Category: Fantasy
The Rising by Terra Harmony
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Seventeen-year-old Serena is the youngest member of a dying race. The increasing acidity of the ocean is destroying her home, slowly eating away at the once thriving underwater landscape. But since the night of Serena’s birth, it is an outside force that most threatens their dwindling population. Werewolves, who once served as protectors for mermaids in the Kingdom of the Undine, now seek to eliminate all who dwell in the ocean — and Serena is about to find herself right in the middle of the deadly conflict.
Given the title of Werewolf Liaison, Serena is determined to make things right for her people. When she ventures to The Dry, she meets Liam, the werewolf with hazel eyes, and her whole world gets turned upside down. As Serena discovers the real history between werewolves and mermaids, she is left wondering who her true enemies are.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received an ebook copy of the whole trilogy on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
I had read one of Terra Harmony’s books previously and thought it good, if a little preachy. I was a little iffy about trying another book by her not because of the preachy factor but simply because I was still not quite sure how I felt about some of the scenes in the book I read, Water. They were a little graphic, although justified within the narrative, but I was still a little wary. But I still decided to try requesting the full Painted Maidens trilogy because it sounded good.
The world Terra Harmony has created in the trilogy is just amazing. The main character Serena is a mermaid, although they call themselves the Undine. She’s the youngest member of her dying race, which has been unable to reproduce because their land guardians the werewolves rose up in revolt against them and massacred dozens of mating couples and labouring mothers on the beach 17 years ago, including Serena’s mother and the King’s wife and children. You see, the Undine do swim like mermaids but for normal functions like going to court, sleeping and learning they remain on land in the various cave systems near the island where they live. It’s actually kind of fascinating to read the little details of Undine transformation because it’s not as straightforward as cartoons and other books would have you think. (Which does actually make a lot of sense.)
Anyway, Serena is a fascinating character. She was orphaned by the Full Moon Massacre 17 years ago and lives in a sort of communal nursery with other Undine around her age, although most of them are 18 at this point. They’re indulged by society simply because they’re the last hope of the species but even among the last class there are hierarchies and old family rivalries. Serena is most definitely at the bottom of the ladder until the day jobs are chosen for the young Undine and she’s appointed the King’s own Werewolf Liaison, tasked with bringing peace between two species that have been warring for almost two decades. She was given the job in part because she’s always sneaking up to The Dry but also because of the hidden motivations of those in power. I don’t want to give too much away but let’s just say there’s a very special reason for her appointment.
Serena is a fascinating character. She’s more scientifically oriented and intellectually curious than many of her classmates but at the same time she really does lack some basic social skills. Really, she’s the epitome of the awkward teenager and instead of being cutesy-awkward she’s often genuinely awkward as she tries to navigate the pitfalls of friendships and relationships with Undine males. The fact that Undine society still has some ridiculous gender stereotyping and gender roles doesn’t exactly help the whole situation. But when she’s named Werewolf Liaison Serena really comes into her own. She matures and improves on her natural resourcefulness in an attempt to bring an end to the conflict that killed her parents. And she discovers some terrifying secrets that society has kept from her and her classmates.
Some of the plot twists were predictable but I really do give Terra Harmony credit for keeping the story interesting and fast-paced despite that. There isn’t a lot of action in the beginning but there’s a lot of interpersonal drama and tension. It’s also a good thing that the action is put off until later because getting used to Undine society isn’t something that happens in just a few pages. It’s so alien and different from our own that it really does take getting used to. Undine society is far from perfect but you really do gain a certain appreciation for it and for its people who are just trying to ensure their species survives.
Basically, if the blurb or my review has got you interested, I’d say go for it! The Rising is a great start to the Painted Maidens trilogy. Plus, this first book is free on both Kindle and Nook!
I give this book 4/5 stars.
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Jessica Rules the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
It’s one thing to find out you’re a vampire princess. It’s a whole other thing to actually rule. Newly married Jessica Packwood is having a hard enough time feeling regal with her husband, Lucius, at her side. But when evidence in the murder of a powerful elder points to Lucius, sending him into solitary confinement, Jessica is suddenly on her own. Determined to clear her husband’s name, Jessica launches into a full-scale investigation, but hallucinations and nightmares of betrayal keep getting in her way. Jessica knows that with no blood to drink, Lucius’s time is running out. Can she figure out who the real killer is —and whom she can trust— before it’s too late?
I liked the first book Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side in a kind of guilty pleasure way. There was an attractive guy, an average girl with hidden strengths and plenty of humour. It wasn’t the most original thing I ever read but I was pleased with the way Beth Fantaskey created her vampires and the sort of hierarchy within them. In all, it was just a good read. However, I was very disappointed with Jessica Rules the Dark Side.
One of the things that I loved about the first book was Jessica as she grew to accept her role as a vampire princess and found an inner strength. With the help of Lucius and her friend Mindy, she almost single-handedly reunited the two biggest feuding vampire clans in Romania. Despite Lucius trying to kill her in a fit of half-madness, she managed to reunite the clans and make him realize that they really can be together because they love each other. She was a sort of stereotypical shy teenager with low self-esteem in the beginning but Jessica triumphed and worked through a lot of those issues. It was really satisfying.
But in Jessica Rules the Dark Side, she seems to have regressed to her former self now that she’s married and it was really disappointing. Sure, she’s very much over her head when it comes to vampire politics but Beth Fantaskey starts the sequel at a point where she should at least be learning basic things about each vampire on the council, things about vampire lore and proper stake etiquette. She should also be learning Romanian, but she seems to make absolutely no effort to do so. It’s really frustrating, especially since in the first book she declared that she wanted to be a princess and learn how to rule. Then rule, woman! Don’t just sit there like a bump on a log waiting as events crash into you in wave after wave of dangerous plot twists. Even when Lucius is put in solitary confinement and deprived of blood, Jessica just sort of wanders around aimlessly. It’s really, really frustrating.
One thing I found the most frustrating about this novel is that it’s told not just from Lucius and Jessica’s points of view, it’s also told from the point of view of Mindy and Raniero, a deadly vampire warrior who just wants to be a surfer dude. Mindy is the most annoying character in this book because she’s such a walking stereotype: she’s slightly ditzy, a fashionista, loves make up, isn’t sure what to do with life, etc. It’s really, really frustrating because her story is told with the poor grammar that she actually uses when she speaks. Raniero, on the other hand is desperately trying to be a surfer dude while knowing full well that he can never really banish his warrior side, no matter how hard he tries. He’s very frustrating in the beginning because of this but I liked him in the end when he actually accepted his role in the vampire hierarchy.
So the characters this time around were mediocre at best (except for Lucius, of course) but the plot was absolutely painful. It almost felt like someone was pulling my nails out in front of my the whole time. Why? Because it’s a mystery and I figured it out shortly after Lucius had been accused of murder, sometime around the first third of the book. I had to watch as Jessica stumbled blindly around like her old self and in the end was saved by Mindy, someone who doesn’t really have the intelligence to figure out that Raniero isn’t all that he seems. It was so frustrating. I get that Jessica’s new to this world and is rather distracted by the fact that Lucius is slowly starving in the dungeons, but really? You only applied modern-ish forensics to the case at the eleventh hour? Wouldn’t it have been easier to examine the body first, like a logical human being would? Not only that, when someone is advising you to do things and those things keep going wrong, maybe you should be suspicious of your adviser!
In the end, I wish I had never read this sequel. It’s not badly written but it’s frustrating to see characters I liked completely regress and to have the whole book revolve around a mystery 90% of readers probably solved before they got to the halfway mark in the book. If you read the first book, I can’t honestly recommend reading Jessica Rules the Dark Side. It’s just disappointing.
I give this book 2/5 stars.
Ice Kissed by Amanda Hocking
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Bryn Aven has always longed to be a part of the Kanin world.
Though she has no social status because she’s a half-breed, she refuses to give up on her dream of serving the kingdom she loves. It’s a dream that brings her to a whole new realm . . . the glittering palace of the Skojare.
The Skojare people need protection from the same brutal rival who’s been threatening the Kanin, and, being half Skojare herself, it’s a chance for Bryn to learn more about her heritage. Her boss Ridley Dresden is overseeing her mission and wants to help. He’s always been her most trusted friend—but as their undeniable attraction heats up, he becomes a distraction she can’t afford.
Brynn is about to discover that the Skojare world is full of secrets, and as she’s drawn in deeper and deeper, she doesn’t know who to trust. As she gets closer to Ridley, she realizes she may not even be able to trust her own heart.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
Bryn is a complex character who has really been through so much, what with her father nearly dying at the hands of a man she looked up to, being an outcast because she’s half-Skojare and being one of the only female trackers. She’s under a lot of pressure and has been for a long time but things really don’t let up in this book. If anything, the pressure gets worse when she learns of a royal disappearance and is sent to live among her mother’s people as a bodyguard for a little while until she gets to the heart of the mystery. Unfortunately, there are some complications when she and Ridley realize and admit their feelings for each other because they are boss and underling. So not only do you have the immense political pressure, you have a forbidden attraction on top of things that could get both of them fired if they’re found out. With a forbidden attraction in YA you’d expect them to keep carrying on regardless of the consequences but shockingly Ridley and Bryn do the mature, reasonable thing: they agree to stop seeing each other when Bryn leaves on her Skojare mission. They agree that being in a relationship is too risky for both of them and that realistically they can’t. It was really a refreshing change.
Not only that, with everything Bryn goes through she matures even more. For a tracker she can be rather naive and that’s part of what gets her into trouble when she’s among the Skojare, particularly with a certain prince. At the same time, she actually learns that naivete can be dangerous in some cases and uses her naturally curious mind to think things through critically instead of accepting things at face value. She becomes rightly suspicious of a lot of people around her, particularly the Skojare king and his younger brother. Maybe the queen isn’t all that innocent as she seems to be but the royal brothers are definitely at the heart of a conspiracy that runs very, very deeply through troll society. In the end, some of the conspiracy is revealed but we’re still left waiting to learn the full explanation for the conspiracy that started with Konstantin Black almost killing Bryn’s father.
The plot isn’t always fast-paced but it is always interesting. So much happens in this book when you compare it to Frostfire, the first book. There’s a lot of travel between the tribes and it was fascinating to learn more about the Skojare and about Bryn’s heritage. You can kind of see why Bryn’s mother wanted to get out of the palace and give up her title for love rather than staying in the rather repressive Skojare society. Part of the plot is about the rigid hierarchies present in both tribes and the tension coming from the lower classes that seem to be gently agitating for reform. The Kanin are better than the Skojare in a lot of ways but the inequalities are always evident and Bryn as a tracker (a half-breed no less!) really feels the brunt of this. It’s also another source of tension during Bryn’s investigation into the queen’s disappearance because at every turn she’s reminded of her low status and her utter lack of power.
All in all, Ice Kissed was an excellent second book. I’m sure some people found the inter-personal tension a little boring in the beginning but if you’re at all invested in the characters or even just interested in them you’ll love it. Then things really heat up in the last third of the novel as some of the conspiracy Bryn’s mixed up in comes to light and Bryn has to make one really tough decision. By the end of the novel, you’ll be like me: almost begging for the next book.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Daughters of Shadow and Blood: Yasamin by J. Matthew Saunders
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Buda, Ottoman Hungary, 1599: Yasamin, the naïve daughter of an Ottoman bureaucrat, finds herself trapped in an arranged marriage to the son of the powerful governor of Buda. She is unprepared for the gossip and scheming rampant in the palace but realizes she faces more than petty jealousies when someone tries to drown her in the baths on the day before her wedding. An unearthly menace lurks in the palace corridors, and the one person able to protect Yasamin is a soldier named Iskander, who seems to appear whenever she needs him. Charming and confident, he is nothing like her new husband, but trusting either of them could be a deadly mistake.
Berlin, Germany, 1999: Adam Mire, an American professor of history, discovers a worn, marked-up copy of Dracula. The clues within its pages send him on a journey across the stark landscape of Eastern Europe, searching for a medallion that once belonged to Dracula himself. But a killer hounds Adam’s footsteps, and each new clue he uncovers brings him closer to a beguiling, raven-haired woman named Yasamin Ashrafi, who might be the first of Dracula’s legendary Brides.
Adam has an agenda of his own, however, a quest more personal than anyone knows. One misstep, and his haunted past could lead to death from a blade in his back … or from Yasamin’s fatal embrace.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
The first thing you really need to know about this first book in the Daughters of Shadow and Blood series is that it’s told in three different points of view. We have the point of view of Yasamin from when she was human, the present day with Adam Mire and the past with Adam Mire as he tried to unravel the mystery that is Dracula and his brides. I personally loved Yasamin’s point of view the most because I love history but Adam’s point of view was really just as good in a lot of aspects (particularly during his banter with Yasamin).
The thing that really stood out to me in this book is that Saunders is a master of plot pacing as well as suspense. Sometimes the point of view shifts can be a little disjointed or disconcerting (in some cases quite disconcerting) but in each little chapter there’s that undercurrent of tension as we move closer and closer to the end of the story and the end of Adam’s time talking to Yasamin. Will she decide to let him live if she enjoys his tale enough or will she kill him anyway because he knows too much? Not only that, we want to know what happens within each story: how Yasamin came to know the man known as Dracula and how Adam Mire stumbled across the truth about Dracula and found Yasamin. And of course, what does Dracula himself think of all this? I don’t want to give too much away but let’s just say he’s not missing from the face of the earth like everyone seems to think he is.
Both main characters were fascinating for different reasons. Yasamin is fascinating not only because of her association with Dracula but because she was a remarkable young woman when she was still human. She grew up in the provinces and so never really was prepared for the secluded nature of the royal harem when she marries the oldest son of Buda’s governor. When she realizes she isn’t really attracted to her husband and that she’d really rather have his little brother, things definitely get interesting. Yasamin stays true to herself without and when she develops a dangerous attraction to the mysterious Iskander, things start to spiral out of control. Adam Mire is fascinating because he’s an historian with a pretty exciting past. After his best friend died he tries to search out clues hidden in his friend’s books and other documents to see what he was looking for and what he died for. In the process, Adam encounters more than he’d bargained for but he’s not as unprepared as Yasamin would like to think.
Of course when you have fantasy colliding with history there are going to be some liberties taken with the facts but Saunders does a really good job of mixing the two together to create a great story. I loved how he meticulously researched the Ottoman Empire and gave little details of everyday life to make Yasamin’s story all the more authentic. And he mixes in parts of the Dracula legend everyone will recognize while adding in some other parts to make it more of his own. (I particularly liked the Michael the Brave and Iskander connection.) If you’re a fan of the Dracula legend or just vampires in general I think Daughters of Shadow and Blood: Yasamin is at least worth checking out. Who knows? Maybe by the time you finish the book you’ll be as eager as I am for the sequel.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
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The Doom of Undal by Katrina Sisowath
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
The Dragon Court has ruled Tiamut uncontested for millennia, bringing knowledge and prosperity to all.
Yet all is not as it seems—far to the West in the land of Undal, mightiest of the nations, the Royal Queen and her children are struck with a mysterious illness and perish. Was the Dragon Court responsible? Or had the Queen had been experimenting with dark magic?
Her grieving son, trained in the dark arts by the goddess Eris herself, swears vengeance. When he defies the Dragon Court and they rescind their blessing on his royal house, he must turn to his mother’s experiments and ancient blood rituals to achieve his aims. In his quest for truth, he will become the greatest threat Tiamut has ever known.
With details pulled directly from Plato (yes, THAT Plato), The Emerald Tablets of Thoth, Sumerian and Egyptian mythology, The Doom of Undal tells the story of the Fall of Atlantis.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
The Doom of Undal is the second book in a series but since it was not presented to me that way I decided to request it. I was a little mad when I learned that this was the second book but in the end it doesn’t really matter. The names are more confusing in the beginning than they would be if you read the first book but it’s nothing you can’t overcome.
For the first 60% or so, you may be a little confused by the blurb because The Doom of Undal does not start out with a mysterious death. No, it starts with the childhoods of our main characters and their introductions into the different temples. They all become acolytes of different gods and goddesses depending on their powers as well as their personalities. Hathor, for example, is a sort of whimsical child who learns the arts of the love goddess because it suits her talents as well as her whimsical nature. The boys go into more warlike temples. It’s all quite interesting in its own right but starting the book off that way really, really slows down the plot. The plot has to be slow at the beginning because of the sheer volume of names being introduced but that super slow plot also meant I had a really, really hard time getting through the first half of the book.
What I absolutely love about this book is how Katrina Sisowath blended together Sumerian and Egyptian mythology as well as a few other things in order to tell her story. Since I love Egypt, the Egyptian influences were quite obvious: the pyramids, the brother-sister marriages of the Dragon Court, some of the Egyptian deities like Hathor, etc. I’m less familiar with Sumerian mythology so I can’t really comment on that but I really did enjoy all of the thought Sisowath put into developing her world. It’s fantastic and her enthusiasm for this world really does show through in her writing. The world-building is probably the only reason I didn’t give up on the book completely while I struggled through to the more exciting half. Really, this is what fantasy should be like when you’re mixing magic, myth and history.
As I said before, the plot is slow for about half of the novel until we travel with Rhea to the court at Undal. While travelling there she reconnects with an old childhood friend named Cronous, who is the heir apparent for the hereditary rulers of Undal. However, she is supposed to marry his father while he is sent away to become even more bitter and perhaps bring out that underlying cruelty a bit more. While Rhea does her duty to her much older husband and even seems to enjoy some of being queen, when Cronous returns complications arise as she finds herself falling in love with him and not her husband. I don’t want to spoil too much but the lovers then embark on a path that, as the blurb said, is the greatest threat Tiamut has ever known. Both characters go through some pretty drastic changes as they embrace their darker sides a bit more but it’s the reactions of Rhea’s siblings that will probably seal the fate of Undal’s rebellion.
To sum up: I would strongly recommend reading the first book before reading The Doom of Undal. You don’t have to, but I think I would have received far more out of this book had I read Serpent Priestess of the Annunaki. If you read that, then I think the first part of the book will be a little more exciting than it was for me, since it basically closes the chapter on the older generation and introduces the newer one. Still, I think The Doom of Undal was a fairly good read and if the blurb has intrigued you, go check out the Dragon Court series.
I give this book 4/5 stars.