Monday, July 14, 2025

A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett

  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Mystery
Content: Lots of F bombs, Sex that is 
mostly fade to black or off-page

 

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard.

To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.

Before long, Ana’s discovered that they’re not investigating a disappearance, but a murder—and that the killing was just the first chess move by an adversary who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.

Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire's greatest minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction would be terrible indeed—and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.

Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his superior has finally met an enemy she can’t defeat.
 

 

I very much enjoyed the first book in this series and I was looking forward to reading this one, but every time I picked this up to read it I would read a little and then put it down. I just figured it was my mood and I would get back to it later. Well, four months later I've finally finished it. I'm not sure what it was about this book that made it so hard for me to get into. Was it that the characters felt a bit off to me? They did but not right from the beginning. I don't know, but I do know that as I got further into the book my lack of interest didn't improve, it got worse. 

Din's and Anna's character's were one's that I liked in the first book. Din much more so than Anna, because she has an abrasive personality, but she intrigued me as a character. She still does a bit, but I thought she was a little overblown in this book. Her eating habits turned my stomach this time around. Her profanity filled sentences had me tuning out instead of taking her seriously.

Din was preoccupied with sleeping around this time. I didn't like this aspect of the story at all. I wanted the version of Din that was in the first book. The Din that wanted to do his job and keep it. This one was depressed and preoccupied. I also didn't care for the time lapse between books. Obviously things happened to these characters that changed them in that period of time that we as readers weren't privy to. 

Clearly I'm in the minority as most people have given this book 4 and 5 star ratings. I've even heard some reviewers say they liked this book better than the first one. I wanted to be able to agree with them. I hoped that putting off finishing this until I felt more in the mood for it, would do the trick. But unfortunately, I don't feel the same way. At this point, I'm not sure I want to continue with the series.

 

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with and ARC of this book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, July 11, 2025

The Echoes Saga by Philip C. Quaintrell, and The Ranger Archives.

         

The Echoes Saga Books 1-9

Series rating: 3.78 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Fantasy
Content: Mild Profanity, SA (not detailed), Torture (not much detail)

 

 

 

 

  

The Ranger Archives books 1-3 

Series rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Fantasy
Content: Mild Language, A child is assassinated


 

I finally finished The Echoes Saga, and what a long reading journey it has been! I started this series in March 2024. It was a buddy read at Fantasy Buddy Reads with a couple of other people. By the end it was just two of us. It took us over a year to finish it along with the prequel trilogy, The Ranger Archives. Because these two series are very related to each other I'm going to talk about both of them. We read the first three books in The Echoes Saga, that worked as a trilogy on their own. That's the way the series is set up. There are trilogies within the series. There are also some huge time jumps between them. We took a break from The Echoes Saga after the first three books and read The Ranger Archives. Then we came back to this series and finished it. So that was twelve books and a novella in just over a year. There were a couple of months that we decided to take breaks from reading. I found the breaks necessary for me. Being immersed in one big fantasy world for so long is a nice experience but it also gets repetitive. 

There are things I liked about this series and things I wasn't so crazy about. The things I liked were compelling enough for me to continue to the end. I do feel like there was a lot of repetition in this series that could have been cut out. There was a bit too much telling about some events and too much repeating of others. This author is good at writing battles and I appreciated that, but I do think there were too many. If there are too many battles in a book I end up starting to zone out, and that did happen occasionally. I think this series could have been cut down to just six or seven books. I also think that with the length of this series, there should have been more character development. 

Speaking of characters, my favorites ended up being Russell, Doran, and Asher. These three characters were featured heavily in The Ranger Archives and I think that's probably why I liked that trilogy even better than this series. I have to say that I'm really glad I took a break and read The Ranger Archives before I finished The Echoes Saga, because we get all of Russell's backstory there, and I would have been missing some things about his character if I hadn't read it. I would say if you are wanting to read these books, then go ahead and read the prequel trilogy first. Overall, I enjoyed reading about the Dwarves and their different clans, and also the dragons. Elijah's time learning to become a Dragorn was a part that I liked a lot too. And of course, anytime Asher was on the page was enjoyable. Asher was, to me, the most well developed character in the series.

As I said before, I feel like there could have been more character development in these books. That's the main reason I never connected with Kassian. He was introduced, along with his wife Clara, in book seven and just kind of thrown in there as if he had always been there. When tragedy befell them, it had little effect on me because I barely knew them, and so that story element was a bit wasted in my opinion. The characters Reyna and Nathaniel were likable characters but there relationship started out very much like instalove. Later on in the series I appreciated their relationship, but it could have been better developed in the beginning. Overall, I think there were too many characters in the series, and it was too hard to develop them all the way they needed to be. The first book introduced way too many characters, and had too many character points of view. This got better as the series went on.

In the beginning of this series the author didn't hold back on some horrible things happening to characters, and this continued in later books as well, to one character in particular. These parts were hard to read at times, but I appreciate that they were mostly left to the imagination and there was no real detail given. I'm not one of those people who can read detailed torture or SA scenes. Because the author didn't hold back on these things, and because of the number of battles in the series, especially in the last book, I was expecting a lot more deaths in this series than there actually were. Generally, I don't like when there are too many deaths in a series, but in this case, I do feel like it would have been more impactful for me if there had been. There were so many characters in this series that it could have stood to lose more. 

Overall, The Echoes Saga was an enjoyable series with a few characters that I became attached to even though I think they could have been better developed. I liked the world building and the dragons. For me the best books in the series were books 3 and 8, with my least favorite being books 4, 5, and 6. I got very frustrated while reading those three books and they were a bit of a downer as well. I think the antagonist in these books, The Crow had too much power. As for The Ranger Chronicles, I enjoyed all three of those books equally. I'm planning to read the other prequel series that's still being written, A Time of Dragons. Just not for at least a year. In the meantime I want to explore some other fantasy worlds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Dead Man's Hand (The Unorthodox Chronicles #1) by James J. Butcher

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Urban Fantasy
Content: Strong Language

 

On the streets of Boston, the world is divided into the ordinary Usuals, and the paranormal Unorthodox. And in the Department of Unorthodox Affairs, the Auditors are the magical elite, government-sanctioned witches with spells at their command and all the power and prestige that comes with it. Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby is...not one of those witches.

After flunking out of the Auditor training program and being dismissed as "not Department material," Grimsby tried to resign himself to life as a mediocre witch. But he can't help hoping he'll somehow, someway, get another chance to prove his skill. That opportunity comes with a price when his former mentor, aka the most dangerous witch alive, is murdered down the street from where he works, and Grimsby is the Auditors' number one suspect.

Proving his innocence will require more than a little legwork, and after forming a strange alliance with the retired legend known as the Huntsman and a mysterious being from Elsewhere, Grimsby is abruptly thrown into a life of adventure, whether he wants it or not. Now all he has to do is find the real killer, avoid the Auditors on his trail, and most importantly, stay alive.
 

 

I've had this on my to-read list for a long time so I was happy to finally get to read it. I was really interested to see how Jim Butcher's son would write an urban fantasy. For the most part I enjoyed this. At times I thought some of the descriptions were unnecessarily detailed or things were oddly described. I'm almost done with book two at this point and there's one part where instead of just calling a keyboard a keyboard, it's referred to as a board of keys, which I thought was weird. So the writing could use some improvement, but these are the author's first books, so I can cut him some slack. 

I think it has a lot of potential to turn into a series I could love. I like the world the author has created here. I have contradicting feelings about some of the characters. The familiars are off putting, yet weirdly facinating. Wudge is selfish and mean but lovable at the same time. Mayflower is prickly as a cactus but somehow I still like him. Grimsby was a little weak for a main character at first but he grew and that's what matters. I'm going to continue with this series to see where it goes. 

 

 

 

Friday, July 4, 2025

July 2025 Reading List

I've got eight books planned for July, including the one that I started but paused and keep putting off, A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to it this month. I also just finished up one book from June, Be Buried in the Rain by Barbara Michaels.

 

 

 

Reading at Fantasy Buddy Reads-

 

Long Past Dues (The Unorthodox Chronicles #2) by James J. Butcher

 

Grimsby, the newest Auditor in the magical Department of Unorthodox Affairs, finds himself in hot water when he intercepts a friend’s case in this fast-paced and thrilling urban fantasy.

Against all odds, Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby has become an Auditor, enforcing laws about magic for Boston’s Department of Unorthodox Affairs. But Grimsby soon realizes the daily grind of his job is far removed from the glamour he imagined. Overlooked for every exciting case, Grimsby tires of being told to handle mundane magical troubles, and appropriates a case file intended for a friend.

Alongside Leslie Mayflower, the temporarily unretired Huntsman, Grimsby aims to crack the case and discover the origin of a strange, unfinished ritual—one that seems to imitate the handiwork of a foe Mayflower put down twenty years ago.

Together, they’ll have to deal with escaped werewolves, a cursed artifact, and a perilous journey to the mysterious subterranean city below Boston, all to uncover the shocking truth. At any cost, Grimsby must stop this ritual from finally being completed. Yet the cost may be paid not by himself but by his friends. . . 

 

  

. 

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage (Dragonlance: The Lost Chronicles #3) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman 

 

Between Chronicles and Legends, what made Raistlin aspire to godhood?

Raistlin Majere has become a Black Robe wizard and travels to Neraka, the lord city of the Dark Queen, ostensibly to work for her, though in reality he means to further his own quest for power. But Takhisis finds out that the dragon orb has entered her city and sends her draconians to find and destroy the wizard who has it in his possession. Before her agents can strike, though, Raistlin finds out that Takhisis means to take control of all wizardly magic. She has ordered Kitiara to set a trap for the Gods of Magic on the Night of the Eye, when all the high-ranking wizards will be in Neraka to celebrate.

As the forces of light, with help from the good dragons, are turning the tide of battle, Raistlin is forced to flee, for his foes are closing in on him. As the Dragon Highlords vie for the Crown of Power in the Temple of the Dark Queen, Raistlin Majere wages his own desperate battle against Takhisis in the dungeons below and meets again the brother he betrayed. The fate of the world hangs in the balance.
 

 

 

 

Reading with the Mystery Book Club-

 

Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard

 

Feeling her stardom fading, struggling soap-actress Adele Rafferty is ready to give up on her dreams when she gets a last-minute offer to play the lead in upcoming horror film Final Draft . Could this be her big break? Will she have redemption for what happened the  last time  she was on a film set? Adele doesn't think twice before signing the dotted line.    Camera  Adele quickly makes her way to set, deep into the isolated and wintry woods of West Cork, Ireland, miles away from civilization and cell service.    Action  When real life on set starts to somehow mirror the sinister events portrayed in the script, Adele fears the real horror lies  off  the page. Isolated and unsure who in the crew she can trust, is there anywhere or any time left to run?

 

 

   

Beyond Reasonable Doubt (Keera Duggan #2) by Robert Dugoni

 

A master manipulator accused of murder. An attorney sworn to defend her. Keera Duggan returns in a riveting novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni.

When Jenna Bernstein, disgraced wunderkind CEO of a controversial biotech company, is accused of murdering her former partner and lover, she turns to Seattle attorney Keera Duggan to defend her. Keera is more than a master chess player who brings her intuitive moves into court—she’s Jenna’s childhood friend. But considering their history, Keera knows that where Jenna goes, trouble follows.

Three years earlier, Keera’s father successfully defended Jenna when she was tried for the killing of her company’s chief medical scientist who threatened to go public with allegations of corporate fraud. Keera knows Jenna too well. When she was a kid, Keera saw Jenna for what she a manipulative and frighteningly controlling sociopath. Now, with only circumstantial evidence against Jenna, Keera is willing to bury any trepidation she might have to defend a woman she believes, this time, to be innocent.

As the investigation gets underway and disturbing questions arise, Keera puts her trust in a client who swears nothing but the truth. If this is all just another devious game, Keera might be working to set a murderer free.
 

 

 

 

My Book Club Book-

 

Way Station by Clifford D. Simak

 

Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he has done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.

More than a hundred years before, an alien named Ulysses had recruited Enoch as the keeper of Earth's only galactic transfer station. Now, as Enoch studies the progress of Earth and tends the tanks where the aliens appear, the charts he made indicate his world is doomed to destruction. His alien friends can only offer help that seems worse than the dreaded disaster. Then he discovers the horror that lies across the galaxy...

 

 

 

Reading for NetGalley-

  

Rage (Kate Burkholder #17) by Linda Castillo

 

In this gripping new installment of the Edgar Award winning series, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates a brutal double murder that takes her into the dark underbelly of society and exposes the dangers of Amish lives gone wrong.

Summer has arrived with a vengeance in Painters Mill, and a macabre discovery by three Amish children brings the quiet to a grinding halt. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on scene to find the dismembered body of 21-year-old Samuel Eicher, a local Amish man who owned a successful landscaping business. What twisted individual murdered him in such a sadistic way?

The investigation has barely begun when, miles away, a second body is found, stuffed into a barrel and dumped in a ravine. The deceased is 21-year-old Aaron Shetler, Samuel Eicher’s best friend. What could these two young Amish men have done to deserve such violent ends?

With a heat wave bearing down, Kate learns quickly that, for reasons she doesn’t understand, no one is willing to talk about what happened to the men. Just as she begins to fear the case may be hopeless, a mystery woman comes forward and reveals that fun-loving Aaron and Samuel had recently befriended some very unsavory characters―individuals who may have ties to a larger, more sinister, black market.

To solve the case, Kate must delve into the most sordid corners of her community, but when she gets too close, the killers target Kate herself. Will the secrets simmering beneath the surface of Painters Mill take another life before she can expose the truth? Or will Kate be the final victim?

 

 

 

Pick It For Me Book-

 

No Exit by Taylor Adams

 

A brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath.

A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?

On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside, are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.

But who can she trust?

With exquisitely controlled pacing, Taylor Adams diabolically ratchets up the tension with every page. Full of terrifying twists and hairpin turns, No Exit will have you on the edge of your seat and leave you breathless.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

June 2025 Reading Wrap-Up

First off in June I finished up one book that I had started in May, Filthy Rich by B. E. Baker (see my review here). I didn't get around to finishing A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett like I had planned but I'm still working on it. I ended up reading eight other full length books, plus two novellas. I had one DNF this month, and I'm still reading one book that I started this month.

 

The seven full length books I read-

 

Dragons of the Highlord Skies (Dragonlance: The Lost Chronicles #2) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Fantasy
Content: Clean

 

Still 3 stars on reread.

 

 

 

 

Death at a Highland Wedding (A Rip Through Time #4) by Kelley Armstrong

See my review here

 

 

 

 

Her Deadly Game (Keera Duggan #1) by Robert Dugoni

See my review here.

 

 

 

 

Hitchhikers by Ben H. Winters

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Thriller, Fantasy
Content: Strong Language, Domestic Abuse

 

Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she?

Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot.

Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?

  

This was an interesting time travel thriller. Most of the story was pretty straightforward and easy to figure out, so I knew there had to be some sort of a twist coming. Of course there was, and I'm not sure how I feel about that twist. 

 

 

 

 

Dead Man's Hand (The Unorthodox Chronicles #1) by James J. Butcher

 

Review to come.

 

 

 

 

A Clash of Fates (The Echoes Saga #9) by Philip C. Quaintrell

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Fantasy
Content: Mild Language

 

Series review to come.

 

 

 

 

When Stars Dance at Midnight (The Midnight Stars #4) by Tess Thompson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Romance, Historical Romance
Content: Clean

 

I thought the third book was the last in this series but was pleasantly surprised that the author gave us a fourth book. I was actually really happy about that because I liked Betsy so much in the last book. I do think she deserved to have her own story. This was, for me the best book in the series. I might do a series review in the near future.

 


 

The two novellas I read-

 

Schemes and Scandals (A Rip Through Time #3.5) by Kelley Arnstrong

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Clean

 

It’s Mallory Atkinson’s first Christmas in Scotland. Victorian Scotland, that is. Also, as the twenty-first-century detective learns, Christmas really isn’t a thing in Victorian Scotland. It’s all about Hogmanay. But her boss, Dr. Duncan Gray, treats her to an early gift of tickets to the event of the a Charles Dickens reading. There, they bump into Lady Inglis—the lovely widow who has sent Gray sexy letters trying to entice him back to her bed.

Lady Inglis introduces Mallory to Dickens—the meeting of a lifetime—but in return she wants their help. She’s being blackmailed. Someone stole letters she wrote to another lover and is threatening to publish them.

Mallory isn’t sure what to make of Lady Inglis, but no woman deserves that, so she insists on taking the case with or without Gray’s help. Growing tension between them soon tells Mallory that Gray is hiding a secret of his own. She has until Hogmanay to uncover the blackmailer…and, hopefully, to put things right with Gray so they can enjoy the holiday together.
 

 

 

 

 

Leviathan: An Asher & Avandriell Story by Philip C. Quaintrell  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

 

For those who have read The Echoes Saga and need more, the more is here!
Set three years after A Clash of Fates, the first novella in the Verda universe begins here, with Asher and his intrepid dragon, Avandriell.

A new world is beginning to take shape in the aftermath of The Fated War, a world that must be brought together if it is to survive. As the king and queen of Illian, it falls on Vighon and Inara Draqaro to forge this future. As they did during the war, they have allies—old friends—to call upon, heroes all who fought and bled for Verda’s fragile era of peace.

Among those allies are the likes of a ranger and a dragon.

The world’s greatest monster requires the world’s greatest hunters. Between them, Asher and Avandriell possess the skills required to face an ancient beast that has long prevented mutual prosperity between Illian and Erador. If the two realms of man are to secure an everlasting peace, this creature of antiquity, this Leviathan, must finally be vanquished.
 

 

This is a bonus novella that can be read after The Echoes Saga. I think by the time I got to this I was a bit burned out on the series. It wasn't bad but it was mostly battles, and I kind of zoned out of it in the middle.

 

 

 

The book that was a DNF-

 

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

So I'm really not surprised that this ended up as a DNF for me. I greatly disliked the otehr book I read by this author and I don't think this author's books are for me.

See my review here.

 

 


 

The Stormborne Vine (Leaf and Scale #1) by Tilly Wallace

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

 

This was an ok cozy fantasy. To an extent, I feel like this author keeps writing the same thing over and over. All the books have the same tone and the characters feel very interchangeable. They all have the same narrator as well and that makes them feel even more alike. I liked this author's Manners and Monsters Series a lot better than any of her other books. I'm not sure if I want to continue with this series. 

 

 

 

Started but not finished-

 

Be Buried in the Rain by Barbara Michaels 

No rating yet.