Low Red Moon

In an effort to clear my mind of child murder for entertainment, I decided to read "Low Red Moon" by Ivy Devlin.  I must admit, I have a Nook, and therefore don't always know what I'm reading.  By that I mean, I get the book, put it on my Nook, then forget what it's about.  Since I have yet to figure out a way to read a preview, sometimes I'll just pick a random book and try it out.

I really like "Under the Blood Red Moon", and this is at least partially why the title caught my eye.  Sadly, this is not much the same.  This is a whiney YA werewolf novel.  Oh yeah, that annoying. 

Avery is not your average teen whose parents are killed.  While dealing with this (and being the one that finds them), she also falls in love with Ben.  Oh, yeah, and she can't remember how her parents died (even though she witnessed it), and something about the forest communicating through her.

Don't get me started.  It goes way to fast on the things that do matter, and spends too much time on things that don't.  Character development?  Meaningful explanations of the book's lore?  Yeah, not included.  I kept thinking that this was the first of a series, or possibly a second and I was just missing things, but after looking around online, this doesn't seem to be the case.

In fact, she's a one hit wonder, and from the looks of her blog, not much older than her main character.

The pacing was odd, the story didn't make a lot of sense, and the killer?  Seriously?  He could have been so much better!!!  Minus the expected twists, turns, and not plot devices, there was nothing to this book.  It would have helped if she had explained things better, but instead just skims over the lore.  Not cool, Devlin, not cool.

2 snowflakes.

Note: Some language, Supernatural, Violence, Teen Sexuality (minor)

Plum Spooky

I have mentioned that if you ever need a pick-me-up, you should read something by Janet Evanovich, right? Her books are seriously laugh-out-loud funny.

Anyway, Plum Spooky is her latest. It's part of the Stephanie Plum, Bounty Hunter series, but this one is a Between-the-Numbers book (the regular books all have numbers in the title...One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Twelve Sharp, Fearless Fourteen etc...), but there are a handful of Between-the-Numbers books.

The main thing about the non-numbered books? They always have Diesel, and he's always chasing some weird bad guy. I'm so serious. This time, it's Wulf, who is trying to build and evil weather machine.

But the book is awesomely funny. I laughed out loud more than once. Steph is pet-sitting a monkey named Carl, Diesel has moved in until Wulf is taken care of, and Joe has taken in one of the many Morelli men for the duration of the book. Stephanie only destroys 1 car in this book (which isn't really her fault...she left it sitting out in the woods and raccoons took it over). Lula and Tank are, well, Lula and Tank (they set a wedding date, which is scary, then break-up over Tank's cats. The man has cats).

Ranger kind of hovers in the background and provides backup (because he's Ranger), and tells Steph that she shouldn't be hanging around with Diesel, because he's a bad guy (like Ranger has any room to talk there!)

Anyway, I really enjoyed it.