Tag Archives: magic

Chaos Born

Book Review of Chaos Born, by Rebekah Turner

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Chaos BornChaos Born, by Rebekah Turner is one of those books I grabbed from the KDP free list based almost exclusively on its cover. Come on, it’s awesome, right?

Description from Goodreads:
Lora Blackgoat, smuggler and mercenary, has been lying low after a job gone bad made her a laughing stock in the industry. When a childhood friend turns to her for help, Lora leaps to restore her reputation and starts hunting a killer who is stalking the gas-lit streets.

She never expects that her path will lead her to the Order of Guides, a sadistic militant religious organisation – or to Roman, a deadly and dangerously attractive half-angel warrior who also hunts the killer.

When Lora discovers that the killer has broken fundamental laws of magic to enter the city, she also uncovers a conspiracy that leads back into her own dark past.

Review:
Awesome, just awesome! I really liked almost everything about this book. Lora was a snarky, determined, tough badass who I enjoyed immensely. She managed to rush into danger without feeling suicidal, have adult relationships without coming across as easy, dispute with her friends and family without going overboard, and retain a sense of humour without it feeling forced. *Sigh* If only I could find more characters like her. 

My only real complaints are that the book could do with a little more editing to address the missing words and I never could get a firm handle on the world. The city names were real-world and there were cars, guns, etc., but there was also some magical, steampunk-like realm where modern technology wouldn’t work and mystical creatures lived among humans. This could have been a dystopian future, an alternative reality, alternate history, etc. It doesn’t define itself in any way and this left me perpetually confused on the matter. 

Despite that, I laughed a lot, rooted for Lora and her cohort, snickered at the mild romance, and generally just had a good time. At about 50%, I went ahead and bought the sequel, knowing I would want it as soon as I finished this one and I’ll be starting any minute now. 

Blue Moon Rising

Book Review of Natalie Herzer’s Blue Moon Rising (The Patroness, #1)

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Blue Moon RisingI downloaded a copy of Natalie Herzer‘s Blue Moon Rising (The Patroness, #1) from the Amazon KDP list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Maiwenn Cadic doesn’t have a quiet and normal life. 
This week won’t be any different.

Being the Patroness of Paris and protecting its inhabitants is a full time job but unfortunately it doesn’t pay the bills and so Maiwenn tries her best to make a living as a down-on-her luck private eye for odd cases.

When five shapeshifters end up dead, she knows it’s bad news and has to call in The Council. They immediately send their assassin Kylian ‘The Killer’ Tremaine, a typical shapeshifter who doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer and seems to see everything female as a damsel in distress – which Maiwenn is really not. 

Together they will not only have to overcome their prejudices and obstacles in the form of a trigger-happy bounty hunter and a hungry rogue, but they will also have to trust each other in order to solve the murder before more bodies pile up.

Review:

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Blue Moon Rising is a fun, clean read that reminded me a little bit of Kim Harrison‘s The Hollows series. The plot is fairly basic. Maiwenn has inherited the task of protecting the people of Paris from all paranormal threats. So, she basically patrols the city, looking for trouble. This provided a lot of opportunities for the reader to be told interesting titbits about Paris, its history, and tourist attractions. It also allowed for a number of otherwise unconnected adventures. And while I enjoyed some of this, I also found myself increasingly irritated on two fronts.

First, I thought some of the history lessons felt forced and caused the narrative to drag a bit. Secondly, and more importantly, I had a real issue with the obvious question of language. Maiwenn was born and raised in Paris. She’s a native Parisian and would therefore, obviously, speak French. As would almost everyone else in the city that she would encounter. However, she’s very obviously meant to be speaking English…to everyone, even the other French people. What’s worse, the American who had never been to Paris has no linguistic challenge to overcome, but there is no indication that he is speaking French either, even to the French.

This is all highlighted by the fact that greetings are often said in French, and then the conversation continues in English. “Bonjour monsieur, bla bla bla in English.” Or when surprised, Maiwen rattles off a French sentence or two, and on one to two occasions, someone needed a translation. If not for the times that French is used, thereby indicating that it isn’t used at the other times, I might have been able to just assume all conversation was in the appropriate language. I could stretch my suspension of belief far enough for that. But that obviously wasn’t the case. So, I’m left asking when France adopted English as its national language.

I did enjoy the romantic tension, though I might have appreciated a little closure on that front, and Maiwenn is an admirably strong female character with a whole slew of interesting sidekicks. She did seem to consistently overcome adversity with ease, and more than one baddie is dispatched with almost no trouble at all.  There were also some editing issues, but for the most part, I really quite enjoyed the book.

Book Review of A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy #1), by Deborah Harkness

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A Discovery of WitchesI picked up a secondhand copy of Deborah Harkness‘ A Discovery of Witches somewhere. It’s been hanging out on my bookshelf for a while now and finally got a little attention from me.

Description from Goodreads:
Deep in the stacks of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Review:
Um…I can’t say I’m sorry to have read it, but I also can’t say I enjoyed it all that much either. I know this one was really popular, so I was probably just a poor match for the book. But I didn’t care for it.

There were a lot of things included that did nothing to move the story along. For example, the main characters rowed, ran, did yoga, rode horses, played chess, billiards and scrabble, ate elaborate dinners, had tea/coffee and tasted expensive wines. On their own none of these would be problematic. But each was described in minute detail, often more than once. So all together it really slowed the plot down.

There was a lot of talking about things, but very little doing. Seriously, the characters discussed everything, told each-other every little secret of their species and confided their secrets with ease. But they actually did very little…unless you count the jaunty horse rides and agonisingly well thought out dinners. Then in the end they established some elaborate plan that never materialised. Nope, it’s apparently the next book. Um, yeah, how unsatisfying is that? Other than the bad guys, no one seemed to actually have any volition of their own. They responded to immediate threats and then settled right back into the humdrum again.

I also wasn’t particularly fond of Diana or Matthew. Diana was supposed to be this strong-willed, self-aware, successful woman. But she just flailed around hopelessly, fainted regularly, took orders and, starting about halfway through the book, seemed to be put to bed about a hundred times. Sometimes it felt like she never even made it out of bed before being manhandled back into it ‘for her own good’. This left her feeling very child-like to me.

Similarly, Matthew was supposed to be the big alpha dog vampire but he just seemed shy and awkward around Diane, got beat up more when he attempted to protect her and did yoga. There’s nothing wrong with yoga of course, but it does kind of run counter to the big bad vampire persona he was supposed to have. All-in-all did didn’t come across as the man he was described as being.

Lastly, the romance seemed to come out of nowhere. It wasn’t quite insta-love, but it wasn’t far off. Even worse, once it settled in Diane and Matthew were saccharine sweet. Their dedication to one another was admirable, but I can only take so many heartfelt declarations of adoration and I generally like to know what such passion is based on. The whole latter 1/3 of the book just seemed to be one impassioned ‘I love you’ after another. The words might change for varieties sake, but the intent never did.

I did enjoy the underlying themes of acceptance and self-actualisation. I thought the writing itself was fine and some of the side characters (Marcus and Hamish especially) were fun. I’m not claiming it isn’t a good book. I just didn’t enjoy it personally.