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Book Review of The Iron Duke & Heart of Steel, by Meljean Brook

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The Iron DukeI checked out Meljean Brook‘s The Iron Duke and Heart of Steel from my local library.

About the book:

After the Iron Duke freed England from Horde control, he instantly became a national hero. Now Rhys Trahaearn has built a merchant empire on the power – and fear – of his name. And when a dead body is dropped from an airship onto his doorstep, bringing Detective Inspector Mina Wentworth into his dangerous world, he intends to make her his next possession.

But when Mina uncovers the victim’s identity, she stumbles upon a conspiracy that threatens the lives of everyone in England. To save them, Mina and Rhys must race across zombie-infested wastelands and treacherous oceans-and Mina discovers the danger is not only to her countrymen, as she finds herself tempted to give up everything to the Iron Duke.

Review:
Oh, this was marvellous! I adored just about every aspect of it. Mina is a wonderful action-oriented heroine. The Duke is a great alpha hero. (He does come across as a little too alpha, borderline rapey in the beginning. But it’s also kind of fun seeing him learn how not to be that way.) And the side characters, they’re also amazing.

There are all the expected steampunk elements–mechanical men, zombies, kraken, airships, etc. There’s a very intricate and intriguing dystopian world, exotic local and romance.

But I also really appreciated that the book is adult themed. Not erotica or anything like that, but it explores some very dark human elements and a lot of people in it have a history of abuse. This was all handled without feeling extraneous to the plot or pointlessly titillating.

Plus, there are real, grown up main characters. She is almost 30 and he’s past his mid thirties. I appreciate not having to imagine 21 year olds with the bearings and life experience of older characters. Much better to just be given an appropriately aged character in the first place.

There was a bit of insta-love. I could have done without all Mina’s tears in the end and some of the ‘misunderstandings’ were cliché  and predictable.  But my final says is *winner.*

About the book:

Heart of SteelThe Iron Duke introduced the gritty, alluring adventure of the Iron Seas, where nanotech fuses with Victorian sensibilities—and steam.

As the mercenary captain of Lady Corsair, Yasmeen has learned to keep her heart as cold as steel, her only loyalty bound to her ship and her crew. So when a man who once tried to seize her airship returns from the dead, Yasmeen will be damned if she gives him another opportunity to take control.

Treasure hunter Archimedes Fox isn’t interested in Lady Corsair—he wants her coldhearted captain and the valuable da Vinci sketch she stole from him. To reclaim it, Archimedes is determined to seduce the stubborn woman who once tossed him to a ravenous pack of zombies, but she’s no easy conquest.

When da Vinci’s sketch attracts a dangerous amount of attention, Yasmeen and Archimedes journey to Horde-occupied Morocco—and straight into their enemy’s hands. But as they fight to save themselves and a city on the brink of rebellion, the greatest peril Yasmeen faces is from the man who seeks to melt her icy heart.

Review:
Well, we have another winner! I very much enjoyed Yasmeen and Archimedes’ story. Yasmeen was a great, strong female lead and Archimedes was like an anti-alpha. The man had some definite subby tendencies that I found adorable.

Though the world-building is as impressive as in the first book, I didn’t feel the plot was quite as expansive. Therefore, I wasn’t as wowed here as I had been with The Iron Duke (though I still really liked it).

I also thought Yasmeen’s attitude toward Archimedes seemed to shift suddenly and without a lot of clear reasons, especially considering how vested she was in not falling in love. Plus, as I’ve seen frequently in romances, the deeper in love she fell the weepier she became. This especially annoyed me as she was otherwise so…well, not unemotional, as she’s passionate and full of emotion, but also not one inclined to the softer emotions. Tears seem drastically out of character.

Despite a few little niggles, I’m in love with this series and hope my local library gets the rest of the series.

The Winter Boy

Book Review of The Winter Boy, by Sally Wiener Grotta

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The Winter BoyI received a review request/unsolicited pre-approval from Netgalley (what should I call that) to read Sally Wiener Grotta‘s Speculative fiction novel, The Winter Boy.

Description from Goodreads:
The Valley of the Alleshi is the center of all civilization, the core and foundation of centuries of peace. A cloistered society of widows, the Alleshi, has forged a peace by mentoring young men who will one day become the leaders of the land. Each boy is paired with a single Allesha for a season of intimacy and learning, using time-honored methods that include storytelling, reason and sex. However, unknown to all but a hidden few, the peace is fracturing from pressures within and beyond, hacking at the very essence of their civilization.

Amidst this gathering political maelstrom, Rishana, a young new idealistic Allesha, takes her First Boy, Ryl, for a winter season of training. But Ryl is a “problem boy,” who fights Rishana every step of the way. At the same time, Rishana uncovers a web of conspiracies that could not only destroy Ryl, but threatens to tear their entire society apart. And a winter that should have been a gentle, quiet season becomes one of conflict, anger and danger.

Review:
I’m just going to come out and confess up front that this is a hard book for me to review, because I firmly believe it is probably a good book. It’s certainly well written (with the exception of a few too formal quirks I’ll get to in a minute). The problem is that it is also a book I didn’t particularly enjoy and thus its 508 pages felt all but endless.

At its most basic, my problem with the book is that it feels a little pompas, as if it’s trying so hard to be important and meaningful that it just feel staged. As a result, it strikes me as one of those books that we’re all expected to read and hop on the ‘it’s so deep and meaningful’ bandwagon. Meh, I saw where it was trying to go and what it was trying to do (It was hard not to, it was so heavy-handed), but none of it impressed me too much.

Plus, and this is a biggy for me, the Feminist in me squirmed. I had hoped that taking a group of widows with the intent of training men to be better men would feel empowering. Instead, it felt just like one more story in which women set aside their own lives and importance for the betterment of a man.

And I don’t just mean this in the sense that all books should be paragons of feminist mystique, but that from the blurb and numerous hints in the text itself I sensed that it was written with the intent to show women as equally strong, worthy contributors to the societal good. In this, it failed miserably.

Even more so since Ryl came from a society in which women blatantly don’t have equal rights (a fact that effects his beliefs and behaviours in the beginning but is then mysteriously dropped), but it’s quite clear that not all cultures in the book’s universe are supposed to hold with such inequality.  BUT you don’t see those cultures. You’re told they exist, but don’t see them. Every single culture that is discussed (and there are a lot of them) held women in positions of secondary status.

Regardless, it’s still treated as the norm. Rishana still submits to him in many ways, even as she’s said to be doing it to teach a lesson or because challenging him will not further a lesson. Meh, I appreciate what the book was trying to accomplish in this area. I just don’t think it was wholly successful.

If women are meant to have equal rights/powers/positions/respect in the country as a whole, even if not in all individual tribes, why do the Alleshi train ONLY MEN for leadership? It’s kinda a big deal and completely undermines what I perceived to be the book’s intent. Thus, it feels like one more text that touts female empowerment and delivers the “naturalness” of male leadership and women’s, at best, position as an advisor.

It reeks of the familiar myth that women can find true satisfaction and self-worth in taking a damaged or unrefined man and through her love and good heart changing him into a truly good man and live happily ever after. Which, if you take that one step farther, is the myth people used to teach young girls to make them passively accepting of being married to older or otherwise unappealing men.

It could have been something really special, if it hadn’t so often compromised itself by falling back into old, well trodden gender tropes that completely countered what I took to be the book’s intended message. Of course, my understanding of its intent, while valid (as I think any reader’s understanding of a work is valid), may not be the same as the author’s. I have no way of knowing. But this was a big deal for me.

There was unquestioningly a submissiveness to the lessons the Alleshi taught their boys, that is the woman appearing to submit to the boy. Yes, she’s doing it purposefully to teach him, but that same submission and how to expect and accept it is part of the lesson, especially toward the end when he’s supposed to have become an actual man.

There will be some who argue that given what is revealed toward the end, this isn’t the case. But for me it was too little too late. After all they were still only training men to go out, meet new cultures, make decisions and rule each individual tribe.

I did like the use of sex as a predetermined lesson. I appreciated that the author was brave enough to strike out from the cultural narrative that sex is only proper and acceptable for procreation or as an angelic expression of romantic love. It too is a myth and I found exploring other expressions and uses for it satisfyingly adult. Not in any illicit or titilating way, but by provoking thought around a subject most of us are fed a cultural belief system that we’re not supposed to question.

I also appreciate how obviously arrogant Ryl was in the beginning and how the author showed a lot of what most teenage boys probably feel. On the other end of the spectrum, if the arrogance of teenaged boys could be dispelled by good sex and pointed questions in a single winter all our lives would likely be better. It’s not particularly believable.

As I said the writing is largely very good. I occasionally found the dialogue ever so slightly unnatural. I realize it is often meant to be formal and it feels it. But I found myself gritting my teeth at the frequency with characters said “please.” I acknowledge that this is a strange comment, but used repeatedly between two people living together felt out of place. Similarly, characters, far too often used names and titles when speaking to one another.

Since I’m on the subject of names, the use of several names for the same characters seemed needlessly confusing. It is explained and I understand why it was done, but I found myself confused more than once. At one point, you have a single character referred to by three names in the space of a page. And there are several characters this is done with.

There is also a tendency to head-hop, which I found distracting, especially when numerous characters were involved. It was jarring.

Lastly, like Ryl, I got really tired of everything being a lesson. This is part of what I meant when I called it heavy-handed. There are so many ‘teaching moments’ that eventually I felt lectured to.  In the end, I wasn’t sure which the author saw as more important, the entertainment value of the story or the moral lessons she sought to teach the reader.

All in all, it’s an interesting story. With some interesting cultures and precepts. There is a large and detailed (probably dystopian) world developed here. I have no doubt that it will appeal to some. I found it long, tedious and full of things that made me grit my teeth in annoyance.

darkling drake

Book Review of Darkling Drake, by Tawn Krakowski

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Darkling DrakeI downloaded a copy of Tawn Krakowski‘s book, Darkling Drake from the Amazon freebie list.

Description from Goodreads:
Toni Drake is a loner with a knack for blending in and being nearly invisible to others even when standing right next to them. She turned this natural ability to her advantage by becoming a professional thief, but those talents, and her recent dreams, might be a sign that there is more to Toni than she ever thought possible.

Review: 
I really wanted to like this book, but it was not to be. The writing and I didn’t click (I’ll expand on that in a moment) and I found the main character, Toni Drake, incredibly unlikeable.

She is suicidally mouthy. I hate this in a character. There is a fine line between pleasantly sarcastic and just plain tourettes-level say anything that comes to mind, especially if it’s threatening and self aggrandizing. Once that line is crossed, a character becomes childish and unpleasant.

Drake definitely crossed the line. She just never stopped with her threats and snippy comments, even in the face of ridiculous odds. It’s also unrealistic. Like the time she looked at 8:1 odds (8 of them, 1 of her) and thought, ‘those aren’t good odds, I better go easy on them.’

Similarly, she’s instantly on the attack when she knows nothing of other dragons, their abilities, their politics, etc. Her confidence knew no bounds and lack of knowledge about her foe didn’t slow her down in the slightest. What? Really? It’s too damned much attitude.

The thing is that we’re never told how she became so badass in the first place. It’s just kind of intimated that it’s a natural ability that was helped along by growing up on the street. As such, I could readily believe that unknowingly being a dragon gave her a one-up on other humans and understand her confidence. But the events of the book pit her against other dragons that should be at least equal to her in natural ability and, though they may not have her street smarts, they have the upper hand in having experience with their dragon form from birth. Thus, Drake shouldn’t be able to maintain her über badass position. But it never falters, even when the reader needs it to waver at least a little bit to make her relatable.

What’s more, we were told that she was a fighter, but not a killer. Thus all her bluster about “I will kill you if…” became hollow. Again it made her feel childish, like a kid spouting off at the grown ups in the midst of a temper tantrum.

Now, Drake was a real take-charge kinda gal and I appreciate that. I love that she never sat aside and waited to be rescued, but it too was a bit much. Within moments of finding out she’s a dragon she starts giving orders and saving the day. You’d think she might need a little time to acclimate and that the person with her who’s known he was a dragon his whole life, knows their ways and what to expect, would be in charge for at least a little while.

Nope, Drake never even bat an eyelash. She took to shape shifting, flying, breathing fire, etc as if it’s nothing more unusual than having scrambled eggs for breakfast instead of fried eggs. How believable is that?

I know I’ve used the phrase repeatedly, but Drake is just too much, too much of everything. She’s made out to be the smartest, fastest, sneakiest, snarkiest, wittiest, sexiest, strongest, bravest, most capable in every context. Inexperience or lack of information be damned, even when others present should know more and be better suited for a task than Drake she still took over and saved the day.

Eventually, I stopped needing to read the actual book. I could just assume ‘Drake will have a master plan that will miraculously work, no matter how many coincidences it requires and all will be well.’ Meh.

Now, about the writing, I’ve encountered this before and have never come up with a way to say it that makes more sense. But the book is just too wordy. Here are some examples:

The other earth dragons, whom he had been forced to flee from with Toni, would never kill their own, no matter the transgression.

I finally decided that I had wasted enough precious time and stalked toward the back door leading to the roof.

Mumbling something into the gag that I had secured over his mouth last night before I turned in, he gazed at me with exhaustion and resignation in his eyes.

She absently tucked a loose strand of her lustrous dark tresses behind one sharply pointed ear, smoothed the wrinkles from her sleek, cerulean tunic, and began to speak, her voice low and smoky.

I gently placed the Book at my feet and ambled over to the papaya grove to collect the fallen fruit so that I would have something to placate my rebelling gut while I examined the tome’s pages.

After my last stop to fuel up with some artery-clogging, grease bombs some local fast food joint called “hamburgers,” I grabbed another vehicle from a nearby BMW dealership for a test drive and drove to my self-imposed rendezvous with my wayward foster father, Charlie.

It’s just too clunky to read smoothly. A lot of the book is like this. Part of the reason is that there are too many adjectives and adverb, both in the dialogue tags (which is largely discouraged in general) but also in the narrative itself, especially since it’s mostly a first person POV. Who says things like, “I called out playfully”  or “I grinned at him mischievously” about their own behaviour? It’s even more notable when one gets into seductively or menacingly. No one describes themselves this way.

There were also a lot of conveniences that cropped up. For example, when Drake wanted to swap cars so they weren’t followed, she found, not one, but three subsequent cars that the owners had left unlocked with the keys in them. Who does that? Similarly, when she needed a place to stay for a night, she happened across an empty rental. Or instructions on how to do something she doesn’t know how to do posted next to the computer she wants to use. As far as I know, being extraordinarily lucky wasn’t meant to be one of her dragon skills.

Then there were things that just didn’t make sense. Like how we’re told that dragons developed a talent for being seen as they want humans to see them. This suggests it’s an illusion. If that’s so, how come they physically transform? That’s no illusion. Plus, when they do transform into their giant dragon forms (where does all that extra mass come from, BTW) they fill rooms but don’t even displace furniture.

Often abilities come and go. Sometimes draconic characters seem able to communicate telepathically, other times they can’t. We’re told late in the book that male dragons aren’t taught to speak telepathically, but Christian does before that and more importantly it suggests that female dragons have to be taught the skill. Certainly, no one taught Drake.

Also, Drake makes a point of never trusting anyone, or caring for anyone or having any real connections. Despite this, someone who should know her better than anyone uses people as leverage to get what they want from her. If they know her so well, why would they think this would work?

Plus, the structure of the plot seems obvious sometimes. For example, at one point Drake storms out of the house for no discernible reason. She suddenly got uncomfortable and bolted. While gone her friends got kidnapped, requiring her to go rescue them and progressing the plot. Her providing the opportunity felt very convenient, almost as convenient as some of her almost miraculous leaps of logic. ‘Someone burned down this castle. As far as I know no one knows I’m a fire dragon, but they must be trying to frame me for it. Why else burn it down?’

Then there is the lack of description of the dragon forms. We’re told they have scales and their colors (Apparently Drake’s are onyx. I know this because it’s mentioned about 1,000 times) and that some have wings. That’s about it. At ~95% Drake mentions trying to impale someone on her horns and I went, “She has horns?” We’re never told what their structure is. This would have been important, especially since they talk in dragon form and I can’t figure out how what I imagine a dragon snout to look like manages that. And if they can talk in that form, how come they need telepathy?

Lastly, a little personally annoyance, the book is chocked full of sexual innuendo, literally from page one. Drake’s constant sexy thoughts (again, tourettes-like) got old fast. Not only because the redundancy of it but because after all the hint, hint, hints there isn’t ever any actual sex. So, what was the point?

If not for all that innuendo I’d suggest this book might be attractive to young readers. They probably wouldn’t cringe as much at Drake’s baseless crowing. Me it drove crazy and I’m glad to be done with her.