Welcome to the ALA Midwinter edition of Stacking the Shelves. What that really means is that I actually went crazy on Netgalley and Edelweiss last week, and split the haul between two posts so I’d have something to post today. I’m actually downtown in the middle of the conference, probably in a meeting. Perpetually in a meeting. It’s the nature of things.
Next week’s shelf stacking will include whatever I pick up on the conference floor. It’s dangerous having the conference in my town – I don’t need to worry about luggage weight limits and can haul anything my back can get off the floor. Scary, isn’t it?
Revel in the action, drama, intrigue and passion as the Frobishers— with help from Wolverstone, the Cynsters and many familiar others— steer the adventure to a glorious end. Unstoppable determination
Widely known as the lord of the privateers, Royd Frobisher expects to execute the final stage of the rescue mission his brothers have begun. What he does not expect is to be pressured into taking Isobel Carmichael—his childhood sweetheart, former handfasted bride and current business partner—with him. A force of nature, Isobel has a mission of her own: to find and bring a young cousin safely home. And along the way, she hopes to rid herself of the dreams of a life with Royd that still haunt her. Unfinished business
Neither expects the shock that awaits them as they set sail, much less the new horizons that open before them as they embark on a full-scale rescue-assault on the compound deep in the jungle. Yet despite the support of his brothers and their ladies, Royd and Isobel discover that freeing the captives is only half the battle. To identify and convict the conspirators behind the illicit enterprise—and save England from political disaster—they must return to the ballrooms of the haut ton and hunt the villains on their home ground. Unforgettable love
But having found each other again, having glimpsed the heaven that could yet be theirs, how much are Royd and Isobel willing to risk in the name of duty? #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens delivers the thrilling conclusion to her acclaimed series THE ADVENTURERS QUARTET, a passionate Regency-era drama where intrigue and danger play out on the high seas and in exotic tropical jungles, ultimately reaching a dazzling climax in the glittering ballrooms of London.
My Review:
Lord of the Privateers is an adventure romp with a romance attached – or a romance with an adventure attached. There be two plot threads here, and they are both compelling, if not equally so.
The story would not be a pretty one if it weren’t for the inevitable happy ending. Far from England, in the English colony of Freeport in South Africa, someone is operating an illicit diamond mine. Not only is the mine unlicensed, and therefore not under government scrutiny of any kind, but the backers of the mine decided to maximize their profit by using slave labor.
They think they are so far above the law that they can kidnap colonists from Freeport, and that no one will care. And even if they are eventually caught, they will be able to walk away.
But the people they take are missed. Not just the children, but also the adults. Especially when they do stupid things like kidnap the military men who are sent to investigate, one after another. The government contracts with the Frobisher shipping clan to find out where everyone has gone, and that’s where the fun of this series begin.
Each one of the Frobisher children (sons AND daughter) is captain of his or her own ship. One by one, the oldest four sons go down to Freeport, put their share of the pieces together, and come back with a bride who is not willing to stay at home and wait while their men sail into danger.
It’s all been leading up to this book, Lord of the Privateers. That “lord” is Royd, the oldest brother and captain of their fleet. It’s up to him to lead the military operation to rescue the prisoners and gather as much evidence as possible on those mysterious and nefarious backers. In that order.
But Royd’s mission is compromised. Not by betrayal, but by his own unfinished business coming back to haunt him. Isobel Carmody, his childhood best friend and the love of his life, turned him away eight years ago. One of the captives is Isobel’s cousin, and she insists on accompanying him to Freeport. They have unfinished business between them to work out on this journey. They need to decide once and for all whether to try again, or to finally move on.
Royd thinks he has all the time in the world to woo Isobel again. Isobel thinks the voyage will be long enough for her to figure out whether she can trust Royd with her heart again, after he broke it eight years ago.
And they have a colony to save. And in the process, all their secrets will come out, and all the truths will finally come to light.
Escape Rating B: There are two plots here, the second chance at love story, and more importantly, the military operation to rescue the enslaved workers at the mine.
Unlike most second-chance love stories, this one feels resolved fairly early on. They are back together almost instantly, so most of the rest of the romance angle seems a bit anti-climactic. Also, their inevitable marriage is a foregone conclusion from the outset. Eight years ago, Royd and Isobel were handfasted, an old Scottish form of trial marriage. But if a child is born of the handfasting, the couple must automatically marry, or the child must be given up to the father. (Yes, I know it’s terribly misogynistic, etc., but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the law of the time).
Isobel gave birth to Royd’s son eight years ago, while he was away on a secret mission that he chose not to tell her about. She’s kept the boy a secret ever since, at least until he stows away aboard their ship to Freeport. Once that “cat” is out of its bag, an eventual wedding is the only possible conclusion.
But the military operation and the subsequent clean up of the gentleman backers is a romp from beginning to end. And if it weren’t for the fact that this is historical romance and therefore must lead to a happy ending, the clean-up operation feels like it might teeter towards disaster at any moment. That was the part of the story that had me on the edge of my seat.
It was wonderful not just to see all the dirty bastards finally get their just desserts, but to have those desserts handed to them by a combined delegation of the Frobishers, the Cynsters and the Bastion Club was a special treat for those who have read any of the author’s previous series.
But speaking of series, The Adventurers’ Quartet is one where you probably need to have read at least some of the previous entries. I read books 1, 3 and 4, and didn’t feel as if I missed anything except a good story by accidentally skipping Buccaneer. Because Lordis the payoff for all the previous books, I think it looses its punch if you start with it.
Because the romantic side of the plot was resolved early on, those scenes that “furthered” the romance were furthering something that already felt completely developed. To say they became anticlimactic makes for a very bad pun that nevertheless was true for this reader. Your mileage (measured in knots in this case) may vary. But the rescue operation makes for a cracking good yarn.
~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~
Stephanie and Harlequin are giving away a $25 Gift Card to one lucky entrant on this tour!
Welcome to the Best of 2016 Giveaway Hop, Hosted by Bookhounds.
I somehow manage to do a lot of “Best of the Year” lists. One for me, one for Library Journal, and one for the SFR Galaxy Awards. But the Galaxy Awards haven’t been announced yet, and I’m not going to give spoilers. But still, two lists. And no matter how many titles are one the official list, I usually manage to squeeze a few more onto the lists in one way or another. When I like a book, I really, really like it.
And I like books a lot. I also like a lot of books.
I’m giving away a $10 Gift Card or a $10 Book from either my Best of 2016 or Best E-Originals posts. So take a look and let me know which one is your favorite!
From the author of Three Souls comes a vividly imagined and haunting new novel set in early 20th century Shanghai—a story of friendship, heartbreak, and history that follows a young Eurasian orphan’s search for her long-lost mother. That night I dreamed that I had wandered out to Dragon Springs Road all on my own, when a dreadful knowledge seized me that my mother had gone away never to return . . .
In 1908, Jialing is only seven years old when she is abandoned in the courtyard of a once-lavish estate outside Shanghai. Jialing is zazhong—Eurasian—and faces a lifetime of contempt from both Chinese and Europeans. Until now she’s led a secluded life behind courtyard walls, but without her mother’s protection, she can survive only if the estate’s new owners, the Yang family, agree to take her in.
Jialing finds allies in Anjuin, the eldest Yang daughter, and Fox, an animal spirit who has lived in the courtyard for centuries. But Jialing’s life as the Yangs’ bondservant changes unexpectedly when she befriends a young English girl who then mysteriously vanishes.
Murder, political intrigue, jealousy, forbidden love … Jialing confronts them all as she grows into womanhood during the tumultuous early years of the Chinese republic, always hopeful of finding her long-lost mother. Through every turn she is guided, both by Fox and by her own strength of spirit, away from the shadows of her past toward a very different fate, if she has the courage to accept it.
My Review:
In a peculiar way, Dragon Springs Road reminds me a bit of Jade Dragon Mountain. Although both stories are set in China, their settings are 200 years apart. But the similarity is in the way that both stories managed to evoke a “you are there” feeling, at least for me. It was more than reading about something, it felt like being drawn into the story in both cases.
There was also a tiny element of The Tale of Shikanoko, even though Shikanoko is Japanese and not Chinese. In both that story and this one, there’s that sense of the mythic bleeding into the real. In the case of Dragon Springs Road, that mythic element is the fox spirit who protects Jialing and her mother during their residence on Dragon Springs Road.
Jialing believes that Fox is real, and she certainly seems to affect real things. But does she? As this story is told through Jialing’s eyes, we see things how she believes them to be, not necessarily how things are.
We also see a world that is in the process of change. Dragon Springs Road is in Shanghai, and the story takes place during the first two decades of the 20th century, through both the World War I years and the contentious early years of the Republic of China, as factions and warlords fought for power and against the rising tide of communism within, and Japanese imperial ambitions without.
As the story begins, Jialing is a little girl, one who has lived her entire life on the fringes of the Fong household on Dragon Springs Road. But things are not going well in the Fong household, and her mother, the concubine of the master of the house, is particularly vulnerable. Jialing is too young to understand any of this. All that she knows is that one day her mother goes away, leaving Jialing hiding in the decrepit outbuilding where they have lived.
And from that inauspicious beginning, Jialing is set adrift. She is very, very young. And she is mixed race, and therefore despised by both the Chinese and the Europeans. The household that moves into the Fong’s former residence take her in out of charity. And so she lives, dependent on the kindness of strangers, and knowing that she doesn’t belong anywhere, no matter how hard she tries.
Through the years, Jialing grows up. She makes friends, and enemies. She is fortunate enough to receive a Western education. But no matter how much she improves herself, all that anyone sees is the lowest of the low, a woman of mixed race.
Her friend, companion and guide through the lost years is the Fox who watches over the compound, and over Jialing. Fox both teaches her about the world outside, and makes her forget inconvenient questions. And Fox prevents others from asking inconvenient questions about Jialing.
The one thing that Jialing longs for above all others is to find her mother, and to discover why she was left behind all those years ago. And she does. Just as her entire world falls apart.
Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
Escape Rating A: This is an absolutely lovely story that pulls the reader in and doesn’t let go until the end. It feels as if you are walking that road with Jialing, and not just reading about it. Stories that do that are rare and precious.
Dragon Springs Road is also a very quiet story. Jialing’s life is not the stuff of an adventure tale. She grows up, she does her best to serve, she watches and waits. Much of the action in this story happens to other people, as Jialing watches a second family overtaken by the bad luck that seems to haunt this one house.
And outside the gates, the world changes. Revolutions come, not just to China, but also to nearby Russia. The world that is coming is going to be very different from what has gone before. And Jialing becomes involved, but in the most unlikely of ways.
One of the threads that permeates this story is the prejudice that Jialing faces from all sides, and the ways that prejudice limits her choices. On all sides she is hemmed about by people who consider her less than dirt because she is neither fully Europeon nor fully Chinese. At a time and in a place where lineage is everything, she has none.
And yet she perseveres, making the best choice available to her. And we’re right there with her.
This is a book I simply loved. I was swept away at the beginning and left bereft at the end, gasping and flailing at my return to the real world. It feels like I was in a dream with the Fox, and she just turned me loose.
Dragon Springs Road is a book to get lost in. I loved it so much I’m having a difficult time articulating that love. Why don’t you pick up a copy and see for yourself!
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.
Why? Because jeepers, it is January. Even if it doesn’t really feel like winter here, it is still definitely winter. The nights are just as long and dark, even if they aren’t always cold.
It’s also a great time for this book blog to give away some bookish prizes. Long winter nights are a great time to curl up with a good book!
So, I’ll be giving away the winner’s choice of either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a $10 Book from the Book Depository. For those who either want a book or are international visitors who don’t have a good way of using an Amazon Gift Card, the requirement is that you need an address where Book Depository ships.
Dina DeMille doesn’t run your typical Bed and Breakfast. Her inn defies laws of physics, her fluffy dog is secretly a monster, and the only paying guest is a former Galactic tyrant with a price on her head. But the inn needs guests to thrive, and guests have been scarce, so when an Arbitrator shows up at Dina's door and asks her to host a peace summit between three warring species, she jumps on the chance.
Unfortunately, for Dina, keeping the peace between Space Vampires, the Hope-Crushing Horde, and the devious Merchants of Baha-char is much easier said than done. On top of keeping her guests from murdering each other, she must find a chef, remodel the inn...and risk everything, even her life, to save the man she might fall in love with. But then it's all in the day's work for an Innkeeper…
My Review:
After finishing Clean Sweep in nearly one sitting, I absolutely couldn’t resist pouring through the entire series ASAP. Which I did. And it was glorious.
But specifically about Sweep in Peace…this book adds depth to the world the author has created, and to the characters in the series, particularly Dina, but pretty much everyone her life touches. Or is touched by.
Dina is in kind of a pickle. As she always seems to be in one way or another. In order to remain a viable inn, the Gertrude Hunt needs guests. Her symbiotic relationship with the people who stay with her means that the more guests she has, the more powerful they are, the more she is able to do. And be.
So when an Arbitrator asks her to host an intergalactic peace conference, Dina feels that she needs to take the job. She needs the money AND she needs the guests. So even though she knows that she is literally the inn of last resort, and that keeping her warring guests from bringing the more active parts of their conflict inside her walls, she still needs the money and the guests. And hopes for an increase in the inn’s rating if she is successful, even as she knows that she has about as much chance of success as a snowball in hell.
Speaking of hell, that’s what the fight is all about. The planet Nexus is hell. Or the nearest equivalent that anyone wants to see. But the vampires, the Hope-Crushing Horde and the space merchants of Baha are all fighting over it. It may be hell, but it’s a hell that contains valuable minerals that the vampires and the Horde both want. And the merchants sit on the only land stable enough to have transportation facilities to get those minerals off-planet.
And nobody wants to give an inch of ground, even though it is in their bests interests. The vampires and the horde have both spilled too much blood, and the merchants, as it turns out, have nowhere else to go. It’s a stalemate, until Dina and the Arbitrator step in.
Or rather, until the Arbitrator backs Dina into a corner and forces her to step in. Whether she will step out alive is anyone’s guess. No one gets out of hell unscathed. Not even by proxy.
Escape Rating A: I love this series. Did I say that already? Probably multiple times?
Dina reminds me quite a bit of Marley Jacobs in A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark. Both Dina and Marley wield the same kind of quiet power. And also espouse the same flavor of “neutrality” that will defend those it chooses to the death. Of the other person. Or thing. Or whatever.
The most interesting character in this story is George, the Arbitrator. His tactics in every situation are the exception that proves the rule about whether ends that unquestionably serve the greater good can possibly justify extremely questionable means. Every once in a blue moon, the ends actually do justify the means. Which doesn’t make those means any less terrible. It might just make them even more terrible. George knows that every lie he tells, every truth he omits, every action he takes, is designed to move all his pawns, especially including Dina, into the exact right position to achieve his aims, and he does not care how much he damages those pawns along the way, as long as he achieves his goal. Which is admittedly, a worthy one. And might possibly be worth the cost. Or would be if George were the one to pay it. But he isn’t.
Normally, one says that one would not want to be on someone’s bad side. In George’s case, being on his good side isn’t actually any less dangerous.
That love is all there is is all we know of love is all too true. And terrible the lengths it will drive us to. Which is a big part of what George is counting on, to Dina’s cost.
In the end, this story comes to be about the cost of war and the price of peace. Robert E. Lee was right, it is a good thing that war is so terrible. In this particular case, it isn’t just that war is hell, but this war is on hell. And for hell. Each party in this war is wallowing in their own hell. Once they understand that they are all in it together, they are finally able to break free. Together.
This was a weird week. Somewhere around Sunday I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere reading serious books, even the ones I wanted to read, and just scrapped the whole idea. I basically hit a slump and just needed to read stuff for fun. So I did. I picked up some stuff that I’ve been hoping to read but never got a round tuit, and had a blast. Obviously I need to be way more careful about stacking up too many of one thing, unless it’s for fun.
I enjoyed Clean Sweep so much that I couldn’t resist reading the whole series in one fell swoop. Or one swell foop. So Sweep in Peace is coming up this week and One Fell Sweep either next week or the week after. If you haven’t read the series, just let me say that it definitely lives up to its rave reviews.
After the holidays, all the publishers came back to Netgalley and Edelweiss with a vengeance. It’s gone from famine to feast in the blink of an eye. And I finally decided to seriously dive into some series that I missed, so lots of library books and a few buys from Amazon really round out the week.
On the outside, Dina Demille is the epitome of normal. She runs a quaint Victorian Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town, owns a Shih Tzu named Beast, and is a perfect neighbor, whose biggest problem should be what to serve her guests for breakfast. But Dina is...different: Her broom is a deadly weapon; her Inn is magic and thinks for itself. Meant to be a lodging for otherworldly visitors, the only permanent guest is a retired Galactic aristocrat who can’t leave the grounds because she’s responsible for the deaths of millions and someone might shoot her on sight. Under the circumstances, "normal" is a bit of a stretch for Dina.
And now, something with wicked claws and deepwater teeth has begun to hunt at night....Feeling responsible for her neighbors, Dina decides to get involved. Before long, she has to juggle dealing with the annoyingly attractive, ex-military, new neighbor, Sean Evans—an alpha-strain werewolf—and the equally arresting cosmic vampire soldier, Arland, while trying to keep her inn and its guests safe. But the enemy she’s facing is unlike anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s smart, vicious, and lethal, and putting herself between this creature and her neighbors might just cost her everything.
My Review:
There aren’t many books about innkeepers, but after reading this I have to wonder why. Of course, the Gertrude Hunt is a very special kind of inn, and Dina Demille is certainly not an ordinary innkeeper.
This place is magic. It also has magic.
But it’s a particular kind of magic that has just as many roots in SF as it does in Urban Fantasy. And the roots of the Gertrude Hunt are particularly deep. That’s what inns do, at least the very special ones.
The system of inns and innkeepers in this series blends magic with science fiction in interesting ways. Dina’s guests are often extraterrestrial, and her ability to protect them is more than magical. She doesn’t ride her broom, she spears her enemies with it. But only when they threaten the inn.
And that’s what this story is all about. A threat to the inn. Or at least, something that Dina decides threatens the inn, and its neutrality and its secrecy. Someone is killing dogs in Red Deer, Texas. And cattle. And farmers. And whoever that someone is, they are leaving a particular calling card that Dina recognizes as being from someplace other than Earth.
Of course, the arrival of the space-vampires is also a big clue. They’ve come to take out whatever is marauding in Dina’s neighborhood. If they can. And Dina is willing to help them, for the good of everyone. Even if her own personal werewolf and the leader of the vampires have engaged in a cockfight. Over her.
But Dina is there to do her job, protect her guests, and help her neighbors. No matter what it takes.
Escape Rating A: Like the Gertrude Hunt inn itself, this book is completely charming.
And it also has its hilarious moments. I’m not sure I’ll ever look at Costco quite the same way again. The alien hunter-creatures invading the canned food aisle, being pelted by supersized cans courtesy of a fellow shopper with an excellent throwing arm and the will to use it is one that I won’t forget for quite a while.
The juxtaposition of complete otherworldliness with total normality was an absolute hoot.
But the story here is all about Dina, and Dina deciding what kind of innkeeper she is going to be. She’d be within her rights to batten down the Gertrude Hunt’s hatches and wait until someone else takes out the intergalactic killers. The deaths of her neighbors are not technically her responsibility, as the presence of the deadly dahaka and his hunters is not her fault.
But she can’t do it. These are her friends and neighbors, and she feels obligated to do what she can, no matter the risk to herself and her inn. Which doesn’t stop her from driving a hard information bargain with the vampires when it turns out that the whole mess is their fault. There’s something about vampires and convoluted internal politicking that just seems to transcend series.
I loved this glimpse into a world that both is and is not our own. Dina is a terrific heroine who knows just what she is capable of and has a strong ethical center. She’s capable of kicking ass, but that’s not her first response. She thinks first and then does.
I’m wondering what the author plans to do with the incipient love-triangle that has reared its handsome head. Or heads. The vampire is right, in the Earth stories where a vampire and a werewolf fight over a woman, the vampire always wins. Which doesn’t make it the right thing for Dina. At this early stage, there is an unwelcome strain of possessiveness on the part of both males, and Dina rightfully steers clear of both of them. She has her own calling. She isn’t going to fall into line behind either of theirs, no matter how charismatic (and they definitely are) they might be.
This is a development I’m going to be fascinated to watch.
Gamer. Nerd. Sorceress. Jade Crow lives a quiet life running her comic book and game store in Wylde, Idaho. After twenty-five years fleeing from a powerful sorcerer who wants to eat her heart and take her powers, quiet suits her just fine. Surrounded by friends who are even less human than she is, Jade figures she's finally safe. As long as she doesn't use her magic. When dark powers threaten her friends' lives, a sexy shape-shifter enforcer shows up. He's the shifter world's judge, jury, and executioner rolled into one, and he thinks Jade is to blame. To clear her name, save her friends, and stop the villain, she'll have to use her wits... and her sorceress powers. Except Jade knows that as soon as she does, a far deadlier nemesis awaits. Justice Calling is the first book in The Twenty-Sided Sorceress urban fantasy series.
My Review:
This first book in the Twenty-Sided Sorceress series reads like classic urban fantasy. And since urban fantasy is one of my go-to genres when I’m in a reading slump, that made Justice Calling a perfect read this week.
By classic urban fantasy, I mean really, really classic. The sorceress of the title learned to focus her magic by using Dungeons & Dragons manuals. It doesn’t get much more basic than that.
It isn’t that DnD works per se, just that those manuals provide a lot of order and focus for someone just learning to use powers that aren’t supposed to work in this world, but somehow do. Jade Crow started out as a nerd, and at first the manuals must have seemed like just good fun, until the magic started working.
Now there isn’t a whole lot of fun involved, but there certainly is a challenge.
The story is also classic in another sense – Jade is on the run from a crazy-stalker ex-boyfriend. But unlike the usual versions of that trope, where the stalker wants to either possess or kill his victim, Jade’s ex Samir is a sorcerer who definitely does want to kill her, but then he plans to eat her heart and steal all her power. And I don’t mean figuratively, I mean literally.
Jade has spent the past several years hiding in plain sight. She owns a comic book/game shop in Wylde, Idaho. Wylde is a remote little town on the junction of a whole bunch of ley lines. About half the town’s population is made up of shifters, and lots of other interesting and magical species have made a home there. Jade’s next door neighbor is a leprechaun, and her best friends are all shapechangers of one kind or another.
There are original-recipe humans in town, especially among the student population of the local community college. And when one of Jane’s friends turns up as a taxidermy exhibit, Jane finds herself hunting the college for a wannabe sorcerer who seems to have found a nasty route to power.
But Jane stands at a crossroads, not just literally in Wylde but figuratively in her own life. At the crossroads between running away again, or finally deciding to stand and fight. Into her dilemma rides Justice, in the person of a sexy enforcer who has come to Wylde to either save her friends, save Jade, or all of the above.
Or watch her run away from her friends and her responsibilities, and watch her let her friends die to save herself. Again.
Escape Rating A-: Justice Calling is the introduction to the Twenty-Sided Sorceress series. The case that Jane has to solve is not all that hard to figure out. I almost said it was relatively minor, but that’s not strictly true. It’s easy, but what it represents is important. So not minor.
As an introduction, a lot of this story is taken up with setting the stage and getting all the characters on it. Not just Jane herself, but also her friends who start out a bit like a Scooby-gang, and Justice. Justice in this case is a person named Alek. Justice is his job. He represents the shifter council and is judge, jury and executioner whenever a shifter is harmed.
Alek and Jade find each other almost irresistible, which sets up what will be the long-running romance arc of the series. But his part in Justice Calling is to bear witness to Jade’s decision, and to help her save her shifter friends if she decides “correctly”.
As a big bad, Jade’s ex Samir sounds really, really bad. And evil. And dangerous. Jade hides because that’s what she’s always done. She’s afraid for herself, but she’s more afraid for her friends. Samir has used her family-of-choice against her before, and he’ll have no qualms about doing so again if he finds her.
By the end of the story, the reader is invested in the characters and feels the emotional heft of Jade’s decision to stay and fight. The battle looks to be a long and bloody one.
This is a relatively short book, as are the other stories in the series. Which may explain why the author recently re-released the whole thing in two omnibus volumes, Level Grind and Boss Fight. I seem to have both bought Justice Calling and picked up the omnibuses (omnibi?) from Edelweiss, so I’ll be working my way through the series. And glad to do so.
Lord of the Privateers (The Adventurers Quartet, #4) by 
Lord of the Privateers is an adventure romp with a romance attached – or a romance with an adventure attached. There be two plot threads here, and they are both compelling, if not equally so.
Dragon Springs Road by 
Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles, #2) by 
After finishing 
Coming Next Week:
Clean Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles, #1) by 
Justice Calling by 
By the end of the story, the reader is invested in the characters and feels the emotional heft of Jade’s decision to stay and fight. The battle looks to be a long and bloody one.