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Showing posts with label Kelley Armstrong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kelley Armstrong. Show all posts

Thursday, 31 March 2016

{Review} Driven (Otherworld Stories #13.6) by Kelley Armstrong

25913699Posted by Melanie
Release Date: January 31st, 2016
Finished Date: January 26th, 2016
Publishers: Subterranean Press
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Source: For Review
Format: eBook
Pages: 232
Buy: Amazon UK Amazon US / Book Depo 
 
Subterranean Press is pleased to present a long Otherworld novella by Kelley Armstrong, featuring a number of full-color illustrations by Xaviere Daumarie. The Trade Hardcover of Driven will feature a full-color dust jacket as well as four full-color interior illustrations. The Signed Limited Edition will have a completely different dust jacket, full-color endsheets, and two additional full-color illustrations not in the Trade. If you own a copy of the limited edition of Forsaken, please mention your number to match when checking out.

Cains are known for being big, brutish and not-too-bright. The mutt clan embodies all the supernatural world’s worst stereotypes about werewolves. But not even the Cains deserve to be hunted down and skinned like animals.

When young Davis Cain comes to the Pack for help, Alpha Elena Michaels can’t refuse him. It isn't about morality or justice. It’s about not letting anyone think they can do this to werewolves and get away with it.

But Elena is also dealing with the Pack’s homegrown monster—Malcolm Danvers, onetime enforcer, full-time psycho. Malcolm is now under Elena’s control, as part of the most difficult decision she’s had to make as leader. But if she has to let Malcolm in, she’s going to make full use of him…and the best person to catch monsters is one who knows exactly how they think.

The Review: Driven is a novella in the ‘Otherworld series’ and it was so good to be back with the pack!
This -to me- is Kelley Armstrong at her best and this series is one of my all time favourites so I’m glad we get these little stories to keep it alive.
The pack are back in action again – first off we have the re introduction of Malcom Danvers to the pack, of course everyone is dubious about his reappearance and assume he’s out to get one of them because let’s face it…. He is a savage; but Elena gives him a few tests and then decides to use him to hunt down some other savages. Then the good stuff comes when they set about finding said savages who are hunting mutts –Cains in particular – and even though the pack would usually do it anyway, there’s a difference when innocent mutts are being killed and mutilated. So let the chase begin….
As usual this story was fab! I mentioned it was good to be back with the pack again, it really is and this felt like another ending with the Malcolm situation coming to a close. I thought the situation was handled with class by Elena as she didn’t go for the expected option and took a different approach. The pack and it’s Alpha really seemed to have gone through a modernisation and I have always loved the family aspect of the pack but it even went a step further now with how they’ve opened themselves up to the other supernaturals.
The main story was great, I expect no less and when you can do this kind of work, pull in a reader, create an excellent story that you don’t want to end in just a novella sized piece of work….. you’re a winner! It had everything you want from an Elena & Clay novel – murder, mystery, intrigue, deadly situations, a hunt, a run, werewolves and even a bit of sexytime - there is no way it can disappoint… and it didn’t! If you don’t know of or haven’t read the series – what are you waiting for? If you have –you know you’re in for the good stuff.

Thank you to Subterranean Press for giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Thursday, 24 September 2015

{Review} Led Astray: The Best of Kelley Armstrong by Kelley Armstrong

24402500Posted by Melanie
Release Date: September 15th, 2015
Finished Date: September 13th, 2015
Publishers: Tachyon Publications
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Source: For Review
Format: eARC
Pages: 384
Buy: Amazon UK Amazon US
 
Two brand new tales anchor this wide-ranging collection from one of urban fantasy's most successful authors. Here is the first time that best-selling fantasy, YA, and crime author Kelley Armstrong has had her stories collected from Otherworld and beyond. With her signature twists and turns, Armstrong gives a fresh spin on city-dwelling vampires, werewolves, and zombies, while also traveling further afield, to a post-apocalyptic fortress, a superstitious village, a supernatural brothel, and even to feudal Japan.

With tales that range from humorous to heart-stopping, these are the stories that showcase Kelley Armstrong at her versatile best.

- Rakshashi (standalone)
- Kat (Darkest Powers universe, non-series narrator)
- A Haunted House of Her Own (standalone)
- Learning Curve (Otherworld universe, Zoe)
- The Screams of Dragons (Cainsville universe, non-series narrator)
- The Kitsune’s Nine Tales (Age of Legends universe, non-series narrator)
- Last Stand (standalone)
- Bamboozled (Otherworld universe, non-series narrator)
- Branded (Otherworld universe, non-series narrator)
- The List (Otherworld universe, Zoe)
- Young Bloods (Otherworld universe, non-series narrator)
- The Door (standalone, original to this collection)
- Dead Flowers by a Roadside (standalone)
- Suffer the Children (standalone)
- The Collector (standalone)
- Gabriel’s Gargoyles (Cainsville universe, Gabriel)
- Harbinger (standalone)
- V Plates (Otherworld universe, Nick)
- Life Sentence (Otherworld universe, non-series narrator)
- Plan B (standalone)
- The Hunt (Cainsville universe, non-series narrator)
- Dead to Me (standalone)
- Devil May Care (Cainsville universe, Patrick, original to this collection)

The Review: Kelley Armstrong has to be in my top ten authors to read, her world building and storytelling are brilliant and I really become engrossed in her stories – that being said, this book didn’t really do it for me. Yes the stories are well written, they are intriguing and quite unique…. But what they didn’t do - was excite me. I know that a short story is a tricky thing, it has to pull you in and tell a story in such a short space plus the endings usually make you have to think for yourself and I love all of that but these just fell short. To pick some positivity out of it though I will say that obviously they are well written, when you read the story you are present in that world and interested in the characters. The characters are all intriguing and it makes me want to know more about them particularly the Cainsville series characters and that in turn makes me want to read the series because what we do get from the multiple stories set there, has really interested me and makes me feel the series has a lot to offer. The stories vary greatly in subject and nature, giving a real spectrum of what the author has to offer but to tout this as the ‘Best of Kelley Armstrong’ in my eyes is doing her a disservice because she is better than this. I suppose the stories are very fitting to the ‘Led Astray’ title of the book and a good section stand out as good stories with the potential to be great books but even the appearance of my much loved ‘otherworld pack’ members couldn’t spark the excitement in me. It ended up being a total chore to finish this book and it makes me so sad to have to review it as such.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review. 
 

Saturday, 22 November 2014

{Review} Otherworld Nights (Otherworld Stories #3) by Kelley Armstrong

17827953Posted by Melanie
Release Date: October 7th, 2014
Finished Date: November 3rd, 2014
Publishers: Orbit
Genre: Adult, Paranormal, Anthologies
Source: Bought
Format: Paperback
Pages: 353
 This short story collection will include many brand-new tales and others only previously available on Kelley Armstrong's website. Most of the stories will feature the werewolves of the Otherworld, Elena and Clay, Jeremy, Karl and other members of the American Pack. These are some of Kelley Armstrong's best-loved and most enduring characters, from bestselling books such as Bitten, Stolen and Frostbitten.

1) Demonology - Adam's mother discovers what he is
2) Stalked - Clay/Elena honeymoon story from "My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon"
3) Hidden - SubPress 2012 Elena/Clay novella
4) Twilight - a Cass story from "Many Bloody Returns"
5) Chivalrous - Reese's backstory from SubPress's long sold-out "Tales of Dark Fantasy 2" (the Dec'14 SubPress graphic novella picks up this storyline)
6) Lucifer's Daughter - Hope/Karl story from "Blood Lite II: Overbite"
7) From Russia with Love - Elena bonus story included with hardcover of "Thirteen"
8) Vanishing Act - brand-new Savannah/Adam novella set after "Thirteen"

The Review: Otherworld Nights is a collection of short stories from Kelley Armstong’s Otherwold series. I’m a huge fan of this series anyway so there was no doubt I would love this book. It was great to be back with the characters from the series again, they feel like old friends and I have missed the series since it ended. I had read all but two of these stories as freebies on the authors website over the years and appreciated them the second time around too. The two new ones that I hadn’t read were Chivalrous – where we get one of the packs newer recruits – Reese’s – background story and it gave a great insight into his character & totally explains why he is so skittish about the pack and why he was unwilling to trust any of them. The other one is Vanishing Act which was written for this book and featuring Savannah & Adam. It was great to be back with these two characters and see a little more of them in action, the story was great with a lot of action and characters crammed into the short space of the story and you can actually feel the maturity of Savannah now in how she deals with everything from her life, her love, her attitude towards the investigation and also her future with Adam. I was pleased we got a little more of their relationship because this one only started in the end book and it didn’t have much time to mature as say …Elena & Clay or Paige & Lucas etc. it was still new and I feel we didn’t get enough of them. In this however they speak of long term plans, Adams worry about the age gap and holding her back and Savannah’s worries about where her life should be going and where she wants it to go – so a nice balance of plot drama and relationship drama. This is a must read for fans of the series, it was great to be back with them – I only wish we had more books to look forward to because this really does whet the appetite for more.
 
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