White Feathers, Crimson Leaves by Josh Reynolds: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

White Feathers, Crimson Leaves by Josh Reynolds

White Feathers, Crimson Leaves is set in Rokugan, East-Asia inspired Legend of the Five Rings game world. I enjoyed Reynolds’ previous tie-in series, Daidoji Shin mysteries, so I was eager to read his return to Rokugan. The book is horror instead of mystery, with different characters and setting, and while I miss Daidoji Shin and his investigations in the city of the Rich Frog, I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying this book.

Wardmaster Yogo Shuko is in her late thirties, a brusque and straightforward member of Scorpion clan who has spent all her life banishing ghosts and breaking curses. With her is her apprentice, Kuni Tansho, a witch hunter in her early twenties. She’s from the Crab clan and has a different approach to investigations than her teacher. The women don’t really get along, but they won’t let that stop them from doing their job.

They’ve come to the mountains of Unicorn clan, into a backwater village of Red Grove, where a curse has been killing the people of the lord who has recently taken over the village. For Shuko, it’s a straightforward case of break the curse and be on your way. Tansho wants to find out why the curse was cast in the first place and by whom. While they are fairly sure the oppressed villagers who somehow escape the curse are responsible, they also sympathise with them. But the truth turns out to be something completely different.

This was a fast-paced, no frills, mild horror mystery that relied heavily on Japanese folk horror stories and creatures. It focused tightly on the case at hand. We don’t really learn anything about the main characters, both with their point of view chapters, more than that they’re powerful practitioners, and their inner workings aren’t important for the story. Neither of them has the charm and wit of Daidoji Shin and his stalwart bodyguard Kasami, and it took me a while to warm up to them, but they got there in the end. The setting didn’t have the cultural richness of Rich Frog, and as such, the remote village could’ve belonged to any fantasy world. Clan politics and the cultures of Rokugan didn’t feature.

Nevertheless, I was invested in learning who was behind the curse, and how Shuko would break it. It had some hair-raising moments, but it wasn’t terribly scary and I wasn’t entirely emotionally invested in the characters and their fates. If I compare it to a similar Five Rings book, The Night Parade of 100 Demons by Marie Brennan, where a priest and aristocrat fight evil spirits in a mountain village, it falls a bit short. Like with Daidoji Shin mysteries, the ending isn’t so much about justice and bringing the guilty party to face the law as it is about comeuppance, but it’s satisfying. I don’t know if this is a stand-alone story or a start of a new series, but I’d read more.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Somewhat Wicked Witch of Brigandale by C.M. Waggoner: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

The Somewhat Wicked Witch of Brigandale by C. M. Waggoner

I’ve liked everything by C.M. Waggoner I’ve read. Her books are cozy, worlds are unique, inclusive, and interesting, and the plots are meaningful and not too easy. Cozy doesn’t mean no stakes or no bad things happening. Everything is simply presented in a low-tension way. This book was no exception.

Gretsella has been the witch of reasonable prices in the forest of Brigandale for decades, dealing in charms and curses—like coughing during classical music concerts—tending to her poisonous plants and attending her coven of equally qualified witches. One day, she finds a baby on her doorstep. She knows, as there are knights ruining her garden, that the boy is special. She takes him in anyway and names him Bradley. Her witch friends grant him good looks, charm, kindness and a mean right hook.

Bradley grows up to be exactly as wished, but he’s not terribly bright. Gretsella loves him anyway, not that she would be caught dead admitting it. But, as tends to happen, forest animals tell him he’s the rightful king, and against her wishes, he sets out to take the throne. He’s successful. Unfortunately, he’s not a very good king, mostly for being too kind. What is a witch/mother to do but to go to the king’s castle and set things right, the only way a witch does things—her way.

This was an absolutely charming book, well-written and witty. It’s low stakes, low tension, but not meaningless cozy fantasy, with great characters that have a good heart—even Gretsella. Waggoner’s characters are never twee, and despite the cozy genre, they’re not perfectly good with only good things happening to them. Between chapters there’s another story of another witch, and though the side-steps break the flow of the story constantly, they’re always short and necessary additions. The ending is happy and conclusive, with everyone getting what they want, even if it doesn’t happen exactly the way they imagined it would. It leaves the reader happy and satisfied with the time spent with the book. I’m looking forward to reading more books from Waggoner.

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews

I’ve seldom read Ilona Andrews, but the moment this book hit my radar, I wanted to read it. It’s in isekai genre, which has been popular in East-Asia for decades, but which has been making its way to western fantasy only in recent years.

In isekai, a person from our world is transported to a fantasy world, an alternate reality, game or, like here, into a world of a book the protagonist has been reading. They often bring something unique from the original world that gives them an edge in the new world. In this book, the protagonist has an encyclopaedic knowledge of her favourite book, knows exactly what’s going to happen, and sets out to change the future.

Maggie has woken up in a ditch in a strange medieval city without clothes and no idea how she’s ended up there. She’s had a couple of days to adjust when the book begins, so she’s already figured out the pertinent: she’s in the world of her favourite book she’s been reading obsessively for the past decade. She also knows what isekai is and understands that she’s been transported. She doesn’t remember dying, which is often a requirement in isekai, but she knows she’s her original self and hasn’t taken the body and life of an existing character in the book. It’s a cruel and violent world where her favourite characters are more likely to die than not, and she knows it’s headed to a violent and bloody upheaval.

She sets out to survive. She needs money and shelter, and she knows where to find both. The first requires a robbery which she has no compunctions committing. It leads to a stunning discovery: she can’t die, hence the series name, Maggie the Undying. Or rather, she dies and comes back to life a little later unharmed. The world doesn’t reset when that happens, like often in isekai, and she’s able to continue with what she’s gained.

Once she has her basic needs met, she starts making little changes in the lives of her favourite characters. Little changes lead to large ones and before she knows it, she’s leading a group of people determined to prevent the bad future from happening. She utilises the intimate knowledge she’s gained from the point of view characters, and trades in secrets to win people on her side. It isn’t smooth sailing, but with some sacrifices—usually her—they get to their goal. And then it turns out the goal isn’t what they thought, because there are only two books in the series with the third never published. Maggie doesn’t know how the story ends.

This was a great book. It’s told solely from Maggie’s first-person point of view and utilises the tropes of isekai well. She knows what’s at stake, knows the players, and is aware that with every change she makes, the future changes beyond her knowledge of it. She gathers a found family around her, mostly by being nice and helping them, which in the book’s cruel world is unheard of. Her allies are capable and loyal, the mysteries are suitably complicated but not impossible, the twists are good, and bad guys are perfectly evil. The love interest is straight from a fantasy. The narrative flows well, the pacing is good, and the plot keeps in its grip. The ending is the worst kind of cliffhanger, and I hope this series won’t have the fate of Maggie’s favourite book.

My only gripe is that since Maggie knows she’s in a book, she narrates what she’s supposed to feel—fear, love, lust—instead of feeling it. It distances the reader from the emotions, making it difficult to enter into her sentiments. The romance especially suffers from this. The reader knows why Maggie thinks she should find him attractive—although she wasn’t attracted to him in the book—but we’re never shown the attraction and love she feels. There’s no quickening of her pulse, no flushes of heat, or sweating of her palms when he’s around or kissing her, only analysing narrative. So, while I root for the pair, I think I might be fine if they never ended up together. But this isn’t a romance first and foremost, so I can live with that.

These Shattered Spires by Cassidy Ellis Salter: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

These Shattered Spires by Cassidy Ellis Salter

These Shattered Spires is the author’s debut novel and it’s wonderfully well-formed and mature for one. It’s not an easy read and it doesn’t aim to be one. It’s also not YA, despite the publisher advertising it as such. The main characters may be in their late teens, but the themes aren’t YA and the characters don’t behave or think of themselves as people on the cusp of adulthood. They’re survivors who know they’ll die at any moment. The atmosphere reminds me of Gormenghast, and the world that of Gideon the Ninth.

It’s seldom that a book stands so firmly on its unique world, but here it’s almost its own character. Fourspires Castle is the whole world to its residents. It has always existed at the brink of destruction by a daily apocalypse that has to be stopped with spells every morning by the four head arcanists that inhabit its four towers: black, red, green and grey, corresponding with the magic they wield: bone, blood, botany, and stone. Even with this ceaseless spellcasting, the castle slowly sinks and rots, disappearing piece by piece, diminishing the world. The rot and decay of the castle is described vividly, down to smells and tastes.

The fifth castle at the centre is occupied by the Thaumaturge, the most powerful of the arcanists. He’s centuries old, and his position is coveted by all the arcanists. Then the unthinkable happens and he’s assassinated, which triggers a battle for succession among the arcanists, the Slaughter. It’s a race to the top of the fifth tower, and as the name suggests, deadly, especially so for the familiars of the arcanists.

The familiars are humans trained to wrest, to pull arcania to power the arcanists spells. It’s incredibly painful for them and wears them out bodily. They’re treated badly (they’re not allowed to speak, they’re barely fed, and sleep on floors and filth) and used until they die, usually very young.

The main point of view characters are familiars of different disciplines. Tarenteeno (Taro) is the familiar of the bone arcanist; Nixeen (Nixie), the familiar of the botany arcanist; Elliot, the familiar of a lesser blood arcanist, and Alis/Alix, a disgraced stone familiar. Taro and Nixie have been plotting an escape, but the death of the Thaumaturge ruins their plans. The familiars are instantly marked as participants of the Slaughter and to escape is to die. To participate is to die too, because the new Thaumaturge will instantly kill all familiars but their own.

However, Taro and Nixie learn that the permanent apocalypse of their world isn’t the natural state of things and that there might be a way to stop it and flee. They can’t do it alone though, so they talk the other two into taking part. It’s not an easy alliance or an easy task to pull off, but neither is the Slaughter.

The relationships of the four are complicated. They’ve all trained at the same time in the Pit, the academy for familiars. Taro and Nixie used to date, and Taro still thinks they’re romantically involved. Nixie hates her guts for a betrayal, but is using Taro to escape. Alis used to be Nixie’s best friend before Taro showed up, so she hates Taro, but she also hates Nixie for leaving her. But she loves her too. Elliot is the odd man out, but seems to be coveted and hated in equal measures by the others for his looks.

The characters aren’t nice or easy to root for. They’re selfish and brought down by their harsh life. Elliot is suffering from a curse that makes him especially irritable, Alis is having a gender crisis, Nixie is filled with hate, and Taro isn’t entirely sane. They ally and betray each other, sometimes within the same chapter, and none of them is very likeable. But little by little, reader becomes attached to them, which isn’t wise when people casually and constantly die.

This isn’t an easy book to read. There is pain and suffering inflicted on the main characters, blood and gore, broken body parts and death. It’s not a splatter though, the narrative doesn’t dwell on the gory details, or even a grimdark as such. Suffering is a natural part of the characters’ lives and the narrative treats it so naturally that the reader doesn’t even blink an eye when a character cuts into their own flesh to power a spell. Nonetheless, it does make this a heavy read, and I had to pace myself a lot.

But there is also an undercurrent of hope for something better, an escape that is worth all the pain. This current carried the story against all odds and the harsh reality. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it plunged the characters even deeper.

A countdown to the Slaughter at the beginning of every chapter keeps the tension rising as the four try to break the curse. And then it begins—and turns out to be something completely different from what everyone believed, as is the end of the curse. For a first book in a trilogy, the ending is fairly conclusive. It sets the stage for the next book, but the story can be left here as well. I’d read more though.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Entwined by H.M. Long: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Entwined by H. M. Long

Entwined is set in a secondary world that resembles the early 20th century with its technology, with two kinds of people: humans and Entwined, people genetically capable of magic who aren’t considered human. The Entwined used to rule Harrow where the events take place, but after a revolution of sorts, humans are now in charge and it means trouble for the Entwined that humans hate. Only the Entwined bound to the Guild can operate freely. But the Guild is a gilded cage that’s not for everyone.

Ottilie is an Entwined who has escaped the Guild. The Guild forces marriages between the Entwined in order to produce offspring capable of magic, and she and her pretend fiancé, Lewis, have fled to avoid it. She’s hiding under a false name from both the Guild and humans in Harrow. She works as a secretary to a private investigator, saving money to flee the country to where Lewis is waiting. He’s a goal to work towards, and maybe a crush she doesn’t want to admit.

Ottilie’s boss has unearthed an artefact a client wants, which should bring in so much money that Ottilie can finally leave. But before the transaction is complete, both the artefact and her boss disappear. The client wants the artefact back and since Ottilie is the only one left, she’s forced to find it. She has a good notion who took it: her sister Pretoria, who has also left the Guild, and become a thief.

The artefact isn’t the only thing bringing Ottilie trouble. Humans are turning against the Entwined and it’s getting more difficult to hide what she is. Human zealots and Entwined terrorists are clashing and creating political upheaval, it could be that the artefact she has to find is a key to destroying the Entwined for good, and man she’s interested in might be a terrorist. On top of this, her other sister shows up too, and she wants to take Ottilie back to the Guild. Things soon get out of hands and Ottilie finds herself in the middle of events she has no way out of.

This was an interesting first book in a duology. The magic powered by different lights (sun, moon, twilight etc.) was unique, and the political situation was complex. It was a bit too complex, to be honest, and I found it confusing a lot of time. The narrative was rich and pulled the reader into the world and the magic effortlessly. The story was a bit slow though, and not as engaging as the events would merit.

The narrative is from Ottilie’s POV. She’s a good character with a lot of baggage, but not as compelling as, for example, Hessa with her rage in Long’s Four Pillars series. I couldn’t quite fathom why she’d come to Harrow where she knew she’d be trapped and why she hadn’t left sooner, as she had the money for it. Many of the events just happened to her and she accepted everything. Her waffling between suitors was very characteristic. It wasn’t until the end that she took a stance and even then, others made the decisions. The side characters, especially the sisters, had good backstories too, but the reader didn’t have similar insight into them as Ottilie, though the epilogue gave a good glimpse.

The book ends at a natural turning point, setting the stage for the second book. Good though this was, the storyline I was most interested in concluded here and nothing particularly compels me to read more. I’m not sure I’ll read the conclusion.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.