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The Guests of Honor

Book Review of The Guests of Honor, by Cat Amesbury

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The Guest of HonorAuthor, Cat Amesbury sent me a copy of her book, The Guests of Honor. As we recently connected on Goodreads, this is also the first review of my month-long Taking Care of My Own self-challenge.

Description from Amazon:
A woman, a fox, and a magical inn

Honor Desry’s only employee is a magical nudist, her guest list has an abnormal fascination with eels, and a surprising number of household objects are trying to hurt her. 

When Honor’s mother mysteriously disappeared, Honor became responsible for both her younger sisters and the family inn. Now, all Honor wants to do is run the inn, pay the bills, and not get killed by her unusually violent toaster. 

Unfortunately for Honor, the Virtue Inn has more secrets than it does rooms and the Guests are restless. If Honor wants to keep her house –and her head- she’s going to have to learn how to please The Guests of Honor. 

Warning: Contains some violence, profanity, innuendo, and semi-sentient household objects.

Review:
Oh, I just found this a marvellously imaginative ride. It ticked a lot of boxes for me and I truly enjoyed myself. In fact, my fist action after finishing it was rushing off to see if there is a sequel yet. (There isn’t, though apparently there will be.) I could break down each of the individual pleasantries, but the main point is that the book is just a lot of fun.

I thought Honor had a wonderful voice, both as a narrator and as a character. She certainly lived up to her name. Then there was Kay…sweet, gentle, frightening Kay. I adored him. There were also a number of minor characters, but most of them were just background filler.

There are a lot of points left a little hazy, but I imagine it’s intentionally so. I would have especially liked a bit more closure on the possible romantic front. Honestly, I like a little more clarity, but I can appreciate the stylistic difference here.

If I’m honest, there was a point when the book started to push my limits of believability (sentient egg timers and ambulatory tuber-men were just a little too much for me) but eventually I just decided to let go and roll with it. As a result, I was able to appreciate some of the ironic ridiculousness. And you really have to go into it with that sort of attitude, because as a reader you’re given no time to rest and catch your breath. From start to finish, it’s go, go, go.

The writing was a true joy to read (a lot of wit and humor) and it was fairly well edited. I noticed a few glitches, especially in the use of quotation marks. There were a few times when a single character continued speaking but the punctuation suggested a second person was contributing. This was particularly apparent when paragraph breaks were needed. It wasn’t that big a deal though.

As a bonus, the book actually ends. This feels like a rarity in modern books. Though the last page or so introduces the next adventure, this instalment ends nicely.

As to the plot: Imagine Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away with a grown up Chihiro as the inn keeper and Haku as a fox deity instead of a water dragon and there you have it. That’s the plot in a nutshell. (I kind of wonder if Amesbury doesn’t have a Miyazaki thing, really, since the sequel is apparently going to involve a cat god and something similar also features to The Cat Returns, another Miyazaki film. I can’t blame her. I love his films too.) Though unable to put my finger on exactly what it is that reminds me of Japanese mythology, I was definitely left with the impression that it contributed to the development of this story. Of course, as with any mere impression that could be completely wrong.

All in all, a rollickin’ good time. Highly recommended.

Keystone

Book Review of Keystone (Gatewalkers), by Amanda Frederickson

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KeystonesIt was over a year ago, but I downloaded Amanda Frederickson’s Keystone from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Charlie knew it would be one of those days. Saturdays are always crowded at the mall’s virtual reality arcade. But she never imagined it would end in being kidnapped by fairies and bitten by a vampire.

A pair of mischievous pixies have decided that Charlie is the hero who will save their world – whether she wants to or not.

Now, to get back to her own world she must rescue a kidnapped princess and find the broken pieces of an ancient artifact. It also couldn’t hurt to convince her guide that he doesn’t want to defect to the enemy horde. Staying alive would be a nice bonus too.

Yeah, it was one of those days. But this time, the monsters are real.

Review:
I’m going to give this book a numeral rating of 3.5. I don’t always, or even often write numbered reviews. But in this case, I think it will help clarify my torn response to this book.

Let me start this review by saying how disappointed I am in this book. It has a wonderfully spunky heroine, a sexy hero, a dangerous antagonist, an engaging quest-based plot, a lot of humour and a whole host of fun side characters. What it does not have is an ending. Worse than that, it doesn’t even pretend that it does. There is NO attempt at a wrap-up or winding down of the plot before breaking for the next book. The book just literally ends out of nowhere.

Now, it’s 200+ pages long, so it’s an appropriate length. But it still feels exactly like someone handed me the first 200 pages of a 400-page book and then denied me the rest. And a denial it is, since there isn’t a second book yet. Someone tell me why authors feel the need to publish half novels? Is it impatience? I enjoyed reading this, but consider it a COMPLETE waste of my time. I don’t like bothering with stories I’ll NEVER see the end of.

Of what there is…I really enjoyed the silliness here. There are a few funny pop references. The characters are witty and largely unflappable, the writing is pretty good and the story itself is interesting. Unfortunately, it’s a relatively complex one. There are a fair number of characters, some history and two different worlds, both of which are only minimally sketched out. For example, Charlie is apparently from some earth-like world in what resembles out near future. It’s not clarified, but it must be near enough for Twilight jokes to still be relevant, but far enough in the future for virtual reality arcades and ultra-pocket computers to be developed, not to mention open acceptance of garish hair colours.

I also thought that the romance was clumsily done. The reader isn’t given any clues about it until suddenly Charlie is endangered and something in Rhys ‘snaps.’ I thought they were a good match, but the author seems to have depended on the predictability of the relationship to situate it, instead of allowing it to develop.

I’m rounding the rating up simply because I did enjoy what I read and a three would be too miserly for the quality of the writing and the bones of the story. But a four is also more than it deserves for having set up soooo many threads and then just walked away and left them ALL hanging without conclusion. But since 1/2 stars aren’t allowed I was forced to choose one way or the other.

Promises

Book Review of Promises (Coda Books #1), by Marie Sexton

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PromisesI downloaded Marie Sexton’s novel,Promises from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Jared Thomas has lived his whole life in the small mountain town of Coda, Colorado. He can’t imagine living anywhere else. Unfortunately, the only other gay man in town is twice his age and used to be his teacher, so Jared is resigned to spending his life alone. Until Matt Richards walks into his life, that is. Matt has just been hired by the Coda Police Department, and he and Jared immediately become friends. Matt claims he is straight, but for Jared, having a sexy friend like Matt is way too tempting. Facing Matt’s affair with a local woman, his disapproving family, and harassment from Matt’s co-workers, Jared fears they’ll never find a way to be together-if he can even convince Matt to try.

Review:

I very rarely read romance sans some sci-fi or fantasy element. Be it M/F, M/M, M/F/F, or any other variation, I generally end up gagging on all the feel good factors or declarations of love and/or dedication. I usually NEED something else in the plot to distract me from all that…that…those hearts and flowers. Having said that, it’s probably not surprising that this book’s been on my TBR for almost 9 months. But after randomly seeing a couple favourable reviews of it recently, I decided to give it a chance.

I’m glad I did. It’s very sweet in its own way, without being nauseatingly sappy. These men aren’t the sort to spout off about their undying love, though they’re not too tightlipped to admit it either. I appreciated that. I adored Jared’s voice as a narrator and practically swooned over Matt’s earnestness. Though that same honestness, combined with his readily expressed excitement left him feeling a little like a wide-eyed child at times. But I just wanted to grab him up and squeeze him to death then too, so it’s all good.

Seeing Jared and Matt struggle through their own issues was a bit of a blessing. Now, I don’t know where it falls on the realism spectrum. I suspect a long way from real. But it also didn’t force any “yeah, rights!’ out of me. Which left me able to fully immerse myself in the story and pretend it really did represent life somewhere out there.

I deem this one definitely worth picking up and I would be thrilled to read more of the Coda series and/or writing by Marie Sexton.