Four of the bestselling names in romance and fantasy come together in this collection of thrilling novellas featuring powerful women who know how to handle a hex or two...
New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews spins "Magic Dreams." Shapeshifting tigress Dali Harimau finds herself in deep waters when she must challenge a dark being to a battle of wits or risk losing the man for whom she secretly longs.
In "Ice Shards," New York Times bestselling author Yasmine Galenorn returns to the Otherworld as Iris Kuusi, a Finnish house sprite, journeys to the frozen Northlands to confront the crazed shadow of her former lover and break the curse that is keeping her from marrying the man she loves.
National bestselling author Allyson James takes you to Magellan, Arizona, where Stormwalker Janet Begay and her friends are trapped by a powerful curse. It will take every bit of magic simmering beneath her skin for the Stormwalker to survive being "Double Hexed."
From national bestselling author Jeanne C. Stein comes "Blood Debt," in which bounty-hunter-turned-vampire Anna Strong is visited by three witches who ask her to right an old magical wrong. Anna will have to live up to her last name to make it through alive.
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I can't say that all anthologies leave me feeling satified but this one defintiely doesn't disappoint. Even though I'm not reading the full novels by Galenorn anymore I enjoyed her entry. It gave me insight into the background of a character I already like and by itself introduces new readers to at least a bit of the back story of the whole series. Plus it doesn't have any creepy rape-ish undertones anywhere so that's always an A+ thing in my book :)
I have to say something similar about James's Walker addition. I liked Janet from the series already, but here we get a quick action filled look at the world she lives in. New readers might be taken aback by the sex under pressure, lol, that James includes here but in the overall realm of the series it makes sense, thus it worked for me. Also the inclusion of supporting characters that made sense and displayed clear personalities of their own was a lot of fun.
I'm not going to talk about the Andrews story again (you can read about here) but I do want to say that as a new reader of Stein's work she almost has me ready to read more. I like her character, I liked the plot of the vignette she included here, but I'm not sold on whether how she writes would annoy me in the long term. Which is aggravating to say the least. There was just something about how she uses first person that, especially when compared to Andrews, irked me. I kind of felt that I was getting a jumbled up look at how the protagonist was feeling while also including some third person observations that interrupted the general flow. I guess I'd have to give this story an 'eh' review, but keep in mind it's more because I'm not really jiving with how Stein writes, even though on the whole I liked it.
Overall Feeling - Thumbs up.
Series - Various.
