Book Review – Becoming Crone

23 Apr 2024 1 Comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , ,

This book was suggested for one of my book clubs and is another one that I read last year. Becoming Crone by Lydia M. Hawke is book 1 in The Crone Wars series (paid links).

I’m not going to have any other posts this week because I’m traveling to Salt Lake City for a fencing tournament and then some outdoor exploration. Look for my April reading update on either 4/29 or 4/30 to find out how many books I finished on both 4-hour flights!

I read this as an e-book.

Here is the blurb:

She wanted purpose. She found dark magick and war.

For Claire Emerson, there is nothing ordinary about turning sixty.

First, there are the crows. Then, a pendant that unlocks a gate to a house in the woods–which comes with a snarky gargoyle, an entirely too-sexy wolf shifter claiming to be Claire’s protector, and a legacy that turns her reality upside down.

Because divorced, menopausal grandmothers with creaky hips and hot flashes? They don’t just randomly discover they’re next in a long line of powerful women protecting the world from the dark magick of Mages.

Claire’s first instinct is to turn tail and run back to the safety of baking cookies and reading bedtime stories. But when it becomes clear the Mages have targeted her, she may have no choice but to accept her calling. There’s just one problem: she never got the lifetime of training she was supposed to have, and her magick is… well, unreliable would be an understatement.

With the Mages threatening everything she loves, can Claire learn what she needs to in time to become Crone? Or will she be the one to lose an ancient war—and her life?

The premise of this book was fun, with our heroine being a grandmother with a wealth of world experience, rather than the younger protagonist more common in genre fiction. This isn’t the first time I’ve come across an older hero though. The most memorable example that I have is the first book I read by one of my favorite authors: The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (paid link).

In any case, this book was easy to read and follows some standard tropes. I felt bad for Claire because I think she had a very sheltered life prior to the events in this book. In some sense, she is also experiencing a “coming of age” tale like what is often encountered in stories about those younger protagonists.

The story was fun and kept me interested. I don’t know if I’ll read the other books in this series, but I did enjoy this one. I also really liked the cover artwork.

Have you read any stories that feature an older protagonist? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – Elder Race

19 Apr 2024 Leave a comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Elder Race is a short novel (or novella) and was the first fiction by Adrian Tchaikovsky that I have read (paid link). It was nominated for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novella. Read on below to see what I thought.

I read the e-book edition.

Here is the blurb:

In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Elder Race, a junior anthropologist on a distant planet must help the locals he has sworn to study to save a planet from an unbeatable foe.

Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way.

But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she’s an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here (though none in living memory has approached it).

But Elder Nyr isn’t a sorcerer, and he is forbidden to help, and his knowledge of science tells him the threat cannot possibly be a demon…

This story is told through alternating perspectives, switching between Nyr, a depressed anthropologist, and Lynesse, a princess looking to prove herself. It is the tale of a lost colony of Earth, and Nyr’s failed mission to study the people there. At the core of the story is the juxtaposition between Nyr’s science fictional view of the world and Lynesse’s fantastical view of technology that she has no way to understand. The story’s genre depends on which perspective we take.

In the end, it is a work of science fiction, but one that encompasses the difficulty in determining genre in some stories. My favorite example of this is Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, in which McCaffrey always presented the stories as science fiction (paid link). However, in my own reading of those books, they always felt like fantasy, since the specifics of the technology don’t matter until the books at the end of the timeline.

In Elder Race, another aspect that surprised me was how the story depicted Nyr’s mental health challenges. He uses his technology to suppress the effects of depression for a time, but he also knows that this is not a solution for his condition. We see a lot of heroes that either ignore their trauma and do what needs to be done or experience intense emotion without suffering more specifically. In this story, Nyr can only put the effects off for so long, and this adds a unique factor to this tale.

I rated this book as one of my top reads for 2023 and put another series by this author on my to-be-read list. Have you read anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – The Skull Throne

11 Apr 2024 1 Comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett is the fourth book of five in The Demon Cycle series. I have been meaning to finish this series and I’m not sure why I kept putting it off, since I’ve enjoyed the earlier books.

You can read my review of The Daylight War (book 3) at this link here. I did not formally review The Warded Man (book 1) or The Desert Spear (book 2) on this blog (paid links).

I read the mass market paperback edition.

Here is the blurb:

The Skull Throne of Krasia stands empty.

Built from the skulls of fallen generals and demon princes, it is a seat of honor and ancient, powerful magic, keeping the demon corelings at bay. From atop the throne, Ahmann Jardir was meant to conquer the known world, forging its isolated peoples into a unified army to rise up and end the demon war once and for all.

But Arlen Bales, the Warded Man, stood against this course, challenging Jardir to a duel he could not in honor refuse. Rather than risk defeat, Arlen cast them both from a precipice, leaving the world without a savior, and opening a struggle for succession that threatens to tear the Free Cities of Thesa apart.

In the south, Inevera, Jardir’s first wife, must find a way to keep their sons from killing each other and plunging their people into civil war as they strive for glory enough to make a claim on the throne.

In the north, Leesha Paper and Rojer Inn struggle to forge an alliance between the duchies of Angiers and Miln against the Krasians before it is too late.

Caught in the crossfire is the duchy of Lakton–rich and unprotected, ripe for conquest.

All the while, the corelings have been growing stronger, and without Arlen and Jardir there may be none strong enough to stop them. Only Renna Bales may know more about the fate of the missing men, but she, too, has disappeared…

This is not a series that you can jump into at any point. The action in this book picks up immediately after the events of the previous volume, with no time spent rehashing the storyline. The questions brought up by the cliffhanger ending of book 3 are quickly answered, although there isn’t an immediate resolution to the situation.

The plot in this story follows our ongoing collection of main characters, with much of the action centered in the Hollow and the nearby lands of Everam’s Bounty, Lakton, and Angiers. The author jumps through multiple point-of-view characters to tell the story, but focuses in the right parts of the story so that the pacing never slows too much. He manages to have me simultaneously cheering for characters on opposing sides, even when the situation is dire.

I stayed up most of the night reading the last 200 pages of this book. The tension and the impending sense of doom built so much that I couldn’t stop myself. Although be warned, this was the most heartbreaking part of the series so far and approached a “red wedding” level of devastation.

I’ve already started the final book, The Core, so that I can discover if there will finally be a Deliverer who can end the demon threat (paid link).

The new editions of this series have rather boring covers. I prefer the ones that I’ve used here, where each book features one of the main characters on the front. The mass market paperback edition of The Skull Throne also featured a glossary and a family tree for some of the Krasians at the back, both of which were very helpful.

Have you read any of The Demon Cycle? Who do you think will be the Deliverer? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – The Foxglove King

06 Apr 2024 3 Comments

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I picked up The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten at an early-release signing at New York Comic-Con in 2022. This is the first book in The Nightshade Crown series from Orbit books. Read on below to see what I thought (paid links).

I read a paperback ARC of this book.

Here is the blurb:

When Lore was thirteen, she escaped a cult in the catacombs beneath the city of Dellaire. And in the ten years since, she’s lived by one rule: don’t let them find you. Easier said than done, when her death magic ties her to the city.

Mortem, the magic born from death, is a high-priced and illicit commodity in Dellaire, and Lore’s job running poisons keeps her in food, shelter, and relative security. But when a run goes wrong and Lore’s power is revealed, she’s taken by the Presque Mort, a group of warrior-monks sanctioned to use Mortem working for the Sainted King. Lore fully expects a pyre, but King August has a different plan. Entire villages on the outskirts of the country have been dying overnight, seemingly at random. Lore can either use her magic to find out what’s happening and who in the King’s court is responsible, or die.

Lore is thrust into the Sainted King’s glittering court, where no one can be believed and even fewer can be trusted. Guarded by Gabriel, a duke-turned-monk, and continually running up against Bastian, August’s ne’er-do-well heir, Lore tangles in politics, religion, and forbidden romance as she attempts to navigate a debauched and opulent society.

But the life she left behind in the catacombs is catching up with her. And even as Lore makes her way through the Sainted court above, they might be drawing closer than she thinks.

I’m sad that I hadn’t read this book sooner because it featured a fascinating female protagonist, creative world-building, political intrigues, and plenty of romantic tension. Even though the plot does fall prey to some cliches, it all comes together for a great read.

We know that Lore is special from the outset, so in some ways this is a standard hero’s journey tale. She gets into trouble and is forced to spy on the court, putting her immediately into the way of courtiers, a prince, and a king. Her partner in this mission is a celibate monk who is one of the best characters in the book as he struggles with divided loyalties to his religion, his nation, and Lore, who might become more than a friend.

The magic in this world was based on the mythology of fallen gods and the two who remained to rule over life and death. Some people also take poison like a drug to extend their lives (albeit at a price). I love stories where magic is immersed in the foundations of the world, so this was exactly the type of tale I gravitate toward. I stayed up all night reading the last ~200 pages of the book because I couldn’t put it down.

The next book in the series, The Hemlock Queen, comes out on April 9, and will be on its way to me soon (paid link).

Have you read any of Hannah Whitten’s books? She has also written The Wilderwood series that is on my to-be-read list (paid link). Let me know in the comments (above).

Read more of my reviews here.

Reading for the Nebulas

04 Apr 2024 1 Comment

by Clare in Books Tags: , , , , ,

I recently received my ballot information for this year’s Nebula Awards and thought that I might be able to spend some time reading the nominated works. However, when I looked at the deadline and how much I would need to read, I don’t think I’ll be able to get through enough of them to make any fair decisions.

These are the novels that have been nominated.

Prior to the announcement, I had only read one of the novels and none of the works in the other categories. . I reviewed The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz recently and you can find my thoughts here (paid link). That leaves me with five novels and all the novellas, novelettes, and short stories to read (and that is without counting the award for Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction or the game writing category).

I think that my strategy will be to start with the short stories. Then I can move on to the longer categories. I don’t expect that I will get to the novels, but the process at least makes me more aware of some books that I hadn’t heard of prior to this.

You can find all of the nominations here. Voting closes on April 15th and the winners will be announced on June 8th at the 2024 Nebula Conference in Pasadena, CA.

March 2024 Reading Wrap-Up

02 Apr 2024 1 Comment

by Clare in Books Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Help, help! I’m in a reading slump!

March wasn’t a very good month for me in terms of reading. I was distracted by other things in my life and I didn’t have as much time to devote to books, unfortunately. What did I actually finish reading in March? Just these two books:

I did review The Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin here. And I should have a review of The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten up soon (paid links).

I am still in the process of reading a few others which you can see here:

I didn’t make any further progress on The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, but I still plan to get back to this one. My audiobook listening habit also struggled, so I haven’t finished the second book in the Outlander series, Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. As of the time I’m writing this, I have a little under seven hours left to go. I started reading the Utopia Science Fiction anthology last week, but I was not in the right mood to read short stories and ended up finally starting The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett, which is book 4 in The Demon Cycle (paid links).

What’s ahead for April? And how do I break out of my reading slump?

I rearranged what I originally had on my April list, since I didn’t get to most of what I had planned to read for March. Here are the books that I now have on for this month:

I put them roughly in the order I think I might read them. The Core is the fifth and final book in The Demon Cycle, so I expect I’ll want to finish that series once I get through book 4. I think I’ll probably get back to The Sandman series of graphic novels for a quick read and then move on to book 5 of The Wheel of Time – The Fires of Heaven. I expect Iron Flame to be a quick read, and after that I don’t know if I’ll actually get to the other books during April. I should be able to at least start Voyager, the 3rd book in the Outlander series, but since each one is longer than the last, I don’t know if I’ll finish it this month (paid links).

On top of those goals, I have been debating whether I should read some of the fiction nominated for the Nebula Awards. That will be the topic of a post later this week, so I’ll leave my thoughts on that until then.

As far as getting over my reading slump, that’s hard because I do have some travel plans this month. One trip involves a long flight, so that usually gives me some free time to read, but otherwise the logistics of packing and planning always takes time.

What are you reading in April? How are your reading goals for the year going so far? Let me know in the comments (above).

Book Review – Sunshine by Robin McKinley

22 Mar 2024 Leave a comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I read Sunshine by Robin McKinley a few months ago after it was a pick for one of my book clubs. I had previously read and loved a couple of books by this author (The Blue Sword, The Outlaws of Sherwood) a few decades ago, so I was happy to get back to this stand-alone vampire novel (paid links). Read on to see what I thought.

I read the e-book edition.

Here is the blurb:

There are places in the world where darkness rules, where it’s unwise to walk. Sunshine knew that. But there hadn’t been any trouble out at the lake for years, and she needed a place to be alone for a while.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone. She never heard them coming. Of course you don’t, when they’re vampires.

They took her clothes and sneakers. They dressed her in a long red gown. And they shackled her to the wall of an abandoned mansion – within easy reach of a figure stirring in the moonlight.

She knows that he is a vampire. She knows that she’s to be his dinner, and that when he is finished with her, she will be dead. Yet, as dawn breaks, she finds that he has not attempted to harm her. And now it is he who needs her to help him survive the day…

This was a good read, although it wasn’t what I expected. Sunshine is set in an alternate semi-post-apocalyptic fantasy world, after humans have engaged in a war against vampires and other supernatural beings. It features just enough other magic to know that you cannot make any assumptions about how things work here.

Sunshine, the protagonist, is content in her role as a baker at the local shop. She rents a room in a house nearby and has a long-term boyfriend. But her comfortable place in the world is shaken when she takes up the unlikely acquaintance of a vampire, Constantine, imprisoned alongside her by his rivals. Sunshine has her own power and helps Constantine, sparking a forbidden relationship between them.

As Sunshine tries to hide her obsession with the vampire, his enemies stalk the town. One of my favorite characters was Sunshine’s landlady, since she turned out to be a lot more than she seemed. The final outcome was left a bit too vague for me, but I suppose that leaves it up to my interpretation. The world that the author sets up in this book was so interesting that I wish she’d write more in this setting, even if it doesn’t follow Sunshine and Constantine.

What other vampire fiction have you read? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

18 Mar 2024 2 Comments

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Shannon Chakraborty (previously writing as S.A. Chakraborty) won a spot in my short list of “buy-the-next-book-in-hardcover-right-away” authors after I read her Daevabad Trilogy. I loved these books and ranked them as one of the best series that I read in 2021. When her latest book (the first in a new series) was released last year, I picked up The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi right away (paid links).

You can find my reviews of her other books here:

I read this in hardcover.

Here is the blurb:

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

This book was a lot of fun and, while it is the start of a new series, it could also be read as a stand-alone novel, since the events of the immediate crisis are concluded in this volume. Amina is a wonderful protagonist as an older women with a rich history that is gradually brought into the current events of her new story.

The action was well done and I never felt bored for a book that runs almost 500 pages. The antagonist is suitably evil and threatening, although of course Anima’s quest encounters other bumps and complications along the way that add to the tension of the story.

I thought that the way that Amina’s quest ends nicely wraps up the current situation. However, she has to make a deal that opens her up to further adventures. I expect that she will feature in upcoming books, and I’ll be waiting to read them.

Given that this novel is also set in an ancient Arabia type of setting, I had to wonder if the world that Amina lives in could be the same as that of the Daevabad series, but I think I’ll have to wait to draw my conclusions on that.

Have you read anything by Shannon Chakraborty? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – Spear

08 Mar 2024 Leave a comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , ,

I read Spear by Nicola Griffith recently (end of 2023) and had no idea what to expect from it going in (paid links). Like a couple of my other recent reads, this was technically a novella, essentially a short novel. This was the first book by this author that I had read. I listened to the audiobook edition, which was narrated by the author.

I listened to the audiobook of this.

Here is the blurb:

The girl knows she has a destiny before she even knows her name. She grows up in the wild, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake come to her on the spring breeze, and when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she knows that her future lies at his court.

And so, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and, with a broken hunting spear and mended armour, rides on a bony gelding to Caer Leon. On her adventures she will meet great knights and steal the hearts of beautiful women. She will fight warriors and sorcerers. And she will find her love, and the lake, and her fate.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It featured a girl without a name who finds her place in the world when she dares to leave the familiarity of home for adventure in the world. She comes upon the body of a slain knight and takes up his spear, gaining inspiration from the weapon to give herself a name.

Once she comes upon the slain knight’s companions, it was clear that this book was a retelling of Arthurian legend. While I’m far from an expert, I have read a fair number of these types of stories and am always interested to read a new take on classic tales. Even knowing those legends, this book was able to tell a compelling story that still surprised me.

It is clear from the early part of this book that the protagonist is a lesbian. While there is a love story within the novella, it isn’t the main focus of the plot. Other themes include the meaning of family and becoming accepted by others.

Have you read any books by Nicola Griffith? Which ones would you recommend? Let me know in the comments (above)

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – Every Heart a Doorway

05 Mar 2024 Leave a comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I just finished reading Every Heart a Doorway last week. This is the first book (of 9 so far) in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire (paid links). She is one of the authors that I previously mentioned in this post on 10 Authors I Haven’t Read Yet from November 2023.

This is technically a novella, so it was a shorter read. This book won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards in 2016/2017 and the series won the Hugo Award for best series in 2022.

I read the e-book edition.

Here is the blurb:

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

I think that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first fantasy book that I read, and definitely the Narnia series was one of my most beloved stories growing up. I absolutely love the premise of Every Heart a Doorway, which looked at what happens to children who have traveled to another world and then returned to their mundane lives.

I had to wonder what type of story this would be though, now that their adventures are over. It turns out that when you gather many such children at a special school to learn to deal with the aftermath of their fantastical adventures, things don’t always go well. This book featured a murder mystery, as students start dying with parts of their bodies missing.

The characters in this book were diverse and well-drawn for the short length of the novella. I had my suspicions about the identity of the murderer, but it didn’t become clear until later in the story. I have heard that the following books in the series alternate between continuing the greater story and going back to tell about the children’s backstories. I’m not sure I’ve seen a series structured quite like that before. I intend to keep reading more of this series soon.

Have you read any of the Wayward Children series? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

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