CBR4 Book 71: "Timeless" by Gail Carriger

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: July 1st, 2012
Date finished: July 5th, 2012

This is the fifth (and as of yet final) novel in the Parasol Protectorate novels about Alexia Tarabotti, and as a result, this review will contain spoilers for previous books in the series, and the book will not be as satisfying to you if it's the first one you pick up. Go read Soulless instead.

Book summary from the publisher, because it's been two months since I read the book: Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell's acting troupe's latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a damper on Alexia's enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.

Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding?And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?

My enjoyment of the various books in this series has varied. I adored the first one, thought the second one was dull and the third one rather dreadful, but book four was an improvement, and as a final book in the series, this was a worthy ending to Alexia's story. By now, most of the characters are fully developed in Carriger's world, and interact in amusing and sometimes surprising ways. Alexia has mellowed a bit, and is less prickly than in some of the earlier instalments. It's fun to see the "show go on the road" so to speak, and while in previous books the cast have been travelling in Europe, this time they go all the way to Egypt, home of the first vampires.

While certain things were left unanswered, to a large part, Carriger finishes off the major story strands with this novel. It's fairly clear to the reader what will happen in future with Alexia, her beloved Lord Maccon, Lord Akeldama, Biffy and Professor Lyall (two of my favourite characters), Floote, Madame Lefoux and of course Ivy Tunstell and her acting troupe. Never exactly groundbreaking and profound literature, this book was an entertaining light-hearted romp, and possibly my second favourite in the series after Soulless. 

CBR4 Book 70: "Once Burned" by Jeaniene Frost

Page count: 346 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: June 27th, 2012
Date finished: June 27th, 2012

This is the start of a spin-off series from Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress books. You don't have to have read any of them to understand these, though.

Leila is a human with very unusual powers, after having been badly injured in an accident involving a downed power line when she was 13. Now she can learn things about the objects she touches, and about the people who have held them before her. She pretty much has to be careful about touching people, though, because unless she unloads her power into lightning rods, she can badly shock anyone unlucky enough to get to close to her. Before her accident, she was a promising acrobat, now she does tricks at a circus with a vampire dwarf (he's able to handle her touch to a certain extent), who acts like a father figure to her.

When a group of evil vampires find out about Leila's powers, they kidnap her and try to get her to give them information about Vlad Tepesh (yes, that one - but he really doesn't like to be called Dracula), against whom they're clearly plotting something. When she tries to locate him in her mind  with objects the thugs have stolen, he instantly notices her presence, and tracks both her and her kidnappers down. As Vlad realises both what a danger Leila could pose to him in the hands of his enemies, and how useful her abilities could be for him, he refuses to let her go until they've tracked down the mastermind against the plot against him.

As Vlad has the power of pyrokinesis (he can control fire with his mind), and is completely impervious to fire and heat, Leila can also touch him without danger of hurting him. Even other vampires would eventually be affected by her strong electrical powers, but Vlad insists she use him as she would a lightning rod. He's completely unconcerned about her fear of him, and seems to encourage it, yet for all that he is clearly very dangerous and quite ruthless, Leila can't help but be attracted to the first man in her adult life that she won't have to worry about damaging with her powers. Vlad can also read Leila's mind (with occasional hilarious results) and cannot understand why she'd want to fight her attraction to him.

While I enjoyed the first few Night Huntress books, I haven't been that impressed with the later ones, and have usually enjoyed Frost's two standalone spin-off novels from the series more. Once Burned is the start of a series (I think it's a trilogy) and that means that while Leila and Vlad's relationship develops over the course of the book, they're by no means at their HEA yet, and there are more threats to both of them to come in later books. I very much enjoyed both the main characters (I always liked Vlad in his appearances in Frost's earlier books), as well as the supporting cast, and the further exploration of Frost's fantasy universe. While not the best paranormal fantasy I've read, I enjoyed it more than several of the author's more recent books, and will absolutely be checking out the next books in the series.

R.I.P. VII

Thanks to Raych on Books I Done Read, I discovered another Reading Challenge, which seems like a lot of fun to take part in.

Now in its seventh year, the R.I.P runs from September 1st (so it's already started) to October 31st. The goal is to have fun reading, and to share said fun with others. Participants read and/or watch TV and films they classify as:
Mystery
Suspense
Thriller
Dark fantasy
Gothic
Horror
Supernatural
Or anything else sufficiently moody that shares a kinship with the above.

Peril the first involves reading four books that fit the genre criteria before October 31st. As a whole bunch of books on my reading list are in these genres, it should be fine. My four books will probably be:

• Dreaming of Amelia by Jaclyn Moriarty (published as The Ghosts of Ashbury High in the US)
• The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers 
• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
• Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers

Peril on the Screen means I watch something scary or mysterious and blog about it. I'm not a huge fan of horror movies, but do like mysteries and gothic things, so I should be able to find something that fits without much trouble.

I may also take part in the October group read, which is Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book, which I've wanted to re-read. I may listen to the audio book instead, to give me a different experience from last time. So watch this space for reviews (I just need to catch up on my backlog of 12+ books first). 

CBR4 Book 69: "Scandal Wears Satin" by Loretta Chase

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: June 27th, 2012
Date finished: June 27th, 2012

This is the second book in Loretta Chase's Dressmaker series. The book can be read perfectly independently from the first in the series, Silk is for Seduction, although the main couple in this book are introduced in the first book in the series. This review will contain spoilers for the first book in the series, so don't read on unless you want to find out who the central couple in that book are.

Sophy Noirot is the middle of the three dressmaker sisters determined to take London society by storm with their innovative designs and wonderful creations. While her older sister is the creative genius, and her younger sister is the financial whiz, Sophy excels at marketing and sales, and could probably sell sand to Bedouins. The Noirot sisters need wealthy patrons, but the scandal they caused when Marcelline Noirot married the Duke of Clevedon is not going to be easy to live down. However, the Clevedon's former bethrothed, Lady Clara, sister to the Earl of Longmore, is still their friend, and determined to wear the Maison Noirot designs even if her mother is threatening to disown her.

But then Lady Clara is compromised in a very public place, and rather than marry the scoundrel who tricked her, runs away. Sophy needs to get her back, even if it means working with the Earl of Longmore to do it. And while his mother may hate the Noirot sisters, Longmore is extremely taken with Sophy, and determined to spend as much time with her as possible.

I love Loretta Chase, but this is one of her weaker efforts. Over the course of two novels, not one, but two dressmakers from a rather dubious background end up with extremely high ranking members of the British nobility, and I have no doubt that the youngest Noirot sister will find herself a nobleman as well in "Velvet is for Viscounts"(wonderfully coined by Mrs. Julien) or whatever the book will end up being called. Unfortunately, Marcelline and Clevedon were a much more enjoyable couple to read about. I didn't particularly care about Sophy and Longmore, and Lady Clara, who I felt a lot of sympathy for in the previous book, mainly annoyed me in this one. Still, this was by no means a bad book, it still contained a lot of the sparkling dialogue that Chase does so brilliantly, and I wasn't actually bored, but I still hope that the final volume in the trilogy is of higher quality.

CBR4 Book 68: "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon

Page count: 850 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Date begun: June 16th, 2012
Date finished: June 20th, 2012

I'm breaking one of my own rules here, by reviewing a book that I haven't just read once before. This is actually the fourth time I read Outlander, but as it stands up so well, and is still one of my favourite novels of all time, I pretty much had to review it on my blog. Besides, I've completed the main Cannonball Challenge for this year months ago, so I can do what I like!

Claire Randall, a nurse, is on a second honeymoon with her historian husband Frank Randall in the Scottish Highlands in 1946, shortly after the end of World War II. Claire spent the years of the war patching up wounded soldiers, and the couple have barely seen each other for the last five years. They're trying to rekindle the spark of their marriage, when Claire is unexpectedly thrown back in time to 1743, not the safest of places for an unaccompanied Englishwoman of mysterious origins.

Can Claire ever return to her own time? Can a lonely Englishwoman stay alive in the tumultuous time period that is Scotland shortly before the final Jacobite Rising? Claire's fate becomes intertwined with that of a young Scot by the name of Jamie Fraser, and the longer Claire stays in the past, the harder it gets for her to convince herself that what she really wants is to return to her own time, and Frank Randall.

Mrs. Julien, one of the wonderful contributors and regulars on Pajiba, discovered Diana Gabaldon's epic series a few months back, and proceeded to read the epic (so far seven book) series (none of the books are under 750 pages long) in little over a month and a half. Because she and many other book blogging Pajibans discussed the book at length on the Cannonball Blog and Facebook, I was inspired to re-read the book for the first time in what must be at least seven, maybe eight, years.

I adore this book. I discovered the books in 1998, shortly before I was about to graduate high school, and I still thank my lucky stars that there was a teachers' strike that year, so I didn't have to do my final exams, because I'm honestly not sure how well I would've done on them - I was so obsessed with the series (the fourth book had just come out in paperback). I can honestly say that they contributed to my studying Scottish history in my first year of Uni in St. Andrews, and thus saving my degree, as it turned out I was much better at writing History essays than English literary analysis ones.

I love the research that Gabaldon has put into the books. I love that an episode of classic Doctor Who gave Jamie his name and gave Gabaldon the idea for the time period she wanted to set her novels in (and when I first read these books I'd never heard of the show, or seen a single episode). I love the characters - even though Jamie Fraser's awesomeness throughout the series ruins you for all other men, fictional or real. Even the villains are wonderful - and Claire is an amazing heroine.

The book has been classified as many things. Science fiction (although apart from the fact that Claire is sent back in time, there is nothing much sci-fi about them). I frequently find them in the fantasy shelves in bookshops and libraries (I guess it's pretty fantastic that Claire travels back in time). Romance, obviously, it's impossible to deny that at the heart of the story is the absolutely amazing love story between Jamie and Claire. But I would still classify them as historical fiction first and foremost, as they give wonderful insight into a time in the past, and over the course of the series, Gabaldon really does get to show off her research skills. I've learned about a huge number of things from 18th Century Scotland and later other parts of the world (don't want to spoil it for anyone).

Do yourself a favour. Join the many readers of Cannonball who have either newly discovered or in the past enjoyed this book. It's an amazing piece of fiction.

CBR4 Book 67: "Becoming Bindy Mackenzie" by Jaclyn Moriarty

Page count: 496 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: June 20th, 2012
Date finished: June 21st, 2012

Because it's been nearly three months since I read the book, I'm going to include the book blurb from the author's own website:

The Motive
Bindy Mackenzie is the most perfect girl at Ashbury High. She scores in the 99.99th percentile in all her classes. She holds lunchtime advisory sessions for her fellow students. She keeps careful transcripts of everything said around her. And she has been Kmart casual Employee of the Month for seventeen months straight. No wonder somebody wants to kill her.

The Suspects
Bindy is horrified to learn that she must take part in the Friendship and Development project - a new class meant to provide a "life raft" through "the tricky seas of adolescence". Bindy can't see how airheaded Emily Thompson, absentminded Elizabeth Clarry, mouthy Toby Mazzerati, malicious Astrid Bexonville, silent Briony Atkins, narcissistic Sergio Saba and handsome, enigmatic Finnegan Blonde could ever possibly help her. (Well, maybe Finnegan could).

The Crime
But then Bindy's perfect life begins to fall apart. She develops an obsession with the word "Cincinatti". She can't stop feeling sleepy. She fails an exam for the first time ever. And - worst of all - she just doesn't care. What could be the cause of all these events? Is it conspiracy? Is it madness? Is it...murder?

The Truth
Lots of people hate Bindy Mackenzie - but who would actually kill her? The answer is in Bindy's transcripts. The detectives are the members of her FAD group. But Bindy has made every one of them into an enemy...and time is running out. 

Another great book in the Ashbury/Brookfield series, written entirely in diary entries, notes, e-mails and quite a lot of Bindy's insanely detailed transcripts. This may have been the hardest of the books for me to get into, because Bindy really is a rather unlikable girl, even though she is completely oblivious to the fact. However, Moriarty is a gifted storyteller, and soon, I couldn't help but feel sorry for Bindy and got caught up in the mystery at the centre of the novel. Is someone actually trying to kill Bindy? Or has the pressure of being the cleverest girl in school finally got to her, and she's losing her mind as a result?

Moriarty has done a brilliant job of continuing her epistolary style, while creating an engaging suspense/mystery novel for teenagers. Yet again she brilliantly depicts teenage life, and I'm so glad I discovered these books. I still have one more to go in the series, and I'm saving it until the days get long and dark, so I have something to comfort myself with.

CBR4 Book 66: "Magic Lost, Trouble Found" by Lisa Shearin

Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: June 9th, 2012
Date finished, June 12th, 2012

Ah, the joys of trying to blog about 3 months after I read a book. Will give it my level best try, nonetheless.

This is the first in a series of six. I've only read the first two, but the rest come highly recommended by my self-proclaimed Internet bestie Felicia Day (one of the books was featured in the Guild video Game On, and the final book in the series was a pick on her weekly vlog The Flog) and as I enjoyed the first third of the series a lot, I will get around to reading the rest at some point.

"But why in the world should anyone pick up a book with such a God-awful cover?" I hear many of you ask. It's a good question, faithful readers (if I have any left after my summer hiatus). Because, like so many other gems in the paranormal fantasy genre, this is really rather good, and very entertaining.

Raine Benares is an elf, and possesses a moderate amount of magic, perfectly adequate to do her job as a Seeker. She can find lost objects, and often aids law enforcement in recovering stolen property, or people who've gone missing. The fact that most of her family are likely to have assisted in the stealing of said property or kidnapping of said missing persons in the first place, sometimes helps, and sometimes complicates her job. Suffice to say, while Raine is a fairly law-abiding citizen, most of her family and acquaintances are not.

Raine's life gets complicated in a hurry, when her friend Quentin is hired to steal a very powerful amulet from the home of a very ruthless sorcerer. The amulet ends up with Raine, and all of a sudden there are a whole slew of people, including evil high priests, righteous paladins and various other characters wanting to get hold of her and the amulet. If she survives after they get their hands on the amulet, entirely depends on what group reaches her first.

Raine Benares is another snarky, fast-talking, independent and very capable female protagonist, I've actually lost count of how many first person narrated series with similar heroines I'm keeping up with at the moment. While good at her job, she's got shady connections a plenty, and one of the things I liked so much about this book and the sequel, were the supporting characters, all who were just as enjoyable to read about.

The world building is very well done, I liked the various peoples in the world Shearin created, especially goblins as a sort of dark (and very attractive) mirror to the beautiful elves. There is what looks like an inevitable love triangle set up, but as far as I can see from non-spoilery reviews of later books in the series, that's not central to the plot arc, for which I'm very grateful. I will, as mentioned, definitely be reading the whole series (which is now complete!) at some point.