Book Review: Deliver Me From Temptation by Tes Hilaire

Deliver Me from Temptation by Tes Hilaire

Logan Calhoun is the last full-blooded Paladin, the future leader of a race of immortal warrior angels. The heavy responsibility of continuing the Paladin line falls to him, and the last thing he should do is get involved with a human. Then fate throws Jessica Waters, a homicide detective who doesn't believe in fate or divine intervention, into his path. Her devotion lies in her Glock and a good set of handcuffs. Like Logan, she's a warrior for her people, and she awakens within him something he'd never thought he'd feel. But she's also as human as they come

I read the first book of this series, Deliver Me from Darkness, and immediately knew I would be following this series to its conclusion. I loved the Paladin mythos created and the author’s writing style. It is classified as a PNR, but there are enough urban fantasy elements to grab my attention. I was pleasantly surprised to find Deliver Me from Temptation had a much stronger urban fantasy element than the first book. The book is still a PNR with a forbidden love theme (hubba, hubba), but there was much more substance to the story and overall series arc. To top it all off there is a good murder mystery that isn't eclipsed by the romance.

I was desperately hoping book two would be Valin’s story; he pushes all my dark, mysterious outcast buttons. But Deliver Me from Temptation is Logan’s story. He wasn't my favorite of the Paladin warriors we meet in the first book. There is nothing wrong with him, he just didn't push those buttons I was talking about. I still enjoyed his story because Detective Jessica Waters is a smart, rock solid heroine with her own personal demons (heehee, pun intended) she must defeat in order to fulfill a surprising destiny.

There is also an anti-hero introduced and I can’t wait to see where his story is going. Valin is up to his usual mischievous self, but we still don’t know anything about the darkness that keeps him from feeling like he belongs to the Paladin Brotherhood. He knows who his mate is, but she disappeared at the end of book one. The next book will be his story, squeee!

The Paladin series is a great combination of PNR and urban fantasy and will appeal to both readers. 

4 “freaky angel spawn” sheep

Sharon Stogner (edit Kalpar)

About the Author:

website-fb-twitter-blog

While growing up Tes Hilaire always wanted to see a ghost. Or meet an angel. Or dine with a vampire. Despite her vivid imagination, none of these things ever happened… yet. In the meantime, she writes about them from her home in North Carolina where she lives with her hero, her cats, a son and two daughters–one of whom claims to actually have seen a ghost (Tes is very jealous). She hates lima beans, loves spaghetti, and still believes in the impossible.

Movie Review: President Wolfman (Another Hole in the Head)

PRESIDENT WOLFMAN Director: Mike Davis 
Writer: Mike Davis 
Stars: Marc Evan Jackson, Matt Piedmont and Jonathan Yudis 
Stag Films
Genre: Comedy, horror 
80 minutes. Unrated. 
website-Facebook

The President of the United States has been bitten by a werewolf and is loose on the streets of Washington on a killing rampage! This
comedy/horror/political satire is also a 'green movie,' made entirely out of recycled stock and public domain film footage culled from over one hundred grainy government instructional shorts, classroom education movies, vintage stag reels and long lost b-movie features. Director Mike Davis re-dubs and reassembles the old footage with new dialogue supplied by a talented cast of voice actors led by Marc Evan Jackson (as John Wolfman) and a wild new storyline to create the ultimate midnight movie mash-up! 

President Wolfman is a “green” (uses recycled materials) movie made by Stag Film. They combined the 1970 schlock film Werewolf of Washington starring Dean Stockwell with dozens of clips from public domain film.

The idea behind this movie is clever and fun: Take old public domain film footage, like those 1970 educational movies you watched in school or old B-movies, and then edit it together so it tells a story and then add some music and dialogue. Bam! You got a cool movie… in theory.

At first I laughed at the hair styles and clothes and smiled at the cheesy dialogue and the job they did syncing up the footage to the voice overs. About 15 minutes later I was rolling my eyes at dialogue that seemed to be added because they thought it would be funny with the footage, but had nothing to do with the plot of the story. 15 minutes later I turned it off. There was no way I could sit through 80 minutes of this. If they had made a short film instead, I would probably be singing its praises because it would have had more focus and the sophomoric humor wouldn't have gotten old.

wouldn't be a B-movie without boobs!

The creators have the right idea, but they beat the dead horse a little too long. I am giving it two sheep because it really is a great idea.



2 Sheep

Sharon Stogner (edit Kalpar)

Stag Films is a full service production company based in Hollywood, USA. Internationally recognized pioneers of the ‘green movie,’ Stag creates films and videos out of 100% recycled materials. We specialize in the following:

FEATURE FILMS

GREEN MOVIES AND ADVERTISEMENTS

WEB PROMOS AND VIDEOS

STOCK FOOTAGE SERVICES

Hot Autumn Night Blog Hop

"What's your idea of a hot autumn night?"

Thanks to 

Bella Media Management 

with H.D. Thomson and Caris Roane for hosting!

Does it involve a romp between the pages of a romance book with a fictional hottie?! We are going to say it does...

At I Smell Sheep we prefer to romp with the supernatural variety. What flavor would you want to heat up your autumn night? Shifter, vampire, mage, fae, superhero, transformer?

Sharon: I think I will go for a Fae prince on this one.

Check out Prince Nuada's mad bo staff skills as well as the hauntingly sad song.

Katie: For my Autumn Night pick I've got to go with the fine Scottish hunk Dougal Kincaid from author Kerrelyn Sparks 'Love at Stake' saga. Yes, yes I pick him all the time. But I don't care! He's my vampire, scottish hunk love bunny and I can't get enough! 

***GIVEAWAY***

Grand prize of $155 gift card picked from all the entries during the hop. The more blogs you visit the better your odds at winning.

I Smell Sheep is giving away a box of swag. 
This pic is for a US winner
there will be a smaller box for an INT winner

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sheep Book Review: Angel in Chains + Giveaway!

Angel in Chains, book three in The Fallen series, is a PNR by author Cynthia Eden, and is an entertaining bayou party with all the paranormal bag of tricks you can throw your beads at! 

Plot:

As a fallen Angel of Death, Azrael is cursed to walk the earth alone in search of redemption. One night, as he wanders the streets of New Orleans, he discovers a woman surrounded by panther shifters. No longer able to contain the anger simmering within, Az summons his dark powers and attacks, determined to protect this innocent human from certain death.

Only Jade Pierce is no delicate flower. She's spent years learning to survive and fight the evil forces sent by her ex-lover who refuses to let her go. But after seeing Az in action, she figures she could use a little supernatural help. And so she plans a course of seduction guaranteed to arouse his interest and his angelic passions...

Our story picks up as Azrael, the Angel of Death, is walking around minding his own business and stumbles upon a gal being mugged down a dark alley near the French Quarter. Now, I've been to NOLA and yeah some parts are a bit sketchy, but this time it's not the humans doing the mugging. It's a pack of wolves, on the hunt for the packmaster's gal Jade. Although that gal wants no part of the pack, the wolves seem to not understand and want to force her back to the wolfy side. 

Jade is feisty as heck and won't back down or submit to the tyranny of a deranged pack, all she wants is freedom (which William Wallace can totally understand!) and the right to choose how she will live her life. But story being what it is, Jade is our lady in distress and Azrael is the Angel who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. Then we're off into a steamy bayou adventure across the Louisiana countryside and back again! 

Though this couple's struggle is not an easy one, the best love stories never are and they become united against a common foe and lead the way to an epic battle. Plot twists and turns keep the adventure going while romance heats up the pages! 

Angel in Chains is a fun read that's enjoyable for all PNR fans looking for some darker angels that walk the line between goodboy and badboy. You can easily pick up from this point, as I did, and not feel lost in the series whatsoever! 

Getting 4 'demon bar' Sheep 

KD 

***GIVEAWAY***

For your chance to win a paperback copy of Angel in Chains please do the following in the comments below: 

1. Your Email Address 

2. What's the naughtiest thing you'd want to see an Angel do?

3. Do you follow our site? If so you just got double entries! 

Contest open to US/Canada! End December 4th at midnight! 

Movie Review: Deadball (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)

 Deadball 
Director: Yudai Yamaguchi 
Writer: Yudai Yamaguchi, Keita Tokaji 
Producer: Yoshinori Chiba, Junji Hashimoto, Akifumi Sugihara, Shin Torisawa 
Cinematographer: Masakazu Oka 
Release Date: July 23, 2011 
Runtime: 99 min. 
Language: Japanese 

Baseball prodigy Jubeh Yakyu (Tak Sakaguchi) is the most feared and dangerous juvenile delinquent in all of Japan. After accidentally causing the death of his father with a super-powered, deadly fireball pitch, Jubeh swore off baseball and became a criminal and now, at 17, has been sent to the Pterodactyl Juvenile Reformatory for hardened criminals. Headmistress Ishihara, the granddaughter of a World War II Nazi collaborator, runs the institution with an iron fist and the enthusiastic help of her sadistic assistant, Ilsa. After arriving at the hellhole, Jubeh soon learns from governor Mifune that his long-lost, younger brother Musashi had also done time there after a murder spree, but had since died mysteriously.

Despite having sworn never to play baseball again, Jubeh is presented with an ultimatum by governor Mifune: join the reformatory team, The Gauntlets, in the national tournament for juvenile inmates, or witness the death of his innocent cellmate Four Eyes (Mari Hoshino). With the knowledge that the death of his brother is somehow connected to the team, Jubeh agrees, and Gauntlet training begins. Their first opponents: the sexy but deadly “psycho butcher girls” of the St. Black Dahlia High School, a team of literal man-killers. And so the splatterific baseball tournament begins, but Jubeh soon learns that he is not only fighting to win the game, but also to save his own life!

the psycho-butcher baseball team

The only word I can come up with to describe this movie is bizarre; the Japanese call it splatter comedy, which is a mix of extreme camp and horror. Believe it or not, this is a follow-up movie to director Yudai Yamaguchi’s zombie baseball classic, Battlefield Baseball. Sushi-typhoon is a Japanese movie company that specializes in the splatter genre. There is a plot to the movie, and while you can read the blurb for that, you really have to watch the trailer to truly get an idea of what I am talking about. So go ahead and watch it… seriously… I’ll wait 

There is definitely a certain audience this movie caters to, and if you are it, then this movie should absolutely be on your to watch list. I had a blast watching it; the special effects are low-budget and the gore gags are over the top. They didn’t just create 90 minutes of WTF-ery, they rolled all in it, humped it, and had its robot baby! Yes, there is a robot… it is a Japanese splatter movie, duh! There are Nazis, a protagonist that dresses like Clint Eastwood and can magically pull lit cigarettes out of nowhere, a sexy school girl musical number, a robot, baseball, and blood spurting from every orifice and I swear they pull a rubber squeaky toy out of someone’s butt, but don’t quote me on that. The only problem was poor lighting in many of the action scenes, but this might be intentional. 

this baseball stayed in his eye for the whole movie... it was stuck

I really don’t know how to rate this movie. If you are squeamish, stay away. If you enjoy shock and awe entertainment, or just love to have fun this is a must see. I’m gonna give it 5 Sheep because it left me speechless.

Nazi juvenile prison warden

5 “WTF” Sheep 


Sharon Stogner (edit Kalpar)

Born in 2010, The Sushi Typhoon is the upstart, wild offspring of a respectable parent: Nikkatsu Corporation, the oldest film studio in Japan and once home to legendary 1960′s action stars like Joe Shishido, Akira Kobayashi, Tetsuya Watari, Meiko Kaji and Yujiro Ishihara. With a long history of genre films and violent gangster epics, the company was also the leader of Japan’s erotic renaissance of the 1970′s with their Roman Porno line; and now, Nikkatsu’s latest offering, The Sushi Typhoon, takes their century-old extremes to the next level. 

The brainchild of veteran producer Yoshinori Chiba, responsible for introducing directors Takashi Miike, Noboru Iguchi and Yoshihiro Nishimura to Western audiences, The Sushi Typhoon seeks to satisfy audiences who crave the good taste of bad taste, and for whom too much is never enough. 

Connoisseurs of dangerous and wild Japanese cinema need look no further to satisfy their hunger for comedy, action, horror, splatter and raucous cult entertainment!

Press Release: Another Hole in the Head Film Festival 2012

I Smell Sheep will be screening 4 films from Another Hole in the Head Film Festival #9! Here is the list of the movies I will be reviewing along with links to their trailers followed by the press release for AHITH#9. Good times!

The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse

Animated Feature, Justin Paul Ritter 2012

President Wolfman

Mike Davis 2012

Deadball

Yudai Yamaguchi 2011

Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever

Calum Waddell 2012

Press Release

ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD

FILM FESTIVAL 2012

November 28th to December 9th, 2012

At Terra Gallery, 511 Harrison St, Victoria Theater, 2961 16th St, Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St, and Vortex Room 1082 Howard Street in San Francisco

Attention freaks: ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL is back for its 9th year of psychotic savagery and bloody pandemonium. San Francisco's original genre film festival will screen 54 films in 11 days, November 28 through December 9, 2012, at Terra Gallery, Victoria Theater, Roxie Theater and Vortex Room. For Tickets and more information, please call (415) 820-3907 or visit www.sfindie.com

Viewers will be soul-sickened and morbidly offended as they watch murderous maniacs, evil ghosts, Nazis in space, a werewolf President, and zombies galore! 28 features and 26 shorts from here and abroad will screen at four venues in the Mission and SOMA. If you’re truly hard core about horror, if you’re a dork for dark fantasy, or if you’re a freak for crazy sci-fi, then you can’t miss ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD #9

Click for more info about times, pricing and movies being shown...

Release Day Giveaway: Cold Days by Jim Butcher

Cold Days (Dresden Files #14)
by Jim Butcher
November 27, 2012
After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad. Because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard.

He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long. And now, her word is his command, no matter what she wants him to do, no matter where she wants him to go, and no matter who she wants him to kill.

Guess which Mab wants first?

Of course, it won’t be an ordinary, everyday assassination. Mab wants her newest minion to pull off the impossible: kill an immortal. No problem there, right? And to make matters worse, there exists a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could land Harry in the sort of trouble that will make death look like a holiday.

Beset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent the annihilation of countless innocents, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own…His soul.

About the author:

website-fb-twitter-blog

Jim Butcher is a martial arts enthusiast with fifteen years of experience in various styles including Ryukyu Kempo, Tae Kwon Do, Gojo Shorei Ryu, and a sprinkling of Kung Fu. He is a skilled rider and has worked as a summer camp horse wrangler and performed in front of large audiences in both drill riding and stunt riding exhibitions.

Jim enjoys fencing, singing, bad science fiction movies and live-action gaming. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son, and a vicious guard dog.

Jim goes by the moniker Longshot in a number of online locales. He came by this name in the early 1990′s when he decided he would become a published author. Usually only 3 in 1000 who make such an attempt actually manage to become published; of those, only 1 in 10 make enough money to call it a living. The sale of a second series was the breakthrough that let him beat the long odds against attaining a career as a novelist.

Dark Halo blog tour + giveaway

Today we have author Christopher Kokoski sharing his 5 patterns of a bestselling novel and how he used them in his recent paranormal thriller Dark Halo.

5 Patterns of Bestselling Novels

If you read enough bestselling novels, a series of patterns consistently emerge that provide those popular stories with structure, organization and the sense of organic “reality” that readers subconsciously crave. Once you know these patterns, and how to apply them to your own fictional work, you can create stories that look, sound and “feel” like a bestseller. Imagine that! It’s as if you tap into the unconscious, little known architecture that the mega-authors like King, Koontz, Steele, Roberts, Jordan and many others use in all of their novels. 

Consider a reader opening the first page of your story and, often without knowing it, picking up on subtle signals in your writing that prompt them to think:

I recognize this structure
I like this structure
I’ve read stories like this from bestselling authors 
What could it do for your writing career, if every reader encountered those kinds of thoughts? Again, this probably happens all outside of the reader’s awareness. On the surface, the reader might simply say to themselves, “This book is for me.” However, under the radar, your story hooks them from page one and never lets go. 

Ready for the 5 patterns? Here you go.

Pattern #1: The Story Pattern – While there are exceptions, virtually every story follows an established pattern. Break the pattern at your own risk. It’s possible to break it and succeed, but your safest bet is to stick with the pattern that has served storytellers well for centuries. The Story Pattern, put simply, is:

Something Interesting Happens (Usually something bad that turns characters’ lives upside down) à More bad things happen to characters (increasingly difficult and life-altering complications and challenges) à Things get so bad it seems all is lost for the main character (this is sometimes called the climax) à The protagonist/main character/hero/heroine wins.

Again, there are many ways to adapt this structure to your specific story. For example, for my novel, Dark Halo, my story kicks off with a violent storm at the beginning, followed quickly by ghosts, a demon-possessed boyfriend and an unexpected visit from an angelic being. Events continually get worse as my main characters experience monsters, kidnappings, deaths, possessions and more as they plunge into the middle of an ancient war between angels and demons. You get the picture. Follow the story pattern, and you set your story up to engage the reader from page one. 

Pattern #2: The Architecture Pattern – This is the overarching pattern of your novel that gives structure to your story. Use this structure to guide the story from start to finish. Use it to set the parameters of your story. This is the essential foundation of your story upon which all other patterns stand. Although within this pattern there are numerous sub-patterns (the revenge pattern, the romance pattern, the mystery pattern, the thriller pattern, the heist pattern, the western pattern, the fantasy pattern, etc), choose the one that fits best into your story idea. You can even combine patterns. In my novel, Dark Halo, I chose to blend the thriller, suspense and paranormal/fantasy patterns. 

Pattern #3: The Emotional Pattern – This is the underlying, emotional pattern running through your story. Most of the time, this pattern is more “felt” than recognized by readers, except for perhaps a statement such as, “The story was full of action”, or “That story was so romantic/funny/thrilling,”, etc.  One strategy for inserting this pattern into your story is to ask yourself, “What is the major emotion I want my readers to feel?” or “What one feeling do I want to elicit in this story?” In my novel, Dark Halo, I want readers to feel “thrilling suspense” most of all. On every page, I asked myself, “Does this create suspense? Is this thrilling? How can I make it more thrilling?” By testing each page, each scene and the overall story with these types of questions, my goal was to embed the emotional pattern into my story. You can do the same with your stories.

Pattern #4: The Mini-Story Pattern – Each scene has its own pattern, and different kinds of scenes can have different patterns. This pattern is called the Mini-Story Pattern because most effective scenes contain all the elements of a story (i.e., characters, setting, plot, conflict, etc). Scenes consist of beginnings, middles and ends where motivated characters fight to achieve personal goals. Use the Mini-Story Pattern in each scene to pump structure into all parts of your work. In this way, your story unfolds in the most engaging, captivating manner that readers can’t resist. Once again, the Mini-Story Pattern follows the Story Pattern: 

Interesting event à Challenge/Struggle/Things get worse à Problem reaches a climax where things seem as bad as they can get à The scene ends, sometimes with the problem resolved, but often with another, usually worse, problem. 

In Dark Halo, the opening scene shows an angel falling out of the sky like a fireball. The angel struggles to stop his decent, and the scene ends with the angel in a heap of burning, black smoke. It’s the Mini-Story Pattern, and I repeat this pattern over and over again with different characters in different settings and circumstances, right up to the end of the novel.

Pattern #5: The Struggle Pattern – Finally, the fifth pattern is a character-specific pattern that plays out in multiple scenes in the overall arc of the story. Bestselling authors use The Struggle Pattern when they dramatize a character’s efforts to achieve a personal goal. Usually, the protagonist and antagonist (the hero and villain) have the most pressing goals. In other words, they are usually the most motivated characters, but minor characters also tend to have their own goals. Sometimes, these goals align with the main characters, sometimes they don’t. Most bestselling novels include a mix of characters, each with their own goals. As a rule of thumb, The Struggle Pattern typically includes a character making at least three attempts to achieve the goal before succeeding or failing. The main characters (protagonist/hero/heroine) usually make many more than three attempts. In Dark Halo, for example, the main character, Landon Paddock, fights to save his family in a town besieged by shadowy, demonic forces. While there are other characters with other objectives, Landon’s goal focuses the story from start to finish. 

In summary, here are the five patterns again:

The Story Pattern – Inciting Event à Rising Problems à Climax à Resolution
The Architecture Pattern – What genre is the story?
The Emotional Pattern – What one feeling do you want to elicit?
The Mini-Story Pattern – Each scene follows the Story Pattern above
The Struggle Pattern – Character goal à 3 attempts à Succeed or fail

If you want to see how all five patterns integrate into a fully formed novel, consider checking out my standalone story, Dark Halo. All five patterns are there, so you could even call them the “Dark Halo” patterns.

Thanks for reading this post. I hope you’ve enjoyed

Dark Halo by Christopher Kokoski 

genre: paranormal thriller 
334 pages 

In a town besieged by shadowy, demonic forces, a father races against time to save his family.

Thirty-five-year old Landon Paddock has deserted his wife and daughter, abandoned his business, and secluded himself in his late parent’s southern Indiana ranch. But he’s barely lapsed into a drunken coma when a mysterious, winged stranger appears during a violent lightning storm, chasing him out into the maddening night with his estranged 15-year old daughter.

As layer after layer of reality is dissolved by a series of violent encounters, the only way to survive might be for Landon to band together with the family he destroyed to make one last stand against a sinister army of unthinkable magnitude.

About the Author:

website-fb-twitter 
Christopher was born in Kansas, the son of an Army Ranger and Black Hawk pilot. He grew up in Kentucky and Germany, and graduated from Murray State University in 2002 with a degree in Organizational Communication. He spent the next three years laboring over his first book, Past Lives, while getting married to his college sweetheart, having a beautiful daughter, and more or less finding his stride in life. 

He currently lives in Southern Indiana and works in Louisville, Kentucky as a national trainer. He has presented at local and national conferences on a wide spectrum of topics including communication, body language, cultural sensitivity and influence. Other notable activities include writing articles, short stories, novels and training materials for national and international audiences. 

Christopher continues his passion and dedication to writing by working on additional novels, including a sequel to the Past Lives series. His most recent book is the standalone paranormal thriller, Dark Halo.

Dark Halo Tour page URL: http://www.firstrulepublicity.com/dark-halo/

 for a list of all blogs on tour

GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sheep Book Review: Shadow's Claim by Kresley Cole

Shadow's Claim, by New York Times bestseller Kresley Cole, introduces The Dacians: Realm of Blood and Mist, a new paranormal romance series following the royal bloodline of Dacia, a vampire kingdom hidden within the Lore of the Immortals After Dark. It's from the world we've come to love, and I can't wait to get my hands on the next installment! 

Plot: 

Shadow’s Claim features Prince Trehan, a ruthless master assassin who will do anything to possess Bettina, his beautiful sorceress mate, even compete for her hand in a blood-sport tournament— to the death.

HE WON’T BE DENIED

Trehan Daciano, known as the Prince of Shadows, has spent his life serving his people—striking in the night, quietly executing any threat to their realm. The coldly disciplined swordsman has never desired anything for himself—until he beholds Bettina, the sheltered ward of two of the Lore’s most fearsome villains.

SHE’S BOUND TO ANOTHER

Desperate to earn her guardians’ approval after a life-shattering mistake, young Bettina has no choice but to marry whichever suitor prevails—even though she’s lost her heart to another. Yet one lethal competitor, a mysterious cloaked swordsman, invades her dreams, tempting her with forbidden pleasure.

A BATTLE FOR HER BODY AND SOUL

Even if Trehan can survive the punishing contests to claim her as his wife, the true battle for Bettina’s heart is yet to come. And unleashing a millennium’s worth of savage need will either frighten his Bride away—or stoke Bettina’s own desires to a fever pitch. . . .

I've not, to date, read one book from Cole that was average. Ever. This woman knows how to bring the heat, passion, and adventure like no other! These stories contain some of the most vivid worlds I've ever had the privilege of reading. I'm not just a fan, I am a willing and loyal slave to the words she lays down on the pages! 

Shadow's Claim gets going from the first page and continues to build as they story glides along. Bettina is the reluctant Princess of a brutal realm. Wanting nothing more then to be an artist and lead a normal life, Bettina's faced with some seriously tough decisions. Her past has shaped who she's become and the scars that have left her with some personal demons to face. I liked Bettina's character a lot, but I will nit pick though and say that I wish the gal would have shown a little more cojones from the start. Fortunately she gets much better as the story progresses. 

Enter the man, the myth, and the legend himself: Prince Trehan! Oh mama jama did this tall, dark, and brooding male vampire grab at my heart strings and keep on pulling! He's the total alpha, but with so much love and heart. Stuck in a rut for decades, the vamp is finally coming to see the world around him and find out what love and happiness is all about. His skills on the battlefield left me breathless and wanting to snatch him away from the ungrateful little Princess! I'd take those leftovers any day of the week! 

Shadow's Claim is most definitely a fantastic start to a spin off series, with some of the characters we love from IAD (Immortals After Dark), but one both old and new fans can sink their fangs into. Introducing more colorful characters and keeping things lively and fresh. With action and adventure boiling over and all set to the pace of a medieval blood bath you can't help but fall for this one. 

If you love a well written, character driven story with blood guts and romance then look no further! 

Getting 4 and 1/2 Sheep 

KD