L.E. DeLano's Blog, page 5

My Letter “K” Pick for the A to Z Book Challenge was KEYSTONE by Dannika Dark. I’m not a huge Urban Fantasy reader, but I do believe Dannika Dark has made a convert out of me with this book – and joy of joys – it’s book one of a series so I can keep on enjoying these characters and the rich, multi-faceted world of vampires, mages, and shifters.

Our story follows Raven Black, an half-vampire, half-mage crossbreed (a one-of-a-kind combination) who has become a one-woman vigilante intent on hunting “Breeds” who kill defenseless humans. This garners the attention of a group named Keystone – a collection of various “Breeds” with an array of skills and magical gifts who are also intent on saving humanity from otherworldly predators. She joins them on a trial basis and is immediately paired up with Christian, a sarcastic and gorgeous vampire and they are set to tackle a case together, which, of course, ends up being a lot bigger and more complicated than planned.

This story has compelling characters, a wonderful found family within Keystone, and the chemistry between Raven and Christian crackles and zings off the page as they try to keep things strictly professional between them. I loved the humor, the action, and the edge-of-your-seat suspense of this story and I cannot wait to sink into this world again as I follow the (thankfully) complete series. I’m going 4 1/2 stars only because Raven, for a very smart, very skilled Cross-breed, makes a few too many rookie mistakes. Other than that, I loved the hell out of this one.

IN THE DARK OF A DREAM originated because of my daughter. And my love of Sci-Fi TV.

My daughter, unfortunately, has been plagued with night terrors since two weeks before her 2nd birthday. From about 10:30pm to 3:30am on an almost nightly basis, she would scream me awake at 20 minute intervals, with a five minute calm-down, and then they’d start again. It was absolute hell as a full-time working mom with another kid (especially when he was nursing). As hellish as it was for me, my daughter experienced it tenfold, trapped in her own mind, surrounded by nightmares every night. There were no trigger foods, no chemical additives or caffeine to blame, no nighttime ritual that could redirect it, or sleeping pill that could wash it all away. It was heartbreaking. Thankfully, they decreased in frequency as she grew older, but she still gets them occasionally.

In her younger days, I’d sometimes take her to the couch with me so I didn’t disturb my partner and also so I didn’t have to keep running from room to room. I’d turn on an old favorite TV show and half-doze with it as background noise between screaming bouts. One show I watched frequently was Stargate SG-1, which you will find referenced in my book. They had several episodes that dealt with nanites that could invade your brain and trap you in a virtual reality. I began to let an idea germinate about a girl with night terrors who comes in contact with nanotech that makes her dreams into constant, horrific nightmares – and thus, IN THE DARK OF A DREAM was born.

So thank you, Bella, for being an inspiration on so many levels. And thank you Jack, Sam, Daniel, T’ealc, General Hammond, Elizabeth, John, Rodney, Teyla, and Ronin for keeping me company through the darkest nights.

I suppose I should retitle this post as “A To Z Books Review” since my letter “J” pick was the Jane Austen Collection on Audible. This is an Audible original, so it’s free if you have the subscription and well worth the money if you don’t.

With A-list actor narrators like Emma Thompson, Billie Piper, and Florence Pugh (to name a few), this collection sparkles with wit and beautiful performances. I have been making my way through it off and on since February, and each time I sink into it, it’s like pouring myself a cup of tea and settling down in a reading nook with a window view of the beautiful English countryside. You can practically smell the flowers and feel your corset. It’s just lovely.

The set contains all your favorites: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Of special note is the fact that the narrators are exactly that. They narrate the story and the action, but each book has a cast of amazing actors voicing the characters. The Theatre girl in me was in heaven. This will be a treasured re-read (or more accurately, a re-listen) for years to come.

IN THE DARK OF A DREAM is finally here, so it’s time for a Goodreads Kindle Giveaway!

This book was nearly six years in the making. Six years of picking it up, putting it away, and hauling it back out again to write around my other projects. It lost a villain and gained a better one, swapped supporting character genders and nationalities several times, took out swear words, put in swear words (while uttering worse swear words) and went through three rounds of beta readers. It’s not exactly what I envisioned at the beginning, but it’s better, and that’s as it should be. Now it’s time to toss this baby out of the nest and watch it fly.

If you enter the Goodreads giveaway, you may be one of 50 lucky readers to win a Kindle copy!

In the Dark of a Dream

by

L.E. DeLano

Release date: Apr 23, 2024

We’re giving away 50 Kindle copies of the new YA Sci-Fi Thriller, IN THE DARK OF A DREAM by L.E. DeLano April 23-30. Don’t miss it!

ENTER GOODREADS GIVEAWAY

GOOD LUCK!

My letter “I” pick for the A to Z Challenge was THE INVISIBLE MAN by H. G. Wells. I was determined this year to work a few more classics onto this list, and this one is certainly iconic. First published in 1897, and a National Book Award winner in 1953, it’s spun off dozens of stories, TV shows, and movies that feature characters with the power of invisibility, and these generally focus on the mayhem and sexual hijinks that this particular power can bring about.

However, in the OG story, we concentrate on Griffin, a man who researched the qualities of light and found a concoction then bends light in such a way as to render one invisible. Of course, he tries it on himself and get stuck that way, and we witness his misery with being swathed in bandages and being forced to wear a prosthetic nose. He can’t even acquire the books he needs without bribing a tramp to carry them so they don’t appear to be floating through the air. His experiments to restore himself begin to cost more and more, and he resorts to robbery in order to fund them. Eventually, he enlists the help of an old colleague – a decent guy named Kemp – who offers to help him but quickly realizes that Griffin has gone mad and plans to use his invisibility for a “reign of terror” once he can figure out how to switch it off and on. Kemp turns him in to the police, but Griffin gets away, then vows to murder Kemp in retaliation. He goes on a rampage and murders an innocent bystander before he chases Kemp into town, where the townspeople intervene, beating him to death. He finally becomes visible as he’s slowly dying.

Yes, this is a study of one man’s morality in the face of a superpower, and the easy way a mob can turn hateful and dangerous out of fear, but does it still hold up 127 years later. It does, mostly. But I did find Griffin a shallow madman character, and the supporting characters weren’t much more than stereotypes there to hold space in the story. It was clear Wells intended for Griffin to be a sympathetic character, but I found him manipulative. My sympathies were with Kemp, who really was trying to help his old friend, and then made the difficult choice to do the right thing. This is still a good book, and a trailblazer of horror/thriller fiction in its day. I’m giving it four stars.

My letter “H” pick for the 2024 A to Z Reading Challenge was HOUSE OF FLAME & SHADOW (Crescent City 3) by Sarah J. Maas.

I make no secret of my damn-near obsessive love of this author. I often tell people that Sarah J. Maas could write a grocery list and I would pay to read it. That is still true. I love her work. This book, however, was just a “like” for me.

In this third book of the Crescent City series, we see the much-awaited crossover between two Sarah J. Maas universes, watch Bryce, Hunt, and their merry band of rebels take on the all-powerful Asteri, and follow up on some tantalizing plot threads woven into book two.

(WARNING: SPOILERS) Will the Autumn King finally stop being a colossal jerk and show Bryce he cares for her as much as he’s outright stated (always after reminding her that he loved her mother very much)? Will we see how this Autumn King relates to the often ruthless and foul men of the Autumn Court in the ACOTAR series? NOPE. He’s a one-dimensional villain who bites the dust. And as for the ACOTAR crossover, Bryce is stuck in the cave where an inexplicably mean Rhys imprisons her despite giving her a warm and helpful welcome at the end of the last book. At least her parents got a nice Velaris vacation.

And don’t get me started about Rhys supposedly ready to rip Bryce a new one if he can get to her fast enough, even though we all know he can winnow anywhere in an instant. Or Tharion suddenly marrying a stranger out of nowhere. Or Danika’s cousin (rescued by the ever-gallant Ithan), turning into a zombie. Or Hypaxia suddenly finding herself as the new Under-Queen way too easily, and again – seemingly out of nowhere.

Yes, all the main characters had major stuff go down that altered their stories, but it all felt kind of random and disjointed in a lot of places. The door is still open for tying up more loose ends in the next book – maybe we’ll finally know what “Project Thur” is all about, and see if Tharion gets his happily-ever-after.

I won’t say I’m disappointed. It’s still a good book, just not a great book and definitely not measuring up to the rest of SJM’s magnificent work. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for book four, and giving this one 3 1/2 stars.

My letter “G” pick for the A To Z Challenge was GREENLIGHTS by Matthew McConaughey. The second thing you need to know about this book is that it’s not exactly your normal memoir, and at times it is one wild ride. The first (and most important) thing you need to know is that Matthew McConaughey is a storyteller. This isn’t what he does. It’s who he is down to his DNA.

He’s been keeping journals for most of his life, and when he turned 50 he took an extended vacation to a remote place in the desert of New Mexico (Yay for my home state!) and read them through, pulling out stories, experiences, hard lessons and bright new beginnings and shaping them into this pseudo-memoir. As he so beautifully puts it, “life is your resume on the way to your eulogy.”

That brings us to the title. Greenlights are exactly what they appear. A greenlight means go, advance, you have permission to proceed, and Matthew talks about the inevitability of red lights, the importance of yellow lights, and how to reroute or time your life better to get more greenlights. It’s not a self-help book. This is just his life philosophy which boils down essentially to “go for it.” Proceed. You have permission to move yourself forward – but expect that lights can change and that’s not always a bad thing.

All in all, this was an enjoyable book with some vivid and often hilarious stories, peppered with a stream-of-consciousness full of life wisdom. That stream of consciousness rambled a bit too long in places for me, and I have no idea how this audiobook passed ACX standards for Audible when McConaughey is literally yelling the chapter titles and booming out words during exciting places in his anecdotes. Great performances, but hard on the ears and volume controls. For that, I’m giving this four and a half out of five stars.

I can’t believe we’re one short month away from the release of IN THE DARK OF A DREAM. Where has the time gone? This crazy little story that nagged at the back of my brain for five years finally fought its way out onto paper and it will be in my hot little hands in a few weeks.

Through right turns and u-turns, standstills and moments of crushing self-doubt, this book pushed through and made its way into the world. I could not be prouder. Or more exhausted. And guess what I’m doing now?

Yep – I’m drafting the next novel. Writing is a terrible addiction and a wonderful way of life simultaneously. The endless cycle puts one book on a shelf while the next is pulled from my brain with a fork. Or at least, it feels like it sometimes.

I can’t wait for you to meet J.J. and the great supporting cast that gets her through her nightmarish ordeal.

One month – mark your calendars!

My letter “F” pick for this year’s A to Z Book Challenge was FIREFLY: BIG DAMN HERO by James Lovegrove. Ooooh it was great to be back in the ‘verse. This book was immensely fun, incredibly captivating, and just a bit sad. The sad comes because this book reads just like an episode (set between “The Message” and “Heart of Gold” in the series canon), and I want to rage and cry again at the shortsightedness of Fox in canceling one fantastic, big damn show.

If you’re a Firefly lover, don’t wait as long as I did and pick this up. The premise of the story is this: a group of Browncoats (rebels, if you haven’t watched the show before and OH MY GOD STOP READING NOW AND BINGE THE WHOLE DAMN SHOW IMMEDIATELY if so) who are still salty about their losses in the Battle of Serenity Valley, and have decided Mal somehow did them dirty. They set a trap for Mal, kidnap him and whisk him away while the rest of the crew searches the galaxy for him – all while transporting some very questionable, highly unstable explosives.

This book has all the characters, humor and situations we loved in Firefly. There’s an epic bar fight, lots of Chinese cursing, Mal verbally abuses his captors, Kaylee is frantic about Mal’s loss, Zoe and Wash have that rough flirty vibe, Book is serene, Simon is worried, River plays the flute for the explosives to keep them “calm,” and Jayne is – well, he’s Jayne. ‘Nuff said.

We get some new backstory details on Mal and Shepherd Book, and all the rollicking fun, clever dialogue, and unexpected twists you can depend on in a Firefly episode. I felt like I’d just had a reunion with my very best friends in the world – you know, the ones who always embarrass the shit out of you.

It’s a big damn five shooting stars on this one.

My letter “E” pick for this year’s A to Z Book List was Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. This one has been out a few years and of course, on my TBR list and I’m very happy to say I finally got around to reading it. The story is essentially comprised of the field notes of Professor Emily Wilde of Cambridge who, along with her trusty dog Shadow, arrive in the small village of Hrafnsvik. This is an icy, winter-blasted place that Emily hopes will provide her with information on never-before seen species of faeries, including the elusive Courtly Fae, who often roam among humans in disguise.

Professor Wendell Bambleby – Emily’s colleague at Cambridge – arrives to bedevil her. There’s a barely-friendly rivalry between them based on the fact that Bambleby is a man, and a full year younger than Emily, yet he’s tenured and she is not. Wendell Bambleby is an absolute delight and treats Emily like an equal. He’s charming, incredibly good-looking, falls into bed with besotted women on a regular basis, but is lazy and relatively nonchalant about the research Emily is so severely dedicated to – all of which set Emily’s teeth on edge as her social skills are awkward at best and she’s grumpy more often than not. She agrees to work with Bambleby to gather information and co-author a paper for a prestigious upcoming conference on Dryadology that she has never been invited to before. 

That’s as much as I can share of the plot without major spoilers but let me say that I absolutely loved this magical book. It reads at a sedate pace but it never seemed to drag. Emily’s knowledge of and encounters with the Fae are so detailed and entrancing, I felt immediately sucked into that world. The rivalry-to-romance between her and Bambleby (along with their very entertaining banter) was a joy to read as it unraveled. Bambleby won my heart despite his vanity. I’ve always had a thing for Irish guys, and an Irish guy who’s hiding a big secret is especially captivating. This is an easy five stars and will definitely be a treasured re-read again and again.