Wrap-up post: Monthly Motif Challenge 2014

Kimberly Lynne over on Bookmark 2 Blog also hosted a Monthly Motif Challenge this year.

Monthly Motifs:
January: Around the World
Choose a book to read that takes place in a country different from the one you live in or choose a book written by an author that is from a country different than your own.

Svart Elfenben (Black Ivory) - Arne Svingen (the Ivory Coast)
Archangel´s Legion - Nalini Singh (author lives in New Zealand)
The Chocolate Heart - Laura Florand (set in France)
The Chocolate Temptation - Laura Florand (set in France)

February: Award winner
Read a book that has won recognition or a literary award.
Innsirkling (Encirclement) - Carl Frode Tiller (won the Brage prize in 2007)
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd (Book Sense Book of the Year Award 2004)

March: Fairy tales or fairy creatures
Read a fairy tale retelling or a book with fey/fairies in it
Princess of the Silver Woods - Jessica Day George
Hero - Alethea Kontis
The Glass Casket - McCormick Templeman

April: Short and sweet
Read a collection of short stories or an anthology
Side Jobs - Jim Butcher 
Songs of Love and Death - anthology

May: Mystery, Murder and Mayhem
Read a murder/mystery book, a book in which someone dies of mysterious causes, or a book in which a mystery must be solved.
Innocent in Death - J.D. Robb
Eternity in Death and Creation in Death - J.D. Robb

June: A Long Journey
Read a book in which the character(s) take a trip, go on a quest, or find themselves on a journey towards something
The Firebird - Susanna Kearsley
A Company of Swans - Eva Ibbotson

July: Assassins, warriors and rebels
Read a book in which the character is one of these things or fights against one of these things.
Grave Mercy - Robin LaFevers (main character is an assassin nun)
Spider´s Bite - Jennifer Estep (main character is an assassin)
The Kiss of Deception - Mary E. Pearson (one of the main characters is an assassin)
Magic Breaks - Ilona Andrews (main character is a warrior)

August: Alternate reality
Read a book that's set in the future, on another planet, in another dimension, or in an unknown world. A Dystopian book will count for this month as well.
For Darkness Shows the Stars - Diana Peterfreund
Across a Star-Swept Sea - Diana Peterfreund
The Silver Metal Lover - Tanith Lee

September: Book to movie
Read a book that has a movie based off of it. For an extra challenge, see the movie as well.
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
Divergent - Veronica Roth
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

October: The Witching Hour
There's been a lot of zombies lately, but this year include a 'witchy' book in your scary reads - a book about a witch or that has witches in it.
Wicked as They Come - Delilah S. Dawson
Anna Dressed in Blood - Kendare Blake

November: An Oldie but a Goodie
Pick a book published before 2000 that you've always wanted to read, but just never got to. Or pick a book set in the past (before 2000).
The Outsiders - Susan E. Hinton
The Hero and the Crown - Robin McKinley
The Blue Sword - Robin McKinley

December: That's a Wrap
Finish a series you've been meaning to finish or read the next book in a series you started but never finished.
An Echo in the Bone - Diana Gabaldon

Challenge completed: 9th of December 2014
Total books read: 32

#CBR6 Book 134: "An Echo in the Bone" by Diana Gabaldon

Page count: 1126 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! If you haven't read the previous six books in the series, there will be minor spoiler in this review. Proceed at your own risk. 

Having finally completed my epic re-read of the previous books in the series at a page count total that is frankly obscene, I finally got to read a new to me Diana Gabaldon. When this book first came out in 2009, I just didn't have the energy to expend on re-reading the whole series to catch up and I decided to just put it off. With book eight in the series being published earlier this year, the very entertaining TV series making me remember what I love so much about Gabaldon's writing and the excellent online company/support group I am part of over on Facebook to discuss the books with, I was a lot more motivated to get through the series now. Yet it still took me more than a month to get through this. 

There is so much I love about Gabaldon's writing. Jamie and Claire have been part of my life for a very long time, and I generally find most of the stuff involving them very interesting. But since pretty much book 3, these books aren't really just the continuing adventures of Jamie and Claire Fraser in the 18th Century. There's Brianna and Roger and their kids, now back in Scotland in the early 1980s (which I'm freaking out about a bit, because that's within MY lifetime). There is Jamie's best friend, Lord John Grey, who, when he's not trying to figure out why his niece is pretending to be madly in love with his stepson and hell bent on going to America to be reunited with him, goes about doing not much of anything obviously important or interesting for two thirds of this book. There's said stepson, Jamie's illegitimate offspring, William, the Eight Earl of Ellesmere, who is now a soldier in the British Army. He gets recruited for spy missions, but doesn't seem very good at it. He travels to Canada and back. There are letters between him and his stepfather which may be super interesting for people who are a lot more into the American War of Independence than I am, but to me, it was the literary equivalent of watching paint dry. So much boring.

Jamie and Claire have decided to go to Scotland to fetch Jamie's printing press. Jamie absolutely does not want to get involved in the war, because doing so might mean that he will face his son on the battlefield. The Frasers bring along their nephew, young Ian MacKenzie, because Jamie swore to his sister that he would bring the lad home, and while it's taken quite a long time, and Ian has both been adopted by a Native American tribe, married, divorced and experienced the loss of a child in that time, it would still be good for him to be reunited with his parents. Many many complications arise on their way. It again takes them the best end of the book to actually arrive in Scotland, but because much of their story was action packed and dramatic, I have no real complaint about their sections.

In the future, Roger and Bree have bought Lallybroch and are trying to make a home there. Bree gets a job working for the Scottish hydro-electric board, and Roger debates whether he wants to become a minister after all. They have a stash of letters written to them by Bree's parents, so they can follow along in the continuing adventures of Jamie and Claire, while worrying because they keep ending up in historically significant places and close to or in the midst of important events. Roger is trying to put down everything they know about time travel in writing and their family are settling in nicely when they have a very unexpected visitor about the same time as it is obvious that someone in the village not only knows about the gold Jamie and Claire hid way back in the 18th Century, but are willing to go to rather extreme steps to get to it.

As I said, far more of the book than I cared about is devoted to young William Ransom and Lord John Grey. I love Lord John, he's a great supporting character. I laugh every time I think about how Bree tried to coerce him into marriage. Reading about him in London, talking to his brother about irrelevant family matters, or travelling to France to speak to uninteresting individuals or generally just worrying about the safety of his immediate or extended family was super dull. Reading about William was even more boring, and as this was the first time I read the book, I had no idea which bits I could skim or even skip (now I know). There are seriously multiple chapters devoted to William lost in a swamp, deliriously wandering. Not cool, Diana Gabaldon, not cool. He does eventually have his life saved by young Ian in said swamp, but really, there are better ways those two characters could cross paths.

Not content with a supporting character gallery into double figures already, Gabaldon also introduces some new individuals in this book. William's cousin Dottie seems pretty spunky, for all that she's the sheltered daughter of a Duke. It's very obvious to the reader early on that her and William's story about being madly in love is a clever fiction, but it takes much of the book for the reader to discover why Dottie would go to such lengths to get herself to America. Young Ian, who loved and lost his Native American wife, falls in love again with a Quaker, Rachel Hunter. She and her brother Denzell, who is a doctor, join the Continental army as healers and I very much enjoyed everything with them.

I would have rated this book 3 stars based on the first two thirds, but then things really start coming together and becoming super exciting in the last third. It's quite telling that it took me more than a month to read the first two thirds, and about two days to get through the last third. Jamie and Claire finally make it to Scotland. We get to see Jenny and Ian again, and young Ian is reunited with his family. William and young Ian are both clearly a bit in love with Rachel Hunter. There is quite a lot of interaction between William, Ian, Claire and even Jamie. The bits having to do with the Battle of Saratoga were actually quite exciting. While they're in Scotland, Claire discovers that one of Fergus and Marsali's children desperatey needs surgery, so she returns alone to America. There are heart-breaking confirmed deaths, dramatic presumed deaths, dangerous surgeries being performed successfully, lovers reunited, terrible vengeance nearly wreaked, surprise time travellers from the past, abductions, marriages of convenience, long kept family secrets revealed - so much awesome and drama in only a few hundred pages. Why did I have to spend so much time reading about William in a swamp, Diana, when you are capable of such great things? Why not edit your books more!?!

With so many characters and storylines, Gabaldon also gets to have multiple cliffhangers towards the end of her book, making me really very excited for book 8. I'm now glad that I waited as long as I did to catch up, because (once I am done reading the books I need to complete my various reading challenges) I can go straight into Written in My Own Heart's Blood, which has been rated very highly by those Cannonballers who have already read it, and also appears to be only about 850 pages long, so the shortest book in the series for ages. Due to the excellent ending of this book, I'm now all anticipation.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 133: "The Blue Sword" by Robin McKinley

Page count: 256 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Having finally read The Hero and the Crown, it felt like it was time for a re-read of the Damar book I had actually read. The Blue Sword is set many centuries after Aerin the Dragon Slayer saved her kingdom from magical threat. Damarians now seem to be chiefly desert dwelling nomads and expert horsemen. They are now threatened both by magic wielding enemies to the north and ignorant colonists from the Homeland (read: Imperialist Britain). Corlath, the Damarian king tries to propose an alliance with the foreigners, but is ignored. He is surprised when his kelar, the magical gift (a bit like clairvoyance, but can also manifest itself in healing powers or destructive ability) all Damarian royals possess tells him that he needs to bring one of the Homeland females with him back to his people.

Burdened with the cumbersome name of Angharad Crewe, it's no surprise our heroine would rather go by Harry. Having come out to join her brother, a soldier stationed near the Damarian border after their father dies, Harry is not much like other the young ladies of gentle birth. She's tall and striking, rather impatient and more interested in riding and adventure than needlepoint and dancing. She finds the wild landscape of the desert beautiful and is just beginning to settle when she wakes up, discovering that desert warriors have abducted her and apparently intend to keep her as some sort of highly honoured hostage. Corlath treats her with every courtesy, she sleeps in his tent, eats her meals seated at his left hand and is allowed to take part in his counsels (not that she understands all that much of the foreign language in the beginning). When she drinks from the Damarians' special water, it starts to become clear why Corlath was compelled by his magic to take her from her own people - despite being a foreigner, she too has kelar and powerful enough that she can make others share in her visions of the future.

In one of her first visions, the legendary Lady Aerin appears to Harry and with threats looming at every turn, Corlath decides that a damalur-sol, a Lady Hero might be exactly what his people need to give them hope and aid them in their coming war. Harry learns to ride like the Damarians, controlling a spirited horse without bridle or stirrups. She becomes proficient with a sword and learns to speak the language. She befriends one of the big desert cats and gets to take part in the trials to find new King's Riders. During her stay with the Damarians, Harry becomes well liked and everyone seems impressed and genuinely pleased when she emerges the victor of the Rider trials (only unable to defeat a disguised Corlath himself). The longer she spends time with Corlath and his nomads, the more comfortable she becomes there. As attack is imminent, it becomes obvious to Harry that Corlath is ignoring a serious security breach and she may have to risk everything she's achieved and defy his will to ensure the safety of all the people she's grown to love.

If Aerin was a bit of an odd duck and outsider among her own people, Harry is much more so. Being quite the independent tomboy, she doesn't really fit in with her own peers and when she is abducted by Corlath, she is a literal Outlander, a stranger in a strange land. Unlike many of her fellow Homelanders, Harry is curious and open minded and with the exception of being magically drugged and spirited away from her bed in the middle of the night, she is extremely well treated by her abductor. Corlath only knows that he has to follow the calling of his kelar and when he discovers that Harry too is magically gifted, and rather strongly so as well, it becomes more clear to him why he was compelled to kidnap her. His country and people need her and being a clever leader and a good reader of people, he uses the opportunity Harry's visions of Aerin presents and has her groomed into a heroine and powerful symbol. Giving her Lady Aerin's legendary sword and making sure she is trained by the best, he helps to turn Harry into a motivating figure for his people.

Corlath might have been a dislikable character for kidnapping Harry, but it's clear that he has little choice in the matter when his hereditary magic takes control. The kelar that the leaders of Damar (as well as some of its other citizens) is gifted with can be as much a crippling curse as a gift. It's clear that ruling a dwindling kingdom threatened by foreign colonials and magically powerful enemies intent on conquest is no easy task, yet Corlath is beloved and respected, not just by his loyal Riders, but all his subjects. He never treats Harry with anything but the utmost respect and with the passage of time, they grow gradually closer.

Harry is thrown into a situation that might have made anyone freak out, but deals remarkably with it. Clearly an adventurous spirit, as soon as it's clear that she's in no danger with Corlath and his people, she tries to learn as much as possible about her new surroundings and the new culture she's become thrust into. She's polite, kind and works diligently to learn her new skills. When she arrives in the desert, she cannot mount a horse without aid, and some months later, she's good enough that she bests all the challengers and wins one of the coveted spots as King's Rider. She tries her best to fit in, but cannot ignore the lessons she's learned as the sister of a military man. Seeing that Corlath's enemies might gain a serious advantage if a strategic mountain pass goes undefended, she risks everything by going off alone to seek aid from the Homeland soldiers to secure the pass.

As well as being a wonderful adventure novel, there is also a subtle and slow-burning romance in the book which completely knocked my socks off the first time I read the book. For all that it's not really openly acknowledged by Corlath or Harry for much of the book, it's quite obvious that they are perfect for each other and it takes an excruciatingly long time before they admit their feelings to themselves or the other. I loved the book the first time I read it, and having now read the prequel, which gives this book even more depth, I am gratified that I enjoyed it just as much now as when I first discovered it. Such a lovely little book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 132: "Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover" by Sarah Maclean

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Spoiler warning! It is actually IMPOSSIBLE for me to write about this book without spoiling some pretty major developments that involve all three former Rules for Scoundrels books. If you haven't already read No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, PLEASE stay away from this review and return once you're caught up. You'll enjoy this book so much more if you heed my advice.

The previous three books in the Rules for Scoundrels series told the story of the disgraced noblemen who opened The Fallen Angel, an exclusive and scandalous gambling club in the middle of Mayfair. All deferring to the founder, the mysterious and reclusive, Chase, three other notorious aristocrats are the public face of the club. The Marquess of Bourne lost his entire fortune in one card game and swore revenge on the man who cheated him of his inheritance. Cross, the Earl of Harlow (driven to destruction by the death of his brother) and Temple, the Duke of Lamont (accused of murdering his father's fiancee the night before her wedding) were rescued by Chase when about to be beaten and possibly killed by a London gangs for their rigged games. Over the course of the series, all three men have found redemption of a sorts in the eyes of society and are happily married to the women of their dreams.

Frequently, the final book in a romance series is saved for the darkest, most complicated and emotionally messed up characters, more often than not the hero, as romance heroines seem to be less prone to extremely emo behaviour. There are exceptions, of course Chase is certainly the most mysterious, and a fascinating and complex individual. What is revealed at the end of book three in this series, however, is that the founder of The Fallen Angel, the mysterious mastermind who controls three other powerful men, the reclusive genius who possesses all the secrets and blackmail material worth knowing, is in fact a woman. Both the daughter of and sister of a Duke, Lady Georgina Pearson lived a sheltered life, desperate for affection, until she believed herself in love with a handsome stable hand and became a scandal. An unwed mother at sixteen, she became a cautionary tale to others in "polite" society, gossipped about and shunned. Liberated from the strictures of the same society, Georgina didn't particularly mind so much until the gossip started hurting her beloved daughter. Motivated initially by a desire for revenge, she acquired the funds to start the club, recruited partners who had been as unfairly cast out and judged by the aristocracy as herself and over the course of six years, positioned herself to become possibly the most powerful influence in London.

In addition to her secret identity as Chase, Georgiana has a more public persona in the club, as Anna, the courtesan believed to be Chase's mistress, and a prostitute with very exclusive tastes. Hiding in plain sight, wearing bright colours, wigs, flashy makeup and flirting with the patrons, Georgiana is able to move about the club and interact with its members, who all believe her to be Chase's emissary. No one becomes a member of The Fallen Angel except by invitation and the only way to gain membership is with secrets. Georgiana and her partners have files on all the powerful and influential men and women in London and won't hesitate to use their secrets to devastating effects if the debts owed to the club are not paid promptly. They release juicy tidbits to Duncan West, newspaper magnate and self-made man, who increases his circulation because of the choice gossip.

After a malicious cartoon was published in The Scandal Sheet, the gossip magazine owned by West, Georgiana is forced to rethink her priorities. Caroline, her daughter, is nearly ten and Georgiana is worried that her scandalous past is going to keep her child from the life and opportunities that said daughter deserves. Whether it's being raised in the country by relatives or kept locked up in a London Casino, neither situation is ideal for a child. Every time they go out into Society, there is gossip, and people are rarely kind enough to shield the child from snide remarks. Even other children judge and condescend. As a result, Georgina has decided to find a titled husband. One whose influence will shield Caroline and give her the future she deserves. It needs to be a man satisfied with a marriage of convenience, as Georgiana has no intention of letting herself fall under the power of another man, ever again.

At a ball early in the season, after verbally eviscerating a young lady who not only dared insult Georgiana herself, but Caroline, Georgiana runs into Duncan, who apologises for the cartoon and wants to make amends by using his influence and his newspapers to make her a big hit in Society. He promises to help her land the husband she wants, because while he's instantly drawn to her, he knows he could never be a suitable match for her. Duncan West has secrets in his past he cannot reveal, and understands Georgiana's protective instincts because he too possesses them in spades. When he figures out that Georgiana and Anna are in fact the same person, he's convinced that the reason she lives this double life is because Chase must have a hold over her, and he becomes determined to free this fascinating woman from Chase's nefarious influence. If he can't have her, he wants to make sure she is married to a good man who will protect her and Caroline.

Once I finished No Good Duke Goes Unpunished back in November of last year, with what I'm quite sure was an audible gasp and some creative swearing, I went back and pored over the first three book in the Rules for Scoundrels series, checking every single scene where Chase appears, to see if Maclean even once slipped up with her use of pronouns. But cleverly, in every scene with Chase, no pronouns are used at all. There are only a select few characters in all the books that know that Chase is a woman, and as most of Society believe Chase to be male, they obviously use male pronouns. Once I went back and reread the books for clues, it became obvious to me that Anna was also clearly Chase, but it wasn't until the opening pages of this book that it was revealed that she was actually Lady Georgiana, first introduced in Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord, as a minor, but rather significant supporting characters in the final two books of the Love by Numbers trilogy. Maclean has clearly been planning this for a long time.

Georgiana, or Chase, is absolutely badass. She realises very quickly that having her reputation effectively demolished by her impulsive tryst is actually more a benefit to her, than a burden. She's not actually particularly bothered by all the malicious and often hypocritical things she overhears about herself. When it comes to her daughter, she's a lioness, however, and shows no mercy when it comes to wreaking her revenge. Chase has files on everyone, is owed favours by everyone worth knowing and knows exactly how to wield her influence to inflict the most damage. Georgiana doesn't actually want a husband, but feels that this is the only possible solution to ensure the appropriate future for her daughter. She never once stops to reflect on how happy she herself was to escape the strictures of being a Duke's coddled but emotionally ignored daughter. Behind the scenes as Chase, Georgiana is the most powerful person in London. She gets to enjoy the everyday life of her gambling club as Anna, protected from too many unpleasant advances both by the belief of most patrons that she "belongs" to Chase and because Bourne, Cross and Temple make very sure that men know that Anna is off limits. Marrying, even purely for convenience and to protect her child means she will have to cut down on the time she spends running her business empire. The thought doesn't sit well with Georgiana.

While she's convinced herself that she has to have a titled husband to secure Caroline's future, her bargain with Duncan West means she suddenly spends a lot more time around a man she's long found dangerously attractive. Having occasionally met with West in the guise of Anna, Georgiana has forced herself to stay professional around him, sometimes flirting, but going no further. Now, as she's set on marrying, she convinces herself that she may be permitted a brief fling before she actually settles down into her new life as an aristocrat's wife.

Duncan, who always found Anna alluring, but Georgiana irresistible is powerless to refuse her advances. He's furious because he believes Chase has a sexual and emotional hold over her, deeply jealous that she intends to marry another, yet his past and the secrets he hides makes it impossible for him to offer for her as he would wish. West is a suitable match for the formidable Georgiana. She's strong, fiercely intelligent, observant, driven and logical. West brings out her irrational, passionate side. He too is extremely smart and known as the "hardest working man in London". He was given a lucky break with his first gossip rag and made himself the most influential newspaper magnate in the city. He attends society functions, but always observes from the sidelines. He's deeply aware that he's not a gentleman and will never become one. He doesn't dance. He's as protective of his eccentric spinster sister as Georgiana is of her daughter. His drive to keep those he loves safe makes him blind to some of the truths he would have realised about Georgiana/Anna and everything she tells him about Chase, if he'd only been able to stay cool and objective. Chase is an alpha heroine, and could never settle for a man that was less than her. West is a very good partner for her, but they both share both admirable and annoying qualities. I'm glad Duncan figured out very early on that Georgiana and Anna were the same, but it takes a frustratingly long time for the full truth about Chase to be revealed to him (against the express advice and wishes of all of Chase's three business partners).

This book was very good and I laughed several times while reading it. There were absolutely steamy scenes and I enjoyed that while Georgiana and Duncan both have a wealth of secrets they are keeping from each other and the world, they are generally not all that emotionally messed up. I wasn't a big fan of the villain in this book and the final act of the story got a bit farcical. Parts of the resolution wrapped up a little bit too conveniently without any wider repercussions for the characters, but Maclean's endings are frequently the weakest parts of her stories. This is still a great romance and I suspect I will have to go back and read all six books that involve Georgiana to fully get an idea of how long a game Maclean has been playing. I'm also very much looking forward to her book The Rogue Not Taken, out sometime in the New Year.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 131: "The Hero and the Crown" by Robin McKinley

Page count: 225 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! This was granted to me by Open Road Integrated Media through NetGalley in return for a fair and unbiased review.

Aerin is the lonely, ostracised daughter of the ruler of Damar. She has pale skin and fiery red hair amongst a people who are bronzed with dark hair. She cannot even remember who first told her the story, but she has known for as long as she can remember that her mother was a commoner witch-woman who came from the North, who ensorcelled the king into marrying her, swearing she would bear him an heir. When she bore a daughter, she died of despair. While most of the common folk and the servants love her for her gentle, generous and unspoiled manner and the fact that she has taken upon herself to rid the countryside of the small, yet fierce dragons who threaten livestock and snatch the occasional baby to eat. The higher born, especially most of her royal cousins are deeply scornful of her, calling her names, mocking her and never letting her forget her half-blood status.

The one exception is Tor, the heir to the throne, one of her cousins. Since she was young, he has been kind to her, and he has taught her to ride, to use a sword and other soldierly arts. As she comes of age, it becomes very obvious to everyone in Damar that Tor is in love with the witch-woman's daughter. That she has managed to combine herbs to make a fire-proof ointment to help her hunt dragons or successfully trained the king's old, injured war horse back to health is turned into sinister and negative things rather than admirable and impressive ones.

There is more discord spreading in Damar, and the common belief is that all the problems would be solved if the ancient crown, lost some generations ago, was found. Even after Aerin is nearly killed, becoming severely damaged when single-handedly killing Maur, one of the enormous, ancient dragons, the popular opinion of the court is against her. While recovering, she has dreams about a mysterious man, who claims she needs to find him, so he can aid her further in saving Damar, and when she's at her absolute lowest, convinced everyone will be better off without her, she goes off to find him. Can Luthe, this stranger from her dreams, heal her and train her into facing her greatest fears? If she fails, it means the destruction of Damar and all the people she loves.

In late September, I started reading Robin McKinley's most recent book, Shadows, which I didn't even make it a third through before I had to abandon it. It was written in some made up teen speak and the characters and story was so unengaging that I just didn't have the patience to finish it. Now, considering the literary quality of some of the books I HAVE managed to read this year, this says a lot. So when I was offered one of her classic works through Netgalley, the prequel to possibly my favourite of her books The Blue Sword, which I will be re-reading as soon as I can dig out my paperback (as it sadly doesn't exist in e-book format yet), it seemed like a very good way of getting the figurative bad taste out of my mouth.

While Aerin has a pretty sucky childhood, growing up with only the older Tor or her maid as her closest friends, she seems to grow more confident, or at least less self-conscious and bothered about what others think of her and the possible motives of her long dead mother. She's brave, kind and persistent, with a gift for scientific thought that allows her, after years of trial and error, to recreate a long believed to be mythical ointment that is immune to dragon fire. Her patience and perseverance wins her the loyalty of her father's injured and anti-social war horse, who through the training that Aerin slowly coaxes him to do, eventually becomes almost his old self again.

Her father and Tor clearly love her, and it is made clear that many people in rural Damar see her as a hero. Yet Aerin cannot get over the constant digs and misgivings from those around her, and their malicious gossip is also what lets her fall under the spell of the evil dragon Maur, whose powers don't diminish even though he has been killed. Some enterprising people drag his skull back to the capital, and the dragon's malevolence, combined with the horrible burns (her ointment doesn't work against the fire of ancient dragons) and injuries she sustained, nearly kills her.

This is a great book, generally aimed for a middle grade to younger adult audience, I think. Aerin is a wonderful role model for young women. She's an outcast, but works to overcome her many challenges. She rarely masters something on the first try, all Mary Sue like, but practises and trains, using her perseverance and inner strength to succeed. She is loyal and brave, risking her life time and time again at thankless tasks, only to have most of those who should have been her strongest allies undermine her and gossip about her perceived evil intentions. While I didn't love it as much as some other McKinley books, I'm so glad I got a chance to read this, especially after Shadows turned out to be such a disappointment. Turns out that McKinley's early career is a lot more to my taste than her recent literary efforts.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 125: "The Outsiders" by Susan E. Hinton

Page count: 190 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Ponyboy Curtis is an orphan. He lives with his two older brothers, Darry, who works construction and Sodapop, who dropped out of school to work in a garage to help support the family. Ponyboy and his friends are Greasers, kids with leather jackets and long, grease-slicked hair from working class backgrounds, often with a lot of trouble at home. Quite a few of the Greasers are part of gangs and having a criminal record isn't all that uncommon.

Ponyboy would much rather be a Greaser with no parents than a Soc, however. The rich, privileged society kids with their expensive cars and their letterman jackets, whose favourite pasttime is teaming up to beat up Greasers. Ponyboy is the baby of the gang, and clearly the one with enough smarts and academic prospects to have a chance of getting a good college scholarship and making something promising with his life. Darry had to give up on his college dreams when their parents died, and Sodapop would much rather work on cars than go to school.

While the clashes between the Socs and the Greasers can get pretty rough, they tend to be broken up before anyone can get badly hurt. One fateful evening, when Ponyboy and the badly traumatised Johnny Cade are attacked by a gang of drunken Socs who get particularly threatening, everything goes to hell. Ponyboy and Johnny go on the run, hiding out from the cops in a countryside church. When there's an unexpected fire, the boys get a chance to show that hoodlums from the wrong side of the tracks can make a real difference.

The Outsiders was one of my favourite books as a young teen. I can't entirely remember how old I first read this book, but I can vividly remember my reaction to it. I stayed up way later than was sensible, considering it was a school night to finish it, and I cried so hard that I couldn't see the pages anymore. Big, racking sobs and full on ugly crying. I remember being amazed that the author was only fifteen when she started writing the book. Is it a literary masterpiece? No, probably not, it's a fairly simplistic story but it's a compelling novel written by a teenager, in the voice of another teenager and having re-read it for the first time in about fifteen years, in English for the first time, I was still really strongly emotionally affected by it.

Unfortunately, I no longer remember exactly what I thought about the social situation of the various Greasers described in this book, nor what I felt about Ponyboy's strained relationship with his oldest brother. Now, as an adult, I probably see a lot of the relationships in this book from a very different perspective. I still cried a lot at certain sections of the book, but I suspect I cried the hardest at other parts than when I was a young teen. I can't objectively judge the quality of this book, because it's such a powerful piece of nostalgia for me, and will always be an emotional reading experience for me. My husband has never read the book, nor watched the film (which I'd love to rewatch now, having not seen it for about as long as since I last read the book), and I plan to read this out loud to him, as he, early in our relationship, read me The Hobbit and The Wind in the Willows.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 115: "Anna Dressed in Blood" by Kendare Blake

Page count: 387 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This review contains minor spoilers for the book. Nothing big, but if you like to approach a book completely blank, you may want to skip this. 

Like his father before him, Cas Lowood travels around the country and lays restless and malevolent ghosts to rest. He and his Wiccan mother rarely stay in one place for too long, and Cas makes very sure not to get too attached to any of the locals, as he's just going to pack up and leave as soon as he's done hunting and killing the local ghost legend. With every ghost he lays to rest, Cas becomes more experienced. He hasn't told his mother (who would naturally freak out), but his ultimate goal is to track dow the spirit that murdered his father.

Now Cas is going to Thunder Bay in Ontario, to kill the murderous spirit the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood. Brutally murdered while on her way to a school dance in 1958, Anna Korlov haunts the boarding house where she used to live, wearing the blood soaked dress she died in. She has killed countless people, yet the locals always seem to find a rational explanation for why the dead people went missing. In Thunder Bay, Cas as per usual tries to stay detached and aloof, but before he can even get properly settled in, it seems he has made both new friends and jealous enemies. Carmel, the most popular girl in school (the best person to tell him all the pertinent gossip) turns out not just to be a bitchy queen bee, but actually very nice. Thomas, a geeky telepath with a witch grandfather insists on helping Cas, even when he strenuously denies needing any.

Of course, Mike, Carmel's jock ex-boyfriend is less enthusiastic about the new guy getting cozy with his girl and he and his friends trick Cas out to the haunted house where Anna is supposed to stay. The jocks want to lock Cas in the abandoned house as a joke, but their actions have terrible consequences. Cas survives, Mike is less fortunate. Why would Anna Dressed in Blood, who's supposedly killed more than seventeen teenagers, not to mention a slew of vagrants and homeless people, suddenly spare Cas' life? He can't understand it, and determines to get to the bottom of Anna's tragic death and the possible causes for her cursed afterlife.

My fellow Cannonballer scotsa1000 reviewed this about a month ago, and wasn't all that impressed. One of the criticisms was the bad-mouthing of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I will agree, is a serious mark in Cas' disfavour. I was pleased to see that there are only two instances in the whole book where he thinks or says mean things with regards to my beloved Buffy and her Scoobies, and considering Cas is clearly a young Sammy Winchester clone who just happens to have a supportive mother with an awesome cat instead of a mostly absentee, highly irresponsible father or a brother he has the most destructive, co-dependent love-hate relationship ever, Cas should have been so lucky to be a Scoobie. There are absolutely elements of both Supernatural and Buffy in this, and I refuse to believe that Kendare Blake isn't perfectly aware of it.

I liked the book and found it very entertaining. It was an effective little horror story, and in parts really surprisingly gory. I keep being astonished at how much graphic violence there is in YA literature nowadays. I guess the tweens and teens of today are made of hardier stock than I was, because the things I read as a teenager did not have people being brutally ripped in half for trespassing. I liked Cas' mother, who seemed like sensible, if sometimes a little bit too accepting of her son's dangerous hobby. I liked the various teen characters and that both Carmel, Thomas and the jock dudes who give Cas the stink eye have more facets than just prom queen, geek and popular guy. Cas wants so badly to stay a detached loner, but he clearly also desperately needs friends his own age. It's good for you, dude. Look at how the Winchester brothers turned out, you don't want to go down that sad, lonesome road.

What I didn't like, was the romantic storyline that felt just tacked onto the story. I honestly have no idea where the attraction between Anna and Cas came from and it seemed forced and detracted from the story rather than add to it. I don't see why just feeling sympathy with Anna couldn't have spurred Cas to help her. This book ends on a cliff hanger, and I suspect I will read the sequel at some point, if nothing else to see how Cas, Carmel and Thomas turn out. As far as I'm aware, there aren't going to be more than two books in the series, and that's unusual enough for YA these days. I should probably support an author who knows not to drag things out unnecessarily.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 112: "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

Page count: 269 pages
Audio book length: 8 hrs 35 min
Rating: 3 stars

I refuse to spoilertag anything in this review, because people, this book is nearly 200 years old. You've had ample time to read this book, if anything in my review spoils it for you, on your own head be it. 

 Captain Robert Walton writes letters to his sister Margaret, recounting his journey to the North Pole in a quest for scientific fame. He writes of the strange and charismatic man they rescue in the wilderness, a Victor Frankenstein. Through Walton's letters, we also get Frankenstein's tale of terrible hubris, as well as the story within the story of the creature Frankenstein in his arrogance created and abandoned to ultimately wreak havoc.

The son of a rich and loving parents, Victor Frankenstein is able to pursue his dreams as a student of science and natural philosophy. He goes to Ingolstadt in Germany and becomes obsessed with the idea of reanimating dead matter. He labours for years with his theories and eventually creates a disfigured giant cobbled together of all sort of scavenged corpses and manages to infuse the creature with life. He's so horrified by its yellow skin and ghastly visage that he runs away from the flat where he conducted his experiments and promptly has a nervous breakdown.

Being a scientific genius doesn't go so well for Victor Frankenstein. The creature he created and then ran away from is a sentient being, not all too pleased that its creator made it into such a terrifying monster. The creature longs for companionship and friendship, but has been met with only shrieks of terror and rejection whereever it goes. Victor meets the creature again, after becoming convinced it murdered his younger brother and allowed an innocent woman to hang for the crime (he's not wrong). The monster has taught himself to speak and reason and rails at his creator for basically giving him life he never asked for and then abanoning him to a life of loneliness and despair. He demands that Victor make him a companion, as he, like all living creatures is entitled to a mate and happiness.

Victor goes off into the wilds of Scotland to create a bride for the monster, but is so plagued by guilt because of the actions of his first creation that he cannot go through with it. He destroys the female he was making, causing the creature to appear and swear his vengeance. Suffice to say, things don't go well for Frankenstein, or most of his extended family and he eventually ends up nearly frozen to death in the Arctic telling his story to an explorer.

Frankenstein was not what I expected, mainly because most of my impressions come from pop culture references and my knowledge of movies (none of which I've actually seen). I was pretty sure there wasn't going to be a a mob with pitchforks trying to kill anyone, or a hunchbacked servant with a lisp or Victor Frankenstein triumphantly exclaiming: "It's alive!" but I wasn't expecting to feel so much sympathy with the creature, who really is dealt a very shitty hand. It goes on quite the murderous rampage throughout the book, which isn't exactly a nice thing to do, but I feel that Victor bears at least half, if not more of the blame, as he is the one who imbued a freakish patchwork of corpseparts with life and then ran away, forcing the creature to fend for itself. If you're an awful and neglectful parent, you don't get to turn around and be upset when your child turns out less than stellar in the morals department.

While I didn't exactly love the book, it was very interesting to me, and I am in awe of young Mary Shelley who started the book when she was 18. On a dare. Really, that girl was wicked talented. Her Frankenstein is so much more of a lasting classic than the poetry of her then much more famous husband and still inspires people today. One of the reasons I wanted to read the book was so that I could finally start watching Frankenstein, M.D, from the creators of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Emma Approved. I love getting my classics retold in YouTube video form, it seems. I wasn't expecting such a sophisticated book. The story within a story within a story narrative, the philosophical and moral quandries that are discussed throughout the the book, the genuine horror of the situation - girl is a genius. The book is frequently described as the first science fiction novel, and it's certainly a very good creaping horror story. Having read up on her on Wikipedia before writing this review, I also had no idea just how awesome a lady Mary Shelley seems to have been, and how scandalous her relationship with Percy Shelley actually was.

I will leave you with this webcomic by the extremely talented Kate Beaton:

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 109: "Divergent" by Veronica Roth

Page count: 489 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Beatrice Prior is about to turn sixteen. This is the day when she has to choose which of the five factions in society she wants to belong to for the rest of her life. Beatrice and her brother have been raised in Abnegation, the self sacrificing and selfless people in society. The other four factions are Erudite (the intellectual, who all seem kind of snobby), Amity (the peaceful and apparently the ones who grow all the food), Candor (the honest, they cannot actually lie) and Dauntless (the brave - to the point of stupidity). After taking an aptitude test, each teenager will be told what faction they are best suited for. If they don't make it through the initiation of their chosen faction, they become part of the Factionless, who live on the streets and do the absolutely worst jobs in society to get food.  Beatrice's test results are inconclusive, and she displays strong traits of three different factions. This apparently makes her Divergent and she is told never to reveal her results to anyone. When she has to make her choice, Beatrice chooses Dauntless and is shocked to discover that her brother, who has always seemed like he embodies all the values of Abnegation, chooses Erudite.

The Dauntless all dress in black, tend to have piercings and tattoos and don't travel through the city (a post-apocalyptic version of Chicago) in any normal way. Nope, they jump onto and off moving trains. Three Dauntless initiates die before they even make it to the Dauntless compound. Beatrice decides to reinvent herself and calls herself Tris. On the plus side, Dauntless initiates are allowed to eat exciting food, use mirrors  and wear clothes that aren't just shapeless grey sacks. On the minus side, only a select few will make it through the initiation tests. The rest will either die or become Factionless. There's physical and mental ordeals, and the initiates have to learn how to use firearms, knives and to beat the crap out of each other. They get injected with a strange serum and have to face their fears in a trancelike state. Apparently, Tris' Divergent state makes her realise that she's hallucinating, and she beats the tests really quickly. This worries Four, her hunky, yet brooding trainer, and he is worried that someone is going to figure out that Tris isn't just any old recruit.

As Tris, despite being pretty small and timid to begin with, seems to do really well in the initiation tests, it becomes clear that civil unrest is starting to erupt outside the compound. The Erudite leaders are claiming that the Abnegation leaders are corrupt and hoarding resources, depriving the other factions. There's clearly bad things afoot, but Tris is more concerned with her growing attraction to Four.

Divergent is the debut novel of Veronica Roth, who was only 23 when it was published. It's yet another dystopian YA novel, set in a post-apocalyptic future and while the author may claim what she's done is wholly different from The Hunger Games, it really isn't and it suffers in comparison. I tried to suspend my disbelief and not be overly critical, but I just don't see how the society established in this book would work. A society where pretty much every sixteen-year-old only manifests one dominant character trait, to the point where those who don't are super rare and seen as something threatening and abhorrent seems very odd to me. I struggle to see how the Dauntless ever manage to recruit enough members, since pretty much everything they do seems to involve death-defying feats, that frequently lead to their members dying. Hamburgers and rad tattoos don't make up for the fact that you might die every time you tried to go into the city proper, because you have to hurl yourself onto and off a moving train.

Tris is more likable than Katniss, actually, but at least Katniss had some real personality. Tris is mainly worried all the time, not all that nice to her new friends, and obsessed with Four (whose identity is obvious to anyone who's been even vaguely paying attention). I know the book is aimed at teenagers and the thirteen-year-olds I currently teach seem to adore the series, but it makes me sad, because it's just not all that good. It went unexpectedly violent in the final act, guess I shouldn't be surprised, having read Mockingjay. Having heard mainly negative things about the second, and especially the third book in the series, I suspect I will resort to Wikipedia summaries to find out how the series end. I'm not going to read the books.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR6 Book 108: "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn

Page count: 466 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Nick Dunne's beautiful wife Amy disappears on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary. Through diary entries from Amy's diaries, the readers see how the couple met and fell in love, when they were both magazine writers in New York. Two layoffs and a move back to Nick's hometown in Missouri later, taking care of his ailing parents, and things are no longer so idyllic. The last two years of their marriage have clearly not been all that great and Nick quickly becomes the police's prime suspect. While the early years of their marriage were great, it's obvious that Nick hasn't exactly been the model husband, and the suspicious members of the local community, the police and the media are all too ready to believe he had something to do with Amy's disappearance. Maybe he even murdered her?

Her diaries show that she was growing fearful of him. Friends Nick didn't even realise she had claims that she was afraid of him. She tried to buy a gun without his knowledge. And now she is gone without a trace. What exactly did happen to Amy Dunne?

I don't want to say too much in my synopsis, because the whole point of this book is that it is so much better if you don't know exactly what is coming. Considering pretty much everyone in the known world had read it before me, and many of those have reviewed it either this year or last year for Cannonball Read, there are both spoilery and non-spoilery reviews out there if you want them. All I knew about the book was that it was best not to know too much about it, there was a twist in there, and that it was wildly hyped all over the place. Since David Fincher decided to adapt the novel, which was opening in cinemas at the start of October, I wanted to have read the book before the film came out. I figured it was going to be a lot harder to remain unspoiled afterwards (I was right).

I really wasn't thrilled with the book or the characters for the first third, but kept reading, convinced that so many people couldn't be raving about this book if it was just going to be about the musings of some schlubby Midwestern bar owner, interspersed with the diary entries of his highly strung, a bit snooty wife. I was right. Little over a third of the way in, the narrative suddenly changes and things suddenly get a whole lot more interesting. The reader sees Amy and Nick in a wholly different light and I went from forcing myself to keep reading to not wanting to put the book down. I read the last half of the book in pretty much one long sitting, neglecting my correction work and household chores, just to see where the book was going to go next. I'm not going to go so far as to say I liked any of the characters. I don't think that's what Gillian Flynn is aiming for. With the possible exception of the detective Boney, who is investigating Amy's disappearance and Nick's sister Margo, I think pretty much all the people in this book are deeply dislikable and are meant to be.

Having read the book, I also went and saw the movie adaptation. I think it's one of those rare cases where the film is actually even better than the book. I can't deny that having seen the trailer for the film before I read the book, my mental casting of Nick and Amy was pretty much Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. But that's because the film is impeccably cast. Fincher is a great director and the film was extremely entertaining. Flynn herself adapted the novel into a screenplay, and it allowed her to take some of the bits that dragged in the book and make them more streamlined for the film. I liked the book, I loved the film. So while I wouldn't normally say this - see the movie first. If you like it, you can always read the book afterwards to see which bits were different. 

#CBR6 Book 101: "The Silver Metal Lover" by Tanith Lee

Page count: 291 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Jane lives a pampered and privileged life, the only child of a wealthy and influential woman. She's lonely, insecure and immature. She has no real friends, just people who mainly seem to take pleasure in bullying her. One day, she encounters a robot minstrel, one in a new line of highly realistic, artificially intelligent androids and her life is never the same. Though she is initially frightened by the robot, she's also fascinated by him and can't put him out of her mind.

She runs away from home, giving up everything just to be with Silver, as she names her robot lover. She learns to fend for herself and makes a life on her own. She refuses any contact with her mother or former "friends" and begins to discover a wholly different, much happier existence. Yet the factory who first created Silver wants all the advanced robots destroyed and they are searching for Jane and Silver. How long until their happy romance comes to an end?

The Silver Metal Lover was written in 1981 and for as long as I've been reading young adult fiction with any sort of romantic element, this book has been on my radar. It appears on countless lists of romantic YA and has clearly meant a great deal to a lot of readers over the years. Yet the book never seemed to interest me all that much, probably because science fiction is not a genre I read all that much and robots are a lot less appealing to me than vampires, werewolves, faeries and witches. When this was the alt book in Vagina Fantasy book club in August, and the book also fit with my Monthly Key Word AND Monthly Motif reading challenges, I decided to check it out. I suspect that it would have made a much greater impact on me if I read it when I was actually a teen in the mid-90s than it did now.

First of all, Jane really is somewhat of an exhausting protagonist. She cries ALL the damn time. She cries so much she even points out that it's amazing she doesn't dehydrate herself from all of it. She's lived a sheltered and not very exciting life, so it's not actually surprising that she has the personality of a wet sponge, I just really didn't like her much at all. Even when she developed the backbone to run away to be with her robot lover, I didn't like her all that much. The best thing she had going for her was that every single character in the book, with the exception of Silver was so much worse than her.

Silver was pretty cool actually. I prefer my robots more of the Terminator variety, frankly, but as sentient robots go, he wasn't bad. I'm sure he could have done better than Jane though. Their romance didn't really work for me, as I found Jane dull as dish-water. The book had an interesting concept, but there are just so many better YA sci-fi romances out there now, and while it was a perfectly ok book, it didn't wow me in any way. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 100: "Across a Star-Swept Sea" by Diana Peterfreund

Page count: 464 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Set in a different part of the same post-apocalyptic world as For Darkness Shows the Stars, this book is more of a companion novel than a sequel. The two islands of New Pacifica are Albion (think a futuristic pacific islander England) and Galatea (sci-fi revolutionary France). In Albion they have democracy and happily genetically alter their bodies to be their very best selves. Princess Isla is the regent of Albion until her toddler brother comes of age, because while they are big on genetic engineering, they also seriously underestimate women and still believe in primogeniture. In Galatea, the general population rebelled against their tyrannical despot of a queen and are currently subduing all of their former nobility with drugs that pretty much chemically lobotomise them. Unfortunately, as Revolutions are wont to do, things are starting to go a bit pear-shaped, with those in power Reducing (giving the drugs to) anyone not entirely agreeing with their point of view. The leaders of the glorious revolution have become as bad as the leader they initially rebelled against.

The Wild Poppy is an Albian spy who through a series of rescue missions liberate Galatean citizens, taking them to safety in Albion. Because everyone is incredibly sexist and no one believes that women are any good at anything, it is assumed that the Wild Poppy is a man. This suits Lady Persis Blake perfectly, as no one would suspect that the vapid, teenage socialite and best friend to the Princess Regent of Albion is in fact the most talked about spy in New Pacifica. Along with some of her friends, she risks her life repeatedly to rescue Galateans from the Reign of Terror they are under. Making very sure that no one remembers that a few years ago, Persis Blake was one of the most brilliant and promising young minds in Albion, Persis instead acts like every single fashionista party girl you can imagine. She's princess Isla's BFF and fashion adviser, throws the best parties and knows all the good gossip. She's also brave, excellent at disguises, brilliant at deflecting unwanted attention and a loyal friend to the beleaguered young queen.

Justen Helo is a Galatean medic who is deeply disenchanted with the direction the revolution is taking. He wants to defect to Albion and help find a cure for the all the people who have been chemically Reduced. Princess Isla wants it publicly known that Helo has defected from Galatea and decides that he and Persis should pretend to be an item, something neither of the two are all that happy about. Yet the princess gets what she wants, and Persis and Justen have to pretend to be madly in love. He believes she's a narcissistic socialite with nothing more serious on her mind than what she's going to wear next, never realising that she's the genius hero behind all the daring rescues. He wants to find a cure for the chemical Reduction which his guardian, the head of the Galatean revolution is responsible for, as well as rescuing his sister who is still in Galatea. As they spend more time together, they banter and argue and obviously grow more attracted to one another. Persis knows that Justen despises her chosen persona, but can't risk showing him her true self.

There are so many excellent female characters in this book. Persis is an amazing heroine, all the more remarkable because she's just seventeen. Her friendships with princess Isla and Andrine, another of the members of the Wild Poppy league are realistic and nuanced and it's great to see these young women taking advantage of the prejudices of the society they live in, in order to make the world a better place and save lives, without ever asking for credit or glory. While I didn't like her much (she is one of the villains, after all) Vania Aldred, Justen's foster sister, is also an impressive and strong female character trying to prove herself in the Galatean army but constantly being underestimated and accused of only gaining her position thanks to nepotism. Justen's sister Remy, while young, clearly also wants to make a difference and make a name for herself, even if she has to risk her life to do so.

Peterfreund's world building is a thing of beauty and I am simply not doing the plot or the richness of the environment these books are set in justice in my review. I love The Scarlet Pimpernel and this was such a cool gender reversed science fiction re-imagining of it. Lady Persis Blake is in many ways even more of an impressive hero than Sir Percy Blakeney, because he was a very wealthy and fully grown man. Persis is rich, to be sure, but she's also just a teenage girl, running a spy ring consisting mainly of other teenagers. It makes her feats even more impressive. Of the two books, this was absolutely my favourite. I'm so glad I finally got round to reading these books.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 99: "For Darkness Shows the Stars" by Diana Peterfreund

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Laziness makes me resort to the Goodreads synopsis once again:

It's been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.

Elliot North has always known her place in the world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family's estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists are jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot's estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that include renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wenthforth - an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go. 

But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret - one that could change their society...or bring it to its knees. And again, she's faced with a choice: cling to what she's been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she's ever loved, even if she's lost him forever.

Inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion, For Darkness Shows the Stars is a breathtaking romance about opening your mind to the future and your heart to the one person you know can break it. 

I bought this book in an e-book sale a while back, based on the enthusiastic review on Forever Young Adult. Then, as so often is the case, I forgot all about it. This summer, my fellow Cannonballers scotsa1000 and bonnie both reviewed it excellently and reminded me that I owned it and should probably do myself the favour of reading it.

I suspect the book works well as a piece of dystopian young adult even for readers that have never read Persuasion. It may possibly also tempt younger readers to check out Jane Austen's classic novel. Ever since her mother passed, Elliot has been working herself nearly to death, trying to take care of the workers on her family's estate, while her father and sister ignore their increasingly dire financial situation and live a life of indolence and leisure. Elliot's father thinks nothing of exploiting his dependents or destroying a field of valuable crops to build himself a race track. When the famed admiral of the Cloud Fleet offers a substantial amount amount of money to rent her grandfather's home and ship yard, she has no choice but to agree.

She never expected to see the boy she loved all grown up into an imposing and famous man, now a lauded and wealthy explorer. Born on the same day, Kai and Elliot became friends as children, despite the difference in their stations and Elliot's father's objections. Kai initially only wanted to become the estate's mechanic, but developed more radical ideas as he grew older, finally running away in search of a better life when his life on the estates became too stifling. Not realising that Elliot rejected him not because she didn't love him, but because she knew the estate and all the people on it would be doomed if she left, the returned Malakai treats her coldly and tries to avoid her as much as possible.

My main complaint with this novel is probably how reticent and self-sacrificing Elliot stays throughout the story. She's clearly strong, responsible, loyal and brave, but I desperately wanted her to speak up and fight for herself and her happiness. Of course, Anne Elliot doesn't confront Wenthworth in Persuasion, but pines dolefully, so it's not surprising that Elliot never shouts angrily at Kai to make him realise why she couldn't go with him and why he's being so unreasonable towards her. Peterfreund never entirely convinced me as to why Kai was a worthy romantic hero. Kai acts cold and unpleasant for so much of the book, with less than entirely believable characterisation or exposition showing why Elliot loved him so much.

The world building of the book is excellent, though. A world where scientific experiments and genetic engineering has pretty much wiped out humanity is an interesting concept as was the social order established afterwards. It's quite clear that the pretty much feudal society here needs to evolve and change, though and Kai and his new Post-Reductionist friends show the fascinating possibilities the future might hold, if people are brave enough to try to change.

My next review will be of the companion novel to this book - based on another of my favourite classics - The Scarlet Pimpernel. I'm now also very interested in checking out other of Peterfreund's books.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 87: "Magic Breaks" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 5 stars

WARNING! This review will contain spoilers for some stuff in the earlier Kate Daniels books because it's pretty much impossible to write a review for the SEVENTH book in a series without revealing any of what's gone before. If you've not read this series before, this book is not where you want to start (even though the authors kindly included a handy guide to all the major players in the book and a very concise and informative guide to the fictional universe this series is set in). The series has been building for a long time, and you will not get the emotional payoff to truly enjoy this book if this is your first foray into the Kate Daniels world. Go off and read Magic Bites and Magic Burns (as the first book is a bit rough, and it often takes two books to really hook people). This review will be here when you've caught up with the series.

Kate Daniels knows that despite her attempts to keep her true identity hidden, despite training rigorously since she was a child, honing herself into a deadly weapon, she, and those she loves, are in imminent danger and the encounter she has been dreading for most of her life is rapidly approaching. She still has nightmares about the events that took place at the end of Magic Rises, reliving her inability to prevent the death of a close friend. She hungers for vengeance but also knows that she needs to try to keep her friends and family in the Atlanta Shapeshifter Pack as safe and out of harm's way when her legendary and probably immortal father comes for her. She's struggling to keep her business running, dealing with a number of petty leadership squabbles among the various factions of the Pack, trying to figure out a way to plan her wedding to Curran, the Beast Lord and leader of the Pack without insulting anyone or ruffling anyone's feathers, whilst all she really wants to do is run away to be alone with Curran. Wishing isn't going to make it so, however.

Curran is called away to deal with a trade dispute and takes some of the strongest alphas among the shape shifters with him. Kate only has to hold the fort alone for a few days, which is of course why the enemies of the Pack wait until they are separated to strike. During what was supposed to be a fairly routine meeting, Kate is presented with a dead body and has twenty-four hours to round up the killer, or she will have a supernatural war on her hands. Her opponent is stronger, more experienced than her and utterly ruthless and will stop at nothing to gain the upper hand. Can Kate outsmart him and prevent everything she holds dear from being destroyed?

I love Ilona Andrews, the married couple who write the Kate Daniels books. I own most of their books in both paperback and e-book copies and would happily buy their shopping lists if they decided to publish them. Based on everything else they'd written, such a collection would still include action, humour and be vastly entertaining. This is the first of their books to be published in hardback, meaning that the e-book was also more expensive than before. It was worth every penny. If you're a fan of the series, but can't afford to buy the book, run to your nearest library and reserve yourself a copy. It starts out fairly slow, but by chapter three, the action really kicks off, seizes you by the throat and doesn't really let go until you've finished the book.

As I mentioned above, before the story even starts, there is a very helpful little guide to all the major characters, reminding you of who they are and what their significance is in the wider narrative. Probably bored with introducing the various important aspects of the world building in a slightly different way for the seventh time, the authors also let Barabas, the were-mongoose lawyer who acts as Kate's chief advisor and sometime babysitter explain all the pertinent things a reader needs to know about the fantasy universe in which these books are set. It's a very clever device, and helps long time readers who don't obsessively re-read the series in between each new book remember where the story so far has taken them.

This is the seventh book in the series, and under their original contract, it was supposed to have been the final book about Kate Daniels. It's the book that entire series has built towards, where Kate and Roland finally face off against each other and everything is in the balance. Even so, the focus is taken off a lot of the regular supporting cast in the books. Curran is away for more than half of the book, his second in command Jim is busy trying to root out the traitor in the Pack, Andrea is busy learning to be an alpha for the Bouda clan and Julie is sent far away for safety reasons. This allows the authors to feature and expand the roles of other, previously minor characters, such as Barabas and Robert (one of the alphas of Clan Rat). Desandra, the European werewolf who gave birth to twins in the previous book and who returned to the States with Kate and Curran is given an important part in the narrative and she's delightful. I'm not sure why, but she reminded me of a more socially adept Helena from Orphan Black. I can't wait to see where they take the character from here. Not all of the regular sidekicks are missing though, Derek and Ascanio are still right by Kate's side, and their friendly rivalry and quips made me laugh out loud repeatedly.

Kate has come such a long way from the beginning of the series, when she kept herself isolated from everyone and everything, only caring about her next paycheck and how she could improve her abilities until she faced Roland. Now she has a strong and devoted partner in Curran, an adopted daughter, a loyal best friend and a wealth of friends and supporters, all of whom she feels protective of and who can be used against her. Hugh d'Ambray, Roland's sociopathic right-hand man is in Atlanta and he doesn't care if he has to kill every shapeshifter there is to get to Kate. He seems to have an unhealthy obsession with her and will use every underhanded trick in the book to get her to submit to him.

While I may not be happy with Curran's actions in the last book (which I still think were flimsily explained), his and Kate's relationship is stronger than ever and when Kate faces the biggest challenges of her life, she never doubts that he will come to her aid as soon as he can. Their devotion and love towards one another made me squee, and the genuine friendship and loyalty that Kate has managed to develop with so many people in Atlanta truly shows how much she has changed. No longer letting herself be dictated by the training and warnings of her long-dead mentor, Kate has forged a new path for herself, surrounded by friends and family, but as a result, also has so much more to lose.

This book really is a rollicking roller-coaster of a ride. I giggled, I gasped, I bit my knuckles in tense situations, I sighed wistfully, I grimaced (some stuff really is rather gory), I cheered, I swooned, I cried and I cackled with laughter. In many ways, this book reminded me of Changes, where Jim Butcher suddenly takes all the things he's established in his fantasy world and turns everything on its head for his main character and the readers. It was much the same here. A lot of what the story has been building towards comes to a conclusion, but it may not play out exactly as you'd expect. It is absolutely not the final book for Kate, Curran and the others, but the playing field is a very different one at the end of this book than when it began. If you've read and enjoyed the previous six books (seven if you count Andrea's book, which I do) in the series, I cannot imagine that you won't find this a satisfying and electrifying read. It's certainly my new favourite. Excellently done.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 80: "The Kiss of Deception" by Mary E. Pearson

Page count. 496 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

I finished this book nearly two weeks ago, and will therefore use the summary from Goodreads to explain the plot. Getting old and senile here, peeps.

In a society steeped in tradition, Princess Lia's life follows a preordained course. As First Daughter, she is expected to have the revered gift of sight - but she doesn't - and she knows her parents are perpetrating a sham when they arrange her marriage to secure an alliance with a neighbouring kingdom - to a prince she has never met. 

On the morning of the wedding, Lia flees to a distant village. She settles into a new life, hopeful when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive - and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deception abounds, and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets - even as she finds herself falling in love. 

This is the first book in what the publishers are calling "a timeless new trilogy". There is a lot to like in the book, and also quite a few things that had me rolling my eyes or sighing with exasperation. The world building is interesting. It appears to be a sort of late medievalish world, but there are hints that all this came about after some sort of cataclysm, so it could well be that the sequels will reveal that this civilisation is actually post-apocalyptic and that the feudalistic type world they have now came about after modern technology collapsed on us somehow. There are three major countries involved in conflict, Lia is the princess and only daughter in Morrighan. She has several brothers, but because traditionally the first daughter of the royal family are believed to have visions, she is the one who is unable to live life as she chooses. As the king of the neighbouring country, Dalbreck,  is old, she's convinced she's being wed to a middle-aged man. She sent a missive asking him to meet before their wedding day, but received no reply. There are also, apparently, the barbarians of Venda and a number of travelling nomads who seem to be a version of gypsies, complete with caravans.

Refusing to be a political pawn and marrying a stranger, she and her best friend and handmaiden Pauline steal a couple of horses and run away on her wedding day. She also steals the hereditary, jewel-encrusted wedding cloak the women in her family have worn for generations, plus some ancient texts she's planning on translating. Girl isn't actually all that nice. Pauline and Lia run to a coastal village, where the princess quite happily settles down as a barmaid. She refuses to spend much time contemplating the diplomatic repercussions of her actions. Shortly after they have settled in the village, two handsome young men show up. The dark and brooding Rafe and the blond and burly Kaden.

The reader knows that one of the young men is a Vendan assassin sent to kill Lia to start a war, whilst the other is the Dalbreckian prince that Lia jilted. Most of the chapters are from Lia's point of view, but some are given to "the prince" and some to "the assassin". Later Rafe and Kaden get POV chapters, but it's only in the final third of the book that the readers, and Lia, discover which of them is the assassin, and I don't think it's much of a spoiler to reveal that the series' protagonist does NOT get murdered two thirds into the first book of the trilogy. Game of Thrones, this ain't. Lia doesn't realise that the prince came looking for her, and that he follows her once she is abducted by the assassin. Only at the very end does she understand that one of the dashing young men from the tavern is in fact her betrothed.

I like the potential in this series. Each chapter starts with excerpts from one of the ancient texts that Lia has in her possession, hinting at the history of the kingdoms and a prophecy, which Lia is obviously at the centre of. I would have loved more backstory on the various kingdoms, especially Dalbreck and Venda, but suspect that might be revealed in future installments. I really liked the narrative device with the two men, without knowing which was which. The uncertainty of their identities builds the tension nicely.

The first third of the book is rather slow, and Lia is frankly behaving like a spoiled brat in much of it. I get that she's none to happy about being married off to a stranger, but she's lived a life of luxury and wealth, and doesn't have the right to decide that she'd rather be a commoner in a tavern just because Mummy and Daddy didn't show her enough affection or let her meet her fiancee before the wedding.  Not when said decision can create international strife and possibly start a war. However, she's clearly also led a very sheltered life, and matures quite a bit over the course of the book, coming to realise all too clearly what difficulties her actions may have caused.

There is a love triangle, which was one of the things that made me roll my eyes. I wish this trope would stop being a necessity in almost all YA fantasy.  The fact that I didn't actually know whether it was the prince or the assassin she was falling in love with, helped. Both Rafe and Kaden are interesting and rather complex characters and the fact that you don't know which is the more morally compromised one until more than halfway through, is cool. The second part of the book, especially the last third, was a lot more action-packed and fast-paced and this is where I really got sucked into the world. I will absolutely be checking out the next book in the series, and hope it's an even stronger installment than the first.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.