Manga Review: Demon Love Spell Vol 2 by Mayu Shinjo

Title: Demon Love Spell Volume 2
Author: Mayu Shinjo
Publisher: VIZ Media
ISBN: 1421550776
Release Date: 03/05/2013





I have to say that this series is starting to bring me closer to the type of fan I was when I began reading Shinjo's work with Sensual Phrase. You could argue, and be correct, that her work suffered due to various companies forcing her to churn out SP clones, but it's taken her a while to really get her creative juices flowing again. This has to be one of her strongest works lately, in my opinion.

A supernatural romance by the creator of Ai Ore! and Sensual Phrase 

Miko is a shrine maiden who has never had much success at seeing or banishing spirits. Then she meets Kagura, a sexy demon who feeds off women’s feelings of passion and love. Kagura’s insatiable appetite has left many girls at school brokenhearted, so Miko casts a spell to seal his powers. Surprisingly the spell works—sort of—but now Kagura is after her! 

Shrine maiden Miko has sealed the powers of the sexy incubus Kagura, who has vowed to protect her. But now a fox spirit has transformed himself into a human to proclaim his love to Miko, making Kagura jealous. Miko relents and allows Kagura to enter her dreams again, but now he can no longer regain his incubus powers?!

I think part of what makes this volume work is that the romance between Kagura and Miko is being built relatively slowly while still having plenty of nice steamy situations for them to tumble into. Miko does want Kagura, more so than she's really ready to admit, so most of the romance development in this stems from that aspect. Kagura's rather patient for a demon so much older than Miko is, but at the same time it kind of hammers in that Miko's still an inexperienced teenage girl. I kind of like that because this type of series is better when you have to make the two main characters work through their own personal issues before getting together. There are other plot points that come in and try to separate them, but the biggest issues are the ones that come directly from themselves and their own hangups or problems. This is part of what made Sensual Phrase so good, that even though the plot d'jour might have been sparked by some guy/girl/potted plant out to take one of the two people in the couple for themselves, the main problem was really some pre-existing insecurities or issues that the rival brought to the surface. I'm starting to see where this will be the case with this series and I'm pretty excited about that.

The artwork is, of course, top notch. Fans of Shinjo's steamier works will be a little sad to see that there isn't anything graphic in here, meaning no sex, but there are still a lot of pulse pounding scenes to be had. The artwork does a great job of bringing across the emotions. I'll admit that some of it is typical Shinjo and it'll be the same type of character designs that you've seen before, but the nice story lines help keep it from being too familiar.

I really loved this volume and when it ended, I was sad that I didn't have at least another chapter to flip through. This is turning out to be a series that I'd recommend to fans of steamier stuff and to older fans. Since Kagura is an incubus I wouldn't recommend it to younger readers for obvious reasons, as much of his actions are sexually driven. Incubi gotta eat, after all. There are no sex scenes, but there are sexual-ish situations and it's referred to frequently. Older teens would be fine with this, although parents will probably want to exercise some caution. You know what you want your kids reading, after all.

4 out of 5 stars

(ARC provided by VIZ Media)

Manga Review: Demon Love Spell Vol 1 by Mayu Shinjo

Title: Demon Love Spell Volume 1
Author: Mayu Shinjo
Publisher: Viz Media
Release Date: 12/04/2012
ISBN: 142154945X






I've liked Shinjo's work in the past, although I'll admit that after a while some of her work just seemed to be a little bland, too much of a copy of Sensual Phrase. This was partially due to a publisher Shinjo had been working with, but for a while afterwards I just couldn't seem to get into the stuff she'd released even after she broke off with her old publisher. I'm officially digging her work with Demon Love Spell, though.

Miko has a lot of problems. She's the daughter of a prestigious family that's known for having an impressive ability to see and dispel demons, yet Miko herself lacks the power to even see the supernatural. So when she manages to bind the super sexy incubus Kagara, no one is more stunned than her, especially when she traps him in a chibified version of himself. The two soon discover that Miko does have power, but it only seems to manifest when she's touching him. With extremely powerful demons beginning to circle the now weakened Kagura, Miko must find a way to restore him to his true power as well as to find a way to confront her own increasingly complicated feelings towards him.

If you're wondering, the smut level in this actually isn't that bad when you consider how mature some of her other works are. It's relatively tame at this point in time, with sex being referred to and there being sexually charged moments but no actual depictions of sex to the degree that you see in some of her other works. This doesn't mean that this won't change as the relationship between our two main characters changes, so if you're someone who doesn't like seeing smut in your manga then I'd approach this with a degree of caution.

The story here is rather straight forward. It's your typical "boy meets girl, enter the supernatural creatures and romantic entanglements" stuff that you've come to expect from manga and Shinjo, but it's just so incredibly cute that you won't really mind that you've seen a lot of this before in various incarnations. The chibified version of Kagura is fairly cute and it's one of the first things that drew me into the volume so quickly. It hits a lot of my manga quirks pretty hard (chibi versions of things, romance, a little light smut, etc), and I have a feeling that this will do the same for a lot of other readers. My only true complaint is that this does seem to suffer from "first volume-itis" because there's one or two tedious parts where the action slows down so we can have some groundwork laid for future story lines and plot arcs. It doesn't ruin the overall fun of the volume, but it is slightly noticeable.

Now when it comes to the artwork, I'll warn you: it's your typical Shinjo. By this I mean that the artwork is well done and the guys are all suitably hunky bishies, but that they also all look like various incarnations of male characters from her other works. Shinjo's style is fairly distinctive and her habit of making the main romantic lead resemble the main romantic lead from other works still applies here. As the series pretty obviously makes a point to show that Miko will eventually end up with Kagura at some point, I can overlook this for the most part. I would like some variety, but I do love the way she draws her men.

I have to say that I'll undoubtedly collect this series and store it next to my Sensual Phrase books. It's fairly well done and I couldn't help but love the setup. It's fun, it's cute, but most of all, it's something that I want to read the next volume of.

4 out of 5 stars

(ARC provided through Edelweiss)

Book Review: No One to Trust by Julie Moffett

Title: No One To Trust (Lexi Carmichael #2)
Author: Julie Moffett
Publisher: Carina Press
Release Date: 06/13/2011







After having read Moffett's previous book in the LC series, I was pretty excited to give the second entry a try. There was just something addicting about Lexi's adventures that keept drawing me back in and I'm glad to say that entry #2 is no exception.

SWFG: Single, White, Female, Geek.

That’s me, Lexi Carmichael, a reformed hacker who was gainfully employed by the National Security Agency. But a series of extraordinary events led me to leave government life behind for a fresh start with a brand-new company and an incredibly sexy boss, Finn Shaughnessy. It may not be kosher to have the hots for your boss, but he seems to have the hots for me, too. If only things didn’t get so complicated…

Darren Greening, a genius researcher from Flow Technologies (our first client!) is missing, and his bosses think I’m involved. And they aren’t the only ones—the man who nearly snapped my neck in the parking garage thinks so, too.

Now I’m caught in the middle of a complex and dangerous case. I’ll have to use all my geek skills and a little help from my friends to solve the mystery of Darren’s disappearance before Neck-Snapping-Man makes a return visit…

I don't know much about the hacking world, but I do know that I enjoyed this book greatly. I love Lexi and I love the situations she gets herself into. She's a feisty heroine and we finally get to see her hands get a little dirtier than they did in the previous novel, which I enjoyed. One of my gripes with the first novel was that Lexi did little of her own hacking work, which isn't the case in this book. Lexi does just as much as the next person in this mystery.

The love interests are pretty sexy as well and are developing pretty well at this stage. I have my own personal favorites as far as who Lexi should end up with (Team Zimmerman!), but Lexi's reasoning for who she likes and what she is or isn't going to do is pretty realistic. There's also a decent amount of competition and/or other barriers keeping her from each guy, giving good reason to draw out the tension for just a little bit longer. (As long as it doesn't get as ridiculously drawn out as the Stephanie Plum love triangle has, I'm good with this.)

I will say that the mystery does move quickly and at times the plot seemed to move a little too quickly, not giving me as much time as I'd have wanted on some issues. I can't elaborate without getting spoilerish, but let's just say that there were some issues I wanted to linger on a little longer as far as the missing researcher goes. You get a good sense of what is what and I didn't end the book feeling unsatisfied, but it all seemed to get wrapped up a little too quickly for me. This isn't really a gripe, just more of an observation since it didn't really get in the way of my reading experience that much.

Overall this book was awesome to read and I can't wait to get my hot little hands on the next book in the series. It's honestly a shame that these are only in ebook format at this point in time since I think they'd sell well in paperback format.


5 out of 5 stars

(ARC provided by Netgalley)

Book Review: Vampire Vacation by C.J. Ellisson

Title: Vampire Vacation (The V.V. Inn #1)
Author: C.J. Ellisson
Publisher: R.H. Publishing
Release Date: 10/10/2010
ISBN: 9780982661000







While there have been a lot of vampire books flooding the market, I can safely say that I haven’t seen a novel combine vampires, sex, mystery, AND innkeeping. Shoot, I’ve never seen a vampire hotel themed book before, so that element alone intrigued me.

Ancient vampire Vivian runs an Alaskan inn that caters to an ultra exclusive crowd, specializing in erotic pleasures. Money can’t buy your way in, nor will wearing the right clothing. No, to gain a room in this hotel you have to be an owner of a pair of fangs or at least be traveling with someone who does. Vivian’s pretty happy to spend her days quietly in the cold North, hiding her true powers from those would have her dead. When a dead body is found in one of the hotel rooms & old threats from the past threaten to re-emerge, it is going to take Vivian’s entire arsenal to figure out what is going on & to keep her precious peace from being disturbed.

Liberally sprinkling generous portions of red hot sex scenes in with a mystery that is slow to reveal its secrets, Ellisson gives the audience the usual vampire powers with just enough new additions to make the book interesting. Having a vampire run a hotel just for her fanged counterparts to freely romp in is something that isn’t usually seen, which works surprisingly well.

The only downfall of the book is that there’s a LOT of back story going on here, so much that some readers will wonder if they’ve picked up the second book in a series or if there are previous books out there further detailing Vivian’s exploits. Ellisson does her best to elaborate on Vivian’s past in brief glimpses, but it will still leave some readers feeling like they’re being left a little in the dark & looking for prequel novels.

Overall, this is a decent first novel by Ellisson. There are a few rough spots to work out here & there (mostly dealing with Vivian’s past as noted above), the spicy & lovingly written sex does make up for it.

I will let you guys know that while there is going to be a sequel dealing with things mentioned at the end of the book, the author has told me that there will be a prequel to the novels dealing with Vivian's past. So fear not- we'll eventually get a novel dealing with all of the past mentioned in the book!

(Reader copy provided by author)

Book Review: Coming Clean by Inez Kelley

Title: Coming Clean
Author: Inez Kelley
Publisher: Carina Press
Release Date: 08/30/2010
ASIN: B003U89S8O







WARNING: This book contains lots & lots of sex & adult situations, so it's not appropriate for all audiences!

I'm just giving you guys a head's up- this story is firmly in the erotica genre, so there's a lot of sex involved in the story. The pairings in this book are M/F, M/M, & M/M/F, so if you don't like same sex pairings then this might not be the story for you. With that warning in mind, on with the review!

Grant & Vivi have a seemingly perfect marriage. They keep no secrets, they play together well... and they both seem to have a not so hidden desire for Grant's childhood friend Cade. When Vivi asks Grant to help fulfill her secret fantasy to have both men in her bed at once, Grant is initially a little shy but warms to the idea quickly. After all, he & Cade have a bit of a history, an encounter in their youth that he's remembered all too vividly- something that Vivi is aware of & is driving her reasons for requesting the threesome. But can friendships & marriage survive the encounter?

This is a wonderfully sizzling read. The sex scenes are so wonderfully written that it'll bring more than a little blush to your cheeks & quicken your pulse! Readers will love that Kelley has not only managed to bring these wonderful sex scenes to the book, but that she also manages to convey a bit of story to it as well. Part of what made the short story work so well for me is that Kelley made sure to focus on the non-sexual parts of a threesome- the fear that this might drive a wedge into a relationship as well as focusing on the trust & love necessary to make such an arrangement work.

The only thing that sort of threw me was that once in a while the story jumped to other points in time quite suddenly, making me have to flip back a few pages to see if a day had passed or if this was just a flashback. This might be because the story is quite short (only about 90 pages long), but rest assured- this doesn't hurt the story any.

I can't help but hope that Kelley gives us a story about this group again in the future. There's plenty of story potential for these three. This was a wonderfully written story that fans of hot fiction will be sure to love!

(Reader's copy provided by NetGalley)

Book Review: Shadow of the Vampire by Meagan Hatfield

Title: Shadow of the Vampire
Author: Meagan Hatfield
Publisher: Harlequin
Release Date: 07/01/2010
ISBN: 0373775008







Are you a fan of steamy sex? Do you like vampires but are a little tired of some of the "stereotypical" types of vampires out there? Do you want something that's a little bit different? Even if you don't, you should still check out Hatfield's first entry into the paranormal romance field.

Alexia is not your average princess. For starters, she's not only a vampire but she's also a warrior who has been at battle with the dragons for more years than she can remember. Her days are filled not bloodshed she wishes she could avoid- along with her mother's creepy fiancee Lotharus. It isn't until she has a run in with the handsome dragon lord Declan that she feels true desire for the first time in her long life. Despite her vows to defend her country,eradicate the dragons, & kill their king, Alexia finds herself drawn to Declan even as she knows that she should torture him for the location of a magical crystal that could give her people the advantage in the war. Her desire is more than met by this fierce warrior king as he finds himself equally drawn to her. Is their desire an abomination destined to ruin their kingdoms... or destiny itself?

Despite being a newcomer to the field, Hatfield proves that she has the talent to not only write an enticing romance but to draw in readers who might not normally read paranormal romance. Readers will be seduced by the sizzling hot scenes between Declan & Alexia as well as enticed by the much of the world that Hatfield brings us. People who want a little action to their stories will also enjoy that Alexia is no shrinking violet- she knows how to defend herself as well as kick a good sized piece of butt. And the villain? Readers will enjoy seeing a villain that is evil for the sole purpose of being evil.

The only shortcomings to this book was that some readers might want a little more explanation about the world that these supernatural beings live in as well as have more development of the secondary characters & the social structure of the dragon world. There's signs of both races interacting with the human world (technology, guns), yet no explanation of how they can go undetected by humans- especially if they're having large battles like in the book. There's no human interaction with dragons or vampires in this book & as such the modern technology just felt a little out of place. (With today's modern technology you'd think that humans would have detected the dragons or the vampires.) As for the secondary characters & the dragon culture, we do get glimpses of them but not as much as we do the vampire characters & their world.

Overall though, the shortcomings don't really draw away from how incredibly fun this book was to read & with Hatfield bringing out more books set in this world, I'm certain that we'll get more explanation about the world & cultures of these people. I'm looking forward to seeing Hatfield flesh out the series as well as reading about the future adventures of Declan's sister Tallon. (Can't specify without revealing spoilers!)

(ARC provided by Netgalley)