Short book review: "Haunted" by Kelley Armstrong

The premise of this book is interesting, as the main character is Savannah's dead mother, Eve. At the end of the last book, she made a deal to owe the Fates a favor in exchange for helping Paige, and in this book they call in the favor. Eve is sent into a hell dimension to track a chaos-causing spirit called a Nix, which possesses human beings and helps them commit horrible crimes. In a neat bit of historical inclusion, one of the Nix's victims was Lizzie Borden.

To trace the spirit, Eve moves through a bunch of different levels of the afterlife, sometimes alone and sometimes with the help of Kristoff Nash, Savannah's also-dead sorcerer father. While tracking the Nix, Eve also works through her obsession with watching her daughter and also her strange relationship with Kristoff--so in addition to the adventure/horror/supernatural aspect of the story, there's also a dose of romance.

I liked the book, though not as much as the one right before or after it in the series.

Short book review: "Industrial Magic" by Kelley Armstrong

I put off reading this one for a while, since Dime Store Magic didn't really thrill me. Once I started it, I was pleasantly surprised. Paige, Savannah, and Paige's Cabal sorcerer boyfriend Lucas have moved to Oregon and are living happily. Then Lucas' father shows up, wanting them to help the sorcerer Cabals with attacks on a number of their employees' teenaged children. At first they resist, thinking it's another ploy for the elder Cortez to lure his wayward son back to the fold, but eventually they agree to help.

I really liked this particular book; this was the first one in the series I had a hard time putting down. It was also a nice bridge to the next book: in addition to Lucas and Paige, we see the werewolf pack again, and the necromancer Jamie Vegas. Savannah's ghostly mother is part of the story too, which leads to the next book--which I rushed to read after this one. Becoming one of my favorite series.

Short book review: "Dime Store Magic" by Kelley Armstrong.

I'm way behind on my reviews; I've got a big list, but some of them I read months ago and have forgotten some of the finer details. So I'm going to do really short reviews.

Dime Store Magic follows the witch named Paige that we met at the end of the second book, as she struggles to raise Savannah, the daughter of a black witch who was kidnapped and killed. It didn't really hold my attention, and took me a while to get through it--partially because Paige's whining about her body issues pissed me off, and partially because she just seemed like such a weak, wishy-washy character the entire time. She also does some blatantly stupid things, like walking in to obvious traps.

It's not a terrible book; and we do get some story development. I recommend it as part of the series, but it's not the best.

Things I'll eventually review.

Dime Store Magic, Industrial Magic, Haunted, and Broken by Kelley Armstrong.
The rest of the Anita Blake series.
The Merry Gentry series.
Night Shift by Lilith Saintcrow.
Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews.
Eleanor of Aquitaine and The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir.
1215 The Year of Magna Carta by ... people whose names I don't remember right now.

I think there's more but I forget.