Tagged: masquerade tours
Best Seller by Martha Reynolds
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Set in New England at the time of the American Bicentennial, Best Seller is the poignant story of a displaced young woman struggling to figure out who she is within the context of her hometown and the carefully masked dysfunction of her family. “Everything can be fixed by writing a check.” Words to live by for Robin Fortune’s wealthy father, until he can’t buy her way back into college after she’s expelled for dealing pot. Now he chooses not to speak to her anymore, but that’s just one of the out-of-whack situations Robin’s facing. At nineteen, she feels rudderless, working in a diner by day and sleeping with a buddy from high school by night – all so strange for her because she was always the one with the plan. While her college friends plotted how to ensnare husbands, she plotted a novel, which she scratched out into a series of spiral-bound notebooks she hides in the closet. But now, there’s nothing. No vision, no future, no point. In fact, the only thing she feels she has to look forward to is that her favorite author, Maryana Capture, is paying a visit to the local Thousand Words bookstore. Robin surmises that if she can convince Maryana to help her get her novel published, she’ll finally get herself back on track. Except that life never takes a straight path in this intensely satisfying coming-of-age novel.
[Full disclosure: I received a free paperback in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
I have to say that for all of my hesitation about Best Seller, it actually isn’t a bad book. It’ll never be a great book but Martha Reynolds is a pretty solid writer.
Her main strength is her characters because although I hate people like Robin in real life (naive, unambitious sorts of people who have never done a thing for themselves) I actually didn’t mind her in fiction. Do I like every decision she makes? Of course not, particularly when it concerns her love life. However, it’s a testament to the strength of Reynolds’ writing that I didn’t throw the book at the wall like I normally would with a character like this. In some ways I enjoyed Robin’s journey from pretty darn naive for a 20 year old to an almost adult by the end, and in some ways I was a little frustrated at the same time.
The reason I was frustrated was the plot. I love a good character novel but I do feel that a book has to have some sort of overarching plot or theme that the main character struggles with. That wasn’t necessarily so in Best Seller. There’s a lot of inter-character conflict but the main point of the novel (Robin is an aspiring young writer) gets wrapped up in just a couple of pages at the end. Just like every other conflict Robin faces, it gets wrapped up in a pretty little bow at the end with not even a little ambiguity anywhere. It’s just too perfect, really, especially when you consider characters like David who do a total 180 by the end.
I haven’t exactly lived through 1976 so I’m not going to talk about any historical accuracy in the novel. But, at the same time, Martha Reynolds’ writing made me feel like I was there with the characters: breathing in the smoke before smoking indoors in public places was illegal (which I do actually remember), tasting the breakfast at the diner and so much more. She has a very descriptive writing style and yet she never crosses into boring territory.
So when a writer can make me like the sort of person I’d rather slap in real life and can bring me back to an era I’ve never lived through, I can definitely appreciate their efforts and their talent. I just wish that Best Seller had more of a plot/point.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
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Aegis Rising by S. S. Segran
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Over a remote northern forest, a small plane carrying five teenage friends flies into a freak storm. Struck by lightning, the aircraft crashes and the passengers find themselves cast into a life-changing adventure.
In a hidden valley, a mysterious people gaze at the stormy sky as a glowing object with fiery wings disappears behind a mountain ridge. The astonishing sight reignites an ancient prophecy foretelling the arrival of five chosen ones destined to become bearers of light against a dark storm gathering on humanity’s horizon.
In a distant city, a secretive organization led by a shadowy figure initiates a sequence of cataclysmic events designed to wreak havoc across the planet, beginning with a remote mining site in a northern Canada.
As the three worlds collide, unlikely heroes arise. Armed with powers entrusted to them by the ancient prophecy and the resilience of their life-long bond, the five teens take a stand against a malevolent foe.
[Full disclosure: I received a free paperback in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
One word I would use to describe Aegis Rising is ‘solid’. Not ‘great’ or ‘amazing’, but solid. Why? Simply because it was a solid novel: good characters, a decent enough plot and fairly good world-building. However, it never had that wow factor.
As I said, the characters were okay. The five teenagers who crash in the plane are named Aari, Jag, Kody, Mariah and Tegan and they react about as well as you’d expect to suddenly being surrounded by a strange culture in the middle of nowhere. Especially since Kody doesn’t know where his dad (who was flying the plane) is. Still, they at least realize that they can’t do a thing about their situation until they’ve got their strength back up so they hunker down and make the best of things. My only real problem with the teens is that they’re just a little too perfect. They never whine, complain or angst at any point (even when an adult would be) and they’re all described as drop dead gorgeous. I like to have teen characters that don’t constantly angst, don’t get me wrong here, but you have to be just a little more realistic.
The plot was decent enough. It sort of combines elements that both fantasy and science fiction fans will be familiar with. There’s a prophecy set to come about and the teens must train to use their powers in order to save the world. Only, the water supply of the valley is being poisoned and they must stop the Big Bad from doing that. I think you can guess who the Big Bad is, especially if you watched Avatar or Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest. There’s a little bit more depth to it than that, but I really would have liked for some plot twists toward the end instead of having Segran play the tropes straight.
The world-building was actually pretty good, but as I’ve said it never crossed into amazing territory. At first it seems ridiculous that people in the valley have stayed hidden for so long, but the explanations provided by Segran are reasonable enough. They build their huts for camouflage up in the Canadian wilderness, they have the Guardians protecting them (who are enormous bear-spirits) and they truly are self-sufficient. Heck, they even have their resident scientist to think up new innovations to make life in the Dema-ki quite modern. The magical powers portion of Aegis Rising is pretty typical, with no magical powers you probably haven’t seen in fantasy before. However, it was reasonably well done and I wasn’t left asking “What’s going on here?” by the end of the novel.
All of these elements (characters, plot and world-building) are good enough, but they never really crossed into ‘amazing’ territory for me. Segran’s writing was a little too simplistic for that, to be honest. I would have appreciated more in-depth descriptions of the beautiful world around them as well as how they practiced their powers, rather than their banal conversations with each other. Still, I honestly can’t think of anything that went ‘wrong’ with this novel so it is a solid book. Not good, but pretty solid for me. I think that most people out there would call it ‘good’ or ‘enjoyable’ but my problem is that I’ve read too many novels similar to this. If you haven’t, then I can’t recommend Aegis Rising enough.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Black Moon by F. M. Sherrill & Becca C. Smith
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Shea Harper is forced to stay in boring, hot and dry Phoenix, Arizona for college. But once she meets the enigmatic yet positively egocentric Lucian, Shea’s life changes forever.
She finds out that she comes from a long line of descendants called Vessels. In her soul is the key to destroying an ancient prison protecting the world from darkness itself: Lucian’s father.
Up until now, Lucian has captured every descendant except Shea. With her powers awakening, all vampires want to drag her down to the pit. But Lucian is territorial. She’s the first female Vessel… and he’s convinced she belongs to him.
Saucy and tauntingly surprising, Black Moon captures the struggle between burning desire or denying the heart. This is a love story that will drain you dry.
[Full disclosure: I received a free print copy in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
I really do love the characters in this novel. Both Smith and Sherrill did excellent jobs with their respective characters, Shea and Lucian. I felt like I really was in Shea’s and Lucian’s shoes during their chapters and I understood their motivations for their actions. I’ll admit it: sometimes I’m a sucker for tales of forbidden love. And boy, does Lucian ever fit the bill here. Our dark vampire here used to be a slave in Egypt who loved the beautiful Nefertiti but was killed for it. After all these centuries, he still loves her despite the tragedy that befell her because of him. His guilt and his love are clear in many aspects of his life…until he meets Shea.
As an Egypt buff, I loved the infusion of some history into Black Moon, but it was rather disappointing that Smith and Sherrill played fast and loose with the facts. No, Nefertiti was hardly captured in battle along with her father. No, her father’s name was not Ur-Nammu. And no, she was certainly not a slave at court with the name of ‘wife’; by all accounts she was greatly beloved of Akhenaten. Now, I can definitely forgive some historical inaccuracies in the name of a good story. But when Lucian passively mentions that Queen Hatshepsut constantly reeked of myrrh, I had to laugh. Hatshepsut was far before Nefertiti’s time and therefore Lucian’s time (since he was human then). There were three kings with extremely long reigns between the two women, so there’s no way Lucian actually would have met her.
My griping about historical accuracy aside, I really enjoyed Black Moon. It has quite a fast plot and so many twists and turns that my head was spinning by the end. Yes, in the beginning it seems to be mostly character-driven but by the end it seemed to be more plot-driven. In reality, it’s actually the best of both worlds: it’s a fast-paced novel with extremely well developed and believable characters. I thought it got a little melodramatic toward the end, but that’s a personal thing rather than an actual flaw with the novel. The cliffhanger at the end was excruciating; I would have read the next book without it anyway, but with a cliffhanger like that I know I definitely have to read the next book now.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Operation Owl by Tara Quan
(Cover picture courtesy of Elle Rush’s blog.)
A Beyond Fairytales Adaptation of Grimm’s The Owl
Five years ago, Maya Jain kissed her best friend only to have him run out of her dorm room and leave the state. When he shows up in Washington, D.C., a wanted fugitive sought after by every branch of the US government, she can’t bring herself to ignore his plight. As their physical relationship picks up where it left off, she decides it’s time to make him see her as more than the bespectacled, bookish girl he once called “Owl.”
After being accused of espionage and treason, Zack Strong needs a forensic accountant to help clear his name. Not knowing who he can trust, this white-hat hacker has no choice but to ask his former best friend and math tutor for help. Together they unravel a cyber conspiracy at the Barn, an NSA facility tasked to intercept electronic communications. But as they traverse the nation’s capital to avoid capture, Maya insists on letting their simmering sexual tension take its natural course. Even though he’s never been able to shake the memory of their one kiss, he refuses to let her give up her life for a man with no future.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
Operation Owl was a solid ‘meh’ for me personally. Yes, I went into this expecting for there to be lots of romance (which was fine) but I also expected a little bit more action. I’ll explain.
Essentially, the big conspiracy plot that’s the reason why Zack is running plays second fiddle to the interpersonal conflict between him and Maya. That’s just fine by me in theory, except that in practice, the actual huge conspiracy probably made up less than 25% of the book whereas the rest was about their friendship. With a conspiracy that big, I would have preferred a little more action because it’s pretty important. So even though Operation Owl does have an interesting plot on the blurb, it’s actually very much the ‘romantic comedy’ it’s labelled as. (Though lacking on the comedy part.)
Despite my misgivings about the plot, I did enjoy the characters. Maya and Zack have had a complicated relationship, to say the least. We learn about the events of five years ago that led to Maya kissing Zack and how that in turn led to them not seeing each other in person for all that time. When they finally meet again, having Zack being chased by the government’s hired mercenaries doesn’t exactly make for the best circumstances. Still, they make it work and their bond re-forms. I liked seeing from each of their viewpoints how they learned to let go of the past and just focus on the present. This is definitely one of the better romances I’ve read.
Tara Quan’s writing style is actually very good. It’s well-suited to the contemporary feel of her novel and while it is pared-down, I was never confused about the setting or which character was speaking (as sometimes happens when authors try to cut too much description). She does an excellent job with the sexual tension of both characters and by a certain point in the book you’re just ready to scream at them to go and have sex already. Which is sort of the purpose of that unresolved sexual tension, I suppose.
So character-wise and writing-wise, I really have no complaints. I would have liked for there to have been more focus on the conspiracy, but that’s just me. At least the conflict was resolved nicely (but not necessarily neatly) at the very end and it would almost be believable were I not such a cynic about politics. Again, that’s just me; it’s actually quite a satisfying ending from a reader’s standpoint.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
Atlas by Becca C. Smith
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Kala Hicks is part of a covert elite military team that answers directly to the President of the United States. But during an emergency mission aboard Air Force One, Kala is shocked to discover that the real threat is none other than the President himself. Defying her commanding officer, Jack Norbin, Kala takes the shot, and her life changes forever.
The moment the President is killed, a supernatural force speaks to Kala, telling her that she has to commit one act of atrocity every four days… or the world will end. Thrown into a reality she never could have imagined, Kala faces off with creatures of legend; from demons determined to make her fail and plunge the Earth into chaos, to angels who don’t trust her to do the job and are willing to kill her to claim it for themselves.
Pitted against the forces of good and evil, Kala must choose whether to save the world by doing the unthinkable, or sit back and let it burn. And four days later, she’ll have to do it again.
[Full disclosure: I received a free paperback copy in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
I’ll admit that with this one I was a little skeptical once I actually read the blurb. To be honest, it sounded a little dumb and I thought that I’d accidentally signed up to read a total lemon. Thankfully, that was far from the case. This one is a diamond in the rough, so to speak.
The real strength of Smith’s writing is the fact that she can pace things so well. I felt the tension ratchet up right from the beginning until it was at almost unbearable levels during the climax. There were twists and turns in the plot, with plenty of “didn’t see that coming moments”. I didn’t even see the end coming when Kala did something so unexpected that she shocked angels, demons and those in-betweeners that are desperate to keep up the balance of the world through an Atlas. Some are determined to stop her and others are still more determined that she should succeed, so in the end who will win? You just really don’t know.
Kala is a good character and she is quite memorable. Having grown up largely in foster care until her teen years, she understandably has some trust issues, particularly in her relationships. Her backstory is fascinating but just when you think you know everything about her, we learn something very interesting about her foster parents and who/what they really are. What I really liked was her determination in the beginning to find a way out of becoming the next Atlas. She doesn’t want to commit the atrocity that’s been assigned to her, but she doesn’t want literally billions of people to die. It’s a fascinating inner struggle, believe me.
I really appreciated Becca Smith’s world-building. She clearly knows a lot about Greek mythology (which you would expect) but she goes deeper into Christian theology in order to create some of her other creatures like the Grigori and Malaks. I would have liked a little more time devoted to the creation and working of magic, but then that would have slowed down the plot and thrown the pacing off. We still have good working knowledge of the whole different world Becca Smith created, but it’s more of a personal preference for me that I would have liked a little more.
All in all, this is actually a pretty good book and I’m glad that I went into it with an open mind, rather than judging it entirely on the blurb.
I give this book 5/5 stars.