KC Book Review: "Kept"

“Kept”
Zoe Winters
Digital List Price: $1.00
Kindle Price: $0.80
File Size: 125 KB
Publisher: IncuBooks (November 25, 2008)

“Kept” by Zoe Winters is a great read for fans of fantasy, paranormal romance and magic. Priced at under a dollar, I’d also suggest giving it a try even if those aren’t your usual genres of choice.

Winters’ writing is really good and the characters are interesting, though I suspect they’ll be even more fleshed out in the second and third installments of this three-novella trilogy. It definitely left me wanting more, although this story is complete and extremely satisfying. The erotic scenes were well-done and intense, with just the right balance of explicit and suggestive. Winters’ also has a talent for conveying emotion and depth with straightforward sexuality, something many romance writers lack.

I enjoyed every line in “Kept” except the very last, which I felt was unnecessary and even a bit cheesy. Its six little words managed to jar me out of the delicious feeling I usually get at the end of a good read. But it was hardly enough to detract from the rest of the book, and I can’t wait to learn more about this world and its mythology, magical rules, Werecats and sorcerers. I’m in for the series.

KC Book Review: "Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married"

"Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married"
Marian Keyes
Digital List Price: $10.95
Kindle Price: $8.76
File Size: 415 KB
Print Length: 624 Pages
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (May 9, 2006)

“Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married” is entertaining, light fare that's a bit reminiscent of “Bridget Jones's Diary.” Our heroine and narrator is a single young woman living in London, drinking and partying with her pals while looking for love in all the wrong places.

I have no problem with that. I liked Bridget Jones and I like Lucy Sullivan. Poor Lucy just can't seem to see through her own obvious patterns and stop creating her own bad news. The supporting characters are interesting as well, if not all quite as likable. Lucy has her work friends, her two roommates, a best friend who happens to be male and a best male gay friend who really doesn't seem to have much of a point in this story. (Would it be so wrong for the heroine not to have a gay male friend?)

Overall, Keyes' writing is very good, though I did find myself skimming a few times when Lucy and whoever she was bouncing her reality off of seemed to be sharing still more info about codependency and who may or may not be an alcoholic.

But I liked the journey that Lucy takes and I like where she ends up. It was hard to be patient with her during those times where she seriously deludes herself, but if she were my friend, I would have forgiven her those times for all the other strengths she has.

The best thing I can say about this book is that I wanted to keep reading. I wanted to get past the bad relationships to what I assumed was going to be a happy ending. I don't want to give it away…you may see it coming and you may not. But it won't matter, because it’s such fun getting there and well worth lingering for just a moment in world of “Lucy Sullivan.”

KC Book Review: "The Last Sonofabitch of Klepton" by Scott Bieser

If you're one of those who waited eight long years for a comic fable that would draw parallels between our world under the previous administration and Superman's doomed home planet of Krypton, then hang on to your non-renewable energy crystals. "The Last Sonofabitch of Klepton," a razor-sharp political satire by comic artist Scott Bieser ("The Probability Broach," "Roswell, Texas") has been released as a 34-page Kindle comic and is definitely worth a look.

The story is populated by thinly-veiled political figures like Gore-El, who recruits buddies Dorb-El and Nob-El to help him wrest power from King Dubb-Ya and Dict-Cha. Along the way Dubb-Ya wages woof against Terrierists and Gore-El concocts a scheme involving the faraway planet Earth and something called the O-Zone. In Bieser's world, both sides of the political spectrum get their due.

Granted, most of the main characters in "Klepton" have shuffled off the national stage since Bieser's story first appeared last year in strip form. There are also quite a few typos in the text, and for some reason three of the pages seem to be softer than the rest (Locations 4-5, Locations 11-2 and Locations 8-19), which can presumably be fixed. But this is mostly noticeable because of the crispness of the other pages, which seem to use all 16 of the Kindle's shades to great effect in sharply defined lines and wonderful gradient backgrounds that give added depth to many panels. And for just 99¢, this is the best way I've seen yet to check out how clean the device's graphics can look in the right hands.