#CBR13 Book 52: "When Sorrows Come" by Seanan McGuire

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Flora (there are a number of trees in the background and Toby appears to be holding a rose in her left hand. She also has a belt of roses on her dress)

Spoiler warning! This is book 15 (!) in the ongoing October Daye series. So very much not the place to start. There will be spoilers for previous books in the series in this review, although I shall try to avoid any big ones for the contents of this current book. Rosemary and Rue is the place to begin. 

It is finally time. October "Toby" Daye is going to marry her long-time fiancee, Tybalt, King of Cats and because she specifically asked everyone involved not to bother her with any details about the wedding, except when and where to show up, she is rather taken aback when she's told that she and all her friends will be travelling to Toronto, to the seat of the High King in less than 24 hours, for her nuptials to take place at the end of seven days. She is also very surprised to discover that Quentin, her loyal squire and pretty much adopted son at this point, has gone and changed not just his face by magic, but his entire self and faerie species, to be able to stand by her side at her wedding, without anyone at his home realising who he really is. Quentin's deal with the Luideag can only be reversed after he sees her duly married to Tybalt. They both have to stay alive and the event has to take place before the magic can be undone. The Sea Witch isn't going to let Toby find any further excuses to get out of her own wedding.

Of course, this is a major event involving Sir Toby Daye, hero of several realms, now known as a king-breaker in more than one capacity. Of course, the seven days before the wedding aren't going to pass quietly with Toby just having to attend dress fittings or try to figure out the various details involving strange etiquette that the ceremony will contain. Oh no, when Toby shows up somewhere, there are suddenly surprise insurrection attempts, people having been replaced by deadly doppelgangers, assassination attempts and so many bodies starting to pile up. Toby is forced to try to figure out who is trying to murder High King Sollys, the father of her beloved squire, not to mention try to steal his throne and kingdom. She also needs to make sure no one realises that Oberon, the King of all Faerie is one of the guests at the wedding (the Luideag insisted on bringing him along in disguise) or that the Crown Prince currently looks like a stranger. 

Toby herself is almost impossible to kill (she's not even sure she CAN die, at this point), but it would be nice to make it to her wedding day without anyone else in the wedding party being killed in the hunt for the traitors. It would also ruin the ceremony if the hosts, the High King and Queen (who also happen to be Quentin's parents) are dead and their rule usurped by some power-hungry rival. So Toby proceeds to do what she does best, investigate while trying to provoke as many people as possible, hoping to find the guilty parties before it's too late, and her own wedding is ruined. 

I'm not going to lie, the title of this book and the fact that McGuire has been finding reasons for this binding union between Toby and Tybalt to be postponed for so many books by now had me actually peeking at the last pages, just to make sure Tybalt actually survived long enough to make it to the altar. I was terrified that one of the "sorrows" of the title was going to be Toby becoming a widow before she was even a wife, and I was not ready to see Tybalt getting fridged. So SPOILER, I guess - Tybalt lives and he and Toby end this book as man and wife, which did not seem a given at the beginning of the story.

I also don't think Toby got disembowelled a single time in this book, which makes for a welcome change. She mostly manages to keep all of her blood inside her body. Aided by Tybalt, May, Raj, the disguised Quentin and a bunch of her other close friends and hangers-on, Toby is able to figure out who is replacing valued members of the High King's court with doppelgangers and trying to assassinate him before it's time for her to walk down the aisle (except faerie wedding ceremonies are a lot more complicated than the bride just walking down a straight stretch of ground). 

Because I had peeked at the ending, I was able to enjoy the book entirely, since I didn't need to worry that Tybalt, Raj or Quentin suddenly kick the bucket. There's a lot of different court officials for Toby to negotiate with to be allowed to do her job properly and my impression of the High Court of Toronto is that Quentin can't have had all that much fun growing up. There are some very touching scenes both between him and Toby and Tybalt and Toby in the book. Toby also has a very cathartic talk with her stepdad, Simon, now legally considered her father in all the ways that matter in faerie. 

There is also a novella at the end of the book, which really just acts as an extended epilogue, where we get to see what Toby and Tybalt's actual wedding feast is like. I'm guessing it was added as an optional extra to keep the page count of the novel within acceptable limits, but it's still a very fun read and it makes sense to just keep reading once you get to the end of the book proper. 

Since this is book 15, and storylines that were set up several books ago are finished off, this is not a book for beginners. If you're already a fan of the Toby Daye books, however, you should enjoy this installment as well. 

Judging a book by its cover: Upon first glance, I thought the cover was badly designed and inappropriate, for reasons I don't want to go into without spoiling some lovely details of the plot. Upon closer inspection, I can see that some of my objections are due to unfortunate colour choices when it comes to shading and the like for Toby's dress, and I may in fact have been completely wrong. It's a suitably dramatic cover, as always. I really like the cover art on these books. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 51: "Ubesvart anrop" (Unanswered call) by Nora Dåsnes

Page count: 283 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Official book description (translated by me):

Oslo, late summer 2011

Barely a month after the terror attacks on the 22nd of July, Rebekka and Fariba are starting high school. Rebekka doesn't know any of the people who died, and thinks she should be one of the ones who are ready to claim back their peace of mind. So when Fariba signs up for the Labour Party Youth Movement, Rebekka tries to get involved with drama club, with Daniel with the curly hair, with parties and school and friends. 

The only problem is that Rebekka thinks about it (the 22nd of July) all the time. 

Unanswered call is a graphic novel about being a teenager in the time after the 22nd of July. It's a story about looking for reason in the face of the unreasonable, about being an outsider, about grief and anxiety. About how hard it is to reach out to one another, and how important it is when we manage it. 

It's been ten years since one very determined and angry Norwegian man planted a car bomb in the very heart of the capital, right outside the building where the prime minister's office is located. At 3:25 pm on the 22nd of July 2011, the bomb went off and caused tremendous amounts of damages. The sound of the explosion and the shock wave resulting from it could be felt all over greater Oslo, and even in some neighbouring counties. A total of eight people are killed, nine people were critically injured and more than two hundred sustained physical injuries in some way. Pretty much every window in the buildings nearby is shattered. Police and emergency services work quickly to try to evacuate as much of the area as possible and the police start working on figuring out the culprit and motive for the attack.

As it turns out, the bomb was just a distraction, if a frightfully effective one, at that. The terrorist, 32- year-old Anders Behring Breivik (he has since changed his name) was already on his way out of Oslo when the bomb went off and by 5:20 pm, he had made his way to Utøya, a small island about an hour's drive from the capital, where the Labour Party Youth Movement held their annual summer camp. He was dressed as a police officer and told the driver of the boat that took people out to the island (it is still only accessible by boat) that he was there to help secure the island after the attack in the capital. He was finally arrested at 6:35 pm, having wandered the idyllic little island shooting, killing or injuring as many people as possible. After his rampage, 69 of the 564 people on the tiny island were dead. The youngest victim was only 14. 32 of the dead were under 18. As well as the people who died, about 32 people were critically injured and there are hundreds of people, direct victims or their loved ones, who even now live with the physical and psychological trauma that the event caused.

I was also 32 years old when it happened, and while I didn't know anyone directly involved in any of the attacks, it's one of those events that has left scars. I still get affected talking about it or reading about the event. In about a week's time, the 10th graders in my school are all going to visit Utøya, where there is now a visitor's centre, and we're in the process of teaching them more about the attacks and their aftermaths. The kids I teach were only 5 at the time it happened, so for most of them, it's not in any way as affecting or upsetting for them as it is for me and several of my colleagues. Let's just say I'm probably going ugly cry when we have to watch the Norwegian film version of what happened later this week, and I suspect I'm going to be very shaken by the visit to the island as well.

This graphic novel came out earlier this year, and the author/artist was herself about to start high school about a month after the attacks took place. The entire country was still reeling, and the feelings of collective grief and trauma were strong. The book features three different teenagers, and the ways in which they try to go about their lives, trying to process the shocking events and pretending to be unaffected, despite being everything but. Rebekka, our androgynous protagonist, suffers occasional panic attacks and spends a lot of time online doing research to try to figure out why one young man got angry enough to perpetrate something so horrific. Fariba, her best friend, gets involved with youth politics and joins the youth organisation that was so cruelly targeted on the island. She wants to ensure that the world is a better place going forward. Daniel, the slightly older student Rebekka meets as part of drama club is more of a supporting character, but he, like so many others, is having trouble just moving on. 

This proved to be an excellent book to introduce the students to, as the art is very clear and easy to follow and a lot of the story is told by wordless panels and the body language and facial expression of the characters. While most of the panels are done in a bluish grey and white, all the flashbacks that characters have to the 22nd of July, thinking about where they were during the attack, are in a vivid red and white. Even the students who really struggle with reading managed to read and comprehend the story perfectly well, and we had some really good discussions as a result. 

Myself, I read the whole book in less than an hour. I borrowed it at our school library, planning to check it out a week or two before we were going to talk about it in class, and after looking at a few pages, I was sucked in and read the whole thing in one sitting. I think my only complaint about the book is that the ending feels rushed, and a lot of the story threads wrap up a little bit too quickly and neatly for my taste. I wish the author would have added ten-twenty more pages to make the ending a bit less sudden, but otherwise, this was an excellent read and I may buy myself a copy once it's released in paperback. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover shows the book's protagonist, Rebekka, as well as her best friend Fariba and Daniel, the boy that Rebekka fancies. The cover gives a good impression of the art style the author uses throughout the book. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR13 Books 48-50: "The Queen's Thief series books 4-6" by Megan Whalen Turner

CBR13 Bingo: Old Series (the first book in the series came out in 1996. The first book in this review came out in 2010 - it's taken a long time for Whalen Turner to complete it)

A Conspiracy of Kings

Page count: 362 pages

Audio book length: 8hrs 26mins

Rating: 3.5 stars

Sophos, the heir to Sounis, is rusticating with his mother and sisters, having been sent away from his uncle's court for generally being considered a disappointment. He keeps ignoring his tutors and weapons training, which turns out to be a problem when mercenary soldiers come to the estate with nefarious plans. Sophos is abducted and disguised as a runaway slave and discovers later that his mother and sisters were taken hostage and are hidden away by one of his uncle's rebel barons. There's a planned coup afoot, where the rebel barons want to kill Sophos' uncle and install him as their puppet king. Sophos ruins their plans by managing to escape, but as he has been very successfully disguised as a slave, he is recaptured by actual slavers and ends up working the fields at the estate of the very baron who seems to be leading the plot against the crown.

Meanwhile, Sophos' royal friends, like Eugenides, the King of Attolia, and Helen, the Queen of Eddis, believe Sophos to have been killed in the attack on his estate. They are therefore extremely relieved when he shows up unexpectedly in Attolia along with the Mage of Sounis, his former tutor. By this point, Sophos discovers that his uncle has fallen, and now he, Sophos, is King of Sounis. He needs to recount his tale of captivity and escape, before he begs aid from Eddis and Attolia to muster enough troops to actually secure his throne. 

Sophos shows up as a supporting character in The Thief and is later mentioned in The Queen of Attolia. I never thought much about him, and remember trying to start A Conspiracy of Kings once before, many years ago. I never really got very far because the story of Sophos just didn't interest me all that much, but this time, I was firstly determined to finish the entire series, and secondly, listening to the books in audio, with Steve West narrating, so I pressed on. I'm glad I did. While the book is in no way my favourite of the series, it Whalen Turner is a talented writer, and seeing Sophos come into his own was a much more interesting story than I had first expected. His understated romance with Helen, Queen of Eddis is also very sweet. 

Thick as Thieves

Page count: 384 pages

Audio book length: 8hrs 47mins

Rating: 3 stars

Official book description: 

Deep within the palace of the Mede emperor, in an alcove off the main room of his master’s apartments,. Kamet minds his master’s business and his own. Carefully keeping the accounts, and his own counsel, Kamet has accumulated a few possessions, a little money stored in the household’s cashbox, and a significant amount of personal power. As a slave, his fate is tied to his master’s. If Nahuseresh’s fortunes improve, so will Kamet’s, and Nahuseresh has been working diligently to promote his fortunes since the debacle in Attolia.

A soldier in the shadows offers escape, but Kamet won’t sacrifice his ambition for a meager and unreliable freedom; not until a whispered warning of poison and murder destroys all of his carefully laid plans. When Kamet flees for his life, he leaves behind everything—his past, his identity, his meticulously crafted defenses—and finds himself woefully unprepared for the journey that lies ahead.

Pursued across rivers, wastelands, salt plains, snowcapped mountains, and storm-tossed seas, Kamet is dead set on regaining control of his future and protecting himself at any cost. Friendships—new and long-forgotten—beckon, lethal enemies circle, secrets accumulate, and the fragile hopes of the little kingdoms of Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis hang in the balance.

Kamet is a very minor, barely mentioned character who appears in The Queen of Attolia, as the personal secretary of Nahuseresh, the Mede ambassador to Attolia. Due to Eudenides' schemes, Nahuseresh has to flee Attolia in disgrace, and hatred between the former ambassador and the former Queen's thief is strong. In this book, Kamet finds himself cast adrift, fleeing for his life accompanied only by an Attolian stranger, who claims he can help Kamet - but who can help a slave whose master has been murdered? The fate of all slaves in the Mede empire is to die with their master, as a runaway, Kamet is risking terrible torture and certain death if he's caught. 

Kamet's near-constant companion in this long journey from Mede to Attolia is Costis, once a guard in the Attolian royal guard, now sent on this special mission by his king. While Kamet remembers his time in the Attolian court as mostly a chore and has the impression of the Attolians as backward, primitive people, his time in and out of dangerous situations with Costis slowly begins to change his mind.

Very much a bridging book, spending time with two minor characters of the series, this book nevertheless shows the readers further aspects of Whalen Turner's excellent world-building and characterisation. Her books feature so many different cultures, traditions, attitudes, and religious beliefs and this "road trip" narrative (except the two protagonists are mostly on foot) is an interesting way to show more of the fictional universe of these characters. 

Return of the Thief

Page count: 480 pages

Audio book length: 11hrs 22mins

Rating: 4 stars

After the marriage of Sophos, King of Sounis and Helen, Queen of Eddis - who have both sworn allegiance and fealty to Eugenides, King of Attolia, the one-handed former thief of Eddis now finds himself High King of all three nations. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in all three countries who are unhappy about this and Eugenides and Irene of Attolia need to make sure there aren't civil uprisings within their own lands, as the powerful Mede empire prepares to wage war on the little peninsula, perfectly happy to annex all three countries.

In a story told mostly through the eyes of Pheris, a young physically disabled man who has been sent to the Attolian court by his ruthless grandfather, Baron Erondites. The king has ordered that Erondites' heir be raised at court, and in an attempt to spite the crown, Erondites sends his previously hidden away eldest grandson, who everyone believes to be a speechless idiot. However, Pheris, while unable to speak and frequently suffering terrible pains because of his disabilities, is very intelligent and has been taught to communicate through sign language by his nurse. He has learned that it's best to appear as insignificant and invisible as possible, but it doesn't take long before the Attolian king understands that his newest attendant is more of an asset than he appears, or Erondites ever suspected. 

After more than 20 years, this final volume in the Queen's Thief series came out in late 2020. That, and the "Old series" square on this year's Cannonball Bingo card, provided the impetus I needed to finish the series myself. It was really nice to revisit the first three books and remind myself of the early books, and the Audible audiobooks narrated by Steve West were all really well done. I appreciate the various ways in which Whalen Turner changes up narrators and explores unexpected parts of her fictional universe, to give the reader a bigger picture of everything going on. The characters are complex, multi-faceted and flawed in interesting ways. Being the final book in the series, Return of the Thief really won't have the proper impact if you read it without having read the previous five. Technically, you can probably skip Thick as Thieves, but all the books are very entertaining, so why deprive yourself of a few hours of good writing?

I saw one of the reviewers on Goodreads saying it was bittersweet to reach the end, but I really liked seeing where the characters all ended up, and appreciated the completion of the metaphorically and sometimes literally long journeys they have been on to where they finished their stories. I note that Whalen Turner has left the door open to return to her fictional world with a potential Queen's Thief - the next generation. Only time will tell if she does. 

Judging the books by their covers: As I said in my review of The King of Attolia, I really like these new elegant covers for the books, looking like little historical dioramas. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR13 Book 47: "Bombshell" by Sarah Maclean

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: New series

Official book description: 

After years of living as London’s brightest scandal, Lady Sesily Talbot has embraced the reputation and the freedom that comes with the title. No one looks twice when she lures a gentleman into the dark gardens beyond a Mayfair ballroom…and no one realizes those trysts are not what they seem.

No one, that is, but Caleb Calhoun, who has spent years trying not to notice his best friend’s beautiful, brash, brilliant sister. If you ask him, he’s been a saint about it, considering the way she looks at him…and the way she talks to him…and the way she’d felt in his arms during their one ill-advised kiss.

Except someone has to keep Sesily from tumbling into trouble during her dangerous late-night escapades, and maybe close proximity is exactly what Caleb needs to get this infuriating, outrageous woman out of his system. But now Caleb is the one in trouble because he’s fast realizing that Sesily isn’t for forgetting…she’s forever. And forever isn’t something he can risk.

This is another review that will suffer from the fact that I finished the book at the end of August and haven't had the time and/or brain space to write about it until now. I've adjusted down my original rating half a star because it feels like a book as action-packed as this one, I should remember slightly more details about the general plot two months later than I now find myself doing for it to deserve a full four stars.

So what do I remember? Lady Sesily Talbot, who apparently some sections of society anachronistically choose to call Sexily behind her back (I do really like Maclean, at least until a while after I read her books and all my critical faculties kick in again and I start nitpicking - but she's not exactly the most historically accurate in all aspects writer out there) is the last of the scandalous Talbot sisters to remain unmarried. She has a very strong sense of fair play and justice and has allied herself with a group of other ladies to help women in need, from all stratas of society. Sesily herself is able to use society's impression of her as a flirt and as a scandal to cause distractions. Her main allies are the rich noblewoman who can use her wealth to fund the group's endeavours; the "hopeless" spinster wallflower everyone underestimates and the eccentric who cooks up explosives and other useful chemical concoctions to aid the group.

Caleb Calhoun, the charming American who co-owns a pub with Sesily's older sister Sera has been staying away from England for the past two years. He knows that his attraction to Sesily can go nowhere, but thinks about her all the time. Now he's back, and while he wants to keep his distance, the frustrating woman keeps ending up in dangerous situations with no care for her own safety. While he wants to stay out of her business, her (seemingly) impulsive and dangerous actions make it impossible for him to keep away, even at the risk of his own secrets coming to light.

Caleb has some dark secrets that mean that he always feels like he has to be very careful when he leaves the United States and his business there. His attraction to Sesily is not the only tie he has to England, but he's worried that the truth will come out and ruin not just his life, but those of all those near to him. He knows that if he spends too much time with Sesily, his already pretty strong feelings will become irrevocable and he will fall head over heels for her, whether he wants to or not. He's never going to be able to be a worthy match for her, so he has to stay away from her (isn't that always the case with these overly protective heroes). 

Sesily is nowhere near as outrageous or scandalous as she portrays herself to be, and she needs to toe the line with her rescue operations so her family members don't become too worried about her. She loves spending time with her sisters and their increasing brood of children, but being the exciting and fun aunt has also confirmed for her that she never wants children of her own. What man could really want to spend their life without having children? She's quite happy being a spinster forever, but every time she clashes with Caleb, she starts questioning whether they might have a future together. 

If you asked me what the details of the plot were, barring Sesily and the ladies trying to bring some unscrupulous and probably murderous nobleman to justice, and him having something to do with Caleb's past, I will have to disappoint you. All the finer details of the book have completely slipped my mind. 

Sesily's three co-conspirators are clearly going to have books of their own, and there is some pretty obvious sequel bait set up over the course of the story. As always, I had fun while reading this, but the substance of the book has failed to stay with me. Maclean remains on my "buy while on sale" list. 

Judging a book by its cover: While I love the bold red colour of the dress, yet again this is a historical romance cover with a wildly anachronistic costume choice for the cover model. Then again, Sesily is frequently described as flouting all polite conventions of society, so possibly she'd have her dressmakers make something completely unique for her to wear. I do like the pose and the facial expression on the woman, she certainly looks determined and confident.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

 

#CBR13 Book 46: "Bidding for the Bachelor" by Jackie Lau

Page count: 188 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Disclaimer! I got an ARC of this from the author. That has in no way influenced my review.

Cedric Fong is pressured by his family to take part in a bachelor auction to benefit the Fong family's charity work. He's not at all interested in dating, he just needs to find himself a new place to live and actually manage to start writing his second novel, but once his grandmother promises to make him two hundred of her special dumplings, Cedric can no longer refuse. 

At the auction, Cedric is surprised when Brian Poon, his brother's former best friend, ends up paying a ridiculous amount of money and wins the bid. He doesn't seem interested in anything but some good company for a Valentine's date, and Cedric and Brian have a good time when out together. Once Brian finds out that Cedric is looking for a place to live, he offers him his spare bedroom, thinking some company might be nice. Besides, while Brian Poon used to have a huge trust fund to draw from, his father got sick of his playboy ways, and cut him off. He's not exactly poor, but some extra income would come in handy. 

Once Cedric moves into Brian's spare bedroom, he starts forcing himself to think about his follow-up novel. His first book was a moderate success, but writing another one is proving much harder than Cedric was expecting. Brian seems surprisingly domestic, baking muffins, cookies, and other treats and pretty much making sure Cedric eats a tasty and healthy breakfast every day. It seems rather innocent at first, but as the two men keep living together and learning more about one another, they undeniably grow closer. One complicating factor is that Cedric is very aware that the reason his brother and Brian are no longer friends is that Brian confessed to being in love with him (the brother, now married with a child - not Cedric). Could his changing feelings for Cedric be some sort of rebound thing? Is the former playboy ready for something different, and likely to want to settle down in a committed relationship?

As far as I'm aware, this is Jackie Lau's first m/m romance, while she frequently has bisexual characters in her other stories, all the primary romantic relationships she's written have been heteronormative. This is a cozy romance, without any major drama. Brian takes a while to realise that he's bored of his former party boy playing the field lifestyle and really wants to settle down with someone. Cedric needs reassurance that he's not some sort of replacement for his older brother in Brian's affections. The question of how Cedric is going to get over his writer's block and what exactly he should write his next novel about seems to take up more page time than the actual romantic drama.

Once again, we have a grandmother with a forceful personality stealing every scene she's in. Cedric's grandmother initially distrusts Brian and believes he may have offered Cedric his spare room mainly so he can steal her legendary dumplings. She also keeps pitching far-fetched ideas for Cedric's next book, primarily involving feisty elderly ladies, and possible drug dealing shenanigans. 

I liked this, but compared to Lau's recent Cider Bar Sisters books, this didn't connect with me on as many levels. The standard warning about not reading when hungry applies here, as always. Seriously, that woman makes me drool with her descriptions of food. 

Judging a book by its cover: Based on the way he looks, and the descriptions of Brian in the book, I'm guessing this slightly pouty male model is supposed to be Brian. He certainly looks nothing like how Cedric is described. Not one of my favourite Lau covers, but I suppose it's not that easy to find stock images of handsome Asian dudes all the time. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

 

#CBR13 Book 45: "Battle Royal" by Lucy Parker

Page count: 384 pages

Audio book length: 11hrs 10 mins

Rating: 5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Self Care

Sylvie Fairchild rose to moderate fame four years ago as a popular contestant on the hit baking show, Operation Cake. The moment she both ended her time on the show and immortalised herself on the internet forever was when her sparkly unicorn cake went horribly wrong and hit icy and arrogant baking judge Dominic De Vere got a sparkly hoof straight in the forehead. 

Now Sylvie has fulfilled her dream of running a bakery, Sugar Fair, in one of the hottest locations in Notting Hill, right across from De Vere's revered establishment and while they are about as different as two people can be in terms of baking choices, flavours, decorations or style, they are both determined to compete to be the bakery that gets to bake the wedding cake for the upcoming royal wedding of the king's granddaughter. They are also both judges on the most recent season of Operation Cake. 

Dominic might find Sylvie's constant bubbliness and whimsy exasperating, and while she makes taste and decoration choices he finds preposterous, he can't deny her skill as a baker, pastry chef, and businesswoman. Sylvie has never denied finding Dominic good-looking, even when he was the judge on Operation Bake who was the most annoyed by her fantastical and glitter-covered creations. Now, spending more time with him, both on set at Operation Bake, not to mention constantly running into him as they both do research for their potential wedding cakes, she discovers that he certainly doesn't seem to be as unfeeling and cold as she believed and that they may have more in common than she first thought. 

I am a huge fan of Parker's previous romances, most of the books in her London Celebrities are excellent. In this book, she's set her books in a slightly alternate present, with a completely different royal family, hence a king on the throne and his gothy granddaughter soon to be married. This romance also has protagonists that both struggle with processing grief in different ways, and Dominic in particular struggles with the aftermath of emotional abuse of his childhood, which is still impacting his relationship with his perky younger sister. 

Dominic's sister Petunia "Pet" De Vere is one of the wonderful supporting characters here, and is set up to be the heroine of the next Palace Insiders novel. I would not be surprised if Sylvie's friend and business partner becomes the hero of a future novel, as well. 

It feels like I read a lot of romances nowadays where food is rather central. This is another one where I kept craving both the delectable bakes and chocolates and if I drank alcohol, I would have really wanted some of Sylvie's magical witches' brew cocktails. This is the second GBBO-inspired romance I've read this year. Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake focused on the contestant-side of the show, while this one gives us more of a behind-the-scenes look. 

It's difficult to do justice to a book I loved as much as this one. When the book came out, I read the whole thing in one day, in every break I could find until I was done. I loved it enough that I also got it as an audiobook just so I could comfort listen to it while doing other things, hence my choice to use this book for the "Self Care" square of bingo. I can absolutely see myself revisiting this often in the coming years and am very happy that Parker is starting a new series, with hopefully many baking/royalty-themed romances to come. 

Judging a book by its cover: I can't hate anything to do with Lucy Parker, and while I might have found this cartoony cover a bit too twee on a different novel by a different author, this works perfectly for me. While the cover images of Sylvie and Dominic aren't exactly how I imagined in my head (Dom has darker hair with more silver in it), I like the juxtaposition of all things pink, purple, fantastical, and frothy on the left side, representing Sylvie, while there are clear, clean lines and no fripperies on the right side that represents Dominic. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 44 : "Björnstad (Beartown)" by Fredrik Backman

Page count: 470 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Sports Ball (could easily also be used as Rec'd, since a lot of Cannonballers have read and reviewed it favourably)

Official book description:

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

See, if even if the actual blurb hadn't mentioned a violent act against a young girl (I'm sure you can all imagine what kind of an act this is, taking place at a party full of drunken teenage athletes and the girls that admire them), this book, when not making it super clear just how essential ice hockey as a sport and especially the junior team full of promising seventeen-year-olds are to the survival of the rather remote Björnstad (literally translated as Beartown), is foreshadowing something terrible happening from very early on. 

The book is slow to start, and at first I really wasn't sure why I needed to "get to know" quite so many different characters, as the point of view in this book changes constantly between both major and more minor characters. We see the world through the eyes of several of the hot shot hockey players, through the eyes of the ex-pro hockey coach who doesn't want to fire his aging mentor despite the wishes of the team sponsors; his successful lawyer wife, who as a working mother with her own thriving career really doesn't fit well with the other wives and mothers of the town; their cheerful musician daughter; her loyal best friend (with a troubled home life); the junior coach who's looking at a pretty guaranteed promotion once the junior team most likely wins the championship, but also through the eyes of one of the former youth athletes, now a washed-up alcoholic; the agoraphobic owner of the local sports pub and others. 

Nevertheless, I kept reading, and Backman certainly made me aware of all aspects of the little community and the hopes that all of these disparate people had pinned to a few sports games. Two things are made clear very early - if the junior hockey team doesn't win the championship, any chance at revitilising the town's failing economy is completely gone, and something very bad is going to happen to the head coach's daughter at some point. As we get closer to the victory party where the terrible deed is going to take place, I was grimly determined to keep reading until I got past the bad part, just so I could get it out of the way. Imagine my surprise when I looked up, noticed that more than three hours had passed and I suddenly had only about a third of the book left. That's the advantage of the rapidly changing points of view, you keep seeing events from more than one angle and after having "inhabited" all of these different people for the first third you really feel involved in all of their hopes and dreams and their humanity and you suspect you know exactly how bad the fallout's going to be.

In reviews, I've frequently seen Backman referred to as a funny writer. This book is a pretty solid slice of social realism, but I can see why he's such a popular author, with so many fans worldwide. I don't really care about sports at all, certainly not ice hockey. I only vaguely knew the rules before reading this book, yet understood the plays described perfectly.  I personally also suck at all kinds of physical exercise - I will never reach the level of skill these young athletes, even the reserve players, yet I understood their ambition and drive. The three very different coaches, the weary school teacher, the pub owner - they felt like people I might meet walking down the street. 

Backman writes about doing a lot of research and talking to a lot of sexual assault survivors, and I think he writes about the unforgivable acts at the party and its terrible aftermath very sensitively and well. While you might imagine this book being very "male-centric", the women of Backman's book are also all distinctive and never feel like tired stereotypes. One of the hockey players lost his father at a young age, and has as a result been raised by his widowed mum and three older sisters, all very formidable. There is the coach's wife, his daughter, her best friend, not to mention several other women, both likable and rather pitiful in these pages, and again, they all felt like Backman was writing about people who actually exist.

I had not imagined a book about sexual assault and small town hockey would engross me this much. Sadly, I had to return the second book to the library before I had a chance to read it, and am still waiting for a new chance to pick it up. I know Backman has confirmed that there will be a third book to finish the series, so now I may wait until that's out and binge the final two parts in one go. 

Judging a book by its cover: I've seen a number of different covers for this book, but this is the one that was on the library copy I had. The two scenes shown on the cover might not look very exciting, but they're both taken directly from the novel and while I wasn't too impressed with it at first, I now really like the cover design. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.