strange and random happenstance

Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: November 20th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 736 Pages
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The official patter:
"The thrilling history of the Targaryens comes to life in this masterly work by the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the inspiration for HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire and Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

What really happened during the Dance of the Dragons? Why was it so deadly to visit Valyria after the Doom? What were Maegor the Cruel’s worst crimes? What was it like in Westeros when dragons ruled the skies? These are but a few of the questions answered in this essential chronicle, as related by a learned maester of the Citadel and featuring more than eighty all-new black-and-white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley. Readers have glimpsed small parts of this narrative in such volumes as The World of Ice and Fire, but now, for the first time, the full tapestry of Targaryen history is revealed.

With all the scope and grandeur of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Fire and Blood is the the first volume of the definitive two-part history of the Targaryens, giving readers a whole new appreciation for the dynamic, often bloody, and always fascinating history of Westeros."

No. This isn't the GRRM book you've been waiting for. Yes it's in Westros. Yes there are Targaryens. No this isn't the book.

The Dark Days Deceit by Alison Goodman
Published by: Viking Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: November 20th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 544 Pages
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The official patter:
"The thrilling, genre-bending conclusion to Lady Helen's demon-hunting adventures, set in the glittering Regency world.

Lady Helen has retreated to a country estate outside Bath to prepare for her wedding to the Duke of Selburn, yet she knows she has unfinished business to complete. She and the dangerously charismatic Lord Carlston have learned they are a dyad, bonded in blood, and only they are strong enough to defeat the Grand Deceiver, who threatens to throw mankind into chaos. But the heinous death-soaked Ligatus Helen has absorbed is tearing a rift in her mind. Its power, if unleashed, will annihilate both Helen and Carlston unless they can find a way to harness its ghastly force and defeat their enemy.

In the final book of the trilogy that began with The Dark Days Club and continued with The Dark Days Pact, the intrepid Lady Helen's story hurtles to a shocking conclusion full of action, heartbreak, and betrayal."

Hint, this series might just be a part of Regency Magic next year...

The Secret Witch by Alyxandra Harvey
Published by: Open Road Media Teen and Tween
Publication Date: November 20th, 2018
Format: Kindle, 403 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For Emma and her cousins Gretchen and Penelope, the stuffiness of 1814 London society is simply unbearable - even as Emma wishes the roguish Cormac Fairfax would pay her any kind of attention.

But that all changes when Emma accidentally breaks a glass memento left to her by her mother. Suddenly, all three young women find themselves gifted with powers of witchcraft - and they will most certainly need them.

For they have unwittingly unleashed a scourge upon London: an evil coven whose powerful members gain their strength from killing young witches.

And Emma has just caught their very unwanted attention..."

The Witches of London Trilogy is all available today, this being the first book, and they just might feature in a future Regency Magic...

Master of His Fate by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: November 20th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
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The official patter:
"From #1 New York Times bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford comes the first book in a stunning new historical saga.

Victorian England is a country of sharp divides between rich and poor, but James Lionel Falconer, who spends his days working at his father’s market stall, is determined to become a merchant prince. Even as a child, he is everything a self-made man should be: handsome, ambitious, charming, and brimming with self-confidence. James quickly rises through the ranks, proving himself both hardworking and trustworthy, and catching the eye of Henry Malvern, head of the most prestigious shipping company in London. But when threats against his reputation – and his life - begin to emerge, James will have to prove that he truly is the master of his fate.

Through scandal and romance, tragedy and triumph, the Falconer and Malvern family’s lives intertwine in unexpected ways in this expansive and intricately detailed new novel filled with drama, intrigue, and Bradford's trademark cast of compelling characters."

A new series! Let's hope this means she's going to leave those poor Cavendons alone now...

Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: November 20th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The seventh book of the bestselling Rivers of London urban fantasy series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London.

The Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, fraud, and crimes against humanity, has been unmasked and is on the run. Peter Grant, Detective Constable and apprentice wizard, now plays a key role in an unprecedented joint operation to bring him to justice.

But even as the unwieldy might of the Metropolitan Police bears down on its foe, Peter uncovers clues that the Faceless Man, far from being finished, is executing the final stages of a long term plan. A plan that has its roots in London's two thousand bloody years of history, and could literally bring the city to its knees.

To save his beloved city Peter's going to need help from his former best friend and colleague - Lesley May--who brutally betrayed him and everything he thought she believed in. And, far worse, he might even have to come to terms with the malevolent supernatural killer and agent of chaos known as Mr Punch...."

Seven books and still going strong! 

His Royal Dogness, Guy the Beagle by Guy the Beagle
Published by: Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: November 20th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 48 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"“Sit...Stay...Enjoy! Good reader!” —Stephen Colbert

The hilarious, heartwarming, and rebarkable true story of Guy the Beagle, Duchess Meghan Markle’s rescue dog.

Like all good stories, Guy the Beagle’s begins lost in the woods of Kentucky. But his fortunes change when he’s rescued by none other than Princess…er, Duchess-to-be Meghan Markle. Practically overnight, Guy goes from wags to riches. But does this backwoods beagle have what it takes to be welcomed into the royal family?

For the first time ever, Guy reveals how he went from pawper to proper, with help from Emmy award-winning writer and producer of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Mike Brumm and publishing veteran (and devoted Anglophile) Camille March, beautifully illustrated by EG Keller (illustrator of the New York Times bestselling A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo). Guy’s story of finding acceptance in an exceptional family will have readers of all ages barking with laughter."

This team!?! Damn, they sure are giving Guy the Royal treatment! Can not wait! I'm more excited for this than I was the Royal Wedding!

Art Matters by Neil Gaiman
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: November 20th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 112 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A stunning and timely creative call-to-arms combining four extraordinary written pieces by Neil Gaiman illustrated with the striking four-color artwork of Chris Riddell.

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.”—Neil Gaiman

Drawn from Gaiman’s trove of published speeches, poems, and creative manifestos, Art Matters is an embodiment of this remarkable multi-media artist’s vision—an exploration of how reading, imagining, and creating can transform the world and our lives.

Art Matters bring together four of Gaiman’s most beloved writings on creativity and artistry:

• “Credo,” his remarkably concise and relevant manifesto on free expression, first delivered in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings
• “Make Good Art,” his famous 2012 commencement address delivered at the Philadelphia University of the Arts
• “Making a Chair,” a poem about the joys of creating something, even when words won’t come
• “On Libraries,” an impassioned argument for libraries that illuminates their importance to our future and celebrates how they foster readers and daydreamers

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alison Goodman, Alyxandra Harvey, Anglophile, Art Matters, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Ben Aaronovitch, Dogs, Fire and Blood, GRRM, Lies Sleeping, Neil Gaiman, Regency Magic, Rivers of London, Royalty

A Conjuring of Light by V.E.Schwab
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: February 21st, 2017
Format: Paperback, 624 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Osaron, the oshoc, the demon made of magic that destroyed Black London escaped his prison using Holland. The Antari thought it was a chance for his world to thrive, instead it was Osaron's chance to become a God again, but not in Holland's dying London, in the vital London, in Red London. Arnes is ripe with magic and the Isle pulses with power and within minutes of his arrival Osaron has the city bowing at his feet. Those who do not submit to his insinuating call will be killed. The Isle turns black and a thick fog creeps through the streets. In the palace the competitors are celebrating the end of the Essen Tasch. Soon those competitors and their entourages will be the only people not under Osaron's spell. The priests of the London Sanctuary place wards all around the Soner Rast in an effort to keep out Osaron's influence and for the moment it is holding. But a plan needs to be formed before people get desperate. Having so many loyal supplicants Osaron abandons Holland and Kell thinks this new prisoner of the crown could work as a lure to destroy the oshoc. Their first attempt fails, Osaron showing far more interest in this new Antari then his previous Antari vessel. That interest makes Kell, Holland, and Lila realize that perhaps they are the only way to destroy him, along with a device rumored to be capable of draining and transferring magic. A device that was last seen on a floating black market, a market that might just hold the true key to defeating Osaron. While the three Antari go in search of their best hope against Osaron, the King, the Aven Essen, the Prince, the Veskans, the Faroans, and the competitors all attempt their own plans to beat Osaron. Whose plan will work? Because with these stakes failure equals death.

And we come to the end. For now. With much fanfare but without much satisfaction for this reader. The Big Bad is banished but instead of tying all the threads together to give us any kind of closure we are given a repetitive book with way too much death. Thought you might learn where Kell came from and the history of that knife with the "KL" on it? Think again and have a few competitors from the Essen Tasch die needlessly. Hoping to learn the history of Lila's false eye? Wait in vain as Schwab describes something with the exact same wording ten or more times over the course of a few chapters oh and here's Alucard's beloved sister dead on the floor of his ship. I'm not saying that this book was Red Wedding levels of death, oh, who am I kidding, I am SO saying it's Red Wedding levels of death. The thing is, this series has never shied away from death and brutality, but this all felt so needless, so out of left field. Just a few pages in with the previous Essen Tasch victor Kisimyr flaking away as she is reduced to ash had me appalled. Shock value is good, but there's a point where it's no longer shocking and I stopped bracing myself for the next death because I became numb and indifferent after Ojka, Jinnar, Calla, Anisa, Lenos, Hastra, on and on, so much death. I seriously believe now that A Gathering of Shadows was written to give us all these characters we'd come to love only to kill them off in A Conjuring of Light. I didn't back anyone to survive because of this cavalier attitude where everyone was fair game. And that's where my problem lies. Schwab doesn't give us a single beat to mourn these characters. The book is constantly pushing the narrative forward and when the survivors make it to the end they want to put everything behind them and move on, never taking the time to grieve. If the author doesn't show sympathy for her own creations how are we as readers supposed to care about their demise? It lessens the impact of the story and for me it made me not care.

So while I came to really enjoy the beginning of this series the second time around I just can not get behind A Conjuring of Light. It's not just this mass slaughter that had me disengaging from the book but the fact that it felt so different to A Darker Shade of Magic and A Gathering of Shadows that it didn't feel a part of the overall series. In the first book we basically have two POVs, in the second we have a little more than double that, but here it's a free for all, every character ever gets their chance. All these different characters getting stories doesn't just pull focus away from our central characters, it dilutes the reader's connection to the story. Here's King Maxim, here's Queen Emira, here's a guard you've maybe heard of once before... I get that Schwab wanted to expand her universe, but this was too much too soon. Resolve what you've already started and then build off that. Don't use the conclusion of one story as a starting off point for a ton more. Yes, Schwab has built this great universe, but new people and new powers left and right seriously did not help defeat Osaron. Well, maybe Dracula's did... OK, Alucard. But here's the thing, WTF is up with Alucard!?! All of a sudden out of left field he has the ability to "see" magic!?! And EVERYONE knew about it!?! This was too convenient, too much of a deus ex machina. So Alucard could have told Lila the second he met her she was Antari because of her "magical aura" and being able to see this "aura" leads him to an artifact on the floating black market that makes all the difference in the battle against Osaron!?! Really!?! I mean, REALLY!?! The LEAST Schwab could have done is started to hint at this in the previous volume, instead it was yet another WTF moment of incredulity. I really, I just can't anymore with this book.

The books ONLY saving grace amongst the din of trying to balance all these characters like plates in the air was Holland, the White London Antari. I've always felt sorry for Holland because no matter how good his intentions he always ends up being screwed. Here we get even more of his story, badly typeset by someone who thought it would look "cool" to have his flashbacks different than the rest of the book's copy. He has suffered loss after loss and still he just wants to save his home. He is willing to give up his freedom, to put a cage around his own identity if his London will thrive. This is epic stuff, showing that Holland is the true hero of the series. What's more it leads into an important discourse on freedom. So many of our characters are trapped, Kell by the crown, Rhy by his perceived inadequacies, Alucard by his family, Lila by her station, each and every person we come in contact with has a prison. Some of these prisons are of their own making, some aren't, but that feeling of being trapped is universal. They are all searching for some kind of freedom and their battle against Osaron is able to highlight their struggles both big and small. I think this, more than anything else in the series, is where I connect. Even though I don't currently live in a prison, I have cages of my own making. Obligations, some real, some I force on myself that I struggle with daily. If I could physically and psychologically remove these burdens, I just wonder, what does it feel like to be free? I can't be the only one reading this book and wondering the same thing, and that's how this book just ever so slightly redeems itself, by holding up a mirror to which the readers can actually relate.

Though Queen Emira comes a close second in redeeming this book. I am of the age when everyone I know is either on the precipice of or already has kids. As I've gotten older I've realized that many of the things that make me me is why I could never have kids. I'm not talking the time, the lack of sleep, I'm talking the worry. I seriously worry about everything. I can grind my mind to a halt with "what ifs." Queen Emira admits she never wanted children. Her affinity is with water, ice, and ice breaks. Everything breaks. When she had Rhy she became terrified with worry, thinking about what could happen. The hurt, the pain, the possible death. All the wounds that could be inflicted on her son. These paralyze her and lead her to seeming cold, remote. She is so scared she basically turns herself into stone. The ice queen, hardening her heart because she feels too much. This would be me. I would never sleep, I would never rest, I would be there listening to every little breath my child took just to make sure nothing was wrong. I bought a baby monitor for my cat when he was sick, that's how stressed I get. Like freedom, this was another hard truth that was almost lost in the muddle of multiple character arcs and magical spells. While we readers love to read about things that can't happen and worlds that don't exist unless a book is grounded in something real then you can not emotionally invest, you can not just connect. So while my issues with this book are many and various, Schwab was able, in the quieter moments, to get at something true, and while I don't want to think about how I impose such walls around myself I have to acknowledge, like Emira, that they are there before I can hope to at the very least understand them before I can try to break them down.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Conjuring of Light, A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, A Storm of Swords, Antari, Cages, Children, GRRM, Holland, Magic, Osaron, Red London, Red Wedding, Regency Magic, V.E. Schwab, Victoria Schwab

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E.Schwab
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: February 23rd, 2016
Format: Paperback, 512 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

In four months a lot can change. Lives have been lost. Lives have been changed. Rulers have fallen. Worlds are in flux. In Grey London the natural succession has occurred on the death of the mad king. But in White London power is what you need to rule, and that comes from a surprising and dangerous source. A source that almost destroyed Red London four months ago on the Black Night when the prince died and his life was tethered to Kell's and Lila Bard, going against all her instincts, helped save a world by putting her neck on the line. Since that night Kell is virtually a prisoner of the crown. If something happens to him Rhy's life is in danger and therefore Kell must never be in danger. Frustrated and ashamed at his part in that deadly night he trains and trains to be the weapon he needs to be to protect Rhy. Lila Bard is also training. That night showed her that she has powers. She might come from a London where magic is dead, but there is magic in her. Reluctantly she is learning from Captain Alucard Emery of The Night Spire. She initially wanted to steal his ship and lead the life of piracy she always dreamt of, but it dawned on her that she doesn't know the first thing about ships and this is a good way to learn. But she is becoming complacent. Life should never be comfortable or safe and when the ship returns to London for the Essen Tasch, a magical tournament between the countries of Arnes, Vesk, and Faro, she decides that like her captain, she wants to compete. The problem is the competitors list is set. So she needs to steal an identity... but little does she know that Kell is also competing under another identity. Juggling multiple identities and The Essen Tasch are such distractions that it might be too late before our heroes realize that Red London is in danger. Again.

A Darker Shade of Magic is such a frenetic book literally taking place over the span of hours the relatively languid pace of A Gathering of Shadows tripped me up. I felt like this book was almost unnecessary to the Shades of Magic series and was wondering if perhaps Tor had told Schwab that they were only interested in trilogies at the time she was selling the series and she turned a duology into something more by just having our characters drag their heels through "The Hunger Games: Red London Edition." But I'd really like to take that back now. The thing with time is that opinions often change. I have often wondered how many books that I disliked and therefore sold I would like if I read at a later time and then I'm gripped by the opposite of buyers remorse, sellers remorse. What if I just got rid of a book I'll love years from now!?! I try not to dwell on those thoughts but re-reading A Gathering of Shadows kind of triggered my sellers remorse because literally what a difference a year made with me and this book, and oddly enough it was literally almost a year to the day! What I found as hundreds of pages of nothing happening turned into a character study where I finally had the luxury of connecting to the characters in a different way. The Essen Tasch which I viewed as the dominate theme of the book was now just something to highlight our characters flaws and strengths, nothing more or less. All the issues I had with Rhy and Kell's relationship previously, while not fully assuaged, I at least got to see them together more and understand their connection versus just being told that they were close. New characters, backstories, wish fulfillment, all these concepts are explored and they gave the series a depth it lacked before. So seriously, I was hasty to judge, so sorry.

Though there is one character I grew to dislike with all this added time I got to spend with her and that's Lila Bard. Oh Lila, I have so many issues with you and the truth is, I shouldn't! When I was younger I dreamt of being a pirate, adding thief and magician on top of that would have made me the happiest girl in the world. But I do. I have so many issues. I think once I realized you were written more as the reluctant anti-heroine in the vein of Becky Sharp I understood you more, but I still don't like you. OK, let's talk about why I dislike Lila! She self-sabotages anything good in her life, be it her berth aboard The Night Spire, or her friendships, because if she feels the least bit safe she runs. Now that's more a problem for a psychiatrist and I can understand where she's coming from even if I'm yelling at her to stay. What my issue boils down to is how selfish she is. Yes she's had a hard upbringing but that doesn't give her the right to screw people over to get what she wants and that is exemplified by her assuming the identity of Stasion Elsor. Stasion Elsor is a man who presumably worked his ass off to compete for Arnes in the Essen Tasch. Of ALL the magicians in Arnes, and seeing as Red London is so magically rich there are a lot of people who could compete, he was selected as one of the twelve competitors. And Lila takes that all away from him because he has the same build as her and she just attacks him in an alley and ships him off to a penal colony! WTF! How is that acceptable? Even Alucard is like, that's too much. Yes, she is using this to push those who have gotten close to her away, but more importantly it shows that she thinks that she deserves whatever she can take. I'm just not OK with this. Becky Sharp at least got what was coming to her and I have a feeling Lila won't.

Yet oddly enough Lila isn't the character I had the most problems with, that would be her captain, Alucard. Here's the thing about creating names in a fantastical story, they have to be close enough to English that you know they're like a more magical version of everyday names but at the same time be easy to read and easy to say. I can still remember LONG before there was a Game of Thrones TV series I went to a George R. R. Martin book signing for A Feast of Crows and almost all the questions asked were how to pronounce character names. Because readers want to know what this new name sounds like. So that there is rule one and Alucard passes that one with flying colors. Rule two is that the name shouldn't make you think of someone else in another story because it will take you out of the narrative. Alice Cooper in the Archie Comics does this for me but I will be quick to point out that the singer Alice Cooper actually came later so it's not the Comics fault. This is where Alucard fails MISERABLY. Because do you know what Alucard is? It's freaking Dracula spelled backwards! WTF Schwab!?! While Schwab claims "YOU GUYS ALUCARD EMERY IS NOT A VAMPIRE. I DIDN'T REALIZE HIS NAME WAS DRACULA SPELLED BACKWARDS I JUST LIKED IT" I call foul. HOW can you look at the name Alucard and NOT see Dracula? Not to mention several books, even ones by my friend Paul Magrs, use Alucard as Dracula's "in disguise" name. I mean seriously!?! And not one editor went, hey Schwab, do you mean to be referencing a book that in your series chronology doesn't come out for another 77 years!?! I just don't get how NO ONE caught this. It's just so freaking obvious and EVERY SINGLE TIME I read his name I inwardly groan and am taken out of the book. At one point I even thought of given him another name to not annoy me, but that just seemed like too much work. But it was Westley if you're interested.

Though I think for me, at least the first time I read this book, the biggest disappointment was the lack of Grey London. Those sections just draw me in every time. There's something about seeing Kell, such a magical being, in this normal historical setting that captures my imagination. Seeing the opposite with Lila in Red London just isn't the same. She was outside the bounds of polite society in her London, never fitting in there, and she's actually attempting to fit into Red London so there's no real excitement to be had in the dichotomy. But I think this is just my desire to make this book more of a traditional Regency Magic book... I should embrace it for it's differences not lament it because I want to see what would happen if the Prince Regent tried to kidnap Kell and force him to do magic for him. And yes, I really really wanted that to happen. But this is just me wanting to be surrounded by the familiar because it gives me comfort and if anything is a comfort read to me it's firstly Jane Austen and secondly anything Regency Magic. On top of this my favorite character is Edward Archibald Tuttle III, AKA Ned. Perhaps this is because I relate most to Ned, and he'd be SO happy I was referring to him as Ned, because that means we're friends, and we are. He lives in this dark grey world and has always believed in magic and he was proven right. Here's someone I can relate to, someone I can love. What's odd to me is going back to Lila, she's the character we're supposed to relate to because she's from our world and we're following her on her adventure, but she has so many negative traits I can never connect to her. Now if Ned was the one who went on this adventure? Well, it might be more interesting... Lila is a survivor and has proven her mettle on the street time and time again so of course she'll succeed, but could Ned? Now I'd read the heck out of that!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Darker Shade of Magic, A Feast for Crows, A Gathering of Shadows, Becky Sharp, Dracula, George III, Grey London, GRRM, Paul Magrs, Pirates, Regency Magic, Shades of Magic, The Hunger Games, V.E. Schwab

Burn Bright by Patricia Briggs
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: March 6th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★ 
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Bran is MIA after helping rescue Mercy in Europe. This leaves his son Charles in charge of the Aspen Creek Pack. Instead of Anna and him being on the outer fringes of the pack and living in their home that is more a haven than anything else they are ensconced in Bran's house, Pack HQ, and Bran's wife Leah isn't taking too well to having house guests. She's used to having the pack in and out of her house at all hours, but not her step-son and daughter-in-law underfoot. It's almost a relief when a crisis arises. The hills behind their small Montana town are filled with wolves that are under Bran's protection but can not live amongst the pack. A danger to themselves and others, they live off the radar. These wildings are often left to their own devices but can call on the pack in times of crisis. One such crisis has arisen. Men have shown up in the woods. Well armed and prepared men. They have abducted Hester, a member of the pack, and her Fae mate Jonesy has called for help. Due to the remoteness of their location it's a miracle that Anna and Charles arrive before Hester is gone. The ensuing fight leaves many dead but even more questions that need answering. These militant attackers came into the Marrok's territory and attempted to take a pack member under his protection when they knew Bran was gone. They were too well prepared and well informed, indicating an enemy that is well funded and a possible mole within the pack. Yet there is a surprise in store. One of the attackers is known to Anna. He was there when she was abused in her old pack. Charles would kill him if the man wasn't already dead. Hopefully there will be no more death. With that goal in mind the strongest wolves set out to visit the wildings and when Anna meets the werewolf artist Wellesley and connects with him everything starts to make sense. The puzzle pieces are falling into place. But will they be able to accept what is revealed?

An ongoing perk of being a blogger is access to NetGalley where you can request digital advance reader copies of books. Yet NetGalley is a double edged sword, not just because you might end up requesting so many books there's no chance you'll ever finish them, of which I am guilty, but because sometimes instead of allowing you to request a book, in it's place, taunting you, is the "I Wish" button. Of course sometimes they do grant wishes, they tell you right there as you're desperately clicking the button hoping it will transform into a request one. Of all the authors I've read through NetGalley over the years I have never gotten such a thrill at seeing a book listed as with Patricia Briggs. Those gorgeous covers by Dan dos Santos though are always followed by nothing more than a wish. Yet in these instances my wishes have all been granted, thankfully without some nefarious deal with a fairy on the back end; just a request for my honest opinion, and my honest opinion is that I love Patricia Briggs and all her books set in the world of Mercy Thompson. Yet it's hard to review these books if just for the simple reason that after fifteen installments it's hard to find something new to say... except this time there is something new to say, and that's my realization that I love the Alpha and Omega series more. As long as there aren't any more horses. Yes, I entered this world through Mercy's adventures, but I relate more to Charles and Anna. At first I was wondering if it's because with only five books under their belt they had less baggage, but as seen here this series carries Mercy's baggage as well as it's own. Therefore I thought, perhaps it's the more focused narrative with less characters, but here we dealt with a pack bigger than the Columbia Basin Pack. In the end it comes down to the fact I relate more to Charles and Anna. They are more introspective, more removed. They are a part of their pack yet cherish their alone time, and that's something I can relate to.

As for the Aspen Creek Pack, they really take center stage in Burn Bright. Aside from their first adventure, Charles and Anna have been traipsing all over the continental United States and rarely have time to take in the Montana air. This time isn't downtime either, with Charles's farther Bran MIA after helping rescue Mercy in her previous adventure, but Charles being placed in charge of the pack means he's stuck on his home turf. Therefore, for what I feel is the first time, we're really getting a firsthand look at the pack. It's not filtered through Mercy's memories or passed down gossip that eventually gets to Charles and Anna, it's on the ground and immediate. We get to not only see the pack, but see what they are like without Bran present, who is such a dominate force he can overpower any plot line. And while each and every revelation of how the pack structure works was interesting to me, what I was most drawn to was the insight into Leah. Leah is Bran's mate, a mate who no one likes. Sometimes it seems that Bran doesn't much care for her either. In each and every one of her appearances, be it Mercy's stories or Charles's, she comes across as a really self-centered and bitchy stepmother. I won't say wicked, because she's never done anything altogether malicious, but she's always appeared to be cut from the same cloth. Burn Bright started out in this same vein and yet, while Leah never changed we readers finally got insight into how she became the way she is and the benefits of that. It's often the case that being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes lets you empathize with them and so it is here. We got to the bottom of her rage and came out seeing her with new eyes. She has even earned the respect of Charles, and that's saying something.

We also learned about "secret" pack members. Enter the wildings! Oh, how I love that Patricia Briggs has taken a word that is so heavily associated with Game of Thrones and George R. R. Martin and made it her own. The wildings, instead of being people just living behind a really big wall are werewolves, occasionally with their mates, who can no longer live in a pack setting. They are either too damaged or too dangerous, or a combination of both, to be allowed entrance to the town of Aspen Creek. Some of them occasionally can join the pack hunts, but most of the time they are secreted away on their own large parcels of land under Bran's supervision. Why this resonated with me so strongly is that I've felt for awhile that the black and white nature of who deserves to live and who deserves to die due to their behavior in this fictional universe was needing some grey. Having Charles as executioner to Bran's judgment was harsh. Bran seemed to make Aspen Creek a haven for the damaged, but only up to a point. Yet now we find out that he's actually been hiding his people out in the woods to protect them instead of giving them a fatal punishment. It makes Bran more human to me. He's no longer this untouchable, this unknowable force, he has a heart, and not just for Mercy. This is also seen in the expanding of Leah's past. The superhumans are coming down to our level and that just makes this a more relevant series. Briggs has always explored the all too human side of suffering with her series, and this is another great entry into seeing ourselves more clearly through something that is "other."

All the wildings could be considered crazy, to an extent. It's almost as if Briggs is creating her own spectrum, from unable to take human form to will kill you rather than look at you, we see a wide range of problems. Yet all this boils down to the notion of what makes us crazy and who cares for crazy. I was drawn to the first problem, what makes us crazy. Due to things that have been happening in my own life I felt the importance, the weight of this question. Is it environmental factors? A genetic disposition? An outside factor like drugs? Or, as we are in a supernatural world here, magic? With each different wilding we see a different presentation of madness, and yet, Anna shows that by approaching the situation with compassion these issues can be dealt with. With how Anna carefully deals with Wellesley we see what it is to be an Omega. She is the carer. She has had so much pain inflicted on herself that she knows what others who are injured need. So much of the book ties back into Anna's past traumas, in other words perhaps a re-read of her introductory short story from On the Prowl is needed, that we see there is no instant cure. Anna is still recovering. Her marriage and mystical connection to Charles didn't automatically heal all wounds. In fact, through dealing with her problems and then helping the Wildings, Anna is finding her place in the pack. Your damage, your illness, your problems, whatever they may be, they don't make up who you are, they inform who you become, and Anna is becoming an amazing heroine. My heroine.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alpha and Omega, Anna, Bran, Burn Bright, Charles Cornick, Fairies, Game of Thrones, GRRM, Leah, Marrok, Mental Illness, Mercy Thompson, Netgalley, Pack, Patricia Briggs, PTSD, Werewolves, Wildings, Witches

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: September 29th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 480 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

What if Grisha could be more powerful? Not to just have their powers amplified but to have them changed. Magnified to a degree that the world itself changes before their eyes and anything is possible. Of course, such a discovery would be desired by the wealthy and the powerful, and especially the military. Bo Yul-Bayur is a chemist who accidentally created Jurda Parem from the common stimulant Jurda. While fatal to Non-Grisha, to Grisha it does all this and more, including making the user an addict after one dose. Afraid of what he has created he attempts to seek asylum in Kerch but is captured by the Drüskelle and taken to the Fjerdan capital of Djerholm and imprisoned in the impenetrable Ice Court. Who knows what the Fjerdan's will do with this technology, seeing as they have been carrying out pogroms on the Grisha "Witches" for as long as anyone can remember. This is where Kaz Brekker comes in. Kaz is the lieutenant of The Dregs and is known as the man who gets things done. So when Mr. Jan Van Eck needs someone to break Bo Yul-Bayur out of the Ice Court he turns to Kaz with the offer of a lifetime. The score from this impossible heist could set him and his crew up for the rest of their lives.

Kaz recruits Inej, the "wraith", Jesper, a born sharpshooter, Wylan, for his demolition skills and the fact that if need be he is Van Eck's son and could be used as a hostage, and Nina, because she's a Grisha who is a Ravkan Heartrender. But more importantly, Nina has a connection to someone who intimately knows Kerch and the Ice Court, former Drüskelle Matthias Helvar. Matthias is in prison because of something Nina said and she's been trying to make it up to him ever since, and breaking him out of prison for a big payday should make them even. Of course their master plan involves sending themselves to prison in Kerch, but at least it will be a change of scene from Hellgate. The improbability and complexity of their plan could go wrong at a million different places, yet it doesn't take them long to be enjoying the hospitality of the Ice Court's prison. This band of thieves will do whatever it takes to get their payday, and whatever obstacles, even those of their own making, must be overcome. They are all good at thinking on their feet, they wouldn't have survived in Ketterdam with all the rival gangs and dangerous alleys if they weren't. But is the payout really worth the risks? And when all is said and done, will they get that payout?

When I finished the Grisha Trilogy I was bereft. I had come to know and love these characters so deeply that I just didn't want to let go. But I could also see that their story was told. It was over and that was that. The light at the end of the tunnel was that Leigh Bardugo was working on a new duology set in the Grishaverse called The Dregs. Eventually retitled Six of Crows with the most amazing cover art I'd seen in recent years I couldn't wait until this book was released and was giving anyone I knew who was lucky enough to get an ARC the side-eye for weeks. OK, months, but you get it, I know you do. I wanted to be back in that world. I didn't care if it was a new country or a new cast of characters, I just wanted more of this wondrous land. And yet, when the time came, I just wasn't swept away. I think of all my book blogging and reading buddies I was the only one who didn't hail it as the best book of last year. In fact, it was nowhere near my top ten. There's even a part of me, looking back, that wonders if three stars was generous. The worldbuilding was still there, and still perfect. Yes it's a little darker, but the void of The Darkling needed to be filled somehow. Yet I just couldn't connect. This heist I had been waiting so long for suddenly didn't seem worth the wait.

The initial problem I faced was there were too many characters given to us too soon. We have six main characters and all their baggage to deal with while certain elements of their backstories are drawn out to excruciating levels with us not finding out answers until the last few pages. To keep this in perspective, A Game of Thrones, the first book in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, has only eight narrators in a behemoth book of teeny tiny print; and we're barely scratching the surface in that book. To expect THIS book to do more with less seems ludicrous. Also confusing. I need a little time to sink into the narrative of a book, have one character lead me into the world and acclimatise me to the environment before being smacked in the face with the whole gang. There's a reason Ocean's Eleven starts with just Danny Ocean and slowly introduces new characters in little vignettes before having the whole crew together. I think for a book SO like Ocean's Eleven: Ketterdam perhaps the basic framework of a heist film or book could have been better utilized. Instead of starting with the small heist at The Exchange start even smaller and then go bigger.

Yet for a book with six main characters I found one thing very very odd. The exclusion of Wylan Van Eck as a narrator. Six characters but only five POVs!?! That just doesn't add up. I mean yes, there are initially too many characters in this book until you finally get to know them, but then why eliminate a certain one? Why was Wylan left out? Yes, part of it could have been to do with the end twist, but, well, just don't have his POV near the end. Because eliminating him entirely versus just eliminating him for a section makes more sense. There's an imbalance in the book created by this omission. It seriously doesn't make sense to me that we never get Wylan's POV. Especially with his connection to the man who hired Kaz and the crew you'd think Wylan's input would be vital, but instead it's left to other characters to tell Wylan's story. Then there's the whole insulting aspect to this. Wylan is dyslectic and can't read or write. To not have his voice heard when he can't write his own story, WTH! It's just adding insult to injury. I can only hope that Wylan has a say in Crooked Kingdom, but I'm not really keeping my fingers crossed. Kaz's nemesis got a POV at the end of this book and still, no Wylan.

My main problem with the book though was the "problem" with the women. Some people might be saying, how can you have a problem with Inej and Nina when they kick ass and take names? My problem is rooted in the fact that once you look past all their strength their character arcs are oddly stereotypical. At times I thought I was having some sort of out of body experience where this book wasn't written by the writer of the Grisha series populated with strong women and a kick ass female in her own right, but a man who just wrote the typical subjugation line of women in science fiction and fantasy as sex objects and bargaining chips. Inej and Nina spend the entire book showing they are more than what Ketterdam tried to make them in the brothels. They are strong and fierce warriors with love in their hearts. And then all of a sudden they're dressing up as whores to sneak into the Ice Court and ending up as prisoners that only the big brave men can rescue. Excuse me? So all their growth, all their development was for naught? Because they just ended up back at the beginning, victims that need saving? This isn't a just fate for them. This is a cliched, hackneyed fate. They deserve better. I deserve better as a reader!

Though in the end I think the biggest letdown is that Six of Crows just shows us the futility of it all. From the very beginning Kaz's crew are given this impossible task, one at which they could fail at any second, but deep down you know they are going to succeed. But in succeeding they fail. And somehow I knew this. I just knew that they'd make it to the end and yet they'd fail. I don't know if it's all the heist movies I've watched over the years, but somehow I knew it would be like that bus dangling over the precipice at the end of The Italian Job, all that work wouldn't really be worth it in the end. We were left hanging, waiting for the second book. And yes, I'm going to read Crooked Kingdom, but I don't have the excitement anymore. I have a determined resignation. I have no hopes for this book, well, minor hopes that I have a feeling will be quashed quite quickly. Six of Crows was a disservice to the readers. We read a book whose narrative didn't matter. It was nulled and voided at the end and makes you wonder, why then did I bother to read it? Yes, we got to know these characters and to care for them, but it took a long time for that to happen and then it was like everything that had been built between the reader and the story was washed away. I also know that my voice is one small voice among the countless that are lauding this book. Yes, this is just my opinion, but I think a valid one. Leigh Bardugo created a world that I love and then diminished it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Backlog Bonanza, Crooked Kingdom, Darkling, Dregs, Duology, Grisha, GRRM, Heist, Leigh Bardugo, Ocean's Eleven, POV, Six of Crows, Stereotype, The Italian Job, Worldbuilding

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
Published by: Orbit
Publication Date: August 30th, 2016
Format: Paperback, 592 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Little does Julie Mao realize that when The Scopuli was taken it would sent in motion a chain of events that will forever change the solar system. Jim Holden and his crew make their living as ice miners. Their ship, The Canterbury, receives a distress call from The Scopuli and they go to investigate it. Holden, Naomi, Amos, Alex, and Shed board The Knight to go get a closer look. The Scopuli is derelict. No signs of any life. No signs of Julie. But Holden knows something is wrong, so they head back to The Knight and that's when The Canterbury is blown out of the sky. The Canterbury, the rest of their crew, gone in an instant, by what Holden assumes is a stealth ship belonging to Mars. In his rage at such senseless waste Holden broadcasts the destruction of The Canterbury to the whole solar system, not caring if this triggers a war between Earth and Mars. Not caring about any ramifications, just hoping for justice for the friends he lost. But Holden hasn't quite connected the dots. The five of them should have died on The Canterbury because whatever they found on The Scopuli is worth killing for. He's determined to find out exactly what it all means, damn the consequences.

Detective Miller has been taken off his usual beat on Ceres. His higher ups have given him the case of a missing girl to be investigated as a favor to her wealthy Lunar family. The girl is Julie Mao. She was a decorated pinnace pilot who gave it all up. She became active in politics and moved to Ceres and joined the OPA. The Outer Planets Alliance is a thorn in the side of Detective Miller, but a thorn he can deal with. He understands their desire to not be controlled by Earth. People on Earth can't comprehend what it's like out in the belt so why should they be allowed any say? Of course they're also the ones who call the OPA terrorists. But none of that matters to Miller, he is consumed with the disappearance of Julie. He might not be the best at his job, and he might drink a little too much, but he's also like a dog with a bone, he will figure out what happened to Julie, even after his boss demands he drop the case. But it's too late for Holden, he's a man possessed by Julie. He must find Julie even at the cost of his sanity. It's not long before he learns about The Scopuli and realizes that Holden might be the only one who can answer his questions. But when they finally meet at Eros Station things are much more complicated than either of them imagined and everything is about to change.

It's rare that I pick up a straight up science fiction book. Usually there's some kind of aspect that draws me to the book, a favorite author like Douglas Adams wrote it or it's Star Wars. So out and out science fiction usually gets pushed aside for books with more paranormal elements, thus pushing them into the fantasy end of the spectrum. Leviathan Wakes was actually a book that was thrown in the hat for book club and I can honestly say that when it arrived from Amazon it's heft made me a little hesitant to dive in. Yet I was quickly sucked in, even preaching to other members of my book club that it was a surprisingly fast read that overcomes it's flaws. Because Leviathan Wakes does suffer from a typical science fiction problem, it wants to be the pinnacle of science fiction and to that extent it incorporates so much of everything that has come before it's hard to really laud it on it's own merits. Yes, it stands on it's own, but so much is borrowed or re-interpreted that it's sometimes hard to let it stand alone. You can't help thinking what else it reminds you of. Here's a little Firefly, here's a little Battlestar Galactica, here's a little Doctor Who, here's a little Red Dwarf, here's a little Bladerunner. Each and every one of these instances pulls you out of the book. I can almost forgive Fred Johnson being Yaphet Kotto from Alien, but when Kaylee literally walks onto Holden's ship, well, that's a step too far.

Yet of ALL the references crammed in the most obvious is Bladerunner. Because Detective Miller is just Rick Deckard under another name and without the whole is he, isn't he a replicant controversy. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm just saying it's a thing. It's actually the Noir aspect of this book that is a little divisive, not the Bladerunner homage. And it's not among readers but among the story itself. It's hard to get a Noir story right. You have to have just the right amount of hard drinking, bitterness, and delusions, which Miller does have. But the problem is balancing Miller's plot with Holden's plot. While they do eventually connect and Holden's plot has a mystery at it's center, it is in no way Noir. And when the two storylines merge, the Noir aspect is sacrificed to the bigger storyline. So then why do it at all in the first place if you're going to eventually ditch it? I just feel that this dichotomy between the two narrators should have been thought out more in advance. Yes, it's good to have two very distinct narrators, but they shouldn't feel like they inhabit two different genres. A book needs to be some sort of cohesive whole to work and the styles of these two characters seem to be constantly fighting. In fact I wonder if perhaps this book was written more like the letter game, seeing as James S.A. Corey is actually two people. That might account for the two narrative styles being at such odds. They really needed an editor to fix this.

But then Leviathan Wakes needed an editor in general. There are long sections of the book that could have been excised and the story would have still have been successfully conveyed. This book clocks in at almost six hundred pages and probably two hundred pages could have been omitted. Two hundred pages of battles in spaceship corridors and hiding in spaceship corridors and just hanging in spaceship corridors. And the Amos/Alex thing should have been fixed, because their names are too similar. Oh, and internal monologues! Yes, I know Noir needs these, but as I've already said, the Noir was sacrificed so why not sacrifice a few of these monologues? Oh, and don't think the irony is lost on me that half of James S.A. Corey, the Ty Franck half, is the assistant to George R. R. Martin, an author known for mighty tomes that could use a little tightening up. The extra irony is that he claims he doesn't want to write like his boss... um, ok, so you've totally failed there. But where the editing could have really been used is in the space politics. Yes, I get that with the conflict between Mars and Earth politics have to be included, to an extent, but please, as I've said time and time again, don't bog down your book with politics I don't care about. Contain what needs to be contained and omit the rest. I get too much of regular politics, I don't need to add space politics to this as well. In fact this was a flaw that always grated on me with Battlestar Galactica, too much politics! There's only so much I can take and only so much needed. So bring on the editor!

Though the faults of the book don't take away from the fact that in the end it was still enjoyable and I look forward to reading Caliban's War. The reason for this is that James S.A. Corey has created a believable future. Sometimes when writers imagine the future and how our future will look like in outer space it's just ludicrously wrong. They think too big, too broad, too many aliens. Instead mankind has had about two hundred years in outer space and human genetics, language, and politics are shifting, but not radically, instead at a normal pace that we can see as possible. Outer planets resent the control exerted by Earth, we still can't go beyond our own galaxy to the far reaches of the universe. Mining the other planets for ice to have enough water is big business. These little things like survival and control are big concerns. As for humans themselves, it's interesting to read about what would hypothetically happen to people born outside the confines of gravity, known here as Belters. How it would effect not just their genetic makeup but how their bones would be effected. They are taller and thinner because of this lack of gravity. Reproduction is more difficult. They've developed sign language from the necessity of spacesuits, and therefore their own linguistic mutations with the Belter patois. They are also viewed as different and therefore racial tensions erupt. But this is all believable. This could happen. This might happen. This makes me really need to start the next book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alien, Backlog Bonanza, Belters, Bladerunner, BSG, Caliban's War, Deckard, Doctor Who, Firefly, GRRM, Holden, James S.A. Corey, Julie Mao, Kaylee, Leviathan Wakes, Miller, Noir, Outer Space, Red Dwarf, Science Fiction

After Alice by Gregory Maguire
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: October 27th, 2015
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From the multi-million-copy bestselling author of Wicked comes a magical new twist on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Lewis’s Carroll’s beloved classic.

When Alice toppled down the rabbit-hole 150 years ago, she found a Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rules and abrasive egos as the world she left behind. But what of that world? How did 1860s Oxford react to Alice’s disappearance?

In this brilliant work of fiction, Gregory Maguire turns his dazzling imagination to the question of underworlds, undergrounds, underpinnings—and understandings old and new, offering an inventive spin on Carroll’s enduring tale. Ada, a friend of Alice’s mentioned briefly in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is off to visit her friend, but arrives a moment too late—and tumbles down the rabbit-hole herself.

Ada brings to Wonderland her own imperfect apprehension of cause and effect as she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and see her safely home from this surreal world below the world. If Eurydice can ever be returned to the arms of Orpheus, or Lazarus can be raised from the tomb, perhaps Alice can be returned to life. Either way, everything that happens next is “After Alice.”"

While I liked Wicked, that was dealing with a source I didn't much care for... whereas Alice in Wonderland has a special place in my heart...

These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: October 27th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 496 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From Jennifer Donnelly, the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Northern Light and Revolution, comes a mystery about dark secrets, dirty truths, and the lengths to which people will go for love and revenge. For fans of Elizabeth George and Libba Bray, These Shallow Graves is the story of how much a young woman is willing to risk and lose in order to find the truth.

Jo Montfort is beautiful and rich, and soon—like all the girls in her class—she’ll graduate from finishing school and be married off to a wealthy bachelor. Which is the last thing she wants. Jo dreams of becoming a writer—a newspaper reporter like the trailblazing Nellie Bly.

Wild aspirations aside, Jo’s life seems perfect until tragedy strikes: her father is found dead. Charles Montfort shot himself while cleaning his pistol. One of New York City’s wealthiest men, he owned a newspaper and was a partner in a massive shipping firm, and Jo knows he was far too smart to clean a loaded gun.

The more Jo hears about her father’s death, the more something feels wrong. Suicide is the only logical explanation, and of course people have started talking, but Jo’s father would never have resorted to that. And then she meets Eddie—a young, smart, infuriatingly handsome reporter at her father’s newspaper—and it becomes all too clear how much she stands to lose if she keeps searching for the truth. But now it might be too late to stop.

The past never stays buried forever. Life is dirtier than Jo Montfort could ever have imagined, and this time the truth is the dirtiest part of all."

Come on, this sounds just fascinating! 

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: October 27th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The ultimate collector’s item for fans of the epic fantasy series that inspired HBO’s Game of Thrones—a gorgeous boxed set featuring conveniently sized, hand-holdable leather-cloth-bound editions of the first five novels!

An immersive entertainment experience unlike any other, A Song of Ice and Fire has earned George R. R. Martin—dubbed “the American Tolkien” by Time magazine—international acclaim and millions of loyal readers. Now the monumental saga gets the royal treatment it deserves, with each book wrapped in bound leather-cloth covers and packaged together in an elegant display case."

Personally, I'd wait till ALL the books are out, because they're just going to rebrand them again and again.

A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: October 27th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 592 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The unspoken secrets and buried lies of one family rise to the surface in Elizabeth George’s newest novel of crime, passion, and tragic history. As Inspector Thomas Lynley investigates the London angle of an ever more darkly disturbing case, his partner, Barbara Havers, is looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire and deceit.

The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind who will have to deal with its unintended consequences—could there be a link between the young man’s leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge?

After various issues with her department, Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself. So when a past encounter gives her a connection to the unsolved Cambridge murder, Barbara begs Thomas Lynley to let her pursue the crime, knowing one mistake could mean the end of her career.

Full of shocks, intensity, and suspense from the first page to the last, A Banquet of Consequences reveals both Lynley and Havers under mounting pressure to solve a case both complicated and deeply disturbing."

Yeah new Lynley!

Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante by Susan Elia Macneal
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: October 27th, 2015
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this latest riveting mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Elia MacNeal, England’s most daring spy, Maggie Hope, travels across the pond to America, where a looming scandal poses a grave threat to the White House and the Allied cause.

December 1941. Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, D.C., along with special agent Maggie Hope. Posing as his typist, she is accompanying the prime minister as he meets with President Roosevelt to negotiate the United States’ entry into World War II. When one of the First Lady’s aides is mysteriously murdered, Maggie is quickly drawn into Mrs. Roosevelt’s inner circle—as ER herself is implicated in the crime. Maggie knows she must keep the investigation quiet, so she employs her unparalleled skills at code breaking and espionage to figure out who would target Mrs. Roosevelt, and why. What Maggie uncovers is a shocking conspiracy that could jeopardize American support for the war and leave the fate of the world hanging dangerously in the balance."

I still have to start this series... I do have the first one around here somewhere...

The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith
Published by: Pantheon
Publication Date: October 27th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 224 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this latest installment of the beloved and best-selling series, Mma Ramotswe must contend with her greatest challenge yet—a vacation!

Business is slow at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, so slow in fact that for the first time in her estimable career Precious Ramotswe has reluctantly agreed to take a holiday. The promise of a week of uninterrupted peace is short-lived, however, when she meets a young boy named Samuel, a troublemaker who is himself in some trouble. Once she learns more about Samuel’s sad story, Mma Ramotswe feels compelled to step in and help him find his way out of a bad situation.

Despite this unexpected diversion, Mma Ramotswe still finds herself concerned about how the agency is faring in her absence. Her worries grow when she hears that Mma Makutsi is handling a new and rather complicated case. A well-respected Botswanan politician is up for a major public honor, and his reputation is now being called into question by his rivals. The man’s daughter has contacted the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency to investigate these troubling claims, but, as in so many cases, all is not as it seems. In the end, the investigation will affect everyone at the agency and will also serve as a reminder that ordinary human failings should be treated with a large helping of charity and compassion."

Because everyone needs an Alexander McCall Smith pick me up!

Shopaholic to the Rescue by Sophie Kinsella
Published by: The Dial Press
Publication Date: October 27th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"#1 New York Times bestselling author Sophie Kinsella returns with another laugh-out-loud Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) adventure: a hilarious road trip through the American West to Las Vegas.

Becky is on a major rescue mission! Her father has vanished from Los Angeles on a mysterious quest with her best friend’s husband. Becky’s mum is hysterical; her best friend, Suze, is desperate. Worse, Becky must tolerate an enemy along for the ride, who she’s convinced is up to no good.

Determined to get to the bottom of why her dad has disappeared, help Suze, contain Alicia, and reunite her fractured family, Becky knows she must marshal all her trademark ingenuity. The result: her most outrageous and daring plan yet!

But just when her family needs her more than ever, can Becky pull it off?"

Seriously!?! There's another one?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexander McCall Smith, Alice in Wonderland, Elizabeth George, Gregory Maguire, GRRM, Inspector Lynley, Jennifer Donnelly, Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella, Susan Elia MacNeal, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis
Published by: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: August 1st, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Kat isn't your typical girl. When her family is facing money problems due to her older brother's profligate ways, she decides to cut off her hair and run away to London to make her fortune and save her family. Never mind that the idea is more then a little ill conceived, her heart was in the right place. But her stepmother has a foolproof plan, and that's to marry off Kat's sister, and her eldest stepchild, Elissa, to the wealthy Sir Neville. This is something Kat and her other sister Angeline don't view as acceptable. Angeline has heard the rumors that he killed his first wife and despite what society thinks and how their stepmother would frown on her plan, Angeline decides to use magic to help them out of this hole.

The girl's real mother was a powerful magician, something that made her an eccentric outcast. Something that passed down to her children. Little does Angeline know as she's pouring over her mother's spellbooks, that it's Kat who has the real power. Kat is to inherit her mother's legacy and become a Guardian, under the tutelage of her mother's teacher, Mr. Gregson. Though once Kat learns all this she's having none of it. She's going to help her family and get on with her life, and that life isn't going to be complicated by a secret organization that she's uncertain of, even if that organization might help her with the Sir Neville problem.

For some reason I have found myself picking up a lot of middle grade books recently. Whether for my blog or my book club, I have read quite a few lately and been severely disappointed. Some people might say that I have high expectations seeing as these books where written with a younger audience in mind. But the truth is, as authors and readers, this is the age to hook kids. If I hadn't found Elizabeth Levy and her delightful "Something Queer Mysteries" series staring Jill, Gwen, and Fletcher, at this precise "middle grade" age, well, I highly doubt you'd be reading any book reviews written by me. So when reading middle grade books I try to read them not only as if current me is reading them, but as if that little ten year old me is too. I have to say, ten year old me would have loved the heck out of Kat, Incorrigible, and thirty something me really enjoyed it as well.

With re-reading, and also having previously read so many Regency books with a magical bent, I found it fascinating to find a book that tackled the idea of magic existing in that society in an entirely different way. From Susanna Clarke to Mary Robinette Kowal, magic is not only accepted, but viewed as an enhancement to life, used for the betterment of society from conflicts with the French to making your ballroom look spectacular for your yearly fete. Here Burgis has created a society that doesn't look kindly on magic, it is frowned upon. Magic is not something that anyone in polite society would deign to do. Therefore Angeline and later Kat doing magic is a societal no no.

The girls are reminded time and time again by their stepmother that their dearly departed mother was a freak for her magical abilities that she flaunted. Elissa, being a stickler for societal conventions, parrots the party line and her stepmother by adhering to this train of thought and lecturing her younger sisters on it as well. What this has done to society as a whole and is seen in the microcosm of the Stephenson household is that magic has moved underground. Magic is done in secret and is regulated by shadowy organizations but, despite the outward appearance of society, it is more widespread then you would think. Not only is there magic, but there is even distinctions in magic, from the lower witchcraft to the higher Guardian magic, which helps to secretly control all the magic.

At first I was wary of this "Guardian" magic. Yes, it's cool that, unlike witchcraft, it doesn't need spells and is more a force of will. The magic isn't what I was taking umbrage with, it was the fact that there was an Order, capital "O", that regulated everything. I don't know what it is that exactly raised my hackles, but I audibly sighed at yet another secret organization controlling a supernatural force. Seriously, how many secret organizations can one world hold? I know that this is more then a bit hypocritical of me seeing as I love shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Warehouse 13 and The Librarians that all revolve around this trope. In fact, Buffy could be a very good comparison with Mr. Gregson taking on the role of a Watcher... but for some reason I just wasn't willing to initially buy it and I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet, only time will tell. But I will say that as the book progressed it bothered me less and less, so that's something.

I think all the flaws started to fall away because of my love for Kat. She is seriously the most amazing, kick ass, witty heroine you could wish for. I don't joke when I say that literaryily speaking I think that her kindred spirit is Arya Stark from George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. They both have this take no prisoners attitude towards life. They both love and care for their family and will protect them above all others. They are confined by the strictures of their society until they start to slowly subvert them. I just adore that Kat is a heroine young (or young at heart) girls can look up to as someone real and amazing that doesn't follow any damsel in distress tropes and is willing to take down titled nobility with a good right hook.

But Kat alone wouldn't work without being surrounded by her sisters. Her sisters bring the book it's believability. They fill the pages with sisterly love but also sisterly strife. While I didn't have a sister growing up this book captures perfectly what I think it must be like, I can only extrapolate from having a brother after all. Her sisters and their affairs of the heart bring a madcap feel that makes the book transcend the typical middle grade fare and made Kat, Incorrigible a fun romp that felt like old time comedies and farces. I dare you to not fall headfirst for this book once the ball starts and the masked bandit appears. It is a situation that a young Jane Austen would have devoured as she herself was known to deftly skewer the literary tropes of her day in her earliest writing. Personally I can't wait to devour the next installment of Kat's adventures. Allons-y!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: A Most Improper Magic, Arya, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Elizabeth Levy, GRRM, Kat Incorrigible, Magic, Mary Robinette Kowal, Middle Grade, Regency, Regency Magic, Stephanie Burgis, Susanna Clarke, Witchcraft

City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments Book 2) by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: March 25th, 2008
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Clary's mom is still in a coma. But her mother isn't her only family anymore. Clary not only has an evil father planning world domination under the guise of the greater good, but a brother in Jace, whom she was starting to fall for, luckily they found out about their shared genes in time, no matter how much they wish it wasn't true. Jace and Clary being the offspring of Valentine has caused quite a stir among the Shadowhunters. Because Clary is new to this "other" world she is basically ignored by the Clave, but Jace... Jace isn't getting off that easy. Until Jace can prove his past ignorance of his lineage and that all his motives where for the good of the Clave he is to be locked up by the Silent Brothers.

While he is detained awaiting his "trial" by the sacred Soul-Sword that will know if he is telling the truth, his father Valentine arrives at the Silent City and massacres the Brothers and steals the sword, the second of the Mortal Instruments. Even if Jace wasn't under suspicion because of his father and being at the scene of another crime, he'd want to get to the bottom of this because it's in his blood as a Shadowhunter to protect the world from the downworlders. Downworlders who are flocking to Valentine as he uses the sword to call them to his side. Can Jace, Clary, and the younger Shadowhunters work secretly for the good of all without being accused of ulterior motives?

I'm sure you've all experienced this phenomena. You're reading a book, it's good bordering on great and because of some reason you set it down. It could be work, it could be prior commitments, it could even be another book you've been dying to read and it has finally come out and you can't wait another minute to start it. But you set down your book and when you pick it back up the magic is gone. There's a part of you that's thinking, it's not the book, it's me, the common refrain of all breakups. You try to make it work, but no matter how hard you try you can't reconnect.

The book is now a chore to read and you're just pushing through, trying to finish, all the while wondering what happened. This happened with me and City of Ashes. In the beginning I was flying through it, surprised by how much I was enjoying it after the first book was, well, wasn't up to my high expectations. I was even able to forgive Clare's habit of unbelievable predictability. She's so heavy handed with the foreshadowing that it's laughable. She telegraphs every punch so that there is no surprise when the blow falls. But I was ok with all this and then I wasn't.

I am not sure if it was the superiority of writing and worldbuilding of the book I forsook City of Ashes for or just that City of Ashes had reached it's apex and was quickly declining, but we irrevocably had a falling out. Yes, it was my mistake to set down this book, because who knows if I would have grown to dislike it as much as I did. I have an inkling that I would, and that inkling is Jace. I hate Jace with the fury of ten thousand suns. He is an unlikable arrogant ass. What's the refrain all good writers should abide by, show don't tell. Having all the characters say that Jace isn't really all that bad doesn't counteract the douchebaggery he's perpetrating on every single page. He's not a misunderstood misanthrope, he's a dick. An unrepentant ass isn't ever going to be a good hero or even an antihero, they're just going to be always an ass. And in this case an ass surrounded by a whole lot of flat two dimensional characters.

But what I despise about Jace is that he's basically the love interest. I was relieved when at the end of the first book that it turned out Jace and Clary are siblings because then Clare could drop this stupid budding love affair. Of course, I can see that they are somehow going to miraculously not be related just so they can get it on, and that is where the book tipped for me, when Jace was brought back as the taboo love of Clary. By having Jace, all be it temporarily, not the love interest I became interested in the book. Clare quickly cured me of all I liked, hence I think our breakup was inevitable.

So about this love. Let's say that Jace and Clary are related and there's no deus ex machina waiting in the wings to make their love acceptable, then we're in familiar literary trope territory, incest! Man, authors love incest, consensual, non consensual, startling revelation, secretive, scandalous, fabulously camp, it's out there from Flowers in the Attic to Game of Thrones to Veronica Mars to Arrested Development. And, it's just overdone already people. Using it as a shocking plot device over and over makes it lose it's shock value.

I could spend hours sitting here just listing all the books I've read or shows I've watched where this was supposed to be a big icky reveal and instead had me rolling my eyes going, oh please, not again. Donna Tartt, Diane Setterfield, Charlaine Harris, George R R Martin have all pulled this and have desensitized me to this trope once and for all. THE ONLY way this trope would have helped this book would have been to permanently part Jace and Clary on the romantic level, but that's not happening, so just, cut it out, ok, it's bad that I just got Dave Coulier from Full House in my head just then... but that's the level this trope has reached... bad and tacky 80s comedian level.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arrested Development, Cassandra Clare, Charlaine Harris, City of Ashes, Diane Setterfield, Donna Tartt, Flowers in the Attic, Full House, Games of Thrones, GRRM, Incest, Jace, Mortal Instruments, Veronica Mars

Middlemarch by George Eliot
Published by: Modern Library
Publication Date: 1871
Format: Hardcover, 799 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition then one reviewed)

"When I told my much-beloved little sister that I was going to write a book about a young Victorian woman who married a much older antiquarian and then finds him not at all who she thought him to be, there was a pause, followed by, “So, basically, you’re writing Middlemarch.”

Have I mentioned how much I love my little sister?

I will admit, I did have Dorothea and Casaubon on the brain, as well as Effie and Ruskin, when Imogen and her husband Arthur popped into my head. (That’s what my characters do: they pop. I don’t make them up piece by piece. They come to me fully formed, and then I have to figure them out as I’m writing about them.) But that’s pretty much the extent of the overlap between the two stories.

If you’re going to read Middlemarch, parcel out a long period of time and make a big pot of tea. Because you’re not going to want to stop once you start. Dorothea’s unhappy marriage to Casaubon is just the beginning…." - Lauren Willig

Ah, to be young and idealistic. Dorothea Brooke longs for nothing more then to marry an intelligent man and help him in his great work, like Milton's daughters, but with less complaining. She thinks she finds that man in the much older Edward Casaubon and they are wed. Tertius Lydgate is a young doctor who has bought a practice in Middlemarch and has such visions for the new fever hospital and a life of study and medical advancement. Instead he is beguiled by the young Rosamund Vincy and they are wed. Rosamund's brother Fred has hopes of a large inheritance and the hand of the humble Mary Garth, despite his family's objections to Mary, though they all cling to the thought of the inheritance because Fred doesn't seem that interested in a career. Another young idealist uncertain of where life will take him is Will Ladislaw, the cousin of Casaubon. But after meeting his cousin's young wife he feels that his life will take him wherever Dorothea is. All these young idealists, all these young hearts with dreams and ambitions shall be tried by fire and be thwarted in one way or another as they try to live their lives in Middlemarch.

Back in 1996 a costume drama made the biggest splash stateside since Upstairs, Downstairs. I'm of course talking about Pride and Prejudice. While a wet shirt might have changed the fusty notions that are attached to period pieces, it also made a household name of the show's writer, Andrew Davies. Andrew Davies became the go-to screenwriter to adapt 19th century novels into miniseries. Emma, Vanity Fair, Wives and Daughters, The Way We Live Now, Daniel Deronda, He Knew He Was Right, Bleak House, The Diary of a Nobody, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Little Dorrit, have all been adapted by his fair pen. But the fact is Colin Firth isn't the first Firth to brood sexily and shoot pool in an Andrew Davies adaptation. That honor belongs to Colin's younger brother Jonathan, as the gambling Fred Vincy in Middlemarch. We often forget how hard it was to see shows that had previously aired in this current age of streaming and YouTube. Even in the early days of DVDs you had to wait months after they were available to rent in order for them to be affordable to buy. Pride and Prejudice had stoked my interest in costume drama and Andrew Davies was the go-to guy, so obviously I had to get my hands on Middlemarch. With a region free DVD player and an Amazon UK account I was able to achieve my ends.

The adaptation was long and it didn't satisfy any need in me and actually made me want to read the book more. Of course with the length of my to be read pile it isn't any wonder that it took me almost two decades to get to it. I can see what frustrated me in the miniseries because it frustrated me in the book. Middlemarch has an almost unwieldy cast and Eliot has a way of overwriting that makes it very hard to connect. But unlike a miniseries which only has six hours to win us over, with almost 800 pages Eliot is able to build her narrative so that by the end you are so invested in the characters lives that if she hadn't written that little "finale" you would have wept tears of frustration. As for her overwriting and meandering habits to pad chapters with so much information that doesn't build on the plot to insane degrees, I can actually forgive her. The reason being that every once in awhile there is such an insightful line or comment that gives you a clear beam of light shining down from on high that you just want to shout "Yes, a million times yes!" There is also the fact that over time Eliot tends to pontificate less and less focusing more on the plot and the interaction of the characters. I also wonder if the fact that the novel was published in serialized form might have something do to with this shift. By writing in this way I'm sure she was able to gauge what her readers wanted and tweak the novel more to their tastes, and to mine.

What struck me most forcefully about Middlemarch is that while this book was written 142 years ago it is still so relevant in it's issues that it's eerie. With this "study of provincial life" Eliot taps into the universality of people everywhere. Jealousy, money problems, medical advancement, xenophobia, misunderstandings, misconceptions, thwarted ambitions, atonement, all these issues and more are handled in such a way that you, as the reader, connect with a similar incident in your life. The one thing I really connected with was an interesting aspect of Lydgate's practice which caused much stir in the town among his prospective patients. Unlike other Doctors, Lydgate didn't deal with prescriptions for medication cutting out the middle man. It is unclear among the villagers if this is from a lack of knowledge or a lack of self interest, because Doctors could make more money if they cut out the pharmacist, as it were. But it seems to me more that Lydgate, with his newfangled ideology and research believed more in the idea that under most circumstances the body can heal itself and therefore doesn't need drugs. This rang so true to what Doctors say nowadays. Of course, when you now go to the Doctor it's more they're worried that if they proscribe something when they don't need to that you will develop an immunity to the drug that will later cause problems when you truly do need drugs. How many times have I been on the losing end of that argument that I needed drugs for a sinus infection and they told me no? The answer is too many to count... so I have a feeling that if I did reside in Middlemarch, Lydgate just might not be my Doctor because of how many times I then ended up in Urgent Care getting the meds my Doctor was hesitant to proscribe.

But this little meditation of Lydgate's habits only touches on one aspect of one character in a book with enough characters to almost give George R.R. Martin a run for his money. With this many characters, of course you are going to have your favorites, those you love, those you hate, and of course, those you love to hate. But what I found so interesting is that I had sympathy for all the characters, even those I didn't like. In books I usually never root for the antihero. If a character is unlikeable, that's it, we're done, the book and me will not be able to reconcile our differences. But the way in how this community was made up and how each life touched and influenced the other it's like a house of cards or a train of dominoes, you can't pick and choose, everyone is in it together and everyone is therefore needing of our sympathy. While Dorothea is the most obvious character to have feelings for, with her thwarted ambitions in her marriage and then the impositions placed on her by her husband's will, I was even worried about Bulstrode. I worried about a man who, in his past, had dubious dealings which came back to haunt him and I was perfectly happy for him to get away with murder if he could. The lives that Middlemarch is teaming with all need each other and form a perfect view of what provincial life was and how aspects of human nature transcend the generations. This is a must human novel indeed.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: 19th Century, Andrew Davies, Casaubon, Colin Firth, Doctors, Dorothea, DVD, Effie, George Eliot, GRRM, Jonathan Firth, Lauren Willig, Lydgate, Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Ruskin, That Summer, This Summer

This summer George R R Martin is back in the news for FINALLY writing the 5th installment of his epic of Westeros, A Song of Fire and Ice. I remember a day back in November of 2006 when he said, oh, six months tops... six long years later... but back to that day six years ago. So, freak that I am, I preordered the book from Amazon UK, because the book was coming out a few weeks earlier. I had it shipped to my friend Jess in New York because I was going to be visiting her at the time, plus, quicker to ship to New York than Wisconsin. I lugged that book from New York to DC and through Ohio. I read it on trains and buses and in cars. I read and read and read so that I would be ready for his talk when he came to Madison in November. Ironically, his talk was spoiler free, so, there goes all that planning for nothing, but at least I could say how much I loved the book right? So, on the day of the signing little did I know that they where handing out numbers starting at 8AM. In I walk for the 7PM talk around 5. Thinking, oh, this is great, I'll be all early and get a low number. Low number ha! First off, my friend who was going to go with me was sick, so I was on my lonesome. Then I had to pick up his book for him so that I could get MY book signed (I don't think he's ever paid me to this day). And then I realized, wow, no chairs. I stood in the B section of the YA books overlooking the podium. Good place as places go, but... no chair. I remember idly flipping through Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty. I think once Martin finally took the floor he did a reading, I really don't remember much of the talk. I remember him going into detail about how to correctly pronounce the characters names, but other than that... I seem to have completely blanked on everything else he said.

But, then again, I could have completely blanked because it was a short talk followed by hours of waiting. While not at the very end, I didn't get my book signed till at least 11PM. I spent my time studying a book called the GRE for Dummies because I was thinking of going back to Grad school to be an art appraiser and auctioneer for Christie's in New York and needed to take the GRE, which I did the next month. But Martin was very nice, he signed my book with the token "Enjoy the Feast" and it was commented on how I couldn't wait, hence the British edition. So, in the end, not the most fun of talks, but again, an author that has become even bigger and having a personalized book with a wait that is nothing compared to his current signings, it was a good day.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: A Feast for Crows, A Great and Terrible Beauty, A Song of Fire and Ice, Borders, Christie's, GRE, GRRM, Libba Bray