The Viper
is the third book in Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp, a spin-off
series of the original BDB. It follows a group of vampires and wolven falsely
imprisoned in a cruel prison, sometimes for centuries.
Kane, a
vampire aristocrat, has been in the prison for two centuries accused of killing
his shellan (wife). In the first book, he sacrificed himself by detonating a
bomb to save two people fleeing the prison, and though he didn’t die, he’s in
such a bad shape that he can’t heal himself.
Nadya is a
nurse caring for Kane in the prison. She’s not a prisoner, but she doesn’t want
to live in the outside world because an attack has left her physically deformed.
As she takes care of Kane, she starts to think of him as more than a patient,
someone she could love—if only he wasn’t about to die.
The third
book starts where the previous ended. The remaining two prisoners of the group,
with the help of third who managed to escape in the previous book, escape the
prison and take Kane with them. They take him to a wolven healer/goddess, who
heals him by making him a vessel for a viper god, which essentially makes him a
viper-shifter. The first thing he does is head back to prison to save Nadya.
This was
maybe the best book in the series so far. We’re familiar with the people and
the setting, and Kane and Nadya had known each other for a long time, so the
romance doesn’t feel forced or instantaneous. There’s a solid side-plot between
Apex, one of the prisoners, and Callum, a wolven, and the way it was left in
this book promises a difficult journey for them in the next one. And V’s drama
was at minimum, a rather sweet side-quest with Payne, his sister that has
mostly been absent in the BDB books.
However, the romance
remained secondary again, buried under the action and other drama, and its
emotional impact was a bit light. But if you’re looking for UF action with a
side of a romance, this series is great for that.
Black
Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp is a spin-off of the original BDB series, and The Wolf is the second book. It follows a group of vampires and wolven who are kept
in a secret prison camp, some for decades. It’s heavy on original BDB
characters though, this time Vishious.
The Wolf
follows Lucan, a vampire-wolven hybrid who’s been thrown in the prison by his
wolven relations for being a mixed breed. He’s given some freedom, however, to
handle the drug trade the prison relies on. On one such mission, he runs into
Rio, an undercover cop who is about to learn the hard way that her cover has
been blown.
Since there’s
nowhere else to go, Luke brings her to the prison camp. She goes through most
of the book without understanding that the people around her aren’t exactly
normal human. For a cop, she’s amazingly incurious about it. She’s had a blow
to her head though, and she’s more than a little distracted by Luke.
This was once
again an insta-love/bonding story where the male decides that the female is for
him. Why though, is never entirely clear, and why she falls for him under the
straining conditions isn’t clear either. Lust is obvious; love not so much. But
they have great need save the other and both work towards it until the final
showdown.
The action
parts were good. Rio is a no-nonsense cop who can handle herself, and Luke is a
long-time prisoner who somehow has managed to retain his identity. Together
they were more like an action duo than a romantic couple.
Meanwhile,
the brothers work towards finding the prison camp. They’re taking quite a roundabout
way to it though, and don’t come even close the whole time. Maybe in the next
book. There are three more prisoners to go.
Black
Dagger Brotherhood series has so many books already that reading them is like
visiting a good friend you only see once or twice a year. Even a less exciting
meeting is meaningful.
Lover Arisen was a solid addition to the series. The romance between Balthazar and
Erika began already in the previous book, and it was given time to grow here,
even if the events took place in a matter of days. The demon Davina messing
with their lives didn’t make things any easier. But as far as additions to the
character gallery went, Erika was fairly unmemorable (I actually had to check
her name writing this). Balthazar had a bad-boy thing going for him with his
thieving, but that was watered down here.
The more
interesting storylines took place outside the romance. Nate’s story was good, even
with the ending it had. Davina trying to find her true love had me sympathising
with her occasionally. But since she had to ruin a true love of others to achieve
it, she didn’t turn into a sympathetic character.
Lassiter
was given proper airtime for a change. My heart breaks for him, and I hope he’ll
have his own book soon where he’ll have his dreams come true.
This book
seems like an end of a storyline. For once, there wasn’t a next one built here,
so it’ll be interesting to see where the series goes with the next book.
The Sinner is the eighteenth book in
Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series of a brotherhood of vampires and their
partners. It marks a final of a sort for the series too, although there are
several books already announced. Unfortunately, it didn’t do it with a bang.
Since the first book, the main plot has
been about a war with the Lessening Society, evil creatures made by Omega, the
counterpart of the Scribe Virgin who created the vampires. The war has sort of
ended a couple of times already as the series has reached its peaks and then
continued. A constant, however, has been a prophecy of the end of Omega
delivered by Butch, one of the brothers.
Butch had an own storyline in this book,
which built towards the conclusion of the prophecy. All was set for the great
showdown. And then it didn’t happen. The glory of ending Omega was robbed from
him, supposedly in order to save his life, but basically in a cop-out that made
the entire story deflate like a bad soufflé. A great disappointment, even if it
introduced the new great evil who will continue the tormenting of the
brotherhood.
But these books aren’t only about war.
There’s always a love story too. Here it was between Syn, a tragic male with a
compulsive need to kill, and Jo, a half-vampire about to go through the
transition to a vampire—not that she knows about it. And the revelations are
dragged almost to the end of the book where they didn’t make as great an
emotional impression as I would’ve liked.
Like often in these books, the couple
falls in love almost instantly. Syn is hired to kill Jo by mobsters, but he is
drawn to her instead. From there, he begins a change to a romantic hero, with a
good redemption arc. Jo is a more boring character. Her role is to wait for an
event she doesn’t know is coming. In the meanwhile, she searches for clues of
her past, but it’s not her actions that reveal the truth in the end.
It’s difficult to see why Syn finds her
so special that it brings a change into his centuries of existence, but somehow
it doesn’t matter. He is so earnest in his need to do right by her that it
elevates their story to a true romance. And then there’s the added anxiety of
not knowing whether she will make it through the transition.
The book isn’t without flaws, but I
loved it anyway, like always. It’s the little things; the bonds between the
brothers combined with a few truly emotional moments. And in a way it was a
good thing that the war with the lessers came to an end, as it had turned
boring. The new baddie is much more interesting than the old one, even if she
wasn’t the character I would have wanted to move to this series from the Fallen
Angels series. So there’s something to look forward to in the upcoming books
too.
***
With this book, I’m finally in schedule with my Goodreads Reading Challenge, having read 16 books of 60.
I’ve neglected my reading blog again, which means I have six
books to review since the previous post―not including the books that I have
skipped earlier.It’s been a good month
and a half with old favourites and new interesting finds. Here’s the summary.
Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler
Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler was a brilliant
find. It wasn’t at all what I expected based on the description and the sample chapters. I thought I was getting a swashbuckling
pirate story with magic. What I got was a humongous steel ship filled with monsters
and teenage mages, who have no idea where the ship is going and why, and who's
steering it. Isoka, the main character, has to find her place in the strange
society on the ship she's been brought to against her will, and figure out how
to gain control of the ship so that she can return home and save her sister.
But nothing is how she hopes it would be, not even her.
The book is marketed as YA, but despite
the age of the characters, their life experience and the problems they face are
not those of teenagers. It's all about survival. Isoka is a fairly unlikeable
main character, and she doesn't really improve with softer characteristics she
gains, as she lacks the insight to go with them. I actually preferred her as a
cold-blooded killer. There was a bit too many fight scenes―the story goes from
fight to fight that become repetitive―and the ending seemed slightly rushed.
The epilogue didn't really make it stronger, but since the original problem of
saving Isoka's sister is yet to happen, I'm looking forward to reading the next
book in the Wells of Sorcery series.
Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron
Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron is
the first book in DFZ, a new series set in Aaron’s post-apocalyptic, dragon and
magic filled Detroit. Opal has a job cleaning unclaimed apartments after their
owners die. On one such mission, she finds more than she expects and gets gangsters
after her.
Opal is a great character with serious
dad issues, and Nik, her side-kick, is an interesting companion. There’s a lot
of action, magical and mundane, as the pair tries to find the site of a magical
ritual that just might bring them a lot of money. Needless to say, it wasn't as
easy as that. I'll definitely read the next book too.
The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman
The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman
is book six in The Invisible Library series. This time round Irene and Kai have
to team up with a group of criminals to steal a painting for a villain straight
from the Bond movies. After the previous book where political machinations pushed
the pair to the edge of their skills, this was a rather boring addition to the
series. Kai especially was a let-down after becoming a more assertive,
interesting character in the previous book. A new political plot is brewing,
however, so I’ll keep with the series.
Where Winter Finds You by J.R. Ward
Where Winter Finds You by J.R. Ward is
the latest addition to her long Black Dagger Brotherhood series. It’s marked as
only half a book, but at 480 pages it’s long enough. It’s a second chance love
story, a follow-up for The Shadows where Trez lost his beloved Selena. A woman
has moved in Caldwell who resembles Selena perfectly and who dreams of a lover
she knows is Trez. He’s convinced his love has been returned to him, but how is
that possible, when Theresa has lived a full life already. I must admit I
couldn’t see how this could be brought to a satisfying conclusion either, but
in the end, the story worked out perfectly. It wasn’t the best BDB book there
is, but like always, it was full of emotions that the reader is pulled into,
only to emerge tearful and happy in the end.
The Fowl Twins by Eoin Colfer
The Fowl Twins by Eoin Colfer starts a
spin-off series for his excellent Artemis Fowl series. Artemis’s little
brothers, twins Myles and Becket, are now eleven and ready for adventures of
their own. Myles is like Artemis, a genius bent on surpassing his big brother,
but not inclined to criminal activities. Becket is more physical of the pair,
with an interesting ability to talk with animals―not that anyone believes he
actually can do it.
The adventure they are pulled into is
typical fast-paced mayhem. Unlike with Artemis books, which are set in the
fairy realm, this takes place in the human world, and the bad guys are humans
too, a duke and a nun of all people odd. But it wouldn’t be an Artemis spin-off,
if fairies weren’t involved. Humans are after fairies and it’s up to the twins
to save them with the help of LEP specialist Lazul Heitz. Artemis makes a cameo
appearance―he’s on a mission to Mars―as does Holly Short, the LEP officer from
Artemis books. It’s a fun book that suits adults perfectly too, even though it’s
aimed at ten-year-olds. And I hope the subsequent books take place in the fairy
realm because that’s where the magic truly happens.
A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh
A Madness of Sunshine is the first
thriller by my favourite paranormal romance author Nalini Singh. It’s set in
rural New Zealand where the author lives, and is inspired by Nordic noir books.
The story is fairly straightforward: a young woman goes missing and practically
everyone is a suspect. Only, they really aren’t; most of them are dismissed
easily and if the author attempted to build an atmosphere of mistrust, it doesn’t
really work. There are only a couple of plausible suspects and among them the
guilty are found. The action is slow and the body count low.
It’s an interesting book nonetheless.
Singh can write great characters and as this is very much a character-led book,
it’s a pleasure to read. There are two point of view characters, a woman who
returns home to recover from a past tragedy and a cop who has taken a job in a
small town to recover from a past tragedy. They connect early on, and even
though this isn’t a romance, the two getting to know each other carries most of
the book. There aren’t great twists in the plot, but the ending is satisfying,
even if some motivations of the suspects remain baffling even after the end.
Six books read in six weeks don’t sound
much, but there are a few books that I have started and not finished. At this
point I’m still three books short of my Goodreads reading challenge of
sixty-five books, but I’m confident I’ll be able to make it. I’ll keep you
posted―I hope.
The Savior is the seventeenth book in J.R. Ward’s Black
Dagger Brotherhood urban fantasy series, and a solid addition. What makes her books great is
how she returns to old characters and continues their stories, in good and bad.
This time it was John Matthew’s turn, and his arc was the best in the book,
emotional and heart-breaking, as he ponders his likely death and his life. The
conclusion of that story-line was especially satisfying.
The love story was between Murhder, a disgraced member of
the brotherhood, and Sarah, a human scientist. It wasn’t the main focus of the
book though, and they didn’t even meet until later in the story. They both had
personal issues to deal with—him with his madness, her with the death of her fiancé
and the revelations that brought—and those carried the book nicely. The love
story was more of an insta-love type and not terribly interesting, but nice. A
great addition to their story was Nate, a young vampire who has been used as a Guinea
pig in human experiments, that the two of them rescue.
As is usual, there was also an ongoing story that focuses on
the bad guy; this time about Throe who wants to usurp the crown. Luckily it
didn’t dominate the book, as he’s not a very interesting foe. The climax of his
story seems to tie with Ward’s other series about fallen angels, if I read it
correctly, so there’s that to look forward to.
Unlike usually, there wasn’t a new character introduced that
will become the focus of the subsequent books. I hope that doesn’t mean the
series is coming to its end. There’s still Lassiter, who got his great moment
in this book, and who could use his own book. I hope we’ll get that one
eventually too, especially if the characters from the parallel series will show
up in this one.
All in all, this was a good solid book that I gobbled down
in two marathon reading sessions that lasted till small hours of the night. It
wasn’t the best book in the series by any definition, but it was better than
the two previous books, and it got me to take out the tissues, so I’m happy
with it.
***
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
I’ve read a couple of other books too that I’ve neglected to
write a review of. First one is The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal, the
follow up to her great The Calculating Stars novel, an alternative history
where the humankind is racing to Mars to escape the dying earth. In this book, Elma
is on a three year mission to Mars in the early 1960s, with a cast of
characters familiar from the first book.
This was in many ways a better book than the first. The story
was more interesting, Elma wasn’t an onlooker in her own life, and the plot was
more compact. But Elma was still a bit of a scapegoat to everything that is
wrong in her society, which was annoying, and the story’s focus was more on
those larger issues than the mission itself. And again, the most interesting
story arch was given to Stetson Parker who really grew in this book and turned
out to be a great character. He reads like an enemy-turned-love-interest, and
he probably would’ve been that if Kowal hadn’t fixed Elma’s marriage with the
novella that started the series, where Elma and her husband are old people in
Mars. A wasted opportunity there, in my opinion. But despite the flaws, the
book stayed with me for a long time, so much so that I had trouble finding
anything interesting to read that would match it.
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
This was partially remedied by Binti, a novella by Nnedi
Okorafor. It’s a sci-fi story of an African girl, Binti, who is accepted to a
prestigious university on a different planet. She’s the first in her family to
leave earth—or her home village even—and she does it in secret, fearing her
family’s reaction. On her way there, the ship is attacked by a tentacled alien
race and she’s the only survivor, thanks to a device that allows her to
understand them. It’s a story of prejudice, hate and acceptance, with a highly
imaginative world and an interesting main character. The ending is a bit long,
but it brings the story to a satisfying conclusion. I’ll likely read the
follow-up stories too.
Prisoner of Night is a shorter paranormal romance set in Black Dagger
Brotherhood universe, with no familiar characters, though short is relative. It was about 180 pages instead of the usual 600. The story has a
fairly straightforward premise: Ahmare tries to save her brother from a torture
chamber of a sadistic vampire crime lord, and for that she needs to infiltrate
the bunker of another sadistic vampire to fetch something. In this, she is
helped by Duran. He’s the son of the latter sadistic vampire, and has spent the
past twenty years being tortured by the first. And he has a revenge of his own
to deliver.
Had the story been as simple as that, rescue and revenge, it
would’ve been fairly good. It was action-filled; brutal in parts and heart-breaking
at times. The stakes were constantly high, not least because Ahmare knows that
she won’t get her brother free unless she returns Duran to his torturer.
However, this was first and foremost a love-story, and that didn’t work for me
at all.
The shorter form of the story required instant love between
the characters, which is in part explained by the biological tendency of vampire
males in BDB universe to bond with their chosen mate. But Duran has grown up in
a cult, watching his father rape and abuse his mother, so what does he know
about love? Yet he doesn’t seem to have any problems with emotions. Then,
barely past adolescence, he’s spent twenty years in captivity, being tortured
constantly. He should be a PTSD mess that takes centuries to heal. But apart
from a freak-out in the beginning, and another at the end, he functions fairly
rationally throughout. Ms Ward has written tortured characters before in her
BDB books, guiding them through their healing processes in fairly believable
manner, with more needed than a good woman’s love to make things right. Zadist especially is such a character and after several books, he’s still healing.
Here, however, there is no room for healing before the
couple is already having sex. The scene was troublesome in many respects, but
mostly because everything was forced on Duran by Ahmare, who acts as if his
reluctance to seduce her is because he’s being gentlemanly, not because there
might be an underlying cause for it—which then comes apparent at the
climax of the scene. I’m not saying she abused him as such—though it came close—but the whole scene
could’ve waited until Duran had recovered. That both of them expected to die on
the mission didn’t really make the scene feel right.
For her part, Ahmare is depicted as a nurturing person
forced into violence by circumstances, but she doesn’t really seem to suffer
from the consequences of her actions, like beheading a person. She’s decisive
when needs to be, and most of the time pushes the action on in her need to
save her brother. And her nurturing nature doesn’t extend to Duran. All in all,
the two made an odd pairing.
There were a couple of side characters who were also given
their happy endings in the story. The most notable of these was Nexi, a Shadow
who’s also fled the cult. A review mentioned how the scenes between her and
Ahmare worked better emotionally than those with Duran, and suggested that they
should’ve been made a pair in the end. At the very least, Ahmare should’ve
shared the inner thoughts with him that she did with Nexi to make the
connection between them more believable.
Duran gets to avenge his deaths in the end, and the epilogue
paints a happily-ever-after he and Ahmare deserve. Nevertheless, the creepy
parts of the story made me give only three stars of five to this story,
probably to first ever that I’ve given to BDB series.
***
To recover, I read a twenty-page short story by Karen Chance
that was free on her website with many other stories. If you’re a fan of her
Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab urban fantasy books, check them out.
Updating Pritkin was a funny little story about trying to make everyone’s
favourite war mage less scruffy, with pictures. The ending was a lesson to all
and a win for Pritkin. However, as the story had barely any Pritkin in it—the
scenes where he should’ve appeared were omitted, like so annoyingly in the
books too—I
only gave it three stars out of five. But it made me happy. And I’m definitely looking
forward to Siren’s Song, which should be in his point of view completely.
It’s been five years since I’ve posted on this blog, and I
think it’s time to revive it. I haven’t stopped reading, or reviewing books; I just
published the reviews on my other blog, Susanna Writes. I’m not entirely sure
writing two blogs is sensible, but I’m about to give it a go—again—anyway. It’s one of those things that make sense at the beginning of a new
year. So here goes.
It’s been my habit for the past couple of years to write a
list of books that I hope to read at the beginning of the year. There are so
many books being published, that it’s hard to keep track of them all. With a
list, I’ll at least remember the most interesting ones. So far, I haven’t once
read everything on the list, as I keep reading outside it, but it’s worked well
otherwise. If you want to know what I read last year, here’s a post I wrote on
my other blog (although, in hindsight, I should probably have published it on
this one).
This year, I pledged to read sixty books in Goodreads Reading Challenge, meaning that I should read five books a month. For the past
two years, I’ve read fifty-five books a year, so I’m not entirely hopeful that
I’ll be able to do it, but it won’t be for the lack of reading if I don’t.
The list for 2019 has sixty-nine books. Fifteen are
transfers from the previous list, eight of which were already on the list
before that one. Only the books that I really think I want to read, even if I
didn’t find time for them before, made it to this year’s list too. Thirteen books
are published this year, and they mostly belong to ongoing series by my
favourite authors. The rest are mostly books that I already own, but haven’t
got around reading, or belong to series that I haven’t managed to catch up with
yet. I even went through my Kindle to see what gems I had hidden there, and
added them on the list.
My list is heavy on urban fantasy and fantasy: thirty UF
books and nineteen fantasy books. That pretty much reflects my reading habits
in general. Everything else is genre fiction too; it’s seldom that I read
literary fiction these days. There are ten sci-fi books that I want to read,
but only one contemporary romance, which is odd, considering that I write them
myself, but those tend to be the books that I add on my list as I come across
them. Here are some of the books that I’m especially eager to read this year, in
no particular order.
Summoned to the Thirteenth Grave by Darynda Jones. This is
the last book in her Charley Davidson UF series of a grim reaper that I absolutely love, so it’s with part
eagerness and part dread that I wait for it to come out. The publication date
is January 15, so not long to wait anymore. And then it will be over. Forever.
Vicious and Vengeful by V.E. Schwab. I love everything she
writes, and I expect to find these two books exciting too. I got the first as a
birthday present last year, but then waited to read it until I had the second
book too, which I got for a Christmas present. So those go to the top of my
reading pile.
Wolf Rain by Nalini Singh is the latest in her long Psy-Changeling
paranormal romance series. There hasn’t been a weak book yet, so when it comes
out in June, I’ll be reading it instantly. And she’ll probably publish other
books this year too that aren’t on my list, and I’ll be reading all of them
too. This one doesn’t have a cover yet.
The Savior by J.R. Ward is another auto-buy. It’s the book
seventeen in her Black Dagger Brotherhood UF series of vampire warriors, and each book has been excellent.
She’s publishing other books this year too, and all will go on my list. The
first of those is Prisoner of Night, which is set in the same BDB world,
and is published next week.
The Wicked King by Holly Black is the second book in her
Folk of the Air series of fairies and humans living among them, and it’s
published January 8. The first book was exciting, and I expect the follow up to
live up to its predecessor.
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone is a space opera
published in June. I’d hoped there would be a new Craft Sequence book, because
the next one can’t come fast enough, but I’m sure this will be great too.
Another book by him that I’m waiting for, written with Amal El-Mohtar, is This is How You Lose the Time War that comes out in July. I’m
not exactly sure what genre that one belongs to, but it has everything, spies, time-travel,
and love.
Brave the Tempest by Karen Chance is
the latest in Cassandra Palmer UF series. It’s been too long since the previous
book and this one can’t come fast enough. Until then, I can return to her UF
world with Siren’s Song, a shorter story, which doesn’t have a publication date
yet, but should come out soon.
That’s just a small sample of what’s
to come. I also look forward to reading Atlas Alone by Emma Newman, fourth book
in her Planetfall series, Exit Strategy and Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells, which
belong to her Murderbot Diaries series, and Raven Tower, the new Ann Leckie
book. And, truly, all books on my list are those that I want to read. It’s just
that occasionally I have to prioritise.
The first book of the year has been
selected already too. That’s The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman. It’s the
fifth book in her Invisible Library series, and so far it’s very good. I’ll write
a review once I’m finished. Until then, let me know what you’ll be reading this
year.
