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Sleepless

Book Review of Sleepless (Curse of the Blood Fox, #1), by Sera Ashling

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SleeplessI nabbed a Copy of Sleepless, by Sera Ashling from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Curses are not subtle.

They are things of pain, and for a very long time Santo has been caught in one. She haunts the roads of the country of Kurdak as a mercenary, fighting back sleep every night so that she won’t have to face the horror that comes for her when she rests. Weary, with sanity almost gone and no end in sight, Santo doesn’t know who did this to her or why she is still alive.

Someone does, though. 

As the mythical Week of Colors arrives, she receives a visit from a long-time acquaintance. Traken is a sharp-tongued sorcerer with a sadistic streak, and he comes bearing an “invitation” from his master, a secretive lord who has been watching her for far too long. Santo isn’t thrilled, until another message arrives in the form of an ominous prediction: following the sorcerer will mean the answers she wants, but she’ll likely die in the process. 

That’s fine with Santo, though, because she isn’t searching for a way out… she’s searching for revenge.

Review:
Wow, I am thrilled 2015 is starting so well. I stayed up way too late last night to finish this book. Then, tired as I was, I had to check if the sequel was available before I could drag myself to bed. (It’s apparently not, but I would have bought it if it had been.)

I had very low expectations from this book, being an Amazon freeibe. But it surpassed them by some distance. Santos and Traken are a fun pair. At the start of the book they are long time acquaintances, familiar and comfortable (if wary) with one another, but not friends. That changes over the course of the book and the back and forwards banter was great.

Santo is a wonderfully strong heroine, never flailing helplessly or swooning for a man. Meanwhile, Traken is nursing a touching fragility (while still remaining badass). Plus, though there’s no sex or even much romance, seeing a man practically begging a woman to give him orders is darned sexy. Having read what I just wrote, it doesn’t sound like it would be, but in the context of the story it really is.

I’m also happy to report that this isn’t a YA book. There isn’t anything in it that would be unsuitable for younger readers, but it’s pleasantly adult for a fantasy. There is violence and surprisingly grown-up themes of healing and redemption.

The writing was fun to read and the editing was fine. I noticed a few dropped particles here or there, but that could have been a character’s speech pattern. Hard to tell.  And, though never dull, the book does seem to drag a bit in the middle. There just seems to be a lot of middle, if that makes sense. All in all, a real win in my book, made especially sweet since I really hadn’t expected as much.

Talking to the Dead

Book Review of Talking to the Dead, by Bonnie Grove

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Talking to the DeadI’m making an effort this year to read books that have been on my TBR for more than two years. I downloaded Talking to the Dead, by Bonnie Grove from the Amazon free list on November 15, 2012. So, it qualified for my TBR challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
Twenty-something Kate Davis can’t seem to get this grieving widow thing right. She’s supposed to put on a brave face and get on with her life, right? Instead she’s camped out on her living room floor, unwashed, unkempt, and unable to sleep-because her husband Kevin keeps talking to her.

Is she losing her mind?

Kate’s attempts to find the source of the voice she hears are both humorous and humiliating, as she turns first to an “eclectically spiritual” counselor, then a shrink with a bad toupee, a mean-spirited exorcist, and finally group therapy. There she meets Jack, the warmhearted, unconventional pastor of a ramshackle church, and at last the voice subsides. But when she stumbles upon a secret Kevin was keeping, Kate’s fragile hold on the present threatens to implode under the weight of the past . and Kevin begins to shout.

Will the voice ever stop? Kate must confront her grief to find the grace to go on, in this tender, quirky story about second chances.

Review:
Before I get into the review of this book I should fess up to some discomfort. I downloaded this thinking it was Women’s Fiction and it passes as it until about 90% into the book, when the main character had a clear Transcendental experience with the “One True God” and the rest of the book was heavily Christian. Looking at the rest of the book through that religious lens also changed my interpretation of a lot of the previous events.

I say all of this because I’m ok with Women’s Fiction, not so much with Christian fiction. I literally stuck my finger in my throat and made gagging sounds at my Kindle. I would not have read the book if I’d known where it was going. This is not a condemnation of the book, just an informative statement of genre classification. So, the rest of what I have to say should probably be taken with the above in mind.

My primary response to this book was, “I’m apparently not a nice enough person to read this.” Now, acknowledging the religious bent of the book, I can understand that forgiveness is obviously supposed to be important and the book focuses solely on Kate’s experience. BUT, and this is a big BUT for me, none of the characters who do her seriously wrong ever get their comeuppance. Hell, Kate never even says a cutting word toward them let alone does anything that leaves the reader feeling satisfied that the bad guys got what was coming to them. NONE!

Yeah, yeah, ‘all things before god. It’s not her place to pass judgement. She’s a better person for not.’ Bla, bla, bla. They got off too easy and I wanted to at least see them being told what shits they were…preferably in public, with significant and measurable consequences. Didn’t happen.

The book is well written and I didn’t really see any serious editing issues. And I did really like Jack and Maggie reminded me of someone I know and love in real life. I appreciated the representation of how easy it is to get trapped in the mental health system. I’m not even blind to the small kindnesses of the people who did Kate so wrong, giving their characters a bit of grey. (Too bad all those kindnesses were in response to situations they created and threw her unsuspectingly into.) So there is something worth praising here.

I just get stuck because the very things that are supposed to provide emotional satisfaction and closure for the reader (they are there for the right reader), mean nothing to me. Therefore, I’m left in the cold still waiting for a happy ending I’ll never get because what I want to happen wouldn’t be ‘Christian.’

So, if you’re the type of reader who likes to see a woman totally and unfairly destroyed by her corporeal life in order to accept God into her life, this is a must read. I’m not that reader. In fact, I tend to actively avoid such books. It’s a shame I got sideswiped by this one.

Book Review of Liberty & Other Stories and There Will Be Phlogiston, by Alexis Hall

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Liberty and other storiesI received a copy of Liberty and Other Stories, by Alexis Hall, from Netgalley. These stories constitute #2-4 & 6 of the Prosperity series. (Yeah, I don’t really get the numbering either.) I read and reviewed the first one, Prosperity, here. It happened to have been one of my top reads for 2014.

Description from Goodreads:
An instructive story in which vice receives its just reward.

Inspired by true and scandalous tales of the Gaslight aristocracy, we present the most moral and improving tale of Lady Rosamond Wolfram.

Weep, reader, for the plight of our heroine as she descends into piteous ruin in the clutches of the notorious Phlogiston Baron, Anstruther Jones. Witness the horrors of feminine rebellion when this headstrong young lady defies her father, breaks an advantageous engagement, and slips into depravity with a social inferior. Before the last page is turned, you will have seen our heroine molested by carnival folk, snubbed at a dance, and drawn into a sinful ménage a trois by an unrepentant sodomite, the wicked and licentious Lord Mercury.

Reader, take heed. No aspect of our unfortunate heroine’s life, adventures, or conduct is at all admirable, desirable, exciting, thrilling, glamorous, or filled with heady passion and gay romance.

Review:
I find myself in a quandary. I love the Prosperity universe. I love the characters of this series. I greatly enjoyed learning a bit of their history. I found myself surprisingly aghast ant the subtle perversions of The Sound of Music, something I quite liked.

But I’m not a huge fan of short stories as a medium and I’m even less fond of such stories told in a series of correspondences and/or interviews/depositions/testimonies/etc. Which is how most of the stories in this book are told.

So, here I am, completely thrilled to have spent a little more time (not enough, mind you) with Milord and Rueben, Miss Grey, Dil and Byron. I even liked the new character, George. I still love the narrative style and voices. I still love the writing. I’m still enamoured with the amazingly effective use of pauses. I still think there’s an enviable intelligence to the story, as a whole. I still think the covers are to die for. I still think the editing is superb and this is a stellar example of a book. But the fact that I don’t particularly care for the type of book it happens to be kept me from being completely blown away. That I liked it as much as I did, despite not liking shorts says a lot though.

So, I’m not sure where that leaves me…’torn’ I guess, between fangirl squeeing and lacklustre praise of the work as a whole. I’d still read anything Alexis Hall writes, so it can’t be too off-putting.

There will be PhlogistonI downloaded a free copy of There Will be Phlogiston from Amazon. It is, confusingly, book 5 of the Prosperity series.  At the time of posting it’s also free from the publisher.

Description from Goodreads:
An instructive story in which vice receives its just reward.

Inspired by true and scandalous tales of the Gaslight aristocracy, we present the most moral and improving tale of Lady Rosamond Wolfram.

Weep, reader, for the plight of our heroine as she descends into piteous ruin in the clutches of the notorious Phlogiston Baron, Anstruther Jones. Witness the horrors of feminine rebellion when this headstrong young lady defies her father, breaks an advantageous engagement, and slips into depravity with a social inferior. Before the last page is turned, you will have seen our heroine molested by carnival folk, snubbed at a dance, and drawn into a sinful ménage a trois by an unrepentant sodomite, the wicked and licentious Lord Mercury.

Reader, take heed. No aspect of our unfortunate heroine’s life, adventures, or conduct is at all admirable, desirable, exciting, thrilling, glamorous, or filled with heady passion and gay romance.

Review:
Like with the end of Liberty, I find myself torn between absolutely loving this and ending on a disappointed note. I’ll start with the disappointment, since it’s pretty cut and dry.

This book is listed as 150/262 pages long (depending on if you looks at the ebook or Kindle edition), but it’s literally half that long. At exactly 50%, the story ends and the rest is all sneak peaks of the other stories in the series. I was really bummed too, because I had been excited about starting the next chapter and getting 75 or so pages of Arkady, Jones and Ros’ new life together. I really wanted to see that work, see how it works. I felt cheated out of something substantial that not even a little of that was included.

Other than that rather serious complaint, I loved the story. I love the way one man’s refusal to accept ridiculous social dictates resulted in, not only his own happiness, but freeing two others too. I loved that, by the end, there was a wonderful flexibility in what was promised to be the future relationship. I simply loved Jones. I liked Arkady. I liked Ros. But I loved Jones. I don’t think it would be possible not to.

Like everything else I’ve read by Hall, I think the writing is wonderful, the humor subtle but undeniable and the sex hot. I did think the editing was only passable. I noticed a few mistakes and I didn’t in any of the previous books. But hey, this is a freebie, so I’m not complaining and honestly there weren’t that many. They were only even notable because of the previous lack of them.

I’m really hoping there will be more books in this series…and that they’ll be books, not short stories (just a personal preference). Definitely recommended.

Lastly, because each of the stories contained within Liberty technically has their own cover and because I think they are all so freaking marvellous, I’ve included a nice little collage of them for you to admire. Enjoy.*Screen Shot 2015-01-02 at 13.17.44

*Note to Mr. Hall. Seven is a terribly inconvenient number to fit nicely into any sort of attractive patter. Could you perhaps correct this by adding one or two more books to the series?