Monthly Archives: September 2020

awakened

Book Review: Awakened (The Oracle Chronicles #1), by Moni Boyce

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I picked up a copy of Moni Boyce‘s Awakened as a freebie on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:

Secret lineage, a ruthless vampire, and forbidden love.

Willow Stevens dreams of stardom are eclipsed by the real nightmares of a sinister man haunting her dreams. Unbeknownst to her, Eli Walker, her hot but snobbish co-worker, may know the reason nightmares plague her, but their history shows he is more prone to reject her, than help her.

Then Willow passes out at work only to wake in Eli’s apartment. There she has her chance to learn more about her heritage. But, knowing why the vampire king stalks her doesn’t make the nightmares disappear. If anything, they become more real as she now faces off against a slew of creatures she’d always believed were myth.

That Eli is one of those creatures is just her luck. Secret witch guild or not, his natural ways are casting spells her heart can’t escape. As a Protector his only focus should be her safety. Anything else is forbidden. He plans to stay in task, but some women break a man, or tempt him to break the rules.

Can Eli keep Willow alive and safe from the vampires long enough for her to grow her own powers or will both cast aside rules for a reckless passion that will only lead to danger?

Review:

Not very good, not totally horrendous, but not great either. The book has an interesting world and premise and an absolutely gorgeous cover, but it needs more editing, the writing is amateurish at times, and the transitions are often clunky. Plus, I had some serious suspension of disbelief issues with the plot and I found both Willow and Eli unlikable. She’s 26 and he’s even older, but they both act like children, and she’s especially self-centered, bratty, and easily manipulated.

As for the problem being able to suspend belief, which is something exceptionally hard for a book to overcome, it was two-fold. One, the book goes on and on about how important it is for her to learn to defend herself. So, it made no sense to me that the Protectors had followed her years and years instead of teaching her to defend herself until it’s basically too late. It’s not like they didn’t know there was a threat.

Secondly, all of the angst around the romance subplot could have and (and IMO should have) been completely bypassed if someone had simply told Willow that Protectors are forbidden from having relationships with Oracles. I don’t mean this as telling the author how to write her book, simply that as a reader I couldn’t understand why the characters were creating all the unneeded drama and hurt when it would make a million times more sense than the BS lies Eli rolls out for her

Lastly, it’s also the only book I’ve ever read with a warning before the epilogue like this:

If you plan to continue with this series, there’s an epilogue…but I suggest you stop here if you don’t like cliffhangers and don’t plan to continue. Thanks for reading!

It seems pointless because, even if you don’t read the epilogue (which I didn’t since I have no intention of continuing the series), the book ends with Willow injured, and both she and Eli unconscious. So, it’s already a cliffhanger.

All in all, I’m sorry to say the book just wasn’t a winner for me.

Book Review of We Have Met the Enemy & Spooky Action at a Distance, by Felicia Watson

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I received copies of We Have Met The Enemy and Spooky Action at a Distance (Loveless Series #1&2) from the author Felicia Watson.

Description of We Have Met the Enemy:

In the 31st century, Naiche Decker joined the Unititerrae military seeking revenge for the death of her mother in battle against the Eternals. After being assigned to a deep space mission to root out the enemy’s home world, she finds so much more, questioning if revenge was what she really sought in the first place.

Review:

I was pleasantly surprised by this. I enjoyed it more than I expected to. I’d call it more ‘road trip in space’ than actual military sci-fi. They are soldiers on a warship, so maybe ‘war-weary soldiers take a road trip in space’ but still more that than military sci-fi. The reason being that 95% of the book is a journey to a destination only vaguely known, dealing with whatever pops up. Having said that, I enjoyed the journey.

The characters are pleasantly diverse, there’s platonic male/female friendships, as well as female/female friends (I really hate when all women except the main character are made out to be bitches), loyalty, family reconciliation, and more.

I did think the end rushed and wrapped up too neatly, years of personal injury/hatred and the ravishes of war don’t heal so quickly. Similarly, several important encounters/events were glossed over noticeably, making the whole thing lack tension a bit. But the writing is sharp, characters likable, and the world (universe) interesting. I’d read another Lovelace novel.

Description of Spooky Action at a Distance:

Lieutenant Naiche Decker has finally found a home aboard the UDC starship, Lovelace. With the Eternals war behind her, she’s looking forward to life as an explorer rather than a soldier. But her latest adventure – exploring a quantum entanglement – proves to be the most dangerous mission she’s ever faced. Aiding her in this quest are her friends, CO Con Kennedy, and canine companion Kayatennae – as well as a remarkable Quantum Drive ship that links directly into its pilot’s brain. Complicating matters are an arrogant rival pilot and a race of mysterious aliens whose intentions are as murky as the waters they live in. Naiche will need all her strength, cunning, and skill to rise above these challenges and rescue her stranded comrades before they’re lost forever.

Review:

Another fun installment of the Lovelace Series. I don’t think this one was quite as deeply plotted as the first book, with the convenient pink aliens coming to the rescue so often. But, like with the first book, I still enjoyed the elements you so often don’t see in books—platonic male/female friendships (even best friends), actual female/female friendships, parents who have made mistakes but aren’t bad people, a heroine who’s allowed to be sexual without being shamed, older adults having sex, women initiating sex, an equal number of men and women in positions of power and authority, exploration of cultural differences within a minority group, racial and sexual diversity in the cast, etc. These are the sorts of things that bring me back to an author. (I realize I said sex a lot. So, I should mention there is no on-page sex. But it is discussed and the reader is led to understand it happens.)

All in all, while I didn’t think it a perfect book I’d be well up for reading more.

arctic chill

Book Review of Arctic Chill, by Arnaldur Indriðason

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I borrowed a copy of Arnaldur Indriðason‘s Arctic Chill from the Little Free Library. I was completely thrilled to see a book by an author whose name started with the letter I. I do an alphabet challenge every year and an ‘I’ author is one of the hardest to come up with.

Description from Goodreads:

The Reykjavik police are called on an icy January day to a garden where a body has been found: a young, dark-skinned boy is frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation and soon unearth tensions simmering beneath the surface of Iceland’s outwardly liberal, multicultural society.

In this new extraordinary thriller from Gold Dagger Award winner Arnaldur Indridason, the Reykjavik police are called on an icy January day to a garden where a body has been found: a young, dark-skinned boy is frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation and soon unearth tensions simmering beneath the surface of Iceland’s outwardly liberal, multicultural society. Meanwhile, the boy’s murder forces Erlendur to confront the tragedy in his own past. Soon, facts are emerging from the snow-filled darkness that are more chilling even than the Arctic night.

Review:

I thought this was interesting in some respects and a little dull in others. Being a book translated from Icelandic, reading the culture from an insider perspective was a treat. So was the atmosphere of the book, all bleak and cold like the environment. Similarly, I felt like (as an American reading an Icelandic book) this isn’t a book an American could write. Certainly we, as a people, struggle with some of the same issues brought up in the book. The immigration arguments could have shown up on any right-wing media outlet here, for example. But the fact that the investigation so quickly and strongly focused on the child’s race would never have passed muster in American fiction, I think. It addresses racism too starkly. Again, interesting.

But at the same time, the vast majority of this book is the detectives going around and asking various people the same questions and getting largely the same answers. It was slow going until a sudden break led to solving the case at the end. All in all, I’d read another Inspector Erlendur book, but I’m not rushing out to do it.