The Husky and His Wite Cat Shizun vol. 5 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou
The most
satisfying volume so far, emotionally. It’s the wedding of Nangong Si, Chu
Wanning’s former disciple, and Song Qiutong, Mo Ran’s wife in his previous life
whom he hates. The reader was given to understand already in the previous
volume that something big was going to happen during the wedding, but it went
beyond even that.
The
pre-wedding feast is ruined by accusations of a masked intruder, that Song
Qiutong has not been chaste and that she’s carried a relationship with Nangong
Si’s best friend, Ye Wangxi, who saved her from being sold as a slave. That led
to a stunning revelation that I didn’t see coming. But it was only a start.
A rift
opens to a demon realm, and when Mo Ran and Chu Wanning go to investigate, they
learn it’s done by the enemy they’ve been chasing for years. But the truth
behind their identity is nothing either them or the reader expect, and the
reason for their actions comes a bit out of the blue. But what is revealed
causes a literal inferno that sends everyone to fleeing for their lives.
Mo Ran and
Chu Wanning take shelter in a remote fishing village and there we finally come
to the best part: feelings. Both are really bad expressing them, and both
believe their feelings aren’t returned, so there’s a lot of angst to get past
before we get a confession. Nothing happens, but it’s very satisfying
nonetheless.
There’s no cliff-hanger
ending this time, but nothing is solved yet. And the way things were left, taking
back their confessions is entirely possible too. I’ll have to read on to find
out.
The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish by Xue Shan Fei Hu
I bought
this book solely on the title, The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish. I had to find out how that could possibly be a romance. I hoped for a bonkers story.
What I got was rather sweet.
Li Yu is an
18-year-old man from modern China who has been reading a historical novel about
a tyrant who butchers his way on the throne. Next thing he knows, he wakes up
in the book’s world as a humble carp who is about to be eaten, first as a soup
and then by a cat. Only a chance in the form of the fifth prince Mu Tianchi,
also called Prince Jing, saves him from that fate. And that’s not all. Li Yu is
part of a computer game where the system gives him tasks. His main task is to stop
Prince Jing from becoming a tyrant. If he succeeds, he can become a human
again.
Prince Jing
is twenty and the only surviving son by the empress and therefore of higher birth
than the other princes, but he’s mute and so isn’t considered a successor for
the throne. But he is the tyrant who will take the throne by force. Armed with
his knowledge of the story from the book and his cute antics as a fish, Li Yu
sets out to complete the tasks given to him. As a reward, he gets all sorts of
useful things. One of them is the ability to turn into a human for an hour each
day.
The story
is mostly about palace intrigue. The second and third princes compete for the
throne and they’re not above treachery and tricks. But thanks to Li Yu, their
plans go wrong one after another. He ends up changing Prince Jing too, who
spends more and more time with his fish. The prince is also hunting for a
mysterious young man who shows up in his room at oddest times, only to
disappear without a trace. The first volume ends when he finally figures out
who the mystery man is.
Li Yu was a
fun character—and a very odd fish. He can survive out of water amazingly long
times, and jump out of his tank whenever he wants. Prince Jing came across
rather lonely, which is mostly his own making, as he drives everyone away. His muteness isn’t a gimmick
that is overcome in convenient places. He has a eunuch who speaks for him.
The man and
the fish form a friendship of sorts, and the prince might even be having romantic
feelings for the young man visiting his rooms. They’re vague and innocent
though, and nothing more than a drunken kiss takes place. But was it the boy or
the fish who did the kissing, Li Yu would very much like to know.
This was a
funny, coherent, and well written story, which isn’t always the case with web
novels. There are no repetitions or inconsistencies, and the pace was good. It
ends with a small cliff-hanger in the middle of a scene, and I absolutely have
to read more.
Death in the Spires is excellent historical fiction and an enjoyable murder mystery. It
takes place in the early 1890s Oxford and London in 1905, and follows Jeremy Kite,
a government clerk who loses his job when an anonymous letter accuses him of a
murder that took place in Oxford ten years earlier. Incensed, he decides to investigate
once and for all.
Jem is a
son of a factory worker, who with the help of a scholarship manages to get to Oxford
to study mathematics, an achievement that was out of grasp of most working
class people at the time. He’s short, clubfooted and doesn’t know the rules and manners of
the place that is mostly populated by upper class white men who do not tolerate
difference. He doesn’t have great expectations for his time there, but on his
first day, he meets Toby Feynsham, a grandson of a marquis who takes him and
other unusual people—for the era—under his wing, like a black man studying to
become a doctor, two women (one of whom is Toby’s sister) and an (almost) openly
gay man.
Against all
odds, Jem has magical time in Oxford with his group of friends. He excels in
his studies and even participates in activities like the rowing team. And then,
three years later, right before the finals, Toby is murdered. It happens after
a huge row between the group, and in a manner that the friends know that only
one of them could’ve done it. But they keep their mouths shut and the murder
goes unsolved. It breaks the group and they never meet again.
Jem’s life
is destroyed by it. He has a breakdown and can’t graduate. He works for
pittance at jobs he hates, and every now and then gets fired when rumours
about the murder surface. So he starts to investigate, even though everyone he
contacts tells him to leave be. To his surprise and sorrow, while the rest of
the group seem successful, the murder has ruined their lives too, one way or
another. And no one wants to talk.
Jem returns
to Oxford, reluctantly, and connects with his old love, which somehow makes
things worse, as Nick is among the suspects too. Little by little, he forms a
picture of what took place. It turns out, Toby wasn’t the wonderful person he believed
and may even have brought the death on himself, and all his friends had secrets
that could’ve made them the killer. But no matter the reasons, Jem knows only
truth will release their group from the limbo their lives have become. Not
everyone agrees, and Jem’s life is suddenly in danger.
This was a
wonderful, melancholy story of friendship, lost loves and missed chances. Like
in Brideshead Revisited, the reader gets a vivid glimpse into a lost world of
aristocratic academia, and the contrast with Jem’s dreary later life is great. Jem
with his health issues is a lovely, dignified character who carries the story
perfectly. His friends, flawed and all, are people who matter to him greatly. The
reader doesn’t really want anyone to be the killer, to see them hang, and
neither does Jem.
Luckily,
this is a story where truth and justice aren’t the same thing. We get both. The
ending is absolutely satisfying, and it leaves the reader with a hope that from
now on, Jem’s life will improve and everyone will live happily ever after—whatever
that may mean for them.
I received
a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Fascination is a stand-alone historical novel set in Victorian England. It’s
about the seedier underside of the society, the fascination of Victorians with
macabre and everything different. It’s about found families and acceptance too,
and written well enough that I was wavering between three and four stars. And
then, in the last paragraph, the author slaps the reader with a wet dishrag, yelling
“April Fools. Question everything you’ve read.” So here I am, questioning.
The setting
is Victorian only because the author says so. The descriptions are sparse and
could be from any era. Author especially fails to grasp the material culture
and the value of money. It’s difficult to believe that a travelling musician could
have a large house with papered walls and rooms for several people, and a boat
too, without independent means, which there apparently weren’t. A penniless
apprentice of an anatomist definitely can’t afford tailor-made suits (in
plural) and colourful silk waistcoats. A troupe of freaks doesn’t get to
perform in one of the finest theatres in London, and they do not get costumes
made of fresh materials for every production. The book is set in a fantasy,
where these things are possible so that the reader can feel happy for the
characters and where they end up in life. It almost worked.
There are
two point of view characters, Keziah, whose chapters are told in first person
past tense, and Theo, whose chapters are in third person present tense, which took
a moment to get used to. For all that the reader gets an insight in Keziah, she’s
curiously bland. She doesn’t have interests, skills, hopes or dreams until at
the very end. She exists solely to tell the story of her twin sister, Tilly.
A violent incident
in Tilly’s childhood has stopped her growth when she was five. She’s an adult
woman in a child’s body. But she’s beautiful, can sing, and loves to perform,
so she has found a place on stage. The plot revolves mostly around her, her addiction
to opium and her abduction by evil people who covet everything different.
We only get
Keziah’s view of Tilly. She observes her constantly, yet not once does she
wonder what Tilly’s life is like, being different and constantly gawped at. We’re
not given scenes either, where people would treat Tilly, or the other different
characters, badly. It’s presumed. There are no descriptions of everyday life
where Tilly’s life might be difficult because of her size. The idea is probably
to show Keziah’s acceptance of her sister the way she is, but it comes across as
wilful blindness.
That is
doubly so when it comes to Theo, and it’s a deliberate choice by the author. He’s
a grandson of an aristocrat who gets thrown out of his home without a penny
when the grandfather finally manages to produce a male heir. Lord Seabrook has
an unhealthy fascination with the macabre and his collections include human
specimen preserved in formaldehyde. It doesn’t come as a surprise that he turns
out to be the bad guy of the story.
Theo is
saved by his governess who arranges him an apprenticeship with an anatomist, a
disgraced doctor who runs a museum of macabre. Theo wants to become a doctor,
but lack of funds makes it impossible. Or that’s what the reader is given to
understand.
The last paragraph
of the story reveals that Theo is physically different too. Since
the author wants to keep it a secret, I won’t reveal how—though other
reviewers have done so. By leaving the revelation at the end, the author
probably wants the reader to question their prejudices. Keziah certainly points
it out.
But it
doesn’t work. The reader needs a chance to realise their prejudices exist and
that’s only possible if they know the pertinent facts about the character and
can work them along the way. Even if the author doesn’t want to state the difference
outright, there were plenty of chances for giving the reader hints, to make them
question their understanding of Theo along the way.
Theo is a
point of view character who never questions his difference, doesn’t rue it or
wonder if it hinders his chances in life. He doesn’t ask if he’ll ever end up
as a specimen in his grandfather’s collections. He’s utterly indifferent about
it. The author fails to get inside the character to show the reader what it feels
like to be different in a society that reviles those that aren’t perfect. He
turns out to be gay too, which we only find out from another character, not
him.
According
to Keziah, people don’t notice Theo’s difference, because he’s such a charismatic
person. But he’s not. He’s reticent and apologetic, colourful waistcoats and
all. And so, instead of turning the mirror at the reader, the last sentence
screams GAWP, and we gawp. And we see that Aleski, the character with hirsutism
is only accepted as a bedfellow after he shaves his face, and Martha only gets the
life she’s dreamed of after her cleft mouth is operated. The reader is
disgusted, but not with Theo who is a lovely person, or the other characters,
except maybe Keziah. The reader is disgusted with the book and its author.
I received
a free copy from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Play of Shadows starts the Court of Shadows series, a spin-off of de Castell’s
Greatcoats series. I hadn’t read it, or the prequel to Play of Shadows, but
that wasn’t necessary. The earlier series is set in the kingdom of Tristia, and
this book takes place in a small duchy of Jereste there.
Damelas
Chademantaigne is a grandson of two Greatcoats, famed magistrates and duellists
of the kingdom, but he’s more of a coward. The book starts with him fleeing
from a duel with the deadliest duellist of Jereste, the Vixen. He hides in a
theatre and claims to be an actor there, which by the laws of the duchy grants
him immunity. He’s safe, for now.
A year
later, he’s still with the troupe, playing two-line bit parts. Then one night,
during a history play about the duchy’s greatest hero and greatest traitor, he
suddenly delivers lines he has no recollection of saying. It turns out he’s
channelling the spirit of the traitor. And the Duke wants to hear what he has
to say.
The duchy
is in chaos. A private militia, Iron Orchids, has all but taken Jereste over.
The duke wants to find out where they come from and who controls them. And he
believes the answer lies in the past. So, night after night, the troupe has to
stage the play that evolves and comes to life with whatever Damelas channels.
And the more he learns, the more in danger he and those he holds dear are. The
truth might very well see all of them dead.
This was a
good book with great characters. Damelas especially turned out to be more than
he believed himself capable of. It’s about a found family too, with unlikely
people coming together. I liked Beretto best, but the women didn’t quite reach
the potential of their interesting jobs.
The plot,
however, left me wanting. The stakes were low, and the path to the goal was out
of the hands of the characters. Learning who controls the Iron Orchids wasn’t that
interesting to begin with, and the truth was a let-down. There was no
antagonist to fight against, just a nameless mob, so the conflicts were mere street
fights that didn’t really lead to anything but a body count. But the wrap-up in
the (amazingly long) epilogue was satisfying. It sets the next book too, but I’m
not entirely sure I’ll continue with the series.
I received
a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
