Otherworld Secrets is an anthology containing five stories related to the Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series.Life After Theft stars Hope and Karl. Hope is a tabloid journalist, a half-demon that feeds off of chaos, and the daughter of Lucifer. Karl is a werewolf and a master jewel thief. (I can't help but think of the 1955 film To Catch a Thief when I think of Karl.) A thief in a building full of valuable artifacts; a chaos craving half-demon surrounded by objects with dark pasts - what could go wrong?
Forbidden focuses on the werewolves, specifically on how Morgan came to join the pack. It was also published as a stand alone novella, which I reviewed previously.
Eve and Kristof are two minor characters who have since died and moved on to the afterlife. In almost no one's idea of heaven, people still have to work. Kristof does legal work as he did in life. Eve works part-time as an avenging angel for the Fates, or something like that. I've forgotten the precise details of her arrangement with the Fates. Angelic revolves around one of Eve's missions. Eve is a fun character. She has always been the bad good girl. In life she was a witch who embraced dark magic and sorcery. (In the Otherworld series, witches who are always women and sorcerers who are always men have been engaged in a long standing feud over whose magic is better.) In the afterlife Eve is the angel who doesn't always play by the rules.
I actually read The Ungrateful Dead, which focuses on Jaime, a while ago and don't remember all the details. (I'm reading the Otherworld series in chronological order which means skipping around in the anthologies.) In any case, I love any story involving Jaime and Jeremy. I wish there were more of them.
Zen and the Art of Vampirism focuses on Zoe, a minor character in the series. It was a quick, funny read about a couple of vampires who make the mistake of trying to take over Zoe's territory.
Counterfeit Magic stars Paige and Lucas, along with Page's ward Savannah (although she is an adult now so I'm not sure if she would still be considered ward), and friend Adam. Of all the Otherworld couples Paige and Lucas are the most ordinary. He's a lawyer and she, if memory serves, did something like build websites and otherwise help people with computing issues. Paige is also a witch, as is Savannah, and Lucas is a sorcerer. Adam is a half-demon. Several books, novellas, and short stories in to the series, and Paige and Lucas have now been married for eight years and they're struggling a bit under the strain of all their ventures and commitments: their investigative business, their work with the Cortez family cabal, and their work interracial council (for dealing with issues among the various supernatural races), plus the added work of being married and staying married. I liked this story. It started out about one thing and ended up somewhere else.
I love this series and am almost done with it. It will be sad when I reach the end. Luckily, Kelley Armstrong has several other series waiting for me to read.
Short story collections are not my strong suit when it comes
to reading. I’m never quite sure what to make of them. Give me a 250-page
collection of short stories or an 800-page tome, in 9 out of 10 cases I would pick
the tome. Short stories often feel too short. Just as
I’m getting into the story, it’s over and then I’m still holding the same book
in my hands but a completely new story has started. So it was with some
trepidation that I picked up Margaret Atwood's Stone Mattress. Actually trepidation may be
overstating it. I have read two (yes, only two) books by the great Canadian
author, and I liked one and loved the other, so I was fairly certain I would
get through Stone Mattress okay.