Wrap-up post: Alphabet soup

The 2014 Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge, hosted by Dollycas is one of several A to Z challenges online. The goal is to read one book starting with each letter of the alphabet. For Q, X and Z, the word starting with the letter could be anywhere in the title, but this year, I decided to see if I could use only books that started with the letters. I also wanted to read 26 different authors.

A - Archangel´s Legion - Nalini Singh
B - Between the Devil and Ian Eversea - Julie Anne Long
C - The Chaos of Stars - Kiersten White
D - Dreams of Gods and Monsters - Laini Taylor
E - Etiquette and Espionage - Gail Carriger
F - Fool Me Twice - Meredith Duran
G - The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker
H - Hero - Alethea Kontis
I - Innocent in Death - J.D. Robb
J - Jackaby - William Ritter
K - The Kraken King - Meljean Brook
L - Lost Lake - Sarah Addison Allen
M - Murder of Crows - Anne Bishop
N - Natural Born Charmer - Susan Elizabeth Phillips
O - The Outsiders - Susan E. Hinton
P - Poison Princess - Kresley Cole
Q - The Queen´s Fool - Philippa Gregory
R - Romancing the Duke - Tessa Dare
S - Scarlet - Marissa Meyer
T - Three Weeks with Lady X - Eloisa James
U - The Undead Pool - Kim Harrison
V - Vixen in Velvet - Loretta Chase
W - White Night - Jim Butcher
X - X Marks the Scot - Victoria Roberts
Y - You Had Me at Hello - Mhairi McFarlane
Z - Zoya - Danielle Steel

Challenge completed: 24th of December 2014

#CBR6 Book 137: "The Queen's Fool" by Philippa Gregory

Page count. 514 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Young Jewish girl Hannah Verde flees the Inquisition in Spain with her father after her mother is burned for heresy. They travel through Europe to England, calling themselves "Green" and making a new life for themselves as loyal Christians. Hannah´s father has a printing press and soon his skilled work comes to the attention of scholars like John Dee. While John Dee is visiting their print shop with his patron, Lord Robert Dudley, Hannah has one of her visions, seeing an angel over their shoulder. Her abilities make her a priceless resource for the Dudleys, who takes her to court and presents her to young King Edward as a "Holy Fool". Of course, they also want her to swear fealty to them. If she refuses to spy for them, they will reveal her Jewish origins and both Hannah and her father will be executed.

Besotted with the charming Lord Robert, enticed by the chance at independence and glamorous life at court, Hannah would much rather be a Holy Fool than work in her father´s print shop and at sixteen marry the young doctor´s apprentice her family have picked for her. Her loyalties are tested when she is sent to spy on the Princess Mary for the Dudleys, but grows to admire and love the rightful heir to the throne, even though she suspects the Duke of Northumberland of having sinister plans for the royal succession. When Mary becomes Queen of England, she keeps Hannah with her, trusting her visions as a gift from God. She too needs Hannah to work as a spy, however, keeping watch over the Princess Elizabeth and making sure Protestant plots to put the Queen´s sister on the throne are not successful.

Throughout, Hannah´s father, and Daniel, her fiancee, are deeply worried about her and not at all happy that she is defying traditional female virtues by appearing in breeches and Fools´ motley, the pawn of powerful men and women with the power to destroy as easily as they can protect. As religious persecution in England becomes more aggressive, they flee to France. But Hannah feels unable to leave either the Queen she serves or the charismatic Princess she´s also grown so attached to.

The Mama´s Cannonball review of this book convinced me to give Philippa Gregory another chance. I wasn´t all too impressed with her writing in The Other Boleyn Girl and even less so in The Boleyn Inheritance. I suspect that may be because I did part of my history degree on the Tudors, with Henry VIII and Elizabeth I as speciality fields. I´m more fuzzy on the details about little Edward and Mary I, however, and I know very little specific about the persecution of Jews throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, so this book was a lot more interesting to me. While I think it may be a bit anachronistic how independent Hannah wanted to be, how reluctant she was to conform to the traditional role of women of the time and how demanding she was of equality in her future marriage, Hannah did also serve a woman who ruled as Queen in her own right and a Princess who would go on to be the most fiercely independent woman in Europe. So as female role models go, it´s not surprising that she didn´t just want to conform, keep silent and be controlled like the chattel most Medieval women were treated as.

I totally understand the popularity of "sexy history" like Philippa Gregory´s novels, The Tudors, The Borgias and Reign and when I´m able to turn off the part of my brain who screams about inaccuracies, simplifications, anachronisms and the like, I am usually a big fan. There are after all the attractive actors, the sumptuous costumes and tons of exciting intrigue. This book was incredibly engrossing. I am worried that a lot of people take the heavily fictionalised accounts of these historical events as fact (although I have trouble seeing how anyone can do anything but suspend their disbelief when watching Reign), but at the same time, it´s good that the history doesn´t become entirely forgotten. Hopefully some are inspired to find out the truth behind the fiction. As my final book for the Alphabet soup challenge of this year, I´m glad I picked something so entertaining. I may give some of the other Gregory books from time periods I´m more hazy about a try over the course of 2015.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 136: "Zoya" by Danielle Steel

Page count: 512 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Zoya Ossupov, a young noblewoman, second cousin to the Tsar himself, lives a sheltered life of luxury in St. Petersburg. When the revolution breaks out, Zoya´s grandmother, who has seen which way the wind was blowing, bundles up the many garments they´ve sown jewellery into and Zoya and they flee the country through Finland. Having lost her father, mother and elder brother in only a few days and worrying about the safety of her cousins the Romanovs, who were placed in house arrest by the revolutionaries, Zoya has to make a new life for herself in Paris with her grandmother and the one loyal servant who came with them.

Going against the express wishes of her stately grandmother, Zoya auditions with the Ballet Russe and starts supporting their little family as a ballet dancer. The only other money they have is the pittance they can get from selling their family heirlooms, in a market already flooded with Russian treasures. Zoya rejects the elderly Russian prince and the young lodger that her grandmother tries to match her with. Her grandmother wants her to be safe, Zoya wants to marry for love. She falls for an American officer, but he´s old enough to be her father and believes she would be better off without him. Only towards the end of the first World War he realises that they cannot fight their attraction, and Zoya becomes a society darling in New York.

She´s blissfully happy until the Wall Street crash, suddenly widowed with two small children to support. Once again, Zoya´s willingness to work hard sees her safe and comfortable within a few years, and eventually she even finds love again. Then the second World War arrives, and both Zoya´s new husband and son are determined to fight for their country. Will another conflict cost her more of the people she loves?

I´m pretty sure that this is the first novel I´ve ever read by Danielle Steel, and having read it, I can see both why her books are incredibly popular among some readers, and completely panned by others. I´m not going to pretend that I thought this was great literature, some of the descriptions and info dumping was a bit heavy handed and the plot was possibly a bit too packed, but it was an entertaining book and it reminded me that I´ve always found the Romanov family and their fate fascinating (even before I watched Anastasia. So it´s spurred me to add two non-fiction books about them to my TBR list and they will be part of my reading list for CBR7.

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 117: "Jackaby" by William Ritter

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

 From the Goodreads synopsis, because it's been a month since I read it, and the blurb is part of what drew me in:

Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R.F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary - including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby's assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer on the loose. The police are convinced it's an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it's a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police - with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane - deny. 

Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter's debut novel which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assissant in a tale brimming with cheeky humour and a dose of the macabre. 

I can absolutely see why the publishers decided to mention both Doctor Who and Sherlock in an attempt to draw readers to this book, which I first saw mentioned by The Book Smugglers. The gorgeous cover and the interesting blurb made me curious, and I saved the book to read during October's 24-hour Readathon. I'm glad I did. I'm assuming the Doctor Who comparisons come from the fact that we see the story through the eyes of a clever young woman, like so many of the Doctor's companions through the years. Jackaby himself is clearly at least partly modelled on Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock, both in looks and mannerisms. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective is even name checked early in the book. Yet there is a supernatural twist to this Victorian mystery, involving a number of creatures from Gaelic mythology. There are ghosts, a man turned into a duck, a werewolf and some fairly gruesome murders.

Abigail Rook is a delightful narrator. Having run away from her family's expectations to join an archaeological dig (and finding it rather dull), she ends up on a ship to America. Trying to find a job, so she doesn't have to return home, she meets the eccentric and mysterious Jackaby, who's looking for a new assistant. He's not at all sure she is suited for the position, but after accompanying him to a crime scene and impressing him with her quick thinking and admirable common sense, a nice balance to his own off-beat thinking, he agrees to keep her on for a trial basis.

Having been granted room and board, Abigail discovers that Jackaby's landlady appears to be the ghost of the woman who once owned the house, one of his former assistants is now a duck who lives by a pond on the third floor and there are more things between heaven and earth than was dreamt of in her philosophy. As it becomes obvious that they're dealing with a dangerous serial killer, Ms. Rook grows closer to Charlie Cane, probably the only police detective in New Fiddleham who will give Jackaby the time of day.

I figured out the identity of the murderer fairly early on in the story, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment in the slightest, as the main thrust of the story doesn't really seem to be unmasking the killer, but just watching Abigail and Jackaby's partnership develop. I loved that there isn't even a hint of romance between the two of them, although there are romantic possibilities elsewhere in the story. I loved the faerie elements and the various supernatural entities that make up part of Jackaby's world. While Abigail can see some of them, she is in some ways the Scully to his Mulder, and there is nothing wrong with that. The story had a very nice build towards a very tense and dramatic conclusion, the world building is creative, the characters are lots of fun to spend time with. As this is Ritter's debut novel, I have no idea if he is planning any more books about the characters, but the ending is open enough that there are promising possibilities. I will happily spend more time with Ms. Abigail Rook and her strange boss.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read,

#CBR6 Book 116: "X Marks the Scot" by Victoria Roberts

Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 2 stars

It will come as no surprise to anyone who actually bothers to read my blog, or check out my Cannonball progress, that I read a LOT. So much so that, fingers crossed, while I severely doubt I will be able to complete the triple Cannonball this year (it nearly killed all my joy of reading last year), if I actually manage to complete my current backlog of reviews and keep going, I will at least have completed more than two and a half the requirement, which isn't shabby, by any means.

Because just competitively reading and blogging and collecting money for cancer charities as a nice bonus somehow wasn't enough, last year, inspired by one of my chief CBR competitors, Jen K (who sadly has not updated her blog since July), I started finding reading challenges. All sorts of reading challenges, to force myself to vary my reading material a bit and occasionally force me out of my comfort zone. One of the challenges I'm doing this year is Alphabet Soup, where you try to read one book starting with each letter of the alphabet (you're allowed to remove articles like a, an and the from the start of the book) and for Q, X and Z the word with the challenge letter can actually be anywhere in the title. But where's the fun in that? So this year, I decided to try to see if I could find books that ACTUALLY started with all the letters of the alphabet. No convenient shortcuts (we'll see what happens with Q and Z, the only two letters I now have left this year).

This long preamble is all to justify why I would ever have voluntarily read X Marks the Scot. The title is dumb enough that I might have been tempted, but the cover, with a bronzed, oiled Highlander * didn't exactly fill me with confidence. I read a lot of romance, though, and so when the universe saw fit to provide me with one starting with X (there are not a whole lot of books out there in ANY genre with titles starting with X), I pretty much had to give it a go.

* Seriously, have ANY of the cover designers for these things ever been to Scotland? Especially the Scottish Highlands - it is not a place to run around shirtless, and you would have to work pretty hard to get a tan. I used to live in Scotland, and I rarely in my six years there had to worry about getting sun burned.

So what is this glorious piece of fortuitous fiction about, you ask? Apparently the second book in the series awesomely titled Bad Boys of the Highlands, because OF COURSE it is, this book concerns the romance of Declan MacGregor and Lady Liadain Campbell. They clearly originally met in the first book, where there appears to have been some sort of kidnapping plot orchestrated by Liadain's evil half-brother (now executed for his crimes), where Liadain selflessly risked her life to save women and children from the MacGregor clan and at some point there was a rescue operation where Declan's dagger ended up against Liadain's throat. Don't you just love those 17th Century meet cutes? Now Liadain is a ward of King James (VI of Scotland, I of England) and the Campbell lands are her very tempting dowry. Declan keeps hanging around the court, allegedly to keep an eye on Liadain, and it's clear that they find each other very attractive even though they're clans were mortal enemies. Not that this stops Declan from sowing his wild oats all over the place and showing off his wicked archery skills. This bad boy of the Highlands has no plans of settling down.

Liadain was the healer of her family (because of course she was) and as she plies her healing trades, malicious tongues start whispering about witchcraft. Declan is worried about this and asks her to be more circumspect. Conveniently to the plot, Liadain's ex, one of the king's trusted advisers show up, and because he's also worried that Liadain may be accused of witchcraft, he cunningly orchestrates an archery competition where the Campbell lands are the prize. Of course Declan wins it. But oh noes! There's a catch. The only way to get the lands is by marrying the lady whose dowry it is. You don't really refuse to marry one of the king's wards, especially when it's extremely beneficial to you and your family and so Declan and Liadain are stuck with each other until death do them part.

Which may be sooner than they may have thought, as this book also happens to take place right around the time of the Gunpowder Plot, yup that one, with Guy Fawkes and "Remember, remember, the fifth of November". Oh yes. A number of noblemen plotting to assassinate King James, and for reasons that never became clear to me, although I think they may have involved gaining control of the Campbell lands, Declan is implicated as one of the chief conspirators (despite the fact that being very publicly back on route to his new estate in the Scottish Highlands should have been ample alibi for anyone). It's very dumb.

Suffice to say, this is not a great book. If it hadn't been such a perfect fit for my reading challenge, combined with the fact that I'm really rather stubborn and a book has to be either exceptionally awful or very long for me to abandon it, I probably wouldn't have finished it. I am quite certain that I'm not going to go out of my way to seek out any other books by Victoria Roberts. I am certainly not going to bother reading the other two books in the series. If you're curious, it's not an awful book, by any means, and I did get a kick of the way the Gunpowder plot was shoe-horned to add drama to the story. There is, however, so much GOOD romance out there. Why would you read sub-par stuff. Unless you too are doing an A to Z challenge. In that case, you're welcome - here is the book you need for X.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 105: "Etiquette & Espionage" by Gail Carriger

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Sophronia Temminnick is not all a proper young lady should be. She'd much rather be climbing trees, spying on conversations in the dumb-waiter and dismantle machinery than converse politely over tea. So her mother sends her off to boarding school, more specifically Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. Sophronia makes new friends on her way there. Miss Dimity Plumleigh-Teignmott and her brother Pillover are both being sent away to school (Pillover is to go to a boy's academy, naturally) and discover that Sophronia has no idea what kind of school she's enrolling in.

The youngsters are attacked by sky pirates on their way to school and Sophronia's quick thinking to get them out of the dangerous situation makes her a possible new enemy. It turns out that the school is in fact a training academy in the covert arts and espionage and the young ladies must learn how to fight, sneak and even possibly assassinate, in addition to learning comportment and proper manners. Sophronia and her new friends (among them a Scottish noblewoman raised by werewolves and a cross-dressing urchin with a passion for inventions) do their best to foil Sophronia's nemesis, trying to recover a stolen prototype before it gets sold to enemies of the state.

I mostly very much enjoyed Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series and there is no denying that the woman has a very colourful and creative imagination. Her alternate Victorian England with vampires, werewolves, Steampunk and the like is a delight and while some of her quirks may get a bit exasperating, her books tend to be entertaining, if not always the heaviest in substance.

Etiquette & Espionage is the first book in her new series for Young Adult reader, and it's actually set quite some time before the Parasol Protectorate books. Readers of both series will be pleased to see younger versions of Lady Kingair and Genevieve Lefoux and I have no doubt that as the series continues, there will be more familiar faces.

Carriger is fond of a headstrong heroine (as well as truly outrageous names). I actually think Sophronia is a more likable heroine than Alexia (who could be a bit of a pill), but it's clear to see that Carriger's pattern of pragmatic and impetuous protagonist paired with a ditzy, somewhat silly best friend is re-used in this series. The third book in the Finishing School series is out at the beginning of November, and if I don't get round to catching up this year, I'm sure I will revisit Sophronia and her little friends sometime in the new year.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 91: "You Had Me At Hello" by Mhairi McFarlane

Page count: 465 pages
Rating: 3 stars

SPOILER WARNING! There are plot spoilers in this review, as I found it impossible to express my feelings without going into specific plot details.

Rachel has just broken up with Rhys, her boyfriend of fourteen years, who she'd been dating since University. Once they got into an argument about what band to have at their wedding, it became obvious to her that they really didn't have a future together, and she's been staying with him more out of habit than anything else. Now they have to divide the furniture, she has to get a new place and live on her own for the first time as an adult. Her friends are supportive, but also rather concerned about her.

She runs into Ben, her best friend from University, shortly after moving out of her and Rhys' shared house. Due to a series of complications, mainly that Rachel was dating Rhys for most of her time at Uni, Ben and Rachel only ever shared one night together, but Rachel has never really been able to forget Ben, and what might have been. Now Ben is a lawyer and married to a pretty lady, newly moved to Manchester and eager to make new friends. He's very happy to see Rachel again, but clearly in no way romantically interested in her.

I got this book on the recommendation of my friend Elizabeth, who loves it and has apparently re-read it a number of times. Unfortunately, I cannot share in this love. All I can muster is a tepid like, mainly because I liked the flashbacks to Ben and Rachel's time together at Uni and I enjoyed Rachel's interaction with her group of friends. I mainly found present day Rachel incredibly frustrating, however, and while I absolutely applaud her ending a dead end relationship before she ended up married to the man who was all wrong for her, desperately stalking her old school friend who she never gave the time of day until the very end of their time together at University because she was too oblivious to notice him, and then apparently pining for him for the next ten years (despite being in a relationship to another man) and sort of hoping that he will be miserable with his wife, is no way to endear yourself to me.

A romance where one of the parties is currently in a committed relationship is always frustrating to me, because for the romance to work out, said party clearly has to break up their current relationship to find happiness with the non-committed party, or even worse, cheat on their current partner. That sort of thing makes me uncomfortable. I liked Ben. I can see why Rachel fancied him. What I cannot understand is why it took her four years of Uni in an unsatisfying relationship to Rhys to notice that Ben was great, spend one night with him when she broke up with Rhys briefly because he was being an inconsiderate idiot, just to run straight back into his dead-beat arms when he decided to make a half-hearted gesture at her graduation ball. You don't get to mourn for the one who got away when you're pretty much the person who forced him to get over you by picking another, Rachel!

While breaking up with Rhys before they end up married and miserable, some of the choices Rachel makes in her professional life are less than stellar as well. She keeps trusting the wrong people and making dubious decisions. I tried so hard to like her, and see why my friend loved this book so much, and it just did not work for me. Ben was sweet, the flashbacks were fun, and the supporting cast were enough that I can give it a thin 3 stars. It also allowed me to complete another book in my Alphabet soup challenge, but I'm certainly not going to be re-reading this. If I owned it in physical book form, it would be donated to a charity shop. Sorry, Elizabeth.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 88: "Natural Born Charmer" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Dean Robillard seemingly has it all. He's one of the top quarterbacks of the NFL, a profitable modelling contract for men's underwear, good looks, scores of admirers, good friends - yet something is missing. He's driving cross country to the ranch he bought on a whim, when he spots an angry young woman in a beaver costume on the side of the road. Curious and entertained, he gives her a ride, and quickly discovers that Blue Bailey has quite the temper on her. She's also got barely a dollar to her name, having had her bank and savings account cleared out only days earlier. Since she keeps him from being bored, he allows her to stay in the car with him.

When they arrive at Dean's ranch, Blue discovers that she's not the only one with complex family issues. Her mother travels the world righting wrongs and demonstrating against corrupt governments, and how can you hate a woman for clearing out all the money you have saved in the world when she took it to ransom kidnapped orphan girls in Columbia? How can you resent a mother who seems to have time for all manner of other oppressed, but let her daughter go from foster home to foster home until she never allows herself to get attached to anyone? Dean, on the other hand, has a mother who used to be a famous groupie, and an absentee rock star father. He's not interested in contact with either of them, so when he discovers that his remorseful mother is the one who's been pretending to be his new housekeeper, and has lovingly been restoring his new ranch, and his newly motherless half-sister runs away and shows up on his front porch, he's none too happy. He presents Blue as his new fiancee to his estranged family, but Blue doesn't want to play along. She's built nearly impenetrable walls around her heart, and isn't about to be seduced by a gorgeous playboy with a charming demeanour.

While there was quite a lot that I wasn't all that fond of in the early Chicago Stars books, I found Match Me If You Can (where Dean Robillard plays an important supporting role) and this to be rather delightful, probably because they are the ones that reminded me most of the best contemporary romances by Jennifer Crusie. The protagonists have some commitment issues that get in the way of them settling down right away, but it's rarely anything too traumatising. There's a colourful gallery of supporting characters who keep doing zany things, which helps with the screwball feel of the plots. Both Blue and Dean have very understandable trust issues and it would be extremely unrealistic for them to rush into a committed relationship. That the tone of the book is mostly frothy and entertaining rather than dark and depressing is what makes it such an enjoyable read.

If you're new to Susan Elizabeth Phillips, I would, having now read all of her Chicago Stars books, recommend that you stick to the later ones in the series, and most important of all, that you stay FAR away from book 5: This Heart of Mine. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 67: "Vixen in Velvet" by Loretta Chase

Page count. 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Leonie Noirot is the youngest of the three Noirot sisters, and the only one still unmarried and able to spend all her energies on running Maison Noirot, the sisters' successful dressmaking shop in St. James. The eldest sister, Marcelline (from Silk is for Seduction) is currently pregnant and rather indisposed and the middle sister Sophy (from Scandal Wears Satin) is off on an extended wedding trip in Scotland until the scandal surrounding her nuptials dies down. Each sister has their own strengths, in Leonie's case, it's finance. She's a mathematical prodigy, but because she's also the most practical and level-headed of the three sisters, she knows how important it is that the shop keeps bringing in new customers and stays popular among the fashionable ladies.

While out advertising one of the shop's many elegant outfits, Leonie is struck mute by the Botticelli painting of Mars and Venus and then by its owner, the insanely handsome Simon Blair, Marquess of Lisburne. He, is in return very taken with Leonie, and decides that his stay in London might not be as boring as he had previously feared. Lisburne is in London to make sure his cousin, the sensitive Lord Swanton, who currently can't go anywhere without being mobbed by adoring young ladies, doesn't get into trouble. Swanton published a volume of poetry that became unexpectedly best-selling, and he wants to use his new-found celebrity to do some good, speaking at various charity benefits to great acclaim. Lisburne is worried that someone will take advantage of his cousin, so guards him carefully.

Leonie decides that to really show off the skills of the dressmakers at Maison Noirot is to transform Lisburne's cousin, the rude, insecure and extremely gawky Lady Gladys Fairfax, into an elegant and sought after swan. Lisburne would rather Leonie focus on him than on dresses, spread sheets and his cousin Gladys, so Leonie proposes a wager. If she can make Lady Gladys so popular the woman receives a marriage proposal in a mere two weeks, Lisburne has to give her his Botticelli painting. If Leonie fails, which Lisburne is convinced she must, Leonie has to become Lisburne's mistress, and give him two full weeks of her undivided attention.

It's been two years since Scandal Wears Satin came out, and as I found that book one of the most disappointing Loretta Chase had ever written, I was very much hoping that the postponed publication date for this book meant that it would be of a higher quality. While it's not going to join my all time favourite romances, or even the top five of Chase's works, it is a much better book than her last two and a return to form for one of the masters of the romance genre.

Leonie is so focused on her work and making sure her family business is running smoothly. She has clearly never taken the time to relax and enjoy herself, being the pragmatic, sensible and most level-headed of her sisters. So when Lisburne comes along and pretty literally sweeps her off her feet, insisting on distracting her, taking her to the circus, for drives in the park and forcing her to forget about finances and have a little fun on occasion. The Noirots come from a long line of charmers, schemers and scoundrels and are usually far too easily swayed by their emotions. Leonie has up until now never been in love, or met anyone who could even vaguely inspire her to be, but the stunning and dangerously charming Lisburne, who she keeps comparing to a Roman or Greek god, completely discombobulates her.

Lisburne knows that he's ridiculously attractive, so it's a change of pace for him when Leonie acknowledges this, but still goes about her daily life almost forcefully ignoring him. Up until recently, when every woman in the room started swooning around his cousin, Lisburne's clearly never really had to work to woo a woman, and Leonie provides an interesting challenge. He's obviously not looking for any long term commitment, but the more time he spends with Leonie, the more fascinated he is with her.

If you've read any of Loretta Chase's books from before her Dressmaker-series, I'm happy to recommend this as another book of hers that will entertain you and while away a few hours. I was engrossed enough that I stayed up until the early hours of the morning to finish it (thank God for summer vacation!). The secondary romance in the book, involving Lady Gladys is also very enjoyable, if not exactly surprising or ground-breaking. As far as I can tell, the next Loretta Chase book will be about the Noirots' sister-in-law, Lady Clara, and because this was so much fun, I'm now very much looking forward to it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 58: "The Kraken King, parts 5-8" by Meljean Brook

Total page count: 350 pages
Part Five: The Kraken King and the Iron Heart - 4.5 stars
Part Six: The Kraken King and the Crumbling Walls - 4 stars
Part Seven: The Kraken King and the Empress's Eyes - 4.5 stars
Part Eight: The Kraken King and the Greatest Adventure - 4 stars

Parts 1-4 reviewed here.

Zenobia and Ariq are over the initial awkward state getting to know one another and actually falling in love part of their relationship. That doesn't mean that their communication runs smoothly and that there are no more cultural and emotional misunderstandings in their future together. There is also very real danger to Ariq's friends and family if he and Zenobia can't convince the Empress of Nippon that the rebel attacks are a clever plot against her, from people she believes are loyal supporters. If they can't convince the Empress, then they'll have to take the dangers on themselves, but the dangers are great and there are numerous obstacles in their way.

In part five, Zenobia and Ariq are separated and we discover the lengths Ariq is willing to go to get back to the woman he's fallen for. Zenobia has clearly learned a lot during her adventures, and is no shrinking violet either. She's not going to sit around being used as a bargaining piece and doesn't hesitate to try to rescue herself. In part six, Zenobia finally reveals the truth about her double identity and literary career to her friend Helene, and she and Ariq wait for the Empress to grant them an audience. In part seven, it turns out that the Empress isn't above using torture to get to the bottom of the plots against her, and Zenobia discovers that she's not strong enough to watch the the man she's come to love being forced to suffer. They need to escape the Empress' forces, and get help from an unexpected quarter. In part eight, Ariq and Zenobia race back to Krakentown, hoping to beat the Empress' forces there. They need to use the fearsome weapon Ariq has been hiding to eliminate the threat to their loved ones, once and for all.

I managed to wait until the final part was released to read the last four, which meant that I didn't need to worry about pesky cliff hangers. In these four instalments, the story changes its focus from Zenobia and Ariq's blossoming romance to the solving of the central underlying conflict set up in the first half, with the mysterious attacks on flying ships by unknown assailants. Unable to persuade the Empress' captain of the guard of where the true danger lies, as she and others are chiefly interested in the powerful war machine only Ariq knows the location of, he and Zenobia have to rely on themselves, their friends and allies in defending Krakentown.

In my review of the first four parts, I emphasised how much I enjoyed the ethnic diversity of the characters in The Kraken King and the nuance in which they are portrayed. I should also point out that most of the significant characters in this story are women, to a degree unusual even in paranormal/urban fantasy, which tends to be chiefly written by women and most often features female protagonists. It's sad that I feel the need to point this out, but Meljean Brook shows how easy it could be for any number of writers to do the same thing. While her books are set in an alternate historical world, the degree of equality between the sexes seems unusual in the genre, and I applaud that, even as I hope that more fantasy (and normal contemporary writers) follow suit.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 55: "The Kraken King, parts 1-4" by Meljean Brook

Total page count: 335 pages

Part One: The Kraken King and the Scribbling Spinster - 4 stars
Part Two: The Kraken King and the Abominable Worm - 4 stars
Part Three: The Kraken King and the Fox's Den - 4.5 stars
Part Four: The Kraken King and the Inevitable Abduction - 4 stars

Because The Kraken King is being published in eight weekly instalments, I'm going to blog the first four as one book, and the final four as another, mainly because I don't want to wait until I've read all the parts to share my feels so far. So to anyone reading - be aware that there is more to come.

Zenobia Fox is used to a quiet life in Fladstand (on the north-East coast of what we'd know as the US). The only bursts of any kind of excitement are when she occasionally gets abducted and held for ransom, because her brother is a tremendously wealthy adventurer and explorer, married to a ruthless and fierce airship captain (see Heart of Steel). Zenobia is the woman who chronicles their adventures, in stories everyone believes to be fiction. Her childhood friend Helene, however, knows nothing of her secret life as an author, and believes her to be a widow very conscientious about her correspondence. She asks Geraldine (Zenobia's real name) to accompany her on a journey to Nippon (Japanese-controlled areas of what we'd know as Northern Australia.) and Zenobia eagerly accepts. It will give her a chance to see some of the parts of the world she's only ever read about in her brother's letters, and ideas for her new stories.

At first, everything seems to be going well, with Zenobia's mercenary bodyguards posing as her maid and late husband's valet. When the airship they are on is shot down by bandits, Zenobia gets to experience more adventure than she had hoped for. They are rescued by none other than the Kraken King, a legendary warrior who fought the Mongolian Horde, but now wishes to live peacefully as governor of his little settlement. He needs to figure out who is behind the bandit attacks in the area and stop them, because the Nipponese Empress and her forces will obliterate all threats first and ask questions later. He is intrigued by Zenobia and her fortitude. She needs to hide her true identity, and is, as always, worried that people will use her to get to her brother. Ariq, the Kraken King, believes she may be a spy or foreign agent, and is determined to figure out what she is hiding, while also trying to tempt her into his bed.

While both keep their cards close to their chest, unaware of how much their mutual secrecy is complicating matters between them, Ariq and Zenobia's attraction towards one another grows. Zenobia and Helene need to get to Nippon, for Helene to be reunited with her husband as quickly as possible (as the lady is expecting, and can't really pass it off as her husband's if she hasn't seen him in months). Zenobia just wants to write her stories and protect her brother, while Ariq needs to prove to himself that the fascinating woman he just met and is falling for isn't a dangerous spy who could bring down destruction on him and his town.

I love Meljean Brook's Iron Seas books. The world-building of her Steampunk alternate history world is fascinating. She has a very useful guide to her fictional world here, complete with world map. The previous books, The Iron Duke, Heart of Steel and Riveted have focused mostly on the European parts of this world, with the Mongolian Horde as the villains of the piece. Now she moves the action East, and shows us other exciting aspects of the world. Here Zenobia and Helene, as a white females are in a definite minority, and we see that not all the Horde are ruthless villains, and some of them were just as opposed to the world domination plans of their rulers as those who were occupied in Europe and Africa.

There is absolutely a romance at the centre of the story here, but because of the instalments, it builds slowly and there are all sorts of obstacles and misunderstandings that get in the way for the happy couple. Each instalment is about three to four chapters long, and frequently ends on a cliff-hanger. In the first part, Zenobia and Ariq meet and Zenobia's airship crashes. In the second, their party is attacked by a terrifying gigantic boiler worm on the way to a smuggler's settlement. In part three, Ariq tries to hunt down the bandit's in the various smuggler's settlements and discovers Zenobia's true identity when he rescues her from a kidnapping attempt, and in part four, he and Zenobia are in fact (as the title suggests) abducted, but not because someone wants to hold Zenobia for ransom. No, it's Ariq the abductors want. Zenobia is just taken for leverage.

I'm glad I waited until the four parts were out, so I could read it all in one go. Even so, it was very exciting to get an e-mail notification every Tuesday announcing that the next part was available for download. I can see why some fans were annoyed at Brook's decision to publish this way, but I very much enjoyed the serial format. My review of the second half of the story will follow soon.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 48: "Innocent in Death" by J.D. Robb

Page count: 385 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

This is book 24 in the In Death series. I wouldn't recommend starting with this one, although if you're interested in plot summaries of earlier ones, I've reviewed most of the previous ones on the blog.

Craig Foster is planning a history quiz for his pupils at a New York private school while having lunch, and dies horribly from ricin poisoning at his desk. The two schoolgirls who find his dead body are deeply traumatised. Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her partner Delia Peabody have to figure out who could possibly have wanted the young and seemingly universally popular dead. As they start investigating the staff and various parents, they discover a number of juicy secrets that Foster may have been privy to, but none of them seem to be bad enough that someone would murder a man. Then a second body is found in the school, and the hunt for the killer has to be intensified.

It doesn't help that Dallas' attention is divided. Blonde bombshell Magdalena Purcell, one of Roarke's former lovers, is certainly no innocent. Recently divorced, she's back in town, allegedly seeking investment advice from her old friend, and Eve, who is normally never suffers from jealousy or doubts, is shaken to discover that this woman gets under her skin like no other. Roarke seems completely blind to the woman's manipulation, and keeps getting more and more furious that Eve's trust in him is waning. Yet Eve can't rest easy, and as the sultry Magdalena keeps popping up, the tensions in her marriage keep rising.

My records show that I only read a single In Death book last year. I find them deeply comforting, like an episode of a procedural I've followed for years, but I can only read a few at a time, before they get too samey. I know what I can expect from the books and they tend to be quick and entertaining reads, following the same formula. Eve will work hard and doggedly to track down murderers, getting cranky and baffled by strong emotions or perfectly normal social conventions. Peabody and McNab will flirt and make her uncomfortable because of their PDAs. Peabody will be overly focused on food and her figure, but also provide an important stabilising influence on Eve. McNab will wear outrageous clothes. Roarke will be devastatingly gorgeous as always, insist on dressing and one or several of his business interests will be involved in the case in some way as he knows most of the known world. Summerset and Eve will quibble. Mavis will be bubbly, outrageous and colourful. Dr. Mira will be calm and give Eve wise professional and motherly personal advice. The mysterious candy thief will probably have stolen one of Eve's candy bars. I'll keep getting annoyed that Pepsi apparently has a soft drink monopoly in the future.

What was different in this book was the tension introduced in Eve and Roarke's marriage. Normally Eve has no cause for jealousy, despite knowing that Roarke had lovers before he met her. Yet Magdalena is clearly a manipulative piece of work, and masterfully plays the spouses against each other. It doesn't help Eve's worries that Summerset, normally her nemesis, steps forward to warn her, claiming that Roarke never had the ability to see the way the scheming con artist played him, and the fact that she possibly broke his heart will make him all the more vulnerable to his whiles now. Because the characters in the book feel like old friends, I obviously didn't like that they were unhappy, but while the books should follow a familiar pattern, they need to shake it up a bit occasionally, or the series would become unbearable. Janet Evanovich, I'm looking at you.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 41: "Three Weeks with Lady X" by Eloisa James

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Tobias "Thorn" Daultry is the eldest of the Duke of Villiers' seven illegitimate children. He spent the first part of his life, before he was rescued and taken in by his powerful father, as a mudlark in the Thames, risking his miserable life on a daily basis to dive for trinkets in the dangerous river currents. As an adult, he has made his own fortune, completely independent of his father, and is looking to settle down. He's decided that Letitia "Lala" Rainsford is the perfect bride for him. She's very beautiful and likely to be a kind mother to his children, and her father is in a financial bind, so unlikely to mind that Thorn is a bastard, what with him being obscenely wealthy as well. That's she's widely rumoured to be dumb as a box of hair is irrelevant to him, he doesn't require wits and brains in a wife. Lala's mother,  is his biggest obstacle. She's a snob and very proud of the fact that she was once an attendant to the queen. To win Miss Rainsford's hand in marriage, Thorn first has to impress his future mother-in-law.

He buys a large estate outside London, but the previous owner may or may not have used it as a brothel, and he needs someone with impeccable taste and breeding to decorate it for him. His step-mother, Lady Eleanor, recommends Lady Xenobia India St. Clair, who makes a living sorting out the households of others. India's parents were whatever the 18th Century version of hippies would be, certainly not very responsible, with India often having to barter so they'd get food on the table. After they died, she moved in with her godmother and now, nearly twenty-six years old, she'd like to find a nice, biddable gentleman who wouldn't mind her controlling the household and finances and settle down.

Sparks obviously fly from the first time Thorn and India meet. She reluctantly agrees to refurbish his entire house and get it ready for a house party in three weeks' time, as long as she has carte blanche and free reign to do as she pleases. They are both extremely attracted to each other, but neither can see a future with the other, not just because of the huge gap in their social statuses, but also because they are both so convinced they want a future with someone nice and calm and the complete opposite of their own forceful personalities.

This book has a lot going on in it. There's an orphaned little girl who I was worried was going to turn out to be an annoying plot moppet, who instead turns out to be a delightful addition to the story, even though her presence also naturally causes further complications. From the moment they first lay eyes on each other, it's clear to the reader that India and Thorn were meant to be together. The fun is in seeing what how many obstacles they have to work through to find their HEA. Not to spoil anything, but there are a LOT. This book got almost farcical at times in causing difficulties for the happy couple.

This book is the first of at least two books apparently intended as a continuation of Eloisa James' Desperate Duchesses series, in which the Duke of Villiers, Thorn's formidable father, a sometime villain earlier in the series, finally found his happy ending. He and his lovely lady appear as supporting characters in this book as well, and there are references to their romance, although I must admit that it's been so many years since I read it, that I probably have to re-read A Duke of Her Own to remind myself what happened.

Thorn is fairly formidable in his own right. He's huge, a big lug, one of Mrs. Julien's favourite attributes in a hero and very much an alpha male. He's not even vaguely ashamed of his illegitimacy, well aware that his looks and great wealth, as well as his father's status, can smooth over most obstacles in society. He loves conducting business and is something of an inventor, himself. He intends to be faithful to his wife once he settles down, and is clearly very fond of children, as evidenced by his interactions with his ward, Rose, the orphaned daughter of one of the other mudlarks from his past. When he is told it's best that she be kept hidden away during the house party, to make sure no one assumes she's his bastard daughter, he reluctantly agrees, but visits her every chance he gets.

India did not have an easy childhood, and has always sought calmness, predictability and order as a result. Happily travelling from household to household with her godmother as chaperone, she's received any number of marriage proposals (and less flattering offers) as she helps redecorate rooms, sort out unruly servants and generally use her powers of organising for the good of society friends, but she's ready to start a family of her own. It's quite clear that India is very used to taking care of everyone else, but won't really let anyone close enough to take care of her.

Thorn may be the son of a duke, but he was born on the wrong side of the sheets. India is the legitimate daughter of a marquess, and while her parents were flighty, irresponsible and left India virtually penniless, her position in society is still such that a match between them seems inappropriate. Thorn decides that his best friend, the future Duke of Pindar, would be a suitable match for her, but is of course so consumed with jealousy every time India or his buddy even glance at each other. Goodreads seems to suggest that said best bud is the hero of James' next book, so I'm looking forward to seeing who he ends up with in the end.

Romance novels frequently feature grand gestures, usually when the hero has messed up and needs to make amends. It can be the heroine who needs to make the grand gesture, but that's more the case in books of authors who like tweaking the genre conventions. This book has the most spectacular grand gesture I can remember having read in a romance in the last few years. I'm still rather amazed at the lengths Thorn goes to prove his love for his beloved. When Eloisa James is on form, I find her very enjoyable. This book had a lot of excellent banter, scorching attraction between the protagonists, a LOT of drama (possibly too much) and a very satisfying conclusion. She's not on the top of my favourites list, but I do tend to buy her books shortly after release, and this was a very good and diverting way to spend a few hours of my time.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 40: "The Chaos of Stars" by Kiersten White

Page count: 288 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

Disclaimer! I was granted an ARC of this book from HarperTeen via NetGalley in return for a fair and honest review.

Isadora is the youngest mortal daughter of Isis and Osiris, yup, those guys, the Egyptian gods. As seasons passed, and their believers started dying away, Isis found a solution to make sure she, her husband and all their immortal family still have worshippers, by having a mortal child every twenty years. She keeps them close, then sends them out into the world to manage on their own when they're old enough, but they still pray to their parents, thereby ensuring that the deities are not entirely forgotten. Said children can speak all known languages in the world, but Isadora doesn't seem grateful for such an awesome ability.

She's has been at odds with her mother since she got old enough to discover that the fun room she played in when she was little and was encouraged to decorate, was in fact her tomb. The situation doesn't improve when she discovers that her mother is pregnant again, ahead of schedule, as Isadora is only sixteen. She's none to happy about being replaced as the baby of the family, and when Isis (and Isadora herself, although she lies to her mother about it) start having very ominous dreams, she's thrilled to go along with the plan to travel to America to stay with her brother.

Her brother, twenty years her senior, is happily married and expecting a child of his own. Isadora, determined to be as sulky and disagreeable as possible, finds it impossible not to love her new sister-in-law. While she's in the US, she gets a summer job at museum, that's about to host an exhibit of ancient Egyptian artifacts donated by her mother (who everyone just thinks is an Egyptian eccentric). She makes friends with one of the other volunteers at the museum and meets the dreamy and mysterious Ry. While the ominous dreams appear to have stopped, her room at her brother's is broken into and thrashed. Later, the driver delivering the artifacts for the exhibit is attacked. Could her mother be right? Is there someone actually after her?

Isadora may be the daughter of gods, but she's also a pretty whiny and disagreeable brat for much of the book. So what if her father is the king of the underworld and sits at the breakfast table reading the morning papers in his mummy wrappings? It's a lot more fun than having a dad who's an accountant, girl. Her only character traits appear to be that she's very pretty (because of course she is) and has an overwhelming passion for interior decoration. To the point where her internal monologue is constantly critizising every single house and room she ever enters. Despite her surliness, she seems to have no trouble making friends in America. She also meets the unbelievably gorgeous Ry, whose full name is Orion (just like Isadora's favourite constellation, what are the odds? He naturally falls for her instantly, but Isadora keeps pushing him away, because love is for suckers and her parents' tendency to have offspring to ensure their own continued survival as gods has made her wary of trusting anyone.

She's really very self-centred, and not very smart. Ry's mysterious parentage was painfully obvious to me, as was the culprits behind the sinister plot against Isadora and her mother. Yet while I wanted to slap Isadora a whole load of times and tell her to snap out of it and grow up, I kept turning the pages to see where the story was going and I really did like the concept of ancient gods having mortal children to keep their names from being forgotten. I'm sad that the gorgeous cover and fun concept didn't play out into a particularly good book, but while I don't see myself re-reading the book, I certainly didn't hate it.

#CBR6 Book 37: "Dreams of Gods and Monsters" by Laini Taylor

Page count: 624 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

This is the third and concluding volume in a trilogy. I'm not sure I can actually review it without spoiling some of the previous books, so if you haven't read them, skip this for now. Do check out the previous two books, though, as they are YA fantasy at its best. Book 1, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is reviewed here, and book 2, Days of Blood and Starlight is here. I can also heartily recommend the companion novella Night of Cake and Puppets for those who have read the first two books, but possibly not discovered this delightful interlude giving us the first date of Zuzanna and her Violin Boy.

"Once upon a time, an angel and a devil pressed their hands to their hearts and started the apocalypse."

The last book, which was surprisingly dark and grim all the way through, considering how whimsical, mysterious and quite light the first book was. It certainly ended in a pretty dark and foreboding place, and the beginning of book three doesn't exactly promise puppies, kittens, sweetness and rainbows. Karou and Akiva have proposed an alliance between the remaining chimaera and the Misbegotten seraphs against Jael and his Dominion, and now they need to get both sides, enemies for millennia, to agree and accept. The fate of humanity and probably both their races is at stake. How can such an alliance be achieved, without bloodshed on either side? Even if they do succeed in forging a tentative detente, they are badly outnumbered against Jael's forces.

On Earth, the world is in uproar upon the arrival of angels. How is Eliza, a young grad student, plagued by horrible nightmares, connected with the visitors? Is it all an elaborate hoax? Who are the angels and what do they want? Why does their spokesman have such a strangely disfigured shadow?

Karou and Akiva are not aware that there are other challenges facing them as well. There is a mysterious and deadly young seraph queen hunting for Akiva, and the sky itself is starting to bruise. Will they ever live to see the fulfilment of their long ago dream, and is there any hope that with the fragile stalemate they are attempting to forge, they might also find a way to forgive each other?

I had massive expectations for this book, not helped in the slightest by Jen K's Cannonball review of the book. It was originally due for publication in 2013, but I'm glad the publishers gave Laini Taylor more time to complete the book, as concluding her trilogy was a monumental task. I'm so glad and relieved to say that it surpassed even my hopes. The book starts in a dark place, with the characters facing nearly impossible odds. Taylor alternates the story between Earth, our beloved protagonists in Eretz and other places in Eretz where its clear that seriously bad things are afoot. What in the world is powerful enough to bruise the sky? The sense of doom is so overpowering. I kept reading while nearly holding my breath, putting the book down every so often and reading something else, because if I didn't keep reading, bad things couldn't happen to the characters I loved. Of course, I wasn't able to stay away for long, reading on desperate to see what would happen next, and what incredible twists and turns Taylor would take the story in next.

There are new characters introduced here, and while it can seem frustrating to read about them at first, all the pieces fall into place in the end, in a beautiful jigsaw puzzle. The readers are finally allowed to discover how the portals between worlds occurred in the first place, and it makes the whole trilogy if possible even more tragic and poignant. I'm in awe of Taylor's writing, how she manages to keep the reader on edge, balancing the light and the dark, the funny with the sad, interspersing the heavy sense of doom with glimpses of hope and promises of redemption. There are no simple answers here. The characters feel real, with feelings, motivations and emotions. I cared deeply for them, and can't wait to go back and re-read the trilogy as a whole, seeing Taylor's ambitious fantasy vision played out in full.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 24: "Hero" by Alethea Kontis

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Saturday Woodcutter believes she is the only one of her many siblings without any magic, until the day when she throws a mirror out of the window in a rage, and conjures an ocean in the backyard. Because one of her brothers has run away and Saturday believes her ocean may have drowned him, she grabs her trusty axe (which has decided to change shape into a sword for the time being) and sets sail on her sister Thursday's pirate ship in order to try to locate him again. She's abducted by a giant bird and taken to an icy cave, towards the top of the highest mountain in the world. The blind witch there isn't actually all that skilled at magic and was attempting to kidnap Saturday's eldest brother, the adventurous Jack Woodcutter, who's the man who stole the witch's eyes in the first place.

Saturday is advised to keep silent about her true identity by Peregrine, a cross-dressing young man also trapped at the top of the mountain. The witch believes him to be her daughter, after the foolish young noble accepted a wish from what he thought was a kindly fairy. The wish was in fact a curse, and it allowed the witch's daughter to escape her mountain home, forcing Peregrine to take her place instead. He's lost track of the years he's spent there, trying to foil the witch's many plots. Peregrine dreams of breaking free of the curse and going back to his betrothed, who he believes he's seen in visions through much of his time in captivity. Imagine his surprise when he realises that the fearless warrior woman he's seen in visions and dreams is in fact Saturday.

Saturday, in turn, doesn't see why romance needs to have any part in her adventure, although she can't deny that she likes kissing Peregrine. To rescue him, and escape the mountain, it looks like she's going to have to kill the witch, who's dangerously close to opening a portal to a hell dimension. Of course, killing the witch may wake the slumbering dragon on the mountain top and kill them all. What's an adventurous young lady to do? It's not easy being a hero.

This is a sequel to Enchanted, where we first meet the Woodcutter family, and Saturday's youngest sister Sunday falls in love with a frog prince. Alethea Kontis doesn't really retell just the one fairy tale, instead mixing all sorts of elements from fairy stories, mythology, folk lore and adventure stories in a blender and throwing the results together into exciting young adult fantasy stories. While Sunday's story was sweet, I think I liked Saturday's story even more, as the gender reversal of the characters in this book really appealed to me.

Saturday is tall, and not particularly feminine, and comes from a family blessed with a number of magical gifts, without believing herself to have any. She's got an enchanted axe, and has been working with her woodcutter father and brother in the woods for much of her life. With a brother whose legendary for his quests and adventures, several sisters married to royalty and one who's off on the high seas being a pirate, Saturday never really imagined she'd get to leave on an exciting journey on her own. She's pragmatic and sensible, and not prone to daydreaming. She certainly never expected to find a man in a skirt, posing as a witch's assistant on the top of a mountain, confessing that he's dreamed about her since very likely decades before she was actually born. That's going to flummox the best of people.

As Saturday discovers on her adventure, you don't always choose to be a hero, sometimes circumstances just force you into it. She's a great character, as is Peregrine, who is a wonderful example of a beta hero, not at all concerned with the idea that Saturday is physically stronger or a more skilled fighter than he is. The curse the witch's daughter cast on him keeps him from aging while he's trapped, and gave him a much more feminine appearance than he was born with. He's learned to adapt to his long hair (which grows back if he tries to cut it) and being forced to dress in skirts, but has hidden every mirror he can find and tries to avoid reflective surfaces. His captivity is a fairly lonely one, especially after Jack Woodcutter managed to escape, having stolen the witch's eyes. His only friend is Betwixt, a chimera also captured by the witch, who's forced to change shape every time the witch does magic, unable to choose his own shape until the witch dies. The two make a wry and humorous odd couple, keeping each other company and trying to foil the witch as best they can.

I applaud Alethea Kontis' imagination and creativity and hope she keeps publishing at least a book a year. There are clearly more books coming in this series, and I hope that while sequels possibly also focus on other members of the Woodcutter family, this is not the the readers see of Saturday, Peregrine and Betwixt.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 21: "Murder of Crows" by Anne Bishop

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

This is the second book in the series of The Others. While you get enough information to read it without having read the first one, you should really do yourself a favour and start with Written in Red. It's the best paranormal/urban fantasy book I read last year, and deserves to be read by as many people as possible. This review will also contain minor spoilers for the first one, so you may want to come back and read it once you've finished book 1.

Having survived the assault on the Lakeside Courtyard, and saved the lives of many of the Others living there, Meg Corbyn is now even more beloved of the creatures who live there. They are fiercely protective of her, none more so than the leader of the supernatural creatures, Simon Wolfgard. Their changing relationship is confusing both Meg and Simon, although most of the other inhabitants of the courtyard find it amusing to watch them try to figure each other out. The Lakeside Others and their Meg aren't out of danger yet, however.

Two new drugs are being distributed in towns across the country, with the intent of harming the Others, and further research seems to suggest that they are both manufactured from the blood of cassandra sangues, blood prophets like Meg. There are attacks against shapeshifting Crows in several towns, and Meg keeps having visions about worse to come. The sinister Controller, who used to hold Meg captive wants her either returned to him, or eliminated entirely, to prevent her visions from aiding the Others in any way. The other blood prophets around the country, all captive and exploited for their prophetic ability, seem to see chaos and destruction as a result of the increased hostility from humans towards the supernatural creatures. The Others of Lakeside realise that unscrupulous humans cannot be allowed to control and take advantage of these special young women any longer, and steps must be taken to liberate them.

As I mentioned in my spoiler warning at the top of the review, Written in Red was by far the best paranormal fantasy I read in 2013 and to say that I was excited to read the sequel is an understatement. I can't quite put my finger on why I didn't love this as much as the first one in the series, but for reasons that are too vague for me to be able to properly articulate (real helpful, I know), I don't feel like I can rate the sequel a full five stars. That doesn't mean that Murder of Crows isn't a great book, and I suspect it will be in the top three paranormal books I read this year, depending on how well other favourite authors of mine, like Ilona Andrews and Seanan McGuire, deliver on their next books, coming out later this year.

The very interesting dynamic with the supernatural predators of the world being by far the strongest majority in Bishop's alternate version of North America continues to fascinate me. Making the reader sympathise and side with dangerous, fairly ruthless shapeshifters, vampires and elementals against the humans is a wonderful twist. Not all the humans are bad, of course, there is far more nuance and complexity here. Most of the police officers in Lakeside are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to keep the peace with the Others, if nothing because they have seen firsthand the devastation that the elementals and creatures like Tess can wreak if the humans keep upping their hostilities and attacks on supernaturals in other parts of Thaisia. While the first book was mainly confined to the Lakeside courtyard and the adjoining town, this book lets the reader get glimpses of the wider world, and the increasing tensions between the humans and the supernatural creatures. It's also obvious that most humans are unaware of that the Others don't just consist of shapeshifters and vampires, but also pretty much all the elemental forces you can imagine, and therefore have no idea what peril they are courting by provoking a war with them.

My favourite parts of these books are probably the smaller, quieter moments of the books with Meg learning to fit into the wider world, making friends with human women and Others alike, or trying to figure out why it's fine for Simon to share her bed as a wolf, but scary and unnerving to her when changes into his human form. There is clearly a romance building between the two, but it's a very slow burning one, with the relationship changing in small increments. Simon is confused and somewhat troubled about his attraction to a human, while Meg, having lived locked up and sheltered for most of her life, abused by her handlers, is having trouble even understanding why being close to Simon's human shape is more difficult to her than his wolf shape. She has so many new things to experience and become accustomed to, attraction just confounds her further.

I haven't been able to find out from Anne Bishop's website or other places online how many books she's planned for this series, whether it's a trilogy or if she has something more elaborate planned. All I know is that I'm completely hooked, and will be pre-ordering the next one as soon as it becomes available.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 12: "Scarlet" by Marissa Meyer

Page count: 452 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the second book in the Lunar Chronicles, and won't really work so well if you haven't read the first one. Start with Cinder, then come back and read this review when you've caught up. Really, you don't want to be reading this review - it's going to contain spoilers about the first book. Continue reading if you don't mind, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Scarlet Benoit needs to find her grandmother, who disappeared without a trace a few weeks ago. Her ID chip was left behind, and Scarlet is convinced she's been kidnapped. The local police, however, don't suspect foul play and have rejected the case. Scarlet's determined to locate her grandmother on her own, but has few leads or clues. How is the mysterious prize fighter, calling himself Wolf, connected? He arrived in the area around the same time Scarlet's grandmother disappeared, and seems very interested in Scarlet.

How is Scarlet's grandmother connected with dangerous Lunar fugitive and cyborg Linh Cinder? The heroine of Meyer's previous book has escaped from prison along with self-styled Captain Carswell Thorne thanks to the advanced cyborg enhancements Doctor Erland gave her at the end of the last book. On the run in Thorne's stolen spacecraft, the two manage to constantly stay one step ahead of the Lunar and Earthen authorities, and discover that a former officer named Michelle Benoit may have further clues about Cinder's past.

Newly appointed Emperor Kai is still reeling from the discovery that the charming mechanic he impulsively invited to the ball is not only a cyborg, but actually a dangerous Lunar. Was his attraction to her nothing but trickery brought on by her Lunar powers? He is desperately trying to fend off the powerful and terrifying Lunar Queen, Levana, who demands that the girl be caught within three days, or there will be disastrous consequences for Earth.

In Cinder, Meyer introduced us to the Cyborg mechanic who bore a clear resemblance to the Cinderella of Grimms' fairy tales. While I liked the book, a lot of it was establishing the world and world building, and I found it a bit slow in places. In the sequel, the fantastic sci-fi world is already in place, and quite a few of the main conflicts and players have been set in motion. Or so I thought. Because Meyer proceeds to introduce more characters, with complicated back stories and motivations. There's a lot more action in this book, it moves ahead at a faster pace all the way through.

The spirited Scarlet argues with townspeople and wears a red hoodie. She's a talented pilot and loves her grandmother, who more or less raised her, fiercely. She's willing to risk pretty much anything to find her, even allying herself with the rather shady Wolf, whose motivations are a lot more murky than she likes. She's sometimes frustratingly stubborn, refusing to believe that there could be something in her grandmother's past that led her to being abducted, even when further investigations keep revealing that her Michelle Benoit hadn't always been an eccentric farmer.

Also introduced in the book is adventurer, wanted thief and confidence trickster Carswell Thorne. When Cinder is escaping from prison, she accidentally drops into his cell, and upon discovering that he has a spaceship, she reluctantly agrees to take him with her. He uses his charm like a weapon, yet she is entirely immune. In reality a cadet in the American forces, he became wanted when he stole an advanced military aircraft to go adventuring. While he calls himself a captain, he's not actually a very good pilot, and it seems that he and Cinder evade the authorities through luck more than skill.

Levana keeps being scary and villainous, and more of her plans to wage war on Earth is revealed in this book. Kai and the rulers of the other Earthen nations do their best to defy her, but without much success. While Kai has to send out forces to try to capture Cinder, he's secretly happy as long as she stays missing, even though he knows her continued freedom could have dire consequences for the people of Earth. It's a dreadful situation for a young, inexperienced ruler to be in, and when Levana's plots against Earth start coming out into the open, he does the only thing he can to try to avoid more death and bloodshed.

As in the first book, there is a romantic subplot in the book, although it's by no means the most prominent. Scarlet seems to go from distrusting and worrying about Wolf to being attracted to him very quickly, but I suppose added danger can throw people together, and he does help her look for her grandmother, even against his better judgement. I suspect Captain Thorne may become a romantic interest for the heroine in the third book, which is coming out in a day or two. I'm very much looking forward to seeing where the story goes next.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 11: "Poison Princess" by Kresley Cole

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

Sixteen year old Evangeline "Evie" Greene tells her story of woe and confusion to a creepy madman bent on chaining her in his basement dungeon. Before the apocalyptic Flash that destroyed the world as we know it, Evie was a rich and popular Southern Belle, with a dark secret. All summer, while her friends were off travelling the world, she was in an asylum, trying to suppress the horrific hallucinations and visions she suffered. Then the Flash hit and it turns out that all her horrible visions were just premonitions of what was to come.

In a world where most of the surface water evaporated in the course of one catastrophic event, after which most of the women in the world fell sick and died, Evie is one of very few females, and after her mother dies, she needs help and protection to get to her grandmother's, whom she is convinced must still be alive. She turns to her former classmate, the Cajun badboy Jackson "Jack" Deveaux, one of the few people from her past who seems to have survived the apocalypse. He agrees to assist her, and as Evie can't shoot, hunt or defend herself worth a damn, she needs all the help she can get.

Through her visions, and faintly remembering her grandmother's ramblings about how Evie is the "Empress" and has special powers, it becomes clear that Evie is one of twenty-two teenagers embodied with powers from the Major Arcana of the Tarot. These teens all have different and unusual powers, and the Flash seems to have been the beginning of a new era, where the various Arcana battle it out to the death.

This book was the alt book when the Vaginal Fantasy bookclub was doing their Kresley Cole month back in May 2012. The paranormal romance author, famed for her over the top supernatural pairings and frequent ThunderSex (tm) is trying her hand at young adult fiction here, which means that there are no actual smexy times, but there is a fairly steamy kiss.

Things I liked:

• The framing device was interesting, creepy and really gave you a sense of tension, really bringing you into the story. Of course, then Evie starts telling her story in WAY to much detail (more on that later).
• A fantasy world based on the Tarot is cool and a fairly unusual premise. No vampire, werewolves or angels here. So far only a handful of the characters based on the Major Arcana are introduced, but it's a promising concept.
• The dystopia after the Flash hits is really very disturbing and creates a very tense atmosphere for the story. 
• Evie turning out to be somewhat of an unreliable narrator. I don't want to say too much about it, as it could be quite spoilery to the story. She does warn us in the prologue that not everything she says is necessarily the truth, though.
• The final chapters, where everything suddenly turned around rather abruptly and I went from being super bored to being quite intrigued and suddenly interested in reading the sequel after all.

Things I didn't like:

• The first third of the book, after the exciting prologue is way too long. It drags massively, and there is far too much detail about Evie's life as a mix between a Plastic and Scarlett O'Hara. I understand that it's important to show just how much Evie lost and why she would think that she was completely insane because of the visions, but we really didn't in any way need a day to day, in painful detail, recap of the week before the Flash happened.
• Evie was a dreadful protagonist. She's spoiled, condescending, judgemental and spends far too much of the book being whiny, useless, wishy-washy and occasionally TSTL. I understand that she's just 16, and the entire world as she knows it has now been destroyed, but she could have tried to learn some new skills and adapt better, rather than hole up in her mansion until the food ran out, and then depending wholly on some guy to rescue her.
• Speaking of the guy. I get that after the apocalypse, most men apparently turn into either some sort of zombie, cannibals or apparently crazy rapists, so compared to them Jack is a saint and a paragon of virtue. But really, he's not much of a hero. He's arrogant, rude, pushy and creepily focused on Evie long before the apocalypse happens. He seems to be constantly swigging Jack Daniels, his Cajun accent drove me up the wall. A member on the Vaginal Fantasy Goodreads forum described him as an 18-year-old Darryl Dixon with Gambit's accent, and that's pretty much spot on. Most of the time, he treats Evie like property. He's overly possessive, yet constantly puts her down, frankly encouraging her helplessness so she's got no choice but to stay dependent on him. 
• There's all sorts of ways the world building doesn't make any sense, but I compared to my other complaints, that wasn't a big deal. 

Thanks to the final few chapters, where it turns out that Evie's story to the creep who's planning to make her his latest torture victim in his basement dungeon hasn't been entirely truthful, where she seems to finally embrace her new powers, and basically turns into Poison Ivy, I've upgraded the rating of the book from 2 stars to 2,5. I hope that she may have made herself seem extra pathetic and useless in order to lull the psycho into a false sense of security. The sequel also got rave reviews all over the internet when it came out last year (although this book is bafflingly rated 4.16 on Goodreads, there's no accounting for taste, I guess) and promises to have more of the character who embodies the Death card in it. I like what we've seen of him so far, and desperately hope that he's going to be the final third in the fairly inevitable YA love triangle, because Evie and Jackson make an awful couple.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.