Nina writes Urban Fantasy books about a kickass vampire. Nina actually is a vampire, but she knows the truth: vampires are not uber strong and sexy. She and her fellow vamps in her support group are sickly, weak, and most of the time scared of being found out. They are co-dependent and mostly whiny. I actually kind of liked this for awhile, it just got a tad old as the story wound on.
One of their own has been staked by a vampire hunter and they finally need to take action. It goes about as well as you'd expect from whiny, co-dependents who barely make it through the day and spend most of the time sniping at each other.
I liked Nina and Dave, and the characters were quirky. It was enjoyable enough, especially if you want a completely different take on vampires. It was a little rough going in the middle, though.
I was really looking forward to this one. The world is really, really cool. It's a steampunkish paranormal romance with a different take on vampires. If we had spent more time exploring the world I would have been happier.
The big bad was good too; I also wished we had spent more time exploring his issues.
My main problem was that it's a romance and I was meh about the whole relationship. Criminy Stain - the "Bludman" (vampire) is a pretty intriguing character and makes a nice romantic hero, but I still feel we only know him superficially. Letitia/Tish is prickly (she has good reason for not wanting to jump into a new one, her ex-fiance was controlling and abusive), but I wasn't sold that she was "the one" for Criminy.
There's also very little chase here. Leticia shows up in Criminy's world and he's already in love with her. There's also another love "possibility" for Leticia, but that felt forced too. I just could never completely buy into the fact that they should be together.
That said, I really like the world, and maybe I'll like the next romantic coupling better. I'll keep an eye on the series.
A dying queen, a ruthless ruling class, a society where language is a caste marker, and a girl with the ability to understand all of the languages. Add in some rebellion and romance and you have The Pledge.
This one was really fast paced, but I really wanted more relationship development. It felt like too many things were happening at once. I like a story that moves along, but not at the expense of character and plot development.
The world was interesting, but I would have wanted more on the language-as-oppression tool - but maybe that's the English major in me talking.
The end was pretty good, but would have had more impact if I hadn't felt so rushed to get there.
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