I’ve previously read and loved the
Winston Brothers series by Penny Reid, so I jumped to download this box set
when it was offered for free a while ago. It contains books 1 and 1.5 from her
Knitting in the City series, three follow-up novellas with the same characters,
and a couple of preview chapters from Reid’s other books. So it’s well worth
the expense, even if you pay for it.
The first book, Neanderthal Seeks Human,
introduces the main couple, Janie and Quinn, plus all the other characters in
the series, a group of women that belong to a same knitting group in Chicago.
It’s a fun and not entirely typical romance. Reid has a great knack with writing
characters that tend towards unique way of thinking and regarding the world
with understanding and love, and making the other characters accept them just
the way they are.
Janie is a math-wizard with a habit of
collecting data and blurting it out in stressful situations with absolutely
zero filters. Sometimes they relate to the situation, but most of the time the
workings of her brain baffle people around her. Quinn is different though and
he finds her mind fascinating. A great basis for their romance.
Quinn is a head of a private security
firm and insanely wealthy. He becomes Janie’s boss, but for the better part of
the book she has no idea of it and believes him to be a regular security guard—a plot-line that dragged on a bit too long. The Neanderthal
mentioned in the title is Janie, who sees herself as one, because she’s larger
than other people with an odd mind. It’s not until the second book that we
really learn the reason for her habit. It’s an emotional coping mechanism she’s
learned in childhood to deal with physically and emotionally absent parents.
It’s a good book, but long. Really
long. According to the author’s own notes, it’s over a hundred thousand words,
which is about twenty thousand more than a regular romance novel. It would be
fine, if there were side plots to fill the pages, but it’s really just the two
of them working towards the happily ever after. There are several side
characters introduced, but despite the length of the book(s), they remain
distant and two-dimensional. Some of them get their own books later in the
series, but Steve the co-worker would’ve deserved a better treatment than he
got.
The second book, which is marked as an
in-between novel, is equally long. Neanderthal Marries Human starts with Quinn
proposing to Janie and then follows the subsequent wedding planning. The actual
plans are in the side-lines though. It’s more about family bonds and healing.
Quinn has been cast out by his family, so Janie sees the wedding as an
opportunity to bring them back together, and maybe gain a family that she’s
never really had. It’s sweet and touching at times, but—again—really long.
The three short stories at least live
up to their name. First one is about the honeymoon, where Janie decides to rid
the tropical island of invasive toad species, much to Quinn’s bemusement.
The other two are about Janie getting pregnant and the latter stages of her
pregnancy. I haven’t read the other books in the series, so I don’t know if the
child is ever born during the course of it, but that might be an amusing story
too.
All in all, this was an entertaining
package. However, I don’t feel the need to follow it up by reading the rest of
the series, with maybe the exception of the last book that has Quinn’s best
friend as the hero. I liked him. But there’s a Winston Brothers spin-off coming
soon with Cletus as the main character. I’ll definitely read that.
It’s been three weeks since I updated this blog the last
time, so this is going to be a long post of everything I’ve read since.
I’m not sure why I bother reviewing Nalini Singh’s books
anymore. They’re all great. Five stars. Even if the plot in some is slightly
thinner than in others, she has the amazing ability to write unabashedly
emotional characters who manage to convey their emotions straight to reader’s
heart. Alpha Night is no exception.
It’s the fourth book in the Psy-Changeling spin-off series
called Psy-Changeling Trinity. It’s again set in Russia, this time with a wolf
pack there. Selenka is the alpha of the pack and Ethan is a damaged Arrow (as
if there were any other kind). The book starts with a mating bond forming
between the two at the first sight, and takes the romance from there. Obstacles
on their path rise from Ethan’s mental damage that can only lead to death, on
top of which the enemies of Selenka’s pack move in on them. And then there’s
the larger plot of the psy-net unravelling, which may lead to the death of the
entire psy-race. There are high emotions and a great reward at the end. All in
all, a perfect romance novel.
The Graveyard Shift by Darynda Jones
It’s not the only book I’ve read since my last blog post. Darynda
Jones published a short romance set in her Charley Davidson world. The Graveyard Shift takes place a few years after the final book in the series and
features Garrett Swopes, a PI friend of Charley’s who has one task: keep
Charley and Rey’s daughter safe. And then she disappears. Out of options, he
seeks help from the mother of his son, whom he resents for various reasons.
It’s an opportunity for a second chance romance for them. However, the book is
curiously thin on romance—though there’s of
course a happily ever after ending. The main focus is on Beep, the daughter,
and what happens to her during her absence. Basically, the book sets up the
next phase in the series. So, even if the romance is a bit dull, the book is
essential reading for anyone who wants to keep reading the series.
The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole
The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole is a delightful love story between two people who are both recovering from an
accident that has affected their memories, but with a twist—revealed in the title—that
one of them is a biomechanical human, basically a replicant from Blade Runner.
It’s set in somewhat dark future, after WW3. America is run by an organisation
called Hive that controls people, or at least its employees with AIs, robots
and fear. The focus is on the love story though, emphasised by the fact that
the two never leave the apartment complex where they live. There’s a mystery
unfolding on the background that upends both their lives when its revealed,
done well-enough that I never even suspected it. Quite a lot was left
unexplained in the end though, so I assume there will be a series focusing on
other characters mentioned in this book. I’d read them.
Firelight by Kristen Callihan
Firelight by Kristen Callihan was a
disappointing historical fantasy romance that I gave only three stars
to. Two people with curses they want to keep hidden from the world and each
other fall in love and then have to save the world from the Big Bad. There was
a bit too much artificially forced secrecy between the two, and the falling in
love seemed to happen outside the narrative and was simply given to the reader,
but the plot was interesting and the solution to the curse was unique. I liked
Archer and Miranda, didn’t instantly guess who the baddy was—or why—and approved the way the day
was saved in the end, but the narrative dragged and the outside threat to the
couple never felt immediate. The main character of the next book was introduced
in this one, but I didn’t like him and I probably won’t read his story.
Changeling by Molly Harper
Another historical fantasy I read is
Changeling by Molly Harper. It’s a delightful middle grade story of a servant
girl who learns she can do magic in a society sharply divided to haves and have
nots based on their ability with magic. It has everything such a book needs: a
rags to riches story, adventure, making new friends in a boarding school for
witches, and even a little romance. Sarah/Cassandra is a good-hearted girl who
learns to survive in her new reality with the help of a magical book and her
two new friends. I’ll definitely read the next book too.
Elven Doom by Lindsay Buroker
On top of these romances I read Elven Doom by Lindsay Buroker, a fourth book in the Death Before Dragons urban
fantasy series. It’s yet another solid four star book from her: action packed,
funny and romantic. Val and Zav’s romance should’ve moved to a new level, but
things are ruined by Zav’s sister. Also the dark elves are ready to destroy the
world. The book has a slight wrapping-things-up feel to it despite leaving
much unsolved, but I hope this isn’t the last we hear from these characters.
Things are just getting interesting. I also read a collection of short
stories and scenes written from Zav’s point of view called The Forbidden Ground,
which was a nice addition to the series. I’m not sure if it’s on sale yet, as
it was a newsletter gift from the author to her readers.
These books were joined by three I
received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. And, honestly, two of
them weren’t anywhere near being published yet. Calypso’s Heart by M.C. Solaris
resulted in my first ever one star review on Goodreads (I usually never write a
review if it’s going to be that bad) based on the eight chapters I managed to
read before giving up in rage. Paradise Rising by P.G. Shriver got two stars,
but only because I actually finished it. Into the Black was a fairly
interesting sci-fi mystery/romance I gave three stars to. Nothing terribly
wrong with that one, but it failed to properly engage my interest. You can read
my Goodreads reviews by clicking the name of the book.
All in all, a busy and interesting
month of reading. NetGalley has definitely broadened my reading habits with
books that I might not otherwise choose to read. If I’m not always happy with
them, I at least learn a lot from them for my own writing. And that can only be
a good thing.
Second Chance Angel by Griffin Barber and Kacey Ezell
Second Change Angel is a sci-fi mystery set in somewhere in
space, somewhen in the future. Full disclosure: one, I received a free copy
from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, and two, I stopped reading
around the 70% mark and didn’t finish it.
Second Change Angel is one of those unfortunate books that don’t
give the reader any roadmap to work on when it comes to characters, time and
space—and space. I put the latter in twice, because apparently
it takes place in a space station, though we only get a confirmation of that
when the main character leaves the place. Until then, we could’ve been on a
random planet or a moon just as well.
Time is somewhere in the future after a devastating war with
an alien race that has blown up the earth. The war was apparently long, but the
earth has been gone for only seven years. Does this upset the remaining humans?
No, it doesn’t. Maybe they’re too far removed from the home planet already.
Maybe the human race has spread so far that the loss of the planet doesn’t
matter. I don’t know, because I don’t know where we are in relation to the
earth and how long ago humans have left it. Space travel is sort of fast, and
although it depends on tricks like slingshots around a sun and using a planet’s gravitational
force for deceleration, I got the notion that we’re far, far from our solar
system.
Place is a space station that seems to be built to accommodate
humans, though not by humans, if I got that right. The place is so poorly
described that all I have are weird, confusing and frustrating impressions that
don’t really make any sense when put together. The place is apparently huge,
because people travel by vehicles. It’s built on one level, with very tall
houses rising from it, so that the ceiling has to be high, but it’s also
curving. The ceiling is apparently non-transparent, because the place is
artificially lit. But despite all this, there is only one level below ground?
How does that even work?
Characters are the greatest weakness. There are four point
of view characters, three of which are AIs. That was why I initially chose the
book, having read and loved books like Murderbot Diaries where the AI tries to
cope among humanity, but remains essential alien to it. Unfortunately that wasn’t
what I got.
The AIs are very human-like with emotions and petty
grievances, and inability to concentrate on more than one task at the time. They
are gendered and very stereotypically at that. LEO, a male, is a law
enforcement AI and SARA, a female, a station administrative AI. Both behave
according to their assumed gender as well. The station AIs have their own
mystery plot unfolding concerning a virus or some such that cause their emotions
and prevent them from correcting the malfunction. They also provide a bird’s
eye view on some characters, so that we learn more than just the main character’s
point of view.
The main AI character is a personal AI called Angel.
Developed for soldiers, personal AIs are mainly supposed to enhance their users’
physical and mental abilities during the battle, but the war is over and the
AIs remain. Angel belongs to a former special ops soldier Siren who works as a
lounge singer in a seedy bar. She goes missing and somehow Angel ends up in the
body of another former soldier who has had his AI removed as a disciplinary measure.
Angel is a female and behaves like one to get her way with
her new host, like making him feel like he’s being caressed by her. She’s manipulative and doesn’t hesitate to take over the host’s
body when she feels like it with no regard to his right to govern his body—nor is that philosophical question brought up in
the narrative. She sulks and is in general a great nuisance and a very annoying
character. As an AI, she’s a failure. As a narrator, she’s really difficult to
follow, because she wavers between I, we, and he when she describes the actions
of the body she inhabits.
The only human character is Muck, the former soldier whose
body Angel invades—uninvited, I might add. We don’t
learn anything about him initially, and titbits about his past spring up only
when the plot so requires. For example, he needs a rescue on a desert and it so
happens that the religious order that saves him is the one he grew up in.
Wouldn’t that have made a great starting point for building his character? How
does a man who grows up with an order who shuns AI technology end up becoming
an AI enhanced soldier? Maybe the answer is given at the end of the book, but I
didn’t get that far. At some point Angel also informs him that the memory he
has of the events that led to his disgrace are altered. It’s a meaningless
titbit at that particular point, but maybe all is revealed in the end—and hopefully it links with the overall plot
somehow too. I don’t know. What I know is that it would’ve been more meaningful
if Muck had even remotely suspected it earlier.
All in all, Muck is a spineless character in a thug’s body
who is pushed this way and that by Angel. He’s seemingly in lead of the
investigation that Angel forces him to do, but that’s about the only thing that
distinguishes him in any way.
What about the plot then? Siren goes missing without the
knowledge of her AI who somehow gets booted off her body and ends up in Muck’s,
so she forces him to investigate the disappearance. Do they start by
investigating who might have the technological skills to remove an AI? No, they
go after the biggest drug baron. Do they search the most obvious places for her,
like the station itself? No, they head off the station to a planet the drug
baron directs them to. Do they find her there? No.
This is where I stopped reading, by the way. The events so
far had been so illogical and stupid and filled with out of the blue attacks
and pointless detours, like getting weapons from an arms dealer Muck then never
even uses before they get blown up. The secondary plot with the station AIs
about the virus infecting them might have been more interesting, but they were
so annoying characters that I couldn’t really care.
The task of making sense of the plot wasn’t made any easier
by the narrative that was mostly dialogue between talking heads. Most of the
time there was no indication about who was talking—not
a single ‘he said, she said’, or even the occasional action beat of ‘she smiled’,
‘he nodded’—so that I had to actually count
the exchanges to figure out who was saying what. This was made infinitely more difficult
by the file I received from NetGalley that was dismally formatted, with
paragraphs that either had no indents or had indents in the middle of the sentence,
and dialogues that bled together in endless rows.
So, all in all, a disappointing experience. Why, then, did I
give it three stars? I don’t know. It had some draw that kept me reading
despite the difficulties, like the struggle with PTSD Muck and Siren originally
dealt with—though that was soon forgotten—and really imaginative aliens—who
were all criminals, by the way. And who knows, maybe it redeems itself in the
end. I couldn’t make myself finish the book, but I don’t want to rob others the
chance to find out by giving the book only two stars. If it improves, let me
know.
The book description promised an alternate Victorian London
where angels rule and everyone lives in a constant fear of one of them falling,
which would be like “a nuclear bomb in both the physical and metaphysical
worlds”. Seldom has a book description been so off. What I got was a Sherlock Holmes retelling. I don’t like retellings
and Sherlock Holmes retellings are the most tired of them all. If I’d known it
was one, I probably would’ve skipped this, no matter how much I like the
author.
This is basically a collection of Holmes’ most famous cases
bound together with a superficial plot about Jack the Ripper—a case Holmes famously never tackled. There were
some minor changes, but none of them made the stories truly fresh. The newness,
therefore, rests solely on the world-building.
It’s an alternate Victorian London with everything. There
are both steampunk elements, like airships and automatons, and all manner of
supernatural creatures from vampires and werewolves to ghosts and hellhounds.
And angels. There are three kinds of angels: those bound to a building and thus
worthy of a name, the Nameless who wander about without a mind and purpose of
their own, and the Fallen who are vicious creatures who kill and inflict
supernatural diseases. We actually never meet the latter.
Holmes is an angel called Crow. He is different from other
angels because he is not bound to a building, but isn’t a Nameless or a Fallen
either—a fact that the author didn’t
fully explain until about midway to the book, which left me constantly baffled
with people’s reactions to him. He likes to solve crimes, and he is very good at
deductive reasoning. Unlike Holmes, he doesn’t have any vices—he doesn’t even eat—or
irritating habits, and he is actually very endearing in his constant awe of
humanity.
Dr Watson is Dr Doyle who has survived an attack by a Fallen
in Afghanistan and is suffering from the consequences, which will lead to a
metamorphosis. Since the actual flavour of the change is kept as a secret for a
while, I’ll discuss it in the spoiler section at the end of the post. It plays
some role in solving the cases; perhaps the only worthwhile alteration the
author has made to the stories. The good doctor has another secret too, even
more tightly guarded. Considering the importance given to it, I would’ve wished
it actually had some sort of impact—it definitely would’ve
opened the story to a whole new level—but
it was glossed over and life went on like it didn’t even exist. More about that
in the spoiler section.
Considering the interesting world the author has created, it
seems criminal that she’s wasted it on Sherlock Holmes. The angels had a
fascinating society that could’ve formed a basis to a completely unique plot,
and Crow had such an interesting backstory that he could’ve carried a book on
that alone. The alterations don’t even really influence the original stories.
It wasn’t until midway to the book that they started to have any effect on the
cases, and the suspects remained ordinary humans in pretty much all of them.
This being said, I found the book interesting enough to keep
reading. I even gave it four stars. The author has recreated the atmosphere of
Conan-Doyle’s originals well, the narrative style works and never wavers, and I
liked both Crow and Dr Doyle. If there’s ever a follow-up, I hope the author
goes to town with the world and gives the two a proper plot and a unique story.
And now to the spoilers.
***
You have been warned.
The first spoiler concerns what Dr Doyle is changing into. A
hellhound. It’s a somewhat helpful change, as it gives Doyle an ability to
smell both natural and supernatural traces. It also allows the author to play
with the story of the Hound of Baskerville and add fresh scenes about them trying to
find a cure for it with Crow. In the end, it allows the doctor to find Jack the
Ripper too. However, it reveals the secret to the police who rush in to arrest
Doyle, as unregistered creatures are illegal—though
the author fails to explain why this is.
Being a hellhound is surprisingly easy for Doyle. There’s
some pain and some shame, but at no point in the narrative does the doctor
mourn or berate the change. The author is too tied with the original Holmes
stories to give room to such ruminations. And just when the story got
interesting, a deus ex machina allows the doctor to remain free.
The other secret is bigger and an even greater wasted
opportunity for the author. At the mid-point of the book, out of the blue—there are literally no hints whatsoever—it turns out, that Dr Doyle is in fact a woman. I’d
say my mind was blown, and it kind of was, but it would’ve made a greater
impact if it had been at least hinted at.
And it would’ve mattered more, if this new reality had been
incorporated into the story somehow. But life goes on like before. We don’t
learn why Dr Doyle pretends to be a man. Is it for purely practical reasons, as
it’s the only way she can practice medicine? Or does she in fact identify as a
man? She seems to be attracted to women, but then nothing comes of that. And how
does it work? She’s spent decades as a military doctor on campaigns and no one
even guessed until she ended up in hospital after being attacked by the Fallen
angel. Does she have a naturally manly body? A low voice? And what about the
periods? How does she deal with them? So many questions and not a single answer
given. So I don’t understand why the author felt necessary to make such a
change. Being a hellhound was bad enough for the poor doctor. Why did he need
to be inflicted with being a woman too?
The Eternity of Masks and Shadows by Karsten Knight
I picked This Eternity of Masks and Shadows from NetGalley
based on the description that promised an urban fantasy mystery with gods. In a
way, that’s what I got. In other ways, it was nothing like that.
The book is set in an alternate world where all the gods of
all the mythologies in the world live as humans among the general population,
with some supernatural abilities based on their mythology, but with a limited
lifespan. Once they die, they reincarnate with no memory of their past lives
and sometimes with no idea they are gods. A group of gods living around Boston
start dying, presumably by their own hand. One of them is an Inuit goddess of
sea. Her daughter, Cairn, believes her mother was murdered and wants to find
out the truth.
Even though the setting is basic UF—supernatural
elements in modern world and a mystery that is solved by an outsider
investigator—the execution is nothing like
your typical urban fantasy. For one, it lacked the energy and immediacy of
urban fantasy. Instead, the narrative is lingering and dreamlike with not much world
building, the point of view is very distant third person that offer only a superficial
insight into the characters’ minds, and it relies heavily on telling, not
showing. And worst of all, it has no humour whatsoever. In the afterword, the
author mentions superheroes as one of the inspirations. Going with that notion,
this book is the dark, no-laughs, no self-irony DC world of superheroes, not
the more upbeat Marvel with humour and the ability to laugh at themselves.
It’s not a bad book though. The mystery is interesting and
told in two timelines, the present and twenty years earlier. There are enough
surprises that the main baddie isn’t obvious until the great revelation. The
pacing is slightly off however; there are two climatic scenes at sixty and
eighty percent mark that both could’ve led to the end, but the book continues
on to the final showdown. And then it goes on some more. At the eighty percent
mark I wasn’t invested in the outcome anymore, mostly because of the distancing
narrative that failed to make me care about the characters and their fate, but I read
on.
The main weakness of the book was its characters. I didn’t
care for any of them. Cairn as a grieving daughter was initially interesting,
but the reader learns nothing about her during the story. She is a person who
has been formed by events before the book starts, and that’s all the reader
gets. She doesn’t grow, she doesn’t change and she doesn’t get any sort of catharsis
from avenging her mother. The supporting cast was a collection of cardboard cut-outs.
I had great hopes for Nook, a grumpy polar bear detective. For the first third
of the book when he and Cairn investigated together, there was some proper interaction between them, but then they were separated for most of
the book. Yet at the end the reader was supposed to believe they had grown fond
of each other. Then there were the victims. I didn’t care for any of them. Just
because they met gruesome deaths wasn’t enough to feel for them, when I hadn’t
learned anything about them that would’ve make me sympathise with them. For most part, they were very unlikeable characters.
The most annoying, perhaps, was Cairn’s relationship with
Delphine. Urban fantasy often has some sort of romantic element in the
background that doesn’t dominate solving the main mystery, but which adds spice
to interactions between characters. Not so here. The book starts with their
romance, but it had already had its great formative moments before
the book begins. Then it’s just a series of on-again off-again events that
doesn’t make the reader believe that either of them cares for the other, let
alone loves. One of the climaxes depends on the reader caring for their
relationship, but it was just the same for me what would happen. Basically, I
began to root for both of them to die.
All in all, this was a mixed read for me. The mystery was
satisfying, the rest of it not so much. There was some setting-up for a series
at the end, but I doubt I’d read more of this.
