K.N. Salustro's Blog, page 17

Review – The Obelisk Gate

[image error]I continued to be enamored with this series. N. K. Jemisin’s writing is beautiful, and the world she’s created is so rich and complex. Her characters leap off the page they’re so full of life, and with this second book, the plot swings towards a final destination. All with new (and sometimes horrifying) twists.

Essun continues to be a powerhouse lead, and we get to see her daughter Nassun throughout this book. We also learn more about the stone eaters and their motivations, even while they re...

Review – Indexing

[image error]I really enjoyed this book. A lot of he reviews on Goodreads complained about it not measuring up to the X-Files, but as someone who never watched that show… well I can’t really say how it measures up, but I thought the book itself was great.

I’m becoming a big fan of Seanan McGuire’s eerie takes on fairytales. They’re humorous, vivid, and dark, just enough to be hauntingly beautiful with an extra emphasis on the haunt. I’m very excited to read more by her.

As to this book itself, I loved the...

Lance and Lissa by Magnastorm

You all have to see these awesome marker drawings of Fleet Commander Lance Ashburn and bounty hunter Lissa a.k.a. the Shadow by Magnastorm, also known as Plushiluv. She does really amazing work, and I’m thrilled to have these two images by her!

Look how fierce they both are! Totally in love with these, and they look really great in person!

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I have these framed and hanging up on my (sadly still very blank) sewing studio wall. They’re up next to two paintings my sister did for me. I’m hoping...

Review – Horizon

[image error]A solid conclusion to the Bone Universe trilogy. Horizon alternates points of view between three characters, which was a bit of a mixed bag for me.

 I was thrilled to return to Kirit as a narrator, and greatly enjoyed her chapters. Macal the councilor was a new voice for this story, but one that I enjoyed as he offered a unique perspective and drove home the theme of protecting one’s own no matter what. Nat’s chapters I enjoyed the least.

As with Cloudbound, I found his chapters to be more lo...

The flu robbed me of a blog post this week so how about a life update?

So after a fairly recent flu shot rendered useless by my significant other bringing home the unstoppable sickness, I’ve been pretty out of it the past couple days. But that actually turned out okay.

Normally, being sick would have put me behind some project or another, leaving me stressed and anxious. It’s easy to fall into that pattern, but I have made a couple of recent decisions that spared me from that.

The first of which was that I decided to stop taking plush commissions. I’ve enjoyed w...

Review – The Scorpio Races

[image error]This is one of those books that drew me in, held me fast, and then left me with a feeling of such bittersweetness that I can’t help giving it five stars.

Following two main protagonists and shifting back and forth between their points of view, The Scorpio Races is an intense character study that revolves around fabled water horses and the annual, deadly races that surround them. The world building is wonderful, painting the island of Thisby in vivid colors, along with its inhabitants, includi...

Review – The Mirror Empire

[image error]Hmm… so I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I did enjoy most of it. The magic system, politics, and a good chunk of the cast were extremely intriguing to me. On the other hand, I spent large amounts of time very confused about what was happening.

For the most part, the writing is clear and often beautiful, but with far less grounding details than I needed to really understand and appreciate what was going on. I found myself disoriented because there’s so many inst...

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Review – Shadowshaper

[image error]What a cool book! This is a fairly quick read as it’s not very long, and there  are plenty of chapter breaks to speed up the pacing. I wish it had taken a little more time to really develop some of the characters at a steadier pace, and draw out the blossoming relationship between Sierra and Robbie a bit more, but I really enjoyed the book.

Sierra is such a great central character, integral to her community and yet blocked from her own heritage and family legacy against her will. Watching her...

Review – Winter’s Reach

[image error]Not a bad book, but not one that captivated me, either. There are a LOT of characters swirling around in here, only three of which I felt I actually spent enough time with to fully understand and keep separate from the rest.

I wish the book had spent more time world building and letting me know the characters a bit more. There’s a lot that happens, but given how quickly it unfolds, it’s a little anticlimactic and feels very much like a set up for a bigger story rather than a full novel. And t...