Rating: 
Summary: strong supernatural romantic novellas
Review: "Darkfest" by Amanda Ashley. Before the scribing of history, the Wizard Darkfest desires peasant Channa Leigh. He offers to save her dying mother's life in exchange for Channa staying with him at his remote castle for a year. Channa will do anything for her beloved mother even living with the devil."Phantom Lover" by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Erin McDaniels suffers from horrendous nightmares. Though her marketing report due-out fails to keep her awake, this time a champion V'Aidan challenges the serpent Krysti'Ana. V'Aidan and Erin make love, but when she awakens she realizes he resides in her dream realm. "Under Her Spell" by Maggie Shayne. Alexander Quinn hired Wicca practitioner and UCLA alternate religious professor Dr. Melissa St. Cloud as a consultant on witchcraft set to bring reality to the film. However, the White Witch expert never expected to fall into the arms of the director nor have that lead them to a battle for their souls on the dark side. "A Wulf's Curse" by Ronda Thompson. In 1820 England, Elise Collins keeps reminding herself she is an adventurer running from her arranged marriage though the beasts in the caravans frighten her. Even scarier is how she feels about the Beast Tamer, Sterling Wulf, whom she just recently met yet feels like she loved forever. Sterling's skills come from a special affinity with the animals and though he loves the newcomer, he keeps anything permanent from happening. This quartet of supernatural romantic novellas contains strong tales that sub-genre fans will fully treasure due to the fervent lead protagonists enhanced by deep secondary characters. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Thompson's Story Keeps It From Being a Time-Waster
Review: An anthology with two of my favorite authors- Maggie Shayne and Sherrilyn Kenyon! How did things go so wrong?
The anthology kicks off to a less than grand start with Amanda Ashley's Darkfest. I know not to expect much from this author, but I have to wonder why she is writing for an adult market. Her writing style and premises are so girly that it's a wonder the pages aren't written in pink ink with glitter and sugar coming out the pages. The tall dark and dangerous daddy figures who fixate on unextraordinary lolita girls because they are so pure and good quite being a romantic fantasy for me when I was 12. What's worse is that Ashley seems totally unaware of the nasty pedophile overtones that permeate 90% of her books. Darkfest just adds to that with some nasty beastiality undertones.
Okay, Darkfest is a sorcerer dude who lives up on a mountain. He can turn into a wolf. He befriends Channa-Leigh, a blind girl from the village, as a wolf. Channa Leigh is Pure, Pure, Pure. Can't remember if she's blonde. But she's gonna get married! So Darkfest makes her come live in his creepy castle because he loves her so. Channa can see when she touches his wolf form. Darkfest wants Channa to rub his tummy.
Darkfest is basically a lonely, losery geek who lives in his dad's basement and obsesses over the most popular babe in school. He was a male virigin until he lost his virginity to a female wolf. Color me grossed out. It's a shame that while Ashley's writing style continues to evolve and become smoother, her ploting and characterization is still stuck in the 3rd grade.
Next comes Sherrilyn Kenyon's first story about the Dream Hunters, a spin-off of the popular Dark Hunter series. What happened? I'll tell you what. Kenyon has created a complex mythology for the dream hunters, but she does little with it. Instead she tries to cram in all the sex she would put in a full length novel and chops out everything else out of the plot but the bare basics. Okay, so make the story an full-out sexual romp, but don't try to give Erin, the female lead, issues about how fat she is next to the hot-studdly V'aiden.
Next comes Maggie Shayne's comtemporary witch-yarn. The problem with this story is that Maggie is using it as a soap box for an axe she has to grind about the stereotyping of Wiccans. Anthology pieces tend to be too short as it is, so focus on plot and characters. Bring the heavy hitting issues up in full length novels. Anyway, the hero is producer of some cheesy TV show about magic wielding witches that will probably appear on the Sci-fi channel. The heroine is a white witch that wants the show to provide an accurate picture of Wiccans. Hero is flippant and dismissive, Heroine tries to set him straight, Hero stupidly fools around with dark powers, Hero and Heroine have sex, Heroine saves Hero from evil forces, Hero sees the true path.
Oh, Rhonda Thompson I could kiss you. I almost thought about skipping this one because Kenyon and Shayne bombed so badly. This a historical werewolf tale that is sort of like Susan Krinard's best work. It's a marvelous tale that is forcing me to keep this wreck of an anthology instead of tossing it out. It starts out a bit shakily with Elise hiddening in the circus to escape nasty relative and wandering into the bed of Sterling, the Beast Tamer. It just improves so much as it goes along. My emotions were in engaged. I understood were Sterling and Elise were coming from, and Thompson even found time to flesh out the secondary characters. It's a shame that this story didn't come by itself. Next to Thompson's story, the other three uninspired novellas look like garbage.
Rating: 
Summary: I ripped up the book. . .
Review: and took out the stories by Sherrilyn Kenyon and Ronda Thompson. The others were so bad--and Ms Shayne's so preachy--that I couldnt keep it whole. I was offended by the inclusion of the Wiccan Reede to be read prior to the love story. I am a fan of Ms Shayne's other works especially her Twilight Series, but the story in this anthology left me cold.
Rating:
Summary: Kenyon's story makes this a keeper; others BLAH
Review: Anthologies are usually hit or miss but I at least like one story to be a good one. "Phantom Lover" by Sherrilyn Kenyon was the only thing that saved this for me. I was absolutely enthralled with this tale of dream monsters and saviors. I loved V'Aidan who was Erin's champion against the horrible creatures that stalk her when she sleeps ... but he kept saying she didn't know him.... I immediately re-read this novella after the first go round. Amanda Ashley is an author I normally like. The storyline for "Darkfest" was ok but there was no real passion or emotion. Just sort of pleasant and boring. Shane's "Under Her Spell" just didn't capture my attention at all. Could not bring myself to read beyond a few pages and it offered no appeal to me. "A Wulf's Curse" - well Beast Tamer aka Sterling (I liked the name better than the story!) was an interesting character but the "curse" was a bit silly. Elise was rather a good heroine but this short storyline did not allow a further examination of either characters or curse. Not very good. There you have it. Better to borrow this one though it will make my keeper shelf just for the Kenyon entry.
Rating:
Summary: Kenyon's story makes this a keeper; others BLAH
Review: Anthologies are usually hit or miss but I at least like one story to be a good one. "Phantom Lover" by Sherrilyn Kenyon was the only thing that saved this for me. I was absolutely enthralled with this tale of dream monsters and saviors. I loved V'Aidan who was Erin's champion against the horrible creatures that stalk her when she sleeps ... but he kept saying she didn't know him.... I immediately re-read this novella after the first go round. Amanda Ashley is an author I normally like. The storyline for "Darkfest" was ok but there was no real passion or emotion. Just sort of pleasant and boring. Shane's "Under Her Spell" just didn't capture my attention at all. Could not bring myself to read beyond a few pages and it offered no appeal to me. "A Wulf's Curse" - well Beast Tamer aka Sterling (I liked the name better than the story!) was an interesting character but the "curse" was a bit silly. Elise was rather a good heroine but this short storyline did not allow a further examination of either characters or curse. Not very good. There you have it. Better to borrow this one though it will make my keeper shelf just for the Kenyon entry.
Rating:
Summary: A snooze-fest from authors who should know better
Review: Given the three major authors involved in this (plus one I've never heard of), I expected something really good to great from this collection of short stories. It came up far short of either of those. The editorial review summarizes each plotline well enough, so I'll just offer some comments without delving into spoilers. In the first section by Amanda Ashley, there are some serious plot and timeline flaws. The characters literally manage to set off on a short quest one day and by the following page, we've spanned three seasons. In this story especially, the brevity is jarring and unpleasant. I'm still scratching my head at how these two came to love each other in about 20 pages of descriptive narrative and I have no idea what Darkfest is supposed to actually be. Reading this, you will have many questions - don't bother looking for the answers in the story, they're not there. Maggie Shayne's story is confusing, not particularly sensual or interesting and I was mostly glad that it wasn't longer. The heightened tension was completely forced and the quickie ending was just strange. Sherrilyn Kenyon's story is the only one of the four that I would have loved to read in longer form. I liked her heroine and liked that the hero was seriously flawed. There's an attention to detail that Ms. Kenyon uses that makes you forget you're reading a short story, and I found everything she said about witchcraft to be plausible. This would have been an outstanding long book and encourages me to look for more books by this author. The final story by Ronda Thompson was just strange. I know the point of these stories was that they're full of "otherworldly" characters, but the writing doesn't have to be bad, does it? So many words are crammed into each paragraph, it's frustrating when there's still no storyline advancement a dozen pages later. This may have been included because of the werewolf angle, but it really is not any kind of otherworldly romance, it's just a poorly written short story that is unsatisfying. Finally, overall I was left with a feeling of, "and that's it?" when I finished this book. None of the stories were at all satisfying or anything original. You'd do better to read Laurell K. Hamilton for vampires, werewolves and fairies.
Rating:
Summary: A snooze-fest from authors who should know better
Review: Given the three major authors involved in this (plus one I've never heard of), I expected something really good to great from this collection of short stories. It came up far short of either of those. The editorial review summarizes each plotline well enough, so I'll just offer some comments without delving into spoilers. In the first section by Amanda Ashley, there are some serious plot and timeline flaws. The characters literally manage to set off on a short quest one day and by the following page, we've spanned three seasons. In this story especially, the brevity is jarring and unpleasant. I'm still scratching my head at how these two came to love each other in about 20 pages of descriptive narrative and I have no idea what Darkfest is supposed to actually be. Reading this, you will have many questions - don't bother looking for the answers in the story, they're not there. Maggie Shayne's story is confusing, not particularly sensual or interesting and I was mostly glad that it wasn't longer. The heightened tension was completely forced and the quickie ending was just strange. Sherrilyn Kenyon's story is the only one of the four that I would have loved to read in longer form. I liked her heroine and liked that the hero was seriously flawed. There's an attention to detail that Ms. Kenyon uses that makes you forget you're reading a short story, and I found everything she said about witchcraft to be plausible. This would have been an outstanding long book and encourages me to look for more books by this author. The final story by Ronda Thompson was just strange. I know the point of these stories was that they're full of "otherworldly" characters, but the writing doesn't have to be bad, does it? So many words are crammed into each paragraph, it's frustrating when there's still no storyline advancement a dozen pages later. This may have been included because of the werewolf angle, but it really is not any kind of otherworldly romance, it's just a poorly written short story that is unsatisfying. Finally, overall I was left with a feeling of, "and that's it?" when I finished this book. None of the stories were at all satisfying or anything original. You'd do better to read Laurell K. Hamilton for vampires, werewolves and fairies.
Rating:
Summary: It's a keeper for at least one story...
Review: I gave this book 3 stars for Ms. Kenyon's and Ms. Thompson's stories, mainly. I'm sure I've read Ms. Ashley's story (Darkfest) before, only the names of the characters were changed. Amanda Ashley wrote the same story before - girl required to stay at dark lord's home for specified amount of time, only she falls in love with him...
There were only very small elements changed, and even so, the story hinted that he really was a vampire. Ms Shayne's story (Under her Spell) wasn't bad, and even though the education was nice, I felt as though it were a public service announcement, as in "overload." I didn't think that the readers needed every piece of Wicca-lore possible crammed into the story. The story should be paramount. I didn't get that sense with this one. Ms. Thompson's story (A Wulf's Curse) presented an interesting setting in the traveling freak show. The characters were interesting, and I was intriguiged by the hints of the snake-woman (what was she really? Lamia?). But the gem of the book was really Ms. Kenyon's Phantom Lover. Her short stories are always too short. Her dragons are always too sexy. *sigh* How is that possible?
Her mix of mythologies is interesting and begs the question? Can a bad-boy demi-god be reformed? Let's hope so!
Rating:
Summary: Kenyon's story makes this a keeper; others BLAH
Review: I got this collaboration mainly because of the authors. I've read all but one, Ronda Thompson before and was happy with them. I was really unhappy with this set of stories that are all based on the supernatural.
They were mainly very blah and nothing to get excited over. The best in the batch by far was Sherrilyn Kenyon's, and the worst was either Ronda Thompson's or Maggie Shayne's.
Amanda Ashley's 'Darkfest' was very different. It reminded me of a fairytale the way it was about a strange man who lived on a mountain in a dark castle that the town's people below feared but needed for survival. A girl in town was blind and her family needs his help to save the mother who is dying, so he demands the girl in payment. Soon they fall in love and there is a dragon and magic and all that goes with it. It was okay in the sense of being interesting, but far from being a good typical Ashley tale.... 2 stars
Sherrilyn Kenyon's "Phantom Lover" was in all the best story and for those diehard fans of her work, which I am, its worth the book just to read the tale of the Dreamhunters and how demons steal your desires and creativity and how the Dreamhunters keep you safe. Not directly related to her Darkhunter series, but if you know the novels and follow the stories, you will enjoy this story about Erin McDaniels and her fear of falling asleep and how a certain Hunter comes to her rescue...but who really needs saving?...4 Stars
Maggie Shayne's "Under Her Spell" was something of a miracle that it got published, IMO. Farfetched and really boring to the point of barely being able to finish. The 'white witch' who falls for the darkside because of a too-handsome man she encounters. Skip this one... A little too contrived and hard to swallow...1 star
Ronda Thompson's "A Wulf's Curse" was a tiny bit better than the Shayne story, but it too lacked any fire or interest. Unbelievable and too artificial for my tastes. Bring in an arranged marriage, a runaway and a traveling circus and a beast tamer who is other than he seems and you got yourself a Disney-like tale that falls flat....1 Star
Tracy Talley~@
Rating:
Summary: Disapointing Collaborationof Otherworldy Tales...
Review: I got this collaboration mainly because of the authors. I've read all but one, Ronda Thompson before and was happy with them. I was really unhappy with this set of stories that are all based on the supernatural.
They were mainly very blah and nothing to get excited over. The best in the batch by far was Sherrilyn Kenyon's, and the worst was either Ronda Thompson's or Maggie Shayne's.
Amanda Ashley's 'Darkfest' was very different. It reminded me of a fairytale the way it was about a strange man who lived on a mountain in a dark castle that the town's people below feared but needed for survival. A girl in town was blind and her family needs his help to save the mother who is dying, so he demands the girl in payment. Soon they fall in love and there is a dragon and magic and all that goes with it. It was okay in the sense of being interesting, but far from being a good typical Ashley tale.... 2 stars
Sherrilyn Kenyon's "Phantom Lover" was in all the best story and for those diehard fans of her work, which I am, its worth the book just to read the tale of the Dreamhunters and how demons steal your desires and creativity and how the Dreamhunters keep you safe. Not directly related to her Darkhunter series, but if you know the novels and follow the stories, you will enjoy this story about Erin McDaniels and her fear of falling asleep and how a certain Hunter comes to her rescue...but who really needs saving?...4 Stars
Maggie Shayne's "Under Her Spell" was something of a miracle that it got published, IMO. Farfetched and really boring to the point of barely being able to finish. The 'white witch' who falls for the darkside because of a too-handsome man she encounters. Skip this one... A little too contrived and hard to swallow...1 star
Ronda Thompson's "A Wulf's Curse" was a tiny bit better than the Shayne story, but it too lacked any fire or interest. Unbelievable and too artificial for my tastes. Bring in an arranged marriage, a runaway and a traveling circus and a beast tamer who is other than he seems and you got yourself a Disney-like tale that falls flat....1 Star
Tracy Talley~@
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