Category: Fantasy
Firelight by Sophie Jordan
(Cover picture courtesy of Reading Revels.)
A hidden truth.
Mortal enemies.
Doomed love.
With her rare ability to breathe fire, Jacinda is special even among the draki—the descendants of dragons who can shift between human and dragon forms. But when Jacinda’s rebelliousness forces her family to flee into the human world, she struggles to adapt, even as her draki spirit fades. The one thing that revives it is the gorgeous, elusive Will, whose family hunts her kind. Jacinda can’t resist getting closer to him, even though she knows she’s risking not only her life but the draki’s most closely guarded secret.
Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide.
Despite the amazing cover, when I read the blurb I was both full of hope and cringing at the same time. With a concept like forbidden love between predator and prey authors can either write a really awesome story or completely ruin it. So what was Firelight? Well, surprisingly, it was the former.
Sophie Jordan’s world of draki and Hunters is incredible! I love how she incorporated old dragon lore into her story and put her own twist on it, making the draki both human and dragon believably. You see, Jacinda is drawn to her draki heritage and has to control things like her manifestation (transformation into a dragon) when she’s angry or aroused and has to fully manifest regularly or she loses her ability completely. She has the temper of a dragon at times and has to control the fact that she’s a firebreather, a draki that can breathe fire. Did I mention she’s the first one in many generations to be able to do that? Kind of cliché, but minor compared to the fact Sophie Jordan actually used her imagination to create the draki.
Unlike most Insta-Love, you don’t have Jacinda or Will proclaiming it love at first sight, merely an interesting attraction. They’re drawn to each other for some odd reason and the excuse isn’t fate at the end, as we find out. There’s no prophecy hanging over their heads, but a reasonable explanation for why Will is both drawn to Jacinda and one of the best draki trackers out there. They have a stormy relationship as they both try to figure out their feelings, but by the end you get the feeling that it actually is love between them. With the threat from Cassian and Tamra’s dangerously reckless behavior, there’s even more added tension.
I love this new series! It’s unique, well-written and fast paced. What more could you really ask for in YA right now? With such a cliffhanger at the end of the novel, I can’t wait to read Vanish.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Kushiel’s Scion by Jacqueline Carey
(Cover picture courtesy of Wikipedia.)
Imriel de la Courcel’s birth parents are history’s most reviled traitors, but his adoptive parents, the Comtesse Phedre and the warrior-priest Joscelin, are Terre d’Ange’s greatest champions.
Stolen, tortured and enslaved as a young boy, Imriel is now a Prince of the Blood; third in line for the throne in a land that revels in art, beauty and desire. It is a court steeped in deeply laid conspiracies—and there are many who would see the young prince dead. Some despise him out of hatred for his mother, Melisande, who nearly destroyed the entire realm in her quest for power. Others because they fear he has inherited his mother’s irresistible allure—and her dangerous gifts.
As he comes of age, plagued by unwanted desires, Imriel shares their fears. When a simple act of friendship traps Imriel in a besieged city where the infamous Melisande is worshiped as a goddess and where a dead man leads an army, the Prince must face his greatest test: to find his true self.
I was skeptical about the spin-off Imriel Trilogy after the Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy was so good. But what I like about hearing Imriel’s story is that it’s a coming-of-age story in which the protagonist truly struggles with a terrible past in order to find out who he is. He has very real trust issues, he’s scared of his mother’s reputation following him everywhere and most of all, he still has the emotional scars he gained in Darsanga.
You can’t help but cheer for Imriel the whole way as he tries to overcome his past and discover what his future will be like. From his escapades in Tiberium to his burgeoning love life back home, he’s quite a likeable character. Imriel really does go on a physical, but also spiritual and emotional journey to find healing and make peace with his past. He does both great and not-so-great things along the way, but in the end he comes out as a better person. Yet still, because of his past, he has trouble reconciling the fact that he is of Kushiel’s line just as his mother is. But with friends like Eammon and Lucius, you have the feeling that he’s in good hands.
The complicated politics of Jacqueline Carey’s world are still at play here, which includes the fallout of Melisande’s treachery. There’s also the movement in Tiberium to return to a republic rather than having a princeps who is more of an emperor than anything. Not only that, part of the fallout of Melisande’s treachery is that although Imriel is third in line, there are those that would quite willingly murder Ysandre’s daughters to help him gain the throne. It makes me happy that Jacqueline Carey’s books are not just shamelessly sex-filled, but that she actually developed a world and populates it with three dimensional characters that have realistic motivations. Not many authors can do that, believe me.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
(Cover picture courtesy of Barnes and Noble.)
Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, victim of the sorceress who holds him in her thrall. Young Robb still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons left in the world. And as opposing forces maneuver for the final showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost limits of civilization, accompanied by a horde of mythical Others—a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords….
A Song of Ice and Fire series just gets better and better as I go along. Not only was the plot full of unexpected twists this time around, but the characters took some pretty surprising turns. Characters who were once insignificant now play much more interesting roles and betrayals are around every corner. Plenty of the betrayals blindsided me and some of the changes in characters’ personalities made sense, but were definitely unexpected.
Part of the reason why I liked A Storm of Swords so much is that George R. R. Martin did so much more world development. We got to see things from the perspective of wildlings, but also other peoples across the Narrow Sea as well as in the Free Cities. Not only that, but we got to learn more about the history of Westeros and the surrounding countries in a more natural way rather than having all of the backstory dumped on us. Martin’s world isn’t the typical fantasy world I thought it was in the first book, in part because Martin actually understands politics. It’s not a simple good versus evil fight and the characters are completely good or completely evil; there’s ambiguity all throughout the novel.
And of course, where would this series be without its awesome characters? Daenerys Targaryen, Sansa Stark, Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow all get pretty good page time like in A Clash of Kings, but characters like Jaime Lannister and Samwell Tarly also get their say. I admit that I like some characters a lot more than others and sometimes the points of view of my least favourite characters were annoying, but that’s just personal preference. Pretty much all of the points of view Martin uses are necessary to move the story along.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but when of my favourite things about George R. R. Martin is that he’s not afraid to kill off important characters. Some authors hesitate about killing off their personal favourites or even fan favourites, but not him! He actually makes his characters suffer to the point where you wonder if it’s too much. Still, it makes for an excellent novel filled with all kinds of drama set against a brilliant fantasy world. It’s a thousand pages of pure awesome, to put it bluntly. Seriously, if you haven’t read this series yet, you should start.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Eye of Erasmus by Teresa Geering
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
The Eye of Erasmus’ tells of Erasmus, a baby born during a thunder storm, who is clearly destined to be special and, initially, especially obnoxious with his flashing black eyes and haughty ways, until he finds love. The trouble is that the girl literally of his dreams hasn’t actually been born yet. No problem …… Oh, but there is ……. Danger lurks ……..
[Full disclosure: I received a free print copy of this book from Teresa Geering in exchange for an honest review.]
I had mixed feelings about The Eye of Erasmus, but not necessarily in a bad way. My feelings were more of “That was good, but it could have been much better.” I’ll explain.
The Eye of Erasmus was sort of told in an omniscient point of view, but unfortunately that means that we’re being told everything rather than shown it. We’re told how Erasmus and Shasta feel and the narrator injects bits of information about the future not-so-subtly. Still, for such a short book it worked out okay. It certainly made for a fast-paced plot. Yet at the same time, I feel if it had been told in a third person point of view between just Shasta and Erasmus with more showing and less telling, the book could have made the jump from ‘good’ to ‘amazing’.
Teresa Geering has a very pared down style of prose and that’s fine, but sometimes I feel like I really want more description. What sort of time period did Erasmus come from? What did it look and feel like? I wanted to be transported to his time and feel his despair as he left it, but also his hope of finding the girl he was meant to be with. A little more description would have made it easier to picture the setting as well as get the whole tone of the novel more quickly. What received a lot of description and really got my attention was the supernatural elements, more specifically Erasmus’ powers. His powers are fascinating and it would be great to see if in the sequel we learned exactly why and how he got them.
While I wouldn’t call The Eye of Erasmus amazing, I would call it good. Because despite my criticisms, the characters were generally well developed, the plot was fast-paced and there were some pretty crazy plot twists that blindsided me. Shasta and Erasmus kept my attention and the affection between them was real, if a little bit rushed. Overall, it was a decent book but not a great one.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
(Cover picture courtesy of Ciska’s Book Chest.)
In this thrilling sequel to A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has created a work of unsurpassed vision, power, and imagination. A Clash of Kings transports us to a world of revelry and revenge, wizardry and warfare, unlike any we have ever experienced.
A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingsdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy, a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress, and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel…and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.
Since we got over all of the character introductions in the first book, A Clash of Kings really starts to heat up. We see Tyrion’s triumphs, Sansa’s struggles, Jon wrestling with decisions involving family and honour and so much more. Not only do we get to see these characters, we also continue on Arya’s and Daenerys’ points of view and have the added POV of Davos, the ‘Onion Knight’. This is all very fascinating, but I’m getting the impression that the series could suffer from extreme character bloat in the next few books. As things heat up in all threads of the plot, I have a feeling it may be hard to keep all of the characters’ stories straight because Martin seems to be adding more and more all of the time.
However, A Clash of Kings generally manages to stay on topic and not get too sidetracked. We see characters like Sansa finally mature and unlikely heroes like Tyrion and Daenerys triumph in their own ways. Part of what has impressed me so much about A Song of Ice and Fire is the characters and how much time is devoted to their development. They are so much more complicated than their archetypal descriptions would suggest and that makes A Clash of Kings a fascinating read. Characters can make or break a story for me, so I’m thankful for Martin’s attention to detail.
For an epic fantasy novel, A Clash of Kings is quite fast-paced. There is a bit of a slouch in the middle of the story, but compared to a lot of epic fantasy out there, the plot still moves forward. Alliances are made and broken, murders are planned and carried out and treason is all around. You never really know what’s going to happen next and that’s really what made this second book so exciting, even more so than the first.
The further development of the fantasy world is satisfying as well. We start to learn about places other than Westeros, in part because of Daenerys’ travels. We also learn more about the other powerful empires in Martin’s world as well as the fact that there are free, trade-based cities within this world of kings and tyrants. This is not just your typical epic fantasy with kings and queens; George R. R. Martin has obviously studied history and knows that nothing is ever that simple. In some places, there are republics and in others there are oligarchies and in still others (Westeros) there are the traditional monarchies. The politics within all of these countries are more nuanced than I’ve come to expect, so I really do appreciate Martin’s world-building.
I give this book 5/5 stars.