The Bite Before Christmas (Argeneau, #15.5; Night Huntress, #6.5) in Vampires, Weres and Fae!

Oct 25, 2011 Melindeeloo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: vampires, paranormal-romance, christmas

A Bite Before Christmas was an odd pairing of holiday novellas served up with a fangy twist - Sand's Argeneau vampires are light humorous paranormal romances and Frost's Night Huntress stories are wise cracking sexy urban fantasy. I am a fan of both, but no sure that they belong together and - I have to ask - why are they together in hardback? Anyway on to the important stuff...

(4.5 stars = I really really liked it) "Home for the Holidays" by Jeaniene Frost - A Night Huntress novella - Looks li A Bite Before Christmas was an odd pairing of holiday novellas served up with a fangy twist - Sand's Argeneau vampires are light humorous paranormal romances and Frost's Night Huntress stories are wise cracking sexy urban fantasy. I am a fan of both, but no sure that they belong together and - I have to ask - why are they together in hardback? Anyway on to the important stuff...

(4.5 stars = I really really liked it) "Home for the Holidays" by Jeaniene Frost - A Night Huntress novella - Looks like Annette has totally one upped Cat's birthday present to Bones but the surprise guest has almost every one in Bone's 'family' acting really wierd - Frost had released the first few chapter of this as a sneak preview a while back (view spoiler) but even having read the beginning before, this Cat and Bones short was really excellent. "Home for the Holidays" is a pretty substantial novella length short story, with a really great conflict, with a touching moment near the end, and lots of cameos, plus a decent sized supporting role for Ian - he's so unabashedly bad but with a redeeming touch of loyalty that makes him a standout character.

(2 stars = ok) "The Gift" by Lynsay Sands - an Argeneau connected novella, starring Teddy the Port Henry Chief of Police who has appeared in quite a few of the books (Accidental Vampire for one). Teddy's attempt to avoid a 'charity' invite to one of his paired off friends holiday celebrations, ends up with him snowed in and with no power, but with a very interesting neighbor to make the experience more interesting. - I was happy that Teddy got his HEA, but there were places where I was borderline squicked with the 60 something Teddy lusting after the 20's looking Katricia. Katricia is around 1600 years old or something like that and Teddy feels bad about scoping her out before he knows, and Katricia is on the make from the start but ... I'd have been happier if the lustiness had waited until after the turning. And I have had this pet peeve in the last five or so books, I wish Sands would stop using Little 'fill-in-heroes-name-here' for a significant male body part, it was cute the first time in Thomas' book but needs to be retired.

The last 14% of the book has sneak previews for Sand's next book Under a Vampire Moon (which if the rumors are true, will no longer be a hardback release) and for Frost's first Night Prince (Vlad's spinoff series) I am skipping both teasers - I will just wait for the real thing.
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Jun 22, 2011 Cindyg rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

I have to admit that I only read Jeaniene's story so far.
And of course it was awesome. I love Cat and Bones and as far as I'm concerned they can do no wrong. In this story Cat is once again our heroine...as Bones and the others are under some kind of mind control.
Fantastic read...
Highly recommend this book. ...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Nichole ~Bookaholic~ rated it really liked it

Shelves: anthologies, pnr-uf, holiday-themed, shorts-novellas

I averaged out the rating to a 4...but rated each story below.

The Gift - 3 Stars - This was not a bad story, I think where I had a hard time with this is I have only read the first couple books in the series and it was a while ago so I don't remember a whole lot about it. But for a Christmas short it was very entertaining.

Home for the Holiday's - 5 Stars - It's Cat and Bones....what more is there to say...This was a fun and very entertaining short read and I was glad to see all the usual suspect ...more

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Dec 03, 2011 Yodamom rated it really liked it

Jeanine Frost's story was a treat- Bones find himself sweep away with a possible real family member. Not everything is as it seems, something is changing. Bones is changing.
Lynsay Sands- predictable PNR, cheesy, love fest. To be fair I am not a fan of this style of writing. ...more

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