House of the Rising Sun

Augustine lives the perfect life in the Haven city of New Orleans. He rarely works a real job, spends most of his nights with a different human woman, and resides in a spectacular Garden District mansion paid for by retired movie star Olivia Goodwin, who has come to think of him as an adopted son, providing him room and board and whatever else he needs.
But when Augustine returns home to find Olivia's been attacked by vampires, he knows his idyllic life has comes to an end. It's time for revenge—and to take up the mantle of the city's Guardian.

My Review

House of the Rising Sun is the first of Kristen Painter’s new Crescent City series and was one book I had a hard time putting down. If you’ve read her House of Comarré series, you will definitely enjoy this series…especially since Augustine is in it.

Kristen Painter does a spectacular job on the first book to the series with her intricate world-building, exciting storyline, and very lovable characters (especially Augustine, Lally, & Dulcinea). From the first page to the last page, I was thrown into the world of Fae, vampires, and witches in New Orleans with the characters that Kristen created. (One of my favorite cities to visit) If there is absolutely one thing that I adored about this book is how Kristen described in detail the city and surroundings the characters were in. It felt just like I was there in the story with the characters and Kristen described perfectly how NOLA is. (I’ve been there several times and this book just made me want to go back again).

Kristen Painter writes in third person point of view with several characters telling the story…my favorite was being inside of Auggie’s head. He was an interesting character to lear more about, especially with what kind of fae he is. He has a big responsibility in House of the Rising Sun, but that is due to what happened to his beloved, Olivia (who was a 2nd mother…or should I say real and first mother to him). He is forced to take a job that he doesn’t want, but he does it a spectacular job on taking the role seriously, and figuring out what is going on in NOLA.

The other character who gets a lot of exposure in the story is Harlow. I didn’t like her character at first due to her not wanting to be what she was and being whiney all the time it seemed. She was all about herself in the beginning, but something happened to get her to change. Here’s one thing I adored about her…she is a hacker. Oh yes…I love when authors throw in computer techy stuff in stories because I’m a computer geek and it’s the job field I work in. Kristen did an amazing job on explaining what Harlow does. I look forward to finding out more about her abilities and how she handles a certain situation that came to light in this book. (The poor girl went through a lot in this book…and she finally accepted she needed help.)

The supporting characters in the story definitely were entertaining as well. Lally, the human in the story is such a doll and I look forward to more of her later on. Dulcinea is another character I adored because of how she handled certain situations. She was really funny, especially when she was around Auggie and how she would stop everything to hang out with him. I would to with Auggie.

Overall, I enjoyed this book tremendously and look forward to the next installment. I didn’t want to give away any of the storyline because believe me you will want to read this book to find it out for yourself. =) No spoilers from me.

I give this book 4.5 moons and highly recommend it to urban fantasy readers out there and fans of Kristen Painter’s House of Comarré series.

You do not want to miss out on this new series about the supernaturals that inhabit NOLA. If you ever get a chance to visit NOLA, you will definitely need to visit all the historic sites and hang out at Bourbon St. The people of NOLA are amazing to hang out with and the city is great to explore day and night.

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FranJessca

Owner/Reviewer at A Book Lovin' Mama's Blog

I guess I should type a bio here. I'm FranJessca, or Fran for short. I'm the owner/reviewer behind A Book Lovin' Mama's Blog. I've been reading and reviewing books on my blog since leaving the Navy in 2011, and I will keep doing it as long as possible. My favorite genres will always be Romance & Fantasy, and I read every subgenre underneath those two genres. (Sorry, not a fan of nonfiction, so don't try to convince me to read it.)
My obsession with reading started over 30+ years ago when I went to my first Scholastic Book Fair and found R.L. Stine's Fear Street series. Later, I came across Anne Rice's novels at my public library when I was fourteen when my obsession with vampires started. I was the girl who preferred to be a vampire over a princess any day. My husband says I would leave him a heartbeat for a vampire that looked like Spike or Angel (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries. (It's true, though, and he's accepted it.)

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