Category: Reviews

Review: The Nightingale Bones

Published on by Rachelle

HorrorOctober2014

Nightingale

  • Author: Ariel Swan
  • Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
  • ISBN: 9781611944990
  • Genre: Mystery/Thriller

This is a haunted house story that also involves witches, so it was a perfect choice for October.  Alice has a strong sense of smell.  The trouble is that when she smells something, it brings about the memories of whatever spirits are lingering wherever she happens to be.  She sees this ability as a curse, despite her mother’s insistence that it’s a gift.  After separating from her husband, Alice finds herself house sitting in a home that has a lot of horrific memories involving the deaths of a child and a woman.  In an attempt to give the woman peace, Alice begins digging into the history of the house and the small town it’s in to figure out exactly who the woman was, and what happened to her and her child.

The first half of this book scared the bejeezus out of me.  I took a short break from reading because I was afraid to read it at night, and that was the only time I had the chance to sit down long enough to read anything last week.  After I picked it back up, though, the story became a bit predictable, and no longer scary.  Also, a slightly implausible romance was introduced, and I started to lose interest.  What kept me reading was the wonderfully detailed descriptiveness of everything, the believable small town characters, and wanting to know, without a doubt, how the mystery was solved.  The only thing I didn’t like about the level of description was the brand name product mentions.  They felt too much like the advertisements that are in the backgrounds of movies, and they didn’t add anything that was necessary to the story.  I didn’t need to know the brand of stereo Alice was using to listen to Billie Holiday, or the brand of cigarettes Kyrie was smoking.

Also unnecessary was the scene in which Alice and her mother, Josephine, do a tarot card reading.  It didn’t carry the story forward, and it didn’t have the spooky element of any cards having one meaning for the characters, but another meaning from the perspective of the reader.  If that was the author’s intention, it missed the mark.

Overall, I have to say that I would have enjoyed this book much more when I was in my 20’s.  It’s not a bad book.  I’m just no longer into stories in which the primary goal is to end with two characters falling into a “Happily Ever After” kind of love.  At least it passes the Bechdal Test.

Review: Chimera Books One, Two, and Three

Published on by Rachelle

HorrorOctober2014

Chimera1 Chimera2 Chimera3

  • Author: Phil Gomm
  • Publisher: Troubador
  • ISBN: 9781784628116, 9781784628123, 9781784628130

Though the Chimera books are Fantasy, there’s enough creepy and sinister characters and events to put them in the Children’s Horror category as well, which is why I’m reviewing them for Horror October Fortnight, hosted by Oh, The Books!

Kyp Finnegan, finds himself in Chimera, where all lost things end up, including children.  If you’re looking for a comparison, it’s The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland as a nightmare.  Everything is out to steal his Elsewhere Light (what will allow him to get back home), or kill him out of hatred for all “blood and bones”, and he never knows who he can trust (mostly no one).  His primary quest is to return home, but that becomes his last goal as he comes across other lost children and finds out exactly what Madame Chartreuse is up to.  Each book ends with a cliff hanger, but at approximately 100 pages each, you could easily go directly on to the next book to satisfy your need to know what happens next.  Let me tell you, it’s a roller coaster ride with very short breathers between the mishaps and scrapes Kyp finds himself running into.  One thing is for sure, I will never look at dolls the same way again *shivers*.

I highly recommend these books for all ages, especially for lovers of Dark Fantasy, and those who prefer “Cosy Horror”.  I can’t wait for the next book(s) in the series, which will have Kyp starting a new quest.

 

Review: The Red Magician

Published on by Rachelle

Magician

  • Author: Lisa Goldstein
  • Publisher: Open Road Media
  • Published: Oct. 21st, 2014
  • ISBN: 9781497673595
  • Genre: Fantasy

This is the story of Kicsi, an Eastern European Jew, and Vörös, a magician trying to save her village from the Nazis.  I’ve had a heavy interest in Holocaust stories ever since I read The Diary of Anne Frank in middle school.  I accidentally bought two copies of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak because the blurb on the back made me want to start reading immediately.  So, when I read the synopsis for The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein, on Netgalley, I requested it right away.

Unfortunately, I can only give this book four stars.  Everything about it is great, but it didn’t grab me emotionally.  I never shed a tear for any of the characters.  I even questioned if perhaps I’d become desensitized to these types of stories, though I know I haven’t.  I still don’t know what is missing from this book to explain why I didn’t ugly cry the way I did over The Book Thief, as well as so many other stories that take place during WWII.

I still recommend reading this book, though.  As I’ve already said, it’s a great book.  The plot, pacing, and quality of writing are all excellent.  It would be a good choice to couple with The Diary of Anne Frank in middle school English classes.

 

Review: The Door in the Mountain

Published on by Rachelle

Door

While I enjoyed The Door in the Mountain, by Caitlin Sweet, I’m not jumping up and down with excitement over it.  It’s a retelling of the Greek myth about the Minotaur, Asterion, through the eyes of Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, and a slave girl, Chara.  The story contains all of the major players from the myth, including Daedalus, Icarus, and Theseus.  It’s full of vivid imagery, and the world came alive easily in my mind.  However, there were times when the pace got slow enough for me to get a bit bored.

I’m fond of the growing trend of telling old stories and myths from the perspective of the “evil” characters.  Ariadne is one of those characters.  As a little girl, I felt sympathy for her because of how Pasiphae, her mother, treated her.  However, I also disliked her.  I could see what she was becoming in order to get attention and approval.  My dislike continued to grow as she became more and more conniving, deceitful, jealous, and hateful.  Near the end, though, there was a moment I pitied her.  I never truly hated her.  Instead, I understood that she would never be redeemed because that’s all she knew how to be.

Despite the pacing issue, I still recommend reading this book.  It’s a quick read, at a little over 200 pages, and anyone who loves Greek mythology will enjoy it.

Review: The Time Roads

Published on by Rachelle

Time Roads - Dominick Saponaro

I have to say that The Time Roads by Beth Bernobich is a DNF book for me.  It’s my nomination for the Worst Book of the Year award.  I forced myself through 50 pages before I moved on to my next review book.

The first thing that annoyed me was the use of names that have so many letters and accent marks they were nearly impossible to pronounce.  They seem Celtic in origin, but I’m not sure.  Regardless, it jars the reader every time a name is stumbled over.

I was further annoyed at the repetition of a character’s whole name every time he was mentioned, even when the main character was thinking about him.  I understand why she used his whole name in their interactions since she is the Queen, and he’s her bodyguard.  However, we’re supposed to believe that she’s enamored by him (more about that next), so why the whole name in her thoughts?  If you do decide to read this book, make it more interesting by taking a drink every time you read “Aidrean Ó Deághaidh”.  You might get drunk enough to enjoy the book.

Next, the “love interests”.  Yes, there is more than one.  First, she falls in love with her bodyguard.  It’s not explained other than as time passed he was loyally at her side, and she’s suddenly in love with him.  However, she couldn’t possibly take him as a lover because he’s a servant.  This happens over approximately 2 pages.  Even if I could get past the “forbidden love” trope, I could never get over the vagueness and absence of a reason for falling in love.  The second love interest happens even more suddenly with even less explanation.  One moment she’s talking to her scientist about his experiments, and the next they’re ferociously making out in his laboratory in front of his assistants.  I was so stunned that I went back a couple pages to reread because I thought surely I had missed something.  No, I didn’t miss anything, not even a look of longing or a flirtatious comment from either one of them.

Somehow I continued to read, in the hopes that it would just as suddenly get better, but no joy.  I can’t recommend this book to anyone.  I’ve read trashy paperback romances better than this book.

Review: Of Bone and Thunder

Published on by Rachelle

Bone

Of Bone and Thunder, by Chris Evans, is so good that I wasn’t quite sure what to say about it beyond “You must read this book!”  It’s a retelling of the Vietnam War in a Fantasy setting (including dragons).  Though it deals with the horrors of war, it’s not moralistic.  It is vividly realistic, however, and not for those with weak stomachs.  The story is told from several characters’ points of view, which are diverse.  I was pulled into what they were going through in such a way that I didn’t know how connected I was to them until I was crying at one point, and almost snarling every time one of the characters came into a scene.  I realized this isn’t a book; it’s a world to become fully immersed in.  It’s also a roller coaster, with well-timed lulls in the action for much needed breathers.  I never had to take a break from this novel, and that’s all due to the pacing, which I didn’t even notice until I thought about it afterwards.

Two things I did notice while reading were his handling of race and gender issues.  Again, this wasn’t done in a moralistic way.  He simply wrote about the realities during the Vietnam Era.  The race issues are between men and dwarves.  Dwarves are formerly enslaved, newly integrated into Human society, and derogatorily referred to as “mules”.  For the gender issues, women simply aren’t present, mentioned only in passing, with the exception of a very few who have a hard won agency.  They are looked down upon as being inferior by many of the male characters.  Respect is slowly gained as the story approaches its climax, but there remain men who still espouse their beliefs that women belong at home.  Though at first I felt annoyed at the lack of women, that was a knee jerk reaction.  Now, I see it as refreshing to have an author face the ugly truth of sexism without being preachy.

I would love to recommend this book to everyone, but it’s more for those who enjoy war stories or D&D type Fantasy.  I’m giving it 5 stars, and adding it to my list of all time favorite books.

 

Review: Justice in a Dead Land

Published on by Rachelle

Justice

When I started reading, I wasn’t sure if this was a short story or just a sample.  The cover says “World Devoured Part One”, so I was thinking this might be the beginning of a series or trilogy.  I contacted the publisher (All Night Reads), and it turns out that Justice in a Dead Land is the first part of a serial, with each part being released on Mondays starting Oct. 13th.(The Amazon page has since been updated.)

That information shifted my opinion a bit.  Mostly because, while I enjoyed it, as a book, I really don’t think this story would work.  The pacing, character development, dialogue, etc. are all wrong for a book; however, they fit perfectly for a serial.  They would also be perfect for a comic book or a TV show.  Speaking of TV shows, while the beginning was reminiscent of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, I kept thinking of Captain Mal from Firefly every time the main character,Penelope, spoke.  It’s not that she comes off as mannish, but that her personality is similar.  Though the story itself is very different, I’d say the setting, the kinds of situations the characters find themselves in, and the dialogue would have been perfect for Firefly, except Justice in a Dead Land doesn’t have space ships.  That’s not a negative (unless you absolutely require space ships).  I just don’t want anyone thinking it has everything Firefly had.  There is magic, however, and the descriptions of it made me think of the Dust in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

All of this, I loved.  If anything, I’d say the only thing I’m a bit iffy on is that it feels more like YA Fantasy than it does any other genre.  YA isn’t horrible, but I’ve read few YA books that I thought were good, much less that were great.  I think that I will continue to enjoy the World Devoured serial, but it’s too early to tell.  I’m definitely buying the next part to find out what happens though, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys quest narratives, independent comic books, or dystopian westerns.

Review: Black Swan, White Raven

Published on by Rachelle

Black White

Black Swan, White Raven is a short story anthology of modern, dark fairy tales.  What I love about anthologies is that each story is very different than the others.  If I don’t happen to like one of them, it’s quickly done and I can move on, and if the editors do a good job, there won’t be one after the other that I don’t like.  Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling did well in that regard.  Also, they did a great job of choosing a first story, “The Flounder’s Kiss” by Michael Cadnum, that sucked me in and made me hungry for the next, and they ended with a story equally as good, “Godmother Death” by Jane Yolen, that left me satisfied and feeling generally positive towards the book as a whole.

I wish I could say the number of stories I liked outweighed the bad, but they were equal.  It could have been worse, but the bad ones I absolutely despised, such as “Snow in Dirt” by Michael Blumlein, or was literally bored to sleep by, as with “True Thomas” by Bruce Glassco.  Then there was “The True Story” by Pat Murphy, which came off as a preachy, condescending Feminist rant more than it did an actual story.  I consider myself a Feminist, and I feel that there is an excellent way of re-telling a classic fairy tale that doesn’t alienate the audience and give credence to the prevailing misconceptions about Feminism.  An example of that would be the movie Maleficent.  Oh, I wish that were a book!  “The Black Fairy’s Curse”, by Karen Joy Fowler, was disjointed and confusing, and Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Insomniac Night” made me extremely anxious with it’s stream of consciousness and bouncing back and forth between the present and the past.  I had the feeling something horrible was going to happen at any moment, but then it ended so abruptly, I had to put the book aside for awhile before I could continue on to the next story.

Another story that made me pause for a bit, but that I loved, was “No Bigger than my Thumb” by Esther M. Friesner.  I have to say that this one could fit very well into the Horror genre.  It was excellent, and very unsettling.  “The Trial of Hansel and Gretel” by Garry Kilworth, was an ingenious twist on the classic, as was “Steadfast” by Nancy Kress.  I also greatly enjoyed “Rapunzel” by Anne Bishop, which is told from the perspectives of Rapunzel’s mother, the witch who keeps Rapunzel in the tower, and Rapunzel herself.  Not only was each perspective insightful, but it held to the classic inclusion of threes in a very modern way.  This is the only one that I think could safely be shared with a teenage daughter.  The rest are definitely for adults, not just for the sexual content in several of them, but because of the many disturbing scenes.

Overall, I recommend Black Swan, White Raven to anyone who loves dark fantasy, horror, and alternative versions of fairy tales, especially if you’re looking for new authors to read.

 

Review: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Published on by Rachelle

Witches

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness starts out in a library!  The main character drinks copious amounts of tea, does yoga, is a historian, and seems to have agency!  There are not only witches but vampires, too!  Oh, this book seemed so perfect for me for the first 13 chapters…and then it began a slow decline towards horribleness.  It wasn’t until chapter 29 that it quickly went back to being the good book I was reading when I started it.  What made approximately half of the book so close to unbearable that I almost quit reading?

First off, the wine and food descriptions get to the point of being snobbish and over the top ridiculous.  One of the wines the main characters drink “smelled like lemon floor polish and smoke and tasted like chalk and butterscotch.”  I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I would consider tasting something that smells like floor polish, and if I somehow lost my mind and craved the taste of a cleaning product, I don’t see myself as enjoying the taste of chalk, even when combined with butterscotch.  Another poor choice of words is the line “…she said in a husky voice of sand and treacle”.  There comes a point when you’re trying so hard to be original in your descriptions that you should stick to the tried and true.  However, she goes in the opposite direction of original description by repeatedly using the words “ice and snow(flakes)” when referring to being looked at by a vampire.  After the third or fourth time she mentions this feeling, I wanted to scream “I GET IT ALREADY!”

Secondly, she makes a thinly veiled reference to Anne Rice’s Lestat character that feels too much like an “oh look at me, aren’t I smart and knowledgeable about popular vampire fiction.”  On top of that, most of the plot seems like a ripoff of Twilight, to include Diana becoming a character with no agency that is seemingly helpless, naive, and oblivious.  I get the impression that the author loved Twilight so much that she rewrote it with her as the main character, living out her ultimate fantasy.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that…as long as you do it well.  There are no original stories; that goes double for vampire fiction, and triple for vampire romances.  Which brings me to my third problem with this book…

At one time in my life, I would’ve found the vampire, Matthew, being the alpha of his “pack” irresistibly sexy.  Now, I find it’s an excuse to act like a controlling and domineering creep.  He treats Diana as if she’s not capable of making decisions, and comes across as a parental figure, with Diana being “Daddy’s little princess”. What’s worse is Matthew’s description, and actions, are explicitly related to wolf behavior.  Please, for the love of the written word, SHOW, don’t TELL!  The author also led me to believe she thinks her audience is just as stupid as Diana by frequently pointing out the obvious.

Last, but not least, the grammatically borked line “Was it humans?”  At first, I felt judgmental, but then I read the line to my boyfriend to gauge his reaction.  I concluded that I would be humiliated if these words left my mouth in normal conversation, and it’s completely unbelievable that an academic like Diana would talk like a 3rd grader.

I have other problems with this book, but they include spoilers.  Despite half the book being despicable, the other half, especially the ending, makes me want to read the next book.  So, on the off chance that you might wish to do the same, I won’t write about those parts that give away specific plot details.  All said and done I think it’s a book worth reading if you’re very forgiving of its faults, but not worth buying.  Borrow it from someone who already made the mistake of paying for it, or check it out from the library.

Classics Club: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Published on by Rachelle

Treasure Island

Though Treasure Island is short enough to be considered a one night read, it took me about a week to finish.  I enjoyed it, but life interfered with me trying to finish it within a couple days.  The story seems more meant for children, but the adult part of me didn’t get in the way, especially since there were so many turns of phrase and events throughout that are the origins (or at least the near-origins) of the pirate tale in popular culture.  Who hasn’t heard of Long John Silver or Davy Jone’s Locker or the phrase “shiver my timbers!” even if they’ve never read the book?  Now I’m in the mood to watch Pirates of the Caribbean, or even The Princess Bride, just for the sake of watching Captain Jack Sparrow or “the dread pirate Roberts”!

Since tomorrow is the 1st of September, when I usually stop reading what I consider to be Summer books and start reading my Autumn books, I think Treasure Island was the perfect book to close out my Summer, and to begin crossing off books from my Classics Club list.