I’ve never read any of your books but I’ve certainly heard of you. How could I not? Not only do you have a substantial backlist, you’ve had a long career. Recently, it seems like you’ve turned your attention towards YA retellings of mythological princesses. In this novel, you focus on Himiko, the shaman-queen of Yayoi era Japan.

Not much is known about the Yayoi period. My knowledge of Japanese history only goes back to the Heian era, and even the historical facts seemed to be obscured since most of what we know comes from outside sources (China, Korea) rather than directly from Japanese record. So in many ways, this is like fleshing out a myth. Unfortunately, that comes with some pitfalls.

Spirit’s Princess tells the story of Himiko, princess of her clan. The only girl among many brothers, Himiko wants nothing more than to become a hunter. But when an attempt to persuade her beloved older brother that she’s capable goes awry, any possibility of walking down that path is crushed.

But it turns out Himiko is destined for another path. She’s always been able to hear the voices of various spirits: tree, animal, rock, you name it. It’d be easy to dismiss these voices as the imaginings of an especially precocious child but as Himiko grows older, it becomes apparent it’s something else entirely.

She is destined to become a shaman. Unfortunately, the previous clan leader was a shaman herself and her rule left many scars, many of them inflicted upon Himiko’s father. And so Himiko must learn to become a shaman while keeping it from her father.

This book is structured differently from a lot of current YA. For one, Himiko spends a good chunk of the book extremely young. And she reads young, making all the impulsive and terrible decisions young children are prone to do. It isn’t until the latter half of the novel that she’s the “normal” age for a YA protagonist. I can see how this extended timeline would be necessary to set up the world and Himiko’s life, but it also causes the book to drag a bit. I couldn’t help but think that this is a rather long book for a plot in which not much happens.

Readers expecting action will be sorely disappointed. This is primarily an introspective novel. Himiko gives up her early childhood dream of becoming a hunter, only to choose another path that is soon barred to her. There’s some inter-clan conflict but not much is shown on-page. I suppose that’s to be expected since Himiko isn’t privy to many of those interactions and the book is told through her POV. On the other hand, since the historical Himiko is said to have risen to power amidst a civil war, I can see the events of this book laying the groundwork for that backdrop.

I’m sure many readers out there just groaned by what I implied. Yes, this is the first of a series, possibly a trilogy. I wish I had known that going in. Then I wouldn’t have wondered at the abrupt ending and set-up for what I assume is the confict for the next book.

What I’m most unsure of, however, is the historical basis for this novel. I know I said I don’t know much about the time period, and what information out there is murky and often taken from outsider viewpoints, but there were bits that I know are incorrect. For one, the names read particularly modern: Yuki, Kaya, etc. During the Yayoi period, the names would have been much longer and a little more bombastic in convention — including the name of the clan, etc. I realize this boils down to authorial choice. It is easier to remember shorter names, both for the author and the reader. But it doesn’t sit well with me to eschew accuracy like this. And if something simple like the names aren’t remotely accurate, how can I be sure the society is portrayed properly? It casts doubt on a lot of things.

I’m also not convinced about the magic system/religion. I believe Shinto was already established by this time period. It was never clear to me if the book’s presentation of spirits was meant to be equivalent to the kami of Shinto. I’m not sure if the book intended it to be a presentation of early Shinto or if it was meant to be something else entirely. Perhap an animist precursor?

I really wanted to like this book. It’s not often that a Japanese princess is picked as the focus for a retelling, let alone that princess being Himiko. But I was never entirely convinced of the setting, which could have been any “exotic” place save for the Japanese names, and the plot served almost entirely as set-up for Himiko’s burgeoning powers. It’s only been a week since I finished reading the book and already my memories of the details fade. Never a good sign. C

My regards,
Jia

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I’m always on the lookout for books featuring nonwhite characters so when I stumbled across your new novel on NetGalley, I had to request it. I know my previous encounter with your work was so-so but the experience certainly wasn’t enough to turn me off to the possibility of giving you another try. I’m so very glad I did.

Shadows on the Moon tells the story of Suzume, the daughter of a noble family. When the book opens, she’s looking forward to celebrating her birthday without the oppressive presence of her mother, who’s currently away visiting a bereaved relative. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a happy day turns to tragedy. Soldiers attack her family and everyone is killed.

Everyone except for Suzume, that is. (After all, if Suzume died, there’d be no story.) Suzume manages to survive and reunites with her mother, who arrives by the side of powerful lord Terayama who was also the best friend of Suzume’s father. Terayama takes in both Suzume and her mother and as perceptive readers can guess, soon her mother and Terayama marry.

Suzume throws all she has into forgetting what happened and becoming a perfect daughter and lady. That plan falls apart when she learns the truth: Terayama was responsible for the death of her beloved father and cousin. It’s something Suzume cannot forgive. And so she casts off her entire identity in order to seek revenge.

This was one of the more original retellings of Cinderella I’ve seen. I’m not even referring to the setting, which is a fantasy world loosely based on what I believe to be Heian era Japan. The interweaving of Suzume’s quest for revenge with her psychological trauma and burgeoning magical ability against the original Cinderella story was well done. I also found it interesting that the wicked stepmother and fairy godmother roles were genderflipped and assumed by male characters here.

I also thought it was refreshing that Suzume’s prince was not actually the Prince Charming character. In fact, the Prince Charming analogue is rather bland — something Suzume acknowledges, but she sees him as a means to an end rather than her one true love. Instead Suzume’s love interest was another prince entirely. It was great that he was not only nonwhite but also the African analogue of this setting. It’s still relatively rare to find interracial romances between nonwhite characters (versus the more common white/nonwhite couple), and I liked seeing that representation here.

Speaking of great, it was also nice to see a trans woman as a major supporting character, especially when she wasn’t portrayed as a freak. It’s still 50/50 these days when it comes to portrayals of transgendered characters. (And maybe I’m being generous with those odds.) While Akira is infamous, it has more to do with her past role as the lover of the previous Prince than her gender in and of itself. It was nice that Shadows on the Moon didn’t just focus on diversity in race but also queer diversity. That’s more inclusive.

I found Suzume’s trauma over the family massacre, as well as her guilt over surviving it, to be handled pretty well. As a reader, I felt how damaged she was and saw how it ultimately led to her cutting. And a warning to readers sensitive to depictions of cutting, there’s a lot of it, especially in the first parts of the novel where Suzume is the most freshly traumatized by her experience. I wouldn’t say it was portrayed in explicit detail but it’s definitely present and Suzume relies on it quite a bit.

I appreciated the effort to leave certain Japanese terms untranslated. Because it’s true; some things are lost in translation due to there being no English-language equivalent. For example, Japanese honorifics like -san or -chan. Translating these terms can be clunky and awkward so I favor leaving them as is. On the other hand, there can be such a thing as including too much. If there’s a direct English translation of a Japanese word, I see no reason to leave it in the original Japanese. For example, baka means idiot or stupid. There’s no reason why that can’t be translated. I realize it’s a fine line to walk. Some prefer more original Japanese language while others like none to be included at all.

Revenge stories are one of my favorite narratives so I stayed glued to the pages until the end. However, the more we approached the end, the messier the plot became — and I don’t mean in a good way. It seemed rushed and anticlimatic. It’s not that I thought Suzume’s ultimate revenge against Terayama to be inappropriate; I found it fitting, in fact. But the narrative tension lost some steam when a certain reveal took place right before the climax.

Retellings are fairly common, and Cinderella is often a popular choice. Despite this, I thought Shadows on the Moon brought something new to the table. The choice of setting, the diverse cast of characters, and the heroine’s personal trauma and determination to seek revenge no matter the cost made this a worthwhile read for me. B

My regards,
Jia

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I’m a big Edgar Allan Poe fan. Any book with a title referencing him is always going to get a second look from me. Combined with a striking cover, it’s almost guaranteed I will pick it up. I initially thought Masque of the Red Death was a debut, but your name sounded familiar so I did a quick search. I discovered I’d reviewed your debut (a contemporary YA) a few years ago. And while I didn’t much care for that novel, I’m always willing to give an author another try, especially if their next work is something different.

Masque of the Red Death takes place in a neo-Victorian, steampunk city reminiscent of New Orleans. It’s a decaying metropolis, practically in ruins, in no small part due to a highly contagious plague that’s afflicted the populace. Our protagonist, Araby Worth, is the daughter of a scientist. Her father invented the masks that allow people to travel out in the open without fear of contracting the disease. This allows her a position of privilege.

You see, only the wealthy can afford the masks. The poor are left to fend for themselves. Of course, the rich take all this doom and gloom seriously. With death and disease all around, most of them spend their time at the Debauchery Club where they can forget their pain through drugs and meaningless sex.

Araby’s reasons for going to the Debauchery Club, however, are more personal. She once had a twin brother and we’re led to believe he died from the plague. Araby feels both responsibility for his death and guilt because she survived. She intends to live the rest of her life in stasis, forgoing everything and anything that her brother will never experience. (Yeah, it’s a little overkill but teenagers can be pretty dramatic.) But Araby’s existence is shaken up when she meets Elliott, her best friend’s older brother. Elliott wants to start a revolution and he needs Araby’s help to make it happen.

If there’s one thing I like about this book, it’s the atmosphere. It’s dreary, which suits the premise. An extremely contagious, and extremely lethal, disease is sweeping through your city. There is no cure, and only a select few have access to the one thing that has a chance of preventing infection. I’d be hopeless too.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t appreciate this as much as I’d like because I spent a good chunk of the book utterly confused as to when and where it takes place. I admit it’s the fantasy reader in me. I like the setting clearly defined and portrayed. I never could figure out if Masque took place in an alternate historical earth featuring steampunk technology or if it was a constructed, secondary fantasy world. There are aspects of the setting that can even support a post-apocalyptic setting. It’s almost as if the setting attempted to be everything for every reader, and that never ends well. Readers who aren’t as fixated on setting probably won’t mind the vagueness but those who do pay attention to that sort of thing may run into some issues.

Araby is a frustrating protagonist. The angst stemming from her survivor’s guilt makes sense for the majority of the book but when the big revelation comes towards the end, I couldn’t help but think the degree to which she self-flagellated was blown out of proportion. In many ways it makes sense for her to go through life, merely existing and trying to escape, but while that’s a realistic course of action, it often ends up being dull to read about.

When Araby gets pushed out of her comfort zone, I should have cheered. Instead I ended up boggling over some of her decisions. For example, why in the world would you steal things from your parents because a guy you just met (and who you don’t even like) told you to? There’s no logic here, and it makes Araby look a bit dim. She also goes along with many things that would normally set off warning bells. There’s being naïve and sheltered, and then there’s having no sense of self-preservation. It’d be nice to think these actions are due to Araby’s survivor’s guilt, which in turn has fed a sort of fatalistic attitude but I’m not convinced that was intentional.

There’s also a love triangle. I’m sure no one is surprised by this, given the state of the genre these days. Araby is initially taken by Will, a bouncer at the club she frequents with her best friend. Will seems like a nice guy — he’s kind to Araby, despite the obvious difference in social class; he takes care of his two younger siblings. I truly liked the portrayal of the relationship between them. But when Elliott was introduced and began to take up more page time with Araby, I knew Will’s viability as a love interest was going to plummet.

This irritated me because Elliott is a jerk. He’s not nice. He tells Araby not to trust him but he also expects her to do all these things he asks. He’s jealous and possessive for no good reason. There’s a memorable scene in which he threatens to drop her into a river filled with hungry crocodiles. None of these things scream love interest to me. They do, however, scream Get away. I will never understand the allure of the jerk love interest. Maybe I’m supposed to excuse Elliott because of his tragic family history but that’s not going to happen. Araby’s family history is just as tragic and she doesn’t treat people the way he does.

But my biggest complaint about the book has to do with its execution. While I really did like the dark, gloomy feel of it, many aspects did not ring true. Like many other people, Araby goes to the Debauchery Club to forget her sorrows. For some people, this means having meaningless sex with strangers. For others, like Araby, this means getting high. Pretty edgy material, right?

Except it doesn’t read edgy. Nothing about how the club is portrayed is believable or authentic. Araby is constantly getting high but her drug trips never actually read like drug trips. She was always passing out or falling asleep. That’s not getting high. That’s being sedated or getting roofied, neither of which I think is the intention. Looking back, I realize I had a similar complaint with your previous novel. I really dislike the inclusion of “shocking” content to be edgy without actually going all in and being edgy. If things like drugs and meaningless hook-ups are going to be portrayed in novels, then it needs to be more than just for show.

I had high hopes for Masque of the Red Death. Maybe too high. It had a lot of elements I like: gothic atmosphere, plague, and references to Edgar Allan Poe. But the execution left a lot to be desired. Combined with frustrating characters and a love triangle lacking any subtlety, I regretted being lured in by the pretty cover. D

My regards,
Jia

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The Scholomance by R. Lee Smith.
Since lots of people were talking about Smith, I decided to give one of her books a try. While I definitely agree her work isn’t for everyone, I really enjoyed my first foray into her works. It had an intensity to it that I feel has been lacking in other books, and I liked that the demons read and acted like aliens. They were pretty inhuman for the most part. After I finished this one, I remember not reading anything else for a week because everything seemed so bland by comparison. I’ll probably give Heat a try at some point later this year.

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A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink.
Such a frustrating read! It was vague on every front that mattered and there were quite a few logic fails. Full review here.

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The Kingdom by Amanda Stevens.
I have no idea what happened. I really enjoyed the first book in this trilogy and I did like the first part of this installment. But then things started getting weird and nonsensical and I wanted off the ride. I had the final book in the trilogy in my TBR pile but after reading the first chapter, I decided it was time for me to get off the bus permanently. Sad when that happens. Full review here.

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The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman.
What an odd book. There were parts of it I really enjoyed, and parts of it that I wished had been done differently. Maybe I was expecting more of a breakneck thriller pace than what I got. Full review here.

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Doubletake by Rob Thurman.
The Leandros boys never fail to cheer me up. This book covers all sorts of (awkward) family reunions. We learn why there are only male pucks (and what that means when it comes to procreation), and we finally meet Niko’s dad. There’s a development regarding the auphe that tells me we’re launching into the next thematic arc for the series. If the previous book was sort of a breather, this one is a preview of what’s to come. I’m really intrigued by what we glimpsed. (And for those readers like me who’ve missed her, Georgie makes a brief cameo.)

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The Girl in the Park by Mariah Fredericks.
A YA mystery thriller about a girl looking into the death of her former best friend. Nice interweaving of social media and outward appearances versus secret lives. Full review here.

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Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin.
So disappointing! I was so thrilled to read a book that references Edgar Allan Poe. Unfortunately the reality doesn’t live up to the promise. The heroine makes some ridiculous choices. The love triangle makes it painfully obvious who the ultimate choice will be, and of course that choice is the asshole. Honestly, it read like someone trying to be edgy but had no actual experience with the topics at hand. Review to come.

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Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris.
I enjoyed this one a lot. I’m hoping books like this one means we’re moving away from the YA dystopian trend and more towards YA thrillers. The heroine reminded me of Veronica Mars in many respects. Actually, the book itself is something like a cross between Veronica Mars, 24, and X-Files. It is a big book, I suppose, but it reads extremely fast. Loved that the insta-love romance plot here made sense to me. Review here.

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Shadows of the Moon by Zoe Marriott.
Kind of like a Cinderella story set in a fantasy world loosely based on (what I think is) Heian era Japan. The heroine, Suzume, survived the slaughter of her family, and I thought it was a pretty realistic depiction of that sort of trauma. Her mother also survived (she was away when the attack came) and eventually remarries, taking Suzume with her. But then Suzume discovers that her new stepfather is the one responsible for the murder of her family and soon embarks on a quest for revenge. I liked how the book interwove all the different guises and lives Suzume adopts for herself, and blended the original Cinderella story with the culture and Suzume’s revenge tale. Review to come.

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What about you guys? Read any of these? What did you think? What are you reading now? I’m currently reading Spirit’s Princess by Esther Friesner, which portrays the story of the Japanese shaman-queen, Himiko.

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I admit I went into your debut novel not knowing much about it. I knew it was a YA. I had an idea about the basic set-up: a girl dies in a car accident and is brought back to life by a classmate. This somehow leads into a race against the clock to save the world which is about to be destroyed. Even the backcover blurb left me with more questions than answers. All these things piqued my interest enough to give your novel a try. It’s a decision I don’t regret.

It’s the last days of summer before junior year, and Janelle Tenner is spending them as she normally would. She’s lifeguarding at the beach because if there’s one thing she excells at, it’s swimming. She has a new boyfriend and is excited about it — but she could do without the accompanying drama involving his ex-girlfriend.

Then she’s hit by a truck. It’s exactly like the stories say — she sees a bright light and scenes from her life flash before her eyes. Janelle knows she’s dying. But inexplicably, she’s brought back from the dead to find one of the loner boys from her high school, Ben Michaels, leaning over her. Janelle can’t explain why but just like she knew she’d died, she knew Ben somehow brought her back to life.

Even though Ben hangs out with the stoners at her high school, Janelle is curious. She tries to find out more about him — especially how he could have possibly healed her fatal injuries. At the same time, Janelle discovers her FBI agent father is looking into her accident and that it’s somehow connected to a major case he’s currently working on.

Janelle can’t help herself and snoops into her father’s files. What she finds leads her to believe that the FBI has discovered a bioweapon capable of unleashing a deadly virus. But once she discovers the secret behind Ben’s mysterious ability, Janelle learns that the bomb in FBI custody is something much, much worse.

Unraveling is what you get when you mix 24, Veronica Mars, and X-Files. The fast pace and countdown conceit is reminiscent of 24. Janelle Tenner reminds me of Veronica Mars in many ways — she’s the daughter of a law enforcement official and she’s clever and likes putting together cases. There’s also that incident at a party involving a roofie. As for the X-Files part, there’s a lot of weirdness taking place in the first half of the book. Corpses being found of people with severe radiation burns. The truck that hit Janelle is a make and model no one has heard of. And of course there’s Ben, who can bring people back from the dead.

It sounds like a lot but I thought the book made the various elements work. I admit I made the mistake of assuming this was going to be a paranormal novel. I suppose it was the part where Ben healed Janelle. I tend to associate that with paranormals and fantasies. But it’s not, and I don’t want other readers to go in with that expectation. Instead it’s a soft SF thriller. I call it soft SF because the science is not really delved into or explored as much as you’d find in the harder SF titles. I don’t mind this because I prefer soft SF to hard but readers who like their science fiction hard and technical will be dissatisfied. This is especially true in the second half of the book, after we discover what the deal with Ben, the countdown, and the bomb is.

This is one of those rare cases where I believed the instant love between Janelle and Ben. Janelle is drawn to him because he saved her life. It’s reasonable to expect her to be curious about him and his ability. When she discovers that there’s more than meets the eye, I found it easy to believe she’d fall in love with him. I also thought Ben’s attraction to Janelle was believable as well — harder to accomplish since in the hands of another author, I might have considered his feelings creepy considering the reason why he’s drawn to her and has always been drawn to her. But as with Janelle’s fascination with Ben, I think it makes for someone to be drawn to the person who saved their life.

I liked the depiction of Janelle’s home life. It has its good points, but it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. She loves her FBI agent father but there’s a deep thread of resentment there because he’s never home. This wouldn’t be as big an issue if it weren’t for the fact that her mother is mentally ill and not even remotely functional. In effect, Janelle is left with the responsibility of taking care of her mother and also raising her younger brother. There’s a particularly poignant scene in the novel where Janelle realizes that she’s essentially her brother’s maternal figure so losing her would hit him far harder than losing either of his true parents. It’s a sad truth but a real one.

It was nice to see that Janelle’s friendships weren’t all sunshine and roses or doom and gloom. A lot of the time, it’s either one extreme or the other. Alex is her best friend and they help each other out all the time, but they have their disagreements. Ben’s best friend cannot stand Janelle, but he’s willing to put up with her for Ben’s sake. Janelle’s relationship with her former best friend is a mess and illustrates that sometimes you can’t find it in yourself to forgive. I think platonic relationships can be especially hard to depict in a nuanced fashion so I liked that we saw many different variations.

On the other hand, I would have liked for there to be more female characters that were on Janelle’s side. There’s her ex-best friend. There’s her current boyfriend ex-girlfriend. There’s her mother. These women were not there to support to Janelle and in many ways, were there to cause her more problems. With the focus on her FBI father, her father’s partner, Ben and his friends, and her best friend, it would have nice to have other female characters who didn’t fall into that category.

I can understand why some readers would find this book to be jumbled and unfocused. There’s a lot going on, and I don’t disagree that the narrative could be streamlined. I didn’t mind the way it was told, but I can see why some readers would be irritated. I will say that if you enjoyed Kate Elliott’s Cold Magic and the way that narrative was told, you will probably not mind Unraveling’s execution.

There are a few other quibbles. There’s an event that happens midway through the book. When it becomes obvious who the potential suspects are, the perpetrator ends up being painfully obvious. Alex, Janelle’s best friend, does something at the end that struck me as out of character. It seemed more like he did it because the plot required that he do it, not because it was something his character would do. The thread involving Janelle’s former best friend and her current boyfriend’s ex just trails off into nothingness. For that matter, her current boyfriend vanishes into obscurity after Janelle decides their relationship isn’t working out and that Ben is worth pursuing instead.

All that said, I did enjoy Unraveling and devoured it. My ARC is almost 450 pages long and I didn’t think the book read like it at all. It was enjoyable and I hope that more SF thrillers along this vein are soon to follow in the genre. Word of warning to readers though: while I thought the ending was appropriate and fitting, there’s a cliffhanger regarding the romantic plot. You’ll know what I mean if you read the book. B+

My regards,
Jia

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I’m a sucker for an evocative title, even more so than I am for a striking cover. And for me, you don’t get more evocative than The Book of Blood and Shadow. It caught my eye immediately on NetGalley. On top of that, the premise sounded different. That’s not something you can say often in the young adult genre these days. Having finished the book, I agree with my initial impression — it is a different book. At the same time though, I’m also forced to concede that it’s also a strange book.

Nora Kane comes from a broken family struggling to maintain a semblance of normalcy. Her older brother died in a car crash because he was driving while intoxicated and took the town’s golden girl with him. After his death, her parents kept up the facade of a functioning marriage even though they might as well have been strangers to each other. Forget even paying attention to it. And of course, Nora is treated like a walking freakshow at school.

When she gets a scholarship to Chapman Prep, Nora sees this as a chance to start over. She can pretend she never had a brother whose screw-up led to such devastating consequences. Unfortunately, her plan hits a speed bump when she meets Chris, an older boy who knew her family from before and is aware of brother’s existence and worse, exactly what he did. But to her surprise, he understands Nora’s reasons for pretending and keeps her secret. And so Chris, along with Adriane (a friend of Chris’s who would later become his girlfriend), accepts Nora into his circle and the three of them become the best of friends.

Things change when Nora, along with Chris and Chris’s roommate Max, begin to translate a series of ancient documents, among them the Book of Blood and Shadow. Nora, however, isn’t trusted with that task and instead is assigned a series of seemingly unimportant letters to translate. But it soon becomes apparent that while the letters appear innocuous, they’re anything but and may hold the key to the alchemical formulas contained within the Book. It is a key that people would kill for, as Nora soon learns to her everlasting regret.

While I don’t place much importance on subgenres myself, I do find them useful when discussing novels with other people. The Book of Blood and Shadow makes pinning down a genre difficult. It’s not a paranormal or fantasy, not in the way we consider it. Based on the premise I want to call it a thriller but the execution lacks the breakneck twists and turns I associate with the genre. I suppose the mystery label comes closest when looking at execution and style. But if anything, I’d call this the YA version of The Da Vinci Code.

I enjoyed the relationship aspects of the novel the most. Nora’s relationship with her family — the nonexistent one with her parents, the way the ghost of her dead brother haunts her steps — affects everything she does and how she looks at life. Nora’s ambiguous friendship with Chris was also enjoyable. He was the friend, the one who understood her best, the one she loved but didn’t dare go after because he was so out of her league. I sympathized with her after Chris and Adriane began going out. What happens when two of the people in a trio of best friends start dating? Where does that leave the third person? Do they become a third wheel or is there still room for them to fit? Even the part where Adriane wants Nora to hook up with Max was believable. She wanted her best friend to be happy too.

On the other hand, I’m conflicted about Nora’s relationship with Max. It was obvious from the start that she was settling and I could accept that from the POV of someone wanting to move on from being in love with her best friend. But at the same time, I had a hard time buying it since Nora starts off thinking he’s creepy and weird. I think we were supposed to see how Nora’s opinions of him changed over the course of translating the documents but that’s a tough transformation since the beginning of the book tells us that Max is believed to be a murderer.

While I enjoyed the parallels of Nora’s life with that of the woman whose letters she was translating, I found the mystery aspects to be the weakest parts of the book. Part of this, I think, is because of the way the book is written. It’s slow and almost dreamlike in some aspects, which doesn’t mesh well with a murder mystery style plot. Nora essentially goes globe-trotting to find Max and clear him of murder, but the execution lacked a certain level of excitement and suspense.

In fact, the further we moved away from the mundane pains of every day life into the world of secret societies and alchemical machines able to grant a direct phone line to God, the more the book faltered. The letter translations were meant to increase dread but as the book continued, the more I found them tedious. When the bulk of the action began to happen in Prague, I should have been excited but instead I found each event even more unbelievable than the last. It was almost as if we moved from one coincidence to the next and then again to another.

Then we got to the climactic revelation about Nora and Adriane. I was truly unthrilled about this. While I understood Adriane’s point — the relationship between Nora and Chris was truly something special — I didn’t care for this twist. Nora’s only female friend in the entire book, and this is what we end with: girls jealous of other girls because of boys. So cliche, and it stands out even more because there really weren’t many women in Nora’s life. Where are the books where girls can be friends with other girls and don’t fight over boys!

While I enjoyed the prose and most of the relationship aspects and portrayals, I thought The Book of Blood and Shadow had some serious flaws. I think its elements were trying to come together to tell us about life, death, and faith but the unevenness of the novels’ second half failed to deliver the thematic resonance. All things considered, this one is a C+ for me.

My regards,
Jia

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I was in the mood for something different when I ran across your novel. A reader can take only so many paranormal and dystopian YAs before she loses it. A YA mystery/thriller sounded right up my alley. Your novel delivered what I needed, along with something more.

Rain was once best friends with Wendy Geller. Both outsiders at their exclusive high school — Rain, because of a cleft palate that left her speech imperfect and Wendy, because she came a less privileged background — the two bonded immediately. Rain was shy and quiet; Wendy was outgoing and took no crap. But they drifted apart over the years as Rain remained shy and quiet while Wendy became a bonafide party girl with a penchant for messing with other people’s boyfriends.

Then the worst happens. Wendy doesn’t return home one night after a party. When her body is found in Central Park the next day, people shake their head and hold her up as a cautionary tale. Look what happens to party girls. Never go home drunk or high. Don’t walk through a park alone at night.

But Rain thinks differently. She was at that party. She talked to Wendy. She didn’t seem drunk and she didn’t seem high. Something doesn’t add up. Everyone assumes it was a random attack, but Rain fears the murderer might be closer than everyone thinks.

I enjoyed this book. It was a fast read, not just because of the short length but also because of the way it was structured. Rain made a wonderful narrator. She’s never been able to speak up for herself. But now that Wendy’s dead and no one can speak for her, she takes it upon herself to do just that in order to find her friend’s killer.

I also liked the look into Wendy. Her character is one that’s often vilified in fiction and in real life. The book pulls no punches and makes it clear that Wendy liked to mess with other girls’ boyfriends, usually in retaliation for the way those specific girls treated her. But there are two details everyone forgets. First, the cheating boyfriend also holds some responsibility; just because a girl goes after you doesn’t mean you have to take her up on it. And secondly, for all that Wendy is treated like crap and gossiped about, she’s still accepted into their social circle because she entertains them. Everyone was always looking forward to seeing what she would do next. In fact, many of them egged her on in her antics and boyfriend-stealing ways. That’s hypocritical.

The incorporation of Facebook was also well done. You always hear the warnings about social media and not putting too much online. You never know the impression you’ll leave. Often this is in the context of seeking employment. If employers are checking up on you, you probably don’t want to make those photos of you doing body shots in Aruba public for anyone to see. But the aftermath of Wendy’s murder shows how else putting up photos, status updates, and videos can leave an impression. With those things used as evidence, Wendy would obviously look like a party girl of the worst kind. And if no one speaks up for her, that’s the image everyone will be left with.

I also liked the commentary about the media and how it’s a feeding frenzy when it comes to cases like this. They swarm the school after Wendy’s death. They comb over the relevant Facebook accounts and exploit everything there to put together the story they want to tell. After all, with the victim dead, who’s going to gainsay them? I liked how all those things came together.

The true identity of Wendy’s murderer really took me off-guard. Looking back, I should have predicted it. I knew the person who eventually does get accused of it was too obvious a choice, but I never even considered the possibility of the real killer. Perhaps because the thought is just too horrible in many ways.

Rain’s emotional struggle throughout the novel — her guilt, her anger — really pulled the story together for me. I liked the exploration of how the faces we present to other people don’t necessarily capture the entirety of us. In fact, one person may see a different face than another. Yes, Wendy was a party girl and it’s easy to paint her in a completely negative light. But people are more complicated than that, and I thought this novel did an excellent job showing that. B-

My regards,
Jia

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I enjoyed your previous novel, The Restorer, about the self-styled Graveyard Queen, Amelia Gray. It’s a morbid name but a fitting one. Amelia is a cemetery restorer, as well as the owner of a niche, but popular, blog. What few people know, however, is that she can also see ghosts. Because I liked reading about this character with such opposing traits, I was looking forward to picking up the rest of the trilogy. But having finished the follow-up, The Kingdom, I can’t help but wonder if I got on the wrong bus.

Set after the events of The Restorer, Amelia leaves Charleston and travels to Asher Falls, South Carolina where she’s been commissioned to restore a cemetery. She appreciates the work. Anything to put space between her and Devlin, the man who encouraged her to break the rules that’s kept her safe from the supernatural her entire life.

But once she arrives in Asher Falls, she senses things are not right. It’s not just that there’s a sunken graveyard at the bottom of the lake — though not the one she was hired to restore, thankfully. The town of Asher Falls is in decline. It’s obviously seen better days. The people who live there are secretive, more so than you’d expect in a small town environment. A lingering ghost that Amelia does her best to ignore keeps telling her to leave. It’s never a good sign when a ghost is telling you to get out of town. The longer Amelia stays, the more she begins to wonder if she was brought there for a purpose other than restoring a cemetery.

Initially, The Kingdom had many of the elements I enjoyed in The Restorer. Its opening pages were atmospheric and creepy. A graveyard at the bottom of a lake that you have to cross via ferry to reach town? With ghostly faces looking back up at you? Brr. From the beginning, we immediately wonder if choosing this as the place to seek refuge from Devlin is a good idea.

This continues as she begins to meet the town’s denizens. Most of them are a little strange. They all obviously have things they’d rather not share with the outsider. The book is strongest when Amelia is trying to get a feel for her surroundings: the place, the people, the cemetery and, of course, the ghosts.

Where the book falls apart is when we get to the actual story. The more Amelia learns about Asher Falls and the true reason for why she was brought there, the less it made sense for her to stay. And yet stay she did. I know some readers thought Amelia made some foolish, even TSTL choices in The Restorer. While I saw where they were coming from, I didn’t have these same complaints. With The Kingdom, however, I do. At multiple points throughout the book, I seriously wondered why Amelia stayed and why she made the choices she did. The degree to which she relied on intuition and “feelings” struck me as inconsistent with her character, let alone the severity of the situation around her. Someone broke into her house, stole and drugged her recently adopted dog, and then set bear traps for her when she went to retrieve the poor thing. Something is clearly not right with this town.

Maybe her motivations just didn’t seem clear to me. The argument that she had to stay in town to finish the cemetery restoration breaks down quickly because while that is the reason she came, it’s certainly not the focus of her attention. Even when she’s doing tasks related to the restoration, her mind is always elsewhere. Most of the time, she seemed to be doing other things — especially after she discovers the hidden, solitary grave.

Amelia also finds a new love interest in the form of Thane Asher, the heir to the powerful family after whom the town is named. I couldn’t have cared less. It’s difficult to buy into a romantic subplot when as a reader, I was well aware of the reason Amelia came to Asher Falls in the first place: Devlin. She’s still torn up about him and admits she’s not ready for a new relationship. I couldn’t see how a relationship between Amelia and Thane would end anywhere good and as a result, failed to become invested in the outcome.

In the second half of the novel, we learn more about the reasons for Amelia being hired and how they tie into her background. My thoughts can be summed up in one word: Really? It was at this point in the novel that my suspension of disbelief snapped. I don’t want to go into detailed spoilers but let’s just say I found the reasons rather contrived and ridiculous. Yes, the Graveyard Queen books revolve around a woman who can see and interact with ghosts. But to then introduce

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with no build-up was asking a bit too much.

As a fantasy reader, I can accept all sorts of developments but only if those things are in line with the world being built up until that point. I was introduced to a certain type of world in The Restorer and for the first part of The Kingdom. In the latter parts of the novel, however, I felt like I’d suddenly dropped into another book, telling a different story. It did not read as consistent to me at all.

In short, consistency was the main problem for me with The Kingdom. It wasn’t just the worldbuilding; it was Amelia. After the events of The Restorer, she wanted to go back to following the rules because breaking them had given such disastrous results. What happens instead? She breaks them again, and the repercussions are even more severe.

I thought The Kingdom was a weak installment to this trilogy. While it cleared up some mysteries about Amelia’s background, there were serious flaws in the plot. The entire story was really just a convenient vehicle to tell us the source of Amelia’s powers. Maybe I would have felt differently had I found the Asher family sufficiently ominous and dangerous. Instead they reminded me more of a bunch of inbred alcoholics who don’t get out much. I probably will read the next Graveyard Queen book in the hopes that we’ll get back on track from this awful detour, but I’m not as enamored as I once was. C-

My regards,
Jia

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I admit it. The lovely cover is what made me stop and give your new novel a second look. I’m a sucker for pretty covers, and I thought this one was highly effective for the genre. If only I could say the same for the content.

Helen Cartwright is the sheltered daughter of a British family. That all changes when her mother drags her out of bed one night and tells her to flee through a secret passage. She eventually does so but not before everyone else in the household is murdered and the family estate set on fire.

Before being told to flee, Helen was given a slip of paper containing a name and address. Left with nowhere else to go, she seeks help there and meets two brothers named Darius and Griffin. She learns that she, along with the brothers, are the last descendants of angels charged with the task of protecting Earth’s past, present, and future.

Over the past few months, their fellow descendants have been hunted down and murdered until the trio are all that is left. Now it’s up to the three of them to find the people responsible and stop the murderers from seizing control of the item that can grant them dominion over the entire world.

Summarized succinctly like that, it seems like there’s a decent story to work with here. Some interesting things could have been done with this foundation. But that is not at all what I got.

First of all, these angelic descendants have got to be the stupidest guardians of the world I’ve ever had the misfortune to read about. Let’s get this straight. Members of your order are being hunted down and killed one by one. What do you do? Do you run, hide, or stay in your house and do nothing? Two of those options make reasonable sense. One does not. Guess what they chose?

Secondly, the worldbuilding follows no logic I can parse. According to the rules set forth in this world, the angelic descendants aren’t allowed to learn about their heritage until they turn 17. Why? Do they go crazy? No clue. If there was a reason, I missed it. But that’s okay — instead of giving them straightforward training and education in preparation for the momentous responsibility of watching over the world, their parents teach them “games” that are really lessons in disguise. And when I say games, I don’t mean strategic ones like chess. I mean games like walking down the same street every morning.

WTF, why? There is no reason for this. If you’re waging an epic war against demons, wouldn’t it make sense to teach your next generation properly? This is the world we’re talking about here. Shouldn’t we take this task a little more seriously? Why would you teach your successors in the most obtuse, vaguest way possible? It should have occurred to someone that if all the adults were wiped out, the kids would be in trouble due to lack of adequate training. Way to go, good guys. Way to go. No wonder you’re losing.

This doesn’t even get into the fact that this book supposedly takes place in London. Sometime. In the past. I’m the first to admit that my knowledge of historical London is not so great. I don’t pick up on details the way I know other DA folk (reviewers and readers) do. But this book had no concept of setting whatsoever. There were points in the book where I had to stop and make sure it was a historical, not a modern-day story. Maybe I’m asking for too much, but you have to give me something to work with. You can’t tell me that something takes place in historical London and expect me to believe it if there are no period clues beyond wearing a corset.

And then there’s the romantic subplot. Could it have gotten any more paint by numbers? When Helen meets the brothers, I was truly fearful. Great, she’s going to be torn between two opposites — the nice brother and the mean brother. Could this get any more predictable? But then the book surprised me (the one and only time this happened, by the way) when it revealed the mean brother’s heart lay elsewhere.

That said, this doesn’t mean I was keen on Helen hooking up with the nice brother either. I’m tired of this insta-lust in YA novels. Do teenagers fall in lust at first sight? Sure. Am I going to buy it in a book where the heroine’s parents were just murdered and her house burned down? Not so much. Priorities, people.

Unfortunately, the circumventing of Helen being torn between the brothers didn’t mean we escaped from the love triangle trope. Another prospect named Raum is soon introduced and he’s even worse. This is not just a bad boy; he’s their enemy. I would rather Helen had been torn between the brothers than this. There were moments in the novel where Helen would choose to protect Raum and I saw no reason why, especially when you take into account his involvement with her parents’ deaths. It made me think less of her. We’re supposed to believe she’s torn up over their deaths, that she wants revenge. And yet she continually protects the guy who killed them.

Perhaps the book intended to portray Helen as conflicted and torn between all her various allegiances. The story doesn’t make sense otherwise. But the execution falls flat. As a reader, I didn’t find Helen conflicted. I found her TSTL. This was made even worse because all the boys in her life — even the nice brother — were jerks, especially when it came to Helen. They all treat her like an idiot, including the one who’s supposedly in love with her. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

There could have been a good book somewhere in all this, but the major flaws with the romance and worldbuilding prevented me from seeing it. I have no idea if this is the start of a series and I couldn’t care less. Combined with bland writing, I wish I’d spent my time reading something else. D

My regards,
Jia

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I love stories that feature relationships between female relatives, especially sisters and cousins close in age. I also love the idea of an all-female secret society that controls the world from the shadows. So when I saw that your novel combined the two, I snatched it up with excitement. Unfortunately, I discovered that might have been premature.

Laura della Scala is the younger of two sisters. Because her overambitious father didn’t want to pay two dowries when it came time for his daughters to marry, she was sent to the convent. Then one day, she’s taken from the convent by her father without explanation. Though confused, she’s excited by the news. At last she can be reunited with her beloved sister, Beatrice.

But it’s not to be. Upon arriving home, she learns the truth. Beatrice drowned under mysterious circumstances. Everyone claims it was an accident but Laura doesn’t buy it. Beatrice was a strong swimmer so the chances of her drowning in a Venetian canal are low. Worse yet, to cement his social status, Laura’s father intends to have her take Beatrice’s place and marry her fiancé, Vincenzo. Laura is fine with the idea until she meets Vicenzo. Instead of the handsome, nice man she pictured, she discovers he’s a disagreeable, old lecher.

Laura will do anything to get out of the marriage. She gets her chance when she’s contacted by the Segreta, a mysterious group of women who pull the strings of Venetian society. In exchange for their help, they only ask a secret in return. But once Laura’s inducted into their ranks, she discovers everything has a price. And more importantly, the person responsible for her sister’s death is closer than she thinks.

I initially had a lot of sympathy for Laura. She lost her beloved sister. She’s treated like a pawn by her father – shunted off to the convent when she’s not necessary and then yanked back when she is. She has to marry a creepy old man. For the past few years she’s lived in a convent and as a result doesn’t understand the ins and outs of Venetian society. I even can excuse her assuming that Beatrice’s fiancé was a kind, handsome one. That’s the romantic fantasy of an immature girl kept in the dark. This set-up is geared to stir sympathy.

But when given the opportunity to escape that marriage, the Segreta make very clear what the terms of their helping her are. If she wants their help, she has to join them. And if she wants to join them, she must offer up a precious (political) secret. Laura does this.

So why does she expect them not to make good on their agreement? After she’s free of Vincenzo, she tells them she wants nothing to do with them. Anyone with brains knows how well that’s going to go over. As this behavior continues on throughout the book, my sympathy for her began to erode. I can understand not being savvy in political intrigue – she spent a few years sequestered in a convent — but there comes a point when a self-preservation instinct must kick in. That never happened.

I thought that as the book continued, the plot began to ravel. Instead of many storylines woven together, we hopped from one subplot to another. There’s the Segreta. There’s her sister’s murder. There’s her romance with a young artist. If the transitions between one plotline to the next had been smoother, it probably would have been fine. But it seemed like we jumped from one to another at random moments, as if that specific storyline had been forgotten until that very moment. Because of this, it read choppy and disjointed.

While I loved the idea of a teenage girl trying to find her sister’s killer, I was disappointed to discover there were few positive relationships between women in this book. Laura obviously had a deep bond with her sister, and she was also close to her maid. Other than that? She’s at odds with the Segreta as a whole and the specific women who make up the group. Her relationship with the two friends are superficial and catty. I especially disliked how the climax hinged on a woman backstabbing another woman for a guy. Really? This book has a premise that hinges on female relationships, so why does Laura not have any?

And then there’s the romance with the young artist. I admit I was bored by it and when another subplot emerged in the second half of the book, his true identity became painfully obvious. This was also true of the killer’s identity. And once I figured out who killed Beatrice, I just wanted the book to be over.

Based on the premise and ideas, I can tell there’s a great story somewhere in this book. The potential is high. But the execution just didn’t work for me. Despite the prominent mention of the Segreta, they didn’t play a major role at all and that left me feeling cheated. The various subplots didn’t come together strongly enough. And the ending was so neat and pat, there might as well have been a bow tied around it. C-

My regards,

Jia

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The YA dystopian subgenre is fast becoming glutted. It seems like so many titles fitting the category are coming out these days. But sometimes I wonder if that’s because they genuinely fall into that category or are just being placed there for marketing purposes. When I first heard of your novel, I was given the impression it was just another dystopian. Upon completing it, however, I realized it was less dystopian and more science fiction.

In the future, technology has made great advances. People can live until 200. You can leave your body and take over someone else’s while their consciousness “sleeps.” Unfortunately, not all technology has positive, or even neutral, uses.

At some point, wars took place all over the world. The one most relevant here were the Spore Wars. During this conflict, a biological agent was released in the U.S. that resulted in the deaths of everyone between the ages of 20 and 60. This led to society being split into two distinct groups: the Starters (people under the age of 20) and the Enders (people above the age of 60).

Life is difficult if you’re a Starter but it’s far worse if you’re an unclaimed minor. Callie, our heroine, is one such person. She and her younger brother have been living on the streets since their parents died during the Spore Wars. It means scrounging around for food and supplies while avoiding rival street gangs and the law enforcement agencies that make daily sweeps through the slums, rounding up kids to work in factories. In this world, Starters have become second-class citizens.

But as their situation grows dire, Callie becomes increasingly desperate. She eventually takes up an offer to rent out her body to wealthy Enders who want to re-experience the joys of being young again. Most of the time this means partying, clubbing, and athletics.

The money is good so Callie decides to accept the deal. Unfortunately, complications soon arise. Namely, the chip in her head that allows the “renting” to take place malfunctions and Callie finds herself in control of her body again. This should be a dream come true. Big house, servants, fast cars, and lots of money — what’s not to be excited about? Except the more time Callie spends pretending to be an Ender in a Starter’s body, the more she realizes that partying is the last thing on her Renter’s mind.

I think I liked the idea explored by this novel more than the novel itself, if that makes sense. The ethical dilemmas were what kept me turning the pages. There’s a huge gulf between the very rich and the very poor. It’s an echo of issues we’re seeing played out in current events. In the world of Starters, the Enders’ fear of the younger generations usurping their place in society too soon is what led to the relegation of the Starters to second class citizens.

It’s this opinion of Starters that gave rise to “renting.” Poor Starters see it as a quick easy way to earn money. Enders have to sign a contract that ensures their body be taken care of. Any damage results in heavy fines. And it’s expressly prohibited to have any sexual contact with Starters while inhabiting a Starter’s body. So no fears about coming back and discovering you’re pregnant. Plus, you get a makeover.

But how messed up is that? Does society really value youth so much that people would be willing to take over other people’s bodies just to get it back? The social commentary here is pretty evident. I appreciate that because it balances out the novel’s other implication: the young have no power and are convenient slave labor for the old. On the other hand, I can see why the latter would be a popular idea for the target audience.

For the novel itself, however, I’m of two minds. There are parts I really enjoyed. I loved the sections where Callie would “wake” up and find herself in control of her body again. Sometimes she finds herself lying on the floor of a nightclub. Other times she discovers she’s holding a gun.

The thriller aspects are the strongest parts of the plot. The sections where Callie tries to figure out what’s going on while she has control of her body are suspenseful. How long will she have control of her body this time? What has her renter done now? The plot enhances the fears we all have about losing control of our own bodies. So many things could be done to Callie’s body while she’s “asleep.” Given what her renter is doing, she could die or find herself awake in a prison cell.

By contrast, the romantic subplot bored me. It should have interested me since it was a complicated situation. Callie’s an unclaimed minor and Blake is a Senator’s son. She’s pretending to be an Ender renting a Starter’s body so the people who buy into this lie are disgusted by the relationship. Not to mention that it’s against the rules laid out in the contract. Blake thinks she’s a rich girl even though she’s anything but. Even to him, she’s also telling a lie. All the complications here should have kept me riveted.

Instead I was utterly bored because Blake was the blandest love interest ever. I suppose you could say there were plot-related reasons for this but for the majority of the novel, I failed to understand the attraction. But then in the final pages of the novel, there’s a reveal that makes everything before extremely creepy. I would have been on-board with that except Callie’s reaction to this revelation made no sense to me.

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On top of this, there’s a tacked on love triangle. Like many readers, I’m bored by love triangles. They’ve become formulaic and an easy way to add emotional conflict. But the one in Starters is so half-hearted, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point was.

Though the novel has its weak points, I found elements of it very compelling. I especially found some of the ideas really interesting and wished there’d been more attention given to them. Of course, I suppose that’s why this is a YA novel rather than an adult SF novel. All things considered, this is a B for me.

My regards,

Jia

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2. REVIEW: Scored by Lauren McLaughlin
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Blackout by Rob Thurman
This is the sixth book in the Cal Leandros series. I realized I’d fallen behind and that the next one was coming out soon! It was pretty good and delivered what you’d expect from the series. In this installment, Cal has amnesia and as readers, we get an interesting double vision: what Cal knows (the books are told in first person POV) and what we know from previous books. After Roadkill (book 5), this was a needed breather book and I think it might have been the rare series novel in which new readers could pick up with no problem. (Thanks to the vehicle of Cal’s amnesia.)

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Legend by Marie Lu
Another book from the crowded YA dystopian genre. This takes place in California, which has since become a totalitarian state. It’s about a girl prodigy who’s the darling of the regime and a boy who’s the regime’s #1 outlaw. A decent read if you don’t think too hard about the worldbuilding. There’s not much explanation and while I’m not a fan of overexplaining, a little information would have been helpful regarding the different factions of the U.S.

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Cross My Heart by Sasha Gould
This one’s about a girl getting inducted into a Venetian secret society of women. Given the premise, I expected there to be more intrigue than there actually was. A disappointing read overall. Full review to come.

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Starters by Lissa Price
I think this one is being called a dystopian but its premise is more strongly rooted in science fiction than what you normally see. The basic idea is that a genocidal war engulfed the world and the result was that in the U.S., everyone between the ages of 20 and 60 is dead. Technology has allowed lifespans to be increased but this has also caused a massive rift in society between Starters (people under the age of 20) and Enders (people over the age of 60). Essentially, Enders have all the power and Starters, especially Starters with no living relatives of Ender-age, are treated like slave labor. (Yes, this is YA. Why did you ask?) Anyway, the protagonist (an unclaimed minor named Callie) chooses to rent out her body to Enders. This means that an Ender is given control of her body and can experience being young again. Except Callie’s renter wants to use her body to commit crimes, not go partying. This is one of those books where I wish it had been written for adults rather than teens. I think more could have been done with the premise had it not been constrained by the genre. Full review to come.

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Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor
After reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone last year, I wanted to read more of Taylor’s work. This one is a collection of three novellas – all about girls and their run-ins with the supernatural. None of them are quite up to the level of Daughter of Smoke and Bone but you can definitely see that book’s beginnings in this one.

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What about you guys? Have you read any of these? What did you think? Or if you haven’t read any of these, have you fallen behind on a series? Do you find it strange to pick through an author’s backlist to read their early work? Let’s chat.

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I picked up your debut because it looked like a good change of pace from all the paranormal YA. Now I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a die-hard fan of Robin Hood but this seemed like it could be fun. Sometimes that’s more than enough reason for me.

Scarlet is the Robin Hood story retold from the POV of Will Scarlet. With one major difference: Will Scarlet is actually a girl. Some people may not care for this change but I liked the idea of the “true” story being muddled by history. Everyone knows history passed down can warp the facts, whether by design or just by inaccurate retellings, so I found it believable that Will Scarlet’s true gender was forgotten by time. After all she assumed the identity of a boy, so aside from a few people, who would know?

And I would just like to say, after reading a rash of fantasy and paranormal novels in which the heroine is a redhead, thank you for not going that route with Scarlet. I was fearful of potential twee, but her nickname does not come from her hair color at all. (They come from her hair ribbons that she now ties to her knives.)

Other than the genderbending of the Will Scarlet character, the book follows the general Robin Hood story. King Richard is away at the Crusades. Robin was a noble himself but his lands were taken away, and now he has assembled a band of thieves and they steal from the rich and give to the poor. The story itself is not meant to be a surprise.

What did surprise me was the narrative voice. Scarlet is written in first-person POV and the style evokes an old English feel. I could hear Scarlet’s voice in my head, talking rough and sounding like a common peasant.

I really enjoyed Scarlet as a protagonist. She’s not everyone’s cup of tea. She’s very flawed. She’s secretive and distrustful but all those things fleshed out her character and made her very real to me. Scarlet ran away from an unwanted marriage and in truth, has been running ever since because her fiance is a vindictive sort. I can understand that first impulse to run. Robin and the others may dislike it and view it as being disloyal, but it made a lot of sense.

The one thing I did not enjoy as much was the romantic subplot. There is a love triangle between Scarlet, (Little) John and Robin. Scarlet is obviously in love with Robin, even if she doesn’t admit it herself, but for various reasons she considers him out of her league and won’t even consider the possibility of them ever becoming a couple. She also likes John but really only as a friend and comrade. John is a bit of player and Scarlet knows this, so she doesn’t entirely trust his intentions towards her since she’s not one for random hook-ups.

If the subplot had been left at this, I would have been fine with it. I could sympathize with Scarlet. She doesn’t think she’s worthy of Robin, so she’s confused about their relationship. She likes John well enough and maybe a relationship with him might be worth pursuing. These are all things we experience as we get older, and I see nothing wrong with that.

What I do see wrong is John’s pressuring of Scarlet. He kisses her once and then he thinks he owns her. When Scarlet later tells him that she doesn’t want a relationship with him, he doesn’t take no for an answer. Robin gets angry about the relationship between John and Scarlet but doesn’t do anything about it. He takes John’s behavior over Scarlet’s words when she tells him there’s nothing going on between them. He doesn’t go after Scarlet but he apparently doesn’t think anyone else can either. He assumes Scarlet is playing with John’s feelings. (Remember that John is the one who sleeps with multiple girls.) He says Scarlet will break up the band with these antics. This is irritating. Why is everything the girl’s fault? Oh, that’s right. It’s because she’s a girl so she gets 100% of the blame and the guys none.

Finally, I found the ending to be too open and lacked closure. I can’t figure out if this book is the first of a series or a standalone. I assumed it was a standalone because it’s based on the Robin Hood story and how much more can you drag that out? But given the way it actually ended, I wonder.

Overall, the character of Scarlet made this book worth reading for me. I found the narrative voice to be interesting and unique. On the downside, the love triangle left me irritated at best. For a good stretch of the book, I didn’t believe either of the two options deserved her considering the way they treated her. C

My regards,

Jia

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Related posts:

1. Friday Film Review: The Scarlet Pimpernel
2. My First Sale by Elizabeth Chadwick, Author of The Scarlet Lion
3. REVIEW: Just Desserts by Scarlet Blackwell

I first encountered your debut novel on NetGalley. I admit I’ve always been fond of historical YA, especially if there’s a paranormal flavor. Your book sounded like the ticket. It was a nice change of pace from the urban fantasies and dystopians overwhelming the genre right now. The unique setting was just icing on the cake.

Katerina Alexandrovna is a young aristocrat in late 19th century Russia. She’s expected to marry rich and marry well and thus, is attending finishing school. The very idea is sheer torture to her. She hates the balls, which she considers to be meat markets. In fact, she’d much rather spend her time studying medical textbooks. Katerina dreams of becoming a doctor even though the profession is considered absolutely out of the question for a woman. Especially a noble one, because what suitable husband would allow his bride to do something so pedestrian as treat the sick and poor?

But Katerina has one little secret: she can raise the dead. Some people would consider it a gift. She thinks it’s a curse and has kept her ability hidden from everyone. After all, it’s abnormal and she doesn’t want to be viewed as a monster. Unfortunately, her gift is discovered and soon Katerina finds herself embroiled in a political conflict between the supernatural forces that rule Russia.

I really enjoyed Katerina as a protagonist, but I admit I have a weakness for heroines who love science. I thought it was a good choice, however, given that this time period in Russia is one characterized by superstition and folk belief. Katerina’s mother depends on her tarot cards and routinely holds séances. In fact, it was at one of these séances that Katerina accidentally discovered that she was a necromancer. But she loves science and the advances in modern medicine. There’s already conflict between her career aspirations and her class. To toss in her ability, which drags her back into old world beliefs is great.

One thing I did have a little trouble following was how the supernatural world overlapped with the Russian court. In this world, the Light and Dark faerie courts battle it out in a political dance of power. Some families are aligned with the Light Court (like the tsar) and others are aligned with the Dark Court. Katerina is, I believe, aligned with the Dark Court due to her family’s social circles. It’d make sense considering the fact that she is a necromancer. But on top of that, there are werewolves (I thought it fairly obvious who the werewolves were) and vampires. So many different kinds of vampires, I lost track of who was important, how, and why. At times, it was a little tough to figure out which characters were allies based on their family ties and which were enemies based on their supernatural ones.

I thought the plotline involving Katerina trying to find a way out of the Montenegro family’s schemes was interesting. After all, who wants to become the sacrifice to make a new living vampire? Certainly not me. On the other hand, I thought the romantic subplot was poorly executed. It was fairly obvious who Katerina would ultimately fall in love with, given the fact that one of the potential suitors is Evil with a capital E. But even though I knew and expected it, I needed something more to go on. It seemed like Katerina went from arguing with and disliking him to realizing she was madly in love in a snap. That transition phase between the two states didn’t entirely come through, in my opinion.

While the ending was a little too heavy-handed in setting up the sequel, I really enjoyed Katerina as a heroine. I’m a big fan of characters that love their family and do everything to protect them, even if it’s a mistake by our standards. I’m interested to see how future books balance her career aspirations, burgeoning powers, and new obligations so I’m definitely on-board for the continuation. B-

My regards,

Jia

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Related posts:

1. GUEST REVIEW: Beauty by Robin McKinley
2. REVIEW: Pegasus by Robin McKinley
3. REVIEW: Ice Storm by Anne Stuart

Skirmish by Michelle West
This is the latest in West’s fantasy cycle and the first in a long time that got me extremely excited about events in this world. That’s mostly because this is the first installment since Sun Sword ended that takes place in the present time. No more flashbacks, no more expanding the past. Good read and got me excited about the world again. (Full review here.)

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The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges
Is it just me or are there more books coming out recently set in Russia? Maybe I’m imagining things. Anyway, neat concept. The protagonist is a young duchess who wants to forego marrying well and become a doctor. That’s already a problem but in addition, she happens to be a necromancer. Oops. The worldbuilding was rather muddled and the romantic subplot needed better execution. The book had good potential but the reality was still rough around the edges. Review to come.

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Fracture by Megan Miranda
Neat book. I assumed this was going to be another YA paranormal and technically, it is that but it’s not really at all. This is essentially the story of a girl who went through a traumatic life event and has to pick up the pieces of her life after. What I liked best was how this one event revealed all these little cracks and fissures in her existing relationships. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. (Full review here.)

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Firelight by Kristin Callihan
I’d been hearing lots of good things about this one so I was excited to pick this up. I don’t know if my hopes and expectations were raised but I was rather meh about it overall. I didn’t care for the romantic storyline (the couple lies to each other for most of the book) and the worldbuilding drove me nuts because it made no sense. Or maybe it was just nonexistent. I’m not sure. I also thought the hero’s secret was kept for the sole purpose of plot contrivance because the actual reveal was anticlimactic. (Full review here.)

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Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
A Robin Hood retelling. This takes the angle that history and folklore muddled “the truth” and that Maid Marian and Will Scarlet were the same person. So-so. I know there are die-hard Robin Hood fans out there so maybe they’ll be more wowed by this one than me. Review to come.

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Right now, I’m in between books, trying to decide what to pick next. Maybe I’ll read something that I don’t plan to review! Good grief, what was up with that?

So what are you guys reading? Any books you’re looking forward to in 2012?

Related posts:

1. What January is Reading as of 10/09/2011
2. What DA January is reading
3. What Jayne is Reading and Watching in late December and early January

While historical romances aren’t my favored genre, I do love paranormal romances. If I pick up a historical, more often than not there’s a whiff of the paranormal in it. I remember first hearing about your debut novel several months ago and it sounded interesting enough that it stayed on my radar. As I was warned, Firelight is certainly a mix of many different genres. I’m all for genre-mixing, but I’m just not sure it worked here.

The youngest daughter of a destitute family, Miranda Ellis was born with an unusual gift. She has the ability to start fires, and I don’t mean with matches. In fact, it is because of this firestarting ability that her family is penniless. To survive, Miranda has taken to using her pretty face (and other, ahem, assets) to steal.

That ends when Miranda is forced to marry the infamous Lord Benjamin Archer, who wears a mask to hide his disfigured face. Miranda is resigned to her fate but complications arise when Archer becomes the main suspect of a series of murders. The victims were all prior acquaintances of Archer’s and more importantly, were known to be on poor terms with him.

Despite his reputation, Miranda knows that her husband can’t be responsible. She sees the goodness in him. She embarks on a quest to discover Archer’s past in order to learn the mystery behind his mask and why he hides his face from the world. But in doing so, she attracts the attention of the real murderer and may soon become the next target.

Firelight is indeed a paranormal historical and while I think that’s an accurate subgenre label, it’s also very much a gothic romance in tone. At first glance, I thought these elements would work well together. But as I continued reading, I was strongly reminded of a conversation I once had with Jane in which we discussed why paranormal historicals often fail for readers. In a nutshell, we concluded that both paranormals and historicals require a certain amount of worldbuilding to ground the narrative for a reader. In a paranormal historical, you have to combine the paranormal worldbuilding with the historical worldbuilding. Unfortunately, you end up with one of two options: success or a confusing mess. I found Firelight to be a confusing mess.

I realize a lot of this is the result of my preferences. I know I’m particular when it comes to worldbuilding. I don’t like it when things are dropped in without any explanation whatsoever and I’m just supposed to accept it. As a reader, I’m already accepting that there are fantastical elements which, let’s be fair, is a pretty big suspension of disbelief. I need a little more grounding to avoid frustration. In this case, I’m specifically talking about Archer’s “disfigurement.” What was up with that? I was torn between rolling my eyes at the tweeness and going WTF at the random tossing in of Egyptian mythology.

This in turn brings us to what I consider the major flaw of the novel. There’s a fine balance when you draw out a mystery. It can increase tension or it can become outright annoying, thereby having the opposite effect of slowing down the narrative. While it was initially novel to speculate about Archer’s disfigurement and presumed paranormal dilemma, this soon got tiresome. And the more tiresome it got, the less engaged I became. It was very easy for me to put this book down. I sometimes forgot I was reading it and had to force myself to pick it back up. By the time we learn Archer’s secret, the revelation was so anticlimactic I found I couldn’t care less.

At its heart, this is a Beauty and the Beast story. Unfortunately, the romance left me cold. I understood why Archer loved and adored Miranda. But I never quite followed why Miranda began to reciprocate. Whether or not this romance works for a reader will depend on that reader’s tolerance for couples who lie to each other. Miranda and Archer spend the majority of the book lying to one another. Miranda doesn’t tell him about her firestarting abilities. Archer doesn’t tell her about his past, what he knows about the murders being pinned on him, or about his disfigurement. This type of storyline is one of my least favorites. They kept lying to one another and shutting each other out, so I failed to see any lowering of defenses or the emotional intimacy I like to see in romantic plots.

Overall, I found this book to be unfocused. That could simply be due to the fact that I was so irritated with the drawing out of Archer’s mystery disfigurement that I began to notice other flaws. It happens. In theory, I thought the various elements should go well together but they came off as jumbled to me: Archer’s mystery disfigurement, Miranda’s firestarting ability, the murders, Archer’s rivals and enemies – one of whom keeps flirting with Miranda and may not be entirely human, a mysterious woman who may be Archer’s ex-lover, a mysterious club that Miranda cannot track down and so on. I guess I expect a certain level of depth to any given plot element and when you have too many in a book of this length, it starts becoming a bit shallow.

I can see why some readers would enjoy this book. It has a gothic sensibility to it. It’s very reminiscent of Phantom of the Opera. For all that I found Archer’s secret to be underwhelming and perhaps a little silly, it was fairly original. I don’t say that often when it comes to paranormals. But despite all that, I’m afraid this book just didn’t work for me. C-

My regards,
Jia

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Related posts:

1. Film Review Friday: Firelight
2. REVIEW: Intervamption by Kristin Miller
3. REVIEW: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

At first impression, your debut novel is a YA paranormal. It has a lot of the trappings. After a life-changing event, a girl develops unusual abilities. She has to choose between a couple guys. But I think applying that label and reducing it to those tropes does it an injustice. This is one of those cases where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Delaney Maxwell is just a regular high school student. She’s the top of her class and aims to be valedictorian. She’s not athletic and dare I say it, is a bit clumsy. She’s best friends with her next-door neighbor and childhood friend, Decker, but their relationship has been tense since he caught her making out with his guy friend. All in all, it’s an ordinary life.

Then one day, she falls through the ice covering a frozen lake. Delaney’s rescued but she was under for 11 minutes. In fact, she was clinically dead. Nearly a week later, she wakes up from a coma to find her life changed. Her brain is so damaged, she shouldn’t even be functional. And yet she walks and talks with no difficulties at all.

But despite surviving her brush with death, Delaney’s life starts to fall apart. The accident reveals the faults in her relationship with her mother. The tensions with Decker come to a head. And inexplicably, she’s drawn to death. And I don’t mean figuratively. She gains the ability to tell when someone is about to die. This dawning realization misleads her parents into thinking their daughter is going crazy.

Then Delaney meets Troy, an older guy who also had a brush with death and spent some time in a coma. He shares her ability to sense death. Desperate for someone to understand what she’s going through, Delaney begins to spend more time with him. But the more she gets to know him, the more she realizes that shared experiences don’t always mean same perspectives and Troy’s outlook on life may be a bit darker.

I was surprised by this book. In an extremely good way. I went in expecting a pleasant read and instead got a thought-provoking story about life, death, and all that comes with it. The novel has a very powerful message, one that I both appreciate and find beautiful.

Delaney is a great protagonist. She’s very real and very flawed. I liked how driven she was to excel academically and how her confusing relationship with Decker showed all the insecurities a teenage girl may have. I found her voice very engrossing:

There are certain things kids must know depending on where they grow up. When my parents took me to Manhattan last summer, I saw kids half my age navigating the subway while Dad squinted at the map on the wall, tracing the colored lines with his finger. Maybe kids in the desert can drain the water from a cactus. I don’t know. But here in northern Maine, we know how to treat hypothermia, we know how t o prevent frostbite, and we know how to rescue someone who has fallen through the ice.

The description of how Delaney was rescued from the ice was very visceral, even secondhand as Fracture is told in first person POV and other people told her what happened. I could easily imagine Decker’s panic. I could see the other kids calling the police and running for help.

I loved the relationship between Delaney and Decker. They’ve known each other since they were kids when Decker declared that he would make her smile. Even her mother used to babysit him. There’s a familiarity in their exchanges that only comes with time.

“Let’s go out for lunch,” he said.

“Can’t. I’m studying French.”

“Seriously? French over food?” Decker didn’t take French (Spanish was more useful, he said). I held the receiver between my shoulder and chin and didn’t stop writing.

“Call Monday after the precalc final.”

“You can’t take a thirty-minute break?”

“I have three words for you, Decker: four point oh.”

“Yeah, well, I have three letters for you: C. P. R. “

Delaney and Decker are stuck in relationship limbo. Until the couch incident with Decker’s friend, she’s never had any real attention from other guys. She knows Decker is more important to her than that of merely a friend but she’s afraid of taking the next step. When you’ve known someone for so long, all the little incidents and minor occurrences that happen over the course of that relationship can add up and do a number on your confidence. I can definitely sympathize with Delaney here.

Similarly, you can tell Decker has feelings for Delaney, even from her point of view, but he doesn’t seem to know how to climb over that “Just a friend” wall. To say that Delaney’s near-death experience shakes him up is an understatement. He didn’t know how to handle the possibility that Delaney might never have woken up from her coma, and he’s frustrated that there are so many things he now doesn’t understand about his best friend.

I thought the depiction of Delaney’s family was really well done. Her accident revealed a lot of family secrets about her mother’s background and parents. Prior to the accident, Delaney never would have thought to question or wonder about these things because she’d never had a hint of their existence. We’re clearly shown how her mother’s past and relationship with her parents affect her relationship with Delaney. And even though it’s told through Delaney’s eyes, we see her mother’s panic over the possibility of losing her daughter in more ways than one.

Above all, though, I liked how this novel explores death and reinforces the idea that you must seize life because you never know which day will be your last. Accidents happen all the time and you can’t control them, no matter how much you may try. Life is both random and cruel. Someone who should die doesn’t, and someone who shouldn’t die does. Delaney tries to come to peace with this fact. Troy, on the other hand, has let it poison him:

“This, this” — he waved his arms around his body, trying to capture the entirety of Earth in his gesture– “is a punishment.”

“For what?”

“For me, for driving that goddamn car off the road.” My stomach clenched. That hadn’t been in the article. “For getting stuck. For killing my entire family. For not being able to help them. God wouldn’t let me die. So, you tell me, what did you do? Why didn’t you get to die?”

Decker didn’t let me die, only he didn’t do it out of hate. But I didn’t tell Troy that. I let him keep his grief. It was all he had left of them.”

Fracture is less paranormal and more medical mystery. We don’t know why Delaney appears normal despite the amount of brain damage she received. And truthfully, we never learn why because the human body is more complicated than that. Yes, she gains the ability to predict death but that’s not really the point. Society in general fears death but if you’ve lived a long, fruitful life, what is there to be afraid of exactly? I really enjoyed this story of how one life-changing accident reveals all the fault lines in our relationships and in our life, and I’m looking forward to your next novel, whatever it may be. B+

My regards,
Jia

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: The Wild Marquis by Miranda Neville
2. REVIEW: The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
3. REVIEW: Charmed Thirds by Megan Mccafferty

I love your books. Whether it’s under this pseudonym or Michelle Sagara, I make sure to read them all. It’s true that I find some more satisfying than others but I’ve never actually regretted picking any of them up. Given my growing disenchantment with the fantasy genre as a whole, this is a major point in your favor. So thank you for offering an early look at your latest fantasy novel. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get to it sooner and it in no way reflects upon the book or your writing. It’s all on me.

Skirmish is the fourth novel in the House War series, which follows the adventures of Jewel Markess ATerafin, a young woman who spent her early years living in the poorest slums of the capital before being adopted into the most powerful noble house of the empire. You see, Jewel is a seer and at the age of fifteen, she helped avert a demonic invasion. Her ability makes her very valuable.

The first three novels of this series cover Jewel’s life before she was adopted into House Terafin. This novel jumps forward in time to when Jewel is an adult and is a member of the House Council. She has just returned from the Southern kingdom of Annagar and the war that is reaching its climax there. (That story is covered in a previous 6-book series, The Sun Sword, which I highly recommend.) The Terafin’s leader has just been assassinated by demons, casting the house into chaos. In this world, house leadership is not hereditary. The leader earns it — by political savvy, by forming allies, and yes, by murder.

The Terafin was one of the most important people in Jewel’s life. But she also knows what her dead mentor wanted: for Jewel take up the title of Terafin and become the next leader of the House. The only reason why no one else knows this is because the last heir the Terafin chose was assassinated and Jewel is far too valuable to be put in danger like that.

But Jewel doesn’t want to think about games of power and the responsibility of leadership. She just wants three days to bury and mourn for the woman she respected most. Unfortunately, that luxury may not exist. If demons were responsible for the Terafin’s death, then that means others must be around. More importantly, Jewel’s power and abilities have begun to awaken, affecting the lands within Terafin property and beyond.

Given that not only is this the fourth book of a series, which in turn is connected to other series, this is absolutely not the best place to start for a new reader. I wish I could say otherwise, considering how weary of series people can be but I would hate for a reader to pick this up and think it’d work well without any context. It won’t. Along those lines, I’m also not completely sure someone who hasn’t read the Sun Sword series will pick up some of the nuances in this one. So this is a major caveat for new and unfamiliar readers.

All that said, however, I really enjoyed this book. I’ve been waiting a long time to see what happens after the events covered by The Sun Sword and finally, we have it. This is a very political book. While there are clashes with demons, longtime readers know that knock ‘em and drag ‘em out fights never figure prominently in your books. But even though I love fight scenes, I also love political intrigue. I can see readers who don’t care for that subgenre not being so thrilled with it, but it was very satisfying for me. I especially liked learning more about Haval and his past with Duvari. It makes me even more curious about Jarven. I found all those interactions extremely interesting.

A good chunk of the book is spent exploring the limits of Jewel’s abilities which, as we discover, extend far beyond precognition. It was very fantastical and as a reader who’s getting a little bored with the GRRM brand of gritty, “realistic” fantasy, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I do like a little — or a lot — of magic in my fantasy from time to time and I thought this filled a lack I hadn’t realized I’d been feeling. In addition, the talking cats (a staple of science fiction and fantasy) were hilarious.

I know the book covers a relatively short time period so there probably wasn’t room for it, but I would have liked to see Jewel interact more with the people who had officially declared for the seat. She interacts with Marrick at the end but not so much with the others. This goes back to what I was saying earlier: longtime readers will be familiar with the pre-existing relationships but new readers, or even readers who’ve only read this series and not Sun Sword, will not fully grasp the bad blood involving Rymark and Harraed.

A surprising thing I liked was the relationship between Jewel and Angel. I’d never really gotten a handle on Angel in previous novels and only began to understand him in this series. In Skirmish, we really see his devotion to Jewel and his utter disregard for anything not related to her.

In many ways, this is a book about grief. In the end, the dead don’t care about the actions of the living. They’re dead. How can they care? It’s a loss of innocence for Jewel in many ways but it’s also an important lesson for her to learn, especially if she’s to succeed in gaining control of the House.

I feel like this review is short for a book in which I thought a quite a bit happened, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of spoilers involved too and those events should be uncovered on their own. I admit that after the last book, I was growing impatient for us to move along already and I think many other readers felt the same way. I like to think they’ll be as pleased with this installment as I am. I’m glad we’re back in the present, no longer expanding on the past, and I hope we get to see serious struggles for House control in the next book. B+

My regards,
Jia

Previous books in this series: The Hidden City, City of Night, House Name (review)

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: House Name by Michelle West
2. REVIEW: Cast in Silence by Michelle Sagara
3. REVIEW: The Pretender (Men of Pride County Book IV) by Rosalyn West

Shaedes of Gray by Amanda Bonilla
One day I’ll find a female assassin book that satisfies me. One day. And maybe the heroine will be something other than a redhead! (Full review.)

Agony/Ecstasy edited by Jane Litte
I will of course offer the disclaimer that this antho is edited by DA’s owner, who is my fearless leader and also my friend. I figure anyone reading this already knows that but just in case, for transparency’s sake. The anthology offers a variety of stories in different genres and categories, which I liked. It might have been nice to see more types of kink — I do feel like spanking might have been overrepresented but that might be more a personal perception than due to any hard numbers.

Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder
Maybe I need to accept the fact that soft fantasy is not for me. Is soft fantasy even a category? What I mean by this is fantasy with very weak, hand-wavy worldbuilding that depends very strongly on a reader’s assumption that all fantasy takes place in a pseudo-medieval European-esque setting. Obviously, I take issue with that on several levels but honestly, the world was so generic and vague. Combined with a romantic relationship I detested (sorry, it’s not in me to cheer for a hero who physically abuses the heroine and no, I do not think he was “justified” at all) and a plot that hinged on a mistaken assumption that really should not have been assumed in the first place, this book was a whole lot of fail. I don’t even know how I finished it. Full review to come.

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A few months ago, Michelle West released six previously published short stories related to her DAW books in digital format. I’d already read a couple of them but it was nice of her to offer me the chance to reread them as well as the other four I hadn’t. I figured it’d be an excellent way to prepare for reading Skirmish, the next installment in her House War series. (Freebie download here)

“Echoes” – This is one of the two stories I’d already read. It’s technically set during Sea of Sorrows (part of the Sun Sword series) and is a glimpse into Kallandras’s past and how he first became an assassin. I think the thing that surprises me the most about this story was the revelation that Kallandras was originally born in Annagar. A lesser clan, to be sure, but Annagar, nevertheless.

“Huntbrother” – This is my favorite story of the six. It tells the story of Lady Cynthia and what happened to her after the Hunter duology. We did catch a peek at her godborn son in The Sun Sword but I always wondered what happened to poor Cynthia after Stephen died and she made her deal with the Hunter god. It’s a graceful story and one I greatly enjoyed, of a woman who loved, lost, learned to love again, and raised the son of a god in a way that broke all tradition.

“The Black Ospreys” – This is the story of how Duarte formed the Black Ospreys. Self-explanatory. It didn’t really hit any of my buttons, which is a surprise because I loved the Ospreys in the Sun Sword books but then I realized that’s because I loved Auralis, Kiriel’s interactions with them once she joins, and how Valedan insinuates himself into their circle and the force that was created to kill Annagarians now must protect one. Since that’s not the focus of this story at all, it’s no surprise I was ambivalent.

“Weapon” – An origin story about the foundations of the Empire and what drove a woman to vanish and then come back with two half-god sons who’d go on and become the Kings of Justice and Wisdom.

“Warlord” – I recall hearing about this story several years ago and how it told Avandar’s origins. Because of that, I’m not sure if I built it up in my head but this was kind of underwhelming. And also, somewhat irritating because it tells the story of Jewel and Avandar’s meeting again. I don’t know. I apparently have a tic about this sort of authorial retreading.

“Memory of Stone” – This is the other story I’ve previously read and it focuses on the Makers Guild, which is the group that’s rarely featured in the books. It’s a story about genius and madness that reminds me about the one stable truth of this fantasy world: there is always a price and that when it comes to saving the world, sacrifices must be made even if they are at your own expense.

Right now, I’ve started to read Skirmish by Michelle West. I’m reading it a little slowly, mostly because I’m torn between excitement and dread. Excitement because this is the first novel set in the present timeline of the universe (finally). Dread because I’m not sure I can handle all the tension (ha). Has anyone else ever felt that way when reading a book?

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So what about you guys? Have you read any of these? What about other memorable reads this month?

Related posts:

1. What Jayne’s Been Reading and Watching – November and most of December
2. Shopping, Reading, and Renaming the Podcast: 16 December 2011
3. What Janine is Reading 8/21/11-9/4/11

I feel like I’ve been neglecting the fantasy genre. This is a terrible thing in my opinion because I love the genre. So I thought to rectify the decided lack of non-YA fantasy in recent reading. I thought your latest novel, the first in a new series, would be a good way to jump back in. It wasn’t a doorstopper and from what I recall of your previous books, your writing is light enough to suit my preoccupied brain during the holidays.

Avry is a healer. Once she considered this a badge of pride. But ever since a deadly plague hit the populace and healers blamed as being the cause, it’s become something she must hide or face execution.

Unfortunately, Avry suffers that particular flaw that afflicts many heroines in fantasy novels: she cares too much for her own good. Here, this manifests as the inability to turn away from a sick child, even though using her abilities means revealing her true nature to people who 1) are hostile to healers in general and 2) receive a sizeable reward for turning in healers. Avry’s been able to elude capture until now but her luck has finally run out.

Or so she thinks. Avry is rescued from certain death but it comes with a price. In exchange for being set free, she must agree to heal a prince who’s contracted the plague and is currently in magical stasis to keep the symptoms at bay. The problem? While healers can cure the plague, they don’t survive the process and die. (In this world, healing works by the healer taking on the damage/illness of the afflicted person and letting their super-immune system do its thing. The problem with the plague is that their immune system doesn’t work fast enough to counter the effects.)

I honestly believed a light fantasy would be right up my alley. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe light fantasies aren’t for me and I’m doomed to keep reading perpetual downers like George R.R. Martin. But this book just didn’t work for me on any level.

First of all, I knew right away that a romantic subplot would develop between Avry and Kerrick, the man who frees her in order to heal his best friend, the prince. I could see that a mile away, but my beef has nothing to do with the predictability. No, my issue has to do with the fact that he treats her like shit for most of the book and since I knew they would eventually fall in love, I spent most of the novel actively repulsed by this endgame.

I understand their relationship is initially meant to be a coercive one. Avry is given an ultimatum and when she didn’t immediately agree, Kerrick spends chapters trying to convince her to change her mind. Desperate people can do horrible things. I understand this. But I cannot root for a romance in which the hero does things like expose the heroine to the elements so that hypothermia will make her capitulate, starve her, tie her to a tree like an animal, and most spectacularly hit her in the face. I don’t care what the circumstances are. I don’t care that the supporting cast chastises him for the abuse. You’ve lost me. Especially when the hero justifies his actions with, “I’m sorry. I was mad.” I can’t get behind this romance at all.

There’s also the minor detail of Avry making an assumption about Kerrick that I’m not certain would or should have been made. In fact, I felt that the only reason this assumption existed was to give the plot artificial tension. Why would she not tell him? Even if she made the erroneous assumption, I feel like she should have tossed this little fact in his face at least once. It was unbelievable that it never came up in conversation at all. This also only compounded my disgust with the romance because if Avry honestly thought Kerrick knew this specific detail, why in the world would she fall in love with him? I’d be pretty pissed that this guy was asking me to die for someone I owed nothing to and who did bad things to my family. It’s not romantic at all and makes me seriously question Avry’s taste in men.

And as so often happens, because I was growing increasingly annoyed by the storyline, I began to notice other flaws. For example, the worldbuilding was shoddy at best. Now I can certainly enjoy fantasy novels in which the worldbuilding is left deliberately vague. But I didn’t get the impression that was the case here. Now I realize that one of the reasons some authors choose to set their novels in the generic faux-medieval European milieu is because that’s the basis for many a fantasy novel. Fantasy readers well-versed in the genre are familiar with it and thus the writer can just spend less time on creating the world and move onto the story. But there’s relying on pre-existing knowledge and then there’s just being plain lazy.

We have healers. We have several other types of mages. Some of which are elemental (bonus points for including traditional Asian elements though) and some of which are not. Other than healers, I had no idea about the power structure or hierarchy of the mages? Do they form gangs? Do they have guilds? Are mages only born to nobility?

Then we have the Death Lilies and Peace Lilies. It took me a couple chapters before I realized the lilies were actually giant man-eating plants and not human peacekeepers with funny names. I hate infodumps but I really don’t think I should have reached such a ridiculous conclusion. On the other hand, maybe I’ve been reading fantasy too long and just assumed that there was no way a Death Lily could actually refer to a lily that causes death. It’s far too obvious. My bad.

On top of this, there were some attempts at political intrigue but due to my distaste with the romance, I actually spent several chapters rooting for the bad guy despite knowing he was the bad guy. Not a good sign in a fantasy novel. Thankfully, we resorted to the age-old cliche of “The villain experiments on children and that’s how you know he’s evil” so I was able to regain my bearings.

Overall, this obviously wasn’t a good choice for jumping back into the fantasy genre. Disappointment doesn’t even begin to cover it. The romance was distasteful and the shoddy worldbuilding was just more icing on the fail. D

My regards,
Jia

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