CBR18 Book 20: "Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter" by Heather Fawcett

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 26: A book involving animals

Monthly Keyword Challenge 26: Cat

Official plot summary, because I finished this back in February, and my perimenopausal brain isn't exactly helping here:

Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organized life, and she likes it that way. As the proudly type-A manager of a cat rescue charity, she has devoted her life to finding forever homes for stray cats.

Now it’s the shelter that needs a new home. And the only landlord who will rent a space to a cat rescue is a mysterious man called Havelock—who also happens to be the world’s most infamous magician, running an illegal magic shop out of his basement. Havelock is cantankerous and eccentric, but not not handsome, and no, Agnes absolutely does not feel anything but disdain for him. After all, rumors swirl about his shadowy past—including whispers that his dark magic once almost brought about the apocalypse.

Then one day a glamorous magician comes looking for Havelock, putting the magic shop—and the cat shelter—in jeopardy. To save the shelter, Agnes will have to team up with the magician who nearly ended the world . . . and may now be trying to steal her heart.

Havelock is everything Agnes thinks she doesn’t need in her chaos, mischief, and a little too much adventure. But as she gets to know him, she discovers that he’s more than the dark magician of legend, and that she may be ready for a little intrigue—and romance—in her life. After all, second chances aren’t just for rescue cats. . . .

This book takes some of the central elements of the Miyazaki adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle (the opinionated young woman determined to tidy up everything and everyone, especially the utter chaos that is the handsome, eccentric and possibly a bit socially awkward magician she shares a living space with) and adds cats! What's not to like? 

I would say that the official plot summary may mislead readers into thinking that romance is going to play more of a role in proceedings than it actually does. There is absolutely an attraction between Agnes and Havelock, but it is so slow-burning that it never really has time to become much of a blaze before the book is over. If Fawcett intends to write a sequel (which I sort of hope she doesn't, because the book works on its own, and standalones are so rare these days), I suspect the romance will be much more central. 

In my book club, we have a running joke that far too many books have exciting covers (and occasionally plot summaries) that promise the presence of cats, only for us to discover that it is all lies. Sometimes, the cover has a cat, and there isn't a single cat to be found anywhere in the story (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, to name one). Sometimes, the book summary promises us cats, and they literally only feature in two scenes in the entire book (Chilling Effect, I'm looking at you). This book, on the other hand, has so many cats. Tiny cats, shy cats, cuddly cats, eerie cats and absolutely dastardly tyrant cats. Several of them play important roles in the story, more so than some of the supporting human characters, frankly.

Agnes is wonderful. I would love to be her friend, especially because I suspect she'd come to my house and, after being gently disappointed in the absolute chaos that surrounds me and my family at any given time, she would roll up her sleeves and tidy and organise this place with military precision. I would bake her things to show my gratitude. 

Havelock (I am dying to find out if this is a clever Pratchett reference) is so incredibly Howl-coded. He is handsome, scatter-brained, antisocial, and lives for his magical experiments. He's basically a mad scientist, but with magic, who seems to have learned how to people from reading books (so not always that successfully). Both his living space and his personality are complete messes, and this is obviously irresistible to Agnes. She cannot rest until she has tidied and organised his multiple sub-levels of hoarded magical artefacts. 

There are some great supporting characters in this, as well. Both Agnes' and Havelock's sisters come to mind, and there is Yannick, Havelock's harried apprentice, and Mina, the hard-working volunteer helping Agnes get the cats relocated to good homes. This was one of my most anticipated books to come out this winter, and it didn't disappoint for a second. It is cosy and entertaining, and I highly recommend it. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover is an utter delight. Look at all the different kitties, lounging and prowling and playing and generally being adorable and whimsical. I love that the artist has included so many of the cat characters from the book, very recognisably, on the cover. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR13 Book 4: "Big Bad Wolf" by Suleikha Snyder

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I got an ARC from NetGalley. That has in no way influenced my review.

In a dystopian alternate reality, where the 2016 election led to the USA becoming a tightly regulated surveillance state, pretty much at the same time as the existence of a number of supernatural beings were revealed, several big cities, including New York, are now a Sanctuary City for supernaturals. 

Joe Peluso, an ex-soldier turned werewolf through military experimentation, is in prison for murdering six bear shifters with ties to the Russian mafia. His legal team is determined to give him a proper defense, but Joe believes himself beyond redemption. He has no regrets about the murders that landed him in prison, which were in retaliation for the death of his foster brother. However, he is haunted by his years as a soldier and all the lives he ended during his long military career. He has no intention of sharing any information or revealing anything to his lawyers that might help him get a lighter sentence and fully expects to be killed in prison by Russian mobsters soon enough.

Neha Ahluwalia, one of the lawyers on his team, as well as a trained psychologist, believes that everyone deserves a chance. She can't really explain her near-instant attraction to Peluso, which just seems to grow with each of their meetings. Falling for one of their clients, let alone a werewolf with a long history of violence is utter madness, but Neha can't stay away. On the day of Joe's trial, she agrees to a brief meeting alone with him, and they end up going on the run together after the Russian mob attempts to kill Joe and creates chaos at the courthouse. While he might not see himself as worthy of love or affection, Neha has caught glimpses of the wounded and vulnerable man behind the gruff facade, and she's determined to fight for their happy ending. 

I had hoped to have this review finished by the book's release date last week, but my depression had other ideas, and quite a lot of the things I wanted to achieve have had to be postponed. My friend and fellow Cannonball reviewer Emmalita reviewed this back in December (and has already used one of my favourite lines from the book as her review title and made me very excited to get to this. I've only ever read Ms. Snyder's contemporary romance novella Tikka Chance on Me, so seeing her take on urban fantasy/paranormal romance was interesting and quite different. 

There's a lot to like in this book, including the two main characters. I adored pretty much everything about Neha, including how completely unapologetic she was about was about embracing her desires once she admitted to herself that she fancied the pants off Joe. I could have done with a lot less self pitying, recriminations and angst from Joe (I have never had much patience with the oh woe is me, I'm so dark and unlovable because of my past dudes), but I guess feeling constantly guilty and not worthy of a wonderful lady like Neha is better than being an unapologetic sociopath who's full of himself. 

It's quite clear that as well as the central romance between Neha and Joe, this book is setting up the wider world in which the Third Watch, the secret agency staffed by both humans and paranormals who end up helping our protagonsists on the run. There's a whole host of supporting characters, including an incredibly charming and very scene-stealing vampire, as well as a no nonsense surgeon, both of whom I hope feature in future books. There's a really nice focus on friendship and community thoughout the book and while I have a few niggles about the book as a romance (everything happens VERY fast between Neha and Joe - I would have liked a bit more time for them to get to know each other before declaring eternal love), I loved this as the start of a new paranormal fantasy series full of competence porn, great world building and interesting characters.

As far as I can tell from Ms. Snyder's Twitter, this series will be at least a trilogy. I can't wait to get my hands on more. 

Judging a book by its cover: I absolutely see what the cover designer was trying to do here, but I'm not sure it entirely works.While I totally get that showing that just underneath the surface of our hero lurks a big, dangerous wolf, the actual effect of having two big yellow wolf eyes basically looking out at you from the torso of the muscular and very fit cover model is more distracting than enticing. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 83: "Battle Ground" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 432 pages

Audio book length: 15 hrs 43 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Spoiler warning! This is book 17 in a long, ongoing series. This really isn't the place to start. In fact, this book doesn't even work on its own, so don't even think to read this review if you're not caught up. Normally, I'd recommend that you start with book 1, but the first three books of The Dresden Files are pretty bad, so you'd be better off starting with book 4, Summer Knight. I highly recommend the audio books, narrated by James Marsters. They're what finally sold me on the series. 

Official book description:

Harry has faced terrible odds before. He has a long history of fighting enemies above his weight class. The Red Court of vampires. The fallen angels of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. The Outsiders.

But this time it’s different. A being more powerful and dangerous on an order of magnitude beyond what the world has seen in a millennium is coming. And she’s bringing an army. The Last Titan has declared war on the city of Chicago, and has come to subjugate humanity, obliterating any who stand in her way.

Harry’s mission is simple but impossible: Save the city by killing a Titan. And the attempt will change Harry’s life, Chicago, and the mortal world forever.

In my review for Peace Talks, I mentioned that it's been six long years since Jim Butcher last published a full Dresden Files novel. This year, we got two, but only because the original manuscript got so long that Butcher decided to split the story in two. There was clearly some rewriting done to make the parts stand a bit on their own, but mostly, this feels like one of the many YA movies that they split in two (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay), where you pretty much start the second film with the very next scene and no time has passed at all. Having now read both books, I think Butcher and his editors should have done a better job of just chopping a lot of unnecessary stuff and make it all a slightly longer, cohesive story.

While Peace Talks felt like a lot of the story lagged, and far too many story strands were left hanging, this book doesn't bother much with long-winded recapping, it throws the reader straight into a massive supernatural battle, where all of Chicago is at risk and losing might mean certain doom for all of humanity. So no pressure then, Harry. 

Butcher makes some choices in this book that I'm not happy about. Some of the things that happen, clearly need to happen for the story to work out in future books, and have been hinted at for a while. That doesn't mean I have to be happy about said developments, and I'm not. For all that I'm fond of action movies, and this book felt like a non-stop action extravaganza, I'm also glad that the readers got a bit more insight into characters like Mab and Marcone, and even Lara. The final chapter, where we get to see a glimpse of Molly and her family was also very nice. 

Six years ago, I was absolutely hooked on this series, now I'm wondering just how long Jim Butcher is going to drag things out before I get a satisfying conclusion to Dresden's journey. This is book 17 and I'm not sure I care all that much where things are going. These books used to be an automatic pre-order for me, now, I think I'll wait until I can get them at the library, or on sale. I still like the character and the writing, mostly, but I've just emotionally moved on in the long years since when I read most of them.

Judging a book by its cover: This is a better cover than the one to Peace Talks, but it still feels very generically urban fantasy AND The Dresden Files. I suspect I like it better because you can actually see what is going on in the image. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 64: "Peace Talks" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 352 pages

Audio book length: 12 hrs 52 mins

Rating: 3 stars

Spoiler warning! This is book 16 in a long, ongoing series. This really isn't the place to start. Normally, I'd recommend that you start with book 1, but the first three books of The Dresden Files are pretty bad, so you'd be better off starting with book 4, Summer Knight. I highly recommend the audio books, narrated by James Marsters. They're what finally sold me on the series. 

Official book description:

When the Supernatural nations of the world meet up to negotiate an end to ongoing hostilities, Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, joins the White Council's security team to make sure the talks stay civil. But can he succeed, when dark political manipulations threaten the very existence of Chicago--and all he holds dear?

It's been six full years since Butcher published the previous Dresden Files novel, if you don't count the short story collection Brief Cases (and I don't). Unless you're one of the people who still haven't given up on George R.R. Martin or Patrick Rothfuss (which I'm honestly close to doing, just finish the books, guys), that's a very long wait in between installments of an ongoing fantasy series. 

It's certainly long enough that I had to go online and read detailed plot summaries of the last few books in the series because I remembered only the barest hints of what happened in them. This is most definitely not the book you want to pick up if you're a Harry Dresden newbie. 

As the brief book description says, there's going to be a big supernatural peace summit in the middle of Chicago, and Harry Dresden has been selected to be on the White Council's security team, despite the fact that there are clearly a whole bunch of wizards who distrust him and question where his true loyalties lie. Harry doubts that the various parties meeting for the summit can ever find common ground, but he also has bigger worries to deal with, when Thomas Raith is taken down after trying to assassinate the leader of the Svartalves, causing a major supernatural diplomatic incident. Thomas' sister Lara certainly doesn't intend to let her brother be sentenced to death and uses favours owed to her by the Winter Court to get Harry to help her rescue him.

I haven't really looked into why it took Butcher so long to write this book. I know that Peace Talks and Battle Ground (out tomorrow) were originally intended to be one book, that just grew far too big and subsequently was split in two. As a result, this book very much feels like one of the many YA movies they decided to split in two to make more money. There's very few efforts made by Butcher to make this storyline wrap up neatly, and while some things seem a bit more resolved at the end of this book, it's clear that there's a whole lot more coming in the next book, making it impossible for me to rate the book, or even get proper closure to the story.

I listened to the book in audio, because to me, James Marsters is now the voice of The Dresden Files, and it felt very comforting to hear him telling me the story once more. For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me (maybe Butcher just had a weird misogynistic backslide), there's a whole lot more of the rather uncomfortable male gaze that happened all the time in the earliest books in the series. If this isn't explicitly explained to be something that's happening to Harry because he's losing control of his baser urges because of the Winter mantle, I'm going to be pissed. 

I like that Butcher has a number of interesting and different female characters make up part of the supporting cast now, but I really wish we didn't need to feel like Harry is leering at all of them, all the time. I'm a big fan of the further developments between Harry and Murphy and will rage quit the series if something bad (or at least worse than she's already suffered) happens to my girl Karrin. 

It's taken me long enough to get round to this review of a book that came out at the end of July, that the second half, Battle Ground, will be released tomorrow. I hope that the various story strands left dangling come to a slightly more satisfying conclusion, and am very curious to see what Butcher has planned - it sounds like it could have wide-reaching ramifications for the rest of the series.

Judging a book by its cover: These books have very little variety when it comes to cover design. Broody dude with a dark coat, big black hat and a staff, supposed to portray our hero Harry. This cover is even more forgettable than some others earlier in the series, with the cover model crouching down and random debris apparently flying around him. It gives you little to no idea of what the book will be about, except that it's yet another installment in The Dresden Files. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR7 Book 22: "Moon Over Soho" by Ben Aaronovitch

Page count: 396 pages
Audio book length: 10 hrs 1 min
Rating: 4 stars

This is the second book in the books about DC Peter Grant and as such, this review may contain certain spoilers for book one, Rivers of London. That's the book you want to start with.

Something is killing jazz musicians in Soho. A promising jazz saxophonist, Cyrus Wilkinson, drops dead of an apparent heart attack after playing a gig. Doctor Walid suspects that something supernatural may have caused it and DC Grant can hear "Body and Soul" playing when he examines the body. Some investigation shows that Cyrus is not the first musician this has happened to. Cases go back a long way, something mysterious seems to be feeding off them, possibly a type of "jazz vampire". While Peter doesn't exactly trust Simone, Cyrus' girlfriend, he does need her help and keeps being drawn to her, even though he knows it's not a good idea to get involved with someone connected to a case.

There is also a deadly female stalking the streets, leaving men bleeding to death with their genitals chomped off. Inspector Nightingale is unable to help out as much as he could wish, and Leslie May is recovering at her parents' house, reluctant to even see Peter, hiding her face every time he comes to visit. They communicate by text, and she helps him with research, but Peter is worried that their friendship is in danger of being as ruined as Leslie's face if they don't figure something out. As the various investigations progress, there are signs that they may be connected in some way. There is also someone sinister behind all of it. Is Inspector Thomas Nightingale really the only wizard left in England, or could there be someone else trained in magic, and using it for their own personal gain?

Peter's apprenticeship as a wizard continues, and he's getting more proficient in some of the basic forms. His inquisitive nature and his research abilities allow him to progress faster than Nightingale expects, but he still has a long way to go. Peter is on his own for much of the book, with both his inspector and Leslie May out of commission due to the events towards the end of the first book. Nightingale keeps trying to get involved, only to over-exert himself and get ordered back on bed rest by Doctor Walid. Leslie is staying with her parents while waiting for reconstructive surgery. Her injuries upset Peter, but he's also confident that he did whatever he could to save her, and while the damage to her face is bad, she's still alive and refuses to be pitied. She assists him as best she can from a distance, but prefers not to meet face to face unless it's absolutely necessary. I really liked the way her situation was handled in the book. While there is magic in this world, there is no easy fix-it button to restore Leslie's face to the way it was. The revelation at the end, revealing what she's been working on while recovering, makes me very curious to see where things go in the rest of the series.

These books also show how much of police work takes time, looking through old records, countless hours spent reading reports, interviewing suspects, doing tedious legwork. It was nice to see a bit more of Peter's parents, and I really liked the idea of "jazz vampires", supernatural creatures that feed on artistic and musical ability, rather than blood. There is clearly a lot of set up here for later books, and while the central mystery is solved by the end, there are a number of unanswered questions and much to deal with in the books to come. The narration continues to be excellent, and I've already got the third book downloaded on the Audible app on my phone.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.