Book Description: Today's hottest urban fantasy authors come together in this delicious brew that crackles and boils over with tales of powerful witches and dark magic! In Charlaine Harris' 'Bacon,' a beautiful vampire joins forces with a witch from an ancient line to find out who killed her beloved husband. In 'Seeing Eye' by Patricia Briggs, a blind witch helps sexy werewolf Tom Franklin find his missing brother - and helps him in more ways than either of them ever suspected. And in Jim Butcher's 'Last Call,' wizard Harry Dresden takes on the darkest of dark powers - the ones who dare to mess with this favorite beer. For anyone who's ever wondered what lies beyond the limits of reality, who's imagined the secret spaces where witches wield fearsome magic, come and drink deep. Let yourself fall under the spell of this bewitching collection!

Review:
Dark Sins picks up after Wages of Sins but before Grave Sins in Jenna Maclaine’s Cin Craven series.  In 1818 Italy, witch turned vampire Cin and her lover Michael along with another vamp couple travel throughout Europe doling out justice on the criminal vampire population.  When the four are abducted by an evil wizard and his followers in an attempt to add Cin to his coven, she must finally learn to use her magic before her friends are killed.  If you are a fan of Colleen Gleason's Gardella Vampire Chronicles, you’ll probably love this.  Me not so much.  There are no major faults in these 33 pages, but I like my fantasy urban, without gowns and carriages etc. The idea of a vampire who uniquely retained her human magical abilities make for an interesting character in Cin, and if she survives into the 21st century I’ll be sure to look her up.

Sexual Content: A man performs oral sex on a woman without graphic description.

*Dark Sins is part of Strange Brew: An anthology of stories edited by P N Elrod.  I will be reviewing the other stories in this anthology in separate posts.

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Product Description:

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; (July 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312383363
• ISBN-13: 978-0312383367

Holy tons of voters Batman!  I had hoped that you guys would enjoy voting for your favorite covers in the Urban Fantasy Cover Art Awards, but I didn’t expect the response to be anything like this:  Yesterday alone there were over 900 votes!   I have just over 150 followers so thank you all for spreading the word.  And there are even more prizes now.  In addition to the ones initially listed:

Suzanne McLeod emailed me and asked if she could contribute a personalized copy of The Cold Kiss of Death  (nominee for Best Floating Head Cover) for the UK voters.

…And

Jayne Hoogenberk from eHarlequin.com Community contacted me last night to offer copies of My Soul To Take (nominee for Best YA Cover, Best Debut Cover, and Most Unique Cover) and possibly an ARC of SHIFT (nominee for Most Anticipated Cover for 2010) by Rachel Vincent.

I told them both I’d think about it.  Only kidding (how well does sarcasm come across on blog posts? In this case, I’m guessing not very).  I of course told them we’d be thrilled to add their books (well I am, you guys are too, right?) Just a reminder, you don’t have to be a follower or subscriber to cast your vote and be eligible to win, but… *Beginning of Shameless Plug* You might want to consider becoming a follower or subscriber to make sure you get all the future awards updates and any additions to the prizes*End of Shameless Plug*

FYI if you haven’t voted yet, CLICK HERE to see the nominees and pick your favorites.  Some of the categories are extremely close.  In one category, the 1st and 2nd covers so far are at 249 votes to 250.  Only one vote is separating them. So your vote could decide the outcome. 

Look what was in my email box today…the new cover for Chaos Bleeds!  Its not too big, but very cool.

Just in . . . the cover of CHAOS BITES—the fourth installment of The Phoenix Chronicles—coming May 2010. Visit LoriHandeland.com for more information.

Though Liz Phoenix won the last battle, she's losing the supernatural war and chaos is the result. On the road again, this time with a teenager and a baby that was dropped on her doorstep, Liz is in desperate need of help. She goes to former lover Jimmy Sanducci and together they work to make things right.

Ilona Andrews posted the new art for the next Kate Daniels novel.  I’m a huge fan of this series, and this might be my favorite cover yet.

The 1st Annual Urban Fantasy Cover Art Awards are finally here! 

Because we never try to judge a book by its cover…

From the myriads of urban fantasy books released this year an amazing Panel of Experts helped me narrow them down to the 5 best covers in 15 categories.  Now its up to all of you to pick the winners! And when they win so do you because everyone who votes will be entered to win some wonderful prizes. International voters are eligible to win the *Grand Prize, however other voter prizes will be limited to US/Canada or UK as noted. 

• Grand Prize: $25 Amazon Gift Certificate plus your choice of any one book that wins its category(if you choose the foreign cover you will not necessarily receive the foreign version).  *Open internationally

Additional winners will receive either:

• A signed copy of Deadtown by Nancy Holzner (nominee for Best Debut Cover)
• A signed copy of  Hex in High Heels by Linda Wisdom (nominee for Best Floating Head Cover) along with a couple hexy goodies.
• A copy of Destiny of the Wolf by Terry Spear (nominee for Best Male with Animal Cover)
• A personalized copy of The Cold Kiss of Death by Suzanne McLeod (nominee for Best Floating Head Cover) *UK only
• 2 copies of My Soul To Take by Rachel Vincent (nominee for Best YA Cover, Best Debut Cover, and Most Unique Cover) courtesy of Jayne Hoogenberk from eHarlequin.com Community.
• When the winners are announced, I will pit them against each other (excluding Most Anticipated Cover and Best Covers in a Series) and allow you all to vote again for the Best Cover of 2009.  You will be able to vote for that category starting on the day the other winners are announced (January 1st) and for a week afterwards. The Best Cover of 2009 will be announced on January 8th. Everyone who votes in this category (*open internationally) will be eligible to win the winning book for Best Cover of 2009.
• And possibly more...

Click HERE to vote and enter to win in the 1st Annual Urban Fantasy Cover Art Awards

Be sure to check out the sites of our Experts:

Expert	Website/blog
Alyssa	Teens Read and Write
Amber	Amberkatze's Book Blog
Angela	Dark Faerie Tales
Brooke	Reviews by Brooke
Elie	Ellz Readz
Emily	What Book is That
Nancy Holzner	Nancy Holzner’s site
Liyana	Liyana Land
Mandi	Smexy Books
Kelly Medding	Kelly Meding’s site
Michelle	Michelle's Book Blog
Michelle	Vamp Chix
Nicole North	Nicole North's site
Roxanne	Fang-tastic Books
Sara	Sara's Urban Fantasy Blog
Terry Spear	Fierce Romance
Stephen	Fantasy Literature
Tynga	Tynga's Reviews & Tynga’s Blog Design

All votes must be received by December 30th.  International voters are eligible to win the *Grand Prize, however other voter prizes will be limited to US/Canada or UK as noted. The winning covers and voters will be announced on January 1st 2010. Only votes submitted via the online ballot will count, but feel free to campaign for your favorites in the comments of this post.

Click HERE to vote for your favorites in the 1st Annual Urban Fantasy Cover Art Awards