Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

Immortal Beloved refreshingly does not begin with a normal teenage girl suddenly discovering her paranormal abilities, and/or falling in love with a vampire or witch. The first book of Cate Tiernan's new Immortals trilogy instead begins with an immortal, Nastasya, suffering a crisis of conscience over her evil and feckless lifestyle. 

"After some of the events I've witnessed I felt like I was a shell with nothing alive left in me."

She runs away from her life and travelling companions and seeks out the paranormal equivalent of a rehabilitation centre, run by an immortal called River who has come to terms with her immortality and is trying to teach other immortals to live a more meaningful existence.

Despite the seemingly unattractive 12 step plot scenario (we all have our own emotional garbage and do we really want to wallow in other people's?) the novel is strangely engaging. It is well written and well paced, and I found myself getting sucked into sympathy with the main character despite myself.  And the big test: yes, I do want to know what happens next!

I am a big fan of Cate Tiernan's Wicca series, also known as the Sweep series.  This starts (more conventionally) with The Book of Shadows, in which the high school heroine, Morgan, discovers she is a 'blood witch' and begins a journey of learning how to use her 'magick' for good, while battling dark magic from less scrupulous practitioners.  She also has to cope with learning she is adopted as well as with more normal teen things like school and boyfriends.  Teachers and school librarians reading this may want to note that this series does deal seriously with Wicca, as opposed to being about 'fantasy magic', so some schools may have issues with these books.  Having said that, I find the series engrossing and well written and the central characters are all on the side of 'good', and are fighting hard against those who want to use magic for evil purposes.  I have re-read the whole series a couple of times, so they are in the 'worth re-reading' category as far as I am concerned.

Universal Pictures have now picked up an option to adapt the Wicca/Sweep series to film, so the books will probably be getting more attention here in NZ in future.  While Universal are undoubtedly trying to cash in on the success of the Twilight films, it should be pointed out that the Wicca/Sweep series was published between 2001 and 2003, while the first Twilight novel was published in 2005.

Apart from the Wicca/Sweep series I had not seen any other books by Cate Tiernan until I came across Immortal Beloved recently in the 'Paranormal' shelves at the bookstore.  I am now trying to track down her 'Balefire' series: watch this space!
Links:  Wikipedia entry on Cate Tiernan, Cate Tiernan's Official Website; Cate Tiernan Fansite, Article re up-coming Film adaptation of the Wicca Series.

Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich

Fiction.  Written for adults.

Best known for her series about the bounty hunter Stephanie Plum (starts with "One for the Money"), Janet Evanovich has launched a new series with this new book, "Wicked Appetite".  It connects peripherally to the Stephanie Plum series through the mysterious character, Diesel, who has 'more than ordinary abilities'.

I really liked this new book. Diesel is trying to recover the seven stones of power which each represent one of the seven deadly sins.  As you may guess from the title, we have started with gluttony. Diesel needs to get the stones of power before the baddies do or all hell will break loose on Earth (literally).  He needs a pastry chef called Lizzy Tucker to help him, as she has the ability to sense the power of the stones.

My favourite character is probably the amazing one-eyed ninja cat, called Cat 7143, who saves Lizzy's life.  Also featured is Lizzy's coworker, who has discovered a spell book and tries out some of the spells with mixed results...

A humorous adventure story with elements of the supernatural.