This omnibus edition includes all three books in the trilogy. In the first book, Jenny is doing some last minute preparation for her boyfriend Tom's birthday party and stumbles across a mysterious game store, where she buys a game in a blank white box. The game turns out to be a paper house, with paper figures you can draw on to look like the various players, and paper cards on which the players are expected to draw their worst fears. It seems like harmless fun, until the game becomes real, and Jenny, Tom, Zach, Dee, Audrey, Michael, and Summer are all trapped in the house and forced to face their fears if they want to survive. The one putting them through all of this is Julian, an evil but handsome being who wants to make Jenny his.

In the second book, everyone tries to adjust to the consequences of Book 1, and Julian's back for another game. In the third book, Jenny and her friends must travel to the Shadow World for a rescue attempt. They end up in a deadly amusement park, and this time around Julian isn't the only threat they need to worry about.

L.J. Smith was one of my top favorite authors when I was a teen, despite her book's frequently ugly covers (seriously, the original Night World covers were hideous, although they were at least more memorable than the current "face on a black background" omnibus covers). She was my go-to author for YA paranormal romance, and I loved several of her books enough to reread them multiple times.

I don't think I ever reread the Forbidden Game trilogy, though, and all I could remember about it was that it starred a hot evil guy and had a disappointing ending. I can tell you right now that the reason Teen Me was so disappointed was because I approached this trilogy as paranormal romance. In reality, it's more like YA horror with romantic elements, or maybe a YA horror love story. Even though I'd adjusted my expectations for this reread, the trilogy's ending was still a bit disappointing.

Smith's writing was as compulsively readable as I remembered it being, although it felt a bit dated, especially during the first book, and the computer scenes in the second book made me laugh a bit. Jenny was very much an "L.J. Smith trilogy" sort of character: the gorgeous blonde girl who was loved by everyone and viewed by everyone as being very good and kind. It was a bit much, but I suppose it fit with the "Persephone and Hades" vibe that the story was going for.

The horror aspects in the first book were a bit cheesy, but still decent. In Book 2, I liked the creepy moments before the newest game started (Audrey and Dee's experiences were my favorites), but the game itself was largely forgettable. Book 3's horror elements, on the other hand, were fabulous. It's no wonder that the primary thing I remembered about this trilogy was the amusement park. I'm a fan of creepy animatronics, so I considered Leo the Paper-Eating Lion and the stuff in the arcade to be some of the best parts.

The romance aspect... Even with my vague memories of how the trilogy turned out, it was hard not to read it as paranormal romance.

I appreciated aspects of the ending more now than I probably did as a teen - the way all of the characters were forced to face the things they most feared about themselves and how others viewed them, and how they supported each other in the end. But I can't help it, I still read (or reread, I guess) L.J. Smith's books for the romance more than anything else, and this trilogy was just painful in that respect. I can understand why Teen Me never reread it.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

When Loki wakes up naked and encased in ice, the last thing he remembers is Ragnarok. Much has happened since then, because his body is now that of a mortal human woman, he no longer has any of the runes that gave him his powers, and Huginn, one of Odin's ravens, is a ragged chicken. (I will be using male pronouns throughout this review because Loki indicates multiple times throughout the book that he still thinks of himself as a man, right down to his choice of which public bathroom to enter. Speaking of which, content warning: there's some brief transphobia in that scene.)

The person who finds him and takes care of him is Gunnar Magnusson, an archeology grad student who's due to fly back to the US soon. Gunnar doesn't believe that Loki is really a god and is concerned about leaving this obviously confused person behind, but Loki turns out to be pretty resourceful. The end result is a road trip with Loki, Gunnar, Gunnar's rich stoner friend, and Huginn the chicken.

This was one of my Book Bonanza purchases. I don't think I originally intended to buy any of Grey's books, but she was part of one of the panels I attended, "The Outliers," and my ears perked up when she mentioned her "Loki returns in the body of a human woman" series. Then came several whirlwind hours of walking around, buying books, and getting autographs. I almost forgot that I wanted to visit her table and, thankfully, remembered just in time. I spent the last of the cash I brought with me on this book.

I bought a lot of books at Book Bonanza without actually checking any reviews. Maybe not the best idea. My biggest concern about this book was that it'd turn out to mostly be sex scenes. To my relief, that wasn't the case - although Loki was interested in Gunnar and very much enjoyed learning about vibrators (there's one on-page but not terribly detailed scene in which he uses one), Runed is definitely urban fantasy and not paranormal romance or erotic romance.

Loki's complete lack of knowledge about modern times and, in the beginning at least, modern languages made for a bit of a rough start, but I liked Loki's "voice" and Gunnar seemed like a nice guy. Then Gunnar left for his flight and the story abruptly shifted into high gear. Loki accomplished a lot in a very short amount of time, and he and Huginn were lucky they didn't end up dead.

Loki was generally a fabulous train-wreck, and I enjoyed finding out what he was going to do next. Freddie, Gunnar's rich stoner friend, didn't particularly appeal to me but still worked well as part of Loki's little group - I could believe that he'd follow someone like Loki, if only for the entertainment factor, and his money and car came in handy. Gunnar was a bit more difficult. I liked him, but I had a hard time believing that a responsible guy like him would do all the things he did, particularly near the end of the book. The only way I could even vaguely get him to gel as a real character rather than a convenient plot device was to view him as the sort of person who tended to be a passive follower, prone to ending up in the orbit of wild people like Freddie and Loki.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next book and am hoping that the revelation at the end of this one doesn't result in some personal growth backsliding on Loki's part. Also, here's hoping that Loki doesn't try to ditch Gunnar for stupid reasons, that Gunnar gets more of a chance to shine, that Muninn gets a speaking role, and that Grey doesn't insert a love triangle into the series. Considering Loki's reaction to Darryl Donovan and my suspicions about his identity, I have a feeling that I'm not going to get my wish on that last one, unfortunately.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

 Odin's Bastards #2, I love Norse Mythology so the idea of Valkyries really appealed to me. The first half of the book was slow getting to the point, it establishes Liam and Kara's relationship past and present while Kara tries to remember who she is but other than that nothing much happens. The second half of the book picks up it has lots of action, suspense everything is revealed and  it has a really nice ending.

Liam was a paid assassin until he had his come to Jesus moment after that he dropped everything, gave all his blood money away and started his life over determined to make up for his past misdeeds. Liam found himself in a quaint little mountain town he became a jack of all trades and became Jack. One dark and stormy night that all changed, Kara shows up on his doorstep. If you have read the first book you can guess why Kara is all alone with no memory and only brief glimpses of a man she once knew, for the rest of us newbs we don't figure it out until much later.

Kara and Liam met a year ago and spent a week together, one long sex capade. Liam worked hard to cover his tracks and is at first leery when Kara shows up, but that soon changes to desire and they both give. Together they work in peace for a while until the group Liam use to work with shows up now Liam and Kara have to protect the town from them and brave a snow storm.

Overall despite the really slow beginning it ended well and the characters were great. This can be read as a stand alone, thankfully. The narrative was intriguing; the slow beginning was mysterious I wanted to find out what had happened. I am glad I didn't give up because the ending really paid off. I liked the build up of the relationship between Kara and Liam because you see that it's more than the physical attraction; they give into it fairly quickly but they also connect on a deeper level they trust each other and genuinely like each other despite their pasts and will stand by each other through thick and thin.