Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Magic Burns

By Ilona Andrews.

Previous book here.

I think I liked this one the most of the books I've read in this series so far. It was surprisingly touching in a lot of ways.

Anyway: magic is flaring up big time right now in the world, which is interfering with how things are working around here. A simple job stealing back some stolen maps owned by the Pack introduces Kate to a strange trickster-esque fellow named Bran who's very hard to catch. She also finds, and pretty much falls in love with/adopts a teenage girl named Julie whose mother is in a skiffy amateur coven called The Sisters of the Crow, and all she's got without mom is a shaman boyfriend who rapidly annoys the shit out of everyone. The Sisters have all disappeared, but they seem to have done something impressively bad that might have massive consequences. And Julie and Kate are being pursued by a whole new magical creature somehow...

There's some giant "aww" moments in this that I'd like to mention, such as Kate's argument for two people getting married. There's a "dayum" moment early on when Kate explains exactly why she's not totally simpatico with the Order of Merciful Aid. And then there's her relationship with Curran, which is freaking adorable and I'm gonna quote a bit of it:

"How much are you lifting?"
"Seven hundred."
Alrighty then. I will just stand over here, out of your way, and hope you don't remember my promise to kick your ass.
He grinned: "Wanna spot me?"
"No thanks. How about I just scream verbal encouragements at you?" I took a deep breath and barked, "No pain, no gain! That pain is just weakness leaving your body! Come on! Push! Push! Make that weight your bitch!"

Yes, I deeply enjoy these two, even though Kate still claims to hate him. Hell, I enjoyed this best of the ones I've read so far.

I do, however, still think it's weird at how conspicuously obvious Kate is about ah, her origins, and yet she won't actually say yet. The hedging continues to be weird and sort of annoying.

But still, I really liked this one. Four stars.

Magic Bites

By Ilona Andrews.

(Note: previously read book 4 in the series out of order. This is book 1.)

In a world where magic waves frequently break over the world for the last 30 years (the atmosphere switches between magic working and technology working, apparently), Kate Daniels works as a mercenary who cleans up your magical incidents, bad monsters, etc. When her guardian Greg is murdered, Kate investigates the situation and reluctantly goes to work (more or less) for the Order of Merciful Aid, Greg's employer and the one he wanted Kate to work for, but she didn't like it. She also makes some new shapeshifter friends, particularly the head of the Pack, Curran the Beats Lord. They both tend to be naturally antagonistic with each other, but both manage to put aside their shit to work together. The chemistry between them is rather cute. Especially when you compare Curran to the "normal" guy that Kate is currently trying to date. Of course, you know there's some kind of Law of Magical Badass Girls Only Date Magical Badass Guys that means you probably shouldn't get terribly invested in dating "normal." (Indeed, it's kind of strange and almost downright suspicious that the dude sees Kate doing disgusting things to a skull and is still all, "I could deal with dating this." Really?)

Anyway, this is pretty good. I have one quibble in that I don't really get why Kate is being so freaking hedgy and cage-y about stuff like why she can't let anyone get a sample of her blood and why she'd be a target for someone who likes to boink the magically powerful. Now, admittedly I've read book 4 so I know what this is getting at, but even had I not I would still be all, "Um, why are you hiding shit from the reader?" So far it doesn't really make sense to me why she'd do that or leave these big ol' hints everywhere about stuff but not be blatant about it. It's just a narration trick that I think comes off badly and weak. So, eh on that.

I'll give it three stars. Not bad.

The Ruby in the Smoke

By Phillip Pullman.

Well. Not too many children's books in the modern era feature a 16-year-old taking opium. So, uh.... cheers to the author's audacity, I guess?

I read the second book in the series awhile back, this is the first. Anyway, 16-year-old Sally Lockhart has been raised by a dad who taught her how to shoot and do math, but not so much the ladylike activities in life. When he dies in a shipwreck, she's left at loose ends and finds out there's some weird mystery involving her and her dead dad and something called "The Seven Blessings" that literally makes a guy drop dead of fear when she asks about it. She makes friends with a couple of guys and finds herself a financial job with photographers, all the while investigating a really strange case involving opium and a missing ruby. Some creepy ass old lady is after Sally and keeping an opium addict who survived the shipwreck prisoner.

Anyway, it's weird. It's pretty much an old school silly implalusible adventure novel. Mildly entertaining, if you can get past the "wow, this is hokey and hoo boy, what's with that twist?" kind of thoughts. I guess I'll give it three stars.

The Miracle Chase: Three Women, Three Miracles, and a Ten Year Journey of Discovery and Friendship

By Joan Luise Hill, Katie Mahon and Mary Beth Phillips.

In the late 90's, three friends living in Northern California (at the time) start having a conversation about miracles that have happened to them. As a young woman, Katie narrowly missed being one of Ted Bundy's victims. Years ago, Mary Beth (who goes by "Meb)'s infant daughter ended up with a whopping case of Shaken Baby Syndrome due to a nanny, and miraculously recovered from the experience except for remaining blind. And recently, Joan's son turned out to have a fatal heart condition that miraculously ended up being fixable by doctors after all. Feeling a little obsessed and curious about the topic, given their experiences, the three ladies embark on what they call the "Miracle Chase," in which they (all good Catholic girls, so it comes from that perspective) research miracles.

Now, this makes you think it's going to be a book detailing various cases of miracles from both a historical and a modern day perspective, perhaps. Not exactly. There are some chapters here and there dedicated to recounting their research of saints and the like, but mostly the focus is on the lives of the three authors. Early on, Joan notes that people who get into researching miracles seem to ah... die young, and this starts to wig her out. And then she gets breast cancer (which she survives), as well as having to move for her husband's job early on in the book. Katie has a near death experience when something flies into the windshield of her car and barely misses her, and her husband develops a heart condition usually known as "the widow maker" right before their trip to Italy (don't worry, he ends up ok too). Meb doesn't end up with any NDR's, thank goodness, but her husband does eventually bail on her family.. So what the book is really about is more of the women's lives and how they dealt with the crap that happened to them--possibly due to their research? I love true life stories of this sort of thing and the ones that happen to the ladies here are good ones-- particularly Joan's experience with a television, the visit to the shaman that indicates that Joan really needs to go to a doctor, and Katie (the somewhat most skeptical of the bunch)'s experience with a cancer survivor toward the end. I also really enjoyed reading Meb's chapters about feeling called to do something about child abuse after what happened to her daughter (and how the nanny basically got off with a wrist slap!) and how she struggled with that, especially when she was forced to be more public about it than she wished.

So it's an interesting read for the overall story, but I do feel like the concept of a "miracle chase" when it comes to research does fall by the wayside. It kind of makes me wish there was a book dedicated to their 10 years of research and another one for their stories, I suppose? I enjoyed the stories, but as a research nerd, was kind of like, "What were you guys doing for the last decade of this project and where did that work go?" (Answer: into their lives, I think.)

So, I"m giving it three and a half stars. It feels like a bit of false advertising, but it's still an enjoyable read.

The Witch Is Dead

By Shirley Damsgaard.

Ophelia Jensen comes from a long line of psychic witches, and is trying to adopt a teenage medium named Tink. Tink starts having nasty dreams of corpses, and Ophelia's rune readings indicate that something bad's going to happen to her. The something bad turns out to be a kidnapping, leading Ophelia, her grandmother Abby, and her visiting Aunt Dot to investigate what's going on with both Tink's kidnapping and the corpses.

Honestly, I thought this was really weak as a mystery novel. The bad guys are super obvious right off the bat, so the only real investigation corpse-wise is a "why and what" rather than "who." You will not be surprised anywhere except at the grossness of the crime. Actually, what's kind of odd is that one character is very obviously stealth evil, and I do mean OBVIOUSLY, but Ophelia keeps ignoring it. She seems like a fairly shrewd person to figure out when everyone else is a bad apple, so it's odd that she ignores this one.* Oh, and for the record, the title is both rather bad and uh...not accurate whatsoever.

I also find the whole Aunt Dot situation to be odd. Now, keep in mind that everyone in the family is a psychically talented witch with a specialty. Aunt Dot's is seeing fairies. Except nobody else in her family believes her even a little bitty bit when she talks about it. Now, I can understand that people would act like that in real life, in a normal, non-paranormally skilled audience. (Hell, I used to know a guy who talked like that. Beats me if he was right or not, but I always wonder every time something of mine disappears inexplicably.) But THIS IS AN ENTIRE FAMILY OF WITCHY PSYCHICS. Shouldn't they be, ah... more open-minded, at least? Yeah, I know any old lady that goes around babbling about fairies in the garden comes across as a nutjob in normal society, but this family isn't normal society. It's just plain WEIRD that they are all rolling their eyes behind Aunt Dot's back all the time. Isn't it possible in your reality that she might be... right?... Well, I guess we all have our things. God knows I roll my eyes every time someone brings up fung shui and think, "for the love of god, the trash can has to go somewhere."

What's not bad about this novel is the characters, who are nice, personable folks to hang out with (okay, not the bad guys). For a novel about witches I could use some more magic done in it, but okay. So it's not a total stinker, but definitely is really weak in the mystery department.

Two stars.

Fish Out Of Water

By MaryJanice Davidson.

Previous book here.

Six months after the second book, Fred has become a minor celebrity, or at least spends a lot of time on TV doing interviews about mermaids that annoy her. She's living in Florida (note: what is with MJD characters always having someone around with a lot of money and a giant house for everyone to move into with no worries? Is this a thing?), where the mermaid king is pretending to have his castle to throw people off the scent. Fred's merman prince boyfriend Artur wants to get married already, but Fred's debating- and still, no surprise, kind of pining over the human hottie Thomas. But bigger shit goes down when (a) Fred's long lost traitor dad comes to see her, and (b) Artur and Mekkam find out that around 500 Undersea Folk have disappeared since the outings. Are those two events related? Well, I'll restrain myself from mentioning the answer to that one.

Overall, I enjoyed this one about as much as the previous book, so it gets four stars. I have some spoiler cut commentary, so I'll go down there for the rest. I'm not sure what to make of that stuff, it's kind of both good and not so good at once? But not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the book.

Swimming Without A Net

By MaryJanice Davidson.

I read Sleeping With The Fishes ages ago, vaguely kinda enjoyed it at the time, but didn't feel highly motivated to find out what was going on with Fred in later books. It probably didn't help either that I was kind of getting sick of the Queen Betsy series at the same time and thinking, "maybe I am just going off this author." But surprise, I actually liked this one better.

The plot: A year later (after both of Fred's love interests have swum off), everyone reunites again for a Pelagic, an Undersea Folk conference in which they plan to determine if the mermaids are going to come out of the water closet or not. Some folks want out of the water, some folks want to hide in the sea. The royal family has summoned Fred to the conference because as a hybrid, she'd have a better perspective on whether or not this is a good idea. Fred is as stumped as any sane person would be on this topic. "On the one hand, if you guys come out I'll do it too and help you along, on the other hand, humans like to kill or capture anything different. Argh, I don't know," is pretty much her vote. She eventually thinks of a more flexible solution, which will definitely affect her life.

Thomas the rich scientist/romance author (Prince Artur has invited him along out of fairness to a rival) has designed an underwater RV (URV) so that he can hang out with the mermaids, which is kind of adorable. But after Fred makes friends with a new human-curious mermaid, Tennian, it seems that Thomas would, well, be happy with *any* mermaid. Hanging out with tons of mermaids points out some problems with being a hybrid mermaid, like limited telepathy compared to everyone else. Oh, and it turns out that Fred's dad had attempted to take over the throne from Artur's dad and got exiled for his trouble. This gives Fred a bad reputation, which she finds irritating since she'd rather be disliked for her own personality rather than her dad being a dick.

Oh, and I have to tell you the best part: The mermaid king Mekkam likes hanging out in the URV (well, everyone does) and Thomas was watching Deadwood videos when he first came over....and the king LOVES AL SWEARENGEN. Fred is naturally horrified that THIS is the human culture that Thomas has exposed the king to. And leads to this piece of dialogue:

"Now, unless you motherfuckers are going to join me," King Mekkam continued, "I insist you sons of bastards all be quiet so I may view more of King Al."
Fred groaned.
"Uh, King Mekkam, about the swearing," Thomas said, clearing his throat and rubbing his ear. "I'm not quite sure you've got the hang of it just yet, and--"
"In our culture, it is polite to speak to others in their dialect," the king said firmly. "So all you motherfuckers shut the fuck up. Now, Thomas. Where is your son of a bitching DVD machine?"

Clearly, the author wasn't allowed to use Al's favorite word, alas (COCKSUCKER!), but it's hilarious anyway. Of course, it's even more hilarious if you mentally substitute the cocksucking dialogue... and then picture King Mekkam emerging from the waves saying, "Hello, you cocksuckers! I am the king!" or worse.

When it comes to the love triangle, I don't feel massively invested either way. She likes them both and finds them hot and they're both very nice guys, she's still annoyed that both bailed on her for like a year. So in a way, it's kind of like, does it matter who she picks to get together with? Fred eventually makes the decision based on what's good for the mermaids rather than by her own heart. That's...not something I'd expect to see in a series that purports to be romantic. Interesting. Perhaps if I was less of a blackhearted bitch of a human being I'd have a problem with it, but mostly I was just curious to see how that would work out in book 3.

For a short book that's theoretically fluffy, it wasn't bad! Four stars.

 

Kitty's Greatest Hits

By Carrie Vaughn.

(Disclaimer: I got an ARC from my local bookstore for this one, not a publisher.)

This is a collection of short stories taking place in the Kittyverse, though I'll warn you that at least some of them don't involve Kitty at all, but involve historical figures that were or had dealings with the supernatural. A few of them are backstories for regular characters. Kitty herself gets a few short stories here and there that take place really early in the series. And finally, what fans have spent a long time waiting (har) for, there is a novella explaining exactly what happened to Cormac in prison before Kitty Goes To War.

Brief rundown:

• "Il Est Ne:" takes place at Christmas after Kitty and the Midnight Hour, where Kitty is spending the holiday in a Waffle House. Then she spots a loner lost werewolf who wanders in...and has no idea or not if he's the local serial killer.
• "A Princess of Spain:" not Kitty-related, tells the story of Catherine of Aragon, who's been married off to Prince Arthur. Who is obviously ill and in no shape to consummate the marriage... and seems to have a mistress. Catherine and his younger brother Henry suspect something's up. (Honestly, not my favorite in the series, but it's okay. I was just so discombobulated at reading something not related to the folks we know in the modern era.)
• "Conquistador de la Noche:" how Rick became a vampire, and later a loner vampire. He didn't take to it well...
• "The Book of Daniel:" I liked this historical non-Kitty story better: explaining how Daniel really worked that lion's den thing.
• "The Temptation of Robin Green:" Robin is a young virgin working in a shadowy research facility (not in the modern era, since she's still only alloted a typewriter!) that has various supernatural folks prisoner, including Rick. She gets thoroughly gobsmacked by the selkie, though... This one makes you wonder what's going to happen after the end.
• "Looking After Family:" Cormac and Ben as teenagers and how they got into the business of hunting werewolves-- and why.
• "God's Creatures:" Cormac's latest werewolf target is at a Catholic church and girl's school. Awkward... especially when at least one person is on to him.
• "Wild Ride:" Features TJ from Midnight Hour and how and why he became a werewolf.
• "Winnowing the Herd:" Kitty is feeling REALLY REALLY SUPER CRANKY at the holiday KNOB party... takes place before the books start.
• "Kitty and the Mosh Pit of the Damned:" another story involving Kitty and a band, featuring a supernatural we haven't seen in the series so far. A little odd, but not bad. Not sure where this is is in the series.
• "Kitty's Zombie New Year:" how NOT to make a zombie. Very creepy implications in this one. Takes place early in the series, I'm not sure where.
• "Life is the Teacher:" features Emma, Alette from Kitty Goes To Washington's descendant and newly made vampire, as she tries to figure out feeding without killing.
• "You're On The Air." My favorite short story of the bunch features Jake the convenience store vampire that called in in Midnight Hour, and what he got up to after he got off the phone.
• "Long Time Waiting:" The novella! Best thing in here, I have to say. Explains how Amelia Parker got wrongly executed for a murder she was trying to solve, and how she was being chased by a demon even after death, and the effect that that demon is having on the prisoners in the modern era. Cormac's the one guy in prison she thinks she can use/trust to help her fight it, but how's she going to get his cooperation?

Honestly, I didn't love most of these stories the way that I did the other short stories I've seen in this world not in this collection, but it's not bad. (But keep in mind that I am not much of a short story person when I say that, so I am probably biased.)  The last two are particularly cool. So, three and a half stars, overall.

House of Cards

By C.E. Murphy.

This summer's reading schedule will now have a new feature: instead of the summer's usual "Trashy Books" theme, it's going to be "Catching Up On Series Where I Read The First Book And Wasn't Quite Into It Enough To Buy The Next One Immediately, Kinda Dropped The Series, And Then Am Returning To It 'Cause I Just Got A Truckload Of  Those Books Lately." Let's see if anything improved, eh?

So, anyway, yonks ago I read Heart of Stone. And reading the sequel here reminded me of why I was conflicted about going back to this series in the first place: it had its good points and its "meh" points.

To recap: Margrit is a Legal Aid lawyer who found out that there are five (known to still exist, anyway) Old Races of magical creatures roaming around the world still. The title of the series is "The Negotiator," as Margrit has decided to be an advocate for all of them. The new plot development in this one is that one of the Old Races (they're all on the decline in the modern era, but one in particular is thought to be near-extinct) is actually ah... much more flush than anyone knew of, and they want back in the club. This calls on Margrit's negotiating skills when a quorum happens between a representative of every Old Race. There's also another plot in which Janx insists that someone is trying to kill his djinn lieutenant Malik and insists on sticking Margrit with the job. This makes approximately no sense for two reasons: (a) Margrit's human and can't defend a guy who can literally go intangible whenever the fuck he wants, and (b) oh yeah, they totally hate each other. This also leads to both Margrit and her gargoyle hottie Alban making deals with dangerous people. Oh, and her Legal Aid boss gets murdered, and Margrit finds out later he had some Old Race ties that might have had something to do with it.

The good: Margrit's realizations about the Old Races and why she wants to hang out with them. Her negotiating skills. How the romance eventually went (much better, thank you).  She totally loves finding out that the Old Races exist and kind of wishes she could be one-- but at least she can interact with the bunch. They make life interesting for her in a way that a "normal life" with the requisite cop boyfriend (it's kind of on the fritz there) sure as hell isn't. And I deeply enjoy that about her character. That and that as a mixed-race non-white character, she has perspectives on racial mixing and slavery that other characters in the series don't necessarily clue into.

The meh: Most of the book involves Margrit going back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball between crimelord dragon Janx (who she owes favors to) and prominent businessman/vampire Eliseo Daisani (who wants to employ her). Seriously, I was totally confused as to what was going on, who was on who's side, whatever there. There's a plot to this book, but it's kind of on slow boil until the end when everything gets explosive. (And I'm still not quite sure what went down with Russell, but maybe that's just me.) I also kind of wish there were more women main characters in this book-- the women are interesting, but everyone but Margrit is a side dish in this story compared to all the Big Powerful Men heading up things. And Grace O'Malley is still hardly in this book. Come on, I'd like to see more of her still and figure out what the hell she's up to! I also still find it odd how Margrit is totally adored and fought over by like, everyone in the entire series. Yes, she's a nice looking girl with brains who doesn't mind hanging out with paranormal folks of all shapes and sizes, but seriously, it's just odd and uh, Mary Sue-ish and I can't figure out why one lone human is THAAAAAAAAAAAT special to everyone without the Mary Sue powers of adoration.

So... three stars overall, I guess.

Mouse and Dragon

By Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

This is the long-awaited direct sequel to Scout's Progress, and finally explains how Aelliana and Daav's relationship went on after that point.

I'll admit: it doesn't have a whole lot of plot. It's mostly Aelliana and Daav getting together, Aelliana telling her mother that she doesn't feel safe at home and she's going under Clan Korval's protection, Aelliana getting used to the lavish lifestyles of Clan Korval and enjoying life some more, quitting her job for becoming a courier with Daav. The actual plot moments kind of drift in and out. Aelliana's mother eventually tries to force Aelliana to go back home and turn over her ship and its profits to the family. (and this being Liad, there's very few options to not have to do it), and considering that Clan Mizel is kind of flushing down the toilet, she's got reasons.  I thought her mom seemed kind of nice but vague and out to lunch in the previous book-- I take it back, since they make it clear that her mother will never let the whole thing with her jerkass brother go. There's also a little bit of plot involving the Juntavas and someone who "disappears" pilots, and there's the requisite "Daav's pain in the ass snobby sister gives Aelliana shit" plot. And eventually we get the story behind the Terran Party wanting Daav dead and finding out exactly what happened to him and why he left Liad. To which I am all "well, finally," because that really needed some clearing up.

This isn't a book to read if you haven't read the earlier books (this one and Local Custom), and as a story by itself it's more filling in the holes and letting the audience enjoy the relationship, something that you don't really get to go do in Scout's Progress. I think it could have used some more story in between the fun, but I like the characters so much that I didn't mind that a lot of the time I was reading about them having meals and just hanging out chatting and the like. Go figure.

Three stars overall.