Just seeking views to get these to hatch out; move right along by...

Dead and Gone
by Charlaine Harris
hardcover from Berkley, May 2009

I'm starting to sound like a fangirl this morning because I'm loving everything. But Charlaine Harris never disappoints me with the Sookie books (even if NOW when I read them they are narrated by Anna Paquin's southern accent). This is, in part, a transitional book. Lots of things come out, lots gets worked through. A new plot comes in, slides over Sookie (with damage) and while it is resolved it also... isn't. So I know there's a lot left open for the next books.

If I had one complaint about these books it would be that they are starting to run together more rather than being distinct in their own right. But really, it doesn't disappoint me THAT much. Just makes me itch for the next one.

Stray
Rogue
Pride
by Rachel Vincent
paperbacks from Mira, 2007 & 2008 & 2009

In the interest of full disclosure, I hated the first half of the first book. It was everything I've started disliking about urban fantasy. I didn't like the whole he's rough but I'm drawn to him and omg he's stalking me but it's so hot aspect of Marc & Faythe. The dynamic of the overprotected only female bugs me.

But it got better. It got a lot better. And once the plot really kicked in? I was hooked.

I realized I didn't want to read about the push and shove between Marc and Faythe. I wanted to know how that relationship affected the world around them. How they could build on it to be stronger (or weaker) when dealing with an outside plot. And as the werecat politics grow more complicated, and Faythe's life grows more complicated (because she's discovering that the world the werecats knew isn't necessarily everything they NEED to know), it just gets more interesting. I'm very much looking forward to the next book coming out in July.