Happy Mother’s Day! While it’s true that most urban fantasy heroines tend to fly solo, there are a handful that manage to balance supernatural smack downs and motherhood.
Showing posts with label Lori Devoti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lori Devoti. Show all posts
13 May 2012
Posted by
Abigail
at 12:00 PM
Labels: Gail Carriger, Ilona Andrews, Jenn Bennett, Kelley Armstrong, Kelly Gay, Lori Devoti, patricia briggs, Sophie Littlefield, Top 5, Urban Fantasy
Labels: Gail Carriger, Ilona Andrews, Jenn Bennett, Kelley Armstrong, Kelly Gay, Lori Devoti, patricia briggs, Sophie Littlefield, Top 5, Urban Fantasy
28 January 2012
 | Title: Crave the Night
Sexual Content: Explicit sex scenes. Rating:
Good - A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying. |
Posted by
Julia
at 6:30 AM
Labels: 3 bats, anthology, Demons, fae, Lori Devoti, Mermaids, michele Hauf, Paranormal Romance, Patti O'Shea, Review, Sharon Ashwood, Vampires, werewolves
Labels: 3 bats, anthology, Demons, fae, Lori Devoti, Mermaids, michele Hauf, Paranormal Romance, Patti O'Shea, Review, Sharon Ashwood, Vampires, werewolves
18 April 2010
Book Description
Meet Mel: Business owner. Dedicated mom. Natural-born Amazon.
It's been ten years since Melanippe Saka left the Amazon tribe in order to create a normal life for her daughter, Harmony. True, running a tattoo parlor in Madison, Wisconsin, while living with your Amazon warrior mother and priestess grandmother is not everyone's idea of normal, but Mel thinks she's succeeded at blending in as human.
Turns out she's wrong. Someone knows all about her, someone who's targeting young Amazon girls, and no way is Mel going to let Harmony become tangled in this deadly web. With her mother love in overdrive, Ms. Melanippe Saka is quite a force...even when she's facing a barrage of distractions -- including a persistent detective whose interest in Mel goes beyond professional, a sexy tattoo artist with secrets of his own, and a seriously angry Amazon queen who views Mel as a prime suspect. To find answers, Mel will have to do the one thing she swore she'd never do: embrace her powers and admit that you can take the girl out of the tribe...but you can't take the tribe out of the girl.
Book 1 in The Amazon Series
Review:
AMAZON INK’s premise of modern day Amazons is unique in urban fantasy and perfectly suited to genre. The plot is simple enough, someone is killing young amazons and leaving them for Mel to find. Despite having left the tribe a decade before, Mel is forced to work alongside with the Amazons, and deal with hostility and suspicion from both sides while tracking down a killer who may be targeting her own daughter next.
The idea of Amazons, female warriors from Greek mythology, really appealed to me. Author Lori Devoti took this idea and ran with it incorporating magic, mystical tattoos, female hierarchy, and a few surprise elements that I won’t spoil into her modern Amazons. I’m definitely intrigued with how those surprise elements will play out in Amazon Queen.
I’m sorry to say that I struggled with the length of AMAZON INK. I think the pacing and plot would have both fared better at about half the page length. I found myself getting impatient with Mel and the narrative when it wasn’t moving fast enough. A lot of the emotional issues that Mel was dealing with were rehashed many many times without any sort of resolution or plan to deal with them. So these passages felt tedious to me. Part of me even thinks this story idea might have been better served as a Paranormal YA title with Mel’s daughter Harmony as the protagonist.
Also the romantic elements were practically nonexistent. With an author who started out writing Contemporary Romance, I expected more. I understand that the story line was such that a more significant romance might have felt out of place, but I still missed it.
I’m still giving AMAZON INK 3 bats because the Amazon idea is a great one, and the revelations at the end of this book promise to create a much more complex story in the series overall. It is always challenging to establish a unique world that is distinct from the typical vamps and weres that populate this genre. Lori Devoti does that in AMAZON INK and I’m looking forward to seeing where she takes theses characters in Amazon Queen when it releases on April 27th.
Sexual Content: References to homosexuality.
My Rating (out of 5):
Good - A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying.
Click HERE to read an excerpt of AMAZON INK
Product Details
Mass Market Paperback: 372 pages
- Publisher: Pocket (May 26, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1439154279
- ISBN-13: 978-1439154274
Disagree with my review? Email me your review for this or any other book I’ve reviewed and I might use it for 2nd Opinion Review
Posted by
Abigail
at 6:39 AM
Labels: 1st in series, 1st person, 3 bats, Lori Devoti, Magic, Review, Urban Fantasy
Labels: 1st in series, 1st person, 3 bats, Lori Devoti, Magic, Review, Urban Fantasy
13 April 2010
When I first heard about Lori Devoti’s Amazon series, I knew I had to have her on ATUF. So maybe Lori’s Amazon’s aren’t exactly like their historical counterparts (thankfully neither Mel or Zery appear to have cut off a breast in order to better draw a bow), but they do bring a fresh new mythology to the urban fantasy genre & has already spawned two books. My review of Amazon Ink will be up this week, and my review of Amazon Queen will be coming soon after that.
Lori Devoti grew up in southern Missouri and attended college at the University of Missouri-Columbia where she earned a Bachelor of Journalism. She, however, made it clear to anyone who asked, she was not a writer; she worked for the dark side--advertising. Now twenty years later, she's proud to declare herself a writer and visit her dark side occasionally by writing dark paranormal romances and urban fantasy novels with a little death and a lot of adventure.
Lori lives in Wisconsin with her husband, daughter, son, an extremely patient shepherd mix, and the world's pushiest Siberian husky.
Amazon Ink (Amazons, Book 2) by Lori Devoti
Being an Amazon ruler just became a royal pain.
Amazon queen Zery Kostovska has never questioned tribe traditions. After all, these rules have kept the tribe strong for millennia and enabled them to live undetected, even in modern-day America. Zery is tough, fair, commanding--the perfect Amazon leader. At least, she was. A new high priestess with a penchant for secrecy and technology is threatening Zery's rule. Plus, with the discovery of the Amazon sons, males with the same skills as their female counterparts, even Zery can't deny that the tribe must change. But how? Some want to cooperate with the sons. Others believe brutal new leadership is needed--and are willing to kill to make it happen. Once, Zery's word was law. Now, she has no idea who to trust, especially with one powerful Amazon son making her question all her instincts. For Zery, tribe comes first, but the battle drawing near is unlike any she's faced before . . . and losing might cost her both the tribe and her life.
April 27, 2010
Mass Market Paperback
384 pages | $7.99
ISBN: 9781439167724
On Simon&Schuster.com
Interview
ATUF: AMAZON QUEEN is the second book in the Amazon series. Can you bring us up to speed and tell us a little about the new book?
LD: The second book is told from Zery, the Amazon queen’s, point of view. The Amazon world is changing and Zery is forced to make some very hard choices, choices she never thought she would have to make. But while the book centers on Zery, Mel and her family are back too (you can read the book description above).
LD: When I sat down to develop this world I basically just asked myself, “If Amazons were real where might they be today?” I also did as much reading as I could find on both Amazons and on modern archeological finds that show warrior women buried in the steppes of Russia. A lot of my books’ mythology is based on that.
ATUF: The typical urban fantasy heroine is a single woman without any children. What made you decide to make Mel (from AMAZON INK) a mom?
I’m not sure why I started with that. It just seemed natural for Mel. She needed something she cared about passionately. What do we care for with more passion than our children?
ATUF: You’ve mention in other interviews that your heroes are always Alpha heroes. Are there any new alphas for us to fall in love with in AMAZON QUEEN?
LD: Yes, in Amazon Queen you meet a new son who definitely challenges Zery and he isn’t shy about it. J
LD: Timothy Lantz designed the cover for Amazon Ink. I’m not sure who designed Amazon Queen. So far as input, I saw early versions of both covers which I discussed with my editor. In the case of Amazon Queen we saw a number of photos of the model and both said “that one!” I’m very fond of both covers.
ATUF: Do you have plans to continue this series with more Amazon books?
LD: At this time, I’m not under contract for any more books in the series. Which doesn’t mean there won’t be any. I would like to finish Mel’s story. So, we’ll see.
ATUF: What other projects do you have coming up?
Then next year two more books with Nocturne. One will be book six in my Unbound series. I’m not sure what the other will be yet.
ATUF: Do you have any favorite authors/books in the urban fantasy series?
LD: Neil Gaiman, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong, Jim Butcher and Simon R, Green are among my favorites.
LD: Not really, although Angelina Jolie would seem to be a good fit for Mel. I don’t tend to think of my characters like this. I don’t visualize them so much as feel them...their emotions, I mean.
ATUF: I have a feature here on my blog called Genre Swap Saturday where I spotlight a non-urban fantasy and answer two very specific questions. Will you pick one of your previous books and answer for us:
LD: I’ll pick my upcoming release, Zombie Moon.
Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might like this book:
This book is full of action. Both the heroine and hero are strong and determined. And there are zombies!
- Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might not like this book:
It is a romance. No way around that. If you are old school and like your urban fantasy romance free, this would not be the book for you.
ATUF: Thanks so much for stopping by Lori. Come back anytime!
Want to read more from Lori Devoti? (courtesy of Fantastic Fiction)
Series
Unbound
1. Unbound
2. Guardian's Keep
3. Wild Hunt
4. Dark Crusade
5. The Hellhound King
Amazon
1. Amazon Ink (2009)
2. Amazon Queen (2010)
Novels
Love Is All Around (2005)
Love Is All You Need (2006)
Zombie Moon (2010)
Omnibus
Holiday With A Vampire II (2008) (with Merline Lovelace)
Midnight Cravings (2009) (with Michele Hauf, Anna Leonard and Karen Whiddon)
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