CBR16 Book 3: "Dance with the Devil" by Kit Rocha

Page count: 416 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

After his father died, Rafael "Rafe" Morales basically sold himself to TechCorps and agreed to become a technologically enhanced supersoldier, so he could make enough money to keep his widowed mother and younger siblings safe. He didn't really know what signing away his life would entail, and given the choice again, he probably would have chosen differently. He hasn't been able to see them for years, certainly not since he and his team, the Silver Devils, had to fake their own deaths to get away from their cruel superiors.

Unlike Rafe, Danijela "Dani" Volkova didn't really have external pressures that made her sign up with TechCorps. She was just curious and driven, and once their scientists had experimented sufficiently on her, she became super fast, agile, and graceful and lost the ability to feel pain, at all. This made her the perfect elite bodyguard for the rich and powerful, until she just couldn't handle the cruelty and corruption she was witness to and broke away. She joined Nina and Maya to become one of the mercenary librarians of Atlanta. Dani feels like TechCorps turned her into a monster. She appreciates the love that her chosen sisters and the former supersoldiers who share their lives offer her, but deep down she knows she doesn't deserve it. 

Since their very first meeting, when Dani may have "accidentally" stabbed Rafe a little bit, the chemistry between them has been off the charts. But Rafael doesn't want a quick fling, Dani doesn't do long-term commitment, and neither is willing to risk screwing up their new big, unusual family unit with relationship drama. Keeping everything casual and platonic becomes a lot more difficult when the two have to go undercover among the rich and deplorable of Atlanta. After the death of Tobias Richter, the VP of Security for TechCorps, and the one who sat with most of the power, the organisation is desperately scrambling to maintain control, and our enhanced heroes and heroines have decided that it's time to start fighting back. 

Having come into unexpected wealth at the end of the previous book, Maya is using all of her considerable resources and brains, her wealth of sensitive information burned into her brain after growing up in the loving arms of TechCorps and learning a lot of its dirty secrets, as well as calling in all the favours from her vast network of informants and allies. It's one such ally, a head researcher at TechCorps, whom Rafe and Dani are trying to contact when they go undercover, as a married couple. Once on the mission, they not only discover that Rafe's little sister is in terrible danger, but it also becomes impossible for them to keep their hands off each other. 

This is the third and probably final (there is a suggestion at the end of the epilogue in this one that there may be new dangers facing our intrepid band of heroes, but it seems like the author duo has moved on to new projects now) novel in the Mercenary Librarians series. As such, it's not the best place to start. This might very well not be an almost five-star read to someone else but as the end chapter of all that has been established in the previous two books, with all the seeds sown and the principal cast, as well as the various supporting characters, joining together to launch a full-scale revolution, I loved this book. The romance between Dani and Rafe has been teased from the beginning and didn't disappoint. 

Both Dani and Rafe got turned into lethal weapons by TechCorps, but Rafael grew up in a loving family and always knew that the sacrifices he made were for them. Dani was rejected by her parents once they realised the choices she had made, and was honed into a ruthless killing machine by the scientists. She is fiercely loyal and has vast capacities for love and emotion, all of which she is worthy of, but takes her quite some time to come to terms with. 

I loved this book, and its action-packed and thrilling finale, where the downtrodden of Atlanta join with our protagonists to kick ass and take names, in order to secure a better future, free of the dominance of TechCorps and their controlling ways. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover for this one at least has slightly more of a sci-fi feel than the last one, but it's still a pretty generic image and I certainly would never have picked up this book from the cover alone. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Books 87-91: "Spy x Family, vol 1-5" by Tatsuya Endo

Total page count: 1040 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Agent Twilight is the best spy in the business and he's willing to do absolutely anything to protect his country. For his latest mission, Operation Strix, he needs to get close to high-ranking politician Desmond Donovan. To do this, he needs to be married and have a child and said child needs to be admitted to the prestigious Eden Academy, where Desmond Donovan's son Damien is a pupil. Agent Twilight creates the alias Loid Forger, a clinical psychiatrist, to complete the mission. Since he has to have a child, he adopts a young girl from an orphanage. The adorable Anya turns out to be a telepath and can read minds. She desperately wants a family and reads Twilight's mind to try to be the perfect daughter to him. Twilight/Loid also requires a wife, and so enters into a marriage of convenience to Yor Briar, seemingly a timid office clerk. Unbeknownst to Twilight, Yor is also a skilled assassin, working under the code name "Thorn Princess". Only Anya knows about the secret identities of her adoptive parents, and neither of them knows she can read their minds. 

In the first volume, Twilight needs to create his Loid Forger persona and acquire the family necessary to pull off his mission. He adopts Anya, who he needs to tutor well enough to pass the entrance exam to Eden Academy. He marries Yor Briar, to have a suitable wife and stepmother to his "daughter". After a lot of shenanigans, they get through the family interview at Eden Academy, but it's unclear whether Anya will actually get accepted.

In volume 2, it becomes clear that Anya has in fact got a spot at the Academy. Twilight/Loid wants her to befriend Damien Desmond, the son of his target, but that really doesn't work out too well. The children pretty much become antagonists, but Anya befriends the wealthy Becky instead. Twilight/Loid is a bit despondent, but being a master spy, doesn't let small obstacles hinder him from achieving success. Yor's younger brother Yuri comes to visit the family and is deeply jealous of anyone taking away his sister's attention from him. Twilight/Loid discovers that Yuri works for the Secret Police.

At the beginning of volume 3, Yor and Twilight/Loid have to work together to convince Yor's brother Yuri that they are a happy couple, and have in fact been married for over a year. Yor asks her co-workers for help to be a better wife, and Twilight/Loid is reassured that despite her brother working for the Secret Police, his wife is not a threat to his mission. Anya manages to earn a Stella star, an important academic achievement at school and tells Twilight/Loid that she wants a dog as a reward.

In volume 4, the Forger family acquires a dog for Anya, the fluffy and courageous Bond, who can occasionally see the future. Bond is part of a gang of dogs trained by terrorists (who also kidnap Anya for a while), but Bond and Anya work together to foil the terrorists, with some assistance from both of Anya's parents.

In volume 5, Yor tries to become a better cook, since her cooking efforts hitherto have been dreadful. Anya manages to help Damian win an art prize at school but is terrified when she realises she will have to sit the midterm during the dark of the moon, the one time of the month when her telepathic powers don't work. Yuri, trying to impress his sister, offers to tutor Anya. Twilight/Loid is prepared to break into the school to alter her results, making sure she passes, but instead runs into another (much more inept spy) who is trying to alter the exam results of the Desmond brothers, making it seem that they would fail. Anya passes her exams, and Twilight/Loid makes sure that the Desmond brothers' results remain unaltered. In the final chapter of the story, we are introduced to Fiona Frost, one of Twilight/Loid's fellow spies. She secretly loves Twilight and wants to scare Yor away, so she (Fiona) can take her place in the mission as Twilight's wife. 

These manga adventures are ridiculously entertaining, and I've had a lot of fun reading them since I started this summer. I know there is also an anime series, but since it's a right faff making my VPN work properly so I can watch them, I haven't yet gotten around to watching the show (my BFF Lydia loves it, though). I would love for there to be more actual romance between Twilight/Loid and Yor (everyone knows that marriages of convenience eventually lead to actual love, right?), but these stories are so much fun and I can't wait to see where the story goes next. 

Judging the books by their covers: I really like the art style of this manga, and each volume features one of the characters on the cover. Volume 1 has Agent Twilight/Loid Forger on the cover, volume 2 has Anya, volume 3 has Lor (dressed in her elegant assassin costume), volume 4 has Bond (best doggo!) and volume 5 has Lor's extremely unhealthily attached brother Yuri. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Books 73-74: "The Archduke" and "Daindreth's Outlaw" by Elisabeth Wheatley

Total page count 339 pages

The Archduke: 4 stars

Daindreth's Outlaw: 3 stars

The Archduke is a short novella, that can be found free on Elisabeth Wheatley’s website. It tells the first few chapters of Daindreth’s Assassin from the point of view of Daindreth, from his first meeting with Amira, when she tries to kill him and ends up fighting the demon inside him, to the negotiations with her father to change the marriage contract. Since the entirety of the first novel is from Amira’s POV, I liked the idea of getting to see how Daindreth experienced the same events. It also gives the reader more insight into how much he suffers with the demon inside him tormenting him, and how much energy he has to expend to remain in control.

Daindreth’s Outlaw, the second book in the series starts pretty immediately after the end of Daindreth’s Assassin. Having spent most of her life without full autonomy, since a magic curse had her bound first to her father (who turned her into an assassin and commanded her to murder his enemies) and later to her betrothed, after the controlling curse was transferred with the signing of the marriage contract, Amira was finally able to break the enchantment. When Daindreth was in danger and nobly tried to sacrifice himself, he ordered Amira and his cousin Thadred (also bound to him with the same type of curse) to leave the palace and get as far away as they could. Amira was not going to let the man she had fallen in love with die and after a gruelling internal battle was able to return to the palace and rescue her man, leaving countless dead bodies in their wake.

Now the three of them are fleeing the capital as fast as they can, trying to escape the grasp of the power-hungry empress. They need to track down the small tribe of exiled sorceresses who created the curse that led Daindreth to being possessed by a demon. While everyone says the curse can’t be broken, Amira has just proven that there are possibilities, however implausible. They need to travel incognito, as the empress has sent out her ruthless assassins to find them. She needs Daindreth alive, but Amira and Thadred are expendable. 

The second book is absolutely more of a bridging book. The POV shifts between Daindreth and Amira, with the occasional chapter from Thadred, since he gets separated from the main group after a while. To keep the vast empire successful and safe from natural disasters and the like, the dowager empress, Daindreth’s mother made deals with demons. Amira rescued Daindreth before the next part of the demonic deal could be struck, and now the consequences are starting to show in terrible ways, like earthquakes, landslides, massive storms, and the like. 

Amira and Daindreth are growing closer, and Amira clearly wants their relationship to become more physical, yet Daindreth is still far too aware of the demon lurking inside his mind, watching and waiting. Daindreth doesn’t intend to share and wants to wait until his curse is broken to do anything more than the occasional kiss. 

If this had been the first book in the series, I doubt I would have kept going with the series. It’s clear that it’s setting up a lot for future books, and Thadred is clearly going on to have his own adventure, probably separate from Amira and Daindreth until I’m sure they are reunited at some later point. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 59: "Daindreth's Assassin" by Elisabeth Wheatley

Page count: 283 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Amira was once a princess, but after her mother's clan of sorceresses were branded as traitors and banished, she was removed from the line of succession and now, thanks to a curse that forces her to obey her father's every command, she works for him as an assassin. Amira's sister is betrothed to the archduke, the next emperor, who is on his way to finalise the marriage agreement. Despite knowing that what she has to do amounts to high treason, Amira has no choice when her father sends her to kill the man. If she tries to fight the curse, she herself will die. Amira fails to kill Daindreth, the archduke, because he turns out to be possessed by a demon, which takes control and fights Amira. She only barely escapes, and has to admit her failure to her father.

Once Amira realises the archduke's dark secret, she is determined to stop her sister's wedding to the man, which turns out to be easier than she anticipated, as the archduke demands that Amira be the promised bride instead. For reasons unclear to both of them, it seems the demon inside Daindreth is pacified when she is near. He hopes this means she may help him fight and maybe break the demon curse somehow. In return, he promises to help her break her own curse - which conveniently transfers control over Amira to Daindreth the instant Amira's father signs her over to him as his bride. 

Due to her curse, Amira now can't disobey any direct command Daindreth gives her, and hence can't fight him or escape, despite knowing about the demon inside him. He seems very wary of abusing his control over her, however, and never orders her to do anything that takes away her agency. The more she spends time in his company, the more she discovers what a good man he actually is. He desperately wants to be rid of the demon inside, and it doesn't take long before Amira is willing to risk her own life to save the man she was once going to kill. 

About a month ago, I had never even heard of Elisabeth Wheatley. I was made aware of her existence because of a blog post by Ilona Andrews, highlighting some very funny Instagram videos she'd posted, and I immediately followed her for more amusing content. Ms. Wheatley does an excellent job promoting her books, and it took less than three weeks before I gave in and bought the first four books in the series, determined to find out more about this assassin sorceress and her softboi demon duke. The author herself promises that this is a book where the heroine doesn't need any rescuing, in fact she rescues both herself and her love interest, and that as opposed to the "Touch her and die!" trope that is so common in a lot of fantasy and romance novels, this is more of a "Touch HIM and die" story. 

Amira is determined and capable and does her best to fight the curse that forces her to kill people at her father's bidding. She certainly doesn't expect to fall for the heir to the imperial throne, a demon-possessed man she was once sent to murder. While their engagement might seem like one of pure political expediency, time spent with Daindreth makes Amira gradually hope that their relationship might become something more than a marriage of convenience. As long as they actually rid Daindreth of the demon, of course. He more or less refuses to touch her otherwise, since even when the demon seems quiet, it still watches everything the archduke does. 

It's not like Daindreth is completely useless, he just hasn't been trained in combat since he was very young. Being the heir to the throne, he's rarely ever alone. He does his best to be a good person, even though he's had to fight the demon inside him since he was eleven years old. Even though he's of age, his mother, the dowager empress, rules in the empire, as he is terrified of what will happen if the demon is given more power. Daindreth is pretty much always accompanied by Thadred, his cousin, who acts as the archduke's bodyguard, but also seems to see it as his sacred duty to sleep with as many ladies as possible. He finds Daindreth's decision to not only spare Amira's life, but to pick her as his fiancée, very confusing, but he and Amira learn to work together once he realises Amira also wants to protect the archduke. 

There are four books out in the series so far and the fifth and final novel, Daindreth's Empress, will be out in January. By then, I will probably have caught up and finished the four I already own. These are by no means the best fantasy out there that I've read, but they're inventive and entertaining, and the curses that both Daindreth and Amira struggle with are based on the author's own battles with PTSD and anxiety, so they feel very visceral and real. I don't regret supporting this author, and based on her writing and excellent social media videos, wish her a lot of success. 

Judging a book by its cover: I will freely admit that I don't think I would ever have picked up this book (or the sequels) based on the cover. This is a pretty generic fantasy cover, lady with a big sword and dark clothing. Still, it gives a certain impression of what the story is about. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 2: "Electric Idol" by Katee Robert

Page count: 375 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Psyche Demetriou wishes her mother would stop trying to push her at the most powerful men in Olympus to arrange a solid business alliance. She's used to pretending to be shallow and vain, as well as deaf to all the voices who try to tear her down for her social position or body shape. She misses the quiet life before her mother became hugely powerful and sees the good in everyone, to the point where she spends time patching up dangerous hitman Eros at a party when he arrives late and clearly the worse for wear. Unfortunately, in Olympus, no good deed goes unpunished and Psyche and Eros are caught on camera in what appears to be an amorous embrace. 

Eros has been his mother Aphrodite's hitman, general fixer, and all-round boogeyman since he was still a teenager. By now, he's pretty sure he's killed enough to drown both what is left of his heart and conscience in heinous deeds ordered by his volatile parent. Yet when Aphrodite orders him to murder Psyche, as she's upset both by the positive press the woman is getting and Demeter's matchmaking attempts, Eros finds that he has had enough. Psyche showed him gentleness and kindness when no one else would have dared, and he rationalises that if they get married, she will be safe, as Aphrodite would never have her own daughter-in-law murdered. 

Given the choice between death or a marriage of convenience to the frightening, but utterly gorgeous Eros, Psyche doesn't really feel she has any choice but to accept. They agree to stay married until Aphrodite is no longer in power, and Eros promises he will do everything in his power to protect her and keep her safe. They need to present the union as an impulsive love match for the ages, but Psyche is mostly worried about how she's going to persuade her sisters to believe that she's suddenly so smitten with Eros that she'd marry him on next to no notice.

Last summer, I was lucky enough to be granted an ARC for Ms. Robert's Neon Gods, the first book in this series of Greek mythology-inspired contemporary romances. I've checked out some of her erotic reimaginings of Disney villains and other characters, and while they were fine, they didn't really tempt me to read more. With her Dark Olympus books, however, I'm really intrigued at world building and cast of characters she's establishing. 

The actual world-building is a bit vague, mostly a big modern city divided into an upper and a lower half, with most of the power divided between thirteen very powerful individuals, named after the Greek pantheon. Only a few of the positions, like for instance Zeus and Hades, are hereditary, the others are assigned. The old Zeus died at the end of the previous novel, now his son is Zeus, and looking for a wife, who will automatically become Hera. Both Demeter and Aphrodite are extremely influential and wield a lot of power, but if they die or are removed, they are not automatically replaced by a family member, someone non-related can easily assume the name and mantle of power. It's established that one of the points of contention between Demeter and Aphrodite is that Demeter was elected by the people of Olympus by popular vote, and Aphrodite is clearly a woman who doesn't deal well with jealousy, and frequently punishes people she feels have offended her by sending her son to send a bloody, or lethal message. Eros has clearly long been uncomfortable with being his mother's weapon of choice, and when he's tasked to cold-bloodedly murder an innocent woman who recently showed him vulnerability and kindness, just because his mother is annoyed with her mother, he decides that he needs to draw a line.

As far as I can tell from her Twitter, Katee Robert has a lot of books planned in this series, and I'm totally OK with that. We mainly spend each book almost wholly focused on the main couple, but a little bit about the wider world and some supporting characters also flesh out the stories. Eros and Psyche aren't complete strangers, having appeared in the same social circles for years. Eros hasn't really shown anyone his true self, though, and Psyche has a very firmly established public persona, which doesn't always match up with the home-loving and sweet person she really is. She's not exactly thrilled with the thought of marrying Eros, but if the only other option is death, she's pragmatic enough to agree. Even before letting their guards down towards each other, the couple certainly share a strong physical attraction, which means Eros can pretend to himself that the only reason he's suggesting the match is so he can sleep with Psyche. 

I'm not sure which of the two books I've read in the series so far I prefer. I really liked Persephone and Hades in Neon Gods (and love their cameo appearances here). Both novels are more than entertaining (and steamy) enough that I'll be waiting with bated breath for more installments. There's some very interesting developments set up in this story, and I can't wait to see how things play out in future books.

 

Judging a book by its cover: I think the first cover mock-up for this book featured an ornate gilded mirror, which was fine, but the final cover is so much more eye-catching. I really like the glowing jewel heart - and considering that the hero supposedly is very stone-hearted, the image fits on several levels. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.