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 133: "Hex Hall" by Rachel Hawkins

Page count: 337 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Sophie Mercer is a witch and because of the various bad incidents her magic has gotten her mixed up in, she and her mum have moved a lot during her lifetime. After Sophie seriously misjudges the oomph of a love spell at her current high school's prom, and there is a huge scene, Sophie's normally absentee father, a European warlock of some kind, gets involved. Sophie is sent off to a boarding school. On a remote island, where she will stay until she graduates at 18.

Hex Hall, as it's known among the kids there, is a magical reform school where wayward witches, shapeshifters and faeries are sent until they come of age. As an attempt at greater inclusion, there is currently also a vampire attending the school. Jenna the vampire also just happens to be Sophie's new roommate. After Jenna's former roommate ended up dead under mysterious  and suspicious circumstances (with two little holes in her neck) the year before, Jenna is pretty much feared and/or shunned by the whole school. Sophie doesn't want to jump to conclusions, however.

Before her first week is up, Sophie and Jenna are starting to bond; a trio of powerful Mean Girl witches want Sophie to join their coven so they can maximise their power (and are NOT pleased to get no for an answer); Sophie has detention for the rest of the term and an inconvenient crush on the most popular boy in school. She also learns that her father is in fact the head of the Order that sent most of the kids to Hex Hall, and as a result, he (and his daughter) are not really popular. Sophie is rumoured to be just as powerful as him, but having grown up around normal humans, never interacting with other magically abled, things that others consider child's play are completely new to her. She finds the most basic spells incredibly challenging and on top of that, she has to try to survive magical high school intrigue.

Sophie refuses to join the crusade against Jenna, which gets more intense after another girl is attacked, with Jenna having been one of the last to interact with her. Sophie wants to solve the mystery behind the attack and get good enough at magic that she can tell the coven to stuff it. At least she gets to spend lots of quality time with Archer (her crush) during their detention sessions. Now if she could only make him forget about Elodie, his current girlfriend and her nemesis.

Hex Hall is fairly highly rated on Goodreads and when I saw it cheaply in an e-book sale, it seemed a fun enough read. As an added bonus, the X in the title would allow me to finish my Alphabet Soup challenge for the year. It's a fairly generic YA paranormal fantasy, where the usual high school intrigues are made a bit more interesting as there is magic, witches, ghosts, various shapeshifters, faeries and possibly an evil demon on the loose.

Sophia is a likable, snarky, independently-minded heroine. She doesn't really fit in with any of the popular kids and has a tendency to speak before she thinks. This sometimes backfires badly. Despite her disgust at being a cliche, she can't help but fall for the ridiculously handsome Archer Cross, and the more time she spends around him, discovering that he's actually smart, funny and kind, as well as well-liked around the whole school doesn't help. His only flaw is dating Elodie, the head of the coven, whose main goals seem to be to recruit Sophie to enhance the coven's power and to get Jenna expelled from the school.

There are some fun ideas here - Lord Byron being a vampire sentenced to teach at the school. Detention is being forced to catalogue magical artifacts, that move to a new area every day, in a huge creepy basement. Supernatural teens who can't keep under the radar being sent to magical reform school at a remote location.

I also like that Elodie, Sophia's initial nemesis and the Regina George of the coven, turned out to be a bit more multi-faceted than she seemed at first. I liked Sophia's fish out of water experience. The friendship between Jenna and Sophie was also a nice feature, and the revelation that Jenna was gay made sense without just seeming like a "insert token LGBT character here for diversity" thing.

I didn't really care about the many shadowy groups who are out there trying to destroy the supernatural, although it's clear from the synopsis of the next book (and to anyone who's ever read a narrative) that they'll play a more significant part in the sequels. Sophia turning out to be the only child of the head warlock, with a legacy of super special power was a bit too convenient.

Not sure I got invested enough in this world and the characters to bother reading the sequels any time soon. I won't rule it out if I find them at a decent price in a book sale, but I doubt I'll be seeking them out in the immediate future. The book didn't stand out enough for that.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 131: "A Kiss in the Dark" by Kimberly Logan

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 1.5 stars

Warning! There will be spoilers for the plot in this review - because I have to pick apart the mediocre plot to fully get my scathe on. 

Lord Tristan Knight has come into the Earl of Ellington after his estranged father died unexpectedly in a carriage accident. As the late Earl blamed his son for the death of Lady Ellington, stabbed to death by an East End bandit, Tristan has been absent for a long time. His younger sister Emily was left alone with a grieving, neglectful father and after the return of her brother has tried to act out and scare away a series of governesses in an attempt to make her brother notice her. When she finally runs away, Tristan realises he's been very dumb.

After traces of Lady Emily's belongings are found in Tothill Fields, the same area where their mother was murdered years ago, Tristan becomes desperate. His butler recommends he seek out the aid of Lady Deidre Wilks, the notorious Viscountess Rotherby, who is known for her charitable acts in the area. When Tristan turns up on her doorstep, Deidre recognises him instantly. She was the pickpocket who lured Lady Ellington down the alley where she was murdered, and she's convinced Tristan has come to bring her to justice. Instead he convinces her to aid him in the search for his sister. Together they comb the slums for the runaway, fighting their instant attraction to one another as they grow ever closer.

Dear readers, this really wasn't a very good book. It sadly wasn't a bad enough book to really be entertaining either, and as it fit into nearly all my reading challenges in one go, there was no way I wasn't going to finish it. Apparently it's Kimberly Logan's debut novel, and as I doubt I could write a whole book, I don't want to be too dismissive here, but people, it's a very sad example of a historical romance.

First of all, Ms. Logan is extremely keen to let the reader know that Tristan and his sister Emily, like their mother before them, have violet eyes. Not blue, but a purply violet. This is mentioned twenty-one times over the course of the book (I went back and searched, because, really). Also, Deidre has strawberry-scented hair (this is only mentioned four times, however).

There is a whole lot of tell, don't show in this book and mostly very clumsy exposition. Luckily, when Lady Emily runs away, shortly after she is eye-witness to the criminal gang boss who unbeknownst to her also murdered her mother stabbing a dude to death, she is rescued one of a gang of kind-hearted pickpockets, the same ones Deidre reads stories to and tries to save from a life of crime by donating food and blankets to. All of them seem uncharacteristically rosy-cheeked, perky and optimistic for orphaned children who mostly have to steal to survive, with the notable exception of Jack, the bad seed, who is sullen, mean, untrustworthy, but allowed to stay with them until he resorts to attempted rape. Then he's driven off, without any of the boys cottoning on to the fact that he'll clearly sell their location and that of their foundling Earl's daughter out to the dastardly villain who's combing the area for her.

Lady Emily, despite being raised in a perfectly nice townhouse and while neglected by her father, not really used to a life of any sort of hardship, has no trouble settling into the drafty, dilapidated hovel the pickpockets stay in, helping with the cleaning, flirting with their young leader and learning pickpocketing right along side the others. Even when Deidre and Tristan show up looking for her, the boys lie about having seen her, because clearly a young noblewoman is much better off living with a bunch of orphan thieves than with her worried brother.

Deidre, once an orphaned pickpocket herself, picked the pocket of Viscount Rotherby and was pretty much adopted by him. Taught to speak, walk, dress and behave like a lady, she eventually married her patron because he was worried how she'd survive once he died. His servants have stayed on in her house and been nothing but supportive of this pickpocket street urchin who is now her mistress. There are all manner of unsavoury rumours about her, but Lady Rotherby is in fact, that wonderful creature amongst romance heroines, the virginal widow.

For all that Tristan darkly imagines the woman he lusted after from pretty much the moment he met her in the arms of a man old enough to be her father, Deidre is of course untouched and inexperienced. Sure, one of her best friend's is a prostitute, but she's never seen a naked man before she does the deed with Tristan. Naturally, despite her inexperience, they both climax simultaneously - and Deidre is hard pressed to imagine how sex could possibly have been better, had Tristan known in advance that she was a virgin. He claims he wanted more time to prepare her, but apart from some time spent giving attention to her boobs, there is no sign of anything like oral sex or fingering, to you know, give her pleasure without his penis being involved. During their first passionate encounter, there was also this description, that stood out to me as I honestly can't even: "It was as if they had been made for each other, two halves of a whole that had been made one."

Neither Tristan nor Deidre really have a lot of interesting character traits. Tristan is very tall, has violet eyes and feels haunted by seeing his mother stabbed to death in front of him (sadly, he doesn't become the Regency version of Batman, that would have been the best plot development!). Deidre, despite her lowly origins, has become the perfect lady, who spends most of her days doing charity works in the East End slum she grew up in, all the while ignoring what society gossips say about her. They both spend an unseemly amount of time thinking about boning each other when they should be worried about the safety of a young girl lost in a very rough part of London. Of course, she's the luckiest little girl that ever was, taken in by friendly Disney pickpockets rather than kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery or something similarly seedy.

Apparently Ms. Logan also wrote a sequel, where a grown Lady Emily is reunited with Peter, the head of the cheerful band of pickpockets who rescue her, now a Bow Street Runner. I have absolutely no wish to read this book, or anything ales that Ms. Logan has written. Her writing may have improved after her debut, but based on this, I'm not giving her another try any time soon.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 112: "Joyland" by Stephen King

Page count: 288 pages
Rating: 4 stars

21-year-old college student Devin Jones gets a summer job at old-fashioned carnival and amusement park Joyland, trying to mend his broken heart, after his girlfriend left him for another. Working at Joyland, he's taught the ways of the experienced carnies, discovers his knack for entertaining children while "wearing the fur" of park mascot Howie the Hound, lays the foundation of some life-long friendships and discovers the legend of the genuinely haunted House of Horror, where a young woman in a blue dress and an alice band had her throat slit by a man she thought loved her. He also meets Mike, a seriously ill little boy with unusual abilites and Annie, Mike's sad and serious mother.

I honestly didn't know what to expect from Joyland and went into the book knowing little to nothing about the plot (which is exactly what Narfna, my book twin on the internet recommended). In my early teens I would almost compulsively take out Stephen King books from the library, reading them even though I didn't particularly like the way the horror novels affected me (I've only read Misery the one time, but it's still burned in my memory - and yes, I would have been all over the Misery books, they sound wonderfully cracktastic). At university, I read the first four books of King's Dark Tower saga, and was lucky enough to read the final books in the series only a few years later, unlike some, who waited decades for it to finish. While I was mostly disappointed with the final three, there is no denying that King is a great story teller.

This book is mostly a mystery with a hint of suspense. It's not a horror novel, but there are some supernatural elements. Mostly, it's a little slice of the early 1970s, a coming of age novel, depicting a summer in an inexperienced and heart-broken young man. It's also a quick read, which I would have blazed through if my brain hadn't been severely rattled by my untimely concussion, leaving me unable to read anything on paper or screen for about two weeks without getting a splitting headache and eventually blurred vision. The pulpy cover is lovely, and fits the story remarkably well.

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 83: "You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)" by Felicia Day

Page count: 288 pages
Audio book length: 6 hrs 17 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars

I'm trying to recall where I first encountered Felicia Day. I think it may in fact have been on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where she played one of the many potential slayers in season seven. I know I saw her in Dr Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog (true story, on our honey-moon seven years ago, I declined to go out and explore Stockholm with my husband until I had used the hotel wi-fi - which was really rather slow - to download and watch the second episode) before I actually watched and got completely hooked on The Guild.

I've known of and admired Felicia Day for a long time, is what I'm saying. I've been a member of her online book club, Vaginal Fantasy since it started, and one of the highlights of my month is watching her and her co-hosts talk about fantasy and/or sci-fi romance. I've probably watched most of the stuff she's put out on the web, including Co-Optitude, where she plays video games with her brother. So naturally I was going to pre-order this book. I chose to get the audio book, so Felicia herself could read me her memoir.

While I knew that Felicia Day was a good actress in the things I'd seen her in, as well as extremely smart, creative, fond of video games and romance and an internet entrepreneur, I learned so many new things about her from this book. That she and her brother were home-schooled, that she went to college at sixteen and ended up with a double major in violin and mathematics, or that the reason she cut her hair in a pixie cut a while back (which she, naturally, as a woman on the internet got so much hate about) was because stress and other very serious medical issues made her hair fall out in clumps.

I suspect that even if you don't really know who Felicia Day is, you'll enjoy this book. She's very honest and open and recounts stories from her life and her many impressive achievements in a very entertaining way. Being a successful woman in the social media age is not easy, being a successful woman who dares to have an interest in and opinions of video games on the internet has made her the target of a lot of hate and harassment. She's very forthcoming about her anxieties, the two years she was completely addicted to World of Warcraft, her obsessions and what drives her. I found her impressive and admirable before, now I'm very much in awe of her. This is not a funny celebrity autobiography like Bossypants or Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, although there are absolutely bits that made me laugh out loud. The closest comparison I can think of is Jenny Lawson's book, but they're really not all that similar.

This isn't a very long book, I listened to it in less than twenty-four hours. It pretty much made me feel all the feels and I can highly recommend it.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 72: "Populærmusikk fra Vittula"(Popular Music from Vittula) by Mikael Niemi

Page count: 224 pages
Rating: 2 stars

Matti grows up in a tiny town in the remote north of Sweden in the 1960s and 70s. The chapters in this book are more like little short stories about different aspects of his childhood and adolescence, chronicled with humour and the occasional forays into strange, magical realism-inspired fantasy sequences. The inhabitants of his town and the surrounding areas seem to be either deeply puritanically religious or Communists, not caring for the trappings of religion at all. The gruff and peculiar inhabitants are set in their ways and far too prone to alcoholism.

There's the story of Matti's near-mute best friend Niila, whose father, a lapsed preacher, is so domineering and abusive that neither of the many children of the family speak much, and Niila first learns to speak in Esperanto, through lessons he overhears on the radio in Matti's house. We hear about Matti and Niila's childhood discoveries of rock music, with the hits of Elvis Presley and the Beatles making a huge impact on their lives, inspiring them to form a band. There's the friendly rivalry of adolescent boys, and the organised warfare with airguns that the teens orchestrate in the neighbourhood. There's the summer when Matti is trying to make enough money for a guitar of his own, and engages in devious and gory rat extermination to keep the cabin of a visiting German author vermin free.

Because the book is occasionally a straight-forward coming of age narrative about boys in a rural area in the 60s and 70s, but then all of a sudden veers into some dreamlike sequence where a boy gets trapped in a furnace for a winter and starts growing roots, or there is a cross-dressing witch in the woods who can exorcise ghosts, it's hard to pinpoint what the book is actually trying to be. As such, I found the book more frustrating than satisfying. The jumps in narrative, where the story will in one chapter talk about Matti's childhood, then his teens, then back again to earlier in his life, in very strange, seemingly unconnected episodes (all with the common denomination that they're set in Vittula, where he comes from) made the book confusing and while I appreciate the writer's skill, this book just didn't really work for me.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 69: "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 66: "Every Breath" by Ellie Marney

Page count: 335 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Rachel Watts lives two doors down from the brilliant, troubled and eccentric James Mycroft, the most intelligent boy in school. What he has in abundance in the IQ department, he lacks in social smarts, and as his closest friend, it seems to be Rachel's job to try to keep him out of scrapes with other students at school (who he will frequently inadvertently or purposefully insult) or from getting suspended for breaking school rules. She also tends to bring him food, as he has a tendency to forget to eat when left to his own devices. While he lives with his aunt Angela, they barely speak and seem to have a mostly antagonistic relationship.

Mycroft, who likes to compare himself to his fictional namesake, Sherlock Holmes' older and allegedly smarter brother, has a passion for forensic pathology and frequents message boards online and writes articles, even occasionally consulting on cases, under the name Diogenes. Watts helps him proof-read and edit the articles. When the teenagers find "Homeless Dave", a man they regularly visit and bring food near Melbourne zoo, murdered not far from his local sleeping spot, Mycroft uses everything he knows of forensic experience to document the scene before the police arrive. He later persuades Watts to be his side-kick in earnest, determined to investigate the death that the police undoubtedly won't care much about, as the victim was a homeless nobody.

Rachel used to live with her parents and older brother Mike on a sheep farm in the country. Financial difficulties forced them to sell the farm and relocate to Melbourne, where Rachel's parents and brother work hard to make ends meet. Rachel wants to study agriculture and move back to the countryside, she feels uprooted and unsettled in her new urban surroundings. With her academic achievements, her family want her to go to college and get a proper degree, though. Previously home schooled and used to a solitary life, the bustling corridors of her new high school and the constant stress and noise of the city is making Rachel miserable. Having made good friends in Mycroft and the fierce Mai Ng, as well as Mai's boyfriend Gus, makes her existence more bearable, but she's still not happy in Melbourne.

James (who always goes by Mycroft) is English and lost both his parents in a horrific car crash that left him scarred both physically and emotionally. His aunt Angela is his legal guardian, but they may as well be strangers just living in the same house for all the time they spend together. Mycroft is constantly skirting the edge of having social services investigate his living situation, which while not idyllic, is at least better than a foster home. Mycroft loves mysteries and is a keen observer of everything around him. While fiercely intelligent, he's also low on social graces and frequently pisses off his class mates or gets into trouble with the school management. He's obsessed with finding out the cause of his parents' accident, and frequently emotionally unstable, with Rachel, sometimes aided by Mai and Gus, doing her best to keep him from getting beaten up or expelled.

Rightly surmising that the police are unlikely to expend too many resources on trying to solve the murder of a homeless man, especially one who appears to have been killed for sport, Mycroft insists that he and Watts need to do their best to figure out who's behind the murder. Rachel initially refuses, but is unable to resist the lure of the mystery or Mycroft's charismatic persuasion for long, and soon the two teens are using everything they know of forensic pathology to identify the killer of their homeless friend. Hunting killers is a dangerous hobby, though, and before long Mycroft and Watts are courting danger and find themselves in near-death situations of their own.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that there is also a romantic sub-plot in the book, which is very well done, for all that I'm not sure Rachel should involve herself with someone who is clearly not the most emotionally or mentally stable person (I speak from experience here, Watts). Both Rachel and Mycroft are very engaging protagonists and there is a good supporting cast in the book - Rachel's parents and Mike, her brother, as well as Mai, their loyal friend who more than once uses the legal knowledge she's picked up in school, and Gus, her sweet and funny boyfriend.

I really liked this book, and am going to do my best to track down an e-book store which will legally sell me the sequels online, so I don't have to wait for the US release of the next two books before I can read them.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

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

Page count: 462 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#CBR7 Book 58:"The Friend Zone" by Kristen Callihan

Page count: 309 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Gray Grayson does not have female friends, he has former and future conquests. The closest thing he has to a female friend is his best friend Drew's new girlfriend. That's it. So no one is more surprised than he, when he seems to be developing a close relationship with a woman he's never even met, via text message of all things. When Gray has to lend his own car to Drew for a while, he's left with no other options than to borrow the bubblegum-pink car belonging to Ivy Mackenzie, the daughter of his sports agent, whose studying overseas. She's none too happy that some jock is in control of her car, and sends him all manner of ominous texts about what she'll do to him if he damages the car in any way. Soon they are texting each other at all hours of the day, about much more than the car.

So when Ivy comes back home to the States, and Gray and Ivy finally meet, neither are wanting to risk their close friendship, even though they both find the other smoking hot. To add to the tension, Gray is one of Ivy's father's top clients, and Ivy isn't any more interested in getting involved with one of them than Gray is interested in ruining his chances with a future career. So it's best if they just stay friends...right?

Gray is the tight end (and yes, there are lots of jokes to that effect) on the same college team that Drew from The Hook Up is the quarterback of. They are best friends, and really more like brothers, considering Drew is orphaned and Gray's father and brothers were less than supportive to him growing up. Gray was a nice supporting character and he's a good protagonist as well. Not ashamed of his past sexual exploits, Gray is nonetheless aware that what he shares with Ivy is something special and shouldn't be taken lightly. Ivy, in contrast, hasn't really dated a lot, and has trust and commitment issues due to her sports agent father's lack of presence in the lives of her and her younger sister, as well as fidelity to their mother.

The friends to lovers story is a common trope in romance, but for it to work, the friendship needs to feel real and established. If this part is hurried, the romance doesn't feel as earned, in my opinion. Here, while Gray and several of his friends are surprised, he really does make a genuine connection with Ivy. This is possibly because the only visual reference he has of her is a photo of her as a young teenager displayed in her father's office, while they get to know each other though their in-depth text conversations. By the time they actually meet, and realise that the person they've been texting with is someone they find very physically attractive, they are both very invested in making their platonic relationship work.

Of course, the more time they spend together, the more staying platonic proves to be a challenge. Unlike in The Hook Up, where Drew and Anna start having sex quite early on, and Anna at least doesn't even want to like Drew, so they build the rest of their relationship slowly from there, the unresolved sexual tension between Gray and Ivy continues for a fair bit of the book, and when it's finally broken, it's quite explosive. Once they do give into their feelings for one another, the issue of their future becomes a serious question, as Ivy has been studying and working in London with the intention that she will take over one of her mother's successful bakeries, while Gray is obviously on his way to a hopefully successful sports career.

I really liked this book, and based on these two books, I really do need to check out more of Kristen Callihan's Steampunk paranormals, of which I've only read one so far. I wasn't blown away by the first one, but I've enjoyed her New Adult books so much that I'm going to give her paranormal historicals another chance.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 38: "Night of a Thousand Stars" by Deanna Raybourn

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Penelope "Poppy" Hammond flees her high society wedding with the aid of a charming curate calling himself Sebastian Cantrip and persuades him to drive her to the little village in Devon where her estranged father lives. Poppy's mother, wealthy American stepfather and a large amount of the wedding guests, including Poppy's jilted fiancee follow, up in arms about the scandal she's caused. Poppy's mind is not to be changed, however, she knows she and Gerald are a poor match and that life as a future Viscountess is going to bore her socks off.

Poppy's father, the eccentric painter Plum March, allows her to stay with him in his cottage until she makes up her mind about what she wants for her future. After about a month of cooling her heels and pondering her future, Poppy ventures back into London to thank the kind Mr. Cantrip, and discovers that he has disappeared without a trace. She's worried he is in danger, and determines to find him and aid him. Accompanied by her formidable ladies' maid, Masterman, Poppy is able to secure a position as secretary to an old colonel travelling to Damascus, where she's pretty sure Sebastian has gone. Once they get there, it is clear that Sebastian (whose name isn't Cantrip at all) is absolutely involved in some dangerous activities, and before Poppy knows it, she's fleeing ruthless, hunting an ancient treasure in the desert and feeling more alive than she ever dreamed.

Night of a Thousand Stars is set in the 1920s and is very loosely connected to Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia Grey books. Poppy is the daughter of Eglamour "Plum" March, one of Julia's brothers (who appears as a supporting character in at least one of her novels. As a long time reader of those books, I found it a very amusing conceit that the Victorian mysteries actually appear here as Lady Julia's journals, which Poppy read over the course of the novel. It was fun to discover a little bit about what happens to Julia and Brisbane after the end of their own series, and delightful to see what the new generations of Marches are getting up to.

Poppy, who fairly early on in the novel, starts using her father's name again, never really fit into the mould her proper and ambitious mother wanted to shape her into. While she's fond of her American stepfather and her half-siblings, she's always felt like the odd one out and once she reunites with her father, he doesn't seem the slightest bit surprised, as the Marches never do what society expects them to. He encourages rather than tries to dampen her eccentricities and fully supports her need to find adventure. When she discovers that the dashing Sebastian has disappeared on an unspecified journey to the Holy Land in a hurry, she is convinced he must be in trouble. She gains passage on a ship, accompanying the charming old Colonel Archainbaud as his secretary, fending off the advances of his handsome valet, Hugh Talbot, during the journey. In Damascus, she also attracts the attention of a French comte, without being very impressed with either man.

It's not surprising that several men in the story find Poppy so attractive, although it also becomes clear that some of them are trying to charm her due to more nefarious reasons. She's brave, resourceful, rather stubborn at times and very loyal to her friends. While she only met Sebastian briefly, he did help her out of a very awkward situation and even allowed himself to be punched by her fiancee. She's convinced he is in danger, and wants to help him, even though it's unclear exactly what, except perhaps her wits, she would use in such a rescue operation. Despite several warnings in Damascus that she may be in danger, she doggedly refuses to leave, and when she's finally united with Sebastian again, he is almost unrecognisable as the quiet English curate, disguised as a native Bedouin warrior. She discovers that Sebastian was involved in espionage during the war, spent some time in a Turkish prison and certainly didn't need an impulsive young society woman to rescue him from anything.

The two of them flee murder charges, trying to locate a treasure hoard in the desert before the murderous villains who framed them find it. Disguised as Sebastian's wife, Poppy is intrigued by how different he is from the man she'd first imagined. Even though all evidence points to the contrary, Poppy keeps underestimating Sebastian, thinking he's just as in over his head as she is. It isn't until the very end of their eventful desert adventure that she discovers just how wrong she's been, and discovers the truth not just about him, but about how she came to be on the journey in the first place.

This book was an utter delight to read, and in many ways reminded me of some of my favourite Agatha Christie novels, where there is always a romantic subplot as well as the murder mystery. Books like The Man in the Brown Suit, Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and They Came to Baghdad. Also the early Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters, like Crocodile on the Sandbank. While the romance is slow burning, I'm not spoiling anything when I reveal that Poppy and Sebastian are clearly made for each other. They have tremendous banter all the way through the book and there is a very good reason why Sebastian refuses to act on his attraction to Poppy. The romance has a very satisfying ending eventually, but I am deducting half a star, as I would have loved some more action between Poppy and Sebastian over the course of the book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 30: "Cracked" by Eliza Crewe

Page count: 327 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I got this book from NetGalley in return for a fair and objective review. 

Andromeda "Meda" Melange isn't a very nice person. Frankly, she eats people, well, their souls anyway. She tries to limit herself to the souls of bad people, usually killers whose victims' ghosts have a tendency to show up and pester Meda until she does something to avenge them. Meda has always believed herself to be unique and invincible (she's faster and stronger than mere humans, and her skin has a metallic quality to it - plus there's the ability to see ghosts and eat souls), so she has a very rude awakening when she's faced with three sinister black-clad dudes, who are not only like her, they're faster and stronger and want her dead. Lucky for Meda, a handsome young man shows up to dispatch them before they succeed.

Chi is a Crusader in training, called from birth to hunt and destroy demons. Meda pretty quickly figures out that the black-suited men were full demons, while she appears to be a halfling. Pretending to be a weak and confused victim, Meda latches on to Chi as a source of useful information about her true nature, and more importantly, how she can protect herself against demons and crusaders alike. As well as hunting demons, crusaders protect especially important humans, known as Beacons, and because Chi is wonderfully naive and trusting, he assumes Meda must be a Beacon - why else would those demons have been trying to kill her? His friend Jo, who followed him to the asylum where he meets Meda, is a lot more sceptical (with good reason) and doesn't think bringing Meda with them to the crusader headquarters is a good plan. She eventually reluctantly agrees, and they decide to pass Meda off as Jo's estranged cousin, who committed the massive betrayal of turning away from the crusader mission and as such has been shunned for years. No one really remember much about her, except that she was a bad girl. Meda trying to pretend to be a sweet, innocent girl trying to be bad is hilarious.

As Meda gets to know Chi and Jo better, while refusing to admit to herself that she actually enjoys having something resembling friends for the first time ever, she also discovers just how much kept from her. She needs to learn quickly, as now that the demons know who she is, they're not going to stop until they've tracked her down. She may pretend that she doesn't care what happens to the stupidly heroic Chi, the snarky and hostile Jo or the hero-worshipping kid Uriel, but she's not going to allow them to risk their lives when her demon relatives come knocking.

Whether you like this book or not, is probably strongly dependent on how you feel about the protagonist, Miss Meda herself. If you find her annoying and insufferable, the book is not going to work for you, as she has a very strong and sarcastic narrative voice. I thought she was fun as the hell that clearly spawned her, not that it stopped me from cheering a bit when she was taken down a peg and learned that she wasn't as special a soul-eating snowflake as she believed herself to be.

The whole book read as something that could exist in the same universe as Supernatural, with the crusaders being a different kind of hunter to the Winchesters. Given hereditary powers, they are trained until their late teens, when they go through a magical ceremony and come into their full abilities. Jo's cousin Emma apparently rejected the sacred calling and crusader gift, and as such disappointed everyone around her. Usually paired on their missions to hunt demons and protect beacons, there's also a lot of orphaned crusader children, as their parents frequently bite it in their fight against evil. I love that the crusaders ride motorcycles and live in trailer parks, basically masquerading as biker gangs.

The characters are a lot of fun. Meda may eat souls, but she really isn't as evil or heart-less as she'd like to believe herself, she just has never really been allowed to socialise a lot with kids her own age. Her mother, aware of her true nature, kept her sheltered and they moved around a lot. Hearing her dead mother's voice in her head as sort of conscience, Meda really tries to stave the terrible Hunger she feels for human souls by only eating those of murderers and abusers. She can see, but not talk to ghosts. If they touch her, however, she's able to get an impression of what they experienced in life, which can help her track down those that harmed them. She's prepared to kill to protect herself, but it doesn't take her much time among the crusaders to grow fond of her new friends.

Chi is almost too heroic for his own good. Constantly sneaking out to hunt demons, even though he hasn't graduated into his full powers, he figuratively shines with goodness and noble purpose. He's be insufferable if he wasn't also a fairly clueless teenage boy, completely oblivious to his former best friend's feelings towards him. Said best friend is Jo, who's mostly spikes and snark, having been injured while in training and now faces the prospect of never becoming a full crusader because of her damaged leg. She projects constant hostility, as dislike and contempt from the teenage crusaders in training is preferable to her than pity. Much more level-headed than Chi, she's rightfully very suspicious of Meda, although it becomes clear that some of that is jealousy at another girl's closeness with the friend who she loves, but feels that she has to drive away. While Jo and Chi might have been a natural pairing and future couple before Jo's injury, now her leg makes her a liability and she needs to make him look elsewhere for a prospective partner. The third of Meda's new crusader friends is Uriel, a boy who clearly worships Chi and tries to emulate him in every way. Uri is the one who gives Meda proper insight into the current and former relationship of the other two teens she's growing close to.

I'm ashamed to say I was granted this NetGalley copy ages and ages ago, and completely forgot about it until my friend Erica recently read and loved the book. The second book in the series was published last year and the third part comes out in August, unless the internet is lying to me. This is YA paranormal fantasy with a slightly darker twist and while there might appear to be tiresome love triangle for about a chapter or so, that's really more of a bluff, which I'm very thankful for.  I liked the world building, the premise for the series and the teenage characters, so this is a series I will follow to the end. I liked the book so much I promptly bought my own copy (the author appears to self publish) and I will be getting the other two books in the series as well.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 29: "Vision in Silver" by Anne Bishop

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is book three in The Others series, which is one of my absolute favourite paranormal fantasy series at the moment. While you are given enough information to start with this one, you'll get the most enjoyment if you start at the beginning, with the excellent Written in Red. There will also be minor spoilers for the earlier books in the series here, so if you don't like that sort of thing, skip the review until you're caught up.

In a world where humans are in a minority, and frequently considered legitimate prey by the supernatural races who control the land, tensions are mounting. Many of the cassandra sangue, the female blood prophets who see visions when their skin is cut, have been rescued and the Others have placed "the sweet blood" as they call them, under their protection. Most of the women and girls have lived their entire lives in monitored captivity, however, and a lot of them can't handle their new-found freedom, causing mental breakdowns or even suicides.  It falls to Meg Corbyn, the woman who first managed to escape and has been making a life for herself with the Others of the Lakeside Courtyard to provide guidance. Aided by her human friends, she attempts to write down what she's learned is important for her to feel safe and comfortable.

The Humans First and Last movement is growing, and it's becoming clear that a lot of the humans who are on friendly terms with the shapeshifters and other creatures in Lakeside are experiencing discrimination and prejudice. "Wolf lovers" might find themselves losing their jobs or even homes.  Simon Wolfgard and the other prominent Others in the Courtyard have to consider what to do to aid these humans who have so important to their Meg and shown themselves to be useful and friendly, not just prey. The news reports speak of food shortages all over Thaisia (think North America), which none of the Others can understand, and the strained relationship between humans and Others is getting worse in many places on the continent. Possible insight into the cause of the food shortages comes with the arrival of Officer Montgomery's daughter, alone on a train, with a blood-stained teddy bear, containing a small fortune in gem stones. Her mother, Montgomery's ex, was dating one of the most outspoken HFL spokesmen, and it's clear something has triggered her sending their daughter unaccompanied across the country to her father.

I don't know how many books Anne Bishop is planning in this series, but she's fleshing out the world building and the tense political situation with every book. Meg and Simon also grow closer with each book, while neither is able to acknowledge to themselves or the other what most of those around them already know, that they're essential to each other's well being. Three books in, and when these two finally give in to their feelings, I'll probably explode. Of course, there are major obstacles in their path, most prominent the fact that blood prophets feel compelled to cut themselves to get their visions out, and at maximum, a cassandra sangue has a thousand cuts before she dies. There are already hundreds of cuts on Meg's body, and in this book she experiences just how distressed she can make those around her when she's driven to cut thoughtlessly. Meg, just as the other in her found family of humans and paranormal creatures, has a lot of adapting and growing to do.

We meet a few new characters in this book. There's a young blood prophet sheltering with some wolves, who slowly, thanks to Meg's advice, learns to be comfortable in her new home, and seems to be able to show her visions through drawings, without having to cut herself. As she settles in and starts to get used to her new life, she eventually also chooses a new name for herself. There's Montgomery's daughter, Lizzy, who gives the various animal-shifters in the Lakeside Courtyard more experience with "human pups".

This book felt like a more quiet book than the second, Murder of Crows, because so much of what is happening is simmering off screen. Because so many of the humans living in the bigger cities of Thaisia are unaware of the terrifying forces lurking out in the forests and mountains, not realising that the vampires and shapeshifters living in the Courtyards are the most progressive and open-minded, actually willing to interact with humans. The growing discontent, fermented by the HFL movement is putting the humans in very real danger, and this book, it's made clear that there are some very formidable elementals out there, controlling each of the great lakes and even the ocean itself. Train and ship travel is only safe for humans as long as their iron-clad agreements with the Others are kept. Once they start bending and breaking the rules set down, there are dire consequences, and it's clear that there are older, more powerful beings in the wild of the country who wouldn't hesitate to wipe all the humans off the continent if they prove to be an inconvenience. So shit is about to hit the fan, and it's going to be very interesting to see where Bishop takes the series next.

I love this fantasy world, I love the characters. It makes me happy to spend time with them while I'm immersed in the book. I love that the book examines what humanity actually is and should be - and whether the shifters and vampires who will frequently eat humans may not be the most monstrous of the individuals in Thaisia. More is revealed about how the blood prophets were exploited, and it seems entirely just and fair to me that the perpetrators of such abuse are hunted down and eaten. I've said this in my reviews of the previous two books, but if you like paranormal fantasy, you really should do yourself a favour and read these. They're such great books. Sadly, I will have to wait a year for the next one.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

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

Page count: 351 pages
Rating: 4 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 23 : "American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot" by Craig Ferguson

Page count: 290 pages
Audio book length: 7 hrs 24 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars

Before I bought and listened to this audio book, which came to my attention thanks to fellow Cannonballer Narfna's enthusiastic review, this is what I knew about Craig Ferguson:

1. Until very recently, he hosted the Late, Late Show, where he always seemed to be genuinely interested in the guests in the few clips that I've seen.
2. He really likes Doctor Who
3. He used to be in a band with Peter Capaldi, who is currently playing Doctor Who.
4. He's voiced a number of Scottish characters in animated movies that I've seen.

So I learned a lot about Mr. Ferguson while listening to this audio book, narrated by the man himself. He manages to recount stories that could be just tragic and depressing with wit and humour, without in any way hiding that for much of his life, he did not have an easy time of it. Growing up in a working class suburb to Glasgow in Scotland in the 60s and 70s seems pretty grim, although it's quite clear that Ferguson's parents had a much harder time of it. Apparently Ferguson's dad didn't own shoes until he was eleven. Still, as a teacher, listening to stories about how five-year-olds were belted for no obvious reason horrified me. I don't actually think I could be a teacher in an education system that allowed corporal punishment.

From early on in his life, Ferguson wanted to live in America, and he explains why in the book, while also talking about his very destructive alcoholism, his drug use, dropping out of school at sixteen to join the punk scene. While the stories he tells are funny, and alcoholism apparently saved his life (a friend distracted him with a pint of sherry on a Christmas morning when he had decided to commit suicide), Ferguson doesn't hesitate to be honest about what a destructive force it was, either. As the daughter of a recovering alcoholic, and an uncle who died before he was sixty partially because he didn't stop drinking, I have no illusions about alcholism being in any way glamorous or easy. I admire Ferguson for being so honest about his alcohol and substance abuse, as well as his process of becoming and remaining sober.

I hadn't realised that Ferguson wrote a novel, or that he wrote several screen plays, as well as being an actor and a stand-up comedian. He is very honest about the ups and downs of his career, and I wonder if he's made himself unpopular in certain industry circles by being quite so up front about his experiences especially in the film he wrote and directed, that the studio apparently ruined completely.

I finished this book in less than 24 hours, which I think may be a new record for an audio book. I had a lot of errands to run during the day, and this audio book kept me company. It also provided entertainment while I was working my way slowly and painstakingly through the complicated pattern part of the jumper I am knitting. Earlier in the week, I could easily knit while watching TV and even in the cinema, but now, that the pattern requires different colours of wool and careful attention, I can't watch or read anything while knitting. I'm so glad I had this book to keep me company. I've read a number of celebrity autobiographies now, but this is by far the most honest, open and as a result, interesting one I've come across. I'm so glad I got this audio book. Thanks again, Narfna!

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR7 Book 16: "Written in My Own Heart's Blood" by Diana Gabaldon

Page count: 1008 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Hey everyone, guess who finally got caught up with this series? My epic re-read is done and I can now join the ever-increasing (I'm just taking for granted that more people will be reading the books as the TV show makes them curious and/or desperate for more Jamie and Claire) ranks of people languishing in wait for the next book.

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR EARLIER BOOKS IN THE SERIES WILL FOLLOW, SO AVOID THIS PART IF YOU AREN'T CAUGHT UP. 

While this is the shortest book Gabaldon has written in about two decades, there is still a LOT of story here. As always, the book is split into multiple sections. In some, we follow Jamie and Claire and all their family members, friends, acquaintances and antagonists in the late 18th Century, where the American War of Independence is in full swing. Other parts focus on Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna, who has more than enough to deal with in terms of her own challenges in the late 20th Century. Such as the fact that her husband, Roger MacKenzie Wakefield and one of his ancestors is off in the middle of the 18th Century, looking for Jem, their son, who they believed an unscrupulous neighbour kidnapped and took through the standing stones in search of the gold treasure Jamie Fraser hid in a previous book. Except Brianna fairly quickly locates the boy, but has to worry about the crazy dude and his accomplices who will stop at nothing to find the gold, and the certainty that Roger will not return from the past until he's found his son, a task that will prove utterly impossible.

Claire's joy that Jamie isn't dead after all is quickly turned to worry when Jamie promptly abducts her current husband, Lord John Grey, to use as a hostage to avoid being captured by the British troops in Philadelphia. After Lord John foolishly, but oh so honourably, confesses to having had carnal knowledge of Claire when they were both drunk and grief-stricken, Jamie proceeds to beat the snot out of his former best friend, then leaves him to fend for himself against a bunch of rebel soldiers. Badly done, Jamie! I was not best pleased at this. While worrying about both her husbands, and her step-son, Lord William Ellesmere, who just discovered his true parentage when coming face to face with Jamie Fraser, in the process of abducting William's adopted father, Claire also makes the acquaintance of Lord John's older brother, the Duke of Pardloe, newly arrived in the Colonies and looking for the various members his family (his son is recovering from surgery and his daughter wants to marry a Quaker). Trying to keep him distracted from looking for his brother or nephew proves easier than expected once he is incapacitated by a powerful asthma attack, which Claire, aided by Jamie's sister Jenny, helps him recover from. Much of the first half of the book is taken up with the Frasers and the Greys and their extended families being separated, and reuniting in various fashions while fighting in the Revolutionary war. I am amazed at the many near-death encounters the various members of the Fraser clan can survive.

END SPOILERS

When it's been a while since I've read one of her books, I keep forgetting how very funny Gabaldon can be. I frequently laugh out loud when reading the books, as well as occasionally curse the characters for their poor decisions or roll my eyes at the preposterous situations they find themselves in. Unlike in several of the previous books, I didn't think there were huge sections where nothing much at all happened, most of the plot strands felt purposeful and drove the story and the characterisation onward. The exception to this, to a certain extent, was Roger's jump back to the past. While I understand why Gabaldon probably found them fun to write, these chapters with all the mention of time travel back and forth and all over the place, all got a bit too wibbily wobbly timey wimey for my tastes. While it gave the readers a chance to see certain familiar characters from earlier in the series again and in a slightly new light, I was mainly just bored and wanting to get back to other characters in other times when reading these bits.

If you've made it through the previous seven books in the series, I don't entirely see why you wouldn't read this as well. I agree with most of the other reviews I've read of this book that it's probably the best since Voyager. It's got its fair share of historical cameos (George Washington. Benedict Arnold. Benjamin Franklin, you get the gist). There are weddings, funerals, babies being born, people dying, people being taken prisoner, people escaping, Claire performing some truly grisly medical procedures, time travel, battles and wonderful quiet family moments. We reconnect with the characters we already know and get to know several new ones. Whatever you do, do not choose this as their first Gabaldon book. If you want to experience these massive books and get to know its huge cast of fasciating characters, start at the beginning with Outlander.

With this book, I also complete my first reading challenge of the year - complete at least four different series, in the Finish the Series Reading Challenge. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.