Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Aaron, I mean Bach.

Forturne's Pawn
by Rachel Bach

*****
SciFi
November 2013


cover - How can you not love this cover.  there's a space suit helmet, an intense face in there, and all those code and symbols running across her visor.... all her feeds.  Yep.  Intense.

I just love a good SciFi novel, especially when there are gadgets and implants, wetware, soft ware, etc., along with a good strong intense female lead.  I'm not crazy about the almost out of control temper on this particular woman, but she's not my best friend or family member, so it's all just part of a good story.  Except in the place where I'm rolling my eyes because she's a little quick to lash out with her temper, when she's supposed to be a highly trained soldier....but - it's all story line.  To be fair, I do find my self rolling my eyes at many random things lately - maybe I'm just cranky.  ;)

In this book, Deviana - aka Devi -  has signed on to a ship that is well known as an illfated ship to be on.  She signs on to it, because she's too impatient to rise up the ranks and be noticed for an elite position in an elite kings' guard position.  This position just about backfires on her.

She ends up almost dying a few times, has some adventures and falls for this cook who seems to be more than your average cook.  In fact, everyone on this ship is  a little more than appears.

I enjoyed the characters - except for the stereotypical almost sexist co-mercenary who has signed on at the same time.  I would hope that by the time any civilization gets into space, and terraforms many planets that the usual male looking down on female coworkers would have been on the down swing; what with evolution, the fact that there are many females in the armies, etc.  I would hate to think that we could possibly go thousands of years and still be dealing with males pulling the whole cock of the roost thing.   But - then Devi wouldn't have been able to show off her macho state of being, her toughness, and her armor.  (Wink)

Aside from that, I enjoyed the story along with the strange characters on the ship.  I like the universe and other beings that Bach as written into the story.  The backgrounds of each race are interesting - you have to read to appreciate....

Even the Doctor of the ship is of a being that are usually known to humans as a warring race, and Devi almost shoots the navigator before they are introduced.  The doctor in fact, is one of my favorite characters.

There are some fun plot twists in this novel - one of three so far. (novels, not plot twists).  There is a romance that is nipped almost before it starts, unrequited love, friendships where Devi never expected to find friendships, mysterious crew and captain, a ship raid or three that they barely survive, and some freaky deaky stuff that goes on.  

I am looking forward to reading the next in the series - and according to some of the other reviews, book three is even more intense than the first two.  wow.

Rachel Bach also writes as Rachel Aaron (The Spirit Thief)

Chill by Elizabeth Bear - review

Chill
Elizabeth Bear
Jacob's Ladder #2
SciFi/Fantasy

****** six out of six stars

cover  - See, here's the thing.  These characters are supposed to be very pale - as evidenced on this cover.  But not shown on this cover, is that they are also pretty blue tinged....  however, this IS this representation of a colony of symbiont colonies....a type of nanobyte, if you will, that aids in keeping the bodies fresh, fighting disease and injury - even too much emotions.   Science Fiction - gotta love it.  :)


If you haven't read Dust, then Chill isn't going to make much sense.  It's still doable, but it's better to read Dust first.  The second in a trilogy - Jacob's Ladder trilogy, Chill takes off right where Dust ended.  The aftermath of a great battle...  but you need back ground.  Too  bad you're not going to get a lot of back ground -- you really need to read the book to get the most out that you can. See, I'm not sure I got everything out of the book that I could.  But here's a start...

The generation ship - Jacob's Ladder, has been recently saved from hundreds of years of orbiting a dying star.  Using a dangerous combination of events, the newest captain has managed to begin a journey to find a planet for the inhabitants of this ship to colonize.  this is something that was planned long ago, though the plans to colonize seem to have been delayed.  The original ship dwellers are mostly all gone - there are some who have been around for a few hundred years, but even they don't know all there is to know of the beginnings of the flight; they don't know the complete story to how the ship ended up stranded and orbiting in a dying system for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, though the ship is now traveling, it's also continuing to fail at an even faster rate.

The inhabitants: this is where I believe the SciFi merges with some fantasy elements - whether the author planned this or not, it's how I see it.  There are some strong SciFi elements; bio-engineering, computer programs merging with humans; computer programs turned into artificial intelligence turned into "angels"; elite family members with special gifts such as wings, the ability to sense things and converse telepathically with the AI.  The background of this book is rich with details of all types.

The support staff of the ship are divided according to the systems they work in - here is where I show how much I don't remember terms, so I'll just describe.  The engineering section is one family, the kitchen/life sustenance is another.  there is life support, and the ruling class - the Conn's who are not the nicest people in the world.  And the ship itself - it's vast.  Vast enough to contain seasons, fields and holdings resembling fiefdoms of yesteryear.  I cannot do this book and all the details justice.

So, I skip to the storyline.  In Dust (Jacob's Ladder #1), we meet Perceval, Rien, Mallory, Gavin, Tristen and Benedict - among a few others.  In Chill, Perceval is now Captain of the ship.  Two of the enemy angels have warred - with one clear winner.  Each ship system had its own Angel, and one Angel was ambitious enough to take over and absorb the other angels, trying to effect a change that would save the ship.  Because of this, Perceval's new found love - Rien, is now part of the computer system/angel.  Perceval is angry, and trying to adjust.

And even though the war is "over" it's not really over.  The ship is losing valuable resources almost faster than damaged areas can be fixed.  Tristen (one of the uncles) and Benedict (one of the other uncles) have gone on separate and parallel quests to find out what's going on, and to try to fix the problems.   Unfortunately one of the Aunts - Arianne, seemingly captured, has escaped and has some plan she's been putting into action.   Mallory - a necromancer who looks like a man and a woman, but who claims to be a woman - is helping.  Mallory has the memories of hundreds, if not thousands of previously living people in his ....memory banks.  His sidekick is a metal bird, called Gavin who seems to have the memories of one of the other Aunts.  This aunt was a sorceress - (you see where I get the fantasy along with the SciFi?)

It sounds confusing as hell, but when you're reading it, you just fall into the story, and the details unfold as you read along.  The details as well as the rich surroundings, and the fantastical mix of science and fantasy, computer programs and magic.  It's a hell of a mix, ending in a hell of a story.  

Another merging of factions is the female vs male, hetero vs homo sexual - only it really isn't a versus type of thing, it's more of a mixture.  Sexuality, and even male/female presence is more of an afterthought, or even better - a blending of ideals.  For example, as an exalt (the elite members of the family) one can choose to be sexual or asexual.  Perceval had chosen to be asexual until she fell in love with Rien, and even then though she really wanted to marry this woman, she wasn't concerned with a sex life, more of a merging and spending a life with her loved one.  Mallory - not quite male or female, is with either sex.  It's as if an ideal future for the sexes was being described here - a world where people are allowed to love as they will, with no judgement or spotlight.  The sexual preferences just ... Are.

Good story, with the promise of more with the third of the series - Grail.  I enjoyed the dialogue, the inner thoughts and the lush descriptions of everything from the ship's different sections to the animals and fauna within the ship, and all the different people.  It all combines into one hell of a story.

    

   Books one and three of 
    Jacob's Ladder trilogy

The Burn Zone by James Decker - Review

The Burn Zone
James Decker
Feb 2013
SciFi


cover - YES.  here is a cover that actually represents the main character - a girl, a tough girl who is obviously ready for a fight...


Well.  Sometimes I read a book and I don't enjoy it, don't finish it and then don't review it.  Other times, I read a book and enjoy the hell out of it but for some (lazy) reason, I put off writing the review because.....I don't why.  Who knows what's going on in my head?  I don't.  This time, I read The Burn Zone, loved it, put off reviewing it and then when I FINALLY decide to review, I find out that not only is this guy a "debut" author of The Burn Zone, he's also an author of a trilogy of books under the name of James Knapp.  I don't pretend to understand all the reasons for using different names, but in this case it doesn't matter to me, especially when I haven't read anything under either of the names.  How many of you have steered away from reading a certain genre (coughromancecough - coughbodicerippercough) only to pick up an interesting looking URBAN fantasy book and then read it, find it vaguely disturbingly romance like (or totally like a romance) novel, and THEN find out that - yes - the reason said book reads like a romance is because the author has been writing romance for 500 YEARS, making it a bit hard to write a book that doesn't read like a romance with paranormal elements.  And then there's the whole OOh, I'm not soandso author, oh no, and other fans go on the attack, how dare you even ask, etc, and then a year or so later it turns out it WAS  a certain author, for some reason keeping it completely SECRET....ahhhh I digress (and possibly sound a little disturbed er bitter) let's just get back to THIS book. 

So, as I was sayin', James Knapp, James Decker - same guy, not a secret, no rabid fans ready to attack me (I hope) - either way, this James guy can write a hell of a good story.

First of all, let me remind y'all, it's been almost a year since I read The Burn Zone.  And when I finished it, it kept echoing in my mind.  That's a pretty good book.  Now let's see if I can remember enough to write a coherent review.

Set in the future, and in Asia, life has become...hard to live.   Most of the masses are living hand to mouth, eating some kind of nutrient cake made of some kind of insect byproduct (gross, right?).  One of the reasons people are so poor and food challenged, is that a huge spaceship landed in a section of a city, instantly killing millions of people - and one of the results is a treaty between the nation and the spaceship occupants to divert a percentage of food to the aliens as well as provide women surrogates for their young.  It's complicated, and much more to the story, but the Haan (the aliens) are supposed to be fragile.

One of the women taking part in the incubation/foster - Sam Shao has started life out in difficult circumstances.  Seems there are these meat providers who aren't particular about what kind of meat they provide - she was saved at the last minute by a cop, who later adopted her.  When the story starts, she's been living with him for a while, he's away on a trip, and she's just coming home and is taking care of her haan baby.  He barely comes home when their apartment is raided, cops are there to arrest her father.  Since she's been enhanced to sense the haan infant needs, she also is able to sense things about one of the cops - and it seems like this cop is actually a not so fragile Haan.

She escapes the raid, and is on the run for pretty much the rest of the book.  One of her goals is to find her father, who has disappeared into the depths of ....where ever prisoners end up when they're so expedient.  There's a conspiracy afoot.

Besides the main plot, Decker has weaved a pretty rich atmosphere - future gadgets, like motorcycles that can fly, space travel, air travel, computer whizzes, one who is a friend to Sam, a crowded city full of people who cannot be trusted and danger at every turn.  Sam has to stay clear of meat slavers and from the police who seem to be able to find her wherever she goes.  Despite seemingly hopeless odds, Sam begins to make a little headway into the mystery of why her father - a respected cop - is being accused of treason and where he ends up.  She takes a huge risk attempting to rescue her father and finds way more than she ever dreamed.  There's much more to the conspiracy than she suspected.

Everything about this story works - the setting, the aliens, the creepy people, the disgusting black market human meat thing, the dialog, betrayal.....it's all packaged in a hell of a novel.    The cover notes that it's part of the Burn Zone series, so I am hoping to read more of this story.  A very enjoyable and at times disturbing read.

Man Made Boy by Jon Skovron - review

Man Made Boy
by Jon Skovron
Y/A, fantasy
2013


cover - in the story, Boy has stitching on hands or wrists, among other places.  So though the bolts give you a good idea of what kind of 'monster' Boy is, I would have thought some stitching would be a good addition.  Even so, the cover is fun, with the bolts, the nod to computer motherboard chips and the little heart shaped piece in his hand.

Man Made Boy was a fun book.  In keeping with my new policy of reading a Y/A book on a more regular basis (i.e., not only the books my fav author writes), I happily opened up this novel to read.  And though it took me longer to read than it should have (I shared the book, leaving it at a location where another person and I could read it in turns) I enjoyed reading this story.  

Imagine that Frankenstien's Monster, and the Bride of Frankenstein got together and had a son...er....made a son.  What would they do to keep said son safe?  Live underground?

Literally - they live underground, within a community of a variety of monsters, most of whom never see daylight or go out in public among the humans.  But to keep money coming in, they put on a show - a kind of broadway  or oldstyle variety show, the main attraction is Medusa, who can freeze one with a mere look, paralyze people with fear and other feelings....  This is where Boy's dad comes in.  He disconnects from his emotions and handles Medusa.  But that is a small part of this story.

Boy gets a chance to go out side with the leader of their community, and enjoys it more than he thought he would.  His life hasn't been too great anyway at the commune - his parents and him are at the bottom of the small society, ridiculed by the other monsters, who are themselves afraid of oing out and living among humans.  (there's a moral in there, somewhere)  

Boy also has a crush on one of the Trowes (think lithe troll with panther like moves...)...  Anyway - long review made short...

Boy leaves the compound, gets a job and starts blending in.  Only there's this computer code he's been working on that has come back to haunt him, and his crush shows up, things to to hell, Boy ends up on the run....

And there's some pretty good lessons in the book, not even disguised - straight up lessons - Boy even says so himself.  Which is good - nothing like trying to trick a teen into learning something. 

I found the book mostly enjoyable.
Boy's voice didn't really sound much like a teen, which could be either because the writer isn't a teen or that Boy isn't your average teen.

There are many cameos of just about any mythical monster you can name, as well as pop culture monster.
It was a fun read.

Pariah by Bob Fingerman - review

It's been a long time since I wrote a review, I've been in such a mood.  It's time to pull myself out of the "funk" and dive into a book review.

Though I haven't read many novels recently, the ones I did manage to finish reading were very good reads! :)

One of them was a little strange, keeping my interest in an odd quirky way.

Let's see if I can do it justice....

Pariah

Bob Fingerman

horror

2010

****** (six out of six stars)

cover - The cover actually gives you a glimpse of the novel.  There are the zombies, kind of lurching around (though in the book, there's quite a few more zombies lumbering around) and there's this girl - walking unfazed through them.  Unfazed and unmolested - just strolling through.

Unlike your average zombie book, this one doesn't focus on the initial zombie outbreak and crisis.  Pariah tells the story of a bit later.  What happens after a small group of people have holed up in an apartment building, figured out how to stay away from the zombies, and have been coexisting if not happily, then uneasily with each other.  It's quite a group of individuals.  Two "jock" ex-hockey players, who are sharing an apartment (and maybe a bit more) - one is kind of nice even though he's a follower and the other is an asshole.  A bigoted ass who looks down on everyone but himself.  There's an elderly couple who love each other, but have been married for so long that they aren't that nice to each other.  A single young man living by himself, the son of a religious zealot - who ran away from home to live in sin in the big city. Except he didn't find the kind of sin he would have liked to find.  Then there is the young couple - suffering from a recent loss, they're trying to hold on to their love for each other and survive.  The artist, another single man who lives on his own, he's been drawing pictures of the zombies he sees from his window, and harboring a longstanding secret crush on the young wife of his neighbor.  Last, and certainly not least - is the man living on the roof.  A guy who tried to make it home to the projects, and ended up stuck at this apartment building - rescued in a rare case of heroism by the asshole jock, he's been keeping himself on the roof, throwing bricks and loose masonry on zombie heads, doing his part to destroy the zombies one zombie at a time.

This group is not your average group of friends, but they're all they have left of society.  Unfortunately, they are also living on the last of their supplies, slowly starving to death because they can't get to the store that lies tantalizingly in reach yet completely out of reach.  They are just about at the end of their rope - in more ways than one, when along comes....

This girl.  Who is seen just walking through  a horde of zombies.  and the zombies are leaving her alone - even clearing space away from her.  The elderly man sees her first, but no one believes him, and by the time people finally come to his window, she's gone.  A little later, she's back, and finally is seen.  They call out to her, and it's hard, because they're also dehydrated - but she finally hears them and walks over to them.  They're saved!  She - with an extremely flat affect, agrees to go to the store and get them supplies.  That night, they have their first feast in forever.  

Seems like a happily ever after moment - but no.  After they've managed to come away from the threat of starvation, and there is hopefully a large supply of food and other items available to them, other matters start to occupy them.  And this is when things really start to go south.  They've been so focused on just surviving and conserving the teeny bit of food left, that's all they could think about. 

Now they have the energy and time to obsess about other things, and to misbehave.  This comes out in a variety of ways.  One man begins to think about the end of times, and starts to wonder if the girl is a demon, come to tempt them.  The asshole jock begins to obsess about the new girl.  In fact, each of the group is affected by this strange, flat young girl differently.   Jealousies arise, and problems surface.  Through it all, the girl remains oddly unaffected, ultra calm, and short of words.  She doesn't have much to say, yet will traipse all over this huge destroyed city to pick up whatever supplies the people need, and some they didn't realize they needed.

Fingerman did a great job of pulling me into the story of this small group of survivors - each character's point of view is exposed, and each character has a distinct personality and voice.  Each character had a distinct way of talking, and their own way of thinking - some good, some not so good, some downright horrible.  Their inner narration/thoughts were superbly managed through his writing.  Bad things happen to this group and yet some good things also take place.  We see the best and worst of each of the characters.  A very interesting novel,  exploring the possibilities of human behaviour and reactions; our good impulses vs our bad impulses.  By the end of the book, you're left thinking they just might make it, though the world is not going to be even remotely close to before.  Left up in the air is just how these people are going to survive, are they ever going to be able to fend for themselves? grow their own food?  meet anyone else besides this very strange young woman who can walk among the zombies?

I enjoyed the hell out of this novel.  :)

Scorch by Gina Dimaco - review

Scorch
Croak #2
Gina Dimaco
Y/A, UF
2012

***** (five out of six)

Cover - I love this cover; it just screams teen with attitude, and when you add in the fact that the teen in question also has this power to DAMN people, then you have this great cover representing her with FLAMES in the background. 

In keeping with my promise to myself to continue experimenting with young adult reads, I read Scorch.  It was an easy decision, because I had read the first book - Croak - and decided I liked it enough to want to read the sequel.  And the cover to Croak was pretty interesting.

I enjoyed Scorch as much as I enjoyed Croak.  The characters - the teens, all are pretty believable character up to and including their continuously raging hormones.  The dialogue was mostly appropriate for teens, with an occasional "slip up" where Dimaco had her main character using a few words that aren't normally found in the average teen's vocabulary.  In fact, there are some words that just aren't heard much outside of books, and once in a while one would pop up in Scorch - this is probably the only thing that yanked me out of rhythym of reading Scorch.

However - Scorch was pretty good.  At the end of Croak, Lex had found out she had an extra talent, besides being able to reap souls from the dying, she's also able to damn souls.  Unfortunately this isn't a talent she's supposed to have and many of the residents of Croak have turned against her - especially with a the requisite extremely judgmental couple who are town elders.  Being judged harshly by most of the townspeople and having a rogue reaper after Lex, killing people to get to her Lex and the rest of the juniors go on the run with Uncle Mort, having some harrowing experiences but also meeting some good friends.

There were some seriously sad parts, and yet a lot of the novel was written with humor and there quite a few chuckles for me while reading.  I love when I'm able to laugh even though the subject matter might be kind of heavy and dark, and let's face it.  Whenever there's a book about grim reapers, soul collectors, etc then the subject matter is basically a bit dark.  Gina Dimaco is able to make her characters likeable, believable and very interesting.  Even the villians are interesting - they might be portryed a bit extreme, but on the whole very fun characters to read.

If you're worried about your teen reading about sex, be warned that Lex and her boyfriend to make out a lot, but it's pretty much mentioned, Dimaco doesn't go into specifics with graphic teen sex scenes.  

Show Dog Sings the Blues by Devin O'Branagan - minireview

Show Dog Sings the Blues
Devin O'Branagan
from the world of Red Hot Property

Cover - I love the covers of Devin O'Branagan books.  There are many self published books that have very weird looking art on them, almost like the worst possible computer characters being used as models, and they usually just look bad....making me NOT want to open the book.  I'm sure you've seen them..But O'Branagan does not make that mistake.  Nope - she uses either a beautiful Aussie Shepherd, or a very sexy high heel shoe, or a couple of roses dramatically placed....Very classy covers.  This is no exception.  Just look at that dog.  Beautiful.  

Devin O'Branagan wrote a duo of novels featuring Molly, a newly single mother and her daughter.  The first book was the story of how Molly makes a new life for her daughter and herself, gets a license as a real estate broker and has many scenes of house showings weaved into a story of a woman's coming of age, or rather growing into her own.  That book was Red Hot Property and was a good mix of humor and real life.  There was a sequel, Red Hot Liberty that was just as fun to read.  I mention them, because Talisman is a very pampered dog owned by one of the secondary characters, and later ended up in Molly's small family.   There is a third novel coming, by the way - but in the meantime...

Show Dog Sings the Blues features a short story of Talisman, aka Tali, aka dog diva supreme (I made that up) and her visit to see her sister.  See Tali is so pampered that her first owner made sure she had regular spa visits, massages, visits with a pet psychic, etc and when Tali ended up in Molly's family Molly and daughter continued the regimen, which included regular visits with her sister, who lived a completely different lifestyle.

Tali's sister is a working dog - a dog that works on a ranch, herding sheep and helping the ranch hands with all kinds of the jobs that make a ranch function.

Except that on this one particular visit, Tali and her sister end up mixed up - a case of mistaken identity.  While her sister, who loves being a working ranch dog has to endure a day of pampering and watching through the window Tali ends up having to work the day away, not know how to handle each particular job.  The ranch hand she's left with doesn't realize she's not her sister and can't figure out why his new boss says the dog is such a good working dog - she seems kind of crazy to him.  And the other farm animals of course can tell Tali isn't the right dog so some of them challenge her and some of them just don't seem to respect her - especially this one kitten who decides she's a new best friend.

The book is a fun read, and though I would never dream of pampering my dog the way Tali is pampered, it's kind of funny to read about Tali and her....very spoiled ways.  Her sister - way more down to earth and happy with her life, was a good counterpoint to Tali.

If you're looking for a fun short read, Show Dog Sings the Blues is a fun one, written in Tali's pov. I had fun reading it. 

Roil by Trent Jamieson - review

Roil

Book one of The Nightbound Land duology
Trent Jamieson
fantasy (with some steampunk elements)
2011

****** 
cover - I love this cover; there's something about the completely pissed look on her face.  Reminds me of Kiera Knightly playing Domino.  Bad-assed and deadly. That is kind of why I even picked up the book.  Then I bought it because it sounded so....gnarly (in a good way, which makes no sense at all).


It seems as though any book published by Angry Robot turns out to be wicked good. They're not your typical steampunk or urban fantasy novels.  Roil is another example of a crazy good book. 

This continent, Shale, - even the entire world, is being consumed by this thing called the Roil.  Heat loving monsters like you've never heard of before....quarg hounds, witmoths, garment flutes...lots of baddies.  From the back of the book - "It's up to a decadent wastrel, a four thousand year old man and a young woman bent on revenge to try to save their city - and the world." 

I enjoyed this book, even though it seemed so hopeless that any of them would survive.  The Roil is relentless and just consumes whole cities, people with them.  The witmoths take over the people, and the whole thing is changing.  What was once seemingly random monsters now seem to have  a plan, and to be using strategy.    Added to that you have a mayor of one city who has tried to convince the people there's no danger until the last minute, there's these other people called cuttlefolk who have an uneasy truce with people, and yet will kill.  And that four thousand year old man?  a very dangerous man who barely keeps himself in check, but is still trying to help save humanity.

The narration as well as the dialogue is very well done, making the book just flow.  I've tried one other book by Trent Jamieson and it doesn't even seem like the same writer (couldn't get past the first few chapters, though I'm willing to go back and try again).  I would love to get hold of the second in this duology - find out who wins in the end.  

The characters were great - the old man, creepy as hell and very powerful.  The young man, David - who at first can only think of his drug, but of course, life intervenes (as it usually does), and Margaret.  Margaret is soooo angry.  She escaped a Roil invasion and wants to destroy the Roils - she's ready to kill.

Good reading, highly recommended.

This Is All I Ask by Lynn Kurland - review

This Is All I Ask
Lyn Kurland
Historical Romance
1997

**** {four out of six stars)

cover - one of the coolest covers for historical romance. There's no naked abdomen full of muscles, there's no woman kneeling hanging on to a man's leg like he's trying to go and she's trying to keep him.  Or like he's completely conquered her.  Nope.  This is a tasteful cover with a pretty cool dragon icon on it.  

This was a re-read for me.  The first time I read it, I was 16 years younger, 16 years of marriage younger and still in my thirties - late thirties, but thirties.  sigh....  what a difference 16 years makes.

There is no denying that Ms Kurland can write a pretty good book, with a nice mix of history, ambience, suspense and romance.   Not only that, but her romance and the resulting sexxing up is not overdone in that overbearing way that many romance novels have nowadays.  I'm talking the difference between romance and soft porn, which most romance seems to have become - or at least the last few that I read, which caused me to give up on the romance novels.

Anyway... As far as the plot is concerned, it's an interesting one.  A young girl, physically abused by her father is saved by a man who has given his oath to her brother - back when they served their overlord together.  Only this guy has taken so long to do so, and now her brother is dead, so she's been left at the whim of her extremely abusive father.

And the hero - who has a very deep distrust of women all because of oh-so evil now dead wife - well, one of the reasons he's taken so long to fullfill his oath, is because he's blind -from an accident, and has been staying in his castle, keeping his blindness a secret from all but his most trusted men....and in the process building such a crazed evil reputation that people all over talk of his complete evil - how he deals with the devil (remember this is set in midieval times), has murdered his wife,  eats babies, etc.  He sends his friend to collect his bride, who comes with almost nothing of her own, and marries her.  She still doesn't realize he's blind, and is so scared she literally is trembling in fear...

So - for hundreds of pages, these two dance around each other - him ignoring her, her scared to death, but making friends with his squire, etc.

Then comes the inevitable coming together - the friendship, the winning over, the beginnings of love, etc..  Their love is of course a sweet young love, just beginning to blossom when disaster strikes!  this is where things begin to wear on me, and I'm all ---- puleeeeezzzzz people! get  a GRIP!

All of a sudden, he has decided that he doesn't trust her. She's been seen going to a certain hut to confer with the local wisewomen - aka witches.  So of course, he has decided without asking that she's really another evil young wife who is plotting against him and the shit hits the fan - so to speak.
On top of that, her father suddenly wants to visit....

By this time in the book, I'm thinking - what the hell did I like about it?  They're both so fucking stupid!  He's way too stubborn, and she's too wimpy (yes, I know she's been abused, so that's why she's wimpy - but it's hard to take in this case)

As with all romances, things get worked out in the end, but by then I don't even like either character because they're so asinine.

However - Kurland is good with words.  She's good with settings.  She's good with writing a story, and if you happen to like reading about grand misunderstandings and subsequent renewals of love, then this is the book for you.  As for me, I just felt too old and jaded to be reading this the second time and I wish I had just left it as a nice pleasant memory of a book I enjoyed 16 years full of ups and downs ago.  Now the book has been tainted for me, because I'm older and have less patience for starcrossed lovers and husbands to make stupid assumptions.

Boyfriend From Hell by Jamie Quaid - review

Boyfriend From Hell
Jamie Quaid  aka Patricia Rice
Saturn's Daughter #1
Urban Fantasy
2012

*** .... okay, maybe ****

cover - I love this cover.  It's just so in your face.  Ridiculous heels, a motorcycle and a tire iron.  Girl means BUSINESS!
But don't let the cover fool you.  She wasn't quite as tough as the cover presumes.....

First off - let me just say that I did enjoy reading the book.  Most of it.  After all, I did finish and I don't finish books if I'm not enjoying them at least a little.....but there were a few times when I found myself doing that frustrated irritable sigh, and rolling my eyes....  I can't even really tell you why.

I love the premise of the book; weird things going on in a forgotten - or rather ignored -  section of a city.  This section has suffered from a chemical spill, and the chemical spill is causing some weird animation of inanimate objects, causing changes in people, strange abilities in some...

Our main character is a supposedly bad-ass who has had a bad experience with cops and university personnel.  Bad enough to cause her to have one leg shorter than the other and residual pain.  Even so, she's going to college to be a lawyer, and is working is this oh-so-strange section to earn her way through lawyering classes.

Anyway - long summary short - Tina has an asshole boyfriend who she can never rely on, and one day he's so very late.  She's already pissed off, because he's supposed to be picking her up but then he shows up and it seems he's running her down.  Of course she's convinced he's trying to kill her -  this is the part that got to me.  Really?  I would have thought something was wrong with the car, not that he's trying to kill me, but it's not my story.  She yells at him "Damn you to hell" and he burns up in a fiery conflagration....so of course she right away REALIZES that she did indeed damn him to hell.  (unless I'm remembering it wrong, I do tend to wait a hell of a long time to write a review...)  He keeps showing up in her mirrors and she never really freaks out about this - but that could be because of all the strange things she already has seen in this oh-so-strange section of the city.

Anyway, jumping to another plot point, a bag of deposit money gets stolen right out from under her.....AND she witnesses a fancy car run down a group of kids....  it's all mashed up into a story.

Her boss, who at first is described as kind of sleazy, in a what I understood to be a lounge lizard kind of way (which is also extremely unattractive to me).  She is supposedly unattractive, he's described in an unappealing way but she has the hots for him - even right after her boyfriend has gone up in flames....Somehow as the book progresses, she finds him more and more attractive (of course).

She also finds herself changing.  Every time she manages to accidentally damn someone, she gains physical attractiveness - her legs lengthen.  She loses her scars.  And she finds herself damning people more than she should.  Temper, Temper, young grasshopper!  tsk, tsk.

So anyway - as I already said, I liked most of the book.  The parts I found myself eyerolling at were the reasons she damns people, her not really bad-assedness, and when she finally realizes she's a daughter of saturn - after pretty much ignoring WAY TOO MANY CLUES, such as NOTES that have been left for her to read.

What I enjoyed was her boyfriend's motorcycle gang friends, who consider her a friend and help her out however they can.  I also liked all the weirdness that happens in this oh-so-strange section of the city - even though I wish that the writer had written in some more of this.  I also liked that her boss had hidden depths, and the weird girl who seemed to start out so meek - changes into a chimpanzee when stressed...but watch out for her.

So - an odd mixture of feelings about this book for me.  I found the narrative a little .....  I guess, dry - this was what had me feeling like sighing in frustration - something about the way the narrative was written turned me off, but I did enjoy the story as a whole.  Enough to think about buying the next book in the series, someday - whether on kindle or ppb.  I would like to see how the oh-so-strange section of the city fares, and would like to read more of the completely weird characters, even though I'm not totally into the whole Daughter of Saturn thing.  It just seemed like the story was going in one direction with the set up, the history, the chemical explanations (too much of that, by the way) and then this mystical Saturn's Daughter thing - which happens every so many years, blah, blah, blah didn't quite match the rest.  But again - not my story, and the other parts make up for this mis-match of plot.

Pretty Sacrifices by Devin O'Branagan - review

Pretty Sacrifices
Devin O'Branagan
Legend of Glory #2
Y/A, urban fantasy
2013
available both as e-book and print

cover - I like this cover; it's stark, with just the two roses, and the blood in the shape of a heart.  Dramatic and stark. Good cover.  I also want to note here that this is a good example of self-published book that has been edited with good effect.  you won't find silly typos or any of the mistakes that self-published books became infamous for.  I've noticed that a lot of the e-books are much better now, and I've also noticed that some of the big-publishing houses are letting typos and mistakes through.   hmmmmm......

Pretty Sacrifices is the second from the trilogy Legend of Glory.  I read the first novel, Glory - The Legend Begins, and enjoyed it.  I think I liked this one a little more.  The series is about a young girl and her part in a pandemic of epic proportions.  In the first novel, Glory (main character) has been injected with the only vial of medicine that cures a deadly virus that has been infecting millions.  And now that her blood is the only blood with the cure, she is in immense danger and must find her scientist mother who has been kidnapped and stay out of the clutches of a crazed group of people who have a intense agenda.  They feel a need to deal with overpopulation by causing a pandemic, leaving a select few to re-populate the world.  In Glory, Glory's mission is to find her mother, stay safe and then make her now very rare blood available for a cure for the suffering public.

Pretty Sacrifices deals with the aftermath of this pandemic.  The author touches on some of the ramifications of the pandemic - the economy, the lack of food sources, the changing structures of the schools and governments and how people are coping with this new life and the grief of losing so many loved ones.

In Glory's case, after her blood has been used for a 'vaccine/cure', now she's dealing with her mother who has given up on life.  Because she was one of the developers of the original virus, she feels a deep guilt and depression.  Glory's friends are trying to pull together, but some of the protagonists from the previous books are making a reappearance, trying to disrupt lives and pull people over to the dark side.

Pretty Sacrifices deals with many things, all spirituality of all types plays a large part of the story.  Glory has guardian angels who have made themselves known to her, since she plays an important part in world events, but they're limited in what they can do.  It seems the villians have more on their side than the people who are trying to help people.

Part of the spirituality contains angels, wiccan type of religion, earth mother, Native American beliefs, Catholic religion, vampires, demons an both angels and fallen angels.  It's an interesting mix of characters who all manage to work together.  One of my favorite groups is a small band of vampires who call themselves the goth girls.  They're vampires who have overcome their bloodlust and make it their mission to help people.

Part of the plot involves Glory trying to find her sister, who was kidnapped years ago, to help her mom come out of her depression.  Turns out there's more to the kidnapping than meets the eye.

Time travel plays a large part, long term plans, experiments and fringe groups.  And as with O'Branagan's other works, Australian Shepherds are an important characters - in this case, Hallelujiah the family shepherd who, though grieving for her dead master, loves the rest of the family and helps Glory as much as she can.

I found this to be an engaging read, with strong spirituality threaded through the story along with some interesting characters - one of whom is a four year old.  The four year didn't sound like like any four year old I've ever come across - but then she's a remarkable child in a story of extraordinary characters and times.  The characters are struggling with their respective beliefs - are they going to give up or are they going to keep trying?  Are they going to be optimistic and help others, or are they going to start behaving badly, give up and cause others to suffer?  The story carries a message - be true, be as good as you can be, which is something that many of us need to remember. 

Sabaska's Tale by J.A. Campbell - review

Sabaska's Tale
J.A. Campbell
Tales of the Travelers #1
fantasy/ya

******
Cover - Isn't that a beautiful cover? I love everything about it - the horse, the landscape, the sky...the colors ...Hell, I love the writing font!  The cover is from the real life horse, Sabaska, owned by Campbell (r.i.p., Sabaska - and hope you're running with other horses up there)

an excerpt can be found here and by clicking on the book cover

Sigh.... I knew going in that this book has a very real horse as inspiration. So the story already had some meaning for me.  I also, like many young girls growing up, always loved the thought of a horse understanding everything you felt, or said.  My sister was the one who absolutely LOVED horses, I always thought they were pretty magnificent beings, all big and beautiful and full of muscles and strength.....and my sister had many, many model horses that we used as horses for our barbie dolls.....

Anyway - I read an earlier incarnation of this story and enjoyed it, but J.A. Campbell took that story and turned it on its ear, coming up with a better streamline and tightened up story.  I really liked the other version - and this book is different, yet still has the basic villain and dangers as the original.  Seriously - if you have a young teen, older teen, Hell - IF YOU were ever a fan of horses, get this story.  You'll enjoy it.

Premise - Anna had this grandma who she was always very close with (already this reverberates with me, because I like to think that my granddaughter and I are pretty close - of course she's six years old, plenty of time), and has spent many summers with said gramma, riding horses and being with gramma.  Gramma had a horse ranch - many horses, complete with a pretty sweet stable, and plenty of land for the horses.  Unfortunately, Gramma has been in a fatal ....accident.... and now Anna is spending the summer at her house, selling off some of the horses and grieving for her lost grandmother.

This is where the trouble starts...

So - at first the book seems like it's going to be about a girl, and her growth over the summer; having to deal with her gramma's horses, her death, her estate, etc.  Seems like the book is going to be about her coming of age....and it is...Kind of.

She's meeting prospective buyers, some of them nice, one not so nice.  She has been working with Cody, a young man that her gramma had previously hired to help with the stable.  She's exercising the horses and beginning to notice some of the odd things her gramma has left behind when suddenly...

BAMMMMMM!  She's on Sabaska's back, after escaping the house and the intruders...travelling between different worlds and meeting different people.  She has some amazing adventures, some more heart ache, and lots of danger.  She's not just learning some life lessons....she's learning some LIFE lessons.  

See - Sabaska isn't just a horse....if you can say that about any horse.  Sabaska is from a line of horses who have evolved on a different world into a species of intelligent (look, all horses are more than most people think....but Sabaska's fellow horses are Travelers) horses who can travel between worlds, and bond with a human, forming a partnership to help keep danger at bay.  Anna learns this in an abrupt and on-the-job-training type of way.  She already had been getting some strange feelings about Sabaska - the horse seemed to understand more than most horses, seemed to anticipate what Anna wanted before Anna was even sure what she wanted, and most telling of all - seemed to be able to communicate her own needs to Anna.

I love the way this novel is written; from the prologue where you're given a hint of things to come, to the beginning where things seem so normal, to the start of the fantastical nature of the Travelers and those hunting Sabaska.  The narration is great - no info-dumping, which is one of my pet peeves.  Campbell manages to get her point across without pages and pages of info-dumps.  The dialog is also great - This is another one of my pet peeves, dialog that does not match characterization.  Campbell's characters sound and read like their personalities.  A teen speaks like a teen, a mage from another realm speaks a little differently - appropriately so.  This shows talent, being able to write different characters with different voices.

There's a couple of swear words, if people are worried about that sort of thing (I'm not), all in keeping with the mood of the moment, there's no gratuitous swearing.  And you also won't find gratuitous romance, or needless making out sessions.  Her main character is beginning to notice the physique of the young men around her, but it doesn't overwhelm or take over the story.  Rather it reminds me of those first sweet moments when you realize a boy (or girl, whatever your favorite flavor) is cute, and you might feel something for them.  Nicely done, in a world overly obsessed with lust and body parts. :)

From action to story to dialog to characterization - this novel has a lot to recommend it.  Campbell does an excellent job of writing a fantasy adventure complete with likable characters, both human and animal variety.  I'm looking forward to more of Anna and/or Sabaska's world, whatever Campbell decides to focus on - hopefully both.  :)  There are quite a few characters in this novel that I could totally see as main characters for future novels, or as stronger side characters.  I would love to read more about this group of characters.

This is currently available as an e-book.
J.A. Campbell is also the author of MANY short stories, as well as The Clanless series about a turned-in senior year vampire, Meg.  So far, there are two books in the series - Senior Year Bites, and Summer Break Blues.  They are among my favorite YA novels.  In fact, it's books like J.A. Campbell writes that has me delving into the YA realm of reading material - I never used to read YA before.

Campbell is also the writer of those fun Doc the Vampire Hunting Dog books, and Brown, the Ghost Hunting Dog stories.  Both dogs are Border Collies, and everyone knows (or should know) that Border Collies can hypnotize you with their eyes.....