Hotter Than Hell

De: Kim Harrison - editor

Narrado por: Teresa Willis

Beyond the boundaries of the everyday is an unseen realm where anything you imagine is possible. Your demon lover is waiting for you in the shadows, ready to fulfill your secret wishes and most dangerous fantasies. Here passion has a face and form both titillating and terrifying - and love has teeth and claws. Get ready to give in to your craving for something exquisitely dark...and different.

Hotter Than Hell gathers together a baker's dozen of today's boldest and best authors of supernatural fiction and paranormal romance in a breathtaking anthology that blends black magic with red-hot desire. From the tantalizing tale of a conflicted psychic vampire driven by a powerful, savage love to the strange saga of a Greek warrior woman battling to save the world, these are stories outside the limits, as hypnotic as the full moon...and hotter than the sun.

©2008, 2012 Kim Harrison and Tekno Books (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers

paranormal UF romance shorts

This collection is for paranormal romance lovers who enjoy quickies and prefer a mostly modern-day urban fantasy setting. Unlike some anthologies, where the shorts connect to full length books and series, these almost all play as stand-alone stories. There's at least one smutty scene in each and the first few are definitely more about the smex than the story. While I favor anthologies that devote more effort to the story side, there were enough shorts here to make it a diverting sale purchase. And didn't the summary promise a baker's dozen? isn't that supposed to mean 13 shorts? Dirty pool, Audbile, dirty pool.

For better story-to-romance ratios, try Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon or Big Fat Supernatural Wedding. If you want pure urban fantasy shorts, I recommend Blackguards.

Annoyingly, there is no table of contents and the shorts aren't divided into individual chapters, so the most helpful I can be is to list the titles/authors:

1 - Ch 2 Music Hath Charms by Tanya Huff - sex sirens on the prowl at the concert circuit
2 - Ch4 Minotaur in Stone by Margorie Liu - greek myth manifests in dreamy muscle
3 - Ch5 Demon Lover by Cheyenne McCray - more dreamy, beasty wish fulfillment
4 - Ch11 Equinox by L.A. Banks - Artemis meets modern commando ⭐️
5 - Ch16 Ride a Dark Horse by Susan Krinnard - love and curses⭐️
6 - Ch17 To Die For by Carrie Arthur - werewolf police procedural - and smex ⭐️
7 - Ch22 Curse of the Dragon's Tears by Heidi Becks - straight to sheets
8 - Ch27 Brother's Keepers by Lilith Saintcrow - vampire/succubus police procedural?
This one was confusing and felt like the prologue to a full length book
9 Ch32 Like a V of Spring by Denise Little, Susan Sizemore - scientists & soldiers trapped in dark ages⭐️
10 Ch33 Life is the Teacher by Carrie Vaughn - new vampire learns the ropes⭐️
11 Ch34 Moonlight Becomes You by Linda Windtead Jones - is my neighbor a vampire?
12 Ch35 Dirty Magic by Kim Harrison - the perils of Banshee love⭐️

Worst narrator

This narrator is the worst I've ever listened to. The stories were pretty good. A few were just boring, but overall I would have loved listening to this if it wasn't for the narrator. She changes volumes randomly throughout the story so you have to crank it up only to be deafened when she decides to start borderline yelling. And she takes words like "sweater" and says them in the weirdest ways possible. "Swa-teer" She has random pauses, and just overall doesn't get how to narrate. Awful.

Sexual horror.

The first story is a dark and twisted horror story. Two evil beings use their magic to steal their free will from hundreds or even thousands of people. Forced to have sex with anyone. What about the children? There must be some in every crowd. Many will be raped. They will believe they wanted it. How will this effect there entire lives? What about people who get sexual pleasure from violent rape, torture, murder? There would be a tsunami of vd and unwanted children. Not a romance!

Disappointing

I got this book because I was going thru Kim Harrison's "Hollows" books. As it was on the book list, I just grabbed it without really reading up on it, so I didn't realize that it was a book of short stories. I should have recognized that's was it was due to it being marked as book 4.5, and the title is a pretty big giveaway that it was going to be some hot steamy romance.

The problem I had with this is that it almost has none of Kim Harrison's "Hollows" in it, and the short story she does have seems like it was in that world but was so sort and light on information that if I didn't see this being on the book list for that I may have not made the connection.

Moving on from my lack of reading book descriptions, I still didn't like this book because it is fundamentally flawed. While I have no problem with some hot steamy romance novels, it doesn't work in short stories. A sex scene takes up a certain amount of time, and that means in these short stories there just isn't enough plot. There was one story that had maybe 5 minutes of character development before it could be summed up with "and then I had sex with a minotaur." There may have been more story after that, but it was so little introduction that I just couldn't bring myself to care about the feeling of the characters so I skipped to the next one half way thru.

Another thing that I really don't like about short story books like this is that there is no break down in the book description about each story and who it is by. This wouldn't be a big thing, and it would make it so much better. Please do this Audible.

Don't take my negativity for a horrible review. There were some stories that were very well written, it just needs to be a longer story with less sex in order to get any true story horseshoed into it.

overall, not the best. If you are getting it for a Kim Harrison Hollows book, I would pass. If you just want some sexy short stories, I would say about half of them are pretty darn good.

It's fine.

I am not this anthology's target audience. That said...

This book is fine. Just fine. The little snip-its of series is neat. Some authors seem to grasp the concept of a short story better than others. Further, I think the longer stories held less for me than the shorter ones. There are a couple authors I will look into more, and some I'll stay away from. But overall, I think this book is fine.

No a Hollows book. No tie in with series.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Tied other series into the Hollow series

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

disappointment for being misled that this was book 4.5 in the Hollows series.

Any additional comments?

I'm tempted to ask for my money back.

give it 2 stars ......

I am rarely so harsh on a book, but this one greatly disappointed me. The narration was terrible, not that she didn't have a pleasant enough voice, but the characterizations and the flow of the dialoge were so lacking. There was no difference between character's voices, male or female, young or old, etc.....just reading, not storytelling, and very irritating reading at that. The stories are rushed, more in an effort to squeeze a plot, mostly very thin and lacking plots, inbetween what was sad to mediocre sex scenes. Worth my credit, No, worth the cash, No.... Enough said

WHAT A WASTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Would you try another book from Kim Harrison (editor) and/or Teresa Willis?

HAVE READ AND LISTEN TO MOST OF THE KIM HARRISON BOOK ABOUT THE HOLLOW.. BUT THIS IS ONE SHE SHOULD HAVE LEFT HER NAME OFF OF..HATE THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What could Kim Harrison (editor) have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

BURN THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How did the narrator detract from the book?

BY BEING THE NARRATOR

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

NOT A ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Any additional comments?

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS ONE........................

Not at all what I thought it would be

I didn't look too much into the book. I saw it was listed as 4.5 and only read a brief portion of the description. I thought for some reason this would be some collection of small stories based in the Hollows Universe but it seems almost unconnected. There are certainly non of the characters involved in the story and it reads more like a cheap porn novel with just enough of a story to keep the sex going. There is a good amount of MM and MMF sex scenes from the section I had listened too before I gave up and returned it for the credit. Only listened to a few chapters before I decided I couldn't stand to listen at all any more. I almost never return books but and this is in fact only the second one I have ever done so with. I strongly suggest skipping this one and going on the regular story. It should really NOT be listed as 4.5.

Not part of the series with Rachel and Ivy

On Aubible it says this book is 4.5 of The Hollows series, that starts with Dead Witch Walking. But this book has no connection with the characters from the Dead Witch Walking book series. It shouldn't be listed as part of it's series. I wish I could get my money back from buying this book because it's not at all what I wanted to listen to. The story lines in this book are dull, sugar coated in sex, and have no depth or history in characters.