Tag Archives: fantasy

Follow the Crow

Book Review of Follow the Crow (Vanished, #1), by B.B. Griffith

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Follow the Crow Follow the Crow, by B. B. Griffith, is a perma-freebie on Amazon. Or at least it’s been free every time I’ve looked at it. I picked it up there, in June of 2015.

Description from Goodreads:
Ben Dejooli is a Navajo cop who can’t escape his past. Six years ago his little sister Ana vanished without a trace. His best friend saw what happened but he refuses to speak of what he knows, and so was banished from the Navajo tribe. That was the day the crows started following Ben.

Caroline Adams is a nurse with a special talent: she sees things others can’t see. She knows that Ben is more than he seems, and that the crows are trying to tell him something.

What the crows know could shed new light on the mystery of Ana’s disappearance, or it could place Ben and Caroline at risk of vanishing just like she did.

Comment:
Before I review this book, I’d like to say a few words about my decision to read it. You can take them any way you like, as a warning, as a discussion opener, as a random tidbit, as praise or condemnation. Your choice. But as a reader, these are the kinds of things I look at when choosing to read a book or not. I’m not dropping any sort of accusation, just being honest about what I think about some common observations.

Below is a screen shot of part of this book’s review page on Goodreads. I spend a lot of time over there deciding what interests me or not and reviews influence me. Not just good ones or bad ones and there is no magic number, but I find it suspicious when I see things like this. Note several reviews in a row with the same format—a brief, bold hook and then a one paragraph uninformative review.
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I find it unlikely that six people in a row chose to write their review in the same way. I find it damn near impossible to believe that (as of today) 48 of them did so, all but one giving the book a 4 or 5 star review and no-one using this format giving a 2 or a 1!

I’ve had this book on my TBR for almost a year and the blurb has always interested me. I’ve pulled it up several times and then, seeing the reviews, I put it away again. Because I strongly suspect the author is either part of some review circle or (more likely) purchased these reviews. I wish I could tell you which company it is, but the best I can do is mention that I’ve seen the same format on other book’s pages too. (I’m looking at you Shattered Skies.)

It’s only a suspicion of course, I can’t prove anything and I don’t consider it my job to do so. I mention it here because new authors hear over and over how they have to get reviews at all costs. But in cases like, this those same reviews drove me off.

What makes this especially tragic is that I generally enjoyed the book. I would have read it much much earlier had it not been tainted by this whiff of impropriety. Because experience has shown me that if an author feels the need to buy reviews to falsify the public perception of their book, then it’s probably not very good.

In the end, I opted to give it a chance. In part, I admit, to see if my past experience holds true, but I went into it fully expecting to give up and throw it on the DNF as unworthy of my time. That is the perception that reviews that appear faked create in me. And as readers aren’t blind to the obvious and aren’t stupid either, I suspect I’m not the only one.

Review:
This book has 3 first person narrators, which I enjoyed. But I can see it not going over well with everyone. It created a bit of an impression of tell, tell, tell that isn’t accurate, as it’s a character telling, not a distant narrator. But I really liked the characters voices. The author also has a talent for creating atmosphere. The descriptions of the reservation are quite vivid. I was also pleased with the twist to the romance. I was worried it wouldn’t work out like I wanted for a little while, but it did. (Please don’t ruin it in future books!)

There was a lot of “the Navaho” this and “the reservation” that and I don’t know enough about the Navaho or reservation life to comment on the accuracy of it. I never felt the author was purposefully insulting, but there were enough racial/cultural generalizations that I started to get a little squinked out, especially with the white doctor/nurse/saviors. I imagine the line of where such things become problematic is one it might take a Navaho to make, so I’ll just note it here and leave it at that.*

I did have some questions about why the grandmother would allow some of the tragedy to occur. There are big secrets; I get that. But some things—like what happened to Joe—she easily could have prevented or at least derailed. I also thought that the characters lacked depth. I liked them, but I didn’t really feel I knew them, despite their first person POV.

Lastly, the book is very obviously a (full-length) prequel to a longer series. That didn’t become apparent until the very end, but once it does it’s unmissable. But it looks like it could be an interesting series to pick up.

*When I cross-posted to Amazon, I noticed a review from a Navajo individual. I appreciated seeing their perspective.

Book Review of The Temptation of Dragons (Penny White), by Chrys Cymri

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The Temptation of DragonsAuthor, Chrys Cymri sent me an e-copy of her urban fantasy Penny White and the Temptation of Dragons. At this, the time of posting, there is also a giveaway running to win a paperback copy. If it wouldn’t be greedy to try and win a copy of a book I already read, I’d so be entering that. You should too.

Description from Goodreads:
Bishop Nigel smiled at me. ‘Holy water doesn’t harm vampires. Which is just as well, as it would make it impossible to baptise them.’

When I was asked by a dragon to give him the last rites, I never dreamed it would lead to negotiating with his cannibalistic family or running from snail sharks. Life as the priest of a small English village is quite tame in comparision. At least I have Morey, a gryphon with sarcasm management issues, to help me. And if all else fails, there’s always red wine and single malt whisky.

As if my life weren’t complicated enough, a darkly beautiful dragon named Raven keeps appearing where I least expect him, I’ve met a handsome police inspector who loves science fiction as much as I do, and my younger brother is getting into trouble for trying to pick up vampires.

That’s what happens when you’re dealing with an incredible and dangerous parallel world full of mythical creatures. And I have to learn to navigate it all without losing myself, or my brother…

Review:
Oh, I really quite loved this. It was fresh and light-hearted, even with the occupational heavy topic. It had an unusual heroine, being that she was a 36-year-old, ultra geeky, Whovian, widowed vicar. I just adored her. There were interesting side characters. There was a mystery that was interesting enough to engage me and leave room for other things. There was a very mild romantic sub-plot that never came to a head or eclipsed the rest of the story and involved two very different males (though not as a love triangle, as neither relationship progressed far enough). There were grammar jokes and Bechdel test reverences and the book wraps up, while allowing for future adventures. All good things.

I only have two real complaints. The first is that I was very distracted by the logistics of inter-species relationships and marriage.  There was no sex in this book and I don’t really anticipate there being any in any future books. It’s just not that kind of book. But if you’re going to posit marriage between dragons and humans or elves and unicorn, I would like to know how biology is worked around or what compromises are made in the relationship. While I got the sense you were supposed to suspend disbelief on the subject, I found the hanging question quite distracting. Secondly, I did not feel that the brother and his guilt excused his very poor, almost cruel behavior. Perhaps I just don’t have enough Christian forgiveness in me, but I finished the book still feeling cheated and indignant on Penny’s behalf.

I should also mention the faith aspect of this book. Since the main character was a vicar, her faith was obviously important to her and there is quite a lot of it in the book. This is a sharp edge for me to walk with books. I don’t consider myself Christian and I hate, HATE being preached to in my fiction. But this book managed to portray Penny’s faith, integrate it into the story, and even cause me to tear up over it at one point, without it ever feeling didactic. I cannot tell you how refreshing that is.

Wake of Vultures

Book Review of Wake of Vultures (The Shadow #1), by Lila Bowen

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Wake of VulturesI borrowed a copy of Lila Bowen‘s Wake of Vultures from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:

Nettie Lonesome lives in a land of hard people and hard ground dusted with sand. She’s a half-breed who dresses like a boy, raised by folks who don’t call her a slave but use her like one. She knows of nothing else. That is, until the day a stranger attacks her. When nothing, not even a sickle to the eye can stop him, Nettie stabs him through the heart with a chunk of wood, and he turns into black sand.

And just like that, Nettie can see.

But her newfound sight is a blessing and a curse. Even if she doesn’t understand what’s under her own skin, she can sense what everyone else is hiding — at least physically. The world is full of evil, and now she knows the source of all the sand in the desert. Haunted by the spirits, Nettie has no choice but to set out on a quest that might lead to her true kin… if the monsters along the way don’t kill her first.

Review:

I found this quite enjoyable. The main character is a gender-fluid, probably bi-sexual of 16 and I liked her a lot. She was uneducated, but (with one exception which I’ll discuss) never stupid. I liked the world and the magic system. I liked the side characters and the conversational writing. For the most part I really enjoyed this.

I do have three criticisms though. The first is simply that it dragged in the middle. The second, is in and around Nettie’s discovering her gender and sexual identity, the book fell into didacticism. Perhaps being YA the author felt younger readers might need education, but as an adult I just wanted to move on.

The last complaint is a bit of a feminist rant on female sexuality. Throughout the book Nettie reiterated repeatedly that she wasn’t just a girl, she wanted to be treated as a man (though she never fully dismissed femaleness in her head). Part of this was simply an attempt to protect herself in a world where women are at risk simply by existing as woman, but some was honest gender fluidity. She also repeated that she’d managed not to be raped, which given her exceedingly unprotected status was fairly amazing.

However, there came a single instance in which she had to disclose and discuss having a female body with another. A couple people had seen through her disguise previously, but there was no need to negotiate acceptance with them. With the circumstance I’m referring to she had to convince another character that he should accept her even though he’s discovered she is a physically female, but still keep treating her as a male. In doing so she established her male persona fairly firmly.

The very next thing she did, however, was decide to use her femaleness and sex as a commodity to be bargained with, almost getting herself raped in the process and forcing the reader through a lengthy fear-of-violent-rape scene. This was abrupt and out of character, considering how hard she’d worked to never let it show.

But more importantly, in a book that had until that point treated Nettie as something more than her vagina (and focused on this heavily) it felt very much like a betrayal to suddenly turn around and do just that. And even if someone wanted to try and use the rape-was-a-reality-of-the-time-that-should-be-acknowledged-and-included argument, which is one I hate as rape is so much more prevalent in woman’s fiction than in the real world, the book started with an attempted rape of Nettie. So, that particular necessity had already been accomplished. To a large extent I lost a significant chunk of respect for the book in this one protracted scene. It so cripplingly undermined the very theme and impact the book was striving for.

Anyhow, I had three complaints, the last of which was a doozy for me. But for the most part I really enjoyed it and will be looking for more of Bowen’s work.