Eternal Neverland: Steps Before the Fall by Natasha Rogue

Eternal Neverland; Steps Before the Fall by Natasha Rogue(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

Helena K. Sharpe was raised by a man who had sympathy for supernatural creatures, for the vampires his bloodline hunted for centuries. She was too young to understand how he tried to help them, but she knew it was important. Her father made her promise never to hunt them and she would do anything to keep that promise.

Until he is murdered by the very things he dedicated so much of his life to.

Orphaned and alone, Helena takes to the street, afraid for whatever’s left of her life. Without her family, she doesn’t know how–or even if–she can go on. Until a vagrant takes her under his wing and gives her a purpose. Revenge.

For six years she learns about the monsters, studies their habits, until, at 15 years old, she feels she’s ready to find the ones responsible for her parent’s death. All she has to do is become one of them. She’s cute, young, innocent…

They’ll never see her coming.

[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

I really had high expectations for this book when I started it because of the blurb.  A girl who has trained for years to hunt vampires becoming a vampire to seek vengeance for her family’s murder?  That sounds pretty darn cool, especially when she’s only 15 years old.

The problem was that the main character, Helena, was totally uninteresting in addition to being unsympathetic.  Things start out pretty good with her becoming a vampire, albeit with two sires.  Then she gets into the heart of a vampire coven and starts adjusting to vampire life, learning to go by the name Kitt because apparently vampires can read minds if they know your real name.  I could get past that weird world-building if Kitt was actually interesting, but she’s not.  Throughout the novel she’s supposed to be this master Machiavellian manipulator but all I really saw was a smart mouthed 15-year-old who screwed up pretty much every single thing she tried to do.  And yet every single man in this book is attracted to her.  Yep, I can totally see all of these decades old vampires being attracted to a naive if beautiful fifteen year old who seems intent on manipulating them all (unsuccessfully).  It just makes absolutely no sense and Kitt never really gets past her initial awfulness.  In fact, she seems to get worse as the book goes on.

As you’ve probably guessed, the world-building was pretty weak when you take a good look at it.  I can believe fantasy stories where knowing someone’s ‘true’ name gives you power over them, but just their first name?  That doesn’t really make any sense and Natasha Rogue never really explains it adequately.  The vampire hierarchy within the city, however, was actually pretty good.  I like the idea of different covens having different territories but ultimately being interested in keeping the general peace in the city for fear of discovery.  However, it’s not really explained why/how Kitt suddenly breaks the peace.  She does a bunch of really, really stupid stuff but why David (one of her sires) never lets her go to Charlie (another of her sires who actually wants to take care of her) is just left out.  So it somehow starts a war between the covens and other factions get involved.  It had a lot of potential but never really lived up to the promise in the blurb.

While the world-building was weak and the characters were generally intolerable, the strength of Rogue’s novel was in the plotting and the pacing.  Even though the plot doesn’t always make sense it is fairly interesting in the beginning and the whole novel is actually well paced to keep readers turning the pages.  She can do suspenseful scenes fairly well and her writing style isn’t actually all that bad but the different elements of the plot like the world-building and characters really did sink this novel.  It was a big disappointment and yet I have to say that I didn’t actually ‘hate’ the book.  The little intrigues were well written and with a little work, the characters could have been fantastic.  To be honest, it just felt like the whole book didn’t reach its potential.  Disappointing to be sure, but not a completely unenjoyable book.

I give this book 2/5 stars.

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Blood Divide by John Sadler

Blood Divide by John Sadler(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

Gripping, visceral, and accessible historical fiction

The Battle of Flodden in September 1513 was one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on British soil, in which James IV, King of Scots, and virtually the whole of his nobility and gentry were annihilated in an afternoon along with 15,000 soldiers. Five centuries later, the slaughter still occupies a core position in the Scottish nationalist debate and in the pantheon of heroic failures. This novel puts you in the heart of the action; you’ll feel the sweat and the fear, the curtain of red mist.

The narrative covers April through September 1513, focusing around a handful of key characters: John Heron, Bastard of Ford, swaggering, violent, and disreputable, the black sheep of a good English family; Sir Thomas Howard, leader of the English forces and skilled strategist; Alexander, 3rd Lord Hume, leader of the Scots, bold but impetuous; Isabella Hoppringle, Abbess of Coldstream, hub of a web of influential women throughout the Scottish borders, a woman of significant influence and charisma.

Laced with dark humor and fascinating period detail, Blood Divide reminder readers that political intrigue and human folly are timeless.

[Full disclosure: I received a free print copy from the publisher in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]

In most of the books about Henry VIII you’ll read, the Battle of Flodden is not mentioned at all.  I know this because I’ve been reading about Henry VIII in fiction for years now and never heard about Flodden until I requested this book through the blog tour!  That’s kind of incredible seeing as it has entered the Scottish consciousness through both story and song and is held up as a sort of symbol of the Scottish struggle for independence.  It was romanticized by poets and writers for generations so the fact that I didn’t know about it is just bizarre in hindsight.

However, because I knew almost nothing about the events before, during and after the battle Blood Divide presented me with a great opportunity to learn quite a bit and John Sadler couldn’t have been better at his task.  He writes in a way that emphasizes how deep the political intrigues go without confusing the reader.  Not only that, since he switches back and forth between Scottish and English characters we get to see both sides of the story but we’re always clear which side the character is on.  One of the things that really struck me about his writing was that he uses now-obscure words that the actual people would have used at the time: threapland, heidman, bevor, etc.  In the more obscure places he puts a little annotation to define it but for the most part trusts that his readers are intelligent people that can work things out in context.  This use of language from the time makes Blood Divide feel all the more authentic when coupled with the content of the descriptions themselves.  He never strays into flowery language and because of the subject matter some of his descriptions are sparse but they allow the reader to let the atmosphere of any given scene just wash over them.  As I said, it lends a very authentic feeling to the text and it does make you feel like you’re back in the 1500s alongside the characters.

The characters are, of course, all real people that are long dead so John Sadler is speculating at their motivations in some part.  However, he does this so well that even if you know the outcome of the story you’re going to cheer for your favourite characters anyway.  My personal favourite was John Heron, Bastard of Ford.  He’s an English man living close to the border of Scotland who raids into Scottish territory to gain his wealth.  (Since he’s the second son and illegitimate to boot he’s always financially struggling.)  But when his actions and the eagerness for war that seems the hallmark of James IV’s short reign come together to create a huge conflict, John is right there to help the English.  I don’t want to give too much away but the man that almost everyone looks down their nose at will certainly play a huge role in the English victory.  It’s lucky that the warden convinced others to actually listen to the man.  Of course all of the characters were well fleshed out but I did particularly like John; I’m a sucker for the underdogs.

As I said, John Sadler’s descriptions are enough to convey the scene and atmosphere and that’s actually what makes Blood Divide quite a fast-paced novel.  There’s always a sort of dark atmosphere but quite a lot of the time there’s a sense of urgency in that darkness as King James ignores the advice of some of his council and the English forces prepare to be invaded, weakened by the fact that Henry VIII is over in France making a mess of things.  So we have a much larger untested force against a smaller but generally better trained force except of course it’s never that simple when you involve politics in things.  John Sadler is able to wade through the political mess leading up to the Battle of Flodden, giving it the proper attention it needs but never allowing it to slow down the pacing.  The pacing is pretty steady in the beginning but as the drums of war sound, it slowly ratchets up until it’s almost unbearable and you simply have to keep reading.  Even if you didn’t like any of the characters (which would be extremely unlikely) the way the story is told would be enough to make you want to read on.

Essentially, Blood Divide is everything I personally look for in historical fiction: it made me learn something new, it was factually accurate, the characters were well fleshed-out with believable motivations and the plot was well paced.  You really can’t ask for more than that.  For people who study English or Scottish history I would definitely recommend picking up Blood Divide.  But even if you’re not familiar with the history of the now United Kingdom I’d recommend this book because it tells a very compelling story about something as old as time: human folly.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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Tabor’s Trinket by Janet Lane

Tabor's Trinket by Janet Lane(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

Sold as a slave in Romania for seven pounds and three solidi, the Gypsy girl, Sharai, escapes a slave ship infected with the plague. As an adult, she performs her silky, exotic dances to earn enough to sustain herself and the toddling orphan girl she adopted. She yearns for relief from the grinding poverty, and a secure home. Having been violated by a nobleman posing as her hero, she wants naught of any other man of title, and also scorns the dubious Gypsy king who pursues her. In a tent at the bustling autumn fair in Winchester, she meets the dashing Lord Tabor, and her resolve to avoid all noblemen softens.

Though possessed of a stately castle with prosperous lands, the English knight,Tabor, teeters on the brink of losing all his holdings. A powerful noble has attacked Tabor’s castle, determined to seize his lands. Tabor seeks revenge for his older brother’s murder, but England’s throne is held by an infant king and his feuding uncles. The realm is paralyzed with uncertainty and lawlessness, and the crown has abandoned him.


Then a stroke of good fortune helps Tabor, a sizeable dowry that can save his holdings. He need only wed an earl’s daughter, the regal Lady Emilyne. But he has already fallen in love with Sharai, and they are locked in a powerful dance of desire. His refusal to abandon Sharai plunges them into life-and-death struggles–and a painful choice between duty and love.

The story, book one in the four-volume Coin Forest series, is set in a unique period in history when Gypsies were welcomed, their travels even financed by the nobility in the countries in which they traveled. Dubbed the Gypsy social honeymoon period, it lasted for just a few decades as the Gypsies ventured into Western Europe. Growing mistrust, a waning interest in pilgrimages and increasing incidents of thievery and racial/culture clashes combined to end the honeymoon. The incidents in Tabor’s Trinket occur as the honeymoon begins to sour.

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook as part of the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]

English history is definitely one of the topics I’m not knowledgeable about when it comes to historical fiction but I have to say that because of Janet Lane, I learned so much more.  The most impressive thing about Tabor’s Trinket is the amount of research Lane put into the novel.  There are just tiny little details that make the world come alive like how the latest fashions were actually sewn, the little county fairs that cropped up sporadically and the migration of Gypsies into Western Europe and England.  What I found the most interesting were the scenes with Sharai where we learn about the Gypsy culture.  Obviously I can’t speak as to how accurate that was but considering the fact that the rest of the novel is very well researched I see no reason not to give Janet Lane the benefit of the doubt.  Tabor’s Trinket was certainly a learning experience for me.

The strength of this first book in the Coin Forest series is undoubtedly the characters.  Tabor is out to look for revenge for the taking of his castle and the death of his older brother and his brother’s bride-to-be.  But he’s more complicated than that, believe me!  He wants to restore his family’s fortune and get revenge but at the same time he fantasizes about making a love match, about finding a woman that’s right for him just like the heroes in all of the legends he reads.  However, that’s not really his fiscal reality and he is forced to let his overbearing mother enter into marriage negotiations with a wealthy family whose daughter he does not love.  At the same time, Sharai once dreamed about not marrying for love but marrying up in the world to gain security.  She loses this illusion when we meet her a couple of years later after she has been raped and is being pursued by a self-proclaimed King of the Gypsies.  When she’s offered a contract by Tabor to sew for his mother and the other ladies in the castle, she’s reluctant because she notices Tabor’s attraction to her.  She’s understandably wary of men and this causes a definite push-and-pull dynamic between the two as Tabor struggles to make his feelings known while at the same time respecting her feelings and her space.

This push-and-pull dynamic causes some of the conflict in the novel and is the main focus for the most part but both characters have their own conflicts to overcome.  Tabor has to figure out how to get money to keep his castle running and Sharai has to figure out how she’s going to deal with her growing feelings for Tabor while evading the Gypsy King who wants her to be his wife when her contract is up.  I can’t really talk about the plot twists because it would be giving away far too much but let’s just say that all of the conflicts come together in the climax for a couple of absolutely gripping chapters that really leave you doubting whether both lovers will even survive the final conflict or not.  The ending is sort of expected when you take the whole tone of the novel into account but I still loved it.  It makes sense, even if it was fairly predictable.  However, in between the ending and the beginning a lot of the plot twists will blindside you so Janet Lane deserves kudos for that.

If you like historical fiction with a well-developed and believable romance I think Tabor’s Trinket is the book for you.  Yes, it flirts with the whole star-crossed lovers trope but as Janet Lane shows through her amazing research, the romance between Tabor and Sharai is not unprecedented in English history.  Will it turn out like Tabor’s beloved romantic novels or will the lovers end up like Romeo and Juliet?  It’s hard to say and if you’re even a little bit intrigued by the blurb or anything I’ve said in this review I’d recommend picking up this book.  It will draw you in so quickly and you won’t want to put it down.

I give this novel 4.5/5 stars.

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Further Thoughts on One Star Reviews

After Saturday’s lively discussion some interesting points were brought up in the comment thread that I’d like to address while talking about some of the wider talking points surrounding one star reviews.  It’s in no particular order but I think it is important to address some of these today:

Author Bashing

Most reviewers aren’t targeting you personally. There’s a difference between criticizing a product and criticizing the person behind the product, which I consider author-bashing.

1.  Giving a one star review does not mean you’re being rude or disrespecting the effort the author put into a book.

Unless you’re author-bashing I see no reason why a one star review can be considered rude as long as it’s your honest opinion and aren’t utterly reveling in taking down the book.  When I do a book review I generally try to follow a format where I point out what I liked/disliked and why (generally) using examples from the book itself.  That’s not rude by any stretch of the imagination.  It’s called having an opinion and articulating it.

As for one star reviews not giving credit for the author’s effort, that’s a bit of a problem.  You see, I don’t care how much time or effort you put into your novel.  I don’t care if you took five years or five months as long as the end product is the same quality.  Reviews are subjective but I generally try to be as objective as possible which means that I’m going to examine the book itself and its merits, not the author’s personal life, how they wrote the book or whether it was traditionally or self-published.  I judge the book on its own merits. 

Separate from my reviewing, I do have a lot of respect for authors who put their work out there.  I’m a blogger that not only writes reviews but opinion articles like this and when you put your hard work out into the world it can sometimes feel like you’re stripping in public and asking complete strangers to rate your naked body.  I get it.  But—and this is a big one—authors need to develop thicker skins.  They shouldn’t be expected to tolerate author bashing or people who tear apart books for fun but if you’re getting offended at someone offering their opinion and backing it up with their reasons, you need to get a thicker skin.  You’re going to get constructive criticism or just plain criticism no matter how rude you think it is so it’s best to grow up a bit and accept that yes, everyone gets criticism.  Which leads into my next point:

Constructive Criticism

2.  Constructive criticism is part of being an author and getting reviews.

There are some who argue that if a blogger doesn’t like a book they should just give it three stars and say the book wasn’t for them.  To me, that’s not only an insult to my intelligence as part of the book consuming public, that’s flat out lying.  I have explained my rating system in the past and my reasons for using five out of a possible five stars so I think authors are warned about what they’re getting into when they submit to me.  However, the problem is that it’s not just me who uses this system: three stars is generally seen as a blogger saying “well, this wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read but there were some good elements and an almost equal number of bad elements.”  It’s still a generally positive review and I will give a three star review if I read a book that meets that criteria.  But a one star novel is not the same as a book that just ‘wasn’t for me’; it has a lot of problems and generally only has one redeeming feature.  Anyone suggesting reviewers just give books three stars if they don’t like them is encouraging dishonesty in book reviewing, plain and simple.

That sort of leads into my main point: if a review is full of criticism, the star ratings don’t soften the blow.  As an author, you are going to get criticism so you need to deal with it like a mature, adult human being.  Part of this is learning how to distinguish good criticism from bad criticism.  By ‘bad criticism’ and ‘good criticism’ I don’t mean ‘criticism you don’t like’ and ‘criticism you do like’.  I mean, that, generally it’s pretty easy to tell good, constructive criticism from criticism that would hurt the integrity of your novel.

For example, good criticism is criticism that is offered along with reasons for that criticism, i.e. “I didn’t like the plot of this novel because it basically follows Harry Potter‘s storyline and thus is very predictable.”  Bad criticism is just “I hated the main character” or “this author sucks”.  If you as an author learn to tell these apart—and I know it’s not always so simple as the examples above—then you’re well on your way to improving.  No one’s first novel is absolutely perfect and people need to start thinking of criticism as just that rather than assigning the word such a negative connotation.  If the criticism is valid, then it’s something to keep in your mind when you’re writing your next novel.  If the criticism isn’t helpful, just ignore it.  When feelings are involved I know it’s not always so simple but both authors and bloggers need to keep the fact that criticism isn’t inherently negative in their minds.

While one star reviews may not hurt your career, overreacting to them by attacking the reviewer certainly will.

While one star reviews may not hurt your career, overreacting to them by attacking the reviewer certainly will.

3.  In general, one star reviews don’t really seem to hurt authors.

Unfortunately, there is no research out there that says [x] percent of readers will not buy a book if they see a one star review.  However, from anecdotal experience and the posts of other bloggers I think I can pretty safely say that in general one star reviews will not harm your books’ sales.    Here’s why:

When most people go to buy a book or check it out on Goodreads, they’ll look at the cover first.  Good, professionally designed cover?  Check.  Then they’ll probably check out the blurb to see if it’s interesting.  Is the blurb interesting and do its contents appeal to them?  Check.  That’s where a lot of people stop but if they go on to the final stage of looking at the reviews they’ll probably look at both the positive and negative reviews.  If most of the negative reviews say “this book sucks amazon didn’t deliver it to me in 2 days” then they’re probably going to discount them.  Or, to use a less extreme example, if a negative review says essentially “this book is about mermaids and I don’t like mermaids so I’m giving it one star” they’re still going to buy the book if they liked mermaids.  They may even be a little more enthusiastic about buying the book because although not every reviewer likes mermaids in fiction, they absolutely love them.  It all depends on individual tastes, not necessarily the quality of your book.  (On a side note, if you have mostly one star reviews, you can start worrying about the quality of your book.)

What this means is that you’re better off spending time and money on your cover and your blurb than you are worrying about a one star review you got from a book blogger.  If a person is already lured in by your awesome cover and their interest is piqued by your blurb, they’re not really going to care what a one star review is saying if there are ten 4 or 5 star reviews for every one star review.

These are essentially my thoughts on one star reviews.  They’re not disrespectful to authors as long as they’re offering up reasons for their criticism, authors need to grow thick skins and accept that they will get criticism and finally, recognize that a couple of one star reviews are not going to hurt their career.  It’s tough when a book you’ve worked on for months, usually years, gets a bad rating but that’s just a part of being an author and putting your book—your product—out there into the world.  If you can’t accept that yes, you will get criticism, you’re better off not publishing at all.

Lazy Sundays: The Walking Dead is Finally Back!

So after that rather lively discussion yesterday (which is still ongoing if you want to chime in) I think I definitely deserve a lazy Sunday.  So today I’ll be writing a couple of reviews for the week ahead, possibly writing a Forgotten Figures article and of course watching second half of The Walking Dead season 5.

They sure left off on a cliffhanger with the events at the hospital and I’m very interested to see how their trip to Virginia goes.  Will they find sanctuary or will the place be overrun?  Due to the series’ current pattern I’d say it probably is too good to be true and won’t be a shelter for Rick and the gang.  Or it will be a decent shelter before the series’ next villain decides he wants it or makes everyone take sides as to what they’ll do to survive.  Still, I’m very interested in seeing how the characters cope with the death of a certain character, particularly Maggie and Daryl.

On another note, another of my favourite shows is coming back tonight as well: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.  I’m so glad that HBO has both expanded his writing crew as well as given him 35 instead of 24 episodes for the season.  John Oliver uses his comedy to take on some pretty tough issues in a funny yet horrifying way that makes you both laugh and want to weep for humanity at times.  It’s great entertainment and it’s more informative than the ‘real’ news so I’m also very excited to have it back.

What are you guys up to this Sunday?