Her Book Self

Two things I love are good book recommendations and new-to-me authors.  And vampire novels.  Okay, so that's three things, but they've all combined in a book that I heard a lot of buzz about before I actually picked it up and tore through it.  Recommended to me by several other readers (and most recently by author J.C. Phelps) I recently read and enjoyed Reining In - book one of The Network series by Dawn Judd.

Khalida is a vampire, and in the thousands of years she has existed she's managed to pile up some secrets, as well as a group of trusted individuals hired to help guard them. Her group is called the Network and their talents range from personal security, to computer hacking, to tracking her enemies, to reinventing Khalida's identity when she's stayed in one place too long. Her life doesn't foster the ability to get close to others very often but when the lives of the few she calls friends are threatened by events from Khalida's ancient past, she must do everything in her power to protect those she cares about.

Reining In offers an interesting take on vampire mythology in a fast paced, high-action story. Author Dawn Judd creates an intriguing heroine in the vampire Khalida. With a genre populated by sparkling, spooky and seductive males, the female with fangs was a refreshing change of pace. Equal parts dangerous hunter and vulnerable friend, Khalida is the element that makes this novel a worthwhile read and I am eager to see where Judd leads her characters in the sequel Phantom Rising.

I read this book at the end of last year but I held my review until now as part of the tour that's currently going on for Reining In from the blog Author AdvenTours.  For those unfamiliar, the site is designed to connect authors and bloggers introducing the former to new avenues of publicity and the latter to great new books.  I'd like to give a special welcome to anyone visiting Her Book Self for the first time, I love both comments and new followers (and new followers who leave comments).  And for my fellow bloggers, feel free to pop over to Author AdvenTours and check out the fun opportunities to discover new books and authors!

(Also, my apologies that this post was supposed to be accompanied by an interview with Dawn Judd.  This interview was postponed by me due to craziness surrounding the holidays, however, the kind Ms. Judd has agreed to an interview that will hopefully be coming later in the year with my review of The Network Book 2 - Phantom Rising)