An excellent continuation on the series. Blackmoore continues to deliver a strong series with a prickly protagonist who finds himself in complicated and deadly situations.

It was a fun series and the mythology is always great to follow. So I went back to the adventures of Eric Carter with great pleasure.

Our hero has come back from the dead and it’s a situation he has a hard time dealing with. It is far from being simple, it must be said! So when Gabriela and her friend Amanda ask him for help to kill someone, Eric doesn’t mind, but he didn’t expect to find himself in the middle of family intrigues in a very powerful family.

Between murders and lies, Eric will have to choose the person he wants to be and that choice will determine his future.

This was a fun new volume that, while it doesn’t advance the plot much, propels us into a whole new story. Eric is still great and it’s a pleasure to have him back.

Suicide Kings by Stephen Blackmoore, the next novel in the Eric Carter series. With death lurking around every corner and Eric just back from the dead can he stop to help his people and figure out his own problems while people try to kill him?

Another highly entertaining, fast paced, and action packed dark fantasy series that I thoroughly enjoyed.
It starts with a BANG and never stops serving action and twists.
There's not a good/bad side, there's a set of faulted characters and you root for those you found more likeable.
Eric is an action man, he's back to life but someone is trying to cut it short.
The world building and plot development are excellent, the characters are interesting.
Cant' wait to read the next story.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Thrilling Action

The seventh book of this dark urban fantasy series follows necromancer Eric Carter through a world of vengeful gods and goddesses, mysterious murders, and restless ghosts.

Family is murder.

 When Eric Carter helps a friend with a deadly ritual that could determine the fate of the most powerful mage family in Los Angeles he steps into the middle of centuries-long feuds with people who make the Borgias look like the Brady Bunch.

 Eric's just fine with the murder, soul eaters, and death magic. He's just having trouble adjusting to being brought back from the grave.

 If he's not careful, somebody's going to put him right back.

One of the first things you notice as you begin reading, is Stephen Blackmoore doesn’t waste time. The story and plot pick up right away, the action exploding off the page. There is not a wasted moment or page in the novel and Eric Carter gets swept up into the machinations and political maneuvering of others. On top of the politics, he’s still struggling with having been brought back from the grave. The two are both important to the character and the story.

One of the things I love the most is how much the character stays consistent to his core personality even through death but still continues to grow. We still get snappy dialogue, humor dripping out of Eric’s mouth at every interaction, but he does have moments of introspection. His tendency to be a jerk wars with his desire to help others but helping defines the character far more which makes him far more relatable to readers. And his desire to stay out of trouble even when he is being dragged once more into the middle of danger. 

Stephen Blackmoore's ability to write thrilling action and mystery, political intrigue, and a main character that is completely engrossing is why this book is so good. If you like action, paranormal intrigue with political overtones, and family drama, this book is for you. I find I can follow the story easily. I think readers who haven’t read the series will like it but I do recommend the entire series. 

Rating: 5 out 5 family deaths

Suicide Kings by Stephen Blackmoore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This new volume of the Eric Carter series picks up well after the nastiness of killing a few gods and waking up in his grandfather's corpse. These are little things that should never get in the way of a good, down-to-earth Noir mystery.

Indeed, getting to know this little nasty family makes me feel downright sorry for Carter. They're all seriously messed up.

Suffice to say, I enjoyed the tournament battles and infiltrating to the conclave and Eric as he attempted to work through his own extensive issues while keeping himself busy on all the rest.

Either we can call this an interlude between the big stuff or it's a firm re-establishment of the core of the Noir. I enjoy both, so I'm happy.

Another great ride!

Ceux qui me suivent depuis un moment savent que j’apprécie beaucoup cette série de dark urban fantasy. Ce tome n’est pas une exception, même si il est a noté que pour la première fois de la série il se termine en cliffhanger.

Dans ce tome, Eric se retrouve embarqué dans des histoires de familles. En effet il s’est fait une amie récemment, Amanda, un jeune femme d’une des plus grandes familles de mages. Celle ci est l’héritière de son père qui contrôle la section étasunienne de la famille.

Normalement Eric évite comme la peste ce genre de contact parce qu’il sait que c’est un monde sans pitié ou tout le monde cherche à assassiner tout le monde. Mais Amanda n’a pas vraiment de lien affectif avec sa famille et on ne contrôle pas ses amitiés quand elles viennent.

Eric commence à se faire un vrai nom dans la région de Los Angeles. les gens le voient comme une force avec laquelle il ne faut pas plaisanter ce qui l’arrange. Mais ça n’arrange pas ses amitiés …
En effet voila qu’on cherche à l’assassiner juste parce qu’il est ami avec Amanda. Celle ci lui explique que sa famille est victime d’une malédiction très ancienne qui empêche ses membres de se combattre directement. Mais les duels par proxi ou par champions sont autorisés.

Tout les x années la famille se réunit lors d’un grand conseil qui redéfini les pouvoirs. Et il se trouve que cette réunion exceptionnelle va avoir lieu dans les jours à venir.
Un des oncles d’Amanda a déjà prévenu qu’il souhaitait devenir l’héritier et du coup défier la jeune femme pour prendre sa place. Il va profiter de la réunion pour avoir le droit de se battre lui même, et il est extrêmement puissant. Malheureusement cette malédiction étant très ancienne, Amanda n’a pas le droit de se battre elle même, étant une femme. Elle a donc toujours besoin d’un champion. C’est dommage parce qu’elle était également très puissante.

C’est à ce moment la que les événements se rapprochent d’Eric.
Qu’il soit ami avec Amanda est vu comme une menace pour le clan de l’oncle. Ceux ci décident de tenter de se débarrasser de lui pour être sur que celle ci n’ira pas le choisir comme champion …

Evidemment ça va le mettre en colère. Qu’on ose s’en prendre à lui alors qu’il a toujours dit et prouvé qu’il refusait de s’impliquer dans la politique des mages, c’est un affront personnel. Bien évidemment aussi le fait qu’Amanda soit en danger l’aide à prendre sa décision, et il se propose donc d’être son champion pendant la semaine que durera la réunion de famille …

Vous vous doutez bien que cette sympathique réunion sera le témoin de nombreuses tentatives de meurtre, de pièges, d’enlèvements, de disparitions mystérieuses … De quoi occuper Eric et le distraire un peu pendant qu’il tente en parallèle de ses propres problèmes liés à son association avec les dieux Aztec qui l’ont ramené d’entre les morts.

La grosse surprise de ce tome a été le cliffhanger. Je ne m’y attendais vraiment pas. L’intrigue de ce tome n’est donc pas terminée et j’ai hâte de lire la suite. C’est la première fois que ça arrive depuis le début de la série. Mais je ne suis pas vraiment déçue, ça ne change rien à mon envie de lire la suite. Il faudra juste de la patience.

Les deux éléments qui pour moi font que cette série se démarque sont les dialogues et le personnage principal.
L’ensemble est toujours aussi rempli de violences, vu sous l’œil sarcastique et un peu désabusé d’Eric pour qui les problèmes des mortels sont des fois un peu insignifiants quand on a des dieux à ses trousses et qu’on a déjà vu ce qui se trouvait de l’autre coté de la mort … Eric est du genre à ne pas s’occuper de ce qui ne le regarde pas, il trace son petit bout de chemin principalement en solitaire. Mais quand on le met en colère, les choses vont mal.

Les dialogues sont ce qui rend cette série dynamique et fun à lire, je compte dedans aussi les dialogues d’introspection d’Eric. Le genre de livre très décomplexé et plein d’action qui se lit d’une traite et offre un bon dépaysement.

Une lecture très agréable !

I’ve been reading this author for a while, and I think this is my favorite book yet. Eric is still dealing with the consequences of coming back in his new “home” in interesting ways, and he is trying to help a friend at the same time. I still hate that he can take a licking and keep on ticking, but I find Eric a little more mellow than he was before. I came to also really like Amanda and Gabriella in this one and the intriguing dynamic the three of them have. This was a well-written book which was full of action and an interesting universe. After the end of this one, I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series. Highly recommend. I was provided a complimentary copy which I voluntarily reviewed.

I've been digging on Eric Carter since the beginning, and this book is among the best yet in the series. Love seeing the world expansion and new facets of the personalities build from book to book! Excellent!

I loved reading this book! I devoured it, it was so quick and easy to read! I loved continuing to watch Eric deal with all these supernatural problems! He is very flawed, he's in a pretty violent world, and he's still in this weird situation where he doesn't know who he is.

The bulk of this story is that this wickedly powerful magical family is all coming together for a meeting, and they're all jockeying for power, and Amanda needs a knight, basically, and Eric is skilled and unconnected enough to serve in that role. And wow, were the relations and politics between the various members of this family volatile! Eric was kept on his toes!

There's this one detail about his grandfather, and I'm not sure if it's been mentioned or not, but given that his grandfather's body now hosts him, I really hope that we explore that in the future! That it's not just because Eric's a necromancer.

That ending though? That was pure evil, and up their for cliffhanger-ness of Ghost Money! So now I need to know what's going to happen next in Hate Machine! The ball was started rolling in this book to get a certain outcome-now to find out why!

This was such a fantastic book, and I need the next book now!

Sometimes, it's just nice to let lose with a protagonist who enjoys violence. Violence is abhorrent in real life, but I think writing or reading about it in an escapism read is a good way to vent. Our protagonist, Eric Carter, is good at placing himself in situations where he can let loose on people who are even more monstrous than he, without any of the angst that makes grimdark fantasy a little tough to get through.

In LA, a powerful mage princess named Amanda, hobbled by an ancient and misogynistic curse, hires (or tries to hire) Eric to champion her in a succession struggle. Eric's just like, "You're a good person, and you want me to hurt bad people? I'm in." There's a scene where Amanda tries to apologize to Eric for dragging him into such a dangerous scene, and you can practically hear him saying, "No please, this is fun. I like killing people." He doesn't actually say that, because that's too close to condoning violence for mass print, but you know he's thinking it.

I usually find myself bored by descriptive battle scenes, car cashes, and fist fighting, either because you always know how it will turn out - the good guy will win with a perfectly placed scrape across his cheekbone, and the bad guy will lose and get beat up, but not too badly that he won't recover and haunt the good guy from prison - or because it takes too much concentration to try to follow descriptions of fights where you spend so much time picturing the blow by blow it becomes work instead of fun. Stephen Blackmoore doesn't do that. He's good at filtering out the minutiae enough to just appreciate *insert fight here* without cheapening the moment.

We also get some unexpected, but high quality, character development in this book. Eric's connection to Mictlan and Mictlantecuhtli is still very much a part of the story, even if it's no longer center stage like the first four books (and wah, do I miss that plot). Eric is still coping with his resurrection in the previous book, and his complicated feelings for his friend Gabriela, who in the same stroke gave him another shot at life and stole his afterlife. I really appreciate how Blackmoore does not take for granted death's natural place in the lifecycle (especially for a necromancer), and the consequences of circumventing it.

Was not expecting this book to end on a cliffhanger though. No cool, Blackmoore!

Overall, a fantastic addition to this series. Highly recommended for fans of Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. Even if the main character's name still sounds like he should be a Backstreet Boy (yes, I know that's Nick Carter, not Eric Carter, but it's hardly a name that strikes you with terror).

This seventh entry in the dark UF Eric Carter series begins what could be a new direction for the series. Can Eric finally come to grips with who and what he is while trying to help out Amanda Werther with her dysfunctional family and their many rivalries and disagreements. A very enjoyable read, although I prefer a more tidy denouement.. Already looking forward to the next installment.

"The seventh book of this dark urban fantasy series follows necromancer Eric Carter through a world of vengeful gods and goddesses, mysterious murders, and restless ghosts.

Family is murder.

When Eric Carter helps a friend with a deadly ritual that could determine the fate of the most powerful mage family in Los Angeles he steps into the middle of centuries-long feuds with people who make the Borgias look like the Brady Bunch.

Eric's just fine with the murder, soul eaters, and death magic. He's just having trouble adjusting to being brought back from the grave.

If he's not careful, somebody's going to put him right back."

I mean seriously, I CAN NOT be the only one saying that the model for Eric Carter on the covers HAS to be Richard Armitage. I mean, he looks SO MUCH like Richard Armitage it's spooky. Especially in the latest Harlan Coban adaptation.

Stephen Blackmoore’s Suicide Kings is a Dresden-like urban fantasy that suffers from choppy writing and a too-high weird quotient.
In theory, I’m the ideal audience for this book. I love urban fantasy. In particular, I love Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. And when I read reviews about Blackmoore’s series, many of them written by people complaining that this was yet another white male power fantasy with misogynistic overtones, I thought I’d still give it a shot.
While I didn’t get any sense of misogyny from this book, it’s still not the right one for me. Blackmoore’s writing is just too choppy; the jump from one idea to the next (description to description, action to action) was often so abrupt that it was hard to follow. I was also quickly overwhelmed by too much magic, and magic that was too weird.
I’m bummed because I thought I’d found another good series for me.
Recommended for Dresden fans who like their magic quotient high and who aren’t super invested in the prose.

(spoilers ahead for previous books)

Being resurrected against his will has left Eric with an identity crisis and in a terrible mood. His new body (formerly his grandfather's corpse) has left him with some weird lingering memories from his grandfather, and his old ties to Mictlan have left him with the lingering memories of Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead. At least this body isn't plagued with the CTE, injuries, and years of drug use that made him kind of a jerk. It's a new, more likeable Eric who knows even fancier tricks (who is still a bit of a jerk.)

His post-resurrection ennui leads him to assist Amanda, the daughter of the leader of one of the most powerful magical families in the country, who is facing assassination attempts by relatives. Much like the previous books, this one includes its fair share of violence and action, but is framed within a whodunnit murder mystery that takes place during a family get-together of a family of awful, powerful people. He, his powerful ally Gabriela, and Amanda (who is a pretty terrifying person herself) fight to stay alive long enough to figure out who the killer is.

It ends on a cliffhanger.

I'm still a big fan of Eric Carter and look forward to seeing the next title.

This continues to be one of my absolute favorite series and Blackmoore one of my absolute favorite authors. Every entry is better than the last and even though I should know to expect a gut punch ending at this point, Eric gets me every damn time. I am going to be utterly devastated when this ride comes to whatever undoubtedly cursed, fiery end Blackmoore has planed for us.

Stephen Blackmoore continues his Eric Carter series with another page turning book. Absolutely love this series and think this author is the best at speculative fiction noir.