More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

The Butterfly Crest – Modern Fantasy – Japan, Myths and Travelogue

by Leave a Comment

I wanted to like The Butterfly Crest by Eva Vanrell.  The publisher describes a modern woman, Elena, who is caught in the endless war between pantheons.  It sounded so good and indeed the beginning was good, an auspicious sign.

Elena learns of an inheritance from her mother, who died 19 years ago, that awaits her in Japan, and travels there to retrieve whatever it may be.  She and her former guardian stay in an authentic Old Japan inn in Kyoto where they enjoy several days sightseeing with a fellow guest.  She retrieves her inheritance, a striking necklace but decides to leave it with the strange bank that her mother used.

Suddenly everything changes.  The fellow guest in one breath turns from kind friend to killer, attacking and trying to rape Elena.  She is saved by mystery man Eiry, learns she is somehow instrumental in a millennia-long civil war among pantheons and must leave everything she knows.

The Good Parts

Author Vanrell obviously knows and loves ancient Kyoto and shares her love of Japanese culture and ritual with us readers.  This got a little tedious after a while – we are reading a novel, not a travelogue – but she loves it so much that we have to share.  She did her homework on the various pantheons too, introducing all sorts of minor gods and goddesses.

The writing quality is good, albeit too much of it.  The author would have a better and more readable story with good editing and removed about 40% of the words.

The cover is beautiful, like a classic Japan scroll.

The Bad Parts

Elena didn’t seem real to me.  She is meant to be a strong female lead but she just seemed like a character, not a real person.  I didn’t like her.

The plot was contrived.  I couldn’t care less about the pantheons’ war nor about Elena’s place in the war, nor about the obvious romance.

Summary

I just didn’t like the book, couldn’t care about any of the people or their conflicts, didn’t care about the pantheons or Elena.  When the best part of a fantasy novel is the travelogue description you know it is not a book for you.

The publisher furnished a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for a review.   I always try to finish every NetGalley book, since it is a trust, but this one was a real challenge and a chore.  I skimmed the last half.  I noticed most reviewers on Amazon raved about the story and the characters (and agreed about editing the endless travelogue) so maybe it was just me.

2 Stars  (The writing quality and descriptions were too good to give it any less.)

Refreshingly Different – The Unhappy Medium – Contemporary Fantasy by T. J. Brown

by Leave a Comment

The Unhappy Medium was a happy surprise!  While the blurb made it clear that it isn’t a typical ghost/medium/seance/haunting book, I was delighted  just how different The Unhappy Medium is. I was engaged from the get-go with the character and the setting and plot but if you don’t care for books about science in the back story this novel may not be for you.

Set in today’s England it features brilliant physicist Dr Newton Barlow as he blazes a stellar career researching nuclear fusion and a side media line debunking the supernatural.  Sadly he is less wise than smart.

Cold Fusion Anyone?

Newton first accepts post doc money from a R&D company then accepts their job offer to explore the tantalizing hints he sees of nuclear fusion from collapsing bubbles.  He’s unhappy that his employers restrict him from publishing or talking to others, but very glad of the income and research support.  At least he’s happy until the 2008 crash when the company’s investors start asking for solid results – NOW.  Newton tries to soft pedal his findings but the more he explains the more the media pushes:  Just when will we get cheap power from bubble fusion?  Next decade?  Sooner?

Poor Newton has no leg to stand on and he’s alienated so many that he has no allies.  Soon he has no job.  Then he has no wife (which is no loss whatsoever), no daughter, no house.  All he has is a tiny income, an old Citroen car and booze.

I liked this part of the story.  We got to know Newton and the box he managed to fall into.  Plus the research process is fascinating and author T. J. Brown did a great job showing us how commercial realities and science sometimes run together – and sometimes clash.

The Medium

Newton even manages to get fired from a popular (aka crank) science magazine because he’s too depressed and too upright to write garbage.  Just when he’s hit the all time low Newton learns that his old friend and fellow skeptic, Dr. Sixsmith, is terminally ill.  He rushes to the hospital but is too late.  That is, he’s too late until Dr. Sixsmith shows up in person.

Dr. Sixsmith pulls Newton into a brand new world, where he works for an ancient Greek (also dead), making sure that the bad dead guys stay dead and the good dead guys stay remembered.  Despite his skepticism Newton does excellent work and is soon dedicated to the effort.

Characters

Newton is excellent, a full person, still not terribly humble even after his drastic fall.  His girlfriend and daughter are less well drawn.  The best characters were the Greek dead guy bureaucrat, the vicar and the arch villain.   Outside of Newton the characterization was good but not great.

Humor and Plot

The Unhappy Medium is funny, full of snarky, dry humor.  Newton’s ex-wife adds a whole layer of nasty that the author manages to turn into funny.

The sinister property developers and evil arch villain are dedicated to evil, or, for the developers, to profits without consideration of any morality or social considerations.  For example their fondest wish is to raze St. Paul’s in London and build row houses.  Just listening to their spiel gives one the creeps – yet we have to smile at how deluded they are, how their dedication to money and destruction leaves them unhappy and living in a cold dump.

The arch villain isn’t funny because there are people like that, folks who are perfectly happy to kill everyone in the name of terror and control.  He’s a maniac but a scary one.

The book has some goofy theological backdrops, perfectly fine for a fantasy, but I do hope no one takes these seriously.

Overall The Unhappy Medium is a 4 star book.  If the other characters were a bit better done and the plot just a tad more focused it would be 5 stars.  I’ll look for more by author T. J. Brown.

 

Maeve Binchy A Week In Winter – Meet Interesting People

by Leave a Comment

Maeve Binchy died shortly after finishing A Week In Winter, a series of character vignettes connected by a holiday week in a refurbished house on the west coast of Ireland.  We follow the hotel’s owner, her employees, and the guests who come for her opening week.

Owner Chicky Starr starts the novel.  She is the girl who fell in love foolishly and followed her guy to New York where he eventually dumped her.  Chicky was determined to not crawl home – her family was horrified that she left to live with a man without marriage – and made a life for herself in New York.  In fact Chicky made two lives, one the real situation, a pastry chef and boardinghouse worker, and the other her fantasy life full of love with her husband Walter (the guy who dumped her) and their fun on the town.  Eventually she goes back home to Stoneybridge, buys the Stone House from Miss Sheedy and sets out to make it as a hotelier.

Chicky is determined, interested in people without wanting to pry or volunteer advice, hard working, careful with money.  She is living a lie, having told everyone that “husband Walter” died in a car accident, but it doesn’t seem to bother her.  It’s as though she managed to disconnect herself from the years in America and build something brand new, albeit on a shaky foundation.

Mrs. Binchly does a grand job letting us see the people behind the names.  We read about their friends and backgrounds, the people they loved and those they disappointed.  The guests range from an American movie star to an icy school mistress to a married couple that makes their days bright by winning contests.

The Walls won their week as second prize in contest where first prize was a week in Paris.  They spent the time before the trip and the first day or so lamenting their lost Paris week.  They didn’t feel like enjoying their week until they learned the first prize winners were having a miserable week, with none of the promised Parisian delights and an unpleasant stay in a 3rd rate room in the prize hotel.  Then they decided they won a worthy prize, relaxed and enjoyed Stone House.

The author’s genius was in making the people come to life with a series of small, gentle stories that show them both for good and ill.  Some of the characters have dubious moral backgrounds, but all are shown in a kind, warm-hearted light.  In fact the only character shown with no redeeming qualities is the school mistress, who is so self-closed that we never get beyond her rigor.

Overall I enjoyed this.  A A Week In Winter was easy to pick up late in the evening and read about a person or two, then put down until the next evening.  There wasn’t a lot of plot or action among the characters as the action occurred mostly before or after the week’s holiday.  Each character, except Miss Nell Howe, uses the week to come to peace with a situation or to make a life-turning decision.   The book was peaceful and interesting.

4 Stars

Home World by Bonnie Milani – Science Fiction Review

by Leave a Comment

I was excited when the publisher approved me for a NetGalley copy of Home World by Bonnie Milani.  The book sounded great.  Earth is in bad shape after centuries of war, the heir apparent to the Earth Protectorship, Jezekiah, negotiated a trade treaty with their former deadly enemies the Lupans and hopes to position his younger sister as the heir by marrying her off to the Lupan warlord prince.   Not to mention the book is set in Hawaii with a cast of interesting characters, all with their own plans and secrets.

The first few pages were boring as Jezekiah leaves a merchant ship incognito to escape his sister’s assassin, then it got a little interesting for a few more pages.  It was as though the author couldn’t make up her mind whether she was telling a story about people, or about a society or about technology or about plots and secrets.  It alternated between pretty good and poor, interesting and boring, plausible and ridiculous, sane and nasty violent.

The author does not explain the backstory and we’re confused for about a third of the book with few clues.  I don’t mind books where the backstory is murky or explained in dribbles throughout the story, but Home World had a complex backstory that was critical to the novel.

Technology or Miracles

I don’t usually care what technology gee-whiz things science fiction authors come up with as usually the people are the interesting part of the book.  However there were two technologies that were the book’s foundation so let’s talk about them.

Genetic Engineering.  Home World envisions multiple planets where the residents are genetically altered for survival on inhospitable worlds.  Other people are altered to a Type, trending to certain skills.  Some are Sprites, meant to be joy toys, sex objects.  Some are Aryans, blond and nasty.  There are a few natural humans even on Earth and none elsewhere.

Lupans were genetically engineered with genes contributed from wolves or tigers, with genes from hawks and eagles for eyesight.  The resulting people look human but have fangs and other special characteristics.  For example the men must Impress upon a female at some point and mate with her or die.  Oddly the women may have 4 husbands while the men have one wife.

Aside from the ethical lapses, the genetic engineering is plausible.  Author Milani hints at the cultural results but sort of sweeps them under the rug with the rest of the back story.

Real Time Communication Over Light Years.  This one was ridiculous.  The Van Buren ruling family met real time via hologram across 60-100 light years.  In fact the connections were so instantaneous that Letticia was able to make Jezekiah’s hologram respond so the other person actually “felt” his touch.

Overall computer/web/sync forms a huge part of the novel, the bedrock for some plot devices, Lettica’s addiction, the reason why some people can sneak through secure gates.  When a technology gizmo is this important to the novel it must make sense or the book falls apart.

Characters

I didn’t like any of the characters.  We’re meant to like Jezekiah; he is fighting the good fight, looking for a way to help Earth, avert a war with Den Lupan, looking for love, looking for a way to slide out of his heir status.  Instead he is 2 dimensional and boring.  Plus he’s a bit whiny and unwilling to commit to either his own wishes or his duty.

Strongarm, the Lupan prince and intended bridegroom didn’t have much personality.  His brother-in-law was the most interesting character of them all.

Keiko, whom both Jezekiah and Strongarm desire, seems to flip flop and float from one allegiance to another, just as she is able to slip in and out of the Van Buren manor, and flit between her father’s home and her grandfather’s.  Realize her father and grandfather are mortal enemies and you see the problem.  She is either incredibly naive or over-confident, accepting Tong star weapons from her grandfather even though they are illegal even to possess and sets up meetings between her grandfather and Strongarm and grandfather and Jezekiah, never thinking those meetings make ideal ambushes.

Letticia is frightened near to death, suspecting everyone of trying to kill her, addicted to Sync, addicted to power games, crude and rude and nasty.  Given an advanced society it’s hard to believe no one would have recognized the problem and gotten Letticia mental health care.

Author Milani would have a better story with more likable or interesting characters.  Given this is her first novel she may develop her character skills.

Plot and Scenes

Book includes a gang rape scene, a description of how Lupan males kill their families when exposed to the vile sex drug Venus Seed, several violent deaths, a seduction (same female, same day as the gang rape), murders, execution threats, annihilation threats, way too many plots and counter plots.

No one has a moral compass.  Strongarm and his brother-in-law casually plan to destroy Earth, render it uninhabitable if they don’t get their treaty sealed with a marriage; Keiko’s father tries to kill her as part of her Samurai trial; Keiko’s gangster grandfather casts her off until she shoots Strongarm.

Then a miracle occurs and Strongarm isn’t dead, Keiko turns out to be an acceptable bride, war is averted, treason accusations rescinded.  I really don’t like “a miracle occurs here” plot devices.

Summary

Home World is a good first start for new author Bonnie Milani but I didn’t enjoy most of it.  Nonetheless I stayed up till midnight yesterday to finish, partly because I wanted to get the book done, write the review and move on to something better but another reason was I wanted to know the ending.

I didn’t like the characters, unexplained backstory, the fact we’re plopped down in the middle of several high stakes situations without a map, the irritating pidgin, ridiculous technology, lack of morals, chimera species, overly convenient endings.

I did like the sense of excitement in about half the book (did I mention it alternates between boring and good?) and the writing style was reasonably good.  I think if the author keeps writing she will become quite good.  But please, skip the rapes, pidgin, miracle endings.

3 Stars

I received an advance copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Foxglove Summer – City Boy Goes to Country – Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch

by Leave a Comment

Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series gets better and better.  We last left Peter Grant devastated by a massive betrayal in Broken Homes.  Weeks later in Foxglove Summer he’s off to Herefordshire to check a former Folly member, now retired, as a possible suspect in a case of two missing 11 year old girls.  Peter quickly rules the former wizard from suspicion and offers his help to the local police who are overwhelmed.

Peter is pretty sure this will be a straight forward police case and is looking forward to something simple – no wizardry, no Faceless Man, no Tasers, no Mother Thames or her brood.  His happy certainty lasts right until he checks out the girls’ cell phones, found abandoned and non functional.  Peter recognizes the tell-tale pitting of electronics exposed to magic.

This is our first time seeing Peter operate alone and he does a grand job.  He searches all the past witness statements for “oddities” and sure enough, finds that one of the girls had an invisible friend. Sleuthing the modern way, with cheapo cell phones set up to register magic, plus plenty of gumshoe work and listening to what’s not said yields success.

Peter’s developed his magic skills immensely, witness the fact he could blow out fence gates on the run, something Nightingale said only about half the older generation could do.  He gets tantalizing clues about Nightingale and the debacle at Ettersberg and further insight into magic’s place in the world beyond London.

New Characters

Peter’s been entranced by Beverly Brook, sort-of 20-something daughter of Mama Thames and this time she shows up to help him out.  He helps her too, in several interesting ways.  Beverly is more human when she’s with Peter but she still has her river goddess innate presence.

We meet several new characters:  DCI Windrow and Inspector Edmondson, the leads on the kidnapping case, Dominic Croft, whom Windrow assigns to work with Peter, normally shrewd journalist Sharon Pike who bizarrely accuses the cops of covering up the real culprit, offering as evidence a piece of the plastic backing from a candy bar, the parents, Hugh Oswald the former wizard now bee keeper and Mellissa his granddaughter who may be part bee herself.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dominic or Sharon knock on the Folly door sometime to learn magic.

Aaronovitch makes these people real to us.  We don’t get a full character dissection on any of them but he shows us enough that we recognize them.  They are types yes, but with enough added humanity that they are people, not cardboard cutouts.

Setting

Peter’s way out of his element in the wilds of  Herefordshire but in true Peter Grant spirit quickly learns his way around and gets familiar enough with the local background to spot anomalies in the reforestation efforts.  He’s a amazing person whom I’d like to meet sometime.

The only map is on the front cover and I’m not familiar with Herefordshire – good thing we have Google maps and Google Earth! – but you don’t need to know the real countryside to follow the idea of wooded hills, pastures, fields, small towns, ridges and creeks.  Aaronovitch gives enough detail to make it interesting without trying to make it too realistic.

Plot

The plot was great.  As with all the Rivers of London novels we have lots of unanswered questions.  Who is the fairy queen and why did she want the girls?  Why did she want Peter and what did she plan to use him for?  Why did the unicorns chase the escaping girls right into the arms of Peter, Beverly and Dominic?  How did the fairy queen make a second, identical girl?

And last, how on earth would Peter et al explain the second daughter? And that they were giving the spare girl, who happened to be the biological human daughter, to Fleet to raise?

Summary

I have loved all the Rivers of London novels, but if I had to pick a favorite it would be a tie among Midnight Riot, Broken Homes and this one, Foxglove Summer.  It’s fun seeing Peter grow personally and as a wizard, London commentaries are hilarious, tension ever increasing, and minor characters are fun and well developed with just a few sentences.

5 Stars

 

Murder in Missoula – Hunting Down a Serial Killer

by Leave a Comment

Murder in Missoula starts off with a bang.  We are with Charles Durbin, loner, dog groomer, obsessed with Marie-Justine, as he sneaks into her home for erotic fantasies.  He has stalked her for weeks, trying to decide whether he prefers her or her best friend Anne.  Now he has decided.

Meanwhile former DEA agent Joe Nicoletti is in town interviewing for a professorship at the university.  Nicoletti is a widower and lonely.  He meets Marie-Justine at a faculty gathering and the two connect immediately.  Durbin sees them together and decides he must make sure that Marie-Justine is his and kills her.

Of course the police find evidence that Nicoletti murdered her, though he is grief-stricken.  He must clear his name and find the real killer before other women die.

What Works

Murder in Missoula is at its best when we follow Durbin through his fantasy love life, but I felt the last third, where we tag along with Nicoletti as he ties Durbin to other murders in Colorado was weaker.  The novel went from the suspenseful stalker to a more traditional whodunit, where Nicoletti uses his intuition, connections and plain old luck to solve the crime.

The novel remained well written even after we took a left turn from the serial killer to the detective, but it lost some of the suspense.

Author Laurence Giliotti did a fine job showing us the real person inside the evil killer, as Durbin interacts with others in a more-or-less normal fashion while he grooms dogs, chats up the realtor (in order to get to the pass key on Marie-Justine’s new house).  Even serial killers need to eat and need an income, so why not groom dogs while you stalk the ladies?  Giliotti intermixed horror with the normal day-to-day, as when Durbin made sure to keep the realtor from seeing his kitchen that recreated Marie-Justine’s.

The police chief Garland is an interesting character as he moves from Nicoletti’s adversary to his ally, from political to professional.  We didn’t see much of Garland, too bad as he could be an interesting lead character.

What Didn’t Work So Well

Nicoletti is more of a stock character than is Durbin.  Obviously smart, well-schooled in handling evil men, not looking for but delighted to find possible love.  He seems more in the book to provide a counter to Durbin, there to fill a role.

Setting was a little weak too.  The action took place in Montana with brief trip to Colorado Springs but there wasn’t anything to tie the story to either locale.  It could have happened anywhere.

Summary

Overall this is a fine novel if you enjoy mysteries with a bit of suspense and like to get inside the mind of a killer.  4 Stars

I received a free copy through NetGalley in expectation of an honest review.

 

Front Runner by Felix Francis – A Darker Novel in Dick Francis’ Tradition

by Leave a Comment

Felix Francis helped his father, Dick Francis, research several novels, eventually co-authoring four, and assumed full authorship for four more novels after Dick Francis died.  Front Runner uses the same character and plot formulae his father made successful:  Strong male lead physically and morally brave, lonely and wistful about love; villain willing to kill; British horse racing setting; guy meets attractive lady early in the novel; extreme danger.

The author’s genius is that even though the plot is familiar, we get intrigued and have to keep reading.  Francis adds enough twists and false trails that we can’t be sure we spot the villain.  (In fact, I thought it was someone else.)  We can admire the main character and Francis shows him with enough failings to be realistic, not a flat 2D hero type, and the villains are also well done, complete people with good points and bad.

I enjoyed Front Runner but Felix’s novels are darker, with more nuanced heroes, more moral ambiguity than his father’s were.  I can’t read more than one Felix novel every year or so and don’t care to purchase any, but have his dad’s oeuvre on my shelf downstairs.

For example, Jeff Hinkley, investigator for British horse racing authorities, asks matter-of-factly  why someone hadn’t gotten an abortion.  Later he kills a man in self defense.  His father’s heroes managed to win without killing their adversaries and every one of them had a strong sense of hope.  These differences seem small but are part of an overall darker, less engaging mood and less enjoyable sense of place and character.

4 Stars

Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge – Drink Up and Kill Monsters

by Leave a Comment

Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge starts fast and fun, when new business grad Bailey Chen is attacked as she walks home from her job as a bar back.  Luckily she drank a screwdriver before leaving because her attackers were monsters – tremens – and the screwdriver – when made just exactly perfectly – imparts super strength.

Barkeepers are magicians who keep the world safe from monsters and get their super powers by mixing cocktails exactly right and using pure ingredients.  They are members of the Cupbearers, dedicated to keeping the world safe from tremens and use the Obvlinum to erase memories from us non-barkeepers.  (Presumably they make the drinks slightly wrong when serving to us regular customers.)

New idea, yes!  Great concept, unfortunately the rest of the book fell a bit short.

Once past the opener, Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge read like YA fiction, with Bailey, her high school best friend Zane, and Zane’s girlfriend Mona the mysterious, forming a love triangle. In between they serve drinks and fight monsters and worry about the politics in the bar keeping hierarchy.

I didn’t like the characters.  Bailey got As in high school and college by memorizing and makes flash cards about the company that she’s interviewing for a business job. She doesn’t know what she wants to be, only what she wants to own (apartment in trendy but cheap part of town), and as she herself put it, is a teenager grown old, not an adult.

Zane was on again/off again, inconsistent in loyalty and love, self-centered.  The other characters were equally boring and a politically correct mix of genders and backgrounds.  None seemed to exhibit particularly high moral standards or interest in much beyond food, sex, drinking and killing monsters.

The most interesting parts of Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge were the drink recipes and tidbits culled from the barkeeper’s manual, The Devil’s Water Dictionary.  These snippets had the same fun, tongue in cheek feel as the opening scene.

3 Stars.  The concept is 4 stars, original and could be fun, the teenage angst and modest characterization are distracting enough to warrant the lower rating.

The Martian – People, Science and Constraints

by Leave a Comment

The Martian is a wonderful combination of realism, science, hard facts and most of all, real people.  The Ares 4 mission had to bug out in a hurry ahead of a sandstorm and thinking crew member Mark Watney was dead, left him behind.  Mark is alive and now stranded – alone – on an inhospitable rock in a habitat meant to last a month, with very little food, no method to contact Earth and facing near certain death since his only chance to catch a ride back home is 4 years away.

Author Andy Weir doesn’t sugar coat the situation: Being on Mars is dangerous and being alone on Mars is very dangerous.  Mark will most likely die, whether from starvation, oxygen depletion, CO2 overload, freezing or pure chance.

The best two parts of the novel were the people back on Earth and Mark’s resilience and creative methods to win through.  In the end, the book is about people.  The science is realistic and it adds to the interest; the constraints are deadly and keep us turning the pages, but it is the people that make it memorable.

5 Stars

Marry the Queen, Get the Kingdom: The King of Attolia

by Leave a Comment

Megan Whalen Turner delivers another solid novel in her The Queen’s Thief fantasy series.  The King of Attolia picks up a few months after The Queen of Attolia with Eugenides married to Attolia, but reluctant to assume the king’s power or take authority from his wife.  Unfortunately, just because Gen is reluctant does not mean others are squeamish about usurping power; all it does is make him look weak.

We see the action through Costis, a member of the Queen’s guard. The King of Attolia opens with Costis sitting in his room contemplating execution and disgrace after hitting King Eugenides in the face.   Gen comes into see him and decides to make Costis his bodyguard instead of hanging him.

Costis then witnesses Gen’s approach:  Gen lets his gentlemen/courtiers run over him; he never is seen seeking his wife’s bed; he seems bored and flighty during court; he does nothing when a noble composes a witty song about what (supposedly) didn’t happen on his wedding night.  Despite Gen’s past escapades as the Thief of Eddis, the nobility and court believe him lightweight.

Over time Costis sees that Gen is in fact aware of every slight and we watch along with Costis as Gen is wounded fighting off an assassin team.  One of my favorite episodes is when Gen tracks down a finance minister for a crash course on types of wheat, then hustles one of the wheat-growing nobles out of bed to confront him with tax evasion for reporting the wrong type of wheat.  Of course no one believes that it was Gen who did the legwork; even the cheating noble thinks someone must have betrayed him.

Slowly, very slowly, Gen believes his wife when she asks him to take on his authority, and slowly he digs himself out of the hole he let the court push him into.  Eventually Gen assumes his proper place as the King of Attolia.

Summary

I enjoyed all three books in The Queen’s Thief series.  Turner gets the cultural and geographic settings just right and captures the feeling of menace and danger hanging over Gen.  The court scenes are delightful as are the confrontations with various villainous wanna-bes.  She built Gen into a real person and in this novel, also brings Costis to life.  He’s a foil for Gen, but takes on a more solid character through the novel.

The King of Attolia is fantasy because everything takes place in Attolia, an imaginary country based on ancient Greece and because the gods are active now and then.  There is no magic, no quest, no talisman to seek or to destroy.  Using a fantasy setting without the heroic trimings lets author Turner spend her time on making the people and the setting and conflicts interesting and believable.

Libraries classify The King of Attolia as YA along with the previous two books, The Thief and The Queen of Attolia.  The Thief is a bit lighthearted and has younger characters, fun for older teens.  The Queen of Attolia is more sober, with more serious conflicts and character development, suitable for teens and adults.  Likewise adults will enjoy The King of Attolia as will teens.

5 Stars