Yeah, I know two posts one day equals over achiever. But I'm up and in the mood to get started. So lets first talk about some of my favorite authors.
Lets start with the woman that first began my decent into this addiction: Sherrilyn Kenyon.
Kenyon is the author of the extremely expansive Dark Hunter series. I started the series at the beginning (something that rarely happens I always seem to pick up the middle book by accident) and was rather impressed. Try to remember I was reading these books long before Twilight killed vampires for most of the population. Her vampires are not so much vampires as they are two races at war. One race, the Apollites were originally created by the god Apollo and then cursed to die at the age of 26. They feed on human souls to live longer (but not all of them some of them are nice and kick the bucket without trying to eat us). The other race is Dark Hunters, who are warriors that died and Artimis granted them eternal life and a chance to get revenge to those who wronged them in exchange for being her personal army against the Apollites.
Kenyon has some great delievery of new ideas. She uses Greek mythology to fuel her characters and even pulls on other mythological beings on a regular basis. The series started pretty awesome and while she tends to overdue the goth thing with the male leads in her books they are decent, or were. Sadly after about the first ten books she got strange. It's gotten to the point where I now dread a new book from her, because the interlocking plot requires that I read every book but I stopped caring about some of her characters five books ago.
I would still suggest the first couple of books in the series. The books hit a down turn right about the time Dream Hunters come in and start to take up more space than the Dark Hunters and the Were Hunters. ( If you really want to know about them ask. but i doubt you will.) The last four books have either had no plot at all or so much plot that the book just sort of explodes in your face.
Kenyon receives a C- for her overall score.
Next on my list is Kresley Cole:
Cole might be one of my favorites and I have recommended her books to other readers. Immortals After Dark series has yet to fail me and her two historical romance series hold up to multiple reads.
The thing I like most about Cole is she sticks to a formula, she doesnt over due the goth thing on the vampires, and she brings up old characters so you can see how they are doing. Lore, or the community of magical and mystical creatures that live amongst us is the foundation of the series. So far the majority of the female characters come from a house full of Valkyrie in New Orleans with a witch, a ghost and a sorceri mixed in. The males are either vampires, werewolves or deamons.
Cole's strongest point is her humor. The valkyrie and the witches have an on going video game torunament. The one character that can see the future is completely out of her mind and sends the rest of the leads on wild goose chases for her amusement. Cole doesnt ever let any of the characters get too broody or too gloomy by making sure a joke always comes up just when things get tense. And while she sticks to the main ingredient of paranormal all of the characters are fairly modern and interact more like normal people.
True the back stories might not be as complicated as other authors (cough Kenyon cough) but i prefer it that way. Each book opens with little excerpts about what races in Lore will be making an appearance in that book as well as a glossary of terms that will come up. The other nice thing is that she introduces her characters before they get their own book. Each main character was first a supporting character or mentioned in a previous book, and while this is common in romance series Cole pulls it off bettter than some of the other authors out there.
Currently I am pacing waiting for the next installment which was hinted at two books ago. Now if only the publication dates would stop changing.
Cole recieves an A- for her overall score.
No comments:
Post a Comment