D.N.Angel New Edition, Vol. 3 by Yukiru Sugisaki: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

D.N.Angel New Edition vol. 3 by Yukiru Sugisaki

Third volume of this new omnibus edition consists of two stories. First, the latter part of Stage 2 (vols. 6-11), where Dark gets lost in the mirror world. Daisuke goes after him, and the only way to rescue him is to find the feathers of his memories. It’s a bit hasty, confusing sequence, but Daisuke succeeds in the end. He also learns that he likes having Dark around, and wonders what will happen when he’ll eventually leave for good.

The story takes place in the holiday island where the class has travelled. Riku is still missing, so Daisuke goes to find her. Everything should be romantic, but he shies off confessing to her, mostly because of misunderstandings, and because he kind of fears she’ll like him back, which would mean Dark would go away. So Dark takes matters into his own hand.

Another confusing sequence of events follows, where Krad manifests and he and Dark fight. We learn that the magic of Krad and Dark is too much for the hosts and it corrodes the hosts until there’s nothing left, the reason there’s a limit to how long one can host them. Only, it seems Krad doesn’t care, which is why Hiwatari is always sickly.

The second story is called The Second Hand of Time, and we get the first part of it (vols. 1-4). Daisuke’s class stages a play and decides to have an all-male cast. Daisuke is chosen to play the female lead and Hiwatari is the male lead. In a confusing twist of events, a new boy (man) shows up in the class and declares himself as the producer. He changes the classic love story so that the male character is Dark, played by Hiwatari.

Turns out, the man is really after proof that Daisuke is Dark. But Daisuke manages to trick him with the help of Wiz and leave, as Dark, to steal a legendary item, The Second Hand of Time. But things go wrong for him, and he, as Daisuke, gets sucked into a dreamworld, while Dark remains in the real world. Dark goes after him, accidentally taking Riku with him. The volume ends with Hiwatari launching his own operation. But is it to save Daisuke or end him and Dark for good?

This was a great volume, even if it was a tad confusing at times. Both Daisuke’s romance with Riku, and his friendship with Hiwatari progress. I still believe that the latter is more meaningful for them both; Daisuke prevents Dark from ending Krad, because it would mean the end of Hiwatari too. The romance with Riku is childish (though in all fairness, they’re 14) and exists for trope’s sake. But I won’t be getting my wish for a BL story here.

There was a longer extra story about Risa and Riku’s childhood, and like before, excellent full colour character plates.

Full colour character plate of Hiwatari.

 

Hiwatari as Dark for the play.

 

An Unruly Summon: Volume 1 by Cathfach: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

An Unruly Summon by Cathfach

An Unruly Summon is a fun subversion of the isekai genre. A country at war with demons is in a desperate need of a hero summoned from another world. But they’ve summoned heroes before and things haven’t gone well. Heroes don’t have a cause to fight, their unlimited magic causes trouble, they have strange ideas about slavery being bad, and they always want to invent soy sauce.

King and his council come up with a plan to carefully curate what the hero sees after summoning, so that he’ll help voluntarily. They even gather a harem for him, so that he doesn’t have to do it himself, because that always ends up happening. And they promise to send him back if he doesn’t want to stay.

The plan works well. Thomas is summoned, and unlike so often, knows immediately what is going on. What he sees and learns makes him agree to help the country. He even turns out to be extremely powerful with magic. He learns complicated spells instantly and spells he hasn’t been taught yet. Only problems are that he tends to overuse his mana and pass out, and a dragon haunts him in his dreams, trying to kill him. Oh, and Thomas has no interest in his harem, because he has a girlfriend at home where he intends to return.

Things take a bit of a turn when Thomas learns about having been led. But since the demons are a real threat, the plan remains the same. And then it’s time for the battle. Thomas faces a massive horde of demons and kills them all with a powerful spell. Problem is, demons aren’t the only things it kills. But the hero’s job is done, and it’s time to go home.

This was a good, entertaining read. It was the First Prize winner in the first-ever J-Novel Club Original LN Contest, and I’m sure it deserved to be. Thomas was a good hero, the girls had a role other than bedfellows, because he didn’t want them in his bed, and bad guys weren’t the obvious people.

It was much too long though. The bulk of the book’s almost 400 pages—massive for a light novel—is taken by Thomas’s training. He doesn’t learn about being led until beyond half-point, and the battles don’t take place until 75% mark, after which everything is crammed in a small space. This could’ve been cut to a half of its length and the story would’ve remained the same. Epilogue sets the stage for the next volume, but the events of this one conclude here. I don’t need to read more.

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

Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews

Burn for Me starts Hidden Legacy UF series. I picked it at random for a quick summer read having been in a bit of a reading slump, and it worked perfectly for it. It’s ‘old-school’ urban fantasy from over a decade ago when UF still had heroines who weren’t afraid to stand their ground and who didn’t fall on their back when the hero so much as glance at their way. Sex and romance are something that is worked towards, not a page filler.

The book takes place in modern Houston, a location that isn’t exactly overused in fiction. It’s a world with magic that’s been introduced to it less than two centuries ago, but which has since become hereditary, with powerful Houses breeding for best results. Magic has altered the geopolitical situation too, so it’s not US of our world.

Nevada Baylor, 25, is in charge of her family’s PI business, running it with her younger sisters, cousins, mother and grandmother. Her magic allows her to tell when people are lying, something she’s kept tightly hidden so she wouldn’t be used by Houses or government, so much so, that she’s clueless to her own abilities. She’s about to learn.

Thanks to a business decision Nevada’s made around the time her father died, the agency is owned by a large House corporation, and they’re not above pressuring her to take a suicide case. She has to bring in a fugitive magic user who is a Prime level pyrokinetic capable of incinerating her from a distance and psychopathic enough to do it too. Since she knows she can’t apprehend him, her only option is to bait him to come to her. It works a bit too well.

It gains her the attention of one of the most powerful, destructive Primes in existence, Connor “Mad” Rogan who is the head of Rogan house and equally psychopathic to Nevada’s prey. Reluctantly, with equal parts of fear and lust, she agrees to work with him. It’s an explosive case with a high body count that turns out to be more than meets the eye. The case is solved on the surface, but the backstory will continue, as we don’t learn who’s behind everything.

This was a good start to a series. It’s fast-paced and entertaining, with a main couple that’s not so much ‘will they or won’t they’ as it is about ‘when’. There’s enough heat on the page to entice though. Rogan isn’t the typical protective alpha male. He’s cold, callous and selfish, and doesn’t really believe rules apply to him. I’m guessing the romance won’t advance until he’s worked through some of this to become a more decent person. Nevada is the protective one, with issues of her own. And more magic than she thought she did. For all that I chose this for a one-off, I might read the rest of the series too. Had I read this a decade ago when it came out, I would’ve devoured it.

The Dragon Has Some Complaints by John Wiswell: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads 

The Dragon Has Some Complaints by John Wiswell

This is a stand-alone fantasy set in a secondary world with dragons and some steampunk elements. The main human city is a remarkable place hanging in the air, with inclusive society and tame dragons. It has been at war for a long time with a totalitarian nation that wants to subjugate it. The dragons are divided to wild dragons who live in a large hive, though each a bit solitary, and those tamed by humans of the winged city for their war. The first look down on the latter and both look down on humans.

The main character is Garrodigh, an ancient three-headed wild dragon. He used to have four heads, but one of the heads died as a casualty of the war. It has left the dragon otherwise incapacitated too, so he can’t fly or move well, and he doesn’t remember his past properly either. But he knows he’s been a great dragon. Other wild dragons disagree and shun him as a human sympathizer, which he can’t understand.

Garrodigh is a delightful protagonist. Each head has a different personality. The narrator is Centerhead who holds himself to be the most rational of the three, though Lefthead that’s now gone used to be the most intelligent. Bottomhead is a bit simple and straightforward, and cares more about food than anything else. Upperhead believes he’s a human who is only suffering from a delusion of being a three-headed dragon.

Yet another battle injures Garrodigh again. But this time Centerhead has a plan. Since humans take good care of their dragons and never leave them behind, he’ll pretend to be a tame dragon, wait until the humans have healed him, and then destroy the humans. The plan works perfectly. Up until he’s assigned a rider who turns out to be nothing Garrodigh could imagine.

Rania is one of the many refugees fled from the totalitarian society for the free country of the Winged City where people can be who they are, in her case a free spirit who believes in auras, being helpful and understanding, and protecting those she loves. But she too is shunned by her society for a reason Garrodigh cannot fathom.

Little by little, the two strike a friendship, much to Garrodigh’s bewilderment. He tries to understand her and her troubles, like her romantic life, which seems to consist of one-night stands. But there’s also heartbreak in form of a childhood friend who’s turned a cold shoulder on her. And as he learns to care for her, he also wants to defend the city against the enemy. The enemy has a new, bewildering weapon that almost destroys the city. As Garrodigh and Rania go to investigate, they discover a great secret and almost die destroying the weapon.

This was a good story. The focus was on Garrodigh and his struggle with understanding humans and himself. There’s healing and learning, grief and heartfelt moments. All three of Garrodigh’s personalities are delightful and different, and they all grow as individuals and as a whole. Rania wasn’t equally interesting, and she mostly served as an object of observation for Garrodigh. The society was understanding and inclusive, but not everyone was a nice person, which Rania learns first-hand.

I have complaints too though. I would’ve wanted there to be other dragon characters. There were plenty of dragons, but he doesn’t form friendships with any of them and they barely feature. Garrodigh is the only tame dragon who talks, and they shun him as much as the wild dragons did. I would’ve liked there to be a parallel story for him that there is for Rania of being accepted by his own kind. The story is also too long, with too much time and focus spent on Rania’s love life, which wasn’t all that interesting.

There were also moments that took me out of the story. Garrodigh occasionally knows very human concepts, while other times he’s completely clueless. Like he knows what apothecary smells like and what a trans man is. The latter has meaning for the worldbuilding—though it should’ve had more meaning for the story as well, as now it was more of a gimmick—but it would’ve made more sense if it were explained to him by humans.

This is described as a cozy fantasy, but it’s not completely so. There’s the war, with everything it entails, like death and bad injuries, and nasty people who treat others badly. Garrodigh eats people. But it has a wholesome core, growth and understanding. As long as the reader doesn’t expect things to be perfect and nice, it’s a delightful read, with Garrodigh making every scene worthwhile.

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

The Three Coffin Problem by Lavie Tidhar: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Three Coffin Problem by Lavie Tidhar

This is a collection of short stories published separately before. They feature Jonathan, a human assistant to Judge Dee, an ancient vampire. Set in late medieval era, the pair wander from Italy through Europe to London, visiting vampires who are in need of a judge or judgement. They start light, and progress to longer and more detailed, with the titular story being last.

Each chapter tells a full story. Jonathan and Judge Dee arrive somewhere, face vampires who have summoned them or whom the vampire council—of which we never learn anything—has sent the judge to investigate. Death or murder itself isn’t a cause for alarm; they’re vampires after all. But sometimes a murder needs investigating, or more often, the judge has been summoned to witness the cleverness of a vampire as they orchestrate a change of some kind, maybe kill a spouse or a previous owner of a castle.

Each story is told in third person from Jonathan’s point of view. He’s a young man the judge has saved from the streets of London, though we never learn what from, and he feels honour-bound to follow the judge around as his assistant. He’s treated like food by other vampires, but Judge Dee, an ascetic, protects him, doesn’t drink his blood and occasionally even remembers to feed him. Things could be worse, as Jonathan often thinks. They usually are.

This was a delightful cozy fantasy. The stories are fast-paced and interesting, and form a whole, with some characters returning and some mentions of earlier events. Medieval Europe features as a rich backdrop, though the exact time is never clear, and the vampires are interesting and with unique abilities (they turn to wolf and mist too.) Jonathan’s life progressed steadily, and he even learns things about Judge Dee he never thought possible. Each case is unique and seldom end the way the reader expects. And in one occasion, it’s the judge himself being judged. Those vampire librarians are stern on overdue loans.

If you’re looking for a cozy read that’s a tiny bit gruesome, with fun whodunnits, this book is definitely for you.

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