Ilona Andrews

Nalini Singh

Milla Vane

Lisa Shearin

In an urban-fantasy anthology, four of today's biggest authors take readers into darkly seductive worlds inhabited by their most popular characters. Original.

Night Shift

Lover of Romance 

This review was originally posted on Addicted To Romance
  


Night Shift is a anthology of four different authors: Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Lisa Shearin, Milla Vane. Now I read the first two books, but the last two didn't hold my interest so I set those aside fairly quickly.

Secrets At Midnight was my favorite out of the two novellas that I was able to read. Nalini Singh to this day is one of my favorite authors to read and she conquers novella's like no other author I have seen. They always seem to have emotional depth that is rare to find in novella's. We have in Secrets At Midnight, is Bastien Smith's story. Bastien is a powerful feline changeling. When he scents his mate, he is drawn, however he can't seem to find her. He searches for her everyone. But one night he finds his elusive mate. A  feline shifter herself but doesn't know it. But she isn't any feline, she is a canadian lynx. Her parents died when she was just a child and was raised by other caretakers. Kirby, smart and talented but has no clue of her true heritage. All she knows is that something strange is happening to her and Bastien in her rock through it all. The romance between Bastien and Kirby is tender yet powerful. I really loved seeing these two together. The emotions are quite vividly painted in this story, especially towards the end.

 

In Magic Steals, we see a romance between Jim and Dali. Jim, is a jaguar shapeshifter with power and influence. Jim and Dali have been dating for a while but have been keeping it secret. Dali doesn't expect anything permenant to happen with Jim. To Dali, he is so above her in rank and status, that she knows he could never have any real interest in her. But while on the hunt to find a missing woman, sparks fly betwen Jim and Dali and we see that their relationship is very "real". Jim is quite patient with Dali and I liked seeing these two work through some issues while fighting along side each other. Quite fun to see a happy ending for Jim.

Sarah Escorsa

BR with Armina, Evgeny, Monty Cupcake, Eilonwy, Asya, Robin, Vicky, cathepsut, Catherine, Jessica and our fellow freaks over at IAA starting March 20, 2015.

● Magic Steals ★★
● Secrets at Mignight ★★
● Lucky Charms ★★★★
● The Beast of Blackmoor: ★

►►► Overall rating: ★★

▧ Magic Steals (Kate Daniels #6.5): ★★
Yes this is me the self-confessed IA addict giving one of their stories a 2-star rating. A story from the KD series no less. You would have told me as much last week I would have laughed at you. Me? Rating an IA story anything less than a 4? You have to be joking. I never thought it would happen. But here we are. 



① Dali "I’m not an alpha. I’m a half-blind, vegetarian tiger" Harimau. 

►I was expecting this:



►I got this:



►Which made me feel like this:



 → Dali ruined the story for me. 

☠ Grievance #1: she is supposed to be 27 years old and yet she acts like an immature teenager. The way she talks about "making out" with Jim makes her sound like a 15-year-old. And don't get me started on her asking Jim to hide whenever her mommy is around {insert MAJOR eyeroll here}.

☠ Grievance #2: I don't want my heroines to be perfect and I don't mind if they are insecure but this was just too much. A non-stop pity party. It drove me insane. "I look ridiculous," blah blah blah, "I don't look hot," blah blah blah, "I'm weak," blah blah blah, "I'm not good enough for Jim," blah blah blah, "Jim is a total badass and I'm totally pathetic," blah blah blah, "I'm not fierce enough to be an alpha," blah blah blah… 



(view spoiler)[This is a REAL spoiler, not my usual nonsense. STAY AWAY from this if you haven't read KD #7. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[This is the Dali who's supposed to rule the Pack with Jim now that Kate & Curran have stepped down? You. Have. To. Be. Kidding. Me. (hide spoiler)]

② Physical description overkill.
Jim is hot. Jim has broad shoulders. Jim has big muscles. Jim smells like citrus. Jim has a great chest. Jim is hot. Jim smells like citrus. Jim is tall. Jim's muscles are hard. Jim has beautiful dark eyes. Jim has big muscles. Jim is hot. Jim smells like citrus. Jim has a six-pack. Did I mention Jim was hot?



③ The story is boring.
I didn't find it engaging. At all. I wasn't interested. At all. And I should have been. This should have been a cool story (view spoiler)[I don’t think reading this spoiler will spoil anything for you but if you're a real spoiler freak you might want to consider not clicking on the spoiler tag (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I mean, the mystery does revolve around a strip club. A full-nudity strip club! This should have been exciting! Fun! Yay! (hide spoiler)]. Well it wasn't. 



④ UF vs PNR.
So I thought this was going to be UF, KD-style. But it read like PNR. Bad PNR at that. Actually this shouldn't have been a problem. I mean, this is IA. I love anything these two write. Even their cute YA short stories *gasps* I should have liked this dammit! 

You know what, forget it. I think I'll just pretend this never happened. Just give me KD back and we should be fine.



▧ Secrets at Midnight (Psy-Changeling #12.5): ★★
→ Note to self: stop reading the short-stories in this series.

► You know you're reading bad PNR when half of the story is filled with descriptions of the uber Alpha's amazing body (see above ↑↑↑). And the other half is filled with lovey-dovey crap. Bonus points awarded for throwing in a gorgeous, curvaceous, lonely, scared/scarred but fierce and uninhibited 24-year-old virgin. And let's not forget the insta-love mating thing. AND the required HEA. A dream come true. 

 

► Let's be honest here: I read the first three books in this series and actually loved books 1 and 3 (feel free to gasp here). Of course most of the 
  required PNR tropes
 are there but the world building is pretty amazing (especially the Psy side of things) so I managed to read the books without going into sugar shock (well mostly). Oh, and the uber Alphas are pretty hot too (watch Judd thaw). And the sex scenes are yummy relationships dynamics are very interesting (view spoiler)[
  

  

  
 (hide spoiler)]. But I digress.

❂ ❂ Simple maths time ❂❂ 
PNR tropes - amazing world-building = any short story in this series = I want to shoot myself =





▧ Lucky Charms (SPI Files #0.5): ★★★★

YES! Yes, yes, yes, yesssssss! It turns out buying this collection wasn't such a waste of money after all!!

→ Lisa Shearin's recipe for awesomeness:

① Wacky characters galore:
Hungover/stoned elves, gargoyles, stoned/horny/sex-shifting/cross-dressing leprechauns, a naked, 96 years old Russian werewolf, an ogre manager, a vampire manager, a dragon CEO, Seelie, Unseelie, a river hag, a voodoo high priestess, sexy as hell goblins, succubi, incubi and flying monkeys. Oh yeah.





② Crazy storyline:
Makenna's first day on the job at Supernatural Protection & Investigations. A stolen bakery delivery truck. An oddly assorted bunch of SPI agents. 5 horny leprechauns on the loose. Strip clubs. Sex clubs. Disney porn princesses. Clover weed. And the possible failure of the banking system of the supernatural world. Crazy doesn't even begin to cover it.





③ Likeable female & male leads:
✔ Makenna: the rookie. Funny, snarky, sensitive to clover weed, makes Inspector Gadget & Blues Brothers references, would do just about anything for a good dental plan.
✔ Ian: the babysitter. Don't know much about you yet but I'm pretty sure you'd make a lovely addition to my harem.



④ Hilarious scenes & great banter:
→ take ① + ②, add an extra dose of crazy, three cups of humour, mix well and you get:





SPI Files, here I come!



▧ The Beast of Blackmoor: ★

Oh wow. Now *this* is a real winner. 

Imagine that: a virginal yet uninhibited and fierce Xena the Warrior Princess on a quest to tame a forsaken Conan the Barbarian. Bad fantasy meets bad PNR. A dream come true.



This was so bad I think I'll stick to a list otherwise we'll be here all night and I'm pretty sure you have better things to do with your lives. Let's go.

► The Beast of Blackmoor deserves a 1-star rating because:

① Badly written story
② Confusing story
③ Boring story
④ Ridiculous dialogues. A special award goes to the dialogues during the sex scenes (see ⑧). 
⑤ Instalove
⑥ Virginal yet uninhibited and fierce heroine
⑦ Fierce/wronged/cursed/unloved/oh-so-very-lonely/super hot macho barbarian warrior with a heart.
⑧ Awfully written sex scenes with the most ridiculous dialogues ever: (view spoiler)[
“I can sheathe you, though your sword is so massive.” → I promise I am NOT making this up. Want another example? With pleasure: “Come into me, warrior,” she urged. “Fill me with a river of your seed.” → You're allowed to laugh. Or roll your eyes until your eyeballs pop out of their sockets. Or simply be stunned by just how pathetic this all is.
 (hide spoiler)]
⑨ Manufactured drama

►►► And the icing on the cake:

⑩ The virginal yet uninhibited and fierce heroine who lets the Neanderthal warrior treat her like a whore. But it's perfectly alright. Really, it is. She's going along with all this for his own good. It's all part of her "let's tame this little warrior" quest. Obviously. So please Mr Neanderthal Warrior, go ahead and treat the Xena wannabe like a piece of meat. And demean her while you're at it. But hey, she's stupid enough to accept your "go down on me now you whore" attitude so by all means, keep going. Besides, she's super fierce and a total badass, she can take it.

Night Shift

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