Liviania’s review of Shift (The Shifters, Book 5) by Rachel Vincent
Paranormal romance published by MIRA 1 Mar 10

Sometimes I read other people’s reviews before I write mine, sometimes I don’t. This time I did. I found that a number of people hated the book because they’d enjoyed the first several but lamented Faythe’s lack of growth. This surprised me considering I finished SHIFT thinking that it was the kind of book that made me glad I stick with a meh series if I believe it has potential.

When I reviewed Rogue, I noted that Faythe showed a lack of growth, I liked Jace, and Faythe’s relationship with Marc seemed borderline abusive. In my review of Pride, I noted Faythe’s sledgehammer-like attempts at politics. I must admit, Faythe is still about as subtle as a sledgehammer.  But by golly, I couldn’t help but feel proud when she attempted negotiations as a first course of action instead of act-macho, think-later.  It’s something the Faythe of the early books would not have attempted.

SHIFT also kicks the love triangle into high gear.  Jace starts acting like the alpha I thought he would become back in the early books.  (I had a comment debate about this, somewhere, but alas it is lost since my google-fu is not strong enough.)  Now, my discussion is going to get a bit spoilery about what happens in the relationships, so you might want to skip to the last paragraph if you want everything to be a complete surprise.

Faythe cheats on Marc with Jace.  I know that cheating is fairly verboten in romance novels.  But Faythe is young, sheltered, has only had one serious boyfriend, and her brother just died.  I see Marc not immediately tearing Jace apart as character growth, not derailment.  He’s acting rationally, not according to his instincts.  A theme of the entire series has been that the way the pack usually does things is wrong and that they need to modernize.  Exploring your romantic and sexual options is pretty modern.

Cheating is a hot button subject.  Perhaps I would hate the romantic storyline more if I hadn’t always liked Jace and been somewhat averse to Marc.  Either way, I’ve already bought the final book and intend to read it to discover how the love triangle plays out as much as to see the war between the werecat factions.

The Shifters will never be my favorite series.  But Vincent took a shaky beginning and turned it into something more solid and satisfying.  I wanted to slap the Faythe of Stray and Rogue.  The Faythe of Prey and Shift is a more interesting and adult heroine.  A lot of people apparently disagree with me.  The beauty of reviewing is that we get to disagree with each other.

Grade: B+

Summary:
TROUBLE IS IN THE AIR…

Being the first female werecat enforcer isn’t easy. Scars accumulate, but I’m stronger in so many ways.

As for my personal life? It’s complicated. Choices worth making always are. Ever since my brother’s death and my father’s impeachment, it’s all I can do to prevent more blood
from spilling. Now our Pride is under attack by a flight of vicious thunderbirds. And making peace with our new enemies may be the only way to get the best of our old foe.

With the body count rising and treachery everywhere, my instincts tell me to look before I leap. But sometimes a leap of faith is the only real option…
Read an excerpt here.

Liviania’s review of My Soul to Save (Soul Screamers, Book 2) by Rachel Vincent
Young adult urban fantasy released by Harlequin Teen 29 Dec 09

My changing feelings about Rachel Vincent’s novels have been well documented on the internet.  What has been less documented is the fact that sometimes I read other people’s reviews before I write my own.  Sometimes it sharpens my focus, other times it confuses me.  For My Soul to Save, it was the latter situation.

I expected more comments about the dark ending.  I expected remarks about the social satire and thinly veiled barbs aimed at Disney, which are particularly well-timed given the public meltdown of Lindsay Lohan.  I expected comments about the gender politics.  I just didn’t expect all of the comments about the gender politics to be completely opposite of my own observations.

Many reviewers dislike Vincent’s banshees because they are hysterical women who can only be calmed by a man.  I can get behind that being a bad subtext.  Now, I can’t blame Vincent for Kaylee, as a banshee, being a screaming woman.  Bean sidhe means female fairy.  Banshees wail before deaths in the common folklore.  The man part is Vincent’s invention, so that’s what I’ll focus on.

First, Kaylee doesn’t need boyfriend Nash to stop her wailing.  She did in My Soul to Take because she had no clue what she was or how to use her powers.  Now Nash’s mother is teaching her to control her wail, she can let it out a little at a time instead of becoming hysterical.

Second, I see Vincent’s banshees not as an interesting take on gender dynamics, since the females have the most agency.  Kaylee can interfere with a Grim Reaper on her own.  She can cross over into the Netherworld on her own (perhaps unwisely).  The only thing she can’t do on her own is prevent someone’s death.  Nash, and all of the male banshees, have no power without a female banshee.  He can’t direct a soul back into a body without Kaylee’s wail.  He can’t even do that often, since it pisses Reapers off and causes someone else to die.  Males only have power thanks to the females, and even then they rarely get to use it.

But really, subtext is subtext.  What about the text?  My Soul to Save is an interesting and well-presented story.  When Nash’s deceased brother Tod’s girlfriend Addison sold her soul, she had no idea what she was getting into.  Now Nash, Tod, and Kaylee are trying to save her – unfortunately, Addison was destined to die young.  And not even Kaylee’s wail can prevent her death since she has no soul.  There are clever plans in abundance, selflessness, and a nice sense of urgency.  But hoo-boy is the ending dark.

Maybe I’m deluding myself about the gender issues, but I like my interpretation.  If I thought the series was down on women I would not be nearly as excited as I am for book three.

Grade: B

Summary:
When Kaylee Cavanaugh screams, someone dies.
So when teen pop star Eden croaks onstage and Kaylee doesn’t wail, she knows something is dead wrong. She can’t cry for someone who has no soul.

The last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad’s ironclad curfew and putting her too-hot-to-be-real boyfriend’s loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls: a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can’t possibly understand.

Kaylee can’t let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk….

Read an excerpt here.

Liviania’s review of My Soul to Take (Soul Screamers, Book 1) by Rachel Vincent
Young adult urban fantasy released by Harlequin Teen 1 Aug 09

My changing position of Rachel Vincent’s adult series has been well-documented on both this site and my own blog. As I wanted to like it from the start and am thoroughly enjoying it now, I wanted to see what her young adult series was like. Plus, the ladies of TGTBTU got me reading Harlequins, and I wanted to see what the publisher would do with its new YA line. The verdict? My Soul to Take is a good start.

Kaylee has panic attacks. That is if, by panic attacks, you mean beginning to scream uncontrollably when encountering certain people. She’d like to keep this on the down-low . . . but now one of those people she was sure would die is dead, and no one knows what killed the girl. I’ll forgive quite a bit more in a teenage protagonist than I would in an adult, but Kaylee plays things pretty smart. She reaches out to people who seem like they could help, being cautious but realistic about being in over her head.

One of those people is uber-hot and cool Nash, who can calm her down when she’s panicking. He might know what’s going on, but Kaylee’s reluctant to trust him due to his playboy reputation. Seriously, I love how sensible Kaylee can be. She doesn’t instantly trust him, but nor does she instantly push him away. She works to get to know him. Watching them get closer together is fun. Yeah, they’re drawn to each other, but they don’t just rely on the magnetism. They talk. I do love them as a couple. (The ending does have interesting implications for the possible love triangle. Usually I love triangles, but I just think Nash and Kaylee are so cute together.)

As for the world-building, Vincent does a good job of combining her own mythology with the old Irish tales of bean sidhe. My Soul to Take focuses on the banshees and reapers, and I look forward to learning about even more powerful and dangerous creatures. I find it refreshing that Kaylee doesn’t rank that high on the abilities scale. What she can do is impressive, but rather specific and with numerous drawbacks. Vincent definitely doesn’t shy away from the potential consequences.

Kaylee and Nash don’t forget that they’re trying to catch a murderer. Things fall apart some, logically, once the culprit is revealed, but I still enjoyed the story. I could let the logic go some when I was enjoying the action and last minute reveals. I am eager to read the next Soul Screamers book, not just for the romance, but to see what happens to Kaylee’s family. I’d also like to see more of the world’s politics. Who knows what consequences Kaylee and Nash’s actions will have on interspecies relations? (Rachel Vincent, that’s who. And possibly anyone who has read her early drafts.)

Unlike the Werecats, Vincent has me hooked from the first book with this series. I also recommend reading the prologue, My Soul to Lose. It’s longer than many Nocturne Bites, giving ample opportunity to sample the writing style and decide whether you like the main character.

Grade: A-

Summary:
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SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH KAYLEE CAVANAUGH
.
She doesn’t see dead people, but…
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She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally.
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Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about the need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who’ll be next…
.
SOUL SCREAMERS
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The last thing you hear before you die…
.
Read the prequel here.
.
Read an excerpt here.

This just in…

HarlequinTeen is giving away a prequel to Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamers series.

~ My Soul to Lose is the prequel to the first book in the series, My Soul to Take, which will be released July 28.

~ Click here or the book title above for your free .pdf copy.

~ The third book in the series is My Soul to Save and will be out January 1, 2010.

Consider yourself flashed.

Liviania‘s review of Prey (Shifters, Book 4) by Rachel Vincent
Contemporary paranormal romance/urban fantasy released by MIRA 1 Jul 09

I love it when I stick to a series and it pays off.  With Rachel Vincent’s Werecat books, the first two just didn’t work for me, but were so close to working that I couldn’t resist continuing.  I mentioned in my review of Pride that I felt it was a running leap in the right direction, which makes Prey the right direction.

The events in the preceding novels have really forced Faythe to grow up, especially becoming responsible for the health of a teenage girl.  That definitely helps Faythe understand her parent’s point-of-view better.The book begins with Faythe’s father still under fire for his decisions as the Pride’s leader.  It’s absolutely the wrong time for Marc to get kidnapped, because Faythe wants the best (and most egalitarian) leadership  for the Pride as much as she wants to rescue her lover.  Marc and Faythe’s relationship is finally leveling out to something that doesn’t ping my squick buttons.  (When something happens in Faythe’s love life that I wanted to happen in the earlier books, I was very upset since it was very much the wrong time.  Not that the wrong time wasn’t a believable time, just the wrong one.)

It helps that I also like the supporting cast.  The male members of the group add humor, as always, but this one brings out more of their relationships with each other and how they behave professionally.  Kaci’s dilemma is heart-breaking, but she can still be pretty cute, like a fourteen-year-old girl should be.  Manx, who is on trial during Prey just as Faythe was in Pride, is affecting as a tough woman stuck in a vulnerable position.  I wish we could’ve seen more of her even though it would have slowed the plot down some.

There are multiple plot threads in Prey, but they mesh well.  While something important is going on the narrative focuses on it, but never too long to forget the other plots/sub-plots.  It’s also easy to feel Faythe’s frustration and sometimes despair, since it would be tough to keep up with everything going on if you had a personal stake in all the events.  Not to mention with Faythe taking more responsibility for her actions, she takes the time to think about her options and weigh the consequences.  Impulsiveness can be less mentally taxing.

Like Faythe, the Werecats series has grown up.  I loved seeing the potential reached, with brutal fight scenes interspersed with drama.  (I think even if I weren’t a total softie Vincent would have made me cry with this one.)  I cannot wait for the fifth book to come out.  On that hand, I am happy with the quick release between Pride and this one.  I like that publishers are experimenting with schedules if the author already has the next book completed.  To me, it helps the story keep momentum.  Of course, Prey is fast-paced enough not to need much help with that.

Grade: B+

Summary:
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Sometimes playing cat and mouse is no game…
.
Play? Right. My Pride is under fire from all sides, my father’s authority is in question and my lover is in exile. Which means I haven’t laid eyes on Marc’s gorgeous face in months. And with a new mother and an I-know-everything teenager under my protection, I don’t exactly have time to fantasize about ever seeing him again.
.
Then our long-awaited reunion is ruined by a vicious ambush by strays. Now our group is under attack, Marc is missing and I will need every bit of skill and smarts to keep my family from being torn apart. Forever.
.
Read an excerpt here (scroll down).

Other books in the series:

Liviania’s review of Pride (Shifters, Book 3) by Rachel Vincent
Contemporary paranormal romance released by MIRA 1 Feb 09

Pride is the third book in Rachel Vincent’s werecat series and my third time to give her a chance.  Normally I would give up if I didn’t think the first book was anything special, but Stray and Rogue came so close I couldn’t help but give her another chance.  It’s rare I find a series I want to like so much but don’t.  Fortunately, I think Pride took a running leap in the right direction. 

One of my biggest problems with the first two books was Marc and Faythe’s relationship.  He was too controlling; she was too absorbed in her own drama.  In Pride Marc allows Faythe to make her own bad decisions.  If she’s not so indignant over people trying to stop her from acting dumb maybe she’ll realize how terrible her decisions are.  And, hey, presto!  She does have an epiphany about how crappy she treated Marc and the terrible decisions she made regarding that relationship.  I can’t say some of the decisions she picks out are ones I would, but baby steps.

On the other side of the baby steps coin, Faythe shows some rudimentary signs of understanding politics.  That is to say, she understands the general shape of other’s machinations.  She still prefers to make her point with a verbal sledgehammer.  Sledgehammers lack the ability to make a convincing argument.  Of course, in Pride many of her points make sense.  Faythe is defending herself against a murder she committed in self-defense and takes on the protection of a young girl.  Both are difficult in an institutionally misogynistic society.

With the progress Faythe made in Pride, I’ll give it the benefit of a doubt that she learns from her mom’s example and begins changing the system by bending it to a little.  To paraphrase one character, she doesn’t make the rules and never has (so maybe she ought to pay some attention to them).

The action side of the story is straightforward but exciting.  Faythe’s trial is being held in free territory and it turns out several rowdy strays have been staying in the area.  The local bruin (think werebear) takes offense to their conduct and asks the Pride to take care of it.  (As this is the third group of strays working together in as many books I wonder why the characters still believe a stray’s usual pattern of behavior is being a loner.)  While this plot gets shunted aside for most of the books, it isn’t complex enough to demand more time and delivers excellent action scenes when they’re needed.

Pride isn’t a slam dunk.  However, it’s a quick-paced read with a heroine shows empathy for others and demonstrates just enough smarts to live.  It’s a book that makes me finally, truly like this series.  Okay, so I won’t reread the first two.  I’ll still pick up the fourth with something other than desperate hope.  I may even pick up Vincent’s upcoming venture into YA lit.

Grade: B-

Summary:

I’m on trial for my life. Falsely accused of infecting my human ex-boyfriend—and killing him to cover up the crime. Infecting a human is one of three capital offenses recognized by the Pride—along with murder and disclosure of our existence to a human.
I’m two for three. A goner.

Now we’ve discovered a rogue stray terrorizing the mountainside, hunting a wild teenage tabbycat. It’s up to us to find and stop him before a human discovers us. With my lover Marc’s help, I think I can protect the vulnerable girl from both the ambitious rogue and the scheming of the territorial council.

If I survive my own trial…
Read an excerpt.

Other books in the series: