Nook Read

Review – A Clash of Kings

/ justbookreading / Leave a comment

A Clash of Kings

By George RR Martin

Bantam Books

eISBN: 978-0-553-89785-2

5 stars

Spoilers abound so feel free to skip this review if you want to read the series yourself and experience it without my opinions.  No feelings will be hurt in the process.  And, honestly, I don’t know how else to write this review without spoilers considering so much is going on in this series.

If you’re interested, my thoughts on A Game of Thrones can be found here.

In reading about these books, one thing that always comes up is that Martin if not a writer afraid of killing off main characters.  I love this and hate it at the same time — I become attached and he takes away just like that.   A shame but it’s also wondrous.  He’s writing about a medieval world where people are constantly fighting and in most cases, one or more lose their heads.  The death of main characters in his books makes total sense when you look at on the whole.

Beginning A Clash of Kings exactly where A Game of Thrones left off, Eddard Stark has lost his head, taken off by the new boy king, Joffrey, who spends his days being cruel to Stark’s daughter, Sansa, who was promised to be his wife.  All of Westeros is at war with no less than four men proclaiming themselves king including Robb Stark who now calls himself King of the North.  The capital, King’s Landing, is in flux with Joffrey as king, her mother Cersei playing Queen’s Regent, and her dwarf brother, Tyrion, acting as the hand to the king.  Chances for peace low, fighting goes on with everyone dying at a rate one has trouble imagining.  Daenerys, a young widow but still refusing to accept the loss of her power now that she’s tasted it, is still contemplating how to return and Jon Snow, Stark’s bastard son, is finding life as a member of the Night’s Watch more dark and despairing than he ever thought possible.

Wow.  If I had to use one word that would be all I need to describe this book.  Martin tells this story from 7, 11, 13 (I didn’t count them all but there are many) points of view.  It feels overwhelming sometimes but there’s too much going to and you can’t put it down.  You keep reading and reading interested to know what’s going to happen to each and every character.  You have that much invested.

For as much as I want to keep going with this series, I’m taking it very slow.  I could simply devour every one of these books one after the other, but I won’t.  I’m forcing myself to take it slow; one book every few months.  I’m doing this for several reasons: 1.) it’s a planned seven book series, only five books are written with the fifth coming out this July; 2.) if I come to the end of book five with nothing to look forward to for years, I may go into some sort of withdrawal and I can’t have that.

If you have a chance to pick up this series, do it.  It’s intimidating, 800+ pages, but the story is so good, fantastic really, that you’ll be completely entranced.  I highly recommend this book and the whole series, even though I’m only on book two.

Review – The Hypnotist

/ justbookreading / 4 Comments

The Hypnotist

By MJ Rose

Mira Books

ISBN: 978-1-4268-5469-9

4 stars

Lucian Glass is an FBI agent with the Art Crime Team, a long suffering artist, and a man damaged by not only his past but his job.  Working though a recent head injury, headaches plague him along with dreams of unknown women and the love of his life — a woman murdered at 19 years of age.  Attacked in the same robbery where his girlfriend lost her life, Lucian lives with guilt over not being able to save her and surviving.  That guilt pours over into his job tracking and retrieving stolen art.  When he is pulled into a case involving his dead girlfriend’s family, his life takes one stumble after the other pulling him into a game with too many players all wanting the same thing.

The Hypnotist is the third book in The Reincarnationist series.  I haven’t read the two previous books:  The Reincarnationist and The Memorist.  As a standalone book, The Hypnotist worked but as a person who loves a series, I wished I had read the two earlier ones but was already into this one when I realized that was the case.

Lucian is a tortured person and one who doesn’t seem to want much help either.  As a character, he can be frustrating but it also lends him the sad artist persona, sketching away in his notebook trying to ease headaches that only cease when he’s frantically drawing women he doesn’t know.  A sculpture with a mythical power that no one understands fully is at the center of the story but the focus is on its heist, however, I wanted to know more about what it could do.  It was a part of the story I started to get into when it ended.  In fact, a few of the story lines ended abruptly for me but also left me wondering if another book is in the works.

I liked this book and moved through it fast.  I’m a lover of museums and staring at art for no other reason than to admire its simple beauty and I found myself getting entranced by that aspect of the story.  I haven’t been to the MET in years (much of the story takes places there) and this book made me want to go back.  It also made me want to pick up the other two books to get the back story

I won this book through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.  The book was downloaded as an ebook from NetGalley.

Teaser Tuesdays – A Clash of Kings

/ justbookreading / Leave a comment

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so other participants know what you’re reading.

I’m still working my way through A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin.  It’s a long book (874 on my Nook) but I’m also intentionally reading slow because I’m enjoying it way too much for it to end.

She is not breathing.  Dany listened to the silence.  None of them are breathing, and they do not move, and those eyes see nothing.  Could it be that the Undying Ones were dead? (pg. 608 on Nook)

Teaser Tuesdays – A Clash of Kings

/ justbookreading / 3 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so other participants know what you’re reading.

I was saving this book but finally gave in and started it the other day — A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin.

It was just the sort of notion that would appeal to Renly Baratheon; a splendid new order of knighthood, with gorgeous new raiment to proclaim it.  Even as a boy, Renly had loved bright colors and rich fabrics, and he loved his games as well. (pg. 16 on Nook)

Today’s Book

/ justbookreading / 2 Comments

Sometimes you read a new to you author and really like his/her style.  You pick up a second book and then maybe a third and that’s when you go from like to love.  That’s me and China Miéville’s writing right now.  I started with The City & The City and enjoyed it.  Moved on to Kraken and adored it.  I’m now reading Un Lun Dun and loving it.

Why you might ask?  Lines like this one…

“I’m Margarita Staples.”  She bowed in her harness.  “Extreme librarian.  Bookaneer.” (pg. 154 on Nook)

Such a sucker for a book reference in a book.

Review – The Forever Queen

/ justbookreading / 2 Comments

The Forever Queen

By Helen Hollick

Source Books

ISBN: 1402240686

4.5 stars

Emma was 13 years-old when her brother, the Norman King, married her off to the English King Æthelred.  Besides her being anointed Queen in her own right, it’s a terrible match that at times humiliates and terrifies Emma.  Her husband, who spent his life being ruled by his mother, has no idea what it takes to be a king let alone a decent man.  When Danish invaders take control, he capitulates and later dies a sad and very lonely death.  Not knowing what will become of her or her children now that the Danish king is in control of her land, Emma offers herself in marriage to Cnut, the Danish King, making him through her the new English King.  Her second marriage is much happier than her first and she and her country spend many content years with Cnut as their king.

When Cnut dies, Emma fears the loss of her crown and understands deeply the threat her country faces the day that Cnut’s son from his first marriage appears to lay claim to the thrown which he believes to be rightly his.  When her son with Cnut, Harthacnut, does not return to England to fight for the crown, she recalls her long abandoned sons from her first marriage, Edward and Alfred, to return with disastrous consequences forcing Emma to once again fight to keep her crown and position as Queen.

I usually don’t write such long descriptions in my reviews but I felt this one, being as long as it is (793 pages on my Nook) and the length of Emma’s rule, deserved a longer than normal introduction.  Emma, while not a likable character — she’s disgusted by her husband and her sons from her first marriage, isn’t motherly, is outwardly cruel to her husband and sons (the husband deserving though), and cares in some cases more for her crown and title as Queen above all else — is intensely interesting.  Her life is anything but boring; sad yes, horrid in some cases, lonely, and when she finds happiness there is always something that threatens it (another wife, more sons).  While I still don’t know if I liked her, I couldn’t put this book down wondering what would happen to her next.

Hollick is a great writer of historical fiction and since reading her Arthurian legend trilogy last year, she’s shot up my list of favorite authors.  While there were a few slow parts and an incredible list of characters to keep track of, I still liked this book a lot.  She picks subjects and characters whose parts in actual history may have been forgettable but gives them a fictional voice that makes them unforgettable.

Review – The Lost World

/ justbookreading / 5 Comments

The Lost World

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

B&R Samizdat Express

E-Book

After reading The Lost City of Z by David Grann last year, I immediately downloaded The Lost World to my Nook.  Grann references the book in his story about Percy Fawcett whom Conan Doyle credits with the idea for his story that became The Lost World.  On a night when I needed something to read and was craving more non-fiction than fiction but couldn’t even feign hope in the book I picked, I browsed the Nook and found my copy of The Lost World.  A short book, my version is a mere 174 pages, I thought it would be the perfect distraction.

I was right on one level — it was distracting but in a good way.  Conan Doyle, is known better to me as the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories, surprised me in that the story he was telling felt familiar and foreign all at the same time.  The Lost World is the story a newspaper reporter looking for his big story break and thanks to a tip from an editor, he finds himself wrapped up in the tale of Professor Challenger who believes he found a prehistoric world on a plateau in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.  And if you’re wondering, yes it comes complete with caveman and a t-rex.

What makes the story work is the length.  Conan Doyle’s stories were published in segments and you can easily get the feel of that here but it works without feeling punctuated.  The four men that take on the expedition, Professor Challenger, Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and Edward Malone are interesting characters.  Challenger and Summerlee both have agendas and are out to prove something — for Challenger it’s to prove the world he’s been ridiculed for discovering exists and Summerlee is out to prove Challenger is the fraud he believes him to be.  While Malone is chasing the story of his life to appease the woman he loves with the hopes of a marriage, Roxton is the true explorer who wants to satiate a curiosity.  The four men, and yes it’s a story all about men, come together to form an interesting tale that will keep you interested even if you know the end.

This year I’m trying to delve deeper into author backlists and while my Sherlock Holmes knowledge is still rather shallow, this was a fun little story and I’m glad I took the time to read it.

Review – The Last Pendragon: A Tale of Dark Age Wales

/ justbookreading / 2 Comments

The Last Pendragon: A Tale of Dark Age Wales

By Sarah Woodbury

Smashwords Edition

EAN: 2940011110184

3.5 stars

Rhiann’s father, the King of Gwynedd, is a cruel man and sees her only virtue as what she can bring him through marriage.  She spends her dreary days turning down any available man her father brings to his hall.  As a bastard child, her choices are running low and she may find herself married to the next man her father brings to his hall.  When Cadwaladr (Cade), the last of the Pendragons, is drug bleeding into her father’s hall, she’s stunned by his appearance.  When she is sent to help him with his wounds and he refuses her help, Rhiann finds she wants to help him even more.  With the help of her stepmother, who also happens to be Cadwaladr’s mother, she escapes with him.  She soon finds out that he’s not exactly who she thought he was.  He’s brave, prepared to fight, a man born to lead men, and he’s also not quite human.

Many re-tellings of Arthurian legend tend to include some form of the supernatural.  It’s sometimes magic used by Merlin, some form of a seer, the sword which in some stories is pulled from an enchanted stone or is given to Arthur by a goddess.  In others, Morgaine or Morgan le Fay, Arthur’s sister, is the one in possession of the magical abilities and there is usually a goddess that has chosen Arthur, or his decedents, for the task of reuniting the people of his land, and more often than not, Saxons are involved.  Woodbury includes most of these elements in some fashion, and while I tend to prefer the non-magical Arthurian legend stories, this one has an interesting twist that made it appealing.  Cade is a form of a daemon which makes him invincible to a degree baring his head doesn’t become dislodged from his body or his heart pierced.  Cade also feels drained by the sunlight and while clearly not a vampire, felt a little too close for me in terms of symptoms/afflictions.

I like character driven stories and once I become attached, even if I was a little leery, I stayed till the end.  One thing that did bother me, and bothered me a lot, was this — the names were all very similar.  I appreciate that the author was staying true to the story by using Welsh names, even if I can’t pronounce them, but they were all too similar and it took me a long time to get them straight.  Even Cade’s horse’s name (Cadfan) was too close to his own name for me.

I was in a slight reading slump when I picked this one up.  I was thoroughly relying on my love of Arthurian legend to pull me through.  It did.  It won’t rank high on my list of best of Arthurian legend stories but it was an interesting re-telling.