March 2021 Book Club: The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry #1) by Guy Gavriel Kay

  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Strong language, A woman is repeatedly raped but there are no details given, sex is alluded to a few times but no details are given.

Five men and women find themselves flung into the magical land of Fionavar, First of all Worlds. They have been called there by the mage Loren Silvercloak, and quickly find themselves drawn into the complex tapestry of events. For Kim, Paul, Kevin, Jennifer and Dave all have their own part to play in the coming battle against the forces of evil led by the fallen god Rakoth Maugrim and his dark hordes.

 

I've heard a lot of good things about Guy Gavriel Kay's books, so I was really hoping I would love reading this. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed in this one. First off I need to mention that this is a portal type fantasy and I don't read a lot of those. I feel like that idea has been done a lot and it for some reason, in general, doesn't interest me, but I went into this with an open mind, and maybe too high expectations because of all the good things I had heard over the years from numerous friends about this author. Everyone talks about his poetic writing style, but aside from the beginning, I didn't find it all that fancy. Whether this is a plus or a minus I guess depends on what type of writing you enjoy.

As far as the overall story goes, I was a little surprised at the matter-of-fact way these five men and women went into this strange and alien world. I felt like most of them accepted it way too easily, and didn't hesitate enough over this journey they were about to take. There were other times as well that I felt like things were just a little too easily accepted. In general, I had a hard time connecting with the characters, and I feel like there was a lack of development for most of them. The overall tone of the book wasn't dark at all and I appreciated that, but I never felt like any of the characters were in any real danger. At least not until I got to the really dark thing that happens to one of the female characters near the end of the book, and because it didn't match the tone of the rest of the book, it felt out of place to me.

Another aspect of the book that I wasn't crazy about, and have just been struggling with in general lately is the whole predetermined thing that happens in fantasy a lot. Like Wheel of Time, these people are stuck in circumstances that they can't escape because they are who they are. I was ok with it in Wheel of Time, but I've become tired of it and I would much rather a story where people are in control of their own destinies. This book had several similarities to both Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings. This was a story that included so many fantasy tropes I've seen before, although I know it was written way back before most of the other fantasy books I've read were even written. For that reason I can give it a bit of a pass on those things.

I did enjoy parts of the story enough to give it three stars. I found Dave and Kim's parts in particular to be rather compelling, along with the parts about the tree, but unfortunately I found this overall to not be as exciting or beautiful as I wanted it to be, and so I'm content to move on and not continue with the other two books. At this time I am undecided on whether I will try any other books by this author, but I think if someone tried to convince me to I might.

On a side note- I really love the cover of this book, or at least this version of it. There have been several over the years.

Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Psychological Thriller
Content: Strong language; A couple of teen girls are kidnapped, beaten and raped repeatedly, but nothing is described.

 

Margot Lewis is the agony aunt for The Cambridge Examiner. Her advice column, Dear Amy, gets all kinds of letters - but none like the one she's just received:

Dear Amy,
I don't know where I am. I've been kidnapped and am being held prisoner by a strange man. I'm afraid he'll kill me.
Please help me soon,
Bethan Avery

Bethan Avery has been missing for years. This is surely some cruel hoax. But, as more letters arrive, they contain information that was never made public. How is this happening? Answering this question will cost Margot everything ...

  

I finally found another psychological thriller that I really liked. For some reason I've have a hard time with these of late. They seem to be full of such unlikable characters, but with this one I was able to actually like the main character Margot. 

In the beginning I wasn't sure if I was in the mood to read something that was rather dark, and I was afraid there would be descriptive scenes of what was happening to the kidnapped girl. I stuck with it and it ended up not being too dark, and thankfully those parts were not described. 

Like all psychological thrillers, there's a big twist and I did guess what it was, but it didn't diminish my enjoyment of this book. I thought the details of why and how things happened the way they did helped to make the story feel more plausible.

I liked this enough that I'll probably look up other books by this author to try.

Anchored (The Anchored Series #1) by Bridget E. Baker

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Rape is threatened at one point. 

 

Two worlds, one fate ...

Alora was born with the ability to Lift, a power no other women on Terra possess. If the wrong people find out, there's no telling what will happen. But when she almost kills a man in self-defense, her secret is exposed and she's forced to run for her life.

On Earth, Alora's running from something else: hazy memories of her parents' death and the social worker who wants to separate her from her brother. When she sees the man she almost killed on Terra at work, she's flummoxed. She's never recognized anyone from there before—after all, Terra exists only in her dreams...

When her dreams begin to leach into reality, something incredible awakens in Alora. But she knows better than anyone that everything comes with a cost. As the barrier between worlds crumbles, Alora must decide which is safer, which is more powerful, and which world is worth saving.

 

This is the first book in Bridget Baker's latest series and I enjoyed it quite a lot. It's a portal type fantasy set in our world, and a sub genre that I haven't sought out much, but I thought this one was done really well. I immediately liked Alora and her brother, and I loved how Bridget was able to write their characters in a way that enabled me to feel the emotions they were going through as they dealt with the hard situation they were in. There were definite red flags as they made a couple of the decisions that put them in danger. I kept thinking, "No! don't do that!" But I could also sympathize with how badly they wanted to be able to stop running and have a normal life. There were also a couple of twists I didn't see coming. 

In the beginning I was left wondering why they were so sure these dreams Alora was having were real and not just dreams or figments of her imagination, but this is explained later on. I have noticed in more than one of her books, that Bridget will leave me wondering about something for a while, but I get the reason behind it later. Sometimes this works really well, but in this case I think I would have rathered this had been explained sooner. Regardless, I was really glad that things were explained. It helped me understand the characters better.

Overall I thought this was a really good book, and I thought the parallel world was interesting. It had a nice balance of good and bad events. One heartbreaking thing happened, and I'm still really sad about it, but I like that the book didn't leave me feeling hopeless. I did have a bit of an issue with the instalove thing, but there was an explanation for it that made it a bit better. I just really hope we get good relationship development between these characters in future books, despite the instant attraction to each other. I probably don't need to worry about that though, since Bridget has never disappointed me with any of the relationships in her books.

Thanks to Bridget E. Baker for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Urban Shaman (Walker Papers #1) by C.E. Murphy

  

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Content: Strong Language

 

Joanne Walker has three days to learn to use her shamanic powers and save the world from the unleashed Wild Hunt.

No worries. No pressure. Never mind the lack of sleep, the perplexing new talent for healing herself from fatal wounds, or the cryptic, talking coyote who appears in her dreams.

And if all that's not bad enough, in the three years Joanne's been a cop, she's never seen a dead body—but she's just come across her second in three days.

It's been a bitch of a week.

And it isn't over yet.

I'm always looking for urban fantasies to read and I've had this one on my Kindle for a long time. I was excited to finally get to it, but it ended up being a let down. My biggest problem with the book is that the main character seemed all over the place. It felt like the author didn't know exactly what she wanted her to be and she ended up trying to make her both things and it didn't work for me. On one hand she is a part of the police force, but she isn't really a police officer, she fixes their cars. Huh?? This really didn't make sense to me. She went to college and studied criminal justice, but she really wanted to be a mechanic. Why would anyone who wants to be a mechanic waste their time studying criminal justice if that's not what they want to do? They aren't even remotely related to each other. Obviously she also trained to become a mechanic at some point. I can't remember what the book says about this anymore, and it's not worth going and looking it up at this point. On top of all that she has these latent Shaman powers that begin to manifest, and she has to learn to use them.  

I also felt like Joanne did some stupid things from time to time in the book. I won't go into what they all were, but trusting some guy that drives a cab as much as she did was the first one. Don't get me wrong I like Gary. I thought he was a good character, but it just didn't make sense to me that she would have trusted a complete stranger as much as she did, and it didn't make sense to me that he would have taken the amount of interest in her life from the get-go that he did either. 

Then there was the complete lack of romantic chemistry with the one guy it seems the book may have been hinting at a possible future relationship with. He just wasn't all that interesting to me. In fact he came off as way too gruff and I would have a hard time seeing them together. I did appreciate that this is a straight up urban fantasy without any PNR elements, but I would have liked for there to have been at least a hint of an acceptable romantic partner in the book.

To go along with all those problems I had with the book, I felt that overall the whole thing was just kind of bland. From the plot to the characters, nothing really stood out to me and made me feel like this was special enough to keep reading the whole series.

February 2021 Book Club: Second Hand Curses by Drew Hayes

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Strong language

 

When your fairy godmother threatens to enslave you with a curse - when a malevolent piper solves your rat problem but steals your children - when you seek revenge on the prince who turned you into a frog - who can you turn to in your hour of need? The band of scoundrels known far and wide as the Bastard Champions - the swashbuckling trio who travel a world of legend, seeking adventure and righting wrongs - as long as there's enough gold to be earned. They are Jack, the seemingly unkillable leader whose ever-present grin belies a dark past; Marie, who fights with fury but battles more fiercely to control the beast within; and Frank, the master of logistics, whose cloak hides horrific scars that are far more than skin-deep. As they slash and scheme through kingdom and village alike, the Bastard Champions uncover tantalizing clues to their ultimate quarry: the powerful Blue Fairy, who has made each of their lives a living hell.

Second Hand Curses adds a dash of sly wit and a heaping portion of action to the fairy tales you thought you knew.

 

Drew Hayes has now become the most read author of our book club. This is the third book by him (the other two being The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant and NPCs) that we've read and probably the one I liked the best. I find his books very fun and easy to read, and wow, was this one fun to read! I loved the way the book was written as several shorter stories with one underlying plot thread to tie them all together. The different take on the fairy tales, with the fairies being evil was great for a change. It was also fun trying to figure out how the three main characters fit into the tales, and who they were. Frank was the most obvious, with Marie being the hardest one to figure out. 

This was fun but also dark at times, which is exactly what the original fairy tales were. They were cautionary tales and I liked that this book kept with that theme. Jack, Frank, and Marie were also more anti heroes, which I'm not usually a big fan of, but it worked well in this book.With all the fairy tales that were retold in this book we had a lot of material to inspire us for our book club get together. My husband made a diorama featuring different scenes from the book for our centerpiece and we had some other cute food items. See the photos below.

I also wanted to mention that I listened to the audio of this book and it was fantastic.  

 

 

 

The giant on the beanstalk.
 

 

The princess and the frog.

 

 

Young Jack about to chop the beanstalk down.

 

Frank, Jack, and Marie fighting the prince and his guards.

The witch.

Hans and Greta

Scarlett, Peter Wolf, Frank, Jack, and Marie plan.

Yummy dipped apples we served. Apples were mentioned several times in the book.

Cupcakes for Frank and The Rose Kingdom.

Rats in a blanket, made by the very talented Risa.
 

Dragon Mage (Rivenworld #1) by M.L. Spencer

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Strong language, Torture that doesn't go into too much detail.

Aram Raythe has the power to challenge the gods. He just doesn't know it yet.

Aram thinks he's nothing but a misfit from a small fishing village in a dark corner of the world. As far as Aram knows, he has nothing, with hardly a possession to his name other than a desire to make friends and be accepted by those around him, which is something he’s never known.

But Aram is more. Much, much more.

Unknown to him, Aram bears within him a gift so old and rare that many people would kill him for it, and there are others who would twist him to use for their own sinister purposes. These magics are so potent that Aram earns a place at an academy for warrior mages training to earn for themselves the greatest place of honor among the armies of men: dragon riders.

Aram will have to fight for respect by becoming not just a dragon rider, but a Champion, the caliber of mage that hasn’t existed in the world for hundreds of years. And the land needs a Champion. Because when a dark god out of ancient myth arises to threaten the world of magic, it is Aram the world will turn to in its hour of need.

I had never heard of this author before I picked up this book, and I didn't know what to expect, especially since after finding this book I heard that this author mostly writes grimdark fantasy, which isn't my thing. I was hoping this one wouldn't be too dark for me. While there were some dark, heartbreaking things that happened, I'm happy to say it turned out not to be too dark. I really enjoyed the story and the world, and the characters were easy to love. The friendship between Aram and Markus was heartwarming, and I loved the development of both their characters. The parallel worlds were also interesting and I would like to see more development of that in the next book. 

This is a book that kind of straddles the adult and young adult categories. It's a coming of age story, but also still written for adults. It was originally supposed to be a standalone, and it reads fine as one, but the author has decided to write more and I'm looking forward to reading more. Overall this had all the elements I love in a traditional epic fantasy and I recommend it to fantasy lovers.

 

 

The Merchant and the Rogue (The Dread Penny Society #3) by Sarah M. Eden

 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

 

London, 1865 Vera Sorokina loves reading the Penny Dreadfuls and immersing herself in tales of adventure, mystery, and romance. Her own days are filled with the often mundane work of running the book and print shop she owns with her father. The shop offers her the freedom and income to employ and protect the poverty-stricken Londoners she’s come to care about, and it gives her father something to do other than long for their hometown of St. Petersburg. She is grateful for the stability in their lives, but she often feels lonely.

Brogan Donnelly was born and raised in Ireland, but has lived in London for several years, where he’s built a career as a Penny Dreadful writer. He has dedicated himself to the plight of the poor with the help of his sister. His membership in the secretive Dread Penny Society allows him to feel he isn’t entirely wasting his life, yet he feels dissatisfied. With no one to share his life with but his sister, he fears London will never truly feel like home.

Brogan and Vera’s paths cross, and the attraction is both immediate and ill-advised. Vera knows from past experience that writers are never to be trusted, and Brogan has reason to suspect not everything at her print shop is aboveboard. When the growing criminal enterprise run by the elusive and violent Mastiff begins targeting their area of London, Brogan and Vera must work together to protect the community they’ve both grown to love. But that means they’ll need to learn to trust each other with dangerous secrets that have followed both of them from their home countries.

 

While I enjoyed the first two book in this series, especially book one, I liked this third book in the series less than the two previous books. I didn't find the main story line to be as compelling. I originally thought this was going to be a trilogy and that this would be the last book in the series, but it turns out it's not. I feel like I'm not enjoying the series enough to want to keep reading. I think the idea of incorporating the Penny Dreadful stories into each novel is pretty original, but I feel like they interrupt the main story line of the novel and I'm not nearly as interested in what happens in them as I am the main story line. That being said, I am also not completely invested in the overarching plot of the series either. I like the romance plots that are contained within each book much better. So yeah, unfortunately I think I'm going to abandon this series. It was fun for a while, but I'm just not as into it as much I would like to be. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Shadow Mountain Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book.