Lucky No 15 Challenge Wrap-Up Post

The Lucky No 15 Reading Challenge, hosted over on Books to Share is one that I really enjoyed doing, because it forced me to read a bit more outside my comfort zone. The category it took me the longest to complete was "Randomly Picked" - I saved that one for last. I finally completed it on the 3rd of December.

This year's categories:
1) Chunky Brick - Read a book of more than 500 pages.
Written in My Own Heart's Blood - Diana Gabaldon (1008 pages)

2) Something New - Read something you just got.
Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen
The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy - Julia Quinn
Suddenly One Summer - Julie James

3) Something Borrowed - Read a book you borrowed from someone else.
Odinsbarn - Siri Pettersen
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne

4) It's Been There Forever - Read a book that's been on your TBR pile for more than a year.
Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo
Daddy Long-Legs - Jean Webster
Populærmusikk fra Vittula - Mikael Niemi
Also Known As - Robin Benway

5) Freebies Time - Read a book you got for free.
Rock Hard - Nalini Singh (ARC from NetGalley)
Tarnished Knight - Bec McMaster (Free on Amazon)

6) Bargain All the Way - Read something you got on sale.
Owl and the Japanese Circus - Kristi Charish
A Kiss in the Dark - Kimberly Logan

7) Favourite Colour - Read a book which has your favourite colour (purple) for its cover.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson - John Green and David Levithan

8) First Initial - Read a book that has been written by an author whose first initial is M, same as you:
The Winner's Curse - Marie Rutkoski
Lady Be Good - Meredith Duran
Wallflower Gone Wild - Maya Rodale

9) Super Series - Read one (or more!) books that belong in a series.
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants - Ann Brashares
Magic Shifts - Ilona Andrews

10) Opposites Attract - Read a book by a writer whose gender is different from your own.
American on Purpose - Craig Ferguson
An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
The Martian - Andy Weir

11) Randomly Picked - Ask someone else to randomly pick a book from your TBR pile.
The Alloy of Law - Brandon Sanderson

12) Cover Lust - Grab a book  that you bought because you fell in love with the cover.
Uprooted - Naomi Novik

13) Who are You Again? - You've never read a book from this author, maybe you've never even heard his/her name before.
Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
172 Hours on the Moon - Johan Harstad

14) One Word Only! - Read a book that only has one word for its title
Cracked - Eliza Crewe
Winter - Marissa Meyer
Macbeth - William Shakespeare

15) Dream Destination - Read a book set in a place you've never visited before - but would like to. Could be real or fictional.
Once Upon a Rose - Laura Florand (Provence in France)
Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty (Australia)
A Room with a View - E.M. Forster (Florence in Italy)

#CBR7 Book 138: "Wallflower Gone Wild" by Maya Rodale

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Lady Olivia Archer is unmarried after four seasons on the marriage market, known as "London's Least Likely to Cause a Scandal". Everywhere she goes, her mother forces her to recount her ladylike accomplishments, such as embroidery, playing the piano, painting water colours and other deathly dull things. Olivia isn't surprised people have taken to calling her "Prissy Missy" and that at one memorable garden party, a gentleman jumped into a hedge rather than speak to her (or her mother).

One of her best friends, Lady Emma, another former wallflower, recently married a duke after a series of unusual events and is now determined to match her two besties with suitable men.  Before she has time to introduce them to anyone, however, Olivia meets a handsome stranger at a ball and has a moment of true chemistry with him after their eyes meet across the room. The morning after, she is told her parents have accepted the proposal of Sir Phinneas Cole for her hand in marriage. A genius and reclusive inventor, Phin is in London to work on completing a machine with Lady Emma's husband. He wants a pretty, quiet and polite wife to help him manage his vast Yorkshire estate. He is also popularly known as "the Mad Baron".

Some years ago, all the newspapers ran stories about the tragic fire in his lab and how his first wife died under mysterious circumstances. While in finishing school, all three wallflowers read the scandalous accounts of how "the Mad Baron" stole his brother's fiancee and later likely murdered her. Because he lives in Yorkshire and never goes into society, Phin was of the naive belief that the rumours had died down. He was very wrong. It's clear that the woman he wants to marry is both afraid of him and behaving very strangely.

Olivia has concocted a plan with her friends to make Phin break off the engagement. If he wants a proper and ladylike bride, then Olivia must be everything but. She's been brought up knowing all the rules that mustn't be broken and has never stepped a toe out of line before. This has brought her nothing but scorn, ugly nicknames and now a very unwanted, possibly murderous fiancee. She starts behaving as scandalously as she can - wearing excessive amounts of makeup, getting drunk in public, dancing with rakes and scoundrels and generally trying to cause scenes (she's not very good at it).

Phin (who of course is the handsome man she met that magical night) is puzzled by the erratic behaviour of Lady Olivia. He can't deny the attraction he felt for her that first night, and even at her worst, Olivia can't come close to causing the sort of scandals his first wife inspired. The more outrageously Olivia acts, the more determined he is to go through with the marriage.

While Olivia doesn't know that Phin isn't a crazy murderer, the readers are of course privy to his POV and fully aware that he's not as dangerous as the rumours would have it. A big old science nerd, he's actually quite dreadfully clueless around women, and tries to take courtship advice from his more wordly (but moronic) friend, with the results that Olivia isn't just afraid of him, but thinks he's a dolt as well. The only thing their relationship has going for it is that first brief meeting when their glances caught across a crowded room and they shared a brief moment, until some of the catty ladies of the ton came to interrupt before anything significant could happen. The undeniable chemistry between them then is what makes Phin determined to win Olivia, and makes her unsure of whether he can be as bad as his reputation suggests.

Brought up to do only what is right and proper for a young lady, Olivia has never been given the opportunity to actually decide what she likes or wants from life, and her attempts at acting out go rather badly, because there is a reason she and her friends are dubbed "London's Least Likely". In one last-ditch attempt to rebel, Olivia goes to a masquerade, where she is rescued from a near-assault by none other than her (obviously masked) fiancee. Overwhelmed by everything that's happened since she became engaged against her will, she breaks down in his arms, and speaks honestly of her hopes and fears. Phin, to his credit, realises how dumb he has been and determines to treat his bride better, encouraging her to forge her own way and make her own choices once they are married.

He does not, however, tell her the truth behind the lurid gossip surrounding his first wife's death for quite some time, creating one of those frustrating misunderstandings that seems to be so common in romance. Of course things improve immensely between the couple once the full story is out, just in time for Olivia to injure herself badly, making Phin realise his feelings for her now that he might suddenly lose her.

Which brings me to my biggest gripe with this book. In addition to the "let's act all mad-cap and crazy to put off my fiancee" section that goes on a bit too long, this book has one of the most unbelievable deflowering scenes I've ever come across. Now, I may be extra critical, reading this book shortly after I myself fell on the ice and broke my left wrist quite badly. Nonetheless, I'm literally painfully aware of how much this hurts, and how sore and unwieldy a broken limb is, for up to a week after the injury. Even with the benefit of modern painkillers, I really didn't want to use my left arm for much of anything. Olivia breaks her ankle in an accident, yet seems perfectly able to consummate her marriage only a day or two afterwards. I don't care what superhuman erotic abilities "the Mad Baron" possesses, there is NO way that she would happily be spreading her legs and engaging in carnal acts so shortly after breaking a limb. As far as I'm aware, the most common painkiller in the Regency era would have been laudanum. Olivia would therefore either be more or less passed out in a morphine haze or in absolute agony if someone tried to move make her "open her legs".

Now, if you don't have the painful real life experience of breaking a limb fresh in your mind, this might not be a deal breaker for you. This book had a lot of potential, and I liked it better than the first book in the series, but there still wasn't anything out of the ordinary to make me consider Maya Rodale as an essential romance writer whose books I'll be looking out for or pre-ordering.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 136: "The Alloy of Law" by Brandon Sanderson

Page count: 392 pages
Rating: 4 stars

In helping me establish some of the background for the plot of this book, here is the Goodreads summary:

In the three hundred years since the events of the Mistborn trilogy, science and technology have marched on. Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads, electric lighting, and even the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds. 

Even with these advances, the magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to play a role in this reborn world. Out in the frontier lands, known as the Roughs, they are crucial tools for those trying to establish order and justice.

One is Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn who can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will. After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax must now put away his guns and assume the duties incumbent upon the head of a noble house - until he learns the hard way that the mansions and elegant tree-lined streets of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs. 

So our hero is Wax, or the ridiculously monikered Lord Waxillium Ladrian, who has to leave his position as a lawkeeper in the Wild West-like areas of the Roughs. While he is a legend with his guns, and his Allomancy, a personal tragedy has made him wary of using his skills anymore and since propriety seems to demand that the High Lord of a noble house don't run around catching common criminals, he instead tries to figure out what to do to make the House of Ladrian slightly more solvent. The answer appears to a marriage alliance to someone with a generous dowry, and the lady Steris appears to fit the bill. Unfortunately, at their first public appearance together,  she gets abducted by the Vanishers, the band of robbers/kidnappers who have been plaguing the city, stealing train loads of metals and taking women of good families as hostages.

Wax, his former partner Wayne (who is hilarious) and lady Steris' country cousin (in reality her illegitimate sister) Lady Marasi, an unobtrusive and quietly clever university student, team up to track down the Vanishers, rescue Steris and hopefully the other missing ladies as well.

It's been a fair few years since I read the original Mistborn trilogy (or any Sanderson really) and while I wouldn't recommend reading this book without first having read the other three books, I didn't feel too confused about the world building and the magic system, even though I hadn't re-read. This is partially because Sanderson has let three hundred years pass since his original trilogy, so while that was set in a sort of fantasy Renaissance, this is set in a sort of 19th Century developing technology world, with the same rules of physics and inherent magics. Sanderson is famously excellent at world building, and this series is no exception. While the book started a bit slowly and I was unsure of Wax as a protagonist, I got more engaged as his buddy Wayne showed up and they decided to actually solve some crime instead of Wax just trying and failing to be a stuffy society lord.

As a team, Wax, Wayne and Lady Marasi are a lot of fun. There is clearly romantic tension being set up between Wax and Marasi, which I'm hoping develops into something more in later books. While Wax is mourning, and believes himself to be too old for Marasi (plus there's the whole matter of him possibly entering a marriage of convenience with her rich half-sister), I have faith that she'll make him see sense. Poor Steris doesn't get to do much more than be girl hostage in this book, but despite her strange, stiff demeanour, I have faith that she too will turn out to be an interesting side character.

There are going to be two more books in this second trilogy in Sanderson's Mistborn universe. The second one is already out and the third book comes out early next year. I may wait a little while to read the second, so I can jump straight into the third without having to wait. Having taken quite a break from the books of the terrifyingly prolific Mr. Sanderson, I think I'm ready to have him wow me again.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 135: "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare

Page count: Don't know, read it online
Rating: 4 stars

Just to be clear, I am not going to include any spoiler warnings for this play, since it's somewhere between 406-416 years old (sources seem to disagree exactly when it was written). If, for some reason, you're worried about having major plot points or deaths (there's a whole bunch, guys) ruined for you, then it's probably best that you skip this review entirely.

So Macbeth or the Scottish play. Despite having English lit as my minor at university, and Scottish history as part of my major, I had never actually read the play until now. The new movie version with my future husband, Michael Fassbender, in the title role, comes out here at Christmas, so I wanted to have read the source text before going to see it. I knew most of the major plot beats, because well, I haven't lived in a cave for most of my life. The story is quite frequently referenced in pop culture. One of my favourite references may be the Lancre witches in Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

For those of you who may be fuzzy on the details (but are still here because you don't mind being spoiled about something that's 400+ years old) - Macbeth is a trusted Scottish general, whose forces have just beaten Ireland and Norway at the beginning of the play. On his way from the battlefield, accompanied by fellow general Banquo, the men come across three witches. They hail Macbeth as "thane of Glamis, thane of Cawdor and he who will be King hereafter." They also claim that Banquo's descendants will sit on the Scottish throne. The men disregard the prophecies, until they meet King Duncan, who pleased and grateful, does reward Macbeth with the thaneship of Cawdor. The previous thane was convicted of treason and will be executed.

Since two out of three parts of the witches' prophecy have come true, the ambitious Macbeth can't get their words out of his head. When he confides in his lady wife, she's pretty clear that they're going to have to off the king to ensure Macbeth becomes king of Scotland. As Duncan and his men will be staying at Macbeth's castle in Inverness, they'll have the perfect opportunity. Getting his personal guard dead drunk, Macbeth murders the king and blames Duncan's drunken bodyguards. He then has them put to death before they can deny their guilt.

To secure his place on the throne, Macbeth can't just kill the king, of course. Luckily for him, Duncan's two sons flee and can therefore be framed for the murder. Of course, Banquo heard the witches' prophecy and might suspect the truth, plus there was that pesky foretelling that Banquo's heirs would at some point take the throne. So Macbeth sends assassins after his old friend. Banquo's son escapes and Banquo's ghost shows up in the throne room to freak out his former buddy.

As he gets more unstable, unhinged and murderous, Macbeth doesn't exactly gain loyal followers. He feels slightly safer after new prophecies from the witches, claiming "no one born of woman" can harm him. He warned about Macduff, the thane of Fife, though, who was one of Duncan's loyal men. Sending assassins to murder the man's wife and entire family certainly ensures his enmity for life.

As the previously formidable and ruthless Lady Macbeth is driven completely mad with guilt and ends her life, Macbeth keep making deeply questionable choices. Macduff and Malcolm, Duncan's son and heir, gather an army to fight him. Turns out that Macduff was "from his mother's womb untimely ripped" and hence can totally kill the power mad tyrant Macbeth has become.

While I may have studied English literature, there are a lot of Shakespeare's plays I've just never gotten round to reading. Macbeth is probably the most famous of the tragedies I still had on my TBR list. The plot didn't really hold any surprises for me, but there were a lot of famous lines and quotations throughout that I hadn't realised was from this specific play.

Not just had I never read the play, I've never seen any of the film versions either. Not the Japanese Throne of Blood or Polanski's adaptation from 70s. I haven't actually read any reviews of the new adaptation, starring Fassbender as Macbeth and Marion Cotillard as his lady. I have heard that apparently they've sidelined Lady Macbeth somewhat, which seems like a moronic choice, as Lady Macbeth clearly is the coolest character in the play. Blood-thirsty, murderously ambitious and utterly ruthless, yes, but much more impressive than any of the male characters. Cinema tickets are pricy nowadays and I won't fork out to see the film in the theatres if it's only going to be of middling quality. Having finally read the play, I can at least have an educated opinion about whatever choices they've made in adapting it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 106: "Darlah - 172 timer på månen" (172 hours on the Moon) by Johan Harstad

Page count: 376 pages
Rating: 3 stars

NASA announces a historic lottery to help fund their new lunar expedition. Teens of between the ages 14 to 18 can sign up, and three lucky someones will be selected to train with the astronauts and come along on for a trip to the Moon. There is already a moon base they can stay at, DARLAH 2, established in the early 1970s for research and observation, but never actually used, for reasons the higher ups with the right security clearance would prefer not to answer. The same goes for questions about what the fate of DARLAH 1 was. There is an old, senile man in a quiet nursing home, who used to be a maintenence worker at Area 51. He sees the news broadcasts about the lottery and the upcoming lunar expedition and something inside him is screaming in terror. No one must return to the Moon, the lunar expedition is a terrible idea! Unfortunately, his illness is far enough advanced that he can't actually voice his thoughts and fears to anyone, and explain why another mission to the Moon may be disastrous.

The three teens who are selected are Mia from Norway, who plays in an all-girl post punk rock band, mainly acts stroppy towards her well-meaning parents. The only one she seems patient and nice to is her mentally disabled younger brother. She doesn't actually want to join the lottery, and is incredibly upset when she discovers that her parents signed her up. When it turns out that she's been picked out of the millions who signed up, her band mates are the ones to persuade her to finally go.

Antoine from Paris signs up for the lottery after his girlfriend dumps him and he wants to be anywhere else. He's very interested in historical planes, and develops worrying stalkerish tendencies where he goes up to the Eiffel Tower to use the binoculars there to spy into his ex-girlfriend's bedroom window. By the time the kids have completed their NASA training, he and Mia seem to have fallen for each other.

Japanese Midori doesn't feel like she fits in with most of her peers, and spends most of her free time making costumes, hanging out with other social outcasts in the Harajuku area of Tokyo. Her biggest dream is to leave Japan, like her older sister who moved to London. When she's picked for the lottery, she hopes to be able to persuade her parents to let her stay in the US after the lunar mission.

All three teens experience mysterious and ominous events before the arrive for their training with NASA. Antoine sees a plane apparently crashing into the ocean; Midori and her parents can't seem to find the correct gate at the airport and a ghostly voice in a rest room tells Midori not to leave Japan; Mia meets a strange homeless man in Central Park with strange writing on the back on his hoodie.

Darlah, or 172 Hours on the Moon was awarded several literary prizes in 2008, when it was first published and in 2014 it was voted the best Norwegian young adult of all time by a panel of teenage readers and book journalists. The book certainly seems to appeal to a lot of the teens I teach, especially the girls (because sadly, most of the teenage boys in our school don't read unless they're forced to). One of the girls in my current class said it "made me look at reading in a completely new way" and I couldn't really refuse to read the book after an endorsement like that.

What I liked:
- The actual premise of the book
- Midori seemed like a perfectly nice character
- The NASA astronauts were cool
- Mia's family were nice (the other two teen's parents may as well not have existed for all the time the book spends on them)
- The slowly increasing tension and growing feeling of unease in the book
- The clever ways in which the book plays with genre conventions. There are a lot of fun pop culture references. 

What I disliked:
- The book has a very slow start. Far too much time is spent with the teenagers before the results of the lottery are revealed, mostly dwelling on details that have nothing to do with events that become relevant later. The book would have been more engaging if it got to the point faster.
- Mia really isn't a very likable character. She appears like a spoiled, ungrateful brat and I didn't really see why her friends wanted to spend time with her or why her parents didn't just tell her to snap out of her sulk. The slow beginning of the book just emphasises these negative qualities.
- Antoine's stalker tendencies. This is another way in which the lengthy unneccessary exposition at the beginning was more detrimental than beneficial. If so much time hadn't been spent on showing Antoine and Mia as dislikable, I would have been more engaged with their budding relationship later in the book as well.
- The horror aspect of the book. I had not realised that this book was both a sci-fi AND a horror novel. The horror was very well done, but I'm a big ol' wuss and it just made me uncomfortable.

I don't want to reveal too much more about the book, because that would spoil the story and it's best to go into the book without knowing too much. I can absolutely see why this is extremely appealing to young readers, but for someone who is as easily creeped out as I am, this is just not for me.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 88: "Also Known As" by Robin Benway

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Margaret "Maggie" Silver learned to pick her first lock when she was barely past the toddler stage, which is unsurprising since both her parents and all their friends are spies. Maggie's father can tell her she's grounded in more than twenty languages, but she's never actually gone to school and rarely interacted with someone her own age. So when the Silver's current mission requires her to go to a fancy prep school in Manhattan, Maggie is actually more out of her depth than when her family had to flee Luxembourg in a hurry.  Now she has to wear a uniform and make friends, armed only on the knowledge she's acquired from countless books and TV shows.

Maggie's job is to get close to Jesse Oliver, whose father is about to publish a tell all article where Maggie's parents, Maggie herself and many they care about may have their true identities revealed. As this would be disastrous, time is of the essence. While Maggie might have twelve different passports and there is barely a lock or a safe she can't break into, she clearly has no idea how to talk to kids her own age. She's never been able to have real friends, as her family are constantly on the move, nor has she ever even thought about a life that doesn't involve deception and being a spy. She's a fish out of water in high school, struggling to fit in. Initially, she believes her target to be spoiled and arrogant, but as she gets closer to him, she has real trouble keeping herself detached and objective. Lying to her friends feels wrong, and the longer she works the case, the longer her instincts tell her that something is seriously up with the mission. But can a teenage girl tell her professional spy parents that she thinks they're being set up?

The fact that this is Maggie's first proper mission, where her parents have to take the back seat, actually just being her parents, is one of the things that creates tension in the book. It's clear that Maggie has a real gift when it comes to lock-picking and safe-cracking, but because of the life she's led, she's never actually been presented with or even considered any options to life as a spy. Only when Maggie actually has to explain her unusual upbringing (without revealing any specific details, naturally) to her new friends, does she realise how truly strange her life has been.

This was a fun book, with a fun protagonist. Roux, the girl she befriends at school, a former queen bee whose now ostracised because she slept with a friend's boyfriend and consequently lost her lofty position, is great. Wounded, sarcastic and initially quite self-centred, Roux provides Maggie with invaluable help in fitting into high school, even if she'll never exactly be popular hinging out with Roux. Jesse Oliver, whose file suggests he's a spoiled and attention-seeking rich kid, is actually bright, funny, vulnerable, as well as cute as heck, and it's perfectly believable that Maggie falls for him hard. While Maggie feels like a complete spaz every time she's near him, he seems to find her quite mysterious and intimidating. Their first date is absolutely adorable.

This book was perfectly fun entertainment and I liked Maggie, her friends, her parents and especially Angelo, the family friend who may or may not be an assassin. Teenage spy has to fit into high school seems like a great premise for a CW show, frankly, which I think I would actually watch. There's at least one more book in this series and I will be checking it out too.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 80: "Lady Be Good" by Meredith Duran

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Lily Monroe is trying to make a better life for herself, working hard to acheive the dreams her dead sister had for them about becoming a respectable gentlewoman and rising above their poor backgrounds in London's East End. She now calls herself Lilah Marshall and is one of the hostesses at Everleigh's Auction House, making a decent living. Unfortunately, her uncle needs her to do him one last favour, involving the use of some of her thieving skills to acquire some documents. Lilah's dirty deed is witnessed by one of the auction house's prominent customers, Viscount Palmer, who doesn't hesitate to blackmail her for assistance with his own business.

A lauded war hero, Christian "Kit" Stratton is the toast of London. He is desperate to stop the madman who has sworn to kill each and every member of Christian's family and after discovering a distinctive candlestick at the Everleigh Auction Rooms, it is obvious its owners have a connection with his enemy. Now Palmer needs to get close to Miss Catherine Everleigh, and after discovering that her trusted employee, Miss Marshall has a nefarious past, he is more than willing to use one woman to get close to the other. Tempting Miss Everleigh with a house full of antiquities he needs to have appraised, he insists that the enigmatic Lilah Marshall come with her as her assistant. He wants to Lilah to steal any correspondence of Catherine's and show it to him, or he will reveal her true background and most likely get her fired.

While Catherine initially has little time for Lilah and mostly seems to detest her, certainly complicates matters somewhat. Christian also claims that he intends to propose marriage to Miss Everleigh, but it's Lilah he really seems to be forming a connection with, as she meets him in his office every evening to report on Miss Everleigh's correspondence.

Meredith Duran always tends to go for heroes with dark pasts and complicated emotional issues. Kit is celebrated as a war hero wherever he goes, but was captured after a battle, tortured and lives with the knowledge that a madman with a deep personal grudge against him had his older brother murdered. Always meant to be the spare, Kit feels unprepared for the duties of the title and holdings he now possesses and he struggles to keep his mother and his sister safe, without being able to confide in them about his fears.

In Lilah Kit recognises someone else who presents a cheerful and spotless exterior to the world, while all manner of interesting secrets rumble under the surface. He doesn't feel the need to act the hero with her, instead acting in a very underhanded and imperious fashion, hoping to keep her from growing as attached to him as he is getting to her. Knowing that anyone close to him could be his nemesis' next victim makes him cautious, but Lilah's background and experience has made her strong and resourceful, and she refuses to be coddled or protected.

While I occasionally found the plot in turns a bit slow then convoluted, I really enjoyed this book. I didn't love it as much as Fool Me Twice, her last one, but as I consider that one of the best romances I've read in years, it was going to struggle to measure up. Since I'm about a month behind on my reviews, I actually have the sequel to this, featuring the romance between Catherine Everleigh and Lilah's mob boss uncle already lined up on my E-reader. They have an interesting encounter in the latter half of this book, and I'm looking forward to seeing how their relationship develops.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 71: "The Martian" by Andy Weir

Page count: 369 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Six days into the first manned mission on Mars, there is a huge dust storm, forcing most of the crew to evacuate, earlier than anticipated. Mark Watney, the crew's botanist and mechanical engineer is impaled on an antenna and believed to have died. He wakes up alone, stranded on Mars with no way of signalling Earth that he is still alive. The next manned mission to Mars is scheduled in four years' time, and even if he were able to send a signal to announce his miraculous survival, he doesn't have enough supplies to last him long enough for a rescue mission to reach him. Even if he could use his botany skills to grow food enough to last him, none of the equipment he has with him is designed to last for years in the unforgiving environment of the red planet. Mark Watney, one of the first men to ever walk on Mars, is very likely to be the first man ever to die there too. He's not going down without a fight, though? With his boundless optimism, his education and his creativity, he's determined to survive until the next crew of space explorers arrive, when he will hopefully be able to go home at last.

I was given this book as a Cannonball gift exchange present from the lovely Beth Ellen, but first heard about it in August last year, when my friend Erica, who usually can't stand science fiction books, read it in less than 48 hours and then rated it five stars. Since then, so many people all over the interwebs have read and reviewed it and absolutely loved it, to the point where I started getting scared of reading it at all, convinced I was going to be the first person I knew, in real life or online, who was going to think the book was just ok. So I kept putting it off, and finding excuses for why I couldn't read it yet, until the trailers for the upcoming film starring Matt Damon started being released, and I realised that unless I wanted to get spoiled, I was going to have to just read the book already.

I discovered very quickly that I wasn't going to hate the book, and as I tore through the pages (annoyed that I actually had to do work, even with the summer holidays quickly approaching), it was really obvious why so many different people in my friend sphere had rated the book so very highly. I've seen it described as Robinson Crusoe meets MacGyver several times, and as a super-brief summary, that makes a lot of sense. Mark Watney is a great protagonist. He's funny, charming, self-deprecating, resourceful and smart. He keeps his head cool in a crisis (and being stranded on Mars is a hell of one) and his education, training and background make it believable that he'd be able to actually do the things he ends up doing to survive. I will admit I skimmed quite a few of the explanations of the mechanics and physics of what he did, because science is so far from what I cared about, but it all seemed realistic.

The chapters are short, the tension is high and Mark is a character you really root for. You want him to make it, you are invested in his survival and while I assumed he was going to be ok in the end, this was not a guarantee and actually told my husband (who, is coincidentally also called Mark) off for asking me questions while I was reading the final parts of the book. I needed for it to be only me and the book. So yes, you can add me to the long list of people who loved this book and have added Mark Watney to my list of favourite fictional characters. Now I'm one of the many who hope Ridley Scott doesn't screw up the film.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 69: "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I got this as an ARC through NetGalley in return for a fair and unbiased review.The book is available now.

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its power at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman to be handed over to him every ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows - everyone knows - that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things that Agnieszka isn't, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

While this remarkable novel by Naomi Novik isn't actually a retelling of some traditional fairy tale, it feels like it should be. The book moves slowly, thoroughly establishing the sleepy little environment Agniezka and Kasia live in, with the terrors of the slowly encroaching Wood so close by. Once someone disappears in the Wood, they will hopefully stay lost. Should they return, they are like creatures possessed spreading its malevolent influence. It's because the dangers that threaten them constantly that the villagers accept having to sacrifice a young woman to the mysterious and reclusive wizard who lives in the tower nearby. He keeps them for ten years, when they return to their families briefly, apparently unharmed but inevitably changed. They never seem content to stay in their home villages, usually going to the capital, rarely to return.

The Dragon always chooses the most promising and accomplished of the women, and so everyone in the area are expecting Kasia to be the next young woman to be taken. It's a huge surprise to everyone, not least Agnieszka, when she is the one selected to go with the wizard. She barely gets time to say good bye to her loved ones before the Dragon sweeps her away. Now, terrified and confused, because while the women who return from the Dragon's service always appeared healthy and unmolested, there were always rumours. They lived alone with a man for a decade after all. The impatient and surly wizard seems completely uninterested in her physically though, and after finding a note from a previous occupant of her room, Agnieszka is relieved that she won't be molested in any way. She tries to follow the orders of her new master, but because the Dragon isn't exactly very clear in what he actually wants, it takes her quite a while to understand that he's trying to teach her magic, and his lessons are not going as expected. It's only when she finds the dusty spell book of a legendary witch that she seems to get the magic to work for her.

At first the Dragon doesn't believe that Agnieszka's brand of magic could have any effect. Only after several attempts does it become clear that his way of using magic is more intellectual and book based, while Agnieszka's is more emotional and intuition based. As the threats from the Wood become greater, it's clear that they need to find a way to work together. One terrible day, when the Dragon is called away to deal with a crisis, Agnieszka receives word that her village is being threatened as well. When she discovers that her dearest friend Kasia has been taken by the creatures of the Wood, she risks everything to rescue her. Now she needs to find a way to free her friend from the Wood's influence, even if such a task has always been believed to be impossible.

To begin with, Agnieszka seems like one of those women who only seem to exist in fiction, too clumsy for words and completely out of her element. We are told that while Kasia is all that is beautiful, talented, graceful and accomplished, Agnieszka can't go through a single day without getting her clothes torn or stained or in some way screwing things up. No one expects her to be the next woman to go with the Dragon. She is terrified and confused, unclear about her duties and feels absolutely horrible from the simple spells the Dragon makes her do. Because he's more than a century old, used to girls with more aptitude for magic (because that's what he does, he trains them in magic so they can help him keep the Wood from taking over more of the area), he's not used to having to explain his methods or motivation. He is also appalled when Agnieszka explains to him what everyone in the surrounding villages believes is his ulterior motive for selecting the girls.

Because Agnieszka has always been unfavourably compared to Kasia, and is so completely unable to grasp the tenets of the Dragon's magical spells, she, like everyone else underestimates herself greatly. It takes time for her to realise that she has value and gifts of her own and that she is has a gift for magic, just not one that has been seen in the country for a long time. She truly begins to find her strength and powers when her best friend is threatened. Doing the impossible, she rescues Kasia from the Wood and refuses to give up on her. In the process, she is also forced to examine her feelings of inadequacy and jealousy towards her dear friend, because even best friends aren't always charitable in the ways they think of one another, and there will always be times when we are jealous, insecure and petty. Moving through and past this, Kasia and Agnieszka's friendship is changed, but stronger as a result.

In the second act of the book, so to speak, Agnieszka has to leave the world she's always known, as well as the safety of the Dragon's tower and go to the capital, to deal with political intrigue, other wizards and discovers that the sinister forces that control the Wood are present even there and bent on causing destruction and havoc not only in her home country of Polnya, but also the neighbouring country. Because of Agnieszka's miraculous rescue of Kasia, the youngest prince of Polnya is determined to reclaim his mother, the missing queen, who allegedly ran away with her lover nearly twenty years ago. They both disappeared in the Wood. Is what they rescue from the forest, at terrible loss of life, truly the lost queen, or something much more sinister?

The last third of the book got a bit wearying, with what felt to me to be unnecessary and repetitive violence and finally a rather puzzling explanation of what the motivation behind the terrifying force of the Wood actually was. I can't stress enough how creepy and sinister I felt the Wood and its many "minions" was. It's such a great villain, for all that it's not one thing, but this seemingly unstoppable and relentless force, with feral wolves, giant preying mantises, evil trees and other monsters at its disposal. Still, I got a bit tired and confused towards the end, just wanting things to wrap up.

Overall, this is such a great read, with Agnieszka as a wonderful heroine at its centre. Her friendship with Kasia is heartwarming and her slowly developing powers and confidence feels empowering in all the right ways. The medieval style kingdoms felt extremely real and the whole story feels as if Naomi Novik found some treasure trove of old Eastern European fairy tales and just reinterpreted them. There is a romantic subplot in the book as well, and one of my other complaints, along with the dragging last third of the book, is that the romance isn't more fully developed. It has so much promise, damn it, and I felt cheated that there wasn't more of it. The only thing I'd read by Novik before this, was Temeraire (or His Majesty's Dragon, as it's also known). While that didn't appeal to me that much(even with dragons, there was too much military history, not my thing), this was great. For anyone with an interest in fairy tale narratives with strong, female friendship at its core and some real horrors to be overcome before there is a chance at a HEA, this is a book for you.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 67: "Suddenly One Summer" by Julie James

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Divorce lawyer Victoria Slade has a cynical view of romance and relationships. She's seen enough bitter divorces and custody battles to really believe in happily ever after. She's certainly not looking for anything permanent herself. Not that she'd mind something casual, she just needs to find the right guy. Who certainly isn't her new next-door neighbour, who while he seemed hot when their eyes met across a bar, appears to have a veritable cavalcade of women in and out of his apartment at all hours of the day and night. That's too casual even for Victoria.

Investigative journalist Ford Dixon has a soft spot for women. He loves his mother and younger sister dearly, and his best friend since childhood is a highly successful lawyer who likes to give him a hard time. He's happily single, for all that several of his friends have begun to settle down. However, his bitchy and judgemental new neighbour Victoria, for all that he likes the way she looks, is not the sort of woman he would go for. Yet when his younger sister enlists Victoria's help to locate the one night stand who is the father of her baby, Ford insists he be allowed to use his research skills and contacts to help. Soon he and Victoria are spending a lot of time together, and discovering that their first impressions of the other might have been rather wrong.The attraction they felt during their first encounter in the bar returns, stronger than ever, and soon they are questioning whether casual dating is enough.

Julie James is one of my "pre-order"-authors and I pretty much clear my schedule when one of her new books come out, so I can enjoy it properly. She writes witty and entertaining contemporary romances, featuring successful professionals who are really good at what they do. This book is a slight departure from her "Chicago FBI/District Attorney" books, but it has ties to former books in the series, with cameos from previous heroes and heroines.

After a home invasion, Victoria moves into a sub-let (the apartment next to Ford's) over the summer, while waiting for her new condo to be ready. She also starts suffering panic attacks, which for a woman who's used to having complete control, is unacceptable. The owner of her own profitable law firm, Victoria is deeply frustrated when she's told by her therapist that there isn't an easy fix for her new anxiety. In the process of attending her sessions, she also discovers that there may be more to her refusal for long term commitment than her job. There are clearly issues in her past that are influencing both her current panic attacks and her cynicism about romance. Being as successful as she is, she is able to take on Ford's sister's case pro bono, and working on locating her baby daddy is very different from what Victoria normally does. She likes the idea of reuniting a family rather than seeing it dissolve.

At the start of the book, Ford attends the funeral for his father, who while a very popular and well-liked man in the community, was also an alcoholic, with an erratic behaviour that influenced his children negatively. Because of his father's drinking problem, Ford stepped in to take care of his mother and sister more than a lot of young boys might, and he feels deeply responsible for their well-being. So when his sister confesses that her baby is the product of a one night stand, and her ex-boyfriend who left the state is not actually the one responsible for knocking her up, Ford feels helpless, furious and is determined to move heaven and earth to locate the man who slept with his sister. If that means working with the shrewish woman next door, he will do it.

As I said, Julie James is always a good bet for light, entertaining romance and I wasn't disappointed in this. Not one of her best books, it certainly wasn't one of her weaker ones either. I liked both Ford and Victoria as individuals, and there is great support in Ford's sister, Victoria's snarky personal assistant and infinitely patient therapist. The resolution of the book was perhaps a bit sudden, but I very much liked the epilogue. My biggest problem now is that I have to wait another year for the next book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 64: "Big Little Lies" by Liane Moriarty

Page count: 462 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I read this book. Because of my massive backlog, I'm going to resort to my favourite short-cut, stealing the blurb from Goodreads:

A murder...a tragic accident...or just parents behaving badly? What's indisputable is that someone is dead. But who did what?

Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads: 

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She's funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his new yogi wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarden class as Madeline's youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline's teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline's ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?).

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn't be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.

New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all. 

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.

This is yet another book that it feels like I read after everyone and their mothers had discovered, read and raved about it, while I foolishly believed it was not for me. It's happened many times before, most notable with Jenny Lawson's amazing biography, the very funny Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, earlier this year with the lovely Station Eleven and now again with this. I had convinced me that this was just some sort of mommy version of Mean Girls with PTA moms gossipping and figuratively stabbing each other in the back. I was so very wrong, and I should have listened to all the eloquent and well-written reviews of my fellow Cannonballers. Sorry guys. It was only when my kindred spirit and book twin on the internet, Narfna, posted this review that I finally decided that OK, let's see what all the fuss is about.

I was hooked before I'd even finished the first chapter, where it's made clear that something very bad has happened at the trivia night of Pirriwee Public School. Of course, with chapter two, the action jumps six months back in time, introducing the reader to the three protagonists, three wonderful, interesting, but also vulnerable and flawed women who feel beautifully realistic and who at least I grew to love very quickly, for all that I understood that like my own friends, they would occasionally exasperate and annoy me, all the while they were there for me and had my back. You know from the very first chapter that someone is going to die at the trivia night, but Moriarty keeps you on tenterhooks as to who said individual is going to be.

This book is so many things. Contemporary drama and mystery, it's very funny at times and heart-breakingly touching (at least to me) at others. It explores both the complicated friendships and rivalries between women, motherhood and the insecurities of getting older. The relationships between husbands and wives, both current and divorced, mothers and their children, teachers and parents. Sure, there are petty school intrigues and women gossipping about each other, but that's such a tiny part as to seem almost insignificant. There are a number of other issues explored in the book as well, that I don't want to reveal, because this book really is best read when you go into it more or less ignorant, able to face the surprises and plot twists as they are sprung on you. Suffice to say, it's about the importance of friendships, of not being too prejudiced and judging before you have the whole picture - and about the many secrets that we keep from our friends and loved ones because we fear to seem weak or less in control.

I wanted Madeline, Celeste and Jane to be my friends. I don't think there was a single chapter when I wasn't at least a little entertained. Every time I thought I knew where the story was going, there would be something new revealed that I hadn't counted on. There were absolutely some bits that didn't work as well for me, mainly Madeline's jealousy of Bonnie, her ex-husband's new wife and the rather wearying lengths her teenage daughter went to get attention, but those were such small things and this book made me laugh and cry, bite my nails and most importantly, turn the pages with bated breath with each chapter bringing me closer to the fateful trivia night and its aftermath. I cursed the work load that made it impossible for me to just devour the book. So, if you, like me, might think from the book description that this book isn't for you - give it a chance - it's such a good read.

I will absolutely be reading more Liane Moriarty. In the acknowledgements, I discovered that she's the sister of another Australian writer whose books I love, the YA author, Jaclyn Moriarty. It just seems unfair to me that two such talented writers are related, but perhaps great writing skill is genetic.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read, where you can also find MANY more reviews of this book.

#CBR7 Book 61: "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" by John Boyne

Page count: 218 pages
Rating: 2 stars

Nine-year-old Bruno lives in a big house in Berlin and is not at all happy when the household is packed up and he, his mother, his older sister and the servants are forced to travel by train to a new house, far away in the desolate countryside. He misses the bustling city, the house with such a great banister for sliding down, his grandparents, his friends, even his school. At the new house, there is no one to play with, just a small garden and a tall fence in the distance, reaching as far as the eye can see. He tries to convince his parents that they need to move back, but is hopeful that his new exile will only last for maybe a month.

Of course, Bruno is wrong, and he is forced to settle into his new home. His busy father has uniformed soldiers coming in and out of his office all the time, and doesn't really have time for his wife or children any more. Going off on his own to explore the countryside, Bruno walks along the tall barbed wire fence and one day meets a skinny boy, dressed in what appears to be striped pyjamas. The boy's name is Shmuel and Bruno discovers that he too is nine years old. Not only that, they share the same birthday. Bruno doesn't tell his family about his new friend and keeps sneaking back to the fence to talk to his new friend, who seems strangely reluctant to tell Bruno too much of the details of his life. As the boys' friendship develops, Bruno becomes more and more curious about Shmuel's life behind the fence. When he decides to crawl under a loose section of the fence, it has unexpected consequences.

I'm unsure of who the intended target audience for the book is. Because it's written from the POV of a naive and sheltered child, it may seem like a children's book. But because of the subtle ways in which the story is told, you need knowledge of World War II and the Holocaust to really understand what is going on. A child wouldn't understand that "The Fury" is Hitler and "Out With is in fact, Auschwitz-Birkenau, probably the most infamous and well-known of all of the Nazi's death camps. Apparently, the author wrote the first draft of the book in about two and a half days, and intends it as a "fable" about the war. Which may describe why the story seems a bit too simplistic.

I was also expecting that a book at least tangentially about the Holocaust would affect me more emotionally, but this book really didn't make me feel much of anything, except perhaps bafflement that at nine, Bruno can be so sheltered and naive, and unwilling to question his surroundings. In one review I saw of the book, the reviewer suggested that a lot of Bruno's character traits would be more believable in a younger boy, perhaps around 6. That a nine-year-old whose father is a Commandant in the Nazi army is unable to pronounce "Der Führer" correctly, seems unlikely. Since the family aren't moved to Poland until 1943, I find it very doubtful that Bruno, in his school in Berlin, hasn't been taught about the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of the Jewish race. That he doesn't know about death camps is fair, but I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't know anything about the Jews as a people and a deeply hated race.

It's not a very long book, but neither Bruno (despite the fact that we see the story through his eyes) nor any of the other characters are particularly well defined. Bruno seems rather spoiled and very oblivious. His sister is only 12, but spends much of her time attempting to flirt with some of the officers working for her father. This made me deeply uncomfortable. Bruno's parents are pretty much non-entities, although it's suggested that Bruno's mother has a drinking problem and possibly has an affair with one of the same young officers that her pre-teen daughter is trying to flirt with. Shmuel is the person who interacts the most with Bruno, but he doesn't make much of an impression either. I also question how he's able to sneak away from his work duties all the time to sit by a fence (which should surely be much more heavily guarded than it is in this book) to chat with Bruno.

The ending seems inevitable from fairly early on, and was probably supposed to affect me. I would feel like a bad person for not being moved, but the characters were too simply drawn and the whole scenario just seemed implausible to me. I know the book was made into a film in 2008, and from the plot summary, it seems that the plot has possibly been made more complex and plausible - Bruno certainly doesn't seem completely unaware of what a Jew is. Based on the book, I doubt I'd be all that interested in seeing the film either, though.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 36: "Tarnished Knight" by Bec McMaster

Page count: 162 pages
Rating: 3 stars

This novella is part of Bec McMaster's London Steampunk series. Some of the back story and world building for the story can be found in my review for Kiss of Steel, the first book in the series.

When former factory worker turned East End enforcer John "Rip" Doolan was nearly killed by a vampire attack, the only way to save his life was for his employer Blade to infect him with the craving virus (a sort of vampire light option). After six months, he is still struggling to control his blood lust. The last thing he wants to do is endanger his Esme, Blade's housekeeper, who previous to the vicious attack was his dearest friend.

Esme's heart nearly broke when John was almost killed, and she'd love for nothing more than to be his thrall, i.e his real live blood donor. While those infected with the craving virus can drink bottled blood or chilled blood from storage, they obviously prefer it straight from the vein, and the thralls get a near sexual thrill from the exchange. Esme, a widow who had become very close to John (she's the only person not to call him Rip) before his near-fatal attack, was hoping for a future with him and doesn't see why him suddenly having the craving virus should stop that.

John, of course, is pigheadedly protective and determined to keep his distance and the two keep having tense and unproductive encounters in between mostly avoiding one another until their employer, Blade, steps in and provides some Yuletide manipulation for the good of all.

There is also an action subplot involving a criminal gang called the Slashers, who kidnap women and children and drain them of blood, selling it to the Echelon, the vampiric nobility. As one of Blade's chief lieutenants, John is trying to track the Slashers down and Esme, of course, gets kidnapped as retaliation. Can John save his beloved before it's too late?

Reading this novella reminded me just how much fun the world Bec McMaster has created is. Both Esme and John were supporting characters in Kiss of Steel. You don't need to have read the first book in the series to understand the plot, but you'll have a greater understanding of the intricate world-building. It's a nice little romance, where the annoying misunderstandings of John avoiding Esme to protect her and both of them constantly saying the wrong thing or misinterpreting the words of the other may go on for a bit longer than I would have liked (I tend to find any romance where the problems could be solved just by the characters daring to speak honestly to each other), it's not a big flaw. Having now revisited McMaster's alternative Steampunk London, I will most assuredly return there later this reading year.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 35: "Daddy Long-Legs" by Jean Webster

Page count: 249 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Jerusha "Judy" Abbott is a Canadian orphan, who at 17 is still living in the orphanage, mainly because they are using her as free help. She is frequently told that she needs to keep her strong opinions and overactive imagination to herself, or nothing will come of her. She dreams of becoming a famous author and when a wealthy benefactor of the orphanage offers to send her to college on a scholarship, she is closer to achieving said dream. She doesn't know who he is, having only seen his shadow as he left the matron's office, but she knows that he is tall, and his shadow resembled a daddy long-legs. Hence, when she is told that she needs to write letters to her benefactor detailing her progress, she addresses each one to "Dear Daddy Long-Legs".

Having never had a family of her own, Judy (as she reinvents herself at college. Who can blame her for wanting to be rid of the name Jerusha?) starts imagining that Daddy Long-Legs all the relatives she's been missing. Going to college and receiving an education, Judy thrives. She loves learning, she loves improving her writing and making new friends. She never gets any replies to her letters, but the occasional gift (sometimes quite extravagant) proves that her anonymous rich benefactor reads her missives and doesn't want her to feel left out among the other girls at the college. Very occasionally, Judy will get written instructions through her benefactor's secretary, who among other things, helps find her places to spend her summers, while the other girls go home to their families.

As she grows older and her education is coming to an end, Judy becomes more and more curious about the identity of "Daddy Long-Legs" and tries to use her prodigious imagination to figure out who he might be.

I picked up this book both because Dear Mr. Knightley, which I really liked, was inspired by it (which meant that I wasn't really surprised by any of the major story beats, as they are pretty much the same) and because Forever YoungAdult and the Book Smugglers, both review sites I trust and often agree with, rated it 5 stars and called it a must-read classic. Written in 1912, I'm sure this is a beloved book to many, but whether it's because I'd just read modern book with a very similar plot, or whether I just found some aspects of the book a bit disturbing, it just didn't entirely work for me.

While Judy is rather delightful, smart, opinionated and a bit too prone to speaking (or writing) her mind before she thinks about what she's actually saying, there was something very off-putting to me about her addressing most of her letters to "Dear Daddy". Especially as based on the reviews I'd seen, I knew that there was a romantic subplot, and it was clear that she was actually going to fall in love with her benefactor, without knowing who he really was. When "Daddy" starts dictating where she spend her free time, obviously to prevent her from spending more time with her college friend's brother, it left a bad taste in my mouth. The reviewer on Forever YoungAdult points out that Judy frequently disregards the attempts at manipulations from her benefactor, and once she wins a scholarship due to her writing skill, she insists on being allowed to start paying back the money she's been given so far, not wanting to be in debt for any longer than necessary.

I don't think it was just because of just having read Dear Mr. Knightley that I figured out quickly who "Daddy Long-Legs" was. While the character seems perfectly pleasant, and has very socialist leanings for a rich person of the time, I just couldn't get over the inappropriate way he keeps trying to direct Judy's life. Judy herself, as I have already mentioned, is great. She, like the precocious orphan girl ever, Ms Anne Shirley is the reason I liked the book as much as I did. It's really not going to be a book I revisit though, and the hero, if he can be called that, did little but skeeve me out.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 33: "The Winner's Crime" by Marie Rutkoski

Page count: 417 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I was granted an ARC of this book through NetGalley in return for a fair and objective review. The book is available now. 

This review will contain some spoilers for The Winner's Curse. I will try to be vague, but it's pretty much impossible to review this without mentioning some of the important stuff that happened in the second half of the first book. You have been warned. 

You still here? On your own head be it. Kestrel is now firmly settled in the capital, trying to put off her wedding to the crown prince of Valoria, without making it too obvious to the emperor that that is what she's doing. She desperately wants to see Arin, now the governor of the newly liberated Herran territory, but she's also not sure she can trust him and whatever happens, she needs the emperor to think her completely indifferent to her erstwhile captor. So when he arrives in the capital for her engagement celebration, she skilfully lies to him, again and again, all the while risking her own life to help the Herrani spymaster gather information against Valoria.

Every time Arin thinks he's been able to figure out Kestrel's words and actions, something happens to convince him otherwise. After he is nearly assassinated in the capital, he travels to the furthest reaches of the Valorian empire in search of allies for Herran. He endures all manner of dangers to keep his country safe, not realising that Kestrel is risking her life for the very same things, playing a very dangerous game of strategy against the emperor himself.

Anyone who was complaining about Kestrel's lack of awareness and empathy for the slaves of the Valorian empire, should be happy that in this book she is trying her very best to atone for all the unfairness she and her countrymen have inflicted on the territories they occupy. She knows she is surrounded by spies and informants and that the emperor is watching her every move, scrutinising her every statement in order to catch her in a lie or action sympathetic to the Herrani rebels. She needs to appear overjoyed at her betrothal to the crown prince, Verex, who himself is none to pleased with their coming alliance. The emperor clearly deems his son weak and disappointing and sees the marriage between his favourite general's daughter and his son as a great way to win the affections of his armies, while grooming Kestrel into a more satisfactory heir.

The romance between Arin and Kestrel is more in the background as the intrigues and intricacies of court life come to the forefront. If they could just talk openly with one another about their fears and feelings, so many misunderstandings and complications would be dispersed with, but of course, Kestrel can't be honest with Arin. She doesn't know if she can trust him, and she needs to drive him far away from her to keep him from being used as a weapon against her. For much of the book, she successfully pulls the wool over Arin's eyes. When he has figured out the truth, and confronts her with it, he chooses the worst possible moment. She has to lash out to protect herself, and manages to drive him away once more. He doesn't realise that his actions have doomed her completely.

The book ends on a very exciting cliff hanger, leaving Kestrel in very real peril and Arin apparently determined to forget about her forever. I will be very disappointed if they are not reunited in the third book, although I hope Kestrel manages to rescue herself, having shown such (sometimes foolish) bravery and ingenuity in these previous two books. Sadly, The Winner's Kiss (a promising title that seems to suggest a satisfying ending to their star-crossed romance) isn't out until March 2016, so I have a bit of a wait ahead.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 31: "The Winner's Curse" by Marie Rutkoski

Page count: 369 pages
Rating: 4 stars

WARNING! There are some spoilers for the plot of this book in the review, so if you prefer to go into a book knowing nothing about it, you may want to skip this. 

Kestrel is the only daughter of Valorian general Trajan. They live in the province of Herran, formerly a bustling independent nation, invaded, conquered, enslaved and now occupied on orders from the Valorian emperor. The surviving Herrani are slaves, bought and sold at the mercy of the Valorians. As a Valorian woman, Kestrel has two choices in life, she can join the army (which her father very much wants her to do, not for her fighting skills, which are frankly unremarkable, but for her clever mind and affinity for strategy) or marriage. She is uncomfortable with the imperialistic nature of her people, but doesn't exactly do a lot to voice her discontent either. In fact, though uncomfortable with the enslavement of the Herrani, she ends up buying a Herrani slave at an auction for an enormous sum, and comes to regret it in more ways than one.

Arin is a former Herrani noble, sold into General Trajan's household as a blacksmith. He correctly senses that Kestrel can be manipulated and soon gains a lot of freedom to move around the estate, and occasionally even to visit the city centre. Arin's presence at the auction wasn't a coincidence, and he is working in secret with many other Herrani to overthrow their Valorian oppressors. He never expected to grow so close to a Valorian, but the more time he spends in Kestrel's presence, the more their attraction grows. What is going to happen when his fight for freedom upsets her entire world?

"The Winner's Curse" of the title of this book refers to the fact that the winner of an auction having in many ways lost, because whoever places the winning bid, has paid more than what all the other bidders have decided the item is worth. In the case of Kestrel in this book, the bidding escalates incredibly quickly, and she ends up paying a scandalous amount for Arin. That she later comes to regret her purchase in all sorts of other ways, is also part of her curse.

This was a book that I heard about fairly early in 2014, but pretty much discounted because of the silly cover. As the year progressed, the book got very favourable reviews on a number of sites I follow, and it also appeared on several Best of 2014 lists. So when I found it on sale at the end of the year, I bought it, and as I've been granted an ARC of the second book in the series, I figured it was time to finally see what all the fuss was about.

On Goodreads, I've seen several reviews very unhappy with the way the issue of slavery was dealt with in this book. The Valorians are basically the Romans here, greedily expanding their empire, not really because they are threatened by their surrounding countries, but because of greed and a wish to subjugate all those they consider weaker and thus inferior to them. A strategic, military nation, they basically invaded the peninsula of Herran through trickery and considered the Herrani weak because they surrendered quickly, letting themselves be enslaved, rather than trying to fight back. Now Valorians occupy the area, living in Herrani mansions, buying and selling the Herrani as slaves. No one seems to question the rightness of this, not even Kestrel, who is seen as controversial in society because she used a favour from her father on her sixteenth birthday to free the Herrani woman who acted as her nurse.

I can see why some people are uncomfortable, but I also severely doubt that the majority of Romans, Greeks, 17th and 18th Century Americans or Europeans for that matter, who all enslaved and traded in other humans actually considered the atrocity of what they were doing. So it's unfair to expect a protagonist written into such a society to be super progressive and against the very fabric of the society she's a product of. Kestrel has been raised believing that the Valorians are superior. She's always been surrounded by slaves. Only when she actually comes into contact with and spends time with Arin, who gives her some perspective on what it's like to be on the other side of such a transaction, does she start to gradually change her views.

I really liked the book, for all that some of the serious issues are dealt with in a very YA way. There is not a lot of time spent giving back story to the Valorian invasion or exactly what atrocities were perpetrated. While it's clear that Arin has experienced some very horrible things in his past, that's not really explored either. It is very understandable that the Valorian occupation has led the formerly very peaceful Herrani towards revolt and while Kestrel is quite appalled at some of the actions of the rebels, it was hard to fault them for wanting to take their country and freedom back.

Kestrel is an engaging heroine, portrayed somewhat out of touch with the rest of her peers. She loves and respects her father, but is deeply reluctant to choose either of the options available to her as a Valorian woman. Only seventeen, she has long realised that she's not a fighter, and as she disapproves of the Valorian tendency to invade and conquer their surrounding lands, the idea of becoming a strategician and officer isn't appealing to her either. Nor is she particularly taken with the idea of marrying, even though her best friend Tess would be all too happy to see her form an alliance with her brother Ronan. What Kestrel really longs to do, is devote herself to music, a past time seen as frivolous and strange to the other Valorians. Music, literature and art are apparently things that the Herrani excelled at, now they have to perform for their new masters. One of the things that initially gets her involved in the bidding war for Arin, is that the auctioneer claims that he's an accomplished singer. Because of the high importance placed on personal honour in ancient Roman (and therefore here in Valorian society), obeying one's parents and always saving face is imperative. Hence, while Kestrel may in her heart of hearts be uncomfortable with much of the way her society is run, she's one young woman, and protesting and causing scenes would likely just result in her being married off to some older man who was expected to control her.

While there are scenes from Arin's point of view, so much more time is spent with Kestrel, and he remains a bit of a mystery. He is clearly an important figure in the Herrani rebellion, and it is made clear over the course of the novel that he came from a high ranking family, and lost his family when the Valorians invaded. While he wants to hate Kestrel among with the other Valorians, there is an undeniable attraction from the start, and it grows the more time they spend together. He plays on her guilt and discomfort to get free passage on the estate, and is frequently the slave that accompanies her to her society events, able to observe, spy, plot and strategise. Like Kestrel, Arin is very intelligent and they both thrive on strategy games. While Kestrel's wits are usually used in gambling for coins in entertaining party games, the stakes for Arin and his accomplices are so much higher.

While the book was slow to build, I very much enjoyed the more action packed and dramatic second half. There is a delicious melodrama and star-crossed lovers aspect to Kestrel and Arin's romance, with their happily ever after seeming pretty impossible. Even more so with the developments in the last quarter of the book, which left me impatiently waiting for the second book in the series, which I luckily have available to me. I hope that the second book doesn't end on as much as a cliff-hanger, as the third book isn't out until 2016.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 28: "Rock Hard" by Nalini Singh

Page count: 351 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I was granted an ARC from NetGalley in return for a fair and objective review. The book will be on general release 10/03/15.

Charlotte Baird is anxious and painfully shy due to some unresolved trauma involving her first, very unfortunately chosen boyfriend. When the company she works for hires a new CEO, known for his ruthless efficiency, to come clean up the mess left by corruption and mismanagement, she and pretty much everyone else is terrified they might lose their jobs. Yet Gabriel Bishop, popularly known as the T-Rex, doesn't fire the mousy Ms. Baird, he promotes her, quickly realising that she's been fulfilling most of the duties already, with the former CEO's secretary taking all the credit. Charlotte is gobsmacked and nervous, not to mention quite uncomfortable, as she's been desperately trying to hide herself away, physically and emotionally since her traumatic past experience and Gabriel Bishop is a deeply perceptive man who will not be ignored. 

Observant and efficient as he is, Gabriel Bishop, a former champion rugby star turned sought-after company fixer, cannot help but notice that Ms. Baird is an attractive woman, if prone to wear ill-fitting and shapeless outfits. During their first encounters, she's clearly scared stiff, but she's also a consummate professional, determined to do the best job she can, even if she's nervous. He keeps trying to provoke a rise from her and is delighted when the timid mouse starts snapping back. He knows that he's her boss and hitting on her would be deeply inappropriate, especially since she clearly suffered something in the past that still affects her deeply, yet he notices that she finds him attractive in return, and cannot help himself from fantasising about her constantly. He thrives on challenges and on fixing that which is broken. Ms. Charlotte Baird might be his biggest challenge yet, because patience and gentleness are not Gabriel's strongest qualities and that's what he's going to need a lot of to win her over.

This is the second full novel in Nalini Singh's Rock Kiss series, with Rock Addiction being the first and the follow-up, Rock Courtship, being an extended novella. I really didn't like that the couple in the first book hooked up after seeing each other across the room at a party, and then apparently found everlasting love after about a month together. It had some good sex scenes, but frustrated me more than it amused me. As the title suggests, courtship was a much more important part of the sequel novella, where the tension between the couple is built up convincingly over months of acquaintance. Charlotte, the heroine in Rock Hard is a supporting character in Rock Addiction, being the best friend of Molly, the heroine in that book. Some scenes from that book are actually repeated here, from Charlotte's point of view. The thing I liked the most in Rock Addiction was probably the female friendships, between Molly and Charlie and Molly and her sister Thea. They were caring, supporting and cheered each other on. Most of Molly's cameo appearances in this book is in phone calls, but she remains an important corner stone in Charlotte's life.

Charlotte is a strong and capable woman who went through hell because she was vulnerable, inexperienced and insecure and gave her trust and heart to the wrong person when she was younger. He turned out to be a complete psychopath and she is scarred physically and emotionally because of him. She also finds it very difficult to be around men, unless they are completely non-threatening. At the start of the novel, she's been in a pretty much platonic dating relationship with a shy geek called Ernest, because he is never going to demand anything physical from her. The only other male friend she has is the young mail room clerk at the office, who seems like a human puppy dog. Enter her new boss, who is extremely physically imposing, has a magnetic personality and oozes masculinity. He works hard and he plays hard. Forced to give up his promising rugby career after a knee injury, he is now a shrewd and successful businessman instead. He gets hired to come in and save foundering companies and thrives the more difficult a prospect he is faced with.

As in historicals where the aristocrat falls in love with the governess or housekeeper or some other woman in his service, the boss and the secretary could be an uncomfortable proposition, as the boss has so much power over his employee. It's made very clear from their very first meeting (when Charlotte thinks Gabriel is a burglar and throws a stapler at his head), however, that she finds him as attractive as he does her, and that it's her troubled history more than the inappropriateness of the workplace relationship that holds her back from flirting with him. As the months pass, with them working long hours, closely together, Gabriel tries to make Charlotte jealous by making her book dinner dates and send roses to scores of women. She in turn tries to sabotage his dates by finding dreadful restaurants and sending poor quality flowers. They grow closer and a trust builds up, but Charlotte is still very vulnerable.

One of the things that really frustrated me, but which is luckily addressed in the latter third of the book, is why Charlotte isn't in therapy to work through her issues. When the topic is finally brought up, it is explained why she's not seeing a therapist to get over her ordeal and steps are taken to get her to a good place emotionally.

While I still think Rock Courtship is my favourite, there is a lot of fun banter in this one, and the supporting cast, especially Gabriel's family is a good one. I don't think Nalini Singh is ever going to be one of my favourite contemporary romance authors (I prefer her paranormals), I don't regret spending time with Charlie-mouse and her T-Rex in this one.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.