The Spy Who Haunted Me – Simon Green
Hachette Gollancz, 2009
327 pages
RRP: AU$32.99
ISBN: 978-0-575-07947-2

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

As the title implies, The Spy Who Haunted Me has a definite James Bond flavour, but in a paranormal world. Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond, is the hero of Simon Green’s Secret Histories series. The Spy Who Haunted Me is centred around a “Greatest Race” through the world and the otherworlds, where the final spy standing will win the retiring Independent Agent’s cache of secrets.

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The Accidental Sorcerer – K. E. Mills
Harper Voyager, 2008
442 pages
RRP: AU$24.99
ISBN: 978-0-7322-8604-0

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

The Accidental Sorcerer is the entertaining story of Gerald Dunwoody, a dangerously accident-prone Third Grade wizard. After losing his job as a public servant after a bit of an explosion, he manages to land a job as Royal Court Wizard in New Ottosland, Ottosland’s isolated colony in the middle of a faraway desert.

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Burning Alive – Shannon K Butcher
Penguin Onyx, 2009
368 pages
RRP: US$7.99
ISBN: 9780451412713

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Burning Alive is the first book in the paranormal Sentinel Wars series by romance author Shannon K Butcher. It follows heroine Helen as she finds out she is not just an average human, but one of the few remaining demon-hunting Theronai women, capable of wielding great magic against the monsters invading the earth, and saving one of the Theronai heroes from the torture of containing his magic.

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Sex, Lies and Vampires – Katie MacAlister
Hachette Hodder, 2009
342 pages
RRP: AU$19.99
ISBN: 978-0-340-95199-6

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Sex, Lies and Vampires isn’t my first experience with Katie MacAlister’s work, and I’m sure it won’t be my last. MacAlister writes very comic, steamy romances (and steampunk, and young adult novels, and, and…) and this one is no different. It’s one in her Dark Ones series of loosely-connected paranormal romances populated with vamps, summoners, poltergeists and mummies, just to name a few.

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How to Ditch Your Fairy – Justine Larbalestier
Allen & Unwin, 2009
298 pages
RRP: AU$17.95
ISBN: 978-1-74175-737-8

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

How to Ditch Your Fairy is different from the other novels I’ve read from Justine Larbalestier. It’s written in the same conversational, easy-to-read style, but the world it inhabits is more removed from our own, where a person’s luck is attributed to their personal fairy. Charlie, the heroine of this novel, is saddled with a parking fairy who ensures a perfect parking spot no matter whose car she is in. This is quite annoying for her as she a) doesn’t have a license yet and b) hates cars! Her mission is to get rid of her fairy and aquire another one, hence the title of the novel.

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Succubus in the City – Nina Harper
Hachette Livre Piatkus, 2009
392 pages
RRP: AU$19.99
ISBN: 978-0-7499-2922-0

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Succubus in the City is an interesting take on the paranormal romance genre. As the title indicates, it’s a play on Sex and the City, but our four gal-pals are demons in the service of Herself, Satan. Lily, the protagonist, is a succubus whose job is to deliver men’s souls to the devil by having sex with them. In return, she has the perfect life: lots of money, great flat, and a fabulous face and figure that she won’t lose, no matter how many servings of dessert she indulges in. In this story though, she’s starting to feel lonely and wants more than the one night she has with the men she picks up before they turn into a pile of dust on the sheets.

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Dark Space – Marianne de Pierres
Hachette Livre Orbit, 2007
416 pages
RRP: AU$19.95
ISBN: 978-1841494289

Chaos Space – Marianne de Pierres
Hachette Livre Orbit, 2008
395 pages
RRP: AU$19.99
ISBN: 978-184-149429-6

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

The first two novels in the Sentients of Orion series are the beginning of a fantastic space opera from Australian author Marianne de Pierres. After reading her Parrish Plessis trilogy I was expecting butt-kicking action in the same vein, rather than this twisting tale of plots and counter-manoeuvres centring around the invasion of Araldis, a small desert mining planet of no particular significance, and the discovery of Sole, a godlike entity who has an agenda which doesn’t necessarily correspond to that of the humans.

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Tall, Dark & Dead – Tate Hallaway
Hachette Livre Headline, 2007
280 pages
RRP: AU$22.95
ISBN: 978-0-7553-3655-5

Dead Sexy – Tate Hallaway
Hachette Livre Headline, 2007
RRP: AU$22.95
ISBN: 978-075-533657-9

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Paranormal romance seems to be popping up all over the place. A bit of sex, a few vampires, some sort of threat to mankind (or just the heroine) to spice things up, and voila: the new gothic romance.

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Graceling- Kristin Cashore
Hachette Livre Orion Gollancz, 2008
431 pages
RRP: AU$32.99
ISBN: 978-0-575-08462-9

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Kristin Cashore’s Katsa is a Graced killer – she has a talent for it that was discovered at the age of eight when she killed her cousin with one hit when he threatened her safety. As a result, she became an official bully for her uncle, King Randa of the Middluns, a role she despises but cannot see any way out of. Then she meets Po, another Graced fighter from Liend whose friendship encourages Katsa to question her power.

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Sleeping with the Fishes – MaryJanice Davidson
Hachette Livre Piatkus, 2007
272 pages
RRP: AU$17.95
ISBN: 978-074-993801-7

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

After reading quite a few of Davidson’s Undead series, I’m quite a fan of her style of paranormal romance. Instead of vampires, Sleeping with the Fishes is about a mermaid – a geeky marine biologist mermaid who is out to fight those who are polluting the local harbour. Of course, because this is paranormal romance, there’s the love interest. Two of them! Frederika, our heroine, needs to choose between a mermaid-obsessed co-worker or Artur, apparently the High Prince of the Seas. What a choice!

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