A slice of Evil Chocolate

Over the weekend,I picked up a copy of Laurell K. Hamilton's new paperback,Micah,but haven't read it yet(Little Sister reading aloud from it at random and laughing like hell doesn't count)but did read this knee slapper of a review at It's Not Chick Porn,I Swear! I wound up bookmarking the site,just due to the comparison of being a LKH fan and being in a bad boyfriend trap(the kind that requires a restraining order)...too damn funny and accurate to ignore!

There's alot of good paranormal fiction out there but there's also plenty of shelf filler as well,which is why it's cool to find someone who does most of the heavy reading and is willing to be bluntly humorous about it. It's hard for me to do that because I tend to defend the not-so conventional tastes I have in pop culture like a mom with a career criminal for a son. Some in my family use to say that even Stephen King's mother wouldn't back him up like I would for books like IT(that TV movie version bought me quite alot of derision from the peanut gallery,trying to explain that Pennywise wasn't really a giant spider-sometimes,you just gotta know when to pick your battles,folks). Silly of me,I know but there's a part of me that's just taking her sweet time to mature.

Also,another reason I haven't dived into Micah yet is that I'm currently making my way thru Dates From Hell,a upcoming anthology that has a quartet of paranormal romance writers sharing stories about the otherworldly things we do for love. The line-up include Kim Harrison,Lynsay Sands,Kelley Armstrong and Lori Handeland. The Kim Harrison story,Undead In The Garden Of Good and Evil,is really a pre-story about Ivy Tamwood from the Rachel Morgan series. It's not bad but I think that ones who will enjoy it the most are those already familar with her earlier books. Also,it's written in third person which may be a little disconcerting for those use to the first person mode Harrison's used in her regular novels.

I'm almost done with Lynsay Sands' The Claire Switch Project,which is about a scientist who gets shape shifting abilities from an accidentally on purpose lab mishap and uses her new powers to help her best friend get even at their high school reunion. Very readable but rather sit-comish at times(a particularly clunky move is having Claire morph into a hot actor called Brad Cruise-that name does not roll off the tongue with ease). I might try one of Sands' books but not any time soon. She's ok but I like alittle more oopmh in my paranormal reading and here,I'm just having a few chuckles.

As for Kelley Armstrong and Lori Handeland,they're new to me as well but the Handeland story I've peeked at(Dead Man Dating)and it looks pretty sweet to me. I'm willing to give Armstrong a chance,since her werewolf novels have gotten some decent buzz but I'm more partial to vamps and demons in general. That's just me being me. Please do click the title link above to read the Micah review-even if you've never read LKH,you'll get a big kick out of it-and I'll let everyone know if Dates From Hell is worth spending a night or two with.