(If you haven't seen the details for the contest I just posted, scroll down to today's earlier entry!...)

STORM BORN by Richelle Mead



First, the blurbage:

Just typical. No love life to speak of for months, then all at once, every creature in the Otherworld wants to get in your pants...

Eugenie Markham is a powerful shaman who does a brisk trade banishing spirits and fey who cross into the mortal world. Mercenary, yes, but a girl's got to eat. Her most recent case, however, is enough to ruin her appetite. Hired to find a teenager who has been taken to the Otherworld, Eugenie comes face to face with a startling prophecy--one that uncovers dark secrets about her past and claims that Eugenie's first-born will threaten the future of the world as she knows it.

Now Eugenie is a hot target for every ambitious demon and Otherworldy ne'er-do-well, and the ones who don't want to knock her up want her dead. Eugenie handles a Glock as smoothly as she wields a wand, but she needs some formidable allies for a job like this. She finds them in Dorian, a seductive fairy king with a taste for bondage, and Kiyo, a gorgeous shape-shifter who redefines animal attraction. But with enemies growing bolder and time running out, Eugenie realizes that the greatest danger is yet to come, and it lies in the dark powers that are stirring to life within her...

I thought this book was really good and would definitely recommend it. Eugenie's a great character: sassy, conflicted, vulnerable and edgy all at the same time. The story premise and worldbuilding are unique -- something that's getting tougher and tougher to accomplish in the genre these days, but something that Richelle seems to have a knack for.

Once you're into the heart of the story, the action feels well paced but I have to say that it took me about a hundred pages or so to really feel like I couldn't put the book down. It's not that there isn't interesting stuff going on in those first hundred pages, because there is. It's more like...I didn't start caring about those events or seeing how they tied into the larger picture until about a hundred or so pages in. But don't let this deter you. I mean it. The book is good up until that point and great from that point on. And I have high hopes for the rest of the series. Richelle has done a tremendous job of setting up the characters in this book -- I found myself constantly switching my alliances. "I love XX and ZZ is a jerk!" "No, wait. ZZ is just misunderstood and now XX is acting totally shady!" "But wait..." That makes for good reading, my friends.


INK EXCHANGE by Melissa Marr



The blurbage:

Unbeknownst to mortals, a power struggle is unfolding in a world of shadows and danger. After centuries of stability, the balance between the Faerie Courts has altered, and Irial, ruler of the Dark Court, is battling to hold his rebellious and newly-vulnerable fey together. If he fails, bloodshed and brutality will follow.

17-year-old Leslie knows nothing of faeries or their intrigues. When she is attracted to an eerily beautiful tattoo of eyes and wings, all she knows is that she has to have it, convinced it is a tangible symbol of changes she desperately craves for her own life.

The tattoo does bring changes—not the kind that Leslie had dreamed of, but sinister, compelling changes that are more than symbolic. Those changes will bind Leslie and Irial together, drawing Leslie deeper and deeper into the faerie world, unable to resist its allures, and helpless to withstand its perils.

Another good book that I'd recommend. You don't have to have read WICKED LOVELY, the first book set in this world, but it's helpful background to have and there are many characters from WICKED LOVELY who are a part of INK EXCHANGE's story. And, really, WICKED LOVELY, is such a great story you should just go ahead and read it anyway. :)

As with my review of STORM BORN, I feel obligated to mention that I found the beginning a little difficult to navigate. I hadn't read WICKED LOVELY since it first came out and kept feeling like I was supposed to be remembering things I wasn't. There are also a lot of Faerie politics happening, right from page 1 of the story and I found it to be a little intimidating to sort through all the names and courts and intentions. But, stick with it for a few chapters and things will sort themselves out just fine. Now that we have that out of the way...

Leslie's story is dark and complex, woven through the politics of Faerie and the painful wreckage of good lives gone wrong and bad choices made with good intentions. But it's also a story of hope and redemption and the importance of friendship and love. Oh, and tattoos. It's also a story about tattoos and that, right there, is reason alone to read it! :) I'm aching for a new one now...