The Mam­moth Book of Para­nor­mal Romance by Trisha Telep

My review

rat­ing: 4 of 5 stars
I’m extreme­ly sur­prised by how much I enjoyed this anthol­o­gy! I picked it up intend­ing to just read the sto­ries by authors I know I like—Kelley Arm­strong, Ilona Andrews, Car­rie Vaughn, Hol­ly Lisle, Jeaniene Frost, Maria V. Sny­der. I had nev­er heard of some of the oth­er authors. A few names I remem­bered see­ing in oth­er antholo­gies and not enjoy­ing their work.

I did, how­ev­er, delib­er­ate­ly put myself in a tol­er­ant mind­set: this is a book of romance sto­ries. It would­n’t be fair to judge them as any­thing else.

That worked rather bet­ter than it has in the past. I still got a lit­tle annoyed at hav­ing so much of each sto­ry ded­i­cat­ed to cou­ples (and all het/mono cou­ples, at that!) rather than some intrigu­ing world ideas, but man­aged to stay on track.

In the end, I only skipped one story—I just don’t like the Weath­er War­dens stuff at all. I found a cou­ple of oth­ers sub­stan­dard, but all in all, Telep chose very well. I def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend this book to any­one who enjoys para­nor­mal romance (maybe even those who usu­al­ly stick to just romance), and most urban fan­ta­sy fans.

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At Grave’s End by Jeaniene Frost

My review

rat­ing: 4 of 5 stars
Cat is def­i­nite­ly com­ing into her own now, and her rela­tion­ship with Bones is por­trayed far more health­ily than most in the para­nor­mal romance cat­e­go­ry. I love the fact that she demands that he per­mit her to stand as his equal, rather than treat her like a del­i­cate thing to be pro­tect­ed.

The plot is more inter­est­ing than I recall in pre­vi­ous excur­sions, while build­ing on the ear­li­er books. I know there’s anoth­er vol­ume either planned or on the shelves, and I plan to read it. I was­n’t so sure after the last book, but I’m glad I gave this one a chance.

I still con­tend that the cov­er art, no mat­ter how love­ly, shows a woman in a posi­tion that can­not be obtained by any human who wants to walk again. Cat is sup­posed to be half-vam­pire, but that has­n’t been said to give her more flexibility—increased strength, speed, and heal­ing pow­er, yes, but not this sort of odd­i­ty. Yes, it’s a minor nit to pick, but it has bugged me since the first time I saw the cov­er.

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