Pint-Sized 'Pinions: Meh Edition

I think the title of this one is pretty self explanatory. Didn't love 'em, didn't hate 'em...

The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
Chick Lit
5 Spot (September 10, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-0446582063
304 pages

When Ava Nickerson was a child, her mother jokingly betrothed her to a friend's son, and the contract the parents made has stayed safely buried for years. Now that still-single Ava is closing in on thirty, no one even remembers she was once "engaged" to the Markowitz boy. But when their mother is diagnosed with cancer, Ava's prodigal little sister Lauren comes home to Los Angeles where she stumbles across the decades-old document.

Frustrated and embarrassed by Ava's constant lectures about financial responsibility (all because she's in a little debt. Okay, a lot of debt), Lauren decides to do some sisterly interfering of her own and tracks down her sister's childhood fiancé. When she finds him, the highly inappropriate, twice-divorced, but incredibly charming Russell Markowitz is all too happy to re-enter the Nickerson sisters' lives, and always-accountable Ava is forced to consider just how binding a contract really is . . .

My 'pinion: I liked that the focus of this story was on the sisters and their family dynamic. Otherwise, it was a pretty average chick lit novel. My only issue - I didn't really see what attracted Ava to Russell. He wasn't a total ass or anything, but dude had baggage and I couldn't shake the slight gay vibe. Maybe I'm just too used to the Alpha-male type.

Grade: C

Shadowfae (Shadowfae Chronicles, 1) by Erica Hayes
Paranormal Romance
St. Martin's Griffin (October 13, 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-0312578008
288 pages

Imagine a secret world veiled in fairy glamour and brimming with unearthly delights. A city swarming with half-mad fairies, where thieving spriggans rob you blind, beautiful banshees mesmerize you with their song, and big green trolls bust heads at nightclubs. And once you’re in, there’s no escape…

Enslaved by a demon lord, Jade is forced to spend her nights seducing vampire gangsters and shapeshifting thugs. After two hundred years as a succubus, she burns for freedom and longs to escape her brutal life as a trophy girl for hell’s minions. Then she meets Rajah, an incubus who touches her heart and intoxicates her senses. Rajah shares the same bleak fate as she, and yearns just as desperately for freedom. But the only way for Jade to break her bonds is to betray Rajah—and doom the only man she’s ever loved to a lifetime in hell.

My 'pinion: Umm...so not what I expected. There was a lot of sex and it was pretty varied, too (in style, number of partners, gender of partners, etc.). The romance between Jade and Rajah wasn't bad but it just didn't do it for me. I will give credit to Hayes though for creating a very unique world and bunch of characters.

Grade: C

Vicious Circle (Persephone Alcmedi, 1) by Linda Robertson
Urban Fantasy
Pocket (June 30, 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-1439154281
384 pages

A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do....
Being a witch doesn't pay the bills, but Persephone Alcmedi gets by between reading Tarot cards, writing her syndicated newspaper column, and kenneling werewolves in the basement when the moon is full -- even if witches aren't supposed to mingle with wolves. She really reaches the end of her leash, though, when her grandmother gets kicked out of the nursing home and Seph finds herself in the doghouse about some things she's written. Then her werewolf friend Lorrie is murdered...and the high priestess of an important coven offers Seph big money to destroy the killer, a powerful vampire named Goliath Kline. Seph is a tough girl, but this time she bites off more than she can chew. She needs a little help from her friends -- werewolf friends. One of those friends, Johnny, the motorcycle-riding lead singer for the techno-metal-Goth band Lycanthropia, has a crush on her. And while Seph has always been on edge around this 6'2" leather-clad hunk, she's starting to realize that although their attraction may be dangerous, nothing could be as lethal as the showdown that awaits them.

My 'pinion: Fell asleep on this one a lot - talk about a slow start. Persephone is nice but kind of boring as far as an UF protagonist goes. Johnny was a cute love interest but not sexy. The story did eventually pick up about halfway through. I'm not opposed to continuing this series, but I'm not pressed either.

Grade: C

Lady Macbeth's Daughter by Lisa M. Klein
Young Adult Historical Fiction/Adaptation
Bloomsbury USA Children's Books (October 13, 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-1599903477
304 pages

The daughter Macbeth might have had, if Shakespeare had thought to create her…

Albia has grown up with no knowledge of her mother of her father, the powerful Macbeth. Instead she knows the dark lure of the Wychelm Wood and the moors, where she’s been raised by three strange sisters. It’s only when the ambitious Macbeth seeks out the sisters to foretell his fate that Albia’s life becomes tangled with the man who leaves nothing but bloodshed in his wake. She even falls in love with Fleance, Macbeth’s rival for the throne. Yet when Albia learns that she has the second sight, she must decide whether to ignore the terrible future she foresees—or to change it. Will she be able to save the man she loves from her murderous father? And can she forgive her parents their wrongs, or must she destroy them to save Scotland from tyranny?

In her highly anticipated follow-up to Ophelia, Lisa Klein delivers a powerful reimagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, featuring a young woman so seamlessly drawn it seems impossible she was not part of the Bard’s original play.

My 'pinion: I almost started hating Albia about halfway through. Her love for Fleance was baffling and her attitude was irksome. I think that Klein did a decent job adding to Shakespeare's tale - too bad I didn't like the heroine more.

Grade: C

All books were review copies provided by the publisher for a honest (and free) review.
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