C.A. Gray's Blog, page 60
June 7, 2019
Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness Mysteries, Books 3-6
Today’s podcast comes from this blog review of Her Royal Spyness, Books 3-6.
The post Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness Mysteries, Books 3-6 appeared first on C.A. Gray.
June 3, 2019
Review of Finale
This is a hard book to review, because even though I just finished it, I almost couldn’t tell you what happened in it. That’s because it reads like a dream sequence… no rules, anything is possible, and every detail is described in colors and emotions, with scenes shifting into different fantastical settings for no apparent reason all the time.
Here’s the best I can do: Tella loves Legend, but he abandoned her at the Temple of the Stars at the end of Legendary (after freeing her from the Deck of Destiny at what seemed like great personal cost.) She understands he cannot love, because he is an immortal; he can only be obsessed with a mortal. The moment he falls in love, he becomes mortal, which is why he doesn’t want to love her. Jax, the Prince of Hearts, is also obsessed with her. She’s his True Love, but same rules apply to him. Scarlett loves Julian, but he left her at the end of the last Caraval, and now Scarlett has decided to give her former fiance, Count Nicholas Darcy, a chance… mostly to make Julian jealous. Most of the plot revolves around these love triangles, though there’s not much tension in the relationships themselves because it’s so obvious who should end up with whom. The tension comes in with what lengths they are willing to go to in order to possess the object of their obsession. Meanwhile, the girls’ mother Paloma/Paradise has been freed from the Deck of Destiny–but so have all the Fates (including Jax, who was free throughout Legendary even though the rest of the Fates hadn’t been freed yet, though I don’t understand why). They want to regain their former power… though I was never clear on what exactly they had to do in order to do so. By turns, Legend, the Fates, Esmeralda (the witch who gave Legend his power) and the Fallen Star (the Fate who created all the other Fates, and thus the main villain in this novel) all seem evil, maiming or injuring random passersby just because. But they also band together by turns for various common goals–though I couldn’t tell you what those goals were, exactly. I do remember a few ultra-dramatic plot twists that reminded me a bit of a soap opera (who is Scarlett’s real father? Who was Empress Elantine’s true heir?), but I couldn’t really tell you whether these twists fit or didn’t fit with the previous two books. I don’t recall any setup for them, certainly.
Finale is certainly poetic, gorgeously so, but it was so slippery that I felt like I couldn’t sink my teeth in anywhere. Each new fantastical scene shift, each new magical rule, and each dramatic reveal became almost laughable after awhile. At a certain point, the whole story requires suspension of disbelief, and you just go with it. Still, I’m glad I read it, if only because the emotions and the descriptions are SO well done!
My rating: *** 1/2
The post Review of Finale appeared first on C.A. Gray.
May 31, 2019
A Royal Pain, by Rhys Bowen
Today’s podcast comes from this blog post, A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen.
The post A Royal Pain, by Rhys Bowen appeared first on C.A. Gray.
May 30, 2019
Her Royal Spyness (Books 3, 4, 5, and 6)
[image error][image error] [image error] [image error]
These are all so similar that they can be reviewed together, I think, though the series is not over and I am still reading on! I just finished a bunch of them on vacation and figured that rather than having a redundant series of reviews, I’d just lump them all in one.
These books read very much like an episode of a TV series. Georgie and same very over-the-top characters embark on some British aristocracy shenanigans, during which someone (or several someones) turns up dead. Georgie tries to solve the murder, along with some new people that fit the current story as well as her flighty love interest Darcy (who shows up at the most random of times.) I love British history, and royalty, and the characters are great!
Royal Blood stands out because it’s set in Transylvania and Vlad (questionably an incarnation of The Impaler himself) appears in the story. I love how Georgie wonders whether vampires exist, and the story presents circumstantial evidence but never answers the question. V
The Twelve Clues of Christmas is also a very creative mystery! The murders seemed like accidents and seemed unrelated, and at the end, the author pulled them all together with such elegance (and whimsy)… she’s like a humorous Agatha Christie. While each of these books stands alone well, I’m glad that I’m reading them in order because there *is* a progression in the relationship between Georgie and Darcy. In this one, Darcy is present for almost the entire story, and (spoiler alert) we finally get an actual proposal at the end, which made me cheer.
On to the next one!! 
May 24, 2019
Off to Be The Wizard, by Scott Meyer
Today’s podcast review is from this blog review of Off to Be The Wizard.
The post Off to Be The Wizard, by Scott Meyer appeared first on C.A. Gray.
May 22, 2019
Review of A Royal Pain (Her Royal Spyness, Book 2)
[image error]
Loved this! I was less enthused with the first book in the series, Her Royal Spyness, perhaps for the same reason that it takes me several episodes to really get into a TV series: I have to get to know the characters. But I am definitely now hooked. The premise: Lady Georgiana is 32nd in line to the British throne at the time of Queen Mary (after WWI and before WWII). This means she’s just royal enough for it to be inappropriate for her to work for a living, and yet too far removed from the royal family to actually have means of her own, especially after the Great War. She therefore works as an undercover maid, but pretends to her royal connections, and especially the Queen, that she is well-to-do and “respectable.” If the Queen were to find out the truth, she’s afraid she would ship her off to the country to be a lady-in-waiting for Princess Anne, and she would never see society again. Or, worse yet, she’d be married off to her nemesis Prince Sigfried, aka “Fish Face,” who secretly prefers boys. Meanwhile, Queen Mary enlists Georgie’s assistance in trying to interest her wayward son David, the Prince of Wales, in someone–anyone–more appropriate for him than the married American woman, Wallace Simpson. In the process of trying to carry out the Queen’s wishes without letting her or anyone else know of her dire financial straits, dead bodies keep turning up–and it’s up to Georgie to figure out whodunit and why. And periodically, the dashing Scottish playboy (and possible spy?) Darcy O’Mara keeps showing up in her life, only to vanish again with no warning.
I love the caricatures in this series! All the characters are larger-than-life, but that conveys well in a cozy mystery series like this one, where the circumstances are likewise over-the-top. I also love that real historical figures make peripheral appearances, and keep the story moving. Having just read Rhys Bowen’s “In Farleigh Field” also, I did notice that the climax of both stories was almost identical… but the situations leading up to those climaxes and the characters involved were quite different, so I didn’t mind.
Will definitely be reading on!
My rating: *****
The post Review of A Royal Pain (Her Royal Spyness, Book 2) appeared first on C.A. Gray.
May 17, 2019
Review of Off To Be The Wizard
[image error]
Hilarious! This delightfully nerdy story follows Martin, computer programmer in 2012, as he discovers that he and the entire world are nothing but a computer algorithm–which he can manipulate. He first makes himself taller, levitates, time-travels, and then adds a few 0’s to his bank balance, whereupon the police show up to investigate possible bank fraud. In order to escape, he jumps back in time to medieval England, intending to pose as a wizard. There, he finds himself in good company with other programmers from various points in history (after the computer was invented, of course) who found the same file he did. He apprentices under the local wizard Philip, learns how to manipulate the program without the direct aid of his smart phone, and confronts the misguided wizard who has decided to turn medieval England into Middle Earth.
It’s a fantastic premise, but also so funny (and in such a dry, nerdy way) that I couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended!
My rating: *****
The post Review of Off To Be The Wizard appeared first on C.A. Gray.
Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch, by Ruth Cowen
This week’s podcast comes from this blog review of Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch.
The post Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch, by Ruth Cowen appeared first on C.A. Gray.
May 10, 2019
Review of Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch
[image error]
I’m fascinated by British history, and I could hardly stop listening to this! Queen Elizabeth seems so very likable to me, and such a fascinating character. This story spans her birth (when she was considered a ‘minor royal,’ since she was so unlikely to ever inherit the throne,) all the way to her cheeky stunt opening the Olympic Games in 2012. We get to watch her adapt to the changing public image of the monarchy as television and the media enter the world stage, and the subsequent scandals of her childrens’ marriages. I knew very little about what happened behind the scenes with Fergie and Princess Di, so I found that part to be most interesting of all. Highly recommended!
My rating: *****
The post Review of Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch appeared first on C.A. Gray.
A Mind of Her Own, by Paula McLain
Today’s podcast review comes from this blog post review of A Mind of Her Own.
The post A Mind of Her Own, by Paula McLain appeared first on C.A. Gray.
