All Hallow's Eve perfect time to "Darkyn" your door

"If Angels Burn" by Lynn Viehl ($6.99, Signet Eclipse)
"Private Demon" by Lynn Viehl ($6.99, Signet Eclipse

In "If Angels Burn," Chicago's most talented, and keep in mind the fastest, reconstructive surgeon Dr. Alexander Keller has a problem.
It's not so much her very busy practice. She feels a calling to work on her patients, which include a four-year-old foster kid with a cleft palate. She finally, finally got permission from the Department of Children and Families to fix the cleft palate -- she's fixing his other scarring for free.
Neither is it Luisa Lopez, an uncooperative 16-year-old who was brutalized by multiple assailants then burned over forty-five percent of her body -- the trauma of which caused Luisa, now blind and disfigured, to lose the baby she was carrying.
No, Alex's problem is one Michael Cyprien.
Cyprien is an apparent multimillionaire who wants Alex to drop everything and come to him in New Orleans to perform some unspecified reconstructive surgery on him. Alex says no -- several times.
Wrong answer.
Knocked over the head and drugged while leaving the hospital, the good doctor wakes up in New Orleans at La Fontaine -- the residence of one Michael Cyprien.
She also finds out why Cyprien is convinced she's the only one who can help him.
Viciously beaten over and over, then immersed into a corrosive substance, Cyprien is a man with no face.
Of course, no mere human could have survived his injuries, but Cyprien isn't human -- he's Darkyn.
Existing on a liquid diet of human blood, the Darkyn have the ability to spontaneously heal and Cyprien's damaged faced heal alright -- into a mass of scar tissue.
The only hope he has is to find a surgeon who's fast enough to reconstruct his face before the incisions scar over.
All this must be kept secret of course, not only is the world not ready for the Darkyn, but the Darkyn is being hunted by a secret sect of Catholic priests called the Brethren. The Brethrens are the ones responsible for Cyprien's injuries.
Oh yeah, did I mention Alex's brother is a priest?
I enjoyed Viehl's first foray into the world of the Darkyn, so much so that I couldn't wait for the the second book in the series, "Private Demon," to come out.
I have to say, I was disappointed in "Private Demon." The hero, Thierry Durand, is another Darkyn, also a victim of the Mad Monks. Durand himself was driven mad, both by the torture of the Brethren and also by having to listen to his family being tortured.
Cyprien and Alex try to help Durand in the first book, but it ends with Durand escaping and where does he head? Chicago -- Alex's hometown.
Durand has decided he will hunt down Luisa Lopez's attackers who were still at large at the end of "If Angels Burn."
The heroine in "Private Demon," Jema Shaw, seems kind of weak to me and she and Durand meet only in her dreams for much of the book. I would recommend this book only because we see a little more of Alex and Cyprien and we learn more about the Brethren.
Jema has been sick her whole life, taken care of by her mother (that woman is seriously lacking in maternal instincts) and a doctor her mother hired when Jema was an infant. Jema is now in her 30s. Come on, I cannot believe a grown woman who is rich and has TWO jobs, just calmly accepts her "fatal" illness without seeing another doctor in more than 30 years.
Still, I'm anxiously awaiting the third book in the Darkyn series, hoping it will be better.

From the Stacks: "Blue Smoke" is well-worth the read

I'll be sharing with whoever cares to read them my opinions on books
From the Stacks of .. ta dum... S.D. McMillar. And when I say from the stacks, I mean from the stacks. I have books stacked on my bed, stacked on my dresser, my computer desk hutch, stacked on the floor of my bedroom and stacked in the bins that are stacked in my bedroom.
I am really stacked, er, full of books I mean, and the reason you might like to read my reviews are that hey, we all know that books aren't getting any cheaper. So, if I can steer you toward a book that's worth the dough you'll be shelling out for it or away from a book that's a dud, then I'm glad to do it.
Why?
Well, let's just say it'll make ME feel better about all the dough I'm spending on books.
First up: "Blue Smoke" by Nora Roberts ($25.95, 437 pages). The novel starts with an 11-year-old Reena Hale who in the summer of 1985 became fascinated with fire.
A life-changing tummy ache had Reena sitting on the front porch in the early morning hours. From there she could see the neighborhood pizzeria which her family owned. Seeing the pretty lights in the restaurant, Reena soon realizes the family business is on fire.
She gives the alarm and is later questioned by an arson investigator Reena decides that's what she's going to be when she grows up.
As she goes from child to teen to adult, Reena's life is touched more than once by fire and tragedy, but that doesn't stop her from attaining her goal of joining th e arson unit of the Baltimore Police Department.
By the time Reena realizes that someone has, for years, been using fire as an instrument to punish her, she'll need all her years of experience on the force to discover her stalker's identity.
"Blue Smoke" is trademark Nora Roberts — a skillful blend of mystery, romance and danger all melded into winning mix.
Also, from the stacks is Mary Janice Davidson's "Undead and
Unreturnable" ($21.95, 250 pages). This is Davidson's fourth outing (and the second in hardback) featuring the shoe-mad, sarcastic and very (reluctantly) dead vampire queen, Betsy Taylor.
In "Undead and Unreturnable," it's almost Christmas and Betsy has loads to do: Christmas shopping with her daughter-of-the-devil (really, she's is the daughter of the devil) half-sister, babysitting her newborn half-brother, planning her wedding to her vampire-consort, writing an online advice column for the newly turned and, oh yeah, hunting down a serial killer who stalking the women of Minneapolis.
"Undead and Unreturnable" kept me laughing out loud just like the
previous books in this series. But you might want to start with the
first two (both paperback and considerably cheaper than "Undead and Unreturnable" which isn't even a full-size hardback).
Great book and probably worth the price AFTER you've become a rabid Betsy Taylor fan once you've read the previous books.
Time for me to sign off until I dig another book out of the stacks..