Men of the Otherworld, by Kelley Armstrong

Men of the Otherworld is an anthology focused on Clay and Jeremy Danvers, mostly told from Clay’s perspective. Most of this book was previously available for free on Armstrong’s website, but it’s nice to see it in print form. Armstrong will be donating her proceeds from the book to World Literacy of Canada.

Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand, by Carrie Vaughn

When Kitty and Ben decide to elope to Las Vegas in Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand, Kitty doesn’t expect it to turn into a working vacation. But she gets an opportunity to broadcast her radio show on television, which means she’ll be spending a little less time lounging by the pool and a little more time poking into the area’s supernatural community. She encounters a surprisingly large vampire population, a seductive group of lycanthropes, and a stage magician whose act might be based on real abilities. If that wasn’t enough, some people from Ben’s past are in town – bounty hunters who carry guns with silver ammunition.

Living With the Dead, by Kelley Armstrong

In Living With the Dead, Hope Armstrong and her boyfriend Karl Marsden take an extended trip to LA in order to spend time with Robyn. She’s Hope’s recently widowed, fully human best friend, and she works as a PR rep for an up-and-coming celebrity socialite. When Robyn’s client is killed, she makes several extremely bad decisions and becomes the main suspect in the murder investigation.

When she calls Hope and Karl for help, they use their respective chaos half-demon and werewolf skills to find out what really happened. The search involves a secretive group of supernaturals, a powerful Cabal, a ghost, and a cop with a tiny dose of necromancy ability. As the case unfolds, clearing Robyn starts to seem less important than keeping her alive. All this is made more complicated by the fact that they’re trying to keep Robyn in the dark about the supernatural world.

Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner

We’re practically swamped in anthologies lately, this one is a holiday themed collection. The stories in Wolfsbane and Mistletoe involve werewolves and Christmas, though several of them could have been set at any time of year and seem to only include seasonal mentions as an afterthought.

Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer

Breaking Dawn is the fourth book in the series. It begins with a wedding. That goes pretty smoothly, though Meyer can’t resist the urge to have a little love triangle angst in the mix. Writing much of anything about the honeymoon would mean I’ll have to focus on it, and that’ll make me want to drink heavily. So let’s just skip it.

Blood Lite, edited by Kevin J. Anderson

This anthology from the Horror Writer’s Association may not be to the taste of every urban fantasy fan, but I enjoyed it for the most part. Blood Lite is a collection of humorous horror stories, so some of them get a bit cheesy. Short descriptions of each are below.

Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer

In Eclipse, Bella prepares for both graduation and her planned transformation. She and Edward have their usual arguments and misunderstandings, mostly centering around the confusing idea that Bella is eager to become an immortal so she can be with Edward forever but she’s still reluctant to marry him.

New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer

At the start of New Moon, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen are a happy couple. Surely they’re past the relationship drama that bogged down the previous book, right?

Cry Wolf, by Patricia Briggs

Cry Wolf is the first novel in a new series by Briggs. Anyone familiar with her Mercy Thompson books will recognize some of the characters. It’s set shortly after the events of Moon Called.

The main character is Anna, a skittish young woman who was turned into a werewolf against her will. She spent years living in an abusive pack until being recently rescued by Charles, whose wolf side immediately claimed Anna’s as its mate. Of course this makes things awkward between Anna and Charles, who are basically strangers.

Charles is the son of the leader of all the North American werewolf packs, and he works as his father’s enforcer. He explains to Anna that she is a rare Omega wolf, which means she has a calming effect on other werewolves and is not bound by direct orders from an Alpha. When a rogue werewolf begins hunting humans close to Charles’s home, Anna hopes that these newly-discovered abilities will help. But the rogue is only part of a larger evil, one whose ancient grudge and current ambition could endanger the rest of the continent’s werewolves.

This book was set up in the story “Alpha and Omega” from the On the Prowl anthology. It explains how Anna and Charles meet, so if you skip it then you should be aware that you’re missing out on backstory. It also includes a Karen Chance short that some who enjoy Briggs might like. I didn’t care for the other two stories, they’re more romance-oriented.

Briggs tries to work the story’s most important details into Cry Wolf, but I can easily see some things confusing those who didn’t read “Alpha and Omega.” The basic plot of how the main characters met came through just fine, but I didn’t feel that this book did the best job of introducing the relationship between Anna and Charles. We got a great take on the difficulties of their situation, but not as much of a sense about why they should be together other than the attraction that their wolf sides share. I hope that the next book spends more time on the human part of their relationship, because right now it seems a little arbitrary.

Anna is a likable character, and the peculiar way that she managed to deal with some of the traumatic events of her past makes for a fantastic twist. Charles is still pretty mysterious, it was interesting to see the different ways that the other characters reacted to him. It was nice to get a different view of Bran’s pack, though (and this is just random speculation) I’d be surprised if Anna and Charles end up spending most of their time in Aspen Creek.

There was a good balance of mystery, action, and character development, and the ending was intense. This is a series with a lot of potential, and I’m looking forward to getting to know the characters better.

Hotter than Hell, edited by Kim Harrison

Like any anthology, Hotter than Hell has it’s ups and downs. I immediately loved the title, because back in my college days that was going to be the name of my all-girl Kiss cover band if I’d ever gotten off my ass, learned to play guitar, and started an all-girl Kiss cover band.

Here’s a few impressions of each story:

• “Music Hath Charms” by Tanya Huff
  One of the best in the collection, it’s about an struggling agent in the music industry. She’s determined to sign twin musicians whose talent is too remarkable to be natural. It definitely lives up to the spicy theme, but there’s also a real plot and a likable heroine who saves the day.
• “Minotaur in Stone” by Marjorie M. Liu
  I haven’t read anything by Liu before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. A forgotten woman living in a modern-day maze comes in contact with the minotaur of legend, still trapped in a magical labyrinth. It’s written in an enchanting style and I was really drawn to the characters. But three sex scenes in just over 30 pages felt a bit excessive.
• “Demon Lover” by Cheyenne McCray
  An incubus is assigned to take a paranormal writer’s soul, it’s more of a romance than an urban fantasy story, so it doesn’t really fit my taste. And for some reason I really dislike it when an author’s main character is a writer, that choice only works for me on rare occasions. It’s just too meta. It jerks me right out of the story, especially when the narrator points out how events are similar to research about their subject or thinks about how events in the story seem almost fictional.
• “Equinox” by L.A. Banks
  Banks is a pretty good writer, and it’s a great idea to have an ancient goddess show up in today’s world and hunt people that she thinks are hurting the land. But the story seemed to imply that Artemis, the legendary badass herself, just needed some good lovin’ and she would settle down.
• “Ride a Dark Horse” by Susan Krinard
  I don’t care if they’re fictional characters or if the heroine is really passive and is confused about what she wants. No still means no, not “grope a little more and see if she changes her mind.” Feeling up a near-stranger while she’s sleeping is assault, even if you have some kind of unacknowledged magical love connection. Sorry, but this story seriously yicked me out.
• “To Die For” by Keri Arthur
  A werewolf and a wolf shifter are drawn to each other while working a missing persons case. The story doesn’t explain how Arthur’s werewolves and wolf shifters are different, but it’s made clear that they are and this causes some friction. The story has both action and drama. I think I liked it a little more than her novels, possibly because the shorter format doesn’t leave time for much bed-hopping even if the characters would have been interested in that.
• “Curse of the Dragon’s Tears” by Heidi Betts
  One for the romance fans, it’s about an arrogant young man who was cursed into becoming some kind of immortal lizard guy because he yelled at a hungry gypsy group for poaching on his family’s land. Seems like a bit of a disproportionate response, no? Apparently “that time grandma turned a guy into a monster for being a jerk” became a popular family story, so one of the gypsy’s descendants goes to look for the man after having steamy dreams about him. Betts felt the need to point out that her hero had scales all over, which sounds extremely uncomfortable – if not downright painful.
• “Brother’s Keeper” by Lilith Saintcrow
  The main character is a witch who gets her power from sex. This isn’t a self-contained story, it seems more like it’s setting up other events because a mystery is introduced but not solved. I doubt I’d buy a novel with this character as its heroine, because I don’t like it when plot or character traits mandate sex. I really enjoyed Saintcrow’s writing though, so maybe Working for the Devil will be more my style.
• “(Like a) Virgin of the Spring” by Susan Sizemore and Denise Little
  A fun, light story about a psychic time-traveler stuck in ancient Britain.
• “Life is the Teacher” by Carrie Vaughn
  A newly-made vampire longs for her past but puts it behind her. An enjoyable, character-driven story.
• “Moonlight Becomes You” by Linda Winstead Jones
  A lonely apartment-dweller gets to know her neighbor, who she believes may be a vampire. This is probably my favorite of the mostly-romance stories because of the humor and sense of mystery, and because the conclusion was believable without being obvious. The main character bases her suspicions on knowledge of popular fiction’s version of the supernatural, and it seemed as if she believed mostly because she wanted it to be true.
• “Dirty Magic” by Kim Harrison
  Set in Harrison’s version of Cincinnati, this story is about a banshee, a woman who feeds off the emotions of others. At first I thought the ending was a bit of a confusing, jarring mess, despite the really interesting turn of events. It seemed better after reading it again. I’m still not sure if I was too distracted on my first read or if the end of the story only seems well enough supported when you know what’s going to happen. I’m not really sure if that matters, though. If a story ends up with a big enough “wait, what?!” moment that you immediately want to read the whole thing again, then it’s certainly effective.