Z is for Zippy Last Lines

Ten of the zippiest last lines you will ever read! They are all from my favorite books. The Black Jewels trilogy, some from the Vor books by Lois McMaster Bujold and some books by Joey W. Hill. I have read all of these again and again and again.

1. His heart held on fiercely to Jaenelle‘s soft, sighing caress of his name. Everything has a price. – Daughter of the Blood, book 1 of the Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop
2. Gathering up his shredded courage, he walked toward the voices, toward the promise. Walked out of the Twisted Kingdom. – Heir to the Shadows, book 2 of the Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop
3. This time, when she said his name, it sounded like a promise, like a lovely caress. – Queen of Darkness, book 3 of the Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop
4. It wasn’t your life again you found, going on. It was your life anew. And it wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. His slow smile deepened. He was beginning to be very curious about his future. – Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
5. “Really? You’d – you’d – yes, I’d be interested.” Kostolitz feigned a casual air. “Sure.” He looked suddenly much more cheerful. Miles smiled. – The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
6. “They must be rounding up the strays for dinner. Shall we go in, milady?” – A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold.
7. Miles settled back with slitted eyes, and watched the shining circle spin like planets. – Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold.
8. In that moment, he knew any words of his would honor the truth as much as those flowery sonnets. “I think we did that.”  – Vampire Trinity by Joey W. Hill
9. Strong, sexy exterior and steel core, with a generous, shy heart that was all his. Forever. His family. – Rough Canvas by Joey W. Hill
10. He grinned, caught her lips in a kiss, swung her up in his arms. “Try it, sugar. Just try it.” – Natural Law by Joey W. Hill

The End

What are some of your favorite last lines?

Teaser Tuesday: Bound by the Vampire Queen

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

With only five thousand of us in the world, survival is everything. We cannot stagnate. We can be strong, true to our nature, and yet still consider changes that augment that strength and nature.

- Bound by the Vampire Queen by Joey W. Hill

Book Review: Vampire Instinct by Joey W. Hill

Amazon Summery: As servant to vampire mistress Lady Daniela, Elisa is unwaveringly devoted-but she recoils at one shocking request: destroy the untamed, undead children entrusted to her care. There is one desperate option: Malachi, a Native American vampire who is a legend for his work with rehabilitating feline predators. And as Malachi struggles to control the young ones’ impulses, he opens himself up to those of Elisa-and the passion they share for the night could seal their fates forever.

I read this awhile back and I really liked it. It’s very emotional, very intense and hot. This is a Joey W. Hill book; you know you can count on the heat factor. But it’s possibly more emotional than any other book in this series and that’s not an easy thing to do.

Malachi isn’t like other vampires. He lives away from other vampires because he doesn’t care for vampire society. Instead he stays on his island and rehabilitates large cats for release into the wild. That’s why he’s given wild, damaged vampire fledglings and asked to make them ready to live in the vampire world.

Elisa was badly traumatized in a previous book, but still tries to help the made vampire fledglings. The vampire fledglings are not children, really, in terms of years, but they are stuck in children’s bodies, in a child’s brain and always will be. It’s tragic. Despite all that, Elisa thinks of them as her children. It’s why she comes with them to Malachi’s island. They are her reason for living after her trauma.

In fact, the most intense scene involves one of the vampire children. It would be, right? Children (even if they are out-of-control, blood-sucking vampires) always tug at the heartstrings.

The oldest of them gets loose – they are kept in this enclosure, like one of those especially made habitats for dangerous predators in zoos – and rapes one of the other fledglings, a girl. Jeremiah, the second oldest boy, kills him dead. Then he wants to know if Malachi is going to kill them. It’s pretty heart-breaking.

Malachi doesn’t, but in order to introduce them to vampire society, he needs to go out into it himself. He takes Elisa with him as his servant.

That’s where I had trouble with this book. Despite being a servant all her life, Elisa has never participated in any of the sexual games vampires play. It’s odd. Malachi has to teach her, and yeah, she performs beautifully but still . . . It’s was just an odd note in an otherwise wonderful book.

Also the romance . . .yeah, this is a romance and I need at least a paragraph about the romance. The romance is strong from page 1.

It develops through the children, through Malachi helping her with her trauma, through Elisa helping him through his. Yes, he has trauma in his past, too. There are reasons why he lives on an island with no other vampires. It’s slow and pretty damn believable. They need each other.

It develops through the sex, too, but they are probably the least important element in this novel. The sex scenes are hot and kinky and all that. They certainly contribute to the story, but despite them, I would have to call this more romance than erotica.

If you take out all the sex scenes, you still have a very solid story. This is not true for other Joey W. Hill novels. Vampire Trinity, for example. In that one, if you take out the sex scenes, you lose a large chunk of the story.

Related articles

• Teaser Tuesday: Vampire Instinct (storytreasury.wordpress.com)
• Vampire Instinct  by Joey W. Hill (risquereviews.com)
•  REVIEW: Vampire Instinct by Joey W. Hill (dearauthor.com)
• REVIEW: Vampire Instinct by Joey W. HIll  (riverinaromantics.blogspot.com)
• Review: Vampire Instinct by Joey W. Hill (lovetoreadforfun.com)

Teaser Tuesday: Vampire Instinct

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

Elisa hadn’t conceived, thankfully, because an older girl in the household, Linda, had taught her the necessary herbs and methods to stay that way. She’d worried at first it was a sin, but the pragmatic Linda told her starving to death in the street with a child to suckle and no way to feed it except whoring with far more dangerous strangers might be a bigger sin.

- Vampire Instinct by Joey W. Hill