Dogfighters by Alex Beecroft

3 STARS

Under The Hill - Book 2

This is the sequel - the DIRECT sequel - to Bomber's Moon. When I say direct, I mean it picks up in the next actual minute where Bomber's Moon ended. Seriously, it all should have been one single book, one juicy volume and you know... with some more judicious editing, in my opinion.

I love Alex Beecroft's work, but this novel and its predecessor were confusing. I don't think I ever felt really comfortable and clear on what was actually going on. The writing was gorgeous, but I think that maybe it only served to render the actual plot, the actual action difficult to digest. That's why I say that some judicious editing might have been a benefit.

When I began the first book, I was thinking that I was going to get the story of the Paranormal Defence Agency, but while they were fairly prominent in the first volume, we barely saw them in the second. We went from a sort of urban fantasy tale with historical overtones to a high fantasy that included different cultures and mythologies. Honestly? I'd have liked more of the PDA.

I did enjoy the fact that what I think was the Hindu mythology played a big part of the story. It's quite possible that this only added to my confusion since I'm pretty unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Hinduism. Maybe a bit of down to earth, bare bones explanation would have helped me there.

So all in all, this was a decent read, not spectacular and I think it could have been better. Oh, and the covers? (Covers are a big deal for me.) I thought the covers would have been much better without the huge headshots of the men. I know it's a publishing house standard look but damn... so many of them bug me. Yeah, I'm judgy. *LOL*

Bomber's Moon by Alex Beecroft

4 STARS

Under the Hill - Book 1

I have come to really enjoy Alex Beecroft's work. She gives great plot, terrific characters, a love story that takes its time to grow and some super dialogue. And I'm very enamoured of the historical settings that she uses as well.

This time around, we're thrown into the action rather quickly. We meet Flynn who is in Fairyland with the mythological creatures, and then Ben and Chris and other modern day group in what feels to me like small town England. And it seems that while this is modern day, Chris is actually a bomber pilot from WW2. These days, he's a Fairybuster (as opposed to a Ghostbuster.) or maybe a more inclusive term would be Mythologicalcreaturebuster. *LOL* He and his small group of co-workers are ready to help out with all your paranormal needs. I know that sounds flip and it's treated with far more seriousness in the book. And it makes sense, it fits in this slightly skewed view of our world and its history.

In the fairy realm, there seems to be some crossover with parts of what I assume to be Indian mythology. I don't know a helluva lot about those cultural myths and I admit to just making assumptions based on how the story is going.

From what I gather, Chris and his WW2 bomber crew were attacked by something from the fairy realm and all were killed except for Chris who woke up something like... 30 years later in a field with his plane wreckage. And somehow, Flynn is connected to Chris and wears the face of Chris' lover, Geoff Braxtasomethingorother... I haven't figured that out yet. And something bad is going down in Fairyland - there's some kind of war? It's complicated.

The upshot is, we're left with a HUGE cliffhanger and a ton of unanswered questions. it makes me think that this book and its sequel Dogfighters would have been better served as one large volume. But you know... we don't do things that way in an M/M world. It seems that most M/M readers can't read past 250 - 300 pages max. And even then, it's asking a lot. But I have the second of the two Under the Hill books in my TBR pile so whenever I'm ready I can jump right in to it. (I have a book coming next week - Monday? - that I MUST read right away and then it will be holiday reading.)

I quite totally enjoyed this though and I have been charmed by both Ben and Chris, so the sequel won't languish in the TBR pile for very long. :)