Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy Read for Saint Peter Takes a Holiday, or It’s About Time by Mark Cain starting on August 4, 2025.


Happy Reading!

Thank you!

First Omnibus's worth has been scheduled:
1. Hell's Super (Feb 4) [link]
2. A Cold Day In Hell (Mar 4) [link]
3. Deal With The Devil (Apr 4) [link]
4. The Reluctant Demon (May 4) [link]
5. I'm No Angel (Jun 4) [link]
6. Beelzebub: A Memoir (Jul 4) [link]
7. Saint Peter Takes a Holiday, or It’s About Time (Aug 4)
8. The League of Unusual Denizens (Sept 4) [link]
---not requested yet---
9. A Room of Steve's Own, or Give Us Some Space! (Oct 4)
10. Bringing Up Baby in Hell, or What's the Matter? (Nov 4)
11. Hurt of Darkness, or Lighten Up! (Dec 4)

1-4 and 5-8 have audible omnibuses.

Reading this today... short little bit. Making me snort so far. Peter took out something that looked like a small black slingshot, which he then realized was his swimsuit. *facepalm*

Through Chapter 5 (view spoiler)[I don't think I've ever read a golf game before, and this was very satisfying. Loved Peter getting one-up on the cheating gnome.

And Peter learning about how bodies have to pee and poop reminds me of Ghost Roads #2. (hide spoiler)]

Finished! This was pretty cute, quick, and satisfying. (view spoiler)[I don't even mind St. Peter being thousands of years old and Delilah being only 30ish--maybe because neither of them acted like children, and St. Peter's long years as Doorkeeper have made him somewhat naive while Delilah had a lot of experience packed into her short life. Plus, it was corny instead of emo, and I'll take corny over emo any day.

The kobold being taken care of was also very satisfying. Sort of a fun little mystery-romance. (hide spoiler)]

This was alot more of a destination romance than I was expecting, given the saintly MC, but I was kinda here for it... I could read more of this... things like this are kinda what lured me into Argeneau Vampires, back in the day:

A Quick Bite
Love Bites
Single White Vampire
Tall, Dark & Hungry
A Bite to Remember

They're about a family of vampires that survived the fall of Atlantis... the "vampirism" is Atlantean nanotechnology that uses blood to regenerate cellular degeneration (too good at it's job)...

Never tried any Lyndsay Sands yet, but seen her around... wouldn't mind looking at that as a replacement for these...

If you want to try them I wouldn't mind a revisit... it's a series we can abandon when you get tired of them... The first 5-10 are really tight knit, finding mates for all the close family members of the Argeneau family/generation in present day... the mother shows a preternatural ability to find mates for her children and setup meet-cutes, after awhile, it seems...

Then those family members dry up, it starts expanding to the further relatives and distant relatives and stuff... by book 15-20 the plotline with the leper colony of vampires heats up (their version of nanos never developed the useful vampire traits and they turned into mostly messed up serial killers)... then in the 20-25-30, there's this whole Island of Doctor Moreau plot with human-animal hybrids...

And in general, the quality of the romances and characters just went downhill...

Me and Amyiw talk about how horrible it became in some back and forth in my other group, Girls, Guns & Grimoirs, as well as in review comments of the last few we read...

Looking at my ratings, I rated the first 25 books 4 stars, except for books 9 & 20, which I gave 5 stars... I think I binged alot of these in 2013/2014, and did terrible at keeping up with my ratings and just rated them all in December and wasn't very nuanced, just remembered liking in general...

Then I probably took a break before continuing, because when I started rating again, it went downhill fast...

Pre-edit: Clicking on some books, I read at least the first 20 in 2014 or earlier... 24 was in 2017, 25 was in 2018...

2-29 were in 2020, and were mostly 2 stars, with the 29th being 3 stars... then I tried one last time in 2021 with #30 and also gave it 3 stars and said my tastes must have changed or this series had taken a nosedive because they just weren't working for me anymore... also found my conversation with Amyiw to that effect...

And was reminded of the sleazy pirate plotline in #28... even if it was all a persona and misunderstanding in the end, i think...

Ah, shucks, I was hoping it was an isolated shorter series... I'm already reading two long-running smut series with y'all...

It's a never-ending series for an author that doesn't write much else...

Like I said, tho, you/we could just dip our toe in... with the immediate family in the first handful of books... I'm sure you'll get tired of the over-the-top sex blackout sooner than later...

I didn't even mention that before, how soulmates in this series have a shared feedback loop where they feel one another's sexual pleasure which usually leads to passing out, and alot of dangerous sex, if they keep having it at the drop of a hat... or while driving...

Mehhhh....

If you want a shorter, self-contained, alternate mythology supernatural story that focuses more on plot than sex, we could read/re-read White Trash Zombie...

I could consider it prep for re-reading Kara Gillian and making it to the finale that came out in recent years after a long gap...

My Life as a White Trash Zombie
Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues
White Trash Zombie Apocalypse
How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back
White Trash Zombie Gone Wild
White Trash Zombie Unchained

That's the whole series... and think iZombie... some rando becomes a zombie and works at the morgue with access to brains... some other zombies work at the funeral parlor...

Hijinks ensue... I think it's also nanos, if I remember correctly?...

I don't think #6 is an ending ending, but her releases dried up around 2017, and I'm just glad she released the Kara Gillian ending in 2022, even if she never releases anything else ever again... Kara Gillian was a much more serialized story, with a demon invasion, than White Trash Zombie, which is largely episodic...

None of those are sounding particularly appealing right now, honestly. But part of that is that I've only one more day before school hits.

It's fine... this was random... new series aren't really on the table until we start scheduling in November for 2026...

Flinging things at the wall because you showed vague interest, not because I desperately wanted to read any of the things I was mentioning... just willing to join...

I have a lot of non smutty series I'm much more interested in, lol.