Author Archives: Sadie

Book Review: Before Again, by Claire S. Duffy

I accepted a review copy of Claire S. Duffy‘s Before Again from R&R Book Tours.

He’s been killing for hundreds of years.
But he reckoned without her.

Kirsty has always been alone.

It’s fine. It’s what she’s chosen. People, as a general rule, are more trouble than they’re worth. It’s why God invented batteries.

But when she comes across the man being burned alive on the banks of the Clyde, she can’t just let him die. Without a second thought she batters in to save his life…

And accidentally tears the fabric of time.

Now an ancient serial killer is on the loose and only Kirsty can make him regret he was ever born.

Even if it means killing the only person who ever loved her.

Sometimes she can bloody well see all these magic destiny shenanigans far enough.

I enjoyed the heck out of this. It was fun, snarky, and kept me interested.

I did struggle with some of the Glasgow slang. Most of it I could guess from context, but some I just had to shrug at. But I also accept that not every book is written for the American market/reader, so I don’t consider this a big deal. I just mention it as an FYI.

What was a big deal was the super over-abundance of the word wee. I realize that culturally some people use this word more than others. But I also think there is a limit to how many times a reader should have to encounter a word in a single manuscript and this book has far, far, far exceeded it. We’re talking more than one per page sometimes, from multiple characters. I kept wondering if this was actually going to be revealed as an authorial joke at some point. It. Was. Not.

All in all, I really liked the author’s humor, that the main character is a little older than you’d expect, the obvious love for the city of Glasgow, and Frej. How I could adore a character who didn’t talk for half the book so much, I don’t know. But I did.

I didn’t realize when I picked this book up that it is part of a series. So, I wasn’t expecting the cliffhanger ending. But I’ll be looking for book two.

Book Review: The Cursed Crown, by May Sage & Alexi Blake

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I purchased a monthly Supernatural Book Crate subscription and The Cursed Crown (by May Sage and Alexi Blake) was included.

No one was ever born less suited to ruling than Rissa, the thorn of the seelie realm-a half-fae so wild she’s spent the better part of a hundred years in the woods.

For all her flaws, she’s the last of the high court bloodline, and the southern king seems to think that’s reason enough to slap a crown on her feathered head. He needs her to unify the seelie forces. She needs him to forget about that nonsense.

In an effort to aid her people without condemning herself to a lifetime of misery, she sets off on a journey to find the one person with a stronger claim to the throne than hers: the cursed prince.

Sealed in the mountains of the Wilderness, under many spells, the heir of the first seelie queen is the only royal strong enough to protect the fae lands from their immortal invaders.

Surviving the untamed tribes and awakening a thousand-year-old prince seem a lot easier than ruling an entire kingdom where everyone hates her very nature.

And her choices won’t come without consequences. I generally enjoyed this. I liked that Rissa stood up for herself, even when intimidated or overwhelmed. I liked that Rydekar let her make her own decisions, even when he disagreed with them. (By ‘let’ I mean he didn’t try to stand in her way, not that he gave her permission. She neither needed nor sought it.) I liked the world and that the romance is fairly slow burn considering the whole fated mates angle.

Like so, so, so many such books Rissa is strong and capable. She’s the heroine of this book and it’s implied she and Rydekar end on equal footing. But up until that point, she’s the younger, less informed, less capable of the two and wouldn’t have achieved her greatness without his intercession. There always seems to be a point when the female character says or does something she later apologizes for, in such books, and there’s almost always a point when she realized the male character was right all along. The author(s) may make him more or less smug about it, depending on how much of an alpha a-hole they are or aren’t writing. But this plotting is so, so, so common. And it grates a little that this is the story we women tell ourselves so often. And The Cursed Crown is as guilty of this as any other. I’m noting it because it’s on my mind, not so much because it’s something to denigrate the book for. It is super common after all, even if I wish it wasn’t. *shrug*

I did think the pre-epilogue ending was a bit anticlimactic and the epilogue felt tacked on and unnecessary. All in all, however, I’d be happy to return for more of Sage & Blake’s books.