Reads N' Reviews

Starting the review of a new book! Sorry it's been so long between reviews, life has gotten in the way. Look for a review in the upcoming weeks.

Description from NetGalley:

Hazel Blackthorn is an outcast, the bastard daughter of a nameless sailor and a disgraced mother. She will do anything to marry her secret fiancé, Linus, and escape her oppressive life. When Linus announces he must marry her cousin in order to save his family’s crumbling business, Hazel is heartbroken and her hope for the future crushed. But a kind old man offers her salvation: Travel to the mythical Bazaar that visits the island once every thirty years and return before the end of the festival with medicine he needs, and she will have all the riches in the world. Gripped by hope, Hazel accepts.

But in the Bazaar, a place where the gods themselves used to dwell, Hazel can trust nothing. In a world where you can buy time and purchase power, wicked merchants wield cruel magic. As she travels further into the Bazaar, searching for the medicine her benefactor desires, she becomes enmeshed in a game of cat and mouse with the all-powerful King of the Bazaar, a man with a silver-tongue and shadowy past. 

I received an ARC through Netgalley of Seanan McGuire’s newest book, Night and Silence, coming out on September 4th, 2018.

Night and Silence is book 12 in the October Daye series. With the way The Brightest Fell ended, I was eager to see how this book would start…

In the last book, Amandine has Toby searching for August, Toby’s long-lost sister; in this book, Gillian, Toby’s daughter is the one that goes missing. Her allies are struggling with their own trauma and the consequences from her actions in the last book. Iy makes it hard for Toby to gather enough resources to get all the help she needs.

It starts on a more melancholy note and being that the last book ended with trauma on all sides, this isn’t a surprise. Conversations are had while she rescues the wildlife that is still cropping up from Chelsea’s jaunts into the locked realms and Toby being Toby… is trying to retreat and at the same time, hold on to all she loves.

Scars run deep on all sides of the family for this and Seanan writes a beautiful understanding of how things aren’t magically fixed, but it takes time to heal. Not just the main characters being hurt, but also the fallout for the ones that surround them. Tybalt is damaged and struggling and his Court is feeling the effects of it, too.

This book was a ride and there are a number of questions that were answered that have been hanging around since the early books in the series! There was a moment I had to stop reading because I was so thrilled at what shoe had dropped and it’s a doozy. We’re going to have a whole new source of information now, if people are willing to trust the character to ask.

You get some more understanding of the deeper parts of the story and parts that have been simmering in the background. There is a lot revealed, but at the same time, there are ever so many more questions that make you that much eager for what is coming next.

As before, my favorite “is this a giant red herring or is Seanan sitting on this?” theory hasn’t popped up yet, but I have a feeling we got another hint and it’s glorious.

The selkies have popped up again and the question of “when” was asked and it’s ever so close now. There are so many issues that are going to set the world on fire and I am eager for it. I have a soft spot for the selkies, especially with all the short stories we’ve gotten of them that have explained more and gave more of that rocky background and the rockiness continues.

I foresee a lot of tough choices in the future for a number of characters and some of those choices and concessions have already popped up at the end of the book. It’s going to be a long, hard road, but nothing Toby ever did was easy.

The short story goes well in hand with the rest of the book and it’s amazing. I don’t want to spoil any bit of it at all, but it raises so many questions, gives so much away and you’re left with your mouth open at what could be.

Alright, so it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten an ARC to read and bless you NetGalley for providing this one. I love all of Seanan’s works and once the description hit for this one, I knew I had to get my hands on it. :D This is the first time i’ve gotten an ARC for one of Seanans’s works and I want to make the review worth it. 

Not that I’ll be heavy on the spoilers, mind you-- but it is hard to review them when there is so much happening that I’ll have to do another re-read to see what I missed. 

by R. C. Lewis

First~ the cover. I like this a lot. It’s got a very constellation feel of it, which connects lovely with the story and Liddi’s desire to see the stars. The swan is a very nice touch, alluding to the Wild Swans fairy tale that this book is based on.

Characters

Liddi is an interesting character and is the main character of this novel. The youngest child and only daughter of a very famous family, she is expected to inherit and do many things in her society and thus is followed everywhere. No one knows the real Liddi and the expectations of her are either very high or very dismissive. A series of flashbacks throughout the entire book help flesh out who is the real Liddi. 

Tiav is our othe main character; he’s a little flat in some ways, set up to be the obvious love interest, but he has a lot of spark, a lot of connection and a genuine desire to understand not just Liddi, but what she wants to do.

Story

I was thrilled to read an adaptation of one of my favorite (and not as widely known) fairly tales; The Wild Swans. There are variations of this story all over, but the heart of it is that a family is in danger when the brothers are trapped in some way and the sister is the one that has to work to save her family.

I /loved/ how the different aspects of the story were handled. A key point that has appeared in every variation I’ve read is that the task that is at hand must be handled in silence, or something dire happens. Being that this is a very technologically advanced world, the silence was handled with science instead of magic or direction. Liddi could speak, but as in the original tale, it would have dire consequences and failure if she did so. 

Knowing the story itself, it was fun to pick out “oh, well, you know this character can’t be trusted” even as they gave off the vibe of ‘don’t trust’. But like I said, I like the twists the story took.

The only part that was slightly disappointing was that there didn’t seem to be a real sacrifice on Liddi’s part, other than not using her voice, to complete her tasks and save her brothers. There was the edge of a time limit to save them, but she wasn’t in a great deal of pain and the ‘spinning’ aspect of it didn’t come in until the very end. Cleverly done, but I was hoping for more of it. 

The sacrifice I expected came at the end and I wonder if it’s indicative of all interpretations of the myth or not. Still--painfully done and I loved the emotion it invoked. 

Spinning Starlight, by R. C. Lewis.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

I was really excited to get this book for an advance read! This just seemed such a fantastic premise and I was ready to dive right into it. First off-- the cover. 

I love the parchment like feel of it-- like an illuminated manuscript. This picks out different pieces of the story, especially of the tree at the bottom, reaching out-- much like the Wood reaches out. The Dragon, the Falcon-- Kasia-- it’s all there and it’s wonderfully all integrated. The rose was a nice touch and makes me happy to see it-- the sword-- it’s all connected to the story itself. Telling a story of a story. 

The book itself-- this was a fun and such an intriguing read. It was so very real and unreal, rooted in reality and folklore and you could see the countryside, the people, see the nuances and influences of the Polish folklore. 

Agnieszka was an amazing main character, strong-willed and ready to fight for what she thought was right. She’s clumsy and messy and speaks her mind. No one expected her to be chosen by the Dragon; everyone thought her best friend, Kasia would be taken away. 

Until she does a number of things to irritate the Dragon, she doesn't know why she is chosen at first-- but her magic is too strong otherwise to ignore-- and frequently shocks the Dragon with each mishap, mistrial and impossibility. 

The Dragon -- Sarkan --is isolated and prickly and sure of himself and Agnieszka appalls him, even as he keeps here there, teaching her. He watches over the people of the valley, to watch over the Wood, to keep the evil at bay and from reaching its tendrils into the towns and the people that live there. 

There are a number of intriguing characters, one of which is Kasia-- and they set the plot in motion in dizzying steps. This reads like a cautionary tale, an old folktale-- with romance and heartbreak and loss, with an evil set at the heart of the forest -- quite literally. With hope and magic and strong wills-- with never-giving up. 

Since I was a bit late for Shadow Scale, it will no longer be under my NetGalley reviews, but I will review it at a later time. Upcoming review is Uprooted, by Naomi Novik. 

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

As always, let’s start with the cover. Now that I know the book, the cover is that much more interesting! You have a dragon on one side and a bird on the other, and it is a very simplistic design to tell the story of the two sides. 

You have the Avicen, a group of bird like people, and then the Drakharin, a group of dragon like people. For centuries, they have been at war with each other, neither side ceasing. 

Echo was adopted as a child by a woman of the Avicen and raised among them, learning their ways and their magic. She’s a thief and reckless and endlessly entertaining with her smart-aleck remarks. 

The book starts off with a bang, with Echo stealing from a warlock and running full tilt back home-- but what she stole starts the story; a fragment of a map leads to an old legend of the firebird; a creature that is the hope to end the war between the two races. 

There are a number of characters that fill out the pages of the book and each person seems to get their voice; the protagonists, at the very least. We don’t really hear Altair’s voice or Tanith’s; they’re looked on and reacted to, but their actual voices don’t shine through. The number of point of views in the story is almost dizzying, but it’s gratifying to not just have one person’s eyes viewing the events of the story. It definitely gives a wider range and more of a rounded feel. 

Certain events seemed to happen very rapidly, but the entirety of the story only takes place over a few days, it seems. Everything is rushed, but it makes sense in the context of the story-- everyone is after each other’s secrets and it’s an ongoing war-- things usually would not stay stagnant in those types of situations. 

I won’t say too much for fear of spoiling too much (the book comes out April 28th) but I’m eager to see what the next steps of the story could be; where it could go and what the overall conclusion means for the two races. 

The Girl at Midnight...

I just finished reading this, but seeing that it's just a bit after midnight, I'll save my review for when I am more awake and can type and think coherently. Initial thoughts are that I really enjoyed it and the visual imagery was stunning. 

City of Fae by Pippa DaCosta

First off the cover-- ! Oh, this was a lovely cover and if I had looked more closely at it, I would have seen the cobwebs and probably cringed my way right out of there. Spiders are not my favorite, but this was a wonderful hint of things to come inside the story itself. I love the image of Alina unraveling from the cobwebs surrounding her and the light colored smoke around her. It gives her a very mysterious air and it's very intriguing. 

Onto the review!

This was another fun read! I like stories about the fae as much as I like fairy-tale retellings, so this was one that I was looking forward to. 

The story takes place in London and we follow Alina, a newbie reporter from America, who has just been fired from her job. She's always asking questions, always looking for the story to make her career... until she runs into the rockstar fae, Sovereign. Life goes sideways for her after that, caught up in the fae who are after Reign and how it spins into her life. 

This was an excellent twist on how a lot of people write fae; in this world, their touch is dangerous, draining life out of a person and bespelling them. There are rules to not touch the fae for that reason and how to protect yourself if you do get caught up in them. Sovereign, or Reign, is a musical sensation and has hordes of fangirls that don't care about the rules, but all is not what it seems with him... or Alina. 

First off, this hit all my "oh god, no please" buttons with creepiness. There are spiders. /entient spiders./ I have to applaud Alina for not screaming her head off as soon as they started coming. I knew I would have screamed and bolted through plate glass long before they crawled on me. The creepy factor in this does not hold back. 

I loved the twists and turns with this story. You question Alina straight off; she doesn't seem quite all of what she is; the fae question her and so do some humans. I questioned the heck out of her being a nineteen year old American transplant working for a London paper--but all is revealed and I went "oooh, I like this." 

You feel incredibly sad for Alina, for Reign and the other fae--and you want more of their stories and backstories and and Faerie. It's an incredibly rich backdrop and it makes me eager to explore more. 

No spoilers, but I really liked what was revealed and how it all went down; no punches were pulled and while I haven't fully connected with some of the characters, the way their losses impacted others was very vivid. 

These are the latest NetGalley reviews; not much has updated since the last commentary, but I gained two new books for review!

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman

Trust by Jodi Baker

I really like the simple cover design on this one. It's elegant and catchy and caught my eye right away. Very whimsical!

As for the book itself-- I have a love for creative reimaginings of fairy tales and to use one that isn't as well know is fabulous and gains extra points in my book. Valiant is a re-telling of The Valiant Little Tailor and it was creatively done.

We follow the story of Saville, the daughter of a talented tailor as they travel from their home to a new city. The tailor has no love for anyone or anything, except his sewing and his fabrics. When he falls ill soon after arriving in their new home, it's up to Saville to start working to make money so that they can survive. She does so in disguise as a boy, going to the court to measure the king himself.

When the rumors of giants come in real life to the gates of the city, Saville's cleverness turns them away and gains her the attention of the king, the court and hails her as the champion of the city.

Things go beyond that point; however-- and it takes many twists and turns along the way. The host of characters are varied and interesting and keeps you interested in where the story takes each person.

I admit I am a sucker for what happens past the 'end of the story' as it were; I liked the exploration of the other side and I liked the other myths that were woven into this one. The background of the giants was amazing and I have wonderful, vibrant images of what their homeland was like.

Sarah McGuire paints a lovely picture of a small set of towns, of weak kings and clever girls, of a set of people that aren't always what they seem and what they can do.

Now I admit, some parts seemed rushed in some ways; as if there was a plan to have one storyline and then it was abandoned-- there is a scene where Saville is going to have the place of a maid/errand girl, but it doesn't last long. But like all fairy tales, the plot is fast paced and explores the nooks and crannies of what the story can be.

The following will be the next set of NetGalley reviews. 

Having read Gates of Thread and Stone and the intense ending Lori M. Lee left us at, I was eager to be able to dive into the next book in that what now seems to be a series, not a sequel!  (At least I truly hope there is a next book!)

I continue to adore Kai as a protagonist. She's smart and savvy and still has that touch of hope about her. She lets her guard down and she's worried and still in love and I think that is amazing. Too many authors shy away from their kicking female protag to be head over heels at times and sometimes make questionable choices.

She's also not all knowing-- she trusts and while her instincts sort of tug at her, she still wants to believe the best.

We start off a bit after the first book ended, with things still in unrest and turmoil and Kai reacting in a way that is something you can truly relate to. Soon, things speed up a  bit when a messenger comes from across the Wastelands--shocking everyone and made me pleased as punch to have it said out that yes, there are other people out there. The messenger is there because of danger to their community and they ask for help. Kai is sent with a contingent of sentinels to assess the threat.

(Forgive me, I should have re-read GoTaS before reading this one and can't recall if Lori said there were other settlements.)

She brings us this other community, like and very much unlike her city.

So I won't spell out the entire book, I'll say that I adore the details of the city of Lanathrill, the bits and pieces put together and then talk of /more/ people and how much the world had changed. You get beautiful glimpses of the society that was there before and it paints a vivid image.