Review: Reckoning, by Lili St. Crow

Ok.

So I just finished reading the numero uno book on my wishlist "Reckoning" by Lili St. Crow.

How anticipated was this book for me? I took off work early to go to Barnes and Noble to buy it since the publisher decided not to make it available in e-book. (stupid fucking publishers. just know this is the last time I do this)

There are major spoilers in here. Sorry. But I needed to vent and I cant be arsed to dance around the facts.


The book begins with our beloved heroine Dru on the run in a stolen Subaru (alas it does not appear to be a Forrester) with Graves riding shotgun and Ash quivering in the back seat. Apparently turning back into a human after all that time as a wolf as been a pretty major mind-screw.

Things are all knotted up with Dru and Graves. Yeah she just saved him but he blames himself for that. And blames herself for him getting captured and then theres' the whole "blooming" issue.

Apparently the pretty quotient on Dru has skyrocketed and she's a little peeved Graves hasnt mentioned it, and she's also tetchy that she cares if he notices.

Nontheless they are on their way to the only safe place Dru has on this planet, her Grans house in the Appalachian mountains.

While there Graves finally admits he loves Dru, but in the next breath he's telling her he's not good enough for her. Very confusing, but also very Graves. Who as we all know has owned my heart since the first book.

Graves is the sort of character that readers covet when they find. He is the heart of this series. He's unwavering devotion to Dru and just general awesomeness have sparked some serious fan-fic in my head.

I still hate Christophe. I wouldnt care if he threw himself in front of a friggin bus, he's not Graves, he's got the emotional depth of a teacup. I hate that he smells like apple pie, and his slobbering all over Dru and his secrets and his general shadiness.
Unfortunately all the little teen-squees are all "OMG He's totally hot and sort of like Edward Cullen"
Gag.

And the thing in I was pretty sure Lili St. Crow was on my side with his. Dru and Graves deserved a HEA.
Why would you write such an awesome guy like Graves and then give him such a shit ending?

Excellent fucking question, and if I ever talk to Lili St. Crow I'll ask her.

Reckoning is almost pitch perfect until chapter 39...buy more on that later..lets go back to Chapter 37.

Chapter 37 is writing perfection in it's most satifying.

As so it begins with an ode to Kresley Cole

Before I start with the reviews
But I decided to go back and read them all again. Where they that good you ask?
Some of them were, unfortunately book one is IMO the weakest.

HOWEVER

I would like to clarify, that would be the weakest of the Immortals After Dark Series.

Which happens to completely kick the ass of every other series out there.

You will hear his many times in my reviews and just general blabberings..

Kresley Cole is a fecking genius. Seriously, it is ridiculous how madly skilled she is.

Not only has she created this alternate world where the coolest of the cool exist
Vampires (natch, because they are paranormal)
Werewolves, aka Lycans
Demons
Witches
Ghouls
Wraiths
and wait for it boils and goy's....Valkyrie

If there is one seriously untapped paranormal out there it is the Valkyrie. They are the coolest of the cool.

BUT, and here's the part that will bake your noodle, she weaves these stories together. So the stories play out in different books.
I will expound more on this later, but wrap your heads around that.

While Her Wicked Ways is Emmaline and Lachlans story.
Throughout the book other characters pop in and out. And then when they get their own book, you get the story behind why X was being so angsty about Z in book 1.

I dont know how she does it. But dammit it works. I wish I were that clever.

So I decided I'd re read these. If you have not read them, you are a goober. Seriously go pick up the first one now...I'll wait.

Got it? Well get ready for the ride of your life.

Oh and by the way. Pay attention to Nix. aka Nucking Futz Nix. aka The all knowing Nixie

Of all the books I've read (and man it's more than even YOU could imagine) Nix is the one character who I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see exist. There is no cooler chick, and no nuttier fruitcake.

My humble beginnings...

I didnt even learn to read until I was in second grade..

When I was five years old I got sick, really sick, ending up having emergency surgery sick.

And back in the seventies when you went into the hospital, you stayed in the hospital for months.

So I missed the alphabet portion of my learning, and managed to breeze through first grade completely illiterate as well.

So when we moved to a new state, my second grade teacher and my new school were less than to discovered I could not read.

Enter the woman who changed my life. Mrs. Schaeffer. She not only taught me to read, but she taught me to love reading.
(so if you're out there somewhere Mrs. Schaeffer, wondering if any of those hooilgans in remedial reading ever "got it" I did!)

From that fated moment on, I was sunk...I read books all the time.
In fourth grade I had to special permission from my parents to ready 6th grade books.

As luck would have it, fate had another emergency trip to the hospital in store for me in 5th grade.

I got bit by my family dog and had to spend two weeks at home recouperating...

So, bored out of my mind one day I wandered to my moms bookshelf...(imagine this kittens, no cable, no computers..it's was books or soaps)

And picked up a little literary gem called "The Flame and the Flower"

Now of course its infamous for one of those seventies romance plot nuggets...."The Hero Rapes the Heroine (who's a clueless virgin of course) because he mistakes her for a whore...

No matter, a love affair was born (an interesting aside here, what my 10 year old self remembered from this book, not the rape, nor the any of the other plot nuggets. I remembered her dresses..and pirates)

After burning through the rest of the trashy seventies romance novels (Hi Shanna, and several others)

I moved onto those teen romances by silhouette (numbered..I have them still hiding in the basement somewhere) and with the exception of one long summer at my grandmothers (middle of minnesota, grandpa had control of the tv -still no cable or computers kiddies) where one of my grandmothers neighbors gave me an entire washing machine box filled with Romance Novels.


(this was sort of like going on a bender with Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort and then just drinking virgin coladas for a few years..followed by Jack and Southern Comfort bender..back to virgin coladas..frankly it explains a lot)

Next up...the dark years of tortured psychological thrillers and "serious literature"

-Tanya