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Review | The Jealousy of Jalice – Jesse Nolan Bailey

About the Book

The Realms have split apart, the Stones of Elation have been hidden, and warnings of dokojin drift among the tribes.

The land and its people are corrupted. The Sachem, chief of the Unified Tribes, is to blame.

It is this conviction that drives Annilasia and Delilee to risk their lives. Afraid of the aether magic he wields, they enact a subtler scheme: kidnap his wife. In her place, Delilee will pretend to be the chieftess and spy on the Sachem.

Unaware of this plot against her husband, Jalice is whisked away by Annilasia. Pleading with her captor proves futile, and she rejects Annilasia’s delusional accusations against the chief. After all, the Sachem has brought peace to the land. 

Yet a dangerous truth hides in Jalice’s past. As she and Annilasia flee through a forest of insidious threats, they must confront the evil plaguing the tribes and the events that unleashed it.

388 pages (kindle)
Published on May 19, 2020
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I’ve been wanting to read The Jealousy of Jalice for a while. I love the cover art. The plot sounded interesting. Jesse Nolan Bailey is a good online personality, the kind that makes me want him to succeed. Plus, I know what it’s like, being an indie author and trying to be seen and heard. I want to do what I can to improve the plight of others. 

So here we are. 

Now, first things first, what I noticed about this book first, was the writing. That’s just how I roll. I can enjoy just about any style of prose, but I tend to like deliberate writing. I love it when I can tell the author put every single word in its place for a specific reason. Bailey’s writing is just that. It cuts like a knife. It’s direct and to the point, occasionally veering into beautiful at the most shocking times, which just makes the moments when he dips a toe into lyrical that much more impactful. More, though, there is nothing wasted here. Bailey is an author who has honed his craft and wastes nothing.

“Silence. That was the source of her distress. Even amongst the grisly scene, the absence of sound festered.” 

The Jealousy of Jalice throws you into the deep end. There’s no warmup, no flirtation. You either sink or you swim. It took me a little time to fully understand what was going on, but I think it was supposed to. I enjoyed how Bailey managed to drop me into the mess of it and kept me wanting more. There’s a lot to juggle when you start out a book with a bang. You’ve got to build the world, give the reader characters they care about, and present this plot and confusion in a way where the reader will want to push through to learn more. He does it quite well, and I will say that for readers who keep going, you will be well rewarded. 

The pace of the book is… almost aggressive. I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but it’s the one I’m settling on. There’s always something happening, whether it is wham-bam action, battles, fight scenes and the like, or something else. Something… other. There are a whole lot of intimate moments that drive things along as well, plumbing the depths of his characters, as well as furthering the plot. The juxtaposition of these louder-than-life pulse-pounding moments, mixed with these personal reflections, or quite pauses between all the action was, quite honestly, one of my favorite parts of the book. And somehow, in some way, Bailey has managed to craft a book that relentlessly moves forward, and somehow make it both riveting and action-packed, as well as a slow-burn.

One thing I get kind of sick of, which I run into a lot with how much I read, are stories told in the typical fashion. Everything flows along a timeline in a certain way, and every voice fills a predictable role. I mean, I respect that, don’t get me wrong, but if you really want to wow me and put my butt in the chair, you’ll need to write a book that does something that most other books haven’t dared to do. Bailey bucks a lot of tradition in the Jealousy of Jalice.

For one thing, let me talk about the diversity, because it is so incredibly important and I think Bailey did a great job with portraying it. This book is LGBTQ+ friendly. There are people of all orientations and identities here. Numerous races, and a core cast of strong female leads. Furthermore, there is a wide range of personal opinion and perspective here as well, which I appreciated. Lots of different people climbing up the proverbial mountain in different ways. It’s a fantasy that strives to make sure everyone has a voice and a presence and I really want to stand up and acknowledge that. Diversity is so important in the books we read.

No star dies without a burst of final light. No constellation forms without a future meaning. Sahrumm steps into the tomorrows of the faithful and protects those that hold to infinite wisdom.

The worldbuilding is superb, an interesting blend of fantasy and SciFi. There’s a relationship between the world and the people, and magic abounds everywhere. The somewhat tribal way of life stands alongside some interesting elements like other realms, and magic that is used as a bridge between them. Everything has meaning, and while sometimes the language got a little heavy, I enjoyed flitting through the world, and trying to pick apart the many layers of meaning to what Bailey was creating here. It was, honestly, one of the most interestingly crafted worlds I’ve read in a long time, and I genuinely hope for more, because there is a ton of room for him to expand in some really unique, unpredictable ways. 

You don’t get all the answers here. A lot of things are presented that you just don’t fully grasp, and that’s fine. Not every book needs to answer every question. I do realize, however, that this has the potential to not satisfy some readers, so I feel the need to mention it. You will have questions. You will not get all the answers. That’s just the way it goes. 

There are so many small moments here that make huge, shocking differences in what happens. It’s the details that matter, and there are a lot of details. Things that don’t seem that important, end up making a world of difference. Emotions, memories, fleeting thoughts all matter, and I love that. This focus on small moments, on subtle choices, on a turn of phrase, or a memory that might mean nothing but ends up meaning everything, is something that I love so much I try to insert it into all of the books I write. I was thrilled to see Bailey’s focus on that sort of thing. It makes all the difference. Literally. 

“Darkness covered the forest like a spider’s web–insignificant at a casual glance, but fatal to anything trapped within.” 

There are a whole lot of new ideas in this book, characters that are fantastically flawed, with believable blind spots to their own shortcomings, each with their own goals and aims. Fantasy seems to always involve a few predictable things: a tragic story, an army, and a play for power. And while these things are all present in The Jealousy of Jalice, they are presented in a different way than I’d ever anticipated. Bailey isn’t afraid to turn left where everyone else would turn right. He flirts with new ideas, and experiments with new ways to tell a story. He writes aggressively, and yet has these moments of beauty that just floored me. Atmospheric, almost dovetailing into dreamlike, The Jealousy of Jalice was basically everything I’ve been looking for in my fantasy right now. 

If you’re sick of the standard story with a few subtle variations and you’re looking for a book that breathes new life into the genre, then look no further. I honestly cannot wait to see what Bailey comes up with next. 

This is the kind of book I’m after. 

4.5/5 stars

Review | Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1) – Hilary Mantel

About the Book

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

653 pages (paperback)
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I’m going to let you in on a secret, dear reader. I’m not a big fan of historical fiction. It isn’t that I don’t respect the stuff, because I do. It’s just that I’d rather read about what actually happened in a nonfiction book, than how the author preferred to dramatize events in a fictional rendering. Another secret? I’m pretty much sick of the Tudors for now. I’m full up. So, with all that being said, it’s no wonder I pushed off reading this book as long as I did. In fact, I think basically the entire planet has read it before me. I’m late on the train. I apologize. 

There isn’t a whole lot about Cromwell that really interested me much. He’s a long-dead lawyer, and reading about his life, in my mind, sounded about as exciting as reading a biography of a long-dead accountant. Thrilling stuff, right? 

The fact is, this book gave me one of the most severe book hangovers I have ever experienced. 

“It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.”

What makes Cromwell interesting is, quite honestly, his proximity to one of the most notorious kings in Western history. Everyone at least has heard the name Henry VIII. However, what Mantel does in this book is bring Cromwell to life. Suddenly, under her deft hand, Cromwell becomes far more than a long-dead lawyer who happened to be close to a guy who offed some of his wives, but a man who stands on his own two legs and lives and breathes on and off the page.

Wolf Hall is a kind of odd book, in the fact that the entire plot of the book is basically Thomas Cromwell existing in this interesting period of history. That ended up being enough to pull me through and keep me hooked, but the reason for that is how incredibly well Mantel crafts her characters. The entire book hinges on this one man, and he truly shines. In fact, I have a very, very hard time remembering a book where a character felt this real and dimensional to me. It is not every day that I sit down to read and become so engrossed I forget I am reading. However, if you’re the kind of person who needs something else to drive the book, the life and times of Thomas Cromwell might not be enough for you. 

“Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It’s not as if we had a choice.” 

This book became, basically, a study for me on how to write a good character. Thomas Cromwell became so real; I could almost hear his voice. He’s at times cantankerous, vengeful, ruthless, and cunning. He’s also got a softer side which occasionally peeks out. Mantel does not shy away from showing his foibles, his mistakes, his fantastic errors, but she also shows how he is a man fit to rise to the times he is living through. From a rough childhood, Cromwell had to learn to be wily to survive in the world, and it is ultimately his ability to turn in any direction when the chips are falling that makes him a perfect fit for someone as temperamental and unpredictable as Henry VIII and his lush court. 

And it isn’t just Cromwell who shines. Every character, even those who only appear for a moment here and there, are just as alive and vividly crafted as he is. This, I must say, is quite a feat, as this book is set in a time and place where the overarching figure (Henry VIII) is so large and looming, he tends to overshadow everyone and everything around him. Even in after hundreds of years, Henry VIII is so looming and smothering, it’s hard to see around him. And yet, in spite of this, Mantel has managed to make everyone from a stuffy lawyer to a stable boy far more interesting than the characters that we usually hang on when we read or learn about this time period. 

“No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They’re not affordable things. No prince ever says, ‘This is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have.” 

Mantel’s writing deserves some time in the spotlight as well, because while I wouldn’t qualify this as exactly lyrical, it steps a few toes in that water and sort of lingers around in the shallows. Every other paragraph was full of metaphor that just stopped me in my tracks. Every word was carefully thought out and planned. Everything had its place, and its time to be used. The descriptions were magnificent. At times, her prose veered into almost aggressive territory, these short, punctuated sentences that lodged right under my skin where they were meant to. However, at other times you get these moments of stillness and silence, these contemplative scenes where nothing is happening but my god, that firelight is described beautifully, and I just want to wallow in it for a while. 

“The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman’s sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.” 

So, what do we have here? 

One of the best historical fiction books I’ve ever read. Incredible character development and stunning world building are nestled within some of the most amazing prose I’ve read. This book had everything I ever wanted to read in it. It’s character driven, intimate, uncomfortable and educational. Thomas Cromwell is the furthest thing from a stuffy lawyer I could possibly imagine, veering, I think, into anti-hero territory in some respects. Being a man on the sidelines, close to power, he sees and experiences a lot. There is always something happening, and in my mind, it was over far too soon.

I think I’m the last person in the world to read Wolf Hall, but I’m so glad I finally did. It was an absolute marvel of literature.

5/5 stars

Review | The Half Killed – Quenby Olson

About the Book

Dorothea Hawes has no wish to renew contact with what lies beyond the veil. After an attempt to take her own life, she has retired into seclusion, but as the wounds on her body heal, she is drawn back into a world she wants nothing more than to avoid.

She is sought out by Julian Chissick, a former man of God who wants her help in discovering who is behind the gruesome murder of a young woman. But the manner of death is all too familiar to Dorothea, and she begins to fear that something even more terrible is about to unleash itself on London. 

And so Dorothea risks her life and her sanity in order to save people who are oblivious to the threat that hovers over them. It is a task that forces her into a confrontation with her own lurid past, and tests her ability to shape events frighteningly beyond her control.

Published on August 13, 2015
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This book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

I just finished this book last night, and I knew the first thing I wanted to do this morning was write a review for it. Reason being? I just really loved this book that much, and all I want to do is tell you why all of you should read it. 

The Half Killed is a historical fantasy, that leans into the history and sort of flirts with the fantasy. Kind of. Set in a grimy Victorian-era London, the atmosphere is what grabbed me right away, which was unexpected. Truthfully, I have a really hard time with books set in this era. I don’t typically read them, and I usually get so frustrated by how stuffy they are that I just can’t. However, Olson, I’m realizing, basically took everything I typically don’t like about books set in the Victorian (or similar) era and lit it on fire. Within two chapters, I knew this was a book I’d love. Within three, I couldn’t put it down.

Now, before we go on to the meat and potatoes of the book, I want to touch on the atmosphere and setting. Nothing is wasted here, and while Olson can get a bit wordy with descriptions I never got bothered by that. In fact, there were a lot of times when I just had to sit back and admire how she used words. And, let’s be real here. If you’ve read any of my books, you’d know lengthy descriptions full of uniquely placed words is just about the last thing on the planet that would bother me. And oh, do I love lyrical prose no matter the form they take. I just love them.

“There is a second when I think that I want to commit everything about this moment to memory, every sound and smell, the weight of the clothing on my limbs, the dampness of the hair clinging to the back of my neck. But I don’t want to remember any of these things. I want it to be over. All of it. And I want it to be done now.”

That being said, the descriptions really brought this grimy London to life. The Half Killed is one of those books where the city becomes as much of a character as the people themselves. Under Olson’s eye, knack for detail, and careful care with the placement of every word, London of Dorothea’s time comes alive, and breaths both on and off the page. More, I could tell how much research Olson did, not just to nail down the setting, but on all of it, from setting to vernacular to mannerisms. There are so many small details, so many nuances of speech that just sang out to me as genuine and real. This tells me the author did a ton of work to make this feel not just unique, but true to the time, and it worked really, really well. 

The Half Killed is a slow burn novel. What gripped me first was the atmosphere, as I’ve said. Then Dorothea’s voice. She’s snarky and opinionated, she absolutely steals the show and is the perfect vessel from which this story spills forth. Dorothea is a strong, independent woman in a world where that really isn’t a thing (and her landlord’s constant suspicion underscores that, while adding some color to the book). 

Dorothea is not just a simple protagonist. She has quite a few layers and the blustery, up front, snarky strength of her personality serves to mask a lot of what is going on underneath. The pain. The heartache. The yearning for what could have been. It took a bit of time for me to realize that Dorothea herself was just as much of a mystery as the mystery the book is focused on. It was honestly quite well done, and by the time Olson was done deftly pulling apart all the things that made up Dorothea’s crusty exterior to show readers the soft, terrified woman who is riddled by pain and haunted by ghosts of the past that lay underneath, I was… astounded. 

“It may have escaped your notice at some point during our acquaintance, but I am a woman. And as shocking as it may be for you to believe, I have seen myself naked on more than one occasion, so you’ll pardon me if I am not offended by anything these ladies have to offer.” 

You see, what you really need to know about this book is that it sneaks up on you. There is just so much here. So on the surface you’ve got a mystery in the heart of grimy Victorian London. You’ve got an ex-priest and a woman who talks a lot trying to figure it out. Complete with ghosts and seances and plenty of colorful secondary characters, you’ve got a recipe for a whole lot of fun. 

And it is fun, don’t get me wrong. This book, once I really got into it, absolutely flew by. It was nearly impossible to put down. I was locked in this weird place where I was completely engrossed in the plot, while being enamored with how Olson used words. 

However. 

If you just read this book for that surface stuff, you’ll really like it, but you’ll miss all the sleight of hand that Olson is also doing. Lots of subtle development here, lots of slow revelations and details that make this book truly something to behold. Dorothea, for example, was a character I knew I’d love from the second chapter on. However, by the end of the book my understanding of her as a woman in the world, as a human who exists, as a person standing on her own two feet was far different than it was when I went into the book, and I loved the fact that Olson could not only have a developed character, but continue developing her throughout the book, in such a subtle way that I often didn’t notice it was happening until after it had happened. 

Mixed into this, we have the ex-priest, Julian Chissick. Chissick took me some time to warm up to. He’s kind of stuffy, very concerned with propriety. The fact that he’s coming to Thea tells you he’s desperate for help and completely out of his comfort zone. Their relationship is uncomfortable at first and takes some time for them to warm up to each other. Chissick’s desire to be a protector is both natural to the time, where that is very much a thing men were taught, and also feels true to the character himself. The fact that Dorothea kept bucking propriety gave him quite a challenge, and it also led to a few humorous moments. By the end of the book, I liked Chissick a lot more than I thought I would. He was the perfect mitigating balance to Dorothea’s headstrong, take charge nature.

You might wonder why I haven’t said much about the plot, and it’s because I didn’t know what I was getting going into this and I think that was half the fun. Suffice it to say, there’s a murder, and it involves a lot of spiritualism. I think this book would qualify, maybe, as historical fantasy and/or paranormal, but I’m not really sure. It is one of those books that doesn’t quite fit anywhere, and as such, it makes me love it all the more. Yay for bucking trends and refusing to be pigeonholed. 

“I was so young.” And I wince at this poor excuse, as if every sin can be readily forgiven so long as it was committed well before the last of a person’s molars have broken through.

In the end, The Half Killed was a book I went into expecting to hate, largely due to my aversion for all things Victorian. I left this book half in love, and also reassessing my lack of love for the Victorian era. The writing was superb. The characterization was off the charts amazing. The plot was slow, which might frustrate some readers, but I honestly think it needed to be this way and I appreciated the time taken to set things up and introduce me to the characters and world.

I decided that what I think actually dislike about so many Victorian books is how romanticized things are, which is just completely historically inaccurate. Unless you were one of the ultra-wealthy, Victorian London was a hotbed of strife, crime, sewage in the street, prostitution, cursing, disease, and violence. And while Olson does not glorify any of that, she does paint a picture that is far more in line with the history I have read, and I absolutely loved it. Not only is there truth in this book, but there’s also an incredible story and a phenomenal amount of stunning detail. 

And all those incredible words.

Be still, my heart.

So, The Half Killed is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year. Halloween is coming up, so maybe it’s time for you to give it a shot during this most appropriate of seasons. 

5/5 stars

Review | The Wolf of Oren-Yaro – K.S. Villoso

About the Book

A queen of a divided land must unite her people, even if they hate her, even if it means stopping a ruin that she helped create. A debut epic fantasy from an exciting new voice.

“I murdered a man and made my husband leave the night before they crowned me.”

Born under the crumbling towers of Oren-yaro, Queen Talyien was the shining jewel and legacy of the bloody War of the Wolves that nearly tore her nation apart. Her upcoming marriage to the son of her father’s rival heralds peaceful days to come.

But his sudden departure before their reign begins fractures the kingdom beyond repair.

Years later, Talyien receives a message, urging her to attend a meeting across the sea. It’s meant to be an effort at reconciliation, but an assassination attempt leaves the queen stranded and desperate to survive in a dangerous land. With no idea who she can trust, she’s on her own as she struggles to fight her way home.

496 (paperback)
Published on February 18, 2020
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The Wolf of Oren-Yaro was a book I picked up on the fly. I liked the cover, and I was intrigued by the idea of a main character who was, essentially, a single mother, despite her position. We don’t really see a whole lot of that in fantasy, which seems odd when you consider just how common divorce, separation, and single motherhood all is in our own world. 

Now, after I’ve read the book, I’m not completely sure it counts, because she has an entire palace at her back. It’s not like she’s ever worried about where dinner is going to come from, but I didn’t know that going into it so, whatever. Also, the fact the son misses his father, the emotions of being abandoned are there, and I really liked both how raw and real that was, and how it humanized the entire situation. No matter what his station, a boy misses his father.

Anyway, The Wolf of Oren Yaro is one of those books that you’ll likely either love or hate. I happened to really enjoy it, but I can also see why this book could be a bit polarizing. 

Queen Talyien is in a bit of a bad situation. She’s ruling over a kingdom that has been at war and divided. Still, there are factions that are out to destroy everything that she has worked to establish. She’s also living in the shadow of her father’s legacy, which she touches on quite a few times throughout the book. Years ago, the night she was crowned, her husband left her and her son, disappearing… somewhere. The book starts out some years after that event, when Talyien gets word from her long lost husband that he has requested a meeting. 

“Betrayal has a funny way of turning your world upside-down. As familiar as I had already been with it by that point, it still amazed me how far I could stretch that moment of denial. The thought of what had been—of what could yet be—persisted. Perhaps it is not the same for most people. Perhaps, when you love less, it is easier not to let the emptiness become a cavern from which you could no longer see the sun.” 

Talyien ends up in a foreign city, and it’s really here that you see a lot of who she is, her strengths as well as her weaknesses. You also get a lot of comparisons as Talyien is in a position to compare her home, with the outside world. Things, you quickly learn, are not all they appear to be. One has to look beneath the surface, both with regards to the world at large, but mostly regarding the people in it. 

I really enjoyed a lot of the details here, the comparisons between how life is back at home, to how life is here. At the start of the book, she’s wandering through the city and she’s just amazed by the fact that there is such a thing as people who come and clear away the trash. Now, this is a small thing, but you instantly get two levels of world building with comments like that. You understand that A) This city is clean-ish with an established infrastructure and B) Her home is not advanced in such a way that garbage pickup is a thing, and that says a whole lot about how people back home live. That’s small potatoes, maybe, but it is actually pretty deft and subtle, an extremely clever use of detail that just works for me on every level.

There aren’t a whole lot of people you can really root for in this book. I really enjoy that sort of thing. I like murky characters who are neither one thing nor the other, who have mysterious intentions and know who to show the world while hiding their true face. However, I know some readers like to have people who are obviously someone to get behind, and you don’t really find that here. It’s not a book where anyone is really clear cut. Villoso’s ability to weave her story in such a way where you’re second guessing everyone and every motivation is, quite honestly, a skill that I am in complete awe of.

This does mean that there’s only a very few genuinely good people in the whole book, and most of them are positioned in such a way that even while you’re telling yourself, “this is a good guy” you continue to doubt them throughout the book, regardless. Honestly, it’s quite clever, how Villoso manages to keep her readers guessing, even when she’s being as straightforward as possible. She spends so much of the book building up this house of cards and mirrors, that by about the middle of it, you’ll be tying yourself in knots second guessing everything you think you know. 

There are a million times you expect Talyien to give up, give in, take a lover, make a friend, but she is almost maddeningly an island unto herself throughout the book. This might be where I struggled the most. I wanted her to have a bit more contact, to be a bit less cold in the face of everything happening around her. To thaw, at least a bit, and she never really did. Don’t get me wrong, her story is fascinating, and I can’t wait to continue it, but I think, at times, “Ice Queen” might fit better than “Bitch Queen.” She seemed to have two setting in this book, either outright stubborn defiance, or deep, overwhelming self-pity. I will admit, it got a bit exhausting and I wondered if she was capable of feeling something else. 

“Five years of regret has a funny way of fermenting inside someone—like wine, it had only gained potency over the years.” 

That being said, Tali’s voice was strong and unforgettable. This is a character-driven fantasy. However, the world building never really sat second fiddle to Talyien. Incredibly crafted, the world sort of sneaks up on you. There are times when I could almost forget the world in favor of just enjoying the story as it unfolds, but there were plenty of times I had to just take a moment to admire the shockingly unique qualities of the world Villoso has crafted. Not quite one thing, not quite the other, Villoso has managed to make a world that stands out purely because its unashamedly hers. Like the characters in the book, the world is very much a creature all its own, where it shows you one thing, while often hiding darker truths just under its surface. For readers who enjoy subtle cues and hidden truths, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is a true treasure-trove.

The characters are flawed, as is the world, and as is the story. No perfect heroes here. No world without limits. Villoso is very careful about keeping everything level. Even those of the highest stations have clipped wings. Characters can fly just long enough to dramatically fall. The book does move along at a good pace, and there’s plenty of interesting things happening to keep you hooked. There were parts of the book where I felt like maybe things were getting a bit one-note, specifically regarding the (mostly) two emotional settings that Tali seemed most comfortable in. I also have a bit of an issue with the ending, where so many revelations happen all at once. I couldn’t help by alternatively respecting Villoso for managing to pull that off, and feeling a bit like I was strung along before all these truths were marched out. 

The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is one of those books that shines because it’s so unique, and it’s never showy about all the things that set it apart. One word I think could define Villoso is “subtle.” So much of what impressed me was almost hidden behind all the surface action. There’s a depth here to absolutely everything, and I loved it. This is the first book in a series, and I, for one, cannot wait to see what happens next. 

4.5/5 stars

Review | The World Maker Parable (Shadow Twins #0) – Luke Tarzian

About the Book

Guilt will always call you back…

Rhona is a faithful servant of the country Jémoon and a woman in love. Everything changes when her beloved sets the ravenous Vulture goddess loose upon the land. Forced to execute the woman she loves for committing treason, Rhona discovers a profound correlation between morality and truth. A connection that might save her people or annihilate them all.

You are a lie…

Varésh Lúm-talé is many things, most of all a genocidal liar. A falsity searching for the Phoenix goddess whom he believes can help him rectify his atrocities. Such an undertaking is an arduous one for a man with missing memories and a conscience set on rending him from inside out. A man whose journey leads to Hang-Dead Forest and a meeting with a Vulture goddess who is not entirely as she seems.

151 pages
Published on April 14, 2020
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This book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve been dying to read Luke Tarzian’s books. The cover art is magnificent, and I’ve seen some snippets and knew his writing style was really something to behold (I adore lyrical writing full of metaphor and Tarzian has all of that in spades). I had a feeling his books were right up my alley. When I got a copy, I devoured it. The World Maker Parable is the prequel to his other book, Vultures. I believe, unless I’m wrong, he is working on more books in that series as well. Now, most people, it seems, read Vultures first, and then this one. Since I’ve never read either, I just decided to start with the prequel and work my way on as nature intended (har har). 

The World Maker Parable is a touch 151 pages long. Once you get into it, the book will absolutely fly past you. This is not only due to its relatively short length, but because Tarzian has a knack for writing a book that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. I will go so far as to say, I read this in a night because I absolutely just could not stop. I was up until 2am. It was an event.

The World Maker Parable is one of those books that is really hard to pin down. Part of the reason is due to all of this books layers. A lot of the story is told through memories, ruminations, and different timelines (alternating chapters of then and now). There are multiple individuals, sometimes remembering or experiencing the same event from different perspectives. This can lead to some repetition, but I actually didn’t mind that because these different angles often give the reader other sets of information, which can add to and change your understanding of what happened, and what is happening. 

“They marched on through gnarled and twisted trees. Guilt nipped at Rhona’s heels like a hungry dog and her heart stung. It wasn’t supposed to have come to this.”

The book starts out with a grim sort of bang. There are corpses. A whole lot of them, but I never really felt like this book veered into blood, guts, and glorification (fantastic imagery, like “Hang-Dead Forest” is the icing on the cake). Tarzian has a way with carefully unfolding his story, and making sure he’s layered his characters with enough emotion to make everything, even the most fantastic elements, feel so incredibly grounded and real. I am a huge sucker for emotional fantasy, and Tarzian is one of the few authors who manages to not only hook me with all his unique darkness, but also stab me right in the heart with all the emotions he weaves through his story. 

I loved it so much, I’ll address it a few times in this review.

I am a big sucker for fables, and the writing or re-writing of them. A really good fantasy fable will absolutely captivate me. What Tarzian manages here, is not only that dark fairy tale feel that I love, but also the emotional impact of the story as he unflinchingly explores aspects of guilt, action/consequence, personal development and evolution, questioning one’s identity and more. I was quite surprised with just how much depth and realism Tarzian could attain in so few pages.

“And with great power came great emotional instability.”

Now, you might notice that I’m not saying a whole lot about the plot, and there’s a reason for that. It’s really hard for me to say much about the book without giving away important bits of it. Suffice it to say, Tarzian writes character-driven dark fantasy with plenty of layers and texture. This book is 150 pages, but the depth offered here was quite honestly, one of the most surprising, delightful parts of the book. Tarzian is unafraid to reach in, and make every moment count, from furthering the plot, to character development, to emotional punch. 

All of this works together to make The World Maker Parable both fast and engrossing. He sets the stage for an incredibly unique world, and does so with a stunning amount of attention to detail. You have to completely focus on this book to understand it. Tarzian doesn’t lob information at you, rather, he delicately drops clues along the way. If you aren’t paying attention, you’ll miss them. But Tarzian trusts his reader to figure everything out, and if you pay attention, you will. If you don’t, you’ll become completely and absolutely confused. He doesn’t tell a story the same way most people do (be still, my heart). He has his own unique way to lead readers down the path of his choosing. Pay attention, or you’ll get lost in the weeds.

One thing I haven’t touched on that I really want to, is how Tarzian makes the tiny moments sing. It’s one thing to show all the big scenes and the flashpoint moments, but Tarzian has a knack for taking these small, quiet, intimate scenes and making them just as important as all the big stuff. This is so true to life, and human nature. Big things stick in our minds, but often it’s the little moments that drive us to certain actions, and the choices we make. I cannot begin to tell you how much I enjoyed that. It honestly might be my favorite part of the book. Every little thing matters in The World Maker Parable, and I mean that as literally as possible.

Life where once there had been death. Brilliance where once the light was silent. But most of all, the dreams. The images and whispers born of illium prying memories from the depths of the abyss.

The atmosphere is well done, dark with a sort of looming, mysterious, almost angsty feel that burrowed right into my bones. I was very pleasantly surprised by just how well Tarzian crafted his world and atmosphere, to the point where it felt as though the world he’d created became a character in its own right. I could almost see the trees, and feel the looming tension and emotional turmoil that was as a part of the world as the characters themselves. 

In all, The World maker Parable was brilliantly done, with prose that made the book sing, and an attention to detail that pleasantly surprised me. This isn’t a book where you can overlook anything. Every little detail matters, and every little detail is glorious. Here, you will find small, quiet moments as important as the big flashbang plot points. You’ll find characters grappling with the essence of who they are. Here is a book that is told in an atypical way, with numerous timelines and memories, different perspectives of one event, it almost broke my brain trying to figure out how Tarzian wrote it, but he did, and oh, is the world a better place for this book existing. 

5/5 stars

Self-Published Reading Recommendations

Today is September 1. This is important for a few reasons. One, autumn is almost here. Yay!

Two: This year September 1 kicks off Self-Published Fantasy Month (which I am participating in). Now, last week I posted on Twitter about how good the Indie book scene is right now, and a whole bunch of people asked me to make a list of really good Indie fantasy reads.

I thought this was a good idea. I noticed this graphic I’m about to post floating around, and I thought, “why not make a list by filling out this chart?” So, here we are. I’m not going to say anything about any of the books (because there will be a lot of them). You can click on the link below each cover image to take you to the Amazon buy page (affiliate links help keep this website running, so clicking/buying from the links is a huge help).

A few things you should know before you dive in:

I did delete some of the categories, because a lot of books can fit under a lot of categories. Also, I’ve literally spent half a freaking day making this list and my brain hurts, so I figured I could give myself a bit of a break.Some of these books have been published with (very) small presses. I made sure they were small presses, but just in case, you should know.I tried very hard to make sure none of these books have been bought by big publishers, but again, my brain hurts and I might have missed some. Some of these categories are subjective. The “favorites” one is absolutely subjective, obviously. Another one that I think is highly subjective is the “Change” category. I based my choices in that category off of characters/world/magic/plot (some major element) changes and evolves dramatically throughout the book. I tried to list each author only once, but I think one or two of them might be on there twice.

Also, just a fair warning, I’m going to list my own two books on this post because I can.

And, we’re off!

TBR (To Be Read)



Buy the Book



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The Reluctant Hero



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LGBTQIA+ Love



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Let’s Hear It For Anthologies



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#CoverLove



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Your Gateway



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Magical Magic Systems



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Change



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Creature Feature



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Non-Western Setting



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Favorite Self-Pub



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Dynamic Duo



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The Waiting Evil



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POC by POC



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There Be Dragons About



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Here Comes the Cavalry



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Who Dwells In These Woods?



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(This novella is not released yet, I just loved it so much I want to yell about it.)



Leading Lady



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Little Bit O’ Horror



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Coming-Of-Age



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#LOL



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Comfort Reads



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That’s Grim…



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All This Power!



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Review | Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West – Catherine Belton

About the Book

Interference in American elections. The sponsorship of extremist politics in Europe. War in Ukraine. In recent years, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has waged a concerted campaign to expand its influence and undermine Western institutions. But how and why did all this come about, and who has orchestrated it?

In Putin’s People, the investigative journalist and former Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and the small group of KGB men surrounding him rose to power and looted their country. Delving deep into the workings of Putin’s Kremlin, Belton accesses key inside players to reveal how Putin replaced the freewheeling tycoons of the Yeltsin era with a new generation of loyal oligarchs, who in turn subverted Russia’s economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin’s reach into the United States and Europe. The result is a chilling and revelatory exposé of the KGB’s revanche—a story that begins in the murk of the Soviet collapse, when networks of operatives were able to siphon billions of dollars out of state enterprises and move their spoils into the West. Putin and his allies subsequently completed the agenda, reasserting Russian power while taking control of the economy for themselves, suppressing independent voices, and launching covert influence operations abroad.

Ranging from Moscow and London to Switzerland and Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach—and assembling a colorful cast of characters to match—Putin’s People is the definitive account of how hopes for the new Russia went astray, with stark consequences for its inhabitants and, increasingly, the world.

650 pages (hardcover)
Published on June 23, 2020
Buy the book 

This book was a library loan.

The first thing you need to know, is that I have a massive, huge, just absolutely overflowing obsession with Russia. The whole entire history of it, from the Kievan Rus, to the tsars, to Soviet style communism (Stalin, specifically, keeps me reading), to the fall of the USSR, to now. Russia is a really dynamic, changing country with a long, long history, and I think that’s part of what interests me. To understand why Lenin came to be, you have to understand the system of Tsars, how they started, and what they turned into throughout time. You’ve got to understand how the people functioned under those laws and rulers, and how they were oppressed and how they survived and the like. To understand Stalin, you have to know where he came from, and the various situations that made him who he was. The influences. The tug and pull of politics in his day and age. 

Things don’t just happen in a vacuum. In Russia, the cause and effect between people and events are crystal clear, and it’s fascinating. 

Likewise, to understand Putin, you’ve got to know where he came from. Life in the USSR, and especially life under its collapse, really formed a lot of who he is today. But to understand the collapse, you have to understand what, exactly what collapsing. You also have to understand a bit of the KGB, and just how many pies it had its fingers in (Honestly, the KGB’s vast, international reach really surprised me.) And while this may seem really heady stuff, Belton does an absolutely magnificent job of boiling it all down, and giving it to readers in nice, digestible chunks.

“The KGB playbook of the Cold War era, when the Soviet Union deployed ‘active measures’ to sow division and discord in the West, to fund allied political parties and undermine its ‘imperial’ foe, has now been fully reactivated. What’s different now is that these tactics are funded by a much deeper well of cash, by a Kremlin that has become adept in the ways of the markets and has sunk its tentacles deep into the institutions of the West.” 

That’s what Putin’s People does really well. It draws a line between what was, and what came from it. It paints a picture of how the USSR broke down, and details the various people that came out of the collapse to, often times, take advantage of what was crumbling and become something more. Oligarchs. Real estate moguls. Political power brokers.

Vladimir Putin. 

The fall of the USSR was catastrophic for nearly everyone who lived in the region. The economy collapsed and was not ready for the transition to a more open marketplace. People went hungry. There was never enough in the stores. Lots of people started import/export schemes, which made a few people a lot of money, while leaving a lot of people with absolutely nothing. There was job loss, insecurity, sudden and dramatic inequality. Basically, a whole lot of chaos and misery. 

Mixed into this was a new class of business person. These people saw a niche and a vulnerability, and knew they could take advantage. There was a whole lot of theft from the state and depletion of resources. A lot of import/export schemes. Crime bosses took over. Oligarchs became a Big Deal. Now, this happened at the fall of the USSR, but even before as well. The author paints an amazing picture of the KGB, and their theft of money from the state, just how they managed it, and how they kept it hidden. As soon as people saw the writing on the wall, even before the collapse of the USSR, those with the knowledge and knowhow to take advantage, were circling the carcass of the old Soviet system, and picking at what it had to offer.

This was Putin’s world. This was what he came to power knowing. This system of espionage and secrecy mixed intoxicatingly with advantageous crime bosses and power brokers.

… ever since the sixties the Soviet Union had found its strength lay in disinformation, in planting fake rumours in the media to discredit Western leaders, in assassinating political opponents, and in supporting front organisations that would foment wars in the Third World and undermine and sow discord in the West.

Putin is not a nice guy. Let’s be clear about that. A whole lot of people in this book had some very bad endings, poisonings, fatally falling off a yacht, randomly deciding to jump out a window, lots of questionable suicides and convenient deaths. Putin isn’t afraid to clean house. That’s part of what keeps him somewhat untouchable and mysterious to us out here in the West. People are afraid to speak out about what they know, and what they saw or experienced, because so many people who do not toe the line… end. Fatally. 

“Pugachev told Putin he should prostrate himself in front of the priest, as was the custom, and ask for forgiveness. ‘He looked at me in astonishment. “Why should I?” he said. “I am the president of the Russian Federation. Why should I ask for forgiveness?’”

This makes the author’s extensive, detailed, incredible research all the more impressive. A lot of her sources are anonymous, for obvious reasons, but she does get a good number of people to tell their stories and stick their names to it. Furthermore, she has done her reading and her archive searching. When considering the obstacle of learning anything in a country that has spent the past mumble-mumble years of its history learning how to hide literally everything from everyone, it’s impressive that she managed to unfold that many secrets and that much information and distill it into one digestible work of nonfiction, as seen here. 

There is a new revelation on just about every page of this book, and the authors easy to understand, almost aggressive writing style makes this book read almost like a thriller. I was constantly turning the pages to see what would happen next, and who was doing what, where. That’s quite a mark in the book’s favor, I must say. A lot of nonfiction reads like a textbook, but this one decidedly does not. 

This book is, quite frankly, almost too surreal to believe, and there were quite a number of times I was thinking, “no way… there’s NO WAY this is true” but Belton’s research makes just about everything laid out in these pages irrefutable. There’s just too much evidence to not believe all the threads of the stories she’s weaving together. That makes all this espionage, spycraft, deep state, organized crime stuff almost surreal. Like, to the point where I had to take a break a few times and remember I wasn’t reading some fiction book that someone wrote, but this is actually real life. People live it. 

Putin’s People isn’t just about internal politics, and the rise of Putin and those near him. It’s also very much about international politics. Belton discusses a lot of modern day international issues and how Putin and his cronies reacted to them. The conflict in Ukraine, various events in the Middle East, why London is such an important city to Russia (I didn’t know Russia had such a big impact in the Vote Leave campaign in the UK), and, of course, its dynamic and ever-changing relationship to the United States, as well as, yes, Trump’s personal connection with a whole lot of prominent Russian oligarchs dating all the way back to the 1980s. 

“Yevgeny Dvoskin – Brighton Beach mobster who became one of Russia’s most notorious ‘shadow bankers’ after moving back to Moscow with his uncle, Ivankov, joining forces with the Russian security services to funnel tens of billions of dollars in ‘black cash’ into the West. Felix Sater – Dvoskin’s best friend since childhood. Became a key business partner of the Trump Organization, developing a string of properties for Trump, all the while retaining high-level contacts in Russian intelligence.” 

Putin, as I’ve said, is not a nice person, but he has worked in the KGB and spent many of his formidable years flexing his muscles during the collapse of the USSR, navigating its crime-ridden economy, and consolidating his power. Now, he is turning his eye West, and the results of his pressure and influence are obvious, if you know where to look and what to see. Belton paints a very stark, cold, scary picture of one man’s rise to power, his control and mastery over said power, as well as the people around him, and his ability to manipulate events to fall in his favor. 

This book is a fantastic study of how the modern Russia came to be. The story of what comes next remains to be told, but Putin’s People gives you some ideas of what to expect, and it leaves me cold.

5/5 stars

Review | Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo

About the Book

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first. 

465 pages (hardcover)
Published on September 29, 2015
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Six of Crows is a book I’ve been meaning to read for a very long time. Last year, I did the summer reading program at the library. For completing it, I got a free book, and this was the one I chose. I promptly put it on one of my bookshelves and forgot it existed until I was cleaning off said bookshelf last weekend. When I saw this book, I immediately started reading it. 

Now, let me be clear about one thing. I’m not really into heist books. I mean, sure, they can be fun, but I have to be in a very specific mood to actually enjoy them, and I almost never really get into that mood. So, I went into this one with a mark against it. That being said, I’ve heard. A lot about Bardugo, and I’ve enjoyed one of her previous books (when I read it about a million years ago) so I had high hopes that her writing and ability to tell a good story would make up for any issues. I had regarding whether I was, or was not, in the mood for a heist. 

I also want to mention the fact that one of the characters, Kaz, has a cane which he uses due to a childhood injury, and this pleased me. The normalization of mobility aids is something that I will always cheer for. 

So, the book. 

Six of Crows is one of those books that I can’t quite seem to categorize. It’s classified as young adult, and I suppose it deserves that, as most of the characters seem to be about seventeen. That being said, there’s a lot of violence, which is gruesome and can be described in a surprising amount of detail for a YA book. Let me be perfectly clear here, I actually really enjoyed the rawness and reality of these scenes. I think young people can completely handle reading about blood and violence, and I never felt like it crossed any real boundaries, but I did feel like there was a truth to the story here, an unflinching desire for the author to fully examine some of the messier parts of her story that I really appreciated. 

“When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.” 

Kaz might be the character that I ended up taking the most issue with, and I think he’s probably why this book will end up with a four star rating rather than five. At the time, while I was reading the book, I had a really hard time figuring out why I was bouncing off this character rather than embracing him. He is the center around which this band of unlikely characters circles, and perhaps that’s why I ended up taking such an issue with him. As a seventeen-year-old, he has a cane due to an injury he took as a child (he’s seventeen so childhood really isn’t that far off). He is the genius savant of the group, always knows more than everyone else, and seems to enjoy keeping himself shrouded in mystery (which honestly exhausts me after a while). While I get all that, it just seemed like a lot for a seventeen-year-old to carry on his shoulders. I think, in the end, Kaz was far more adult than his age suggested. I felt like Bardugo was creating an adult character, and then remembered she was writing about teenagers and so stuck an appropriate age on him as an afterthought. 

Each of the characters, however, bring something to the story, and each of them have their own mysteries, and their own dark stories. Sometimes this did feel a bit heavy handed. It did serve its purpose however, in making me both want to know more about these characters as individuals, and making me eager to see how these characters with all their baggage would interact with each other and the world itself. Ultimately, it’s the mystery that, I think, will make some of these characters appeal to readers more than others. They all have unique personalities and unique voices, but it’s that shadow that clings to them, that undefined what if quality of each of their personalities that ended up captivating me more than almost anything else.

Bardugo has a knack for revelation, not just her characters, but important points of the plot as well, right when this information needs to be given. I never felt like I was hanging around for some huge info-dump style revelation. Rather, they happened at the perfect moments, and I was really quite in awe of Bardugo’s timing in this regard. The entire book felt poised just right, between mystery and knowledge. My only flaw in this aspect of the book, was the ending, where things felt a touch messy, and a bit rushed, and there was some ignorance about things happening that was just a little bit beyond credulity.

As I’ve said above, this is a heist book, and this may or may not actually end up working for you. In truth, the heist itself often takes a back seat to the interpersonal and group dynamics and drama going on. Sometimes this was a bit exhausting, but Bardugo has a handful of very unique, well-crafted characters here, who each add something to the group, and to each other, that really works to make the book what it is. So while you’re reading about a heist, you’re actually also reading about these characters, and experiencing how they ebb and flow against both each other and the world they inhabit. I actually found the character dynamics to be far more interesting than the heist (the heist is interesting, don’t get me wrong). For me, a person who isn’t typically all “woo, a heist!” this balance worked really well for me. I love seeing how emotions and personal stories can be used as important character and plot development tools, and Bardugo is a master of this craft. 

“A secret’s not like coin. It doesn’t keep its value in the spending.”

The book’s start is a bit slow, and it took me some effort and determination to get through the first third or so of it, but once you get past that point, and all the development it entailed, things really start taking off. Each chapter switches to a different character’s point of view, which gives the reader a nuanced, layered look at the world’s development, the other characters, and the central plot points. Also, there is a bit of romance here, but it doesn’t overwhelm the plot. 

In the end, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to, and in some ways, I liked it a whole lot more than I expected. Bardugo has created an interesting world here, and filled it with characters that are just as textured and layered as the city they inhabit. While I felt that the heist did ultimately take a backseat to the character drama, I do think that worked in the book’s favor. Six of Crows is not a perfect book, but really, what is? I’m glad I read it, and I am excited to see what happens next.

4/5 stars

Review | Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and her Daughter Mary Shelley

About the Book

Although mother and daughter, these two brilliant women never knew one another – Wollstonecraft died of an infection in 1797 at the age of thirty-eight, a week after giving birth. Nevertheless their lives were so closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies so eerily similar, it seems impossible to consider one without the other.

Both women became famous writers; fell in love with brilliant but impossible men; and were single mothers who had children out of wedlock; both lived in exile; fought for their position in society; and thought deeply about how we should live. And both women broke almost every rigid convention there was to break: Wollstonecraft chased pirates in Scandinavia. Shelley faced down bandits in Naples. Wollstonecraft sailed to Paris to witness the Revolution. Shelley eloped in a fishing boat with a married man. Wollstonecraft proclaimed that women’s liberty should matter to everyone.

Not only did Wollstonecraft declare the rights of women, her work ignited Romanticism. She inspired Coleridge, Wordsworth and a whole new generation of writers, including her own daughter, who – with her young lover Percy Shelley – read Wollstonecraft’s work aloud by her graveside. At just nineteen years old and a new mother herself, Mary Shelley composed Frankenstein whilst travelling around Italy with Percy and roguish Lord Byron (who promptly fathered a child by Mary’s stepsister). It is a seminal novel, exploring the limitations of human nature and the power of invention at a time of great religious and scientific upheaval. Moreover, Mary Shelley would become the editor of her husband’s poetry after his early death – a feat of scholarship that did nothing less than establish his literary reputation.

Romantic Outlaws brings together a pair of visionary women who should have shared a life, but who instead shared a powerful literary and feminist legacy. This is inventive, illuminating, involving biography at its best.

649 pages (hardcover)
Published on April 28, 2015
Buy the book

I didn’t know much about Mary Shelley before diving into this book, and I’d never heard of Mary Wollstonecraft. However, this book had great reviews and it looked interesting, so I decided to put it on hold at the library. 

The thing is, I didn’t actually expect to like it, and I certainly didn’t think I’d devour it. 

Romantic Outlaws tells the story of both mother and daughter, switching between their lives from chapter to chapter. This allows the reader to learn about both women when they are roughly at the same point in their lives, but it also gives you a good point to juxtapose their stories. At first, there’s a whole lot to compare. Despite the fact that both Marys fought very similar battles in their lives, the two women couldn’t really be more different. 

“Both mother and daughter attempted to free themselves from the stranglehold of polite society, and both struggled to balance their need for love and companionship with their need for independence. They braved the criticism of their peers to write works that took on the most volatile issues of the day. Brave, passionate, and visionary, they broke almost every rule there was to break. Both had children out of wedlock. Both fought against the injustices women faced and both wrote books that revolutionized history.” 

Mary Wollstonecraft had a pretty horrible start in life. Her father was an alcoholic, gambler, and abusive. Mary was the second oldest child in a family with seven children. Her older brother was her mother’s favorite child, and so Mary spent most of her childhood trying to both protect her mother from her father, and trying to win some of her mother’s affection. 

What really interested me about this was the fact that the author, Charlotte Gordon, did a great job at showing just how Mary Wollstonecraft’s childhood, and the various trials she faced in her home life, and frequent moves, helped turn her into the formidable woman she became. It was really easy to see where the roots of her thought, so outrageous for the day, really were planted, and how and why they grew into what they became. 

Her daughter, Mary Shelley, was also a mover and shaker in her own right. I will fully admit, however, that I didn’t warm to her story until well after the halfway point in the book. Her relationship with Percy Shelley completely baffled me. I very quickly figured out that I didn’t like Percy Shelley at all, and I was honestly quite relieved when he turned into a past-tense figure, rather than a present force in her life. It wasn’t until that point that I really grew into Mary Shelley’s story. 

The women, while having some parallels in their lives, really grew up quite differently. Mary Wollstonecraft was such a huge presence in Mary Shelley’s life, even though she wasn’t alive during any of it. It must have been quite a thing to grow up in Wollstonecraft’s shadow. She still had followers and devotees, people who wanted to know Mary Shelley because it was the closest they’d ever get to her mother. There also must have been quite a bit of pressure there, a need for Mary Shelley to perform, though the author never really gets into that explicitly.

While their lives are very different, both women climbed up the same hill in different ways. They both felt passionately for the rights of women, and both of them scorned a lot of the political and social mores of the times, and often seemed to feel that any independence they gained was worth the battle they fought to gain it. Mary Wollstonecraft really blazed a trail for Mary Shelley. While veering off the tried-and-true path was never easy for either woman, I think Wollstonecraft made it a bit more acceptable and expected for Shelley.  

“If a female fainted easily, could not abide spiders, feared thunderstorms, ghosts, and highwaymen, ate only tiny portions, collapsed after a brief walk, and wept when she had to add a column of numbers, she was considered the feminine ideal.” 

This is not to say that it was ever easy for Mary Shelley. She had a lot of trials and struggles. I don’t think Percy Shelley really helped her much emotionally, and quite honestly, I spent a good chunk of the book really, profoundly disliking the man on an almost visceral level. He was a devotee of Wollstonecraft, and so he lived a life in the fringes. An outspoken atheist, and a man who believed in setting up a “free love” society, he at turns loved Mary Shelley and broke her heart. He also ensured that she spent much of her earlier years living the life of an outsider alongside him. When it was time for her to walk on her own path, I don’t think straying from the norms of the time was as hard for her as it otherwise could have been, thanks a lot to both her mother’s memory, and her life with Percy Shelley.

The gestation and evolution of her infamous book Frankenstein, was absolutely fascinating. There’s been a lot of focus and debate about how that book came to be. The author does an absolutely amazing job of setting up the discussions, the nights, what everyone there was doing and talking about, and all of the writing, from all parties present that came of those conversations. Her take on Frankenstein, however, and her ability to break it down and show how parts of Mary Shelley’s life likely influenced bits of the novel was, quite honestly, one of the most interesting parts of the entire book. 

I feel like I’m focusing a lot of Mary Shelley, and while she’s interesting, the parts of this book I really lived for was her mother’s. Mary Wollstonecraft was absolutely riveting. She was such a strong woman, who was so determined to stray from the path. She suffered love and heartbreak, she was afraid. She fought. She wrote books that created huge stirs. She had a child out of wedlock. She loved and was loved in return. 

I can’t believe I’d never heard of her before, but every one of her chapters stole the show. She was utterly and completely her own woman in a world where women were owned, though did not own. She held her own against nearly every man she faced, and while she was very abrupt and likely abrasive, she was also incredibly intelligent with a wit and mind that was honed sharp as a knife. It’s not very common that a book can not only inform me about a historical figure, but also turn them into some sort of hero of mine at the same time, but I think this one did that for Mary Wollstonecraft. 

All in all, I cannot recommend this book enough. Mary Wollstonecraft, in my opinion, outshines her daughter by orders of magnitude, but both were formidable, boundary breaking women in the annals of history. Both women fought for what they believed, which was often against the standards of the time. Both women blazed new trails for others, not just in their day and age, but in future generations as well, and their echoes are still felt today. 

5/5 stars

Review | Ashes of the Sun – Django Wexler

About the Book

Long ago, a magical war destroyed an empire, and a new one was built in its ashes. But still the old grudges simmer, and two siblings will fight on opposite sides to save their world, in the start of Django Wexler’s new epic fantasy trilogy

Gyre hasn’t seen his beloved sister since their parents sold her to the mysterious Twilight Order. Now, twelve years after her disappearance, Gyre’s sole focus is revenge, and he’s willing to risk anything and anyone to claim enough power to destroy the Order.

Chasing rumors of a fabled city protecting a powerful artifact, Gyre comes face-to-face with his lost sister. But she isn’t who she once was. Trained to be a warrior, Maya wields magic for the Twilight Order’s cause. Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, the two siblings will learn that not even the ties of blood will keep them from splitting the world in two.

592 pages (paperback)
Published on July 21, 2020
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This book was sent by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

I feel bad that it took me so long to get around to reading this book. Honestly, it wasn’t really my choice. I’ve been busy and life just keeps happening. That being said, I finally put some time aside to really tackle this beast and I’m glad I did. This book was a joy to read, and a joy to look at (that cover art is amazing). 

I will be honest, dear reader, that I was a bit reluctant going into this one. For some reason, I had it in my head that this would be a good vs. evil struggle, pretty cut and dried, and while those are okay to read about, they don’t really rev my engine. Don’t get me wrong, some good vs. evil struggles are absolutely worth your time, but I prefer my books to be a bit grayer, a bit harder to pin down, and more morally complex. 

So I stared this book thinking, “this will be a thing I’m reading” and I ended it thinking, “good god, this book was fantastic.” 

The thing is, I have learned through writing my own books, that I really enjoy family dynamics, and in Ashes of the Sun you have a brother and sister, separated when they were children, now basically living on opposite ends of… everything. Maya, who is being trained to be a centrach of the Twilight Order, and Gyre, who is known as “halfmask” and spends his life trying to destroy said Twilight Order, along with his gang of rebels. Both of them are on opposite ends of practically everything, including a looming civil war. It’s a delicious setup for whatever is going to happen next. 

Gyre and Maya were separated at the age of five, and this might be the part of the book I really liked the most. Siblings being torn apart is interesting, but the way that the entire book basically is the fallout of that one action and that had me there with bells on. Ashes of the Sun was about a lot of things, but the fact that nearly none of this would have happened if this one random kid wasn’t taken away at the age of five, was fascinating to me. 

The chapters switch between Maya and Gyre, which gives you time to see both (dramatically different) sides to what is being set up here. Gyre lives in a sort of post-apocalyptic, post-conflict (pre-another conflict) hellscape where life is hard, and messy and struggles are prevalent. Maya lives with the Twilight Order working on her way through her education, learning magic and her place in the world. Interspersed in this are not only the struggles they are both preparing to face, but personal development and growth, and a whole lot of very interesting side characters with fully fleshed personalities and motivations. There’s a lot here, and it was all so very well done and tightly crafted.

Now, I can’t remember where I saw something about Django being inspired by Star Wars to write this book, and I will say that I could see a lot of that influence here, from the lightsaber-like blades that the Twilight Order uses, to the fact that it’s a family saga, as well as some of the unique to this world beasties and creatures. Ashes of the Sun largely explores the outcomes of a few pivotal actions and how it dramatically opposes members of a family unit as a result. I will also say (don’t throw rocks at me) that I really enjoyed this a whole lot more than I enjoy Star Wars. 

There’s a lot happening in this book, and there isn’t much downtime for either characters or readers to take in what has been going on. This is fine, but when you read Ashes of the Sun, you need to understand that it starts out running and by the end, you’re going at a sprint. There’s a lot of action and adventure, a lot of intrigue, and it’s all set against the backdrop of a sort of dystopian secondary fantasy world that has some of the most interesting, nuanced development I’ve come across in a while. Mixing all of this together, as well as characters that seem to fly off the page and are wrapped in realness, is old hat for an author as skilled as Django Wexler. He knows when to describe, and when to step back and let readers figure things out on their own, and this balance makes the book that much easier to slip into, and get lost in. 

There’s a big glossary of terms in the back of the book, and while I’m not usually a person who looks at that sort of thing (I prefer figuring it out on my own), I will say I was glad that it was here in this instance. There’s a lot of unique terminology, and while it is easy to roughly figure out the definition for some of these words, I was glad to have a way to validate my assumptions. 

So, what does all this boil down to? 

Ashes of the Sun was a book I was pretty sure I was going to feel rather “meh” about, but it ended up really sucking me in. It was a fantastic setup for a series that I’m sure will knock my socks off. This book checks off all my boxes. It’s complex, detailed, a bit morally gray, unpredictable, and so well written, with characters that keep you rooted in place and wanting more. Django Wexler has been an author to watch for years now. This book is different from his other work, but no less impressive. I was really glad I read this one, and I’m sure you will be too. 

(Read this book. It was really, really good.)

5/5 stars