Shannon Eichorn's Blog, page 3
June 15, 2019
Review: Monster (Blood Trails #2)
4.5 stars
WEREWOLVES IN THE CLEVELAND METROPARKS. I bought this book without hearing much more than “sale, urban fantasy, Cleveland” and was pleasantly surprised (pumped) to find not only werewolves (one my favorite creatures) but also familiar settings. With a solid plot and distinctive characters, this book started setting the tone for the series to ask what is the line between good and evil? As an investigator, do you really want the truth?
Review: Deadline (Blood Trails #1)
4.5 stars
Shade Renard aspires to be more than just a village witch, but she didn’t expect her first job as a private investigator to be for a vampire. With high stakes, Otherworld diversity, and smooth storytelling, this book hits all the checkmarks for urban fantasy/mystery, but what makes it endearing is the vibrancy of the relationship between Shade and her pixie familiar. The parent/child dynamic is sweet and sassy and a beautiful contrast to the potential darkness of a vampire recovering stolen goods. The second career transition is also a good reminder to be true to one’s purpose. I’m hooked and excited for the rest of the series.
I was halfway through this one when I met up with Jennifer for a second time at Marcon 2019. We talked about comparing audiences for our books. That conversation got me thinking about who I would recommend this to, more than I do for other books I read. Personally, I relate well, because I’d like to one day transition my career to something more centered on my passions than what I trained for. (Like Shade seeking to be a PI after training for… centuries? as a village witch.)
But the parent/child dynamic between Shade and her pixie familiar Peasblossom, as well as pursuits of items in the enchanted bottomless bag of holding, have me recommending this to mothers in particular, especially those juggling careers and dependents/family.
Review: Kyth the Taker
3 stars
Jonathan Howard writes beautiful prose with stunning imagery, and the publisher set this short anthology in a beautiful binding to match. Kyth is an intriguing character: not a thief but someone who retrieves objects that were stolen. She has the air of a stoic Indiana Jones or an architectural hacker in a setting rife with mythology and magic. The narrative distance, however, didn’t work for me. This was a nice read but not my favorite jam.
Review: The Finder of the Lucky Devil
5 stars
I knew little about this book when I bought it, only that the author is an engaging speaker with many interesting things to say. Combined with my beloved urban fantasy genre, I figured this would be worth it. I got my socks knocked off. THE FINDER OF THE LUCKY DEVIL combines urban fantasy/mystery with a dash of romance and cyber thriller, and it’s off to the races! That would be satisfying enough, but the respectful representation of a plus-sized main character and the layered treatment of a character desperately trying to be confident makes this a novel that speaks to my heart. I look forward to reading the rest of the series–and hopefully to encounter the author again in the con circuit!
Review: Hullmetal Girls
5 stars
This is one of my favorite novels so far this year. With humanity divided among a fleet of generation ships and strong female characters in martial roles, it reminds me of THE STARS ARE LEGION but with a softer, more caring side. The main character’s cybernetic enhancements and military commissioning draw her not away from her family woes but deeper into it–and also into those of her squadmates, with whom she shares a new telepathic link. But this textured novel has more to offer, showcasing aro/ace and other LGBTQ representation, as well as representation of a minority religion and the persecution that so often comes with it. I hope to find many more novels like this.
Review: Steel Time
5 stars
Time travel romp with stakes, romance, and a focus on caring for mental health! Gribble earned her spot on my must-buy list with Steel Blood, but I found Steel Time carrying me even more seamlessly from page to page, hooked in both the plot-carrying stakes of appearing in a city shortly before a historic nuclear explosion and the heart-grabbing interplay of snappy dialogue and textured characters that has been Gribble’s hallmark since book 1. If you’re looking for a fun book that still acknowledges that the world is hard and unfair, give this a try.
Review: Greenshift
3.5 stars
This book was recommended to me for being a space opera romance with kidnappings. While it has easy-to-grasp but still memorable worldbuilding, I found it vaguely predictable and the characters fun but somewhat unmemorable. It was worth the read and might be more endearing to someone inclined toward gardening or biology. Or having read AMBASSADORA.
January 3, 2019
Ghost Wolf Part I
Morgan’s new job sounds too good to be true, but when Dawn visits her old friend, they discover that haunted houses may be more real than they thought. This small town is full of secrets, and now Dawn has a new secret of her own.
I used to think logic and science ruled the world. Standing
at my best friend’s front door, all I had to do was convince her. I crossed my
arms at the redhead cowering in front of her little brown bungalow. “Your house
is not haunted.”
She glanced from me to the front window near the far corner.
Inside, the chandelier over the dining room table swung wildly, nearly hitting
the ceiling with each pass.
I tore my eyes away. “Your house is not haunted.”
It couldn’t be. Surely, the chain supporting it had worn
smooth over a couple decades of tall men smacking their heads into it. Surely,
with a little bit of energy put in, its frictionless bearing let it glide
freely. Maybe a bird got in. Conservation of energy. That’s all.
Morgan’s small voice barely reached me over the pounding in
my ears. “We haven’t even been in yet.”
“You left a window open.” My skin crawled. But it was just a
house. A new house down the street from a cemetery that seemed nearly as big as
the rest of this small town, but a building nonetheless. Wood. Brick. Nails. A
pile of materials put together in an orderly fashion with nothing living in it
but, soon, the two of us now standing outside. Just a thing. “Toss me your
keys.”
She threw them at my face, and I snatched them out of the
air. The new key was easy to find: the only one without a marker of any sort. I
slid it in, and the deadbolt glided open without the click of a new mechanism
or the loose play of an ancient one. Just a lock. On just a house.
“See? It’s fine.” Grinning, I tossed her keys back and
stepped over the threshold.
Wham!
My vision grayed at the edges, and I lost my breath.
Collapsing to the floor, I clicked my nails against the sturdy parquet and
gasped for air against a wave of nausea. Something was wrong.
“Dawn!” Morgan appeared at my side, grasping at my arm as if
she’d pluck me out to safety.
“I’m okay!” No, I wasn’t. I’d stepped inside and landed
smack on my butt in two seconds flat. What a trip! Waving her off, I pushed
back onto my feet. “See? It’s fine.”
“What happened?”
The hell if I knew. “I tripped. You know me. It happens.”
She shot me a look that said she believed me as much as I
did.
“Your house is not haunted. Look.” I pointed at the swinging
chandelier, which had stopped in spite of all the ruckus and now hung
bone-still in the silent house.
That, I had no explanation for. Thirty seconds ago, it was
swinging wildly. With that little friction, it should still be swaying a
little.
“You’re not helping your case, here.”
“Guess not.”
We both shook as she gave me the nickel tour, but the house was normal the rest of the evening. Still, we couldn’t quite settle.
I woke in the middle of the night to orange streetlights glaring through open curtains and streaking an unfamiliar ceiling over the couch we’d fallen asleep on. Low voices murmured nearby, making my ear twitch.
“That’s not the one that was recruited.”
“Maybe she’s better.”
“But she’s not staying. It’s not better if she’s not here.”
Fear gnawed at my stomach; that wasn’t Morgan’s voice. No
one else should be here. I scanned the room, double checking that the shadowy
stacked boxes weren’t actually people.
The front hall. Two faces gleamed in the front hall, lit
with streetlight through their transparent forms. I launched off the couch with
a mighty battle—
Bark?
I landed face-first on the bare wooden floor, but when I
glanced up, the impossible forms were gone.
“Dawn?” Morgan pushed up blearily on the couch, glanced at
me, and froze, eyes wide with fear.
“What?” I meant to say. It came out, “Wrau?”
I heard her shuddering breath from across the room.
What was wrong with me? I glanced down at my hands, only to
find fur-covered paws tipped in thick, black claws. It took a couple tries to
get one up to my face, and I couldn’t turn it enough to feel my skin.
But I felt enough.
It hitched on one pointed ear, dragged across thick fur,
dropped down at my eye, and scraped along a muzzle to a cold, wet nose I could
just barely see with my eyes crossed. I bolted to my feet. My arms/front legs
fell back down, braced between boxes.
Dawn screamed.
No, no, no! I
tried to motion her to silence, but she hid her head with a pillow.
I had to figure out what was happening. Somewhere I wouldn’t
scare her.
I backed away and darted around the corner where the faces
had been. Nothing. I tried to press my back against a wall and look in all
directions, but my butt got in the way. I pressed my shoulder to the corner by
the front door and tried to think.
What the fuck?!
My thoughts didn’t get more elegant from there.
Crap! Shit! Fuck!
What the hell had happened to me? Was I dreaming? Drugged?
Was this a prank? I tried pulling the gloves off with my teeth, but they sure
felt like my body. The teeth, too. When I stopped, I caught myself whining.
“Dawn?” Morgan’s voice came from the other room, barely
above a whisper and choked with tears. “Dawn? Are you alright? Are you here?”
I caught an unpleasant whiff from her direction.
What was I? How had I turned into a dog?
I wished for the pleasantly swinging chandelier, creepy but
impersonal.
Okay. Step one: let Dawn know she’s safe from me. We could
figure out the weird voices and commentators later. From a distance. A big
distance. Maybe another state.
Keeping my mouth shut and the painfully real teeth hidden, I
crept back to the living room and peeked around the corner.
Dawn had ventured to my side of the couch as if I might have
fallen off the other side of the metaphorical life raft, but when she saw me,
she froze, her breath squeezing out in a soft, high-pitched keen.
I whined back at her. Keeping my head down, I padded
forward.
More unpleasant odors.
I got halfway across the room before she started throwing
pillows at me. They bounced off my head, and I had the strange urge to catch
them in my mouth. No. I was human, dammit. Then Morgan got to the blankets, and
they tripped me. I crashed down, smashing my head through the cups and mugs.
Enough. Backing up, I shook the blankets off and
body-slammed my friend. Her screams pierced my ears, and I found I could somewhat
muffle them with those ears flat against my head. Enough.
I pressed my chin down on her shoulder, my legs around her
torso like a giant hug, and stared into her eyes. I didn’t know if I had
eyebrows, but I could still feel them rise.
Morgan screamed bloody murder for a solid minute. She ran
out of air, gulped up more, and screamed again. I stayed put.
Finally, she quieted into gasping sobs. She looked away.
“Dawn?”
Her voice was desperate and hopeless, like I’d left her behind.
I nodded into her shoulder.
She froze again. For a minute, she just breathed. Then she
swallowed. More uncertainly, she asked, “Dawn?”
I nodded again.
“It’s you?”
Nod.
“How? What’s going on?”
I couldn’t quite shrug, so I shook my head.
“Oh my gosh.” She whispered like she was still trying to keep from being overheard and noticed. “I… I think I need a shower.”
Morgan locked the bathroom door when she went in. Not knowing what else to do, I curled up in front of it to keep an eye out for any more intruders.
It was actually kind of cozy. Warm in the thick fur, curled
up like a fetal position—but one that didn’t leave you defenseless. I could be
on my feet in a second. I dozed like that for hours.
Morgan emerged after the sun came up.
I noticed when she tripped over me. She stumbled into the
linen closet then sank against it, curled in her own little ball,
flannel-covered knees tucked under her chin. “Was I dreaming?”
“Was I?” I answered. Aloud. With real words.
I sat up and stared at my normal, human hands. Felt my
normal, human face with normal, human fingers. I showed Morgan. “I had to be
dreaming. We had to.”
She nodded numbly.
“Just a dream. That doesn’t mean your house is haunted.”
She frowned but nodded.
“Let’s go out for breakfast.”
Aphrodite, Inc. Part I
It’s a simple system: you grant Aphrodite, Inc., access to all your social media accounts. She computes your ideal mate and a date and time for the wedding, usually before you graduate high school. Divorce rates have dropped. Married couples are happier than ever. The system is perfect.
Except Dre and Alex were never meant to be matched.
Dre finally caved, tugging at the collar of his tuxedo with one finger, just as a bead of sweat rolled off his nose and splashed against his well-polished, rented shoes. Time must have stopped, the rest of the world gone superluminal, or his bride was late.
He glanced at his parents, who fanned themselves in the
front row. They were in his time-stream. Kathryn-Alexandra was late. How could
Aphrodite pair him with someone who couldn’t keep time? The system was supposed
to be perfect.
A soft clack drew his and his parents’ attention to the back
of the hall, where a young woman had appeared. A thick, denim purse hung from
one shoulder like an old, forgotten tool bag. She wobbled in her stilettos and
tucked one clump of unbrushed, ragged hair behind her ear. She bit her lower
lip.
That wasn’t a wedding dress! A lace, ivory bag of a dress
covered her from wrist to clavicle to ankle, layered over a matching sleeveless
shift that preserved her modesty. It bulged at her stomach, hips, bosom, and
shoulders, straining the fabric.
She must have found the wrong room.
It had taken forever to find a parking spot big enough for the RV here in the big city. Alex had agonized over her wardrobe for an hour afterwards before settling on her old Easter dress. May 20th had crept up on her. She was lucky she’d remembered. Maybe.
She froze in the doorway of the Ceremony Hall, studying the
lay of the land. The Hell’s Kitchen gorge looked more welcoming.
The stranger stood at the front of the hall in some fancy
suit, the light glinting from jewelry at his wrists. He wiped his forehead with
a handkerchief—a bona fide handkerchief. Only old men used those. The motion
emphasized the unnatural length of his arms, which his legs mirrored. He oozed
sweat.
She shivered. Seventy-six degrees seemed like it should have
been warm enough, but it wasn’t.
She took a wobbly step back, checking the room’s name beside
the door: Ceremony Hall #4. This was the right place.
She shouldn’t have come.
She stepped inside. The cool breeze cut right through her
tight lace sleeves, sending a new wave of goosebumps across her skin. The three
sets of stares following her every move were just as bad, just as penetrating.
She ignored the parents and walked to the front. The heels weren’t
so bad, as long as she kept moving and kept her weight on the balls of her
feet. The stares at the front were harder.
She forced a smile on her face. “Hello, Bartholemew.”
The smile fought a grimace for control of his face. Did he dislike her already, just by looking? How shallow! “Hello, Kathryn-Alexandra.”
Her wide, plain, unadorned face was pretty when she smiled,
but she made his name sound uglier than it had to. Dre winced at her
pronunciation. Maybe he could get her to call him by his nickname. Maybe he
could find one for her, so he wouldn’t have to go through the whole mouthful
every time.
For now, they turned to the front of the hall and its two
illuminated touchscreens.
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR MARRIAGE!
Their childhood photos wandered by in the background, and
the computer had already photoshopped one of them standing together, smiling,
in today’s wedding attire under an expansive oak tree.
PRESS ANYWHERE TO CONTINUE
“Ready?” Dre asked.
Kathryn-Alexandra shrugged one creamy lace-bound shoulder
and jabbed her screen with a finger. Maybe, in time, she’d grow to be more
refined.
Sighing, he brushed his own screen.
A EULA flashed up, and he scanned through Terms of Use for
Aphrodite: only for getting married. Limits of Liability: Aphrodite could not
be sued upon divorce or murder. Privacy policy: Aphrodite knew everything and
shared it “as deemed necessary.” Applicable law…
“Done yet?” she demanded.
He pressed the consent button. A vow appeared on his screen,
with instructions to say it to Kathryn-Alexandra, whose name appeared in bold.
He turned, keeping the screen in the corner of his eye, and tried to catch her
gaze. She wasn’t looking. “I, Bartholemew Devin Mayor, take you, Kathryn-Alexandra
Hughes, to be my lawfully wedded wife.” Dear God, would she always look like
this much of a wreck? “To have and to hold—“ after a shower— “from this day
forward, for better or for worse—“ Really? Could he mean that? What was he
doing? He tried to wet his salty lips with his dry tongue. “—for richer or for
poorer—“ Poor he could handle, if nothing else. “—in sickness and in health,
until death do us part.”
Done. Somewhere nearby, he heard the clang of a locking jail
door.
The vow switched to her screen, and she mumbled through it, never looking away from her prompt. “I, Kathryn-Alexandra Charity Hughes, take you, Bartholemew—“ She made his name sound lumpy. He hadn’t known that was possible.
The screens faded into a stilted, programmed message of
CONGRATULATIONS in front of electronic fireworks. How. Very. Original. A
recorded voice announced, “You may now kiss the bride.” Eww.
Alex looked up at his sweat-slicked face, trying to be
strategic. Maybe there was a flat spot on his cheek where most of the water had
already drained off.
He leaned forward, his lips pursed. How to aim? How to aim!
He was coming in wrong. Heavens! He was aiming for her lips! She turned her
head and planted a light peck on his cheek, smearing the side of her face with
his sweat in the process.
He straightened, blushing as he glanced at his clapping
parents. She did, too, when a horrific thought struck her. In-laws. She was too
young for in-laws. They bombarded the stage, the two of them an oncoming horde,
and hugged and kissed them both. With impish smiles, they led the newlyweds
into the hall, clearing the room for Aphrodite’s next victims. No, her next
couple.
December 28, 2018
Just So Potions
A writing exercise using the first three lines, courtesy of Samara Wright
“Wait, wait, wait! What are you doing?”
“What? I need to heat up the potion.”
“In the microwave?”
I took a step back from the patiently-waiting microwave and its yawning door, glass cauldron nestled between my festive oven mitts. My mentor/boss/roommate kept telling me my impulsiveness was going to send something up in smoke, but how was I supposed to know the microwave was bad? “It makes things hot.”
She tapped her head against the taped-up target on the refrigerator door. “How do microwaves work?”
“Well, there’s this big electromagnet–”
“That makes…” She waved her hands, encouraging me to keep going.
“That makes things hot.”
She slammed her head on the target again. “That makes electromagnetic waves–radiation. You’re irradiating your potion. That starts this big cascade of photons all throughout the suspension.”
I blinked. “What do you think heat is?”
She rolled her eyes. “Look, trust me. It degrades the magic.”
Plopping the cauldron on the stove burner, I slammed the microwave door closed and put my cheery autumn-leaves fists on my hips. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Trust me.” She pulled out one of her BBQ-length matches and lit the back burner, where the ignitor had given up. Then she extinguished the match with a heart-shaped flourish and re-settled the cauldron over the tiny flames. “Don’t try to physics this.”
“Physics is our best understanding of the mechanisms defining how things work.”
“And magic is our best application. Look, microwaves are sterile. They reach into this empty box and excite water molecules, and they’re reliable and repeatable and lifeless. Magic is all about the life of the thing. It’s all about that swatch of sulfur and methane that alight on your surface tension or whatever. It’s all about how the ash and the dust of the match settle into the brew. If we could just get that damned trash panda out of the chimney, I’d show you what we could do with a real wood fire. Or the fire of burning planner pages and expensive shoes that break on the first wear. Now, that’s magic!”
I threw the cute oven mitts onto the counter. “So, you want something just-so, but not repeatable?”
“Yup.” She winked and swung back out of the kitchen door.
That witch.
Pretending this was all supposed to make sense. Pretending to teach me anything. How was I supposed to learn potion-making if it could never turn out the same twice?
