Review: Paris Time Capsule by Ella Carey + Giveaway

paris time capsule by ella careyFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: historical fiction, women’s fiction
Length: 290 pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Date Released: May 26, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

New York–based photographer Cat Jordan is ready to begin a new life with her successful, button-down boyfriend. But when she learns that she’s inherited the estate of a complete stranger—a woman named Isabelle de Florian—her life is turned upside down.

Cat arrives in Paris to find that she is now the owner of a perfectly preserved Belle Époque apartment in the ninth arrondissement, and that the Frenchwoman’s family knew nothing about this secret estate. Amid these strange developments, Cat is left with burning questions: Who was Isabelle de Florian? And why did she leave the inheritance to Cat instead of her own family?

As Cat travels France in search of answers, she feels her grasp on her New York life starting to slip. With long-buried secrets coming to light and an attraction to Isabelle de Florian’s grandson growing too intense to ignore, Cat will have to decide what to let go of, and what to claim as her own.

My Review:

The premise of this story is fascinating and even more amazing because it is true.

Just as in the story, in 2010 the Paris apartment of Madame Marthe de Florian was discovered completely untouched since World War II. Marthe de Florian had been a famous, or infamous, courtesan during France’s Belle Epoque, a period of change that encompassed the final decades of the 19th century, including the period in America known as “the Gay Nineties”, and ended with a bang at the outbreak of World War I. Marthe de Florian was one of the queens of that tumultuous era, and entertained artists and especially statesmen who kept her in grand style.

But she died in 1939, and her apartment was inherited by her son and granddaughter. And that’s where things get interesting, because sometime during the war Marthe’s granddaughter closed up the apartment and left Paris. She never returned to her grandmother’s apartment, but kept it untouched until her death in 2010.

Marthe de Florian by Giovanni Boldini (1888)
Marthe de Florian by Giovanni Boldini (1888)

When the apartment was opened, it was discovered to be a treasure-trove of life in Paris during the Belle Epoque, including a undiscovered masterpiece by Giovanni Boldini, a painting of Marthe de Florian in her gorgeous prime.

The apartment was called the “Parisian Time Capsule” in many articles about its discovery and its secrets.

The author of the novel Paris Time Capsule has taken the story of the discovery and woven a fantastic tapestry of a story, as the young American woman who inherits the apartment from her grandmother’s best friend undertakes a journey to discover why this unlooked for legacy has come to her, and not gone to the descendants of the owner. As Cat Jordan follows the trail of clues to her grandmother’s past, she uncovers secrets that have remained hidden since the dark days of Paris’ occupation in World War II. And through her journey, she finally learns to listen to the secrets of her own heart.

Escape Rating B+: I had a love/hate relationships with this book. I absolutely adored the premise, and would have whether it was true or not.

In fiction, Cat’s free-spirited grandmother Virginia was the best friend of Isabelle de Florian, Marthe’s fictional granddaughter. But whatever happened in Paris between Isabelle and Virginia, Virginia never spoke about it after the war. Cat has no idea who Isabelle de Florian was, or why she left this dusty jewel-box of an apartment to Virginia’s descendants rather than her own.

Cat’s first surprise is her inheritance. Cat has always had a love of period designs and period clothing, and the apartment is an absolute treat for her. She just can’t understand how it came to her in the first place. Especially since the second person she meets on her Parisian trip is the grandson of Isabelle de Florian. Neither Loic Archer nor his mother Sylvie had any idea that the apartment existed, but they are more than willing to abide by their matriarch’s wishes and let Cat have it.

But they share with Cat a desire to understand what happened, and why Isabelle never told them of the apartment or its secrets, not in the long years when money was very tight and the sale of the apartment would have saved Isabelle and Sylvie from poverty. Something doesn’t make sense to any of them.

And this is where we get into the part that drove me absolutely bonkers. It is to be expected in a story that is set up as we have seen so far that Loic and Cat would fall in love as they search for Isabelle de Florian’s secrets. It is even not an unexpected part of this journey that Cat would discover that the life she has been leading in New York, including her brand-new fiance, would turn out not to be right for her after all.

But what drove me absolutely nuts was the way that this part of the story was handled. Or perhaps a better description would be the way that the character of Cat’s fiance Christian was portrayed. It is obvious from our first meeting with Christian that he isn’t the right person for Cat. Not because Loic is better (he hasn’t even entered the picture yet) or even because Christian and his family are extremely wealthy and Cat is scraping by in a job she hates.

No, the problem is that Christian takes every opportunity to subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) undermine Cat, her opinions, her decisions, her tastes and her ideas. He doesn’t want the Cat who actually exists, he wants a doll that he can dress up and parade around who will never challenge him because she is so grateful for his largesse. When he wants Cat’s attention, he tracks her down by GPS. When she wants his attention, he’s always busy working.

As the reader, I felt bludgeoned by just how wrong Christian is for Cat. It felt as if the author was trying to draw a parallel between the way that Christian treated Cat and the way that Marthe was kept by her gentlemen admirers. I started to feel a bit beaten about the head with the all-too-obviously drawn parallel, but it isn’t until well after Loic starts asking her questions that Cat’s self-talk finally begins to see the clue-by-four that I’ve been hit with from the first scene. It’s not just that denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, it’s that Cat doesn’t even see that she’s paddling upstream and losing ground with every stroke.

Outside of the appalling business of Cat’s horrid choice in fiance, the rest of the story is an absolute gem. I sincerely mean that. Cat’s journey, with all of its twists and turns and dead ends, is a voyage back to the dark days at the beginning of the war. When Cat finally discovers the truth about the apartment and its seemingly unusual disposition, it all makes sense. A very sad and heartbreaking sense.

We know that Cat is the rightful heir after all, and we’re glad for her and sad for the reasons why it had to be.

And thank goodness that Cat finally gets a clue about her own love life before it is too late.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I am giving away a paperback copy of Paris Time Capsule to one lucky U.S./Canadian commenter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Treasured by Thursday by Catherine Bybee + Giveaway

treasured by thursday by catherine bybeeFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Weekday Brides #7
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Date Released: August 18, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Gabriella Masini: She’s a woman haunted by her past, with the scars to prove it. She believes that fairy tales are for other people. An elite matchmaker at Alliance, she’s great at crunching numbers, but something doesn’t add up with her latest prospective client: a billionaire bad boy with his own secrets. When Gabi refuses to be his temporary wife, Hunter forces her hand with an offer she can’t refuse. But marriage to a man like that could never last…or could it?

Hunter Blackwell: Only his bank account is bigger than his ruthless ability to obtain anything he wants. These days, he has a secret reason to settle down, at least for a while—and he thinks the sensual and sassy Gabi will fit the bill perfectly. But when their marriage of convenience becomes downright dangerous, Hunter must decide how far to take his vow to honor and protect Gabi forever.

My Review:

Treasured by Thursday is a fantastic ending to the Weekday Brides series.

It’s also kind of a rough ride. I felt so much for Gabi that I had to stop in the middle for a bit. I like her a lot and didn’t want to see anything else bad happen to her, even on the way to her happy ending. But I couldn’t hold back long and finished the book in one evening. I just couldn’t wait to find out how the author managed the happy ending.

This is a story that starts out with an unlikeable hero, a scarred and reluctant heroine, and a whole lot of secrets. Even for a very much arranged marriage-of-convenience, it was obviously going to be an uphill battle to get to an HEA.

It doesn’t help that the hero starts out being an arrogant ass. He gets better.

seduced by sunday by catherine bybeeWe first met Gabi in Seduced by Sunday (reviewed here). In that story, Gabi is not the heroine. She’s the victim. And her victimization is what makes all the various forces of the Alliance rally round to save her from her from the mess she dropped into, and keep her brother Val and his new love Meg (the Alliance matchmaker in that case) from getting killed by the very evil dude who used Gabi.

At the end of that book, as Gabi is just barely beginning to recover from all the very serious shit that happened to her, she takes a job with the Alliance. She has to start over, away from the island where she was so protected that she was too innocent to figure out that her dead husband was using both her and her brother’s connections. She has to learn to stand on her own feet away from her brother, too.

Unfortunately for Gabi, her first attempt to handle an Alliance client all by herself almost makes her a victim again. Because Hunter Blackwell won’t take no for an answer, and is more than willing to blackmail Gabi with information about what happened to her last year. He thinks he’s giving a “black widow” just what she deserves, instead of what he is really doing, which is abusing Gabi all over again.

But Gabi, in her need to stand on her own, lets herself become Hunter’s pawn, rather than involve the Alliance or her family, who might have a chance at getting Blackwell to back down or back off.

Blackwell has no thought for the consequences of his actions to anyone but himself. He’s a selfish bastard. Whatever qualms he has about forcing Gabi into this mess he easily suppresses by believing that the end justifies the means.

But Blackwell’s motives show that he isn’t quite as coldhearted as he makes himself out to be. And Gabi’s way of topping from the bottom in all of their interactions proves that she is not the little victim she was last year.

Unfortunately for them both, her late and completely unlamented husband, or at least his nefarious business dealings, reach out from beyond the grave to ensnare Gabi one last time. And Hunter Blackwell discovers that the woman he married for his own convenience has not-so-conveniently captured the heart he thought he no longer had.

Escape Rating B+: I was thrilled to see Gabi get her own happy ever after. After everything she had to deal with in Seduced by Sunday, she certainly deserved it.

I’m not so sure about the way that it came about. As Hunter and Gabi get to know each other, and especially when Hunter forces her into their marriage of convenience, he is far from likable. He’s a bastard and an arsehole and it felt like he was victimizing Gabi all over again. He was using her, and didn’t give a damn about her feelings. He discovered just enough about her past to hold it over her head like the Sword of Damocles, but not close to enough to figure out that he was putting her in more danger and increasing her trauma. I cringed a lot during this part of the story, because I just didn’t want to see Gabi get abused again.

That standing up to him, even within the confines of their arrangement, finally got Gabi to heal all the way was a saving grace. But I never warmed up to Blackwell, even though she did.

While Blackwell did eventually save her, it was from danger that he helped to put her in. And he had help from the Alliance. I’m not sure that was enough to redeem him as a hero.

Which doesn’t mean that I wasn’t on the edge of my seat through the whole book, hoping that he would come around and that Gabi would finally get out from under the shadow of her dead husband’s criminal activities.

But I liked Gabi a lot. I also felt terribly sorry for her in Seduced by Sunday. I didn’t enjoy seeing her become a victim again at the beginning of Treasured by Thursday. But I did love seeing her finally get her own.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Treasured by Thursday tour graphic

The tour wide giveaway is for a $100 Amazon Gift Card, a print box set of the bride books, and 2 $20 Amazon Gift Cards. The rafflecopter is below…

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Supreme Justice by Max Allan Collins + Giveaway

supreme justice by max allan collinsFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: Paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Length: 338 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Date Released: July 1, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

After taking a bullet for his commander-in-chief, Secret Service agent Joseph Reeder is a hero. But his outspoken criticism of the president he saved—who had stacked the Supreme Court with hard-right justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, amp up the Patriot Act, and shred the First Amendment—put Reeder at odds with the Service’s apolitical nature, making him an outcast.

FBI agent Patti Rogers finds herself paired with the unpopular former agent on a task force investigating the killing of Supreme Court Justice Henry Venter. Reeder—nicknamed “Peep” for his unparalleled skills at reading body language—makes a startling discovery while reviewing a security tape: the shooting was premeditated, not a botched robbery. Even more chilling, the controversial Venter may not be the only justice targeted for death…

Is a mastermind mounting an unprecedented judicial coup aimed at replacing ultra-conservative justices with a new liberal majority? To crack the conspiracy and save the lives of not just the justices but also Reeder’s own family, rising star Rogers and legendary investigator Reeder must push their skills—and themselves—to the limit.

My Review:

This was so much fun! I know there are terrible crimes committed, etc., etc., but the story was so tight and the point-of-view character had just the right touch of baddassery/snarkitude that I poured through it in one evening.

The story is a mix of early Tom Clancy (before they stopped editing him and the books got very bloated) and the Liam Neeson movie Taken. Supreme Justice has a relentless pace and a completely absorbing story. It is a bit of a formula political thriller, but in a good way.

The book is set in a near-future time period, and the suspense relies on Washington D.C. being very much a company town, with said company being the U.S. Federal government. (Shades of Clancy). The near-future is easy to determine, because the current president is the second African-American president, after the first one with the middle name “Hussein”. No guesswork required.

But the setup is that in between these two liberal Democratic periods, the U.S. got through 8 years of an absolute neocon who packed the Supreme Court and pushed through legislation that beefed up the Patriot Act, gave all police officers even wider authority for search and seizure, pretty much wiping out the 4th amendment, reinstated prayer in public schools and repealed Roe v. Wade.

For liberals, it was a seriously sucky eight years. Former Secret Service Agent John Reeder feels more than a bit responsible for four of those eight years. He took a bullet for the neocon president, even though he hated every policy the man stood for. Reeder did his job, and made the president a hero in the process. Reeder retired because he couldn’t stand the politics any longer.

Which doesn’t mean he wasn’t good at his job. He is. He’s so good that he was able to parlay his government experience into creating a very successful security consulting firm.

When a Supreme Court justice is killed in the middle of a botched robbery, Reeder’s old friend at the FBI calls him in as a consultant. And the first thing he notices is that the whole mess was not a botched robbery. It was an assassination concealed by a botched robbery.

Even before a second justice is murdered, Reeder is the first one to figure out that someone is knocking off conservative justices, with an eye to letting the current president fix the balance of the Court. But when Reeder starts to close in on a possible lead, someone close to the investigation decides that the best way to derail it is to kidnap Reeder’s daughter.

If the motto is to “keep your friends close and your enemies close”, then who is so close that they know Reeder is the investigator with an inside track to the killer?

Escape Rating A-: Some of the early Clancy books had this same sense of tightly packed political thriller with hidden conspiracy theory agendas. And Liam Neeson’s Taken is the story of an ex-CIA Agent on the hunt to find his kidnapped daughter.

But just because a story has been done before (everything has been done before, after all) doesn’t mean that it can’t be very entertaining when it’s done well. Supreme Justice is done extremely well.

It hinges on Reeder being an intelligent and likeable character, which he is. He’s pretty honest about how he feels about people and situations, even when that honesty gets him in trouble. His amazing ability to read people makes him an expert investigator. He doesn’t just look at the evidence, he studies the people who are making the evidence.

Even when he doubts himself, he is constantly trying to figure out everyone else, and usually succeeding. His big failure is what makes this case work.

As much as I might personally dislike (or even hate) the conservative turn that the country has taken between now and the setting of the story, the way that it happens makes perfect sense. And so in the end does the motivation for the crime spree.

If you enjoy tightly plotted political action thrillers, and I do, Supreme Justice is absorbing fun to read.

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This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

The author is giving away a copy of Supreme Justice to one lucky US/CAN winner!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Pillars of Sand by Mark T Barnes

pillars of sand by mark t barnesFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audioboook
Genre: epic fantasy
Series: Echoes of Empire #3
Length: 488 pages
Publisher: 47North
Date Released: May 20, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

The epic conclusion of the Echoes of Empire trilogy.

Prophecy declared that corrupt politician Corajidin would rule the Shrīanese Federation, even become its new Emperor?and sinister magic has helped him defy death in order to do it. But his victory is not assured, thanks to clashing rival factions that hinder any attempts to unify the nation. Though he has taken increasingly brutal measures to eliminate all obstacles in his path, the dark forces supporting him grow dangerously impatient. And the harder they press, the more drastic Corajidin’s actions become.

Soon, only his most powerful adversaries will stand in his way: Indris, the peerless swordsman and sorcerer who has long fought to end the Federation’s bloody turmoil; and the warrior-poet Mari, Corajidin’s own daughter and the woman Indris loves. Fate has torn them apart, forcing them into terrifying personal trials. But if Indris can bring to bear the devastating knowledge of the Pillars of Sand, and Mari can rise up as a rebel leader, Corajidin’s enemies will rally?and the decisive battle for the soul and future of the Shrīanese will begin.

This epic tale of intrigue, love, and betrayal, painted in the blood of allies and enemies by Mark T. Barnes, concludes the Echo of Empire trilogy that began with “The Garden of Stones” and “The Obsidian Heart.”

My Review:

The Pillars of Sand is an absolute stunner from beginning to end. Even the opening synopsis that recaps the events of the previous two books reads like an awesome story being told around a campfire, reciting the tales of the legends that have gone before.

Garden of Stones by Mark T BarnesBut don’t rely on that summary if you haven’t read the first two books in the Echoes of Empire series, get yourself a copy of the utterly fantastic first book, The Garden of Stones and then continue breathlessly through the heroes’ valley of the shadow in The Obsidian Heart. You’ll be panting to read The Pillars of Sand just to find out how our heroes, their country, and their world get out of the horrible fix that they are in.

The story is again told from three different points of view, Dragon-Eyed Indris, for whom every faction seems to have a different destiny, none of which he remotely desires; his lover Mariam of the House of Erebus, one of the greatest warrior-poets that Shrian has ever produced, and her father Corajidin, the man who would lead Shrian to horrific greatness at incalculable cost.

Corajidin’s story is much like Macbeth’s; he believes that he has a destiny to rule Shrian, so he brings that destiny about no matter what dark powers he needs to consort with or how deep the madness into which he must descend. He never seems to understand that destiny is a two-edged sword, and that the prophecy he follows also predicts that he will not be able to hold onto anything, or anyone he conquers.

In our terms, he has sold his soul to the devil, but it turns out that he is dealing with beings even more fell than our version of Satan.

Mariam is Corajidin’s daughter, but she was raised to have her own mind and her own purpose. She believes in the ethics and morals that founded Shrian, and not the depths to which her father would sink them. And so she becomes a force for good, or at least better.

Indris is the great puzzle. He has acquired so much power, but he fears, with good reason, to use it. He knows that if he lets what is inside him loose, the power will use him. And so will entirely too many people who have been hiding the truth from him for far too long.

But they were right, some truths are too unbelievable to know. And yet, they must be revealed in order to save what can be saved. However little that might be.

The Obsidian Heart by Mark T. BarnesEscape Rating A+: Mark Barnes did it again. I stood at the bus stop with my mouth gaping open, completely overwhelmed by the ending. Also terribly, terribly sad that I will not get to return to Shrian.

I expected a slightly different ending. I’m much happier with the one I got, but I was expecting something darker. Not that the butcher’s bill in the end wasn’t high, but it wasn’t outrageously high. Sadly, just enough and not too much.

One of the things that fascinates about the story and it’s entire construction; The Echoes of Empire, as a whole, is about the evil that men (and women) do to each other. It is a battle between good and evil, but all the players are some variation of people, not deities or demons. (In some cases they may be dead people, but still people).

Humans and their equivalents do not need any help in finding the path to damnation and destruction. We’re quite good at getting there all on our own.

The Pillars of Sand brings the Echoes of Empire to a beautiful, and shattering conclusion. If you love epic fantasy and have not started this series, I envy you the joy of discovering this marvelous series for the first time.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Obsidian Heart by Mark T. Barnes

The Obsidian Heart by Mark T. BarnesFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: epic fantasy
Series: Echoes of Empire #2
Length: 438 pages
Publisher: 47North
Date Released: October 15, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

A plot to overthrow the Shrīanese Federation has been quashed, but the bloody rebellion is far from over…and the struggle to survive is just beginning.

Warrior-mage Indris grows weary in his failed attempts to thwart the political machinations of Corajidin, and faces the possibility of imprisonment upon his return to his homeland. Moreover, Indris’s desire for Corajidin’s daughter, Mari, is strong. Can he choose between his duty and his desire…and at what cost?

Left alienated from her House, Mari is torn between the opposing forces of her family and her country—especially now that she’s been offered the position of Knight-Colonel of the Feyassin, the elite royal guards whose legacy reaches back to the days of the Awakened Empire. As the tensions rise, she must decide if her future is with Indris, with her family, or in a direction not yet foreseen.

As he awaits trial for his crimes, Corajidin confronts the good and evil within himself. Does he seek redemption for his cruel deeds, or does he indebt himself further to the enigmatic forces that have promised him success, and granted him a reprieve from death? What is more important: his ambition, regaining the love stolen from him, or his soul?

My Review:

Garden of Stones by Mark T BarnesJust as with The Garden of Stones, the first book in the Echoes of Empire series, The Obsidian Heart left me with a terrible “book hangover”. When I turned the last page, I was just not ready to step away from this world. While it’s definitely not a place I’d want to live (at least at this moment in the story!) Shrian is certainly a place filled with compelling stories.

Even though The Obsidian Heart begins with a recap of previous events from the first book, the story as a whole owes some of its intense immersiveness to the way that the reader is dropped into a history that feels like it has gone one for centuries, and will continue after the book is closed, whether our heroes survive their particular tale or not.

The weight of Shrian’s past helps the reader to sink inside the tale.

And the tale that continues from The Garden of Stones is both epic and deeply personal. Lord Corajidin continues on his mad quest to fulfill the destiny he saw in a vision, a vision that told him that he would become the Emperor of a new Awakened Empire, and lead his people back to their former greatness.

But Corajidin’s vision has convinced him that the glory he has foreseen justify any means necessary to come to fruition; even means that his people would consider anathema. Not just political assassinations by the score (the history has precedents for that!) but by dealing with the demon and death-bringing witches of the dreadful Drear.

Corajidin reminds this reader all too much of Shakespeare’s Macbeth; he creates the conditions that the witches foretold because of the foretelling. He doesn’t see that the path his self-fulfilling prophecy has led him down will ruin him and all he thought he fought for in the end.

There are three point-of-view characters in The Obsidian Heart. One is Corajidin, voraciously chewing up everything and everyone in his path to achieve the destiny he believes should be his. Or perhaps has been led to believe to be his. I wonder.

Indris shows us a different side to Corajidin’s dreams of a new empire. Indris is a warrior-mage of the Seq. His order was born two millennia ago to fight the witches that Corajidin is bringing back to prominence. He wants to stem the tide of death and put the evil creatures back in the fell places where Corajidin’s allies found them.

But Indris, as we saw in The Garden of Stones, is also an heir of one of the rival Houses to Corajidin. He could take the throne himself, or at least return to being a leader of his own House. While his only desire is to be his own man and follow his own agenda, too many factions have plans of their own for him, and none of those plans are in Indris’ best interest. Even worse, Indris believes that those plans are not in the empire’s best interests.

While Indris wants to fight Corajidin, there are too many forces arrayed against him who try to force him, whether by physical threats or magical torment, to go down the path of their choosing.

The last perspective belongs to Mari, the warrior-poet daughter of Corajidin. She has never fit into her father’s plans for her, but there was a part of him that enjoyed her defiant spirit. But she believes that her father has gone mad as well as evil, and she betrayed him. Her family has chosen to believe that her betrayal was caused by her affair with Indris, and not by the convictions of her own mind. They want her back within the family fold, whether she wants to be there or not.

The Obsidian Heart is a story built of many overlapping layers. Corajidin’s manipulations to bring about his new Awakened Empire push the action forward, as Indris and Mari fight to remain together and to save what they can. The politics and the magic constructs that underlie the war make for fascinating reader, as each player follows an agenda that impacts the others.

As this installment of the story concludes, one is left breathless, wondering how much more can possibly go wrong for the forces of good. Always a dangerous question, but one that leaves the reader begging for more.

Escape Rating A: The Obsidian Heart is definitely the middle-book in this trilogy. As the story progresses, the situation gets darker and darker for Indris and Mari.

Shrian is a dark and dangerous place. Every person that we meet has their own agenda, and it’s almost always hidden. Indris and Mari spend a lot of this chapter of the story preventing other people’s nefarious plans, both for the empire and for themselves. The entire world they know seems to be arrayed against them. While they are not the only people working towards something like the greater good, they seem to be the required element that pushes so many people to get off their self-satisfied asses and do something about it.

The only thing required for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.

And so many of the plots regarding Indris’ and Mari’s potential futures are worse than nothing. Too many people are using the chaos to forward their own agendas, and they are more than willing to block our heroes from taking forward action.

The political backstabbing and level of assassinations and faked enemies that takes place in order to make Corajidin’s vision come to fruition reads like the layers upon layers of plotting in Kushiel’s Dart. It also reminds me of the original Dune, in that feeling that the machinations are part of a Great Game of politics and empires that has been going on since long before the current story; where this is but a chapter in some greater history.

But the downward progression is reminiscent of one of Murphy’s lesser known laws: Things are always darkest just before they turn completely black. The Obsidian Heart is rather like The Empire Strikes Back, in that the story ends on a breathless down-stroke.

pillars of sand by mark barnesI’m almost sorry that I didn’t wait until May, when the third and final chapter, The Pillars of Sand, is due to be released. Because I want to know what happens next, and I want to know now. But The Obsidian Heart was every bit as amazing as The Garden of Stones.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Buying In by Laura Hemphill + Giveaway

Buying In by Laura HemphillFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, audiobook
Genre: Women’s fiction
Length: 305 pages
Publisher: New Harvest/Amazon Publishing
Date Released: November 5, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Bright, ambitious Sophie Landgraf has landed a job as a Wall Street analyst. The small-town girl finally has her ticket to the American elite, but she doesn’t realize the toll it will take—on her boyfriend, on her family, and on her. It isn’t long before Sophie is floundering in this male-dominated world, and things are about to get worse.
With the financial crisis looming, Sophie becomes embroiled in a multibillion-dollar merger that could make or break her career. The problem? Three men at the top of their game, each with very different reasons for advancing the merger. Now Sophie doesn’t know whom to trust—or how far she’ll go to get ahead.

Set inside the high-stakes world of finance, Manhattan’s after-hours clubs, and factories in the Midwest and India, this is the high-powered, heartfelt story of a young woman finding her footing on Wall Street as it crumbles beneath her. Written by an industry veteran, Buying In tackles what it means to be a woman in a man’s world, and how to survive in big business without sacrificing who you are.

My Review:

What is the difference between buying in and selling out?

That feels like the fundamental question that Sophie Landgraf keeps asking herself, and that all the people in her life keep asking Sophie, during the course of the story of Buying In.

Everyone in Sophie’s life outside of her work is utterly certain that Sophie has sold out, that she has given up on the values that underpin the small farming community of Stockton, Massachusetts where Sophie was raised.

However, and it’s a damn big however, Stockton is a place where Sophie never fit in. As much as she loves her widowed father, Sophie the mathlete was always the odd person out. She was always looking to escape to somewhere MORE.

It’s possible that the New York City banking industry on the eve of the recession wasn’t it, but she couldn’t know that.

She also couldn’t possibly have stayed in Stockton and helped her father keep up the illusion that he could make ends meet on the sheep farm. It hadn’t worked when her mother was alive, and it really wasn’t working now.

Sophie gets caught up in the intellectual exhilaration of, for the first time in her life finding work which absolutely consumes her. It also frequently terrifies her, but her job at Sterling Bank stretches her in ways that she could never have imagined.

It also eats up every moment of her life and energy. She has nothing left for anything else, and she doesn’t want to. She can’t admit it, but she is having the time of her life. She’s living every moment on a high-wire act.

The adrenaline is addicting.

Buying In is the portrait of the banker as a young woman. Some might say that it’s about the “greed is good” mentality, but it’s not about greed for Sophie. For Sophie, it’s about finding the place where she belongs, and figuring out what it takes to stay there.

When she loses that place, it’s becomes about figuring out what it takes to get back there. Because Sophie has found out what her rightful place is. And she’s not the naive girl from Stockton anymore. She is a banker, and it’s all about the deal.

Even if she has to fake it.

Escape Rating B: Buying In gets off to a slow start. Sophie is so deeply insecure about her place at Sterling, that her desperation gets a bit wearing. At the same time, it was all-too-easy for me to empathize with Sophie when she had to work such incredibly brutal hours just to keep her job, and her family and friends refused to believe her working conditions.

While the environment at Sterling was inhuman, it was what it was. If she wanted to keep her job, she really did need to be there nights and weekends. Her bosses wouldn’t understand if she took a weekend off. There was no downtime.

And yes, she did also enjoy the rush. But still, Sophie’s struggles with her friends, her boyfriend and particularly her father were sometimes painful to witness.

The macro-story involves one single deal that is being played out just as the banking industry is going into a tailspin. The three men who start the story as the “big cheeses” in this deal represent three possible futures for Sophie; one is an inhuman machine, one loses his way in disappointment, and one does the best he can for the people in his company no matter how much it costs him.

We watch them, and Sophie, choose their fate. We know what happened to the rest of us. 2008 was not a good year, but it is fascinating to dissect.

If the story of how the banking industry got itself and the rest of the country in over our collective heads interests you, and you want to read an equally compelling but totally different view (with sex this time), try The Rare Event by P.D. Singer (reviewed here).

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Laura is giving away a hardcover copy of Buying In to one lucky winner (US/Can). To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.