Friday, June 12, 2015

72:120 Inked by Chance, Liu, Galenorn, & Wilkes

A collection of urban fantasy novellas with tattoos figuring heavily into the story.

Skin Deep by Karen Chance ~ A story that takes place in the world of Cassie Palmer.  Lia is a war mage who has been sidelined due to injury but now she has a magical ward that has taken up residence on her skin which she has no idea how to remove or what it does.  She can't be bothered with that when she finds out that her boyfriend, the werewolf Cyrus, has been kidnapped by someone who is skinning and killing werewolves of no importance.  She is his only chance to find and rescue him so all the other worries will have to wait.

I've enjoyed the Cassie Palmer series but I just couldn't get into this one.  After doing some digging, apparently this is one in a series of novellas about these characters which might explain why I kept feeling very lost, like there was a lot of backstory that I didn't know and should.

Armor of Roses by Marjorie M. Liu ~ Maxine has just found a dying man near her car who was looking for her with a letter from her grandmother.  He is part of a band of children that her grandmother rescued from a very bad woman during WWII but when Maxine starts looking into things, she finds that traveling back in time to work with her grandmother is the only way to try and set things right in her time.

This was my first introduction to this series and while I did feel like there was backstory that I wasn't privy to, I didn't feel like I was missing anything necessary to understanding the basic motivations of the characters or their abilities.  It was definitely interesting enough that I am glad I have some of the books on my shelf to read, probably sooner rather than later.

Etched in Silver by Yasmine Galenorn ~ Camille D'Artigo is on a crap assignment for the YIA to find and take down a rapist and murderer.  However, because her boss wants her to fail she is being given bad intel so when she stumbles upon a dark elf who knows where her suspect is and is willing to help her take him down, she immediately jumps upon the opportunity.  The fact that there are almost immediate sparks whenever they touch doesn't hurt but neither are prepared for just what those sparks really mean.

I love Ms. Galenorn's Otherworld series and have read this story before but wasn't upset to read it again.  Camille and Trillian are a fabulous couple.

Human Nature by Eileen Wilks~ FBI Agent Lily Yu would not normally get called out for the murder of a werewolf in CA except that she is there to support her mate, Cyrus, who has asked her to see if there is anything suspicious about the death.  She pulls a few strings and finds that there was a new tattoo on the victim's throat, right where it was slit, that hadn't been there just a few hours before.  Certainly seems like something to investigate further, especially with a Humans First leader living in town.

This was also my first venture into this world and while there was definitely a lot of backstory and other characters were mentioned as not being present for some reason which wasn't really explained, the basics of the world and the main characters of this story were which is really what matters.  I'm not rushing out to buy her books based on this one novella but I could see them ending up on my shelf at some point.

Page count: 437p/17,470p ytd/232,404p lifetime

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