Publisher: Orbit

#BookReview: The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Bannen

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan BannenThe Undermining of Twyla and Frank (Hart and Mercy, #2) by Megan Bannen
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, dragons, fantasy romance, Weird West, fantasy
Series: Hart and Mercy #2
Pages: 464
Published by Orbit on July 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a heartwarming fantasy with a best friends-to-lovers rom com twist--When Harry Met Sally, but with dragons!—set in the delightful demigod and donut-filled world of Tanria.
The entire town of Eternity was shocked when widowed, middle-aged Twyla Banneker partnered up with her neighbor and best friend, Frank Ellis, to join the Tanrian Marshals. Eight years later, Twyla and Frank are still patrolling the dangerous land of Tanria, the former prison of the Old Gods.
Twyla might look like a small town mom who brings cheesy potatoes to funerals and whips up a batch of cookies for the school bake sale, but her rewarding career in law enforcement has been a welcome change from the domestic grind of mom life, despite the misgivings of her grown children.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) a recent decrease in on-the-job peril has made Twyla and Frank's job a lot safer ... and a lot less exciting. So when they discover the body of one of their fellow marshals covered in liquid glitter--and Frank finds himself the inadvertent foster dad to a baby dragon--they are more than happy to be back on the beat.
Soon, the friends wind up ensnared in a nefarious plot that goes far deeper than any lucrative Tanrian mineshaft. But as the danger closes in and Twyla and Frank's investigation becomes more complicated, so does their easy friendship. And Twyla starts to realize that her true soul mate might just be the person who has lived next door all along...

My Review:

Twyla Banneker and Frank Ellis are the very best of friends – and have been for more than a decade. They are also next-door neighbors in the tiny town of Eternity, and are partners in the Tanrian Marshals. They are, in every possible way except one, each other’s person all the way down to the bone.

Their deep and true friendship is the bedrock upon which their lives are completely invested. They helped raise each other’s kids. They’ve saved each other’s lives. They’ve killed for each other and they’ve nearly died for each other – many times each.

But there is a gigantic misunderstandammit at the core of their relationship. Frank has always believed that Twyla’s marriage to her husband Drew – now more than a decade dead – was so wonderful that she’s never looked at another man in all the years since. Frank’s marriage ended in divorce about as long ago and he’s certain that Twyla’s marriage was nothing like the clusterfuck he was part of.

Twyla, on the other hand, because her marriage was nothing like Frank thought it was from the outside, never ever thinks of her now 50-something self as being anything more than useful. And she doesn’t want to go there again, ever. She’s not still mourning Drew – in fact she feels guilty that she didn’t all that much to begin with. She loves her now adult children, but she’s happy to have her own space and her own life. She just can’t believe any man would want her at this point in her life and she’s convinced herself she’s fine with that.

And she and Frank have much too much to lose if they even think about being more to each other than what they already are, and rely on, and pretty much live for even if neither of them can admit it.

Which is where they are when one of their fellow marshals is killed in the not-nearly-as-wild-as-they-used-to-be Tanrian Wilds, smothered in glitter. Yes, glitter. Nothing in Tanria, as far as anyone knows, produces glitter as any sort of byproduct. As far as anyone knows.

At least, not until Frank and Twyla find a creature that’s supposed to be extinct, poachers attempting to poach that same creature, and the disgustingly glittery evidence that there be dragons here, and that these dragons spit, not fire, but something considerably sparklier.

Escape Rating B: I both kind of knew what I was getting into and kind of forgot. I read that first book, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, more than two years ago, and got a bit frustrated by it but in the end mostly liked it. I picked this one up now because the third book, The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam, is coming out this summer. I wanted to get caught up.

This series is definitely sitting on one of those genre bending fences – honestly, I think directly on the actual splintering fencepost complete with the point at the top – between cozy fantasy, fantasy romance, and the Weird West.

Not that Tanria is actually the Wild West, even a paranormal/supernatural version of it, but between the dead drudges from the first book, the concept of marshals riding circuits looking for both monsters and poachers, the supernatural storms and the sorta/kinda horses, it has the feel of the Weird West all the same.

The small town vibes of Eternity, where Frank and Twyla live, with their combination of magical and mundane businesses and big city sophisticates far, far away, reads a lot like Tawney in Tomes & Tea (otherwise known as the Can’t Spell Treason without Tea series). Or even the town in Legends & Lattes. But the reference to Tomes & Tea is considerably stronger in this entry in this series because of the dragons. Not so much the glitter, but definitely the dragons.

The romance in this entry in the series, very much like The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, was both the strongest AND the most frustrating – and not just in the sense of the obvious pun. On the plus side, and very much so, the possible/probable friends into lovers romance between Twyla and Frank is a very real source of dramatic tension because it’s such a real and difficult problem. If they get it right, they’ll have something amazing. But they already have something pretty darn wonderful and they’re risking losing it if they reach for more and fail.

That a good chunk of the reason they are such a mess about it is based on a honking huge misunderstandammit of many years’ duration gave me fits. Frank starts out in a hole and can’t seem to stop digging when it comes to how he feels about Twyla and how he assumes she feels in return. I wanted to reach in and knock some heads together rather often.

Very much on my third hand – and I’m sure there’s some creature in Tanria that has at least three – I loved that Frank and Twyla absolutely do have a relationship of equals, both in their friendship and in their working relationship in the marshals. And I particularly enjoyed that this is a romance between people who are mature adults and that it needs to be that way. The romance doesn’t work without the weight of their long friendship to ground it.

The dragons turned out to be the glittery icing on this particular cake. They also turn out to be an important part of both the story and the future of Tanria, but not in ANY of the ways one generally expects in fantasy. And the baby dragons are clearly adorable beyond words and they gave the story a light, glittery heart at the center that was as delightful as it was unexpected.

I came into this one looking for the pun in the title, because I knew there had to be one after the first book, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy. This time around, the pun was considerably less obvious and a bit more directly related to the plot, but it’s definitely there.

The next book in this series is The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam, coming in July. Considering that Marshal Rosie is an immortal demigod, I’m really curious to discover just how she’s going to get ‘undercut’ because it’s going to have to be something sharp and special to even make a dent. We’ll find out this summer!

A+ #BookReview: Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
A+ #BookReview: Greenteeth by Molly O’NeillGreenteeth by Molly O'Neill
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, fairy tales, fantasy, historical fantasy, retellings
Pages: 304
Published by Orbit on February 25, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle-sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce. Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she’s worth saving.
Temperance doesn’t know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor. Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny’s lake and Temperance’s family – as well as the very soul of Britain.

My Review:

This is a book that I came into with no idea of what I was getting into. I had the blurb but that wasn’t much – or rather I didn’t glean all that much from it. Going in, I knew a whole lot more about the witch, Temperance, than I did about the titular narrator, Jenny Greenteeth. That this is the author’s OMG fantastically excellent and totally wonderful DEBUT meant that there wasn’t much in the way of previous work to look at, either.

But I was captivated from the very first page, when we meet Jenny Greenteeth under the lake near the tiny village of Chipping Appleby – and Jenny meets the witch Temperance Crump after she finds the woman weighted down with chains UNDER Jenny’s lake. From Jenny’s perspective, Temperance has obviously been accused of witchcraft. Equally obvious, the accusation is correct as Temperance is trying desperately to hang on to the air bubble she’s conjured so that she can survive this ordeal.

Little do both Jenny and Temperance know that their ordeal has barely begun.

Jenny rescues the witch – because she really doesn’t want witch corpses – or honestly ANY corpses – littering her pristine lake. AND because she’s lonely. Especially because she’s lonely even if she can’t quite let herself admit it.

Temperance allows herself to be rescued – because she’s panicked and desperate and seemingly doesn’t have much of a choice. But even in her panic and desperation – she does. She could let her fear override what little sense anyone would have while drowning at the bottom of a lake after the epic betrayal by everyone in her village. Or she could trust in the one being who is trying to help her – in spite of Jenny’s truly frightening appearance.

Considering that Temperance has just been condemned to death by a group of people just like her who have known her all of all of their lives, trusting in the kindness of a stranger who is really, truly strange is a hell of a leap of faith.

But she does reach out and Jenny reaches back and together they reach forward to someone who can help them take down a much, much bigger problem than either of them ever imagined.

So Temperance the witch and Jenny Greenteeth bargain with the goblin Brackus Marsh and together they form an unlikely ‘fellowship’ indeed. A fellowship that, just like the more famous such company in a much bigger story, goes on a magical quest to banish a great evil by taking a walk through some very dark places indeed.

That, in the end, they discover an even greater magic that elevates their quest and their story into a legend that is even more magical than they – and the reader – ever imagined.

Escape Rating A+: Greenteeth turned out to be an absolute delight of a historical fantasy, mixing a bit of myth and a bit of magic into a lovely story of found friendship and sisterhood.

At first it combines the relatively minor myths of the Jenny Greenteeths and other such creatures with the true but terrible history of the persecution of women who refused to stay in the place society had decreed for them through false accusations of witchcraft.

And I honestly thought the story was going to be about that juxtaposition – about the magic of the world, magic like the Jennies and the Fae Courts – going out of the world in the face of increased population and rational thinking while at the same time false accusations of witchcraft were being thrown around willy-nilly.

Then the story started developing layers – and I started recognizing the layers that had been there from the beginning.

I was barely familiar with Jenny Greenteeth – and mostly from T. Kingfisher’s excellent Thornhedge. But there are Jennies underneath a lot of fantasy if you can catch them out of the corner of your eye – like the grindylows in Harry Potter and the ‘Red Jennies’ in Dragon Age as well as more than few actual Jennies keeping an eye on some of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children. There are also Jenny-like creatures in many, many mythologies around the world. Stick your face in any pond, anywhere, and there’s probably a Jenny lurking somewhere under the reeds.

So Greenteeth turned into a story about sisterhood and found family among the unlikeliest creatures, a story about the magic going away, and a story about a woman reclaiming her life, her village and her family with the help of some very unusual friends.

And then it went down into the dark of a dangerous magical quest, the last gasp of powers that are fading fast and set them and itself against an evil that plans to swallow the world. Then it went to a place out of a bigger and brighter legend entirely and I was left gasping at the end in awe and relief.

If Thornhedge and Spear by Nicola Griffith had a book baby it would be Greenteeth – and I wasn’t expecting that combination AT ALL. But it was utterly, fantastically, wondrous and I adored every page of it. I hope you will too.

That this is the author’s DEBUT novel is completely amazeballs. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next, because whatever it is, I feel like I’m already ready to set out on the journey.

A+ #BookReview: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
A+ #BookReview: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django WexlerHow to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Dark Lord Davi, #1) by Django Wexler
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: action adventure, epic fantasy, fantasy
Series: Dark Lord Davi #1
Pages: 432
Published by Orbit on May 21, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Groundhog Day meets Guardians of the Galaxy in Django Wexler’s laugh-out-loud fantasy tale about a young woman who, tired of defending humanity from the Dark Lord, decides to become the Dark Lord herself.
Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time.
This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.
Burningblade & SilvereyeAshes of the Sun Blood of the Chosen Emperor of Ruin

My Review:

The blurb for this title – a title just full to the brim with snarky, contradictory glory – is a bit more on point than the one for next month’s Service Model, which I read in the same weekend and was just really, really off.

But it’s still not quite there. This isn’t Groundhog Day meets Guardians of the Galaxy. It could, sorta/kinda be a take on the very motley crew of Guardians and their very snarky leader with his love for 1980s music and pop culture, but isn’t really Groundhog Day because there really isn’t a redemption arc – at least not so far – because Davi doesn’t need to be redeemed.

What Davi, wannabe Dark Lord Davi, needs to do is figure out how to survive the fantasy world she’s been dumped into, nearly 300 damn times so far. Because her previous attempts have all ended more or less the same way, with her being killed by some bwahaha spitting orc bastard who has just taken over the world and killed all the humans he or she can find.

It’s not always been the SAME bwahaha bastard, but does that really matter?

Davi has decided that it absolutely does not. If she’s going to survive this clusterfuck, she’s going to have to change the rules. Starting with pounding the smug, lying manipulative bastard wizard who starts her down the path of inevitable destruction into the rocks that surround the pool she always emerges from until his head is paste.

Davi has had enough. Clearly.

(If the idea of this story sounds familiar, it is. Alix E. Harrow’s “The Six Deaths of the Saint”, included in the Best American SF/F of 2023 collection, has a VERY similar premise – taken much more seriously and without the snark.)

Davi has had enough of being the shining light of goodness and humanity, because all it gets her is dead. She may have a destiny on this world, but so far all she’s been destined to do is die.

Since her journey always restarts, always in that same pool, always listening to that same wizard’s crap when she inevitably dies again, this time she’s going to do an asshole playthrough – even though she’s already determined that whatever this is, it isn’t a videogame world.

Still, this is a concept she hasn’t tried before. It might work. It might be interesting. It might be good, just this once, to be bad.

Escape Rating A+: How to Become the Dark Lord AND Die Trying (the title absolutely needs to put some emphasis on that ‘AND’ because WOW those things should be contradictory), is a snarktastic romp, a wild, exuberant page-turning knock out of an epic fantasy and a complete and utter send up of the whole entire genre AND the horse it rode in on all at the same time.

That it isn’t the redemption story the blurb’s reference to Groundhog Day might lead you to believe doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things – and Dark Lord Davi certainly does have some VERY grand schemes – but it misses one of the points just a bit that would add to the sheer WTF’ery of the fun of the thing.

Because it’s not Groundhog Day, it’s Edge of Tomorrow. You remember THAT movie, the one where Tom Cruise has to repeat his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, over and over and over again, each and every time he gets killed – frequently and often – so that eventually he and Emily Blunt can put the pieces together fast enough to kill the alien invaders before they decimate Earth.

Part of the fun of that movie was watching Cruise get killed. Part of the fun of How to Become the Dark Lord is watching the Dark-Lord-in-Waiting fake it until she makes it, over and over and over again – knowing that death is just the excuse for another restart.

But Davi isn’t an evil dark lord, which becomes part of her problem as her journey towards dark-lord-dom continues. Davi really does care about her people – admittedly some more intimately than others. She takes care of her people. She’s reasonable and responsible and nurturing and does her best to avoid needless killing and senseless violence.

Emphasis on needless and senseless. She’s aware that some eggs are going to get broken in making this Dark Lord omelet but she’s never reckless with anyone except herself.

All that she’s done by switching sides is changing which people she’s willing to protect and defend. She’s changed who it is that she counts as ‘us’ in her calculus of war. It’s very much the perspective of Jonathan French’s The Grey Bastards, or Jacqueline Carey’s Banewreaker and Godslayer in that the orcs – and the other wilder-folk and non-humans – are the people she – and we – root for while the humans are off being inhumane to everyone not human and Davi is no longer there for that.

What makes this romp so very much of a romp is that Davi is snarky to the max, rather like one of John Scalzi’s, Simon R. Green’s or especially K.J. Parker’s and T. Kingfisher’s anti-hero-ish heroes. She never meets a quip she can’t make, a dig she can’t take, or an attitude she can’t cop, sometimes all at the same time. She’s a bit like Murderbot would be if Murderbot let it all hang out.

She’s also, manifestly, an epic fantasy hero who does not have all the answers – nor does she have any advisors who do, think they do or pretend they do. She’s faking it until she makes it – only to discover that once she’s made it there’s yet another hill to climb and yet another army to defeat.

Dark Lord Davi is simply awesome, as well as laugh out loud funny and occasionally downright embarrassing to herself and her minions. She’s a great hero to spend a long dark evening with! So I’m very glad that I did, and I can’t wait to do it again when she comes back for (cue the EXTREMELY apropos ‘80s earworm) Everybody Wants to Rule the World.

#BookReview: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human by Kimberly Lemming

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human by Kimberly LemmingThat Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human (Mead Mishaps, 3) by Kimberly Lemming
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, fantasy, fantasy romance, romantasy
Series: Mead Mishaps #3
Pages: 353
Published by Orbit on March 5, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

When I was a little girl, my Ma used to read me stories every night. Some were epic adventures with high stakes and exciting twists while others were of princesses trapped in towers guarded by fierce dragons. The pitiful princess would be stuck inside all day pining for her prince charming to come and rescue her. I always hated those stories. I couldn't imagine why the lazy thing didn't just get up and leave. Ironic since I was now stuck in that same situation. Turns out, when a dragon holds you hostage, he doesn't just let you get up and leave.Who knew?
When I thought I saw hope on the horizon, that hope was smashed to bits by - you guessed it - another damn dragon.

My Review:

Technically, this final entry in the Mead Mishaps trilogy is not, strictly speaking, a mishap involving any mead. Also, Dante wasn’t drunk. High as a kite and sick as a dog, but not drunk. Not that he didn’t drink something he shouldn’t have – but only because the human he was trying to save drugged him.

In other words, the eventual romance between Dante the Storm Dragon and the human Cherry does not exactly get off to a promising start.

Which is the story of Cherry’s current life when the story begins. Because yes, that’s Cherry Hotpepper, the missing and presumed dead sister of the heroine of the place where this whole thing started in That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon.

In an absolutely delicious and utterly heartbreaking bit of the irony behind ALL the entries in this series, at the point where Cinnamon Hotpepper saved that demon – and ultimately ALL the demons – she was doing her damndest to avoid having adventures because Cherry loved adventures SO MUCH and Cherry was gone.

So Cinnamon had the adventure that Cherry would have loved, pretty much in spite of herself. When we first meet Cherry, she’s imprisoned in a dragon’s keep with the dragon literally curled about the base of the keep keeping her prisoner – and has been for five long, annoying, boring years with nothing to do but plot an escape that the dragon thwarts over and over and over again.

But he doesn’t harm her. He doesn’t touch her, not even in his human form. More frustrating still, he doesn’t even TALK to her. Cherry is bored, bored, bored. Cinnamon would have loved being locked in a literal ivory tower – particularly as good food and interesting libations are on tap courtesy of the dragon’s little frog-servants – while Cherry is ready to claw her way out by her fingernails.

Which is when Dante flies to her rescue. Or that’s his intent, at least. But Cherry has had it up to the top of her head with all her curls piled on top of it with dragons. She doesn’t trust Dante – at all.

Dante, however, is certain that Cherry is his true, fated mate. He’s stoned, she’s sorry not sorry, and he’s watching his arms crawl away and talking to bananas. Which is the point where explanations and consent go out the window and he bites her – giving her some of his magic and triggering the mating bond.

It may have been the right thing to do – and he certainly wasn’t responsible for his actions – but now that it’s done there’s no takesy-backsies. Not that even wary, suspicious Cherry wants to go quite that far.

But a little romance first would have been a much better way of wooing the woman that Dante has already made his wife. It’s too late for that to be first, but maybe, just maybe, he’ll have a chance if he can figure out how to do it second.

He’ll need just a little bit of help from his friends back in Boohail – and get more than a little bit of hindrance from his dragon sister, an enchanted, talking sword, and a cat who is all demon.

Escape Rating B: In the end, I enjoyed this nearly as much as I did the previous books in the series, That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon and That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf.

But I’ll admit that the early stages gave me more than a few qualms that the other books didn’t. Because this book has a serious problem with consent that the previous books carefully and artfully handled – particularly that second book about the love potion and the werewolf.

Fated mate stories can easily turn just a bit squicky, as the fated mates themselves generally have no choice in the matter – but it’s mutual. In this particular fantasy world, the demons and other non or not-quite humans have fated mates – but humans don’t work that way. Making a huge portion of each of these stories about the demon partner getting their fated partner onside, because they are already all in and the human can still walk away even if the demon can’t.

That’s out the window in this book. Dante has no choice, Cherry is it for him. But he takes away her ability to make a choice for herself while he’s admittedly under the influence of the drug she gave him. So she inflicted him with a temporary condition that he’ll get over in a few hours while he inflicted her with a permanent one that will alter her entire life.

It may turn out for the better – but she doesn’t know that in the beginning. All of his attempts to persuade or seduce her consequently didn’t feel either right or romantic because she has been compromised. In the end he’s going to ‘win’ unless she kills him first – which might kill her into the bargain.

So I wasn’t feeling the romance nearly as much as I did in the other two books because it always felt predetermined. Not that Dante is exactly at fault for what happened thanks to the drugs, but it still took the romance out of things for this reader.

Howsomever, what did work for me, very much, was the weepy, teary, heartstopping reunion between Cherry, her sister Cinnamon, and their sister-of-the-heart Brie, the heroines of those first two books. Cherry’s absence – and presumed death! – casts just a bit of a pall over the whole series because Cin and Brie have Cherry-shaped holes in their hearts and their lives.

Seeing those holes filled, and finally, finally learning about the emptiness that led that original dragon to keep Cherry prisoner for so long, brought the book AND the series to a VERY satisfying conclusion!

#BookReview: That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf by Kimberly Lemming

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf by Kimberly LemmingThat Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf (Mead Mishaps, 2) by Kimberly Lemming
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, fantasy, fantasy romance, romantasy
Series: Mead Mishaps #2
Pages: 288
Published by Orbit on February 6, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Cheesemaker Brie has the world’s worst luck in love, which is how she ends up falling for a lactose intolerant werewolf, in this raunchy, laugh-out-loud rom-com fantasy by the genre’s freshest new voice, Kimberly Lemming.

Brie’s never been particularly coordinated…or lucky. Who else would accidentally throw a drink at someone’s head only to miss entirely and hit a stranger behind them? And who else would have that stranger fall madly in love with them because it turns out that the drink she threw was a love potion? Yeah, probably just Brie.…

Running her cheese business and dealing with a pirate ship full of demons that just moved into town was hard enough. Now on top of it, she has to convince a werewolf that she’s not really his fated mate. Though even she’s got to admit…having a gorgeous man show up and do all her chores while telling her she’s beautiful isn’t the worst thing to happen to a girl.

My Review:

Unlike Cin in the first book in the Mead Mishaps series, That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon, Brie wasn’t quite THAT drunk, and she wasn’t even aiming at the werewolf. She caught him anyway, and thereby, quite literally, hangs a tail.

The tail that Felix, the werewolf of the title, can’t stop himself from wagging whenever Brie is anywhere near him – at least when he’s furry. There are plenty of other things bobbing and weaving when she’s around when he’s NOT furry.

But is obviously still very, very happy to see her.

I just started in the middle, didn’t I? That’s actually kind of apropos, as That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf is the second or even more on point, the middle book in the Mead Mishaps series that began with That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon.

Back to Brie, drinking at the local watering hole in Boohail, fending off the smarmy, amorous and utterly clueless advances of one of the local get-rich-quick-scheme types who’s after her for her small plot of land and not for any of her other abundant assets.

A man who won’t take “no” for an answer in the most teeth-grinding and utterly self-absorbed way possible. (I thought at this point we had a possible ‘Gaston’ situation here, but he’s not quite that bad and certainly can’t convince nearly enough people to form a mob to come after anyone with torches and pitchforks – otherwise one of his get rich quick schemes would have worked and he might not be pursuing Brie.) He’s just the unfortunately all too common variety of male who is certain that if he hears a woman say ‘no’ in his general direction that he must have misunderstood – or that she must be misunderstanding herself.

Unfortunately, we ALL know the type.

So he goes out and buys a love potion – does his damndest to get Brie to take it and drink it – and she’s had enough. Up to HERE and over it, and yeets the disgustingly pink potion (think Pepto-Bismol pink because I certainly did) across the room, intending it to hit the asshole in the face.

He ducks, the love potion hits Pirate Werewolf Felix in the face, and we’re back to the hanging – and or wagging – of that tail again.

Because the love potion works, dammit. Felix falls instantly in love with Brie. Which is GREAT because he really is everything that other guy thinks he is. With a cherry on top. Felix is the fulfillment of every single one of Brie’s not so secret yearnings.

What he’s not, or not exactly, or Brie isn’t nearly so certain as Felix is about the whole thing, is consenting. He says he’s imprinted and that Brie is his true, fated, mate, while she says he’s under the influence of a potion and CAN’T really consent and can’t possibly be sure whether she’s his mate or not. He says he is but she doesn’t want to be abandoned again and they’re both trying to be oh-so-damned noble about the whole thing.

Which is when unattached females in Boohail start disappearing and Felix has to do his best and his damndest – and he’s certainly capable of both at the same time – to get Brie as attached to him as he is to her and as permanently as possible.

Of course it’s too late for that. All the way around.

Escape Rating B: I picked this up because DAMN the first book was so much fun that I couldn’t resist collecting the set. (Which means I’ll be reviewing the third book in the series, That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human, sometime in March.)

On the one hand, it’s hard to worry about spoilers with this series, because the titles do generally give the first part of the game away. In that first book, Cin really does get blind drunk and accidentally save a demon.

It turns out that Cin didn’t just save one demon – she saved ALL the demons. And helped a bunch of those demons to take over a pirate ship. And kill a goddess who was really just a different kind of demon in disguise imprisoning ALL the demons and leeching magic from all the humans.

It was a GREAT gig until Cin and Company spoiled it for her. It’s also where this second entry in the series picks up and runs away with the story – and not in any of the directions that first seem obvious. Which, come to think of it, is EXACTLY the way things worked out the first time around!

And just like in the previous book, and just as much fun as that first time around, this second cozy fantasy with sexytimes combines (frequently and often but not nearly as frequently and often as either Felix or Brie REALLY want) two tastes that go really GREAT together. There’s a surprisingly sweet romance between a girl who wants to do the right thing even if kills her and a werewolf who is sure that what they are doing IS the right thing if only she’d stop worrying about the love potion – at least right up until the point he realizes that he really, Really, REALLY should have worried a bit more about the love potion. And on the other hand, the need to foil a terrible plot to fill the worldwide vacancy in the deity department with a new face slapped on the same old trickster.

Mead Mishaps is the kind of lighthearted cozy fantasy romance to read when you’re just looking for a good reading time and to finish the last page with a smile on your face because it’s just a whole lot of fun. That the fun conceals a more fully-fledged than expected fantasy behind the gauzy but transparent curtains of its romance and sexytimes is just icing on an already delicious cake. A cake that foodie Cin would bake with oodles of cinnamon – of course – while Brie might prefer a cheese wheel. But it’s the thought that counts, after all.

I’m looking forward to one more trip to Boohail next month with That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human. Because so far this series has managed to tickle both my sweet tooth and my funny bone and I’m happy to be coming back for one more round!

#BookReview: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly LemmingThat Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Mead Mishaps, #1) by Kimberly Lemming
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, fantasy romance, romantasy, cozy fantasy
Series: Mead Mishaps #1
Pages: 288
Published by Orbit on January 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Spice trader Cinnamon's quiet life is turned upside down when she ends up on a quest with a fiery demon in this irreverently quirky rom-com fantasy that is sweet, steamy, and funny as hell—perfect for fans of  Legends & Lattes  and  The Dragon's Bride. 
All she wanted to do was live her life in peace—maybe get a cat, expand the family spice farm. Really, anything that didn't involve going on an adventure where an orc might rip her face off. But they say the Goddess has favorite, and if so, Cin is clearly not one of them... 
After saving the demon Fallon in a wine-drunk stupor, all Fallon wants to do is kill an evil witch enslaving his people. And, who can blame him? But he's dragging Cinnamon along for the ride. On the bright side, at least he keeps burning off his shirt.

My Review:

There’s a reason this series is titled Mead Mishaps, and when we first meet Cin at the Hero’s Call Festival in her home village of Boohail, we’re dropped right into the thick of it. Or perhaps that should be right into the bottom of a mug of mead, because Cin is literally drunk off her ass when her story begins.

Not that she’d have wanted to think of it that way. Because Cin has become allergic to adventure after losing her sister Cherry to some kind of river monster while they were out on a little adventure of their own. And the Hero’s Call Festival is all about that call to adventure – and Cin wants no part of it.

Although she, along with most of the village, are happy to celebrate the departure of the young woman who has been called to adventure by their goddess Myva to defend the gate to the demon wastelands.

That’s kind of how those stories go, at least without the local attitude about the newly appointed heroine, Priscilla. She’s a lot, and she’s been even more of herself since she was called to join the band of heroes this time around. The village will be happy to see the back of her – in more ways than one.

Everyone in Boohail thinks that the whole adventure/hero thing is settled for the next 15 years, when the gate will open again. Cin is glad it’s not her – or so she believes – and not in the last bit sad that her ex has been chosen as one of the other heroes – or so she tells herself.

But keeping herself convinced requires a LOT of mead. Which is why she’s still more than a bit hungover when she saves the life of an injured man. Who is considerably more than merely a man – also and very much in more ways than one.

He’s a very large, very scary, and surprisingly articulate demon. All of which is supposed to be impossible. Demons are supposed to be safely kept far, far away from Boohail, on the other side of that gate that the just-departed heroes have run off to defend. Demons are supposed to be growling, grunting, inhuman monsters.

Fallon, however, is a big man with a very large plan, a plan that is about to shake Cin’s world to its knees – as well as knocking her straight into an adventure the likes of which she never could have imagined.

Escape Rating B: Every single thing that Cin thinks about her world and herself, and that the reader thinks is happening in it and to her, gets upended pretty much in the first few chapters. Except for one very important thing. As soon as we spend even half a minute inside Cin’s already half drunk head, it’s pretty damn obvious that this book is going to be an absolute romp of an adventure from beginning to end.

The fantasy setup has been done before. It’s one of those stories where everything the protagonist thinks they know turns out to be wrong, wrong, wrong. There are plenty of such stories built on those revelations being revealed, and everyone coming unglued along with them, and angsting over every betrayal.

That’s where this series turns that upending on its own head. Not that what turns out to be a quest and a road trip doesn’t have its serious side, but overall the quest is played mostly for laughs. The villain is truly villainous, and she absolutely has a damn good scam going with some terrible consequences, but overall it seems like her ultimate defeat is inevitable from the first reveal and the fun of the thing is in the journey.

The hard part of that journey, in so many senses of the word, many of which are played for salacious titters to VERY good effect, is the progress of the romance between the demon Fallon and the Spice Girl (literally, Cin’s full name is Cinnamon, she grows cinnamon on her family’s spice farm). It’s clear to everyone except Cin that Fallon is all in on their relationship – if not yet into all of Cin’s private places – from the moment they meet. Cin’s the one who needs some convincing – not about whether she and Fallon set each other on fire – but whether his fire and her desire to never get burned again have a chance at a future.

But they sure do have a LOT of fun, sexy times finding out!

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon is a lighthearted romp of a cozy fantasy that never fades to black when the romance heats up and sets fire to the sheets. It’s an excellent reading time that will leave any romantasy reader with a smile on their face.

So it’s a good thing that this is the first of a trilogy, and that the next book in the series, That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf, will be coming (along with a whole new pirate ship load of sexy puns) next month!

Review: The Stars Undying by Emery Robin

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A++ Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews
Review: The Stars Undying by Emery RobinThe Stars Undying (Empire Without End, #1) by Emery Robin
Narrator: Esther Wane, Tim Campbell
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: science fiction, space opera
Series: Empire Without End #1
Pages: 518
Length: 16 hours and 32 minutes
Published by Orbit on November 8, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

In this spectacular space opera inspired by the lives and loves of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, a princess stripped of her power finds control through an affair that could help regain her reign—perfect for readers of Ann Leckie and Arkady Martine.
Princess Altagracia has lost everything. After a bloody civil war, her twin sister has claimed not just the crown of their planet Szayet but the Pearl of its prophecy, a computer that contains the immortal soul of Szayet's god. Stripped of her birthright, Gracia flees the planet—just as Matheus Ceirran, Commander of the interstellar Empire of Ceiao, arrives in deadly pursuit with his volatile lieutenant, Anita. When Gracia and Ceirran's paths collide, Gracia sees an opportunity to win back her planet, her god, and her throne…if she can win the Commander and his right-hand officer over first.
But talking her way into Ceirran’s good graces, and his bed, is only the beginning. Dealing with the most powerful man in the galaxy is almost as dangerous as war, and Gracia is quickly torn between an alliance that fast becomes more than political and the wishes of the god—or machine—that whispers in her ear. For Szayet's sake, and her own, Gracia will need to become more than a princess with a silver tongue. She will have to become a queen as history has never seen before—even if it breaks an empire.

My Review:

The queen. The carpet. The conqueror. It’s an indelible image, even if it was fixed in the collective unconscious by a mistranslation of Plutarch combined with a desire for a salacious story rather than anything that might have happened in history. Several sumptuous movies cemented that image.

So it’s not exactly a surprise that this science fictionalized reimagining of the romance of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, while it doesn’t start with that scene, features it prominently. And makes it every bit as captivating and unforgettable in this story of two towering giants at the center of the rise and fall of an intergalactic empire as it was in the same circumstances of the world-spanning empire.

At first, and on the surface, The Stars Undying reads as a grand romance. And it definitely is that – even if neither of the protagonists begin their relationship thinking that’s where they are heading and what it’s all going to be about.

Altagracia is a disgraced princess leading a rebellion against her twin sister – who has just become the Queen of Szayet and the Oracle of their god, Alekso the Undying. We experience her side of this space opera from her first-person perspective so we begin the story thinking that we’re inside her head – even as she admits that she’s lying both to us and to herself as she sets out to overthrow her sister’s divine rule and take the crown for herself.

Which is where Matheus Cierran, the Commander of all the fleets and armies of the vast Empire of Ceiao, enters the picture. And Gracia enters his quarters rolled into a rug. Gracia conquers the conqueror – not so much with her beauty as with her wit and charisma – and he conquers her sister on her behalf.

As their romance spans the galaxy between Szayet and Ceiao, we see their universe from their alternating, first-person viewpoints, never quite sure who truly conquered whom, who is lying to whom, and whose intentions are the most righteous. While we watch them fall deeper in love with each other, and while both fail to recognize who their true enemies are – and fatally underestimate those enemies and each other.

Cleopatra and Caesar, (1866) painted by Jean-Leon Gerome
Cleopatra and Caesar, painted by
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1866)

Escape Rating A++: Because The Stars Undying is, most definitely, a reimagining of the relationship, both personal and absolutely political, between Cleopatra of Egypt and Julius Caesar, we do go into this story thinking that we know how it ends and even a bit of how it gets there. And just like Friday’s book, The Cleaving, that bit of foreknowledge does not keep the reader from frantically turning pages to see how it gets there.

In addition to the epic romance, and more important than that romance in the long run, The Stars Undying is also the story of the decline and fall of empire. As it begins, as it began, when Cleopatra rolled out of that rug – or more likely rose out of a sack – Rome was at the peak of its power. Just as Ceiao is when Gracia emerges from her carpet at Ceirran’s feet.

The thing about being at the peak of something is that from that highest point there is only one direction to go. Down. So this story is not about the crest of the peak but about the tip over it and into the decline that will inevitably follow – even if the principals can’t see it. Not yet anyway.

So the romance is how we get into this story, but that beginning takes us deeply into what one writer called “the romance of political agency” as we watch Gracia and Cierran jockey for power within their relationship and attempt to maneuver their way through and around the pitfalls of the densely factional political climate of Ceiao. An empire where the backstabbing never seems to end and Ceirran is always the target whether he recognizes it or not.

One of the fascinating things about the way that this story unfolds is just how tightly it gets wrapped around religion. Not any particular religion as we know it today, but religion and its seeming antithesis nevertheless. The Empire of Ceiao was founded on the basis of the disestablishment of ALL religions, which is carried to the point of being a religion unto itself.

Szayet, very much on the other hand, is not just a religiously backed monarchy but their religion is based on the idea that their god, Alekso Undying, lives on in an oracular artifact that is worn by each of his descendants as a symbol of their holiness and his godhood. It’s not even a myth. Gracia wears the Pearl and the spirit of Alekso within it does communicate with her frequently, often and always with disappointment in her and her actions. The only question in both the reader’s mind and Ceirran’s is whether the being she is communicating with is truly Alekso’s soul or merely his mind locked in a sophisticated machine.

That question, and both Ceirran’s and Ceiao’s reaction to any and all possible answers to it, turns out to hold the key both to his downfall and Gracia’s future in a way that surprises the reader and manages to seem inevitable at the same time. But then, all great leaders sow the seeds of their own destruction – at least in fiction.

The story in The Stars Undying reads like an unlikely amalgam of the Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough, The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Elizabeth George, Behind the Throne by K.B. Wagers, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine and Engines of Empire by R.S. Ford. As a stew it shouldn’t work but most definitely does, combining the first-person perspective of the Memoirs with the deep dive into Roman history and politics of the McCullough series with the variations of the great empire not able to see or admit that it is past its prime in all three of the space opera series.

It’s not the stew that anyone would have expected but it’s absolutely glorious in its execution and now that I’ve read it I can’t help but wonder why no one got quite all the way here sooner. That the audiobook version that I listened to gave the two central figures, Gracia and Ceirran, their own separate, distinct and extremely well-acted voices was just icing on a very tasty cake.

(I had to switch to text near the end because I couldn’t bear to hear Gracia’s perspective on learning that Ceirran was gone in “her” voice, told from her internal, intimate, point of view. It would have been just too painful.)

That ending was so inevitable, based on the source material, that saying it happened does not feel like a spoiler. Howsomever, speaking of that source material, it is equally clear that the ending of The Stars Undying cannot possibly be the ending of the entire saga. This book, unbelievably the author’s debut novel, is listed as the first book in the Empire Without End duology. The second book in the duology is tentatively titled The Sea Unbounded and I can’t wait to read it whenever it appears. I might, maybe, possibly, have gotten over the book hangover from this book by then!

Review: Eversion by Alastair Reynolds

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: Eversion by Alastair ReynoldsEversion by Alastair Reynolds
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: science fiction
Pages: 308
Published by Orbit on August 2, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

From the master of the space opera, Alastair Reynolds, comes a dark, mind-bending SF adventure spread across time and space, Doctor Silas Coade has been tasked with keeping his crew safe as they adventure across the galaxy in search of a mysterious artifact, but as things keep going wrong, Silas soon realizes that something more sinister is at work, and this may not even be the first time it's happened.
In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.

My Review:

Humans process ideas, events and catastrophes through stories, whether by telling them, making them or being swept away by them. It’s why things like Aesop’s Fables and the Arthurian legends, the Greek tragedies and Pride and Prejudice have all lasted so very long yet still change in interpretations and retellings as society changes. Those stories still have universal things to say about the human condition, so we keep telling them.

This is a story about processing a tragedy by telling stories around and about it until it can be approached directly. So the reason the story is told, and re-told, very nearly ad infinitum, is to give the protagonist enough time and distance to process something that he can’t bring himself to face.

No matter how much he needs to.

The way he does it is to put himself inside a story. It’s the story of a doomed exploratory ship, at the edges of the known world, searching for a possibly mythical ice fissure that will lead to an epic, world-shaking, discovery.

First, it’s a sailing ship in the Arctic. Our hero is the ship’s surgeon, who is also writing a fictional tale of adventure in the vein of Jonathan Swift and Robert Louis Stevenson. And when the doctor’s tale went awry, and he effectively rebooted his story, moving it forward to the age of steam and erasing the disaster that killed all his passengers, I was lulled into thinking this was about the story he was writing.

And it sort of is, but it really isn’t.

As the doctor successively retells the tale, it moves forward in time, from the age of sail to the age of steam to outright steampunk and into the stars. Always with the same crew, always relating the same events, getting just a little further and going just a little deeper each time.

It’s only then that he, and we, discover what looks like the truth. And that it’s even worse than anything he ever imagined.

Escape Rating A: The author of Eversion is best known for his epic, space opera type science fiction, but if that’s what you’re looking for you’re not going to find it in Eversion. Very much on the other hand, if you enjoyed the small-scale, small-cast, intimate story of his Permafrost, which I most definitely did, there’s a LOT to love in Eversion.

In the first iteration, the reader, or at least this reader, gets caught up in the story of the sailing ship Demeter’s expedition to the Arctic fjords of Scandinavia to find a mysterious ruin, or artifact, or both, referred to as the edifice. There was more than enough creeping dread, combined with the hunt for treasure and the details of sailing ship life to make me think this was a very strange but compelling combination of The Route of Ice and Salt, the Aubrey and Maturin series (Master and Commander) with Dr. Silas Coade as Maturin, and something like Indiana Jones and the Edifice of Doom. At least until Coade is forced to rewrite his story after a catastrophe kills off all the characters.

And that’s the first inkling that they might be HIS characters, part of the adventure story he’s writing.

At least until it happens again. And then again. At which point I thought I’d wandered into Groundhog Day. or to use more genre-appropriate references, the Stargate SG-1 episode Window of Opportunity or the Star Trek Next Gen episode Cause and Effect.

Along with one fascinating variation on Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.

As I said at the beginning, stories are one of the ways that humans process, and Eversion reminded me of more and more stories, also more and more SFnal stories, as it went through its iterations, or versions.

Until we finally get to the point of “eversions” and discover that everything we thought we might be reading isn’t quite right at all. Although in a very peculiar way it is at the heart of all of the stories.

And that even though the heart they have isn’t quite the one we thought it was, it still manages to break ours. If you’re looking for the kind of SF that will blow your mind and break your expectations, Eversion is a gem.

Review: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan BannenThe Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, fantasy, fantasy romance
Series: Hart and Mercy #1
Pages: 448
Published by Orbit on August 23, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It’s an unforgiving job, and Hart’s got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness.  
Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest. 
After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to “A Friend”. Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born.  
If only Hart knew he’s been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most—Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares—each other?
Set in a world full of magic and demigods, donuts and small-town drama, this enchantingly quirky, utterly unique fantasy is perfect for readers of The House in the Cerulean Sea and The Invisible Library.

My Review:

Hart Ralston and Mercy Birdsall each think they have a fairly big problem when the story opens. Each other. And they are both so, so wrong, which is what makes this fantasy romance so cozily familiar even in the midst of all the dangerous creatures that are getting more numerous – and ever more dangerous – in nearby Tanria.

What makes their mutual enmity an even bigger problem is that they have to work together – sorta/kinda – in dealing with all of those dangerous creatures. Or at least in handling the remains of all of their victims.

Marshal Hart Ralston’s job is to go into Tanria and hunt down both the dangerous, deadly and also quite dead drudges – as well as get any illegal poachers out of the area before they become victims of those dead and deadly drudges and are turned into drudges themselves.

It’s a thankless job, but somebody has to do it. And lone wolf Ralston prefers to do it alone, so he doesn’t have to try to protect anyone else – and fail at it.

Mercy Birdsall is the only actual working member of Birdsall and Son, one of the undertaking companies in Eternity, just over the border from Tanria. It’s her company’s job to provide funeral rites for the dead victims – and occasionally for the dead monsters – that marshals like Ralston bring back from Tanria.

Hart and Mercy got on each other’s bad side the very first time they met over Birdsall and Son’s shop counter. And it’s been all downhill ever since.

Or has it?

Escape Rating B: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, besides being a very punny title, is one of those stories that invokes that question about whether two great tastes go great together. This is a fantasy romance, but romance readers may think it leans too much on the fantasy side and fantasy readers may have the same reaction to the romantic angle that Hart and Mercy initially had to each other.

Or, as in my case, this may seem like a strange setting for a reimagining of the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romcom classic movie You’ve Got Mail. Although it does work – particularly because of the marvelously sarcastic nimkilim that deliver the mail – there are a few scenes where it seems like the graft didn’t quite take. Or that the stitching of the graft is just a bit too obvious. Or both.

Not that the idea doesn’t work well in this setting because it does – with the help of the nimkilim. Hart is lonely and withdrawn. He desperately needs to reach out to someone but doesn’t know how and is afraid to try. Hence his anonymous correspondence with his nameless “friend”.

Mercy, on the other hand, is lonely in a crowd. She has family and some friends, but she’s carrying a boatload (literally in this case) of secrets and responsibilities that consume her energy while isolating her from anyone who might be able to help her in dealing with them. Which results in her responses to those letters addressed by heart, from Hart, to his nameless friend. Who turns out to be Mercy, the woman he believes is his worst enemy.

This is kind of a fence-straddling book, complete with the inevitable splinters up its ass. It was presented to me as a romance, and there certainly is a romance in it. But the fantasy setting is more than just setting. It’s an important enough element of the story that the book as a whole doesn’t sit comfortably in romance because it has more than a foot over that line into fantasy.

Even if that foot belongs to a dead body that has become a drudge.

At the same time, as much as I loved the banter between Hart and Mercy, there was something about Mercy’s situation that just didn’t sit right. I never fully got why she couldn’t take over the family business – at least until the villain of the piece took his villainy to heights (or depths) that the business couldn’t survive no matter who was in charge of it. I understood that her father wanted to pass it to her brother – who was not suited to the work AT ALL and did not want it under any circumstances whatsoever. Work that Mercy wasn’t merely suited for but actually loved.

A fact which Mercy’s family totally ignored. She does the work, she loves the work. She wants to keep doing the work. But her entire family decided that the business was a burden on her and that it would be best for her if it was sold. Without asking her what she wanted. (BTW Mercy is THIRTY YEARS OLD and very well able to decide what is best for her for her own damn self.) A lot of story water goes under that bridge before the Birdsall family stops assuming they know what’s best for each other and have an honest conversation about what each of them as an individual actually wants.

The story picked up its pace – or at least stopped frustrating the crap out of me – after that conversation finally happened.

For this reader, the thing is that this was presented to me as a romance, but it reads like a fantasy that includes a romance, which is a bit of a different beast. Both elements have to be present and fully-fleshed out for a fantasy romance to succeed. If only one is working, it falls over.

In the end, this doesn’t fall over. It works – although it does take a while to get all of its (auto)ducks in a row. In fact, it works a whole lot like Can’t Spell Treason without Tea and Legends & Lattes. Between the life of the town of Eternity and the Birdsall family dynamic – along with Mercy’s lovable big dog Leonardo – the fantasy is very cozy, with just the right amount of danger. The romance is angsty in a way that really works well, and the issues between Hart and Mercy feel real in spite of the fantasy setting, but also rising at least in part from elements that are integral to that fantasy setting.

Readers coming to The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy just for the romance may find this to be more fantasy than they bargained on. But if you loved Legends & Lattes or Can’t Spell Treason without Tea, or if you’re a fan of T. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel series you’ll fall for The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy every bit as hard as Hart and Mercy eventually realize that they have for each other..

Review: The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews
Review: The Monsters We Defy by Leslye PenelopeThe Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope, L. Penelope
Narrator: Shayna Small
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fantasy, magical realism, urban fantasy
Pages: 384
Length: 11 hours and 30 minutes
Published by Orbit on August 9, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A woman able to communicate with spirits must assemble a ragtag crew to pull off a daring heist to save her community in this timely and dazzling historical fantasy that weaves together African American folk magic, history, and romance.
Washington D. C., 1925
Clara Johnson talks to spirits, a gift that saved her during her darkest moments in a Washington D. C. jail. Now a curse that’s left her indebted to the cunning spirit world. So, when the Empress, the powerful spirit who holds her debt, offers her an opportunity to gain her freedom, a desperate Clara seizes the chance. The task: steal a magical ring from the wealthiest woman in the District.
Clara can’t pull off this daring heist alone. She’ll need help from an unlikely team, from a jazz musician capable of hypnotizing with a melody to an aging vaudeville actor who can change his face, to pull off the impossible. But as they encounter increasingly difficult obstacles, a dangerous spirit interferes at every turn. Conflict in the spirit world is leaking into the human one and along D.C’.s legendary Black Broadway, a mystery unfolds—one that not only has repercussions for Clara but all of the city’s residents.

My Review:

This fantastic, marvelous historical fantasy, set in Black Washington DC during the Jazz Age, brings its time, its place and its people to glorious life. It also tells a tale of big thrills, big fears and deep, deep chills. Because under its glitter and walking in its footsteps is a cautionary tale that hovers just at the point where being careful what you wish for drops straight through the trapdoor of some favors come with too high a price.

Clara Johnson was born with the ability to speak to the dead. It’s not a one-way street, because they can speak to her, too. And not just the dead, anyone or anything that exists ‘Over There’ can get her attention – or she can get theirs.

An attention she took advantage of, once upon a time, in order to save her life.

She made a bargain with a being calling herself ‘The Empress’. In return for a literal ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, Clara made a deal. A deal, like all deals with the enigmas that exist Over There, that left Clara with both a charm and a trick.

The charm she refuses to use or even talk about – after that one and only time it got her out from under a murder charge. The trick, however, is a binding on her soul. Whenever someone asks her for help making contact with the spirits, she has to help. She’s not allowed to take payment for that help, and she’s not permitted to make too strong a case against taking that help to the person who has made the request.

Because the help they ask for will result in that person receiving their own charm, and their own trick. And Clara has learned, to her cost, that in the end neither are worth it. A lesson she should have kept much more firmly in mind as she gets herself deeper into a case that catches her up in a battle that may cost her entire community their souls, their futures, and their destinies.

Escape Rating A+: I know I’m not quite doing this one justice because I loved it so hard. I just want to squee and that’s not terribly informative. But still…SQUEE!

Now that I’ve got that out of my system – a bit – I’ll try to convey some actual information.

The Monsters We Defy combines history, mystery and magical realism into a heist committed by a fascinating assortment of characters on a mission to save themselves, each other, and all their people. And just possibly the world as well.

The historical setting is ripe for this kind of story. On the one hand, there’s the glitter of the Jazz Age. And on the other, the divided reality of the District’s black community, where the ‘Luminous Four Hundred’ holds itself high above the working class and the alley residents, while pretending that the white power brokers who control the rest of the city don’t see everyone who isn’t white as less than the dirt beneath their feet.

It’s not a surprise that someone would take advantage of that situation for their own ends. What makes this book different is that the someone in this case is an enterprising spirit from ‘Over There’ rather than a human from right here.

And into this setting the author puts together one of the most demon-plagued crews to ever even attempt to pull off a heist. All of them, except for Clara’s roommate Zelda, are in debt to one enigma or another in a burden that they wish they could shake. Vaudevillian Aristotle can play any role he wants to or needs to, but is doomed to be invisible when he’s just himself. Musician Israel can hypnotize an individual or a crowd with his music – but no one ever cares about the man who plays it. His cousin Jesse can take anyone’s memories – make them forget an hour or a day – but the woman he loves can never remember him for more than a day.

They all thought they were getting a gift – only to discover that it’s a curse they can’t get rid of. Unless they steal a powerful ring from the most famous and best-protected woman on Black Broadway.

Unless the spirits are playing them all for fools. Again.

It all hinges on Clara, who is tired and world-weary and desperate and determined. She doesn’t believe that she’ll ever have any hope of better, but she’s determined to try for literally everyone else. And the story and her crew ride or die with her – no matter how much or how often she wishes she could do it all alone.

Because the story is told from Clara’s perspective even though it’s not told from inside her head, it was critical that the narrator for the audiobook embody Clara in all of her irascible reluctance to take up this burden she knows is hers. The narrator of the audiobook, Shayna Small, did a fantastic job of both bringing Clara to life AND making sure that the other voices were distinct and in tune with the characters they represented.

And she made me feel the story so hard I yelled at Clara to look before she leaped and think before she acted more than a few times, because I cared and I wanted to warn her SO MUCH. (Luckily I was in the car and no one could hear me.)

I found The Monsters We Defy to be a terrific book about a high-stakes heist committed by a desperate crew that led to a surprising – and delightful – redemptive ending. And the audio was superb.

If you’ve read either Dead, Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia or Bindle Punk Bruja by Desideria Mesa, you’ll love The Monsters We Defy because it’s a bit of both of those books with a super(natural) chunk of T.L. Huchu’s The Library of the Dead‘s “I speak to dead people,” thrown in for extra bodies and high-stakes scary spice!