Review of Lovesick by Spencer Seidel

Publisher: PublishingWorks, Inc.
Release Date: June 21, 2012
Buying Links: (Ebook only) Amazon    Barnes & Noble     PublishingWorks, Inc.


Book Blurb (from goodreads):

“‘He’s got a knife!’ Jimmy said after seeing the glint of a blade in the kid’s hand. Jimmy brought his gun up and squared it at the kid.”

A murder rocks Portland, Maine after police discover an incoherent teen sitting in a pool of blood late one night. Paul Ducharme is found with a murder weapon in one hand, the dead body of his best friend in the other, and no clue how he got to the Eastern Promenade Trail. 

 

A teenage love triangle gone wrong brings Spencer Seidel back with a vengeance in LOVESICK, the follow up to his breakout novel Dead of Wynter. Seidel deftly illustrates the trying relationship amid a friend and love interest – each with their own desires, issues and shocking agendas. 

Wendy, the girl of Paul’s dreams, has been missing for weeks. Her boyfriend Lee has been murdered–apparently by Paul. It’s an open and shut case–or so most of Portland thinks.

When forensic psychologist Dr. Lisa Boyers is asked to interview Paul, who claims to forget the events leading up to the murder, she reluctantly agrees. In her jailhouse interviews, Lisa helps Paul to recover his memories, but the murder’s circumstances force her to recall her own troubled past. 

Media attention mounts. Reporters stream into Portland. All eyes turn to Lisa. She seems intent on exonerating the “brutal teen killer” but quickly finds herself the focus of an over-zealous reporter with a knack for digging up dirty secrets.  But the killer who has Lisa in the crosshairs already knows them all.

My Thoughts:

This is a gripping, complex story. On the surface, it seems like a story we might hear in the news. Unlike the news shows or many news web sites, the novel format allows us to go behind the headline to the truth of the story. Seidel actually tells two stories: one about Paul, the murder suspect, and one about Lisa, the psychologist examining him, and weaves them together. There are parallels between Lisa's life and the life of Paul's friend Wendy. Those parallels are painfully obvious to Lisa as she works with Paul and they open up a part of her life that she's tried to push aside and forget about.

Both stories, Lisa's and Paul's, are told in the third person. Paul is talking to Lisa, relaying events from his life leading up to his friend Lee's death, but it's told in third person. That allows for a bit more detail than we might get otherwise, but it actually lessens Paul's voice. Although he's the one relaying his story, it often sounds like an adult talking and not a troubled teenage boy. Still, we see that Paul is naive, a loner, and somewhat idealistic. While he seems to have a good grasp of Lee's behavioral problems, he is clueless about both Lee and Wendy's motivations and emotions, and he places Wendy on a pedestal. As their lives collide and events begin to spiral, Paul struggles with doing what's right and trying to reconcile the inconsistencies in people's behavior and their words.

Lisa has her own psychology practice, working with adolescents.  She's contacted by a former co-worker of her late husband, who is Paul's defense lawyer. She agrees to meet with Paul, a decision she comes to question, especially when the media puts her under their microscope and begins spreading false stories about her. She comes close several times to walking away from the case but convinces herself to stay every time. Additionally, she's dealing with her feelings for Rudy, Paul's lawyer; her painful past; and the person stalking her. She's emotionally closed off in some respects but also compassionate, smart, and occasionally impulsive.

I figured out Wendy's secret early on but it took me longer to see who killed Lee and why. I also figured out who was after Lisa, but there were some twists along the way. I started this book, and could hardly put it down. I read most of it in one sitting and stayed up until 2:30AM reading it. I was sucked in from the beginning. Seidel's style is spare, he delivers just enough detail to fill in the blanks and trusts the reader to fill in the rest. The story moved at an even pace, the characters were fleshed out felt real, and there's even a happy ending. Seidel's tone is unsentimental and clear eyed, his characters are flawed but not unrealistically so and he knows how to hold your attention. The story is not only a murder mystery but a psychological look at the story's main characters. It's not a light read, but it is a good one.

To read excerpts from the book, and follow Spencer's blog tour, go here: http://booktrib.com/?page_id=152303&preview=true


I received an ARC for review.

Excerpt from Lovesick by Spencer Seidel

Today I have an excerpt from Spencer Seidel's newest mystery, "Lovesick".  Just like his debut novel, "Dead of Wynter", this book is both a murder mystery and a psychological examination of people, their fears and their motivations. It weaves two stories, that of Paul, Lee and Wendy and the events leading up to the murder, and that of Lisa, the psychologist called in to give a forensic exam of the suspect. For Lisa, the case touches on events in her past that she's trying to ignore and forget.

"Lovesick" releases in June, but you can catch sneak peeks this month on the different blogs hosting excerpts. The next one can be found at  http://luxuryreading.com/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 Spencer Seidel’s love of reading and writing began as a child after he discovered Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His first novel, Dead of Wynter, was published in 2011 and was well-received by critics and readers alike. When he’s not writing novels, Spencer enjoys playing loud rock guitar, something he’s been doing for over twenty-five years.

You can find Spencer at his website, Twitter, on facebook, and on Goodreads.

“‘He’s got a knife!’ Jimmy said after seeing the glint of a blade in the kid’s hand. Jimmy brought his gun up and squared it at the kid.”

A murder rocks Portland, Maine after police discover an incoherent teen sitting in a pool of blood late one night. Paul Ducharme is found with a murder weapon in one hand, the dead body of his best friend in the other, and no clue how he got to the Eastern Promenade Trail. 

A teenage love triangle gone wrong brings Spencer Seidel back with a vengeance in LOVESICK (PublishingWorks; $14.95; June 2012), the follow up to his breakout novel Dead of Wynter. Seidel deftly illustrates the trying relationship amid a friend and love interest – each with their own desires, issues and shocking agendas. 

Wendy, the girl of Paul’s dreams, has been missing for weeks. Her boyfriend Lee has been murdered–apparently by Paul. It’s an open and shut case–or so most of Portland thinks.

When forensic psychologist Dr. Lisa Boyers is asked to interview Paul, who claims to forget the events leading up to the murder, she reluctantly agrees. In her jailhouse interviews, Lisa helps Paul to recover his memories, but the murder’s circumstances force her to recall her own troubled past. 

Media attention mounts. Reporters stream into Portland. All eyes turn to Lisa. She seems intent on exonerating the “brutal teen killer” but quickly finds herself the focus of an over-zealous reporter with a knack for digging up dirty secrets.  But the killer who has Lisa in the crosshairs already knows them all.

LOVESICK 

By SPENCER SEIDEL

ISBN:

Published by: PUBLISHINGWORKS, INC.

Genre: FICTION, MYSTERY

Format: Trade,

Length: 374 pages

Release Date: JUNE 2012 

******************************************************************************

The night they discovered the murder, Jimmy and his partner, Bruce Hecker, were making their way up Sewage Plant Road, so named because of its proximity to a sewage plant overlooking the otherwise majestic Casco Bay. The cops had their windows cracked because the fall night air was crisp and felt good to breathe. 

“Sometimes the kids come out this way to smoke pot and drink beer,” Bruce said. 

“The smart ones head down a ways far enough that we can’t put our spotlight on ’em from the road to scare ’em off. But even the dumb ones know how to run, and it’s not hard to run from us here. So unless there’s something obviously going on that we need to know about, we usually just let ’em scatter.”

The cruiser rolled slowly up the dark road.  

Go To http://luxuryreading.com/  to read the next excerpt. To read more excerpts from the book, and follow Spencer's blog tour, go here: http://booktrib.com/?page_id=152303&preview=true

Sizzling PR Blog Tour: Review of Thicker Than Water by Sharon K Owens

Publisher: Amazon.com

Series: Brands Crossing Series #1
Release Date: July 7, 2011
Buying Links: Amazon

Book Blurb (from goodreads):

As a child, KATE O'DONNELL spends summers at her grandparents' estate in Brands Crossing, Texas where she and her girl cousins confronted make-believe monsters, rescue endangered victims and a save a mythical kingdom. 

At twenty-five Kate is a singer/songwriter living in Nashville and pursuing a promising relationship with computer game designer PHILLIP NORWOOD. There, her only battles are fought in Aidenne's Revenge, Phillip's online fantasy game based on her childhood adventures. 

With her grandfather's sudden death from injuries he sustained in a suspicious car crash, Kate is forced to make a choice. Will she remain in Nashville to focus on Phillip and her music career? Or will she move back to Brands Crossing and honor the promise she made to her grandfather that she would investigate the mystery surrounding his death? 

Family trumps career and romance and Kate heads back to Texas where the monsters, victims and endangered kingdoms are all too real. 

In an attempt to protect Kate from danger, Phillip joins her quest and helps her search for incriminating documents, investigate a centuries-old family feud and confront an anonymous rose-bearing admirer who stalks Kate in both real and virtual universes. 

Thicker Than Water is the first in a series of novels set in Brands Crossing, Texas. It chronicles the lives of the Kincaids, a prominent family in this mythical town, and focuses on a mystery that extends back to the mid-eighteenth century and the young Texas Republic.

Teaser:

"Merveilleux. I always rest more ... comfortably when I know you watch over ma petit-fille. I'm sure Katy does as well."

Phillip wasn't sure Kate would agree with the last remark but he didn't argue. "You mentioned something about Kate moving back to Texas Is that still the plan?"

"But yes, she has been invited into the doctoral studies at Cedars University. Did she not tell you of that?"

"No." Philip winced at the reminder that Kate no longer shared every event in her life with him. "She didn't mention it."

"Well, she has been busy and you have been in California. No?" After a significant pause, she continued, "I expect she will accept and arrive home this summer. Have you, perhaps, shared with her your own interest in relocation?"

My Thoughts:

This review was hard to write. I liked much of the story but there were some parts of the story that I had problems with and there were mechanical errors - formatting, spelling, mixed up sentences, etc.  Yet, the story kept pulling me in and held me until the end.


I received a PDF and had it converted to read on my Kindle. The first 10-15% of the book was very clean, only a few errors, but then they began to accumulate. I kept highlighting passages and noting "check PDF". Most of the ones that I did check were also in the PDF but happily some of the worst ones were the result of the conversion process. The book would be clean for pages at a time then there would be another crop of grammar and spelling pronlems. The accumulation of all of the typos, missed words, doubled words, etc was annoying and distracted me at times from the story. Some examples:

It confirmed his belief that Miss Isabelle's still had suspicions about her husband's crash.

But it was much better than being suited up in some glassed-in, shoebox boardroom with piped-in heat, music and air freshener, Polishing off a Dos Equis, he leaned back in his chair. 

When, in final desperation, she keyed up a Bach Concerto and opened the Thomas Harris novel.

My grandparents have an appointment Monday you're your lawyer to sign the final papers. 

I like the premise and was looking forward to the book - romance, friends to lovers, mystery, music - all of which I like in my stories. It started out well and I was cruising along, then the typos, etc started and then Phillip started creeping me out. I wondered for a while if he was the stalker. Kate had a crush on Phillip when they first met years ago, but he wasn't interested and they became friends. Now he's interested in her but doesn't admit it. She finds herself attracted to him again but they keep misreading each others cues and think the other is not interested. At first, I enjoyed watching them figure out the changes in their feelings but I got tired of the constant misunderstandings. I really didn't like Phillip's attitude, and behavior, which seemed to border on stalkerish - he inserts himself into her career plans and begins arranging things without telling her, he tries to discourage her from attending graduate school because it doesn't suit his plans (if he talked to her and discussed his concerns, that would have been fine, but he acts as if it's up to him what she does with her life), he sells his house, packs and moves to another city to be near her without telling her or discussing it with her, etc. But, he was the good guy, not the official stalker of the book. Eventually, he does back off somewhat, and I end up liking him again.

At first, Owen keeps us in the dark as to the identity of the "official"stalker but I guessed it about halfway through. I didn't figure out, however, the why of the other mystery in the book. That pretty came out of left field, Owen kept us in the dark for most of the book as to what was at stake and why everything was happening, and the hints as to the people responsible were pretty much non-existent.

And yet, I was sucked into the book quickly and read it in just a couple sittings. I liked Kate, liked her cousin Claire (she's the female lead in the next book, "Whatever Goes Around"), really disliked her overbearing, condescending brother Gordon, and hope that Mick makes an appearance (or is the male lead) in a future book. The familial relationships were realistic and interesting, and the pace of the story was brisk but not rushed. Despite the problems, I enjoyed the story and want to read the next one.

I received a PDF for review.

Review of In Memories We Fear by Barb Hendee

Publisher: Roc
Release date: October 4, 2011

Series: Vampire Memories #4
Buying Links: Amazon    The Book Depository


Reviewed By: Liz

Book Blurb: 

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR EARLIER BOOKS*
 

Eleisha Clevon lives a quiet life in Portland, Oregon — for a vampire. She has learned to feed without killing humans and to train others of her kind. Along with her protector, Philip Branté, and their human companion, Wade Sheffield, she seeks out other vampires to offer them a community and to show them they do not have to exist alone. 

 Now, a series of killings in England point to a new — and feral — vampire. Eleisha, Philip, and Wade travel to London to make contact with the terrified creature, to offer him sanctuary and stop the bloodshed. But the vampire they find is not what they expected. Maxim is centuries old, with no memory of living anywhere besides the forest and feeding on animals. Now, he’s gained a taste for human blood. Philip thinks he’s too dangerous to save, but Eleisha won’t give up... even at the cost of Philip’s love and her own life.

My Thoughts: 

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR EARLIER BOOKS*

This is the fourth in the Vampire Memories series, and another well written book by an author that I enjoy reading.  I enjoyed the book, reading it was a pleasure.  This installation scratched a few well timed plot itches, and made me go ‘squee’ a time or two.  I love that she didn’t make them oversexed misunderstood eternal good guys.  That shtick got old fast for me. She has a couple good lines that jump out at me.  Talking about watching Hitchcock for the first time: "If the word 'artistic' came out of her mouth even once, he would revolt."  It was kinda corny and made me smile. 

Here comes the big ‘but’… BUT there was something niggling the back of my mind when I was reading this book.  So much so that I put it down and didn’t pick it back up for over a week while I tried to figure it out.  It wasn’t until I finished the novel that it walked up behind me with the 2x4 and one heck of a swing.   Now I might be over thinking this but it bugged me.  It was, in fact, just about the only thing that I didn’t enjoy about this book, and I suspect that’s why I didn’t just shrug it off.  It’s like putting a screen door on the most advanced submarine in history, a glaring oversight.

 Here’s the deal for those of you who haven’t read this series yet; the vampires are psychic.  Nothing groundbreaking or terribly exciting, I admit for those of you hiding yawns, but they can share memories.  I had no problem with this as she introduces a telepathic human as a main character in the very first novel.  My problem lies with this sheltered vampire, Eleisha, using a recently awakened memory sharing ability without any noticeable side effects except difficulty pulling out of the flow their memories.  Essentially she’s stuck in their memories.  By this book she has roughly a thousand years of FIRST PERSON memories straight from other people’s heads and no difficulty processing it or separating her memories from theirs.  I have trouble pulling myself out of a character’s head after one novel, much less experiencing their every thought and movement first hand.  This made it difficult to enjoy a well written and otherwise perfectly useful plot device.

With that one (huge to me) issue noted I want to reiterate that I really enjoyed this novel, and if you are thinking “meh, no biggy I can deal with that” then please read this book! 

I received a paperback from the publisher for review. 

Excerpts from Romance Authors Emily March and Ruthie Knox

Thanks to Sue Grimshaw from Romance At Random, I have excerpts from a couple of romance books to share with you. The first one,  "Angel's Rest", by Emily March, was released February 15, 2011 and is the first book in her Eternity Springs series. 

Blurb:  Gabriel Callahan has lost everything that mattered. All he wants is solitude on an isolated mountain estate. Instead, he gets a neighbor. Vibrant, no-nonsense Nic Sullivan is Eternity Springs’ veterinarian, and she has an uncanny plan to lure this talented architect back to the world of the living. First with a dog, next with a renovation project, and, finally, with a night of passion that ends with a surprise.

Now a man still raw from tragedy must face the biggest struggle of his heart. Can he forgive himself and believe in the power of second chances? Dare he trust in the promise of a future and a brand-new family here in Eternity Springs?

The second one is from a forthcoming book, "Ride with Me" by Ruthie Knox, releasing on February 13, 2012.

Blurb: When Lexie Marshall places an ad for a cycling companion, she hopes to find someone friendly and fun to cross the TransAmerica Trail with. Instead, she gets Tom Geiger—a loner whose bad attitude threatens to spoil the adventure she’s spent years planning.

Roped into the cycling equivalent of a blind date by his sister, Tom doesn’t want to ride with a chatty, go-by-the-map kind of woman. Even Tom’s stubborn determination to keep Lexie at a distance can’t stop him from wanting more. But when the tour ends, where will they go next?

Thank you Sue, for the excerpts. I hope you all enjoy them!
Angel's Rest by Emily March (Excerpt)

RIDE WITH ME by Ruthie Knox, A Loveswept eOriginal Excerpt

Writing From A Dog's Perspective: Guest Post by Author J.A. Campbell

DOC VAMPIRE-HUNTING DOG

By J.A. CAMPBELL 

ISBN: 978-1468085754

Published by:CREATESPACE

Genre: FICTION, URBAN FANTASY/HORROR/DARK FANTASY

Format: paperback

Length: 56 pages

Release Date: DECEMBER 19, 2011 

Author Website: http://writerjacampbell.wordpress.com/

Twitter: http://writerjacampbell.wordpress.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Phoenixfirewolf 

Author J.A. Campbell is back today with another guest post. Although best known for her YA stories, long before those YA stories were published, Julie would write and post stories about Doc, the Vampire Hunting Dog on her website. Recently, some of those stories were compiled into a book and released in print. Today, Julie is talking about writing from a dog's point of view. Welcome Julie, and thanks for stopping by.

*******************************************************************************

A Dog’s View.

Bea, thank you so much for having me here today.

My novella and other short stories about Doc, Vampire-Hunting Dog, are all written from his point of view (POV). Never having been a dog myself, that I know of anyway, this presents an interesting challenge. Of course, I’ve never been a vampire, or an alien, or a Traveler, or many other things I’ve written stories about but they were all, in essence, human consciousness’ with slightly different takes on the world. I didn’t want Doc to seem like a human in a dog’s body, I wanted him to feel like a super intelligent dog, or in other words, a Border Collie. I won’t go into his inspiration much here because I’ve talked about it on other blogs for this tour, but I do want to talk about how I came up with his voice.

 

Kira, my dog, is a Border Collie, and as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, is directly responsible for Doc’s personality and mannerisms, along with research I’ve done and books I’ve read on dog psychology. When I set out to write a world from a dog’s POV I didn’t want it to sound cutsy as some people write dogs, or too simple because that wouldn’t be interesting, or very Border Collie-like. I had to find the right balance between the intelligence and keen observation of a dog and the limits a dog’s perspective would put on things like higher concepts of emotion (beyond happy, sad, etc) and states of being. 

 

For example in this scene from Doc’s 2011 Halloween story:

Finally we were clear of that group. My ears rang from the noise of the guns. At one point I thought I heard shattering glass, then Kevin had a sharp stick in his hands. The rotting humans came again. One got to close to Kevin and I jumped on its back, pushing it away. I didn’t bite it. Every instinct told me not to get anything in my mouth. Kevin hit it with the stick once I was clear and then we ran again.

Finally we stopped in front of the doors that opened and took people up or down. They felt strange when you rode in them, like the floor was moving. The vampire forced the metal doors open and glanced down into a dark hole. I’d never seen that before and I sniffed. The air was stale but didn’t reek of rotting humans like the rest of the hotel did.

Doc and the others are running from a bunch of Zombies, which he calls rotting humans because of the way they smell. He sees Kevin getting the fire axe, but he doesn’t know what it’s called. However he does know what sticks are, and axes are essentially sticks with sharp pointy things on the end. He gets that. If someone told him it was called an axe, from then on he’d know to call it an axe in his mind. Of course in the middle of a zombie fight that isn’t going to happen. He also doesn’t know what an elevator is called, but he knows what it does. Again, if someone told him it was an elevator, he’d remember.

I base this ability to learn names on Kira. Obviously she’s not going to learn a name that isn’t directly important to her, which is where Doc’s exceptional nature comes in to play. He is essentially a superhero after all. However, when I bring home a new toy for Kira, I always name it. One of her games is to go get whatever toy from another room and bring it back to me. “Kira, go get your squeaky ball,” etc. She learns the names of new toys in about 30 seconds. No joke. If real life Kira can do it, Doc can too.
 
The trick is to keep in mind that he’s going to overhear things he won’t get, such as his human being in a daze. He doesn’t know what a daze is, but he does know Kevin isn’t fully awake. He doesn’t understand some things, but I try to make it clear that while he might not get the human version of the concept, he still has a doggy version.

The other trick in writing from Doc’s POV is to get enough of the back story in that my human readers will get what is happening while still enjoying the story from a new perspective.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy some of Doc’s stories free on my website: http://writerjacampbell.wordpress.com/docs-stories/ Or check out his new novella.

Bio:
Julie writes fantasy novels. When she’s not out riding her horse, she can usually be found sitting in front of her computer with a cat on her lap and her dog at her side. You can find out more at www.writerjacampbell.com

Burning My Lungs

So, as many of you know, I have severe chronic asthma. It pretty much runs my life, and in November it put me in the hospital (not for the first time). My specialist, who I've been with for about five years or so, is at his wit's end. When I got out of the hospital, he suggested an option that's pretty much a last ditch effort. There's a surgery, bronchial thermoplasty, designed specifically for people with severe chronic asthma who fail to respond other treatments. It involves burning away layers of smooth muscle in the lungs, hence the post title. Asthmatics have an excess of smooth muscles, which contributes to the lungs' sensitivity. Decreasing the smooth muscles makes the lungs less likely to react to triggers, resulting in fewer attacks and exacerbations. A year ago, I probably would have said no, but after that hospital stay, I'll try just about anything. He doesn't do the procedure so I had to see another specialist who does.

I had the appointment today and it went pretty well. She thinks I'm a pretty good candidate for the surgery EXCEPT... I have to be exacerbation free for 2 months. I laughed my head off. "So, we'll be scheduling this for sixty days after I'm dead?" The problem is I have to be healthy enough to have the surgery, and the surgery itself carries a risk of causing an exacerbation. Sigh. But all is not lost. She added medicines to my regimen, tweaked a couple, and gave me some homework to do. I go back in a month for some testing and a follow up and then we re-evaluate.

While I was in the exam room, waiting for the doctor, I looked around and spotted a model on the counter. I wish I had taken a picture of it, it was amazing. It was a 3D cross-section of a bronchiole (the part of the lung that's involved in asthma). It had four individual models of a bronchiole - a normal one, a mildly asthmatic one, a moderately asthmatic one, and a severely asthmatic one. Oh My God. Looking at it, and comparing the bronchioles, erased any remaining doubts I had about the surgery. The differences were dramatic, and scary. Since I didn't think to take a picture, I did a Google search and this was the closest that I found.

Ugly looking thing, isn't it? :( So, for the next month, I'll be doing my homework, trying to get myself to a point where I can have the surgery and maybe have a normal life. I'll post an update after that appointment.

Review of Getting Familiar With Your Demon by Jodi Redford

Publisher: Samhain
Release Date: February 28, 2012
Series: That Old Black Magic #4
Buying Links: Samhain     Amazon

Book Blurb from goodreads):


He should push her away…but he’d rather have his wicked way with her. 

That Old Black Magic, Book 4


After too many years learning death from the inside out as the familiar of a voodoo queen, soul collector Samael Gorasola betrayed his boss, which landed him on demon death row.  

  He should have known not even his punishment would come easy, but the deal he’s offered to escape his fate stinks. Become the indentured servant to his despised enemy? No thanks, he’d rather be six feet under. With that in mind, he picks a deadly fight with two demon hunters, only to be rescued by one misguided, deliciously innocent white witch. 

  Marabella hasn’t a clue what possessed her to help Sam, particularly since he’s not the least bit grateful. She blames it on her overwhelming attraction to the dark, dangerous demon, and her exasperating quest to rid herself of the stubborn curse that guards her virginity. If the guild finds out, though, she can kiss her white-witch status goodbye. 

  A kiss is exactly what she gets, followed by a consuming hunger that breaks down all heavenly and earthly barriers…and leaves Sam saddled with the one thing he never wanted, a conscience, and a connection to Marabella that puts her soul on the line.
 
Warning: This book contains torturous use of disco music, one sinfully sexy demon who revels in being bad, a virgin witch whose innocence runs more than skin deep, and plenty of wicked, forbidden sex with explosive side effects—literally.  

Teaser:

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he demanded.

 "Dude, you saved that cat. A freaking cat."

Her statement hammered into him like a two-by-four. Hell, she was right. If this didn't prove he was going batshit crazy, nothing would.

My Thoughts:

Although you can read this as a stand-alone, I recommend reading book 1 in the series, That Voodoo You Do. The actions in that book lead into this book and account for the circumstances in which Samael finds himself at the beginning of the story. While book 1 fills in some of the back story for this book, you can skip it. But why? It's fun and sexy and so is this one.

Sam is cranky, pissed off, rude, and very much interested in looking out for himself. Six months ago though he did something that landed him in a dungeon, and being tortured daily (Jodi, we have to talk. "It's Raining Men" is a perfectly good, fun song. What do you have against it? :D) Pricilla, the demon king's personal secretary gets him released but that doesn't improve his situation much.

Marabella, Bella for short, is a good witch, a white witch, who is hell-bent on losing her virginity. Thanks to a fortune teller, she believes that she's under a curse which scares men away. She encounters, Sam, a demon, a white witch's natural enemy, and she finds herself drawn to him. Despite their natural enmity, she saves him when he's attacked by two other demons. He's not pleased.

"Getting Familiar With Your Demon" is sexy, sassy, and laugh out loud funny. It expands upon Jodi's TOBM world while giving us more fun and interesting characters. I like Cass, Sam's cousin, a lot. I hope she'll be back. I didn't like Sam much at first - he was cranky, rude, snotty, and generally poorly behaved. But as I got to know him better, I liked him more and more. Bella I took to quicker though I admit I rolled my eyes at the whole "virgin with a curse" bit. I should have trusted Jodi, it wasn't what it seemed at first. Jodi sprinkled in a few twists and turns throughout the story. There is an HEA, and for a while I wasn't sure she could pull it off. Happily, she did and it makes sense, while staying true to the rules established in her world building.  Of course, the sex scenes are both fun and hot, but sadly there's a serious lack of both pufferfish sex (it's a joke that started with book 1) and her trademark menage scene. Still, it's a light fun paranormal with a love story that is a mix of sweet, spicy and "oh no he didn't!". :D

Warning: The book contains graphic sexual scenes.

Some favorite quotes:

For f***'s sake. Sam plowed a hand through his hair as his last shred of patience shuttled off to Hawaii. Without him, damn it.

Mr. Tall, Dark and Deadly stopped beside a scruffy-looking dude wearing denim coveralls and a battered baseball cap. The man took one look at the demon and quickly vacated his spot. Apparently used to strangers giving up seats to him, the demon straddled the stool and snapped his fingers at the stressed-out bartender.

"You're going to make me walk two blocks while I'm bleeding out?" He grunted. "And you witches have the balls to call us evil sadists."

Cass tossed up her arms. "Why are you being so negative?" "Hello? You're talking about Sam here. Pessimistic is his middle name." Nikki cocked her head to the side. "Or is it pissy? I always get the two confused."

I received a Kindle book from the author for review.