Stephenie Meyer's Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined

It happened. I couldn’t stop myself from buying the anniversary edition of Twilight with the new gender switch/flipped version of Twilight called Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined. The thing that really wrapped around my brain and made me buy it was the opening where Stephenie Meyer tells us what percentage of the various changes, updates, corrections, gender roles, etc. that she did to this reimagined novel. I was intrigued to see how she would have made Twilight better, cleaner, richer… It wasn’t the gender switching of the characters.

I would recommend this book to twilight enthusiast... I would keep it in the back of my mind for newbies to twilight who I know have no interest in reading a series but want the feel for it. It's a single book which was nice. It was good to see the author polish things up although I didn't like her choice of characters names, that's just me though. It was a struggle getting into the book at first. You feel like, “Wait a minute, haven’t I read this?” But as you get used to the different/new characters, absorb the names and “who is who” you eventually (and it took me a lot of will power to stick with it) get sucked in to see how Meyer is going to wrap this up. You know deep down a girl vampire is VERY unlikely to get pregnant from a human boy. Anyways, my advice is to stick it out and read to the end. It’s interesting.

The author definitely wouldn't have received her acclaim, fame or huge bank account with just this novel. I highly doubt Fifty Shades of Grey would have been born of it either.

Great anniversary gift for twilight fans.

Patricia Briggs' Moon Called

This past fall I found myself visiting the Oregon coast. The thing I love about visiting the coastal towns is that there are always book stores. The city I was in had at least 5- I was in heaven. Patricia Briggs novel Moon Called is one of the treasures I found on my coastal adventure. I am very happy I bought this new to me author, especially since she has quite the backlist of books! Moon Called is the first book in the Mercy Thompson series. It was fantastic and I can’t wait to get more Patricia Briggs in my life!

Moon Called introduces us to a fantastic set of supernatural and human characters. They are strong, believable, engaging and enticing. I love the world Briggs has created- with the supernatural living with and among us; some openly and some covertly. Briggs does a great job telling us about the various species of supernatural- werewolves, vampires, fae, and walkers. She gives you enough tidbits to keep the reader comfortable, engaged in the story and hooking you into an overall plot you know the author has in mind, but leaves a bit of mystery there, especially with shifters like Mercy, for the reader to want to know more and keep reading the series.

That said, the novel’s synopsis is spot on. Mercy can’t help but get herself into trouble and spooky situations every chance that she either gets or when she thinks it’s her duty to help out.  

                                “Mercedes "Mercy" Thompson is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-       Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to             shift into a coyote at will. Mercy's next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she's fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that      looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy's       connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water...”

The romance is a slow simmer in this novel. The love triangle that’s not quite a love triangle yet was intoxicating in Moon Called between Mercy, Adam and Samuel. Briggs sets her characters up individually and then starts the slow entanglement that leaves the reader panting to know what will happen!!! Give me book 2 in this series already! (Good thing I am “late” finding this author and she has quite a few books in this series published already!) I also really appreciated that the author took the time to flesh out and introduce us to the more minor and support players in Mercy’s world. They helped create the mood, dynamics, and mysterious scraps of information needed for a series like this.

I would absolutely recommend this author and this series to my dear readers. It has action, adventure, sexual tension, kick ass characters, violence and mystery.