Crescent City Fae

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Courtesy of Deannachase.comI love New Orleans. It’s an awesome city with tons of interesting history. Also, beignets. Mmmm. So when I see a book set in Nola, I tend to give it a chance. I’m rather disappointed that I gave Influential Magic by Deanna Chase a chance.

This series revolves around a faerie named Willow Rhoswen (already with the really? feeling). She owns a cupcake shop in New Orleans. A magic cupcake shop. Literally because she weaves potions into her cupcakes. Some of which are dangerous enough to require a government license to purchase. It reminded me a little bit of what Professor Snape says in HP 1 about brewing glory and stoppering death.

At any rate, Willow is apparently allergic to vampires, which are rife in New Orleans. So naturally, she’s totally in love with one. To be fair, he wasn’t a vamp when they started dating. This guy was essentially ordered to date her, get close to her, because apparently her brother was some sort of fae big wig or something. That’s really unclear.

In fact, there was a surprising amount of this story that I felt just didn’t make sense. I’m assuming that this was the author’s first book because it was super Scooby-doo. Or maybe super Adam West Batman. I felt like the author tried to do plot twists but instead of being “oh wow, I didn’t see that coming” it was more of a “why did you do that?”.

I had to force myself to finish this book. Right away, the female lead wasn’t a character I enjoyed. She was trying to be the I can handle myself type and turned into the save me Prince Charming type. I really hate when that happens. It seems that a lot of books with strong female leads always end up with them falling all over themselves for one (or more) men.

I think what really, really bothered me about this one in particular is that it was clear that the man she was having feelings for had lied to her and manipulated her and yet she was still going oh but I still love him so! Am I the only person out there that would toss a guy (or gal if that’s your thing) out on their ass for being a lying bastard? Ugh.

It was an extremely disappointing book and I’m glad that the trilogy (I really should have just bought the first book *sigh*) was only three bucks on Amazon at the time I got it. And I was using a Christmas gift card.

Seriously, skip this series. If you want good urban fantasy or fantasy set in New Orleans, go for Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches or Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series. Crescent City Fae…not so much. Rating: D.

A Trip to the Dark Side

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Courtesy of goodreads.comNo, not that dark side. This isn’t a Star Wars post (and though I’m a Trekkie to the core, the new Star Wars is awesome. Go see it!). Simon R. Green’s latest book is called The Dark Side of the Road.

Ishmael Jones (seriously, that’s his name) is a drifter, moving from job to job and blending in to the crowd. He has to, to keep safe. Ishmael isn’t human. Obviously, or he wouldn’t have picked a name like Ishmael. At any rate, he apparently crash landed on earth back in the 60s and as a part of his civilization’s crash protocol, his entire self down to his DNA was remade to be human.

Unfortunately, it didn’t change his strange golden blood or the fact that he (at least seemingly) doesn’t age. So he keeps a low profile and works jobs on what he calls the dark side of the road so he can have access to new identities when needed. He works for someone called the Colonel, who represents The Organization. Suitably vague for their type of work, which is to take care of those things that go bump in the night that threaten to go bump in the daylight.

The Colonel calls Ishmael at Christmas, on the eve of a terrible storm and asks him to come to Belcourt Manor in Cornwall (don’t quote me on the location, it was mentioned briefly and I can’t quite remember). By the time that Ishmael arrives, the storm is so bad it snows everyone into the manor.

Once there, Ishmael discovers that the Colonel is in fact one James Belcourt, son of Walter Belcourt, owner of Belcourt Manor. And he’s missing. Which is odd, considering the weather. Ishmael gets to know the guests, two of whom he knew in one of his previous lives and one of which is James’ sister Penny, who wants all up in Ishmael.

Eventually, Ishmael and Penny discover the Colonel’s beheaded body outside in the snow, disguised as a snowman (loved that. Suitably macabre). Its up to Ishmael to discover who killed his Colonel and is now picking off the few guests (a half dozen or so) left, to get revenge.

This book is Agatha Christie meets the Twilight Zone. Ishmael is an alien, the killer is referred to as the horror by the Colonel, and they’re locked in a quaint, old British Manor for a few days with no outside help to be found. It’s glorious.

It’s my understanding that Simon R. Green isn’t writing anymore series, just doing one off novels, due to health concerns (he’s been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes), so I’m guessing that this is a stand alone. That’s a shame because it has such potential to be a great arc. This is already better than his Ghost Finders books, and I slogged my way through all of them. I hope he does at least one or two more, but we’ll have to wait and see. Even if it doesn’t continue though, this book is definitely worth the read. Rating: A

And we’re back!

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Courtesy of pinterest

So my break was a bit longer than I had intended. That’s alright though, I most definitely needed it. So we’re going to start back with one of my current favorite authors, Rob Thurman. I love her (yes, her) Cal Leandros series. And her Trickster series. I hope there are more of those.

At any rate, her latest Cal Leandros is Nevermore(book 10 of the series). We start out with Cal apparently coming back in time (whoa, where did that come from?!) and more than a little crazy. I mean, Cal’s not exactly stable on the best of days, but right now he’s extremely unstable.

You see, Cal came back in time 8 years in order to prevent a secret human government organization decided that he was too dangerous, having gated in full view of humans in the light of day. At night, it could be passed off as a trick of the light or some such thing, but in daylight…not so much.

They figured the best way to do that would be to bomb Cal’s usual haunt, Ishaiah’s bar, when all of Cal’s friends were there. It might have worked, too, if Cal hadn’t forgotten to get the pizza and gone back out again. As it was, he merely had a front row seat for the two (yes, two) bombs took out his entirely family, his world.

With the thanks of some pre-planning by Robin Goodfellow (who died in the blast…supposedly. Not sure what, exactly, could kill a Puck who is easily 1 million + years old), Cal gets shoved back in time to try and beat the organization’s back up plan.

Known only as Lazarus, this person was sent back in time 8 years to kill Cal before he became too Cal-like. Sometimes I hate time travel stories. It’s so hard to keep things straight. Cal doesn’t know what Lazarus is, he just knows he has to keep himself together long enough to save himself and his brother.

To do this, he reveals himself to early Cal and Niko, who don’t really believe him but he knows enough about them that they at least marginally trust him. Unfortunately, Robin sticks his nose in, coming into early Cal and Niko’s world a full year earlier than he should have. So already, the time travel is having consequences.

This book is one of the best Cal Leandros novels yet…and it ended on a cliffhanger. Noooooooooooooo! It’s at least a two parter, could be even more. I really can’t want to see what happens. Argh! Cliffhangers are the worst and the best because you know there’s at least one more novel in a beloved series…but you won’t get that book for another year (usually).

Well, you can pass the time reading this book. It’s good and gritty and dark. Very pulp urban fantasy. Rating: A+

Gooseberry Bluff

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Courtesy of Amazon.comI stumbled upon Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic by David J. Schwartz through one of those Amazon Daily deals. I think. I can’t quite remember but it was uber cheap and I was intrigued. I believe that before that, it was one of Amazon’s new book serials, like Indexing. Oh, there’s a follow up to Indexing too, which I’m waiting to get all chapters before reading. I find that though I’ve found two (hopefully three) good books through the serials, it can get confusing reading it one chapter at a time.

At any rate, Gooseberry Bluff was complete when I read it. This is an alternate earth type place where magic is known. The point of turning from our earth and this earth seems to be legendary nutjob, Aleister Crowley. In this world, Crowley brought magic and magical beings into the world view by using demons to end WWII. Interesting take on that, I felt.

Our protagonist is a young agent for the Federal Bureau of Magical Affairs, Joy Wilkins. Joy has a very interesting condition called prosopagnosia. If you don’t want to click the link (just wikipedia, y’all), then let me sum up by saying that she has facial blindness. She can’t recognize herself in the mirror, let alone anyone else. The one plus side she does have is that she can read people’s auras, so she can remember people by that. If she couldn’t, people would probably think that she was rude, forgetful or even faking.

Joy is sent to Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic in Wisconsin to look into demon trafficking, which they think is connected to events called Heartstoppers. Heartstoppers is the massive, unexplained deaths of everyone in a certain mile radius, which varies from attack to attack. The bureau thinks that demons are involved, but they don’t know how. They also think that the trafficking is happening through the community college and may be linked to a missing teacher.

Joy goes in undercover as a teacher taking over for the one who is missing. Its her first real assignment and right from the off, everything goes wrong. Her mentor and supervisor is found dead, her new supervisor is clearly a misogynist who doesn’t trust her (never got a good reason for that other than she’s a woman, which…ugh) and she’s drawn into some screwball local secret society that may or may not be involved with the attacks.

Joy has to save herself, save the town and possibly save the planet while trying to figure out who killed her mentor and who is behind the demon attacks. And while this is clearly a first book, because it’s a little choppy, I thought it was fun enough that I keep hoping for a sequel. The characters are interesting and not what you’d expect. Joy is a young African-American woman with the aforementioned (and rare) disability. There’s a teacher who is cursed, a powerful girl who doesn’t know she’s powerful, a drunken magical duelist and someone/thing who may or may not be a god.

It was a good mix and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. I’d recommend picking it up if you’re looking for a bit of light reading, which I would recommend to break up the chewiness of the Mistborn trilogy. Rating: A. I also highly recommend checking out the Amazon serials. You subscribe to a book for about $3 and you get a new chapter every couple weeks. You’ll end up with a full length novel for about half the price of most of their books if you just have a little patience.

Mistborn

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Courtesy of goodreads.comSince I was terribly disappointed in that steampunk book that I reviewed last week, I thought I’d check out something that’s not part of my usual reading repertoire but which one of my all time favorite authors, Jim Butcher, spoke about at a Q&A I went to. That would be Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy.

I got myself a sample from our friendly neighborhood Amazon.com Kindle store and then I immediately bought the trilogy. Not just Mistborn, the first book, but the whole trilogy. It has the feel of a far, far dystopian future mixed with the more traditional swords & steeds fantasy.

The book revolves around two Mistborn skaa called Vin and Kelsier. Mistborn refers to people who have “supernatural” (in quotes because it isn’t really supernatural, but not everyone has these traits) abilities fueled by the burning of ingested metals (pewter for strength, tin for enhanced senses and up to 8 others). Most people only have the ability to burn one metal (pewter burners are call Thugs, tin burners Tineyes) but those who can burn more than one metal are called Mistborn.

These abilities are supposed to be relegated to the nobility, but Vin and Kelsier are, as mentioned skaa. Skaa are peasants. Well, serfs in the old Russian tradition, really. They have no rights, are worked to the bone and the nobles can take advantage of them in any way they wish. Women can be used in the most vile of ways and must be killed afterwards, lest the aforementioned Mistborn abilities get passed on to a bastard.

Not all nobles are as careful as they should be, so there are a whole slew of skaa who can burn one metal, and a few who are Mistborn. Most of these people are thieves and conmen, which sounds like a bad thing until you realize that they target mostly noble houses. And trust me, in this world, that isn’t a bad thing.

Kelsier is our lead Mistborn and he recruits a bunch of single metal burners (I think there’s a term for these folks, but I can’t remember what it is) and Vin to pull a job. They’re going to bring down the Lord Ruler, the despot who have ruled over them for around a thousand years.

This is a long game, a year or more in the making. Kelsier has a definite plan but it’s also clear that he’s keeping a good portion of that from his fellow thieves. Kelsier gets his fellows to quietly raise a skaa army from those who aren’t already beaten into submission from a thousand years of grueling and intensive labor. It’s a small army.

He himself manages to start a war between the noble houses by using his Mistborn abilities to attack them in their keeps. Since only nobles are supposed to be Mistborn, they all think that the others are attacking them. Its almost beautiful how well Kelsier plays them.

While doing that, he trains Vin, who had been a young and female street urchin who was just trying to survive and not be raped. Vin transforms from a suspicious, rather mousy kid to a suspicious, talented Mistborn who can act well enough to infiltrate the nobility as a part of their long term plan.

This book was really, really good. I’m not usually one for the more traditional sort of fantasy. I like my Harry Dresdens and my Jane Yellowrocks with their screw you attitudes, cars and destructive tendencies. 😀 That said, this book was amazing and I will definitely be reading the other two books. I’ll have to take a break in between however because as good as this book is, it is a long and chewy read.

I can’t recommend this enough, especially because I didn’t see the ending a mile away as I tend to do with a lot of books and movies. I like a writer who can keep me guessing, or who can at least write well enough so that if I do see the end coming, I’ll still be happy I read the book.

Sanderson does a great job with the characters, showing them grow and change over the time of the book. His world building could have been a little better, but I think that in the context of the book (meaning the Lord Ruler essentially writing history), it works well. I’ll be interested to see where the next two books go. Rating: A+

Kiss of Steel

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Courtesy of goodreads.comBecause so many of my usual authors don’t have any new releases at the moment and I’ve ploughed through the ones that are new, I have been searching for new books to read and I stumbled upon a “steampunk” vampire novel called Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster.

At first, I was favorable to this story. It features a young woman, Honoria Todd, faced with the murder of her father (mother is…dead? I guess? Never mentioned so I assume childbirth after the youngest kid) leaving her and her younger brother and sister destitute. She tries to keep up appearances by getting a job teaching young ladies some sort of finishing school (I guess? Again, not really clear) while living in the Whitechapel area of London. History fans will note that this is where Jack the Ripper prowled in Victorian times. It’s a favorite go-to place of writers wanting to put their characters in dangerous situations (read: trope-tastic).

This Whitechapel, however is protected by what McMaster calls “blue-bloods” after the very old belief that nobility had that their blood was blue in color (peasants blood was red) and therefore they were more distinguished etc, etc, etc. And indeed only nobles and the king (Albert, I think?) are blue-bloods. Blue-bloods are vamps of a sort. They drink blood, are stronger, the usual vamp characteristics. However, in this world, vampires are what blue-bloods become after the virus that creates them completely overwhelms them (they even have viral counts to see how close they are-anyone seeing the not-so-subtle allusion to HIV?).

In particular, one blue-blood named Blade runs Whitechapel. He was accidentally turned into a blue-blood by one of the nobles after months of torture. The very same blue-blood that murdered Honoria’s father (duh-duh-DUUUUUUUUUUUUH!), though neither realize that until the end.

Honoria starts out promisingly strong in the face of what she has to deal with (a fairly useless sister and an infected brother). Then about halfway through we get the sex. And after that, it’s almost nothing but. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I don’t mind sex scenes in books. Quite the opposite. But you don’t need to spend half the book having sex. The second half of the book had almost no plot, it was just porn. If that’s what you want, advertise it as erotica and not steampunk.

And speaking of steampunk, this was supposed to be and it failed. There are a handful of brief mentions of little toys the brother has that hit some steampunk buzz words but you get none of the fantastic imaginings of most steampunk authors. I haven’t been able to make a dent in Cherie Priest’s work but she does steampunk tech well. So does Gail Carriger and numerable others. Steampunk is Victorian sci-fi. There was no sci-fi in this book, just Victorian.

Honoria quickly backs out of all her ideals that she held so dear at the beginning of the book. She’s a damsel in distress waiting for the big, bad vamp to rescue her. And at some point, her father gave her some sort of vaccine against the virus that makes blue-bloods that makes her special? I have a question mark here because while the vaccine was mentioned a few times as the reason that her father was murdered, this little tid-bit of a working vaccine wasn’t mentioned until suddenly some half-brother was like “oh yeah, she was totally vaccinated”. What the actual fuck? That’s a HUGE plot point. You wouldn’t think to mention that earlier? Or at all?

I paid something like three-four bucks for this book. It was too much. I actually want my money back. It’s poorly thought out and has some massive plot holes. I only finished it because I hate to leave things half done, especially when it comes to books. Luckily, thanks to my favorite author, I’ve moved on to a triology by one of his favorites that is much, much more promising.

Bottom line, if you like steampunk, skip this. If you’re looking for a cheesy erotica story, have at it but that isn’t what I was looking for. I don’t like giving bad ratings or reviews if I can avoid it but I did not like this book. Rating: D.

And if anyone knows of some good steampunk, please, please, please let me know. I’m not into Cherie Priest and I’ve already read all of Gail Carriger’s books and Whitechapel Gods (did not really enjoy. Took a lot to finish that too).

War of the Alphas

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Courtesy of goodreads.comSo this last week, I’ve read what I believe is all four of the War of the Alphas books. Yeah, four books in about as many days, well, hours really as I read mostly on my lunch breaks. The War of the Alphas books – Omega, Beta, Alpha and Pas – are written by SM Reine.

In this world, some sort of cataclysmic event many years ago (1o-20 from what I can figure) killed off quite a bit of the world’s population and then brought them back again as something other than human beings. That could be anything from a werewolf to an angel.

Because of the upheaval, an alpha werewolf called Rylie Gresham enforced a stratified society on the world. Her chosen ones would get to live at Sanctuary, everyone else was forced into group homes that were horrifying.  Medical and magical testing were allowed on children, as was corporal punishment and pretty much any nasty thing you can imagine.

Our protagonist – not heroine because she’s not a good person – Deirdre Tombs is what this world considers and Omega. She’s a shifter of some sort who cannot shift. Because she can’t shift, she doesn’t know what sort of shifter she is. She’s also treated as a second class citizen among already second class citizens. She’s got a shit job that her boss is trying to fire her from by killing her but due to a strange encounter on the street with an unknown crazy man, her life takes a turn for the strange.

The encounter, where this unknown crazy man orders her to Kill them all, brings her to the attention of earlier mentioned Rylie Gresham. Apparently the fact that Deirdre didn’t kill anyone is unusual. The man is an alpha were named Everton Stark and he can compel other shifters to anything he wants. Except Deirdre.

In exchange for possibly finally finding out what she is and learning how to harness that, Deirdre agrees to go undercover with Stark in his terrorist cell. And he is a terrorist. He’s using force, death and fear to get what he wants: Rylie Gresham’s death and a new, anarchist society. Weres, he argues, should be free to do what they want and the strongest should lead. They don’t need Rylie’s artificially stratified society.

In order to survive this assignment, Deirdre finds herself doing things she never thought she would or could do, up to and including killing people, getting beaten by Stark and taking a shifter drug called lethe. Greek mythology fans will recognize the name as the river of forgetfulness in the underworld, which is fitting.

I found all four of these books very interesting, obvs since I read them all last week. Deirdre is a crazy imperfect protagonist. She’s (rightfully) angry at the world and while she tries to do the right thing, she’s more concerned with her survival (at least at the start) and what her animal is to really give a shit about helping Rylie Gresham. And Rylie isn’t a sympathetic character either. I don’t think there’s really a character in this whole series that you’re rooting to survive. I’m not upset that the main characters lived, but I wouldn’t have been upset if they died either.

Everton Stark is a loathsome man. He’s a physically and emotionally abusive man and I really wish his character had been killed off instead of incarcerated (with the possibility of escape–SPOILERS?). I’ve never really read a book where they could kill off everyone…and I’d be okay with that. It’s interesting.

Deirdre’s eventual goals are admirable. She wants a better life for gaeans (the non-human peoples of the world). She wants the group homes abolished and she wants everyone to have a fair shake at life. Those are all good things. She goes about them in a very wrong way until the very end. And I mean literally the very end of the series. It isn’t until the end of the fourth book when Deirdre pulls her head out of her ass and realizes that in order to make the changes she wants, she needs to work in the system that the people want instead of against it. Or so it seems. The only thing I really, really didn’t like about this series is that the last book left it open ended a bit.

Sue me, I like closure. I’d definitely read more of this world. I found it absolutely fascinating the world that SM Reine created. I’d like more likeable characters though, but other than that, I really can’t complain. If you’re interested in darker urban fantasy, I can’t possibly recommend these books any higher. Rating: A.

Manners & Mutiny

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Courtesy of gailcarriger.comI love Gail Carriger’s steampunk novels. Have I mentioned this? In particular, I like her Parasol Protectorate books and her Finishing School series. In her latest (and last) of the Finishing School novels, Manners & Mutiny, we follow protagonist Sephronia Temminnick as she tries to finish her final year at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s.

This book was released on Wednesday November 4, so I’m not going to go into too much detail. Just because I finished this book over the course of about three lunch hours doesn’t mean everyone did. But just in case I do spill something plotty, below be SPOILERS. You have been warned.

Sephronia and her friends, Dimity and Agatha, are given some increasingly complex tests as a part of their final year. And not just in classes. They have a ball with the all boys school Bunson’s on Swiffle-on-Exe, where Dimity’s brother Pillover and their friend Vieve (a girl masquerading as a boy) attend. And let’s not forget about Felix de Mersey, Sephronia’s other suitor (the first being sootie Soap).

Felix and Sephronia are at loggerheads due to his involvement of Soap dying and becoming a werewolf in the previous novel. Things do not get better here. Felix is the son of the Grand Gherkin of the Picklemen (aren’t these titles just fantastic?! They’re so silly. I love them), who shot soap and is generally a bad guy and the Picklemen are clearly up to something.

They break into Mademoiselle Geraldine’s after the ball but leave with nothing, vexing Sophronia who got into trouble with the teachers. She chased the Picklemen and got caught. They’re not upset about the former but they are upset about the latter. Sophronia gets saddled with all sorts of busy work that leave her no time to figure out what the Picklemen are up to.

To make matters a little worse, Soap keeps showing up attempting to court her. Sophronia, despite what her heart wants, is still a member of high society and a lady like her can’t be with the only black werewolf in England. It just isn’t done. And don’t blame me or Ms. Carriger for those words. That was the times in mid-1800s England.

Will Soap ever talk Sophronia around? What are the Picklemen up to? Why is Felix trying so hard to make up with Sophronia? And what is going on with Lord Akeldama (and really, we all wonder that)? Read to find out!

I enjoyed the hell out of this book. It makes me sad that it was the last in the series but obviously you can’t continue finishing school once you’ve properly finished and debuted. I’m hoping that we’ll continue to see more from this lovely world and lovely writer. I highly recommend this series and this book. Rating: A+

This Broken World

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Courtesy of Amazon.comI don’t think I’ve reviewed any of the Damian Vesik books by Eric R. Asher yet, but This Broken World is the fourth and latest in that series. Damian Vesik is a necromancer and in this world necromancers are treated with a certain amount of suspicion but they aren’t necessarily outright evil. Damian is one of the good guys.

He owns an occult shop somewhere in Missouri (can’t remember the name of the town but I think it’s somewhere around St. Joseph’s?). His sister is a vampire (these vamps can be out in the daytime if they’re strong enough a la Dracula. No sparkling, thank god), his shop is home to a family of faeries (one of whom he considers as a surrogate mother. His own mother is alive and well but doesn’t really understand his world) and two cu siths (fae dogs).

In this book, he’s facing a war with a necromancer so old and powerful that he was considered a god at one point? Which god? Well that would be Anubis. I know you’re thinking that it should really be Osiris (okay, maybe that’s just me being my Ancient Egyptian mythology nerd) but Anubis is good enough a choice. Anubis is a slightly darker figure in Egyptian mythology, so it fits better with this bad guy than Osiris really would be.

Anubis issued a challenge to Vesik in the last book. Meet him and fight at Gettysburg or face the consequences. Damian has to rally his people and learn how to channel his growing powers while trying to dodge the commoners (humans who don’t know that the magical world exists) who are getting suspicious (news outlets and the like).

I enjoy these books and this one was no exception. Its very well written and you care about what happens to the characters. The only thing I don’t like is that Damian Vesik has to do all the heavy lifting (he’s expected to save the world after all) but the people who are supposed to be giving him the tools to do so (his mentor Zola and another ancient necromancer called alternately the Old Man or Leviticus) kind of just give him bits and pieces at a time. He’s a mushroom and they’re feeding him just enough to make him grow the way they want. That frustrates the crap out of me (and Vesik).

At any rate, these books are definitely worth the read, especially if you’re fond of the Dresden Files or the Jane Yellowrock novels. Rating: B+