books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

The Shadow Saint (The Black Iron Legacy 2) by Garth Hanrahan

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Stars: 4.5 out of 5

Wars come and go, but the city of Guerdon persists. Many times conquered, it still stands, even when those conquerors have long turned to dust. This is a city that constantly evolves and reinvents itself. And those who seek to conquer or destroy it end up being assimilated whether they want it or not.

This book picks up a few months after the end of the previous book and the Gutter Miracle, when Cali and Spar hijacked the spell destined to free the Black Iron gods and created the New City. One might argue that this was more of a curse than a blessing, since Guerdon is in disarray now, and the alchemists’ guild is all but destroyed, just as the Gods war is coming closer and closer to its shores.

While the previous book was a book of the poor and the forgotten, the little people eking out a living in the shadows of the mighty city, this book is about politics… and spies. Nobody, apart from Cali, Eladora, and Spar, understands what happened in Guerdon, and how the Gutter Miracle came to be. So all other countries sent their spies to find out. Oh, and to also find out what came of the dreaded bombs that destroyed a Goddess so thoroughly that her valley is virtually dead now.

The pace of this book is slower, since there is a lot of politicking and cloak-and-dagger intrigue, but that didn’t make it less interesting. It shows us a different facet of this multidimensional world. We also learn a lot more about the God War and the horrors the mad gods bring to the world and even their own followers.

And of course, we get to spend a bit more time with some of the characters from the first book, and discover what they are up to now. We get to meet new protagonists as well, and they were just as endearing. I will definitely continue with this series.

books, Horror, Reviews

Dive Bar at the End of the Road by Kelley Armstrong

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Stars: 3.5 out of 5

October is the best time for spooky horror, and there is nothing spookier than getting stranded in the middle of nowhere on a rainy night, with your car disabled and no phone service. Yet that’s exactly the situation Ellie, Henry, and a few other strangers find themselves in. At first, finding an open dive bar with a strangely friendly bartender and a silent, solitary guest feels like a blessing, or at least a reprieve from the elements, but nothing is as it seems. There are monsters lurking in the trees, and isn’t that bartender a little bit too friendly?

Even though the book features POVs from several different characters, I might argue that Ellie is the main protagonist in this story, and her POV is the only one written in the first person, while everyone else is third person. We also learn a lot more about her past than we do about the other characters. Well, we learn a bit more about Henry, but almost nothing about the old man who gets killed by a rabid dog. In fact, I’m still a bit puzzled about his inclusion in this story. It almost seems like his ordeal was written for pure shock value for Ellie and Henry, which does him a big disservice.

I would say that the lack of attention given to the characters other than Ellie and, to a lesser degree Henry, made me dock a star off my rating. As I already mentioned, the old man is barely a footnote in the story. The young couple is a bit more fleshed out, while the gay stockbroker is a walking caricature of a narcissist. Just from seeing the lack of depth to their characterizations, I could predict who would survive to the end of the book and who wouldn’t, which killed part of the suspense for me.

All in all, I liked the premise behind the story and the reason why all these characters ended up in that car pile-up on a rainy road, and subsequently in the dive bar. It’s one messed-up situation, which made me hate the bartender even more. Just the idea that the woods outside of the bar would show you your biggest fear is… well, terrifying. And I will not go into any more details because I don’t want to spoil the book.

I had fun reading this story, and I rooted for the characters to survive and break out of this vicious little pocket universe. I will definitely recommend this as a spooky read for a spooky season. Oh, and think twice before taking an unfamiliar road at night.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.

books, Fantasy, Grim Dark, Reviews

The Daughters’ War (Blacktongue 0) by Christopher Buehlman

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Stars: 4 out of 5.

This was a very dark introduction to the Blacktongue series, but I liked it all the same.

This book is a definition of grimdark fantasy. It’s brutal and, at times, hopeless. The world is harsh and unforgiving, and mankind, or kynd, battles a foe that can’t be reasoned with or bargained with. A foe for whom we are just food. Kynd is cattle to be hunted down and either butchered for meat or drugged with poisons until they are no better than cattle, unable to think for themselves.

The battles are brutal and graphic. You can really feel just how overwhelming the goblin horde is, how foreign and lethal their magic is, and how little kynd can do to oppose it now that all the horses are dead. Even the formidable corvids are an experimental species that are just as likely to turn against their handlers as to kill goblins.

The descriptions are vivid and often poignant. Take the description of the city, for example. We really get to walk its streets with Galva and her brother and see its beauty… only to watch it be defiled by goblins as kynd armies are caught by surprise and overrun.

I really liked Galva, our main protagonist. She is brash and prone to quick judgment sometimes, and she still has a lot to learn, but she her heart is in the right place. She loves all of her brothers, even the one who always falls short. So his betrayal is a blow both to her and the reader, and her revenge afterwards feels justified.

All of the characters in this book are interesting, even if not all of them are endearing. I wept for the corvid knights as they made their last stand on that bridge against overwhelming odds. I was heartbroken when I learned the fate of Galva’s youngest brother. This war destroyed her family and took everyone she cared about away from her in the end.

All in all, this was a very strong introduction to this world and this series, and I can’t wait to read the next book.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.

books, Military science fiction, Reviews, science fiction

Crying Wolf by Doug Joseph

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DNF at 75%

I tried to finish this book, I really did, but I can’t force myself. I don’t understand where the 5-star reviews came from, but I would guess it’s from people who have no clue about how the military in general and the Navy (be it Earth Navy or space Navy) function.

I am a military spouse. I lived the life, I know the rules, and I know how these men and women talk and behave. And let me tell you, this ain’t it. The characters in this book behave more like they are the crew of a civilian cruise ship than a Space Navy battleship on a special mission. I mean who lets an Ensign address the Captain of the ship by first name? What is the deal with first names on a naval ship? Since when is that a thing? I can tell you that I never knew anybody’s first names in the service. It was either rank and last name or call sign.

Also, all the conversations in this book are way too casual. All of the characters read as civilians on a cruise ship instead of elite military.

Plus, most of the characters are just plain dumb. Why did it take this long to look at the drone footage they took at the stranded ship? The captain should have ordered a review of all of them immediately after the ship imploded. He also should have interrogated Temkin immediately and asked all the hard questions. Instead, he pussyfoots around his “feelings”. Dude, that ship imploded, and before it did, there were signs of a shootout. And your only survivor tells you a story that’s too strange to believe. He should be in the brig. A message should have been sent to High Command immediately with all details and a request for assistance.

Most of the characters fail to arrive at obvious conclusions because otherwise the plot wouldn’t happen. I mean, why does it take them weeks to even think about checking their mainframe for a cyber attack? Your ship has been throwing suspicious errors left and right, a med robot went murderous, yet nobody went on high alert until the Martian frigates collided.

The author also tends to overexplain everything ad-noseum. First the Captain says something to one character, then he explains almost the same thing to another, then they say they will do something… before they go ahead and do it. The action drags, the dialogue between characters is painful to read, and the story is propelled forward only because nobody can think logically in this future, it seems.

I will not be recommending this book.

books, Horror, Native American, Reviews

Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina

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3.5 out of 5 stars

I liked this book less than Indian Burial Ground. From what I understand, Sisters of the Lost Nation was actually published first. I can say that the writing quality improved a lot between the two books.

This book shines a light on a very hard issue of addiction, exploitation, and lack of resources that Native Americans face in this country. People can get hurt or killed on the rez, and the law enforcement in the next town over would just shrug and do the bare minimum. Women and girls go missing, and nobody even pretends to make an effort to find them. It’s hard to read about, especially considering that even though the Indigenous tribe in this book is fictional, the issues are very much real.

The story itself, though… well, let’s just say that it took me a very long time to get into it. I think the author’s choice to jumble the timeline was a mistake. We are just getting to know Anna and her sister, as well as the other characters, and we jump from Day 30 to Day 4, back to Day 15, etc., in the first few chapters. This creates confusion.

More importantly, it makes Anna feel neurotic, because the Anna on Day 4 behaves completely differently than the Anna on the day Grace goes missing. Yet they are literally in back-to-back chapters. I couldn’t paint a clear image of who Anna actually is and what makes her tick until the timeline finally streamlined. And I admit that I didn’t like Anna very much until then either. And most of it was due to the time jumps back and forth and all over the timeline.

I also wasn’t particularly impressed with the ending. I felt like the author very much wanted to have a happy ending to this rather bleak story, but it felt forced rather than earned. In my opinion, a more realistic ending would have given this story an even bigger impact.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.

books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

House of Open Wounds (The Tyrant Philosophers 2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Stars: 5 out of 5

I never knew that I needed M.A.S.H. in a fantasy setting before I read this book. It’s much better than the first book in the series.

One of the complaints I had with the City of Last Chances was the sheer amount of POVs we had to follow and how much they diluted the story. A lot of things were happening to a lot of people in different parts of the city, and it didn’t come together into one big picture until the very end. So the story felt disjointed and meandering at times.

In House of Open Wounds, the author chose to concentrate on the bloody day-to-day activities of a field hospital, so all the POVs are concentrated in or around the Butcher’s domain. This gives the story a lot more focus as well as lets the reader truly get to know and care for the characters. I grew to love them and hope for a happy ending for them, even if their prospects were bleak – they were magic users and priests of old gods in the middle of a Palleseen army, after all.

The only character to carry over from the first book is Yasnic, one-time priest of a healing god, and now self-appointed god-smuggler. However, even he underwent a subtle transformation in this book, where he goes by Maric Jack instead of Yasnic. I like him a lot better in this story than in the first one, because he seems to have a lot more agency. He is less whiny, and he shows depths of compassion that he wasn’t capable of in the first book. And he becomes, almost despite himself, the catalyst to all the events that happen in the book.

The other members of the Butcher’s menagerie are just as strange and broken, but also very endearing. I loved the two elderly priests of formerly rival gods who discovered that even though their religions had been eradicated, they still had each other. Or the long-lost heir to a kingdom who lived his whole life as an orderly… Heck, I loved all of them, even the very Palleseen necromancer who is unwillingly in charge of the whole experimental hospital.

The daily life in the Butcher’s domain is brutal and bloody, and even though we don’t get to see the war directly, we get more than enough of it in the wounds the hospital has to treat and the horrors that become their everyday routine.

I also really liked how this ended. That was such an elegant solution that used Yasnic’s God’s powers and loopholes and still managed to bring a little bit of justice into this brutal and unjust war.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.

books, Cyberpunk, Military science fiction, Reviews, science fiction

Crossover (Cassandra Kresnov 1) by Joel Shepherd

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Stars: 2 out of 5

I was so excited about the premise of this book. As I said – a military android who realized that she wanted no part in the war between the League, who created her, and the Federation, and defected to live a normal, civilian life. But even fleeing to a seemingly neutral planet of Tanusha, Cassandra ends up in the thick of secret plans within plans between the same two actors she tried so hard to distance herself from.

This should have been a heart-pounding thriller ride! Instead, I fell asleep and dropped my phone on my face at least five times while I slogged through this book. How can I book about a badass android who defected from the side that created her and ended up embroiled in a conflict on the world she ran to be so boring? It’s over 400 pages long, and trust me, almost every single one of those pages dragged.

One of the reasons is that the pacing is so uneven. We get moments of action when Cassandra is either in the thick of things or being pursued or doing some pursuing of her own. Those are exciting enough, even if they could have been more tightly written. The problem is, they are few and far between. And between them, we get a lot of Cassandra gazing at the city of Tanusha, Cassandra and other characters talking politics, human relations, and racism, or Cassandra thinking about sex or engaging in sexual activities. On and on, without adding anything meaningful to the story.

This brings me to my other issue with this book. Despite a lot of talk of politics, I still have no clue what the conflict between the League and the Federation was about. Why is the League losing the war? Why did they decide to cooperate with the Federation enough to literally turn over their very unique android model? It’s all vague references and a lot of circular talking, and no real answers. If I don’t know what caused the conflict, I don’t care about the conflict or either of the parties.

The whole worldbuilding is pretty shaky in this book. We are probably a few hundred years into the future (or thousands). Humanity seemingly colonized a lot of solar systems. Yet people still divide themselves by Earth race and religion? Why would it matter to a Tanushan that someone is Muslim or Hindu? In fact, how would you even practice your religion on another planet? Where is Mecca in regards to the planet you are on? In that respect, the world of The Expanse is a lot more credible. People stop being from China or America, or India by the second generation born on a new world. Instead, there would be Earth, Mars, the Belters, etc.

All in all, this was a boring and rather disappointing read, and I will not be continuing with this series. But at least I crossed another book off my TBR list.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

All Spell Breaks Loose (Raine Benares 6) by Lisa Shearin

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Stars: 4 out of 5

Sagrad Nupakana is no more, and I am so happy about it! He was becoming a bit of a caricature villain who had overstayed his welcome. I mean, he is really way overboard in this book as well, so much so that I had trouble taking him seriously as a threat, but at least we are rid of him now (and no sudden comebacks, pretty please).

The book itself is very fast-paced, with our band of partisans going from one fight to the next oh-shit moment with barely a chance to breathe and take stock. It’s a breakneck race to a rather explosive ending.

Oddly enough, I think that the side characters shine more in this book than Raine and company. Talon and Priaras get their moment in the spotlight (with Talon taking things to the extreme, as usual). I also loved Tam’s family, and his old teacher is a hoot. Talk about breaking a level 13 containment spell by just… passing gas in the vicinity of the casters.

My biggest complaint here is that Raine took more of a passenger role in this story than being the driver of events. Things happen to her instead of her making them happen. Granted, she finally took advantage of the opportunity presented to her and rose to the occasion in the end.

All in all, I am happy with how this particular story arc was concluded and am looking forward to seeing where the author takes these characters next.

books, Ghost Story, Reviews

Disturbing the Water by Peter Wise

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Stars: 4 out of 5

This was a solid anthology of short stories centered around fishing and strange things that avid anglers sometimes encounter along the desolate stretches of the rivers and lakes they spend so much time by. It was a good palate cleanser between longer novels I was reading.

Sometimes you catch the elusive big one… sometimes you bring up something unsettling instead. And sometimes something otherworldly observes you cast your line and can take offence to how you treat the fish and the waters. And once it takes offence, well, sometimes you don’t come back home.

As I mentioned, the stories are short and a good distraction when wanting to read something quick or needing a break from a longer novel. However, none of them are particularly memorable or actually scary. They didn’t hold my interest as much as some other anthologies I read before, maybe because I am not an angler. In fact, I don’t think I ever held a fishing rod or cast a line in my life. I’m sure people who love fishing will derive more pleasure from these short stories than I did.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for sending me a review copy.

books, Horror, Psychological Horror, Reviews

The Prediction (The Jolvix Episodes 1) by Faith Gardner

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5.

I was excited to read this book, but ultimately came away disappointed. My biggest issue was that I didn’t like any of the characters. Nearly everyone felt awful, selfish, and deeply self-centered, which made it difficult to become invested in their struggles or relationships.

Unfortunately, that included Rowena, our protagonist and the person we’re clearly meant to empathize with. While it’s undeniable that she is being gaslighted by her husband and subjected to subtle emotional abuse, I still found her frustratingly difficult to root for.

Rowena is painfully aware of her anxiety, depression, and extreme clinginess, yet she seems unwilling to take any meaningful steps toward helping herself. Instead, she passively accepts whatever her husband tells her to do—take this medication, see this psychiatrist, follow this advice—without ever questioning it or seeking independent help. I found it hard to believe that someone who had lived in California for six months hadn’t made any effort to establish her own support network, find a primary care doctor, or even choose her own therapist.

What bothered me most was the contradiction in her behavior. For much of the novel, she drifts through life in an almost helpless state, blindly following her husband’s lead. Yet whenever she discovers one of his lies, she swings to the opposite extreme, becoming intensely paranoid, suspicious, and vindictive. Rather than making her feel complex, these shifts made her feel inconsistent and difficult to understand.

My other issue with Rowena was her relationship with Sara. Rowena repeatedly insists that she loves her husband, but she seems immediately captivated by Sara almost from the moment they meet. Given that both women are married, this felt strange to me, especially since Sara never appeared to show any interest in being anything more than a friend. This didn’t make me like Rowena any more.

While I sympathized with the situation she found herself in at the end—isolated and unable to turn to her mother or best friend for help because her husband had already convinced them that she was unstable, depressed, and suicidal—I could not support the decision she ultimately made. She committed a crime and took a life. Rather than facing the consequences of her actions, she chose to run away. What made that choice even more frustrating was that she did so on the advice of a machine that she knew had been designed with a built-in bias toward viewing her husband as a threat.


I’m also not convinced that the ending is as happy as it seems. On one hand, Rowena escapes punishment and gets to live freely with her daughter. On the other hand, she can never return home or reconnect with the friends she left behind. She has effectively abducted her child and is now living as a fugitive. Worse, she has placed herself entirely at the mercy of a machine whose guidance she unquestioningly follows. To me, that feels less like a happy ending and more like a nightmare masquerading as one.

On a side note, I am not sure why the author chose to change the title from Amen Maxine to The Prediction. The original title was attention-grabbing. The new name is just… meh.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a review copy.

My dreams and stories. The life of a writer.