Fun, fun ride. Amaranthe is a hoot, Sicarius is the mysterious and totally attractive assassin (as he was crafted to be, I acknowledge), Sespian is the well-meaning emperor who finds himself unable to do anything thanks to a certain Commander. The rest of the team have their own quirks as well, a...
Took me a little bit to get into this one as I couldn't remember all the characters, actions from the previous books but once I did - I couldn't put it down. Action? There's action galore in this one - up to and including a Kraken! Yup, this brought to mind 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and I lov...
I would've finished this book a lot faster if it held my interest more than Plants Vs Zombies' online first person shooter game on my Play Station 3. (My newest addiction.) This is the 4th installment in this series. It was overall an entertaining read and I can't say I loved it or I hated it....
I have to say, this book was a nail-biter. I nearly jumped out of my chair and started pacing when Amaranthe got kidnapped at the end of book 4. And then to see Major Pike show up? Well, I knew it was going to bad. And it was, indeed, very bad. Things did not go smoothly for Amaranthe this time a...
first I have to say: Mrs. Buroker has a knack for cliffhangers ... although I normally hate them she places them perfectly (which I can say easily because all the books are already published!)this books shows us Sicarius POV and it is perfect and amazingly done. during the first 5 books we learn ...
An action-packed close to an excellent series. A fun mix of the A-Team, MacGyver, The Three Musketeers, and everything in between, I highly recommend this series to anyone looking for a fast-paced, slap-stick, crazy ride that will have you rooting for the good guys (which ever those are).I see th...
It's no secret...I love Sicarius. I'm thrilled to have even a few pages devoted to him, but even though this was to have been a "Sicarius POV" story, it is far too short to actually contain anything other than observations on fight scenes. My favorite part of this novella is the glimpse into Sesp...
These short stories helped me through the long months between reading Deadly Currents and Deadly Games. They feature Amaranthe working with various team members. I particularly liked The Frozen Water Trade with Amaranthe and Sicarius working for an old school friend of Amaranthe. This one delves ...
This was a nice new twist on the popular magic/ sorcerer theme. I enjoyed the fresh story line and the writing was good enough to keep me entertained though not exceptional. I will say a plug for the second book in the series which was a bit better in writing and overall. I would recommend this t...
It gave her an excuse not to line up another target for Leonidas. She swooped and dove, trying to lose them. They stuck with her. They must have seen Leonidas take down their comrade, and now they wanted revenge. She couldn’t blame them. She wouldn’t accommodate them, but she couldn’t blame them....
Clearly a new addition, it was out of place among the centuries-old oak doors in the brick hallway. Not ten feet away, the arched wooden entrances to the cider and wine cellars were marked by intricate engravings of vineyards, orchards, and harvest scenes. The two guards in their crisp black unif...
It was like static electricity except much stronger. The charge took his breath away. He dropped into a crouch with his back to the cliff and drew a dagger. He didn’t think it had been a booby trap—that would have done more damage—but the shaman probably now knew an intruder was on the way down. ...
Eleriss pointed at a door in the side of a big tree beside a meadow. Temi would have to duck to enter it, and unless that tree had a basement or a lot of levels, she couldn’t imagine having room to do anything more than sleep inside. Even then, she wasn’t sure she would be able to stretch her leg...
Alisa murmured into her comm unit as their android guides—captors—led her and Leonidas up wide stone steps and toward the massive doors of a building that looked more like a bunker than a palace. Rectangular and four stories tall, it had window slits, rather than windows, thick cement walls, and ...
He was pacing and talking to someone on his comm, the hem of his gray robe snapping as he made irritated turns when he ran out of room in the cramped space. Durant lay on the exam table, as usual, wired up as if he were in a hospital. Ostberg was bent over the patient, shaving him with a laser ra...
After the monotonous black walls and tomb-like silence of the tunnels thus far, Tikaya would appreciate some dripping stalactites, striated walls, bumpy columns—proper cave appurtenances. As of yet, though, no end of the alien passages lay in sight. The marines marched ever deeper with Bocrest an...
Her pirate escort had dwindled to two, but there were guards at the railing next to the sophisticated disembarkation device: a rope leading down to the beach. There were also numerous people walking about on the main deck, all of them armed. It seemed against pirate law to carry less than three w...
The balloon expanded until it bulged like an overstuffed sausage casing. The miniature ship rocked on the workbench twice, then rose. Inch by inch, it levitated into the air. A spool on the deck played out telephone wire that attached to a small control box. Kali McAlister wore a grin brighter th...
He still did not have control of his body, and there was no other way to ensure Mara did not land and attack Angulus. Unless they crashed so spectacularly that neither of them walked away from it. That was a possibility. He was very aware that this craft did not have thrusters as they lined up th...
“Not good,” Simon whispered. Daylight still entered through the hole in the ceiling, but less of it than before. The sun must be dropping behind the trees up there. Even though I had no idea what those two… people had done down here, besides burning a hole into the rock, I...
Already, the old stone structure loomed above them. They needed to solidify their plans. First, she reached behind them with her senses, to make sure the women hadn’t woken up and escaped Tolemek and Duck. It would be hard to get in if three escaped captives were running up the street after them ...
The torches and lanterns of a city? He wasn’t familiar with this part of the world, where hundreds, if not thousands of chains of islands dotted the ocean. Airship pirates rarely stopped in the area, both because of the dearth of dirigible ports he had mentioned and because there wasn’t a financi...
The door opening? She’d locked it. Her Winchester leaned against the end of the workbench, more than an arm’s length away, but she had a number of booby trap triggers within reach. No reason to panic yet. She grabbed a rag, as if she had no inkling that someone might be around, and used the motio...
Amaranthe Lokdon would have turned herself over to bounty hunters for a chance to float or bask. Instead, out in the middle of an inlet, she struggled to keep her head from going under as waves sloshed into her mouth and eyes. Using both hands, she held a ten-pound brick in front of her face whil...
Branches clawed at my jeans and tried to snatch my whip from my waist. I batted them away, ignoring the leaves slapping my face. I tried to think of spots along the route where we could hide, but there hadn’t been any caves. Short trees and brush; that was it. Ducking behind the trunks might prov...
Both sights were a respite after the last few days. They had survived the magical storm only to run into one provided by nature. Nature’s had been scarier and had lasted much longer. He sagged against the railing, glad he did not feel the need to throw up over it this time. The captain must have ...
When it came to destroying machines, she was more of an expert than he, not that he hadn’t been moderately pleased with himself for effectively smashing that mechanical spider to pieces. Smoke clouded the deck. Cedar did not know if it was drifting up from the city fifty feet below, or if the air...
These weapons had been installed to stave off attacks from slow-moving dirigibles, not agile, fire-breathing dragons. Even when the cannonballs and shells would have struck the creature, Morishtomaric either lazily flapped his wings in time to avoid them or simply raised a magical shield, and the...
There were seats for the pilot and the co-pilot, and a fold-down seat behind them at the sensor station. The monitoring station for the cargo hold, life support, and fuel management was also back there. Displays and controls were hardwired into the consoles—no fancy holo-nav systems on this old s...
A nice big grandfather clock sitting in the middle of a hidden cavern, cheerily ticking away for the bats. “Yeah, sure,” Kaika muttered under her breath. Judging by Angulus’s expression, he hadn’t figured out the implications yet. He didn’t work wit...
came a distant call. Ridge left Sardelle—he had been smashing her anyway—and returned to the front of the cave, grunting as his foot caught on rock. Their shelter lacked a flat floor. “We’re fine, Rav,” he called back. “Everyone there make it?” “We’re all in, but, uhm, the owl… it’s sitting out t...
She placed her freighter in his path, assuming he could find something to grab. Then he could magnetize his boots and lock onto the hull. Once again, she marveled at the trust Leonidas displayed by jumping into the middle of nothing and waiting for her to pick him up. What if she had never come? ...
Beck whispered, nudging Alisa with his elbow. She blinked, coming fully awake, hardly able to believe that she had dozed off while standing against a stack of shipping containers. She, Beck, and Mica were in a rail yard across the parking lot from the Spaceman’s Wharf, the restaurant Major Mladen...
The short sword belted at her waist felt ten times heavier than it was. An inch of fresh snow blanketed the trail, and thick flakes wafted from the steely sky. They stuck in her lashes and melted down her flushed cheeks. The marker came into view, and she dug a pocket watch free as she passed it....
Kali stomped around inside the airship hull, her boots thudding on the wooden innards. “Tarnation, what a mess. I knew it!” Cedar didn’t have to crawl through the hole in the side to understand what she meant—he could see the evidence of intruders in the cave. Boxes of tools and crates of parts h...