Month: December 2018

White Stag

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Permafrost, Book 1
by Kara Barbieri

I am so torn about this book. On the one hand, it’s well written: the style is lovely and I slipped into the story well enough. The story about coming to terms with your identity and embracing yourself was powerful. But there was so much that just… bugged me about it. And it was only after I finished the book and took a step back that I realized what it was. 

Summary

The first book in a brutally stunning series where a young girl finds herself becoming more monster than human and must uncover dangerous truths about who she is and the place that has become her home.

As the last child in a family of daughters, seventeen-year-old Janneke was raised to be the male heir. While her sisters were becoming wives and mothers, she was taught to hunt, track, and fight. On the day her village was burned to the ground, Janneke—as the only survivor—was taken captive by the malicious Lydian and eventually sent to work for his nephew Soren.

Janneke’s survival in the court of merciless monsters has come at the cost of her connection to the human world. And when the Goblin King’s death ignites an ancient hunt for the next king, Soren senses an opportunity for her to finally fully accept the ways of the brutal Permafrost. But every action he takes to bring her deeper into his world only shows him that a little humanity isn’t bad—especially when it comes to those you care about.

Through every battle they survive, Janneke’s loyalty to Soren deepens. After dangerous truths are revealed, Janneke must choose between holding on or letting go of her last connections to a world she no longer belongs to. She must make the right choice to save the only thing keeping both worlds from crumbling.

Musings

Let’s start with the good. As I said, it’s well written. There’s a massive effort in the worldbuilding and the plot itself is really creative. I liked how it all tied together in the end, and it makes for a strong standalone (even if a series is planned, so this is a good sign since the author isn’t leading us on). There was a lot that came together making it a strong fantasy novel. 

But there were a few things that irked me. For starters, GOBLINS. They’re not goblins. They’re fae or whatever, “unearthly beautiful” and wildly dangerous. They have nothing to do with anything goblin! Where’s the thievery? The enticing food that traps the eater? Not Goblins, and no matter how many times the author insists they are, you can’t just take a mythos and slap another name on them to make it sexy. 

The book is dark, violent, psychological. Which is good. But the rape component is just this character abuse that isn’t necessary for the story. The book would have read the same if she was just tortured without the rape. The disfigurement makes for an interesting character, making her thoroughly more complex, but we didn’t need the extra shock value. It is not handled with the care something so horrible deserves: it’s just there to make us feel worse for her. 

Now for the romance. I really liked Soren and thought he was a really great character, complex and unique. But their relationship is really weak for two people who have fought side by side for the past 100 years! Jenneke sometimes acts like she’s only known him a few weeks, which makes Soren’s “sudden” interest in her really weird. It picked up towards the end, and I was happy to see them together, but for the first few chapters, it was like they barely knew each other at all. 

All in all, I’ll probably read the next book, but I can’t get the image of a three-foot-tall pimply goblin out of my head.

Expected Publication January 8th 2019 by Wednesday Books

The Guilded Wolves

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by Roshani Chokshi

What a fun little gem of a book! Having just read Six of Crows for the first time only a week ago, I found the resemblance startling – but in form only. The story is rich and fast-paced, with all the magic Chokshi brings to her books. It was exciting to see her take the magic of her usually Indian inspired novels and bring them to Paris, nothing lost in the transition. Her rich worldbuilding and colorful detail made this book a joy to read.

Summary

Set in a darkly glamorous world, The Gilded Wolves is full of mystery, decadence, and dangerous but thrilling adventure.

Paris, 1889: The world is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. In this city, no one keeps tabs on secrets better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier, Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. But when the all-powerful society, the Order of Babel, seeks him out for help, Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined: his true inheritance.

To find the ancient artifact the Order seeks, Séverin will need help from a band of experts: An engineer with a debt to pay. A historian who can’t yet go home. A dancer with a sinister past. And a brother in all but blood, who might care too much.

Together, they’ll have to use their wits and knowledge to hunt the artifact through the dark and glittering heart of Paris. What they find might change the world, but only if they can stay alive.

Musings

Chokshi has created an alternate Paris where magic is commonplace and the Order of Babel retains control. Babel pieces hidden from the world allow forgers to create beautiful and dangerous items, which give this alternate world technology similar to ours. It is here, in the lavish hands of the order, that our story takes place.

The crew of this Oceans-Eleven-Meets-Indiana-Jones-with-Magic book is diverse and easy to relate to:

Séverin, the heir to the third house of the French Order of Babel, stripped of his title due to nefarious reasons and politics. He owns a hotel, L’eden, and secretly runs heists to steal the most remarkable forged objects the world has ever seen, along with his team.
Laila from India, with an ability to read people’s history while holding an object of their possession, with an amazing talent for baking and one of the best dancers Paris has ever seen. (Can she be my best friend, please?)
Enrique, the Spanish/Filipino historian with a great sense of sarcasm and who occasionally remembers how to act human.
Zofia the mathematician/engineer of Polish Jewish descent, kicked out of university for her dangerous magical affinity, who only seems to tolerate people and would much rather ber tinkering.
Tristan, the recluse botanist, and who is a very recluse sort of person, with his gigantic pet spider he seems to love more than anyone else.
And unoficially, Hypnos, heir to another French House, a French aristocrat of mixed race, which doesn’t sit well with his peers, making him defy expectation at every turn.

Together, they need to solve the clues to basically save France, using their own set of skills. It involves cunning, deceit, and a fair bit of math, along with amazing forged gadgets a bit à la James Bond with a scoop of magic. You get to know each of the characters just enough to relate to them, though I wish I had more time to know them more. If I had one disappointment to say of the book, it would be that it was too fast: in some places, it got confusing because the action piled up and the points of view were all over the place, and it could have been paced down to show us more about the characters and their past.

All and all, I’m getting the hardcover. This book is sure to be a hit and I can’t wait for the sequel!

Expected publication: January 15th 2019 by Wednesday Books

But I still have no idea why the book was called The Gilded Wolves 😛

Isolation Junction

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by Jennifer Gilmour

I knew going into this book that the topic was going to be a difficult one, and I was prepared. Emotional abuse is no joke, affecting thousands of people each day, and I have been lucky enough to have never had to go through the painful life Rose struggles through from page one.

Summary

100 reasons to leave, 1,000 reasons to stay

When Rose married the love of her life she was expecting the perfect family life she’d always dreamed of, but before her first child was born her husband, Darren, changed.

Almost overnight Rose’s life is turned upside down and the life she’d envisioned seemed like an impossible dream.

As Darren’s abuse deepens, Rose has 100 reasons to leave but 1,000s why she can’t. Will she ever escape the hellish life she and her children are trapped in?

Can Rose stop her life spiralling further out of control?
Can she find the life she desperately wants for her children?
Stuck at Isolation Junction, which way will Rose turn?

Musings

When Rose first meets Darren, he’s the perfect gentleman. Handsome and caring, he makes her feel like a princess. Her parents warn her about the age gap, but she doesn’t care: she’s in love with the perfect man and… he won’t let her go.

Very quickly, their relationship dissolves into one abuse. Darren is manipulative and scary, quickly isolating Rose from her family and friends. If she ever notices, he quickly turns the situation around until she’s the bad guy, or claims nothing happened at all – gaslighting her. Every staple of a toxic relationship can be found, and while it’s painfully evident to us readers, Rose falls deeper and deeper into this trap until she feels there’s no escape.

How does one escape when they haven’t spoken to their family and years? When the man who they married is holding their children basically as hostages? When you’re constantly looking over your shoulder for fear of him finding something new to punish you for?

Isolation Junction packs a powerful punch. As I mentioned above, it ticks off every sign of a toxic/abusive relationship. In one emotional moment in the novel, Rose goes through the list of what makes a relationship abusive. The list says “If you have answered YES to any one of these questions, then it is abusive” – and she realizes she has said yes to every one of them. We feel for Rose, we want her to escape, for her children to be safe. We want her to break free.

It was harder to get involved with the character since the book is written in an odd style, partially between fiction and what feels like an autobiography. Emotions are stright on the page and a little jumbled. We feel on the outside looking in, like there’s a window between us and Rose. Because of this, some emotional or painful moments don’t land as hard as they should. When Rose tries to reclaim her children, now that is a moment where I felt involved; when Darren’s family backs him up, now there, I felt involved. But for the rest of the novel, I was an outsider.

Another thing that was a little odd was how some moments were repeated by the author but told differently. For example, her home business is introduced twice, and now I’m not quite sure what she does. Or when she describes what finally broke the relationship between her and Darren, but we read that scene and it wasn’t exactly that? Some details I don’t mention here because they could be Darren’s gaslighting contorting Rose’s memories, but these re-descriptions pulled me further out of the story.

Even so, this book does an amazing job of raising awareness. For many people who don’t see the red flags at first, this book could open their eyes. For friends, this is a good way to spot the warning signs of a loved one being in an abusive relationship. It’s also a reminder of how difficult it still is for people to escape these relationships (if Tim wasn’t there, I don’t know how Rose would have done it, no matter how strong she is) and that we need to be there for our friends in their times of need.

Isolation Junction is an honest and raw look at the torment of domestic abuse, and a reminder for everyone that their voice matters.

Sawkill Girls

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by Claire Legrand

I picked up this book after seeing it all over bookstagram, not knowing exactly what to expect. The blurb made me think that it would be a story of cookie-cutter girls and ancient magic, but then I got sucked into the book and realized all my assumptions were dead wrong. 

Summary

Beware of the woods and the dark, dank deep.

He’ll follow you home, and he won’t let you sleep.

Who are the Sawkill Girls?

Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.

Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.

Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.

Musings

Each of the girls is incredibly complex: Marion, morning the loss of her father, trying to be a rock for her sister and mother; Zoey, investigating the disappearance of her best friend and dealing with a shaky relationship with her romantic ex but still best friend; and Val, the ever beautiful, popular girl, who we see immediately as being way more than what Zoey thinks of her. 

I was a little let down when the author almost instantly revealed what was taking the girls on Sawkill rock, and thought “wow, there goes that mystery,” but I quickly realized that wasn’t the point of the story. No, figuring out what has been taking the girls isn’t the core of the book: it’s how the Sawkill Girls fight back. And that’s where the true strength of this novel comes from, the women. How Marion, Zoey, and Val, bring friendship, sisterhood, womanhood to the fight. 

I loved how every time I expected the book to go one way, it instead turned the narrative on its head. This book made me angry, in the best way possible. I made me grit my teeth and shout out in anger. When they introduced the ‘secret society’ I thought the author was stepping into trope territory, but no, she was calling them out. Every trope is brought to the light and beaten repeatedly until it promises never to show its ugly head again. Finishing this book – because I had to read it in one go, it was impossible to put down – I felt the same way as I did stepping out of Wonder Woman. I need more books like these, books that make me feel angry, bolstered and empowered. 

The gentler side of the book was also worthy of applause. An unexpected romantic relationship between two of the girls was perfect, hitting every note of what a YA needs. It was sweet, romantic, even sexy, and entirely woven into the plot of the story (so many books just tack f/f relationships on for the extra diversity sticker, without any actual care. This book doesn’t do that.) On top of that, this has to be the BEST representation of Asexuality I have ever read, anywhere. So perfect. 

While I went into this book with mild expectations, it has quickly become one of my favorite reads this year. Bold, unputdownable, and making me crave a re-read right away. Now let’s tear down the monsters of this world. 

November, in Comics

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I haven’t done a monthly wrap up for a while. It’s been a hectic few months, what with the masters ramping up and the stress level through the roof. But this past month I’ve turned to one of my favorite novel forms for entertainment: graphic novels, and comics. 

It’s been so absolutely fantastic to read these beauties. Every one of them brought a smile to my face, and I thought, hey – why not tell people about them? Change things up a little bit from my usual type of post?

Without further ado, I give you five great graphic novels/comics that will warm you up as we go into December.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Vol. 1: The Crucible

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, the young sorceress Sabrina Spellman finds herself at a crossroads, having to choose between an unearthly destiny and her mortal boyfriend, Harvey. But a foe from her family’s past has arrived in Greendale, Madame Satan, and she has her own deadly agenda. 

I honestly can’t say if I like the book or the show better!

While I don’t feel like we really get into Sabrina’s head in the comics, I loved the dark world the book portrays. Showing us something terrible and hinting at something much worse. It’s a great gritty horror comic which has me dying for more.

I wasn’t quite sure how much I liked the art style. At times, it felt rushed, a little hard to determine. The limited palette was an interesting touch, though, and makes this book really stand out. 

On A Sunbeam

Throughout the deepest reaches of space, a crew rebuilds beautiful and broken-down structures, painstakingly putting the past together. As Mia, the newest member, gets to know her team, the story flashes back to her pivotal year in boarding school, where she fell in love with a mysterious new student. When Mia grows close to her new friends, she reveals her true purpose for joining their ship—to track down her long-lost love.

This was an adorable graphic where all the characters are queer girls/women + one nonbinary person. A far flung future world full of girls, there were no male characters. I ended up impulse buying it because of the stunning cover, and the artwork inside is magical. 

It’s an amazing story about love and growth, exploring the universe in a quiet, beautiful way. Dream-like. I don’t have the words to describe how I feel after this book. It took me on an adventure, a journey, and I found pieces of myself along the way. It was quiet and beautiful and managed to coax some tears from me, too. Stunning!

Plume: The Omnibus

For Vesper Grey, there is the Before and the After. The Before is devastatingly boring; teacups and girdles, and an overbearing Aunt who makes life hell. The After is Corrick and the uncovered truth about a magical necklace. It is the Wild West, and it is an adventure that could very well change everything.

I bought the omnibus on the recommendation of a good friend, not knowing what to expect except his promise I was going to love it. He didn’t let me down: this comic is fun, thrilling, and impossible to put down. I loved every second of it. 

First of all, I have to say I love the artwork. The color palette is beautiful and the gold of Corrick’s eyes really sparkles on the page. It’s such a nice change from these rusty, cowboy comics. 

The story is just superb. Think Indiana Jones meets the Wild West. With MAGIC! I love Vesper’s character, she’s immediately relatable, spunky, and fun. The need for revenge flows through her and drives so many characters in this book, a theme that is explored from every which way. While I would love to see a live action movie, I think the comic is so spot on it can’t get any better than this. 

I don’t even know how to properly review it. I just want to shove it at people and say ‘READ’. Which I guess is how I got here in the first place!

Cthulhu is Hard to Spell: A Lovecraft Anthology

A comic anthology with 35 awesome stories about Lovecraftian gods and monsters, from fans to fans.

If you love Lovecraft, this is our love letter to Lovecraft fans of all kinds, from those that obsess about Cthulhu, to the ones that never want to leave Arkham, to the ones that keep a copy of the Necronomicon under their pillow, and everyone in between. Whether you are a casual fan or a rabid one, we’ve got you covered.

I absolutely love this anthology, chuck full of amazing stories spanning the whole range of genres and emotions! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and all just for the small price of pledging your life to the Dark Lord. Is he not merciful? 

Having written one of these stories, it’s difficult to remain unbiased. I know how much love and work went into each and every story, discovered incredible creators through this collaboration, even made friends. This anthology is a labor of love from everyone involved, and I can feel it in every story I read, which is why I love each and every one.

Shades of Magic #2: The Steel Prince

The Prince of Red London reaches the Blood Coast – and meets its infamous Pirate Queen.

A short review for a short comic, since this story is ongoing and not yet put into volumes. If you’re not following the Shades of Magic comic, hurry up and do, because it’s amazing. It’s got everything we love about V.E. Shwab’s bestselling series, and more, since the artwork is beautiful. In this issue, the story intensified as Maxim learns about the pirate queen and her dangerous bone magic. Cannot wait for the next installment!