What do you think?
Isleshire Chronicles #1
Lofty Dreams of Earthbound Men
On the night of the summer solstice, Obadai Bashim encounters Jules Sterling, a young engineering sage. Jules is on the run from a ripper, an assassin of the Theocracy who has already killed his master. Open atrocities by rippers are unusual in County Isleshire, where freedom and acceptance reign over prejudice.
However, political instability between the Five Kingdoms and the Divine Theocracy has set the theocrats on a mission to crown religious doctrine over science, and the Sage’s Guild is number one on their eradication list. If Obadai helps, he’ll have a price on his head too, but he can’t abandon Jules.
Escaping the ripper’s clutches is not enough. Jules has a mission of his to repair a faulty airship inn about to crash into the fortified township of Dunbruth. Luckily, Obadai has a few magickal secrets up his sleeve.
However, political instability between the Five Kingdoms and the Divine Theocracy has set the theocrats on a mission to crown religious doctrine over science, and the Sage’s Guild is number one on their eradication list. If Obadai helps, he’ll have a price on his head too, but he can’t abandon Jules.
Escaping the ripper’s clutches is not enough. Jules has a mission of his to repair a faulty airship inn about to crash into the fortified township of Dunbruth. Luckily, Obadai has a few magickal secrets up his sleeve.
76 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 28, 2014
About the author
Susan Laine
92 books222 followersSusan is an award-winning author of LGBTQ erotic romance. She writes for Dreamspinner Press, DSP Publications, Siren BookStrand, Evernight Publishing, and Less Than Three Press. Susan is a Finn writing in English. She likes action flicks, pop music, saunas, and the seasons in Finland. Join Susan's newsletter HERE.
Coming soon new M/M and F/F erotic romances....
Sorry but... I'm taking a bit of a hiatus from writing at the moment. Will keep you apprised of any changes. Huge thanks to anyone who has read my stories and, hopefully, liked them <3
Merry Christmas!
Coming soon new M/M and F/F erotic romances....
Sorry but... I'm taking a bit of a hiatus from writing at the moment. Will keep you apprised of any changes. Huge thanks to anyone who has read my stories and, hopefully, liked them <3
Merry Christmas!
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Read
June 5, 2017Blurp was better than the book, I didn't get very far in.
January 27, 2014
This review can be found at The Blogger Girls review site.
2.5 stars
When I read the blurb for this story, I was immediately intrigued. As someone who loves fantasies, I find unique and complex worlds fascinating. So, right from the bat, this story had a lot of potential for me to enjoy it especially mixed with that cover and an edge of steampunk, I was all too eager to get started. Unfortunately, while I loved that the author put so much effort into the world building, the length of this story really hindered not only my enjoyment of it but my understanding of what exactly was going on.
To put it simply, Jules is an engineering sage who’s Master has been killed for conducting an illegal project… or harboring an illegal machine part (I’m not sure which). As such, creatures known as rippers were sent out to kill him and Jules. Fortunately for Jules, he was able to escape and ends up coming across Obadai, someone with seed magick. Knowing just how much danger Jules is in, Obadai agrees to help him fix an airship but before they can complete their task, the ripper shows up with the intention of punishing both of them and the punishment for their supposed crimes? Death.
Let me just say that I really liked these characters. Obadai is a strong, confident man who is willing to help someone when the situation calls for it. In contrast, Jules is more timid and shy unless it has to do with tinkering with machines and then he’s a whole nother person. In this story, the relationship between Obadai and Jules is just starting. Literally, it is like a seed in the ground: it’s been planted and just waiting to grow. The two together are both sweet and fierce and even though they just met, they are all too willing to put their lives on the line to save each other.
The best thing about this story is the world but unfortunately it is also the worst thing. Since the story is so short and the world is so massive, the author tried to cram so much information into a little over 17,000 words. The result of which only left me confused and frustrated. Not to mention there were so many unique words to describe the land, country, creatures, etc. that I kept stumbling over them because I didn’t understand what they meant and most of the time, they weren’t explained in a simplistic way. The beginning is particularly hard to get through because it is filled with a lot of info dump in an attempt to understand the setting but because of that, for me it was just a bunch of nonsense I couldn’t decipher. Add to that, there were a lot of complex names and individuals mentioned that didn’t seem necessary in the grand scheme of things.
To put it mildly, this was only an okay story. If this story had at least 100 more pages, the author could have spread out the descriptions on the world, the inhabitants and the numerous people that were mentioned but never appeared in the story and it would have been fine, or at least more understandable, but because there was just so much information to learn and understand, the end result was not comprehensive for my simple brain :( I liked the characters and I liked the concept of the mission Jules had to go on but as much as I wanted to enjoy the book, it was hard to really get into the story when so many details were pushed together in such a short tale.
As it is, while this is the start of a new series and wasn’t as good as I was expecting, I’m willing to give the sequel a try in the hopes that most of the information told in this story won’t weigh down the rest of the series.
2.5 stars
When I read the blurb for this story, I was immediately intrigued. As someone who loves fantasies, I find unique and complex worlds fascinating. So, right from the bat, this story had a lot of potential for me to enjoy it especially mixed with that cover and an edge of steampunk, I was all too eager to get started. Unfortunately, while I loved that the author put so much effort into the world building, the length of this story really hindered not only my enjoyment of it but my understanding of what exactly was going on.
To put it simply, Jules is an engineering sage who’s Master has been killed for conducting an illegal project… or harboring an illegal machine part (I’m not sure which). As such, creatures known as rippers were sent out to kill him and Jules. Fortunately for Jules, he was able to escape and ends up coming across Obadai, someone with seed magick. Knowing just how much danger Jules is in, Obadai agrees to help him fix an airship but before they can complete their task, the ripper shows up with the intention of punishing both of them and the punishment for their supposed crimes? Death.
Let me just say that I really liked these characters. Obadai is a strong, confident man who is willing to help someone when the situation calls for it. In contrast, Jules is more timid and shy unless it has to do with tinkering with machines and then he’s a whole nother person. In this story, the relationship between Obadai and Jules is just starting. Literally, it is like a seed in the ground: it’s been planted and just waiting to grow. The two together are both sweet and fierce and even though they just met, they are all too willing to put their lives on the line to save each other.
The best thing about this story is the world but unfortunately it is also the worst thing. Since the story is so short and the world is so massive, the author tried to cram so much information into a little over 17,000 words. The result of which only left me confused and frustrated. Not to mention there were so many unique words to describe the land, country, creatures, etc. that I kept stumbling over them because I didn’t understand what they meant and most of the time, they weren’t explained in a simplistic way. The beginning is particularly hard to get through because it is filled with a lot of info dump in an attempt to understand the setting but because of that, for me it was just a bunch of nonsense I couldn’t decipher. Add to that, there were a lot of complex names and individuals mentioned that didn’t seem necessary in the grand scheme of things.
To put it mildly, this was only an okay story. If this story had at least 100 more pages, the author could have spread out the descriptions on the world, the inhabitants and the numerous people that were mentioned but never appeared in the story and it would have been fine, or at least more understandable, but because there was just so much information to learn and understand, the end result was not comprehensive for my simple brain :( I liked the characters and I liked the concept of the mission Jules had to go on but as much as I wanted to enjoy the book, it was hard to really get into the story when so many details were pushed together in such a short tale.
As it is, while this is the start of a new series and wasn’t as good as I was expecting, I’m willing to give the sequel a try in the hopes that most of the information told in this story won’t weigh down the rest of the series.
January 1, 2015
I purchased this book precisely because I knew that the author had been wanting to write stories in this world she had been nurturing for a long time. As some other reviewers have noted, this novella suffers in that the actual story told is very brief, yet the depth of detail about the world in which it happens is not. I don't fault the author for that; I'd much rather read about a well-developed and coherent world than one which seems to be haphazard. That said, I came away from this first in a series feeling slightly crushed under the weight of all of the information about the world itself, and not having been given equal opportunity to get to know the protagonist and his to-be lover as well as I would have liked. In fact, what I really wanted from this initial foray into County Isleshire was for it not to stop where it did- I certainly understand wanting to set a stage and then writing more from there, but as a reader I felt I'd only just been given a tantalizing overview of the characters before it was all over.
As an avowed fan of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials," I felt a lot of that world (or perhaps unintentional reference) to it in this work, though Susan brings all sorts of other, innovative elements as well. The brevity of this first work is my disappointment; as a fellow writer, I felt Susan's love for this world and I found myself similarly captivated and wanting to know more and more-- I suppose what I came away with was simply wanting more about Obadai and Jules. There's a lot of telling and not showing in this initial work, and I only wish that the author had been encouraged to continue on this particular plot line for a while longer to balance out the descriptions. What I take away from that is an author who obviously has many potentially captivating tales to tell, and this world is well-crafted for readers to be introduced to dozens of races, intrigues, political coups, and relationships.
As an avowed fan of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials," I felt a lot of that world (or perhaps unintentional reference) to it in this work, though Susan brings all sorts of other, innovative elements as well. The brevity of this first work is my disappointment; as a fellow writer, I felt Susan's love for this world and I found myself similarly captivated and wanting to know more and more-- I suppose what I came away with was simply wanting more about Obadai and Jules. There's a lot of telling and not showing in this initial work, and I only wish that the author had been encouraged to continue on this particular plot line for a while longer to balance out the descriptions. What I take away from that is an author who obviously has many potentially captivating tales to tell, and this world is well-crafted for readers to be introduced to dozens of races, intrigues, political coups, and relationships.
August 6, 2014
C+
A short but extremely busy read. There is so much to take in for a short story, maybe too much. Now it’s not that I didn't like it, I truly wished there had been more length to it.
I didn’t feel there was enough time to get to know the characters well, although I can tell you where they were from that they were a young man and an older man that one is a sage engineer and the other is a mystical witch. Both equally talented within their trades, and lovers of men living in a magickal world, and that they met under dire circumstances. I liked both Obadai and Jules, and would like to have spent more time with them.
There are plenty of descriptions relating to castles, floating islands, mythological Goddesses, countesses, Kings, scientists, Patron saints and many more are mentioned throughout this tale.
Some very creative characters and places too, I felt somewhat disappointed with it all ending so quickly before I had a chance to take it all in.
Reviewed by Teddy
To see more of this review and others like it please visit us at Gay List Book Reviews at www.gaylistbookreviews.wordpress.com
A short but extremely busy read. There is so much to take in for a short story, maybe too much. Now it’s not that I didn't like it, I truly wished there had been more length to it.
I didn’t feel there was enough time to get to know the characters well, although I can tell you where they were from that they were a young man and an older man that one is a sage engineer and the other is a mystical witch. Both equally talented within their trades, and lovers of men living in a magickal world, and that they met under dire circumstances. I liked both Obadai and Jules, and would like to have spent more time with them.
There are plenty of descriptions relating to castles, floating islands, mythological Goddesses, countesses, Kings, scientists, Patron saints and many more are mentioned throughout this tale.
Some very creative characters and places too, I felt somewhat disappointed with it all ending so quickly before I had a chance to take it all in.
Reviewed by Teddy
To see more of this review and others like it please visit us at Gay List Book Reviews at www.gaylistbookreviews.wordpress.com
January 26, 2014
3 Hearts
Review written for MM Good Book Reviews
A druid and an engineer. You think they have anything common with each other? Nope. Nothing at all. Yet they seem to balance each other well.
In a world where evolution is fought heavily by religion and science is being slowly killed, every magical being not blessed by the Church along with every scientist and inventor are being hunted and sentenced to die on the spot. His master already dead, Jules tries to run from his ripper while continuing to offer his services and repairing/preventing terrible accidents. He cannot do it by himself and he seeks help from the one person he feels he can trust with his life...
Follow the link to read the entire review: http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.co...
Thommie
Review written for MM Good Book Reviews
A druid and an engineer. You think they have anything common with each other? Nope. Nothing at all. Yet they seem to balance each other well.
In a world where evolution is fought heavily by religion and science is being slowly killed, every magical being not blessed by the Church along with every scientist and inventor are being hunted and sentenced to die on the spot. His master already dead, Jules tries to run from his ripper while continuing to offer his services and repairing/preventing terrible accidents. He cannot do it by himself and he seeks help from the one person he feels he can trust with his life...
Follow the link to read the entire review: http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.co...
Thommie
February 14, 2014
A Joyfully Jay review.
3 stars
After reading Susan Laine’s Acknowledgement page for this novel and learning that this has been a beloved project of hers for over 20 years, I really wanted to like this story, if for no other reason that to reward her diligence and creativity. But unfortunately, I have had to work hard to get past the narrative which is so dense, so jam packed, as to be impenetrable. You know the author is in trouble when this is the start of the story.
Read Melanie's review in its entirety here.
3 stars
After reading Susan Laine’s Acknowledgement page for this novel and learning that this has been a beloved project of hers for over 20 years, I really wanted to like this story, if for no other reason that to reward her diligence and creativity. But unfortunately, I have had to work hard to get past the narrative which is so dense, so jam packed, as to be impenetrable. You know the author is in trouble when this is the start of the story.
Read Melanie's review in its entirety here.
July 23, 2015
This book is just buried in back story and monolog. By about 2/3 the only plot progression was the two MCs meeting (first chapter) and them fixing an engine. Jules is being chased, but the chaser didn't enter the picture until page 60something, and then it was an anticlimax because Obadai lectured it instead of fighting it. Nothing happens at all. At that point the boys had kissed once amid a 2 page description of the realities of homosexuality in this world. Waaaay too slow. I have no idea whether there is a larger plot in the works or not, but after 60 pages of repetition of the fact I can tell you the race in power is xenophobic.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews