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verena's whistle

Book Review: Verena’s Whistle, by K. Panikian

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K. Panikian sent me a copy of her book, Verena’s Whistle for review. verena's whistle

The meteor brought more than space dust.

Verena is a grad student living in Alaska when she receives a phone call that changes her life. Her family has been keeping secrets. Soon, she’s on a mission to save the world from Chernobog’s demonic beasts. Will she master her new magic in time? Will Owen, a man with his own demons, help her in her quest, or will he break her heart?

As she crosses the world to the snowy Ural Mountains, Verena must decide if she’s ready to lead or if the price is too high.

I think this has an interesting premise, but is too slow paced. Which is notable because a previous reviewer said it “is very fast paced (maybe slightly too fast paced).” The odd thing is I perfectly understand what she meant. You see, I call it too slow because there is an awful lot of talking about, planning, training, traveling to, and preparing to do things and very little actual doing of things. But when things do happen they happen quickly.

For example, one character is sent from America to France to find something with very little information. But he finds it (and more) after going to one cemetery and speaking to one priest. The loves are instant. Several times the perfect person shows up to help at the perfect time. Every battle is won with a single ‘brilliant’ idea, etc. So, one person calls it too fast paced (because the events feel rushed) and another says it’s too slowly paced (because there is too much between each important event). So, let’s split the difference and say the pacing is inconsistent.

Outside of that, I enjoyed the characters, setting, Slavic mythos, and writing. The editing is pretty good too, up until the end when I noticed an increase in errors (though they weren’t overly disruptive even then). All in all, I’m going to call it a middle of the road read for me. But, of course, your mileage might vary.

verenas whistle

Gods of jade and shadow

Book Review: Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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As fate would have it, I ended up with two copies of Silvia Moreno-Garcia‘s Gods of Jade and Shadows. I won an ARC through Goodreads initially, and then someone left a copy in the Little Free Library.
gods of jade and shadow

The Mayan god of death sends a young woman on a harrowing, life-changing journey in this one-of-a-kind fairy tale inspired by Mexican folklore.

The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own.

Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it—and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true.

In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.

my review

Oh, I thought this was marvelous. And I don’t even think I realized, as I was reading it, how much I loved it. It is after all a bit on the slow side, with quite a lot of exposition. It was only in finishing it and looking back at the journey as a whole that I sighed in true contentment.

We’re given a strong, competent heroine who gets everything she wished for—if not in the way she imagined it—by doing the right thing in difficult situations. We have a villain who is recognizable and realistic. We have two gods and a whole cosmos of divinity that are inhumane but relatable. They are, after all, gods, not humans. We have a subtle romance based in the heart, not the loins. And the whole thing is steeped in shades and tones of oral history, as if this is a myth being told.

True, the sudden shift in Hun-Kame and Vucub-Kame’s attitudes at the end are jarring and hard to believe. But, as the book repeatedly reinforces, symbolism and myth-making are important. And the inner workings of gods, when influenced by the imagination of man is beyond the mundane.

And lastly, my favorite part is right at the end. I just need a chance to vocalize it because I’m having all the feel about it. But it’s a spoiler, so skip this paragraph if you haven’t read the book yet. Hun-Kame sent Casiopea a final gift, ostensibly the bag of black pearls he’d promised her. But I don’t actually think the pearls were the gift. He sent them via Loray and I think he’s the unspoken gift—a companion, someone worldly and open to usher and assist her in finding her feet in her new free world. And there is just something wonderful about that.

gods of jade and shadow

Psycop

Book Reviews: Psycops #3 – 7, by Jordan Castillo Price

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It’s been several years since I read Among the Living and Criss Cross (books 1 and 2 of the Psycop series, by Jordan Castillo Price). But I did enjoy them at the time. I’ll just go ahead and link my 2015 reviews here for easy reference. In rereading the reviews, I feel like they’re maybe a little dated, but they are several years old.

Book Review of Partners (PsyCop #1-2), by Jordan Castillo Price

I’ve been holding on to audio copies of books 3 – 9 for a while, afraid to pick the series up again because it’d been so long since I started it. Some of these I picked up freebie codes for and some I laid out money for and bought. They’re narrated by Gomez Pugh, who did an awesome job.

Turned out the 5 year gap is not insurmountable. I was able to dive right back in without issue. I’m only going to post small reviews for these latter books though, being as I’m getting so far into the series. Below are reviews for books 3-7, which is as far as I got before I felt like I needed a break from so many books from the same series in a row.

body & soulThanksgiving can’t end too soon for Victor Bayne, who’s finding Jacob’s family hard to swallow. Luckily, he’s called back to work to track down a high-profile missing person.

Meanwhile, Jacob tries to find a home they can move into that’s not infested – with either cockroaches or ghosts. As if the house-hunting isn’t stressful enough, Vic’s new partner Bob Zigler doesn’t seem to think he can do anything right. A deceased junkie with a bone to pick leads Vic and Zig on a wild chase that ends in a basement full of horrors.

Review of Body & Soul:

I quite enjoyed this. Victor is a sarcastic curmudgeon that I can relate to. I appreciate that he’s a little older than the normal hero and a lot less shiny. I thought the sex was oddly perfunctory. Probably because the relationship is already established, so there’s no real romance to go with it. But also because Jacob plays so little role in the story otherwise. He literally shows up, shags Victor on occasion and wanders off muttering about condos. I really did wish he played a more active role, though I enjoyed seeing Victor adjusting to a new partner.

secrets jordan castillo priceVictor Bayne’s job as a PsyCop involves tracking down dead people and getting them to spill their guts about their final moments. It’s never been fun, per se. But it’s not usually this annoying.

Vic has just moved in with his boyfriend Jacob, he can’t figure out where anything’s packed, and his co-worker is pressuring him to have a housewarming party. Can’t a guy catch a break?

On a more sinister note, Vic discovers there’s absolutely no trace of him online. No trace of anyone else who trained at “Camp Hell,” either. Everyone Vic knows has signed a mysterious set of papers to ensure his “privacy.” The contracts are so confidential that even Vic has never heard of them. But Jacob might have.

What other secrets has Jacob been keeping?

Review of Secrets:

What I found interesting about Secrets is that we really get to see how very naive Victor has been about himself and his situation. It’s not that I don’t understand why, but it’s nice to see him getting clean(ish) and seeing with clearer eyes. The mystery in the story is really secondary to the realities of living with Psyop abilities, which made for some interesting considerations. I was glad to see Jacob play a bigger role than in the last book. I still feel like he’s a bit of a sexy, growling, biting, place-holder compared to the first books. Though I still adore him. But I’m hoping he’ll come back into more detail as the series progresses.

camp hell, jordan castillo priceVictor Bayne honed his dubious psychic skills at one of the first psych training facilities in the country, Heliotrope Station, otherwise known as Camp Hell to the psychics who’ve been guests behind its razorwire fence.

Vic discovered that none of the people he remembers from Camp Hell can be found online, and there’s no mention of Heliotrope Station itself, either. Someone’s gone through a lot of trouble to bury the past. But who?

Review of Camp Hell:

I think maybe this was my favorite so far. Maybe because it’s longer than the others, so a more fleshed out story, but also I feel like Victor grew a lot during it. There were also some interesting developments for Jacob and Zig played a bigger role, both of which I appreciated. I look forward to seeing where the story goes from here!

ghosttvFor the past dozen years, Victor Bayne has solved numerous murders by interrogating witnesses only he can see—dead witnesses. But when his best friend Lisa goes missing from the sunny California campus of PsyTrain, the last thing he wants to find there is her spirit.

Disappearing without a trace in a school full of psychics? That’s some trick. But somehow both Lisa and her roommate have vanished into thin air. A group of fanatics called Five Faith has been sniffing around, and Lisa’s email is compromised.

Time is running out, and with no ghosts to cross-examine, Vic can’t afford to turn down any offers of help. An old enemy can provide an innovative way to track Vic’s missing friend, and he enters into an uneasy alliance—even though its ultimate cost will ensnare him in a debt he may never manage to settle.

Review of GhostTV:

I swear this series is getting better as it goes. The books are also getting longer, which I appreciate. Though, I have to admit, once you get this far into a series, there’s not a lot left to review. I like the characters and the series in general. Otherwise, I wouldn’t keep reading. Here I enjoyed seeing Vic become progressively more competent, Jacob become more of a help-mate, and getting to know the enigmatic Dreyfuss. I’m off to listen to the next one.

spook squadEveryone enjoys peace and tranquility, and Victor Bayne is no exception. He goes to great lengths to maintain a harmonious home with his partner, Jacob. Although the cannery is huge, it’s grown difficult to avoid the elephant in the room…the elephant with the letters FPMP scrawled on its hide.

Once Jacob surrendered his PsyCop badge, he infiltrated the Federal Psychic Monitoring Program. In his typical restrained fashion, he hasn’t been sharing much about what he actually does behind its vigilantly guarded doors. And true to form, Vic hasn’t asked. In fact, he would prefer not to think about the FPMP at all, since he’s owed Director Dreyfuss an exorcism since their private flight to PsyTrain.

While Vic has successfully avoided FPMP entanglement for several months, now his debt has finally come due.

Review of Spook Squad:

I enjoyed this, just not as much as the last couple in the series. I thought the answer to the mystery was glaringly obvious. So obvious, in fact, that I felt it would be the first thing a medium would think of, as opposed to something no one considered. And I thought the whole thing kind of sagged in the middle a bit. But I still loved Vic and Jacob (though Jacob is largely in the background), enjoyed getting to know Dreyfuss and the FPMP crew, and still look forward to more.