More Books than Time

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

Ascension The Demon Hunters – Just What Era Are We In By the Way?

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I try not to be too picky with things like historical accuracy or logic of magical systems, but sometimes novels simply are not good enough to make me overlook anachronisms or flimsy “powers”.  This book, Ascension (Demon Hunters), by A.S. Fenichel, never put the heroine in a plausible setting or explained the narrative in a way that made sense.

Ascension has a lovely cover picturing a young lady wearing a dress from the early-mid 1800s and carrying a sword.  The guy behind her (whom we can expect to be a hunk since he shows a few inches of chest) is mostly hidden.   The lady is Lady Belinda Clayton, the daughter of an earl, engaged to Lord Gabriel Thurston, the Earl of Tullering who goes to ton parties that include the promenade.  Gabriel recently returned from four years of service in the war and wears his hear in a queue.

Those few pieces of background say we are in the early 1800s, possibly even the latter part of the Napoleonic wars, except the dress doesn’t match.  And men didn’t wear long hair much after the early 1800s.  And Belinda’s faithful maid, Claire, runs a hot bath for her after a long night of demon hunting, yet hot baths during the middle of the night required heating jugs of hot water, lugging jugs and the tin bath up the stairs to the bedroom, pouring the water in, then pouring it out, jug by jug, once the bath was over.

We have anachronisms upon anachronisms.  Sadly the book didn’t appeal to me enough that I could overlook these, nor the ridiculous plot.  Lady Belinda was kidnapped by demons to be a water sacrifice, tortured and then rescued just in the nick of time by her now-friends and associates in the demon killing gang.  In the four years Gabriel was away, Lady Belinda developed muscles, dirty fighting tricks and learned to use a sword to kill demons.  I guess that’s almost plausible, except why would even stupid demons kidnap a rich, titled lady when London was full of homeless, nearly nameless people of any age or gender.

The premise of the book sounded so good:  “A lady by day, and a demon hunter by night”. “Gabriel … determined to show her that their love can endure, stronger than ever.” Doesn’t that sound enticing?  Plus a strong heroine and a big dollop of romance where the guy is in love?

Unfortunately I just could not finish this.   I got to page 60 or so, jumped to the end to see whether it actually ended or was set up for a sequel (there will be a sequel) and gave up.

There are some good points.  The book is well edited with no obvious spelling, grammar or basic writing errors. A.S. Fenichel’s writing style is pretty good.  The bad points are the flat characters and unrealistic (even for fantasy) plot.  Plus, be aware there are sex scenes every few pages.

This book was given to me with the hope I’d write a review, but unfortunately I didn’t like and can’t recommend Ascension (Demon Hunters).

Liesmith, Book 1 of The Wyrd Alis Franklin – Another Loki Novel

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I received an advanced reader copy ofLiesmith: Book 1 of The Wyrd<.  Over the past year or so I’ve read several novels that included the Norse god Loki and saw both Thor movies, which induced a disjointed sense of deja vu reading book by new writer Alis Franklin. She brought a unique look to the character with her back story and setting.

It’s refreshing to read a story that treats multi dimensional Loki as a complex, complete character; several books, including Hammered in the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne, treat him more as an insane force of nature, a foil for the good guys. In Liesmith: Book 1 of The Wyrd Franklin presents Loki living in Australia as mega rich founder and owner of the world’s largest IT company, that is when he is not being the non-human, Jotunn / feathered 7 foot tall creature with a tail.

Franklin has done her homework, researching Loki and the Norse tales, and developing a back story to explain Loki’s presence in Australia and his non-participation in Ragnarök.  (She equated Ragnarok to World War 2.)   I found the back story stretched and unconvincing, and I’m not sure why she included it. Possibly it will be relevant in future books, since as we see in the title, Liesmith is meant to be only the first book in a series.

Liesmith hinges on its characters, mild-mannered Sigmund Sussman (who is actually Sigyn, Loki’s wife), Loki himself, Sigmund’s friends and dad. The characters were interesting, but not compelling; ultimately I did not care much about any of them. Sigmund and Loki are at the very beginning of a gay relationship, while meanwhile Sigmund’s friends and dad fight off demons.

I enjoyed the first half of the book quite a bit more than the last half when the plot got twisty.  I didn’t quite follow why Loki and Odin would have done what the shadowy maybe-Odin implied, nor did the switch between Sigmund and Sigyn and Loki.  The plot in the first half was good but the transition from normal, mundane corporate life with Dungeons and Dragons on the side to the nightmarish second half just didn’t work for me.

Given the plot complexities, the strange back story and the good but not great character building, I doubt I will look for the rest of the books in the series. Liesmith was an OK read, maybe a 3 or 3 1/2 stars out of 5. The novel was good enough to finish, but I won’t be keeping it on my Nook to reread.

Nowhere But Home – Coming of Age In Your 30s – Liza Palmer

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This was the first novel by Liza Palmer I have read but it won’t be the last. In Nowhere but Home: A Novel the main character, Queen Elizabeth Wake, decides to come home to North Star Texas, the town she left to escape. For 15 years since she has moved from one chef job to another, one city to another, one non-home to another. Each time she lets herself get fired, usually for a bad attitude that isn’t leavened enough by her cooking skills.

Nowhere but Home is not a romance, more a coming of age story.

The story opens with Queenie getting fired from her chef job in New York (for objecting to a customer using ketchup on his eggs) and deciding to come home to North Star, at least for a while to visit her sister and nephew. The story is complicated by Queenie’s mother, the town ne’er do well and tramp, who was murdered while committing adultery in her lover’s bed about 15 years before the story opens.

The shadow of the mother, and several generations of mothers before, unwed, ill-educated, greedy and selfish, taints every memory Queenie has. Since North Star is a small town, the diapproval follows Queenie and her sister Merry Carole, despite the fact both women lead blameless lives.

My one problem with Nowhere but Home is that the town gossips still care enough about Queenie and Merry Carole to fabricate stories and make their lives miserable, and both ladies allow it. It’s frightening to think that bad high school memories could be this strong, this deadly, but ask anyone who has an upcoming reunion and most will have something like this hanging over them. We all continue to grow up, even after we are nominally adults, and putting bad teen memories and cruel gossip where it belongs takes maturity.

Liza Palmer is an excellent writer with a gift for making her small town setting come to life and for making us care about Queenie, mixed up though she is. There isn’t a lot of action here and Queenie does a lot of cooking. I found the gossiping women of North Star hard to believe but otherwise the characters are strong and well done. I already reserved a second Liza Palmer book from the library.

Throne of Glass – Pretty Good; Crown of Midnight – Not

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I read Throne of Glass while on vacation and liked it a lot despite the unappealing main character. Unfortunately, the sequel, Crown of Midnight was boring and I did not finish it.

This review focuses on the first novel, Throne of Glass. The main character, Celaena Sardothien, is an assassin, trained since childhood to kill for money. She is 18 and has been imprisoned at hard labor for a year. With that background, she has very little choice when offered the chance to leave the prison to compete to be the king’s champion.

It’s obvious Calaena doesn’t like killing people but she is put out and angry when someone does not instantly recognize her or her lethal skill. We don’t know much about her, but from the broad hints she was the daughter of the murdered rulers or highborn nobles in the neighboring country that the King conquered. She did not have much choice but to learn the assassin trade, and once trained, was presented with a bill for 5000 marks for her training. It’s clear that it never occurred to her that she could have left the assassin guild once she paid back the 5000 marks – she could never have left before repaying – nor did she ever look for alternative employment.

That’s the main character. A rather stuck up assassin who doesn’t much like to kill but is very very good at it. Her main adversary is the King and her sidekicks are the King’s son Prince Dorian and Captain of the Guard Chaol. These two secondary characters are more likable but we don’t learn much about them.

The political background could be fascinating. Unfortunately we see hints of the politics, but nothing is built out. Calaena spends a lot of time getting dressed up, exploring secret passages, flirting with Chaol but she is a flat, lusterless character in a sketched out world.

Nonetheless, Throne of Glass was enjoyable enough that I was eager to read the sequel, hoping that Calaena would grow up a bit. However, after reading about 30 pages of Crown of Midnight I put it back in the library return bag. I could not read it.

From the reviews on Amazon, readers are split, either loving it or a little bored. This is another novel that was written for older teen girls who probably love it.

Awaken – Fated Saga Fantasy Series – Young Teens YA Fantasy Fiction

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One reason I write this blog is that you cannot rely on reviews on Amazon without knowing something about the reviewer.  A teen might rave about a book that we adults find boring – I know my tastes have changed since I was 15!  Knowing I am an adult female should put my comments into context and help you know whether my opinions are useful guides to what you will like.

YA fantasy fiction today is heavy on vampires, dystopias and zombies, but a perennial favorite is the coming-of-age- and-discovering-you-really-do-have-magic-talents.  Awaken the first novel in the Fated Saga Fantasy Series is a good short novel on theme number four, coming of age and discovering magic talents.

As an adult I found the writing style crisp, fast moving, characters reasonably done. The foreshadowing elements (a locket that pricks the young heroine Meghan, ominous screeches that are not owls, tangling with a moose in a lake, Uncle Arnon’s musings with Kandra) are a bit heavy but probably perfect for teens and tweens. The book is short, 115 pages and takes about 90 minutes to read.

A few of the characters are obviously going to be involved more in future novels in the Fated Saga series, as they are peripheral to this story. Plus many plot threads that are left hanging as Meghan and her twin Colin fall through the pine room into another world at the end. The author Rachel D’aigle clearly aimed this book at the 11 to 14 year old reader who would enjoy this. Even as an adult I enjoyed it enough to read to the end, although I don’t plan to read the sequels.

Overall, it’s a fun, clean, enjoyable book that younger readers will love and adults will like enough to complete.

Not a Vampire Story But Close!

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Just like the first novel by Tony Bertauski, The Socket Greeny Saga, The Drayton Chronicles reaches in, grabs your heart, and makes you care for the title character. Drayton is an immortal who feeds on the life essence of a dying person. He began as a savage creature, killing as he wished, but learned to be human and to care centuries ago. Now he thanks the people who give him their dying breath and he takes on their unfinished business.

The Drayton Chronicles is a collection of five novellas, each moving one after the other. There is a narrative break between each story, but there are references back and it would be best to read in sequence. The first novella, Drayton The Taker, is a good example. Drayton finds Blake Barnes freezing to death on Mt. Hood and takes his dying breath along with his aching need to apologize to his family. Drayton makes his way to South Carolina where he finds the family and resolves Blake’s true burning regret. He also finds the bully who is making Blake’s family miserable and resolves that problem too.

We are steadily drawn into Drayton by seeing him through the eyes and feelings of the people around him, those that he is helping to pay back the final breath he took from their loved one. One of Tony Bertauski’s gifts is developing strong characters that you care about. With The Drayton Chronicles we seldom venture into Drayton’s minds but see inside the minds of those he is with. With The Socket Greeny Saga, also by Bertauski, we see the main character, Socket, through his own thoughts. Both are powerful, but I found Drayton even more compelling and with more interesting, fully drawn side characters.

The plot was reasonably good as was the setting. The novellas had varied locations and intricate layers of trouble that Drayton had to work his way through before finding the true nugget at the heart of the misery and anguish he came to solve. I found the first novella, Drayton The Taker the best, with Swift the Current and Numbers creepy. Bearing the Cross and Yellow were compelling.

This is not a long novel as all five novellas together are only about 260 pages and is a fast read. I got mine through the author’s generosity as he offered anyone who signed up for his newsletter their choice of a free E book from him. Thank you, Mr. Bertauski for your offer and for the beautifully done characters and story.

Real? Or Imitation Human?

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Too often to review a book I have to get it back open, just to look up the title. Not so with The Socket Greeny Saga by author Tony Bertauski. Mr. Bertauski told me Socket Greeny was his first fiction work, and it is excellent. I have him noted as an author to follow.

The main character is seventeen but this is not YA fiction.  Bertauski grabs your heart and does not let go.  You care about Socket Greeny.  Socket finds everything and loses it:  his family, his place in the world, his friends, his identity.  At the end you still wonder what happened and what will happen next.  The book ends but the story does not, yet there is no cliff hanger, no obvious sequel.  Instead the ending brings the loose threads together and leaves us Socket.

The Socket Greeny Saga is a trilogy that flows seamlessly from one book to the next. In fact my Nook version had no separation between the books, other than a periodic “Discovery” or “Training” or “Legend” interspersed in the text there was no way to know which book was which.

The plot is interesting, especially the first book of the trilogy, Discovery. Socket Greeny and his two friends Chute and Streeter go into Virtualmode during study hall and get into trouble. Socket inadvertently triggered a time slip that causes his Mom to pick him up from school and take him to the secret training facility for the Paladins. Paladins are humans with improved abilities, especially mental abilities, who are sworn to protect humanity.

In Books one and two Socket has to come to terms with his new abilities, learn and grow and develop mental powers.  Socket’s recurring enemies, duplicated humans that look and act just like real people, attack.  Socket is able to stop the duplicates, first with his friends and then by himself.

Book three starts with Socket, now a full Paladin, taking a wormhole trip to a remote outpost. Somehow he is kidnapped on the return trip and attacked by the real, ravenous enemy that the Paladins know nothing about.
Now Socket realizes that not only must he save the Earth and all his friends and family, he must save the universe.

The book could have gotten a bit ridiculous at this point. A seventeen year old universe saver? A ravenous enemy that kills all worlds? That can come to live with one cell? Instead the book turns inward, where we see Socket’s emotional depth when he realizes he has been betrayed and nothing is what he believed.

I loved the characters, especially Socket and the grimmets. Tony Bertauski did what too-few authors do when writing YA science fiction, and explored the inner depths of people and how they reacted to the events and threats. The story was well written, interesting and fast moving. It seems authors tend to skimp on plot or character or setting or good dialogue and writing style, but The Socket Greeny Saga had all four.

Just a few minor complaints.
The ending was ambiguous. What happens next? Socket is awake now, does he stay awake? Does he drift off again?
What about the grimmets? Did they die at the end? Or did they, and their world, survive?
Why did Socket stay sane and human when others just like him did not?
The hallucinogenic sequences during the testing and training were a bit much.

But overall, this was excellent. Tony has a generous offer in the end of the Nook version to request any free E book from him. After reading The Socket Greeny Saga you can bet I quickly took him up on his offer!

Wizards, Warriors and Zombies in the Minnesota Woods

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Wizard Dawning (The Battle Wizard Saga, No. 1) was a good book for one of those tired Sunday evenings when you don’t want to invest a lot of brain power in a novel. It is a wizard and warrior story featuring a seventeen year old Sig, his great grandfather Thor, mother Meredith and assorted bad guys and bit characters. There is a some coming-of-age actions (naturally given our teen aged hero) but there isn’t a lot of angst and misery or girl chasing.

Overall this was a pleasant, easy to enjoy book.  The characters were a bit flat but the dialogue was OK and the plot was fun and fast paced.  I don’t normally care much for wizard and warrior novels nor martial arts or dressage.  Author C. M. Lance used the martial arts and dressage as background, more setting and back story than as critical elements.  We did not have tedious explanations of “how things worked” either, which so often drags down a good story.

On the down side, I read this on my Nook.  The editor used poor rules for dividing words at the end of lines; for example, aren’t was often divided so one line ended with aren and the ‘t began the next line.  This was disconcerting.  (A pet peeve of mine is the fantasy writer who insists on using apostrophes for everything!  At least we were spared that.)

Another fun element was siting this story in a small town in Minnesota.  C. M. Lance didn’t belabor the location, but used it with a deft touch, incorporating the farm lands, hills, lakes, ice as backdrop.  It’s always a nice change when fantasies are not set in Central Park or California.  I enjoyed the way Lance used zombies, as story fodder, vs. making them a central element.

As indicated by the title, Wizard Dawning (The Battle Wizard Saga, No. 1) is meant to launch a series. The book had a logical beginning, middle and end, but there clearly is more story to come as Sig leaves for college and his mom is starting to learn about magic from an economist/gypsy.   We also need to find out how Sig will regain his own magic.

Wizard Dawning was the author’s first book and quite likely future ones will have richer characterizations. This first novel suffered from slightly wooden characters but was livened by an intriguing back story, well-done setting and fun plot.  To the positive Lance did not fill it with steamy romance scenes, explicit violence, boring martial arts or swear words!

Overall I recommend it if you want a fun story that doesn’t require a ton of deep thinking.

Red Rising – Social Threats Played Out in a School Game

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I almost gave up on Red Rising (The Red Rising Trilogy) after about 30 pages or so. It seemed stale, just another future with brutal overlords and a rigged brutal life for the underclass. The book started to pick up a little, then it kept getting better. By the time hero Darrow was leading his Mars house the plot was moving and the characters were more complete.

A few words of warning. Red Rising is violent. People get killed. Most of the murders are not described in graphic detail but there is enough that you will get sick of it.

Plot and Background

The society Darrow lives in goes to extremes to maintain its vitality with the same families and castes on top. One method is the Board of Quality Control selects only a fraction of the highest caste Gold youth each year to attend the schools scattered around the solar system. And of that fraction, half are murdered immediately and others will die. Youth who do not score high enough to go to the schools are relegated to powerless roles, the dilettante Pixies and looked-down-on Bronzes.

In theory only the students who graduate as Peerless Scared or Graduates can assume roles of power. Another method to ensure only the best survive is the school testing ground. Students are divided into Houses, each based on a Roman god, and must themselves sort out who leads each school, and which school will win over all the rest. The schools do not get the same resources. Mars has nothing except a tall castle, no food, no weapons, no way to start a fire. Ceres has ovens, walls, food. Minerva has horses and archery weapons. The Mars adult preceptor tells Darrow that Mars burns hot and burns out quickly. And indeed we see this. For a while I thought Red Rising was a Lord of the Flies reprise with the Mars house losing all cohesion, factions and internal fighting.

When the Mars preceptor shows the Mars students their house, he asks them how they can possibly win.  The answer?  Enslave the others.  Each house has a standard that will mark anyone from a rival house as a slave.  When I was reading this, my first thought was “get allies”, and I was surprised when the answer was “take slaves”.   Each house strives to get slaves, capture the standards from other houses, take over their resources.  Darrow makes a new path, with allies.

Backstory and Ideas

This  novels had one of the more intriguing social backdrops. Superficially we have a rigid society with severe caste restrictions (called Colors in Red Rising), with the bottom caste of Reds relegated to dangerous mining work far underground. The Reds believe they work to help terraform Mars, not knowing that the planet already is home to millions of people, with atmosphere, plants, animals, cities. The Reds are kept in artificial strife, with a rigged set of mining quotas and awards for the most production, given barely enough to eat. Girls marry at 14 and people are old at 35.

The problem with this is that it is not sustainable. Violence and fear can keep people in line for a long time but not forever. The minute Reds realize the lie, they will have no reason to obey other than fear.

The other threat to the Gold rule is internal. There are more types of power than military, commercial or political. What happens if a Pixie becomes socially dominant? Is there a Gold version of the society leaders?

Then there is good old fashioned nepotism. In fact, Darrow realizes that the school game is rigged to favor the son of the Mars governor. Given the social structure Red Rising sketches, the governor takes a huge risk. He promises favors and position to the twelve Preceptors – if his boy wins. If his son does win, all is good, no one will have reason to talk about it. If his son does not win, then what hold does the governor now hold? It’s too good a story, too juicy a gossip, too funny a joke with too many who know, not to whisper about. The author may have painted himself into a corner at the end when Darrow pledges himself to a man who is going down, we just don’t see it yet.

I’m curious how author Pierce Brown addresses these internal issues in the next book in what is planned to be a trilogy. If he spends time on Darrow and the plot elements of Darrow gaining power and position and eventually changing society, the story will be a good read. But if he uses the political and social flaws in his imagined world plus Darrow’s drive, we could have a winning combination.

I am not real fond of the dystopia genre and ever since Hunger Games became successful we’ve been inundated with them. Red Rising is several notches above and I recommend it.

Three Not to Finish – Two Mysteries One Fantasy

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Normally I give a novel at least a few pages before deciding it’s not for me. Two of these I read about half but the other fell off my lap after about 20 pages. All three of these books had great reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble but they just did not work for me.

Pies and Prejudice (A Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery) felt like a rerun. Heroine Ella Mae runs from her cheating husband back home to a small Georgia town and starts a pie shoppe. Of course her arch enemy from kindergarten on through high school shows up, her former crush shows up and she is suspected in a murder. With me so far?

Ella Mae makes pies to fit her mood and the person and bakes a bit of enchantment into each one. It’s a little like Garden Spells but without the charming eccentric characters and real-feeling fantasy element.

Despite Pies and Prejudice having 4 1/3 stars on Amazon I simply could not finish. Characters, setting, plot, dialogue were flat, uninteresting.

I got further with Mark of the Mage (The Scribes of Medeisia), over half way through. I was not particularly enjoying the story but it wasn’t so bad that it made me get up off the couch to read something else. At least not until my tea mug ran out and I needed a refill!

Mark of the Mage (The Scribes of Medeisia) isn’t a bad book, it just didn’t have enough oomph to keep me reading. This one also has 5 stars on Amazon so my blah feeling might have been me not the novel.

The second murder mystery, Leave No Stone Unturned (A Lexie Starr Mystery, Book 1), was the best of the lot, good enough that I could have finished had there not been something else to read. The story is a cute combination of suspense and romance, with late 40s widowed Lexie Starr concerned about her daughter’s new husband, Clay. Lexie doesn’t like the guy but is determined to put a happy face until she stumbles across a newspaper article that he is the prime suspect in his first wife’s murder. Lexie’s daughter doesn’t even know Clay had been married before.

Lexie makes up a story for her daughter about meeting up with a jeweler she met online and takes off for Schenectady to research the murder. This is where Leave No Stone Unturned lost me. Lexie tells the police detective she’s writing a novel about the case and that she could help. Really. No police detective who ever saw a single episode of Murder She Wrote or any of its imitators is going to be too excited about that and a clever woman like Lexie could surely come up with a better reason to talk to him.

The romance is sweet without being maudlin and is the best part of the story. It just was’t good enough to keep me reading the rest. Leave No Stone Unturned has 4 1/3 stars on Amazon too, so once again my opinion is the minority. I’d give it 3 stars.