Phoebe Prince's Blog: HD Lynn, author, page 6

REVIEW: Avian

Avian by Nicole Conway

Avian begins where Fledgling left off—literally with Jaevid in the same scene still reluctantly riding home for the three month interlude. Jaevid returns to find Katty with another boy (another blacksmith!) named Bren and his childhood home abandoned. Katty lives up to her name early on, and it’s clear she has complicated feelings for Jaevid, who has no desire to relate or reconnect with his childhood friend.

Jaevid learns wood-working, finds a mysterious sword, and a note from his brother, who’s now an infantry man at the front. These things (and Mavrik’s company) keep Jaevid from spiraling into self-loathing angst. Jaevid can’t indulge carpentry forever because an urgent letter from Beckah prompts him to go help her, Sile, and her family. Jaevid finds Icarus chose Beckah to be a dragon rider, and even though women aren’t allowed to go to the academy, Beckah is determined to learn, but things take another turn for the urgent when Sile’s wife nearly dies during pregnancy. She’s saved by Jaevid, who triggers a series of new Eleven powers, including super-healing and initiating his own growth spurt into adulthood.

Then, the dreams begin…dreams that aren’t part of Jaevid’s memory. He sees his mother, who talks to him while a mysterious Elf kills the king. At the end, there’s a lone soldier, and for most of the novel, Jaevid wakes up here. The dream begins to impact Jaevid’s life at the academy, and he knows the plot on Sile’s life extended all the way to the king. Jaevid knows his dreams are connected, but he’s struggling to survive his second year at the academy, which includes rooming with his school nemesis, Lyon.

I seriously never wanted to stop reading this book. The slight up-tick in pace, the logical growth in the characters were all great. There’s so much that happens in this second book, and the biggest improvement is that everything feels a bit more organically rooted this time. Jaevid’s relationships with Beckah and Sile are fleshed out, and Felix’s incongruous attitudes become grounded in his family problems.

The training was more practical this time. That has to do with Jace Rodin being an actual character instead of a last-minute stand in for Sile. The sadistic instructor, Thrane, pushes Jaevid to his limits. Thrane’s a racist, and he gets to Jaevid by breaking Lyon’s arm repeatedly and trying to goad Jaevid into a battle fever.

Mavrik, Icarus, and Nova all have actual personalities. The dragons still aren’t the main draw to this novel, but Icarus is a big-softy now. Mavrik has his own frustrations now; he’s being trained to keep pace with Jace’s dragon, Ghost, who is the fastest flyer among the dragon riders.

The one plot I didn’t like: Katty’s. It felt like trying to avoid a love triangle. This worked a little bit because Jaevid becomes friends with Bren, Katty’s new boyfriend. However, I still didn’t quite get the sudden change in Katty’s personality. I suppose that it could be explained because we’re seeing the entire relationship through Jaevid’s perspective, and he’s clearly confused about Katty’s actions as well.

Beckah: a turn for the awesome. I liked her in Fledgling, but I loved her in Avian. Beckah’s plot to become a dragon rider concludes awesomely. There was a scene with Beckah that I expected to go one cliche direction, but I loved her a thousand times more when that scenario was subverted. I don’t want to say anything else more about that scene because it’s worth it. For all the great moments Beckah gets in Avian, you should know where her plot with Jaevid is going. Jaevid and Beckah have ‘forbidden romance’ oozing from their pores, and it’s a sweet romance.

This book was exactly like I expected, and yet, refreshing and different. It grew out of the mold Fledgling provided. The academy is more dangerous, the mysteries behind the conspiracy feel like they matter, and Jaevid struggles with his new powers and strengths. Every character in this story feels like they belonged in this world more.

Notes:

Ulric didn’t sell the house because…?
Magical puberty! Growth spurts are convenient, but this one has the bonus of almost killing Jaevid.
The fantastic inversion of Beckah’s fate at the ball was amazing! I was internally groaning when the scene started, but there’s a level of smartness to Avian that wasn’t there in Fledgling.
Everyone gets a personality this time around! You get a personality! And you get a personality!
The survival skills kit is solid.
Freaking dream. The freaking dreams…they have a purpose, but they haunted me as much as they did Jaevid.
One area of disappointment: we never got to see any direct confrontation between Felix and his dad. I was hoping for it, but alas, it never happened—we only get to hear how much they dislike each other.

Rating: 5 stars

The Dragonrider Chronicles doesn’t have a soft more slump. Fledgling felt MG and a little thin on some of the world-building details, but Avian is solidly YA. The finale makes sense, and every scene was fleshed out a lot more.

REVIEW: Fledgling

Fledgling by Nicole Conway

Jaevid is a half-elf, half-human that’s sent to live with this biological human father, Ulric, who makes saddles for dragon riders. Fledgling, especially early on, goes quickly into How to Train Your Dragon territory. Jaevid is basically Elven Hiccup. If this is the How to Train Your Dragon novelization, I’m okay with that (I loved that movie).

The story is a little slow. Not in terms of action, but Jaevid’s internal monologue doesn’t quite feel right. The writerly part of my brain started to whisper “passive voice and gerunds…too much passive voice and gerunds…” This pattern of writing makes Jeavid feel like a boring character, even though I’ve got a solid idea of him as a person being that he’s a shy fifteen year old. He’s a bit more introspective, but there were parts that I started to skim because there was too much passive vs. active voice.

Felix is a weird character for me. I like him, but his personality–what we’re told and what we see–is a bit incongruous. Felix at once feels too mature and understanding, and yet, he does the silly ‘don’t tell me the clearly important information you have’ shtick. He’s also a huge goof-ball when it comes to the other students and girls. As I said, I liked him, but he feels a bit hard to pin down.

The dragons don’t have much personality, which is a bit of a shame. (Note: This gets better in Avian, but I want to talk about it in Fledgling, first.) Mavrik feels like an animal here, which is good, but this novel begs for the How to Train Your Dragon comparison. Toothless feels distinct as an animal with a personality, but Mavrik is a bit more of plot prop in this novel. He’s an animal, which is good, but he lacks the quirky behaviors normal animals exhibit. Once again, this gets better, but this is where Mavrik’s character stands for me in Fledgling.

There’s a lot of little, incongruous details in this story that felt silly to me. There are 9 fledglings and yet, a 100 trainees? That’s a very lopsided class size (years 1 and years 2 only were mentioned as being dragon riders). Once again, this is fixed and explained in Avian, but it left me scratching my head in Fledgling. They also jump on the back of a dragon…a dragon that has spines! And live. The slavers didn’t notice their prisoners run free? There was a lot of these little things, which added up for me, and even impacted the enjoyable moments of the book.

There are several times in the story where the mentor, Sile, has to be saved by Jae and Felix. It feels a bit repetitive, but it establishes that there’s a faction out for his life and that they’re connected to the crown. I liked Sile, but he doesn’t explain nearly enough of the major backstory to satisfy me. This is purposeful, but it does obscure his motivations.

MYTH TWIST! There’s a little surprise and added mythology after Felix and Jaevid are captured. This isn’t the dragon version of Hogwarts, and I expected the climax to take place at the school, which it doesn’t. This is a welcomed surprise and hooked me into the end of the story. The conclusion of the plot felt a bit too convenient. This is a continuing series, and there’s certainly more in the world and series. This book has the easy, MG feel of Eragon without the fiddly prose, but the obvious comparison is How to Train Your Dragon. The middle of the story diverts it away from what I expected, which elevated this book (and other novels in the series) for me.

Notes:

Jae, Katty, Nova, and Beck—irrational hatred of nicknames incoming.
Stupid fantasy setting alert: why is there an ocean in the Devil’s Cup? Get rid of the ocean—it doesn’t belong there and would drastically change the climate.
Do I criticize lack of originality here? It really is freakishly similar to How to Train Your Dragon initially.
Stupid fantasy detail: maps. Why would they need to memorize country maps? The whole point of maps is that they’re there for reference. You should have an idea of how to read them, but they’re purposefully made to be used when lost. Sile even mentions this.
“I don’t speak Elven” is perhaps the best moment in half-breed stories ever. A great fantastical example of how real-world racism often works.
Dragons that spit acid. Nice biological touch there.

Rating: 3 stars

I’m continuing with the series, but I wanted to rate Fledgling before I got involved with reviewing Avian. This is a solid MG book, but there’s an overall flimsy nature to this narrative. Spoiler: I started reading Avian, and this series gets stronger. This isn’t the strongest start, but it’s a solid one.

REVIEW: Artificial

Artificial by Jadah McCoy

In the future, humans battle for their life in Elite City. Like in many dystopias, humans destroyed the earth through their own hubris. The humans created the androids, the androids disappeared, leaving humanity to its fate. . That is, after the androids (the Glitches) developed emotions. Massive, bug like Culls show up, and Syl learns that the androids created a plague to turn humans into Culls, infesting the human cities and wiping out the remaining, normal humans. The initial info dump was necessary because some of this background information is confusing. It’s not the sleekest of world building, which is an unfortunate trend throughout this story.

I didn’t care about Syl. There’s nothing to her beyond the plot. She’s a plot piece, and that makes the entire story thin. I can’t understand why Bastion likes her. For me, this undermined the entire book, and there wasn’t anything else to save it. Syl wasn’t surrounded by a stellar cast of characters, either. I didn’t care about Lucca or Sarge. The characters are spectacularly boring early on, which is a killer for me. I will forgive a lot of faults if there are fleshed out and exciting characters. Bastion and the introduction of New Elite City is a relief in the narrative, but it’s ultimately not enough to rescue this book.

The action sequences work, and there are some nice death jump scenes. Even though there’s action, it started to feel as if nothing was happening, and I’m sure my dislike of the characters furthered that feeling. I was always waiting for there to be something more to this story, but if you don’t like this book in the first twenty pages, there’s no more depth to it. If you can get over the characters, maybe something else in this story will interest you. If the characters were more engaging–or built more organically with this future world–this would’ve been a better read.

This is the first in a series, and I’m not hooked. If there was anything to hold back for a second book, it should’ve gone into Artificial to make it more interesting. Sci-fi and fantasy need real depth in at least one area–character, plot, setting–to push the story over the edge into an enjoyable read. None of those areas quite delivered for me. Let me take a moment to speculate on why (but I’m not telling other authors how to do their jobs, just swapping the reader’s brain for the writer’s brain). There should be a potential between all the elements in a story, making the sum greater than its additive parts. In great novels, a positive feedback develops between the world, the character, and the setting, blending with the author’s voice and creating greater themes in the work. None of that is present here, and it’s because everything feels like it’s there to serve (a weak) plot. My bias is that I personally believe there are few plots (and authors that plot like gangbusters) that sustain a novel and keep me solely reading based on plot alone. There are plenty of novels with ‘meh’ plots but engaging, fully-realized characters and quirky, meandering world-building that keep me reading right to the end and are memorable, even though I’ve guessed how the story will end. Plot is not enough. Even the most careful plotters, if they’ve written their stories well, can only fool the eagle-eyed reader to an extent. This is where the quirks of the setting and the vibrancy of characters is needed: to sustain the story between major plot moments. This book has a plot, but there was nothing to sustain the story, which is what really matters.

Notes:

There’s a bit of an early info dump. If you’re not interested after reading it, put the book down. That’s all there is to this world and the world-building therein.
The Culls are great. They’re gross and were the most interesting element of this story for me.
This story should’ve maybe been about Bastion. He wasn’t much more interesting than Syl, enough so that he helped make this read manageable. This would’ve been DNF without Bastion.
If you can get into Syl’s character, there’s some great early book action scenes.
Why can’t they tell Syl is a human? Why??? They’re androids. I’d think they’d be able to tell. This drove me freaking nuts.

Rating: 2 stars

There was so much in this book I thought I’d like (perpetually on the look-out for non-human centered sci-fi) but the characters all ended up feeling thin. Syl and Bastion are barely memorable, let alone anyone in the supporting cast, and they all feel like they’re there as plot chess pieces. Artificial unfortunately wasn’t an engaging read.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: True Born

True Born by L.E. Sterling

(I wanted to get this book for review, but there were some issue with that. I found LE Sterling’s work on Wattpad, and here’s an interview from her.)

Welcome to Dominion City.

After the great Plague descended, the world population was decimated…and their genetics damaged beyond repair.

The Lasters wait hopelessly for their genes to self-destruct. The Splicers pay for expensive treatments that might prolong their life. The plague-resistant True Borns are as mysterious as they are feared…

And then there’s Lucy Fox and her identical twin sister, Margot. After endless tests, no one wants to reveal what they are.

When Margot disappears, a desperate Lucy has no choice but to put her faith in the True Borns, led by the charismatic leader, Nolan Storm, and the beautiful but deadly Jared, who tempts her as much as he infuriates her. As Lucy and the True Borns set out to rescue her sister, they stumble upon a vast conspiracy stretching from Dominion’s street preachers to shady Russian tycoons. But why target the Fox sisters?

As they say in Dominion, it’s in the blood.

 

Can you tell us about your book, True Born, in 40 words or less?

Sterling: In a world divided into Splicers, Lasters and True Borns, Lucy and Margot Fox, twins with a special bond, are plunged into the mystery of what they really are, and why True Borns have been hired to protect them.

What was your favorite scene to write?

Sterling: My favorite scene was where Lucy and Jared, one of the True Borns (and love interest) are trapped with each other as they go on a rescue mission. The sparks were just flying between these two and I loved how snippy they got with each other – and then Jared went absolutely feral, which was awesome.

What was the hardest scene to edit out?

Sterling: In the original draft of True Born I had a really gruesome scene – something really awful happened to Margot. Apparently it was just too gruesome. One of my earliest young readers couldn’t stomach it. So I chopped it into something else. It was hard to let go of – it was such a powerful scene! But something wonderful happened from this: the new scene opened up all sorts of really interesting plot possibilities that got extended through the next two novels, so it was a very favorable trade!

Favorite quote?

Sterling: It’s a toss up between:

“By your eighteenth birthday you’re supposed to know.

They’re supposed to tell you.

Splicer. True Born. Laster.”

(These are the words that began the original novella.) And the words that now begin the novel:

“When we came into the world, silent and cowled, my sister and I were attached by our big toes.”

I don’t know why – these are the phrases that for me resonate through the entire novels, kind of like the backbone of my ideas.

Standalone or series?

Sterling:  Series! That goes for what I prefer to both write and read. Isn’t it just so great when you fall in love with a book or a world or some characters and you just feel so lucky that you get to visit them again in the next book? I feel that way a lot these days. I even feel that way as I’m writing the True Born Trilogy.

If you had to give True Born a theme song what would you choose?

Sterling:  Oh, wow, how can I pick just one? Maybe Radiohead’s “Nude” – or Arcade Fire, which I have been listening to a lot lately while I write the series: I’d choose “Awful Sound” for the entire novel, but for the end of the novel I’d probably choose “My Body is a Cage.”  But I’m so bad at this! I’d like to hear from readers what theme song they would choose.

Are you currently working on anything else?

Sterling:  I’m wrapping up the third novel in the True Born Trilogy, but I’ve definitely got my eye on a couple of novels I’ve shelved for the past couple of years. One of them is a YA novel about faeries. The other is a thriller/romance about a Voodoo detective and a rodeo nurse. It was so much fun to write!

What is the best book you’ve read recently?

Sterling: Such a hard question. I really enjoyed reading Divergent  – I finally got around to reading that about a month ago. It’s great!! I have also been kind of addicted to Jennifer Armentrout’s work of late, particularly the Dark Elements series.

What is currently in your TBR pile?

Sterling:  Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare; I’ve recently added Pintip Dunn’s Forget Tomorrow and Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle series to my long, long list of books to be read. I’m really excited about these books! And I’m waiting very impatiently for Ilona Andrew’s White Hot, the next in the Hidden Legacy series.

Thanks so much for the interview!

What ways can readers connect with you?

Sterling:  I am all over the place! Readers can get in touch with me in any one of the following ways, and I would LOVE to hear from them!

My website/blog: www.le-sterling.com

Twitter: @le_sterling

My new Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LESterling22/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/LESterling

Thanks so much for the interview!

State of the Blog: April book reviews and updates

Restarting Throw This Book at Me was fun. The reason I stopped being online at all had to do with 1) grad school 2) traveling and 3) burn out (more on this in the future maybe if I ever feel like talking about it, but Moses Siregar III talks about how he had a similar burnout with writing during a major life changing period. This does happen, and no, you’re not prepared for it. At least I wasn’t.)

Fimmvörðuháls: too many characters for a copy/paste into the caption box, but that’s the mountain this is on.

I intend to keep doing the book reviews on the regular, but there was a massive glitch in the hosting domain name transfer that drove me nuts; it kept people from finding my site. I liked the layout of the new blog and some of its features, but I couldn’t justify paying for the domain name when there was no way for me to get what I wanted. So, welcome to HD Lynn, the author blog. The layout may change a lot going forward as I try to find the sweet spot in appearance, but I’m putting down roots at this site right now. After and extended period, Throw This Book at Me is (currently) dead.

Books reviewed this month:

5 stars:

There was no contest in which two books were my favorite in April. The action packed Saint’s Blood had me from beginning to end, and Grey used its strong narration to tug at my gut the entire way through. I read them back to back, and I was honestly surprised by how engaging they both were. These were not the books I was most excited to read, but I loved them, and Shadows is coming up soon! Also, Sebastien de Castell got a hugely deserving nomination for a Hugo, and irregardless of the circumstances of nomination, best of luck! I personally always find the Best New Author categories to be extremely interesting because that’s where a lot of fresh voices and interesting novels hide.

4 stars:

Ann M. Noser’s The Witches Handbook series had two strong entries. These books are probably more NA than YA. If there’s such a thing as ‘sweet NA’, this is it. How to Date Dead Guys and How to Ditch Dead Guys rely on the interpersonal relationships between characters more than on any supernatural element.

3 stars:

All of my three star books had strengths, and others may very well give these books 4/5 stars. 3 stars is really the cut-off for when a book becomes more enjoyable vs more of a chore to read. I gave 3 stars to a book when something (usually somethings) about the story kept niggling at me through the entire read. These are what I’d call your mileage my vary (YMMV) reads.

The Blood Sigil, The Emperor’s Railroad, Beauty & the Beast, Minotaur

REVIEW: Beauty and the Beast (Timeless Fairytales #1)

Beauty and the Beast (Timeless Fairytales #1) by KM Shea

Do I need to recap the plot of this book? If a series is entitled ‘Timeless Fairy Tales’, I’ve hope you know what you’re in for. As an unashamed fan of Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter (what I consider to be the better of her two Beauty and the Beast retellings), I’m always on the look out for a lovely little retelling like this. KM Shea does an excellent job of bringing her own touch to this story, and it still rings true to the heart of the tale.

The best part of this story is that Elle, the beauty half, has a logical reason to be trapped in the chateaux. In the first scene, she falls through the roof and breaks her leg. Hearkening back to the French roots of the tale, Elle is trapped in a country chateaux in the fantasy country of Loire, which is fantasy France. Prince Severin, the younger brother and non-heir apparent, reluctantly keeps Elle through the summer and autumn in his chateaux until her leg heals. There’s a certain Enlightenment feel to the culture and architecture of the chateaux, and I would’ve enjoyed if the story played up these elements a bit more. For me, it’s not possible to go part French–all aboard the Francophile train or go home. That said, there are nice little allusions to French culture, and I’m clearly freaking obsessed with finding a Beauty and the Beast tale where one of the characters rants about French art and literature.

That said, I liked Elle’s character a lot. At first, she doesn’t seem particularly special as a heroine, but there’s some hints that she’s a bit more than she seems. There’s some playing coy with her backstory, and if it was dropped earlier in the novel, I think it would’ve heightened the tension at the end. As much as I try not to judge a book by its ending, this one was one where I had to do that. The end could’ve–should’ve–been more tense. Frankly, the story ended a bit too soon, and I was waiting for another twist, another action sequence, but it never came.

But let’s get back to the parts I did love: the characters. This is the clear strength of the novel. Elle’s friendship with the servants, especially Emele, is poignant and didn’t bore me. The servants all have personalities of their own, and their part in the curse (being unable to speak and wearing masks) adds a distinctive aura to the story that made it stand out. By including other characters, instead of just having the palace be empty, the world becomes richer, the story filled with more emotional stakes because that’s where the real action is in this novel. The servants also push the romance along with gossip and schemes, and the crown prince, Lucien, helps add depth to the greater political landscape of the story. Also, it was nice to see Severin have relationships outside of his one with Elle.

The central relationship in the story between Elle and Severin worried me at first. Severin is in the unique position that he’s tried to break his curse before and failed, so he has no interest in trying again. This let some of the tension out of the relationship initially, but the servant supporting cast stepped in to help kindle the initial friendship between Severin and Elle. For most of the story, it’s a friendship. That works well with Elle’s character and her supposed station, but this is where I would’ve loved a surprise drop in her backstory. Things would’ve gotten crazy a lot earlier, and more could’ve happened in this novel. There was a certain amount of ease with which the curse was broken, but I like more teasing out of my finales. I know what the ending is going to be. I want to need that ending, anticipate it with every freaking page, and this story didn’t quite deliver that longing. Still, there are sweet, tender moments between the main characters, and they’re both fully fleshed out humans with flaws and pasts.

Notes:

I really liked how the servants were incorporated. Emele with the fan was intensely French.
Did I imagine the chateaux looking like Versailles (even though that’s anachronistic for the period the story was implied to be in)? Yes, I did.
This story delivered the animal companion goods. Fairy tale retellings without animal companions is heresy.
Severin is a giant cat. This particular version of the beast is more similar to the gentleman beast than the half-mad one that’s become a bit more popular of late.
This is a writer thing, but there were lots of repetitive description words in this story. That’s a difficult part to edit, but it made the world less evocative.
Could we’ve gotten something a bit more interesting than ‘working in his study’ for 90% of what Severin did. That would’ve helped build his personality for me.
We got a Princess and the Frog sequel tease with Lucien. MAKE IT SO.

Rating: 3 stars

I’m being freaking picky with this, but there are lots of great reasons to read this book. The real reason for this rating is that 1) the ending is a bit slack with the overall tension and 2) the world building needed a bit of work. The pro-part is that there’s a fresh take on the characters, and this makes the story charming throughout, even if it doesn’t hit all the right notes with the plot.

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REVIEW: The Pages of the Mind

The Pages of the Mind by Jeffe Kennedy

I wanted to like this book. I really did. It has a fantastic cover, a great title, and it implied it was going to be about a badass librarian. I was hooked on that concept. Unfortunately, this story didn’t deliver. It’s not really about Dafne, the aforementioned librarian, and if there’d been a focus on her earlier in the book (or if the book had started later when she became more important to the story), I would’ve cared about her more. This story also...

REVIEW: How to Ditch Dead Guys

How to Ditch Dead Guys by Ann M. Noser

We start where How to Date Dead Guys left off. There’s no time skip—we jump right in after Mike disappears into the river. Emma is still dealing from the shock of losing all of her friends, and she wants to solve Steve’s murder. She also clearly has unresolved feelings for Jake, even though she came to grips with her issues with Mike at the end of How to Date Dead Guys.

Emma and Walker investigate a series of murders, and Emma becomes possessed by the sp...

Support the arts

Hey guys! This has been a rough week, but I'd like your help. I got word via the social medias that my high school's art teacher is getting fired/laid-off/unceremoniously kicked out because the school is eliminating ALL FOUR of his art classes in a concerted effort to shrink the art program to save money. I'm not an art kid (drawing is hard), but this man helped inspire my sister my friends to pursue art as their careers and their passions. So many schools are cutting money for things we deem 'unimportant' like art and music--those are the things that inspire us and add value to our lives. I played in a concert this week, and even though I'm not a professional musician, playing music brings me joy. It helps me feel complete. None of us are entirely one thing. The thought that so many of us grow up being taught we have to be One Thing or that our passions don't matter because they'll never help us pass tests or make us money infuriates me. Today, it's one small town, one art teacher. Tomorrow, it's more standardized testing, which even smart students hate because bubble tests are freaking boring. So, sign this petition. I think she'll get the signatures, btw, and I just hope it makes a difference.

https://www.change.org/p/knoch-school...

And if someone ever tells you your art is a waste of time, ignore them.

REVIEW: The Emperor’s Railroad

The post REVIEW: The Emperor’s Railroad appeared first on Throw This Book at Me.