What Can You Tell Me About Donna Boyd?

Has anyone read any of her books? I was in the bookstore (the magazine section. Honest.), and, uhm, these just happened to catch my eye:

The Passion

From the Publisher
In finely crafted prose and lush detail, Donna Boyd weaves a spell-binding tapestry of romance and suspense set against richly imagined landscapes of sensuousness. An intense saga of love and betrayal, The Passion is a story of those who walk the fine line between man beast.
On the eve of a brutal murder in contemporary Manhattan, Alexander Devoncroix finally reveals to his son and heir a tightly guarded chapter in the family history, which is know to no outsiders.

In a world in which a superior race of werewolved holds the positions of power, human and werewolf segregation had become the norm. But for the first time, the leaders of the pack have accepted a human. In dazzling nineteenth century Paris, we meet three pivotal players: the young human Tessa LeGuerre, who falls under the spell of a very powerful, very sensual werewolf; Alexander Devoncroix, the charismatic werewolf who adores humans too well, but whose ultimate loyalty is to the pack; and Elise, the imperial pack leader who lays claim to Alexander. Beloved ""pet"" of select members of the pack, Tessa naively embraces all things werewolf--an ambition that results in unspeakable tragedy.

This is the sequel:

The Promise

From the Publisher
""I saw the only woman I ever loved almost destroyed by my secrets.But it was the telling of them, in the end, that brought her to ruin.""
From the journals of Matise Devoncroix
Hannah Braselton North has abandoned civilization to spend her life in the Alaskan wilderness.And now she holds in her hands the supposed ""memoirs"" of one Matise Devoncroix.It is a story of strange desires and forbidden love--the tale of a magnificent hidden race and a tortured, doomed relationship.And it is somehow connectedto the critically injured male wolf Hannah pulled from the same airplane wreckage in which she discovered the diary.

But the deeper she delves into Devoncroix’s story--and the stronger her recovering ""patient"" becomes--the more the sad, reclusive scientist realizes that what she is reading is no mere fiction.The world’s true rulers have been revealed to her: fierce, strong, beautiful, and sensual creatures who have long dominated civilization in secret.The burned and bloody wolf she has taken into her small cabin is one of them: a living relation of the tragic Matise, Nicholas Devoncroix.And as his broken body mends, his awesome powers of attraction strengthen as well--as do his memories and his rage...and his lust for vengeance


And this book sounds pretty damn good too:

The Alchemist

From Publishers Weekly
Following two well-received werewolf novels (The Passion and The Promise), Boyd scores again with this engrossing tale of magic and immortality that calls to mind Anne Rice in her prime. Into the New York office of Dr. Anne Kramer, therapist, walks the charismatic Randolph Sontime, who's just committed a gruesome murder that's led to headlines full of outrage. Not easily rattled, Dr. Kramer finds herself losing her professional cool as the stranger tries to explain his crime. "Imagine if you will the days spinning backward: a millennium ends here, a century turns there, a year ends now, and another, and a thousand others," he says at the start of his hypnotizing story of "Egypt before time." Han, as Sontime was then called, tells in beautiful, luxurious detail of his youth spent in the House of Ra, a mystical temple where Practitioners learned alchemy, magic and ways to shape reality. When Han and two other students at the top of the class, the boy Akan and the girl Nefar, combined their magics one fateful day, the trio unleashed a power that they could neither understand nor control. Thereafter a passion for creating a perfect world ruled their lives, but since their magic was imperfect, their lofty schemes invariably came to ruin. Love, jealousy, insanity and murder all figure in this pitch-perfect narrative, while the House of Ra ranks high on the list of fantasy's most intriguing magic schools. Though some readers may feel the book is too short, the incendiary twist ending holds out the promise of more to come. (Jan. 2)Forecast: Romance readers as well as SF fans should go for this atypical fantasy in which ancient magic is in effect the same as today's technology.

I was good, I left them all on the shelf, for now.... ;-)

ps: I wrote this entry a couple of days ago and saved it. Today I went back to the bookstore (I'm weak, sue me). I thumbed through the first book a little more carefully. I still think the books sound awesome, but I don't think the author's voice works for me. I've got a lot to say about voice (not talent or skill, *voice*), but this post is already too long, so I'll save it for another day.