Midnight Crossing

Midnight Crossing by Charlaine Harris

This is the first book in a new series by Harris.

Our main character appeared briefly in the Harper Connelly series, I believe.  Manfred Bernardo was born with psychic powers like his grandmother. Since his grandmother has passed away, Manfred has decided it is time to buckle down and focus on work. Work being his many internet psychic sites. Manfred has decided that moving to the extremely small, back-water town of Midnight, Texas will allow him to focus on his work. He is partly right.

Midnight apparently attracts those who are trying to disappear a bit and live a quiet life. Unfortunately, a missing person becomes a murder mystery and only Manfred is safe from suspect.

I am looking forward to the rest of this series as well as anything else Ms. Harris writes. Her writing style is fun and easy and her characters are quirky but believable.

After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse

After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris

In an attempt to wrap up the long series of Sookie Stackhouse, Charlaine Harris lists all her characters in alphabetical order and lets us know what happened after the series ended.

If you are hoping for a wrap-up novel like I was, you will be disappointed.  Had I realized what the book was to begin with, I would have been very satisfied.  It was interesting to see what Charlaine Harris envisioned for her various characters.

If you have read all the Sookie Stackhouse books, this one is a must-read.

Dead Ever After

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris

This is the final book in the Sookie Stackhouse series.  It is book 13.

When I started reading this book, there were a couple of references that I couldn't remember so I decided to just re-read the entire series.

I enjoyed this final book and I thought all the threads were tied up pretty nicely.

Another book in this series is slated for publication Oct 29, 2013, After Dead.  It gives us a wrap-up of what happened to each of the characters after the series was over.  I have pre-ordered my copy.

Awakened (Vampire Awakenings)

Awakened (Vampire Awakenings) by Brenda K. Davies

This is what I can only hope is young adult literature.  The story is pretty boring.  I stopped halfway through and read a whole bunch of other books and then I just decided to get it over with and finish it.

The characters are college-aged (sort of).  It's your basic "girl meets hot bad boy" story except, of course, that the bad boy is a vampire.  He and his vampire buddies are mostly lame.  They haven't really taken time to explore their vampire selves.  They have spent their time hanging out in frat houses and giving college girls weird "hickeys".

There are two books in this series and she's written another series (Destined) that seems equally vapid.

I don't think I'll be reading any more of this series or any others by this author anytime soon.

Deadlocked

Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris

This is book 12 in the Southern Vampires Series.  I have thoroughly enjoyed these books but I am thinking Harris needs to take a break from them or finish the series once and for all.

There was a lot going on but also not a lot going on. I felt like she spends way too much time reiterating information we got in the past.  I've said it before and it still stands.  If someone picks up a "series" book mid-series rather than starting from book 1, they will miss a few things and they should just deal with it or go get book 1 and start from there.

All in all, it didn't resolve much with Sookie and the vampires.  Her relationship with the werewolves seems about the same.  Her relationships with humans seem to be about the same if suffering slightly from a whirlwind of fairy activity.  The fairy equation was tied up pretty nicely.

I am thinking one more book, maybe two and Sookie can live happily ever after not being in the middle of vampire, werewolf, shifter and fae wars all the time.  Maybe not.

On a side note, I have finally let go of how True Blood is not sticking to the books.  I am looking at the HBO series as an alternate Sookie universe.

A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Vampires, Witches and Daemons oh my. This is a fun novel set in modern times. Our heroine, Diana, is a historian doing research at Oxford. She also happens to be a witch although she has shunned the use of witchcraft and magic her whole life. She encounters an ancient manuscript and chooses to ignore the magical aspect she senses and looks at it from a human perspective only then sends it back into the stacks of the library where it has been undisturbed for 150 years.

Shortly after encountering the manuscript, she meets an ancient vampire. Soon, all sorts of creatures are lurking around Diana and the library in which she works.

This is the first in a planned trilogy. It is a fun book that takes a different perspective of witches, vampires, daemons and the world in which we all live.

I liked this version of "girl meets vampire" as opposed to some others that I have read. This is an interesting story and I am looking forward to the second book that is due to be published this summer.

Underworld: Blood Enemy

Underworld: Blood Enemy by Greg Cox

I promise this is the last Underworld book. Really. This is not a novelization and it was not available for my Kindle so I had to wait for a used book dealer to pull it from their shelf and ship it to me after I purchased it on Amazon. That's why I read all the others a while ago and just read this one.

After writing the novelization for the first movie, Underworld, Cox apparently decided to write his own prequel. This means that what Cox envisioned doesn't necessarily jive with what was later revealed in Rise of the Lycans. It was interesting to see what possibilities he came up with and then know what the original writers, the screen writers, had come up with as well.

Blood Enemy gives a little more back story of a couple of characters in Underworld that weren't ever developed all that much. It was nice to have that and interesting to see a slightly different alternative to the Lucian and Sonja love story.

If you are into the movies and the books, this book is worth reading as well.

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer

The Chronicles included six books. They follow Vladimir Tod from eighth grade until twelfth grade plus a side book giving us the back story of another character, Joss MacMillan.

Vladimir Tod is half vampire. His father was a vampire and his mother was human. They both died in a strange and isolated house fire that consumed them and the bed they were sleeping in and nothing else. Vladimir now lives with his "aunt" who was really his mother's best friend. Only his aunt and his best friend, Henry MacMillan, know that he is a vampire. Other than being a vampire, he's pretty much your average kid. The story is basically what his life is like. Each book covers one year.

Joss MacMillan is a vampire hunter. In the course of a job in which he is sent to hunt a vampire in the small town where his aunt, uncle and cousins live, he makes friends with a shy boy his same age named Vladimir. The extra book in the series gives us the back story of how Joss became a vampire hunter and why.

This was a fun series for tweens and teens. It is a good portrayal of what life is like for teen boys trying to figure out teen girls as well as dealing with bullies and all the other social groups that affect their lives. It was fun and entertaining and had a good amount of vampire lore.

Underworld

Underworld, Underworld - Rise of the Lycans, Underworld - Evolution by Greg Cox

Since there is a new Underworld movie out, I decided to catch myself up to speed by reading the novelizations of the first three movies.

A novelization is where a writer is given the script and told to write it in novel form and it should be X number of pages long. This usually allows the writer to do a little extra character development but not much more action from what you would see in the screen version.

I loved these movies when I saw them. I am a sucker for a good romance (especially the secrect forbidden kind) and if vampires and werewolves are involved, count me in. The fact that the main character, a vampire named Selene, is completely badass just makes it that much better. Apparently the big Selene/Michael romance is non existent in the latest film so I might just wait for the dvd rather than trying to see it in the theater.

Anyway... I realize these were based on the screenplay (already written) but I'm wondering if Greg Cox noticed the 200 year flaw in the story line (to say the least) and tried to get the writers to somehow fix it and they wouldn't/couldn't or if he just figured that the readers/viewers wouldn't notice because Kate Beckinsale was wearing skin tight black vinyl on the screen and such inconsistencies wouldn't matter. I noticed the 200 year flaw when I saw the second movie, Rise of the Lycans, and it bugged me but I figured there would be some sort of "fix" in the novelization. Nope.

So here's how it goes. This is a spoiler, by the way, if you care.

First vampire, Marcus, is the twin brother to first werewolf, William. William is out of control making new werewolves all over the place and Marcus can't stop him or control him. Marcus makes a vampire out of a ruthless military leader, Viktor. They also turn all of Viktor's soldiers into vampires just so they can hunt down and kill all the werewolves and some how trap William. Unknown amounts of time pass. Finally, they trap William and Viktor imprisons him for all eternity and doesn't tell Marcus where said prison is.

William, Viktor and Amelia, the elders, begin taking turns being the ruling vampire. 100 years of rule and then 200 years of sleep.

Viktor commissions dungeons to be dug beneath his castle with a special oubliette where William will be imprisoned. A special key is made to open both the main door and the small cave where William is to be held. The key has two parts. The larger part, Viktor has implanted into his own body on his rib cage (ewwww) and the smaller part he puts on a chain and gives it to his daughter as a "priceless gift" for her to wear always.

Jump ahead 200 years and his daughter is dead and her lycan lover steals the necklace as a memento of their love. Shortly after this, Viktor "rescues" Selene from whatever killed her family and turns her into a vampire.

Jump ahead 600 years and you are now in the time of Underworld and Underworld-Evolution when Selene meets Michael.

Here's the inconsistency. Selene's dad is the one commissioned to dig the dungeon and make the keys for the oubliette. So, if we know that 600 years ago it was Viktor's turn to rule (because he turned Selene), then it would be Amelia, Marcus, Viktor, Amelia, Marcus, Viktor but in Underworld Amelia is at the end of her reign and is about to awaken Markus so this timeline is off. There's another timeline inconsistency in Rise of the Lycans since we are supposed to assume that Sonya and Lucian had 200 years of knowing each other and Lucian was about 8 or 10 when Sonya was born. Allegedly, Viktor branded Lucian with his brand and then both Markus and Amelia followed suit branding their own lycans with their initials (that would be 300+ years since Viktor is ruling when Sonya dies and Lucian escapes). Also, Viktor tells Selene that the elders have been leapfrogging through time for 1400 years. If this started after William was captured (all three elders were present for the capture) that gives us a gap of 600 years from William's initial capture until the alleged digging of the dungeons and imprisonment with the secret keys. Also, if the key was worn by Sonya for 200 years, how was Selene 6 years old when the key was made by her father and 20 years old when she was turned into a vampire shortly after the death of Sonya.

I've been trying to just enjoy the stories as I did when I first saw the movies but these are some pretty big holes that can't be filled easily. Especially the 14 mortal years of Selene's life that took 200 years in the vampire world.

I still like the basic forbidden love stories (Romeo and Juliet as vampire and lycan) but the timeline is super distracting. Aaaaargh!