Guardian: Zhen Hun Vol. 3 by Priest: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Guardian: Zhen Hun vol. 3 by Priest

Guardian: Zhen Hun comes to a close in this third volume, which is a refreshing change to other Chinese danmei serialisations with their endless lengths. It picks up where the previous volume left, with Zhao Yunlan having learned about his past as the mountain god, and he and Shen Wei, the Ghost King and Soul-Executing Emissary, having become an item.

But it turns out, Zhao Yunlan—and the reader—is in for a surprise. What took place inside the Merit Tree might not have been true; annoying, if you waded through the long chapters memorising everything in case it mattered later. Someone is lying to Zhao Yunlan, but who and why.

His relationship with Shen Wei hits a bad bump almost immediately too. First, his father keeps avoiding Shen Wei when Zhao Yunlan wants to introduce them, which leads to a revelation about the elder Zhao. Then Zhao Yunlan falls ill and Shen Wei takes care of him, but the medicine he uses horrifies Zhao Yunlan. Instead of explaining, Shen Wei disappears.

Zhao Yunlan spends the first half of the book searching for him. When he finally finds Shen Wei, it’s time for the truth to come out. It’s nothing he—or the reader—had expected, and it threatens their relationship. But unlike Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan has a solution.

But before the men can even take a breather, things turn to worse again. The Great Seal that keeps the gui locked up, starts to break with horrifying consequences. It takes the ingenuity of Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei, and the entire Special Investigation Department to put things right again. The solution, however, isn’t what Zhao Yunlan would’ve hoped for.

This was a great conclusion. Things weren’t easy for the pair, but they were constantly there for one another and their romance was wonderful. Action was good and exciting, and the members of SID finally became their own persons here, in good and bad. Zhu Hong was suddenly obsessed with Zhao Yunlan, making bad decisions because of it. And Guo Changcheng, who began the story, finally got to shine. His story was nothing I would’ve expected.

There were several extra stories too. Mostly, they continue where the main story left things, giving the members of SID their moments, as well as showing the life after of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei. There’s also one story set in the men’s past, where we learn how Shen Wei got his family name.

All in all, this was a good, balanced ending for the series. It was the perfect length for the story, but even so, I could’ve read more. The members of SID deserved more page time than they got here, especially Guo Changcheng, and we didn’t get even remotely enough of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei. I could read at least a volume more.

The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish vol. 2 by Xue Shan Fei Hu: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish by Xue Shan Fei Hu

Volume 2 of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish is even cuter than the first. Prince Jing is such a simp while Li Yu believes he’s only helping the prince in order to fulfil the tasks of the computer program, aka ‘the fish scamming system’, in charge of his transmigration journey back to human.

The volume starts where the previous one ended, with Prince Jing realising that Li Yu, the young man who mysteriously appears and disappears in his quarters, is in fact his beloved pet fish Xiaoyu. But instead of being shocked, he concludes Li Yu must be a yao, an animal spirit that can take a human form, on a personal trial. And since Li Yu doesn’t reveal his true identity, he concludes the spirit wants to keep it a secret, so he won’t bring up that he knows the young man and the fish are the same. It causes many silly moments as Li Yu struggles to hide before he transforms back to a fish, believing his identity is still a secret.

Li Yu has no idea he’s supposed to be a yao. He has his hands full with increasingly bizarre demands of the fish scamming system, like indulging with the prince. His rewards include a transformation into a proper koi fish, much to the astonishment of everyone, and learning Prince Jing’s secrets that raise more questions than they solve. But he’s still limited to only two hours as a human every day.

Prince Jing has his own ideas of what it means that the fish is a yao: he must share essence with the young man in order for him to grow. And that means intimate contact. But when he tries to kiss Li Yu, everything goes sideways. Li Yu has no idea what’s come over the prince and finds the whole incident frightening. It leads to maybe the best scenes in the book where the prince tries to make up to the fish who keeps moping. But Li Yu figures out his own feelings in the end and making out with the prince doesn’t sound so bad after all. If only he could stay as a human longer for them to take matters further.

There isn’t as much court intrigue as in the first book, but the other princes fighting to become the crown prince still cause Prince Jing constant trouble. Prince Jing deals with them with the help of his fish. And he’s starting to think that he should try for the crown himself too. But even though he manages to please his father the emperor, there’s no reward. Instead, there’s a great change for Jing and his fish. The book ends there.

This was such a bowl of cotton candy, silly and cute, with occasional darker moments to balance things out. Prince Jing’s amusement with his lover trying to hide his fishness, and secretly helping him, and Li Yu’s obliviousness is fun to follow. There are many silly moments when Li Yu earnestly tries to please the prince, only to make a mess. They are so much fun together. It seems Li Yu will be successful in his overall mission of preventing Prince Jing from becoming a tyrant, but there’s still a lot to come. We’ll see how things go in the next book.

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

A Sorcerer Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

A Sorceress Comes to Call is a gothic horror or fairytale complete with ghosts and headless horses. It takes place in a country manor, but the country and time are a bit vague. It mostly resembles early Victorian England, except everyone is Catholic, and it constantly refers to old world across the sea, so maybe New England with aristocrats, country squires and general Englishness. Or maybe it’s an imaginary place of fairytales.

Cordelia is fourteen and deathly afraid of her mother. Evangeline is a sorceress with the power of taking over Cordelia’s body, making her a puppet her mother operates, a horror she has to often endure. Her mother uses it mostly as a punishment, but Cordelia can never be sure what triggers the punishment. She’s timid, barely daring to breathe wrong, has no friends, and little understanding of how the world works. And she’s not allowed to have any secrets from her mother, and no closed doors between them. She can only confide in her mother’s horse, Falada.

Cordelia’s world is turned upside down, when her mother announces she’s going to marry a rich squire who has no idea what’s awaiting him, and whisks them off to his country manor. Cordelia must marry well too, so she has to pretend she’s seventeen. She can barely handle being fourteen and outside her village, let alone living in a large manor with servants who are nice to her. But the most difficult thing for her to handle is the freedom of knowing there are locked doors between her and her mother. It triggers fear episodes in her.

Hester is 51 and a spinster, because a decade ago she rejected the man she loves for his own good. But she’s organised her life the way she likes with her brother, the squire, even if her bad knee troubles her. And then everything is ruined by the arrival of Evangeline. Hester knows even before she shows up that doom is on its way, and is determined to stop it at any cost.

Evangeline sets out to seduce the squire. She can’t use magic, because the wedding rites will dissolve it. Hester is equally determined to stop it, so she fills the house with friends, one of whom is the squire’s former mistress. A bad move. Because Evangeline is not above murder. But the one thing Evangeline can’t imagine is that Cordelia would work against her too.

This was a great book. The atmosphere is perfect for a gothic novel, but not too scary for me. Cordelia with her paralysing fear of her mother was a great character to root for, and it was wonderful to see her open up a little with Hester and her nice friends. Hester had her own story, the romance with Richard and the regrets of her past. And Evangeline was perfectly villainous with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

It’s a fairly long book for the story, but the pace was good and there was never a moment that I would be bored with it. Evangeline with her superior magic was a difficult foe for ordinary people to defeat, but they have the numbers and some unexpected help. The ending is satisfying. All in all, a good read for fans of gothic fairytales with some gory bits.

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

Peerless vol 1 by Meng Xi Shi: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Peerless vol 1 by Meng Xi Shi

Peerless starts a new danmei series by Meng Xi Shi. According to the back cover text, it’s set in the same world as their Thousand Autumns series, but in this first volume the connection is mostly the jianghu, as the author calls their martial arts world. Here, jianghu only plays a secondary role though.

The main characters are Feng Xiao and Cui Buqu, leaders of rivalling secret agencies of the new dynasty. Feng Xiao is a martial arts expert, beautiful beyond belief, and self-centered in a way that’s both aggravating and amusing. Cui Buqu doesn’t know any martial arts and he’s sickly and weak, but his mind is sharp. He’s on a secret mission on a remote border town, working under cover when Feng Xiao arrives to town to investigate a murder of a foreign emissary.

Feng Xiao immediately suspects Cui Buqu, who seizes the opportunity to hinder Feng Xiao’s investigation. But soon, the two must start working together. There isn’t love lost between the men, but some kind of respect forms in between the endless bantering.

This was a fun start to a series, and very different from Thousand Autumns. The beginning was a tad confusing, as it was told from the points of view of random characters, and it took several chapters before Feng Xiao and Cui Buqu came to fore. The main plot is a murder mystery, although a convoluted and highly illogical, the suspects springing up at random. The men manage to explain everything in the end though. The start of their relationship is rocky, but very entertaining, each holding their own. And the next mystery is already waiting for them. Looking forward to reading it.

Bananapants by Penny Reid: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

Bananapants by Penny Reid

Bananapants is a spin-off of Reid’s Knitting in the City series. It’s time for the second generation to have their romances. Once again, we’re in Chicago, but the date seems to be the present day, as if the earlier books took place thirty years ago. It works fine.

It has been quite a long time since I read the original series, and I didn’t remember all the original characters, but since I wanted to find out if this works without reading the originals, I didn’t do a fresher. It wasn’t needed, but I think the nostalgia factor would’ve been stronger if I’d remembered the originals better.

This book is about Ava Archer (daughter of Fiona and Greg) and Des Sullivan (son of Janie and Quinn). They were the bestest friends in childhood, until he ghosted her. It has left a mark on her and she’s incapable of committing to a relationship.

The two meet unexpectedly at a party where neither of them should be. He’s determined to keep things at that, but she has other ideas. And turns out he might have missed her as much as she has missed him, so he’s not entirely against having her around, especially since he might need her help. If only it didn’t put her in mortal danger.

This was an entertaining book with a secondary suspense plot. It wasn’t entirely satisfying romance though, and it didn’t rise to the level of Reid’s best books. Especially the ending was a let-down. Instead of the romance having its emotional climax, it climaxed with the action plot without proper romantic conclusion. The last chapter is actually an epilogue. I don’t know why it wasn’t named as such, as it gives the reader a false hope that there’s a proper conclusion for the romance yet to come. The couple ends at a good place, but I hoped for more. It didn’t give me the emotional rush I expect of romances.

The characters were fine, but Ava wasn’t much different from some Reid heroines. I liked Des with his mental problems and interesting occupation more than her, but it seemed like the romance was based on childhood memories, nostalgia, and fantasies more than getting to know who they’d become. Other siblings were introduced too, so there’s likely more romances to come. Definitely something to look forward to for Reid fans.

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