Post Holiday Clean-up

Just came back from a week of holidays. Well half holidays and half work actually. Had to go back to Sweden to try and clean up some of the last affairs from my father since he departed this Earth. That part was rather depressing but at least we booked some days in Copenhagen as well. Did the obligatory Tivoli visit and all that which was quite enjoyable even though Amy (who is from Senegal) complained about it being bloody cold all the time.

Of course I didn’t stop reading but with only my phone and a tablet blogging was out. It is just too much of a pain to blog on mobile devices. At least as far as I am concerned. So here comes a short backlog clean-up.

Lone Wolf (Arctic Wolf, #1).
By J.R. Rain and H.P. Mallory.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.

My name is Elodie Matthews, and a few months ago, I became the new police chief in the stamp-sized town of Hope, Alaska.

Running from a past I don’t want to face; my career path is now colliding with native lore, legends of shape-shifters… and wolves.

One wolf in particular.

I’ve seen him before—in dreams that have been plaguing me since I moved to Hope. The dreams are always the same; a gigantic, black wolf with haunting steel-gray eyes. He wants something from me. I’m just not sure what.

When my deputy and I retrieve a frozen corpse from the Alaskan tundra with a silver dagger stuck in his chest, those legends about shape-shifters become more real than I care to admit.

It’s my first homicide case in Hope, and I’m determined to solve it and prove myself. But, when the corpse ends up coming back to life and escapes, the case becomes anything but routine.

My prime suspect is Alexander Johnson, a sinfully handsome bounty hunter who knows a lot more about shifters than he’s letting on. The missing John Doe case is definitely personal to Alex, but I’m just not sure how personal. And I’m also not sure if I can trust him, though he might end up being my only ally.

That or he’s the killer.

And there’s also the fact that Alex happens to have hair as black as night and eyes the color of steel…

I picked this one up when browsing from some new Urban Fantasy to read. It is a decent enough read. A little bit different. I liked the part where Elodie discovers that werewolves as real. It wasn’t too rushed like in many books. She is a cop and there was some decent cop-work as well. I could have been without the constant drooling about this “sexy” werewolf but at least it did not turn into urban porn…yet. I will probably have a go at the next in the series as well.

Shadows of Hyperion (Grand Central Arena, #4).
By Ryk E. Spoor.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.

The Bill is Coming Due…

… on Project Hyperion. Ariane Austin discovers she and her friends Marc, Simon, and Wu Kung are crippled after their battles in Challenges of the Deeps, unable to use their Arena-born powers.

The newly-embodied Hyperion AI, Dr. Alexander Fairchild, is working with a Molothos officer to undermine the Faction of Humanity… while he also pulls deadly strings back home in the Solar System.

The insane Hyperion Maria-Susanna is active at last, and someone has murdered one of the Champions of the Arena even as he was coming to meet with Marc DuQuesne. All of these events are related, and the collision of such forces will shake the entirety of the Arena, and beyond, as they find that everything, everything, is affected by the long, dark shadows of Hyperion.

Grand Central Arena is a series that I stumbled on more or less by accident and I really liked it. This is the fourth instalment which came out quite some time after the first three books in the series.

It is a great book although, me personally, I liked the first books a tad better. This one is more investigation, detective work and a whole lot of dialogue. It has less action than the previous books and I am not to found of this twist where several of the main characters are unable to use their Arena powers.

The Wakefield Curse (Four Elements, #4).
By J.R. Rain and Matthew S. Cox.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.

As a private investigator in Shadow Pines, Max Long had no shortage of missing person cases. Unfortunately, they all ended the same way—with dead bodies.

Whenever someone vanished, the official cause always said the same thing: animal attack. Shadow Pines bristled with paranormal rumors and wild conspiracy theories. However, the truth passed among residents in wordless stares or cryptic remarks that made sense only to those who knew what really happened: vampires made the scenic mountain town their personal feeding ground.

Nature abhorred a vacuum, but it also sought balance.

When someone dear to Max becomes a missing person case, he faces the most harrowing truth of his life: Nature gave him the powers of the elements for a reason. Starting a war with vampires could cost him more than his life, but he’s the town’s only chance at survival.

This is the third and final book in the Four Elements series. It has been a decent series. I quite liked it. This book leads up to the final confrontation and it was a enjoyable read. Simple, straightforward urban fantasy but with a slightly different twist to the overall story.

The ending was unfortunately both predictable and not one that I was too happy about. Not that it was said or anything but…well I cannot really tell you without spoiling the book so…

Alpha Strike (The Last Hunter, #3).
By J.N. Chaney and Terry Mixon.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.

Be where your enemy is not. – Sun Tzu

The time has come for Commodore Jack Romanoff and the crew of the battleship Delta Orionis to strike back at the robotic Locusts. He’s outgunned, outnumbered, and commands a battleship flown by battered and bloodied reenactors and trainees.

Yet they must win.

The Locusts control New Copenhagen, but that’s the only place they can get nuclear warheads for their missiles. They must launch an alpha strike to take the system and hold it against all comers. If they fail, they lose their most potent offensive weapons and leave billions trapped under the invaders’ robotic heels.

They must not fail.

Another series that I have found to be quite good. This book continues from the where the previous one left off and, finally, Romanoff and company strikes back against the Locusts. Well, it is not really striking back in regaining lost ground but more doing a raid to recover arms that they need to continue the fight.

I really hope that the next book in the series will allow them to finally bring their kick-ass battleship to full fighting capability. This part about not having fully armed warheads and only a fraction of their guns is becoming a bit tiresome. Apart from that I really like the main protagonist and the story as a whole.

Apostle (Damian’s Chronicles, #3).
By Michael Todd.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.

A little gunpowder goes a long way. 

Damian has to deal with secrets. Too many secrets…and one of them is about a Demon he knows personally.

What’s a little blood between friends and enemies?  

The demons are bitching and life must go on, right?

Good luck with that. 

Those in charge have provided orders for Damian. 

Except, Damian has never been good at following orders or dealing with limitations placed on him…

Another decent book in the Damian’s Chronicles series. The book is mainly carried by the two main protagonists which I really like. Otherwise it is a fairly standard urban fantasy novel in the The Damned universe.

The part about him being a priest and the church generally being assholes is a bit tiresome but luckily, as the blurb states, Damian is not that good at following orders.

I wonder if Damian will finally meat this elusive secretary character. Even though we only ever get to know here as a voice over the phone, so far at least, she is a cool addition to the story.

Unfortunately the author just had to suck up a bit to the woke mob with statements like women being “the strongest and toughest creatures on Earth”. Funny how you can write such bullshit about women but if you would write the same nonsense about men the woke cancel mob would be out in full force. What happened to equality between the genders?