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Eye of the Storm

Book Review of Eye of the Storm, by Aimee Kuzenski

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Eye of the StormI received a copy of Aimee Kuzenki‘s Eye of the Storm from NetGalley. Reading it now was a bit of a cheat, since I’m only supposed to be reading books by authors I know this month. But, I gave in to reading it in the end.

Description from Goodreads:
The old gods aren’t gone. Whether you know it or not, they’re closer than a breath upon your cheek.

Alexander Sekhmet keeps to himself, far from the Machiavellian games played by his Family, and as a result he’s led a quiet ordered life. Until now.

When his legendary temper is exploited by an ancient enemy, tricking him into destroying his human identity, he takes drastic steps to protect his empire. He possesses the body of Camilla Sykes, a West Point lieutenant, and takes her identity, memories…and soul with him.

Ian Dorsey, Classics PhD candidate, has lost his job and his father in one fiery afternoon, and appears to be losing his mind in the bargain. Why else is he hearing voices that are telling him to kill his father’s client? Or are the voices coming from somewhere darker?
When gods and mortals meet, the Apocalypse follows.

Review:
This is Urban Fantasy at its best…and it really is Urban Fantasy. There is no sex and only the merest hint of a possible future (F/F) romance, so not to be confused with PNR.

Kusenski does a fabulous job of creating atmosphere and presenting the immortal gods as both all-powerful and oddly fragile. I really adored this about War. Conversely, there was nothing fragile about Camilla. But I loved her just as much. She truly was the strong female character I’m always looking for and finding myself frustrated in her absence.

There is also some marvellous dialogue. A lot of it is internal, either with oneself or with a subsumed personality, but it’s largely followable. There were numerous scenes in which characters were simultaneously holding conversations and remembering past events or conversations and sometimes it was hard to tell which passages were meant to be remembrances and which were meant to be realtime. But other than this, I thought dialogue was sharp and natural sounding. It really was a pleasure to read.

My only real complaints are that the ending felt rushed. I didn’t quite follow War’s leap of logic that brought about the conclusion. It felt very abrupt. (Though, to be fair, War was presented as a man who regularly acts before he thinks things through.) I also thought that some of the side characters, like Ian or Olivia, who played fairly important roles, felt hollow. IMO, they weren’t fleshed out enough for their significance.

All in all, I really enjoyed it and will be looking for more of Ms. Kuzenski’s writing.

The Blessed Man and the Witch

Book Review of The Blessed Man and the Witch, by David Dubrow

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The Blessed Man and the WitchAuthor, David Dubrow sent me a copy of his novel, The Blessed Man and the Witch.

Description from Goodreads:
Foretold by the visions of agony-stricken psychics, the end of the world is near. While Heaven and Hell battle for holy relics to be used as weapons of war, fallen angels imprisoned by God Himself seek release. The Time of Miracles has returned. Armageddon is coming, and the victor is yet unknown. 

As the world crumbles, Occupy camps appear in every major city from Seattle to Miami. A new, explicit form of reality television has become America’s latest entertainment craze, launching ordinary people into near-instant wealth and celebrity. Violent crime has become commonplace, from inner city gang wars to horrific mass shootings. 

Combining themes of Biblical apocalypse, western occultism, and supernatural horror, this is a gripping story about survival, intrigue, and redemption.

Review:
I’ve had this on my kindle for a while now and, honestly, when I opened it to read I thought it was another book. [That’ll teach me to not reread synopsises.] It’s a lucky break too, because between the truly unappealing (to me) cover and my fear that it would turn out to be a soul-sucking religious book (as opposed to simply using Biblical material) I probably wouldn’t have read this one, or at least no time soon.

For the record, I would classify this as Christian Fiction (though I’m not sure the author would), but not the preachy, whitewashed type that makes me hate the genre in general. You know, the type where no one curses or has sex or does anything they’d be ashamed to tell their pastor about and characters are always harping on about the boundlessness of God’s love. As if saying it just one more time will make you, the pitiable lost soul, finally see the heavenly light. To borrow my mother’s phrase, the type that makes proselytising an imposition instead of an invitation.

The characters here are gritty and real. The drama is dirty and you’re never entirely sure which side is ‘right.’ Kyle gets little preachy, but to be fair, it’d be hard to write an evangelical conversion without at least a few references to the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven and such. But he’s the only one. I thought the other characters did a good job portraying an array of believable human responses to a Biblical Armageddon and the author did a great job of tying a believable Armageddon scenario into modern events.

So, despite my basic dislike of the Christian Fiction genre, I enjoyed this book and think other non-Christians could too (as, of course would the intended audience). It presents a lot of interesting questions, is surprisingly relevant to modern times and has some great characters. Ozzie was my favourite. He wasn’t a good guy, he wasn’t even a nice guy. But I found him oddly compelling.

So, if you’ve any interest in books about End Times, I’d recommend picking this one up. It’s a smart read, leading the reader to ideas without pummelling them by overstating the obvious. I always appreciate that. The writing is also superb, the dialogue believable, the story interesting, and the editing well done. Well worth reading.

Hunting in Hell

Book Review of Hunting in Hell (De La Roca Chronicles, #1 & 2), by Maria Violante

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Hunting in HellQuite some time ago, I picked up Maria Violante‘s Hunting in Hell from the Amazon free list. It’s a compilation of the first two books in the De La Roca Chronicles.  I don’t think it’s available anymore, but I notice that the first book is free.

Description from Goodreads:

PART ONE: HUNTING THE FIVE 

It’s a side of the southwest never glimpsed by mortal man – a heartless, barren outback riddled with ruthless demons. In its ignorance, humanity is powerless to stop these escapees from Hell and the havoc they create with their dark magic. Good thing De la Roca isn’t human. A gunslinger with no memories of her previous life, she has fought for the last three hundred years on the forefront of a supernatural war, relying only on her wits, her reflexes, and her own demonic powers – all to pay for her own release from Hell. The Angels wouldn’t send her in alone and unarmed, though; Alsvior, her gifted – if contrary – steed, and Bluot, a legendary revolver with an unquenchable blood-lust, have been with her every step of the way – alone with a series of terrible nightmares that might hold the keys to her past. Then, an Angel appears with a bargain that seems to good to be true – five final targets, and she is free from her penance. Quickly, she discovers that her old methods are not up to the task, and she’s forced to team up with a mysterious gatekeeper and another mercenary – both of which need her for their own plans. With time running out, she has to figure out who to trust and who to kill, and fast, before she’s demon-food. 

PART TWO: HONOR IN HELL 

Can anyone be trusted? Betrayed by both Laufeyson and the Mademoiselle, and sent on a quest by an angel that might actually be her enemy, the demon mercenary De la Roca bolts into Hell with murder in her heart. Her simple mission for revenge quickly spirals out of control. Between the Consortium of power-hungry angels, the serpentine Oracle, a strangely absent God, and the knowledge that her mount just happens to be a man under a curse, just about everyone around her has a secret – and most of them are trying to get her killed. Unless, of course, she can kill them first.

Hunting the FIveReview of Hunting the Five:
I’ll give this a tentative two stars (on a 5 star scale). I hate to do it, because in some ways I was really enjoying Hunting the Five. I say, ‘was enjoying’ instead of ‘enjoyed’ because it just ends in the middle, with no conclusion or wrap up. I was still enjoying the read and waiting for the whole thing to finally make sense…then nothing. Actually, having just typed that I can feel myself getting more irked and wanting to drop that rating to a one star. I hate books that do this (especially in serial novellas that could just as easily have been a single novel).

I won’t even call it a cliffhanger, it isn’t. A cliffhanger infers some aspect of a story ends even if some threads are open still. That isn’t the case here. It just ends. This is literally the first 18 chapters of one story. Why on Earth would I want just the first 18 chapters of a story and not the rest? Anyone? No? Yea, I’m at a loss too. Pissed off reader right here.

But as I said, despite being confused, I was enjoying the book. I liked De La Roca. I liked her horse. I liked what I think her mission was going to be. I think I was going to like the book once the pieces came together. You’ve read books like that, haven’t you? Books that made little sense, but if you stuck with them suddenly gelled together masterfully, providing the reader a gratifying Ah-Ha moment. That’s what I was expecting here. I was working toward it in eager anticipation. So even though I read some of the fight scenes (such as the one with Munnin) and didn’t really know what the hell happened (it was really brief and hardly sketched out), was a little iffy on the world (I initially thought it was the wild west, then microwaves and cars were thrown in, so guess not) and never figured out what the Mademoiselle and Laufeyson’s betrayals were supposed to be, I was still looking forward to each next chapter in the hopes that it would be the one to pull it all together. But no.

The writing itself is pretty good. Based on just the writing this deserves far more than two stars. But everything is kept shallow. At no point did I feel the author had provided me a solid…well, a solid anything. Everything was just hinted at. In fact, my initial thought was that the chapters felt like separate vignettes instead of a smoothly flowing piece of writing. This left everything and everyone feeling disjointed and jerky. It also left a lot of moments in which I reached the end of a section and only vaguely understood what had just transpired.

Anyhow, I have part two (not book two, mind you, part two). Here’s to hoping it’s A) not another ‘cliffhanger’ B) clears up some of the confusion left from this book. C) continues the pretty prose.

Honor in HellReview of Honor in Hell:
What’s with authors writing serial novellas that don’t end? Drives me nuts. It cheats the reader out of something fundamental to the reading experience. It sure as hell doesn’t leave the reader with anything resembling a warm, happy feeling.

Anyhow, this book was less confusing than the first one. I was much more easily able to follow what was going on. It also pulled a lot of the threads that were left waving in a mysterious wind at the end of part one together, so that the reader can actually follow the plot. The writing was still really good and it’s well edited. Too bad it’s just the middle third of a book.

Sorry, I’m too busy being annoyed at having just dedicated two days to reading two novellas, without reaching any conclusion and no indication that I ever will to bother writing anything more about this book. Why would I want to invest two days to something I’ll never be able to finish? (Because there isn’t a third book and by the time there is I’ll have forgotten about what I read here…and refuse to read it out of spite and fear that even then I might not reach an ending.) It was waste of my time, no matter how engaging or well written it might be.