Tag Archives: audiobook

blood and ash

Book Review: Blood & Ash, by Deborah Wilde

Though I own a kindle copy of Deborah Wilde‘s Blood & Ash (I think I picked it up as an Amazon freebie), I borrowed and audio copy through Hoopla so that I could listen to it while I worked outside.
blood and ash

Cold-blooded kidnappers. Long-lost magic. When things get serious, she goes full Sherlock.

Ashira Cohen takes pride in being the only female private investigator in Vancouver. With her skills, her missing persons case should be a piece of cake.

She wasn’t counting on getting bashed in the skull, revealing a hidden tattoo and supernatural powers she shouldn’t possess.

Or the bitter icing on top: a spree of abductions and terrifying ghostly creatures on a deadly bender.

And don’t even get her started on the golems.

Reluctantly partnered with her long-time nemesis Levi, the infuriating leader of the magic community, Ash resolves to keep her focus on the clue trail and off their sexual tension because WTF is up with that?

But with a mastermind organization pulling strings from the shadows and Levi’s arrogance driving her to pick out his body bag, can Ash rescue the captives and uncover the truth or will the next blood spilled be her own?

my review

I generally liked this. I actually loved some aspects of it. A urban fantasy with a Jewish heroine and supporting characters? Yes please. Set in Canada? I’ll take it. All that lovely diversity? Yep, give it here. Writing that rarely pulled me out of the narrative? I am here for it!

But I also felt like I was dropped into the middle of the story. Ash talks about ‘my leg’ and ‘my coma’ and about characters the reader hasn’t met for too long before any of it is explained. I thought I must be missing a first book for quite a long while. And so much is only barely given context. I never really felt any of it. The relationship with the romantic partner especially. So, while I enjoyed the ride, I wasn’t super invested in any of it.

All in all, though, I’d read another of Wilde’s books.

blood and ash


I’m gonna try a new thing for a little while, see how I like it. I’m going to start including links to other reviews of a book for comparison. I don’t know if it’ll become a permanent thing, but here it goes. Let’s start with two.

Blood & Ash by Deborah Wilde

 

Review: Blood & Ash by Deborah Wilde

fool moon title

Book Review: Fool Moon, by Jim Butcher

I borrowed an audio copy of Jim Butcher‘s Fool Moon through my local library. I do actually have a paperback copy of the book, but borrowing the audio allowed me to listen while I did other things; multi-tasking to the max.

fool moon

Harry Dresden–Wizard

Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

Business has been slow. Okay, business has been dead. And not even of the undead variety. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry Dresden hasn’t been able to dredge up any kind of work–magical or mundane.

But just when it looks like he can’t afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise.

A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses–and the first two don’t count…

my review

I love urban fantasy. I love to see magic-wielding people slinging power around in modern settings. But I have learned to avoid male wizards. Think Iron Druid, Harry Dresden, Nate Temple, etc. I seem to generally have the same problem with too many of them. As such, I tend to read the first in these series, to test them out, and then abandoned them.

However, I was at the store the other day wearing a shirt that said, “I ❤ books.” The girl at the register commented on it and thus followed an excited conversation about which books I read. (I think she must lack in book-friends, the poor dear.) She strongly recommended Sarah J. Mass and the Dresden Files, promising both series get better the farther into them you go. (As an aside, Throne of Glass is another series I read the first of and never came back to.) But on the strength of fervor alone, I decided to give the second Dresden Files book a chance.

And I will admit that I liked Fool Moon more than Storm Front (which I somehow seem not to have reviewed, but gave 3*).  I liked it more than I liked Hounded (2*), and at least I finished it, which is more than I can say for Obsidian Son (1*).  But I had the same problem with it that I do so many urban fantasies, written about male protagonist, by men. The women. OMG, the women! Or, maybe I should call it the male gaze on the women.

Butcher literally tells the reader how good the legs of the werewolf trying to kill Harry are, as she tries to kill him. This just after she strips off her shirt to shift and he tell us how big her tits are. Just about every single scene with a female in it, regardless of context, includes a comment on her body. It gets so redundant, until I spend half the book anxiously waiting for the next irritant. I don’t care about her erect nipples or how big her tits are in the middle of a fight. I care how big her claws are and if she’s going to use them to gut someone. But really, it’s the needless repetition of it all, like a woman can’t even be mentioned without her body being described in the same manner as the room EVERY SINGLE TIME.

And the honest truth is that Butcher might not be as bad about it as some authors are. But when a reader has been so irritated with the frequency of encountering something that they go into a book or series expecting it and then find it, the level of irritation comes with all the history of the genre. it’s a collective annoyance. And I side-eye every book about male wizards now, especially those written by men.

Beyond the male gaze issue, I didn’t hate it. I liked the rest of the book. I really appreciate that Harry his tough as nails, but still cries and admits to fear. I’m interested in seeing what develops about his ancestry and the mystery surrounding his parents. I think I’ll continue the series. But I can’t see it being a favorite. Credit where credit is due, though, I probably wouldn’t have picked this book up at all, and decided to keep with the series, if it wasn’t for check-out girl.

Quick comment on the narration. James Marsters does a fine job with it, EXCEPT that he audibly swallows constantly.

fool moon jim butcher

scent and scent ability banner

Book Review: Sense and Scent Ability, by Renee George

I initially picked up a copy of Renee George‘s Sense and Scent Ability as an Amazon freebie. But then I ended up borrowing an audio copy of it from Hoopla instead, so that I could listen to it as I did chores. 

sense and scent ability

My name is Nora Black, and I’m fifty-one-years young. At least that’s what I tell myself, when I’m not having hot flashes, my knees don’t hurt, and I can find my reading glasses.

I’m also the proud owner of a salon called Scents & Scentsability in the small resort town of Garden Cove, where I make a cozy living selling handmade bath and beauty products. All in all, my life is pretty good.

Except for one little glitch…

Since my recent hysterectomy, where I died on the operating table, I’ve been experiencing what some might call paranormal activity. No, I don’t see dead people, but quite suddenly I’m triggered by scents that, in their wake, leave behind these vividly intense memories. Sometimes they’re unfocused and hazy, but there’s no doubt, they are very, very real.
Know what else? They’re not my memories. It seems I’ve lost a uterus and gained a psychic gift.

When my best friend’s abusive boyfriend ends up dead after a fire, and she becomes the prime suspect, I end up a babysitter to her two teenagers while she’s locked up in the clink. Add to that the handsome detective determined to stand in my way, my super sniffer’s newly acquired abilities and a rash of memories connected to the real criminal, and I find myself in a race to catch a killer before my best friend is tried for murder.

my review

I thought this was a fine, middle of the road story and the narrator did a fine (if inconsistent) job with the audio. I liked Nora. I liked the decisions to let her be a 50+ year old woman who decided not to have children and that not be a point of contention in the novel. I liked the younger potential romantic partner. I liked the female friendships and that there isn’t any jealous among them.

I did think Nora (who’s 51) feels too infirm for the age. Sure, as the body gets older, there’s the occasional ache or pain. But she sounds like she’s far older, if her failing body is anything to go by. Sometimes I feel like aches, pains, and a leaky bladder are the only things authors can think of to signal a middle-aged or above woman. And as Nora hasn’t had children the bladder is off the table as an option. So, I guess George had no other option than to focus on her achy knees…or something.

All in all, the book did the job of keeping me distracted and I’d read another one.

sense and scent ability renee george