Tag Archives: fantasy

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Book Review: Wooing the Witch Queen, by Stephanie Burgis

I purchased a copy of Stephanie BurgisWooing the Witch Queen.

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Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress everyone fears. After successfully wrestling the throne from her evil uncle, she only wants one thing: to keep her people safe from the empire next door. For that, she needs to spend more time in her laboratory experimenting with her spells. She definitely doesn’t have time to bring order to her chaotic library of magic.

When a mysterious dark wizard arrives at her castle, Saskia hires him as her new librarian on the spot. “Fabian” is sweet and a little nerdy, and his requests seem a little strange – what in the name of Divine Elva is a fountain pen? – but he’s getting the job done. And if he writes her flirtatious poetry and his innocent touch makes her skin singe, well…

Little does Saskia know that the “wizard” she’s falling for is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise, with no magical training whatsoever. On the run, with perilous secrets on his trail and a fast growing yearning for the wicked sorceress, he’s in danger from her enemies and her newfound allies, too. When his identity is finally revealed, will their love save or doom each other?

my review

I honestly adored this. It’s not a perfect book. It took a little while for me to settle into it, and it feels very cozy and low-stakes for what is objectively a high-stakes situation. But Felix was marvelous. I want to roll him up and bundle him away from anything but kindness and light forevermore.

Mostly, however, I love the way Burgis subverts cultural expectations here. The FMC is older, more powerful, more aggressive, and possessive, etc. But Burgis does it subtly. They’re not the wooing the witch queen photofirst author to do this. But far too many such books that I’ve read feel ham-fisted or lean heavily into D/S, femme-dom territory. Burgis avoided this trap, and the book is far better for it. Plus, on a somewhat different point, I appreciate that Burgis gave an explanation for some of what would otherwise feel like too convenient plot points.

I loved this book. It was 100% based on the vibes, I’ll admit. However, I’ll be looking forward to book two when it comes out.


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Won Over by “Wooing the Witch Queen”

 

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Audio Book Review: Magical Intelligence, M.K. Wiseman 

Somewhere on the internet, I came across a freebie Audible code for M.K. Wiseman‘s Magical Intelligence.

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When you are a member of Britain’s first team of wizard spies, every mission might be your last. But as the dawning of the 20th century draws ever nearer, magic grows weak. Violectric Dampening, the clash of man-made electricity with the Gifts of magekind, threatens M.I.’s existence. And if that isn’t enough, they’ve now been discharged from their own government. Obsolete. Distrusted.

And now hunted by one of their own.

Myra Wetherby has always feared her so-called fits, strange visions of people and places that she cannot explain. It is the emotional manipulation, however, a strange empathic connection to those around her, which threatens her very sanity. A danger to her family, Myra runs away, falling straight into the hands of the newly ousted Magical Intelligence team. Who just so happen to need an ability like hers.

Which makes Myra one of them…whether she likes it or not.

my review

The description for this book isn’t untrue, but it misdirects. It does not give an accurate impression of the story. Most of it is the history that the story builds on, rather than the story itself, and it more problematically leaves out the fact that the main character, Myra, is 14 years old, which makes this a much different story than one is led to expect by the blurb.

Having said that, nothing about the story actually feels like she is 14 years old. I say that as a parent of a 14-year-old. So, I feel ideally placed to say her young age does not work for the character or the plotline. She does not act 14, no one treats her as if she is 14, and the plot does not lend itself to a 14-year-old. Honestly, several of the other characters are also in their teens, and they don’t act their age either. But it is especially problematic for Myra, as the main character. Plus,14 feels so much younger than 18 in this context. Eighteen might round up to a young adult. 14 rounds down to a child.

Outside that one big glaring problem, I generally liked this. I didn’t love it, but I liked it well enough. However, the pacing is a bit off. Somehow, the beginning dragged on and on, and then the end rushed too fast. Honestly, I felt like I was constantly scrambling, being like, “Wait, who is this again?”

I do feel like this book did a lot of work setting up the series. So, the rest of the series might not suffer from the same pacing problems, which could just be a symptom of first-book syndrome. All in all, it was a middle-of-the-road read for me. Alyson Grauer did a nice job with the narration, however.


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Blog Tour Book Review: Magical Intelligence – M. K. Wiseman

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Audiobook Review: Spark of Lightning, by Jessica Gunn

Somewhere on the internet, I stumbled across an audiobook code for Jessica Gunn‘s Spark of Lightning.

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Be careful what you wish for…

There are very few things I know to be true. I’ve worked hard to stay alive while waitressing at Lunar Royale, a premiere casino in Boston serving explicitly supernatural clientele. I’ve taken these risks because I need money to escape Boston and start over in a new city. That money isn’t coming fast enough, and now this job might kill me before I can escape.

Tonight I plan on carefully maneuvering my way into the most important game of poker ever played at Lunar Royale. The stakes are high, and the players are Boston’s supernatural elite. But by the time I realize it’s not money they’re playing for, I’m stuck in the game. The real prize? A dragon’s egg. Dragons were supposed to be hunted to extinction during the Supernatural War, but before that, they were powerful conduits of magic. This egg, if real, is invaluable.

You may just get it…

All I wanted was to escape the city, and winning this dragon’s egg might be my ticket out…if I can survive the game to the end. I just have to ignore the way the dragon’s magic hums, calling to me from across the room.

As if this dragon has belonged to me from the start…

my review

spark of lightning photoThe basic premise of this story, that a waitress at a paranormal casino manages to almost silently flirt her way into a highroller poker game, is entirely incredulous; so much so that I had more trouble suspending my disbelief about it than I did about dragons, fae, and vampires. But once I got past that initial trouble, the rest of it was okay. Unfortunately, although I think it’s objectively fine, I don’t think it’s for me. I just found the whole thing kind of milquetoast. I never found myself vested or overly interested. This feels very much like a ‘not the right reader for the book’ sort of critique. Shannon Condon did a fine job with the narration, however.


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