Tag Archives: audiobook

Book Review of The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings #2), by Mackenzi Lee

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I borrowed an audio copy of Mackenzi Lee’s The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy from my local library. I reviewed the first book in the series, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, last year.

Description from Goodreads:

A year after an accidentally whirlwind grand tour with her brother Monty, Felicity Montague has returned to England with two goals in mind—avoid the marriage proposal of a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh and enroll in medical school. However, her intellect and passion will never be enough in the eyes of the administrators, who see men as the sole guardians of science.

But then a window of opportunity opens—a doctor she idolizes is marrying an old friend of hers in Germany. Felicity believes if she could meet this man he could change her future, but she has no money of her own to make the trip. Luckily, a mysterious young woman is willing to pay Felicity’s way, so long as she’s allowed to travel with Felicity disguised as her maid.

In spite of her suspicions, Felicity agrees, but once the girl’s true motives are revealed, Felicity becomes part of a perilous quest that leads them from the German countryside to the promenades of Zurich to secrets lurking beneath the Atlantic.

Review:

I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did. Hmmm, that’s not quite right. I actually did really quite like it. I liked the representation and diversity of the book. I liked the wit and writing in the book. I liked Moira Quirk’s narration. I liked Felicity. I liked what she wanted and demanded in life. I liked that she was smart and determined and uncompromising.

I liked her feminism! But even as a staunch feminist myself, this same feminism was my biggest problem with the book and kept me from truly loving it. I’m not sure exactly how to explain this. Because I agree with Felicity 100% that she deserved to be allowed to study. That women deserved not to be stifled and protected from their own ambitions. But this is just such a modern ideal. It’s not that there weren’t women who strived to be more than mothers and wives, but Felicity kept acting as if she could reasonably expect different reactions from the men of society. That they, not her were the abnormal ones. The same society she had been raised in, with the same underlying mores. Most of her internal musings sounded horridly anachronistic to the time period the book is set in. It clashed jarringly. Eventually it started to feel like didactic lecture on what should be, instead of an engagement of what was (and to an extent still is). And in the end, undermined my ability to suspend my disbelief enough to truly immerse myself in the story.

The Passage

Book Review of The Passage, by Justin Cronin

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I borrowed an audio copy of The Passage (by Justin Cronin) through my local library.

Description from Goodreads:

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.” 

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

Review:

When I finished this 800 page (37 hour audio) book and came upstairs to rant, “You will never believe…” at my husband, his response was that my review should read only, “Justin Cronin, fuck that guy.” And while that’s going a bit far, considering the book is pretty good, writing an 800 page epic that ends on a cliffhanger deserves at least an adjacent “fuck you.” For real! Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you Cronin. 

Outside of the lack of ending, the book has an interesting zombie/vampire blend going on and an engaging cast (just don’t get too attached to anyone), and a thought provoking plot. It also has an unexpected (by me) religious undertone. The thing is all a fairly blunt Noah/Floodesque purging of evil for the betterment of man parable. 

I do think it’s far too long. There just isn’t any reason it needs to be almost 800 pages long. It wanders and wends too much. While I’m interested in finishing the story, I’m not up for two more tomes of this length to get it. I’m stepping away. Maybe I’ll come back to it. Maybe. 

On a side note, the narrators (Scott Brick, Adenrele Ojo, and Abby Craden) did an excellent job.

Book Review of Angel’s Blood and Archangel’s Kiss, by Nalini Singh

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I borrowed audio copies of book one and two of Nalini Singh‘s Guild Hunter series (Angel’s Blood and Archangel’s Kiss) through Hoopla and my local library.

Description through Goodreads:

Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux is hired by the dangerously beautiful Archangel Raphael. But this time, it’s not a wayward vamp she has to track. It’s an archangel gone bad.

The job will put Elena in the midst of a killing spree like no other—and pull her to the razor’s edge of passion. Even if the hunt doesn’t destroy her, succumbing to Raphael’s seductive touch just may. For when archangels play, mortals break.

Review:

This is a hard book to rate because though it was OK, it’s basically 10 years old and we readers demand a lot more out of our PNR now than we did 10 years ago, especially from the hero. And some of my biggest complaints about this book are things that I think authors do better about now (the publishing industry allows them to do better about). It’s a little impolite to judge a book written a decade ago by the standards of today, but my enjoyment was definitely effected by them. Hmmm….

So, the good. I liked Elena. She was a professional, good at what she did and strong without being a consistently rude (so many times authors try and write a strong woman an just write and angry bitch). I think the lore of the angels and vampires was an interesting one. All in all, I like the idea of the book and the narrator, Justine Eyre, did a fine job. 

The bad. There isn’t any romance. I saw lust between these two characters and I understood it, no problem. But they didn’t even seem to like each other, let alone love. And the power divide between the two was too gaping to be crossed, IMO. I couldn’t see that Elena could or would ever be an equal in the relationship. What’s more, the sex was the sort that’s hot, but reads as if female bodies are made of steel and have to be jackhammered into. I cringed. 

The really bad. I cannot even count how many times I have written reviews in which I point out that the single other significant female in the book, other than the main character, is the jealous woman who uses her sexuality as a weapon and tries to steal a man. This plot device is so common that (though I couldn’t have articulated it) I mimicked it in writing in my very first attempt to write a story at age 10. Of course, I didn’t understand sexuality then, but the character I wrote had all the trademarks of the angry, jealous, vixen that can’t be trusted. Can we maybe stop feeding women the idea that other women can’t be trusted? I’m SO sick of seeing this in books. 

I’ll try book two. But if it’s not an improvement on this first book, I won’t read more. I imagine by 2009 standards it was a fine book, but by those of 2019 not so much.

Description from Goodreads:

Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux wakes from a year-long coma to find herself changed—an angel with wings the colors of midnight and dawn—but her fragile body needs time to heal before she can take flight. Her lover, the stunningly dangerous archangel, Raphael, is used to being in control—especially when it comes to the woman he considers his own. But Elena has never done well with authority.

They’ve barely begun to understand each other when Raphael receives an invitation to a ball from the archangel, Lijuan. To refuse would be a sign of fatal weakness, so Raphael must ready Elena for the flight to Beijing—and to the nightmare that awaits them there. Ancient and without conscience, Lijuan holds a power that lies with the dead. And she has organized the most perfect and most vicious of welcomes for Elena.

Review:

Oh look, the requisite book where the hero takes the heroine and buys her a pretty dress. The cliches just keep coming. The book also continues the evil woman trend. There are three significant females, other than the heroine and her best friend—who are of course perfect (and I wouldn’t consider the friend significant)—and they are all evil. Every one. 

The plot was pretty obvious, both what would happen and who the villain(s) would be. It was tedious. I also just plain got tired of every man Elena spoke to hitting on her, even as they told her they’d happily kill her. Between all the innuendo with the other angels and vampires and the sex with Raphael I bored quickly. 

It’s a shame. I like the idea of this series, but I’m not interested in reading anymore of it. I basically couldn’t get done with this one fast enough, so I could walk away.