Phoebe Prince's Blog: HD Lynn, author, page 3

BOOK REVIEW: Thread Slivers

Thread Slivers by Leeland Artra

This is one of those books I had many mixed feelings about. I liked the main characters Ticca and Lebuin. There’s clearly a lot of detail that went into the world-building, but it was too much of a good thing. It was, as if to make up for the other characters being uninteresting or to introduce the ‘epic’ part of epic fantasy earlier in the story, Artra added 800 POVs to this story. They’re all unnecessary. Finding a way to introduce plot elements while maintaining the focus completely on Ticca and Lebuin would’ve improved the pacing of this story, even if it would’ve made it shorter. I skimmed through everything else because the level I cared was ‘meh’.

When you manage to make a giant, immortal wolf general boring, your story has a problem.

There is initially a lot to like about Thread Slivers. Ticca is a Dagger, a warrior for hire, and she is tasked with solving the mystery of who killed a powerful mage while protecting another mage, Lebuin, from the Knives that want to murder him, too. Lebuin thinks another mage, Magnus Cune, at the guild wants him murdered, which is a fairly safe assumption seeing how the two act together. It becomes clear that there’s something more–much more–going on around these two, and it was a fine little mystery as to what that plot was. There’s a hint of time travel and some sci-fi/fantasy blending, which is a theme that I’ve read in other books and like a lot. This plot is clearly being saved for later, and it feels like a lot of interesting plot elements are being saved for later. And not in a good way, either.

But when we do get answers, they kind of suck. This isn’t because the plot wasn’t cool (time travel! immortal warlords! lost magic! special bloodlines!) but because we find out all of these things from characters that have never met the main characters or have only met the main characters tangentially. These characters all revolves around Duke, and he monopolizes like a third of this story and made every moment suck because he’s conceptually awesome without doing anything for emotional aspects of this story. He has no POV chapters himself, but all of these boring characters that interact with him get special chapters. This is the real problem in this story–all the major plot twists are doled out several chapters before the main characters even get a hint of what they are. Ticca and Lebuin feel like footnotes in what should be their own story.

When we do get back to Ticca and Lebuin, who are journeying to collect the mage’s things in hopes of finding clues to his death, we’re treated to the most annoying character in the novel–Klaisa. She sucks. She’s bland, and she appears in Lebuin and Ticca’s dreams to info dump. She tells them things we’ve already known for some time, and if her appearance weren’t supposed to be This Big Thing at the end, maybe I could’ve tolerated her. But I couldn’t. She was The Worst. She was the final distraction in a novel that unraveled from a strong first half.

And cliffhangers only work if you care about the ending.

Rating: 3 stars and only because I liked Lebuin, Ticca, and the details around those characters.

BOOK REVIEW: Blood and Rain

Blood and Rain by Glenn Rolfe

Oh gory horror novels, how I love you but am so picky about which ones of your lot I read. The jump scares, the mysteries, the blood, the massive body counts…more, please. That said, I hate some of the character tropes in horror. Often, the characters feel unoriginal and under-developed. Blood and Rain has the good–the gore, the slick pace, the scares–but also the bad–thin characters that never develop beyond cannon fodder. The main reason to read this book is because it has that old-school werewolf horror feel ala Silver Bullet and The Howling.

The story starts in 1997 when Stan sneaks out of a mental asylum. The story pulls no punches and waits no time in giving us the first transformation, which is the bread-and-butter of werewolf books. Stan changes and runs off to murder people in his old hometown. So far, so awesome.

We fast forward to whenever Spiderman 2 came out (seriously, I forget the year, but that movie gets mentioned over and over again). The town of Gilson Creek has been quiet until the Full Moon Monster returns one fateful night, murdering several people. Old horrors are recalled, and each of the citizens remembers the traumas of years past. Sheriff Joe thought he killed the previous werewolf, but he now realizes he failed, and it came back to life, rising from the grave. The Sheriff pretends to ignore Nick Bruce and the other conspiracy theorists that come and want to expose the Full Moon Monster, but the Sheriff believes. He has to.

The best part about this story is that it introduces both werewolves–yes, there are totally two–early in the novel. We know the first werewolf is Stan, and on his first recent attack, he bites Nick, the young conspiracy theorist. Nick slowly descends into his own version of madness over the course of the month while everyone else is preparing to fight the (presumably single) werewolf. Stan, too, doubles down on his monstrous side, which he refuses to keep in check any longer. Sheriff Joe and his daughter, Sonya, are given a lot of story time. Blissfully unaware of the monsters, Sonya is a boring character. She also becomes a ridiculous damsel in distress later in the story, solely there for the B-movie scream moments. *sigh* I could’ve done with at least one competent female character in the story. Part of it is that both werewolf characters get more than a little creepy with the women and girls they encounter, and yes, they’re the monsters, but the ‘good’ characters are too thin personality wise (except for the Sherriff) to provide a solid balance to the werewolf creepiness. We get a lot of ‘got to protect the womenz’ from Sheriff Joe, which got very annoying, very fast. I can’t even go into what I thought of Mel. Could I have liked her? Sure, but she is literally described by ALL THE CHARACTERS as having good tits. That’s what passes for female personality here. *sigh*

The other members of the conspiracy theorist magazine, the residents of Gilson Creek, and Sonya’s friends are kind of boring. Fortunately, the story flips through these characters so fast (or I just wanted to cycle back to the better characters) that I didn’t mind that there were so many. The members of the sheriff’s department are easier to tell apart and have some personality, but no one survives this story. Don’t get attached. Other than maybe towards Sonya, this story doesn’t have a single sentimental bone, which is fine. The fast, slick action sequences and lovingly described murder scenes make up for what’s lacking with the characters. Who cares, really, when they’re all going to literally die? I did feel bad about the Sally and Randy dying, though, because I believed the comradery among the police officers.

This story doesn’t really cover any new ground in terms of playing with horror tropes. It just does the old ones so well that it scratches an itch perfectly. Don’t read this if you want any kind of HEA or uplifting, snuggly feelings at the end (this book is more along those lines). Or hope at all. The title says it all–BLOOD. Read this story for the slasher scenes and all the blood.

Rating: 4 stars. A classic werewolf story. AND BLOOD. But also some stupid horror tropes. BUT SO MUCH BLOOD.

300 Million Story Uploads and One Big Thanks

I’m 100% okay with contributing to 3 of those. I am the 0.00000001%!

Wattpad

That’s right. On Wattpad, over 300 million story uploads have been shared to-date. That number’s more than five times larger than the New York Public Library’s entire catalog and almost double that of the Library of Congress.

At Wattpad, we know that everyone has a story to share. It’s why we support over 50 languages and connect storytellers and audiences from virtually every country in the world.

We also understand how challenging and nerve-racking it can be to share your first story. So, to the millions of people who actively post on Wattpad every month, we’d like to say thank you and congratulations! Together, we’ve tripled the amount of uploads available in February of 2015.

You’ve created inspiring communities for body positivity, co-written fiction with YouTube celebrities, and of course, let your fandom flags fly! We’ve also come a long way since the earliest versions of…

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BOOK REVIEW: The Beast (Hunter Legends #1)

The Beast (Hunter Legends #1) by Lindsay Mead

If you’ve been hanging around this blog for a hot minute, you probably realize I kind of have an obsession with awesome and original fairy tale retellings. I freaking LOVE THEM and there are some quality ones out there. In particular, I’m like a connoisseur of Beauty and the Beast retellings. Incidentally, this could explain my obsession with Robin McKinley in that every romance she writes is effectively a riff on Beauty and the Beast (and I’m not kidding). I reviewed K.M. Shea’s Beauty and the Beast several months ago, and I found myself missing that story the entire time I read this one. I seriously might have to give K.M. another review, too, because I’ve read that she’s only gotten better since her debut.

But back to the book at hand!

The Hunter Legends held such promise. The land neighboring Glace (fantasy France) was cursed, and the populace turned into vicious hellhounds. Belle is a hunter, and she lost her mother while doing battle against the hellhounds. Belle and her father have invented these steam punk contraptions to help them hunt the beasts, and in a fun twist, Belle and Gaston are comrades in arms. The Catholic church endorses the hunting of the hellhounds (because of course they do!), although they disapprove of Belle–a woman–hunting the beasts or leading men.

Does this set-up sound awesome? It is. It really is. But unfortunately, that’s where the amazing story evaporates. There’s nothing underneath the initial premise, which is all kinds of awesome. The several legitimately brilliant ideas are off-set by blandness in characters and pacing that made my head ache. Also, the ultimate myth arc fell flat towards the end because the characters didn’t work. That killed the good will, the momentum.

Belle and Gaston are sort of fleshed out. Weirdly, their relationship was the most convincing for me. I thought this story might get extremely interesting and have Gaston (or Belle!) turn into the quintessential hellhound/beast. Alas, the beast is a prince, and damn, is he bland. And Belle loves him INSTANTLY. Until Belle meets the prince, we’re given all this evidence of her as a badass hunter. Yes, there’s some info dumping, and that made her character thin for me, but this story seemed clever enough to get out of some flat characterization.

It wasn’t. Belle seriously falls in love with the prince in a series of moon dreams. Once again, cool idea, but overused. Instead of having Belle confront the prince earlier (and in his real form), she hangs out with him in dreams and swoons over him. This goes on forever, and it’s terribly boring. When Belle has to bring the prince back and deal with him fighting the curse, there’s a glimmer of interest in their relationship. The prince turns human (not via a kiss!), but he’s wounded and weak and can’t maintain his human form. Belle has to convince him to ‘let go’ and turn back into a beast, and he does, and it’s the realest their relationship ever gets. We never get to know much more about how Belle, a commoner, would deal with being courted by the prince. Other than Belle, the prince, and Gaston, there’s nothing else going on with the characters. Nothing. The main villain is a let down, too, in that her motivations distract from what makes Belle awesome. This is also due to the prince who is amazingly boring. He’s described as this ultra-good, ultra-smart person, and we never see any of that. Not really. The norn and Fenrir want him on their side because of his awesome Viking/Norse god ancestry, which further distracts from Belle and her role in the story.

Basically, I liked Belle, but if you’re writing Beauty and the Beast, both of those characters have to work for me to really love the book.

Rating: 2 stars. No amount of cool could save this story. I kind of hate this book for sucking so much at characterization because everything else was cool.

This month: the covers of Autumn

This was a surprise find! Anytime I can remotely compare myself favorably to Jim Butcher, I’m going to take the opportunity.

TheCanaryReview

Looks like this months’ books on my To Read list have conspired to celebrate September with Autumn-colored covers.

What’s your To-Read list been up to recently?

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Review: The Corner Store Witch

This review is lovely but also incredibly fair to how I feel about the personal strengths/weaknesses of my writing.

Somewhere with Stories

Title: The Corner Store Witch
Author:H.D. Lynn
Series: The Corner Store Witch #1

Language: English
Publication Date: 20th September 2016
Source: eARC (Netgalley)

The Corner Store Witch by H.D. Lynn is the first in a series following Leone, owner of the shop Pulp Magic, who ends up with more to worry about than running her shop after someone from another world falls through the ceiling, demons in full pursuit.

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BOOK REVIEW: Ghost Talkers

Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal

Ginger is a medium working in the top-secret Spirit Corps during WWI. Ghost Talkers is a blend of historical fiction, paranormal, and alternate history. The spirit corps has used magic–which is real but takes a paranormal bend–to bind soldiers’ ID tags so that they report in after death and act as Ally spies. This means the Spirit Corps has allowed the Allies to gain an important advantage in WWI.

I’ve not read Kowal before, but she blends historical fiction with light paranormal elements to create a unique story. The main characters–Helen, Ginger, and Ben–have a lot of charm, which helps, but the real star is the tone of this novel. If you’re a historical fiction fan, you’ll probably love this book. I loved this book. It had everything good about historical fiction combined neatly with unique paranormal plot elements. It’s rather light on fantasy elements (sans ghosts), but Ginger’s powers as a medium are used deftly and often enough that they don’t feel forced or like an unnecessary side note. Magical realism can rub me the wrong way sometimes because it’s often ‘oh yeah, and magic’, and it’s super obvious when an author wants to be ‘more literary’ and not play up the fantasy elements of their work. This book never short-changes or apologizes for being fantasy, and the historical details are added flourishes.

Oh, did I say I loved this? I did.

It was obvious to me that, at some point, Ben was going to die. I thought that he and Ginger would go on a secret mission first, and then he’d die in the course of action. While that did happen, Ben’s death happened way earlier in the story than I expected. If Ben’s death would’ve been the first event in the novel, though, it wouldn’t have worked well, either. Kowel tricks you with the slow build-up, which made me think Ben would live longer than he did. Instead, his death kicks off a murder mystery and spy mission. The only nitpick I have is that I thought the main, tantalizing question–who killed Ben and why–wraps up too soon. But it’s a great pay-off, and I was totally tricked into THAT SPOILER I’M NOT MENTIONING HERE BECAUSE IT’S A REAL SPOILER.

#Review of The Corner Store Witch by @HeatherLynn117

Lake's book reviews Blog

Title: The Corner Store Witch
Series: You Meet at an Inn book 1
Author: H.D. Lynn
Genre: Sci Fi, Fantasy, Teens & YA
Publisher: Throw This Book at Me
Publication Date: September 20, 2016
Received: via Netgalley with Publisher approval

Blurb:

Leone owns Pulp Magic (Comics, Books, Games, & More). Angry customers are her biggest concern–until a man from another world literally drops into her shop. And oni have followed him. Leone defends herself with a magical staff, which marks her with powerful runes. Her supernatural tattoo sleeves make her desperately thirsty, yet practically allergic to water–and oh, they foretell the fate of the realms of demons, gods, and men.

With her four friends and interdimensional guide, Leone travels to the realm of the gods, searching for magical cosmetic surgery. She doesn’t want to carry the fate of the world literally on…

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BOOK REVIEW: The Bone Witch

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

Confession: It took me about twenty percent of the novel to figure out what this book was about. That’s not a bad thing–it was an exciting challenge. A mysterious bard (name still unknown by the end of the novel) travels to the end of the world where they discover a young woman that wears fancy clothes and kills demons with a word. This is Tea, the infamous Bone Witch, who’s a dark asha in exile. For what? We don’t know. Tea then tells her story to the bard.

The Bone Witch is Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Kingkiller Chronicles. Tea manages to be about half as annoying as Kvothe, so that makes the story much more readable, although her mousiness often makes her fade into the background too much as a person. She’s a little thin as a character, and this isn’t a great thing, considering over half of the story is told from her POV. This disconnect with Tea’s personality hampered my ability to get into the story, but that’s partly because I had trouble connecting ‘current’ Tea (exiled and in the boneyard) with ‘past’ Tea (training as an asha). While I think this tone dissonance might be intentional, it hampered my early enjoyment of the story. Current Tea holds a mystery, but was a character that I couldn’t quite grasp. Past Tea is open but a bit boring, a bit bland. This gets better when Tea trains to be an asha, but the early parts of this story were bumpy.

But there are so many other things about this story the surmount Tea’s slightly lackluster personality. Tea discovers her powers when she raises her brother, Fox, from the grave. Fox could’ve felt flat and like a plot-prop, but he was a wonderfully subtle character. He’s reserved but occasionally funny, and there’s something subtle in how Chupeco writes him that never quite lets you forget that he’s struggling with his new, undead life. The other characters all feel real and fully fleshed out, too. Lady Mykeala is Tea’s mentor, and she’s dying and weakened without her heart.

When Tea reaches the Willows, a specific city center dedicated to training asha, the story comes into its own. Asha are witches (kind of) but also geisha (kind of) and elevated court advisors (kind of). The roll of the asha and what they do in and for the societies of this story is complex. Some of the asha are body guards, some marry nobles, and others perform (for lack of a better term) witchcraft. The asha have to be stunningly beautiful yet be capable fighters, dancers, and learned women (yes, only women–but with a twist). How the asha train, who trains them, and all the details thereof are the most interesting elements of this story. It’s fantastic worldbuilding, and the magic is upfront yet subtle.

Current Tea explains and uses much of the magic she’d been taught, which works to show that she’s mastered it. Tea also raises deava from the boneyard, which provides a clue as to how the story will end. The deava are at once terrifying and yet adorable. I’m kind of a sucker for scary-yet-cute, so this depiction of the deava worked remarkably for me. It also shows the contrast between how Tea used to view the deava with fear and how she ‘now’ sees the deava as pets.

During her training, Tea meets the future king, Kance, and his cousin, Kalen. Tea has clearly captivated the attention of the royal house, and while that plot doesn’t play out by the end of this book, it’s developed tantalizingly for future story.

Oh twist ending, how I hated you. It was clear the book might end on a cliff-hanger, which I dreaded. We were teased as to who was in the grave that Tea danced over, and we did find out, but screw you, Rin, for that teaser ending!

Rating: 4 stars. Loved some of the more subtle character work, and I’m desperately interested in the world that was created. Also, that freaking ending. I need to know how the freak that relationship develops!

BOOK REVIEW: The Shadow of All Things

The Shadow of All Things by Allen Houston

Evelyn rides the subway home in New York when a group of strange things invades her car. These time stopping shape-shifters are Elyuum, and they’re introduced as being scary as hell. Evelyn is saved by Redmond, an apparent homeless bum that’s more than he seems. Redmond tells Evelyn about the interdimensional Elyuum, which have invaded New York and are intent on controlling it. Also, the Elyuum kill seers like Evelyn.

The books splits into several more POVs, which helps build the threat of the Elyuum and make their version of world-domination convincing. The Elyuum and their minions are everywhere, bribing everyone from high-level politicians to cops and street gangs. Pharrell wants to be a nurse but is forced to help his brother traffic drugs. Pharrell witnesses the effects of the Elyuum’s drugs and their ability to shape-shift, and he was my favorite character early on in the story. The scenes with Pharrell and Sunny D had real tension and provided nice pops of horror. Neil and Adelaide are at boarding school/prep school, and one of their classmates has been murdered. Neil is a seer, too, and he and Adelaide piece together the mystery of the Elyuum and their whereabouts in New York. I liked the relationship between this pair a lot, and these are the plot lines and perspectives the really move the story.  Adelaide gets extra bonus points for being a fencer.

But like a story with lots and lots of character POVs, it does go overboard and drain the tension in certain spots. There’s a wholly unnecessary gangster plot that should’ve gotten introduced in book #2 or had a better payoff in this book. The side plots slowed the story towards the end, and they started to feel more like padding than the actual story. That was a let down because the main plot was really cool, but it’s like Houston didn’t want to give any major action (only teasers) in this story. It needed more of an awesome climax.

The world building is great. There’s the feeling of living in New York, of being part of a huge city. The slow, meandering moments cement this city-living feel. Evelyn, Neil, Redmond, Pharrell, and Adelaide feel like they belong in New York–like they are New York. Even if you’re a bit of a big city claustrophobic like I am, the feeling of living with the mass of humanity, integrated into a world with so many different people, comes across in the way this story is told.

Rating: 4 stars. The book slows towards the end, which leaves it ultimately hanging in a weird spot. I understand that it’s an ongoing series, but I wanted a little bit more real resolution. Still, that didn’t take away from the characters and world building.