Anyway, this book is mostly Maura Isle’s story with only a small bit of the other characters. I’ve noticed alot of the books seem to do that, focus mostly on one woman or the other and give the other a smaller plot. In this one, Maura’s going to a pathology conference in Wyoming. She’s still having problems with her “secret” luvah (seriously, does anyone not know?), the whiney and not very dedicated to his vows priest, Daniel.  So they part on crappy terms. Maura decided to be more spontaneous and so when a former college acquaintance invites her on an overnight sky trip in a nearby town, she accepts.

It’s a mess and they never make it. They end up in a deserted town, with no way of contacting anyone. A few plot leaps later, Maura’s friends start looking for her, think she’s dead, hold a funneral, stop just in time realizing she’s not (sounds like a soap opera), head back to look for her.

It’s a pretty fast read. Once I sat down, I read it in a few hours. It’d make a good beach read I think. There are a few eye rolling moments, as I’ve noticed happen in this series, but mostly a good book. And I’m hoping after the end it’s the last time we see Daniel. I can’t stand him. I do however adore Maura’s other love interest, Anthony Sansone, the eccentric, rich leader of the Mauphisto Club (he showed up in the book with the same title). He’s in this one briefly though in my opinion, still comes out as a better man the Daniel who seems to be such an emo man-child it just disgusts me.

In this, a beautiful young mother and wife disappears and the husband is the prime suspect. There are plenty of others however including the neighbor, a 20-something sex offender, the wife’s estranged father who comes back into the picture conviently right after her disappearance, setting his sights on taking guardianship of her 4 year old daughter, and even a possible lover no one knew about.

I didn’t feel like the detective work in this one was as strong as Hide. They pretty much narrowed in on the husband and didn’t really explore anyone else, even though there was plenty of evidence. And then the twist at the end throws things and they STILL  are interested in the husband.

The audio performance of this one is better than most, as was Hide when I listened to it. There are 3 readers – 1 who acts as the missing wife/mother, 1 who is the sex offender next door neighbor, and 1 who’s an overall narrator.  This is a good listen.

Ok, book 6 she’s finally marrying Sinclair, a character I hated from book 1. He’s a jerk and pig and I don’t see why she’s so into him. Just because the Book of the Dead says they’ll rule together for 1000 years? So what? That doesn’t mean they have to be together! Anyway, Betsy’s in the last stages of planning with the wedding 2 weeks away and her friends disappear and she meets werewolves. Blah, blah, they fight a big bad and waddle down the aisle in the “perfect” wedding dress that sounds like a hot mess.

Book 8 deals with the werewolves again as apparently at the end of the book between these 2 Betsy’s werewolf friend died protecting her and they blame her. She has to face council but of course eventually wins them over with her “charms”. Meanwhile half-sister Laura, daughter of Satan, goes nutters and Betsy comes home to a fight with her. Blah, blah, devil reveals she had a hand in it. No one trusts Laura anymore but she calms down. Betsy realizes she could destroy the world – something we’ve known since Laura was introduced so I don’t get the shock.

I’m officially done with this series this time. The characters show absolutely no growth. If anything, they regress.

And really, is there really a classy, educated gal out there with a foul mouth on her like Betsy? It’s not super believable. No one in real life says “Fuck a duck”. Really. And she’s to old to say asshat as that started on the internet and Betsy complains she hates netspeak and internet stuff so I doubt she surfs web forums,  so oops! Where’d she pick it up at?

The previous Rachel book (White Witch, Black Curse) I found kinda boring and couldn’t get into until I got an audio copy. This one stayed moving. And there were quite a few scenes with the demon Al, my favorite character and hope for Rachel’s final hook-up.

I can’t say much without spoiling, only that it’s a good read and fans of the series will likely be very satisfied with it. Rachel doesn’t whine quite as much as previous books either. But you will want to poke out her previous boyfriend, Nick’s eyes with a rusty spoon.

I really enjoyed it. I hate to admit it, but I’ve never read the original. I was always more of a Bronte girl myself. I had seen the Kiera Knightly movie a few years back. That’s all I had to go on.

It’s almost scary how easily the zombies and martial arts and ninjas are slid into the original story. And ball jokes. Darcy likes to make innuendos frequently.

I think if you’re a Austen or zombie fan you’ll probably like this. If you like both you’ll love it.

And I apparently finished it just in time because they’ve announced they plan on adapting it into a movie. I thought while listening to it that it would make a good one. I guess Natalie Portman’s going to play Lizzie? Should be fun!

So, onto the spoilers. If you don’t want to know what goes down, stop here.So after Mac’s attack and rapes by the 3 Unseelie princes (and 1 mystery man) at the end of the previous book, Mac’s left pri-ya, addicted to fae sex. Dani speeds in and saves her from the princes and after a few days of imprisonment in the basement of the sidhe-seer abby, Barrons saves her from there. And has sex with her for months to bring her back to herself.

When she finally gets her mind back, pink fru-fru Mac is replaced by hardened black Mac. She’s untouched by sidhe glamour including the death-by-sex fae. She can more or less use voice. And she seems to be healing faster.

She attempts to lead the other sidhe-seers but they’re not entirely convinced she’s the right person for the job-yet. Dublin has much changed during her months of maddness. And then the Lord Master kidnaps her parents, telling her to bring the stones that help capture the dark book to him in exchange for her parents.

She gets trapped in the Hall of Days after a screw-up on the LM’s part, meets up briefly with Christian, who’s been stuck there since Halloween, gets seperated, finally finds out what IYD is, kills said creature and the creature turns back into someone unknown to the reader – where THE BOOK ENDS!!!

I’m so ready for the final book!!!

Actual story: follows a family of women named Sparrow and tells some of their family history. It specifically centers on elderly Elinor Sparrow, her estranged grown daughter Jenny, who’s returned home, and Jenny’s 13 year old daughter, Stella. Sparrow women all receive a “gift” on their 13th birthday. Elinor can tell if anyone’s telling a lie. Jenny dreams the dreams of others. Stella can see how certain people will die.

And each gift in a way, puts each woman on a course that will greatly alter their life. Jenny runs off with her childhood sweetheart because she thinks he dreams beautiful dreams. He’s a liar and lazy and they end up divorced and it turns out the dreams were his brother’s all along – who’s been in love with Jenny for years. Elinor thinks her husband never lied to her but she knows he had an affair which he never lied about – he just didn’t tell her. So she shuts down after he’s killed in a car wreck and doesn’t trust anyone, even when someone grows to love her, even  as she’s dieing of pancreatic cancer. Stella has her dad warn a woman and the police she’s seen murder in the woman’s future. When it comes true, her father is the only suspect, putting Stella and her parents in a very bad spot.

I love pretty much every character in this story still. Except Stella. I hated her years ago and I still can’t stand her. There’s a fine line between teen angst and just being a little twat and Stella often titers over the line. Her mother left home and can’t along with her own mother Elinor because Elinor was literally emotionally unavailable to her. In fact, in one flashback we’re shown that even when Jenny was suffering a fever of over a hundred degrees, Eli was out in her garden ignoring her because she couldn’t face other people. Jenny had to call the doctor herself. However, Stella seems to think that not only should Jenny just get along with her mother but they should be all lovey and stuff. But when Jenny tries to take care of Stella, and she does seem to be a very good mother, every time Stella acts like her mother’s a horrid person. And it rubs me the wrong way.

Other than Stella being a disgusting little wretch, I enjoy this. Alice Hoffman has a beautiful, colorful way with words without delving off into purple prose. And this is a very good story to listen to at work too.

The story, basically, a young Egyptologist named Josephine, who goes by Josie, seems to be getting targeted by a serial killer who knows alot about methods of mummy preservation. And all the bodies appear to bare resemblance to Josie. She has a mystery in her past that ties back to the current happenings.

Jane Rizzoli and M.E. Maura Isles, who are supposedly the main characters of the series, aren’t seen much. I’m okay with that. I like Jane but Maura annoys me. She’s still boinking the priest from the previous novel when it’s clear the rich, paranoid, serial killer obsessed hottie Anthony Sansone a much better match for her. Even Jane reflects on this. The priest, Daniel Brofie, never really makes much of an appearance. More phone calls we hear from Maura’s end of him cancelling their illicit trysts for the night because, gosh, he has duties as a priest. Seriously, I hope that’s taken care of soon. I’m not even Catholic and it offends me.

The whole mystery was sort of contrived. There’s a twist a few times at the end but while semi-unexpected, it’s not something that will shock you mainly because you won’t really care.

And I do. I’m not a rabid fan by any means. I do know an embarrassing amount of trivia I’ve found lately thanks to Facebook quizzes but have only read any of the books once each, excluding this. I do own the movie and have watched it a few times.

Anyway, I can see why some said it reads like fanfic. But don’t you kinda get the feeling that Bella “she’s so mature but really we are never shown why and are only told ad nauseum by other characters she is” Swan is really just an avatar for Stephanie anyway? That in her own mind she’s the prettiest, most special, amazing girl in Forks but gosh, she’s so darned clumsy! Silly Stephanie, I mean Bella.  So the fanficy aspect never bothered me because they all read like that.

I’m glad she finally had the guts to make Bella a vampire. I remember being annoyed in the first one they “fixed” her when they continued to hang out with her. That seems a little dangerous. But then we’d have never gotten the drama at the beginning of New Moon leading to the depression she goes through for the entire book…that doesn’t really read all that different because she kinda seems like an emo even with her darling Edward.

I find Reneesme a bit…creepy. But I’m not a kid person so page after page of everyone falling under her spell, which I took to be an offset of one of her gifts, was a bit weird but not unbearable.

The only thing that still bugs? Jacob imprinting on her. I know it was necessary to get the wolves and the vampires on the same side and ensure that Jacob would be part of Bella’s life/family forever without the weird obsession he’s had with her since late in New Moon. And I know they SAY it isn’t a romantic feeling until they’re older…but at what age would it automatically snap on? And since she ages quicker anyway. Same thing bugged me with Claire and …Quill? Emory? They’re interchangeable. But in Jacob/Reneesme’s case, there’s the added squick of her parents knowing whenever they’re having sex because they’ve got amazing hearing. And what if they don’t feel it’s time yet? That just grossed me out.

And yeah, it’s a bummer there’s no real fight at the end but I can understand Stephanie’s point of view. Realistically, it’s be a slaughter on both sides. She says she’s done with the Twilight saga but she left it open-ended enough that if she should change her mind down the road she could go back and write more. Or follow any one of the other or new characters. I’d love hearing about Kate and the other Denali’s. Or maybe a back-history on some of the Volturi. There’s lots of possibilities.

One thing I did keep thinking was there is NO WAY they can pull that off as a PG-13 movie. And I don’t think Kristin Stewart has the chops to do it. She doesn’t feel like book Bella anyway but I don’t think she can pull of the selflessness/martyrdom Bella goes through early on and how are they going to vamp her? It’ll be a hot mess. Assuming they managed to make the movie before half the cast O.D.s

So, we open with Rachel still trying to remember the night of Kisten’s murder. She takes the whole book to really do so but there is payoff there. Also, they’re tracking a banshee and get attacked multiple times. AND AL IS IN A DECENT PORTION AT THE END! I love Al…even though he’s an “evil” demon. And I kinda wish he and Rachel would hook-up, even once, but I digress.  SPOILER THAT YOU’LL SEE COMING A MILE AWAY: Rachel finally gets shunned and officially labeled a black witch. And near the end actually calls herself one, if only in her own head. And she no longer denies “dealing in demons” seeing as she’s the student of one.

Oh and there’s a plot about some ghost she met when she was 18 and needing to give him a body. And we meet her brother who’s a tool. And Ivy continues to angst and lust after Rachel. Bleh. I’m over that. Get her a boyfriend/girlfriend already and drop it.

Good story if you can get past the first 15 chapters. Listen to it if you can.