Fiction

Review – Heartless (The Parasol Protectorate #4)

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Heartless is the fourth book in The Parasol Protectorate series following, Soulless, Changeless, and Blameless. Consider this your spoiler warning.

In book four of The Parasol Protectorate series, we meet up with Alexia, who at this point is very much pregnant and still very much living her life. Her husband, Lord Conall Maccon, is trying to integrate a new member into his pack, Biffy, who used to be a drone of Lord Akeldama’s, and get Alexia to sit still for a moment. Alexia, however, is less concerned with daily life and whether or not she should still be in public in her condition than with solving a problem with the local hives, surviving assignation attempts on her life (of which there seem to be many), and solving a pack problem. When things finally start to come together, another problem arises leaving Alexia once more the only person with answers.

It’s amazing that Alexia manages to survive her pregnancy at all. She doesn’t slow down at all; in fact, there are more attempts on her life in one week than maybe the three previous books combined. It’s highly entertaining. I also loved the addition of Biffy to the werewolf pack and all the adjustments that come with it. Biffy has always been a favorite of mine and to see him struggling with his new, unasked for life, was a nice addition to the story that’s mostly lighthearted and ridiculous in the most wonderful way possible. I also enjoyed the way Alexia, the most practical and analytical of people, thinks of the soon to come child — the infant inconvenience. She talks to it with commands — Alexia isn’t one for loving tones. When she yells in a much displeased tone, it’s her way of telling a person she loves them.

These books have been a guilty pleasure of mine these last few months and I’ve been dolling them out slowly knowing there are only five and the series will soon be coming to an end. What I love about them is the crazy lives of the characters, their habits, the totally unbelievable situations they get into and out of, and how everyone fits together in some way or another. These books will entertain you to the very last page. Crazy hats, Victorian manners, vampire hives, dapper drones, messy werewolves, pack politics, and ever messier pack leaders. Read them and be entertained.

Heartless (The Parasol Protectorate #4)

By Gail Carriger

Orbit

ISBN: 9780316179959

4 stars

Review – The Name of the Wind

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Kote is a man of secrets but you wouldn’t know it. For as much as anyone knows, he’s a quiet tavern owner who doesn’t get involved in the lives of his patrons. When Chronicler, a man who collects stories and is after the story of a man named Kvothe, stops at Kote’s Waystone Inn, he finds not only the story but the man. Kvothe — who now goes by the name of Kote and is enjoying life as a tavern owner — begins his story with his happy childhood being cruelly taken from him, his years living alone with his sadness, his survival on the streets, and years at university. As his life story unfolds, as do many questions — who exactly is Kvothe and what kind of power does he hold?

The book started a little slow for me and I wasn’t sure I was going to like it even though I had very high hopes for it. It came highly recommended and I didn’t want to give up before I found the goodness I was promised. In the end, my worries disappeared and I got caught up in the story Kvothe was telling wondering how his young self would handle the next problem. He’s immature and incredibly smart (he gets into university years before he should have even been considered) and because of this, he gets into one problem after the other. Somehow, this didn’t bother me at all because at this point I was too caught up in the story he was telling to care. I was also entranced with the magical world he was becoming a part of. The university itself is an interesting place and seeing Kvothe trying to fit in was a story in itself but that’s not all. He quickly becomes a part of the university but sees more of the underground than most and he refuses to let go of one subject — the Chandrain. He must find out how and why the Chandrain killed his parents. I wanted these answers too and was glad to see it didn’t fade into the background of the story.

What I really liked about this book, besides the world building which is top grade, is the way it’s told. It’s Kvothe’s own words. He tells you his life story and it has a very personal feel. Because of this I didn’t want to stop reading once I got into the story.

This is the first book in a series followed by A Wise Man’s Fear. I will be reading the next book in the series. It’s my first Rothfuss and I’m looking forward to more. His writing style is quiet, much like his character Kvothe, but he has a way of bringing you into a story and making you feel as if you can’t leave until it’s finished. It’s addictive writing. It’s addictive storytelling.

This review feels so inadequate. Here’s the thing, if you like fantasy, you should read this book. That’s all you need to know.

The Name of the Wind

By Patrick Rothfuss

Daw Books, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-7564-0474-1

4.25 stars

Review – Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate #3)

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This is book three in The Parasol Protectorate series following Soulless and Changeless.

You know the drill. This is book three in a series, and I’ll try to stay away from specific spoilers but consider this your warning.

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon if you will, is pregnant. Conall, her werewolf husband, has tossed her out and she’s the scandal of the day for London society. She wants out of her parent’s house, not only are her sisters and mother incorrigible, but she can’t stand them or the gossip any longer. When she finds out they leaked her “condition” to the press, she packs up and heads to Lord Akeldama’s house, the rogue vampire she’s close friends with, only to find he’s flown town. So, with few other options open to her, she heads to Italy to hide and see if she can find out if anyone knows whether or not she’ll be able to carry her baby — the infant inconvenience — to term and whether or not she’ll be able to be in the same room with it once it’s born.

Alexia and her little band of friends can’t go anywhere without a problem following them, trying to bite them, or trying to eat them. You get the point. While I preferred the settings of London and Scotland to Italy, it was still entertaining. Alexia, and her love of food, finds pesto to be the most wonderful food and coffee to be the most abhorrent thing ever. While I missed Conall in the beginning, he being at home in Scotland drunk on formaldehyde (there are only so many things that can get a werewolf drunk you see), I did like seeing so much of Professor Lyall, his Beta, in this one. And Conall managed to prove he’s still Alpha — drunk and stupid as ever.

I think that’s enough for now. I don’t want to give everything away and you were warned of spoilers. I leave you with me pining for Heartless and Timeless which will be read sooner rather than later.

Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate #3)

By Gail Carriger

Orbit
ISBN-13: 9780316082563

4 stars

Review – The Gathering

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The Gathering is a sad book and several times I had to put it down for my own sanity but it was so good I had to pick it up again. It’s a heart wrenching ordeal of a book and I felt like I was getting kicked repeatedly while reading this one.

Veronica’s brother, Liam, has committed suicide. She is the one who has to retrieve his body from London and bring it back home to Ireland for burial. On the way, she contemplates her life, her marriage, which she knows is failing, and her grief for a life she wants and the life she has. Her grief takes on incredible highs and lows and she comes to the realization that there are no right answers for her, in fact, there may not be any answers at all which makes her want to run even further from everything in her life. She doesn’t know what to do or think and takes to blaming family, loved ones, and everyone in between.

If I didn’t get this across earlier, the book is profoundly sad but realistic in the portrayal of grief and its many forms. There’s a mother paralyzed by every decision she must make. There are numerous brothers and sisters drinking their way through the burial preparations and the funeral. Veronica begins writing again in the midst of everything falling down around her but it brings her no solace or any closer to the answers she wants. Her children are a small grace in her life but she can’t be with them and enjoy those moments of peace. She spends her days overcome with hatred for her husband that she can’t appreciate any bright spot in her life.

There are some happy flashes of remembrance in this book, as there always are in times of grief. Getting family together is always a gamble and tensions are always so much higher when a death is the reason for the gathering. What I liked about this book was the authenticity of the people involved and their emotions. Not everyone grieves in the same way and Enright made this all feel very real. There were no overly joyous or crazy sad moments in this book. Even a sad book needs a few light moments to keep it going and there were no jumps in this book that struck me as odd.

I gave this book 5 stars and I don’t have much more to say about it. I’m slightly speechless because it was so good but also too much in many respects. It’s one of those books that truly has a time and a place. I wouldn’t recommend picking this one up on a whim as I did. I bought this one months ago and came across it while looking for something new to read. I wasn’t prepared in any way for a book that stunned me with the raw emotion this one did.

The Gathering

By Anne Enright

Black Cat New York

ISBN-13: 9780802170392

5 stars

Review – Shadow of Night

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In Shadow of Night, we pick up with Diana Bishop, now Diana Clairmont, and her new husband Matthew in 1590 Elizabethan England. Having time walked back to 1590 to find a witch capable of understanding Diana’s magic and who can teach her how to control her powers, the two soon get caught up in 16th Century English politics and court intrigue. It’s a particularly fascinating place for Diana, being the scholar that she is, but for Matthew the new setting brings on a fresh set of problems and emotions. Matthew, a vampire who once hunted down witches, now has to reconcile his old role as witch hunter which is more than difficult now that over 400 years later, he finds himself married to a witch. He also must come to some understanding with his father — a man he knows as dead in his present.

In only a few months, Diana and Matthew have to find Ashmole 782, the mysterious book that brought them together months ago in their present time at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Hoping it may still be intact in 1590, they’re both somewhat optimistic that Diana’s burgeoning powers can help them understand who they are, what they are, and what will happen to their families. All the while they are dealing with Matthew’s past, well-known historical figures — Queen Elizabeth I anyone? — famous playwrights, witches, family drama, and weddings. Diana and Matthew not only have to figure out how to be married but also how to be a witch and vampire married to each other while looking for a book that they hope holds the answers to their future.

Matthew is still his controlling self — he’s a vampire but it’s still hard to ignore this annoying trait of his — but Diana is finally starting to understand what her witch heritage means, how to control her powers, and starts to stand her ground. Once reluctant to accept witchcraft, she finally begins using it and accepting it as part of who she is. Something her husband, a man who wants to control everything, struggles with as well. Their relationship becomes more of a partnership in the second book. These two obviously have picked a strange road to follow and one that many don’t see ending happily. I felt this second book in the All Souls trilogy (Shadow of Night is the second book in the series following A Discovery of Witches) had a bit less mystery for me but a lot more intrigue. I enjoyed the numerous strange characters that appeared and we finally get a look at Matthew’s past. Getting to meet Matthew’s family and friends explains his sometimes irrational mood swings and what both he and Diana will be facing in their life together.

I’m a series reader and am happy to say that Shadow of Night kept up with A Discovery of Witches. Book two in a trilogy can sometimes feel like a place holder, and while Diana and Matthew’s questions aren’t answered, their lives do move on and I liked seeing their relationship change. They both wonder about their intrusions on the past and how their actions will alter their futures and the past. Diana finally accepts witchcraft as part of who she is but there are few precious hints at what it will hold for her future self. Matthew’s history hits him full on in 1590 and Diana understands for the first time why her husband falls into such dark places.

In short, time walking, famous dead people, more vampires, witches, and daemons, and lots of magic shape book two in the All Souls trilogy. And yes, I’m now sitting and hoping Deborah Harkness writes faster because I’m anxious to know what happens to Diana and Matthew.

In addition to this blog, I also do reviews for The Book Reporter website. The above review was done for the Book Reporter which can be found here. The book was provided to me by the publisher.

Shadow of Night

Deborah Harkness

Viking Adult

ISBN: 9780670023486

4.5 stars

 

Review – The Invisible Man

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I was looking for something short to read and came across an old beat-up copy of The Invisible Man on our shelves. It seemed like the perfect book — a little science fiction, a compact story, something to read while sitting on the roof enjoying a sunny afternoon.

Griffin, a scientist, invents a machine that uses optics to make things invisible to the naked eye. He tests his machine, and the procedure, on himself. He completes the process but he doesn’t have time to reverse it before he is kicked out of the inn where he’s conducting his experiments by the people of the town who don’t trust him. With no options, and no desire to explain himself or his work, he leaves the inn in his new invisible state. He steals to get what he needs then enlists a man to assist him in getting his notes back from the inn where he abandoned them. When he, and his invisible state, are reported to the authorities, Griffin flips and goes on a bit of a terror spree wanting to get back at the man who betrayed him.

The science fiction aspect of the book is interesting and the explanation believable. Griffin wasn’t a likable character though — he’s arrogant, mean, and capable of murder. I kept wondering what it was that made him that way because I didn’t believe it could have been the invisibility alone. He does tell his story but it doesn’t do anything to help his cause considering he openly talks of murder, setting fire to a place to hide his work, and robbing people. I’m fine with not liking the main character and here Griffin is really just being used as social commentary anyway so I understood the reasoning for it even if he didn’t appeal to me.

Having not read much HG Wells since high school, I was slightly stunned to find I didn’t like this one as much as I thought I would. Don’t misinterpret that, I did like it, just not love it. I’m a person that likes to bond with the main character and here that wasn’t possible. The reader isn’t supposed to like Griffin but even knowing that didn’t help me. For me, he was the cruel scientist bent on revenge not caring about the people he was planning to hurt along the way to get what he wanted.

As I’m writing this review I’m beginning to wonder if I’m experiencing an aversion to Wells’s writing and now I’m thinking of going back to re-read The Time Machine to see what I think of that. Interesting how that happens to me sometimes.

The Invisible Man

By HG Wells

Watermill Press

3.5 stars

French Pirates and Dragons

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Don’t see the connection? I went to the library and this is what I came home with. Well, not actual pirates and dragons but close enough.

Honestly, it’s been months since I’ve been to my library and there are a couple reasons for that. Reason number one — the books on my shelf have been calling! But I decided it was time and off I went to the lovely place with all the books. On this visit, I held myself to two books.

Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier — I’ve had this in my hands before but never got around to it but that won’t happen this time. I will finally get to this one, and really all I have to say, is French Pirates!

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton — I’m reading Among Others right now and enjoying it and thought why not go for another one. Why not the one with the dragons?

What I’m Reading Today

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I started Among Others by Jo Walton the other day. It took me a few pages to get into but I’m really enjoying it now. At first, I had trouble with the tone and the fact that I have no history on the characters with the exception of what Mori, the narrator and main character, offers up, which isn’t much. Somewhere in those first few chapters, more accurately dairy entries, I started to admire her for her reading choices — J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula La Guin— and her love of the library. For a story I wasn’t sure I was going to finish, this book is ending stronger than it started for me.

Have you read this book? Thoughts?