Book Review – Kakistocracy

18 Nov 2023 Leave a comment

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

Next up is a book that I just read last month – Kakistocracy by Alex Shvartsman. This is book 2 of the Conradverse Chronicles and you can read my review of the first book, The Middling Affliction, over here (paid links). I also want to thank NetGalley for providing this book to me in exchange for an honest review.

I read the e-book edition.

Here is the blurb:

If you do it well, lying is every bit as effective as magic.

Conrad Brent has no innate magic, so he bluffs a lot and uses a myriad of magical items to protect Brooklyn from monsters and arcane threats. As a member of the Watch, the group that protects the mundane humans from such dangers, he risks his life on a regular basis. Sometimes twice before lunch. Sometimes during lunch, when he dares order his food from a street cart.

After regaining his position in the Watch which he’d temporarily lost due to the machinations of a variety of evil-doers, Conrad doesn’t want to take any risks he doesn’t have to. But now his boss is missing, there’s a totalitarian new regime in City Hall oppressing all magic users, and the mayor has aligned himself with a diabolical villain.

In order to save the day, Conrad must team up with a recovering necromancer to mediate a dispute between two ancient enemy factions, solve a mystery of a warded house adjacent to a cemetery, and stand with his friends against tyranny.

That is, if the interdimensional fae assassins don’t get him first.

I had enjoyed the first book in this series and was hopeful that the second installment would continue in the same vein. Fortunately, Kakistocracy lived up to and exceeded my expectations! This volume felt more polished with a smoothly moving plot, although I think that may be because I already knew the rules of this world and the characters.

One of my favorite aspects of this book was how the necromancer, Moira, decides to try to be one of the good guys. Like the first book, Kakistocracy continues to examine what it means to be a hero and the different ways that one can act heroically.

Even though I felt like the plot moved forward smoothly, that didn’t mean it lacked twists and complications. Conrad is pulled in different directions by his obligations, his limitations as a middling who cannot do magic, and his personal feelings. I also loved the plot device where he loses several months in the faerie realm and has to reorient himself to all the changes that have occurred to New York City during his time away.

The humor also continues in this book, but I think there may have been fewer pop culture references (if that’s your thing). The immediate story is wrapped up by the end of the book, but still leaves room for more. I expect we’ll get to see more books in the Conradverse Chronicles in the future.

Have you read the first book or any of the author’s short stories? Let me know in the comments (above).

Read more of my reviews here.

Book Review – The Middling Affliction

13 Oct 2023 1 Comment

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

I was excited to read The Middling Affliction, book #1 in the Conradverse Chronicles by Alex Shvartsman because the author is a local friend who I have helped with some proofreading and other feedback (not on this book though). I previously reviewed one of his other books (Eridani’s Crown) over here.

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Here is the blurb:

What would you do if you lost everything that mattered to you, as well as all means to protect yourself and others, but still had to save the day? Conrad Brent is about to find out.

Conrad Brent protects the people of Brooklyn from monsters and magical threats. The snarky, wisecracking guardian also has a dangerous secret: he’s one in a million – literally.

Magical ability comes to about one in every 30,000 and can manifest at any age. Conrad is rarer than this, however. He’s a middling, one of the half-gifted and totally despised. Most of the gifted community feels that middlings should be instantly killed. The few who don’t flat out hate them still aren’t excited to be around middlings. Meaning Conrad can’t tell anyone, not even his best friends, what he really is.

Conrad hides in plain sight by being a part of the volunteer Watch, those magically gifted who protect their cities from dangerous, arcane threats. And, to pay the bills, Conrad moonlights as a private detective and monster hunter for the gifted community. Which helps him keep up his personal fiction – that he’s a magical version of Batman. Conrad does both jobs thanks to charms, artifacts, and his wits, along with copious amounts of coffee. But little does he know that events are about to change his life…forever.

When Conrad discovers the Traveling Fair auction house has another middling who’s just manifested her so-called powers on the auction block, he’s determined to save her, regardless of risk. But what he finds out while doing so is even worse – the winning bidder works for a company that’s just created the most dangerous chemical weapon to ever hit the magical community.

Before Conrad can convince anyone at the Watch of the danger, he’s exposed for what he really is. Now, stripped of rank, magical objects, friends and allies, Conrad has to try to save the world with only his wits. Thankfully though, no one’s taken away his coffee.

This book lived up to the playful description in the blurb and was a lot of fun to read! While Eridani’s Crown took place in an alternate world fantasy, The Middling Affliction is a solid piece of urban fantasy set in the New York City area. Like last week’s review of Perilous Times, this story looks at what it takes to be a hero, and that is not always defined by what magic or super powers one possesses.

The plot jumps from one action scene to another and the stakes keep going up with each new problem that Conrad encounters. I particularly enjoyed how Conrad manages to maintain the charade of using magic when he cannot actually do this (and then when a certain thing happens in the plot, he is in a unique place to act empathetically).

This was also a quick read (240 pages) for me and felt light-hearted (despite the dire occurrences). I’m definitely going to pick up the second book (Kakistocracy) soon!

Do you read much urban fantasy? What is your favorite series? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – Magical Midlife Madness

28 Feb 2022 1 Comment

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

This book was gifted to me and I’ve had it sitting on my desk for a while now, taunting me with it’s pretty cover. Magical Midlife Madness is the first book in a paranormal romance series (Leveling Up) by K. F. Breene. It appears to be self-published, which isn’t necessarily a strike against it as I used to do book reviews for “indie” press books and am open to the idea of reading books that aren’t a product of a major publisher.

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Here is the blurb:

A woman starting over. A new house with an unexpected twist. A cape wearing butler acting as the world’s worst life coach.

“Happily Ever After” wasn’t supposed to come with a do-over option. But when my husband of twenty years packs up and heads for greener pastures and my son leaves for college, that’s exactly what my life becomes.

Do-over.

This time, though, I plan to do things differently. Age is just a number, after all, and at forty I’m ready to carve my own path.

Eager for a fresh start, I make a somewhat unorthodox decision and move to a tiny town in the Sierra foothills. I’ll be taking care of a centuries old house that called to me when I was a kid. It’s just temporary, I tell myself. It’ll just be for a while.

That is, until I learn what the house really is, something I never could’ve imagined.

Thankfully forty isn’t too old to start an adventure, because that’s exactly what I do. A very dangerous adventure that will change my life forever. I have a chance to start again, and this time, I make the rules.

This book had a fun premise and while parts at the beginning were a bit awkwardly written, it got better in the middle. Jessie is an entertaining character that takes a risk on a new chapter in her life and discovers strange magic in a small town and within herself.

There is a romance aspect to the story and a larger threat that is not fully explored in this book, so don’t expect any resolution to either of those parts of Jessie’s tale. I don’t know if I’ll keep reading this series or not. It was easy and fast to read, but didn’t grab me as much as some other books.

Have you read any books by K. F. Breene? Let me know in the comments above.

Find more of my book reviews here.

Book Review – Lover Revealed

29 Jan 2021 Leave a comment

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

Hah, I finished another book! This is part of a series that I stumbled into last year (The Black Dagger Brotherhood by J. R. Ward) and it’s basically about sexy vampires and their eternal battles against the slayers. I’m not going to go back to rehash the earlier books in the series at this point, but each one mainly focuses on one pair of characters and their romance as the main plot continues. Lover Revealed is book 4 (links help support this blog).

Here is the summary blurb:

Butch O’Neal is a fighter by nature. A hard-living ex-homicide cop, he’s the only human ever to be allowed in the inner circle of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And he wants to go even deeper into the vampire world—to engage in the turf war with the lessers. He’s got nothing to lose. His heart belongs to a female vampire, an aristocratic beauty who’s way out of his league. If he can’t have Marissa, then at least he can fight side by side with the Brothers…

Fate curses him with the very thing he wants. When Butch sacrifices himself to save a civilian vampire from the slayers, he falls prey to the darkest force in the war. Left for dead, he’s found by a miracle, and the Brotherhood calls on Marissa to bring him back. But even her love may not be enough to save him…

I don’t remember how I found this series, but I have to think it was part of my effort to occasionally branch out and read something different. So while there is a huge romance component to these books, the author does a brilliant job in building suspense and tension through each one for the non-romance elements as well.

While the main episode of each book is resolved, numerous side plots and an overarching plot thread through the series. The story in this book did not completely go where I thought it would, which is always a nice surprise. By this fourth book, the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood has grown more complicated, with added political facets, deeper character relationships, and tragedy.

At over 500 pages, Lover Revealed is not a quick read, but it is an easy one. I’m sure I’ll pick up the next book in a couple of months. If you want to start reading this series, look for Dark Lover, book 1. Are you already a fan? Let me know in the comments!

Read more of my book reviews here.

Book Review – Dark Prophecy

19 Sep 2019 Leave a comment

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

Dark Prophecy is book #1 in the Soul Storm series by Ann Gimpel. I had read an earlier version of this book shortly after its release, and the author released a revised version of this series a few years later. Since I had never finished reading the series *and* one of my goals for the year is to finish reading series, I picked up this book to re-read before delving into the next two.

My original review was written about the first version of the book, and can be found here under the title of Psyche’s Prophecy. I can’t say that I picked up on any major differences in terms of the character or plot, so I’m simply reprinting my review below.

In Dark Prophecy, author Ann Gimpel takes us to a near and possible future in which resources are scarce and rolling blackouts and gasoline shortages are increasing. Amid this burgeoning dystopia, psychotherapist Lara McGinnis stays busy, counseling disturbed teenagers, OCD patients, and couples with marital problems.

The story immediately takes on the trappings of a thriller before delving into the fantasy aspects that are at the heart of this mixed genre tale. Dr. McGinnis learns that patient Ken Beauchamp is abusing his pregnant wife and steps in to offer the woman assistance. Her help comes nearly too late. Mr. Beauchamp puts his wife in the hospital in critical condition, disappears from the authorities, and begins a course of stalking and retaliation upon Dr. McGinnis for her interference.

In her private practice as a psychotherapist, Lara has found that her long-time ability to read auras has always been handy. However, she has more frequent and disturbing visions as the conflict with Mr. Beauchamp and the unpredictable blackouts across the city continue. On top of this, a graduate student, one of her other patients, and even her live-in boyfriend, Trevor, have all had a common dream. Lara tries to solve this mystery while everything around her spirals deeper into chaos and her visions become darker.

The first half of this book kept me up at night, both as a page-turner and in sympathetic fear for Dr. McGinnis. This is a very good thing if you’re a fan of that type of story, but if the thought of having a stalker break into your residence will give you nightmares, then you may want to read this only during daylight hours.

As the story progresses, Lara must face who she is and what her paranormal abilities mean. There are dark forces at work other than Ken Beauchamp, and ancient mythologies turn out to have real relevance to modern life. Lara and Trevor’s characterization sparkled as they confronted new facets to Lara’s power and the inevitable changes to their world.

In the second half of the book, I felt like the tension lagged. Although to be fair, it was more like the type of tension changed, because this is where the fantasy aspects became heavier. A lot of information about magic, witches, and power is introduced that seems more like buildup for the next volume.

While there is a definite conclusion to this book, there are also many questions left unanswered. Dark Prophecy is the first book in a trilogy and I’m reading the second volume, Dark Pursuit, right now.

Find more of my book reviews here.

Book Review – Unbound

16 Feb 2019 1 Comment

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

Ooooh, look! This is another series where I’m working to catch up. Unbound is book 3 in the Magic Ex Libris series by Jim C. Hines. I listened to the audiobook version of this, narrated by David de Vries.

You can find my review of book 1, Libriomancer, here.

And my mini-review of book 2, Codex Born, is here.

I first started to read this series because I loved the premise behind the magic. Libriomancy allows its users to harness the magic of books. If enough people have read a book, then a libriomancer can reach into the text and pull out items created by the readers’ belief. Now there are some limitations: whatever the libriomancer tries to bring into the world must fit through the pages, and some books deemed too dangerous have been locked.

Seriously, how cool is that?

The first two books in this series (Libriomancer and Codex Born) introduce us to Isaac Vainio, a member of the Porters who works a day job as a librarian. The Porters were formed by Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, creator of libriomancy, and immortal overseer of its use. Their goal is to make sure libriomancy is practiced safely and that the rest of the world never discovers the magical world.

By the beginning of this third book, Isaac has been thrown out of the Porters and had his magic stripped away by Gutenberg. At the conclusion of the previous book, his teenaged libriomancer student, Jeneta Aboderin, was kidnapped and possessed by an ancient sorceress, Meridiana. Isaac struggles to track down Jeneta while trying to come to terms with the loss of his magic.

Despite his banishment from the Porters, Isaac still has friends who can help him: dryad Lena Greenwood, and therapist Nidhi Shah. His pet fire spider, Smudge, hasn’t been affected by Isaac’s loss of magic and ignites when danger is near. Through persistence and research, he manages to learn that Meridiana is trying to find a bronze device created by Pope Sylvester II that would allow her to completely enter our world and bring the power of a ghost army under her control.

Isaac resorts to black-market magic from vampires, fellow outcast sorcerer Juan Ponce de Leon, and the students of Bi Sheng (another ancient book-magic group) in his quest to find the bronze artifact.

The action never stops in this entertaining story, with some surprising and darker twists than in the earlier volumes. The presence of the magical world is no longer hidden from the public, and the series feels more expansive as complications arise. While the main plot is wrapped up in this book, not everything is resolved. Book 4, Revisionary, will be up soon in my reading list.

See more of my book reviews here.

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