The Bite Before Christmas Book Review

The Bite Before Christmas by Lynsay Sands and Jeaniene Frost.

In Lynsay Sands' "The Gift," Katricia Argeneau knows grey-eyed cop Teddy Brunswick is her life mate. She just needs to convince him they belong together, and being snowbound in a secluded cabin will make this a Christmas neither will forget.

It's "Home for the Holidays" in Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series. Cat and Bones may long to wrap presents and set up a tree, but this Christmas, an evil vampire and long-buried family secrets will threaten to take a bite out of their holiday cheer.

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Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy

Review

The Bite Before Christmas contains two short stories/novellas, one from Jeaniene Frost and one from Lynsay Sands.  Both stories were excellent.

The Gift (Argeneau #15.5) is a paranormal romance with the high heat level you expect from Lynsay Sands.  I was worried that this might have an ick factor due to the lead male's age, but I got past that quickly.  A fun romp in a holiday snowstorm that's a perfect quick read for the holidays.*

*Note: I almost took off half a star for the constant referral to Theodore's "little Teddy" since this is a pet peeve of mine.  To me "little Teddy" makes me think of children and teddy bears...neither of which should be in Theodore's pants.  Not.  Sexy.  Not sexy at all.

Home for the Holidays (Night Huntress #6.5) had the paranormal romance spark we love between Cat and Bones, but was primarily a kick-ass edge-of-your-seat urban fantasy with nearly all of our favorite Night Huntress characters.  This story is also set during the holidays which makes it a fun holiday read.

I don't know about you, but the holidays are chaotic here and so I find myself on a short story/anthology/novella kick this time of year.  The Bite Before Christmas contained two excellent stories that were the perfect length for my holiday-stress-induced short attention span.

Shadow Rating:  5-stars

How do the holidays impact your reading habits?

If you're like me and looking for something short and not so sweet this time of year, you'll love the following paranormal romance and urban fantasy short stories, novellas, and anthologies; Dark and Stormy Nights, Mean Streets, Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy, Must Love Hellhounds, Hex Appeal, Deep Kiss of Winter, Blood and Mistletoe, Reckoning, On the Prowl, Tales of the Otherworld, Kitty's Greatest Hits, Cat Tales, Have Stakes Will Travel, Black Water, An Apple for the Creature, My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding, Magic Graves, Carniepunk, Vampires: The Recent Undead, First Blood, Kiss of Venom, Dates from Hell, Kisses from Hell, Vacations from Hell, Kicking It, Strange Brew, Unbound, Hexed, Winter Moon, Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, and Holidays are Hell.

Do you have a favorite paranormal romance or urban fantasy short story, anthology, or novella?  If so, share with us in the comments!

October Trix-n-Treatz: Alice in Wereland

E.J. is participating in the October Trix-n-Treatz event at vvb32 reads with a new short story piece themed Alice in Wereland.  Take a trip down the wererabbit hole with Alice...you may be surprised who she encounters.

Curiouser and curiouser!

Have you joined in the fabulous October Trix-n-Treatz festivities at vvb32 reads?  Check out the full schedule of events for information on giveaways and guest features.

While visiting vvb32 reads be sure to take the Get Spooky Challenge and enter for a chance to win a copy of She Smells the Dead!

** images belong to Strangeling.  Click here to enter vvb32 read's Strangeling Print giveaway.**

I Dream of Jeannie (and His Minions)

Please welcome today's very special guest blogger author Leanore Elliott.  You may remember Leanore from her visit here in June when E.J. interviewed her about her upcoming Beasts series.  You may read this fun interview here.  As part of Friday the 13th Week Leanore agreed to come share with us a true story of one her experiences with the paranormal.  Enjoy!

I Dream of Jeannie (and His Minions)
We lived in a Mobile home park in Espanola New Mexico, just outside of Santa Fe. This was the late 80’s.  It all started at night of course. Both my husband and I would lay down for sleep. We would hear a scraping noise coming from beneath our bedroom floor and this happened for several nights. One night, it became loud, very loud. It sounded like a cement lid that was being slid from a crypt (like cement grinding on cement.) One evening, I heard voices. We had a small child and a toddler at that time and I was mad that they were playing somewhere in the middle of the night. I got up checked and nope... they were both asleep. I lay back down and the voices started again. Small voices, like children but the tone was deeper. My room had the bathroom right at the corner and then a hallway. I heard all kinds of laughter and noises coming from the bathroom, the toilet flushing repeatedly etc. I got up to catch my kids at it. I neared the door and heard them.  Two male voices: “Yeah, he will be coming and just wait...” An evil giggle followed... “Yeah, he’s gonna scare them like nobody else!” Both voices laugh.  I stood frozen and listened. They ran the faucet, snickered and flushed the toilet repeatedly. I drew closer and stepped to the door, which was open just a crack. My heart pounded in my chest and my shaky hand pushed the door open just a little more. I could see their little hands with knobby little fingers and long ugly nails as one of them reached out and flushed the toilet again.  I gasped loudly and the hands pulled back out of my sight. I was too afraid to look anymore. I ran back to bed and woke my husband up. “There are...there are... trolls playing in our bathroom!” My husband rubbed his eyes. “Honey, just make them go back to bed.”  I sighed. “No, not the kids they---”  He rolled over. “You were just dreaming, go back to sleep.”

The next night, the same thing; hushed conversation, giggles, water running etc. This time, I woke my husband up and made him listen. His eyes narrowed, he got up and crept up to the bathroom while he listened. He threw the door open. Nothing there...  He came back to bed. He was silent. “Well?” I asked with fear in my voice.  He sighed. “We were both dreaming.” He turned over and went to sleep.  Not me, I lay awake listening until the wee hours.  I was sleepless all that week waiting for the Trolls. Then the crypt noise started up again. I would put a pillow around my head and then I noticed that the vibration of it was even running through our bed. I sat up and my bedroom door stood wide open. I could see the hallway (There was light from the kitchen.) Above the hall was a swamp cooler vent (it was winter, so it was not on.) A thick bright neon pink-purplish smoke wafted down from the vent. I shook my husband and my eyes must’ve been huge in my face.  He sat up with a frustrated sigh. “What?”  I motioned my head towards the open door.  We sat and watched this bright Pink smoke that did indeed look like the smoke from that old TV series ( I Dream of Jeannie.)  It spilled in from the vent and filled the hallway and it smelled just like firework sulfur.  My eyes even ran with tears at the painful stench of it. It rolled into the room, thick and almost solid looking. It rose to the ceiling and our heads drew all the way up to look at it. It began to take shape before our eyes. We heard laughter, the troll’s laughter. This shape was of a man, but he was so large that he had no head. It was like his head must be through the ceiling as all we saw was a neck up that far.  My husband flipped the bedside lamp on.  There was nothing there.

There were all sorts of noises, laughter and banging, booms etc. every night for the next month and it would all start with the Crypt sliding noise at exactly 2 am. Sharp.  The pink specter-Jeannie would appear often. Every time we flipped the light on? He would disappear.  My husband plugged in a spot light and would use it when he appeared. He had noticed that when the storms would start, (for it was now spring and there are thunderstorms in N.M.) That there was no activity from this entity; He devised a plan, based on a theory that the Jeannie did not like electrical energy from the lightening. He split an old electrical cord and stuck one side into an electric outlet plug and we would hold onto the ends to get “charged.”  The scraping got louder and even sounded angrier, but he did not appear. It got quiet and we finally could sleep at night.  One night, I felt movement on the bed and turned my head on my pillow. My husband was choking. I sat up with confusion.  There was this giant hand around his neck.  His face turned purple and his eyes rolled back.  I hit it with my hands, picked up a pillow and hit it. I screamed with pure, terrified panic.  My husband’s sounds of choking were getting louder. I looked for the spotlight and my shaky hands flipped it on. It was unplugged! I screamed with panic and crawled around the bed to plug it in.  There were the trolls, their faces grinning at me with ugly evil grins. I drew in my breath in, crawled forward, plugged it in and stood up, swinging the light to my husband. The light fell on him. The hand disappeared and he gasped desperately for air. 

We so wanted to move as you can well imagine, but there was nothing available that we could afford.  There were all kinds of incidents like messes made in the kitchen at night. Smashed eggs from the fridge on the floor, swamped in pancake mix. Water flooding from the sinks, cabinets cleared out and everything thrown in the floor. Missing keys, missing brushes, missing shoes and then to find the missing items all lined up on the kitchen table.  My husband, “Mr. Logical” says. “You really need to keep those kids from running amuck around here!”  I would yell back as I was cleaning another morning’s mess. “It’s the Dammed TROLLS!” Then one night we were finally sleeping. There was a metallic bang on the outside of the mobile, right outside of our bedroom wall. Then another bang and another; these bangs grew loud and spread along the outside of the entire mobile.  We got up and peeked out of our window.  My husband believed it to be young kids trying to scare us. I thought. Oh, yeah? After what we have been through? “Well, they’re welcome to try...” I replied.  We laughed nervously and continued to look out of different windows throughout the house to catch them at it. We saw no one and nothing.  The metallic banging grew so loud that I covered my ears and the trailer shook.  It was now on the roof.  We looked at each other and knew that they could not be on all sides; the full length and on the Fricking roof, all at the same time!  It went on for at least ten minutes.  I went to comfort my kids.  It all stopped suddenly.  There were no more incidents after that. Something cleansed our mobile? The Evil Jeannie got mad and made noise before he left?  We will never know, but I’ve never looked at that smoke from the little bottle on “I dream of Jeannie” in the same way ever again.