strange and random happenstance

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Imprint
Publication Date: March 30th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 608 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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The time for diplomacy is at an end, the time for war is nigh. But Nikolai, the too-cleaver fox, is never one to limit his options, so why not do both? Why not enter marriage negotiations with the Shu while stealing vital materials from the Kerch? Why not give the Kerch what they want while secretly allying Ravka with Novyi Zem? Why not have secret agents working in the heart of Fjerda while your general becomes a dragon? Why not negotiate with the greatest evil ever while trying to stop the west from seceding? He will try everything and anything to save his country, even leave it if that is what's best. Because once his country knows about the darkness within him, he's sure they will turn on him and jump at the chance to have a real Lantsov on the throne. And the Fjerdans have proof he's not a Lantsov as well as a few true Lantsovs laying about. But he's more worried about his people learning that the Darkling has returned, and not just that, but that he escaped and his powers have returned. That's not something to be taken lightly. But this is Ravka, nothing goes according to plan and a win is almost unheard of. Yet through Queen Makhi's own machinations she might have overreached and inadvertently set Shu Han onto the path of aiding Ravka. But it will take exposing her to her own family and hoping they do the right thing. As for what they are doing with regards to Fjerda? Nina is now ensconced in the household of the head of the Drüskelle, a man she has been dreaming of killing since she was a young student at the Little Palace. So while seeing him among the living gives her no joy, the fact that she's stealing his secrets and passing them onto Nikolai brings her great joy. She is also trying to seed a groundswell of religious fervor for Grisha by making Fjerdans view them not as demons but as the favored children of their God, Djel. Though she, like Nikolai, might have to choose between her heart and her homeland. But what's a little sacrafice for the greater good of their people?

And so the Grishaverse comes to a close until the inevitable third book in the Six of Crows series. Rule of Wolves has some problematic end of series issues, mainly the tropes of killing off someone vital and getting all the characters together for one last hurrah. Alina, really!?! You're smarter than this. But as you reach the last few pages the pros outweigh the cons and you realize just how much you're going to miss this world and the characters you've grown to love. And surprisingly I've grown to love Zoya. She has developed the most over time from an out and out bitch to a fearless leader, who I can't help but relate to. I also kind of want to give her a huge but I know neither of us would enjoy that. We're both to prickly. I also can't help thinking Zoya was written in such a way to make up for George R.R. Martin's failure to Daenerys Targaryen, but maybe that's just me. But despite a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the day I still have this feeling that the crucial question posited by the book wasn't answered. It's all about the old world and Grisha versus the new world and war machines. It's like progress is the way of the future but one dragon comes along and progress grinds to a halt. So is Bardugo saying that myth and modernization can live side by side or not? I feel like maybe even she doesn't know. And this leads to my least favorite aspect of the book, war and weaponry. Yes, the drums were heard for a long time now and I knew the reckoning was coming, but I just felt there was too much hand-wringing with regard to building bigger bombs. It's like with the creation of jurda parem, if the technology exists someone will create it, so someone will create these bombs therefore it should be the good guys right? It all felt too heavy-handed with all the allusions to WWII and the creation of nuclear weapons. The whole "what have we wrought" of it all got to be too repetitive and boring. Yes, the question needs to be raised, but so many times? It was like a broken record. State your objections, move on, and maybe bother to answer the bigger question; the dragon of it all.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bardugo Bash, Daenerys Targaryen, Dragon, Duology, Fjerda, Grisha, GRRM, Jurda Parem, Kerch, King of Scars, Leigh Bardugo, Myth, Ravka, Rule of Wolves, Shu Han, Six of Crows, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction, WWII, Zoya

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Imprint
Publication Date: January 29th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Nikolai thought the darkness within him was gone like the Shadow Fold. But it has returned. When he falls asleep the monster awakens. He's been lucky so far in that those in his closest counsel have been able to locate and restrain him before he has done any real damage. No one has died. Yet. He is fearful that that day is quickly coming. But Ravka is his primary concern. The country is broke and war is looming. Again. Plus there are murmurs, rumors about saints and miracles. When Nikolai looks at a timeline of the so-called miracles he realizes that they started when the monster within awakened. This can't be a coincidence. What's more, the Darkling now has followers petitioning the crown to legitimize him as the Starless Saint. The eager monk Yuri brings evidence forward that all the miracles are converging on the very spot the Darkling died. Therefore that is where Nikolai must go. Taking Zoya, Tamar, and Tolya, they are ostensibly touring the miracle sites, but they are on a mission to purge Nikolai of his darkness. Something that seems possible according to ancient texts, but it must be kept a closely guarded secret. Ravka is weak and this will be an opportunity for their enemies to lash out. Which is why they have invited all their enemies to a giant party as a way for Nikolai to stabilize the country's finances through a political marriage. Something he does not want to do, but realizes must be done. The only problem is it looks like he's going to miss the biggest party of the year as he comes face to face with real saints. Can his friends and counselors keep the country going in his absence? Only time will tell. And one of his friends is far from home. Nina is undercover in Fjerda. She is rescuing persecuted Grisha and getting them to Ravka, for their own safety and also to help rebuild the Second Army after the bloodbath the Darkling unleashed on them. Only Nina's parem altered powers tap into a dark and dangerous game the Fjerdans are playing with their captured Grisha. They have long experimented on them but what Nina discovers changes everything. Including her own mission. Will her work be able to help Nikolai if he's lucky enough to survive the darkness? Who knows.

I won't say that King of Scars let me down, I feel about it the same way I felt about the Six of Crows duology when I first read it, I'll love it in time but on my first reading there were things that annoyed me. Things that I will now forever be forewarned about. I have to learn to embrace the new characters and the way the old characters have matured. When I first read Six of Crows the only two characters I felt a connection with were Nina and Matthias. Of course I love them all now, but for me Nina and Matthias's relationship makes a plot development in this book a bit of a sticking point for me. That point is Hanne. Leigh is setting up Hanne to be Nina's new love interest. OK, fine. I don't have a problem with this because Nina is young and I knew she'd eventually find love again. Here's the part I DO have a problem with, the eventually being so soon. This seems to diminish Nina and Matthias's love for each other. Here's Nina burying his corpse and oh look at that attractive young novitiate on a horse, I'm good to go! WHAT!?! NO! I know they are young, but does that mean their hearts heal that fast? This just took so much away from my enjoyment of the book that I can't even begin to say how much. Two books of Nina and Matthias fighting for their love and fighting against their love and it's just gone. I know some people will say that dragging his corpse around the countryside for a long time and then finally burying him is mourning followed by closure, but TOO DAMN SOON is all I have to say. I don't like unnecessary change. Like look at Nikolai, his personality change, from dashing rogue to haunted leader, while I didn't like it it made sense because he has changed from the darkness within and from the burdens placed on him. And as for that darkness...well...I really have a thing about vanquished enemies returning from the grave. It's a cop out. It doesn't matter how loved or loathed they were because it's just a stupid trope. I always think of the end scene in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Buffy vs. Dracula" where she just sticks around to repeatedly slay him quipping: "You think I don't watch your movies? You always come back." Yeah, stop coming back!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bardugo Bash, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy vs. Dracula, Dracula, Fjerda, Grisha, Grishaverse, Hanne, King of Scars, Leigh Bardugo, Matthias, Nikolai, Nina, Ravka, Saints, Six of Crows, Starless Saint, The Darkling

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: September 27th, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 560 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Jan Van Eck has to pay. Not just for breaking a contract with Kaz and his crew but for kidnapping Inej. Therefore he must pay in a way he will understand. It's not just the money at stake anymore, it's Van Eck's entire life. His reputation, his wife, his legacy. Everything must be destroyed. Brick by brick. And if Kaz and his crew happen to get rich in the process, well, it's only proper. But the problem is Van Eck's version of what went down has made Kaz and company targets and they've had to go to ground. It isn't safe for them to walk about the city, let alone their beloved Barrel. They are wanted and this makes every plan put in motion that much more complicated because extra precautions have to be taken. Despite Van Eck trying to keep the real reason for the falling out under wraps this is Ketterdam and nothing can remain a secret for long when people are willing to pay good money for it. So the whole world knows that jurda parem exists and that the inventor is in Ketterdam. This means the Shu, the Fjerdans, and the Ravkans, have all sent delegations overtly and secretly to the city. But of those delegations only the Ravkans have a pure intention with regard to Kuwei Yul-Bo. He is Grisha, he is one of them, and they will make sure he is safe. But Kaz isn't ready to just hand over such a valuable asset. He went to a lot of trouble to break Kuwei out of the Ice Court and he lost his Wraith in the process, so he's not about to let go of his asset so easily. But first Kaz needs his Wraith. Which means dealing with Van Eck. Which means knowing how that man thinks and being one step ahead of him. After that, well, brick by brick Van Eck's life will fall. But things never run smoothly...Nina is still in withdrawal from jurda parem and her Grisha powers are acting oddly, Mattias is worried sick about Nina, Wylan has learned his life is a lie, Jesper's dad has shown up in Ketterdam, and Kaz, well, Kaz is just Kaz...It will be a miracle if they pull this off, but they've been known to do the impossible before.

Crooked Kingdom picks up right after the betrayal of mercher Jan Van Eck in Six of Crows and is a headlong rush to the finish, some five-hundred pages later. That level of intensity is hard to bear for that prolonged a period, making it a book that's hard to put down but it's something that needs to be done because you just have to catch your breath every once in awhile. The first time I read this book the pace and plot twists were just too much for me. What I reveled in in Six of Crows were the quieter, more emotional moments, not those requiring a serial killer like board to follow all Kaz's schemes. But so much has already been revealed about our characters in the previous volume it's up to Wylan Van Eck to carry the weight this time around, and luckily he's up to the challenge. Seeing his life and the more rarefied world in which he lived gives further dept to Ketterdam as a whole. We see the city come alive like never before. It doesn't hurt that instead of haring off to Fjerda the entire narrative is contained within the city. And I really appreciated the city more. I recently read The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, and I really connected to Amsterdam and how that political microcosm of merchants worked. While that book let me down it added to my reading experience with Crooked Kingdom, once again proving that even a book you don't like has value. I felt Ketterdam come alive, a city that is Amsterdam at it's heart with just a dash of New Orleans as it's flash. So it might seem odd that I'm saying read the book for the location, but really the location in this instance is just another character, and this book lives and dies by it's characters. And yes, someone dies. In fact, Matthias's death might have been the predominate reason this book pissed me off the first time around. I ship Nina and Matthias so much it is painful. The way Leigh describes Matthias dying in Nina's arms is almost too much to bear. So while I can complain about this or that with regard to this book there is such an emotional wallop at the end that if you are prepared for it you will forgive every flaw that came before and just marvel at the fact you were so moved by a story.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Amsterdam, Bardugo Bash, Crooked Kingdom, Fjerda, Grisha, Ice Court, Inej, Jessie Burton, Jurda Parem, Kaz, Ketterdam, Leigh Bardugo, Matthias, New Orleans, Ravka, Revenge, Shu Han, Six of Crows, The Miniaturist

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 morphs 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 can make them fly, literally, but it makes the user an addict after one dose. Afraid of what he has created Bo Yul-Bayur 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 mercher 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 Kaz 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. The improbability and complexity of their plan could go wrong at a million different places, yet 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 can they trust Van Eck?

When I first read Ocean's Eleven: Ketterdam, or is that Ocean's Six, or even Kaz's Six, hmm, I really have to think this through more...but anyway, when I first read Six of Crows I didn't love it. I felt that in the end the biggest letdown is that Six of Crows just shows us the futility of striving for a better life. 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 that's why they had to fail, because this is a duology. The plot couldn't be wrapped up nice and neat with them walking out of the Barrel millionaires after one book. And for some reason I couldn't accept that at the time. I was annoyed by this ending that opened up the story wider versus locking it down. So what changed between me reading this book back in 2015 and me reading it now? Well, that's twofold. One reason is I've already read the sequel so I know where this is going and therefore could appreciate this book for what it was versus bitching about what it wasn't. The other reason is that I am currently so immersed in the Grishaverse I can take my time to appreciate the characters. I do love these characters so much. In fact I didn't realize how much until I took the book down off the shelf and devoured almost a hundred pages in my first sitting. I was waiting each and every day, biding my time until I could read again. And this is a book where I know what happens and still it kept me on the edge of my seat and staying up way too late. But most importantly, I really can't wait to see who shows up in Nikolai's duology! Yes, those are the books I haven't read yet but I felt the need to reread everything that came before before allowing myself that luxury. I really can't wait!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bardugo Bash, Drüskelle, Fjerda, Grisha, Grishaverse, Heist, Ice Court, Inej, Jesper, Jurda Parem, Kaz Brekker, Kerch, Ketterdam, Leigh Bardugo, Nikolai, Nina, Ocean's Eleven, Six of Crows, The Italian Job, Wylan

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: September 27th, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 560 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties. A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets―a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world."

Anyone else think duologies are cool because you don't have to wait as long for the full story? Just me?

A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev
Published by: Kensington
Publication Date: September 27th, 2016
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Dr. Nikhil 'Nic' Joshi had it all—marriage, career, purpose. Until, while working for Doctors Without Borders in a Mumbai slum, his wife, Jen, discovered a black market organ transplant ring. Before she could expose the truth, Jen was killed.

Two years after the tragedy, Nic is a cruise ship doctor who spends his days treating seasickness and sunburn and his nights in a boozy haze. On one of those blurry evenings on deck, Nic meets a woman who makes a startling claim: she received Jen’s heart in a transplant and has a message for him. Nic wants to discount Jess Koirala’s story as absurd, but there’s something about her reckless desperation that resonates despite his doubts.

Jess has spent years working her way out of a nightmarish life in Calcutta and into a respectable Bollywood dance troupe. Now she faces losing the one thing that matters—her young son, Joy. She needs to uncover the secrets Jen risked everything for; but the unforeseen bond that results between her and Nic is both a lifeline and a perilous complication.

Delving beyond the surface of modern Indian-American life, acclaimed author Sonali Dev’s page-turning novel is both riveting and emotionally rewarding—an extraordinary story of human connection, bravery, and hope."

I got to see Sonali speak at an event back in February that I went to for Lauren Willig and have been meaning to pick up one of Sonali's books since then. Actually I would have gotten one at the event, but really rude booksellers tend to put you off. But now there's this shiny new book that looks really good. Can not wait.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Change of Heart, Crooked Kingdom, Duologies, Lauren Willig, Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows, Sonali Dev, Tuesday Tomorrow

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

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

The official patter:
"Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price--and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge.

A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.

A runaway with a privileged past.

A spy known as the Wraith.

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction--if they don't kill each other first."

If there was one author whose work I fell in love with last year it was Leigh Bardugo. I have been counting down the days (literally) till I'd get my hands on this new book!

The Doldrums by Nicholas Gannon
Published by: Greenwillow Books
Publication Date: September 29th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 3868 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Have you ever wanted to hold a little piece of the impossible? Lavishly illustrated in full color, The Doldrums is an extraordinary debut about friendship, imagination, and the yearning for adventure from author-artist Nicholas Gannon. A modern classic in the making, The Doldrums is for readers of inventive and timeless authors such as Brian Selznick and Lemony Snicket.

Archer B. Helmsley wants an adventure. No, he needs an adventure. His grandparents were famous explorers . . . until they got stuck on an iceberg. Now Archer's mother barely lets him out of the house. As if that would stop a true Helmsley. Archer enlists Adelaide—the girl who, according to rumor, lost her leg to a crocodile—and Oliver—the boy next door—to help him rescue his grandparents. The Doldrums whisks us off on an adventure full of sly humor, incredible detail, and enormous heart.

With approximately twenty pieces of breathtaking full-color artwork, as well as black-and-white spot illustrations, and gorgeous, literary writing, Nicholas Gannon proves himself to be a distinctive new voice with his middle grade debut. Be in it for the limitless imagination. For the characters who capture your heart. For the rich world you'll want to settle into. But most of all, be in it for the friendship. That, after all, is the true adventure."

Yes, this is cover lust pure and simple. Seriously. Look at the work of art!

The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut's Widlass by Jim Butcher
Published by: Roc
Publication Date: September 29th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 640 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Jim Butcher, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Dresden Files and the Codex Alera novels, conjures up a new series set in a fantastic world of noble families, steam-powered technology, and magic-wielding warriors…

Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace.

Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship, Predator. Fiercely loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy’s shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels. But when the Predator is severely damaged in combat, leaving captain and crew grounded, Grimm is offered a proposition from the Spirearch of Albion—to join a team of agents on a vital mission in exchange for fully restoring Predator to its fighting glory.

And even as Grimm undertakes this dangerous task, he will learn that the conflict between the Spires is merely a premonition of things to come. Humanity’s ancient enemy, silent for more than ten thousand years, has begun to stir once more. And death will follow in its wake…"

Jim Butcher going all Steampunk? I approve.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Jim Butcher, Leigh Bardugo, Nicholas Gannon, Six of Crows, The Aeronaut's Windlass, The Cinder Spires, The Doldrums, Tuesday Tomorrow