Category: Book Review
Mistress of the Wind by Michelle Diener
(Cover picture courtesy of Delighted Reader.)
Bjorn needs to find a very special woman . . .
The fate of his people, and his own life, depends on it. But when he does find her, she is nothing like he imagined, and may just harbor more secrets than he does himself.
Astrid has never taken well to commands. No matter who issues them . . .
She’s clashed her whole life with her father, and now her lover, the mysterious man who comes to her bedroom in darkness and disappears to guard his mountain by day as a bear, is finding it out the hard way. And when he’s taken by his enemies, no one is prepared for Astrid’s response.
It is never wise to anger the mistress of the wind . . .
A captivating and magical adult retelling of the fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
[Full disclosure: I won this book in a giveaway by Michelle Diener and there was no expectation of review so as always this review is my honest opinion.]
I’d previously read a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon in the form of Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George. It wasn’t really that memorable but I did enjoy learning about the original myth. Mistress of the Wind is a huge improvement on the original myth. Astrid is, of course, still as feisty as the girl in the original myth but Michelle Diener has given her world far much more depth.
Astrid is a very special girl with some pretty awesome abilities. Bjorn is powerful but Astrid is powerful in her own right and they’re both incredibly stubborn. It makes for an interesting dynamic in their relationship, that’s for sure! They both have their flaws and strengths but the thing that I liked the most was that unlike in the myth, they didn’t fall in Insta-Love. No, they slowly come to respect and eventually love each other and it’s only when things go wrong that Astrid truly realizes just how much she really loves Bjorn.
Michelle Diener has also taken creatures from Scandinavian myths to populate her world. There are both good and evil creatures and in the end both types of creatures contribute to the balance and therefore survival of the world. However, the balance has been thrown off and it’s up to Bjorn and Astrid to restore it together. So not only is there the main plot but there are plenty of these interesting little subplots that tie into the main conflict of Astrid and Bjorn’s relationship.
The plot isn’t break-neck but it was exciting enough for me not to want to put the book down. Like with all of Michelle Diener’s books, I quickly became invested not only in the plot but in the three dimensional characters. If you’re interested in fairytale retellings you can’t go wrong with Mistress of the Wind.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Intrinsical by Lani Woodland
(Cover picture courtesy of Lani Woodland’s site.)
Sixteen-year-old Yara Silva has always known that ghosts walk alongside the living. Her grandma, like the other females in her family, is a Waker, someone who can see and communicate with ghosts. Yara grew up watching her grandmother taunted and scorned for this unusual ability and doesn’t want that to be her future. She has been dreading the day when she too would see ghosts, and is relieved that the usually dominant Waker gene seems to have skipped her, letting her live a normal teenage life. However, all that changes for Yara on her first day at her elite boarding school when she discovers the gene was only lying dormant. She witnesses a dark mist attack Brent, a handsome fellow student, and rushes to his rescue. Her act of heroism draws the mist’s attention, and the dark spirit begins stalking her. Yara finds herself entrenched in a sixty-year-old curse that haunts the school, threatening not only her life, but the lives of her closest friends as well. Yara soon realizes that the past she was trying to put behind her isn’t going to go quietly.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy of this book in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
This book is a solid ‘meh’ for me. There were some things I thought were really awesome and some things that weren’t so awesome. So first I’ll talk about the awesome things.
I loved how Intrinsical sounds pretty much like your typical YA novel from the blurb but Lani Woodland completely deviates from the usual formula. Yes, there’s romance and ghosts but there are so many plot twists you won’t be able to predict the ending. One of the strengths of Lani Woodland’s writing is definitely her ability to plot a novel so that you’re not really sure what’s going to happen next but you’re very, very eager to find out. I didn’t really have the urge to put this book down until I was actually done.
One of the ‘meh’ things was that Woodland’s voice seemed far too sophisticated for a sixteen-year-old, even one going to an elite private high school. It was just too mature, too descriptive compared to Yara’s actions. It’s a shocking contrast to hear Yara thinking like a thirty year old woman but acting like a three year old when she throws her temper tantrums. Some authors can pull this off but this was one of the things that distracted me from the admittedly great story.
The characters were okay, aside from the voice-action contrast I mentioned. Yara is interesting in that she denies her heritage before finally embracing it fully. Brent is interesting in that he’s not a typical male lead because he’s not constantly trying to make out with Yara. He’s actually quite shy about the whole romance thing, which is a refreshing change from your typical bad boy type of love interest. They’re both well fleshed out characters so I can’t really complain about that.
Essentially, Intrinsical is a good book and I’d recommend it to some people. But be prepared for the voice-action dissonance in Yara making this book go from a ‘good’ to a ‘meh’.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
The Collector of Dying Breaths by M. J. Rose
(Cover picture courtesy of BandelierGirlReadsEverything.)
In 1533, an Italian orphan with an uncanny knack for creating fragrance is plucked from poverty to become Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. To repay his debt, over the years René le Florentine is occasionally called upon to put his vast knowledge to a darker purpose: the creation of deadly poisons used to dispatch the Queen’s rivals.
But it’s René other passion—a desire to reanimate a human breath, to bring back the lives of the two people whose deaths have devastated him—that incites a dangerous treasure hunt five centuries later. That’s when Jac L’Etoile—suffering from a heartache of her own—becomes obsessed with the possibility of unlocking Rene’s secret to immortality.
Soon Jac’s search reconnects her with Griffin North, a man she’s loved her entire life. Together they confront an eccentric heiress whose art collection rivals many museums and who is determined to keep her treasures close at hand, not just in this life but in her next.
Set in the forest of Fontainebleau, crisscrossing the lines between the past and the present, M.J. Rose has written a mesmerizing tale of passion and obsession. This is a gothic tale perfect for fans of Anne Rice, Deborah Harkness, and Diana Galbadon.
[Full disclosure: I was provided a free ebook through NetGalley for the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
If I had to describe The Collector of Dying Breaths in just one word it would have to be ‘beautiful.’ Yes, beautiful.
Beautiful is the word that comes to mind simply because M. J. Rose’s writing style is just that. It’s descriptive, but not overly so. It’s very heavily focused on appealing to the reader’s five senses. Since this is a novel heavily centred around perfume of course she describes the scents in pretty much every scene, but she also doesn’t neglect the reader’s ears or sense of touch. Very few writers can appeal to all five of the senses in a natural way but M. J. Rose stands out in this respect.
As with most books, the one element I liked most was the characters. René le Florentine really spoke to me as a character and through the flashbacks I felt his triumphs and his greatest sorrows. He really is a tragic character and although he tries to do the right thing, it seems like it always turns out badly for him. I can’t tell you much more about poor René without having too many spoilers but I can tell you that by the end of the novel your heart will ache for him.
Jac is an interesting character as well. Having lost her beloved brother and seeing an opportunity to complete his life’s work, she’s in a state of emotional confusion. Added to that are her constant past life memories that are triggered by being around objects and locations with so much history. I liked slowly learning her back-story and seeing how she coped with both her brother’s death and the return of her former lover. She changes throughout the course of the novel and I was very happy with her decision in the end.
The plot is not fast-paced by most people’s standards but The Collector of Dying Breaths is interesting enough to keep you reading into the early morning hours. The plot twists and turns as you try to learn what happened to the unfortunate René and whether Jac could complete her brother’s work or not. These point of view shifts never really slow down the action in the story, though. Instead, they add more tension as the past and present collide, culminating in a heart-pounding climax.
If you like history, romance or just books with well fleshed-out characters, you’re going to love The Collector of Dying Breaths. I can’t speak to its historical accuracy as I know very little about the period, but I guarantee that you’ll feel like you’re right there along with René in the court of Catherine de Medici.
This is the 6th book in The Reincarnationist series by M. J. Rose but it can absolutely be read as a standalone novel, which is how I read it.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
A Dangerous Madness by Michelle Diener
(Cover picture courtesy of Michelle Diener’s site.)
The Duke of Wittaker has been living a lie…
He’s been spying on the dissolute, discontented noblemen of the ton, pretending to share their views. Now he’s ready to step out of the shadows and start living a real life…but when the prime minister of England is assassinated, he’s asked to go back to being the rake-hell duke everyone believes he still is to find out more.
Miss Phoebe Hillier has been living a lie, too…
All her life she’s played by society’s rules, hiding her fierce intelligence and love of life behind a docile and decorous mask. All it’s gotten her is jilted by her betrothed, a man she thought a fool, though a harmless one. But when she discovers her former fiancé was involved in the plot against the prime minister, and that he’s been murdered, she realizes he wasn’t so harmless after all.
And now the killers have set their sights on her…
The only man who can help her is the Duke of Wittaker–a man she knows she shouldn’t trust. And she soon realizes he’s hiding behind a mask as careful as her own. As the clock ticks down to the assassin’s trial, the pair scramble to uncover the real conspiracy behind the prime minister’s death. And as the pressure and the danger mounts, Phoebe and Wittaker shed their disguises, layer by layer, to discover something more precious than either imagined–something that could last forever. Unless the conspirators desperate to hide their tracks get to them first.
[Full disclosure: Michelle Diener invited me to review her book and I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
For all that I’m a history buff, I knew absolutely nothing about the period that A Dangerous Madness is set in. I really hardly know anything about England in the 1800s so after finishing Michelle Diener’s latest release I can very honestly say that I learned something.
Phoebe, the main character, is my type of woman. She’s strong and feisty but at the same time is actually aware of social norms and generally tries to follow them. Sure, she gets fed up with them and ends up not caring about certain ones but at least she isn’t your stereotypical total outcast of a heroine. James, the Duke of Wittaker is a good male lead. He’s not your perfect knight in shining armor but he does his best to improve his character when he starts to fall in love. In the past he’s done things he deeply regrets and you can tell that his guilt for some of the things weighs on him but he’s also done quite a bit of good.
The story begins with Phoebe’s fiancé dumping her and fleeing the country and it only heats up from there. Soon the prime minister is shot (which actually happened) and there’s a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of the country behind the assassination. There are so many twists and turns you can’t tell how things are going to end up because Michelle Diener is so good at writing tales of political intrigue.
I’m not qualified to speak to the historical accuracy of A Dangerous Madness, but as Michelle Diener writes in her historical note, many of the events really did happen as she described them. The conspiracy is pure speculation but at the same time when you look at the real people involved it might not be all that far off from the truth. Perceval had many powerful enemies, that’s for sure! And that’s how historical fiction is best done: mostly history with a little bit of fiction in to spice things up.
Even if you haven’t read the first two books in the Regency London series, you can certainly start with A Dangerous Madness just like I did. They don’t have to be read in any particular order but I still can’t wait to read the first two books because I loved this one so much.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Legend of the Blue Eyes by B. Kristin McMichael
(Cover picture courtesy of My Book Addiction.)
Arianna Grace liked her boring, Midwestern, teenage life where she ignored the many unanswered questions of her childhood. Why were her parents dead? Why did she not have family? Where was she raised until she was five? When someone offers to explain it all, Arianna thinks she’s just getting answers. Instead, she is thrown into a world of night humans who drink blood.
On Arianna’s sixteenth birthday, her world is thrown upside down when she changes into a vampire. Night humans, or demons, as some call them, live in normal society. Learning all of the new rules of a world she didn’t know existed might be hard enough, but it’s further complicated by two former-friends that now want to help her take her role as the successor to her grandfather.
There is a war going on between the night humans. Sides have been taken and lines are not crossed. Four main clans of night humans are struggling for control of the night. Divided into two sides, clans Baku and Tengu have been at war for centuries with the clans Dearg-dul and Lycan. That is, until Arianna Grace finds out the truth; she’s the bridge of peace between the two sides. But not everyone wants peace. With the night humans divided, Arianna is now a pawn in the war between them. She must choose a side—her mother’s family or her father’s—and for once in her life, decide her own fate.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
Unfortunately, The Legend of the Blue Eyes is an example of how a good premise can be ruined by mediocre writing.
The premise of B. Kristin McMichael’s world is not a new one but she puts such an unique spin on things that you can’t help but fall in love with it. She goes back to the origins of vampires and incorporates some of the old myths into a modern, sophisticated type of vampire called a Dearg-dul. The Baku and Tengu are sort of vampire/incubus/succubus combination while Lycans are quite obviously werewolves. They aren’t the typical sort of creatures you find in urban fantasy, particularly YA, because McMichael actually took the time to make her creatures unique. I honestly can’t fault any aspect of her world-building because it really is fantastic.
Her writing is not, however. It’s by no means bad but it’s not up to the quality of her world-building. She spends pages and pages on Arianna’s boy-craziness until it crosses the line from typical boy-crazy teenager to the realm of “make up your mind already!”. I’m not a big fan of romance but when done right it’s great. But it really was just not done right in The Legend of the Blue Eyes. The male leads are kind of stereotypes, one dimensional people designed to exist for the gratification of the female protagonist. While it’s sadly refreshing to see men objectified for once in fiction it doesn’t make it enjoyable or right.
I really couldn’t connect with Arianna. She’s just such a walking cliché of pretty much every YA heroine in popular fiction. Arianna can’t make up her mind about which boy she even likes, she’s a small town sort of girl thrust into the middle of a rich urban world, she’s special even amongst her own people, etc. It would have been different had McMichael put some twists on these clichés but she really didn’t.
Instead, the wasted potential of this book makes me sad. The world-building is absolutely fantastic and could be a model for pretty much every author out there, but the rest of the novel is lackluster at best. If it sounds interesting to you I’d say go ahead but I’m not going to go out of my way to recommend this one.
I give this book 2.5/5 stars.