Title: Only a Monster

Author: Vanessa Len

Date of publication: 17 Feb 2022

Genre: Urban fantasy

Author's links:

My rating: 5 stars

What an absolutely gorgeous book!

On the surface the story is similar to most YA (a girl discovers magical/monster world, goes on a quest, is thorn between two boys, finds her true self) but the author took the familiar tropes and twisted on its head making a truly original work.

This is dark, not bloody or gory but really dark and I was hesitant to pick it because of that (all the red and black on the US cover made think it might not be the book for me) but now I am so glad I trusted my friends who praised it highly and decided to read it.

It's a mesmerizing tale, not so much suspenseful as full of unexpectedness. I could neve predict what will happen next, yet when it did, it all felt natural, fitting to the story and the characters. Masterful writing and plotting, even more impressive considering it is a debut.

I loved the writing and the rich world building, London, where I have never been - modern and old, 90s fashion that I am all too familiar with.

Beside the great plot development, it is the characters that really stood out to me. Morally grey, complex, changing and growing. The story is effortlessly diverse, queer (so happy we got happy gays, and not bury the guys side plot).

Joan is amazing. The story is told from her POV and we really got to experience it all - her confusion, pain and hope and determination. What I loved most about her was her innocence, her naivete of sorts that made her never give up and always look for solutions, helped her see things outside the rules of the monster world.

Aaron and Nick were fantastic characters as well. So were all the side characters. It's one of those stories where readers feel the need to pick teams and I am team Aaron all the way. I understand Nick might be her soulmate and I have all the sympathy for him but Aaron completely won me over. We know less about him, we got only bits from his past and the trauma but he was someone who knew what the consequences would be and still did what he did for Joan. That is jus the ultimate love for me (in books at least).

It's a story about the nature of memories, the process of remembering and forgetting and this led to some powerful scenes that brought tears to my eyes. It's a fast paced adventure, there was no time to feel melancholic or contemplative while reading, I was in a hurry to see what would happen next. After I finished it though, I had all the time to think about my own memories. I love it when a book stays with me like that after I finish it

The story opens with a gentle start and then boom! magic and it's go, go, go from there till the very end. The rare moments of calms were so achingly tender, intimate, I will cherish them forever.

The story is self contained, yet full of possibilities. I have been discussing it with friends and enjoy seeing the different interpretation, details I missed and others saw and vice versa, theories of what might happen next.

In short, this book has been a glorious reading adventure and I highly recommend it to fans of YA Urban fantasy.

CW: murder, violence, blood, imprisonment, torture, brainwashing, death of parents of MCs (in the past)

Add to Goodreads / Buy on Amazon

Blurb

When humans forsake the temples, the gods need to find other employment. Hades opens Brandywine Investigations after his divorce and his subsequent move to the modern world. If he was hoping for boring infidelity cases and lost dogs, he’s sorely mistaken as murder and mayhem find his agency and his extended family at an astonishing rate.

Includes:

Canines, Crosshairs & Corpses: Brandywine Investigations #1

No Enemy But Time: Brandywine Investigations #2

Dragons, Diamonds & Discord: Brandywine Investigations #3

First off, it's important to note that this is an omnibus of three previously released long novellas/short novels. Apparently they've been revised and a total of 18,000 words in total has been added, but I'd read all 3 previously and didn't notice huge differences, so if you've read them in their original release it's probably not necessary for you to buy this.

If you haven't read them, though - and shelving counts on Goodreads suggest not that many have - I highly recommend picking them up. The conceit of the series is that gods need human contact to survive, and with the worship of many only pantheons dying out, the gods need to live in the human world and take on occupations to get themselves that contact. The focus of these books is on Greek gods, but various creatures and deities from other mythologies pop up as well. Using myth as a framing device is a good idea, and Martinez does some quite interesting things with it, using the myth framing to justify making some of the stories a bit fairy-tale like and sometimes critiquing romance tropes, and using the modern day setting to critique some of the elements of the myths.

The first story, Canines, Crosshairs And Corpses, sees Hades picking up his life after he's been kicked out of the land of the dead by Persephone. We get quite a pointed comment about how bad on the whole consent thing the classical deities were. To fill up his time and maintain mortal contact, Hades starts a detective agency, Brandywine Investigations. This idea of a detective agency forms the plot drive for the whole series: we get various (in fairness slightly half assed) mysteries that the various characters have to solve. In this case, Hades is trying to find out who is murdering homeless people in his area. He - shock - meets a homeless guy, Tiberius, who he falls for pretty quickly. Instalove usually annoys me, but it fits quite well with the Greek myth-style smitten deity getting with a mortal.

The second story, No Enemy But Time, focuses on Hades' son, Zagreus, and his guardian angel, Michael, who fell from heaven when he fell in love with Zagreus. This story is quite hard, in a way. Bad things happen to good people (though there is a happy ending!), and love doesn't solve everything. In fact, the whole story is a pretty obvious rebuke to the too-common tropes of "BDSM as therapy" and "love as therapy". Michael and Zagreus have a loving kinky relationship, but Michael has significant issues - exacerbated by some nasty divine intervention - that love just can't solve. The fact that they end up with a happy ending despite this I think makes it even more rewarding.

Finally, we get Hades' nephew, Hermes, in Dragons, Diamonds, and Discord. He's the messenger god, and a trickster god, so of course his modern business is in internet comms and digital security. His love interest is Fafnir (yes, Fafnir from the Ring Cycle), who is a dragon slash children's book author (which is adorable!). Fafnir is stealing jewels and collecting a horde, which is bad for his mental health, and Hermes, his cousins, and his uncle try to work out what's causing his kleptomania. At the same time, Hermes is falling for him. And we get an interesting Aesop's fable dynamic here on the value of generosity.

The details of each novella aren't really what make them attractive, though. They're perfectly competent, but it's the aesthetic that I really like. Warm, empathetic, a wink and a nod to the source material, and the occasional laugh. A lot of fun, but unexpectedly brainy underneath the fluff, I really enjoyed all of it. Highly recommended for urban fantasy readers, and recommended for m/m readers who can tolerate a bit of fantasy in their romance.

Purchase links: Amazon /B&N / Kobo / Mischievous Corner Books 

Waiting on Wednesday is a book meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and it features books that we are eagerly awaiting to be released.

Synopsis

It’s easy to walk away from lies. Power is another thing.

MacKayla Lane would do anything to save the home she loves. A gifted sidhe-seer, she’s already fought and defeated the deadly Sinsar Dubh—an ancient book of terrible evil—yet its hold on her has never been stronger.

When the wall that protected humans from the seductive, insatiable Fae was destroyed on Halloween, long-imprisoned immortals ravaged the planet. Now Dublin is a war zone with factions battling for control. As the city heats up and the ice left by the Hoar Frost King melts, tempers flare, passions run red-hot, and dangerous lines get crossed. Seelie and Unseelie vie for power against nine ancient immortals who have governed Dublin for millennia; a rival band of sidhe-seers invades the city, determined to claim it for their own; Mac’s former protégé and best friend, Dani “Mega” O’Malley, is now her fierce enemy; and even more urgent, Highland druid Christian MacKeltar has been captured by the Crimson Hag and is being driven deeper into Unseelie madness with each passing day. The only one Mac can depend on is the powerful, dangerous immortal Jericho Barrons, but even their fiery bond is tested by betrayal.

It’s a world where staying alive is a constant struggle, the line between good and evil gets blurred, and every alliance comes at a price. In an epic battle against dark forces, Mac must decide who she can trust, and what her survival is ultimately worth.

*** *** ***

Why am I waiting for this? - The Fever series is my favourite PNR/Urban Fantasy series and the wait for this book has been so long (over a year). Danni is not favourite character but she will be all grown up in this book and I'm curious how her story will develop. And we will get to see more of Mac and Barrons which is always a good thing. Ms Moning has started sharing excerpts from this book over on Fb and I can tell you just one thing about them - HOT!

Here are the new releases this week. This might be the last post in the current format. I am thinking of changing this to a monthly page on the top bar of the blog. I will be able to add titles as the month goes by if I learn of new books coming out. 

The new titles this week are all second books in series that I have read and reviewed. We start with Blood Warrior by Lindsey Piper which is the second book in the Dragon King series. I loved book 1, Caged Warrior (my review), and I am excited to learn more about the world of the Dragon Kings.

The second title is Near and Far by  Nicole Williams. Lost and Found was a NA cowboy romance which was a nice surprise and I enjoyed it a lot (my review). Can't wait to see how the story of Rowen and Jess continues (I wouldn't mind seeing more of Garth Black, as well). 

The final title coming out this week was a welcome surprise since it is coming out early. This is the sequel to Jessica Sorensen's The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden. After the terrible cliffhanger at the end of book 1, I hope The Redemption of Callie and Kayden finally brings a much deserved happy end to those two. 

I received an ARC of this book from Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books via NetGalley.

Ten years ago, Audrey MacLaren chose to marry her human lover, making her an exile from the Dragon Kings, an ancient race of demons once worshiped as earthly gods. Audrey and her husband managed to conceive, and their son is the first natural-born Dragon King in a generation—which makes him irresistible to the sadistic scientist whose mafia-funded technology allows demon procreation. In the year since her husband was murdered, Audrey and her little boy have endured hideous experiments.
Shackled with a collar and bound for life, Leto Garnis is a Cage warrior. Only through combat can Dragon Kings earn the privilege of conceiving children. Leto uses his superhuman speed and reflexes to secure the right for his two sisters to start families. After torture reveals Audrey’s astonishing pyrokenesis, she is sent to fight in the Cages. If she survives a year, she will be reunited with her son. Leto is charged with her training. Initially, he has no sympathy for her plight. But if natural conception is possible, what has he been fighting for? As enemies, sparring partners, lovers, and eventual allies, Leto and Audrey learn that in a violent underground world, love is the only prize worth winning.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Here are the rules:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• Be careful not the include spoilers!

• Share the title & author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.

I have modified them slightly for my Teasers. It will not be two sentences from a random page but two, usually more, sentences from the pages I have read so far that have struck me as most interesting, original or that I just happen to like a lot.

My teaser this week comes from Caged Warrior (Dragon Kings 1) by Lindsey Piper. I got this book as an ARC from NetGalley a while back and now I am finally coming around to reading it. It is a paranormal romance / urban fantasy and it is the first book in a series. Book 2, Blood Warrior, is to be released on 30 July. A short prequel, Silent Warrior, was published in April this year. I am still in the beginning of the book and I am still not sure what to make of it but I am rather curious how the story will develop.

"Why do I feel there's a tiger in my skin? And what the hell happened to his armor?
But how to demand answers from a man who had more in common with a brick wall than a sentient creature?"


Caged Warrior (Dragon Kings 1) by Lindsey Piper

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Here are the rules:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

I have modified them slightly for my Teasers. It will not be two sentences from a random page but two, usually more, sentences from the pages I have read so far that have struck me as most interesting, original or that I just happen to like a lot.

My teaser this wee comes from Shadowfever, book 5 in the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. I have already done a teaser from Bloodfever (book 2), it was actually my first teaser :) Now I am reading the final instalment in the series, at least from Mac' POV. It is the longest one (more than 500 pages) and I have been rather slow in reading it, so I am still at 15%. All the books from this urban fantasy series are so full of memorable lines, that it is a challenge to pick just a few lines for a teaser. Here is my choice:

"I can't do this. I just went through this with my sister. Regret upon regret. Missed opportunities. Bad decisions. Grief.
How many more people will have to die before I learn how to live? He was right. I'm a walking catastrophe."


Shadowfever (Fever 5) by Karen Marie Moning

"Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it's good."

MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever. 

Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sister’s murderer. But after discovering that she descends from a bloodline both gifted and cursed, Mac is plunged into a secret history: an ancient conflict between humans and immortals who have lived concealed among us for thousands of years. 

What follows is a shocking chain of events with devastating consequences, and now Mac struggles to cope with grief while continuing her mission to acquire and control the Sinsar Dubh—a book of dark, forbidden magic scribed by the mythical Unseelie King, containing the power to create and destroy worlds. 

In an epic battle between humans and Fae, the hunter becomes the hunted when the Sinsar Dubh turns on Mac and begins mowing a deadly path through those she loves. 

Who can she turn to? Who can she trust? Who is the woman haunting her dreams? More important, who is Mac herself and what is the destiny she glimpses in the black and crimson designs of an ancient tarot card? 

From the luxury of the Lord Master’s penthouse to the sordid depths of an Unseelie nightclub, from the erotic bed of her lover to the terrifying bed of the Unseelie King, Mac’s journey will force her to face the truth of her exile, and to make a choice that will either save the world . . . or destroy it.

                                        

For the past couple of weeks I have been immersed in the amazing and rather scary world of the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. So far I have read the first three books and I am just starting the fourth one (they are five in total, so far). 

I have written short reviews/comments on the books I have read on Goodreads but nothing on the blog. I can assure you that this is not due to negligence. I am really passionate about this series, even slightly obsessed by it, a. For the me the separate books read like chapters of one story and I plan to review them   together in a single post. Hopefully, I will finish the series in the next couple of weeks (I keep prolonging the pleasure of it by reading other books in between) and then it is review time.

In the meantime, you can check the series on Goodreads and decide where to read them. Be warn, though, once you start them, there is no stopping before the final one! Mac's adventures with the Fae in modern-day Dublin are simply addictive. So is Jericho Barrons :)

Check Karen Marie Moning on Author's website / Facebook / Goodreads

I have decided to participate in a weekly bookish meme, called Teaser Tuesday. It is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I learned about it from my friend at Unraveling Words. Here are the rules: 

So, here is my Teaser this week: 

"Barrons was powerful, broodingly good-looking, insanely wealthy, frighteningly intelligent, and had exquisite taste, not to mention a had body that emitted some kind of low-level charge. Bottom line: He was the stuff of heroes.

An psychotic killers."

Bloodfever (Book 3 of the Fever series) 

Karen Marie Moning