More Books than Time

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

Island Girls Nancy Thayer Summer Read Beach Book Romance Novel Chick Lit

by Leave a Comment

Island Girls: A Novel was a bit off the usual type of book that I read. It’s entertaining, classic beach novel, about three sisters who spend the summer together, fall in love and renew their sisterhood.

This was the first book by Nancy Thayer I have read. Our local library newsletter included this in their recent “new books” section and it sounded fun. Plus the cover was lovely with the fluttering beach umbrella. I detest books full of women having affairs and angst about marriage, careers, suburbia depression. I much prefer books about happy people or people who at least recognize happiness when it flits in and seize the joy. Island Girls: A Novel was that.

Characters

Arden is a semi-famous television personality with her own show in Boston. She’s threatened a little by a younger colleague brought in to revive ratings by appealing to younger viewers. Arden is 34, single and has not been back to Nantucket since she was exiled by her stepmother for alleged theft. Arden gets along fine with her own mother.

Meg is Arden’s half sister, 31 and also unmarried, an English professor at a community college. She feels drawn to teach at the smaller school because she is a teacher first, before a researcher. She wants to help her students and she is very good at it. Meg’s best buddy is 26 and a guy; Meg is drawn to him but fights it as she fears he will dump her like her dad dumped her mom. Meg’s mother remarried and has a new life with her husband and sons; Meg is an afterthought in their lives.

Jenny lives on Nantucket in her parents’ summer home and runs a computer business. Arden and Meg’s father adopted Jenny when she was 10, making her Arden and Meg’s stepsister. She is also 31 and gets along fine with her mother.

The mothers all appear in the book too but are not central characters. The sisters’ boyfriends and would-be boy friends have parts and their deceased father plays a role too.

Plot Plot is light and fluffy. Arden, Meg and Jenny must spend 3 months on Nantucket living together to inherit their father’s house. The house is worth over $2,000,000 so it’s worth an inconvenience or two.

Of course the girls end up renewing their sisterhood and all fall in love.

Overall This was fun and I was intrigued enough to check out vacation rentals on Nantucket. (Summer rentals start at several thousand per week; October is more reasonable.) I also checked out two more Nancy Thayer books although I suspect she will be a once a year author, not a steady diet. I’m not enjoying the second on nearly so much.

4 stars.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman Dark Fantasy Fiction

by Leave a Comment

The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel has gotten almost overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and readers. And rightly so. It is a good story, well written, interesting characters. The narrator is a seven year old boy caught in a frightening, bewildering series of events begun when his parents’ border, an Australian opal miner, commits suicide. The boy wakes up choking on a shilling and others in his neighborhood experience stangeness all related to money.

The boy visits the neighbors at the end of the lane, an eleven year old girl, her mother and grandmother. The girl takes him with her to remove the “flea”, a supernatural creature, that is causing the problems. She thinks she bound the flea to its current location but in fact it sent a piece of itself into the boy.

The boy’s mother hires a new housekeeper, Ursala Monkton, whom the boy recognizes immediately as the flea. The creature wants to make everyone happy, at least at first, but fears the boy and influences the father to nearly drown him in the tub.

Summary, The Good and Not So Good

I got caught up in this and enjoyed it very much while reading the story, but once done it raised nagging questions. The story is sold as a novel but in fact is more a novella; with plenty of white space it is 178 pages, That caused several flaws.

  • The Hempstock ladies were never explained.  The story alludes to them being older than the big bang and immortal, but what they actually are and why they live as they do is never explained.  That’s not uncommon in fantasies where we really don’t want a detailed, technical explanation of every magical element, but it left me wondering what they were for.  A longer book would have given more opportunity to explain.
  • The ending was strange.  The boy revisits his old home after a funeral and wanders down to the Hempstock farm where he remembers the entire story.  Grandma Hempstock tells him he has been there before but as he leaves the memories fade immediately.  We never learn who the funeral was for, nor why the character cannot remember anything once he leaves the farm.
  • Ursala Monkton had immense power, yet was controlled by the Lettie Hempstock and destroyed by the hunger birds.  Yet neither Lettie nor her mother could control the hunger birds when they attacked the boy.
  • The boy gets a cat that becomes his dearest companion yet cannot remember what happened to her.  Nor does he even remember her until he begins to remember that summer he was seven.  If you love a cat you remember it.

These are minor points.  You would expect unexplained characters and events in a short story, not so much in a novel.  Yet the book did not strike me as one that would have benefited had Gaiman written more.  This fit his style and allowed the mood to swing from somber to fearful to contentment.

I read through a few of the reviews on Amazon and noticed that the negative ones either found the book boring or felt cheated by the extreme short length.  I did not find it boring and the length probably fit the story and Gaiman’s style better than a full-fledged novel.

Overall I found The Ocean at the End of the Lane excellent, one of the more enjoyable books by Neil Gaiman that I have read.  Although the main characters are children this is not a children’s book.  Teens would enjoy it but it is written for adults.    Five stars.

Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel, K A Holt, Funny YA Science Fiction, Space Travel

by Leave a Comment

Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel could have been boring. Our hero is 14 year old Mike Stellar whose biggest concern is keeping out of the detention clutches of  teacher Mrs. Halebopp – right until he hears at dinnertime his family is moving to Mars. Tomorrow.

Sound like something you have read before?  Do you think the author must have ordered stock characters A, B, N and Q, settings C and D, plots 1 and 6?  A 2013 novel version of The Jetsons?  Instead of being a rehash of sad old plots and characters this was fast, fun and interesting.

Characters

The kids in Mike Stellar are Mike and Larc with Mike’s best friend Stinky mostly a voice at the end of the forbidden phone.  Mike is smart, gets into trouble and is terribly afraid that his parents have sabotaged the ship.

Larc turns out to be a most unusual girl and makes friends with Mike.  Together they foil the bad guys, rescue the previous expedition and uncover the real guilty people.

Don’t these sound like the stock characters in any teen aged science fiction story?  True, they are not unique but the way they work together and how the characters handle conflict and fear make them three-dimensional and a lot of fun.

The adults are shown from Mike’s viewpoint and are not as well-developed as the kids, but we still get enough to see them as people instead of characters you can order off the menu.  The creepy Leslie Sugahbert (aka Sugar Bear) is one of those ever-smiling get-you-later types that Mike instantly distrusts.  He is proven right when Leslie (a guy by the way) turns out to be spying on Mike’s Mom.

Plot

The plot is a little more complicated than some YA novels, with terraforming gone amok, a missing expedition that isn’t missing, just shoved aside, corporate politics (thankfully in the background), multiple sides and goals, and e e cummings poetry.

Overall it is a lot of fun, even for adults.  There are the usual “a miracle occurs here” moments that would be more noticeable in an adult novel. For example, it’s incredible that a robot would have a critical power connector that could be shorted out by contact with a sweaty hand.  And it’s even stranger that we’d be terraforming planets in other solar systems before we visit Mars.  These are small things though.

What I was glad to NOT see were kids acting like wise grown ups.  Kids acting like kids are a lot more fun to read about than kids that act more adult than any adults I know.

Summary

Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel is anything but boring. There is a little coming-of-age going on (he is 14 after all) but mostly the story moves.  It is a fun read.  I looked for more by the author but found only a zombie novel in Haiku.  It might be good too, who knows.

4 Stars

Two to Avoid: Greyson’s Grove and Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle YA Fantasy Novels

by Leave a Comment

I read two YA fantasy novels this week that just did not work for me.

Greyson’s Grove

In fact, let’s be accurate.  I gave up on the first one, Greyson’s Grove, after 200 pages.  I only got that far because I got fascinated with how obtuse the heroine was.  I had a small bet with myself as to how long it would take  her to realize her crush / secret boyfriend was really another elf.   She was surrounded by clues but unable to put together that basic fact?

Greyson’s Grove’s biggest problem was the umpteen bazillion pages spent being a teenager.  About the only cliche Greyson didn’t hit was worrying about her weight.

Most of the online reviews are favorable, and if you are a teen or tween girl you’ll probably love it.

I bought Greyson’s Grove after reading a short sample on Barnes and Noble.  The sample was interesting, with a might-be-fun premise, intriguing setting and characters.  Plus (honesty time) I had just gotten two B&N gift cards for my birthday and wanted to buy something. This was a waste of $2.99.

Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle

The other book would be fun if you were 10 or so. The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle is written in the first person with cute characters and what might be a fun plot. The illustrations are interesting and I especially liked the feisty-looking young lady on the cover.

Alas. I’m not 10, or even under 20 and this was terminally cute. I stopped reading it after about 15 pages. If I were in a different mood I might like it as a light diversion but I’m not feeling that mindless today.

 

The Paid Companion Amanda Quick Regency Romance Suspense Jayne Ann Krentz

by Leave a Comment

The Paid Companion is a lot of fun, a good combination of romance and suspense set in Regency England. Our heroine Elenora has been cheated of her entire inheritance by her dumb and greedy stepfather and her erstwhile fiance dumped her the minute he heard she lost her fortune.

Sadly this situation happened; in the early 1800s women had no control over their own fortune and their male “guardians” could gamble it away. Elenora was not surprised when the sheriff arrived to kick her out but she was surprised when her fiance broke the engagement.

Meanwhile the hero, Arthur Lancaster, Earl of St. Merryn, has had his fiancee run away to marry another man. One of the best scenes in the book is when Arthur hears that she has bolted while at his club and makes a dry comment about the best way to secure a wife would be to look for a paid companion. Of course his friends think he is cold and unfeeling while in fact he had helped orchestrate the elopement.

Arthur wants to solve his uncle’s murder and does not want to be hounded by marriage-minded mamas and daughters. He hires Elenora to pose as his fiancee. They quickly run afoul of the villain, the mad Parker, who killed the uncle to obtain his snuffbox. The box was one of a set with a pure ruby.

The villain Parker fancies himself a great scientist, “England’s second Newton” and has set up his laboratory in a fascinating part of London, underground, accessible by a “lost river”. Amanda Quick notes that these rivers actually exist, apparently flowing under London and built over.

It’s quickly obvious to the readers and to Arthur the two lead characters are in love, but it’s not so obvious to Elenora. The book has several enjoyable plot twists and secondary characters.

The Good Points

The Paid Companion is a fun, fast read with enjoyable characters. There are secondary villains, such as Elenora’s ex fiance or Arthur’s butler that add greatly to the story. The butler especially was an excellent character; Amanda Quick took care to make him realistic and his actions plausible.

Amanda Quick took time to elaborate the setting and background of Regency England high society. This also added to the story and made it more interesting and vivid.

The Less Good

The ending was a little too pat. We knew Parker would come to a sticky end and we knew Elenora and Arthur would end up with a real engagement. When you know the ending it’s tricky getting to it with any element of surprise.

The other thing I didn’t like were the love scenes. Would a woman in Elenora’s position – a paid companion with few resources in milliue where women had few rights and unwed mothers were viewed as tramps – really risk her future on sexual intercourse? I don’t think so. Plus I don’t care for the current fashion to throw obligatory sex scenes in every novel. Is this really necessary?

Quicksilver by Amanda Quick Paranormal Romance Victorian England Jayne Krentz

by Leave a Comment

As the title says, Quicksilver: Book Two of the Looking Glass Trilogy (An Arcane Society Novel), is the sequel to the excellent contemporary romance In Too Deep. A few points make this a most unusual sequel.

    1. There is no continuity in the characters.  The two leads Virginia and Owen have a tenuous connection to Jones and Jones and the Arcane Society.  Virginia mistrusts Arcane as she feels they view people like her who make their living via their paranormal skills as frauds.  Jones and Jones contracted Owen to solve the murders of two glass readers.
    2. The author writes under different names, Jayne Ann Krentz for In Too Deep and Amanda Quick for Quicksilver
    3. Quicksilver is set in Victorian England, some 130 years before In Too Deep.  Quicksilver included a short teaser for the third book, Canyons of Night which is by Jayne Castle and set several hundred years in the future and on a different planet.  (I have read several of Jayne Castle’s science fiction/paranormal romances and enjoyed every one).

Certainly an unusual combination for a sequel!  It’s actually the second book that includes paranormal weapons made by Millicent Brightwater.  The “quicksilver” is a mirror that makes a cameo appearance at the very end of In Too Deep and then used for attempted murder in Quicksilver.

Overall

I liked Quicksilver and will continue to read books by Jayne Ann Krentz (and her other two names Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle), but I think she is an author best read in small doses, say a couple books now and then a couple more in a month or two.  I find this is true for most authors in fact.

The dialogue felt real, you could feel the gloom in the setting, and the characters’ motivations and feelings were plausible.  I didn’t care for these characters or the Victorian setting nearly as much as the contemporary In Too Deep.  The limitations that Victorian women worked under (and through) were real, but tiresome to read about.  It would have been interesting to read more about the credulous clients and those who found the paranormal – whether real or fraudulent – so popular.

The plot had a few eye-rolling moments, especially the set up at the end with the two villains.

Overall 4 Stars.

Here is my review of the earlier In Too Deep:

In Too Deep: Looking Glass Trilogy, Arcane Society, Jayne Ann Krentz

In Too Deep: Looking Glass Trilogy, Arcane Society, Jayne Ann Krentz

by 1 Comment

In Too Deep: Book One of the Looking Glass Trilogy (An Arcane Society Novel) is as the title says, part of a trilogy by Jayne Ann Krentz.  It is excellent, one of the best fantasy / mystery / suspense / romance /mysteries I’ve read.  Krentz writes under the names  Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle, specializes in books that combine paranormal romance with suspense and does it masterfully.

I finished this in a couple evenings as it is a fast read, albeit one you need to pay attention to.  There are abundant characters, including some who appear minor but end up being central to the story, plus our two primary characters Fallon Jones and Isabella Valdez.

Jones owns the paranormal investigative agency Jones and Jones and does extensive work for the Arcane Society.  Part of their charter is to deal with criminals who use paranormal methods or weapons for murder.  Isabella’s parents and grandmother were conspiracy theorists who could construct a plausible but dopey theory out of thin air to account for anything.  She was raised completely off the records, no birth certificate, no school record.  Jones is a by-the-books (using his book) guy who is also a strong paranormal talent.

Together Jones and Isabella must confront paranormal weapons from Victorian England, defeat a serial murderer, solve the mystery of who is behind the illicit paranormal weapons sales and yes, clear Fallon’s name and reinstate Jones and Jones as credible assets for the Arcane Society.

This is a tall order and in their spare time Isabella and Fallon fall in love.  The love story is well done, fits seamlessly into the story.  It isn’t one of those books where the author says “Hmmm.  Need a dose of romance here.  Where’s my love interest?”

Well Written

All the sub plots, plots, characters, settings work together.  You don’t see loose ends or silly byways.  The dialogue is well done, with people speaking like real people do in every day conversation.  The character Walter doesn’t speak much other than inside his own head, but even that makes sense.

Part of a Series

I read the second book in the series, Quicksilver: Book Two of the Looking Glass Trilogy  already.  It was set about 100 years earlier than this one and was also good but not as believable or as interesting as In Too Deep.

From the reviews on Amazon, most people liked this with a few complaining about slow action or lack of believable emotions. I didn’t see that; the book read and felt to me like the people genuinely cared for each other. The villains were villainous and the revenge seekers were torn between what they knew they should do and what they wanted to do.

Apparently Jayne Krentz wrote several novels featuring Fallon Jones and the Arcane Society. I will see them out.

Five stars.

Beauty and the Werewolf, Mercedes Lackey, 500 Kingdoms, Fantasy Fairy Tale

by Leave a Comment

Beauty and the Werewolf is from the Tales of the 500 Kingdoms by Mercedes Lackey. All the books in this series so far have been enjoyable, easy to read and loosely based on a fairy tale.

Mercedes Lackey cleverly developed The Tradition, a sort of mindless force that wants to mold people into the traditional motifs: evil stepmothers, foolish older brothers, Cinderella, Snow White, so on and on. The Godmothers each handle one or more of the 500 Kingdoms, keep the peace and try to foil the worst of The Tradition’s impact on those step sisters, older brothers, step mothers.

I wasn’t immediately sure which fairy tale Beauty and the Werewolf was based on. True, the character Bella’s father is a rich merchant, and the title implies Sleeping Beauty. But Bella wore her father’s red riding coat with a hood to visit the local Granny when she ran into the unpleasant Woodsman and was attacked by a wolf. This is Little Red Riding Hood. There are liberal doses of Red Riding Hood but with a twist, plus Sleeping Beauty, but the story is unique and stands on its own.

Characters

The wolf that attacked Bella turns out to be Duke Sebastian, a werewolf, and Bella must spend 90 days confined to Sebastian’s castle to ensure that the bite she got does not turn her into a werewolf too. The book spends a bit too much time showing Bella as a somewhat self-centered, smug young lady, rather too sure of herself. She’s convinced that no one – not her step mother nor step sisters nor housekeeper – can run her family’s home in her absence. And she’s angry at Sebastian for biting her and at the king for imprisoning her.

What helps Bella develop a personality and us to enjoy the book is the Woodsman / Gamekeeper, Sebastian’s illegitimate half brother Eric. Eric takes Bella out with him to look for poachers (and for his own reasons) and Bella is glad to go out. She realizes that Eric is too likely to see her as fair pickings and she decides to act more like a boy, dress in Sebastian’s old clothes and act as Eric’s assistant.

The other change is Sebastian asks Bella to help him with his magic and (of course) Bella discovers she has a talent for wizardry. She helps Sebastian find a way to keep his wolf instincts under control and everything ends happily for all except the villain.

Summary

Overall I liked this among the best of the 500 Kingdoms novels. The people were real, although I wanted to yell at Bella a few times when she was being particularly self righteous. The villain was all too easy to spot, the magic was understated and more or less normal, the Godmother was there but not the omnipotent power. The romance had time to develop and was a bit obvious but still fun and a reasonable part of the plot.

Like all the 500 Kingdoms novels this was a fun, fast read. Take an evening and enjoy!

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman Fantasy Supernatural Angels Demons

by 1 Comment

I like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels and Neil Gaiman isn’t too shabby either.  These two collaborated on Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch before they became THE Neil Gaiman and THE Terry Pratchett. They Disclosed All in the Afterword that was fascinating.

Amy Peveto of Bookzilla blog generously gave me two copies of Good Omens
as a give-away. (I seldom enter give-aways since I never win but maybe no one else entered.)  Anyway one day two copies of this arrived in the mail thanks to Amy. I sent her a thank you and put the books aside till I was going to be home for a while.

I read Good Omens 10 or 15 years ago and enjoyed it. It was one of those books that lingers in your mind; you recall reading it with enjoyment; you remember the title; but somehow you never quite get around to reading again. When the books arrived I gave one to my friend Loren and read the other rather quickly.

Plot Synopsis

Even though I read this before, I found my memory was a bit spotty as to the plot. Overall it’s simple. Satan decided to kick off the apocalypse by begetting the Antichrist and settling him in with a nice American diplomat family. The plot was that the kid would grow into his powers when he turned 11, then manage to start nuclear holocaust.

Since we’re still here something went wrong (or right if you are like me and not too keen on the apocalypse). What happened was a combination of normal human screw ups, aided by a lackadaisical angel and his semi-friend demon who both decided they weren’t too keen on the apocalypse either, thank you very much.

The kid is placed with the wrong (or right) parents, who raise him in a rural English town to be a more-or-less normal kid with friends and fun. Neither the angel nor demon realize this has happened and have spent the last 11 years trying to keep Warlock (the other kid who was supposed to be the Antichrist (it’s complicated)) more or less on an even keel.

The plot has the usual zaniness we love in the Discworld novels with a serious undertone that you can ignore if you please.

Summary

Overall I enjoyed this enough to read it again in just a couple of evenings, even staying up late one night to finish. Even knowing the plot (more or less) I had so much fun with the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley (formerly Crawly if you prefer) that I stayed up till midnight one evening to finish.

Pratchett and Gaiman mention in their Afterword that some fans carry around copies barely hanging together with string and tape. I’m not that crazy about this. It was a fun read and I’ll probably read it again in another 10 years or so. It is my favorite Gaiman novel, and among my favorite Pratchett novels which is saying something since I own several.  It’s fun and you can read it just for fun, or you can consider what some of the underlying questions really are if you can’t stand a book that is just plain fun.

I’ll give this 5 stars!

.

What Came from the Stars, Gary Schmidt, YA Fantasy, Wince Heroically

by Leave a Comment

About half of What Came from the Stars was good, a story of a family wracked with grief for their mom, threatened with having their beachfront land consumed by condominiums, having to fight a terrible evil. The other half? Boring. Boring in a way that you wanted to throw the book across the room.

The Good Part

Tommy and Patty’s mom died in a car accident a few months before the story begins. Tommy blames himself because his mom, usually a careful driver, and he got into a small fight when she dropped him off at school, just before she spun out of control on the icy road. His sister Patty has not spoken since.

Their father is an artist who has barely touched his paints since the accident. They live in an old, beat up house on the ocean near Plymouth, Massachusetts. The local Realtor, conveniently married to the lieutenant governor, greedily plans to get an easement through their property to build condominiums. The scenes in the local zoning board are excellent; we see that the other land owners all feel it is unfair but they are all only too glad it is not their land she covets. No one speaks for Tommy’s family and the town grants the easement.

Tommy has friends and enemies. The Realtor’s daughter is a total pain in the neck and a loud-voiced bully. Tommy’s teacher suddenly takes ill and is replaced by a mysterious sub. Tommy can tell that the sub is linked to the mysterious vandalism in the town.

I’ve not read Gary Schmidt’s books before but will look for them now. He has a gift to take a simple story and make it compelling, readable, the characters real people that you care about.

The Bad Part

Maybe if you are twelve and just finished reading every book J. R. R. Tolkein ever wrote you might like the ponderous, dull parts with the heroic wording. I did not. It was incredibly difficult to wade through and I didn’t feel like Mr. Schmidt really got the right voice. It was not campy silly nor was it inspiring good. It was just plain ponderous and overwrought. I winced every time I turned the page and saw we were back to the heroic tale of the Valorim.

Overall

I have to give this book 4 stars despite the way too heavy dose of bad heroic fantasy prose.  The characters and story of Tommy and his family, their friends and the nasty Realtor were too good to not rate this high.  But oh, the bad parts.  If I could rate them separately they would get a 1.