: Hachette

I seem to be in a love triangle with the Kitty Norville books. I love them, and I also love this blog. If the blog just loved Kitty too, we'd have a nice little menage going, but she must be a jealous creature. Every time Kitty comes over to have some fun, the blog is only a reluctant participant, sulking about while I try to... to...

Okay, not the best metaphor. But the point is: I liked Kitty Raises Hell. In fact, it reminded me why I run this blog, and after a few weeks of generally-mediocre material, that's a reminder that I sorely needed. But now, facing the need to do a write-up, I'm not sure that I have anything meaningful to say about it.