This is the tale of two books…
I’m Jaz Parks. My boss is Vayl, born in Romania in 1744. Died there too, at the hand of
his vampire wife, Liliana. But that’s ancient history. For the moment Vayl works for the C.I.A. doing what he does best–assassination. And I help. You could say I’m an Assistant Assassin. But then I’d have to kick your ass.
Our current assignment seemed easy. Get close to a Miami plastic surgeon named Assan, a charmer with ties to terrorism that run deeper than a buried body. Find out what he’s meeting with that can help him and his comrades bring America to her knees. And then close his beady little eyes forever. Why is it that nothing’s ever as easy as it seems?
I ended up thoroughly enjoying Jennifer Rardin’s Once Bitten, Twice Shy. Mostly, I think, because it was pretty action packed, which made for compulsive reading. And since I’ve already written a review of this for another blog, let me recap:
First, let me apologize in advance if the title of this book gets that Great White song stuck in your head. It happened to me, too, so I totally feel your pain.
Okay. What we’ve got here is a compulsively readable debut book in the Jaz Parks series. From the synopsis above you get a pretty good idea of what being in Jaz’s head is like; she’s strong, sarcastic, but there’s a whole lot of sensitivity there, too. Her backstory runs deep and unfolds over the course of the novel, which in turn adds another dimension to the running plot.
Another thing about Jaz? She kicks some serious rear. What makes it so great, though, is that Rardin did her research. Either that or she’s really good at karate. The “action” scenes are detailed and, what’s better, believable. Rardin and Jaz take the reader through the motions, so it really does play out like a scene from a movie.
And, par for the course – okay, well, for my course anyway – there are vampires. Vayl, for example; he’s got some really nifty powers. There seems to be a lot under his surface and hopefully his secrets will, ah, surface in the next installment.
Look for several more books in the Jaz Parks series (and you’ll want to after reading Once Bitten, Twice Shy.) Luckily, the next book, Another One Bites the Dust, is set to be released in December. (Yikes! Sorry, now you’ve probably got Queen stuck in your head. Don’t worry – I’m pretty sure the next book in the series is harmless. Really, no songs come to mind at all.)
One down…
Okay, so jogging through Central Park after midnight wasn’t a bright idea. But Margrit Knight never thought she’d encounter a dark new world filled with magical beings—not to mention a dying woman and a mysterious stranger with blood on his hands. Her logical, lawyer instincts told her it couldn’t all be real— but she could hardly deny what she’d seen…and touched.
The mystery man, Alban, was a gargoyle. One of the fabled Old Races who had hidden their existence for centuries. Now he was a murder suspect, and he needed Margrit’s help to take the heat off him and find the real killer. And as the dead pile up, it’s a race against the sunrise to clear Alban’s name and keep them both alive.…
Because I was already a fan of C.E. Murphy’s other series, The Walker Papers, I had really been looking forward to this one. So I was kind of bummed when I found myself unable to get into Heart of Stone. To start, I just didn’t click with Margrit. In fact, one of her quirks – I guess that’s what you’d call it – is to chant the word irrational in her head. But she doesn’t think it that way; it’s more like Ir. Ah. Shan. Al. Or something along those lines.
I kept reading, though, thinking that the high ratings and reviews it was getting all over the place had to account for something. And eventually it picked up enough to get me to read the next book, House of Cards.
The one thing I did enjoy about this one was the gargoyle element; it was really cool to read the descriptions of Alban, and I hope he’s back in the next one.
