July 2015 - Page 2 of 2

Yzabel / July 11, 2015

Review: The Stars Never Rise

The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

There’s no turning back…
In the town of New Temperance, souls are in short supply and Nina should be worrying about protecting hers. Yet she’s too busy trying to keep her sister Mellie safe.
When Nina discovers that Mellie is keeping a secret that threatens their existence, she’ll do anything to protect her. Because in New Temperance, sins are prosecuted as crimes by the brutal church.
To keep them both alive, Nina will need to trust Finn, a mysterious fugitive who has already saved her life once. Wanted by the church and hunted by dark forces, Nina knows she needs Finn and his group of rogue friends.
But what do they need from her in return?

Review:

3.5 stars. I liked the gritty side of the world depicted here, with its contrast of apparent, fake “purity” on the one hand, and punishments, hypocrisy and having to do harsh deeds to survive on the other. Overall Nina was a good person who just happened to have to steal and resort to selling herself in order to help her younger sister survive, since their druggie-mother wouldn’t take care of them properly. Can’t fault a 16-year-old girl for doing her best with what she has.

Nina had to go through a lot, but she did so with bravery, and took matters in her own hands fairly quickly. In spite of being fairly new to both the group and what she could bring to it, she quickly started to pull her weight, and didn’t dwell too much on her misery. All the while, she remained fiercely loyal to her family, wanting to help her sister, and even though this could be seen as “stupid”, in that it would force the group into danger, it was also noble (after all, if you can abandon your loved ones so quickly, wouldn’t it mean you could abandon your new allies just as quickly as well?).

The thing I really didn’t like was the romance. It has a unique twist, considering the love interest’s abilities… but it was such WTF insta-love, and I don’t do well with insta-love. I also didn’t get Devi’s bitchy side—as if she was like that just to be a foil to the “good” main character. Those tow things unfortunately kind of spoiled the plot for me.

Yzabel / July 9, 2015

Review: The Mysterious Disappearance of the Reluctant Book Fairy

The Mysterious Disappearance of the Reluctant Book Fairy by Elizabeth George

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Janet Shore was born into a quiet life—the sickly, most easily overlooked daughter of a brood of eight boisterous children. But Jane’s tendency to fall ill and her natural penchant for devouring stories in her sickbed reveal a most extraordinary ability: the power to fully immerse herself in a book—in mind and soul if not in body. By tethering her wrist to a suitable anchor in the real world and with the recitation of several key words, Jane can spend hour after hour in whatever literary plot has stolen her fancy.

But such a power is an enticing thing, and that which tempts the desires of the masses is sure to bring overwhelming fame to its bearer. Where can someone so well known escape for peace and solitude?

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A delightful novelette about a woman with the power to send herself (or others) into scenes from books, complete with many references to many well-known works—although they aren’t always directly named. The beginning and ending tie in a somewhat grave way, but there are also plenty of semi-comedic moments in between, from the parts of the narrative focused on Janet to the ones involvie Monie. Not to mention Mildred, who was somewhat annoying, yet with good sides as well.

The story is too short to involve lots of progressive character development. However, it manages to deal with quite a few questions in little time, especially when it comes to Janet’s power and how it turns her life upside down. Of course, human nature is bound to ruin a lot of things. Of course, too, some people do manage to wake up, and realise that the dream has turned into a nightmare.

The various pot-shots at some books, at what “trash” is or isn’t, made me smile, as well as reflect upon the value we bring to literature in general. For instance, the only vampire story allowed in here is Bram Stoker’s, while romance also gets its share of “I refuse to send you in there, try this instead”. While I would mostly agree with such judgments on those books, it still makes one wonder. As Mildred puts it, one’s man trash is another’s treasure…

Somehow, I wish this had been longer. Nonetheless, this book was very pleasant and enjoyable to read. 3.5 stars.

Yzabel / July 8, 2015

Review: Serafina and the Black Cloak

Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty

My rating: [usr 4]

Blurb:

“Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, and they will ensnare your soul.”

Serafina has never had a reason to disobey her pa and venture beyond the grounds of the Biltmore estate.There’s plenty to explore in her grand home, although she must take care to never be seen. None of the rich folk upstairs know that Serafina exists; she and her pa, the estate’s maintenance man, have secretly lived in the basement for as long as Serafina can remember.

But when children at the estate start disappearing, only Serafina knows who the culprit is:a terrifying man in a black cloak who stalks Biltmore’s corridors at night. Following her own harrowing escape, Serafina risks everything by joining forces with Braeden Vanderbilt, the young nephew of the Biltmore’s owners. Braeden and Serafina must uncover the Man in the Black Cloak’s true identity before all of the children vanish one by one.

Serafina’s hunt leads her into the very forest that she has been taught to fear. There she discovers a forgotten legacy of magic, one that is bound to her own identity. In order to save the children of Biltmore, Serafina must seek the answers that will unlock the puzzle of her past.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I will confess to requesting this book mostly because of its cover, in a “oh this looks pretty” moment. I don’t regret it, for the story itself was fairly entertaining as well, and cute to boot.

Serafina lives with her father in the basement of a huge mansion, in the last years of the 19th century in the United States. There’s a slight steampunkish atmosphere to that mansion, as it’s crammed full to the brim of trinkets and machines to make those work, notably the dynamo Sera’s father is in charge of. There’s horror, in the shape of the Man with the Black Cloak, catching children at night and making them disappear within the folds of his costume. There’s magical realism, with the forest, its legends, its old cemetery with a statue of an angel, and a quaint atmosphere, full of gentlemen and ladies, of little girls in nice dresses and little boys with their faithful dog and horses companions. There’s mystery and a sense of adventure, for Serafina knows all the corridors and chimneys and tiny places in which to hide, and moves around unseen, able to spy on people and thus to discover pieces of the puzzle that no one else had.

While the setting might look a bit far-fetched, with its dozens or so or people always staying at Biltmore and its over-a-hundred rooms (although it was indeed a real house, historically speaking), I thought it worked very well for this kind of tale, providing a greater than life place from which it would be nevertheless difficult to escape—and so, of course, the characters had to face whatever awaited them. Surrounded with hills and a mysterious forest, the mansion wasn’t the kind of house you could leave just like that, as doing so implied potential dangerous encounters in the wilderness. The mysterious man on the prowl in the halls at night lent a feeling of foreboding to the story, effectively trapping the children in their rooms… and those who would be walking around at night were sure preys.

Sera’s and Braeden’s friendship was so very cute. Sera never had any friends, due to having to stay hidden. Braden felt at odds with other children, and was wary of striking new friendships after what happened to his family. Two kids, not teenagers yet, still innocent in many ways—the rat-catcher girl living at night, the boy who preferred dogs and horses to other people—getting to find each other, understand each other better, appreciate each other no matter their differences. It was quite refreshing.

Too bad that I had my suspicions about who Serafina and the Black Cloak really were, and had them too early: the hints were easy enough to decipher for me (including a certain encounter in the forest). It didn’t matter that much, though; the story remained nicely enchanting and eerie. Foreshadowing can, after all, also lead to knowing yet to still eagerly awaiting the actual events and reveals themselves.

(If anything else, I also wondered about some of the adults’ reactions, especially the Vanderbilts sending their nephew away; in the light of the other children’s disappearances, it was somewhat logical, but the timing was weird. Wouldn’t that have put him in more danger, having to go through the forest at night?)

Nevertheless, this novel will likely be enjoyable for a lot of younger readers… and not so young ones as well, all things considered.

Yzabel / July 6, 2015

Review: A Murder of Mages

A Murder of Mages by Marshall Ryan Maresca

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

A Murder of Mages marks the debut of Marshall Ryan Maresca’s novels of The Maradaine Constabulary, his second series set amid the bustling streets and crime-ridden districts of the exotic city called Maradaine. A Murder of Mages introduces us to this spellbinding port city as seen through the eyes of the people who strive to maintain law and order, the hardworking men and women of the Maradaine Constabulary.

Satrine Rainey—former street rat, ex-spy, mother of two, and wife to a Constabulary Inspector who lies on the edge of death, injured in the line of duty—has been forced to fake her way into the post of Constabulary Inspector to support her family.

Minox Welling is a brilliant, unorthodox Inspector and an Uncircled mage—almost a crime in itself. Nicknamed “the jinx” because of the misfortunes that seem to befall anyone around him, Minox has been partnered with Satrine because no one else will work with either of them.

Their first case together—the ritual murder of a Circled mage— sends Satrine back to the streets she grew up on and brings Minox face-to-face with mage politics he’s desperate to avoid. As the body count rises, Satrine and Minox must race to catch the killer before their own secrets are exposed and they, too, become targets.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Pretty entertaining, in the vein of urban medieval fantasy I tend to favour (as opposed to more traditional “travel” fantasy). Gritty streets, characters with a past and forced to hide secrets that could be so easily exposed, family issues, corruption in the ranks, bureaucracy, a criminal to catch, seedy dealings going on at night on the docks and in warehouses… Yes, I definitely prefer my fantasy tinged with such themes.

I especially liked the main characters here. Each of them had their share to deal with, and couldn’t conveniently ignore what was going on in their daily lives. In fact, it was even the contrary of the “conveniently an orphan” trope: both Satrine and Minox have families. And they’re in their faces. Every day. Whether because they are so many members that you could lose count of them, or because the few left need to be taken care of in more than one way.

Satrine’s deception was motivated by the need to feed her family—her husband was heavily injured, unable to care for them anymore, and she had to deal with the fact that perhaps, just perhaps, it would’ve been easier on them all if he had died, as she would’ve been able to collect her widow’s pension and school her daughters. That would’ve been the easy way out. Instead, she remained fiercely loyal to him, still nurturing hopes thay someday, he’d slowly wake up and become who he used to be again. Should her forgery be forgiven? Perhaps, perhaps not. In any case, her motives were clearly born from love, and she still held her own and showed that the only fake thing in all this was a piece of paper: as a former Intelligence operative, she had the right set of mind, and the right skills, to earn her place among other inspectors.

Minox had his own issues to face. I guess his story wasn’t as fascinating as Satrine’s in that he didn’t have the same hurdles to face, in a line of work where women could expect to be lowly-paid clerks or only very slowly climbing the latter. However, there were other sides to his development that were interesting, and could go on being so. Being an untrained mage in a city where all trained (“Circled”) mages spat on him, for starters. People around him knowing what he was, fearing and despising it for him, or choosing to never talk about it. His ability as an inspector was real no matter what, with a black sheep aspect that set him aside, yet pushed him to work hard (cf. the numerous, somewhat freaky cold cases he considered as actually unsolved). One intriguing thing as well was how he somehow appeared as alone among a crowd, his family, due to his character and to his awkward position as a late-bloomer when it came to magic; in fact, he was probably closer to his somewhat crazy/obsessed/depressed/I’m not sure what cousin, with a history of madness running in the family, and the lingering, everlasting question: “Will he turn like our grandfather… and will *I* turn like that, too?”

And no romance! There’s no room for useless romance her, only solid partnership resting on cooperation, skills and mutual respect. It would’ve been so easy to throw in some silly feelings and/or sexual attraction. The author didn’t go that way, which I’m tremendously thankful for. Satrine and Minox have enough to worry about without adding that to the mix.

Maradaine seemed like a teeming place, bustling with various people, some very normal for such a setting, and others fairly quirky, like the mystery-meat pie seller, the street urchins turned bad mothers (or spies, like Satrine), or the butcher with a tendency to immediately throw “sticks” (policemen) out of his shop. All those people contributed to make the city look like a place filled with diversity. I would’ve liked to know more about the mages and their circles, though. I understand this series runs parallel to another one, so perhaps I’d need to read both to fully grasp that side of the world building? I thought there weren’t that many insights into the Circles’ politics, about what their potential feuds would involve (apart from obvious destruction), or about where exactly they stood when it came to the various powers and government type in Maradaine.

The novel also neatly ties up the main crime plot (a little too neatly, considering there weren’t that many clues for the reader to work with, so I didn’t have much to chew on in that regard), while leaving open other avenues for more stories. How Satrine will have to deal with the other inspectors and patrol(wo)men, and balance the dangers of her new job with her family’s needs. Minox’s need to deal with his magic ability, even though he’d like to ignore it. Corruption inside the Constabulary, possibly higher in the hierarchy. And what really did happen to Loren Rainey? Was it an investigation gone wrong, or something shadier? I can forgive the somewhat weak mystery, as long as those get more limelight later.

This is a series whose second installment I’m definitely willing to pick.

Yzabel / July 4, 2015

Review: City

City by Clifford D. Simak

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Intelligent canines in a far-future city preserve the legends and lore of their absent human masters.

Thousands of years have passed since humankind abandoned the city—first for the countryside, then for the stars, and ultimately for oblivion—leaving their most loyal animal companions alone on Earth. Granted the power of speech centuries earlier by the revered Bruce Webster, the intelligent, pacifist dogs are the last keepers of human history, raising their pups with bedtime stories, passed down through generations, of the lost “websters” who gave them so much but will never return. With the aid of Jenkins, an ageless service robot, the dogs live in a world of harmony and peace. But they now face serious threats from their own and other dimensions, perhaps the most dangerous of all being the reawakened remnants of a warlike race called “Man.”

In the Golden Age of Asimov and Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak’s writing blazed as brightly as anyone’s in the science fiction firmament. Winner of the International Fantasy Award, City is a magnificent literary metropolis filled with an astonishing array of interlinked stories and structures—at once dystopian, transcendent, compassionate, and visionary.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A hard one to rate, for sure. 3.5 stars?

On the one hand, it’s one of the classics of “old science fiction” I’ve always wanted to read—I only recently linked its English title to the French one. And, like many stories written several decades ago, it retains a quaint charm. Science that was prominent in minds at the time (atomic power…). Themes of a better world, of Man evolving into better beings, renouncing the old ways of killing, even of living in cities. Openings towards strange, new dimensions, even though reaching for those would involve a complete change of perception. But also sadness: the end of a world, of several worlds, humanity devolving into solitary creatures, then nothing, leaving Earth into the “hands” or dogs and robots. A sort of paradise, untainted by the concepts haunting human beings… yet here, too, a solitary one, for while the dogs developed their own society, they, too, were haunted by the idea of Man, kept alive by Jenkins, the faithful robot who served the Webster family.

On the other hand, I have to admit that a lot of those were painfully outdated for a 21st-century person. I’d probably have appreciated these stories more if I had read them when I was much younger—in other words, especially when it came to all those “atomic” thingies, back when I still had recollections (although heavily filtered through my child’s eyes) of Chernobyl, and a vague fear of the Cold War. I would’ve missed other themes, for sure, but maybe some of the “scientific” ones wouldn’t have struck me as so wobbly. Granted, this was unavoidable; a lot of SF classics would suffer the same fate. It did bother me to an extent, and that was really too bad.

The biological side of science here didn’t make much sense either: mutants; people turning themselves into creatures adapted to life on Jupiter; ants developing a kind of clockwork/steam power; dogs being given words and voice while still forced to rely on robots for want of hands (why would surgery on vocal chords translate into heavy genetic changes in just a few generations?). And generally speaking, the Earth described in “City” was just too big, too empty, to justify the maintainenance of robots as a whole (no factories were mentioned, for instance), with the passage of thousands of years emphasising the “how did they manage to last for so long?” question.

And yet, I cannot deny these stories, as well as the way they are linked, a certain power. Not in the writing itself, not in the obsolete or weird science, but in how they conveyed strong feelings. The despair of one man, whose fears doomed humanity to lose an important philosophical theory that could’ve changed the world forever. The end of a city, abandoned by people who preferred to live in the country, an echo of the suburbian dream. Men left behind and choosing to dive into endless sleep in the last surviving city, forever enclosed within countermeasures long forgotten, for there was no point to staying awake anymore and kill their boredom with hobbies become meaningless. Robots performing tasks even after their owners had died and gone. Dogs keeping a promise, passed down from a long-dead ancestor, a promise the meaning of which had been somewhat lost. Man, both the god-creator and a legend in which dogs only half believed.

It *is* definitely strange, for the human characters were not particularly striking. I guess the book managed to tell what it had to tell through other means, among which the dogs and Jenkins?

So I could not wrap my mind around the nonsensical science… but the feelings were here, and kept coming back at me, along with reflections on what it means to be human, on what humans could d/evolve into. And although this wasn’t my favourite read of the year, it will stay with me for some time no matter what, and I would still recommend it.

Yzabel / July 2, 2015

Review: Black-Eyed Susans

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

A girl’s memory lost in a field of wildflowers.
A killer still spreading seeds.

At seventeen, Tessa became famous for being the only surviving victim of a vicious serial killer. Her testimony put him on death row. Decades later, a mother herself, she receives a message from a monster who should be in prison. Now, as the execution date rapidly approaches, Tessa is forced to confront a chilling possibility: Did she help convict the wrong man?

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

4 stars. This is the first time I read anything by this author, and I admit that when I picked it among my ever-growing pile of ARCs to read, I didn’t even really remember what it was about. Which was probably for the best, as comparisons with other authors (such as often seen in blurbs) sometimes affect me in a negative way. You know, the “this is the next X”, or “X meets Y in this breathtaking novel.” So I was able, for once, to approach a story without remembering that. And it was good.

The novel deals with Tessa, the victim of a serial-killer, who survived and managed to send her would-be murderer to jail, where he’s waiting for the death penalty to be applied. Years later, now a mother with a bubbly, cheerful daughter of her own—a daughter who’s as carefree as the pre-killer Tessa—she is still haunted by those memories, or rather by the lack thereof: no matter what, she still can’t remember everything from her ordeal, and what she remembers of it may or may not be the truth. Moreover, Tessa’s starting to have second-thoughts: what if the man about to die was an innocent, and the real psychopath still out there?

“Black-Eyed Susans” deals with several interesting themes: psychologic and physical trauma (Tessa after the “event”), lies (what was told and untold when it came to the trial), forgiveness (the man on death row), fear (being potentially stalked by the actual killer, or even seeing him target the daughter)… There are very likeable characters, like Charlie, and others who sow constant doubts as to their loyalty and real intentions. There came a moment when it was difficult to tell what was only in Tessa’s mind, what was triggered by other people’s delusions, and what may have been actual happenings—although I still managed to narrow down my suspicions regarding to the killer to two, then one person relatively soon.

This book also has two things I really like: an unreliable narrator, and a narrative switching from present to past to present again. While the latter can be a deal-breaker for some readers, I personally like that technique. It made it tricky to determine where were the turning points, while at the same time giving hints. Some of those were just a tad bit heavy-handed, but… Overall I liked the story overall no matter what.