Category Archives: books/book review

Amaranth

Book Review of Amaranth (The Resistance Trilogy #1), by Rachael Wade

Leave a reply

I apparently downloaded Rachel Wade’s Amaranth in 2013. It was a freebie and, as it’s still free, I can only assume it’s a perma-freebie.

Description from Goodreds:
Hoodoo-influenced Southern Louisiana seems like the perfect place for Camille to escape her abusive past and dysfunctional family. She doesn’t expect to fall in love with the handsome Gavin Devereaux and plummet into the world of Amaranth, a place of exile for reformed vampires.

Wrestling to escape a deadly ex-boyfriend while giving Gavin a chance, Camille is confronted with decisions that threaten not only her life, but the lives of her inhuman friends she has come to love. Entangled in her friends’ quest for freedom, she dives into their realm and faces the threats of Amaranth’s ruler—the mother of all vampires—and her own inner demons.

Now Camille must decide whether she will derail her life and make the ultimate sacrifice for the monsters that interrupted her bumpy path back to sanity—what she still wants so desperately—or escape with Gavin before it’s too late for both of them.

Review:
This might have had a good idea in it somewhere but it’s not written well enough for me to tell. Several times I was simply lost and didn’t know what was happening. For example, the book starts in Paris, with Camille talking about leaving her abusive boyfriend in Seattle. Next chapter, she’s in Louisiana talking about leaving her abusive boyfriend, but not the same abusive boyfriend. No idea what happened to the first one or how she ended up with this second one or when she moved to Louisiana. But more to the point, it took quite a while to figure out what was going on. It was jarring.

I marked several passages in which I literally couldn’t figure out what was actually supposed to be happening. Sometimes the writing was just unclear. The pacing is odd and I was often uncertain about time frames. There are several inconsistencies and also a lot of presumed knowledge. I felt like, as a reader, I’d been left out of some essential planning meeting and everyone around me was just going on as if I knew something I didn’t. The characters were one-dimensional and the writing flat.

Gavin and Camille’s relationship is practically insta-love and we’re told how amazing it is, but never shown anything. I never felt any chemistry between them. Then there is Gabe and Audrey. They fall in love off-page and apparently she’s turned into a vampire and let in on all the vampire knowledge that Camille isn’t. Camille introduced her to the vampires and somehow she’s allowed in on all the secrets but the main character isn’t? Yeah, that’s how this book rolled and you sure to feel it.

Worst of all Camille was spineless for most of the book, despite readers being told she’s strong and then she runs off and does something amazingly too stupid to live. Seriously, unbelievably stupid!

Honestly, I just think this needed a lot more work.

Lady of the Sea

Review of Lady of the Sea (Aureate Chronicles #1), by Heather Zwygart

Leave a reply

I downloaded Lady of the Sea when it was free on amazon, completely because I was entranced by the cover. It’s gorgeous. I don’t think I even read the blurb. And then when I noticed the authors name is Heather  Zwygart, I decided to read it right away. I promised myself that this year I wouldn’t reach December with an author beginning in Z being the last left in my alphabet challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
Avelessa has always had someone in her life to make decisions for her. With no family left and her mentor near death she has to make the biggest decision of her life. 

She goes in search of a pearl, known as Sol Fyre, all the while crossing the boundary the Elders put in place for their safety. 

She discovers a few things along the way. The Elders are keeping secrets. And humans… well they are not as evil as she has been taught to believe.

Review:
This is 100% a YA novel and I have 100% gone off YA books. But even if I set that aside, I was disappointed. I thought it inconsistent, juvenile (yeah, I know YA), unfocused and incomplete, being that it ended on a cliffhanger.

The writing was ok, but the editing was a little rough. Most of the book is Avelessa doing unimportant things with the two boys who she coincidentally meets as soon as she comes ashore, which irritated me. I kept thinking, don’t you have more important things to do? Her choices made little sense to me, she waffled back and forwards about her decisions, the emotions whipped around so fast I couldn’t follow them, I dislike love triangles, I don’t see why if a novel is set in 1850 New Zealand a European has to be one of the main heroes, and I needed more information about the world.

This really might be a matter of the wrong book for the wrong reader and others might enjoy it a lot more than me. But I can’t say the story lived up to that beautiful cover.

Book Review of The Ansible Stories 1-3, by Stant Litore

Leave a reply

Earlier today, this cool info-sheet on exploring positive portrayals of Islam in sci-fi found its way into my inbox from Stant Litore. It’s just the sort of thing guaranteed to get my attention on any normal day, but given that today the people of my city have been out marching in protest of the presidents immigration ban, I think it’s especially timely too. I imagine that wasn’t accidental.

I downloaded the free anthology and Stant’s three free short stories about Islamic space travelers. The latter of which is what I’ll review here.

Wow, color me impressed. All three of these stories were powerful and wonderfully written, despite not one of them being 30 pages long (17, 17 & 29). Despite being short, each felt complete and satisfying, which is rarely a comment I make about short stories. In fact, not feeling complete is my most common criticism of shorts.

They also each managed a different emotional wallop, putting the characters in the same circumstances, but in very different situations. The first, my favorite was fearful and desperate. It almost felt like sci-fi/horror. The second was sad and contemplative and the third started contentedly but ended back in horror/sci-fi land, with a certain pragmatic acceptance of the situation. I thought it was cool, too, the way it curved back to intersect with the first.

I appreciated the way gender was flexible, given the means of space travel. I also loved the way Islam and the countries of origin played into the stories, important to the characters but not at all encroaching on the plot. All in all, well worth reading but don’t go in expecting happy endings.

Edit: Thank you, Naz, for the reminder about the #ReadDiverse2017 word counts. I had admittedly forgotten; read it in the beginning and forgotten since then. I prompted me to think a little more deeply about this review.