This is a collection of short stories on the theme of bad dates with the supernatural. The blurb says "We've all [had] dreadful experiences that turned out to be uniquely memorable in the very worst way." Well, this book is another of those dreadful experiences. Its awful to varying degrees throughout.
Undead in the garden of good and evil by Kim Harrison.* out of *****
Lame! Vampire mythology messed about purely for plot purposes, not to say anything interesting. Demonstrates the main problem with the supernatural romance-ish genre - the author really doesn't seem to understand either genre that well. To top it off, this is blatantly a filler between stories in a series, referring to characters and events outside the story to no purpose. Painful to read.
The Claire Switch Project by Lynsay Sands** out of *****
Bearable. Especially after the last one. Its a bit sci-fi, but again science is pushed out the way whenever the author wants to have something happen in the plot. It is not possible to have any respect for the characters, they are such children. Pointless.
Chaotic by Kelley Armstrong *** out of *****
Ok, there was a bit of feeding in too much of an outside mythology for my liking but in this collection this story stands out like the light at the end of the tunnel. A half chaos demon that can find trouble runs into a werewolf and a reasonable plot ensues. The characters are interesting and likeable. Like a lot of supernatural romance this is heavily influenced by Buffy and written in first person. I wish people wouldn't do that! First person is terribly hard to do well. I would read this author again.
Dead Man Dating by Lori Handeland** out of *****
Back to the lame vampiric demons. And a lame virgin sub-plot to boot. The demons are more believable than the virgin. Also, again with the first person. Dear Author, you are not as good as Mary Stewart so no more of the thoughts of the sub-Buffy idiot protagonist!
Genre: Supernatural/sci-fi romance
Read: 12/4/8
