Cat Adams

TO DANCE WITH THE DEVIL was an amazing thrill ride. Celia turns down a case but that doesn't stop a very evil mage from threatening her and endangering her and all of her friends. She also manages to forgive herself for not being able to save her sister Ivy's life when they were children which was just what Ivy needed to move on to the afterlife. While Celia will miss the presence of ghost Ivy in her life, she knows this a best for Ivy.

Celia's mother doesn't feel the same way. Lana is in show more prison on siren island after a bunch of DUIs and, though forced to dry out, she is still a very unpleasant person who can never take responsibility for her own actions and who persists is blaming Celia for all the things going wrong in her life. Celia loves her mother but really wishes that she didn't. She is able to stay out of her toxic presence and still maintain her relationship with her grandmother which had been severely strained because the grandmother was a classic enabler who always took her daughter's side.

Beyond the personal, Celia gets involved in a blood feud between magical families that almost kills her. But the blood feud is only part of Connor Finn's plans. He and some confederates are determined to take over the node under the prison he has been in for 22 years. Finn is an extremely powerful mage who also happens to be a psychopath. It takes the combined powers of Bruno and Matty, John Crede, and Bruno and Matty's mother Isabella to recreate the protections that keep prisoners in the prison. They are working node magic which requires the death of a mage. Celia is going to do everything in her power to make sure that mage is Connor Finn and not one of her friends.

The story was exciting, action-packed, and fast paced. I liked the friendships that Celia maintains. None of her circle of friends are cardboard characters but, rather, people we know and care about. The one thing I missed was more romance as Celia and Bruno get to spend very little time together in this episode.

This was a great episode in a strong urban fantasy series. I recommend it highly. show less

Review courtesy of AllThingsUrbanFantasy.blogspot.com

Review:
It’s no longer enough to have traditional vampires or classic werewolves in urban fantasy books, we want something new, something innovative when it comes to the supernatural. In Cat Adams (aka C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp) BLOOD SONG we get treated to a host of new (and tweaked familiar) paranormal creatures including bats, nulls, abominations, werewolves, demons, clairvoyants, mages, psychics, and others I can’t giveaway.

Celia show more Graves is a vanilla, someone without any magical abilities at all. She’s worked hard to make up for her lack of magical prowess by rigorous physical and weapons training that have helped earn her well deserved reputation as one of the best elite bodyguards. She has a slew of cool spells and gadgets that help her defend against all sorts of paranormal nasties…until she narrowly survives a vampire attack that half turns her. Now she’s an Abomination (dhampir), feared by humans and hunted by vamps.

As you can imagine, being hunted by blood thirsty vampires translates into lots of action, but to be a truly excellent urban fantasy (which BLOOD SONG is), I need some kind of romance as well. Cue Celia’s mage ex fiancé and a seriously smokin’ hot werewolf. The two of them provided plenty of romantic tension that promises to play out in future books.

And did I mention the topnotch plotting? Cat Adams doesn’t appear to believe in coincidences, everything that happens in BLOOD SONG has a reason. This provided several very cool ‘oh, that’s why…’ moments for me while I was reading. Seemingly insignificant details early on combined for some extremely satisfying revelations at the end. It’s always good to read a series written by an author who understands the importance of good plotting. I’m sure there will be even bigger payoffs in the subsequent Blood Singer books.

Overall, Cat Adams new Blood Singer series, starting with BLOOD SONG, is the latest in a string truly excellent urban fantasy debut’s this summer. A resilient heroine, a supernatural smack down, and not one but two potential romantic leads? I can’t wait to read Siren Song which will be released on September 28, 2010 followed by Demon Song in 2011

Sexual Content: References to sex. References to homosexuality. A scene of sensuality. show less

I discovered the Blood Singer series a couple months ago, thanks to Tynga’s post about a blow-out sale at bookcloseouts.ca a while back. It’s such a fantastic site that, incidentally, has free shipping right now -- for a limited time only -- so go check it out, my fellow Canucks!

With each book, I love the Blood Singer series even more. I wasn’t sure I could love Celia and her world more but I was thrilled by Demon Song. The two ladies (C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp) who write as Cat show more Adams have done an amazing job with this story, not only in this book but in the series in general. I’ve been thrilled by all three installments. There are romantic developments, interesting magic, high stakes action, and some excellent character work, particularly in Demon Song. It’s impossible for me to say what I liked best about this book because it was all so good!

One of my favorite aspects of the series is the nature of Celia’s supernatural abilities. She was attacked by vampires at the start of Blood Song, but she wasn’t converted all the way, so she’s a half-vampire (or an Abomination, depending on who you talk to), carrying some vampiric traits (needs to drink blood, burns in the sun) but not all of them. Celia clings to her humanity, sometimes by the skin of her teeth, so she’s this sort of hybrid human-vampire. Plus she’s got Siren in her background, which remained dormant until she was bitten. This combination of Siren and vampire is something I haven’t seen in other stories and it makes Celia a force to be reckoned with, both in her world and also the genre. (Plus, we rarely see sirens in UF/paranormal books, at least compared to vampires and were-beasties, so it’s a refreshing take on traditional UF vampirism.)

Of course, it’s not just her powers that make Celia awesome. She’s got a winning personality, if you like tough, stubborn women, which I do. And so do some of the men in the book, since Demon Song puts the Creede-Celia-Bruno love triangle in the middle of the action. I can totally understand why Celia is torn between Bruno, her ex who’s this powerful, adorable Italian guy with baggage, and Creede, who’s just as powerful and accepts Celia as she is but has some sneakiness and mystery about him. They’re both interesting, compelling characters and have very different things to offer Celia. Her confusion about what to do with two men after having years of no men is pretty funny, too.

The romantic subplot is woven seamlessly into the main plot line about the scary rift that’s letting demons invade our world. The demon invasion was really neat since it lets the reader learn a lot more about how magic works in the Blood Singer series, and harkens back to events from previous novels since there’s a demon who has a lot of personal investment in Celia (though you don’t need to know precisely what happened before to get into Demon Song since the authors do a great job of filling in the blanks). I love how the stakes in this book are higher than they’ve ever been, and how Celia is the only one who can deal with it, thanks to her mixed heritage. I also love that Celia’s forced to deal with her own issues in this book, since she has to help Kevin and his dad out of a pickle. The authors have done an admirable job of beating Celia up, both emotionally and physically, in this book and I can’t wait to see what they put her through next. Whatever it is, I’m sure that readers will love it!

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I also write at http://ireadgood.wordpress.com show less

I feel in love with this book from the first chapter. We have a protagonist that is one tough kick-arse chick with real problems and deals with them realistically. She is a body guard/vampire hunter with a great (boarding on geekish) love for her weapons and gadgets. She is self supporting and works hard to pay the bills. When her life or her friends lives are in danger she does not stop to play footsie with some hunk she gets into gear and does something. Actually, there is only one brief show more romantic encounter and it is quickly put aside.(not in the heat of danger) The other characters are just as appealing, and yes there are some hot men but they have a job to do too. There were some hints of a possible love interest in the future.
What a fresh breath of air this story and characters were. I really liked her and respected the hard choices she had to make. This is Urban Fantasy the way I like it. show less