Monthly Archives: June 2015

Book review: Fade Out by Rachel Caine

Last year I read the first six books in the Morganville Vampires series back to back, and this caused me to avoid reading book 7, Fade Out, for quite some time. Why? Because I got nothing else done during that six day period. I was even forgetting to eat. I wanted to hold off on reading the next until I had some free time and I was sure I didn’t have any other obligations. These precautions were perhaps a bit too overzealous because Fade Out is the first book in the series with some breathing room built in. This is not to say that nothing happens, but compared to the previous books, the pace here is practically a mosey.

After the conclusion of the war, the town is slowly recovering and rebuilding. Amalie is still in mourning, and she’s letting some vampires and humans get away with serious violations of the town’s rules without doing anything about it. Claire and Myrnin are being increasingly attacked by the computer Ada, but Myrnin is in denial about how far corrupted Ada’s personality is, and keeps assuring Claire that the situation is under control. This is a shared theme with both Amalie and Myrnin, as neither seems willing to admit they’re letting things slide that maybe they shouldn’t. Continue reading


Book excerpt: A Wolf In Girl’s Clothing, Chapter 31

Here’s the third and final excerpt from A Wolf In Girl’s Clothing, this time from chapter 31:

A grey Audi pulls into our driveway, and my cousin Evan Saunders opens the rear door on the driver’s side. I haven’t seen him in ages, but that’s because his parents blamed me for us becoming play cousins. I wasn’t solely responsible, though. It was a mutual agreement to be bad.

Age hasn’t changed him much, maybe adding some extra flare to his jaw. But he’s still got the same narrow chin, slim nose, and thin lips. Something about the shape of his round brown eyes is different, though I can’t say what it is. He’s let his brown hair grow out long and wavy, covering his ears, forehead, and most of his neck. He’s also growing some facial hair, but the wispy fluff on his upper lip and chin don’t qualify as a proper moustache and goatee.

Evan looks a lot taller, but he’s got the family’s thin frame. If his folks had enrolled him at Uncle John’s gym, he would have fit in. He’s got to be in some kind of sport, because his thighs stretch out the legs of his jeans. But his black T-shirt, emblazoned with a logo for Metallica, is baggy and makes it harder to assess his upper body.

I jump up and start across the yard. “Evan!” Continue reading


Book excerpt: A Wolf In Girl’s Clothing, Chapter 25

Here’s the second of three excerpts from A Wolf In Girl’s Clothing:

By the time I reach the second night of my trip, my knife is humming in my bag, and I know I’m close to my wolf. I’m going to find her tonight, and then I’ll find out if I’m really programmed for the task of killing and skinning a living creature.

The idea bothers me, but it’s not like I can avoid this. The alternative is driving myself insane every full moon, and that’s assuming there aren’t worse side effects that no one knows about. No one’s done any experiments to find out what happens if a skinwalker ignores the calling of their totem animal, and I’m not willing to be the guinea pig even if my curiosity is picking at the idea. Continue reading


Game review: Clicker Heroes for Steam

Last month, I was having some brain issues. Weather shifts and constant up and down cycling of the temperature made it hard for me to think, so much so that even playing a video game seemed beyond me. I stumbled across a story about Clicker Heroes on Eurogamer and after reading their take on it, I thought, Well here’s a game so simple, I won’t need to use my brain to play it. One month later, I find this to be mostly true, since I don’t have to play it at all. It plays itself, and I’m occasionally invited to add input before walking away again. But I did use some advanced math while watching it play itself, so it did at least get me to use my brain creatively.

If I had based my review on only the first 90 to 100 levels, it would have been far more positive because the initial pattern of monetary growth and buying upgrades was engaging enough, and the game is graphically charming. The music and sound effects…can be turned off, freeing me to put on my music and jam out to something less repetitive.

The game is simple in story and design. You are a wandering monster slayer who clicks on monsters to kill them. After you do this a few times, the eponymous heroes will notice your quest and join your party if you can afford to hire them. The first hero, Cid, only upgrades the amount of damage your clicks do, but after her, every new hero will bring their own amount of damage per second to the party, and once you’ve hired the first of many, Treebeast, you don’t ever have to click again. In fact, there’s absolutely no point to you doing it. Continue reading


Book excerpt: A Wolf In Girl’s Clothing, Chapter 15

Here is the first of three excerpts from my new book, A Wolf In Girl’s Clothing:

We slip in through the back, and I lead the way into the living room. I’m about to explain my first trip through the house when a flicking switch makes me jump.

But it’s Jesse who flipped it, and he looks at me and whispers, “No power.”

“No, the place has been abandoned for years.”

“Did you get that from the librarian?”

“Nope, from the real estate agent.”

“Why did you come out here the first time?”

“That’s another secret I can’t share.”

“Shoulda seen that coming,” Jesse says. Continue reading


New release! A Wolf In Girl’s Clothing

It’s been awhile since my last release, almost a year to the day, but at long last, her is A Wolf In Girl’s Clothing, the second book in the Alice the Wolf series. Take a look at the cover and blurb:
A Wolf In Girl's ClothingAlice Culpepper believes Fate is smiling on her when she is tricked into a reunion with the bullies who have made her life hell for years. But she is punished for taking revenge on them, and her violent outburst reignites the local weredogs’ distrust of her.

Her life is further complicated when Miriam Frost calls to warn Alice that she is being hunted by another wolf, Teresa Martinez. Then Alice stumbles upon a house haunted by a lycanthrope who may have been murdered by the weredogs, threatening to destroy their shaky alliance. As if this wasn’t enough trouble, Alice is called to her wolf and must deal with a unique set of problems none of the other lycanthropes has dealt with before.

Though she must keep her parents in the dark about her supernatural sleuthing, Alice isn’t dealing with these dilemmas alone. She’s got help from FBI agents Lilith and Bat Vayne, her packmates Pi and Josie, Sophia the witch, and her teammate Jesse Espinoza. She’ll need all the help she can get, because war is coming to Dallas, Pennsylvania, and no one will be safe in the coming battles.

You can find A Wolf in Girl’s Clothing on Amazon, Kobo, and my blog bookstore for $4.99, and it should soon be available on Barnes and Noble’s Nook Books store. You can check out a free preview on your Kindle, and over the next week I’ll be posting a few short excerpts from later chapters.

I should apologize for taking so long to get this book out, but it’s been a rough year thus far, and I had trouble finding time to get into revisions and then edits. Hopefully it won’t take nearly as long to release book three, In the Mouth of the Wolf.

I hope you enjoy Alice’s story, and as always, thanks for checking out my stuff.


Music: Faith No More

So, you may have noticed this already, but Faith No More just put out a new album, Sol Invictus, their first studio album in 20 years. This for me is a Very Big Deal, and I was eager to get it and find out if the band sounded as good as they did back in my teens. The first song on the album, Sol Invictus had me slightly worried that they’d gone all mellow and soft, but the rest of the album quickly eased those fears. Definitely worth a listen.
Check out Faith No More’s website at http://www.fnm.com/ to find links to the new album, check tour dates, and watch some videos.