Quiet in Her Bones is the second thriller by Nalini Singh who is better known as a bestselling paranormal romance writer of Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter series as well as of several contemporary romances. Her first thriller, A Madness of Sunshine, relied heavily on the atmosphere of rural New Zealand, small town setting, and thriller tropes. Quiet in Her Bones is a more mature thriller and—dare I say—much better.
The book is set in Auckland, the largest city of New Zealand, but it mostly takes place in a small gated community for the rich. It’s a good choice, as it allows for a compact cast of characters who have known each other for decades. Every family has their secrets and there’s always someone who knows them.
The book is told in first person by Aarav Rai, a bestselling author in his late twenties who’s had to return to his childhood home after a bad car accident. His leg is in a cast and he suffers from migraines. He and his father hate each other, the root of which is Aarav’s mother Nina, who has disappeared thirteen years earlier. And then her remains are found, not far from their home. Enraged by the fate of his beloved mother, Aarav begins his own investigation to his mother’s death.
The list of potential suspects is fairly long for such a small community, but Aarav is under no illusions about his mother and her habits, and doesn’t shy away from difficult questions. As he investigates the death, he ends up stirring old secrets that have nothing to do with his mother. And along the way we solve the mystery of Aarav too.
Aarav is the quintessential unreliable narrator. He’s a self-professed sociopath and liar, but more importantly for the reader, his memory is faulty. It dawns little by little on him and the reader both that his car accident was much worse than he thought. He has great gaps in his memory, on top of which he suffers from vivid hallucinations. Yet his narration is so convincing that the reader is constantly thrown back by the turn of events. As the story progresses, the reader knows more than he does, as he forgets events that have taken place only days ago.
With his memory, Aarav begins to question everything, even his own involvement in his mother’s death. From the chaos of his mind, glimpses of real memories surface, directing him to the truth. But because the reader is unable to trust him anymore, it’s with a baited breath that they wait whether he finds the real killer—or if it turns out to be him after all.
Quiet in Her Bones is an excellent thriller with a great main character. It stands on its own and, unlike the first one, doesn’t suffer from comparisons with Singh’s romantic fiction. I’d definitely be interested in reading more thrillers from her.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Jackson is the first book in Restoration Ranch contemporary
romance series by LaQuette. It’s set on a ranch with the same name near Austin,
Texas, that’s been in the Everett family ever since their ancestor was freed
after the Civil War. The current owner, Aja, a former hotshot defence lawyer
from New York in her late thirties, wants to turn it into a holiday resort, but
someone in her town opposes the plan. Accidents plague the construction, and
when Aja is almost killed, her family intervenes and calls in Texas Rangers.
Enter Jackson Dean, a ranger as protective as he is hot.
There’s instant attraction between the two, but this is a
grown-up romance, where both parties bring in a lot of baggage, so neither of
them intend it to last. Alongside the romance, there’s the mystery of who’s
trying to harm Aja. There are some really hot scenes, but once the case is
solved, they go their separate ways—only to realise they need each other after
all.
I liked both Aja and Jackson, separately and together. She knew
what she wanted and wasn’t afraid of going after it, and he wasn’t afraid of
letting her be who she is, provided he could be there to save the day and
comfort her. The supporting cast remained a little distant and I didn’t really
get a hang of them.
This wasn’t a bad book, but unfortunately it suffered from a
clumsy execution. We plunge in with a brief action scene when the situation on
the ranch has been going on for a while already—and then everything halts. We’re
told about the troubles, but we never witness them, and the investigation takes
place outside the narrative.
The narrative was on a constant holding
pattern. It consisted of filler scenes between brief bursts of
action when the bad guys made their moves and the characters reacted. The characters were never in charge
of the plot, never proactive, and the reader was an observer. Even the romantic
scenes felt emotionally distant. It made the book feel overly long, and even the
twists at the end couldn’t really save it. But Aja and Jackson got their
happily ever after and it made the ending satisfying.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an
honest review.
A Wolf After My Own Heart is the second book in BeWere My
Heart urban fantasy series by MaryJanice Davidson. I haven’t read the first
book, but it didn’t matter at all, as this one had a unique plot and plenty of references
to the previous book and characters.
The book is set in a small town outside St. Paul, Minnesota,
and the world is mostly like ours, but populated with various weres ranging
from wolves and bears to kangaroos and Tasmanian devils. They go under human
radar, but with their own social organisations like child services and fire
brigades.
Lila, a human—or Stable, though she doesn’t know that word
yet—has just moved into a huge old house in a quiet neighbourhood. Her very
first night, she runs over a wolf and finds an injured bear cub. The first
disappears before she has a chance to do anything, but the cub she takes home.
Only for it to shift into a little girl. This plunges her into a strange new
world of weres, including Oz, the sexy social worker werewolf who’s supposed to
look after the bear cub now that her parents are dead.
There’s instant attraction between Lila and Oz, but it doesn’t
really go anywhere fast. For all that this is advertised as a sexy romance,
anything romantic is pretty much in a backburner, and sexy things happen behind
closed doors and only at the very end. This is more of a paranormal mystery,
where the characters are trying to find out what happened to the cub’s parents
and who is trying to kill her. The mystery unfolds in a fairly haphazard way,
with everything happening in the last chapters of the book. The ending is
satisfying, but not exactly a happily ever after kind of affair.
I liked the book, but I had some issues. The two point of
view characters, Lila and Oz, had similar inner monologues that made them seem
like ADDs off their meds; a stream of consciousness with many tangents that were
supposed to be quirky and funny, but were only exhausting. It was difficult to
tell them apart at times and more annoyingly, the inner monologues were in
contrast with their actions. Oz was an accountant turned social worker,
reliable but yearning for some action, and Lila was a survival who was prepared
for everything life could throw at her. I haven’t read other books from
Davidson, but I suspect this is her writing style that trumps the characters’
own voices. This stretched to other characters too, who only communicated with
snarky, often really mean comments, which made them fairly unlikeable.
I’m also not a fan of a writing style where a scene starts in
the middle, with nothing to indicate who is talking, where, when and why, with the POV character explaining the scene later. It made the narrative very
clunky, and required a lot of backtracking. There were also footnotes from the
author that constantly yanked me off the narrative and the world. Towards the
end, a new point of view character was added to explain the plot, which
confused the matters further. If it hadn’t been for the really sweet child
characters and some funny moments, this would have been a three star book. But
there was something compelling about the setting and the mystery, if not the
romance, which left me happy with the book in the end, so it gets four stars.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an
honest review.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is the fourth (and last?)
book in Becky Chambers’ wonderful Wayfarers series. Each book has been set in a
different location in her vast and imaginative galaxy, featuring different
people, and has tackled different aspects of (human) experience from AIs right
to a self, to finding a place to belong. The latest isn’t an exception.
The book is set on a small rock of a planet that has no life
of its own, but—as Tupo, one of the characters says—even life that is
introduced on a planet is life. Gora is a hub of space travel between several
wormhole jump points, a place to rest and refuel for a day or two while waiting
for a place in the jump queue. Life is contained under large domes, and the
only thing connecting the domes is the power grid.
One of the domes is Five-Hop One-Stop, a rest-stop
run by Ouloo and Tupo, her child. They are Laru, a species that resemble
long-legged and necked dogs or maybe Alpacas; they’re furry and four-legged,
with front paws acting as hands. It’s a matter of pride for Ouloo to make each
and every traveller feel like home when they visit, whether it’s offering them particular
food, accommodating different bathing habits, or finding a suddenly fertile
Aeluon the closest place to procreate.
On this occasion, she’s visited by Pei, a female Aeluon, a mostly
humanoid species who communicate with colours on their skin; Roveg, a Quelin
male who are basically large insects with exoskeletons and multiple legs; and
Speaker, a female Akarak, a small species who cannot use oxygen and therefore only
exit their ship inside a mechanical armour. Accommodating such different guests
isn’t easy, but Ouloo does her best. And then a disaster strikes, stranding
them into her dome for days with no way of communicating outside.
Like all the books in the series, this is very much character
driven. We follow each character as they try to adjust to a change in their
plans, their worries for what they might miss or what awaits them once they
reach their destination. Each character has their own story and reason to travel.
And for the first time for most of them, it’s a chance to get to know species they
find alien. They do this in a respectful manner and with minimal strife, which
has become the hallmark of these books. While nothing much happens externally,
each character changes through these interactions and by the time they are able
to leave, they have made new friends. The epilogue sees everyone to their happy
places, the private conflicts solved.
This was a wonderful, happy book that left me warm and fuzzy
inside. If this truly is the last one, it’s a great ending, but I wish the
series would continue. It’s been imaginative and positive, with great
detail and thought put to the biological and cultural differences of the various
species, and I’m sure there would be dozens of stories to tell. I for one could
read many more Wayfarer books.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an
honest review.
Witherward is the debut novel by Hannah Mathewson. It’s a young
adult portal fantasy set in Victorian London and it starts a series of the same
name. I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Witherward is a book that relies heavily on its unique world,
occasionally at the expense of the plot. Alongside with and unbeknownst to the
normal world, Otherworld, is Witherward where seasons and times of day are the
exact opposite, with some similarities to Otherworld but with its own rich
history. It’s populated by people with magical abilities. There are Changelings
who can change into any animal or person, or make a more attractive version of
themselves; Sorcerers can manipulate the world around them, Psis can move
things with their mind, Oracles see the future, Whisperers can read and
manipulate minds, and Wraiths have supernatural strength and speed, and they
can move through walls. They all hate one another and Changelings above
all. London has been divided into sectors to maintain a semblance of peace, but
strife and warfare are constant.
Ilsa is a seventeen-year-old Changeling who has lived her
whole life in Otherworld London not knowing why she has the skill to change
into animals and people. She’s fled the orphanage she grew up in because they
treated her like a devil there, and has supported herself with thieving and,
later, as a magician’s assistant, relying on her special skills. Then—out of
the blue—she’s whisked to the Witherward London to save her life. But she might
not be much safer there.
Ilsa learns that she’s a long-lost daughter of the leading
family of Changelings. Most of her family are dead in the hands of a secret
group, but she has a brother, Gedeon. Only, he’s gone missing. With the help of
people who lead and protect the Changelings, she sets out to finding him. But it’s
not easy to learn the rules of her new world, and there are secrets and spies
everywhere.
The plot is fairly good, but rather slow to unfold. The book
consists mostly of scenes where Isla either learns a new skill or gets to know
the people around her, and only every now and then the search for Gedeon moves
forward. But there are enough action scenes to keep the reader’s interest. True
to the YA genre, there’s romance too, though it doesn’t dominate the story or
become the driving force of Ilsa’s actions.
Ilsa is a great character, resourceful and resilient,
despite traumas from her childhood that occasionally cripple her. The side
characters are interesting too, with their own backstories and ghosts. They
never really come together as an ensemble, but that reflects the state the household
is in because of Gedeon’s absence. Everyone is distrustful of everyone else. The
ending is good and complete enough to make the book work as a standalone, but
it sets the stage for the next book too, which makes me want to continue
with the series. All in all, a very good debut.
The Moonsteel Crown is the first book in Stephen Deas’s new
fantasy trilogy, Dominion. It’s set in the town of Varr in the empire of Aria
that is struggling with a succession crisis and a bitterly cold winter. Of the
two, only the latter has some meaning to the main characters.
The book description made me expect a fairly standard
fantasy plot where the lowest of the earth end up becoming kingmakers. And
while it sort of turns out that way in the end, that’s not what the book is
about at all.
A group of thieves steal the emperor’s crown; accidentally,
it seems at first. But instead of putting it back where they found it, they
hide it. Naturally there are people who want it back and they know exactly who
to come after. Why is that? Does someone in their group know more than they’ve
let on? The thieves’ boss has started a war with a rivalling gang, but is that
random either, or is the other group after the crown too? Meanwhile, the
thieves themselves disagree on the best course of action, until the only way to
save their lives is to give the crown back. But nothing is as straightforward
as that.
The book has three main characters with their own point of
view chapters. Seth is a former novice priest expelled from his church for
blasphemy—or sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. He’s bitter and adrift,
and he makes poor choices because of it. And then he gets his hands into texts
that push him on a path of forbidden death magic. But is he in control of the
magic, or does it control him? The book ends before we get the answer, but we’ll
likely follow that story in the upcoming books.
Myla is a warrior monk who has also been expelled from her
order. She’s excellent with her swords and quite deadly—and on the run. But her
past is catching up with her, and it threatens the lives of the thieves with
whom she has found a new home. So will she fight for them, or return home and
face her past?
And then there is Fings, the greatest thief in Varr. He’s
the one who does the actual stealing, and he isn’t exactly happy with being manoeuvred
to doing it, especially when it puts his mother and sisters in peril. But as
the forces who want the crown back press on them, he agrees with Myla that the
crown must be returned—only he has an ace in his sleeve. He was my favourite of
the three with his cunning plans and superstitious beliefs.
This book took a long time to get going. The characters were
vague and difficult to get a hang of. A lot of space was devoted to the myths
and history of Aria that didn’t really have anything to do with the plot. The reasons
for Seth’s and Myla’s downfalls with their respective orders were hoarded like
gold, but they turned out to be so mundane that the revelations were
disappointing. It wasn’t until after the half point that I began to see what
the book was about, and where it was going—and then it didn’t go there. At all.
The latter half was as exciting and interesting as the first was dull, and it
saved the book. The end was satisfying and complete, but it left enough questions
open to lure the reader into continuing with the series.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an
honest review.
Purgatory Mount is a complex and philosophical science
fiction novel one would expect from a professor of English
literature. It’s also a terrifying image of near future USA and an imaginative
vision of far future of the humanity.
This is not a simple read. It presupposes a working
knowledge of Dante, medieval Christianity and modern Catholicism—particularly
the ideas of original sin and purgatory—the pantheon of ancient Greece, and the
Lord of the Rings. It’s not an easy concoction and it doesn’t always work. This
could be, as the author tells in the afterword, because the elements from the
Middle Earth had to be replaced with the Greek pantheon for legal reasons, but
I don’t think it would’ve made a great difference for the reader. What we have
is non-Christian entities philosophising about Christianity, which doesn’t make
for an easy first chapter.
The story is told in three parts that, according to Roberts,
reflect Dante’s vision of afterlife: hell, purgatory and heaven. Of the three,
hell and heaven exist outside time, and the purgatory in the temporal world,
i.e. is subject to change. This isn’t immediately obvious to the reader—or
even after reading the afterword—but time does play a role in the story.
The first and last parts take place in far future on a
generation ship orbiting a dying planet that features an enormous tower. It has
lured five entities forty lightyears from earth to study and profit from it.
They call themselves human, but they have a lifespan of tens of thousands of
years, bodies that are more machine than organic, and the ability to bend time
to their will. Consequently, they consider themselves gods. They are named
after Greek gods Zeus, Apollo, Dionysius, Hades and Pan, although the omniscient
narrator of their chapters is quick to point out that the names are only for
the reader’s benefit. However, apart from Pan, the names don’t really reflect
their characters—they don’t really have any personality—and it wouldn’t have
made any difference if they had been named after the wizards of Middle Earth as
was the author’s original intention, or with numbers even.
Living on the ship are people who also think of themselves
as humans. They have short lifespans of maybe forty years, and they’ve been
living on the ship for generations. They have a complex culture and religious
life that revolves around the gods running their ship, and no true understanding
of why they are on the ship—or what is a ship—and what their purpose is. For
the gods, they are food. The gods call them pygmies, and the few descriptions
of them gave me a notion that they might be some sort of evolutionary form of
pigs. Their entire existence becomes under threat when they are told that they
have reached the journey’s end. Is it the end of the world? From among them
rises B who is the only one curious enough to find out what is going on—for
what good it does to him.
The middle part, which is about twice as long as the other
two, takes place in the near future USA. It has descended into a civil war
between various states, government agencies and private militias, with
no-bars-held warfare. It’s technologically far more advanced society than one
would suppose of 2030s. There are some interesting innovations, like a system for
uploading operational memory into iPhones, which is mostly used for helping
people suffering from a grave memory loss due to chemical warfare. And the
country is riddled with enormous towers, eSpires, that no one knows what they
are for.
A group of teenagers, fed up with the government
surveillance, have developed their own private net. But their system holds a
secret, which all the warring factions want and will do anything to get. We follow
Ottoline who is captured by a nameless government agency and plunged into a
journey of survival through prisons and warzones. The secret Otty and her
friends are trying to keep took me by surprise, and not necessary in a good
way; a bit more information would’ve gone a long way to understanding how a
sixteen-year-old would be able to withstand everything that was thrown at her.
Once the secret is out, it takes over and the world as Otty knows it basically
comes to an end.
I read the entire book trying to figure out how the two
stories connected, and failing. According to the afterword, the book is about memory
and atonement, which … I really don’t see. The loss of memory plays some role in the
middle part, but mostly on the background, and it doesn’t guide the actions of
the characters in any way. The pygmies have their collective memory, which has
corrupted over the long journey, but it doesn’t really play any role either.
And the gods remember everything.
Atonement is even more difficult concept to accept, because as
far as I can see, nothing is atoned. The purgatory itself is a system of
atonement, but for all the talk about Dante and afterlife, none of the
characters really go through the purgatory; Otty hasn’t even done anything that
would require atonement when she goes through her ordeal. Pan has a crisis of
conscience when it comes to the gods’ treatment of the pygmies, but they don’t
really atone either; they abandon the pygmies to their fate.
Instead of atonement, there is revenge: Otty’s collective revenge
on humanity for harming her friends and Pan’s revenge on the other gods for disrespecting
them. Otty uses an AI as her instrument of revenge, Pan uses the pygmies. If
either of them atone their actions, it happens outside the narrative.
What really connects the two stories is the tower. Not as an idea that
has travelled lightyears to inspire Dante, as Pan suggests, but a different
biblical concept entirely: the tower of Babel, (human) hubris and inevitable
downfall.
The towers, eSpires and the Purgatory Mount, don’t have an
active role and we never really learn anything about them, but they are why the
events of the stories take place. On earth, the fear that the towers spy on them
causes the teenagers to build their own network, which eventually leads to an apocalypse
of sorts. On planet Dante, the tower is the reason why the ship is there and
the cause of the strife between the gods that leads to Pan’s revenge. And it
may well have been the downfall of the people who built it too, leading to the
planet dying.
Purgatory Mount is a complicated book, but it’s not
difficult to read. It’s perfectly possible to enjoy the two stories for what
they are without trying to find connections between them. They’re slightly
uneven in scope, but both are interesting and good. I liked Otty and B the pygmy
who is caught in Pan’s revenge, and if the gods were pompous and not very
approachable, their end was satisfying. And for those readers who like to
challenge themselves, this is a perfect read.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an
honest review.
