Book Review: Kydona: From Ashes, by Thomas K. Krug III

After being pleasantly surprised by Kydona, I was more than happy to pick up the sequel, Kydona: From Ashes. My main complaint with the first book in this series was that it moved slowly and many of the mysteries introduced didn't get a good resolution. What I loved were the strong, complex characters. The sequel is the exact opposite--it moves quickly and it's full of action and intrigue. But the characters suffer, and one new character in particular made me want to throw up in the back of my mouth.

This chick. I can't stand this chick. 

The story begins as Prince Marcus and his friends in the Royal Watch enter the rebellious province of Kydona and march on the army gathered by tsaritsa Nadiya. The Watch is much better trained and equipped than the enemy, but they're vastly outnumbered. It's up to Marcus to use his intelligence and skill at arms to find ways to counteract them. As he proves himself, he rises through the ranks. But the Kydonians just keep coming, and soon Marcus is captured by the enemy. He resorts to extremes to escape, accumulating in a thrilling nighttime chase through a dark and foreign forest, as he tries to destroy his country's greatest weapon so that it won't fall into enemy hands.

This is the best part of the book. Krug's descriptions of combat are easy to visualize and haunting. The vast empty plains and the fear of his characters stick with you. Marcus, his best friend Vernon, and the overbearing but courageous Roberte de Auffay are all entertaining, realistic characters, though in many places the scene is stolen by Chaplain Stallings, a priest of the war god who quotes lines from scripture as he charges into battle, wearing a skull shaped helmet and wielding a giant mace. By the time they faced their inevitable defeat, I was on the edge of my seat and eager to see what comes next.

But when a captive Marcus is dragged back to the Kydonian court, all the life is sucked out of the book by the Kydonian leader Nadiya. She intrigued me when she was mentioned in the first book--a young woman thought dead for many years, who had returned to claim her crown and win her kingdom's independence. I thought she would make a good counterpart for Marcus, who's lead a relatively privileged life, to meet a royal woman who had to fight for everything she had.

Unfortunately, Nadiya turned out to be a huge disappointment. She's beautiful, hates violence, argues about the values of democracy (which felt so out of place in this alternate universe), and is so compassionate everyone who meets her thinks she's an angel. While her personal flaws are mentioned--like an over-fondness of alcohol--they never impact her in a negative manner. Despite being alone in the world from a very young age, she needs Marcus to protect her. Everyone goes out of their way to say how much they love her and anyone who doesn't love her is probably a villain. Marcus, even though he's a great warrior and leader, can also be very judgmental and rude.

The inevitable love affair between the two feels so forced. Marcus goes from an irresponsible playboy in the first book to a devoted husband on the turn of a dime. There's no development there. The scenes between him and Nadiya are so gushy they feel fake. Aside from a few misunderstandings at the beginning of their courtship, there's no tension between them at all, and real relationships aren't like that. I'm not saying that the author made Nadiya a Relationship Sue on purpose, but his attempts at giving her flaws are weak, especially since her two flaws (an overactive libido and a drinking problem) either benefit Marcus or don't negatively impact her in a major way (for example, she drunkenly cheats on him). Every other page, we're constantly reminded of how much they love each other.

At the start of the book, I thought I could read five more books easily set in this world. Krug writes great conflict, and this book is worth reading if only for the first part alone. But for a story to be truly believable, all aspects have to be up to par, and bungling the main romance story line is an excellent way to screw up your plot for good.

My rating? As epic fantasy, three and a half stars. As a novel, three.

You can find Kydona: From Ashes here. You can also find my book, Iceclaw, here.

Book Review: Everwinter, by Elizabeth Baxter

Epic fantasy is easy to write. Good epic fantasy isn't. Some writers rely only on ancient cliches--you got your elves, your dwarves, check the boxes, blah blah blah. Some writers are so inventive that they create worlds that don't make sense. Some use one dimensional stock characters, and some create wonderful characters that linger in boring plots (I'm looking at you here, S.M. Sterling!) Writing epic fantasy is first and foremost a balancing act--and one where Elizabeth Baxter's wonderful book, Everwinter, exceeds all my expectations.

Pretty shiny thing!

The opening pages, where a mad king releases the frozen weather of the Everwinter on his kingdom, feel a little stock, but soon we're swept to the city of Ral Tora, where the powerful Guild of Engineers works on an ambitious plan to heat their frozen city. Our hero, Bramwell Thornley (Bram to his friends), is a young engineer with sharp instincts and a crippling fear of heights, who likes nothing better than drinking with his friends--much more sympathetic a hero than the farmboys and shepherds of old! When an envoy from the northern city of Variss (a seemingly possessed enemy) arrives and claims his entire city has been destroyed, Bram finds himself questioning his belief in a rational, orderly universe. Driven by curiosity, Bram investigates the mysteries of Ral Tora's past--and finds himself teaming up with Astrid, the frigid ruler of the city of Chellin, on a quest to end the Everwinter for once and for all.

The characters in this story are so well drawn. Even as Bram grows as a hero, he doesn't lose track of his roots. He's still afraid of heights and tends to intellectually analyze all his problems. Astrid, the ruler of Chellin, keeps you guessing about her allegiances and plans. Falen, one of Bram's fellow engineers and a native of Variss, is tough, devoted, and smart. Even the supporting characters--from Bram's friends, to the elite Panther soldiers of Ral Tora, to a corrupt High Priest--are fleshed out and complex. The world shines--I loved the magical creatures Baxter invented, from the sea-serpent like tashen to the dolarchu, giant otters one can ride.  The cities of Ral Tora and Chellin both have their own feel and cultures, and well-handled description make them vivid.

The writing style is smooth and elegant, reminiscent of Robert Jordan, with perhaps fewer cliches. The mythology is amazing, with the old gods of the world both creepy and intriguing.

Like many epic fantasies, this one takes a while to get going. Bram doesn't have much of a goal in the first half of the book, but the world building and character development is so strong I didn't even mind. There's a few plot points I thought were a little contrived, but again, I felt like they didn't really matter so much in such a strong story.

My rating? As an epic fantasy, five stars out of five. As a novel, four.

You can find Everwinter here. 

Book Review: The Compostela Cube, by Paul Cavilla

So many thrillers revolve around conspiracies--books where action and mystery intertwine in a seamless whole. Fans of anything by Dan Brown will be familiar with The Compostela Cube's pattern--a history buff unravels an ancient puzzle surrounding a priceless artifact. The mythology surrounding the titular cube in Paul Cavilla's book is intriguing, yet grounded in the reality. But what doesn't feel grounded is the rest of the story--where flat characters battle ridiculous antagonists with the fate of all mankind hanging in the balance.

Look! The all-seeing eye of the Illuminati!

The story begins promisingly enough: with a professor and a priest attending an exorcism at the bedside of a comatose hermaphrodite, whose death foreshadows a coming darkness. Doctor Natasha Rossi--whose beauty will be mentioned much more than her Ph.D., is restoring artifacts in her shop. Adventurous archaeologist Gabriel Parker breaks into a drug lord's castle to steal the Cube of Compostela, which, according to his late adoptive father's journal, holds the key to his destiny. And Christian Antov, a wealthy but abused young man, has just learned his family's wealth and power comes from a diabolical deal struck eons ago. The atmosphere reminded me of Indiana Jones and The DaVinci Code. All eyes are focused on the mysterious Cube, and it's up to Natasha and Gabriel to protect it from the forces of evil as the world erupts in chaos around them.

The best part of this book, and the only part that kept me reading, was the mystery of the Cube. Cavilla shuffles around several of the major monotheistic heresies into an knot that's quite fun to try and puzzle out. Some of the artifacts and ancient booby traps the character encounters are intriguing, puzzling, and draw on the reader to figure them out. However, the interesting psuedo-history is pushed aside in many places by the chaos raging across the world as the shadowy Vanderhoff Group, a secret world government, enacts its plan to start World War Three in hopes of pushing the world to the brink of unifying under regional dictators.

While the possessed Christian Antov can be genuinely frightening, I felt like over a third of the book focused on him. At times, he felt like a cartoon villain, who went off on lengthy monologues about how humans were sheep who needed to bow to their rightful masters and such. And the ideas behind the Vanderhoff Group seemed a little ridiculous--no matter how the author tries to justify it, it's a stretch to say that one entity could hold the reins of power in the world while still going unnoticed, especially when that group is giving orders to the President of the United States. Lip service is given to the crash of the American economy, but the world where the story begins simply feels far to close to our own to justify this massive leap. And when the zombies come out? The plot grows weirder with every passing page, and it gets harder and harder to believe in the author's world.

Furthermore, Gabriel and Natasha are hardly interesting. The second they meet, they fall in love. No matter how must destiny is supposed to be pulling them together, no couple is perfect. You'd think they'd chafe at knowing their romantic lives were out of their own control, but both of them seem perfectly fine being attached to a perfect stranger. And Natasha has no personality traits next to her beauty. While romantic leads in thrillers don't always need to be deep, they should at least have other interests besides the male lead. Natasha's background in artifact preservation rises up whenever a handy piece of exposition is needed, but she rarely displays any passion for anything but Gabriel.

While perhaps unavoidable in a book about saving humanity from damnation, this book contains very little moral grey area. It provokes one of my pet peeves in a scene where the good guys gather from all over the world and instantly become close friends (seriously, would it kill these groups to have internal struggles?) and  despite all the turmoil happening in the world, our protagonists have it pretty easy--a prophetic vision tells an old nun in their group that they should pack their things before descending into the catacombs, because they won't be returning. Because when thousands of people are dying all over the world, God (the author, in this case) won't let his precious protagonists go without a pair of dry socks. There's simply got to be a better way of ensuring your characters have the supplies they need.

There's a good amount of wit in these pages, especially from the elderly priests and nuns who accompany Natasha and Gabriel on their journey. The action scenes are well written, and the ancient artifacts fascinating.  But by trying to make the stakes global, Cavilla looses realism, which is key even in fantasy. Just telling us about conflicts around the globe doesn't make sense--we need to see those conflicts reflected in the microcosm of the characters lives.

My rating? As a thriller, three and a half stars. As a novel, three.

You can purchase The Compostela Cube here. You can also find my novel, Iceclaw, here.

Book Review: Blurry, by Sherri Fulmer Moorer

Breaking with my usual pattern, I picked up Blurry, by Sherri Fulmer Moorer. This contemporary YA novel focuses on Rachel, a college bound senior who finds it's more than just college driving a wedge between her and her friends. When her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend dies in a suspicious car accident, Rachel undercovers a criminal organization pulling the strings in her town--and some of her friends may not be as on her side as she used to believe.

Pro tip--your title doesn't have to describe your title image.

All Rachel wants is to finish senior year peacefully. Too bad the police are interrogating her about if her ex-boyfriend, Danny, is a possible murderer. She broke up with Danny because his love of illegal street racing made it clear he'd always be trouble, but she doesn't think he's capable of killing in cold blood. To make matters worse, kids in school are spreading rumors about her social life and her old friend Josh is pulling away right when she needs him the most. The more she learns about Danny's racing pals, the more she's convinced that something criminal is occurring in her town . . . and someone close to her's about to sell her out.

The concept is interesting and the big solution of the mystery at the end comes as quite a shock. I enjoyed reading about the underground movements of the racing ring--which was one reason I was disappointed that the action focused so much on Rachel and her friends from school. We're dropped all these hints about the money that's involved, the fast cars--but we don't get a single scene of a actual racing. This distances the reader from the real conflict and makes the stakes abstract, not real.

I also feel that Rachel's character could have been better developed. She displays a few Mary Sue tendencies  For example, random strangers compliment her good traits in situations where they normally wouldn't. The police officer interviewing her about a potential murder runs through a long list of all her accomplishments--her good grades, her musical talent, her writing skill--calls her a 'beautiful young woman' and a 'wise young woman'. Frankly, that scene reads like he's hitting on her, and I can't help but feel that hitting on a high school student is a good way for a cop to lose his job. If it was explained that the cop had a crush on her, that'd be one thing, but I felt like it was just a scene to showcase how good Rachel is.

And anyone who speaks out against Rachel is automatically cast as a bad guy. There's Marielle, described as a 'typical popular girl', who is blond with blue eyes, a cheerleader, and rich. Yeah, she shouts at Rachel in the scene she's introduced, but her best friend was just supposedly murdered by her boyfriend (who's also Marielle's friend). Instead of sympathizing with her emotional fragility, Rachel asks if they teach rich people manners. And when another student suffers from depression, a close friend of that student accuses Rachel of being too sheltered to notice what's going on. Rachel and her best friend Natalie quickly decide that girl can't be their friend anymore, even though what she said feels totally reasonable to me. This lead to me disliking her character--the story makes it clear that Rachel can do no wrong, even when some of the things she does are quite rude.

While the book is a little blurry itself at the beginning, it clears up a lot when the action gets going. Strong supporting characters like Danny, Micah, and Sasha help invigorate the text. There's quite a few good twists and turns in there you won't see coming. But the dullness of the main character and lack of connection to the criminal plot dampen down the overall tone of the novel.

My rating? As YA contemporary, three stars. As a novel, three stars.

You can find Blurry here. You can also find my book, which does not include illegal car racing (but has dragons) here.

Book Review: The Contaminants, by Devin K. Smyth

Yet another hard sci-fi story of teens surviving in space, The Contaminants would fit well with William Woodall's Tycho. Both feature a desperate flight into space as humanity's last hope of surviving the apocalypse. But Devin K. Smyth's The Contaminants does what Tycho doesn't--create believable, sympathetic narrators and stick to a tight paced storyline. While a few minor details remain fuzzy and some bits of backstory could have been re-arranged, The Contaminants will please any fans of H.G. Wells style of short, hardcore science fiction.

Photoshop glow effect, how I love thee.

When Earth's overpopulation threatens to destroy the planet, the American government conspires to wipe all humans off the face of the earth--save a select group to be sent up in luxury space ships to repopulate the worlds. But when the rest of the world learns about the plot, they declare nuclear war, and only a small fraction of the chosen few survive.

Jessil Callowyck is not one of the chosen few. She and her brothers stowed away on the only surviving ship. With less than a thousand remaining humans, she doesn't think it matters if her genetic sequence is up to par--until the day a video feed from Earth indicates that her father may have survived the blast. Her delight turns to horror when she learns the ship's chief scientist is planning to kill any of the humans remaining on the surface. He doesn't want anyone with 'contaminated', or less than perfect, DNA repopulating the planet.

Soraj Guyat is the mad scientist's son--a teenage boy who helps his father research the conditions of the devastated Earth, but can't find the words to admit his crush on Jessil. He's never broken a rule in his life before Jessil convinces him to help her stow-away on a reconnaissance mission to Earth. It's there he'll have to choose between his friendship with her and his love of his father--if they can survive the mutated creatures swarming over the surface of a world they thought they knew.

Smyth's characters are strong and wonderfully voiced. Jessil's energy and enthusiam contrasts nicely with Soraj's caution and computer-savvy. The world is beautifully rendered--from the ship's broken luxury to the mutated jungles on Earth--and no detail is omitted. I particularly enjoyed the mention of the ship's church, which has been turned into a storage room, because 'people gave up hope long ago'. The devastation, fear, and the tiniest threads of hope are all quite palpable.

While I would have liked Soraj's father's motives to be a little more fleshed out--what's so bad about these humans' DNA that they can't be permitted to reproduce?--I found him a decent antagonist, and the supporting characters, in particular, the ship's Captain Monumba, well fleshed out and interesting. The only major change I would make would be relocating the third and forth chapters (both of which give us Jessil and Suraj's backstories) to later in the story and slimming them down. Like I pointed out in my review for But The Children Survived, after the reader knows that the world's ended, backstory's a killer unless it's extremely pertinent to the main plot.

Other than those minor details, The Contaminants is an excellent story with engrossing characters--and better yet, a plot that moves quickly enough to hold the readers' interest! I think it's apt to compare it to H.G. Wells--especially The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Time Machine. While readers of modern YA may not be thrilled by the lack of romance, fans of classical sci-fi will be thrilled.

My rating? For YA sci-fi, four and a half stars out of five. For a novel, four and a half stars.

You can purchase The Contaminants here. You can also go here and purchase my book, Iceclaw.

Book Review: Rowan, by Christina Channelle

This week, we're featuring an author who I've worked with before: Christina Channelle, author of the Blood Crave series. I reviewed the first book in the series, Dahlia, and the follow-up novella, Fallen Tears. The second official book in the series, Rowan, builds nicely on the ground established in the earlier books while introducing a new cast of characters that are much stronger than the ones we meet in the first. A combination of good characterization and mostly well handled pacing makes Rowan the best book of the series so far.

Rowan, one of the world's last remaining vampires (or lamia, as they're known in this book), awakens from a four year slumber when her need for blood grows too great to be controlled. Stumbling out into the streets of Fallon (a city partially controlled by fallen angels, or lapsus), she feeds off passing humans, only to stumble across a dead boy in an alley. Impulsively, she decides to turn the boy into a vampire to save his life--and we discover it's Sam, Dahlia's foster brother from the first book and one of my favorite characters in this series.

With her blood supply rapidly dwindling, Rowan seeks out Remy, the lapsus who she lived with until his mother was murdered. While the Remy of the Fallen Tears novella was young and slightly geeky, he's grown up a lot in the years since Rowan's last seen him (though his crush on her hasn't faded). Together, Sam, Rowan, and Remy decide to seek out the lapsus who murdered Remy's mother. But a mysterious new power stalks the streets of Fallon--a centuries old entity who preys on supernatural creatures to extend its own life.

 Rowan's a much more proactive heroine than Dahlia, but little details like her fear of the dark (and her struggle to hide it from Sam, who she looks upon as her student in all things vampire) keep her feeling human and vulnerable. Her voice has a lot of attitude, but it's easy to see that it's mostly a front she puts up to hide her personal self-doubt. I also like the way her relationship with Remy develops. He may not be Rowan's first love, but the two do have history together. Most importantly, they relate to each other as equals. Their banter and their friendship make their relationship equally entertaining and real.

One of my big critiques of Dahlia was that I felt not enough was happening. There's a lot more stuff going on in Rowan, and the narrative follows a much more traditional pattern of action. Villains new and old pop up to threaten the main characters. My one complaint with the pacing is that there's a slice of exposition inserting a break between a giant twist scene and the book's emotional climax (which, no spoilers, made my heart sink in my chest). While it is a set-up for the next book in the series, it holds readers' attentions on its own.

I would have also liked to see more development of the world. The city of Fallon feels somewhat generic--there's no feelings of local culture, or real landmarks, and there's nothing visual that sets it apart from any other city in the world. That makes the story feel small, isolated--like nothing exists beyond the lives of the main characters. Worldbuilding is key to giving a story the proper scope.

Faster pacing, stronger character voice, and increased emotional draw make Rowan a much stronger installment in this series. My rating? For YA paranormal romance, four stars. For a novel, four stars.

You can purchase Rowan here.

Book Review: Kydona, by Thomas K. Krug III

After the last epic fantasy I read, I was a little skeptical to pick up anything new in the genre. Thankfully, I didn't listen to my instincts when I picked up Kydona, by Thomas K. Krug III (now that's a name that hits you like a hammer!) Set in an alternate, war-torn Europe, Kydona follows Marcus, the Crown Prince of Elessia, as he comes of age in a country ravaged by war, social inequality, and corruption. While the pace can be slow at times, Krug's world and characters are both realistic and engrossing, and his witty command of language adds a second layer of enjoyable material to the story.

This cover is much more commercial than the earlier one. This cover has  breasts.

When Marcus's mother, a long time champion of the common people, passes away, Marcus's rebellious spirit prompts him into taking up her cause. But the years have eroded the capabilities of the once-powerful Elesian monarchy, and a frustrated Marcus feels more like a figurehead than anything. To make matters worse, his mother hinted on her deathbed about a conspiracy among Elesia's nobles, and Marcus's father, the king, is more interested in his courtesan lover than his son's concerns for the future of their country. When the rouge province of Kydona rises in rebellion, Marcus yearns to join the other noble boys marching to battle--but when he gets his wish, it's in the last form he could have expected.

The worldbuilding is enticing, from an interesting duo of gods to Krug's lavish description of the court in all its finery. While more sexualized than your average European court, the lines of conflict in the court are easy to see. From the struggles between the elite and the poor, the conquerors and the conquered, and men and women, Elesia is solidly grounded and constructed.

Many characters in epic fantasy run the risk of appearing two dimensional, but Marcus and his friends are quite well fleshed out. Marcus's desire to help the common people is more influenced by his love for his mother (and dislike of his father), and his rebellious urges, than true altruism. He enters a relationship with a low ranking girl despite knowing he'll never be able to marry her. His impulsive actions get him in trouble more often than they help him, and his desires to improve his country constantly wrestle with his sense of hopelessness.

His father, King Aubric, is little more than a glorified general for his nobles, and constantly struggles to project his dominance over the one area he has some control--his family. Roslene, his scheming courtesan lover, skillfully pulls the strings of his court, and the reader can't help but wonder who's side she's truly on. Vernon, Marcus's best friend, is little more than a party-loving pretty boy, but he displays an unwavering loyalty to his friends. Watching these constantly evolving characters interact is one of the best parts of this novel.

However, the pacing can be slow in places. Hints are dropped at the dark secrets surrounding Elesia's court--missing regiments, gypsy prophecies, a foreign princess once thought dead--but none of these mysteries have been successfully addressed by the book's end, which lacks a suitable climax. The story would be much improved if there had been some final battle at the end, which lead to Marcus discovering the truth, or at least more information, about one of these strange things--something that will give him a goal to accomplish  in the sequel. As it was, I felt like the book was more of a set up for a sequel than an entry of its own--but the sequel is eagerly awaited.

My rating? For epic fantasy, four and a half stars. For a novel, three and a half.

You can purchase Kydona here. You can also go here and purchase my book, Iceclaw.

Book Review: Realmgolds, by Mike Reeves-McMillan

Someone once said 'Dying is easy, comedy is hard', and Realmgolds, by Mike Reeves-McMillan, proves it. I've read many bad novels, but at least  I could laugh at them. Maybe this is all supposed to be satire. But satire is supposed to reflect a controversy in our society, and there is nothing controversial about genocide and racism being bad things. Maybe this is supposed to  be the parody of a bad fantasy novel. But if so, the author probably shouldn't describe masses of civilians being used as human booby trap detectors. Parodies should have a punch line on every page, like the far superior Royal Flush. I'm forced to assume this was a legitimate attempt to write a fantasy novel.

The hero of the story, Determined, is the king of the land of Denning. No one takes him seriously as a ruler. Until, that is, the story begins. Victory, the queen of the neighboring kingdom (they're technically called Realmgolds), starts giving Determined political advice that's supposed to be savvy and brilliant, such as 'educate your citizens' and 'use the media to influence public opinion'. Victory's only flaw is that she can sometimes be reckless, but that doesn't matter, as every reckless decision she makes pays off.

Victory wants Determined to join her in proclaiming freedom to all the gnomes enslaved by dwarves in their kingdoms. This brave moral stand goes against centuries of dwarf tradition, but the dwarves remain loyal to their human monarchs nevertheless. In fact, it's pretty creepy how all these minorities have absolutely no representation in their governments and seem content to be ruled by humans. The humans in this book live in a strict class system of Coppers (peasants), Silvers (merchants), and Golds (nobles), but the non-humans don't belong to this system. They appear to have a degree of self governance, but  Determined, the supposed hero, doesn't have one non-human in his circle of friends and advisers 

When the racist mob of uneducated peasants calling themselves the Human Purity movement starts taking over his kingdom, Determined opposes it, because he's the hero, and heroes have to oppose bad things like racism, not because he's genuinely connected to the people getting hurt.

In fact, Determined's got no skin in the game at all. Stories require protagonists who are in some kind of physical or emotional danger. This creates tension, which drives the story forward. Determined's got the unwavering support of his loyal friends who approve of everything he does. Far too many pages consist of Determined sitting at a desk and giving orders to his secretary, like one exchange where he orders the commander of the city guard brought  in, orders the commander's boss to come in, orders the commander arrested, orders everyone to swear a loyalty oath to him . . . in other words, scenes that could be summed up in a single paragraph, since no worthwhile character or plot development occurs there.

When a major event is about to occur, we get pages of planning the event, and mere paragraphs of the actual event. This might be interesting if the plans were exceedingly clever, but they aren't. An entire chapter is devoted to Determind's personal secretary swearing a magical loyalty oath to Determined, because to be a good guy in this story, you must worship at Determined's feet. Of course, it's not all hot chicks and good times for Determined--he has to leave his cushy palace and live in a wasteland filled with biting flies--but aside from a few red bumps, he doesn't suffer anything in the course of the story (his supporters suffer, but Determined never feels guilty outside the scene in which said suffering occurs).

Again, he wins the war against the evil Nazi racists by informing the people of the occupied capital city their leader has fled, and in the exact next scene, he's back in his royal palace and the racial tensions plaguing his kingdom have completely vanished. Determined's biggest action scene is his own wedding to the woman who is mutually in love with him.

Of course, the antagonist is the worst part of the story. Reeves-McMillan doesn't seem to know what 'subtle' means. The villain thinks 'if [the racist Human Purity movement] wasn't about power, he didn't know what it was about'. He kills babies and hires rioters to destroy buildings. Even Hitler did what he did because he had convinced himself the Jews were evil, but this villain doesn't even try to rationalize his deeds away. This level of cartoonish evil outshines Determined's Mary Sue nature.

Realmgolds is a novel without purpose. It isn't funny, it isn't deep, and it isn't even mildly entertaining. No fraction of this book adds to the preexisting fantasy cannon. There is not a single original character, idea, or event within these pages. Even in a genre like fantasy that draws heavily on pre-existing tropes, the author has a duty to combine those tropes in a way that is interesting and unique. This novel does none of that, and I fail to see why of all the possible stories in the world, this was the one the author chose to write.

This novel is grammatically correct and does contain a fairly consistent voice. There is also a plot. My rating? For a fantasy novel, one and a half stars. For a novel, one.

You can download Realmgolds here

Book Review: Breakers, by Edward W. Robertson

It's not often I come across a book that makes me not want to put it down, even to take notes. Breakers, by Edward W. Robertson, is one of those books. A post apocalyptic story with a twist, Breakers hits all the familiar notes of the genres and plays the riffs as well. Told from the viewpoint of two men who struggle to survive in a world where all the rules have changed, Breakers, much like the waves of the Pacific that crash down on every page, has its peaks and valleys--but they're emotional tides, not literary ones, and they truly capture the human spirit of the survivors.

See? This is what a professional design looks like!

Raymond's a freelance graphic designer who's discovering that 'freelance' is a fancy word for 'unemployed'. The one thing he loves more than the beautiful weather and water of LA is his wife, Mia. No matter how his search for a job flounders, Mia keeps him afloat. Even when a superflu sweeps around the world, he's got her to rely on. They shack up in a mansion in Beverly Hills, stock a garden with food, and settle down to raise chickens. The end of the world might not be so bad, if it wasn't for the alien invaders intent on wiping out what remains of the human race.

Walt's girlfriend, Vanessa, is on the brink of breaking up with him. Unfortunately, she dies of the flu first, sending her devoted boyfriend off the rails. Walt decides to live her dream of going to LA, even if he has to walk there. He's kind of hoping he'll die on the way. He's got no illusions about human nature, and he doesn't mind resorting to deadly force at the drop of a hat. Then again, he doesn't much mind risking his life to help others, either. But Walt doesn't have much of a purpose in life--until he meets a ragtag group of rebels who've gathered to strike back at the aliens who've invaded our world.

Walt is one of the best anti-heroes I've read in a very long time. The way he fondles his dead girlfriend's breast makes me lose all respect for him, and yet, by the end, I find myself rooting for him to succeed. Some morals might be displaced by the apocalypse, but Walt's got a firm grip on what he is and isn't willing to sacrifice. He might walk a dark path, but he does it with conviction. Raymond may be nowhere near as dark as Walt, but his relationship with Mia felt a lot more real and touching than do relationships in most romance novels I read. Could that be because he takes practical steps to take care of her and protect her, instead of always thinking about her? Maybe.

The pacing in this story is excellent. No sooner has one antagonist passed than a larger, more dangerous one shows up to take its place. There's a few plot threads that aren't resolved--we see that the US government still has a few remaining outposts, but never learn their ultimate fate. The imagery is excellent, especially the juxtaposition of the peaceful Pacific with the apocalyptic carnage. Some apocalyptic novels simply describe rotting corpses over and over until the reader looses interest, but Breakers uses the same terse, disgusting, horribly fascinating descriptive language as The Stand while remaining a third of the length.

The action scenes do feel a little dull, at times--mostly just descriptions of physical actions that don't always engage the reader's senses and mind. And, at first, I did feel like Raymond and Walt were too similar, both being lower middle class men with artistic backgrounds in a monogamous relationship. The pop culture references could have been tuned down a little, because I can't always think up a timely pop culture reference when I'm fighting for my life. But these are minor criticisms for such a well told story (in fact, my list for The Stand is a hell of a lot longer). Both as an apocalyptic story and as a novel, Breakers earns five out of five stars.

--You can download Breakers here. You can also go here and purchase my book, Iceclaw.

Book Review: Sophia: Within, by Jordana Lizama

            Self-publishing a first novel is generally a bad idea. This week’s book, Sophia: Within, by Jordana Lizama, confirms the rule. While the plot is interesting and even suspenseful at times, a combination of weak characterization, poor pacing, and lack of technical skill drags the story down. These are the marks of inexperience, which in my mind would have been much improved if the author had written another novel prior to this one.

Beautiful cover art, but the shiny blue thing never happens in the book

            Seventeen year old Sophia is a massive introvert who (despite the fact introversion and extroversion are mostly fixed elements of the human personality) only became that way after her father’s premature death. As winter closes in on her hometown, it brings with it an epidemic of depression which (despite the fact that the holidays are the most common times to experience symptoms of depression) is decried as extremely unusual. Mysterious new boy Alec offers Sophia an explanation for the town’s—and her mother’s—illness: a group of ancient magical beings called the Aged Men, who’ll suck all the happiness from her town unless Sophia gives them what they want. Turns out, our heroine has the spirit of an ancient nymph imprisoned in her soul, a being with immense potential for good or evil. If Sophia can’t learn to control her unwelcome roommate, her life and everything she cares about could be destroyed.

            But Sophia herself isn’t a very interesting character. In fact, she’s a classic Mary Sue. She’s got no flaws and no life goals. The author tells us that, even at age ten ‘She was very mature for her age, or, at least, that was what her family and friends thought’. We see she’s ‘embarrassed by her intelligence’ and ‘possessed an exceptional memory’. When she dances at a party, people tell her they can’t keep their eyes off her. She is admired by almost everyone she meets, except the villains, despite the fact her character is incredibly anti-social, and no character honestly criticizes her once. Sophia’s perfection may make the author happy, but it’s so fake it’ll make the readers slightly queasy.

             Even though she’s seventeen, Sophia has no thoughts about her future. Normal seventeen year old high school students think about applying to colleges. The only hint we see as to her future goals is when she spots her copy of Little Women and thinks she’s like Jo (the independent girl who leaves her hometown to have a career), but she hopes to one day be more like Beth (the daughter who dies without accomplishing anything in her life). Since Beth is also a kind of Mary Sue, this makes sense, although I find it disturbing that any modern girl would actually want this. But this thread is abruptly dropped for no reason.

            Poor pacing is another problem in Sophia: Within. Chapter Two is entirely devoted to Sophia walking home from school with her brother. There’s tons of needless description of her neighborhood, paragraphs about why she can’t drive yet, that could be summed up into a single line: ‘Sophia and her brother walked home’. Sophia can’t even go to a party without having to describe getting invited, shopping for an outfit, eating at the mall food court, doing her nails, worrying about her outfit, talking about the party . . . and chapters pass without anything happening.

            Any scene that doesn’t advance the plot of a story should probably be cut, but Sophia: Within is riddled by long paragraphs of Sophia lying on her bed and conversations where she informs her brother she’s going to the park. That conversation can be reduced to ‘Sophia told her brother she was going to the park’. We don’t need the scene with the dialogue unless Sophia’s brother is actively preventing her from going to the park, thus putting another obstacle between her and success.

            The best fiction constantly puts larger and larger barriers between characters and success. Sophia: Within does the opposite. Alec, the romance interest, constantly assures Sophia that they’ll be able to defeat the Aged Men invading her hometown. Alec tells Sophia not to do any research on nymphs on her own, so she finds a website about nymphs . . . and decides not to look at it. Even when she gets into a fight about Alec, she decides to make up with him for no reason other than liking him too much. And after the final climatic battle, we still get pages and pages of Sophia being happy with her family. Twenty percent of a novel is too long for a character to be truly happy.

            Finally, the lack of technical skill. When Sophia’s finally succeeded in controlling the nymph, ‘She smiled; she was so proud of herself for doing it well.’ Show, don’t tell, is a basic maxim in most creative writing classes. Here, we get sentences telling us that Sophia’s hair was ‘neither straight nor curly’. In other words, she had hair. Sophia looks in a mirror and, thinking about how she doesn’t look pretty, says “Maybe my eyes are an exception.” Real people don’t do thinks like this.

            We’re told that Alec is ‘young of age, but there was a great force inside him’, which rings with sexual innuendo. And at the end of the prologue, we get ‘This is the story of Sophia, a frightened and lonely girl, who is having trouble accepting a battle she knows nothing about but has been chosen nonetheless.’ Thank you, author, for telling me this, because I wouldn’t have gotten this in any other way. By the end, Sophia and Alec had ‘truly begun to heal; to be young and joyful.’ We know they’re young. We can see from the description that they’re joyful. We don’t need to be told that the ending is happy. We want to see it for ourselves.

            Within Sophia: Within lies a potentially good story—but the author lacks the experience to tell it well. I’d prescribe writing classes and a complete overhaul. For YA paranormal romance, I’ll give it two stars out of five. As a novel, one and a half.

 You can download Sophia: Within here

           

Book Review: Frost, by Kate Avery Ellison

It's not often that I encounter a story that combines a unique world, strong characters, and a plot that keeps you guessing. But that's what I found in Frost, by Kate Avery Ellison--plus a realistic romance that I genuinely hoped would work out. It does borrow a bit from The Hunger Games, in that there's a strong female protagonist who supports her family, but it's much better than Divergent, which seemed to think the winning elements of The Hunger Games are a dystopian society and girl with weapons.

Don't ask me where she got that pink lipstick in the middle of the icy wasteland.

Yeah, I really hate Divergent. It's a cheap, derivative, boring book--but that's for another post.

In the secluded world of the Frost, young Lia Weaver takes responsibility for her brother and sister following  their parents' death. She has two concerns: meeting her family's work quota and protecting her siblings from the Watchers, demonic creatures that live in the Frost and leave tracks that slice through the ice wherever they go. But that all changes when a man from beyond the Frost blunders onto her farm. Lia's got to choose if she'll endanger her family to save the life of a stranger.

Of course, she does--she wouldn't be the heroine if she didn't--but her struggle to make that choice felt real, and I could appreciate how difficult it was. The stranger, Gabe, turns out to be a fugitive from another kingdom, an exiled nobleman who's never worked a day in his life. Lia can barely imagine what that life must be like, but the more time she spends with Gabe, the more she finds they have in common. Unlike most YA romances, which require one participant to have supernatural powers that far outweigh the other's, Lia and Gabe are equals--at least as long as they stay in the seclusion of the Frost. But Gabe's enemies aren't too far behind him, and if Lia wants to keep him safe, she and her family will face more and more danger.

The imagery in this story is quite beautiful, especially towards the end. The Frost is neither a dystopian nor medieval fantasy setting, but reminiscent of a cold, biting, fairy tale. The characters are wonderfully developed, with pragmatic Lia, her impulsive sister Ivy, the reclusive young Adam Brewer, and the mysterious Gabe all bouncing off each other in interesting ways. The plot is well paced and engaging, doling out mysteries and answers that make you want to read on.

One flaw of this story was the climax; which I felt was over rather suddenly and could have been drawn out a little longer. There isn't a clear sense at the end that everything has been resolved, which leaves the door wide open for the sequel, but at the same time doesn't make me feel like I've read a whole book. Still, if my one complaint is that I wish there was more, how bad a book can it be?

My rating? For YA fantasy, five out of five stars. As a novel, four and a half.

You can download Frost here

Book Review: The Hidden Ones, by Nancy Madore

            What does a cuddly cartoon character created by Dr. Seuss have in common with demi-demons from the dawn of human development? Much like the recent movie adaptation of The Lorax, The Hidden Ones, by Nancy Madore, finds its real emotional heart in flashbacks.

Beautiful cover art, too.

            The Hidden Ones tells the story of three different women, linked by time, space, and ancient magic: Nadia, a wealthy young philanthropist, Helene, her grandmother in Saudi Arabia, and Lilith, an ancient djinn who yearns to return to life in the modern world. Nadia never believed her grandmother’s stories about the djinn until she’s kidnapped by a group of men who seem to thinks she’s possessed by one. They claim her charity is involved in funding a planned terrorist attack. Fearing for her life, she offers to tell the men her grandmother’s old stories, in hopes that they won’t kill her if she has information they need. What unfolds is a nested tale of magic, deceit, and adventure spanning thousands of years.

            Helene Trevelyan, Nadia’s grandmother, traveled to Saudi Arabia in 1948 with a pack of archaeologists searching for a Sumerian version of The Book of the Dead. This English teenager loves knowledge and history, and Middle Eastern culture seems very foreign to her. Nevertheless, she, her father, and his friends, press on with their goal—to find the book, translate the incantations, and see if they can summon an ancient Sumerian spirit.

            What they get is Lilith. The daughter of an angel and a human woman, Lilith uses her wits, strength, and beauty to make her way in the male-dominated world of ancient Mesopotamia. The land where she lives is dominated by other giants like her— worshiped by man, feared by the angels—and she’ll do anything to keep it that way, from slaughtering children to stealing a human body to use as her host. Devoted to her sister, lover, and nephew, she nevertheless oozes arrogance, spite, and hypocrisy. For a femme fatale, her weaknesses are quite human. She’d probably hate to read this, but she’s probably the most human character in the story.

            As Helene soon learns, summoning djinn can have devastating consequences. And in the present day, Nadia and her kidnappers soon find themselves working on the same side as they struggle to prevent a terrorist attack that could claim millions of lives. Compared to Helene’s silent dignity and Lilith’s fierce strength, Nadia’s character felt a bit weak to me—more of a passive narrator than an actual participant in the action. In fact, most of the present day action takes place off-screen. We’re only told about the terrorist plot—we don’t get to see any of the terrorists in action. The threat they pose never seems real, only like a device to get Nadia into the kidnappers’ hands so she can relate her tales.

            Highs: Strong characterization. Helene and Lilith really stood out for me as complex, well-developed characters with a lot of heart. Tension. The story really grabs you from the start and sucks you into the mystery of the djinn. Pacing. The story is revealed to us in parts, and each bit leaves us wanting more. Editing. The prose is polished and clean, with no typos I could spot.

            Lows: Cultural insensitivity. One of the kidnappers is an Indian man who tosses around words like ‘veddy’. As someone who lives with an Indian woman, I can verify that most Indian people don’t talk like that. Philosophizing. Chapter Thirty-Four is a philosophical rant about why scientists can’t prove their ideas about Earth’s history any more than religious adherents can. Personally, as a Christian and a scientist in training, I have to disagree—but from a literary standpoint, it’s just not good form to spend pages and pages using one-sided arguments to support your personal beliefs unless you’re writing Atlas Shrugged.

            The Hidden Ones is a polished, original story with a lot of heart. Madore’s energy and enthusiasm for the story really shines through. For a fantasy novel, four and a half stars. For a novel, four. 

You can purchase The Hidden Ones here.

Book Review: Fallen Tears (A Blood Crave Novella), by Christina Channelle

So this week, we're returning to the Blood Crave series with Fallen Tears, a novella by Christina Channelle.  Though originally planned for a release as part of the next book in the series, Fallen Tears stands very well on its own. It deepens and enriches the world of the series, raises my anticipation for the next book, and creates a new romance that I can't wait to read more about.

Different hot chick on the cover. 

In the first entry of the series, Dahlia, we learned about the eternal conflict between the lamia and the lapsus (vampires and fallen angles). Making up new names for traditional supernatural creatures has always been a pet peeve of mine, but it's a pet peeve the main character in Fallen Tears shares with me. We first meet Rowan as a twelve-year-old runaway who meets a mysterious man while she's searching for shelter. He jokes with her and consoles her, eventually taking her in. Sure, he's a vampire, and as we learned in the last book, there's only two vampires left after the fallen angels hunted 'em all down. I thought they'd be a good deal more dangerous--but I was pleasantly surprised.

This vampire, Kaji, has a sweet side. He confesses to Rowan that he's lost touch with his humanity, and she offers to teach him about being human in exchange for food. This supposed deadly killer takes her in as his ward. Since I'd had the impression that the two surviving vampires were bad guys, it'll be really interesting to see how this works out in the next book. Will Dahlia learn that these supposed man-eaters are humanitarians in multiple senses? Suspense! Also, will Rowan end up with Kaji? Don't worry, it's not gross, she's nineteen for the majority of the story. Plus, she also gets turned into a vampire, so it's all good.

You see, one of these fallen angels decides to murder Rowan for associating with vampires and Kaji turns her to save her life. He then drops her off with a family of fallen angels/witches who take care of her as she acclimates to her new state. Both the female witches seemed a little one dimensional to me, although I loved the character of Remy, the sole male witch in the family, who struggles with his attraction to Rowan as he helps her through the turmoil of becoming a vampire. Rowan's a lot grittier a character than Dahlia, and her attitude and determination make her worth rooting for.

I do wish the story arch was a little more complete. Though it builds to a climax, few of my burning questions were answered. It's obvious that Fallen Tears is part of a larger work, and the characters could have used a few more personal flaws. Nevertheless, it did the job of making me care about the characters, and that in itself is enough to make me happy. I can't wait for the next entry in this series.

I would also like to see a female protagonist in this series who wasn't incredibly hot, but that's a genre thing.

As a YA paranormal romance, four and a half stars out of five. As a novella, three and a half.

You can purchase Fallen Tears here

Book Review: Elfin, by Quinn Loftis

             As always, feel free to let me know what you think in the comments section.

             And it’s another paranormal romance! What drop-dead gorgeous supernatural creature will fall in love with a normal high school girl this week? Surprise! It’s an elf! That makes the tally one elf, one fallen angel, one werewolf, one demon, and Lancelot. Sooner or later, we’re going to start getting repeats. I’m surprised I haven’t run across a sexy vampire yet. This week’s book is Elfin, by Quinn Loftis—a romance with a strong, engaging plot full of unexpected twists and turns.

Red wine+white dress= recipe for disaster. Am I the only one who sees this?

            Our main character, Cassie, is a normal high school girl. Her father’s a president of finance in an oil company, but when his secretary goes on leave he requires his eighteen year old daughter to come in and do some filling for him, because apparently there are no interns, less senior employees, or other secretaries around to do the work. Of course, since the company is secretly owned by elves, they might very well have strict labor rules in place. As the last one in the office, Cassie glimpses some elves sitting around the table for what appears to be a board meeting. But as exiting as the world of fiscal management and the energy industry is, it’s nothing compared to the sexy elf (every single elf in this story is insanely sexy) who’s casually eavesdropping outside.

            His name is Trik. He’s the right hand man of the Dark Elf King, professional assassin and spy. This is all the spying he does in the book, unless stalking human girls counts as spying. Also, he only kills one person, and that’s neither for money or political reasons, so he’s not much of an assassin either. Despite what we’re told is a long history of assassin-ness and spy-ness, he’s never killed a child or raped anyone, so by the moral code of fantasy novels, he’s actually not a bad person. He’s actually kind of a pussy, which we can tell from the way he gushes over Cassie. You get the feeling that he’s trying to act a lot more badass than he really is. It’s cute.

            Anyway, he and Cassie meet and it turns out she’s his Chosen—his mystical soul mate, selected by fate, and neither of them have a real choice in the matter. Only Cassie’s purity can save him from giving into darkness completely. Problem is, Cassie’s not sure if she really wants to be bound to Trik for the rest of her life, since he’s kind of  a possessive asshole who has no clue how to treat women. Meanwhile, the Dark Elf King has devised a plot to destroy humanity by creating a new drug that induces impulsive behavior, promiscuity, and aggression. Think of alcohol, but as addictive as crack. This is an excellent plan to destroy humanity, by the way. When Cassie gets word of this, she gives Trik an ultimatum: quit your job or I’m leaving you.

            I won’t spoil the ending, but there were quite a few great twists and turns in there that are worth reading. My main issue with this story was Cassie’s character, who doesn’t really seem to have a personality. Her gothy BFF Elora has a lot more attitude and confidence—I’d love to see what would have happened if she’d been Trik’s girl. Cassie struggles with Trik’s character on a number of occasions, but never asks herself if it’s fair that she’s basically been forced into this relationship. Many YA novels struggle with this problem of strong supporting characters and weak protagonists (save Divergent, in which all the characters suck).

           

             Her two traits are virginity (which isn’t actually a character trait, as I explain here and here) and overreacting to minor issues—for example, upon being told Trik was dancing (well, she kissed him, but all Cassie is told is that they danced together) with an ex-girlfriend at a club, she wonders how “the same guy who had held her and kissed her so passionately had been in the arms of another hours later.” They’re his arms. You do not own them. It’s dancing. Not sex, not kissing, not flirting. If you’re worried about it, talk to him and ask him what happened. Don’t curl up and cry. Jeez, it might all be a misunderstanding. Of course, Trik is too afraid to talk to her for a month (further supporting my theory that he’s a pussy). Both these characters could use advice from a professional. Communication therapy—is that so hard?

            Also, the descriptive paragraphs at the beginning could have used some editing. You do not need to spend three sentences on the first page describing a pair of boots. You just don’t. All the elves are described as beautiful, godly, perfect, I get it. What kind of message does this send to teenage girls? The only acceptable male is one that looks perfect? And even though I thought Trik and Cassie’s relationship was kind of cute, I did not need it rammed down my throat every two pages that they belong together. Seriously. I get it already.

            Highs: Supporting characters. Elora, Lisa, and the Light Elves all have unique voices and character traits. I get that Cassie’s supposed to be just normal, but normal teenagers have hobbies and ambitions. Also, she’s a senior in high school from a fairly successful family, yet college applications aren’t mentioned at all That’s a major plot hole right there. Humor. There’s a couple scenes where Trik worries that Cassie’s underage and he doesn’t kiss her until he’s sure she’s legal. Keep in mind, he was born when most human girls married at age twelve, but this badass dark assassin respects the law more than most real human teenagers do. Jeez. Elora also provides well needed comic relief, as she continually makes jokes about Trik’s ‘quiver’.

            Lows: Description. When we’re not getting three sentences about a pair of boots, we see this forest—“It was picture perfect. She was sure she had never seen anything so breathtaking.” Whatever happened to ‘For a moment, Cassie couldn’t breath’? Blocky paragraphs. Some paragraphs are nine sentences long, and quite a few of them are about Cassie and Trik making out. The make-out paragraphs are neither sexy nor interesting, and I found myself skimming most of them. We get it. He’s hot.

            All in all, Elfin’s got a clear plot that kept me reading. Unfortunately, the main character didn’t really grab me like I’d hoped. As YA paranormal, I’ll give it four stars out of five. As a novel, three and a half.

--Liz Ellor, O43

You can purchase Elfin here

Book Review: Pello Island: Cassia, by A. L. Jambor

Feel free to leave comments to tell me what you think!

This week, we return to the wonderful world of romance with Pello Island: Cassia, by A. L. Jambor. This historical romance spans thousands of years as our eternally-reincarnated heroes choose to fight or embrace their destinies. Every life, they make different decisions--and if they could get it right just once, they'll have their chance at freedom. The characters' weariness with their cursed lives and struggle to overcome their flaws help weave a story that is endearing and compelling. While the historical parts are a bit drier than the modern day ones, both halves work together to create a story that I couldn't put down.

Not sure what the face-thing is supposed to be.

Cassia, our heroine, wakes up on heroin (actually, it's cocaine, but the pun was too great to pass up). It's not the first time she's found herself in a new body, and she stoically drags herself to the hospital to begin detoxifying herself and to meet up with her partners-in-reincarnation. Her cynical attitude and her resignation makes it clear that this isn't the first time she's done this. In fact, she's fed up with the whole dealio. Nevertheless, she's willing to trudge along--until she's informed that this life, she'll either break free of the curse or spend eternity in Hades. The catch? To break free, she'll have to marry her childhood sweetheart. Again.

Darius, though attractive and properly attitude-y, is bad news for Cassia. He's had a gambling problem since Ancient Rome--and because of that addiction, something bad's fated to happen in every single life for him, Cassia, and their currently-missing daughter, Dulcia. Darius' struggle with addiction is both realistically portrayed and sympathetic. Despite his flaws, his longing to make things right with Cassia made him a very compelling character. And likewise with Cassia's struggle to balance her old love for Darius with the knowledge that he can't be trusted.

Most of the story takes place in ancient Rome, where the Reincarnation Buddies grew up. A young Cassia fights the marriage her father tries to arrange for her and dreams of true love. And handsome nobleman Darius fits the bill. But when Darius' irresponsibility threatens to keep them apart, it's up to Cassia to do whatever it takes to bring them together.

This book is an excellent set up for the rest of the series and left me wanting more. Ancient Roman Cassia is extremely different than her modern counterpart, but Jupiter only knows how the years take their toll. There's a few anachronisms--for example, the towel wasn't invented until the fourteenth century--and Cassia's attitude is a little bit too modern to feel ancient. And I wish we had gotten more of the modern day and a little less history, but here both parts weave together to form a cohesive whole, because you know the mystery of their modern day reincarnations--and the key to gaining their freedom--can only lie in their past.

Highs: Character development. All the main characters are quite engrossing, though the secondary characters could use a little more depth. Pacing. Everything moves quite quickly and had me turning pages until the end. Secrecy. By the end, I couldn't wait to find out how exactly the characters had found themselves in this situation.

Lows: Anachronisms. They break with reality to me. Division. I would have liked to see a little more modern and a little less ancient.

My rating? For historical romance, four stars out of five. As a novel, four and a half.

You can download Pello Island: Cassia here

Book Review: Dahlia (Blood Crave series), by Christina Channelle

            Welcome back to the wonderful world of YA paranormal romance—the genre that answers the question “What if supernatural creatures walked among us?” with “They’d be eighteen, drop-dead gorgeous, and totally willing to pork the outcast girl who’s always thought she was ‘different’.” This week’s book, Dahlia, is the first in the Blood Crave Series, by author Christina Channelle (who has an absolutely wonderful name). While Dahlia introduces a compelling mystery and quite a few interesting characters, its focus on internal monologue and unoriginal romance left me feeling less than amazed.

Yet another professional cover! Wonderful!

            Dahlia, the title character, has always known she’s different. She’s grown up in foster homes and orphanages, and only now has found some stability in the home of the Cahill family. Despite being annoyed by the antics of her foster brother, Sam, Dahlia knows he’s her first real friend in years. Their cute, brother-sister interaction is one of my favorite parts of the book. Dahlia’s just about to start at Sam’s high school—but something’s up. Two mysterious men are living in the forest and following her around. Dahlia thinks back to walking into rooms covered in blood as a child. It creates a creepy, mysterious vibe that permeates the start of the book.

            I got a little wary when we approached Dahlia’s first day at school—it seems every YA book requires a scene where the character goes to a new school and describes every single class, teacher, and student. Thankfully, Channelle doesn’t do this. There is the obligatory lunchroom scene where she meets the obligatory Group of Friends, but that turns out to be necessary to the story. Best of all, she doesn’t describe how every clique sits at its own table.

            The story runs into a few pacing problems in the middle. There’s a lot of internal monologue—Dahlia thinking to herself. It can get pretty repetitive, what with her telling herself over and over that what’s happening to her shouldn’t be possible, and that she feels like she’s different than everyone else, and that she hungers for blood. Saying something ten times does not make the emotion you’re trying to convey ten times as strong.

            There also isn’t a strong sense of direction. In one of my favorite YA paranormal romances, City of Bones, the heroine journeys to the aforementioned City to meet a group of seers who find the name Magnus Bane imprinted on her subconscious. Bane turns out to be a notorious warlock, so the heroine and her friends have to crash a party he’s throwing to interrogate him. While leaving the party, one of her friends is abducted by vampires, so heroine + love interest have to go rescue him . . .  One event causes another distinct event. This events allow the characters to explore the world while simultaneously developing the plot and deepening the sense of danger.

             Dahlia may learn secrets about herself and fall in love, but we never get the feeling the plot is going somewhere. She goes to school and to parties, but these events only serve as backdrops. As much as I liked her character at the beginning, she lacks a concrete goal. The romance also didn’t really grab me—there wasn’t much to differentiate it from any of the hundreds of other romances I’ve read about. Despite Dahlia thinking at one point that ‘what she and [love interest] had was complicated’, it actually isn’t that complicated. He’s got a stereotypical godlike physique and special green eyes. She’s attracted to him even when he’s practically mugging her in a park. He’s got big secrets he’s hiding from her. At some point, these secrets make Dahlia angry, which happens in every romantic story written ever.

            The strengths of Dahlia lie primarily in the supporting characters. Sam, Dahlia’s goofy-yet-supportive foster brother manages to be genuinely pleasant while at the same time having a bit of an edge as he tries to encourage Dahlia to break out of her shell. And the mysterious Ava kept me reading just to find out what her motives were. As a first novel, it’s honestly not bad. Channelle has a talent for creating interesting characters. If the plot of future novels can build a little more tension, she might be a writer to watch.

            Highs: Establishing characters. I found it pretty easy to sympathize with Dahlia from the start. Creepiness. The mentions of her walking into a room covered in blood sent shivers up my spine. The climax. It’s clear cut and feels very dangerous.

            Lows: The slow beginning. It takes ten paragraphs to fit in the first three lines of dialogue. The magic scheme. I found it kind of hard to take seriously. There’s only so many supernatural things you can mix together and this story reeks of Our Vampires Are Different. When the magical history of the universe is explained, we get it once without character names and directly afterwards with the character names added. One of those could be cut.

            My rating? For YA paranormal romance, four stars. For a novel, three.

You can download Dahlia here

Book Review: But The Children Survived, by A. L. Jambor

            First of all, if you disagree with my assessment, please feel free to post about it in the comments section. And if you agree, please please post, because I’ve got a feeling that this one’s gonna stir up some controversy.

            It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel . . . like I read this a few weeks ago. It was called Tycho, and it was about a whole lot of people—like, the entire population of the earth—dying because of a biological weapon. It’s the same scenario this week, in A. L. Jambor’s But The Children Survived, except two hundred pages longer and with many more narrators. When only a small group of children appear immune to the plague, it’s up to a team of scientists, working in an airtight biosphere in Florida, to uncover the mysterious machinations of the pharmaceutical company whose greed doomed millions . . . and whose knowledge might yet hold the key to humanity’s survival. But The Children Survived is full of interesting ideas, but the excess of characters make it hard to sympathize with anyone and the constant backstory slows the story to a snail’s crawl.

Professional cover design! Love that!

           

            The protagonist, Mindy, is staying at her grandmother’s house with her dog, Baby Girl, when the apocalypse strikes. Terrified and alone, with only her grandmother’s gun and old dog for protection, she forages for supplies in the dead wasteland until a team of scientists in haz-mat suits drags her back to their biodome. There, she finds food, shelter, and friends. Yet Mindy doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life in the biodome—at least not until she knows whether her parents are still alive. When loner Mark arrives at the biodome, Mindy gets the chance to escape she’s been waiting for.

            As the story unfolds, we learn the history of every last scientist living at the biodome. Christie, the only female scientist, suffered the loss of her husband and child in a car accident. Gerald, another kooky researcher, had a bad break up with his wife. While the backstory has its interesting points, it can be a little tedious in parts. But The Children Survived is roughly forty percent backstory of how the plague—and the children’s immunity—came to be. You honestly have to love the characters to put up with the slow pace, and the characters didn’t feel real enough to draw me in. The author’s voice is the same for every character, and they all seem to blend together after a while.

             The journey of Antonio, an Italian scientist seeking a cure for the pregnancy complication that took his mother’s life, is one of the high points of the book. Antonio is a genuinely interesting character, but the suspense of his quest is dampened by long, pointless asides. There’s an entire chapter where Antonio’s wife looks for stud to breed her dog with—a chapter that could have been summed up in one or two sentences. Likewise with all the backstory about this pharmaceutical company. We learn early on in the book that the apocalypse was caused by an insane scientist releasing the weapon. The internal drama of this company, as compelling as it might be in another setting, isn’t necessary because the readers already know that the company and almost everyone who works for it is going to die, rendering it pointless to the main story. Complex plots that are revealed in bits and pieces can be good things, but only if the bits and pieces contribute to the main story. One hundred and fifty pages could easily have been cut.

            One character, who struggles with a gambling addiction, has to make sense of a world where money no longer has value. That’s an interesting, fresh idea—and yet, it’s hard for me to sympathize with him. We’re told he ‘finds God’ through caring for the orphaned children. Great for him. However, as a Christian woman, I know that finding God can be an emotionally exhausting, painful, sometimes euphoric process full of bumps along the way. But the words on the page don’t evoke those emotions. Maybe they would for another reader, but the burden of making me feel rests on the author’s shoulders alone.

            The author’s skill with tactile imagery only extends to, over and over, describing how bad all the corpses smell and how after a few weeks they’re nothing but bone and hair. It was a shocking image the first time I heard a rotting body described in print—when I was, what, twelve? Now it’s routine. Encountering the human body in decay should be sobering. It reminds us we only have so long to live. These are characters encountering mortality in the most painful of ways and yet few of them show any real trauma. None show symptoms of PTSD, not even the children who have seen everyone they know and love drop dead around them. This would be extremely traumatizing in real life. They would need therapy. They would not be as playful and kind to each other as we see here.

            When large groups of real people are confined to close quarters, fights break out. Cliques form. Leaders arise and so do challengers. Heck, you’ll get this in any dorm on any college campus. These people are under way more stress than your average college student and yet they all seem to get along fine. It’s tempting for an author to make all their characters get along—if you like these characters you’ve created, it follows that they must like each other. A little internal tension would have gone a long way towards creating suspense. There’s one disliked character in the group, but without major divisions, the story feels artificial.

            But The Children Survived is certainly an ambitious undertaking. The backstory, even if it is mostly irrelevant to the plot, is well organized and there weren’t too many plotholes I could spot. There’s some good lines: “Joe’s inability to accept responsibility had always caused him to create an alternate universe wherein he was the victim of everyone else’s plots.” And there’s some genuinely creepy moments, involving test tubes of the biological weapons referred to as ‘my babies’ and one man’s twisted love of his cow. The author has a real gift for writing crazy characters that freak me out—but the normal characters lack the spark of madness that make the crazy ones shine.

            Highs: Mindy’s quest to find her parents. We really feel for this little girl who’s all on her own and the author makes us hope her parents will survive. The prologue. It has an excellent twist that really grabbed my interest. The creepiness. Again, the author really made me shiver when I read about her villains.

            Lows: Literal Chekov’s Gun. Mindy has a gun she took from her grandmother’s collection. Yet she only uses it to shoot a rat. That should be foreshadowing, not the only time that gun is ever used. Bad word choice. I would expect something like “They were more than friends; they were brothers and sisters in the trenches, akin to soldiers in war. All their inhibitions were gone, their masks stripped away,” to fit erotica, not a meeting of children. Backstory. So much of it could have been cut. Deleting scenes you love is part of being a writer.

            As apocalyptic fiction, I give it three stars out of five. As a novel, two and a half. And if you disagree, please feel free to voice your opinion in the comments section.

You can download But The Children Survived here. You can also go here and purchase my book, Iceclaw.

Book Review: Domus Inter, by Sarah Carter

            You know, if I ever found myself living in the universe where all YA novels take place, I think I’d start a support group: Parents of Protagonists United. These poor men and women pour their time, energy, and love into their children until they reach age sixteen, at which point they’re killed, kidnapped, and tortured while their child disappears, off on some grand adventure, and comes home with a romance interest who’s dangerous, defiant, and so not the nice doctor or lawyer you hoped your kid would marry. There’s a much more interesting novel in that than in any teen romance ever written.

Hey! I own a necklace that looks just like that!

            This weeks’ review is Domus Inter, the first novel by author Sarah Carter. Ironically, it reminded me very much of my first ever stab at writing—a little monstrosity called The Star, in which a young girl also inherits a mysterious property somewhere in the British Isles. My property was a bit cooler, but Carter’s romantic lead is a great deal sexier, so I’ll call it a tie.

            Domus Inter—which anyone forced to sit through an SAT prep class filled with Latin roots would know means House Between—is a mysterious old mansion in the English countryside. When the last of the Lloyd family, the house’s mysterious owners, dies in a speedboat accident, the family of Harriet Lawson inherits it, despite none of them knowing the Lloyds very well at all. Harriet, who’s always felt like a ‘caged tiger, raised in captivity and taught tricks, but still dreaming an ancestral dream of the jungle’, hopes she won’t be ‘doomed to the normal, stereotypical life of someone of my generation and culture’. Saying that you think a normal life is a kind of ‘doom’ seemed a bit pretentious to me, but it’s also consistent with Harriet’s personality.

            When she arrives at Domus Inter with her parents, older sister Leona, and younger sister Rachel, Harriet becomes caught up with a criminal conspiracy involving the estate solicitor and a young man named Mord, who’s not afraid to get his hands a little dirty to achieve his goals. He needs Harriet to help him cast a magic spell that will transport him to his homeworld of Phaliana. However, when he takes her sisters hostage to force Harriet to cast the spell, Harriet and her two sisters are whisked off to Phaliana with him.

            It’s here that Harriet discovers a mysterious prophecy hidden in Arthurian legend—and the deliciously sexy Jack, whose careless attitude and bossiness is quite attractive. With the help of a magical amulet known as the True Heart, Harriet sets out after an ‘evil’ witch named Morgan—although if one takes a look at all the crimes attributed to her throughout the book (murder, child abandonment, destruction of property), she actually hasn’t done much worse things than anyone else in the land of Phaliana.

            It’s refreshing to see a YA fantasy with morally ambiguous characters. Harriet’s no saint—she has an enormous superiority complex and is capable of being quite ruthless when she thinks the greater good depends on it. She wouldn’t be out of place in the Game of Thrones universe, at least as far as morality is concerned. But she has a strong sense of duty and doesn’t whine, which are always refreshing virtues in a YA protagonist.

            Part of my trouble with Harriet’s character comes from her treatment of her older sister, Leona, who she describes as incredibly fake and shallow. At the same time, we know that Leona also is attending nursing school—an extremely selfless, important profession—and is the only member of the family who actually has a job. The relationship between the two sisters is caustic on both sides, but Harriet’s treatment of her sister feels overly ruthless.

           

            So maybe Domus Inter isn’t full of sympathetic characters—but they’re sure interesting. First novels are always tricky beasts, and often it’s difficult for the author to distance themselves from the work and look at it with a critical eye. The Last Judges, a book I reviewed a few months ago, is also a first novel (which I was shocked to discover after I’d read it), but I think the author’s collaborative effort helped keep it good.

            Highs: Moral dissonance. It’s good to have a little muddying of the waters sometimes. The love triangle. It isn’t very traditional, which is a good thing.

            Lows: Paragraph structure. Every paragraph was roughly the same length, which can lull the reader into skipping over parts. Names. ‘Phaliana’, the magical land consisting of Avalon and the other country with no real effect on the plot. It just sounds . . . fake. And phallic. Lampshade hanging. Over and over and over, we’re told this is not a fairy tale, that this isn’t the kind of thing you’d read about in books. Except we live in an age where very few books actually tell the traditional fairy tales. You won’t convince anyone your book is different just by saying it is.  

            My rating? As YA fantasy, I’ll give it three and a half stars. As a novel, three.

You can download Domus Inter here