Josie Griffin is Not a Vampire by Heather Swain YP FIC SWAIN

Josie Griffin isn't sorry. Her scumbag ex-boyfriend totally deserved to have his windshield bashed in (he's just lucky it wasn't his cheating-on-her-with-her-best-friend-face!). Now she has to have mandatory community service AND anger management classes.  Like being angry at all her back stabbing ex-friends isn't normal?  Besides her group is about as far from normal you can get.  Avis thinks he's a were-something-or-other, Johan vants to suck her blooood, Tarren believes she has magic powers, and Helios thinks he's a Greek god (at least he looks it-swoon).  It isn't long before the crazy starts rubbing off on Josie and she starts wondering if maybe they aren't crazy and she's just joined a Supernatural Support Group. And worse yet Josie is about to find out that some creatures of the night are darker than others and one out there is preying on defenseless girls.

This is a fun and silly trifle that could be some great beach reading.  Josie has a seriously tart tongue and attitude to spare, but it never gets to be whiny or annoying.  Swain's look at the paranormal world that lives just under our nose isn't terribly original, but her witty take and flair for clever (if woefully dated. i mean do Kids These Days really know The Lost Boys?) pop culture references make the book very fun reading.  As much as I liked Heather and her Nancy Drew with bite attempt to solve mysteries, save the day, and get to the truth I'd say most the books supporting characters are a little flat.  The support group provides lots of humor but no real depth. Also, the central mystery isn't very hard to solve and the books eventual Big Bad doesn't have much of a character or menace.  You'd think that would make this a bad review, but for some reason I read this book in a single go.  It was just that perfect mix of humor and frothy fun with the perfect length.

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Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross YP FIC CROSS

Mira has lived her whole life with secrets. How did her parents die? Why is she prohibited from returning to her birthplace? `Why does she get the feeling everyone she knows is lying to her?  When she finally breaks away and makes it to her home town of Beau Rivage she discovers that more secrets than ever.  She falls quickly for Blue, a man everyone says is dangerous, but she feels like she can’t pull away from him.  Life in Beau Rivage is strange, just like a fairy tale…literally. She soon finds that all the residents of Beau Rivage are fated, cursed to live out legendary fairy tales, and she is beginning think hers has a Grimm ending.

Reimagined fairy tales are the new dystopias, vampires, fallen angels, whatever the big thing this month is!  They are in loads of movies, TV shows, and books, so it can be tough knowing which of the 3,486,794 fairy tale retellings released a month to give your precious time to. Fortunately, Kill Me Softly is something rather special.  It takes the fairy tales before Disney cleaned them up, finds the odd fascination with love and death and blends it into a modern romance. I think the novels twists work pretty well, but if you are familiar with old fairy tales, you’ll know some of the major ones fairly early on.  However, once the book is all about the strangling hand of inexorable fate, then that actually adds its own level of enjoyment.  The main fun is seeing the skewed fairy tales and trying to guess how everything will turn out. Underneath the romance and mystery is a look at the dark and dangerous side of fairy tale love.  I think Cross does a really good job at looking at te relationship between real life abusive relationships and the fairy tale like logic that people trapped in them often use.  This is a great, twisted, dark romance.  I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something unique. 

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Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore YP FIC CLEMENTM

Amy Goodnight is the normal one in a most abnormal family.  And not even normally abnormal, witches with special powers abnormal. She stays away form magic as best she can by ranch sitting at her Aunt’s West Texas ranch.  she thinks her biggest problem is the incredibly annoying and annoyingly attractive cowboy, Ben, but  bodies start turning up near the ranch and a persistent ghost convinces her to solve the crimes she steps in the middle of the worlds of magic and murder.

This is a nice mix of spookiness with a light touch.  Our heroine isn’t a waifish lost soul with a tortured past and is actually quite witty and relatable.  Even better is the VERY tired cowboy romance actually works quite well hear due to Clement-Moore having a great ear for witty dialogue.  I actually found myself rooting for this couple (something that almost never happens for me in a paranormal romance). I love that the author invests as much effort in accurately capturing ranch life as well as telling a unique and often quite spooky ghost story.  It makes for s surprising good mash-up.  Texas Gothic has enough humor, creepiness, romance, and interesting characters to please almost any paranormal romance fans and may make some new ones.

Red Glove by Holly Black YP FIC BLACK

Cassel Sharpe thought he was the only normal one in a family of curseworking con artists, but that was the biggest con of all.  He has the most powerful curse of all: transformation. Anything he touches changes into whatever he wants.  Now that the love of his life is transformed back into herself she’s also been cursed to love him. So now her love is as phony as his old life.  when the Sharpe family loses one of its own, Cassell is recruited by the Feds to catch the killer all while dodging the mob and keeping two steps ahead of the feds and out of their cuffs. Cassel is finding out that love is the biggest con of all, but can he pull it off?

Holly Black writes fantasy that almost anyone can enjoy.  Her world seems real even when it deals with the unreal.  She does this by thinking about all the details that would exist in a world where magic is commonplace and also understanding how to bring a criminal lifestyle to the page.  She has vibrant characters with real motivations and depth and she knows how to pace a novel as well as the best thriller authors.  This is the sequel to White Cat, so definitely read it first (which works out nicely because it is also excellent!).  What makes these novels so enjoyable is the mix of danger, intrigue, and the satisfaction of a well pulled off con (which both novels end with a doozy of a big twist con). Last but not least, I really love that Black always includes loads of characters from a multicultural background that don’t exist to represent an ethnicity (tokenism!) and are in n way stereotypes.  It helps to see people of color in fantasy.  all in all this is a compelling series that could appeal to book lovers of many stripes.

A Perfect Day for Love Letters by George Asakura YP FIC ASAKURA

Five manga stories of anonymous love letters and the bonds that are formed from them. A young librarian hunts in books for hidden love letters from an unlikely source, a girl finds a love letter from the toughest guy in school, anonymous love letters help a troubled young woman confront the past, a girl tries to solve the mystery of a love letter with several suspects, and a mailman sends love letters to help a blind woman come back to life.

This is pretty straight forward shojo (romance comics) fare. Boys and girls that seem to hate each other at first fall in love, love seem impossible but overcomes the odds, love is the most important thing ever!!!, etc. The art is good with a straightforward style that will be familiar to any manga fan, but not exceptional. None of the characters are very deep, because they are only around for one comic a piece. That being said, even though this is a straight forward shojo manga that doesn’t do much new, it is still a really good read. The stories all move very quickly, but they don’t feel rushed. Shojo fans should find themselves liking these characters and rooting for them. What makes it work best is that if you don’t like a particular story it’s over fast! So while it will be unlikey to win over any shojo haters, the shojo fans should dig it!

Beautiful Dead: Arizona by Eden Maguire YP FIC MAGUIRE

The Beautiful Dead, a group of zombie/angel(they are resurrected dead like zombies but have super cool angel powers) teens, are back and Darina has to solve another mystery before time runs out and all of the Dead have to return to limbo. This time it is the mystery of Arizona, and her suicide that may be murder, but it’s hard to solve the mystery of a zombie/angel girl that seems to hate you and vice-versa. To solve it Darina will have to unlock the secrets of Arizona’s past and find the truth before time runs out in this thrilling paranormal romance mystery series.

The first Beautiful Dead book Jonas was a fun but flawed read. Some characters seemed flat but the cool powers and fast plot made it a good light mystery read. Fortunately, Arizona is even better. We see Darina starting to change and grow (which I had mentioned I was hoping for in my previous review!) and get to know more about the zombie/angels and their mysterious leader Hunter. I think this is going to be a really good series for fans of fast passed mysteries or looking for a new paranormal romance.