Sally Bend's Blog, page 21
July 2, 2024
Book Review: I Dream of Dancing by Gwen Leonhard (romance)
Author: Gwen Leonhard
Publication Date: June 30, 2024
Genres: Romance
Protagonist Gender: Female
I Dream of Dancing was just a lovely story, a character-driven romance that’s full of relationship drama, but with the promise of fulfillment ahead. Gwen Leonhard has a wonderful style of writing that makes the story feel immediate and intense, with so many curious aspects of magic and mythology simply taken for granted, rather than being dwelled upon to the point of distraction.
The character arc of Acelina is delightful, even with her pain, trauma, and transition. She’s hurt others and been hurt herself, but all as part of finding herself and coming out as herself. Admitting her feelings for Florence means risking rejection and possibly ruining a friendship, but it’s something she’s ready to do. As for Florence, she welcomes the potential for romance, but she’s afraid of being hurt as Acelina’s lovers have been in the past. There’s jealousy and anxiety intertwined in both their feelings, but while so many authors create an artificial catalyst for unnaturally leaping past such an obstacle, Leonard takes the time to work through it naturally, forcing the characters to talk . . . to think . . . and to feel.
Watching these two women come together, explore their feelings, and choose to risk what they’ve had for what they could have is fabulous. Instead of racing through the date to get to bed, the story immerses itself in the date, makes the date the point of the story, and allows the reader to empathize and identify with both women. The longer the night went on, the more I wanted to know about them both, and when it comes time for the kiss . . . perfection!
Rating: 
My sincere thanks to the author for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
July 1, 2024
Book Review: No Road Home by John Fram (horror)
Author: John Fram
Publication Date: July 23, 2024 by Atria Books
Genres: Horror
Protagonist Gender: Male
No Road Home was a dark, creepy, atmospheric work of supernatural-laced horror with enough hate-worthy characters to carry the weight of reader anger, and just enough tolerable characters to do the same for reader sympathy. For the most part, this was a solid 5-star read, one that kept me reading late into the night. It captured my imagination, played upon my emotions, and triggered my intellectual curiosity.
I picked this up knowing nothing about John Fram, but the blurb sounded almost as if the book were written for me – a young father, his queer son, and a murdered televangelist, complete with family’s dangerous, a freak storm, and a spectral figure in a black suit – but I feel like it went even deeper than that. I was already prepared to loathe the Wright family, but their brutal hypocrisy and petty infighting added an element of glee to watching their house come tumbling down. They’re such a melodramatic group, like a family from a gothic soap opera, and the house is a suitably creepy maze of forbidden wings and locked doors. Add in the threats scrawled in blood-red lettering, the torn-up mysterious notes, and the conveniently interrupted would-be-confessions, and this is a book to keep you guessing and engaged.
So why just a 5-star read for the most part? The climax goes on for far too long, dragging out what should have been a tight, powerful, confrontational finale. After being a single-POV story for 85% of the read, it suddenly leaps into multiple POVs, with their narratives overlapping, to show every single part of the resolution when some would have been fine left to tell. Finally, after a prolonged (sometimes tiresome) theme of locked doors and repressed memories, we find out our narrator isn’t as reliable as he seems, and the big secret/spoiler feels like a cheat, given he knew it all along.
One thing I will say for the story is that it avoids the tendency toward children who turn out to be special in some way, supernaturally destined to save the day. At the same time, it gives Luca enough personality to make him and his queerness more than just a plot device, although I wish we’d gotten to see more of him prior to the climax. No Road Home was a really good read that could have been great, but that’s a comment, not a complaint.
Rating:
My sincere thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 28, 2024
Freebie Friday – Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it’s Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon’s free reading applications.
Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.
Enjoy!
June 26, 2024
Can’t-Wait Wednesday: The Doors of Midnight by R.R. Virdi (fantasy)
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted here to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. Find out more here.
My choice for this week is the sequel to a well-written book that sucked me in, weaving its layers of nested tales about me, and leaving me wanting more.
The Doors of Midnight
by R.R. Virdi
Epic Fantasy
832 pages, Hardcover
August 13, 2024 by Tor Books
Myths begin, and a storyteller’s tale deepens, in the essential sequel to R.R. Virdi’s breakout Silk Road-inspired epic fantasy debut, The First Binding.
Some stories are hidden for a reason. All tales have a price. And every debt must be paid.
I killed three men as a child and earned the name Bloodletter. Then I set fire to the fabled Ashram. I’ve been a bird and robbed a merchant king of a ransom of gold. And I have crossed desert sands and cutthroat alleys to repay my debt.
I’ve stood before the eyes of god, faced his judgement, and cast aside the thousand arrows that came with it. And I have passed through the Doors of Midnight and lived to tell the tale.
I have traded one hundred and one stories with a creature as old as time, and survived with only my cleverness, a candle, and a broken promise.
And most recently of all, I have killed a prince, though the stories say I have killed more than one.
My name is Ari. These are my legends.
And these are my lies.
June 25, 2024
Book Review: The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons (fantasy)
Author: Jenn Lyons
Publication Date: July 9, 2024 by Tor Books
Genres: Fantasy
Protagonist Gender: Female
The incomparable Jenn Lyons has done it again, only this time it’s with a standalone fantasy, so if you’ve been reluctant to immerse yourself in the gloriously bewildering saga that is A Chorus of Dragons, The Sky on Fire is your chance to see what you’ve been missing.
The cover blurb will tell you this is a story about a rescue from a warlord and a heist from a dragon, but don’t let that deceive you – nothing about this is that simple. It’s also a story about regrets, resentment, and revenge, with personal motives driving the narrative. Nobody is all good or all bad, it’s just that their objectives are sometimes violently at odds with one another – so much so that even villains can end up becoming heroes.
The world-building here is simple but nicely detailed and well thought-out. Below, we have the jungles of the Deep, humid lands where air, foliage, and danger all lie thick and heavy. Above hang the cloud cities, home to the ruling classes, merchants, nobility, and dragons. So many dragons! This isn’t just a book with dragons, it’s very much a book about dragons – their history, their mythology, and their overbearing presence in the lives of tiny humans. While we don’t get too deeply into human politics, we do explore a lot of dragon politics, which makes sense because everything in this world is subservient to their whims.
Very much like A Chorus of Dragons, The Sky on Fire is wonderful in its casual, no-big-deal, assumed diversity in gender, sexuality, and relationships. Characters wear garden rings and social that communicate their identity, preferences, and personality, and I loved the way it’s done as much as I loved the language around it: a ring to denote “male, both by birth and inclination“; another to show “a committed, monogamous relationship“; and yet another to communicate a preference for “both feminine and masculine partners.” Anahrod, our protagonist and POV, is a bisexual woman who begins exploring a polyamorous triad, and all people can say about it is that it’s about time they admit their feelings for one another. There are also some casual kink references sprinkled throughout that, again, aren’t a big deal for the characters, but refreshing to see as a reader.
If I were to have one complaint about the book it would be that it flounders for direction in the middle, with the pacing suffering as goals, alliances, and agendas are established. However, at this point, I know Lyons never does anything accidentally, never just fills pages for the sake of exposition, so I trusted that it would all come together and that we’d see how and why it all fits together – and we do. Along those lines, there were some questions I had early on about aspects of the story that seemed too simple, too convenient, but they’re all satisfyingly explained by the end as well.
The Sky on Fire doesn’t feel as grand or as poetic as A Chorus of Dragons, but that may actually play in its favor for new readers. It’s a narrative style that fits the urgency of the tale, and had I not read anything else by Lyons, I’d never notice anything missing.
Rating:
My sincere thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 24, 2024
Book Review: The Fireborne Blade by Charlotte Bond (fantasy)
Author: Charlotte Bond
Publication Date: May 28, 2024 by Tordotcom
Genres: Fantasy
Protagonist Gender: Female
For the most part, The Fireborne Blade is a very simple, straightforward slice of fantasy. It’s the story of a knight, her squire, the quest for a sword, and the slaying of a dragon. It embraces all the classic elements, without the weight of prophecy, chosen ones, or the fate of the world hanging in the balance. What makes it stand out is Charlotte Bond’s telling of the story, which gives it a freshness I wasn’t expecting.
This is a story told in pieces, with the narrative slowly bringing things together as the flashbacks creep closer to the current story, but it’s also told in layers, with a series of testimonies and reports of other knights’ encounters with dragons. It may sound like too much for a novella that clocks in at under 200 pages, but it’s perfectly balanced, and it kept me engaged throughout.
Maddileh is an interesting character, and her seeming simplicity is as deceptive as that of the story. She’s a woman in a man’s world, an unwanted and unwelcome knight who is unfairly constrained by what patriarchal structures of epic fantasy. And it’s not just her – there’s a secondary character who plays into this trope as well, a woman with a flair for magic in a world where women can’t be mages – and how/why their stories come together is where the hidden heart of this lies.
There is a lot of humor to The Fireborne Blade, but it’s the subtle kind that makes you smile rather than laugh out loud. Okay, so perhaps I did laugh aloud at the cowardice of Maddileh’s squire in the face of ghosts, but it didn’t take me out of the story like the humor of a few recent reads. What Bond does so well is drop the humor in and move on, neither commenting upon it nor dwelling upon it, and while I’m sure some naysayers will protest that it all comes at the expense of men, it’s all part of quietly fighting back against that patriarchy.
While I will say nothing more about the plot for fear of even hinting at some of the surprises in store, I will say this is a story that’s satisfyingly full of those classic fantasy elements I mentioned earlier. We’ve got dragons and drakes, ghosts, magical talismans, enchanted swords, and more. It feels so comfortably familiar, and yet it’s satisfyingly different in ways that you don’t fully appreciate until after it’s done. Reading it, I was thinking this was a 3-star tale; upon reaching the climax, I was leaning towards 4 stars; but after thinking about it for a few days, I’m all-in on the 5 stars. Bring on The Bloodless Princes!
Rating:
My sincere thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 23, 2024
Book Review: Roasted by B.E. Wolf (erotica)
Author: B.E. Wolf
Publication Date: December 25, 2023
Genres: Erotica
Protagonist Gender: Male/Female
Roasted is a story about secrets, success, caring, and kink. It’s dark and intense, full of emotion, and sometimes unsettling in a very good way. B.E. Wolf has a style that fans will recognize, favorite themes and tropes that they expect, but this book is a bit more forward about its traumas, and that is something that I think makes it more immediately accessible.
Joseph (never just Joe) is a melancholy man who wanders into the start of the book like a silent shadow on a cold autumn morning. We don’t know much about him to start, but there’s a heaviness to him that tugs at you. Holly is a fierce goth barista (and business owner) who doesn’t so much clash with Joseph as crashes through his reserve. Their first meeting is one of emotional, physical, and sexual tension, but it’s clear that this is not going to be an easy sort of courtship.
I loved the way Benson intertwined the past and present of two storylines, the very different journeys of two people who never crossed paths, but whom we learn have a common connection. It’s a history that takes time to be revealed, and for every secret that is exposed, another is teased. By the time we understand that connection and all of its consequences, we’re fully invested in claiming that well-deserved happily-ever-after.
Part of what makes this such a fun departure from the usual tropes is the fact that the relationship is deliberately set to simmer until after the holidays, pushing the romantic and sexual aspects deeper into the book. That makes the BDSM-themed explorations a bit sharper, a bit more dubcon and dangerous, because there’s so much simmering tension beneath them.
I hesitate to call either Joseph or Holly damaged, but those traumas I mentioned are important to the story-they don’t define the characters, but rather refine them. Holly especially has a darkness to her past, one that still looms over her in many ways, and it’s powerful to see how violence can be so cathartic. Roasted is like the drink Holly makes for this tall, dark stranger, sweet and bold, with a hint of bitterness, but sprinkled with spice.
Rating:
My sincere thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 21, 2024
Freebie Friday – Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it’s Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon’s free reading applications.
Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.
Enjoy!
June 14, 2024
Freebie Friday – Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it’s Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon’s free reading applications.
Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.
Enjoy!
June 11, 2024
Book Review: Disobedience by Daniel Sarah Karasik (sci-fi)
Author: Daniel Sarah Karasik
Publication Date: May 21, 2024 by Book*hug Press
Genres: Science Fiction
Protagonist Gender: Between
A transfeminine protagonist and an insurrectionist love interest risking everything to escape a vast prison camp for the unknown ‘freedom’ of a world ravaged by centuries of warfare and environmental catastrophe. Disobedience was one of those reads that captured my attention from the first paragraph of the cover blurb.
The problem is, all of that is largely explored within the first few chapters, serving more as background, a reason to move the story forward, rather than a story in and of itself. I was so curious about Shael, so hopeful that their love for Coe would blossom as the story progressed, but they end up settling for the role of narrator, never embracing that of protagonist. For a story in which so much can happen, and so much can change, Shael does nothing to advance it. The story happens around them, carrying them along, but I’m hard-pressed to think of even one instance where they make something happen.
That very same cover blurb ended with talk about redressing harm, violence, healing, compassion, and justice, promising alternative forms of connection and power, and that sounded fascinating. I knew this was going to be a work that would operate on two levels, but Daniel Sarah Karasik seemed to have big things to say, and I was fascinated.
As weak as I felt this was as a novel, it was as equally strong as a book of ideas. It’s a story of gender and sexuality, of being other or between, with queer progress very much backsliding into the closet. Themes of oppression and control are rife throughout, with our introduction to Shael and Coe coming through forbidden sexual play that makes a BDSM kink out of violent correction. Although the plot points around them are fuzzy, at best, class warfare, capitalism, slavery, and conformity are all key themes that are explored very well. You don’t always (I’d even say often) understand that world, but you feel it, and that’s what idea-driven speculative fiction should do.
Where imagination and idea intersect, however, is a murky sort of middle ground that’s as problematic as the world-building. The writing itself is both dense and clipped, creating a supremely uncomfortable reading experience. Perhaps that’s intentional, a reflection of Shael’s thoughts and emotions, but it made Disobedience a difficult novel to stick with. As I mentioned earlier, there’s not a lot of plot to the book, and what little we have is told, not shown. In fact, much of the book is just talking, and without excitement to color it, without narrative depth to give it meaning, talk is . . . well, cheap.
My heart and my head are divided on this, with one wanting to give it 4 stars for ideas and the other 2 stars for entertainment, one wanting to give it 5 stars for the concept and the other 1 star for the execution, so I’ll settle for a solid 3 stars.
Rating:
My sincere thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
