Sarah Chorn's Blog, page 28

Priest of Bones – Peter McLean

About the Book

It’s a dangerous thing, to choose the lesser of two evils.

The war is over, and army priest Tomas Piety finally heads home with Lieutenant Bloody Anne at his side. When he arrives in the Stink, Tomas finds that his empire of crime has been stolen from him while at war. With his gang of Pious Men, Tomas will do whatever it takes to reclaim his businesses. But when he finds himself dragged into a web of political intrigue once again, and is forced to work in secret for the sinister Queen’s Men, everything gets more complicated.

When loyalties stretch to the breaking point and violence only leads to violence, when people have run out of food, and hope, and places to hide, do not be surprised if they have also run out of mercy. As the Pious Men fight shadowy foreign infiltrators in the backstreet taverns and gambling dens of Tomas’s old life it becomes clear; the war is not over.

It is only just beginning. 

352 pages (paperback)
Published on October 2, 2018
Published by Ace Books
Author’s webpage
Buy the book

This book was a review copy sent
by the publisher.

—

Priest of Bones is another book I got an ARC
for a hundred years ago, and then subsequently read and haven’t had time to
review because I’ve been busy writing my own book and editing for clients. Now,
things are changing and I find myself in a bit of a lull so I can catch up on
all the books that have fallen by the wayside, like this one.

Priest of Bones is pretty interesting in a lot
of respects. It’s grimdark, but of a kind all its own. What I mean is, there
are aspects of this book that will remind readers of other books that have come
before, but that’s not a bad thing, because whatever is similar has been
twisted enough to make it uniquely McLean’s own. Basically, what I’m saying is,
whatever similarities you’ll see are more like faint perfume more than anything
else.

And
truthfully, I really enjoyed those similarities when I found them. I tend to
enjoy picking influences out of books. None of us write in a vacuum.

This
book is told in the first person, through the perspective of Tomas Piety. Tomas
is returning to his hometown from a long war, and is looking forward to
claiming his old turf again. Come to find out, other crime bosses and criminals
have moved in on his territory while he was gone and he has to make heads roll
to reclaim what he once had.

This
is really an anti-heroes grimdark fantasy, which means that I just loved it.
Tomas is an interesting character in the fact that he’s a criminal, and he’s
not above doing dark deeds to get his own aims, but he also has a moral core.
He’s against rape, he doesn’t tolerate violence against (unarmed) women, etc. I
really enjoyed these nuances in his character, a dark anti-hero with his own
moral core, that sometimes caught me by surprise.

The
plot is pretty quick moving, and sometimes characters came and went so fast
that they really weren’t more than a footnote in the events that transpired –
faces and names, but not much more than an impression. That’s fine, really,
because the people who were important to know, were the ones that really stood
out, and were very well crafted.

Tomas has
a lot of respect from those who served with him. He’s a boss, and a
businessman, and he’s not really afraid of confrontation. The respect for those
who work with him, and under him, is felt through all the dealings. Each of the
supporting characters has their own voices, their own aims, and their own unique
mentality.

The writing is direct and to the point, and the world, this gritty, dirty, dark corner of it was crafted so well. Events never really stopped moving forward, and the characters that drove things were just as interesting as what was happening. This book wasn’t terribly long, and it was a good break away from the sprawling epics that deal with apocalyptic events.

I really enjoyed how McLean managed to take this notably diverse cast of characters, and push them all in very different, creative ways. I enjoyed how he played with loyalties and relationships, pushing everyone until they frayed and then watching how things fell apart, or together, as the case may be. It was quite enjoyable, and he managed to keep me guessing despite myself.

While this book has been poo-poo’d by some reviewers for being too similar to other books, I really found that Priest of Bones was its own beast, and McLean was a fantastic author to take readers through this morally gray, dark almost noir-ish (at times) story. I loved his writing, and I adored his characters and really look forward to seeing what comes from him next.

This
is one of those books that surprised me. I ended up reading it a lot faster
than I expected to, and was a lot more into it than I thought I’d be. In truth,
this one left me with a bit of a book hangover.

I can’t
wait to see what McLean comes up with next.

4/5
stars

A Gathering of Ravens – Scott Oden

About the Book

To the Danes, he is skraelingr; to the English, he is orcneas; to the Irish, he is fomoraig. He is Corpse-maker and Life-quencher, the Bringer of Night, the Son of the Wolf and Brother of the Serpent. He is Grimnir, and he is the last of his kind–the last in a long line of monsters who have plagued humanity since the Elder Days.

Drawn from his lair by a thirst for vengeance against the Dane who slew his brother, Grimnir emerges into a world that’s changed. A new faith has arisen. The Old Ways are dying, and their followers retreating into the shadows; even still, Grimnir’s vengeance cannot be denied.

Taking a young Christian hostage to be his guide, Grimnir embarks on a journey that takes him from the hinterlands of Denmark, where the wisdom of the ancient dwarves has given way to madness, to the war-torn heart of southern England, where the spirits of the land make violence on one another. And thence to the green shores of Ireland and the Viking stronghold of Dubhlinn, where his enemy awaits.

But, unless Grimnir can set aside his hatreds, his dream of retribution will come to nothing. For Dubhlinn is set to be the site of a reckoning–the Old Ways versus the New–and Grimnir, the last of his kind left to plague mankind, must choose: stand with the Christian King of Ireland and see his vengeance done or stand against him and see it slip away?

Scott Oden’s A Gathering of Ravens is an epic novel of vengeance, faith, and the power of myth.

Hardcover 320 pages
Published on June 20, 2017
Published by Bantam Press
Author’s website
Buy the book

This book was a library loan.
Yay libraries!

—

I read
this book a while ago, and then I forgot to review it. So, I’m making up for lost
time here. I apologize for taking so long, but life happens and here we are.
Better late than never, right?

A Gathering of Ravens is the sort of book that’s
right in my wheelhouse. It’s a fantastic take on myth and history that has just
enough real-world woven in to capture my interest. I really love books that
make me wonder how much research must have gone into writing them, and this is
one of those. The thing is, when an author puts so much effort and research
into writing a book, I can tell, and I like that. It means the world is coming
to life for me, and the tale being told is relevant and captivating enough for
it to transform from a story being told to me, into something I feel like I’m
experiencing.

I hope
that makes some sort of sense. What I’m basically saying is, this book felt
real while I was reading it, and the ability to make that happen must have
taken just a stunning amount of research and effort on the writer’s part and
that really needs to be recognized. The ability for Oden to so perfectly capture
the atmosphere and cultural aspects of a time so long ago was nothing short of
remarkable, and really turned out to be one of the primary strengths of this
novel.

This book is ultimately one about change, and shared journeys, relationships and all the things that entails. A confounding confluence of events results in the capture of one person and then a harrowing a journey from the hinterlands of Denmark to a land across the sea in a quest for vengeance. The world has changed, and things aren’t as they seem to be. Together these people thrust together by circumstance, must make peace and navigate a world they don’t really understand, one where they are both on the fringes of status quo. Throughout all of this, Grimnir and Étaín end up turning from people at odds with each other, to their own support and ally in this strange new world they find themselves in.

What I really loved about A Gathering of Ravens was the fact so many details were touched on. I’m a sucker for details, but Oden really put his all into them, and it showed. Throughout this saga, readers are confronted with some of the ugliness of the times, what happens when cultures clash, when religious devotions change from paganism to belief in the Christ, the ugliness of wars, tragic injustices, and other things of that nature. It’s not an easy world, and the dense writing and vivid prose really brought it to life, from the cold chill which I could almost actually feel, to all these horrors. This is not a light book, not by any means. It’s dark, and it’s full of tragedy and passioned battles of both the personal and the sharp-pointy-ended kind, but my god, it was well done.

The fantasy elements were wonderful. Oden injected his story with magic and lore, like Celtic faeries, for example, and details from legends that have peppered the history of many of those older places of yore. There are also orcs, and dwarves, and other fantasy creatures like that, as well as magic. This flawless blending of magic, myth, and history was, quite frankly, captivating. I really love historical fantasy, and this right here is why. It’s really fun to read a book based on such a strong foundation, and then see just how the author took that foundation, and turned it into something else entirely.

I loved the relationship that forms between Grimnir and Étaín. It started out fraught and difficult, but through time it evolved into something else. Each character took on a life of their own and, like the world they inhabit, nothing is as it seems to be. Oden has a gift with delving below the surface, and forcing his readers to do the same. Things might be ugly, and they might be dark, but under it all is a core there is light, and there his hope, and there is tomorrow, and it is worth fighting for.

Tense, atmospheric, and vividly written, A Gathering of Ravens is one of those books that has been underappreciated, too overlooked, and not received nearly the attention it deserves for the incredible work that it is. If you’re a fan of historical fantasy, and you haven’t read this yet, you’re really doing yourself an injustice. Oden infuses this book for the passion of his craft, and love of the subject he writes about.

This is worth your time.

5/5
stars

Writerly Things – An Update

I’ve been quiet for a while. I’ve also been super busy. Things are happening, and I’d like to give you a rundown on what those things are.

First of all, I’ve updated the theme of this website, and for some reason it’s posting comments at the top of the page and blog posts under that. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to fix this. I’m sorry. I’m working on it. Eventually it’ll be fixed. I promise.

Seraphina’s Lament has a release date of February 19. On January 14th, I am showing my cover art off to the world, along with a chapter from my book, on Fantasy Faction. On January 16, I am being interviewed by the wonderful people at BigShinyRobot, and on January 17, I will be on Leona’s Blog of Shadows, talking about my disabled protagonist.

I have a publicist (I know, weird) but she’s organizing a blog tour for me, and we are currently curating a list of reviewers for the shiny digital ARCs I have sitting on my computer right now. If you’re a reviewer, and you’d like to host me on your website or you’d be interested in reading and reviewing some Holodomor-inspired secondary world grimdark fantasy, then hey, hit me up. Let’s chat.

I’ve also started up a newsletter, which you’ll be able to sign up on at a few different points of my website. If you’re a newsletter subscriber, you’ll get to see my cover art and an excerpt chapter on January 11, rather than January 14. Subscribers to my newsletter will get a lot of different things, from what I’m up to, to where you can find me for (insert events here), as well as what I’m reading and what I’m watching. You’ll get exclusive book reviews you won’t get anywhere else, and I’m going to kick off an author and book spotlight in my February newsletter. Who knows, if this thing gets big enough, I might do giveaways and other things like that. I’m aiming for once a month right now, but I’m going to work hard to pack it full of content subscribers might really enjoy.

Right now, it’s just starting out, and all you need to know is if you sign up, you get to see my cover art and read part of my book on the 11th, while everyone else has to wait until Monday, the 14th.

So, I’ve got a lot of balls in the air right now. On top of this book launch, I’m also starting to write the second book in my Bloodlands Trilogy, which is called An Elegy for Hope. I’m reading a ton of historical nonfiction books. You’d be just amazed by how much research on Russian history I’ve had to do to write this series… and it doesn’t end, but I love it.

On the speculative fiction side of things, today I started listening to The Emperor’s Blades, which I’m really loving. When things slow down a bit, I’ll get back to reviewing. Right now, I’m just holding on, and enjoying the ride.

Announcement | My #SPFBO 2018 Finalist

As promised, I’m announcing my finalist today.

Typically picking a finalist is kind of a weird thing. Art is subjective, and it very much depends on who is interpreting the work and how their personal perspective is bent that day/minute/era/whatever. I basically base my finalist decision off of one question: Which book can’t I stop thinking about?

Whichever book is the answer to that question moves on to the next round.

Now, this particular book kind of caught me off guard. It’s really not my thing, for basically a whole host of reasons. I don’t read this genre of book, furthermore, I usually don’t like this sort of book. I kind of make a concentrated effort to stay away from them (Sorry, but it’s true. More details below.)

I’m saying that so maybe you’ll understand, with those facts laid out point-blank, how much this book had to grip me for it to stay with me the way it has.

I’ve said a lot about it already. My review is here, if you want to read it. If you want to check out it’s Amazon page, click here.

I could say more, but instead, I’ll just announce my finalist.

Congratulations to Angie Grigaliunas. 

As I said above, I typically don’t read young adult, and I have almost no interest in dystopian settings, but despite both of those points, this book really got me going. I loved the more mature themes. I enjoyed the writing, but really it was the detailed worldbuilding that sealed the deal here. I’m a sucker for details, and Grigalinuas (I swear I will absolutely never spell that name correctly the first time I type it out) managed to weave them in subtly, but with maximum impact. The mixture of good writing, good editing, good worldbuilding, and characters that I might not have always liked but ended up growing on me over time, made this one a slam-dunk.

Sowing was basically everything I didn’t know I really love about young adult speculative fiction.

Sowing reminded me why it’s a bad, stupid idea to ignore an entire age group of novels, or a subgenre.

Congratulations, Angie Grigaliunas! Good luck in the final round!

#SPFBO 2018 | Sentinel – Chad Ballard

About the Book

Aelathil is on the brink of civil war! Once pampered and spoiled as the only heir to one of Aelathil’s most powerful lordlings, Callan’s world has been tipped upside down by King Ramsey and his mighty dragons. Now he must join the growing resistance or watch as everything his family stood for crumbles away to nothing.

After her father is mauled by one of the massive lion-men of the frozen north, Pyra must do her best to hold his seat as Lord until he recovers—all while teaching herself to control the magical spark smoldering inside her.

Together, Callan and Pyra will shape Aelathil’s future. For better or worse, they will stand Sentinel over the people that the King has targeted for destruction. Should they fail, Pyra’s people will be buried in the northern wastes and Callan’s family legacy will be turned to ash.

274 pages (kindle)

Published on December 7, 2015

Author’s webpage

Buy the book

This book is part of the SPFBO

—

Sentinel tells the story of a nation on the brink of civil war. I tend to really enjoy books of this nature. I like political intrigue, and nations on the brink of devouring themselves interest me. I like to see how the nation got to that point, and how the characters are going to have to deal with it. The more unexpected, the more complex, the better.

So I went into this book pretty excited.

First, I should say that this book felt like more of a foundation than anything else. That’s not a bad thing, but it didn’t really have a self-contained plot. I don’t think it could hold its own without the other books in the series, for example. It’s dependent on them to be what it is. A foundation is interesting because it gives the author room to build on. In that respect, it did pretty well. Ballard built up his world, his characters, addressed the complex situation that is leading them to the cusp of breaking, and he hints at what will come next. Foundationally, Sentinel did a great job at setting up what comes next.

In a lot of ways, this felt very much like a coming-of-age book. Our protagonists, Callan and Pyra, felt very young and untested. They were characters I would have loved if I’d been a teenager. They were very well realized, and probably the best developed characters in the book. Unfortunately, the secondary characters felt pretty stereotypical and two-dimensional in comparison.

The plot moves forward at a nice clip, but it did wander at times. There were some side stories that never really met the main thread of the book satisfactorily. The ending of the book left me dissatisfied, and there were times when I wasn’t exactly sure why things were happening. Furthermore, there were points where I felt like points or events that had been established and addressed before were repeatedly discussed or mentioned in the plot when they didn’t need to be. This kind of gave the overall flow a sort of lumpy feel.

That being said, there were some really interesting scenes, some great cultural details, and some creatures, like dragons, that really intrigued me and kept me interested.

Perhaps my biggest complaint is that this book felt very trope-heavy. That’s not a bad thing, mind you. I enjoy a good trope as much as the next person. However, the thing that makes clichés and tropes interesting is a unique twist on them, and I often felt like the author fell short of that mark here. There was a ton of potential. Great main characters, an interesting setup and some good writing, but the tropes just left me feeling like this book never quite moved past being good.

Sentinel is a good book, it never quite moved beyond good, though. It read for a younger audience than I was expecting. It’s a great book for an introduction to fantasy, or for teens who are interested in reading some traditional fantasy stories. It, to me, reminded me a lot of Dungeons and Dragons in the feel of it. If I was in high school, I would have loved it.

Is this worth reading? Yes. If you’re in the mood for some traditional fantasy, or if you’ve got a teenager around you want to introduce to the genre, I’d hit this one up with gusto. It was a lot of fun, and a great start to a series. While I do feel like there were some missed opportunities here, I enjoyed every minute I spent reading this book.

 

3/5 stars

A bit of an #SPFBO Storm

I got a pretty nasty private message from an SPFBO contestant today about how I’m basically ruining the SPFBO due to my slow turnaround on reviews, and I guess it’s making me want to discuss the roots of the contest, as well as its evolution.

Feel free to ignore.

A few years ago, Mark Lawrence messaged me. He asked me how I’d feel about a contest of sorts, where self-published books were entered. He’d get a few reviewers together, and we’d act as “agents.” The best book in the batch we were given would be “represented” by us, and sent on to the final round of the contest. Now, this evolved over several days of messaging back and forth.

The original intent was to have each of the books we’re “representing” be treated like agented submissions. Each book would get the attention an agent typically gives a book, meaning a few pages would be read, or maybe a chapter, and then “representation” would be decided. Maybe we’d give feedback, a few tips, some insight into a handful of them. I know, for my part, that first year I only planned on fully reading the best book in my batch, and reviewing that one.

Things evolve. Contests change. The nature of the beast has unfolded a bit more. The SPFBO has gained a ton of popularity. We’ve had authors land big-5 contracts. People are paying attention. I’ve even had agents email me asking for my opinions about the books in my batch. Along with these changes, we’ve had new judges join, and a few years go by. We judges have fallen back on our reviewer habits, and now instead of really acting like “agents” as was first intended, we’re acting as book reviewers, true to our roots.

That’s fine, and it’s wonderful, in fact, that so many books that are undiscovered gems are getting the attention they deserve due to Mark Lawrence and his hairbrained idea he dreamed up one Sunday roughly (mumble mumble) years ago.

However, there’s been a bit of a storm in a teacup today due to the contest, and I felt the need to reiterate the SPFBO’s true roots. Full disclosure, I totally and completely sympathize with both sides of the debate that was going on today. However, based on the conversations I had with Mark all those years ago when this was just a pipedream and we were lobbing it at each other over Facebook Messenger across the span of a few weeks, the SPFBO has gone so far beyond where its roots were planted. That’s wonderful, but it means there have been some changes that have been hard for some of us to adjust to.

Four years ago, I was not a freelance editor. I did not own my own business, and my child who is medically complicated was not known to be medically complicated yet. Four years ago was before I had NINE surgeries, and before I added EIGHT specialists to my list due to my own chronic disease. It was before I beat my third round of cancer. Four years ago, I was not an author with a book about to be published. Four years ago was a lifetime ago.

And I guarantee it was for all the other judges as well.

So, the contest changes, but so does life. The evolution of the contest has meant that all of us judges have to spend more time fully reading more books, writing full reviews on more books, which requires more effort, energy, and more brainpower than was originally intended. Now, the plus side of that is all that publicity for all these amazing authors. The downside is that those of us who run our websites alone, without a team behind us, have to shoulder all of this on our own, and it can be hard. When everyone else is doing something one way, it’s sort of implied that all the other websites and judges will as well. If I ran this contest in the way that it was first intended, it would appear, today, like I’m judging a different SPFBO than everyone else.

There is a learning curve involved in things that are constantly changing. An open dialogue is important. If judges aren’t doing something satisfactorily, then we need to know so we can decide how to proceed. The good thing about the SPFBO is that it allows for room for things to change. It allows for constantly moving parts, both on the part of the authors, and on the parts of the judges. The open format, the fairly loose rules allows for a lot of adjusting on both sides of the relationship.

It’s fantastic when a contest where one book from each group was expected to have something said about it has spawned so many websites are able to give all thirty books full reviews. That’s so great for the authors, and so great that websites are able to do that. It is so far beyond the original intentions of this contest, and that’s FANTASTIC.

That being said, I ask for people to understand the roots of the SPFBO, and its original intentions. Consider the fact that we are people outside of our websites, with lives and jobs, and that the way the contest is currently running is above and beyond its original intent. While that’s WONDERFUL (seriously, I love its current format), it has positives and negatives. On the author’s side, the positives are often seen in increased publicity and stage time on big websites that have loud voices, without any of the behind-the-scenes juggling, time, effort, and energy, though there is often frustration involved in waiting.

For some authors, it’s their first experience getting reviewed, and that can be hard, but it’s part of the game.

If us judges didn’t want to do this, then we wouldn’t. I love books. I am passionate about reading, so much so that I’m making a life out of it, as well as a career. I love being part of this contest, and I love spreading the word about fantastic books that are too often underappreciated, or overlooked in our wham-bam instant marketplace where the shiniest thing often gets the most attention. I believe in the SPFBO, and I have believed in it from day one.

The SPFBO is quite amazing, but it has evolved and it has changed. I hope judges and contestants can have an open dialogue. I also hope that going forward, we can keep the roots of this contest in our minds, while things evolve in new and exciting ways. Perhaps by understanding the roots of the SPFBO, judges and contestants can give each other a bit more leeway, and flexibility. And I hope that seeing each other as people, rather than computer screens, can help us keep a two-way dialogue going so we can constantly keep improving this important contest.

#SPFBO 2010 | An Update

So, it’s that time of year again. We’ve got a month left of the SPFBO and my life is insane so I need to write a bit of an update/what to expect post.

The thing is, I didn’t expect my life, editing wise, to be this busy. My business has increased threefold this year. I’ve got a waiting list of books to be edited, and daily queries from authors. It’s WONDERFUL, but when I edit, I have a really hard time keeping this blog updated.

Mixed into this increase in business is the fact that I’ve got a book coming out soon, and getting that ready has also added to my workload.

So we’ve got two things here that add up to me reading a lot before I fall asleep at night, but having almost no time to actually write reviews. Now, to add another cog into my complexity machine, my website was hacked recently, and that took me offline and out of commission for a few weeks while it was sorted out.

The TL/DR version of this is: I’m hella freaking busy, folks, and while I love it, it’s totally impacting my ability to write the reviews I want to write, in the timely manner I want to write them in.

Now, we are in the last month of the first round of this competition, and this weekend I had to have a bit of a talk with myself.

Me: Self, do you *honestly* think you can get the remaining books reviewed before January 1st hits?

Myself: No. Really, no. I’ve got two novels I’m editing for clients right now, and three short stories waiting, plus, I’ve got a deadline of around December 15 to get my own developmental edits back for my book. AND, I’ve got a family and a day job and life and stuff, so no, I can’t.

Me: So what are you going to do about it?

Myself: Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it.

I spent this weekend trying to decide how I’d handle this. You see, I want to review all the books in my batch but I also want to give my finalist time to bask in being a finalist before the news of actually BEING a finalist gets smothered by the holiday season.

Therefore, what I’m going to do is this, and it’s probably going to suck, but here it is. I need to give myself a bit of a break or I’ll burn out/stress myself to death.

On Friday, I am going to announce my finalist.

Then, I will review the remaining books in my group as time allows. My goal was to review all of you before announcing my finalist, but I’m drowning under obligations right now, and it’s just not feasible with my current workload. So, Friday you get my finalist, and then I’ll review the rest of the books in my batch here and there, as I can, when I can.

I’m sorry that I have to do it this way.

So, stay tuned for my finalist on FRIDAY. 

#SPFBO | Dragonsphere – Richard Fierce

About the Book

When the magic on the sphere fails, the soul of a powerful fire dragon is released and chaos breaks loose. A tentative treaty between two long warring kingdoms is jeopardized when Prince Ranaan kills the new king, his brother. Velkyn and Calderon, the two monks chosen to protect the sphere, must leave their monastery and attempt to recapture the dragon’s soul before it takes physical form. Will they be able to stop events beyond their power, or will both kingdoms be destroyed by the dragon’s rage?

252 pages (paperback)

Published on April 15, 2014

Author’s webpage

Buy the book

This book is part of the SPFBO.

—

Dragonsphere was one of those books that brought me back to my classic fantasy roots. The quest, and the atmosphere of discovery were all things that pulled me into fantasy in the first place. Epic fantasy is a genre that has always delighted me, and finding a book that pulls out all those elements of the book instantly gets my attention.

Dragonsphere is written with passion. I could tell that from the start. This book is woven together and written in a way that really let me feel the author’s enthusiasm for his work. That’s something I always really enjoy as well. When an author enjoys what they are writing, when they love the book they’ve put together, the reader can tell, and that makes it far more enjoyable.

This is a book that works on a few different levels. First, on its surface, it’s the story of a magical orb that traps the souls of dragons. The book essentially follows a wide range of people, from those who have created the orb, to those who guard it, and those who actively threaten the orb and what it does. Inserted into that, is a large world and wide cultural tapestry.

Along with this is a deeper story being told. This one is a story of love and war, and relationships that form and what happens to them when tensions spread and things start to fray. When nothing is certain, the only certainty is uncertainty. It’s an interesting play on things, and I really enjoyed the way the story, while interesting on the surface, was textured and layered with deeper themes.

The biggest problem I had with this book was the unbalanced pacing. The start of the book was addicting, gripping, and fast paced. The middle sort of lost me. It was slow, full of a lot of names I couldn’t quite follow, and infodumps that, quite frankly, caused my mind to wander quite a bit.

So, the middle was a bit of a struggle for me.

Things picked up a bit toward the ending, but to be quite honest, the ending itself felt rushed, and details glossed over. It wasn’t quite as clean or as well combed through as the start of the book. It was more interesting, and kept my attention, but it just wasn’t quite up to par with the start of things.

Where does that leave us?

I really wanted to like this book more than I ended up liking it. The story was interesting. It worked on a few different levels, and the plot itself hearkened back to the epic fantasy adventure days that really hooked me into the genre in the first place. However, the uneven pacing really lost me a few times along the way. In the end, this book had a ton of potential, but I couldn’t quite become as absorbed in it as I wanted to.

 

3/5 stars

#SPFBO 2018 | Reboot – Domino Finn

About the Book

Tad Lonnerman is having a crappy day stuck in crappy traffic late to a crappy meeting. On the bright side, his game development career is the only non-crappy thing he has going for him, so life isn’t all bad.

At least until he dies.

Now Tad finds himself uploaded to a beta test of Haven, an unannounced hyper-immersive MMO where the dead have a second chance at life. It’s not virtual reality, it’s digital reality. A true afterlife online.

Except Haven isn’t exactly blissful paradise. Tad bumbles into a pagan blood feud, crosses paths with fallen angels, and gets lied to by saints. His only allies? A frat boy with a penchant for dying and a pixie who won’t give him the time of day.

Second chances be damned. All Tad wants is to return to his old life, and he’ll do anything for the opportunity. Even make a deal with the devil.

468 pages (kindle)

Published on June 2, 2017

Author’s webpage

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This is part of the SPFBO.

—

LITRPG is a genre of books I didn’t even really know existed until last year’s SPFBO when two ended up in my batch. I ended up reading both of them, and really enjoyed them, sending one on to be a finalist. This is another LITRPG that landed in my batch, another one that I really, really enjoyed despite the fact that I wouldn’t really know an RPG if it slapped me in the face.

This book had me hooked from the first chapter. I fell in love with the protagonist’s dark humor, his quips, and the way he died, for some reason, just thrilled me. The book took almost no time from going from one guy bemoaning life and a snowstorm, to everything that happens next. It worked for me. It was the kind of start to a book that just ticked off all the boxes. The character has a great voice, the character is interesting, the character hooks reader.

Tad, our protagonist, finds himself dead, and uploaded into a beta-version of heaven. He gets to essentially test drive this new reality. He stumbles into a pagan blood feud, and plenty of people that prove that you can’t trust what you see, and you also can’t trust what you hear. The secondary characters, a drunkard and a bully, left a little to be desired.

Essentially this book started strong, and then sort of underwhelmed me. I found the reality of the game to be a bit boring. A lot of Tad’s motivations and actions felt incredibly contrived. Some of the elements of conspiracy felt like they were inserted into the book to make it a bit more interesting, rather than realistic.

That being said, I loved the writing, and I really enjoyed Tad’s voice and his constant dark humor. The secondary characters were hit and miss for me, though they did add levity to a story that occasionally could have gotten pretty heavy.

In the end, my biggest fallback was that I just didn’t buy it. It was a good story, fun characters, a fast plot, and plenty of laughs, but it lacked something. Depth, maybe? None of the characters ever really leaped off the page. I never really got past interest. I never felt like this book gripped me.

So, this book left me feeling entertained, but wanting something more. I wanted to be thrilled, and after that first chapter, I thought maybe I would be. It was a good book, don’t get me wrong, but the writer’s potential is there. So is the vision of his world. This could have easily gone from entertaining, to captivating and I guess I just really wanted to be captivated.

Still, for fans of LITRPG, who want to read something fun, and fast moving, you won’t want to miss this book. It didn’t tick off my boxes, but it did tick off enough of them to make me pleased that I read it. It’s the start of a series, and sets a really good foundation for what comes next. I am interested enough to want to continue on with it.

 

3/5 stars

#SPFBO 2018 | Sowing – Angie Grigaliunas

About the Book

They can take your house, your daughter, whatever they want.

For Ariliah, life under the militarized Hulcondans is one of order and safety. Despite the soldiers’ ruthless policies, she trusts their judgment. They alone provide protection from the enemies lurking beyond the city wall.

For her older sister, Rabreah, every glance from a Hulcondan is a threat. Though even a whisper against them is treason worthy of death, Rabreah is determined to end their tyranny. Joining an underground resistance is her only hope – until she realizes she doesn’t know the people she’s aligned herself with at all. Unsure who to trust but unable to back out, she must work alongside the attractive yet infuriating rebel leader who reminds her far too much of the soldiers she hates.

But with subversive posters appearing throughout the city and people dying on the blade of an unknown assailant, the sisters’ world begins to crumble.

And as the line between friend and enemy blurs, both girls must face the truth: everything is about to change.

386 pages (kindle)

Published on August 9, 2016

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This book is part of the SPFBO.

—

I am not a huge reader of young adult books. I kind of feel like when the young adult dystopian craze kicked up, that’s a train that just passed me right on by. I never really enjoyed it as much as I think I was supposed to. It’s not that it’s not good, some of it is great, it’s just not really my flavor of read.

This isn’t quite a dystopian read, though it does have some notes of it. A society full of secrets and subtle tension, people on the brink, people being controlled, characters who are thrust into the center of something big but don’t quite see the form or shape of it yet. Young protagonists who are growing up in the middle of a stew of complexities. The notes are right.

In Sowing, the book opens up with a prologue, which, as all good prologues do, confused me as much as it intrigued me. The rest of the book, however, is told from first-person perspectives, those of Ariliah and Rabreah, sisters, and while they share a kinship, both ladies are completely different. This really worked in the book’s favor. Rabreah has a more minute, intimate and detailed look at the smaller, closer aspects of the world, while Ariliah is where I really started to see the big picture of things, and how all of this fit together.

The first few chapters were a bit confusing. A lot of characters were introduced in a very short period of time, which made it a little difficult to figure out who was who and why they were doing whatever it was they were doing. Too rushed, perhaps, with introductions, which had the odd effect of making the start feel kind of slow. That being said, it evened out after that and the author really hit her stride. Things started to make sense.

Sowing is a sorting hybrid thriller and political intrigue novel. Through the perspectives of Ariliah and Rabreah, we get a really good picture of how things are – both the positive aspects of their lives (safety, security, order) and the negatives, which are slowly revealed as the book gets underway. The boiling, looming conflict between the Hulcondans, those who heft the political power and the rebels, who are working, subtly, toward change in the status quo. Mixed into this is the Itzalin, a race of otherworldly creatures who are determined to wipe out humankind, and are only held at bay due to the Hulcondans.

It’s an interesting stew that readers are thrown into, and it simmers until it reaches a boil, and what a boil it reaches. The dueling perspectives of our very, very different protagonists, and their different insights and goals really help readers get a pretty grounded, well-rounded insight into what is happening, as well as all the nuances therein. There is also a slow building of tension and intrigue that just really worked for me.

The writing is quite wonderful, superbly edited, and I have to say I love the cover art. Despite the clunky, sort of awkward start, and a cliffhanger at the end that readers will either love or hate, this book was very well thought out, wonderfully written, and incredibly gripping. Grigaliunas really surprised me here. I went into this book thinking that I wasn’t really going to like it, and I ended up reading it in a weekend and ending up completely surprised by just how captivating it ended up being.

I think fans of young adult books would be fools to pass this one over.

 

4/5 stars