Review: A Draw of Kings

A Draw of Kings by Patrick W. Carr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A Draw of Kings is a decent ending to a good Fantasy series that I really enjoyed. It wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped, but still decent.

It gets right to the action and never drags. At the beginning, everyone gets scattered again and for a while I really wondered how they were all going to get back and wrap things up. As far as a Fantasy adventure goes, with all hell breaking loose and the fate of the world depending on the tenuous hope of a few people with impossible tasks, it was a fun story and fairly satisfying.

It was not, however, as mature and 'brilliant' as many others where the way everything comes together at the end leaves you breathless and full of admiration. That didn't happen. The thing is, there's a big 'aha' moment where characters figure out something really important, but it's something that I saw coming early in the second book. It didn’t take me that long to consider the possibility, so it wasn't very realistic that it was this great mystery until the end. The discovery was held off too long for a big reveal and it took the punch out of it, for me anyway.

Still, I really enjoyed this series and I think it's one worth recommending to people who aren't necessarily after 'something new' in Fantasy. This isn't genre-shattering. It's just a fun heroic Fantasy with lots of elements that feel familiar yet a little different.



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Review: The Merchant's Daughter

The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



The Merchant’s Daughter is a non-magical retelling of Beauty and the Beast, basically a historical romance set in the 1300s. It is also an ‘inspirational’ romance, meaning it’s the kind of book an evangelical Christian can feel safe reading. I’ve enjoyed some inspirational books in the past because you can be sure of getting the romance without the graphic sex, and the romance is usually more emotional than physical.

It does have its downsides, though, with characters who often go off into an aside with prayer or godly thoughts, or wait for God’s will instead of acting. Some inspirational authors are more preachy than others, using their characters to teach you how to live, but some don’t do this at all, and just tell a sweet story. Lately all of the ones I’ve read have had too much of the preachy aspect for me, and I think I’ve reached a point where the risk of the bad outweighs the (slight) chance for good in this type of book.

Because this was, hands-down, the preachiest book I’ve ever read in my life. I think half the book was some kind of sermon coming from the mouth or thoughts of the main character, and even worse, they were modern views being spouted from a supposedly Medieval girl. There’s more God-talk, prayer, Bible verse quoting, and WWJD thoughts than actual plot. The anachronisms made me cringe time and again. How I persevered to the end I will never know, but I do know I’m never going back to this author again.

The romance does have some sweet moments, which is probably how I managed to finish it, but the use of religion is so overpowering that it’s all I remember now. I do not appreciate having a historical fairy tale turn into an evangelical Bible study full of sermonizing. I can see religion having a place when it’s appropriate to the time-period (and not with the goal of teaching me lessons), but what we get here is inappropriate in so many ways - a brashly modern American evangelical view of Christianity completely out of place in 1300s England.

**Spoilers ahead**

It’s all because the heroine, Annabel, supposedly wants to be nun so that she can read the Bible for herself, and the entire book is driven by her consuming desire to know what the Bible actually says. It’s all wrong. Girls in the 1300s didn’t want to be nuns so they could read the Bible themselves. This is not a motivation that a merchant’s daughter in Medieval times would even think of. Prayer and contemplation, yes. Escape from the concerns of the worldly or a disagreeable marriage proposal, yes. Fathers needing to offload one of their daughters somewhere for safety or political reasons, yes. Even a desire to serve God! But the idea of what that meant in those times was not the opportunity for personal daily devotions.

So the girl’s entire character is based around this erroneous desire, and she is unstoppable about it. She is so impatient to read the Bible herself (not even able to wait for the convent), that she begs her local priest to let her borrow his Bible… remove it from the church and take it home for some nice cozy time by the fire... really? This is such unrealistic behavior for a young lady in the 1300s that I couldn’t believe what I was reading. How could this book possibly even masquerade as a historical novel?

What’s even worse is that - guess what! - the lord of the manor has his own Bible when the priest doesn’t. And lucky Annabel, because he asks her to read it to him every night. And she somehow knows Latin well enough to do so! So now we have to read through pages - pages - of Bible passages, along with their personal interpretations of how it all applies to them. So the romance is based on this devotional style reading of the Bible and ‘what does this mean to me’ interpretations between the lord and a maid who fall in love over their godly thoughts together. Kill. me. now.

I don’t care what your beliefs are (or mine), I don’t want bad sermons in my books. Or Sunday school lessons. I’m not reading to ‘learn about how to have a relationship with God’, especially offered through the mouths of characters who have no business spouting these concepts. If I want a sermon (or a Bible study, for that matter), I know where to go for one.

Rant over.



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Review: The Named

The Named by Marianne Curley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars




The first half of this book was just like all the other YA paranormals that I’ve grown so tired of - teenagers in class, passing notes, grumpy teachers, girl & boy working together, one with a crush on the other. Depressing home lives, parent and sibling issues, blah blah. Not a lot actually happens at first, but I could see where it was going and was quickly falling into eye-rolling mode, fighting boredom and frustration. How many times have I seen these clichés play out by now?

When I picked this up, I really thought it would be more about time travel adventures. Although the Named are guardians of the timeline, this story is more about the guardians in the present than what they do when they travel to the past. The teenagers are in training (very vaguely described aside from repeated mention of parent and sibling problems caused by the two spending time together), and the focus is not enough on their lives as guardians, at least at first. Irritated at being sucked into another one of these sorts of books, I forced myself onward, prepared to skim if necessary to finish this thing.

Then something changed. I’m not sure exactly when I stopped having to force myself to read. Probably about the time high school dropped out of it and we actually got past the training and into the missions (yes, this does happen!). Then there were a couple small events that challenged my sense of knowing exactly where it was going, and then stuff started happening and I got interested and then - then the end. Just as it started to get up to speed, it ended, and now I’m going to have to read the next one. I sincerely hope I don’t have to wait through another half book of the daily lives of teenagers before things get interesting again. Please no more high school. If we can stick to the business of the Named, I’ll be happy.



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Review: Magic Under Glass

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An automaton that plays the piano, fairies, sorcerers and necromancers, and a 'trouser girl' who sings on the stage. Add a Jane Eyre style mysterious madwoman haunting the third floor of the manor, and you have a vaguely gothic steampunk historical fantasy with a dash of sweet romance. Quite an interesting combination.

Some aspects were less developed than I would have liked, leaving me feeling detached from it all. The world-building, the characters, and how their relationships developed were all a bit weak. I find myself not really caring whether I read the second book or not (this is a completed duology). I might feel like it at some point.

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Review: The Yellow House

The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



All I can really say positively about this book is that it somehow manages to have a happy ending after all the crap that Eileen goes through (much brought on herself, but not all). And that the historical backdrop of the early 20th Century in Ireland is interesting. I learned a lot about the conflict between Protestants and Catholics, and the formation of Northern Ireland and the IRA - a bloody, hateful history that Eileen brashly dashes into because of her family's proud warrior history.

I wish I could have liked Eileen (or anyone) in the first place, to care more that they got a happy ending, but Eileen rarely talks to people; she snaps at them. Or yells. She also is obsessed with being an O'Neill warrior, a childhood story that her father told her and she somehow believes she must fulfill without any thought whatsoever throughout most of the book. She is a hot-headed Irishwoman who is dirt-poor, has an extremely sharp tongue, constantly drives the people around her away and threatens her own livelihood by never thinking about the consequences of her actions or of opening her mouth.

Her husband is a complete jerk, her friends are not real friends, her family is fractured from childhood, and the only people who care for her are her late father's loyal friends and someone outside of her social sphere who just causes her a lot more trouble for most of the book. Not that Eileen really is the type of person to inspire great friendships, so I can understand her being isolated much of the time. It's really a miracle that things turn out well in the end.

Actually, the level of dislike I find for all of these people is probably an indication of good writing. These people in all their selfishness and brutality were just too real, and unfortunately there weren't any characters who showed the other side of humanity.

Like I said, happy ending - check. Interesting time period - check. Relief that I can move on - check. 2 stars.



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Review: A Poisoned Season

A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I’ve decided I like Lady Emily after all! Reading the first book, I wasn’t sure - but that was because I couldn’t help comparing her to Lady Julia Grey, my favorite Victorian widow sleuth and my first love of the genre.

But now I’ve had some time without a lot of new Lady Julia material to read, and was able to find some space in my heart for Emily. She’s another heroine who can’t quite live within the strictures of Victorian society, and finds freedom as a widow that she never could have had as a wife - although her scandalous habit of drinking port still makes her rather suspect to many, not to mention her newly discovered love of Ancient Greek and antiquities, and her reluctance to re-marry.

In this second installment of the series, Emily discovers that being a widow is not a complete protection for her reputation now that she's out of mourning. She gets herself into some serious trouble with her social carelessness while investigating a murder. I have to say she won me over by the end, and I enjoyed the mystery as well - I didn't figure out what was going on right away.

As far as the complementary leading male is concerned, I suppose I do like Colin too, even though so far he seems a bit too… good and honorable. Not even a whiff of the rogue on this one, and the only mysterious thing about him is the question of what exactly he does for the government. The fact that he’s most likely a spy does make him a bit interesting, but Lady Julia's Brisbane wins this contest for sure as one of my favorite male leads of all time.

I enjoyed this for the many reasons that I love mysteries set in this time period - the social comedy, the relationships, the mishaps and scandals (or bluestocking tendencies) that shock high society, all mixed in with a bit of a mystery to make it more interesting and add a flare of danger and intrigue. The Lady Julia series is my first love of this genre, but that doesn't mean I can't learn to love others as well. Let's have some more Emily.



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Review: Shards of Honour

Shards of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Honestly, I'm fairly new to the world of Sci Fi, although I'm a huge Fantasy fan (why are these two so often lumped together? They're completely different genres!). Strangely, I've been more into Sci Fi on the screen than in books - Star Trek, Farscape, etc. So I decided to try out the Vorkosigan Saga because it seems like a pretty big one, and one that's not hardcore because I don't know if I'm ready for that.

I'm still not sure what I think. This was a decent start to a long series. It took some time to get going, with a lot of exposition given through conversations and not a lot of action, just spurts of it here and there. Lots of politics. A romance where a few days together affects each of the characters’ lives, choices and loyalty forever but I didn’t really feel their relationship at the time. I enjoyed the inter-cultural dynamics and cataclysmic war - and the worm holes and some of the tech, even though I didn't feel like there was really enough of it in this book. There was some 80s pop-psychology that kind of dated it a little bit. When the action did get going, I liked it.

Generally, I liked it but wasn’t really wowed. From what I’ve heard, the ones that focus on Miles are the ‘good ones’ so I’m just taking this as an intro. I’ll hold judgement for a couple more books, I think.



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