I know there is this big thing about whether or not it's 'ok' to do coversongs of classic numbers for bands these days, and to be honest they usually are the underdog to the original, but sometimes you come across a song sang a lot better than the original.


Now a song called 'Total eclipse of the heart' by Bonnie Tyler I used to love already, I bought her cd and everything, so we're cool on the fact she made a great song.

But years later this song was covered by an Irish boyband called Westlife and now even after hearing it a lot of times (I think it was released somewhere around 2006) it's still on the cd I keep remixing for in my car, and giving me goosebumps and on occassion a tear to my eyes.




You can listen to it here:

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Book 1 in the Shadow Keepers series
ISBN-10: 0-4402-4577-X / ISBN-13: 978-0-4402-4577-3
Releasedate: August 2010
Publisher: Bantam
Format Owned: Bound Gally
Main Characters: Sara Constantine & Lucius Dragos
For Sale At: Book Depository Store

Synopsis:
Attorney Sara Constantine is thrilled with her promotion - until she finds out that she must now prosecute vampires and werewolves. The first defendant she'll be trying to put away? Lucius Dragos, the sexy stranger with whom she recently shared an explosive night of ecstasy.

When Lucius kisses a beautiful woman sitting next to him at the bar, he's hoping only to avoid the perceptive gaze of the man he's planning to kill. But what starts as a simple kiss ignites into an all-consuming passion. Charged with murder, Luke knows that Sara is determined to see him locked away - unless he can convince her that he's not a monster. And that might mean making the ultimate sacrifice.

REVIEW
The Paranormal Romance genre is going into a new direction and JK Beck is one of the leading ladies in doing so. Combine the booming Paranormal Romance Novels with the popularity of police law enforcement series on TV and you find a mixture that thrills the reader with suspense and love.

This was what first came to mind when I closed this book after reading it. I was a bit ‘warrior-band-of-brother-exhausted’ and JK Beck has blown new life into my love for reading about vampire’s, werewolves, demons and everything not so common to the human world.

At first it took me some getting used to the pace, world build up, and where this story was taking me, but once I went way down under and got settled into division 6 – PEC (Preternatural Enforcement Coalition), a whole new world of Paranormal Investigation’s, DA’s and their own Judicial System opened up to me, making my heartbeat rise and my longing to read on grow with each page I turned.

Straight away we’re thrown into a murder scene, which on the surface seems a slam-dunk arrest, but turns out to be a lot more complicated that it was at face-value.

Sara is a prosecutor and after her promotion is thrown into the paranormal world, she’s an honest woman, seeking out justice and not feeling ruled with the fact she had to prosecute someone for a crime they might have done according to the evidence on the surface. I found it a bit difficult to connect with her as a character at the start, but as the story progresses I felt she opened up more and more.

Lucius is a centuries old vampire, and within this series, vampire’s struggle with their inner daemon who is seeking blood/souls to feed of and have a craving need for violence. When I came across him the first time he didn’t come across as a straight forward villain to me, more like a rogue out loose in the paranormal world, with a big sense of responsibility, but not feeling sorry for the things he has to do (as an assassin for the Alliance), which aren’t quite so legal or by the book. What I found so great about him was that he didn’t apologize for it. It was either accept him for who he is, flaws and all, or don’t accept him and have it that way, but either way was fine with him. I absolutely loved that!

The love for each other was a built up from a one night stand and like an instant thing, and I would have loved to have seen more pages used for their actual love-relationship but there are only so much pages in a novel to write up. Throughout their encounters it is clear that there is more than just passion for each other so it was a believable development within this story.

Both Sara and Luke are brought into this story with baggage from the past to solve or lay to rest, making them characters that grow along in this story and in their encounters. Their past however, do make cause for obstacles and these could have gone awry leading their own life within the story, but JK Beck knows how to handle it and guide it into a great plotline.

Throughout this first installment in the Shadow Keepers series, quite a few secondary characters come to pass, all complex with a variety of paranormal powers, and I sincerely hope that in the next installments these characters will get a part as well or even their own story. The world build up was really well done, as well. It took some time getting into it, as it is very different from what I was used to reading, but once a bit more settled into the terminology and way of life, it all falls into place. It is definitely a world I want to continue reading about!

Some of the plotlines were predictable, but I didn’t see the major plotline coming, making this read a thrilling one until the end. Towards the end all small and big plotlines were completed leaving me satisfied as a reader. Though there was a point where I got a bit uncomfortable with reading on, which might be a break-point for some readers, I thought it great of JK Beck to not avoid this and use it in her story as it did have a purpose to things IMHO.

Quote of one of my favorite characters in this novel-Tucker-I just love his humor:
She peered at his shield and ID, then met his eyes, her own filled with confusion. "Homeland Security?"
She stared him down. "Are you shitting me?"
"No, ma’am," Tucker said. "We at Homeland Security do not have a sense of humor of which we’re aware."

This is definitely a strong, compelling and intriguing start of a new series, and I for one am looking forward to being taken back to the PEC and their paranormal investigations!

4 stars

Ok I had such big planns for this summerholiday, blogwise and elsewise but worries about my cats had my panties in a twist and focus on other things. Where to start....

In July 2007 I moved to the home where I still reside today, and catlover I am I ofcourse had to take a few feline companions, so when someone I knew had a litter of tiny little kittens I went to have a looksee and found myself the new owner of two adorable alpha cats and named them Ash and Simi (for you booklovers of the PRN genre aha yea indeed named after two main characters in Ms. Kenyon's Dark Hunters). It was love at first sight with the both of them. See for yourself they were gorgeous!!!





You see aren't they just adorable! So you can imagine that now three years later, they are my heart, my soul and my life! In my childhood, we had plenty of cats, but most of them didn't make it past 4 years due to urinary diseases. When my holiday started, the first week was planned for doing my garden. My dad and brother were going to stay with me for a few days to put up a fence so finally my cats could go outside in the yard without me needing to worry for their safety. (we have a cat-hater in the area, leaving around meatballs with poison in them, 10 cats have died so far)

On Saturday July 31st I brushed Ash in the morning as he is still changing his coat and losing a lot of hair, I like to help them along nothing wrong. He was content and after his brushing session with lots of cuddles and love he fell asleep like a king in his kingdom. He slept for like 2 or 3 hours and when he got up his frontpaw was twice the size compared to normally so my eyes did the cartoon thing and my heart skipped a beat. Now the internet is great for seeking information and looking things up, but when you try to figure out what could be wrong you find the most cruesome stories so after five minutes of research I knew enough! I phoned the vet to see which one was on duty (they are not open in weekends normally). Thank God my own vet was on call so I have to say, it's that I didn't have any sirens and lights on my car to flash like an ambulance otherwise I would have rushed him over them at warpspeed, but now I had to drive up 20 minutes anxiously and worried out of my mind what was wrong. He was doing this sickly miauwing and OMG tears struck my eyes because I just cannot see a cat suffor in pain. Ýou just cannot explain to them, that you are on your way to help them. All they see and feel is that they are in pain and in a dreadful car and that their owner is not ok on top of all!

At the vet when I took him out of his transport-box his paw was nearly thrice the size and the look in his eyes was filled with pain. The vet checked him out, gave him a painkiller- and antibiotica shot and gave me a weeks course of antibiotica tablets three times a day one tablet. He had what they call a fighters-paw. Now I had never heard of it before but it's usually when cats fight and they get bitten in their paw, it get's inflamed and that spreads quickly in the rest of their immune system.

BUT MY CATS DON'T FIGHT AT ALL!!!! I was thinking about it and my mum came up with the idea that, because they only live inside, there probably was a sharp little stone in their litterbox where he stood in which got infected. The vet confirmed that that might do the trick as well. But with the two shots and heavy antibiotics his paw should go back to it's normal size within a day or two, if not I had to go back in. He said that it was a bad case, even with a broken leg it wouldn't be this swollen.

Thankfully after nearly two days the swelling was gone and all went back to normal, finished the course of antibiotics and he was perfectly ok. So that was one less worry, my fence was up in the yard and my holiday could finally begin...



However scare number two came around very quickly.....

Last Saturday (what is it with these Saturdays!!!!) August 14 I went to spent a day up at my parents place, brought my dog along, the cats where their happy selves, had enough food and drink to get them through at least a day, litterboxes were cleaned out so they were in heaven so to speak. However when I came at home in the evening neither Ash nor Simi was at the door. They recognise the sound of the car, and they are just like dogs, they come from wherever they are to greet me when I come home, but they were nowhere to be found.

Because this was so very odd, and they didn't respond when I called out their names I went on the look-out and noticed they hadn't touched their food and didn't drink a lot either. When I came upstairs they were both laying on the bed and appeared to be a bit flueish. Luckily I had some syringes in the house so I went to give them something to drink by hand and that got them going again for a bit. Repeated that a few times over the next 3 hours and they seemed to be coming around again so I thought maybe one of those one-day flues, we all have them sometimes, and cats and dogs as well, the next morning however I found they had diarrhoea. I phoned the vet and they told me to put them on rice and cooked chicken for a day, the day after should be fine, however they didn't eat it at all and control freak I am I wanted them to drink so I went to give them water through the syringe again every hour, hour and a half but they slept the whole time and didn't want to eat.

Monday morning Simi was nearly none-responsive and Ash appeared to be very ill as well I didn't doubt a moment, put them in the transportbox up to the vet again, whom  said they were really very ill. Cecked them out, took his time for it as well, gave them both two injections, one antibiotics and one to give them an appetite so they would get the impuls to eat. And again a set of antibiotica course. In that day and a half Simi almost lost 3 pounds of bodyweight and was worst off out of the both of them. They had major bowel infections and we have no idea where they got it from. On top of that, they were emanciated and if I hadn't given them the water by hand they would have to be hospitalized. The vet told me to give them two syringes of water each hour to both of them all day long untill they would drink by themselves. And give them the special food to get their bowel going again. I took them up to this morning to start drinking on their own and finally they took their first few bites of eating as well.

There is nothing as worse for pet-owners in my opinion, than when you pet is sick. I had three sleepless nights but as long as my pets are going to be ok again it's been well worth it!!! But by goodness I had such a fright.

Hopefully their back to their own playful selves again wreaking havoc and eating like tasmanian devils!