Category Archives: books/book review

Book Review of Safe Passage (Black Flag #1), by Rachel Ford

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I received an Audible code for a review copy of Safe Passage, by Rachel Ford.

Description from Goodreads:

Go big or go home. For privateer Captain Magdalene Landon, it’s all about going big. For Kay Ellis, it’s about getting home. Together, they’re about to architect the most daring heist in the galaxy. Kay knows too much. She knows it’s a matter of time before a Conglomerate hitman finds her. She’s desperate for safe passage back to Union space. Then Magdalene shows up, promising a way home in exchange for that information. It’s a risky bet, but Kay is out of options. So she strikes a deal: the heist of the century for her freedom.Kay is playing a dangerous game, and she knows it. She’s made herself Enemy Number One of the Conglomerate. She’s relying on privateers for her safety. It’s a fool’s game. But the worst part is, her fool’s heart is starting to warm to the enigmatic captain. And that’s a risk for which she hadn’t planned.

Review:

I can’t say I enjoyed this book much. I didn’t find much that grabbed me. I felt the world wasn’t well developed, the romance was abrupt, the casual use of attempted heterosexual rape as motivation unoriginal (especially in a lesbian romance), and the characters were too Mary Sue like. Here’s an example, they kept people alive when they shouldn’t have. It felt like an artificial mechanism to move the plot along AND that the just author didn’t want them to seem like bad guys, especially considering those same characters end up dead anyway. It seemed inconsistent this insistence on ‘doing the right thing’ when they are basically thieves (and have already killed others).

This tendency to use obvious and inelegant artificial events for plot progression was also present in the romance. The characters got together, then one broke it off for sudden and stupid reasons. Then later apologized so they could get back together just as abruptly. You see it all coming a mile away.

Similarly, all the twists are as obvious as the sun. You know from very early on what is going to happen and when. 

The writing itself is fine, minus a tendency for characters to call Kay by name too often. And the narration too…for the most part. I actually greatly disliked how Rich voiced the characters. But that’s a matter of taste not quality. 

All in all, I think this was just a poorly matched book for me. I went in with high hopes. I love sci-fi romance, but this one wasn’t a winner for me.

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach

Book Review of Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach – by Kelly Robson

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I borrowed a paperback copy of Kelly Robson‘s Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach from the local library.

Description from Goodreads:

Discover a shifting history of adventure as humanity clashes over whether to repair their ruined planet or luxuriate in a less tainted pass.

In 2267, Earth has just begun to recover from worldwide ecological disasters. Minh is part of the generation that first moved back up to the surface of the Earth from the underground hells, to reclaim humanity’s ancestral habitat. She’s spent her entire life restoring river ecosystems, but lately the kind of long-term restoration projects Minh works on have been stalled due to the invention of time travel. When she gets the opportunity take a team to 2000 BC to survey the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, she jumps at the chance to uncover the secrets of the shadowy think tank that controls time travel technology. 

Review:

Not bad, and I liked it a lot more by the end than I did the beginning. I thought the way the two narratives were interspersed and eventually intersected was really clever and I liked the world with it’s generational differences and integrated tech. (And I love that the main character is an 83-year-old woman.) But honestly I was bored for a lot of the time while reading this. So, my overall experience was middle of the road.

Book Review of The Woman Who Spoke to Spirits, by Alys Clare

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I borrowed a copy of Alys Clare’s book, The Woman Who Spoke to Spirits from the local library.

Description from Goodreads:

London, 1880. “I’m dreadfully afraid someone is threatening to kill my wife …” When accounts clerk Ernest Stibbins approaches the World’s End investigation bureau with wild claims that his wife Albertina has been warned by her spirit guides that someone is out to harm her, the bureau’s owner Lily Raynor and her new employee Felix Wilbraham are initially sceptical. How are the two private enquiry agents supposed to investigate threats from beyond the grave? But after she attends a seance at the Stibbins family home, Lily comes to realize that Albertina is in terrible danger. And very soon so too is Lily herself … 

Review:

I wasn’t thrilled with the first person, present tense narrative choice. I thought it really distanced the reader from the characters. But beyond that I mostly really enjoyed this book. I’ll grant that I wasn’t particularly surprised a the identity of the villain, having guessed it very early on, and I thought there was a subtle centering on Felix that made him feel more the main character than her (when I also sense it was meant to be her). But there was good writing, interesting characters, not-quite-banter (but working in that direction), and a couple moral quandaries I appreciated thinking on. Mostly though I really liked both Lily and Felix, as well as them together. I look forward to reading future books in this series.