Review: Inked by Karen Chance, Marjorie M. Liu, Yasmine Galenorn, and Eileen Wilks

Back Cover Blurb:

Four of today's hottest urban fantasy writers together for the first time!

From today's most provocative authors come four tales of urban fantasy and paranormal romance exploring body art that is more than it seems-in a world of magic and mayhem that always leaves its mark.

This captivating tattoo theme surrounds each author's popular characters and worlds: Karen Chance's war mage Lia de Croissets, Marjorie M. Liu's demon-hunter Maxine Kiss, Yasmine Galenorn's Otherworld Intelligence Agency operative Camille D'Artigo, and Eileen Wilks's Lupi world.

I’m going to review this anthology novella by novella in order to fully cover each author’s work (mostly because I really liked some of the stories, and didn’t like some of them, so I can’t just do a catch-all review). So, on to the first novella!

Skin Deep

For fans of: Anything by Karen Chance

The first book in the Cassandra Palmer series:

Review:

Karen Chance wrote the first story, which follows war mage Lia de Croissets. Lia’s story is set in the same time period (and world) as the Cassandra Palmer series (see the link to Karen Chance’s website above), and is mostly told in other anthologies. Lia’s dad is a war mage and her mother was a high-caste Were (as in werewolf), giving Lia magical ability and a disease that prevents her from ever fully changing into a wolf. As a result, Lia has shunned the Were part of her heritage and has wholly embraced becoming a war mage, one of the best of the best when it comes to magic. At the beginning of the story, Lia is recovering from a battle that uncovered a traitor to the war mages, whom she killed. Lia is going stir crazy because she isn’t allowed to leave headquarters until her boyfriend Cyrus’s brother Sebastian, the leader of the Were clans, tells her that Cyrus has gone missing while he was doing dangerous undercover work on behalf of Sebastian. Lia sets out to find him and in the process discovers more about her relationship with Cyrus, her Were heritage, and a plot to take over the Were leadership.

I love Karen Chance’s writing, and I’ve really enjoyed following Lia’s story in all of her anthologies. I liked that, while there was a back-story that sounded interesting, I didn’t need it to read Skin Deep. The action is fun, Lia’s funny, and the romance was sweet and steamy at the same time. I really loved starting the anthology with this novella.

My Grade: A-

Armor of Roses

For fans of: Marjorie M. Liu’s Hunter Kiss series

The first book in the Hunter Kiss series:

Review:

Maxine Kiss has five demons that are tied to her life. At night, they roam around and help remove evil demons from unknowing hosts, but during the day they sleep under Maxine’s skin in the form of tattoos and make her impermeable to injury. Maxine and her boyfriend Grant are on the way home from a party for charity when they find an old man stabbed and dying against Maxine’s car. He claims to have known Maxine’s grandmother and says that whatever he helped Maxine’s grandmother with, it’s not over. Maxine has to figure out what he’s talking about and keep the other people who helped her grandmother during WWII alive.

This novella by Marjorie M. Liu is a continuation of her Hunter Kiss series, which I haven’t been able to really get into. I have read one of the Hunter Kiss novels, but I just couldn’t seem to follow along and spent most of the book very confused. Unfortunately, I had the same problem with this story. I felt like I definitely needed a back-story for the novel, and I just didn’t enjoy the way it was written. I almost gave up on the story, but I pushed through to the end because I’m stubborn like that. I’m sorry, but I just did not like this story.

My Grade: D

Etched in Silver

For fans of: The Otherworld/ Sisters of the Moon Series by Yasmine Galenorn

The first book in the Otherworld/ Sisters of the Moon series:

Review:

The prequel to Yasmine Galenorn’s Otherworld series (or Sisters of the Moon series, depending on who you talk to), this novella explains how Camille and Trillian, some of the main characters of the series, first met and fell in love. Camille is assigned to hunt down a dangerous serial rapist for the OIA (Otherworld Intelligence Agency) and along the way has some troubles with unwanted suitors.

Inked came out on the same day as Ms. Galenorn’s seventh book in the Otherworld series, Bone Magic, which also features Camille but is several years in the future. I really like the series, so I found it interesting to get a glimpse of what life was like for the D’Artigo sisters before they went Earthside. Since this was a prequel, there is no back-story necessary, but there is a ton of foreshadowing and if you’ve read the series, you’ll definitely pick up on it. I wasn’t as fond of this novella as I was of most of Ms. Galenorn’s other novels, but it was decent. It just felt a little short (compared to the other novellas, not to a full length novel) and the action that is plentiful in her other books just didn’t have the same intensity here. Also, there was a scene that introduced a new possible plot thread, and now I’m racking my brains trying to decide if that just foreshadowed something already in the series or if it has yet to occur. I’m thinking it has yet to occur. Anyway, I mostly enjoyed this novella, especially after the previous one.

My Grade: B-

Human Nature

For fans of: Eileen Wilks’s World of the Lupi series

The first book in the World of the Lupi series:

Review:

I have never read any of Eileen Wilks’s novels, so this was a pleasant introduction. Former-cop-now-FBI-agent Lily Yu travels to California at her boyfriend Rule’s request in order to investigate the suspicious death of his friend. The thing is, Rule and his friends are Lupi (another word for werewolves) and his friend was killed in an anti-Lupi stronghold. Lily has to determine whether this was a hate crime or something else, hold her relationship with Rule together, and try to avoid a political minefield.

I’m kind of excited to try reading this series now. I keep seeing the first book in the series though I haven’t yet tried it. This definitely makes me want to read the rest of her books. While I wish I knew the back-story, I don’t feel like I needed it to understand what was going on, although some of the terms were a little confusing. It sounds like the novella also introduced a new power of some sort to Lily, which could be an interesting plot thread in the next full-length novels of the series.

My Grade: B+

Overall Anthology Grade: B-