Joe Kessler > Recent Status Updates

Took you long enough to figure that one out.

The War Lords! I love it.

Hemmings looked up. "You devil - you cunning little devil!"

"Cunning?" said the Doctor thoughtfully. "Well, yes, I have to be sometimes. And as for little, these things are relative, you know. I've been much smaller than this. As a matter of fact, I was once in grave danger of being washed down the plughole. But devil? We make our own devils, and our own hell."

This book -- written in 1999; set a hundred years later -- just referenced the Asiatic Flu Death of 2023, which apparently killed a third of the world's population. So at least we dodged that timeline?

Really glad this is turning out to be more of a murder mystery than a thriller.

Oh, that's very good. This might be a 5-star from me if it can nail the ending.

Well. That ending may have just sunk this from a three-star to a two.

I guess this is as much Zutara as it is Reylo, but the point is the fanfic vibes are very strong. Did I mention the forced marriage yet?

I'm not gonna DNF, but this sure does feel like it's heading for a 2star for me at this point.

Yeah, this is just a Reylo fanfic stapled onto Shadow and Bone.

Not especially impressed with this one so far. I'll keep reading, but it feels like a forgettable 3-star.

"She tuts at him. 'You have to be careful in the city,' she says. 'They have laws against sodomy.'

'If they do, they don't enforce them,' Fetter says. 'I see lots of people together.'

'That's not how laws work, son,' she says. 'A visible law is a ploy, a little play, a mummery in waiting -- waiting for you to become interesting. Never give them a reason to care who you are.'"

Literally nothing has justified this later timeline yet.

Was this reveal (that person X in the present is also person Y in the past) supposed to be a surprise? I honestly can't tell, but it was pretty easy to predict.

So much telling and not showing... This is feeling like a two-star, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure I care as much about fictional millionaire celebrities when it isn't Taylor Jenkins Reid writing about them.

“Most heroes die young,” he had said at last. “If not in truth, then inside themselves. I lost myself for a long, long time, granddaughter. When you have climbed the halls of heaven it is almost impossible to rest again in your own home, no matter how much you may wish to. And not everyone wishes to.”

Easily the best book of the trilogy, and maybe even a 5-star by the end. We'll see!

The action in this is such a breath of fresh air after the last dragon book I just read.

I don't mind switching back and forth among four characters in different parts of the world, but I kind of hate that two of them are in third-person and two are in first-person. Weird writing choice!

It's hard not to like this guy.

You just met and this is hardly the time for kissing.

This would be such a better story if the protagonists actually knew anything about their Jewish heritage, instead of having to have everything explained to them / research it online.

Okay! Final figures for 2024:

188 books read

156 new to me / 32 rereads

Best new to me: The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Best reread: The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard (Lays of the Hearth-Fire #1)

Worst new to me: Book of Games by John Peel (Diadem #12)

Worst reread: Second Sight by Chris Archer (Mindwarp #4)

Author I read the most: Victoria Goddard, at 18 books

This is nowhere near as interesting as the first one yet. Feels like it's gonna be a three-star from me.

Really hating this love interest!