There is a method behind the madness

After five thousand years she was again mortal.

The dead alchemist's experiment has worked. Alisa is no longer a vampire, but a frail and confused human. Not only that - she is pregnant. The baby grows in her at supernatural speed. As the stranger watches. The stranger from the past.

But what child will Alisa's seed produce?

A demon or an angel? Alisa does not know.

But the stranger does. He knows everything that ever was.

And he knows everything that is to be.

WOW.

I pretty much had to read this in one fell swoop, and then we get to the end - the dreaded cliffhanger! This the first book in this series that is not completely self-contained.

( Alisa is human. And dumb. And unleashes something even she didn't see coming )

This was a rollercoaster of a read, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it, tbh. Pike is playing so fast and loose with everything that you basically have to roll with it and just believe that he knows what he's doing and is not just flying by the seat of his pants. This reads like the first book in a trilogy, so are we in for another sophomore slump, as Book #2?

I didn't really like Kalika or find her a compelling villain. There are so many questions about her, too - what happened to the people she hunted? She claims karma, but what is that? She's also forever shielding herself with humans or other creatures, which is supremely irritating. IDK if I can take two more books of a cat and mouse game between mother and daughter. I'm glad we're only reading one of these a year, LOL.

All in all, a nice way to cap our Halloween nostalgia re-readathon this year!

The man of her nightmares...

When Lila Fowler meets mysterious, sexy Damon Price, the connection is too intense for words. Lila instantly feels as if she's known him for ages. And when she experiences the recklessly passionate thrill of his kisses, she knows he feels the same. But despite their deep romantic bond, Lila knows nothing about Damon's past.

Then the nightmares begin. Vivid, violent nightmares from another era in which she becomes Flora Grey, the wife of Theodore, an abusive man who looks exactly like Damon. Lila soon discovers that the Greys really existed...and Flora was murdered by her husband. The more Lila learns about the couple, the more Damon seems to adopt Theodore's wicked ways. Could Flora's tragic history be repeating itself?

I sail the good ship Bruce/Lila as an OTP for the Sweet Valley universe, so when this book opened with lots of references to Lila's deceased Italian count husband Tisiano, I knew I was in for a rough ride. Lila and Tisiano married right after SVH and lived for a while in his native Italy, before he was killed in a Jet Ski incident. Lila returned to Sweet Valley and started attending SVU with her lifelong friends. This is Super Thriller #11, set around the late-#30s of the SVU canon; if you didn't know any better, you'd think it was super early canon. Bruce/Lila is an established pairing, but this ghostie swipes it aside with ease, so less than a chapter into this, my back was already up. Things were only made worse when Jessica arrives in the plot and is the vain, spoiled, selfish early-SVH canon version of Jessica. The one who only ever thinks in terms of revenge. This is my least favorite Jessica, and after she was so awesome in ST #3, I was not looking forward to shenanigans here.

( I basically had to force myself to read this all in one go because I knew I'd never willingly pick it up. )

There are so laugh out loud moments (caller ID machine! microfiche cataloged on CD-ROM! Jessica and Lila doing makeovers during their BFF Friday night "stay awake party," which included the 'Elizabeth Wakefield prom' look!), and the ghostie worked hard to redeem Damon, but yeah. The WTFery of it all is just too much for me. Constantly weepy Lila, surprise!evil twin deux es machina, Damon scoffing away the problem of TAs dating undergrads who are taking their classes - just, ugh. No thank you! This is not a book I will return to anytime soon.

I'm glad we're pivoting to another series for this week's entry in the re-readathon!