Wrapping up ALL the rest of the Reading Challenges I did in 2015

If I include the Cannonball Read (and I really think I should), I signed up for and completed 25 separate challenges last year. I have not counted the regular Goodreads or BookLikes reading challenges, which I think of as just a tally for how much I've read at any given time of the year.

Last year, I spent a really long time, meticulously listing and linking every single book for every single challenge, which is really rather pointless for a lot of said challenges, when I've collected all the books for each challenge on separate shelves in Goodreads. The separate posts for the ones that I feel require detailed lists with links are now up. Here are all the rest.

The Alphabet Soup Challenge 2015, hosted by dollycas - Completed on the 20th of November

What an Animal VIII, hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews - I signed up for 13 or more books, and had the challenge completed by April 3rd. In total, I read 42 books that fit into this category.

Finishing the Series, also hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews - I signed up for the highest level - four or more series, completed by January 31st. In total, I finished 23 series, reading 48 books.

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, hosted by Passages to the Past. I signed up for the highest level, 50 or more books and completed it on the 16th of November. In the end, I read 68 books for this one.

The 2015 TBR List Challenge, hosted by Bookish. I signed up for the highest level, 50 or more books and completed it by the 14th of September. I ended up reading 90 books. I don't want to know how many I added to the TBR pile over the course of the year, though.

The I Dare You to Challenge, hosted by the All Challenges All the Time group on Goodreads. I completed as much as I could by December 13th.

The Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge, hosted here. I signed up for the lowest level (12-24) and still only managed to complete 13 by New Year's Eve. So I completed it, but only in the nick of time.

The Women Challenge, hosted by Peek a Book, is probably meant for people who don't read primarily female authors. I signed up for the highest level, 20 or more books written by female authors, and decided I would never count the same author twice on the list. I had completed the challenge by the 26th of March and went on to read books by 77 different female authors in 2015.

The Dive Into Diversity challenge, hosted by Rather Be Reading, asked people to read more diversely. I signed up for 20 books initially, and completed the challenge by the 28th of July. In total, I went on to read 42 books that fit the categories, and I will try to read more diversely in the coming year too.

The New Author challenge, hosted by Literary Escapism was basically to try as many new authors as possible. I signed up for an initial goal of 15, which I'd completed by March 29th. I ended up discovering works by 46 new authors over the course of the year.

For the Historical Romance challenge, hosted by Herding Cats and Burning Soup, I signed up for 48 books, which in previous years wouldn't have been all that difficult. But this year, I read a lot more in other genres, and so didn't complete the challenge until the 11th of December. In the end, I managed to complete 52 books by the end of the year.

For my NetGalley/Edelweiss challenge, hosted by Falling For YA, I signed up to read at least 10 books. I had completed that by the 17th of April, but didn't do so well the rest of the year, reading only 12 books in total from my NetGalley ARCs. Going to try to be better this year.

The Let Me Count the Ways challenge, hosted here, was really all about reading a set amount of pages. I signed up for the highest level - over 10000 pages, and had completed it by March the 1st.

There was the RIP X challenge, running only in September and October, hosted by the Estella Society. I completed it by the 28th of September.

You Read How Many Books? was hosted by Book Dragon's Lair, and I signed up for 100 books (because occasionally I like to set myself achievable goals). I completed it on the 28th of September and went on to read 159 books that counted for the challenge.

Last, but not least, I signed up for the Reading Challenge Addict, for the highest level (16+ entered and completed). I think I more than covered that.

#CBR7 Book 149: "The Game Plan" by Kristen Callihan

Page count: 323 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Once again I want to thank the lovely Mrs. Julien, whose generous gift of an Amazon voucher made it possible for me to buy this book. 

NFL player Ethan "Dex" Dexter is known to his friends and team mates as "the Wise One". He's quiet, observant, focused on his career and not really concerned with dating, or really all that bothered about the fact that he's still a virgin at 24. The only woman he's interested in is the bubbly and vivacious Fiona Mackenzie, sister-in-law to his best friend, who's been very vocal in the past about how she doesn't do long distance relationships or has any interest in athletes. Yet when they both find themselves visiting Grey and Ivy at the same time, he can't help himself. Alone in a club one night, desperate for her to really see him, he dares her to touch his beard, and suddenly they can barely keep their hands, or lips, off each other.

Fiona grew up with a father who started as a professional athlete and then became a sports agent. He travelled a lot in his work and slept around a whole lot while doing it. Her parents' marriage broke up as a result. She's also known as the family flake, who can never really settle down for long with anything, always changing her mind or focus. Having recently secured what she believed would be her dream job in a design firm in New York, she wants to prove to both herself and her family that she can stick with something. She's struggling with a co-worker who keeps copying her designs and trying to steal her thunder, but with her sister just having had a baby, she's allowed herself a short vacation in San Francisco. She's none to pleased to see Dex, her brother-in-law's best friend, show up in the club she's at, "baby sitting", but is surprised how affected she is by his presence.

Dex is a veritable mountain of muscle, with long hair, a thick beard and tattoos all over his arms. He's nothing like the guys Fiona tends to go for, but with his quiet intensity focused entirely on her, she can't look away. When he dares her to touch his beard, she can't help but move in to kiss him and discovers that the silent giant she barely even noticed in the past is absolutely crazy about her. He lives in New Orleans, she lives in New York. She's just starting her promising design career, he's a top player in the NFL. A long distance relationship is their only option if they want more than a brief fling, and after just a few days together in San Francisco, it's obvious to both that that's not a satisfying option.

I've really liked the first two of Kristen Callihan's Game On books, a New Adult series starting when the characters were still in college. This book takes place a few years after the first two, with the characters older and a bit more settled, but still starting out in life. For the most part, I think Callihan's writing and plotting has improved with each book, but my absolute favourite is probably still The Friend Zone, which worked for me on every level. Seeing the couple from that be supporting characters struggling to get used to a new baby was fun and I loved their reactions to Dex' baby whispering techniques.

Dex, for all that he is nothing like the men I tend to find attractive in real life (I go more for the tall, pale and gangly - like Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston, or my husband). I don't really like tattoos or piercings, I think man buns are ridiculous and big, burly lugs just don't really appeal that much to me. He may still be my favourite Callihan hero so far, though. Though he's lusted after Fiona for years, he's never really let on and he's never once crossed into creepy stalker territory, keeping his interest firmly in the fantasy realm. Being a popular athlete, there's no lack of women who throw themselves his way, but Ethan, who remembers being chubby growing up and completely ignored by girl and later women until he became famous, isn't interested in just some shallow hook up. The one time he got drunk and gave into peer pressure, things didn't go well and he's decided that if he can't have Fiona, he doesn't want anyone. During their previous encounters, she hasn't really shown any interest in him, but when they meet again in San Francisco, after a brief moment where she has trouble placing him, the chemistry between them is palpable. Hence he dares to hope that maybe his feelings might become requited and he makes his move.

I liked that with Fiona being very outgoing, impulsive, loquacious and forward, while Ethan was normally the quiet, retiring, contemplative and restrained, they complimented each other nicely. Fi becomes calmer and more grounded around Ethan and he becomes more talkative and takes control in his interactions with her. He understands her fears and her misgivings and tries to give her the space and time to make her own decisions. Even when it's about to break his heart, he's not about to counteract her agency. Luckily, while Fiona is terrified to abandon her current job, she's not too proud to admit when she's wrong about her initial decision about long distance relationships. When she returns to New York, convinced that there can be no future for her and Dex, she's called him to tell him her change of heart before her plane even takes off.

Of course there needs to be some conflict, and the long distance isn't enough. One of the reasons Fiona doesn't want to be involved with an athlete is that she's not happy with media attention, and when Ethan's cell phone is stolen and photos of an intimate nature are leaked, their relationship hits a crisis point. My main problem with this story line is that I refuse to believe that any public person with naughty photos or videos on their phone doesn't at least have a simple code lock on it. It's even mentioned a couple of times early in the story that he needs to sort that out. From the hacking scandals in recent years, I suspect a determined person would still be able to access the memory eventually, but it wouldn't be right out there to the taking for any unscrupulous person.

The "virgin hunt" that's launched in the media to prove that Dex has lost his virginity and the subsequent leaking of the photos was not my favourite way to drive a wedge between a couple, but for the most part, this romance is in parts funny, sweet, very sexy and it was nice to see the previous couples in the series as supporting characters. I haven't been able to discover whether there are going to be more books in the series, or if this is the concluding volume. Either way, I am determined that I will read more of her Victorian paranormals next.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Books 144: "Magic Stars" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 64 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is a novella in the Kate Daniels universe. I would recommend that you read at least a few of the books in that series before reading this, although it would probably work relatively well on its own merits. This review may, however, contain spoilers for some of the later books in the series, so if you haven't read up to and including Magic Breaks and preferably Magic Shifts as well, proceed at your own risk. I must also add that I was granted an ARC of this novella, but did not have time to read it before it was on general release, when I also bought myself a copy. This review is in no way biased by having been given the ARC.

Derek Gaunt is a lone wolf, literally. He no longer belongs to any pack and is loyal to only a very few people. Among those are the former Beast Lord of Atlanta, Curran Lennart. So when the entire family of a weapon's smith frequented often by Curran and his Consort, Kate Daniels, is found brutally murdered and their house searched, Derek is asked to track down the killers and discover why the dirty deed was done. He prefers to work alone, and he certainly doesn't want Julie, Curran and Kate's adopted daughter, to tag along on his mission.

Yet when the two discover that the family were killed because of a highly magical artifact in their possession, one of three in fact, that the individual who sent the killers wants enough to murder again, Derek realises that he cannot continue without Julie. Able to detect all kinds of magic with her bare eyes, Julie is the only one who will be able to track the other two parts of the artifact, and lead them to the mastermind who ordered the killings in the first place. What was supposed to be a fairly simple assignment turns very dangerous and deadly far too quick and both Derek and Julie will be lucky if they make it out alive. I was surprised at how violent this story was. Possibly the shorter length of the story compressed the action sequences and made it seem more violent than the regular books.

Derek and Julie have long been fan favourites among the supporting cast in the Kate Daniels books. Initially Kate's somewhat reluctant sidekick and quite the pretty boy, Derek was nearly killed and left badly scarred after having molten silver (highly dangerous to shapeshifters) poured over his face, when trying to rescue a girl he'd fallen for. Julie was a street kid who lost her mother and got tangled up in some nasty magical business. Taken in and later adopted by Kate, she is now irrevocably bound to her by blood, after Kate was forced to purify Julie's blood with her own to save her life. After Kate in a showdown with her father laid magical claim to Atlanta, Julie has now appointed herself Kate's Herald. She is taking magic lessons from the manipulative and cunning Roland, to the great dismay of Derek, who is sure that the ancient magical powerhouse is using Julie for his own ends. Julie, on the other hand, claims they're going to need all the weapons and intel they can get against Roland, and if she can gather intelligence and maybe learn something of his weak spots while improving her magical abilities, so much the better.

In early books in the series, there were hints of both hero worship and infatuation by Julie for Derek. Their relationship in later books is often closer to exasperated cousins or even siblings, and the were-hyena Ascanio, as well as a handsome dragon creature of some sort that Julie goes to school with are also competing for Julie's affection. It was a lot of fun to see them working together as a team in this novella, and I wouldn't mind seeing them team up to fight monsters and saving each other's lives again some time.

According to Amazon, this is the first in a series called Grey Wolf, and I hope the sales and popularity is such that Ilona Andrews chooses to continue writing these spin-offs, if only as occasional interludes. As the normal Kate books are seen entirely from Kate's POV, it's always fun when the writers give us insight into other characters like this, and lets us see Kate and Curran in particular through the eyes of other characters in the series. As well as this novella, there's a whole book from Kate's best friend Andrea's POV, at least one short story about Julie and some novellas about Jim and Dali, the current Beast Lord and Lady. I know they have a lot of writing commitments, with the new Kate book, the Innkeeper Chronicles and their Hidden Legacy series, but hope that as a palate cleanser now and then, they may choose to give us more Grey Wolf stories.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 142: "Lord Dashwood Missed Out" by Tessa Dare

Page count: 144 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

First of all, I want to thank the ever lovely Mrs. Julien, who kindly sent me an Amazon gift card during my continued convalescence. Part of that gift card financed this story.

This novella follows four full novels and a novella, which while they're not strictly necessary to get the full impact of the story, are well worth reading. Start with A Week to Be Wicked, it's amazing!

Miss Elinora "Nora" Browning grew up next to and was taught lessons along with George Travers, Lord Dashwood. She was in love with him for years, until he humiliated her during her season and went off to explore the world without a word of farewell. Utterly dejected and heart-broken, Nora comforted herself with sherry and wrote down all her feelings in the missive Lord Ashwood Missed Out - note the clever way of disguising the identity of the cad who disappointed her, there. Speaking on behalf of all overlooked young women, encouraging them to love themselves instead and not rely on any men, her letter became published as a pamphlet and became a huge bestseller. In the little coastal town of Spindle Cove, a safe haven and retreat for all manner of unorthodox ladies and spinsters, Miss Browning is a sought-after speaker and she's on her way there when a gathering snow storm delays her. The only carriage available to her contains none other than her old neighbour, Lord Dashwood.

Having traveled the world on several expeditions, now a renowned cartographer, George is back to settle down and get married. He discovers that in his absence, Miss Browning's pamphlet has pretty much maligned his good name, and Lord Dashwood would very much like to have a word with her about that. When their carriage is overturned in the storm, and the two are stuck alone in a tiny cabin, he challenges her to show him exactly it was she claims he missed out on. Hijinks, and activities of an unclothed variety ensue, despite the no doubt freezing temperatures.

Meanwhile, in Spindle Cove, the ladies waiting for Miss Browning are worried because she hasn't shown up, and all the heroes of Ms Dare's previous Spindle Cove novels ride off to find the authoress (after making sure they leave their wives more than satisfied).

I was very much looking forward to Tessa Dare's return to Spindle Cove, and she's written at least one absolutely delightful novella in the past, so I had high hopes for this book. Sadly, in a story that isn't all that long, far too much focus is placed on the inhabitants of Spindle Cove loyal readers already know, like Bramwell and Susanna from A Night to Surrender; Colin and Minerva from A Week to Be Wicked; Thorne and Kate from A Lady at Midnight and Griff and his duchess, Pauline, from Any Duchess Will Do. It's Pauline's lending library that Nora is scheduled to visit and there is added complication because Griff, the Duke of Halford was supposed to bring sherry to the signing, and has completely forgotten to procure any. So when he has a chance to get back into his lady's good graces and possibly locate some sherry at the same time, he drags his male friends along with him to locate the missing Miss Browning. It's not that I didn't like seeing glimpses of the happy lives these characters have made for themselves, but since this novella clearly, in part, was to set up youngest Highwood sister Charlotte's future romance, we could have had a bit more focus on her, and less on past characters.

Because the action cuts between the snowbound adventures of Nora and Dash, as he's known to his friends and the Spindle Cove gang, the central romance kept getting interrupted just as it started getting interesting. I would have liked a bit more back story and motivation for both Nora and George and I live in a (normally, if not yet this year) icy and snowy country. There is just no way that icy winds and blizzard-like snow storms doesn't kill ardour right quick. Having an extended kissing and embrace sequence, while locked half-naked out of doors in icy wind - nope. Then getting all amorous in what is most likely a drafty old shepard's hut?

I can suspend my disbelief pretty far for you, Ms. Dare, see the Regency cos-players, but that's a step too far. You broke all the disbelief I have. You made me bring in Godzilla to help me make my point.

I did like both Nora and Dash as characters and can understand the motivations of both in as much as they were explained within the story. I thought the proposal scene was adorable and the grand gesture in question made me rather mushy (I blame hormones), but because I liked the main couple of this story so much, I wanted more time with them, and less with the previously established couples. I would say 4 stars for the bits with Nora and Dash, 3 stars for the bits with the old Spindle Cove characters, making it a 3.5 in total. I hope that Charlotte's book, when that finally arrives some time early in 2016 is more satisfying overall.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#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 132: "The Likeness" by Tana French

Page count: 553 pages
Audio book length: 22 hrs 30 mins
Rating: 4 stars

After a murder investigation that completely destroyed her relationship with her detective partner and best friend, Dublin murder detective Cassie Maddox moved to the Domestic Violence unit and took up target shooting to deal with her feelings of anxiety. She's therefore surprised when her boyfriend, Sam O'Neill calls her from a murder site, and asks her to come meet him, but to make sure she wears sunglasses and a hat or some such, to disguise her appearance a bit.

Once Cassie sees the victim, she understands not only why Sam sounded so shaken on the phone, but why he wanted her to come down in person. The murder victim looks exactly like Cassie, and her ID claims that she is "Alexandra Madison". This is impossible, as Alexandra "Lexi" Madison was a fake identity Cassie and her boss created from scratch for an undercover drug case Cassie was part of several years ago. The dead young woman could be Cassie's identical twin, only Cassie is an only child, with no knowledge of any family connection that could explain the similarities.

Her former boss from Undercover, Frank Mackay is also on the scene, bursting with excitement because of the crazy idea he's concocted. He wants to use Cassie's uncanny resemblance to the murder victim to go undercover, pretending to be "Lexi" and try to ferret out who the killer is by interacting with all the people in the victim's life. He wants to tell everyone that Lexi Madison survived her stabbing and has been comatose, giving Cassie time to study the victim carefully. Then he wants her to move in with Lexi's house mates, go to her classes and basically pretend to be her for a few weeks to see what comes up. Hopefully the killer will be so rattled, they reveal themselves in some way.

Sam is absolutely appalled. Cassie initially refuses, but Frank is relentless and uses every bit of his former hold on Cassie to cajole, lure and entice her. He's extremely observant and knows Cassie well, seeing how miserable she is in the DV unit and suspects there may be aspects to her last murder case she hadn't yet processed. Here she has another shot at helping to solve a murder, from a completely different angle. After the murder investigation (not being presented as such to the suspects) still has no leads after several days, Cassie agrees to go undercover.

Having studied every piece of information they have on the victim, including very convenient cell phone videos, Cassie is able to learn the woman's inflections, mannerisms and habits and can also study how "Lexi" interacted with her house mates. The police have let the house mates (still among the primary suspects, despite water tight alibis) know that Lexi has short term amnesia, to help Cassie cover up any initial glitches when she is living among them.

Wired for sound and armed, Cassie is sent to the big house in the Irish countryside where the woman calling herself Lexi lived with four friends - Daniel, Abby, Rafe and Justin. She needs to convince these four highly intelligent young academics, who knew Lexi better than anyone, that Lexi isn't dead, she's just been in a coma after a savage knife attack. Neither O'Neill nor Mackay trust the house mates, for all that their stories all match up. They believe one or several of the friends may have been Lexi's murderer.

As days and then weeks tick by, Cassie's cover, although in danger a few times, seems to be holding. She settles more firmly in Lexi's skin, forgetting for a while about her past difficulties, her quarrels with Sam and her dreary job in DV. Lexi's friends are a strange bunch, fiercely loyal to each other and very stand-offish to outsiders. They are like family to one another, quite content to exist without interacting very much with anyone outside their little clique.

For a time, Cassie allows herself to almost forget her role as a detective and her duty, but I was never able to distance myself from the gigantic lie the police were feeding these people. Believing their dear friend almost died, then came back to them, they were all in for such a crushing blow when the truth came out. Four young intellectuals, so determined to forge their own path. Spending their evenings and weekends redoing the old house, or reading, discussing or playing cards. No TV or computers or smart phone apps. Lexi's phone seemed to have been used as a video camera, but none of the group liked using computers or only modern technology. There's something both incredibly pretentious and quite admirable about that.

As with In the Woods, this book is more about exploring psychology and questions around identity and personality than a straight up murder mystery. The plot demands a pretty serious suspension of disbelief; that based on nothing but medical records, photos, files and some phone videos, Cassie was so good at impersonating another person that not one of the four people who knew her best caught onto her being an impostor. That's after the massive coincidence that the murdered woman looked exactly like Cassie, down to height, build, hair colour, facial features, even hands and teeth AND had assumed her abandoned undercover identity. Because the story entertained me, and Cassie was one of my favourite characters in the previous book, I was willing to go along with it.

Of course, Cassie as a supporting character, seen through the eyes of her best friend (the books are all first person) is different from Cassie as the protagonist, having gone through some tough stuff in the last six months. French's protagonists aren't really all that nice, they are flawed in many ways. That's what makes them seem so real. I had real trouble with some of the choices and decisions made by Rob in the last book, I didn't always agree with Cassie in this one. But I still liked her more. While I don't love these books as much as Narfna/Ashley does, I am enjoying them a lot, and the audio narration for this one was truly excellent. I will be reading more of these in the new year.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 129: "Winter" by Marissa Meyer

Page count: 824 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

WARNING! This review WILL contain spoilers for earlier books in the series. Do NOT keep reading this review if you're not caught up, having read all three previous books! There are also some minor spoilers for this book, but if you skip my list of dislikes, you'll avoid them.

Winter was one of the books I was most anticipating in the second half of 2015. Marissa Meyer's retellings of Grimm fairy tales with a clever YA sci-fi dystopian twist just kept getting better with every book. I was extremely pleasantly surprised by the first book in the series, Cinder, where Cinderella is a cyborg mechanic who falls for the son of the emperor, and turns out to be the long lost, believed to be dead princess of the moon. In book 2, Scarlet, we meet our Red Riding Hood, French farm girl Scarlet Benoit, looking for her missing grandmother. She meets Cinder, now an international fugitive on the run with spaceship captain Carswell Thorne. Scarlet also falls for a biologically augmented Lunar super soldier, her Wolf and they both join in Cinder's seemingly impossible quest to reclaim her throne. In book 3, the little band of rebels liberate the evil Lunar queen's secret weapon, tech genius Cress (our Rapunzel) from a spy satellite orbiting Earth. Cress and a blinded Thorne have to traverse the desert together to reunite with the others, and Cress' initial crush on the captain, based on fantasies she made up when alone on her satellite, become actual infatuation as she spends more time with him.

When Winter begins, Cinder has prevented Queen Levana's wedding to Emperor Kai by kidnapping him. He is working with Cinder and the others on a plan to depose Levana and restore Cinder (or Selene - her birth name), but the rebels have also lost someone dear to them. Scarlet has been taken prisoner by Lunar soldiers and the gang don't know if she's alive or dead. She's actually being held captive in the zoo in the Lunar capital, kept alive by the kindness of princess Winter, Levana's stepdaughter.

Winter is our Snow White, "fairest of them all" on Luna, despite, or possibly because of the scars marring her cheek (forced on her by her jealous stepmother). Winter is the only Lunar who refuses to use her gift to manipulate the minds and perceptions of others, never using glamour or trying to influence actions, and as a result, she is slowly going insane. She has moments of lucidity and is clearly quite clever, but also episodes where she has to focus to hold it together, as she vividly feels herself turning to ice and shattering or sees the palace walls running with blood. More alarming than your run of the mill panic attack. The daughter of a palace guard, Winter became a reluctant member of palace royalty when her father married Levana. Crazy or not, she's forced to be present in the throne room every time her stepmother sentences anyone, making herself seem unaffected by the bloody spectacle.

Winter is terrified that Levana will execute Jacin, the royal guard she grew up with and has loved pretty much always (Winter, not Levana obvs.). Jacin is accused of treason and siding with Cinder and the other rebels, but manages to convince the queen that he was spying on them after he reveals some very incriminating information about them. He is punished, then re-instated as a royal guard, given the task to personally guard Winter (and make sure she is kept under control and from making scenes in public).

Kai is returned to his home in the next level of the plan to topple Levana and restore Cinder as Luna's rightful queen. He convinces Levana to move the wedding to Luna, allowing his ship to smuggle Cinder and her crew along. Of course, everything starts going pretty seriously wrong shortly after the ship lands in the Lunar capital and Cinder and several of friends are separated. Kai is taken into house arrest, safe at least until after the wedding, as Levana isn't going to let the chance of becoming Empress pass her by. Trying to quash the rebellion of her niece, Levana gets more and more frustrated with Winter's continued popularity amongst the common people.

She gets one of her chief goons to propose marriage to the princess, who is shocked and creeped out and refuses, thus sealing her death sentence. Levana demands that Jacin prove his loyalty once and for all by murdering Winter, claiming that at least he will make sure it's quick and painless. Jacin manipulates security footage so it looks like he stabs Winter, but instead frees Scarlet and makes her promise that she will take Winter to safety, joining Cinder and the gang, currently hiding out in a remote mining settlement.

Thus Jacin and Winter get irrevocably connected with Cinder and her rebellion and from there on out, they become supporting characters in a book which has so many characters and plot lines to keep track of. Cinder's plan to convince the populace of Luna that she is the long-lost princess Selene, incite a revolution, dethroning Levana and becoming the rightful ruler is poorly thought through, to say the least and for much of the book, it seems like pure luck that they get anywhere at all, rather than brutally mowed down by Levana's security troops.

I really liked the first three books in this series and had such high hopes for this book. Generally I found this book a disappointment. Here's why:

• At more than 800 pages, it's more than twice the length of the first book in the series. Yet so much of what happens in it feels rushed, confusing and chaotic. There is far too much plot crammed into this book - making it a very hectic read.
• In previous books, the action has taken place on Earth or in space, for the most part. This is the first book where the plot is mostly set on Luna. Lunar society, with an artificially created and extravagant capital, full of dolled-up nobility without any sort of social conscience, and the many remote provinces full of oppressed commoners creating resources for the capital - it all got very Hunger Games-y. 
• Just as Cinder's rebellion felt a bit like Mockingjay. So much of it felt like things I'd read before, elsewhere, which is sad, because in the previous three books, that has not been the case.
• In the previous two books, while the newly introduced characters were woven into the larger framework of Cinder's story, they've still had a chance to shine, and Meyer has successfully re-imagined three different fairy tales. Winter and Jacin, who should have had their chance to shine in this book, are almost buried in all the other stuff that happens. This is a great shame, as Winter seems like a delightful character and her interactions with Jacin, as well as their whole relationship, is pretty much solid gold.
• Cress, who I loved in her own book, spends much of this one being terribly self-conscious and annoyingly insecure, mooning over Thorne in a really frustrating way.
• The climax of the book got incredibly confusing. There is too much repetition of the same things over and over again (one or more of our characters are in peril, probably manipulated by a Lunar into attacking one of the others, situation gets resolved - rinse -repeat)
• Wolf's capture and the alterations made (don't want to say more and spoil things) seem like they are very easily worked around. If they are, why was his capture such a big deal?
• Levana - just not scary enough. She has utterly terrifying power, yet seems tedious most of the time. For complete and utter mind control done right, see Kilgrave in Netflix and Marvel's Jessica Jones. That's how scary mind control should be. Why isn't it here? 
• I'm also not at all keen on the way Cinder and the others felt that the video of Levana without her glamour should be the thing that really helped them incite rebellion. Surely there are a lot worse accusations that could have been levelled at Levana to get support from the common people, rather than just expose what she looks like under her glamour?

So what did I like?

•  Finally getting Winter's story and all the clever sci-fi-twisting of the Snow White fairy tale. I also really like that Winter is dark-skinned, adding further to the diversity of the series.
• Winter and Jacin are super adorable. I didn't like Jacin much in previous books, when he was being used as an antagonist, but he is wonderful whenever he is around or thinking about his princess.
• Seeing more of Luna and discovering where Wolf came from was nice.
• All the cool fairy tale twists reminds me how creative and clever Meyer can be.
• It was certainly a roller-coaster of a read. Soo many cliff-hangers.

The previous three books show how good a writer Meyer can be. There is so much potential in this book, but ultimately, it just tried to do too much. I think maybe it should have been split into two, so we could have had more focus on Winter in this book, leaving the final rebellion and grand conclusion to the story to happen in a fifth book. There was so much that needed to happen in this last book. It just all got a bit too much of a muchness. It's by no means an awful book, but absolutely the weakest in the series and a disappointing end to an otherwise fun and original sci-fi ride. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 110: "Rock Redemption" by Nalini Singh

Page count: 349 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

This is the third book in the Rock Kiss series, but it can easily be read without any previous knowledge of the other books or characters.

Noah St. John is the guitarist in world famous rock band Schoolboy Choir. Due to some really dark shit in his past, he's incredibly messed up and has tremendous difficulties trusting or connecting to people. He doesn't really feel comfortable around anyone but the other guys in the band, who he's known since he was a kid in school with them. One notable exception is Katherine "Kit" Devigny, a struggling to make it actress the band met when they were all starting out. The other guys in the band pretty much adopted Kit as a sister, but the chemistry between Kit and Noah was always too volatile for friendship to blossom easily. Yet they become true friends, moving towards something more, a change Noah can't handle. He makes sure that Kit walks in on him in bed with a random groupie, completely shattering her trust or any affection she felt for him.

Haunted almost nightly by nightmares, one-night-stands and meaningless hook-ups seem to be the only thing that drains him enough to sleep peacefully for a few hours. It has rightly earned Noah a reputation as a notorious womaniser. His only other escape is the music, but now the band in between tours and albums, and the ghosts of the past constantly threaten to destroy what little peace he manages to summon.

It's been years since he destroyed Kit's good opinion of him, and she's no longer a struggling soap actress, but an Oscar-nominated and very sought after star. Photographed together at a big media event, the gossip journalists assume that Kit and Noah are finally a couple, and the positive press is extremely beneficial for Kit's career. She needs all the good media cover she can get in order to secure an audition for a sought-after film, and Noah agrees to play her adoring boyfriend to help her. He desperately wants to make amends for his previous actions, but is also terrified that Kit, the woman he adores, will discover his darkest secrets, convinced it will drive her away forever.

Nalini Singh's Rock Kiss series has been quite hit and miss for me. The first one, Rock Addiction, where the vocalist fell head over heels for a the half-sister of the band's publicist after a one-night-stand, was merely ok. I liked the second one, which was more of a long novella, Rock Courtship, where the band's drummer after a long and patient campaign wins the heart of the band's publicist, a whole lot more. The heroine in book 1, Molly's best friend, Charlotte, gets her own book in Rock Hard, (which really is only very tenuously connected to the rock stars or their love interests) where there is a subplot involving stalking, something that's also an important subplot in this book. While on the surface Kit seems rich and successful, most of her money was sunk into a new house with very secure grounds and a security detail after her stalker broke into her previous home. She can make ends meet, but needs a couple of big contracts to make sure she actually has enough money to keep paying for her house and her bodyguards.

I find a good friends to lovers plot very satisfying in romance, and I find reconciliation stories can also be very effective. Singh sort of combines the two tropes in this book. Kit and Noah were incredibly close, until Noah got spooked and did his very best to drive Kit away. Because she's such an important person in the lives of his band mates, though, it's not like they can avoid seeing each other, and Kit is constantly reminded of the calculated cruelty with which Noah chose to show her "his true self".

Noah is the modern equivalent of one of those rakes who are so dissolute and jaded that it's hard to see how they'll ever make for a satisfying romantic lead. Of course, the reason for his wild behaviour is found in his dark past, and while I had my suspicions of what he was so terrified of Kit discovering, it was actually in some ways worse than I had expected, and I can see why he was so incredibly messed up. When the truth comes out, Noah's warped world-view and his huge trust issues make it very hard for him to believe Kit could still care for him, let alone want to be with him.

Kit has been a supporting character in more than one of the previous books, and her fraught relationship with Noah has been simmering in the background. The daughter of a supermodel and a tennis pro, she deliberately chose to act under an assumed name, to make sure she made her way in the business through her own achievements, rather than coasting on nepotism. The child of parents who loved each other so much they barely noticed others, she frequently felt alone and it's clear that the three other guys in Schoolboy Choir are the brothers she wishes she'd had growing up. Having had difficulty forming other female friendships, Kit now has a few really good girlfriends she can count on and who help keep her stable and grounded. I suspect the "behind the scenes" stuff about acting and the pressures put on young actresses is probably very carefully researched by Singh. The way Kit has to manouver to secure herself new parts certainly felt very believable.

I don't do trigger warnings, but readers should know that there is a lot of pain and darkness in Noah's past, and there are reasons why he tries to find oblivion in meaningless sex, keeping nearly everyone, including most of his band mates, oblivious to his true suffering. If I hadn't liked Kit as a heroine as much as I did, this book would probably just have been 3 stars. It's not my favourite of the series, but a much better read than the first one. All signs suggest that the next book in the series will be about Abe, the fourth and final band member, whose ex-wife features prominently in a subplot in the final half of this book. It seems very likely that there may be another reconciliation story coming up.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 105: "Of Silk and Steam" by Bec McMaster

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the fifth and final book in the London Steampunk series. There will be minor spoilers for previous books in the series, and it's really not the best place to start. If you're interested, start at the beginning with Kiss of Steel.

The precarious power balance in the capital is becoming untenable. Human Queen Alexandra is more of a powerless puppet to her powerful and erratic blueblood (vampire) husband, the Prince Consort, than ever before. Even the ruling council of the Echelon (the nobility) have little control over his more and more unpredictable decisions. The common people, normal humans and mechs (humans who have had limbs replaced with mechanical prosthetics after accidents) are being pressed harder than ever before, with more extreme blood taxes and the situation is reaching a breaking point.

A number of people are working quietly to fortify Whitechapel, controlled by Sir Henry Rachinger, better known as Blade or the Devil of Whitechapel. Since his wife, Honoria, published the scientific findings of her dead father, leading to a vaccine against the blueblood virus, the Prince Consort's power over the Echelon has slipped further. The heads of the city's police force, the humanist party, Blade, his wervulfen sister- and brother-in law, as well as the heir to the Duke of Caine, Leo Barrons are all working together to fortify the walls of Whitechapel and get enough ammunition to incite a proper rebellion.

Unbeknownst to them, Lady Aramina or Mina, Duchess of Cassavian and one of the few blueblood women in London society, has been working diligently for nearly a decade, funding the humanists. The queen is her best friend and she hates seeing how the Prince Consort abuses and manipulates her. On the surface, she's all coldly correct, supportive of the Prince Consort's rule, even willing to help him physically reprimand his wife. Behind closed doors, she works tirelessly to keep the queen's spirits up, spending as much of her private funds as she can to arm the humanists. She has no idea that there are others working towards the same goal, including the man she considers her enemy.

Mina believes that the Duke of Caine killed her father and has sworn revenge against him and his son. She doesn't know that Leo isn't actually the duke's son, that he has three half-siblings, including Honoria, Blade's wife. While she wants to hate him, Leo on the other hand, is fascinated by Mina and wants to crack through her icy veneer to unleash the fiery, passionate woman he believes she is hiding. Unfortunately, when the Prince Consort gets access to the truth of Leo's parentage, through a duplicitous investigator Mina hired, he is forced to go into hiding. Believing Mina to be the one who betrayed him, he takes her hostage, dragging her into Whitechapel, the only place he can hide. When he runs, the Prince Consort declares he will burn the area to the ground. The plans for rebellion need to be put into action.

While I thought the first two books in the series were a bit slow, the last three were extremely entertaining and it was especially refreshing to see that the cold and frankly quite snooty-seeming Duchess of Cassavian not only had hidden depths, but was a full-fledged badass. On his deathbed, her father defied tradition and infected her with the craving virus and she was forced to kill any pretender to her title in order to protect herself. Having lost her older brother before the Duke died from mysterious causes, with her mother becoming catatonic with grief, Mina has lived a very lonely and dangerous life. She can't openly support and champion her only friend, having to work behind the scenes to remove the tyrannical Prince Consort. Because society believes that women are too weak and emotional to handle the craving virus, she has to work twice as hard as the Echelon males to stay in control of her bloodlust and urges, to prove them all wrong. She's had lovers, but is afraid to let herself go completely and therefore feels both tempted and frustrated by Leo's advances and refusal to give up courting her.

Leo is also very lonely, having been raised in an almost militaristic fashion by the Duke of Caine, who was treated the same way by his father. Having realised early on that he was illegitimate, Leo still feels guilty about refusing to help his half-siblings when they were in need, resulting in Honoria's bargain with Blade, which in turn led to her marriage. Leo became infected with the craving virus because of a botched experiment of his biological father, and as revenge doctored the vaccine Sir Artemus Todd was planning on taking, not realising that he also meant to give it to his son Charlie, Leo's half brother. Charlie became a rogue blueblood, and Leo has never been able to forgive himself for causing this. Even after his half-siblings have forgiven him and try to include him as much as they can, they can't openly show their connection. Once the Prince Consort discovers the truth for himself, and orders Leo executed, his sister and brother-in-law are the only ones he can turn to for help.

Mina is appalled that the man she paid to investigate Leo also reported to the Prince Consort. Being held prisoner by Leo and Blade in Whitechapel when the city is about to erupt in civil war is disastrous for her, though, as she needs to make sure the queen is safe. This leads to her trying her best to escape, while Leo keeps chasing her down, becoming more and more aware how important she is to him.

The romance in this was excellent and I was impressed with how well McMaster united all the various pieces that she's introduced in the previous books. With every book, she's introduced one more thread, bringing them all together here. Discovering that Mina was the financial source behind the humanists was a delightful surprise, and when she finally allows herself to give into her attraction to Leo, things get pretty smoking hot. With some Steampunk series, that element gets unnecessarily gimmicky, not so here. The world-building and character development has been excellent throughout, and it's always good to see a series that ends on a high note instead of fizzling out. I highly recommend McMaster's books to anyone who likes paranormal historicals and look forward to what she's going to write next.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 104: "The Legend of Lyon Redmond" by Julie Anne Long

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Before I begin this review, I have to say that in a genre where where so many books have absolutely atrocious covers, where readers pick up and love the books despite the cover art, this book has one of my favourite covers in years. It fills me with joy and perfectly encapsulates the contents of the book. I wish more romances had covers this great. 

While many of Julie Anne Long's Pennyroyal Green books can be read out of order or completely independently of each other, this book is the culmination of the 11-book series, and as such, will probably not have the same impact on the reader as if it's read without some previous knowledge of the series in general and Olivia and Lyon's tragic romance in particular. There are SO many good books in this series, and one absolute classic. Go read some of them, then come back for this review.

It is said in Pennyroyal Green in Sussex, that the Redmonds and the Everseas have been enemies since the Dark Ages, but that once every generation, a Redmond and an Eversea will fall disastrously in love with each other. This generation's doomed couple - Lyon Redmond and Olivia Eversea, who met at a small assembly and almost instantly fell incandescently in love, despite knowing that their parents would never approve. Meeting an hour here and there in secret, conducting their courtship as secretly as they could, completely oblivious to the fact that everyone around them could see that they were besotted. Then Lyon Redmond suddenly left England, never to return. Gossip said it was because Olivia Eversea broke his heart.

Five years and thousands of hothouse flowers delivered to her door, Olivia Eversea shocks everyone by accepting the proposal of Lord Landsdowne, a quiet and unprepossessing viscount. Their wedding is the social event of the season, and as most of her siblings have had quiet weddings, Mrs. Eversea is determined that Olivia will get married with pomp and occasion. Yet at every turn, there are reminders of her long-lost love. A popular ballad is created, sung on every street corner. Illustrated prints depicting the possible adventures of Lyon Redmond appear in shop windows. He is seen as the dashing hero, she as the withered Miss Havishamesque creature who jilted him.

Lyon Redmond has spent the years away from England making a fortune, proving with every action that loving Olivia Eversea is what he does best. Now she is marrying another, and it's time for a reckoning between them. The last time he asked her, she refused to leave her family and go with him. Now Lyon will confront Olivia one last time and they will see if their love story is in fact a curse, or a blessing.

In each and every Pennyroyal Green book, the reader has got little snippets of the story of Lyon and Olivia. How they met and fell in love is never revealed, but that something Olivia Eversea said or did, made Lyon Redmond leave England and his family for good, is clear. That Olivia was never the same after he left, throwing herself into her worthy charitable causes and fending off eager suitors, seeming indifferent, yet never cruel, to all of them. Rumours of Lyon's exploits on the continent, making money hand over fist, possibly engaging in piracy. Olivia becoming thinner and more brittle, until one day she decides to accept a proposal, after all.

In this final book, which features cameos from many of the previous couples in the series, the reader finally gets to see how Lyon and Olivia met, what led to their separation and estrangement. It's become clear in the previous books that Isaiah Redmond is a strict and unforgiving father, whose four children all went against his express wishes in choosing their life partner. Lyon's refusal to bow to his demands, choosing to abandon his homeland and his family instead, probably spurred his younger siblings to exert their wills and make their own unpopular choices.

Olivia and Lyon's romance is in part a tragic one. They were young when they met and because of the enmity of their families, their feelings for one another were not well received by their parents. When push comes to shove, Olivia can't handle it. She cannot follow Lyon into exile. Having not even experienced her first season, she is still young and innocent, and terrified of what the future might bring. She breaks his heart and her own with the choice she makes and has to live in shattered loneliness in the years that follow, constantly hounded by suitors, watching her siblings and friends fall in love and settle down.

It was always obvious that Lyon wasn't going to be happy with Olivia's decision to marry another. Yet he cannot be surprised that she's unwilling to pine forever for him, having heard nothing to encourage her for five years. Their reckoning is a necessary one, and there are hurt feelings on both sides, but oh such a passion as well.

Last week, I came to the realisation that The Legend of Lyon Redmond, a book I've been anticipating since I first heard it was being written, and pre-ordered months ago, would be released during my autumn break. With the stress of my work over the last few months, I have had much less time and energy to read, so the prospect of a whole day off when I could revel in this book was a gift from the fates. Like I suspect all long time readers of the series, I had very high expectations. Lyon and Olivia's story runs like a unifying thread throughout the other narratives and getting to read their story was almost too exciting to bear.

I adore What I Did for a Duke, the story of Olivia's younger sister and the Duke of Falconbridge. There are other books in the series that I am deeply fond of, but this is the only book in the series that I feel can rate as highly. Like in Genevieve's book, I got so caught up in the story that I literally shouted at the characters more than once. My husband seemed amused by my antics, assuring me that it would be a pretty unsatisfactory romance if the protagonists didn't end up happily together in the end. I nearly threw a cushion at him. Clearly both the Eversea sisters are determined to try my nerves by taking a really long time to realise what is best for them.

This is a wonderful book, but really does require the reader to have taken the journey through the series to fully appreciate the ending, not only to Olivia and Lyon's story, but to all the Pennyroyal Green books. I wasn't wild on the epilogue, where we are suddenly introduced to a current day descendant of the Redmonds and Everseas, and given insight into what happened to the children and grandchildren of all the heroes and heroines of the books in the centuries to come. I felt that was unnecessary, but it didn't ruin the perfection of the rest of the book. I will most likely skip it the many times I re-read this in future, though.

With this, I complete the Pennyroyal Green series and my double Cannonball.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Books 101-102: "The Curious Case of the Clockwork Menace" and "Forged by Desire" by Bec McMaster

Page count: 595 pages
Rating: The Curious Case of the Clockwork Menace - 3 stars
Forged by Desire - 4 stars

The Curious Case of the Clockwork Menace is a novella set three years before the events of the rest of the London Steampunk series. In it, Nighthawk partners Garrett Reed and Perry Lowell work together on a case involving a missing theatre actress who may or may not have been abducted. Perry, the only other known female blueblood (vampire) has been in love with her partner for years, without ever really being bothered by jealousy, despite knowing that Garrett is a ladies' man. Now, seeing him flirt openly on the case, she has trouble keeping herself focused, which leads to conflict between the two, and causes complications during the investigation. In the story, Perry is abducted and nearly drowns and determined never to lose track of her again, Garrett gifts her with a dagger containing a tracking device, making her promise to keep it with her always. Said tracking device becomes significant in Forged by Desire.

Nine years ago, the Duke of Moncrieff was exiled to Scotland after it was believed he murdered his thrall, Miss Octavia Morrow, an earl's daughter. Her body was never found. Shortly after Miss Morrow's disappearance and believed death, an emaciated, bedraggled, terrified young woman infected with the craving virus showed up at the Nighthawk headquarters, asking the guild leader, Sir Jasper Lynch for help. Miss Peregrine "Perry" Lowell was taken in by the Nighthawks and trained to control her new animalistic instincts. Trained by Lynch himself, she rose in the ranks to become one of his right hand people. Now, as Lynch has been elevated to a dukedom, he can no longer lead the Nighthawks. His successor is Garrett Reed, Perry's partner for most of her nine years on the force.

Reed is struggling with his new leadership duties. Lynch led the Nighthawks for more than forty years (bluebloods being near immortal and impervious to ageing) and his subordinates didn't realise just how tricky a balancing act his job entailed. Garrett can't ask Lynch for help, as the man blames him for betraying a sworn oath, endangering Lynch's beloved Rosalind, in order to save Lynch's own life. After an attack that nearly ended his life, Garrett's virus levels are extremely strong and he is worried he's going to tip over the edge into the Fade (when bluebloods lose all control and become mindless vampires, attacking everything in sight). He is suffering from horrific nightmares, where he dreams that he attacks Perry, who he's come to realise he considers more than a friend and a work mate. Because he fears he'll hurt her, he's been keeping away from her for a month, and it's making him utterly miserable.

When two young women, clearly of highborn birth, are found murdered in a factory, the cause of death makes Perry flash back to the terrors in her past. She's convinced that she killed the madman who held her captive, infected her with the craving virus and tortured her in the name of medical science, but further investigation into the dead girls all seem to paint a gruesome picture. Moncrieff has been recalled from his exile, and has tasked Garrett with locating the missing Octavia Morrow to prove his innocence. Perry ran once before and created a new identity for herself. She realises that she'll have to flee again, but how can she leave Garrett when he finally seems to return her feelings?

In the world of McMaster's London Steampunk, the sons of the ruling classes, the Echelon, are given the craving virus that makes them faster, stronger and near immortal when they come of age. Once they have the virus, they have to feed on blood, but will be immensely powerful until the point when their virus levels go so high that they enter the Fade, and have to be put down, so as to not become ravening monsters. Any non-nobles who are accidentally infected with the virus can either join the Nighthawks or the Prince Regent's royal guard, or they will be executed. No women are given the virus, as they are believed to be too emotional and weak to handle it. The exception is the Duchess of Casavian, whose father broke the edicts, and Perry Lowell, who was infected in a horrific medical experiment she was lucky to escape.

A female blueblood has to be beyond reproach, so as to not confirm the rumours that women are inferior. Perry lives a strictly controlled existence, trying to appear as masculine as possible to blend in with the other Nighthawks. She has worked hard to overcome the trauma of her past, training with Lynch personally at fencing and fighting. Her sense of smell is unparallelled and she's one of the best trackers the guild has. She's also loved her partner, Garret Reed, for nearly as long as she's known him. Now her past appears to be catching up with her, and she's terrified that he's going to get hurt as a result. She's willing to do anything and risk everything to keep him safe.

Garrett is the son of a prostitute from the East End and worked hard to become Lynch's second in command. No one had expected Lynch's elevation to the Echelon, and the mantle of guild leader sits heavily on his shoulders. His newly discovered attraction to Perry is complicated by his fear that he'll hurt her if his virus levels go too high, and with Lynch giving him the silent treatment, he has no one to talk to about all his fears. Once he realises that Perry isn't indifferent to his advances, he's determined to win her, to spend what little time he has left before he loses control, happy with her. He just needs to figure out what secrets she's keeping from him.

Perry and Garrett's love story is a complicated one, not helped by both being far too honourable and brave for their own good, willing to make audacious sacrifices for the sake of the other. The found family aspect of the Nighthawks really comes into play in the latter half of this book, though, and while Perry is a hell of a heroine, brave, fierce, independent and capable, it's clear that she needs to learn to trust those around her and allow herself to feel happiness. A lot of the overarching story of the series is also coming to a head over the course of this story, and I look forward to seeing how it all ends in the final book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 99: "My Lady Quicksilver" by Bec McMaster

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is book 3 in an ongoing series. While it can be read as a stand alone, the world building and the overarching story line will make a lot more sense if you start at the beginning, with Kiss of Steel.

Sir Jasper Lynch is the head of the Nighthawks, basically the mostly nocturnal police force of the Steampunk London that Bec McMaster has invented here. All of the nearly four hundred Nighthawks are rogue bluebloods, people who have caught the craving virus by accident in some way (become vampires) and who are not of the Echelon, the nobility who rule the country. After an assassination attempt on the Prince Regent, Lynch is tasked with finding the notorious human revolutionary, Mercury. If Mercury is not brought to justice within a short space of time, Lynch's life is forfeit instead.

Using his enhanced senses and his decades of experience with detective work, Lynch manages to track down Mercury, and is shocked to discover that the revolutionary is a woman. Not only that, she manages to get the better of him by using her feminine wiles to distract him, then she escapes. Now the reason he wants to find her is as much professional as it's personal. Little does he realise that she's much closer than he is expecting.

Rosalind Fairchild needs to find her missing brother, who was involved with the rogue group of revolutionaries who tried to blow up a large part of the Echelon and visiting dignitaries from Scandinavia. She needs to infiltrate the Nighthawks, and gets herself hired as Sir Jasper Lynch's personal secretary. She knows that if he discovers that she is also Mercury, he will arrest her and hand her to the Echelon to be executed, but Rosalind has been trained for subterfuge by the very best, and has no intention of getting caught. She needs to locate her brother, rescue him and then she can go back to ridding the world of all bluebloods.

Rosalind is a humanist, one of the disenfranchised humans who believe revolution is necessary, as the Prince Regent and the Echelon keeps making further demands for blood taxes and humans and mechs (humans who have had to get mechanical prosthetics after injuries) are being treated worse and worse. Few know that Mercury, the infamous revolutionary, is in fact a woman. Recently, a small band of her former followers went rogue, clearly sick of waiting for results. Not content with trying to kill a large group of people with an explosion, they are now working on some sort of weapon that turns bluebloods crazy with bloodlust, slaughtering everyone near them. Rosalind is as determined to stop these rogue revolutionaries as Lynch.

Lynch is the nephew of one of the ruling Dukes on the Echelon council, but was cast off by his family when he refused to fight his cousin in a duel for the rights to be the Duke's heir. Instead he founded the Nighthawks, non-noble bluebloods trained to police the city, solve crimes and bring criminals to justice. What Lynch fears most of all is losing control, and he keeps himself in check, never drinking more than the minimum required amount of blood, never letting himself get emotionally involved. So when Mercury gets under his skin so very quickly, it awakens needs in him he'd almost let himself believe he didn't have. He knows he can never have Mercury, but his newly awakened emotions draw him towards his impudent new secretary, a lovely widow who seems determined to drive him to distraction, even as she tidies up his private life.

Less involved in the larger politics of this world, and more on investigation and police work, My Lady Quicksilver may be my favourite book in the series so far. By now, all the pieces of the world building are firmly in place and McMaster can just let her characters play. The opposites attract story at the centre of this book is delightful. Rosalind is an outlaw, Lynch an officer of the law. She's all about temptation, sensuality and fun, he's all about control, order and work. Neither wants to fall for the other, but they are helpless to control their emotions.

As well as Lynch and Rosalind's romance, I very much liked the supporting cast of Nighthawks in this book. Family is very important in these books, and Rosalind's relationship with her brothers and with her werwulfen friend also adds depth and complexity to the world. Teased in this book, and coming up in the next one, is the romance between two of Lynch's most trusted lieutenants, Garret Reed and one of the few blue blood women, Perry Lowell. I very much liked their banter in this one and hope their book is as satisfying as this one.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 98: "Archangel's Enigma" by Nalini Singh

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

This is book 8 in a series, not the place to start. There is far too much stuff in this book furthering the ongoing story arc for this to be an especially satisfying book to start the series with. Start at the beginning with Angels' Blood.

There are dark rumours that Lijuan, the Archangel of Death, is about to murder one of the sleeping Ancients (powerful archangels who have gone to ground to sleep for millennia so as to stave off insanity). As this goes against everything angelkind considers holy, Raphael sends one of his trusted Seven, the mysterious Naasir, his most skilled tracker, to find the sleeping place of Alexander. Naasir has decided that so many others in his family have found happiness with their mates, he too wants one. He's been searching for seven months, with no luck, but will postpone his quest for his mate to aid his archangel.

Andromeda is a young angelic scholar, fifteen days away from coming of age (when she turns 400). The granddaughter of the archangel Charismemnon, dealer of poisons, disease, pain and debauchery, Andromeda fled his court and has been working to prove herself at the Refuge, devoted to learning, record keeping and all manner of other scholarly arts so despised by the kin at her grandfather's court. She knows that on her birthday, she has to return, bound to serve there for five hundred years, a service she dreads with every fibre of her being. Because her specialised field of study is the burial places of the Ancients, Andromeda is asked to help Naasir locate Alexander. At first she is startled by his strange manner and mysterious origins, but it doesn't take long before they form a bond - making the thought of five hundred years away from him seem even more unbearable to Andromeda.

 It's clear that while working on furthering the plot of the ongoing arc of these books, the building war between Raphael and Lijuan, the dangers of the ongoing Cascade, the changes and threats to angel-, vampire- and humankind, Nalini Singh is also determined to have fun, playing around with different sub-genres. Archangel's Shadows was mostly a police procedural, this is an adventure novel, with a quest and a chase against time at its centre. Andromeda and Naasir are the unlikely pair who have to join forces, solve the puzzles and finish the quest before their rivals catch up to them. Yet there is also the complication of Andromeda's family obligations and the service she's expected to offer at her grandfather's court. The book doesn't end when the quest is complete, there is more to solve before the two lovers can have their HEA.

Naasir's origins have always been a mystery. He is clearly unique, in that he appears to be both a vampire, yet not. He has silver eyes and hair and an unparallelled ability to track. He can sprout claws, seems to occasionally purr and in previous books, there have been hints that he may sport stripes in the right light. He is both a ferociously efficient hunter and almost childlike in his manner. His found family means everything to him, and those close to him hold him in great affection. In this book, his brutal and heart-breaking origins are revealed, and it's clear why there is only one of him. I have always liked Naasir as a supporting character in the previous books, and he was a wonderful hero in this.

Born into the court of the Archangel of plague and pestilence, with parents who went out of their way to break any sexual, physical or moral taboo, Andromeda had enough and fled while she was still considered too young to take care of herself. Lying about her obligations to her family, she found a new home in the archives of the Refuge, immersing herself in ancient texts and languages, doing her very best to forget the day when she has to return. Yet knowing she can't be weak, she's been training herself in martial arts and swordplay, so she can defend herself when she finally has to return. Because of the debauched surroundings she grew up in, Andromeda has sworn a vow of celibacy, only to be broken if she is presented with an ancient Grimoire, believed to have been lost forever. Before she meets Naasir, Andromeda never had cause to regret her vow for a second.

Naasir initially doubts that Andi, as he calls her, can be his mate. She appears soft and bookish and no mate of his would swear a vow of celibacy. He quickly discovers that the angel has secrets, however, and that there is much more to her than he first expected. As the two grow closer, and their attraction to each other increases, Andromeda declares herself willing to break her vow for Naasir. He refuses to let her, because he's learned that it is imperative to keep one's promises, especially to oneself and swears he will track down her stupid Grimoire, and afterwards, she will let him do whatever he pleases. She willingly agrees, hoping that he can fulfil his promise before she has to start her forced servitude in her grandfather's court and give him up for centuries.


For all the darkness that is spreading in the the universe of these books, and for all the pain in both Naasir and Andromeda's past, their courtship is a playful one and this book was so much fun. It's by far my favourite of the Guild Hunter books since probably the second book in the series. I hope that some of the lightness can continue in future books, even as the overall story takes a more serious turn.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 96: "Archangel's Shadows" by Nalini Singh

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is book 7 in an ongoing series, and as such, not the place to start reading. This review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, because it's impossible not to mention some of the things that have happened before this book began. The first book in the series is Angels' Blood and I highly recommend it.

After the devestating attacks on New York, archangel Raphael and his consort Elena are trying to re-group, rebuild and calm the population. When a dessicated body is found, it looks like it was killed in a way reminiscent of how Lijuan, the insane archangel who tried to destroy New York, Raphael and his people, would drain her victims completely of life force to gain strength. Releasing the news of the body would only cause panic, so the death needs to be investigated with subtlety and stealth. Ashwini, one of Elena's old Guild Hunter colleagues is recovering from a near-fatal cut she sustained during the battle and is eager and willing to do some investigating. Like all Guild Hunters, Ashwini is a skilled tracker and can handle herself in a fight. She's also gifted and sometimes haunted with the ability to sense the secrets, memories and experiences of those she touches, often suffering terrible nightmares after just brushing against someone by accident. With older immortals, like some of the angels or vampires in the city, she doesn't even need to touch, their mere presence is enough to trigger her visions.

One of the few people who doesn't affect her in such a way is Janvier, the centuries old Cajun vampire who has sometimes been her target, but more often her ally. He has wanted Ashwini since the first time he saw her, and as the years have passed and they have sparred, flirted and co-operated more frequently, his feelings for her have only grown. She keeps him at a distance, but after she nearly died in the battle for New York, Janvier is determined to never leave her side. He knows that there are secrets in her past that make her reluctant to take their relationship to the next level, but having lived for centuries, he's not averse to waiting a while for her to make up her mind. Now they need to track down the monster who slowly tortured and murdered a young woman, making sure her killer doesn't hurt anyone else.

Unlike in most of the books in this series, Ashwini and Janvier already know each other well by the start of the book. Their first encounter involved Ashwini having to hunt down the vampire, who had gone rogue from his angel master and him leading her on a merry chase through the bayou of Louisiana. Over the course of the series, Janvier has gone to work for Raphael, the archangel of New York and he and Ashwini are allies rather than antagonists. There has always been strong attraction and sexual tension between them, but due to her abilities, Ashwini keeps herself from getting too close to anyone. While Janvier is one of the individuals she can be around, and who seems to actually keep her grounded, she can't bring herself to actually initiate a relationship with him, as there are secrets in her past that make it impossible for her to commit to anyone.

Janvier loves Ashwini and is none too happy that she nearly died recently. He wants to spend the rest of his immortal life with her, but due to the effect of older immortals on her abilities, Ashwini hates the idea of being turned into a vampire. She's worried it will amplify her powers, causing her to go insane from the sensory input. So she keeps flirting with Janvier, but taking it no further. Her near-death experience and the tender care that her Cajun took of her while she was recovering makes her want to tell him the full truth about why they can't be toghether. She's just terrified that the truth will drive him away forever.

While a lot of the previous books in the series (especially the ones focused primarily on Raphael and Elena) have driven the story arc forward, this is a quieter book, with a murder investigation in its centre. While trying to negotiate the new status of their relationship, Janvier and Ashwini try to identify the withered husk of a woman they found in a dumpster, so they can narrow down the suspects and discover who murdered her. Because the way she was killed is so similar to Lijuan's power, the Tower is very determined to track the guilty party quickly. As they keep investigating, it seems the murder of the young woman might be connected to a strange new drug that causes uncontrollable blood lust among the vampires in the city. All signs point to someone further trying to destabilize Raphael's territory, making his subjects feel unsafe.

There have been some hit and miss books in the series, but the last few, this included, I have very much enjoyed. I liked that Ash and her Cajun already knew each other well and that they just needed to figure out a way to really be together, without any of the drama of falling in love and acknowledging their new feelings. There is a big, established supporting cast in these books, including Raphael and Elena, and the vampires and angels that make up Raphael's most loyal followers, the Seven. Now several of them have spouses of their own, and it's clear that Naasir, the most feral and mysterious of all of them is ready to find a special someone of his own. I like that Elena is so determined to discover what he is, which seems to be some sort of cat shapeshifter/vamprire hybrid. I'm very much looking forward to discovering the truth behind his origins and who his intended turns out to be.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.