Liv's Reviews > Inked

This book was comprised of 4 novellas from 4 different authors. Quite frankly, I read this book because of Karen Chance, but I did finish reading the entire book. I gave 3 stars to this book overall. Individual ratings as follows... the reviews may contain spoilers so please proceed with caution.

Skin Deep – by Karen Chance - 4 stars

This novella was centered on a half-mage, half-shapeshifter character, Lia. I have read Lia’s stories before from other works by Karen Chance. Lia’s world was set in the same universe as that of the Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab series. The major difference were that we only saw Lia in short stories and novellas, never in the mainlines, and that readers would get a more in-depth view of shapeshifter culture which was not fully explored or described in the mainline stories.

In this novella, Lia’s significant other, Cyrus (a lone wolf who was kicked out of his former pack) was missing-in-action, and Lia would have to find him before it was too late.

This story held my attention from page 1. It started with a homicide investigation involving the supernaturals. As Lia later found out, Cyrus’ well-being was hung on a thin thread and she started doing things and going places that she would not have done in other situations. The plot was well-formed and action-packed. Lia’s werewolf heritage/abilities were further explored and her relationship with Cyrus was more solidified after all the adventures that they’d been through. Even though we didn’t get to see Lia a lot except in anthologies and other novella compilations, I felt as though she had grown quite a bit over time. I definitely had lots of fun reading this one, and hence the 4-star rating.

Armor of Roses – by Marjorie M. Liu - 3 stars

I have read a few other short stories by Ms. Liu before. However, I have never read her series revolving around the characters in this particular novella – Maxine and Grant. Although I had no background or context about these two characters, I felt that the novella gave just enough information to help me understand the basics. Essentially Maxine was a descendent of a long line of demon hunters and she “inherited” these little demon creatures from her mom, who also inherited them from her mom etc. These creatures were “good” and helped the demon hunters through a long line of descendents and were passed from one to the next. They also provided supernatural abilities and protection to the bearer.

In this story, Maxine was given a cryptic message from a dying man. The message was apparently written by her long dead grandma. Maxine then set out on a task to find out more about what this message was about and at the same time, tried to save the life of that dying man (who seemed to have met her before). Her demons gave the ability to time-travel and as a result, she landed in China during Second World War era and there she found the dying man who at the time was only a little boy, and her grandmother who was only 18 years old at the time.

This story was rather interesting because it had a bit of everything – demons, magic, time-travel, romance, murder and mystery. The “bad guy” in the story became obvious after a little while, and there were some things that I didn’t quite understand. For instance, Maxine had a metal-covered hand which she kept gloved for the most part, as well as a scar that decorated a small patch of skin under her ear. These apparently held some significance but I didn’t quite get what they meant. Anyway, it was a quick read and I rather enjoyed myself. Perhaps I will eventually read one of Ms. Liu’s novels one of these days...

Etched in Silver – by Yasmine Galenorn - 1.5 stars

This novella was set in a universe that was parallel to Earthside, except that it was a world that comprised of Fae of all kinds. It was a magical realm that co-existed with the mundane world and for the most part was unknown to humans. Since the story took place in this “Otherworld”, most characters who made an appearance had magical abilities to varying degrees.

The main character, Camille, was an agent of the Otherworld Intelligence Agency (it was almost like the equivalent of the CIA in the mundane world). She was given a mission to apprehend a villain named Roche, who used to be an agent himself but turned psycho and started butchering people. During the investigation, Camille met Trillian who was a Svartan (a name for the race of “Charming Fae”). Trillian assisted Camille with the tracking down of Roche and during the brief partnership, they developed romantic feelings for each other and eventually hooked up.

I liked the idea of a parallel Fae realm. What I didn’t like was the fact that the characters talked and acted like normal mundane humans. They didn’t seem to have those otherworldly characteristics that I had come to expect from the Fae (this expectation was largely based on many other fantasy works that I have read by other authors). The explanation about the Svartan race was minimal and I didn’t understand why people were very adverse to socializing with them – although Camille didn’t seem to have any problems with that.

The worst part of this story was her mission, which seemed like a complete joke. She was having trouble completing her task successfully because she was being played by her asshole boss. At the same time, her magical abilities were apparently “intermittent”. To compensate, she brought with her a bunch of magical tools and toys that would aid her in her goal of capturing Roche. One of these magical gadgets was a curse that would kill someone on the spot – all you had to do was say that person’s name while reciting the incantation. The joke of this whole thing was that she ended up killing Roche by simply saying his name “Roche” and BAM, he was dead!!!! It was unbelievable!! How easy was that?!!!? If it was that easy, why didn’t she do that in the first place?!? Furthermore, what baffled me was that for Fae, true names were usually very important and they didn’t share them with others. Again, based on preconceived notions about the Fae (and sometimes demons even), true names were never lightly given. This villain, Roche, was dead because all Camille did was say his name “Roche”...

Gawd, it was so stupid. Just kill me now.

Finally, I didn’t understand the romance between Camille and Trillian – the chemistry was seriously lacking. Their sex was weird and unusual, and perhaps it was my lack of understanding of the Fae in this universe, but I didn’t understand Trillian’s unusual physiology.

I didn’t really like this story much, but it was bearable. So I gave it 1.5 stars.

Human Nature – by Eileen Wilks - 2 stars

I had a hard time focusing on this story. It was a novella but it took me literally 4 days to finish it. It wasn't horrible in any way that I could describe, but it simply failed to engage me. The story was about Lily, a Gifted federal agent who was part of the Supernatural Unit. She got herself involved in a murder investigation concerning her mate’s clan. Her mate, Rule (what kind of a name was that?!?), was a Lupi (i.e. shapeshifter) of a high rank within his clan. One of the clan members was found dead by having his throat slit and another clan member was accused of murdering him. Since the Lupi healed really fast and was very had to kill my mortal wounds, Lily believed that magic was used in the murder and hence she took part in the investigation.

The story itself was okay. It wasn’t action-packed but Lily kept pulling on threads that were found during the investigation which kept the overall story moving. However, perhaps it was my lack of understanding of the Lupi world, I found that I was fully subscribed to the universe and I found that it was hard to believe a mating bond formed between a Lupi (Rule) and a non-Lupi (Lily). Truthfully, I didn't care much for either of them.

Anyway, all I could say was that this story wasn’t bad, but I didn’t like it much. So I gave it a 2-star rating only.