Augh! Monday. It’s like Sunday night’s bastard sister. I am exhausted and it’s the beginning of the week, my list of things to do is just being made and I already want a break. Cry! Cry! How tough is life!
The book I chose for my Makin’ the Love Monday is something that I actually read a few weeks ago but I loved it and it is deservin’ of the kudos–so here is it’s red ribbon reward and all.
I found this book in my Amazon recommendations and I usually get the weirdest recommendations from Amazon so when I read the synopsis and it sounded good I sort of figured that Amazon must have screwed up and sent me someone else’s book suggestion. Night of the Tiger (This book is free for Kindle at this time) by N.J. Walters is the first book I have read by this author, despite finding she has written more books than the phone book has Smiths, and it was A-mazing. If I had to condense a description of what the beginning of this book is like I would say–imagine Dante’s Inferno, a hodgepodge of Bosch art, the TV show Carnivale, and Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter Series–put them all together, stir them up, shake that upside down, now add a little kitten tail and some mythologically screwed up comics and you get the world as it’s known to Aimee and Roric.
Aimee Horner is a recluse and she lives in a fantasy world which has been fed in the 
recent months by terribly macabre nightmares which have been far too real for her own liking. However in the light of day the only thing that really seems to stand out once the images fade is a white tiger who watches over her and a man she knows is connected to that pretty putty-tat. Roric has been cursed for 5,000 years and Aimee is about to set him free and when she does they will have twenty-four hours to break his curse or both their souls will be forfeit. N.J. Walters brilliantly throws everything in their way. She really leaves them challenged by almost everything except for smurfs and tie-fighters although if Hades could have made those into demons and sent them their way I think she might have worked them in too.
About the first 30% of the book actually mind-screwed me, and it’s intentional. I read some reviews on Goodreads and Amazon of people who really did not like it because it is very disorienting and hectic. You are supposed to feel as confused and lost as Aimee. It’s so effectively done that when you land it’s jarring, were it not for the fact that I really appreciated the aspect of surreality and chaos, I would have felt it to be a very awkward element in style. I will have to say that the bizarre, nightmare quality of the start of the book will not be for everyone and many paranormal and supernatural romance readers will give up before the book hits it’s cruising speed. If I could stress anything to anyone it would be to stick with it because the fantastical start does even out and the main story is not the bedlam that occurs at the carnival. From the time she arrives there it is very much like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, except imagine if wonderland was a bacchanal. However after she and Roric are transported away from the carousel things are less manic and the story begins to read a great deal less like the nonsense you see in your own dreams.
The secondary characters are few in this book but there is the promise of more in later books. Roric is one of four cursed shapeshifting warriors left who serve his imprisoned goddess. His goddess known only as, ‘The Lady’, is lost in the underworld after Hades frees her and she wanders lost through the catacombs of Tartaros. Moredecai is a former warrior who had been freed that is introduced in this book and he’s bad at being good and good at being bad, and despite being a gray character I liked him alot. But I like my men like I like my coffee. Evil. Hades is there and gone during much of the book. And Aimee’s ex-best friend and evil plant succubi, Sandra–who is pretty much a walking evil vagina is there whenever you need someone to really dislike.
The series promises to be incredible and I really think that if this book is any indication of what other N.J. Walter books are like than it is time for me to take in a few more. I think I counted twelve different series which gives me a veritable cornucopia of flavors to choose. Dalakis Passions and Project Alpha look good so I can shuffle between them all for some yumminess.
N.J. Walters can be found on her website where she has a complete list of all her book as well the news to her upcoming book Howl of the Wolf which will be released on October 8, 2013. She is active on Twitter and Facebook. Her Amazon Author page and Goodreads pages also list her books and you should show her your appreciation and support by buying her books.
Thanks for reading.
