#cbr6

This is my last review of the year (and the day)! By some miracle of will power, I met my half-cannonball goal despite only starting reviews last month. Must do better next year, for realz. Going for another 26 books!

My final post is for Mara, a YA graphic novel set in the future where professional sports is an even bigger business. Sport competitions keep everyone distracted from the endless world war cycle of Earth. Mara is superstar volleyball player whose been training since she was 2 years old!

Barely legal, she lives in comped luxury apartment with tons of corporate endorsements. That is until one day, she runs faster than any human beings on camera to chase the ball. It was pure reflex and she's never done it before. The fans and her friends begin to turn on her, calling her a doper/cheater. But Mara truly has no idea what's going on with her body.

Other powers begin to manifest such as flight and supernatural healing abilities. The military fakes her death and trains her to be their secret weapon. Giving her new purpose in her life. But when the government refuses to tell her twin brother she's alive, she goes escapes and goes rogue. She's even more powerful than she imagined flying high into space. She no longer needs to breathe oxygen. All she had to do is mentally embrace her powers. While flying high in the sky, she exposes herself to commercial airline.  Now the sponsors and friends want a piece of her again now that she's superhuman. Fame is a fickle beast. But the military isn't done with her and kidnaps her brother. Will she rescue him in time? What awaits the military to crosses one so powerful?

I came across this at the library and the cover drew me in. The writers have all done other work I love like X-men and Guardians of the Galaxy, so I figured I give it a whirl. I thought volleyball was an interesting choice of professional sport. I can't imagine the entire world being obsessed with it, but maybe that's because I hated playing it in gym class back in the day. Really loved the illustrations of her in space and discovering her powers. The universe of this book is cruel, but the end has a glimmer of hope for humankind. 

I'd recommend this graphic novel for fans of dystopian futures and strong young female protagonists. Think The Hunger Games and Divergent. 

The Silver Metal Lover was a great introduction to Tanith Lee for me. This particular month, Vaginal Fantasy focused on a robot theme with authors questioning the power of love with an artificial being. 

This particular love story is about a young, naive rich girl named Jane. She lives a pretty sheltered life in a beautiful mansion in the sky with her mother. All her friends are jaded and mean, living quite the hedonistic lifestyle on their parents money. One day while walking with her gay friend Clovis, she comes across a beautiful silver skinned man named Silver singing in the street. He transfixes her with his song and dazzling eyes. Much to her surprise, he is a limited edition love robot built to amuse. In this futuristic setting, robots are omnipresent but none yet have been built solely to entertain. This discovery of desire to a machine makes Jane sick. She is quite a sensitive girl. Clovis tells her to stop being such a prude. Later that night, she visits her friend Egyptia, a wannabe actress, at her house where she is entertaining her theater group. To Jane's horror, Egyptia has hired Silver for a private performance. Jane can't look away and becomes even more disgusted when Egyptia disappears into her bedroom to get the full-service package from Silver.

Jane returns home in tears, completely lovestruck with jealousy. She becomes crazed and sells all her belongings to make Silver her own. Nothing goes as planned but eventually, she gets Silver all to herself. Clovis arranges it so she can 'rent' him indefinitely from Egyptia who has already grown bored of the whole thing. Silver and her move into a cheap apartment together and with his urging, they earn money singing on the street. And a most unusual thing occurs, Jane begins to blossom. Her infatuation is the excuse she needed to escape the stifling rule of her mother and her rather shitty friends. Will she be able to live forever in this bliss with Silver? God she hopes so!

Jane was quite the whiner, so it took a couple chapters for me to warm up to her. But once, Silver broke her out of her shell, I was on her side. The idea of having to rent a robot to learn about yourself seems ridiculous. But this is exactly what she needed, someone's whole purpose who was to be kind and amuse her. Silver was not a slave, but built to be as close to human as possible. He turned out to be more sympathetic than all the flesh and blood people in her world. In the end, he went beyond being just a machine. I'd recommend this book for fans of 'Blade Runner' and artificial beings surpassing their code.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen is this awesome graphic novel + recipe book hybrid by Lucy Knisley. She details her love for food with illustrated stories from her childhood. Her mom is a chef while her dad's a gourmet foodie. Together, they expose her to culinary delights from birth as she tags along to restaurant kitchens and gatherings of her mom's food scene pals. Even though her parents divorce, they continue to impart their own culinary wisdom to their daughter.Each chapter ends with a personal recipe from that particular era of her life. Her dad stays in NY as he's a total food connoisseur of fine dining. Her mom moves to the Hudson River Valley before the farm to table food craze. Lucy learns how to milk cows and sell vegetables at markets. Besides her upbringing in New York, her parents frequently take her on foreign trips. This allow for a variety of recipes to included like how to make inexpensive sushi and proper Mexican huevos rancheros. The book follows her into adulthood where she attends art school in Chicago and later becomes a second generation cheesemonger (like her Mom).  

One of my favourite chapters was JUNK where she confesses her illicit love affair with processed foods. Her unique food pyramid was delightful range of basil, restaurant specials to burritos and McDonalds. All the illustrations are tiny windows into her memory with her humorous enthusiasm for all things food. She also perfectly captures the personality of her family with her drawings. I especially liked her description of her mom's boyfriend who is vegetarian and doesn't appreciate her mom's food. "He had a recurring nightmare where he stood before an animal tribunal" which she illustrates for the reader. The recipes are very easy to follow with precise drawings of the ingredients and comments on when to not taste the food early (even if it's tempting!). The book closes with a great quote from my favorite author of all time, Ray Bradbury. :)

I rented this from the library, but definitely will add to my permanent collection just for the recipes as I love to cook for people. I recommend this book for fans of more personable graphic novels and of course foodies!

I'm a big fan of Charlaine Harris as she tends to write humorous mystery tales with a big dollop of hot romance. I've read all of the Sookie Stackhouse, Harper Connelly and Lily Bard books. As the last few Sookie books sucked, I wasn't super keen to return to her body of work. However, once I learned Manfred Bernardo from the Harper books was the protagonist, my interest shot up by 100 percent.

Manfred moves to Midnight into a house owned by no other than the handsome but slightly dopey Bobo Winthrop (from the Shakespeare books). Bobo has put his past behind him and moved to this small Texas town to run a pawnshop.  Manfred just wants some peace and quiet to build up his online psychic business. Fiji is their witch neighbor who runs new age shop out of her living room. She inherited her house from her aunt, along with a sassy cat named Mr. Snuggles. All the residents take a shine to Manfred, even inviting him to a town picnic which amounts to only less than 10 attendees. Everyone is friendly, but no one asks too many questions. This is the unwritten rule of the crossroad town. No wants any trouble, but unfortunately, the discovery of a dead body, Bobo's ex girlfriend, by the river brings unwanted attention for everyone. Even though Manfred just arrived, he feels a sense of loyalty to help Bobo if he can. Together with Fiji, they band together to solve the mystery lest the peaceful atmosphere of the town disappears forever.

I loved seeing the characters from other books coming together in a new setting. Manfred was certainly a delight here as protagonist describing the strange town. As I grew up in Texas, it was fun to see her take on small towns and their unwritten rules. The town certainly fits the surface description of many West Texas areas. There isn't much romance, sticking pretty close to the paranormal mystery format. Fine by me as I had it up to hear with those fairies in last Sookie books. I'd definitely be up for the next entry in the series. Recommend this for fans of any Charlaine Harris universe and small town murder mysteries.

Harper Blaine isn't a believer in the supernatural, but after a near death experience she starts to see some strange things.

She is referred to a paranormal studies professor for answers. He suggests she may be a grey walker, a human who can see into the supernatural dimension he calls the Grey. He along with his lovely, Irish witch wife offer to help her control her newfound power. Besides seeing ghosts, she can see vampires true self and even fall into this grey dimension. However, it's proving quite tricky to do so without inducing a panic attack or coming across crazy monsters in the Grey. As she is private investigator, she doesn't really have time for all this hocus pocus.

But when she is on a missing persons case, she stumbles upon a newly turned vampire named Cameron. He pleads with her to use her new found abilities to help him transition to this new life. He was turned while saving his sister from the sadistic local head vamp. As he seems harmless enough, she agrees to help him if she can. Of course, she bites off more than she bargained for when she learns the local vamp has big money and clout. She becomes mixed up in a power struggle between him and other vamps with a grind to axe. Vampires always seem so petty and power hungry, right? On top of that, another case to find a mysterious organ is making her powers go haywire. Everyone whose owned it has died an ugly death. The closer she gets, the more nasty shit seems to come after her from the grey. She must rely on the professor and his wife to harness her powers before she winds up supernatural lunch meat. 

This VF book was alright, but I'm not chomping at the bit to read the next one. The introductory assassination attempt on her life was never explained, which really bugged me for the first part of the book. It was convenient way to push her into a near death event. As for the romance, there weren't much sexy times, but I did like her dashing antiques dealer love interest. I'd recommend this series for fans of "Grimm" as the books feature a mixed bag of creatures that only she can see. Instead of basing on fairy tales, we get more traditional supernaturals like vamps, ghosts and necromancers.

I have to admit the tagline from Terry Spear's A Seal Wolf Christmas (Heart of the Wolf 12) gave me pause.

"He can handle murder...but mistletoe?"

Why do the two have to be mutually exclusive (or inclusive for that matter)? 

We are introduced (or re-introduced if you are familiar with the series) to Bjornolf and Anna rescuing a rich family in the Colombian jungle. The two werewolves have met once before on another mission. As soon as they are reunited they sense a heat between them, but these two mercs are determined to fulfil the mission. Despite only meeting her once, Bjornolf has unnatural urge to protect Anna. He knows she's a capable seal agent, but at first sense of danger he bounds off to her rescue! The mission almost goes awry, but eventually they return the human family to US embassy in Colombia. Conveniently, Hunter the pack leader has a new assignment for both of them. Two wolves were murdered at xmas tree farm back home. He'd like them to investigate by posing as newlyweds and relatives of a teen wolf named Nathan. Nothing like a dangerous assignment to bring two wolves together! The runaway prone teen works on the farm and also has the hots for the owner's daughter. Thus, there's a corresponding teenage romance subplot causing drama on the case and bringing these two agents together as growing parental figures for them.

The timely xmas theme for this month's Vaginal Fantasy let me give this book a pass. But, I certainly don't plan to continue the series. Anna is a strong she-wolf who doesn't want to be rescued, but that's exactly what happens multiple times in this book! Spear does allow her to save herself at one point, but it only serves to push their relationship to overdrive. Another thing Anna has never celebrated xmas because of her unhappy childhood past. Alot of emphasis is put on how xmas is awesome once you fall in love and find your mate. A little too heavy handed for my liking, but I know a book about werewolves isn't meant to be too serious. The cheese level was pretty high once we learn these werewolves are instantly mated for life after having sex once in this universe. Ultimately, the book is all about loyalty and family. Wolves inherently yearn to protect each other, including sexy lone wolves who never considered love. Turns out the mission was an elaborate matchmaking session arranged by the pack leader to get Bjornolf and Anna sorted out and on his team. Pretty damn crafty I have to admit, but a tad extreme in my humble opinion.