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review 2019-10-25 07:04
Shared World Novels what what
Lord of the Abyss - Nalini Singh

This was an odd little experiment, which I undertook because I'm so on the hook for Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling novels, but then I haven't been down for much else she's written. I'm not sure what the official name for this series is -- Lords of [Something] would be my guess -- but it's four different paranormal romance novels with an overarching plot written by four different writers. I find this sort of thing fascinating -- when novel writers collaborate like television or comic writers.

 

The last series like this I read was the Crimson City novels. Most of them are by someone called Liz Maverick (which is surely not a pen name at all), but the second is by Marjorie M Liu. who, before she racked up all the awards for Monstress, wrote this fucking brilliantly weird PNR series called Dirk & Steele. I mean, she really moved the markers for what you can pull off in the sometimes boring vampire/werewolf snorefest you can find in the genre. Liu took the kind of premise that made me exclaim, wait, what?? like a hundred times when I was reading the first novel, Crimson City, and in her story, grounds it so completely in believable interpersonal concerns that my brain stopped screaming every 15 minutes about how nothing about the world made any sense. That's some godamn writing right there. 

 

Singh's outing in the Lords of [Something] maybe wasn't at this level, but I actually made it all the way through to the end of the novel, which is something I cannot say about the other three books in the series. Some of this is just the silliness of the premise, because all of the books are riffs on various fairy tales. There's one based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for example, where our fair haired maiden finds a rock hard cock which was just right, and I just couldn't stop my brain from squealing immaturely, and then breaking into laughter.  

 

Lord of the Abyss is very loosely based on Beauty and the Beast, and it works in the places that Singh tends to excel, and otherwise is kind of a mess. She does an excellent job writing characters out of trauma and abuse. She doesn't go for the magic vagina, the ladybits that can cure all, but constructs believable psychologies warped by neglect, and then slowly, carefully, draws them out. But the world, and the magic, is slapdash, so the parts of the plot that intersect with that are shaky at best. 

 

So, fun to see a writer I tend to enjoy, at least in one limited context, pull off something in a shared world. Didn't captivate me like Psy-Changeling, but it was a perfectly cromulent way to pass the time. 

 

ETA: Ok, I actually looked, and the series is called Royal House of Shadows, which seems kind of stuffy and conceited, but what do I know. 

 

 

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review 2013-08-24 00:00
Shards of Crimson (Crimson City, #7)
Shards of Crimson - Liz Maverick,Patti O'Shea,Carolyn Jewel,Jade Lee Audiobook, anthology.

1. "A Time to Howl" by Liz Maverick. Cute story about a princess that almost belonged in a Disney movie she's so naive and sweet and about finding her mate.

2. "DX" by Carolyn Jewel. Romance between a demon and a human even without him changing to a kind and gentle man. Good story.

3. "School Bites" by Jade Lee Loved this story. I liked that it was about how people are coping with the changes. The beginning was very hot! Sweet ending.

4. "Dark Awakening" by Patti O'Shea. Enjoyable story, love between supposed opposites.

Overall good anthology that on par with the rest of the series I've listened to so far. Narrators did great job. 3-1/2 stars
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review 2013-07-01 00:00
Crimson Rogue (Crimson City, #6)
Crimson Rogue (Crimson City, #6) - Liz M... Crimson Rogue (Crimson City, #6) - Liz Maverick, Rebecca Rogers Audiobook.

I'm enjoying this series more and I don't know if it's because of the author change up in this series or Rebecca Rogers's naration. There's a lot of crossover from people from the previous books. This romance I liked too. Not a whole lot of "do I or don't I", which drives me crazy. I'm planning on listening to the rest of the series.
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review 2013-04-10 00:00
Seduced by Crimson (Crimson City, #5)
Seduced by Crimson (Crimson City, #5) - ... Seduced by Crimson (Crimson City, #5) - Jade Lee, Rebecca Rogers This book was a okay to me. I hate when a hero or heroine keeps denying what someone thinks might help a situation even while surrounded by dead bodies and this book's first half was a lot like that. I have this series in audiobook so I'm not wasting actual reading time with it because I wouldn't put it in front of other books that I actually like.
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review 2013-03-31 00:00
A Darker Crimson (Crimson City, #4)
A Darker Crimson (Crimson City, #4) - Ca... A Darker Crimson (Crimson City, #4) - Carolyn Jewel, Rebecca Rogers These audiobooks are pretty good. The stories are getting better and better.
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