Review: Jade Shards by Fonda Lee

Posted on July 31, 2023July 30, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A+ Reviews> book reviews

Jade Shards (Green Bone Saga #0.75) by Fonda Lee
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy, urban fantasy
Series: Green Bone Saga #0.75
Pages: 136
Published by Subterranean Press on July 31, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

Fonda Lee returns to the acclaimed Green Bone Saga with four prequel short stories that delve into the personal histories of the Kaul and Ayt families.
The Witch and Her Friend. Before she was the ruthless leader of the Mountain clan, Ayt Mada was an orphan without friends at school except for one: Aun Ure, a teenage girl feared and renowned as an assassin but yearning for a simpler life.
Not Only Blood. Before he was the heir apparent of the No Peak clan, Kaul Lan challenged his grandfather and clan patriarch to help a boy who had lost everything.
Better Than Jade. Before they were married, Kaul Hilo and Maik Wen were a young couple facing long odds: the son of a top Green Bone clan in love with a stone-eye girl from a disreputable family.
Granddaughter Cormorant. Before she left and returned to Kekon, Kaul Shae was the apple of her grandfather’s eye…as well as a daring secret informer to a foreign country.
Contains an introduction and story notes by the author.

My Review:

Jade Shards isn’t a single story in the world of the Green Bone Saga, rather, just as the title indicates, it’s a series of little stories, shards if you will, of the magically beautiful big green stone that is the entire epic saga that begins with Jade City.

The stories in this collection feature the defining characters of Jade City, Jade War and Jade Legacy, but they are ‘before they were famous’ kinds of stories. In The Witch and Her Friend, we get to meet the towering figure of Ayt Mada on the very first steps of her journey to become the woman who set herself and her entire clan against the Kaul family.

Back when she was not a towering figure – and at that point in Kekon history had no hopes of becoming one. She was young, she was female, she was of unknown origin and she had been adopted into one of the two great families of Kekon. She was expected to be an asset to her new clan, but on the business side. She was never supposed to be the Pillar. WOMEN were not supposed to become Pillars. Period. But here we see the first inkling of the woman who did it anyway.

Ayt Mada was the powerful antagonist of the entire saga, but in that saga, she stood alone as her story does in this collection. The other stories dive deeply into the Kaul family, just as the other three stories here give us a peek into the early days of the three members of the Kaul family who drive the Green Bone Saga, Kaul Lan, Kaul Hilo and Kaul Shae.

All three were the heirs of Kaul Sennington, one of the two great heroes of Kekon’s liberation, along with Ayt Mada’s adopted father Ayt Yugontin. But where Ayt Mada was always alone, and had to fight to become the Pillar, Kaul Lan was always the intended heir of the Kauls.

Their three stories, Not Only Blood, Better Than Jade and Granddaughter Cormorant bring us perspectives on their characters before they became leaders. It’s a view of Lan as he is growing into the person he should have become, Hilo as he takes the first steps on the road to who he will be, and Shae as she attempts to fly away from her destiny.

Everyone who was enthralled by Janloon and fell in love with the characters that truly do live in the pages of the Green Bone Saga will be thrilled to get this glimpse into their earlier lives. And on this last trip back to Kekon will be caught between the pillars of smiling because it happened, and weeping because it’s over.

Escape Rating A+: I’m giving this one an A+ because that’s how deeply I escaped back into the world of the Green Bone Saga, how much I loved going there one more time, and just how damn sad I am that this looks like the last time based on the author’s introduction and notes in the book.

Unlike the first prequel to the Green Bone Saga, The Jade Setter of Janloon, even though all the stories in Jade Shards take place before the opening of Jade City, this is not the kind of prequel that stands alone, nor can it serve as an entry point for Jade City in the way that The Jade Setter of Janloon could.

The story shards in Jade Shards require prior knowledge of both the characters and the setting to have the resonance necessary to make them work. In other words, you have to already care about these people to want to read how they got to be the towering figures they eventually become.

It’s not nearly as interesting to watch their early fumbles and stumbles if you don’t already know just how sure and certain they eventually became on the roads they had to, or chose to, walk. But if you do care, if you’ve already visited Janloon, then Jade Shards is a bittersweet delight from beginning to end.

I finished the Green Bone Saga in tears at the end of Jade Legacy. By the end I felt like I’d walked the road with these marvelous characters and was beyond sad to their story end. It was a right, proper and fitting ending, but I just wasn’t ready to leave this world behind.

And neither was the author, as she admits in the notes for Jade Shards that these stories are a case of her writing fanfiction in the universe that she created. IMHO it’s a universe that is made even richer by these portraits of the clan leaders as young men and women. So I’m glad she was able to put these out into the world and sad that it looks like these will be the last.

The Green Bone Saga gave me the biggest book hangover I can remember in a very long time, one that is still stuck in my brain now two years after I finished Jade Legacy. To the point where I’m highly tempted to start listening to the damn thing all over again.

If you’re still a bit stuck in Janloon and looking for a way to alleviate the ache of missing it, may I recommend Ebony Gate by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle. It’s the first thing that has scratched even the tiniest bit of my itch to return to Kekon. If you have that same itch, it might do the same for you.

And if you don’t have that itch and you’ve read this review to the end, what are you waiting for? Take your very own trip to Jade City and prepare to be captured and captivated.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 7-30-23

Posted on July 30, 2023July 29, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

This week has been weird. Last week was weird as well. Next week will probably be weird too. But at least the books have been good! AND an excellent way to get away from the weird into the bargain. And I have two books I’m super excited about, Jade Shards and A Pirate’s Life for Tea. I really, really need the cozy fantasy vibes of A Pirate’s Life for Tea this week, and well, I’m still so much in mourning over the end of Fonda Lee’s fabulous Green Bone Saga that even the slightest sliver of that world makes my whole month. Which really truly needs some making.

It’s also been egg-frying on the sidewalk hot here in Atlanta, although still not as bad as some places. Here’s a picture of Luna and Tuna who look like they’re melting although I promise they are not.

Stacking the Shelves (559)

Posted on July 29, 2023July 28, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

The lists are calming down again as the publishing push shifts from the huge fall lists to the much smaller winter lists. It’ll go back up again sooner or later. What goes down must come up, after all.

The two books I’m MOST looking forward to are A Pirate’s Life for Tea and The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles. Both are the second books of series that weren’t necessarily series at the time I fell in love with their first books (Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea and The Mimicking of Known Successes), so I’m both pleased to see that they ARE series and even more pleased that I have them to read.

The book I’m anticipating not one but two ways, is Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton. I’m looking forward to it as a thing to read, because I’ve loved the author’s previous work (Mickey7 and Antimatter Blues) but also because it is currently the furthest title out on my calendar. Mal isn’t going to war until April 9, 2024 – a long time from now but just about in time to be part of my lucky THIRTEENTH Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week!

As the comedian Groucho Marx famously said, “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”

color of the elephant by christine herbert

imposition of unnecessary obstacles by malka older

putting the fact in fantasy edited by dan koboldt

For Review:
The Color of the Elephant by Christine Herbert
Daughter of the Dragon by Yunte Huang
The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles (Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti #2) by Malka Older
Like Thunder (Desert Magician’s Duology #2) by Nnedi Okorafor
The Lily of Ludgate Hill (Belles of London #3) by Mimi Matthews
Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton
A Midnight Puzzle (Secret Staircase Mysteries #3) by Gigi Pandian
The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill
Random in Death (In Death #58) by J.D. Robb
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler
Village in the Dark by Iris Yamashita

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Art of Prophecy (War Arts #1) by Wesley Chu (audio)
The Free Bastards (Lot Lands #3) by Jonathan French (audio)
A Pirate’s Life for Tea (Tomes & Tea #2) by Rebecca Thorne
Putting the Fact in Fantasy edited by Dan Koboldt

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Review: Knighthunter by Anna Hackett

Posted on July 28, 2023July 27, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

Knighthunter by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: science fiction, science fiction romance, space opera
Series: Oronis Knights #1
Pages: 258
Published by Anna Hackett on July 26, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Goodreads

She vows to bring her abducted queen home…even if she has to work with the man she hates.Knightmaster Nea Laurier is tough, dedicated, and lives to be the best Oronis knight she can be. All her life, she’s worked hard to live up to her prestigious family name. She will do whatever it takes to rescue Knightqueen Carys from their enemy, the vicious Gek’Dragar…she just wishes it didn’t involve the most cunning and dangerous man she knows. A man she detested when they were at the Academy, and a man she still detests—Knighthunter Kaden Galath.Now she’s headed deep into enemy space, and the only person guarding her back is a man she’ll never trust.Knighthunter Kaden Galath was born in the darkness and came from nothing. Being a knighthunter—a spy for his people—is the perfect job for him. He uses all his unique and deadly abilities to keep the Oronis safe, even the beautiful, perfect, do-gooder Knightmaster Nea. He’s vowed to always stay alone in the shadows…but Nea might be the weakness he never expected.As Kaden and Nea embark on a mission to some of the deadliest enemy planets, they fight side by side, and uncover each other’s darkest secrets. Following the trail leading to their captive queen, Nea and Kaden will face their most dangerous battle yet, and a fiery passion that will engulf them both.

My Review:

Knighthunter is a story about not one but two concurrent chases – one of which is definitely more successful than the other.

The Knightqueen of Oron was kidnapped by the Gek’Dragar in the first book in the Oronis Knights series, Knightmaster, which was all wrapped up in the investigation into that catastrophe as well as the romance between Knightmaster Ashtin Caydor and xenoanthropologist Kennedy Black from Earth. In Knighthunter, Knightmaster Nea Laurier and Knighthunter Kaden Galath have been tasked with hunting down the Knightqueen and her dedicated and bonded Knightguard Sten before the Gek’Dragar complete whatever dastardly plans they have for Knightqueen Carys in specific and most likely the Oronis in general.

It’s not like the Oronis and Gek’Dragar haven’t been bitter enemies since pretty much forever. And as the Oronis are allies of the bands of heroes in both the Galactic Guardians series AND the Eon Warriors series, they are the ones on the side of the angels.

The Gek’Dragar, on the other hand, are in league with (probably loosely and with intent to betray at some point) and certainly in the league of the rapacious Kantos, the dastardly enemies of the Eon Warriors.

So we all know where we stand – or fly – in not just this heinous act but also in the war that this is clearly a prelude for.

But, there are also enemies, of the much closer and more intimate kind, closer to home. Nea Laurier and Kaden Galath attended the Academy together. Well, not really together-together, but at the same time.

Each was the thorn in the other’s side for all the years of their schooling, and can’t seem to stand to be in the same room, let alone stuck with each other in a series of cramped two-person ships on the hunt for their kidnapped Knightqueen.

But appearances can be deceiving, and, in the spirit of the best defense being a good offense, Nea and Kaden have been defending so hard against their feelings for each other that it’s looked like a whole lot of being offensive. For nearly a decade of bristling hostility.

Howsomever, the longer they spend together in the here and now, the more occasions when they just miss their quarry, the more they realize that the masks they have been wearing with each mostly serve to hide their true feelings from themselves.

In the heat of that race, even as they chase down a ship that hides from them at every turn, they stop hiding from themselves. And each other.

Escape Rating A-: In terms of the overarching story of the Oronis vs. the ‘Big Bad’, in this instance the Gek’Dragar, Nea and Kaden’s pursuit of a series of fleeing Gek’Dragar ships through Gek’Dragar space gives the reader a tour of the galaxy and a whole host of reasons to understand why the Oronis have such a huge and justified hate-on for their scaly enemy.

Meanwhile, the sheer volume of true enemies that Nea and Kaden have to wade through in their hunt for their missing Knightqueen puts their personal enmity into sharp relief. They’ve never really hated each other, particularly not in comparison to what true hatefulness looks like.

But the heat of their enemies into lovers relationship burns away any misunderstandings between the two of them – and are there ever plenty! Many of which can be laid at the feet of Nea’s snobby, relentlessly demanding douchecanoe of a father. He may have had his reasons, or his own griefs, that created the mess of a relationship he has with his only remaining child, but his treatment of Kaden even all the way back in the younger man’s Academy days has no excuse.

It was also a whole lot of painful fun to watch Nea whack dear-old-dad with a big clue-by-four, but he clearly needed more applications of that device before he gets the point. I hope we get to see those whacks delivered in a later book.

But seriously, the way that Nea and Kaden keep JUST missing Carys and her kidnappers ratchets up the dramatic tension in this one from the first page to the very last, as the hope that keeps getting snatched away comes back into view yet again.

This was great fun both as an adventure and as a romance, and I really loved being along for both rides. It also makes an excellent setup for the next book in the series, Knightqueen, coming early next year. In romances, I tend to find the chase much more interesting than the catch. And this one really kept me going through one ultimately successful chase – and one I hope to see turn successful soon!

Review: The Horoscope Writer by Ash Bishop

Posted on July 27, 2023July 26, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B- Reviews> book reviews

The Horoscope Writer by Ash Bishop
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: horror, mystery, thriller
Pages: 320
Published by CamCat Books on July 18, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Leo: You’ll step out the door, prepared for a normal day. But you’ll never reach your workplace. You will vanish, without a trace.
Who is The Horoscope Writer? It’s not Bobby Frindley. He’s an ex-Olympic athlete who has fast-talked his way into an entry-level position at a dying newspaper. He’s supposed to be writing horoscopes, but someone has been doing his job for him . . .
On his first night on the job, Bobby receives an email with twelve gruesome, highly-detailed horoscopes, along with a chilling ultimatum: print them and one will come true, or ignore them and all of them will.
Working with a skeptical co-worker, Bobby investigates the horoscope writer’s true identity, but the closer he gets to the truth, the more the predictions begin to be about him. Has he attracted the attention of a cruel puppeteer? Or is it possible that, like any good horoscope, it’s all in his mind?

My Review:

Human beings do their damndest to find patterns in things that don’t have them. The whole idea behind that concept, patternicity, is a huge part of what drives the plot and the people in the book Rabbits by Terry Miles, and its upcoming sequel, The Quiet Room.

We want the world to make sense, so we try to force that sense into the world whether it’s there or not.

Which may be part of why people faithfully read their horoscopes and believe the rather vague hints and warnings therein. Because it’s easy to make the predictions and warnings cover the events of the day after the fact, especially if one is looking for such coverage.

But in this story, the new ‘horoscope writer’ for a struggling regional newspaper in San Diego receives a full set of horoscopes from an anonymous ‘benefactor’ with an attached threat – or warning – or a bit of both.

If the horoscopes are published in full, only one will come true. But if they’re not, all of them will. While some are trivial, a few on the list are downright dire – but also very much against the odds. Former Olympian and hopeful journalist Bobby Frindley believes it’s all a hoax.

At least until the rare tiger leaps out of his zoo enclosure and kills a tourist – just as his horoscope predicted.

From that point forward, the story is off to the races as the horoscope writer turned fledgeling reporter becomes caught up in the global phenomenon of figuring out which of the day’s predictions are going to come true – and wondering who is trying to force the pattern and to what grisly end.

And whether that end will be Bobby’s, his friends’, his city’s, or just his soul.

Escape Rating B-: I picked up The Horoscope Writer because I reviewed the author’s debut novel, Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc. for Library Journal and had a blast, so I was hoping for more of the same.

I certainly got caught up in Bobby Frindley’s ride to fame and maybe fortune as he tries to cobble out a career as an investigative journalist in the waning days of newspaper journalism. But there were a couple of things that I kept tripping over as I followed Bobby’s trek out of the frying pan and into the fire as he latched onto one flawed potential father-figure after another.

The Horoscope Writer reads like the ‘evil twin’ of the late 1990s TV series Early Edition, where a kind of average guy receives a daily delivery of the Chicago Sun-Times (how the mighty have fallen) that is one day ahead. The protagonist has one day to right whatever wrong he reads in the prognosticating paper before it’s too late to fix.

But that early newspaper delivery turned out to be on the side of the angels, while the horoscopes that Bobby starts receiving are a lot more like horrorscopes, and that’s before the general public starts trying to make them come true – or at least the potentially ‘good’ ones, often with considerably less than good results.

Humans being human, because they are.

As much as Bobby as a character read like more than a bit of a ‘failure to launch’, he also read like at least one answer to a question that I’ve always wondered about, the fate of people like Olympic athletes in sports that don’t have long-term career prospects. He’s achieved a kind of fame and success that people dream of, but at a time when nearly all of his life is still ahead of him.

Bobby’s flailing around for a second act, and the one that lands in his lap turns out to be a doozy – or will be if it doesn’t get him killed.

Howsomever, while I found the story compelling to read in the earlier stages, particularly when it really seemed possible that the story was heading into true psychic or fantasy territory in some way, when Bobby started zeroing in on a more mundane agent – at least for criminally sociopathic definitions of mundane – it lost a bit of its fascination for this reader as it shifted fully into ‘bwahaha’ territory.

All things considered, The Horoscope Writer started out strong, and had some compelling dramatic possibilities along the way, but in the end wasn’t nearly as good as Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc. But I still have high hopes for the author’s next – especially if he leans back into SFnal territory.

Review: The Lady from Burma by Allison Montclair

Posted on July 26, 2023July 25, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> book reviews

The Lady from Burma (Sparks & Bainbridge, #5) by Allison Montclair
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Sparks & Bainbridge #5
Pages: 336
Published by Minotaur Books on July 25, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

In Allison Montclair's The Lady from Burma, murder once again stalks the proprietors of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau in the surprisingly dangerous landscape of post-World War II London…
In the immediate post-war days of London, two unlikely partners have undertaken an even more unlikely, if necessary, business venture - The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. The two partners are Miss Iris Sparks, a woman with a dangerous - and never discussed - past in British intelligence and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a war widow with a young son entangled in a complicated aristocratic family. Mostly their clients are people trying to start (or restart) their lives in this much-changed world, but their new client is something different. A happily married woman has come to them to find a new wife for her husband. Dying of cancer, she wants the two to make sure her entomologist, academic husband finds someone new once she passes.
Shortly thereafter, she's found dead in Epping Forest, in what appears to be a suicide. But that doesn't make sense to either Sparks or Bainbridge. At the same time, Bainbridge is attempting to regain legal control of her life, opposed by the conservator who has been managing her assets - perhaps not always in her best interest. When that conservator is found dead, Bainbridge herself is one of the prime suspects. Attempting to make sense of two deaths at once, to protect themselves and their clients, the redoubtable owners of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau are once again on the case.

My Review:

The course of true love never does run smooth, and the business of finding it even less so, especially when Sparks & Bainbridge mix the business of romance with the business of murder.

They also say that money is the root of all evil, and that every woman needs roots. Gwen Bainbridge has money – she’s just not permitted to spend it or control it or act independently about it or pretty much anything else without the permission of the legal minder assigned to her by the Court of Lunacy. An assignment that Gwen and her psychiatrist believe that she is ready to shuck off two years after her official diagnosis.

Gwen attempted suicide upon learning of the death of her husband at Monte Cassino during the late war. So her wealthy father-in-law had her committed and her rights stripped away, resigning her to the treatments of the day which were barbaric in the extreme both medically and legally.

One of the overarching plots in this series has been about Gwen’s quest to regain her independence as well as custody of her son, and get both of them out from under the various thumbs they are forced to endure.

Her in-laws at least meant well, even if their methods for going about it were terrible. The motives of the man in charge of her fate, her ‘Committee’ in the legal parlance of the day, turn out to be even more terrible than she originally believed.

But Gwen is intimately acquainted with the circumstances that might drive someone to suicide, so, when a client presents themselves at the Right Sort Marriage Bureau, intending to contract for a search for her soon-to-be-widower, Gwen is suspicious that Adele Remagen is planning to take her own life before cancer takes it for her.

And Gwen is having none of it. To the point where she refuses to take the rather unusual contract unless Mrs. Remagen promises not to end her life prematurely. A promise the dying woman gives.

So it’s a surprise to learn that Adele Remagen seems to have committed suicide after all. Unless the suspicions of the young constable who found her body are to be taken into more account than his supervisor is willing to allow.

Which of course, both Sparks & Bainbridge certainly are. That Mrs. Remagen’s death is going to tie itself neatly if not tidily into Gwen’s pursuit of her independence is not something that either Sparks or Bainbridge see anywhere on the horizon, but it is looming there all the same.

The question is whether Gwen can get out from under everything else that is looming over her before it’s too late.

Escape Rating A: The Lady from Burma is a story about closings and openings. Mrs. Adele Remagen’s life is closing, and the top item on her ‘to-do’ list before she dies is to make sure that her beloved husband opens himself back up to the world after she’s gone.

Gwen Bainbridge hopes that her life is opening back up. She has high hopes that her petition for independence from the Court of Lunacy will be granted and that her life will become her own, in many ways for the very first time. And it’s only on the cusp of that longed-for change that she realizes that she never really closed out the last chapter of her life and that she needs to do that before she can start again, as the person she is now.

Iris Sparks is looking at both sides of the equation. Acknowledging that she has opened her heart to gangster Archie Spelling, and that being part of some level of commitment to a relationship doesn’t have to mean the loss of her hard-won independence.

In the midst of all their personal issues, Sparks & Bainbridge have learned that they are meeting on a common platform that neither expected when the series opened. Iris Sparks has always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie, as evidenced by her secret work during WW2. But Gwen Bainbridge, who has always played it safe, has come out of her experience with a yen to experience all that life has to offer – including the dangerous and deadly parts. She’s gotten just as addicted as Sparks to the rush of throwing herself into danger and solving the case – even if she’s still struggling a bit with admitting that to herself.

Because this case has brought out both the best and the worst of her, as she has to fight her corner for her freedom, and prove to the men who want to control her that she is both utterly sane and totally committed to standing on her own two feet and defying them when they try to contain her. A combination of positions that threatens to put her right back in the sanatorium – not because she’s wrong but because she’s right.

And in the middle of their personal sturm und drang, of which there is plenty on all sides, there’s the search for justice for Adele Remagen, and the grief of love lost that may never be found again.

Sparks & Bainbridge are fascinating protagonists. They come from such opposite backgrounds, have such different responses to both their work AND the murder-y messes they find themselves in, and yet have found a path to sisterhood that surprises, delights and supports them both. I found a reading ‘partnership’, so to speak, with them in their first outing, The Right Sort of Man, and I enjoy both following their journey AND watching them make matches as they solve murders. The Lady from Burma was another captivating read about this intrepid duo, so I’m already looking forward to their next adventure!

Review: Murder at Half Moon Gate by Andrea Penrose

Posted on July 25, 2023July 24, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

Murder at Half Moon Gate (A Wrexford & Sloane Mystery) by Andrea Penrose
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Wrexford & Sloane #2
Pages: 360
Published by Kensington on March 27, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A wealthy lord who happens to be a brilliant scientist . . . an enigmatic young widow who secretly pens satirical cartoons . . . a violent killing disguised as a robbery . . . Nothing is as it seems in Regency London, especially when the Earl of Wrexford and Charlotte Sloane join forces to solve a shocking murder.
When Lord Wrexford discovers the body of a gifted inventor in a dark London alley, he promptly alerts the watchman and lets the authorities handle the matter. But Wrexford soon finds himself drawn into the murder investigation when the inventor's widow begs for his assistance, claiming the crime was not a random robbery. It seems her husband's designs for a revolutionary steam-powered engine went missing the night of his death. The plans could be worth a fortune . . . and very dangerous in the wrong hands.
Joining Wrexford in his investigation is Charlotte Sloane, who uses the pseudonym A. J. Quill to publish her scathing political cartoons. Her extensive network of informants is critical for her work, but she doesn't mind tapping that same web of spies to track down an elusive killer. Each suspect--from ambitious assistants to rich investors, and even the inventor's widow--is entwined in a maze of secrets and lies that leads Wrexford and Sloane down London's most perilous stews and darkest alleyways.
With danger lurking at every turn, the potent combination of Wrexford's analytical mind and Sloane's exacting intuition begins to unravel the twisted motivations behind the inventor's death. But they are up against a cunning and deadly foe--a killer ready to strike again before they can recover the inventor's priceless designs . . .

My Review:

Everyone has secrets. Everybody lies. Everybody dies. When the Earl of Wrexford practically trips over direct evidence of the latter on his way home from drinking at his club, he’s not all that interested in poking his nose into either of the former, at least not as long as it looks like the man’s death was the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and not having enough money on his person to convince the footpads to leave him alone – or at least alive.

It’s only in the cold and entirely too bright light of the next morning, coping badly with his hangover from the drinking of the night before, that Wrex learned that he knew the man whose corpse he discovered, and that his recollections of the crime scene don’t jibe AT ALL with the official determination of a robbery gone wrong.

Or at least not the usual kind of robbery. Someone slit the seams of the dead man’s clothing to hunt for something secreted in the lining. Something like papers.

Considering that the late Elihu Ashton was a genius engineer who had purportedly invented a way of making a more powerful steam engine, and that the patents for that revolutionary invention had not yet been filed, there are plenty of motives for his murder.

In Regency England, steam is the power that is driving the burgeoning industrial revolution. There’s money to be made in anything that increases the power and efficiency of steam engines.

But the money that will be made will line the pockets of the investors. The rich will get richer. And the workers who will lose their jobs and their livelihoods as the inevitable result of all that efficiency have no hope and no choices.

Unless they turn ‘Radical’ and break the machines that are taking away their work and their dignity. Or unless someone is using them to divert suspicion from yet another rich man’s grab for more money and more power.

Wrex may not want to be involved in another murder, and he swears that he’s a man of science who doesn’t even have a heart other than as an efficient pump for his circulatory system. But Charlotte Sloane seems to have infected him with her inability to let an injustice stand – even if her own secrets get exposed along the way.

Along with his.

Escape Rating A-: I picked this up, so soon after finishing Murder at Black Swan Lane, because I was still searching for comfort reads after last week and kind of wanted to stay in Sebastian St. Cyr’s world after Friday’s review of Why Kings Confess. But reading books in a series too close together doesn’t work as well for me as I always hope it will, so I turned to Wrexford & Sloane, which is very much the same world, just seen through a different set of characters who therefore have a different perspective on the same point in time.

Although St. Cyr and Wrexford are both aristocrats in Regency England, and quite literally occupy the same social strata (Wrexford has already inherited his Earldom while St. Cyr hasn’t yet) Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, investigates murders that touch on the powers that be – sometimes all the way up to the Prince Regent himself – or at least his household.

Wrexford is a man of science, a member of the Royal Academy, and his circle of friends and influence is vastly different. Where St. Cyr is often focused on the Napoleonic Wars and the destruction they have left in their wake, Wrexford is more focused on the advances of the scientific community and the social unrest that seems to follow the change and upheaval of society that is its result.

And if Wrexford isn’t sufficiently focused on that change and upheaval, his friend, the artist and satirist A.J. Quill is more than happy to point him in the right direction.

At the heart of this story, both the mystery and the situation that surrounds it, is change. The change in working conditions that has sparked the radical political movement, the Luddites that violently oppose change, and the further widening gap between the titans of the new industry and the human beings who are its true engine. And the changes of life and circumstance that have caught up Charlotte Sloane, AKA A.J. Quill, even as she and Wrex get themselves caught up in another murder investigation.

Charlotte Sloane is determined that Bow Street doesn’t take the easy way out, blaming the radical workers for a series of murders that have more to do with money than politics. Wrex is caught between preventing a miscarriage of justice and preventing Charlotte and her young charges from becoming victims of yet another villain’s machinations.

While each wonders whether the other has a heart after all, and whether they can find their way to each other in spite of the barriers between them. But first they have to survive the bloody mess they’ve landed themselves in this time. With the able assistance of their friends, and colleagues, and especially the Weasels.

The first and most obvious readalike for Wrexford & Sloane is still, by far and away, Sebastian St. Cyr. If you like one you’ll like the other and vice versa. But now that I’m two books in with Wrexford & Sloane, the elements that set the two apart have become more apparent, and that’s most definitely an excellent thing.

At the same time, this series has also brought other historical mysteries to mind, especially Lady Sherlock and Mary Russell. Charlotte Sloane’s situation has turned out to be much like Charlotte Holmes’ in the Lady Sherlock series, although I believe that Sloane’s solution is likely to be a bit more traditional than that particular Holmes. And for any reader who loved the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, the ending of Murder at Half Moon Gate has more than a passing resemblance to the conclusion of A Monstrous Regiment of Women and I am most definitely here for it.

As well as for the next book in the Wrexford & Sloane series, Murder at Kensington Palace, the next time I’m looking for a comfort read that introduces itself with a corpse.

Review: The Book of Gems by Fran Wilde

Posted on July 24, 2023July 23, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

The Book of Gems (Gemworld, #3) by Fran Wilde
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy
Series: Gem Universe #3
Pages: 142
Published by Tordotcom on June 20, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

“A glittering tale of academic jealousy and ancient artifacts, The Book of Gems is a pulse-pounding adventure.” ―Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor
Some truths are shatterproof...
It’s been centuries since the Jeweled Valley and its magical gems were destroyed. In the republics that rose from its ashes, scientists craft synthetic jewels to heat homes, power gadgetry, and wage war.
Dr. Devina Brunai is one of these scientists. She also is the only person who believes true gems still exist. The recent unearthing of the Palace of Gems gives her the perfect opportunity to find them and prove her naysayers wrong.
Her chance is snatched away at the last moment when her mentor steals her research and wins the trip for himself. Soon, his messages from the field transform into bizarre ramblings about a book, a Prince, and an enemy borne of the dark. Now Dev must enter the Valley, find her mentor, and save her research before they, like gems, become relics of a time long forgotten.
More books in the Gem The Jewel and Her LapidaryThe Fire Opal Mechanism

My Review:

The Book of Gems is the third book in the Gem Universe, after The Jewel and Her Lapidary and The Fire Opal Mechanism. This entry in the series brings the action back to the place and the history where it all began, the Jeweled Valley.

In that first book, the titular characters, Jewel Lin and her Lapidary Sima, sacrifice themselves in their attempt to save the Jeweled Valley. While their attempt is not exactly in vain, it is a bit of a pyrrhic victory. They destroy what they love in order to save it from, literally, the ravening hordes who intend not merely to destroy it, but to use its power on their way to saving the world by destroying that.

The Fire Opal Mechanism is the story in the middle, as the history of this world has gone on its not so merry way, down the path that Lin and Sima tried to prevent. Or at least did their level best to keep the power of the singing gems from powering the destruction of the world.

They didn’t exactly fail, but they certainly didn’t succeed, either. In this second book it’s up to their descendants to divert the tide – or at least to set their less than powerful selves against the onrushing storm.

Now the story has both come full circle and done a strange turn into Motel of the Mysteries, but one not nearly as much fun. Because that tyranny has come and finally gone, leaving in its wake a dearth of true historical documentation and a whole lot of scholarly inquiry about things that perhaps shouldn’t be inquired into. Resulting in seemingly innumerable academic and archaeological expeditions to the Jeweled Valley to dig up things that should remain buried, even as the academics seem to be doing their worst to bury each other’s careers if not, actually, each other.

In the midst of this furious excavation, the Jeweled Valley is being slowly but surely uncovered, as it waits a bit impatiently for Lin and Sima’s descendants to save it one more time. Or at least to save their world from the force that has been waiting within. Or both. Definitely both.

Escape Rating A-: I originally picked up The Jewel and Her Lapidary because I was looking for a short bite of the SF/F reading apple and Tordotcom always delivers. I stuck with the series because that first book was just so damn good, such a perfect epic fantasy in an amazingly succinct little package, that I couldn’t resist seeing what happened after Jewel’s rather cataclysmic ending. Not that it didn’t have a slam-bang, bittersweet ending for itself, but the world clearly had plenty more stories to tell.

The second book, The Fire Opal Mechanism, kept me enthralled because it was just a little too prescient, all the while managing to be both different from the first while still following the same threads.

This third book does a lovely job of bringing the saga full circle while still telling a story of its own that yet manages to tug on those very same threads – as well as some of the same heartstrings.

All the books in this series are stories about power imbalances, very specifically the vast, sweeping power of tyrannies to control and rewrite history and belief vs. the tiny, subversive but ultimately enduring power of families and family stories to keep the truth alive in spite of the odds and the power of the state to stop them. At the same time, there’s also a bit of the “Mother Nature bats last” trope, as in this ending, the singing jewels and their imbued power have been hunted down and corrupted and yet are still waiting for their chance to rise once more.

The form that each story in the series has taken have also differed, and this entry in the series is very much a story about academia, both dark and light, the viciousness of its politics and policies and the single-mindedness of its pursuers in their intellectual pursuits. And in this particular entry in the series, the power imbalance between an untenured lecturer and the head of their department. This facet of the story had a surprisingly similar vibe to Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes, which I utterly loved.

So even though it doesn’t seem like there will be more stories in the Gem Universe – at least for a while, I do have the sequel to Mimicking, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, to look forward to. And, very much like the way the drama in The Book of Gems plays out, doesn’t that title just scream academic obfuscation? Which is always fun to see knocked down, just as much as it was in The Book of Gems.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 7-23-23

Posted on July 23, 2023July 23, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

This has been one of THOSE weeks. You know the kind, the weeks where your personal spoon supply runs out on Monday and there’s still entirely too many days to go – every single one of which does its damndest to demand yet more spoons.

So I ended last week flailing for a comfort read, and got so sucked in that I almost picked up the next book in the same series, but that doesn’t usually work for me because as much as I love the world it’s set in, too much too close together usually doesn’t keep me as enthralled as I hope. We’ll see all the way around.

But to keep all of us on our toes, so to speak, here are Luna and Tuna recharging their solar batteries. At least someone is enjoying the overabundance of the stuff, as the humans are mostly just exhausted!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Christmas in July Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Summer 2023 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

A Review: Montego by Brian McClellan
A++ Review: Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden
A+ Review: Ebony Gate by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle
B+ Review: Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders
A- Review: Why Kings Confess by C.S. Harris
Stacking the Shelves (558)

Coming This Week:

The Book of Gems by Fran Wilde (review)
Murder at Half Moon Gate by Andrea Penrose (review)
The Lady from Burma by Allison Montclair (review)
The Horoscope Writer by Ash Bishop (review)
Knighthunter by Anna Hackett (review)

Stacking the Shelves (558)

Posted on July 22, 2023July 22, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

The book I’m looking the most forward to in this stack is Assistant to the Villain, because I loved, Loved, LOVED Hench and this is giving me the same delicious vibes. I adore stories where people are good at what they do, even if that means that they are very, very good at being very, very bad. I have high hopes for this one!