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

October Sky Fantasy by Alledria Hurt

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October Sky is a novella by fantasy author Alledria Hurt. She’s written several novels and novellas available on Amazon although this is the first I’ve encountered her.

Most of the story is good, albeit with some potholes in the plot. Emmaline Simmons is an apprentice alchemist; in this story an alchemist works with potions to effect healing or other results. She wakes to hear someone in her mirror talk about the Well of Souls, which in her world is a fall constellation. Eventually she gets pulled through the mirror to help Cedric heal his king. She and Cedric keep one step ahead of the evil chancellor’s guards as they gather the ingredients Emmaline needs to make a healing potion.

The pluses:

  • Emmaline is a compelling character. I cared what happened to her.
  • The idea of brewing potions from herbs and things like werewolf hair to make changes, both good and ill, is intriguing. I’d like to see the author do more with this.
  • Minor characters Mr. Amon and Emmaline’s grandmother were well done, especially given the short novella length.
  • I’m interested in some of the events that weren’t explained. Why was the chancellor so determined to keep the king ill? Who was the stranger who shot grandmother and threatened Mr. Amon? Did Mrs. Snow have any more to do with Emmaline or was this a one-off encounter?
  • The writing style was good. Ms. Hurt crammed a whole lot of story into 44 pages.

The minuses:

  • Plot holes abound. The world on the other side of the mirror is the world of death. So why would the chancellor try to let the king die? Can someone in the land of the dead die again?
  • If the Well of Souls is the gate through which souls pass, then why are there not many undead people wandering Emmaline’s world?
  • Emmaline just happens to have the ingredients to make a sleep-inducing smoke lying around in her dungeon cell. Can we spell plot device? Same when looking for the other ingredients. Of course this is fiction!
  • Cedric, who should have been a major character, served mainly as a foil for Emmaline.

Overall I enjoyed the novella and the pluses outweighed the minuses. I’ll likely look for more by Alledria Hurt.

3+ Stars

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To Hold the Bridge – Old Kingdom Novella and Short Stories by Garth Nix

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The wonderful cover on this collection features the bridge from the namesake short story, To Hold the Bridge. I liked this story very much as it had the same flavor as the longer Old Kingdom novels Sabriel, Liriel and Abhorsen. Bridge is the only Old Kingdom story in this collection and I didn’t care for most of the other stories.

To Hold the Bridge gets started with Morghan, penniless orphan who has hiked a couple hundred miles in hope of becoming a cadet of the Worshipful Company of the Greenwash and Field Market Bridge. The company feeds, houses and clothes its cadets and Morghan is hungry, homeless and raggedy. Morghan is able to secure a position and proves his worth when a necromancer attacks the bridge with swarms of undead and vile creatures.

The other good story is A Handful of Ashes, featuring Francesca and Mari, servant /students at the magic college. The head of the college and her spoilt niece both dislike the idea of lower class or poor girls moving up in the world due to hard work and skill. They force Mari to read aloud part of the Old Bylaws, magic contracts that bind the college, and as a side effect, force the poor servant/students to wear ashes on their faces.

Bridge and Ashes have a sense of urgency, similar to the Old Kingdom novels, and underdog characters we identify with. Both are good stories, probably 4 stars on their own.

The Highest Justice is OK. The situation and plot leave me cold but I liked the main character Jess, a girl determined to help her mother have her last wish, even after death.

The rest of the collection is mediocre. I didn’t care for the characters and the plots are unexceptional and I’ve seen several in other anthologies.

I would be very disappointed if I had bought this collection. As a library loan it’s OK but I wouldn’t bother getting it again.

3 Stars

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Bridal Jitters – Harmony Introduction by Jayne Castle

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Jayne Castle introduced her unique Harmony world in Bridal Jitters. The story itself is good, not great, however she managed to include a lot of information in a novella about people.

Virginia Burch and Sam Gage are partners, offering a combination service to people exploring the vast underground catacomb under the dead alien city Cadence. Their first client hires Virginia and Sam to remove a large ghost waterfall, but some of the client’s hired hunters instead try to kill them. They escape into what may be an alien cemetery, and eventually turn the tables on their attackers.

Sam and Virginia are not as real as most of Castle’s characters, their romance reads more distant. There are several sex scenes but not a lot that would tell us why they fall in love.

Jayne Castle has a true gift for creating characters we care about and who feel real, and sometimes her stories are so engrossing that it feels as if we are experiencing the characters’ lives, not simply reading about them. Bridal Jitters doesn’t deliver at her usual level, possibly due to the length and the fact she packed in a great deal of background on Harmony.

It’s still a decent story and a very fast read. My library offers Bridal Jitters via Overdrive and you library may be similar. I wouldn’t advise paying for this.

2 Stars

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The Bastard’s Refuge: Blood of Wrodor – Book One by Brian O’Rourke

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I’ve been cleaning out my Kindle library, reading some books that I’ve had for a couple of years, and came across The Bastard’s Refuge. I don’t recall exactly, but it was probably a BookBub special and I didn’t expect much, figured it would be yet another book that I read 10 pages of or so then delete. In fact The Bastard’s Refuge is excellent. Brian O’Rourke created a compelling world with tension, threats, intriguing back story and a far more interesting main character than many fantasy heroes.

Galeran lives at the Abbey of Bronze, a shelter for all high-born bastards, run by warrior monks. He is one day short of 18, and at 18 must either take monastic vows or leave. Noble families have a nasty habit of killing off bastards, either their own or their rivals, so leaving is risky, and it’s difficult since Galeran has no money and the abbey is remote. At the same time his country is under attack by invading Ra-Haizur, a force that includes over 100,000 warriors and skilled sorcerers.

One of those sorcerers is leading a force to capture the abbey and kill all the children and monks, thus eliminating all possible high-born children, even those born illegitimate. Galeran must take all the surviving children and escape to a forest.

And the book ends.

Yes, it ends. Galeran and a couple hundred kids are in a cavern making their way to safety when it ends. It speaks much for this author’s skill that I looked on Amazon to see the next book in the series, despite the horrible, cliffhanger ending. Unfortunately, although The Bastard’s Refuge is noted as Book One there does not seem to be a Book Two. If there were I would buy it.

4 Stars I’d give this a solid 5 stars for completely exceeding my (low) expectations and delivering a well-written fantasy had it not been for the ending.

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Smoke in Mirrors – Romantic Suspense by Jayne Krentz

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Jayne Krentz writes romantic suspense, sometimes with a paranormal twist and sometimes without. Smoke and Mirrors is a “without” story and it’s one of Krentz’s better novels with vivid characters and a twisting plot.

Leonora is packing up her dead half-sister Meredith’s apartment when Thomas Walker stalks in and accuses her of helping Meridith embezzle 1.5 million dollars from the college endowment his family funded. Despite this unpleasant beginning the two feel a solid connection, and when Leonora receives a posthumous email from Meredith telling her how to collect the money, she contacts Thomas.

Thomas’s brother, Deke, lost his wife, supposedly to suicide about a year earlier. Deke is convinced someone murdered his wife although there is no real evidence, and Thomas is helping Deke reluctantly. Once Leonora arrives that changes because Leonora provides a link between Meredith and Deke’s wife. The brothers team up with Leonora to discover the truth.

It looks like everything is wrapped up, we have the killer and his accomplices, but look! It’s only page 210 and we have another 53 pages to go. Right about now a minor character wafts through the room and all we suspense readers know what that means. Even with the huge tell from the page count we still have to read through to the end to learn how Krentz ties up all the loose strings.

The romance between Leonora and Thomas is intense and fast with plenty of sex scenes and a recurring bad double-entendre. None the less Krentz does her magic and we care about the characters. I found Deke and his love interest, Cassie, more interesting than Leonora, and Leonora’s ex fiance, the obnoxious English professor, was all too realistic.

Smoke in Mirrors is a very fast read, figure 3 hours or so, and it grabs you and takes you along for the ride. Aside from the sex scenes there is very little vulgarity and one blasphemy.

4 Stars or a bit less

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Dark Light – Tabloid Sensational Paranormal Romance by Jayne Castle

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Dark Light is one of my favorite Jayne Castle Harmony stories. The main characters are great as are the side romances and minor characters, and best of all is The Curtain, with its reporting on Honeymooning in the Alien Temple of Love!

Yes, our heroine writes for The Curtain. She does solid reporting on real problems that her editor dresses up with aliens and sex and conspiracies and prints alongside articles about alien abductions and anal probes. It’s great!

Dark Light begins when Curtain reporter Sierra McIntyre interviews John Fontana, the new boss of the local guild. Sierra has reported on several guild-related scandals – including stories about former ghost hunters who are addicted to Juice or have disappeared – and Fontana believes she may have access to information about critical problems within his guild. His solution? Marriage! Fontana proposes they marry and work together to uncover what is really happening to the missing men, what’s behind the corruption Fontana and his friend Ray have discovered.

The minor characters are some of the best parts of Dark Light. Ray and Sierra’s fellow reporter Kay fall for each other (despite Kay’s Alien Temple of Love column); other curtain friends like Matt (the photographer who photographed the Alien Temple of Love, aka donuts and coffee pot), Sierra’s ghost hunter friends, and of course her dust bunny Elvis make the novel feel real and funny.

I highly recommend Dark Light if you enjoy romance or suspense with a paranormal/futuristic twist. My other favorite is After Dark, an excellent story that helps introduce the world of Harmony.

5 Stars

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Dream Eyes – Paranormal Romantic Suspense by Jayne Krentz

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I read Dream Eyes about 3 years ago but the only thing I could recall was the waterfall. The plot and the characters all slipped out of my memory, something I’ve noticed with Jayne Krentz’s novels. Her books are good, enjoyable, but not memorable.

Dream Eyes is set in a small Oregon town where Gwen Frazier’s old friend Evelyn Ballinger has recently died. Two years ago a serial killer used paranormal means to kill two people before dying himself, and Evelyn appears to have died the same way as the former victims. Gwen suspects someone murdered Evelyn, but who is the murderer, if in fact it was murder? Gwen’s friend, Abby Radwell from Krentz’s Copper Beach, sends her fiance’s brother Judson to help Gwen untangle the mysteries.

The story moves quickly with a few twists and another murder. Gwen and Judson eventually figure out who in that small town is the killer, fall in love, go to Abby’s wedding and start their own happy ever after.

I enjoyed Dream Eyes because the main character, Gwen, is easy to like and spend time with and Judson is one of Krentz’s better love interests. Gwen and Abby’s good friend Nick makes a guest appearance too and adds quite a bit to the story. Overall I’d say the characters make the book and the plot is just so-so.

3 Stars

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The Hot Zone – Paranormal Romantic Suspense on Harmony by Jayne Castle

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The Hot Zone is a little different from some of Castle’s books. I liked the first part a lot, the middle third, when our hero and heroine meet, confront danger, survive and love, was pretty good. And the ending left me feeling kinda blah.

In the beginning… Evil doctor Blakenship has imprisoned our heroine, Sedona in the alien catacombs to see how Castle’s handy plot device, the omnipresent psi-enhancing Nightshade formula, works on someone with her talents. Dust bunny Lyle makes friends with Sedona and helps her escape, then they hitchhike back home to find her Marriage of Convenience husband Brock has divorced her and is shacking up with someone else. Somehow Sedona manages to get herself and Lyle to Rainshadow Island where the middle of the story begins.

Sedona meets Cyrus Jones, the new Guild boss on Rainshadow, when he arrives to the inn where she works. They have the usual, almost immediate attraction although Sedona tries to avoid interacting with Cyrus; she is wary of him or any Guild boss after one allowed her to be kidnapped on her last job. However Sedona needs Cyrus’ help and he needs hers. This section is good with plenty of adventure. I noticed a few discrepancies between this and Castle’s other Rainshadow novels in terms of what had been discovered on the island and in what sequence, something that usually doesn’t bother me about book series, but this time did for some reason.

The last part of the story moves to the mainland where Sedona’s upper crust family decides to include her in her grandfather’s birthday. The same evil villains from the beginning kidnap her to unlock the door to their drug lab and Cyrus must come to the rescue.

The romance and suspense both work in The Hot Zone. I liked the main characters, especially Lyle, and it’s always fun to see people from prior Rainshadow novels come to the new story. It was great seeing Lyle bond with Sedona and their ongoing friendship. I’m not sure why I don’t like The Hot Zone more, perhaps it’s because the villains aren’t as believable as they need to be, and Sedona’s family is unlikable, leaving the novel just a little unsatisfying.

4 Stars, almost.

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Illusion Town Paranormal Romantic Suspense by Jayne Castle

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Illusion Town starts out with a bang and the action never stops. Hannah West makes her living finding things and her latest client is Elias Coppersmith. The two had hit it off over email and now are meeting in person. The next thing Hannah knows is she is waking up in bed, married to Elias. Neither can remember how they got there and retrace their steps to learn that Elias had hired Hannah to help unlock an alien gate that shut several of his team members in a cavern, and that the pair were attacked when they tried to get out to the site.

The story proceeds, filling us in through Hannah’s and Elias’s thoughts about their investigation and themselves. As usual in Jayne Castle’s books Hannah and Elias find they have a strong psychic bond as well as a romantic one, and that both need the other to help survive.

Much of the novel is excellent. Hannah and Elias are interesting, vibrant characters whom Castle makes come alive. The side characters, especially Hannah’s adoptive aunts, help push the story along although I didn’t find them particularly necessary.

There is one part that seems ridiculous. Hannah inherited a psi map to a museum/carnival that is filled with dangerous psychic artifacts and is hidden in the alien catacombs. For some reason her ancestor who brought these from Earth to Harmony saw fit to put extraordinarily dangerous para weapons in the form of carnival rides and arcade attractions. This seems on par with wrapping rat poison in candy wrappers. In any event Elias and Hannah are able to use the weapons to save themselves and Hannah sells the artifacts to Arcane for lots of money.

The romance between Elias and Hannah feels more alive than in a few of Krentz’s/Castle’s lesser books. Both are already primed to like and trust the other even before meeting, then joining together to search out their missing evening brings them together. There are a few sex scenes, almost no vulgarity and no blasphemy.

4 Stars

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In Too Deep – Paranormal Romantic Suspense by Jayne Krentz

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Finally Fallon Jones falls in love! Fallon leads the secretive paranormal detective agency J&J, which author Krentz features in novel after novel, portraying Fallon as almost a mad scientist in his zeal and personality. Now with In Too Deep it’s Fallon’s turn to be the star and protagonist.

Isabella Valdez flees for her life to Scargill Cove, eventually finding work as office assistant for Fallon in J&J. He desperately needs an assistant and Isabella is perfect. Fallon can spot patterns and pull together disparate facts to form a coherent story – or a conspiracy theory – and Isabella is completely at home with conspiracy theories because her grandmother runs the premiere weird story conspiracy website.

What neither Fallon nor Isabella knows is that a secret group stashed several of Mrs. Bridewell’s infernal gadgets, ordinary-looking clockwork machines that can kill with paranormal energy, in caves near Scargill Cove and the townspeople have dedicated themselves to protecting that secret. Now someone has reactivated some of these dangerous things at the same time as Isabella’s former employer is hunting for the employee who used his company as a screen to deal weapons. The two plots collide and Fallon and Isabella must work with their town to save each other.

I like Fallon. He’s not exactly warm and cuddly but he’s smart, resourceful and dedicated. And he’s warm and caring for those he knows and willing to do whatever he must to protect those.

Isabella has an extremely powerful talent; she is able to tell people is touching to do things – and they do. This is a mighty handy talent and a bit too convenient a plot device a few times in the story. Isabella is less believable and less likable than Fallon; which is unusual for Krentz. Usually I like her female leads more than the men.

Like all Jayne Krentz/Jayne Castle novels the plot moves at a frantic pace all while the two leads fall in love. There are some sex scenes, almost no vulgarity and no blasphemy.

4 Stars

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