AAD NOLA Author Spotlight: PJ Schnyder

I've never been to New Orleans before, so I was ecstatic when the announcement for the location of Authors After Dark 2012 came out. Not only is the convention hotel in the French Quarter, but it's right on Bourbon Street.

If at any time, you can't find me scampering around Authors After Dark, I might be out getting a taste of New Orleans cooking. If there's one thing I love to explore about any city, it's the food. I'm dying to try a good gumbo, maybe some crawfish etouffee and I absolutely plan to seek out fresh beignets!

Food, and my love for it, finds its way into my stories too. Mackenzie of Heart's Sentinel explores the dining hall of the River Gap Pride and even cooks in Adam's kitchen to keep herself busy and her mind off dark fears. 

Carri enjoys lunch baskets, BBQ and decadent desserts in Red's Wolf.

While I've been working on the next book in the Terra's Guardians series, apple pie has come up more than once. LOL.

There's something about the sight, the wonderful smell and the fantastic taste of food that makes every image come to life. New Orleans will be a memorable city, both for the great experience of meeting readers at Authors After Dark and the epic foodie adventure!

Visit PJ on her blog: http://pjschnyder.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pjschnyder

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pjschnyder

I'd like to offer a free ecopy of Heart's Sentinel. To enter, leave a comment and answer this question:
   When you visit a new city, what's your favorite thing to explore?

Add this book to your Goodreads shelf.

Born human, Mackenzie never wanted to be a shapeshifter. After a shifter stalks and brutally Changes her, she runs to the jaguars of River Gap pride for protection from the stalker still searching for her, to come to terms with the attack and learn to control her new, powerful cougar body.

Adam, a River Gap Sentinel, is assigned as her guard and mentor. Well aware of his strength and how new she is the shapeshifter world, he holds himself back from the flames of primal desire she ignites. But, to survive the stalker, they both need to first battle their pasts and learn what it truly means to be the sentinels of each other’s hearts.

Tori's Review: A Blood Seduction by Pamela Palmer

Released: May 29, 2012
Paperback: 384 pages
Price: $7.99
Publisher: Avon
Source: Amazon Vine 
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Vamp City
Buy: Amazon


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Vampires live only for lust and pleasure in the eternal twilight of Vamp City. But the city’s magic is dying. The only person who can restore it? A beautiful woman from the mortal world...one who knows nothing of the power she wields.

Quinn Lennox is searching for a missing friend when she stumbles into a dark otherworld that only she can see—and finds herself at the mercy of Arturo Mazza, a dangerously handsome vampire whose wicked kiss will save her, enslave her, bewitch her, and betray her.

What Arturo can’t do is forget about her—any more than Quinn can control her own feelings for him. Neither one can let desire get in the way of their mission—his to save his people, hers to save herself.

But there is no escape from desire in a city built for seduction, where passion flows hot and blood-red. Welcome to Vamp City...

My Rating: DNF

My Opinion:
DNF: read the first 50+ pages and could not get into this story. I'm just going to list what didn't work for me:

• not a very interesting start in my eyes. I don't make a huge deal about the first sentence of a story (though I do appreciate it when an author writes something funny or interesting), but the first sentence in this book was just so boring and monotonous, and really set the stage for how the remainder of the chapter was like.
  
• not a very interesting heroine. I still can't remember her name.
   
• too much telling, not enough showing. You're told about the "love" the siblings share, told about the dedication, but you're never shown it. The brother and sister have each other's backs? Well, how heartwarming... But if you can't PROVE it, then why should I care?
   
• not a lot of action, and when things do finally pick up, I honestly did not care. By the time our "hero" appears, I was bored out of my mind and couldn't take the book seriously.
   
• the heroine doesn't have a lot of spunk. The part where the "hero" snaps that he is her master, and then she turns around and calls him master so easily... Ugh I don't know, it just rubbed off on me the wrong way and my amusement dissipated. Mind you, she was giving him an attitude not moments before him snapping at her, so I don't know why she would suddenly give in without a fight.

After my initial disappointment with the pacing of the story and my lack of interest, I tried to continue reading... I really did, but the only way I was able to do so was by NOT taking what I was reading "seriously." I do enjoy books that I never intend to review, and I have read plenty of books that I thought was a joke, but this one just had one thing after another that simply did not work for me.

There are, however, plenty of other reviewers who have read this story and who seemed to enjoy it. If you're looking for a review gushing about this title, then I suggest you look for those. As for me, I can't recommend this book if you have similar tastes to my own.


Series Order:
1. A Blood Seduction

Tori's Review: Lethal Rider by Larissa Ione

Released: May 22, 2012
Paperback: 464 pages
Price: $7.99
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Source: Netgalley 
Genre: Paranormal Romance 
Series: Lords of Deliverance 
Buy: Amazon


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They're here. They ride. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Born of a match between good and evil, four siblings stand between hell's minions and everything they want to destroy. They are the Lords of Deliverance, and they have the power to ward off Doomsday...or let it ride...

LETHAL RIDER

Thanatos, the most deadly Horseman of the Apocalypse, has endured thousands of years of celibacy to prevent the end of days. But just one night with the wickedly sexy Aegis Guardian, Regan Cooper, shatters centuries of resolve. Yet their passion comes with a price. And Thanatos must face a truth more terrifying than an apocalypse-he's about to become a father.

Demon-slayer Regan Cooper never imagined herself the maternal type, but with the fate of the world hanging in the balance she had no choice but to seduce Thanatos and bear his child. Now, as the final battle draws closer and his rage at being betrayed is overshadowed by an undeniable passion for the mother of his child, Thanatos has a life-shattering realization: To save the world, he must sacrifice the only thing he's ever wanted-a family.

My Rating:

My Opinion:
You know when you get addicted to a series or an author, and you can't help but go crazy in anticipation for the next book release? Well, ever since reading Larissa's Demonica series, that's how I've been. First it was with those books, and now it's with her HOTA series.

My craving--a craving I didn't even realize I had, what with how swamped I've been recently with grad school pre-reqs--has been temporarily satisfied. Or perhaps I should say it's been reawakened? After reading LETHAL RIDER, I'm practically salivating for the next book in the series, and yet, at the same time, I'm eerily content.

I'm wary when an author kills off characters and then revives them. I used to be a Gena Showalter junkie. Ask Karen (@teamsheltie) how I acted at BEA whenever I had the opportunity to go to a Gena signing, and she'll tell you how starstruck I'd get. Well, after one too many angsty heroes, I finally gave up on her LOTU series. I feel that there is really no suspense anymore--especially when she kills and resurrects her characters as often as she does. I hate to say this, but whenever something dramatic happens, I can't help but feel like it's a joke now.

So of course, I was wary when we started killing characters in LETHAL RIDER, and I was terrified that the heartbreaking moments and all that suspense would suddenly shrivel away in the wake of these deaths. And of course, Larissa alleviated my fears by making each scene heartbreaking and... Suspenseful! I knew people would die eventually in a series where the Apocalypse is on the world's doorstep, so I don't feel like I'm spoiling anything by stating that. I just feel that it's important to point out when an author retains his or her ability to create a tearjerking scene--or when he/she loses that power and makes coming back to life an everyday occurrence.

The suspense in Than's book is great. The plot kept me guessing, and I was anxious to see more of Pestilence. In fact, I was kind of disappointed that he didn't have as much "screen" time as the other characters, but it was also nice seeing prior heroes and heroines making another appearance this time around. The emotional punches kept on coming, and I felt myself tearing once or twice while reading. Also, I wanted to shake Than and Regan equally, which I found refreshing since there's usually only one character in a PNR who I find to be annoyingly irrational. and, of course, like any Ione book, I was glued to the pages and was pissed when I had to put my kindle down to go to bed.

Two things didn't work for me:

1) the sex scenes. Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against pregnant women, and they can have sex all they want, but I just did not find myself emotionally invested this time around when things got hot and heavy. I suppose it had more to do with the fact that I kept wondering what positions wouldn't squish their kid, and then before I knew it, they were done. There wasn't a lot of emphasis on how unsexy Regan may have felt, but the comments on her swollen feet, etc, made me, in turn, believe that she was probably feeling unsexy. And that lack of sex appeal may have reflected on my reading when the two finally did connect. Plus, a part of me felt like Than was really attracted to her this time around because she was carrying his kid.

2) Regan didn't stand out as a character. I'm not exactly sure what it was about her, but I didn't feel the usual "omg what an awesome kickass heroine!" like I did with Ione's other heroines. I wasn't a fan of Cara either, but I think I liked her more than Regan because I felt like I got to know what made her tick. In comparison, we see the speedy version of Than's relationship with Regan in an earlier book, and then in LETHAL RIDER, the two just bicker like they're an old married couple. I saw brief glimpses of Than in the earlier books, which made me appreciate him more, but Regan felt rushed.

All-in-all, I think Larissa did a great job with the next installment of her LOD series. My complaints weren't, by any means, major. For some reason, I'm a lot pickier about liking heroines than I am about the heroes, so I don't usually take my complaints too seriously when I don't like one of the female leads. As for the sex? Well, I've never been pregnant, I don't plan on being pregnant anytime soon, and for that reason, there was a bit of a disconnect regarding the sexy times. And really, the sex plays such a minuscule part in my eyes. What's important to me in this series is the story, seeing how Reseph will eventually be redeemed, and then seeing my past favorites from the Demonica series.

Recommended? Obvs. But only if you read the Demonica series first!


Series Order:
1. Eternal Rider (Tori's Review)
2. Immortal Rider (Tori's Review)
3. Lethal Rider
4. Rogue Rider (coming soon)