Author Archives: Sadie

Book Review: Flag of Bones, by Elle Pepper

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flag of bones

Twice brought to hang at “Pirate’s Cove” Captain Jalen Shenn, Captain of the Free Boards Dragon Wynd, finds himself driven by a promise made twenty years before to take a figure to a place where even those who fly the black flag fear to go.

With the Empire chasing him from every friendly port, his most trusted crewman turned traitor to his boards, and the mystery of his wife’s location still plaguing him, Jalen must find the truth of why the Shenn name is so feared that they would wage war for the very mention of it.

With nothing left and no place left to turn but Deep Waters, Jalen is faced with a choice, Defy the Empire and fly the black flag, becoming the man the Empire fears him to be, or hide under the Blue flag of Freehold and never find the reason for this war that has plagued him all his life.

And when everything is on the line Jalen will make a choice that will shape history for hundreds of years to come.

My Review:

There is sooo much potential in this book. The writing is beautiful. It has a lilting musical quality to it that makes it a pleasure to read. It also makes the layered meanings of the phrases believable. I really liked the way that a single phrase or gesture could have both a surface meaning and a secondary meaning, enabling the speaker to relay two messages at once. It is a testament to Pepper that she is able to relay both meaning in an easily followable manner.

Pepper has obviously put a lot of thought into the peoples of her world. The men in this novel (there isn’t a single woman) are men of loyalty and honor-bound by strong codes of conduct. These codes, tied as they are to real spiritual consequences, are so strong that people are often willing to die for them. The problem is that these codes/beliefs/religions aren’t adequately explained to the reader. Nor is the social structure of the world or the nature of the species that people it. As an example, I’m still not certain if the ‘dragons’ are actual dragons or simply a tribe that has some special skill and claims the totem of the dragon.

As much as this novel has to offer (and it is a lot), reading it is like reading every third page of the second book in a series without having read the first. I kept flipping back to see if I had missed pages. It is roughly 120 pages long, but I think it should be closer to 320 long to accomplish its task. So much preceded the start of the book and is left unexplained at the end. It would be a pleasant 320 pages to read, though. Pepper really is a talented writer. I’d be interested in reading the rest of the books in the series, but I would be more interested in reading the rest of this one first.

Book Review: The Plaza, by Guillermo Paxton

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the plaza cover

Plaza. Spanish: in Mexican culture, a slang word describing the territory of a certain drug cartel.

“I’ve been a reporter for years, and a resident of Juarez, Mexico all of my life. I’ve never seen anything like it. No one thought the drug war would be like this…My town has become the battleground for drug cartels. Even the police are being killed on a daily basis. Bands of teenagers working as paid assassins & extortionists are hitting every business, no matter how small. Things I took for granted like going to a restaurant, getting a haircut, or even an evening at the movies with my family put all our lives in danger. Robberies and public executions have become common place. Now when I report only five homicides in twenty-four hours, it is considered a good day.” – Saul Saavedra, crime reporter for The Juarez Daily in THE PLAZA.

In just one year’s time he saw his city change from a decent place to live and work to a crime-infested inferno. He reports the happenings in a city that is experiencing total social decay and writes against the government that at best does nothing about it. Two major drug cartels battle it out in Juarez and Saul soon finds himself in the crossfire between Juarez Cartel/Zetas alliance and the Sinaloa Cartel.

Based on true events in the city of Juarez, The Plaza is about the people, the government and the cartels that make up both the innocent victims and the criminals that are the pawns in the drug war of Mexico.

My review:

I’m not sure how to classify this book. It didn’t strike me as a novel. There was no single main character, obstacle to overcome, or satisfying conclusion to a challenge. If anything, it struck me as a memoir of a place (Juarez). The book explores the devastating and destabilising effect of the Mexican government’s war on drugs by chronicling the lives and deaths of those affected by the cartels’ increasingly violent bids for power. The subject matter was really interesting. It isn’t something I know much about. Pat titles like “The War on Drugs” or Terror or whatever roll nicely off the tongue, but not infrequently. We tend to forget that somewhere far away from our comfortable lives, that saying is a reality. It really is a WAR, and people are dying. The Plaza effectively reminds the reader of this and is, therefore, important.

I did find it repetitive at times. The chauvinistic nature of Mexican culture and the rarity of women moving into positions of power was twice highlighted using the case of Michelle, for example. I actually thought I was on the wrong page and reading the same passage for a moment because the two sections were so similar. There were a couple of such occurrences. I also didn’t see the point of the serial pedophiliac rapist. Unless it was meant to highlight the fact that a side effect of the mafia wars was that the police were too distracted to look for non-drug-related criminals (which was made elsewhere, also in reference to young girls disappearing), I didn’t understand how Juan related to the story. It felt like it was just an added titillating element, an unpleasant one at that.

I would have liked to know how the author was related to the events. Is he one of the characters, related to someone in one of the mafias, someone who lived in Juarez at the time, someone unrelated but interested enough to do some research, or is the book a completely fictionalised account based on the circumstances in Mexico? Regardless, if you are interested in how America’s exportation of the ‘War on Drugs’ is being played out in other places, The Plaza is one for the TBR list.

Book Review: Karma in Camo, by J.D. Wylde

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karma in cAMO COVER

About the book:

Can lives based on lies lead to love?
Joe DeMarco of Nowhere, West Virginia, believes in love at first sight. From the first moment he sets eyes on the gorgeous, long-legged beauty stranded on the side of the road outside his town, he knows. She’s the one. Even if she’s standing in front of him, brandishing a bottle, threatening to blind him with hand sanitizer. He likes her idea of foreplay. He likes everything about her. Even when she’s maligning his character, calling him a terrorist — and he, the chief of police. He should tell her who he is. And what he does. And he would… soon.

Julia Stockton of New York City is having a bad day. Bad year, actually, now that Karma has it out for her. Or maybe it’s because of Karma. More likely, it’s because of the rat bastard of a man she’d loved. The one who lied to her, betrayed her and carved out her heart, taking her savings account and apartment as a departing gift. She’s done with lying men! So why has Karma dropped her on the side of the road in god-forsaken West Virginia? Taunting her with a handsome, blond-haired, broad-shouldered god? The kind of man she harbors secret fantasies about? The kind of man she could so easily love, if she was looking for it. Which she isn’t.

But Joe is very persuasive. And Julia willingly gives him a weekend. One she’s sure she’ll never forget. And then she gives him so much more. She gives him her fragile heart. And for a while, Joe is everything she wants. Until she finds out he isn’t what she thought. Or who. So, is it Karmo in Camo? Or is it love?

Review:

Oh God, I wish I hadn’t read that. Historically I’ve not been a fan of contemporary romances. I often find the female leads weak-willed, and the plots too sappy for me. I know that’s what some people like most about the genre, but me not so much. Despite my hesitations about the genre, I was tempted by the sarcastic tone of the book’s description, and this same tone runs throughout the story. It is just as funny as the description led me to believe, which was good. But I can’t say I much liked the story. Honestly, I’m not even saying it’s not a good book and everything that women who like mushy love stories and frail save me from myself heroines appreciate about the genre. I’m just not one of those women.

At 27% through the book, I posted this status update here on Goodreads,

I’m ~25% in and I know things are going to change, but as of this moment I’ve decided that a more satisfying rewrite of this story would be: Julia was having a bad day, week, month year. Stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire she doesn’t know how to change, Joe stops to help. She is then such a bitch to him that he gets back in his van, drives away and leaves her there like she deserves. Seriously!

The problem is that it didn’t change. Julia remained a completely bipolar, possibly psychotic witch who did NOTHING to deserve Joe–who was, of course, wonderful in every tall, blond, muscled, 8-inch, committed, loving way. I loved Joe, but despite my best efforts I couldn’t like Julia, outside of whether I generally like this sort of story or not. I just found her selfish and flat-out mean.

To top it all off, I don’t get the ‘he lied about being a cop’ theme that the plot hinges on. First off, so what? He a cop, big deal. Second, he DID TELL HER he’s the chief of police. The fact that she didn’t believe him doesn’t negate the fact that he told her. Plus, even if he hadn’t told her, he told her enough of what he does for a simpleton to figure it out. It’s not his fault if she’s just too stupid to read the large, neon, flashing, heroic sign he painted for her. It all left me groaning.

Wylde’s writing is perfectly readable, and, like I said, it is funny. But This was definitely not a good match for me.