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Stone Chameleon by Jocelyn Adams – Review/Top 5 PNR series

Series:  Ironhill Jinn, book #1

Genre:  Urban Fantasy

Publisher:  MuseItUp Publishing

Release Date:  May 24th, 2013

Keywords:  jinn, vampires, elves, fantasy, urban fantasy, romance, romantic, mystery, suspense, humor, kelpies, elementals, paranormal.

 

Thanks so much for letting me take over your blog today, Harlie.  I thought I’d share my top 5 Favorite PNR series with you.  After all, everyone needs a great romance now and then, right?  J

5.         The Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews.  I love a hero who is strong yet mischievous, who is subtle in his pursuit of the heroine.  Curran is just perfect in this series.  I really like the premise of the tech and magic competing for domination and the constant threat of the daddy dearest coming into the picture.

4.         The Guild Hunter series by Nalini Singh.  This one had fantastic character development, deep relationships that build over time that really had me hooked.  Odd writing style sometimes, but for a great character, I can overlook a lot.

3.         The Anita Blake series by Laurel K. Hamilton.  This is the series that switched on the desire to write inside me.  It gets a little raunchy as the books go on, but up to about book 8 are my all-time favorites.  Love Jean-Claude.  Another mischievous hero who grows over time and sunk his fangs into me.

2.         The Black Dagger Brotherhood by J. R. Ward.  I picked this series up once before and never got past chapter one as I have issues with multi-POV books.  However, I’m so glad I picked it up again.  Once I hit the end of book 2, this series had me in chains.  The turmoil these poor characters go through make the romances so much more satisfying.

1.         Most definitely the top of my list is the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning.  I have most books/series figured out by book two, but this one had me guessing right up until the end.  The most amazing character ever:  Jericoh Barrons.  Does he hate her or does he love her?  What is he?  So many great questions I had fun finding the answers to.  I loved the latest one, Iced, too.  Love, love, love.

What’s your favorite PNR or UF series?  I’d love to hear from you.

I also interviewed Ms. Adams, too.  The link is right below.  Great interview.
Harlie’s interview with Jocelyn
Blurb:

When a series of unusual murders point to Lou Hudson, Ironhill’s equal rights advocate, as the primary suspect, she has but one choice: find the real perpetrator before her trial begins or face execution.

Lou, the last of the jinn, survives by hiding her abilities after the rest of the elementals fell victim to genocide. As a preternatural pest exterminator and self-proclaimed guardian of the innocent, she’s accustomed to trudging through the dregs of society. Hunting down a pesky murderer should be easy, especially with help from the dashing and mischievous local media darling.

For Lou, though, nothing is ever simple. When she discovers the killer’s identity, to reveal it would unearth her secret and go against her strict moral code, resulting in a deadly catch twenty-two.

 

 

Excerpt:

A flare shot over the rooftops to our left. I dove at Blake and slammed him to the pavement as another column of fire streaked toward us. The flames seared my back. The dragon bat was not a happy camper. Someone landed on my backside, crushing a grunt out of me and pounding my shoulder blade while Blake gasped beneath me.

“Bloody hell, Amun,” I said, before I realized he did it to put out the flames eating up my shirt. “Oh, I see. Thanks.”

He pulled me up, and the three of us ducked behind a car in the parking lot beside the Whip and Tickle, a vampire fetish-wear shop. The owl-sized bat swooped over us again, blasting an inferno that exploded the front window of the shop, sending studded leather and melted mannequins onto the sidewalk.

Three of the other creatures we’d hunted lay dead on other streets, the scorpion included, all by my sword when I’d been left with two options: kill or die. Twelve more were contained in three trucks. The bat remained the only unwelcome visitor in Fangtown. Other than us, of course.

“This is madness, Lou.” Amun panted beside me, his arms rising to shield his head as the bat exhaled on a Mini Cooper two cars over, the crackling and popping suggesting we should find a new hiding place.

“I agree with Mr. Bassili,” Blake said, his drawl worsening with his fright. “What the hell in a hand grenade do we do now?”

Rudy poked his almost translucent head out from behind the newspaper boxes he dove behind during the first fiery blast. The poor guy shook so badly I’d have been surprised if he could see anything. I gestured to him to stay put. “We’ve scared it, not something you want to do to a dragon bat.” A deep exhalation centered me enough to think. “I seem to recall the pecking order in a colony of bats. If we want protection from the dominants, we must present an offering of food.”

“And that helps us how?” Amun, his face blackened with soot and smeared with dirt, tilted to rest against the tire of the car, appearing as frazzled as I’d ever seen him. The sight induced a belly laugh that wouldn’t be contained.

He took on a strange expression of one eyebrow cocked and a half-grin, as if he wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. “What?”

I waved him off. “Nothing, I think I’m just losing my marbles.” Rising up enough to see around the car to Rudy, I shouted, “Rudy, do you have any rodents in your truck? Rats or mice?”

“No,” he hollered back, “but I can call some for you.”

I nodded. “As fast as you can.”

Flapping came from our rears. Crackling. A blast tossed the front of a car up until it crashed down on its hood, crushing a Mazda behind it.

“Move!” I shoved at Amun and tugged Blake toward the back of the fetish shop, since it was much closer than the front where flames still poured out of the broken window. Amun kicked out with a startling force against the wooden door. It took three tries, but it finally gave. My, but he was strong. We rushed inside and crouched behind a cement wall beside a set of stairs leading down.

“What do you want the rats for?” Amun asked with obvious suspicion. “Tell me you don’t want one of us to go out there and dangle something for that thing to come and snatch, probably toasting us to a golden brown in the process? Because I think I’ve grown a healthy dose of sympathy for marshmallows right about now.”

“Don’t worry, Amun. I’m going, not you. We just need to listen for Rudy to come back, if he hasn’t chickened out and run for the hills. Hopefully rats like to hang out here and aren’t snapped up for evening snacks.” There was a reason the umikan stuck to small, normal pests, other than his ability to talk to them. Although he’d deal with the scarier stuff when the need called for it, he usually didn’t have enough courage to fill a thimble.

“What?” Amun palmed his forehead. “You can’t be serious.” He gestured toward the door. “Have you been oblivious to the destruction that thing caused just in the last ten minutes? It’s pissed, and I don’t think it’s going to care about some little morsel you offer it.” His frown tugged at his features. “Why are you smiling like that?”

I shrugged, hopped up on adrenaline and enjoying the sight of the great Amun Bassili squirming. “This is what I do for a living.”

“You’re enjoying this?” Both of his eyebrows jacked up.

“Yup,” Blake said, rolling his eyes and chuckling from deep in his belly. “Weirdest broad I ever knew. Takes a bit of starch outta the ole manhood, don’t it?”

I wiped the char from my hands onto my jeans. “To do a job one takes no pride in is a travesty, in my opinion.”

At Rudy’s shout from beyond the wall, I said, “Stay here. Don’t come out until I call or you could send the bat into fits again.”

Review:

 

I need to admit to my dear readers that I’m not a fan of Urban Fantasy.  Yes, I just came out and admitted it.  That said, I COULD.NOT.PUT.THIS.BOOK.DOWN.  Let me list the reasons why:

1.  The world building in this story is breathtaking.  Its set in what was Philadelphia and Ms. Adams description of it the city is now is spectacular.

2.  The characters grabbed me from the beginning.  Lou, Amun, Isaac, Harper, Dom and Gerry.  Lou is a jinn but since the war that wiped out the jinn, she hides it from the world and her friends.  Amun, is the mysterious businessman that has decided that he wants Lou for his own.  Many mysteries surround him but damn, he is swoon worthy.  Isaac is the vampire leader and all around asshat (villain) in the book.  And he’s Scottish…in a kilt.  But still an asshat. 

Harper is Lou’s friend from her childhood and is a pixie.  OMG, the amount of sugar that girl eats will leave you in a diabetic coma.  Gerry is the human cop that helps Lou when he can and Dom is one of Lou’s co-workers that has a thing for Doritos.

3.  Again, I go back to me NOT reading Urban Fantasy.  The main reason why I loved this book is the fact that while it is UF, it’s also a paranormal.  Only, it’s NOT your typical paranormal.  Sure we have a vampire but there are more mythical creatures in the book that held my attention so much more.  The creatures that she has come with in the story are different and complex. 

4.  There is a guinea pig in this story named Benny.  I had guinea pigs when I was growing up and Benny is a character all unto his own.  🙂

5.  The blood trace, marking ceremony, bad jinn and all around mysteries that are NOT solved in the end left me speechless.  Yes, the book is left wide open with no romantic HEA or HFN.  I don’t particularly like that in my reading but for this series it makes perfect sense.  Read my interview with Ms. Adams and you will understand.  Isaac isn’t finished torturing Lou yet.  Asshat!

6.  The “villain” in the book will return but I really really want him to suffer, too.  Again, this goes back to my not reading of UF.  In most UF books, the villain stays around for a while and we don’t get the HEA/HFN between our beloved hero/heroine for a long time.  And for this story, I liked that.  Really liked it.

7.  I know that you are probably shaking your head wondering if I enjoyed the book and that would be a resounding HELL YES!  Even if the ending was heartbreaking for me and left wide open.  I would beta read for Ms. Adams, if she would let me.  😉

 

 

About the Author:

Jocelyn Adams grew up on a cattle farm in Lakefield and has remained a resident of Southern Ontario her entire life, most recently in Muskoka. She has worked as a computer geek, a stable hand, a secretary, and spent most of her childhood buried up to the waist in an old car or tractor engine with her mechanically inclined dad. But mostly, she’s a dreamer with a vivid imagination and a love for dark fantasy (and a closet romantic — shhh!). When she isn’t shooting her compound bow in competition or writing, she hangs out with her husband and young daughter at their little house in the woods.

 

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2 thoughts on “Stone Chameleon by Jocelyn Adams – Review/Top 5 PNR series

  1. Good top 5 …..I like all 5 of the series that Jocelyn mentioned plus I also love the Mercedes Thompson series by Patricia Briggs – I believe that’s classified as UF ……Thanks for the spotlight on Jocelyn’s book – I’ll have to add it to my list

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