Tag Archives: Bite Back

Queen of Diamonds (by Mark Henwick)

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Urban Fantasy

The first six books in the Bite Back series are books of becoming. Inside Straight (book 6) felt very much like an end to that part of the story. Amber Farrell has grown into her three parts, her athenate (vampire), were and adept (witch). 

Queen of Diamonds is a new chapter. Her house, her pack and her coven are all united and now she must move forward with uniting the werewolves and the athenate of North America while fighting a secret war against their enemies. 

Amber travels from Denver to New Mexico and then on to Louisiana battling House Matlal. But there are rumours of a powerful witch in New Orleans, a witch who is the goddess of her own world. 

It really is difficult to talk about this book. The entire series has been 4 or 5 Stars for me, and this is probably my favorite book in the series. It has everything you expect from an Amber Farrell book but the ending is a complete mind f––k. I finished a week ago and I still don’t really know what just hit me. I suspect I will need the next book before I start to understand what just happened. 

Angel Stakes (by Mark Henwick)

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Urban Fantasy

After travelling to New Mexico to rescue Diana (book 4, Cool Hand), Amber was on the brink of going rogue. With her kin’s help she managed to fight it off but there remains a sickness in her soul that is poisoning her. She needs to deal with that, she needs to recover. But without even a moment to catch her breath she is called to Los Angeles to once again walk the fine line between the warring parties of Athanate, Were and Adept.

Not only must she try to form an alliance with the Were, she has to hunt down and deal with an evil which has been 10 years in the making.

One of the weaknesses in Urban Fantasy (in my opinion) is that stories are essentially stagnant. Authors just throw bigger and badder villains into the mix while the main characters essentially remain unchanged. It’s why I start to lose patience with a series after two or three books. Not here. As the story develops, the characters develop, they become more, they mature and they learn from their mistakes.

If there is a weakness, I think it is that you can read the early books in isolation, but as the series develops that’s less the case. I’m a Mark Henwick junkie so I don’t mind, but some might. Still, you could do a lot worse than jumping into this series. Start with Raw Deal the novella that introduces Amber Farrell, if you love that, your love will only increase as you continue.

Great book, great series.

Position in Series:  Book 5

markhenwick0.5 – Raw Deal
1 – Sleight of Hand
2 – Hidden Trump
3 – Wild Card
4 – Cool Hand
5 – Angel Stakes

 

Screen Shot 2016-04-25 at 1.34.01 PMOrange, Red, Yellow. What it means:  red-orange-yellow-guide

 

 

 

 

Hidden Trump (by Mark Henwick)

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Urban Fantasy

Amber has accepted that she’s Athanate (a vampire) and is making her first hesitant steps as the head of her own House with responsibilities and kin. Making her already complicated life even more complicated a rival Athanate House is hunting her down and plans to run medical experiments on her. Keeping her head down would be the smart thing to do but she finds herself once again in the middle of things and she’ll need every skill the army taught her if she’s to have a chance of getting herself and her kin out alive.

This book is perfect –– I just can’t think of a single bad thing to say about it. At 600 pages it’s longer than your typical Urban Fantasy but it’s one of those (rare) cases where longer doesn’t translate to yawns. I finished the book and was kind of sad that it ended, I really think I could have gone on indefinitely without a care in the world.

For this series I’ve been listening to the audiobooks. Book 1 Sleight of Hand was released in late 2014, This book came out about a week ago, and Book 3 Wild Card is on the way. Hidden Trump introduces a new narrator, Julia Motyka, and she’s perfect. She does both male and female voices well and she completely owns Amber Farrell.

If you want to try some on some great urban fantasy, Mark Henwick is definitely worth the effort.  He’s one of the few authors who make me so happy I could jump.

Screen Shot 2014-02-16 at 4.32.33 pmOrange, Red, Yellow. What it means: red-orange-yellow-guide