Monthly Archives: September 2021

Book Review: Shadow Shinjuku, by Ryu Takeshi

I accepted a copy of Ryu Takeshi‘s Shadow Shinjuku for review.

The streets of Tokyo are different at night. There is darkness behind the glitter and the neon lights, and people who prefer to stay in the shadows, to dwell in the underworld – whores, gangsters, the homeless, the lost. People like Sato. He’s part of this world, he always has been, but a feeling of change is lingering in the heavy air of the bustling city. A feeling brought to life by fateful encounters of solitary souls.

I have very middle of the road feelings about this book. Some aspects of it I really liked. I thought Sato was an likeable main character. I liked a lot of the quirky side characters. There’s an interesting, if light, magic world. I enjoyed the twist at the end. You see it coming, but it’s well played. I especially appreciated the last page. Kobayashi coming in like a boss! A boss, not the boss—a distinction that is important in context.

I know it’s a little cliched to say a supernatural book about Yakuza, set in Tokyo would make a great anime. But I honestly can see this working really well as one. But I also think it was purposefully written in such a style.

However, while some of the writing was very pretty, I thought it a little plebeian at other times— especially in the dialogue which tended toward clunky. Far too many characters chuck “My Dear” into conversation to flow well, for example. I also thought some of the psychosocial or metaphysical musings never really coalesced into anything concrete enough to have real meaning to the reader. And about halfway through it feels like Takeshi went, “You know what? I need to make this grittier.” So suddenly Sato was visiting prostitutes and sexual sadist villains popped up out of nowhere and I just thought, “Oh, how disappointingly predictable.” Not only because such things have been so over used as to lose emotional impact, but because it really didn’t fit the tone of the book up to that point…or after, really.

All in all, I thought this an interesting (if somewhat flawed) read and was happy to follow it up with the short story Abalone (unrelated to the events of Shadow Shinjuku but involving some of the same characters) which I also enjoyed.

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Book Review: The Alpha’s Warlock, by Eliot Grayson

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I saw The Alpha’s Warlock, by Eliot Grayson, recommended on Instagram. So, I borrowed an audio copy through Hoopla. It was narrated by Chris Chambers.

Cursed, mated, and in for the fight of their lives….

Warlock Nate Hawthorne just wants a cup of coffee. Is that too much to ask? Apparently. Because instead of precious caffeine, all he gets is cursed by a pack of werewolves who want to use him for his magic. Now the only way to fix the damage is a mate bond to a grumpy and oh-so-sexy alpha in the rival pack, who happens to hate him. This is so not how he wanted to start his day.

Ian Armitage never intended to take Nate as his mate. The Hawthorne family can’t be trusted. Ian knows that better than anyone. The fact that he’s lusted after the way-too-gorgeous man for years? Totally irrelevant. Ian’s just doing what is necessary to protect his pack. This whole mating arrangement has nothing to do with love and never will. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

Nate and Ian will have to work together if they have any hope of staving off the pack’s enemies and averting disaster. That’s assuming they can stop arguing (and keep their hands off each other) long enough to save the day….

This wasn’t very good.The idea underpinning it was fine and the writing seemed readable (though I had an audio copy, so that’s hard to judge), and the narrator did a good job. But the execution was simply lacking. The book felt like a second book, though I don’t think it is. The plot is far too focused and centered in a small room with two people and far too little on what is happening in general, such that whole swaths of the plot fell flat and there wasn’t any resulting tension (even in scenes where there should have been). The bickering between Nate and Ian didn’t feel like appreciable banter, but like two adolescents sniping at one another and I didn’t feel the love at all. I gathered that the author was trying to infer the two had had crushes on one another for a while, but you don’t feel it. All in all, this one was a flop for me.