Tagged: murder mystery
Mind of the Phoenix by Jamie McLachlan
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Moira is a powerful empath, a psychic graced with the ability to read emotions and memories. Her skill is as much a curse as a gift, for in the harshly stratified city of Braxton empaths are slaves. Clever and beautiful, Moira has learned to rely on no one but herself. Determined to escape life as a concubine, she kills her master, and is imprisoned for the crime.
This could be the end for Moira, but the government has need of her skills. A mysterious serial killer known as the Phoenix has been planting suggestions in his victims’ minds that drive them to murder and suicide. To gain her freedom, Moira partners with Keenan Edwards, a handsome young detective, to stop the killer.
Hunting the Phoenix will bring Moira on a more dangerous road than she imagined, forcing her to confront dark minds, twisted moralities, and her growing feelings for the detective.
[Full disclosure: I requested and recevied a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
I wasn’t really sure what I expected from Mind of the Phoenix, but it certainly exceeded whatever expectations I did have.
Moira is a truly amazing character. She’s been a slave in a pleasure house for years until at the age of 19 she was sold off to a private owner that she then killed. She evaded capture for 6 months before being taken into custody pending execution—until even the Elite (the powerful empaths that work with regular humans to suppress their less powerful brethren) admit they need her abilities to solve a recent spree of suicides that are likely murders. Throughout the investigation we see Moira start to open up just a bit. In the beginning she’s very cynical and sarcastic, both of which are clear defense mechanisms considering what she’s been through. And then as time goes on and Keenan shows her some of the good in the world, she opens up to him a bit. She still struggles with her inner demons and she doesn’t exactly have rose-coloured glasses on by the end of the novel but she at least softens her outlook a little bit as she sees the good in some people.
Keenan is truly an enigma. He’s not your typical tough, silent detective type and he’s certainly not the typical bad boy type of person that you see in so much fiction now. He’s just a man struggling with demons of his own, much like Moira. As a detective he’s seen a lot and feels quite a bit of responsibility on his shoulders. In a world that is clearly morally skewed, he does the best he can to be a good person. He’s not perfect—the second scene where he holds Moira’s head under water definitely shows that—but he’s not a monster. And he’s certainly not the type of man Moira is used to and can easily fit in one category.
Lest you think so, let me say clearly that any romance between Moira and Keenan is not the main focus of the story. Jamie McLachlan does a great job of depicting the inner struggles of the characters while at the same time moving the plot along quite quickly. The mysterious Phoenix is on the loose, implanting commands in people’s minds that make them commit suicide when a certain phrase is read. How can he or she be stopped when you don’t know who you’re looking for or what their true motives are? Moira can search through minds but not even she can undo some of the blocks the Phoenix places in them—at least not without utterly destroying the mind of the victim. When you think you know the true identity of the Phoenix, the plot twists and you’re left wondering whether or not that person is the Phoenix. Jamie McLachlan writes great interpersonal struggles, but she also writes one heck of a murder mystery.
If you’re looking for something a little different from the regular fantasy/speculative fiction, Mind of the Phoenix is the perfect book for you. It has political intrigue, two separate murder mysteries and some great intrapersonal/interpersonal conflicts. And yes, it has just a hint of romance and deals with the whole idea of putting the past behind you so you can live in the present. Best of all, it’s extremely well-written. You’ll be up reading into the early morning hours just like I was last night. I can’t recommend this book enough and I really can’t wait for the next book in the Memory Collector series.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
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Voracious by Mia and Mason Darien
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Sometimes, life doesn’t begin until after you’re dead.
Days stretch out in a series of predictable steps. A to B to C to A. Work. Friends. Life. But for some people, it’s not enough. It’s not enough for D. Possessed of a ravenous hunger for more, he’s at a loss for how to find it.
Until he meets Cielle. She’s everything he’s looking for: new and exciting.
And a vampire, which he’s less crazy about.
But when “new and exciting” Turns him, D is forced into an undead life he never anticipated. Trying to adjust to this new existence is hard enough, but he’s about to get more than he ever bargained for.
Will it be enough to sate his hunger?
[Full disclosure: I obtained a free ebook through the blog tour for the series but was under no obligation to review it. As always, this review is honest.]
Sometimes collaborations between authors work, sometimes not. Sometimes authors collaborate with their spouses to write a book just like Mia Darien did. Again, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But in the case of Voracious, it most definitely worked.
D is a man who we have no full name for but that’s about as mysterious as he gets. He’s just a regular guy at a nine to five job but deep down he yearns to be something more. In the beginning, the Dariens do a really good job creating this sense of “there’s gotta be more to life” for him, this inescapable energy, this mysterious urge to have something more out of life. It’s really hard to describe but in the book it is done extremely well. And it of course leads to D becoming a vampire, lured in by the mysterious Cielle who turns him somewhat against his will. Being a vampire would certainly add spice to anyone’s dull life but D takes it pretty badly because of the whole “against his will” thing. In his situation I wouldn’t really do much different but unfortunately his ignoring Cielle despite her pleas leads to her death. Then D is left to transition to a vampire without a sire and to hunt down the people that killed Cielle. It’s when he decides to do this that we finally see some of that drive of his satiated as he finds a new role both as avenger, and oddly enough, protector of a woman he saves.
A lot of books with unnamed narrators just don’t work in my opinion. The author tries so hard to create an air of mystery around characters that it becomes laughable. However, the Dariens are more than capable of pulling this off. They depict D’s drive to have something more so well that you start to feel the same as he does by about the end of the second or third chapter. He is so well written that it’s hard not to connect with him despite his sometimes ethically questionable actions. He is, in essence, a perfect character because he’s interesting and readers can easily connect to him on an emotional level. Haven’t we all wanted something more out of life at one point or another?
The plot was pretty amazing. I really had no idea where Voracious was going for the majority of the book so the ending was kind of a pleasant surprise. It’s certainly not your perfect fairytale ending but it is emotionally satisfying and you have fewer questions than you do at the beginning of the story. Of course as always we get to see Sadie (the main character of Cameron’s Law, the first book) through the eyes of another and really appreciate what a great person she is for helping out so much in the supernatural community. She certainly helped out D during his adjustment period and when he had no choice but to turn another vampire, something that is sort of forbidden for new vampires. Although the plots of the first two books were fast-paced, Voracious is probably one of the more action-oriented books of the series. It never sacrifices character development for the plot, though.
As always, the world-building in the Adelheid series is fantastic. When we meet Sadie she’s already been a vampire for several decades so it was nice to see how a new vampire would be treated, especially since Cameron’s Law was passed and they didn’t have to hide their new abilities. One of the things I actually liked the most, however, was seeing how the animators in the series work. We saw an animator bring back a dead person temporarily to get their side of the story in the second book, When Forever Died, but seeing the other uses for animators was fascinating and oddly touching. Once again, Mia Darien has expanded the world of Adelheid and she’s done it to great effect in collaboration with her husband. It’s really hard not to love Voracious.
Even if you haven’t read the previous two books, I highly recommend picking up Voracious. Since every book in the series is only slightly connected and features a different character you can pick up a book anywhere in the series and still enjoy it. And really, starting with D’s story is as good a place as you’ll get.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Tempt the Devil by Jill Braden
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
When the body of Former Governor Turyat is discovered in the Red Happiness, QuiTai is the prime suspect. Surprisingly, she seems almost eager to be taken into custody. If Kyam Zul is to keep her neck out of the noose, he must solve the crime without her help – while matching wits with not only the real killer but his scheming grandfather, his political rivals, and his own wife.
[Full disclosure: I was sent a free paperback copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.]
I loved The Devil’s Concubine. I adored the sequel, The Devil Incarnate. But this third book? There aren’t enough words to express the awesome-ness that is Tempt the Devil.
At first it starts off as your fairly standard murder mystery…except that QuiTai seems to have anticipated the murder in advance and demands to be arrested and taken to the fortress of Ponong. Kyam Zul, obviously puzzled, accepts when she dances circles around him with her wits yet again and then is devastated when he learns she’s being framed for the murder of Turyat. Of course, as with everything in Jill Braden’s stories, not everything is as it seems.
In many ways, you have to read Tempt the Devil a couple of times to really appreciate the depth of QuiTai’s plot but you can still get the gist of just how brilliant it was in the first read through. What makes the murder even more of a mystery is that we don’t actually see QuiTai’s point of view much until the end of the book when everything is revealed. Kyam has to struggle so hard to get caught up and his reaction when he thinks he’s too late is really revealing about his character and his feelings that he keeps deeply buried. I don’t want to give too much away, but the real murderer is someone so simple that it’s almost farcical. Still, the plot QuiTai cooks up around it is brilliant and will definitely set a precedent on Ponong for Kyam’s reign as Governor.
I would have liked to see more of QuiTai personally but of course that’s not the point of this particular chapter in the Devil of Ponong series. The point is that QuiTai is playing four dimensional chess and she’s playing to win but her opponent, Grandfather Zul is also playing a long and far-reaching game. It really ends up being an epic battle of wits between the two (by proxy of course) and it brings out some interesting new characters, like Kyam’s wife, a Thampurian woman unused to actually having anything resembling power or authority. Because of how this ended it will be very, very interesting to see how the social, political and economic situation in Ponong and other colonies of Thampur in the next book, The Devil’s Game.
When it comes to fantasy, you’ll be hard pressed to find any better world-building. In Jill Braden’s books there are actually things like politics, economics and social reform movements factored into the equation. They affect everyday people’s lives in tangible ways! Ponong is a very believable colony because it’s along a trade route and as such they are allowed certain liberties even as the iron hand of the Governor clamped down on the native population. Grandfather Zul’s interference in the colony to manipulate QuiTai certainly doesn’t help the separatist movement within Levapur either. It’s kind of hard to get a real hold on Jill Braden’s fantasy world but once you do it’s very easy to fall into and I appreciate the subtleties of it very much.
If you haven’t already picked up the Devil of Ponong series, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s not your typical fantasy book and even if it were, Jill Braden’s awesome writing and her characters would more than make up for it.
I give this book 5/5 stars.