Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Station Eternity

By Mur Lafferty.

"Chaos and shit follow me everywhere I go. I show up at a party, someone dies and someone else gets abducted by a passing alien ship? That doesn't happen everywhere." -Mallory

This is definitely "Jessica Fletcher" (or any other murder mystery magnet) "goes to space," and then it gets weird. 

Mallory Viridian is some kind of murder mystery magnet. She tends to be around when someone gets murdered, and she's able to identify the connections and the weird ways things happen. Unfortunately, this has gone terribly for with regards to trying to have a romantic relationship (she can't, someone dies), or frankly, doing much of anything. Most cops don't believe her, except one guy who isn't in the book much but has sworn to keep her out of being able to work in any criminal field. The only way Mallory can make a living is to write books based on her experiences.

Then First Contact happens, and various species make themselves known to the planet, and when Mallory ends up around yet another murder at a military base, she finds out there's an option to go move to a sentient space station, where very few humans are. Maybe if she's not around other humans, this won't keep happening. Sure, she has to become a research subject to a buggy hivemind species to make a living and eating in alien restaurants and figuring out what she can eat is an adventure, but at least she can make a few interspecies friends without issue. 

However, after moving to Station Eternity, one day Eternity decides she's willing to let a shuttle full of humans visit, and naturally Mallory is OH SHIT PEOPLE ARE GONNA DIE AND NOBODY LISTENS TO ME OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT.  Also in a similar "oh shit oh shit oh shit" situation is her college friend Van, a military guy who's been involved in top secret shit and was also at the last murder Mallory was at. Upon ducking his own murder, he literally got picked up by some friendly/wasted aliens, and has also been hiding out on the station/human military for going AWOL. 

Why yes, it does seem like a coincidence that Mallory and Xan run into each other periodically, but that isn't the only one. Because once the station's symbiont being is killed and there's a horrible shuttle accident that takes out most of the passengers, Mallory finds out the survivors (and at least one deceased) have connections to her and/or Xan. Coincidence? Probably not. 

There's also a semi-confusing subplot about the Gneiss, a large rocky species that can transform themselves into shuttles or something else. Mallory and Xan have made friends with Stephanie*, Ferdinand, and Tina, a trio of Gneiss friends. Apparently Tina--the nice but dumb one--is some kind of Gneiss royalty, and Stephanie's royalty-obsessed grandfather the shuttle is somehow convinced that Stephanie might do something or other to Tina, which doesn't make sense, nor do the other two seem inclined to want to rule a planet. This turns into a whole thing involving transformation and most of the hibernating Gneiss in the station getting riled up... This was interesting, but frankly I'm not entirely sure if I got everything that was going on with this or why this was going on now. 

* I note there's a translator thing people get installed in themselves that translates names into what you can understand.

For those of you wondering if there's a romance, I'm gonna say "not really." Mallory is vaguely interested in Xan, but frankly, they're too busy and Xan seems averse to impulsive ladies. Well, maybe in the next book (one gets the feeling if there's a subtitle called "The Midsolar Murders," it may be a series).

I will say that the plot gets fairly convoluted--especially with certain alien things going on--but things do eventually make sense and get explained, particularly Mallory's "is she cursed or what" sort of affliction, which I'll discuss below the spoiler cut.

Beyond that, the various alien species in this are certainly inventive. I enjoyed getting to know the various suspects/murder victims in this, as some of them got particularly interesting or inventive in how they were handled. (Has someone told Seanan McGuire to read this book? There's a Manic Pixie Chaos-y Murder Girl in this she'll love.) The Brown family are also intriguing when you get to know them. There's also the concept that all the other species get into symbiotic relationships with other beings, and they think it's pretty weird that humans don't do that--well, the only things similar on their planet are parasites or cancer--and that whole concept gets some cool development. 

Overall the book is an entertaining chaotic-y mess, but does sort itself out into a satisfying resolution, thankfully. I give it four stars. I've been in January funk and while some books I'm literally taking months to read right now (why?!), I whipped through this in probably 24 hours, barring other things to do in life like theater. 

The Witness for the Dead

By Katherine Addison.

Previous book in the world here, though not particularly a sequel.  (Annoyingly, I can't recall when I read the first one and can't find it in a search.) This follows the work of Thara Celahar, professional Witness for the Dead, as he can sometimes pick up information  off dead bodies. (I note this isn't something that seems to go on all the time, or very dramatically.) The cases he deals with are:

• The murder of an opera singer, who sounds dreadful except for her voice. Thief, blackmailer, spendthrift, and general asshole. Hard to nail down one particular suspect there. I note that Thara is attracted to a composer at the opera, who is a suspect, albeit not a particularly strong one, but this seems to remind Thara of his previous romantic misfortune (apparently he was involved with a married dude who killed his wife...awkward).
• He gets asked to do his job to determine who was supposed to be the heir in a will, and then the very prominent family Objects Most Strongly to the results, harassing Thara and forcing him to go through an ordeal of being stuck on a hill with ghosts to prove his um, innocence. 
• He ends up on the trail of a guy who marries plain women with some money and then poisons them.
• He goes to another town to put down a ghoul, and then ends up helping a grandfather and granddaughter who have been separated to connect.
• While meeting said granddaughter, he ends up at the site of a horrible airship accident, and then gets harassed for not proving that someone did it deliberately.

This is kinda like following Columbo around on cases, I suppose. It's not a particularly deep novel like the last one, more procedural about different cases, no particular major personal development arc for the detective. But I enjoyed the reading of the mysteries. I just can't come up with much commentary on this, somehow? I'll give it three and a half stars. 

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

By Megan Bannen.

This is a science fiction/fantasy version of You've Got Mail/The Shop Around The Corner/She Loves Me, only without the two being actual feuding coworkers (more like client and customer). I loved this, the only issue I had with it being that frankly, the worldbuilding going on here is a bit hard to explain. I cannot claim that I quite understood this old school alternate universe with old gods, new gods, and here's a magic world where we used to keep gods and now humans can get into it and get themselves in trouble thing. (This review does better at it.) I do note that gods can procreate and produce demigods with powers/possible immortality, which seems useful in certain professions. Anyway, people who head into the land of Tanria, if they get killed there, can get turned into drudges (basically zombies), and they're required to book a funeral package before they go.

This is how Tanrian Marshal Hart Ralston, cranky demigod still mourning the losses of his family/mentor/dog, runs into Mercy Birdsall, the undertaker-in-all-but-name at Birdsall and Son. (Unfortunately, the son turns out to get grossed out at bodies, secretly changed his major at college, and decides he wants to be a chef.) These two got off to a bad start and have been sniping at each other every time Hart has to drop off a body. Added bonus is when Hart gets assigned a new kid to mentor (with the name "Penrose Duckers," which never ceases to amuse me) and the new kid falls madly in love at first sight with Mercy's little brother. 

I note this world also has immortal animal beings who used to deliver mail to the gods and now deliver mail to humans. When Hart's feeling mopey AF again, he writes an anonymous letter to "A Friend" and posts it with no one to mail it to. But the nimkilim postal carrier who gets it decides to mail it by heart to Mercy, who reads it, is intrigued, and writes back. And seriously? Their letters? These are good. I've never been a fan of the generic "dear friend" letters I've heard in other properties  and rambling about pencils, but these two legitimately show personality and flair and hint at their lives without giving it too obviously away.  Those letters work and hooked me, thankyouverymuch. Both of them are secretly angsty AF and get this about each other.

However, their eventual meeting date goes pretty much the way it does in all the other stories (i.e. unrevealing to one party and poorly), but Hart and Mercy end up hitting it off on a more personal level (and it's hot). This leaves Hart feeling squeamish AF about revealing the truth (I'm not sure why? Why wouldn't she like you when she knows?). Meanwhile, the drudge population is going up, the rival chain business owner is trying to buy out the Birdsalls, and Hart's got a really weird personal mystery going on in Tanria regarding his powers and seeing a replica of his family home that was quite intriguing. 

The ending, well, that's where science fiction comes in, is what I'll say to that. I also appreciated that for once, the couple wasn't some kind of work rivals and that kind of plot didn't go on here. 

Overall, I was captivated by the characters, both main and side, and loved hanging out with them all. It made me want to write an anonymous letter to "A Friend" and see what that got me, but alas, without magical animal people about, that's probably doomed. The only thing that isn't great in this is my confusion on the whole gods/worldbuilding concept, but overall I guess I didn't super need that to be clear for me to get what the characters were dealing with.

Four and a half stars. 

The Princess and the Scoundrel

By Beth Revis.

 

In the new Star Wars-verse, i.e. the one where the events of "The Courtship of Princess Leia" never happened, this is the new "how Han and Leia got married and went on their honeymoon" story. It was pleasant enough, but I don't know if it really stood out for me?

 

Han and Leia get married on Endor with a bunch of Ewoks, with not much fuss, and then Mon Mothma offers them a (free?) honeymoon trip on a luxury cruiser. This turns out to be slightly uncomfortable since (a) it's filled with rich people, (b) who were ah, more likely to support the Empire, and (c) at least one tech genius on the ship who's fallen into dire straits due to the Empire's collapse thinks it's a great idea to kidnap Princess Leia. Unfortunately he comes up with this idea during a card game Han snuck into, so guess how that goes.

 

Most of this ends up taking place on a planet that Han and Leia engineer a detour tour, which is known for their ice, fancy sculptures, and apparently being secretly controlled by the Empire, and local officials are still terrified of all of that. Also, they have quakes aplenty. 

 

Periodically, we're reminded that Han went through trauma after being frozen for awhile (hey, let's go to an ice planet!), Han's ex from the movie, Leia knowing darned well her career will be on ice once people find out whose bio-kid she is, etc. I do appreciate that the author inserted these moments of realism into the world, such as it is.

 

However, the plot's not super urgent, more along the lines of "mildly interesting" (which I guess is what you'd expect for a side adventure off-camera), it's not especially romantic (I read reviews indicating it was...hm, not for me) and in the end, I probably won't really remember much about this book. I finished it a few months ago (I have been SUPER SWAMPED with an intense rehearsal schedule/finishing my Halloween costume) and this is what I remembered to say about it. Three stars. 

 

The King Will Kill You

By Sarah Henning.

Previous book here.

This is the final book in this trilogy. It's both good and yet kinda...I feel like it wraps up a bit fast? Anyway, the second book ended on a happy note, but the third book goes right on back to PATRIARCHY WINS and patriarchy outnumbering the good people, and Ama and Luca being frustrated as heck that they can't just easily get married, join their kingdoms, and have a feminist utopia. There's a line in the book, "Rights meant nothing to a woman if men said they did not," and that's still pretty irritatingly true and a lot of what Ama and Luca are fighting in the book, along with "how does Luca deal with a new kingdom" and one of their enemies ah, returning. But how do you fight a billion years of patriarchy?

SEMI-SPOILERISH DISCUSSION BEYOND THIS POINT. I'm not going to totally spoiler space it, but I find it hard to write a review without making more semi-detailed commentary.

The title character...well, I won't spoil the ending of book 2, but we'll say someone returns unexpectedly, but I don't know if I felt super menaced by that particular threat or not? Said character is pretty well preoccupied with survival for the most part, though some damage is done here and there. This series seems to have originated with the concept of "The Princess Bride" and while it's wandered off from there, I was amused that the concept of "only mostly dead" came up again here. I did rather enjoy how that got handled, for the most part. 

Much as I like how this author has a lot of strong women, frequently of dubious/kinda evil nature, by virtue of this being a world where fighting is going on, betrayals are going on, etc....ladies die a lot. And it bummed me out to lose good characters, even if there's plot-related reasons for that. I did like the explanations of the previous Warlords and their um, work, though. 

I liked the side romances in this one--they don't get much time, but they're sweet. I particularly enjoyed Ama's brother Ferdinand's relationship with his lady love, who's had a sudden rise of status that may get in the way of their relationship. I don't know if I've ever been madly in love with Ama and Luca's relationship like I'm supposed to be, but I do enjoy how they utterly support each other, especially in a backstabby world. 

In the end...well, I'll spoiler space that one for you. But I'll say it felt kinda like a fizzle and a "too easy" last-minute wrap-up that didn't feel like it would work for the world that was set up. 

Three and a half stars. I enjoyed this series but always kind of felt like it could be a bit better, somehow. 

Hench

By Natalie Zina Walschots

Anna works on the side of evil. I don't particularly know why--the character doesn't have any backstory or family history mentioned--but when we meet her, she's a temp worker/"hench" who gets employed by villains. To some degree it's like working any kind of weird temp job--her current employer, the Electric Eel,  prides himself on being sensitive and "caring" about employees and things like that. She commiserates with friends, she has a date  go wrong when work interferes.

Then she gets forced to be on television to prove that the Eel is "inclusive" (i.e. "I'm a booth babe?"), has to holde a brain-manipulating ray to a kidnapped teen's head, and gets her leg permanently damaged by Supercollider, the superhero, when he smacks her into a wall. She's immediately unemployed, living at her best friend's house, and dwelling on how superheroes cause so much collateral damage. She makes spreadsheets ,she creates a blog, and she gets recruited for a new job, working for the superhero Leviathan, who also has a grudge against Supercollider.

Anna rises in her job- earning the title/nickname "The Auditor," as she uses data analysis to strategize how to slowly, painfully, take Supercollider down by removing his support system. She loses her best friend, she gets new friends at work, and she starts having tender feelings for Leviathan, though this isn't really a romance and clearly god only knows how that would work given Leviathan's current physicality. (That felt a little weird/token/flat, honestly.) She may be handicapped, and it's ambiguous as to whether or not she has power herself or just awesomeness by analysis, but she does get respect and power of her own, even as even she feels bad for some of the collateral damage she does trying to end someone else's collateral damage. 

This book has both a fair amount about "the banality of evil," or what it's like to work in an "evil" office and how it's not necessarily all that different, and also "yeah, superheroes are also kinda evil, or a good chunk of them anyway, when they cause collateral damage on other people." Which, good point. Supercollider himself gets worse and worse so you certainly don't feel bad about his being taken down--especially what he does to Anna later on. And when his unhappy girlfriend Quantum Entanglement is brought into the mix, things get hardcore.

This is a dark book, but an interesting one, where you can certainly debate morality all day long while reading it. Everyone's got their motivations and judgments and in their own way, everyone's guilty. 

I give it four stars. I don't quite consider it a downer (it kind of ends as well as that situation is going to get), but it certainly gives you a lot to think about. 

 

 

Paladin's Strength

By T. Kingfisher.

Previous book in this world here.

Sister Clara is a lay nun* with the Order of St. Ursa. Her entire order was attacked and kidnapped. Sister Clara got sick and was left for dead, has since recovered, and been having an interesting time of things since.then. She ends up meeting Istvhan, one of the paladins from the previous book. He's on the lookout for the Smooth Men, the creepy clay/necromancy murder creatures on the loose in the last book. Clara's looking to rescue her friends, and Istvhan is totally willing to partner up and help her with this. Of course both issues come to light in the creepy town they're traveling to, where fighting pits are A Thing and the place sounds horrible in general.  

• I gather this translates into "didn't swear a vow of celibacy, is fine for her to get laid." Given that their religious order is based on a trait of birth rather than being super dedicated to religion, I suppose they might allow for people to do that under the circumstances. Also, it's a romance novel and doesn't strike me as being one of those romance novels where you're seducing someone away from their religious order.

Istvhan and Clara hit it off right away, as both of them are amiable large people and don't get to be around others like that very much. Clara...oh hell, I'll just spoil it since it comes up pretty quickly in the book: she and her entire order are lady werebears, which is A Thing That Happens where she's from, and that's why her order got kidnapped to be forced into fighting pits. Clara has some issues with being rejected for her beariness, which Istvhan doesn't mind at all. Much like the previous book (I think it's A Thing) for the author, they have issues of "But I'm a bear!" "But she's a nun!" and whatnot to drag it out some, but once they start badonkadonking, they're quite happy about it. The sex scenes are quite hot. The snark is similar yet different to the last book and I enjoyed it mightily.

This one also goes into far greater (and somewhat gorier) details about the Smooth Men, specifically as to how they came to be. I think this one sounds resolved by the end of the book, but since there's a third book, I'm not totally sure about that? It's super creepy but well done, I suppose, explaining all that weirdness magically. 

Quotes:

• "I go screaming berserk at the drop of a hat. You turn into a bear. Honestly, I'm a little relieved that I'm not the strangest one in the room any more." -Istvhan
• "I was just thinking, first you were with Beartongue and now you're chasing after someone with an actual bear's--" "Look, I'm just saying you have a type. A weirdly specific type." -Galen
• "I have made love. I have had sex. I have bedded, rutted, fucked, and on one occasion, with enthusiastic consent and a great deal of oil, I have sodomized, but I have never, not once, canoodled." -Istvhan, who clearly Has Standards
• "If I had just thrown myself on his cock like a sensible woman, this would be an amusing anecdote that happened afterwards." -Clara
• "Now. Before I lose my nerve or we're drowned in salamanders or somebody shows up wanting a fight." -Clara, learning from her mistakes.
• "Well, that's a load of horseshit if I ever heard one," said Sister Sigrid, and slapped him upside the head....If the two of you get any more in love, I'll puke on the floor right here." (I like her. Too bad she's not in it much.) 
• "Dear god, he'd told her he loved her and she'd said, "That's very nice." How was she supposed to live with that?" 

Four stars.

Truth of the Divine

By Lindsay Ellis.

Previous book here.

This is a really, really, really dark book, and I'm not just referring to the "this book talks about suicide" warning at the start. 

Cora, our main character of the first book, has whopping cases of PTSD/depression/nightmares/panic attacks/anorexia, pretty much everything.  She's suicidally depressed after living through what she should not have lived through. The girl is a broken bird. She is in desperate need of an enormous level of help that probably can't be provided enough, given her "I'm an alien translator, more or less" situation. Her alien partner Ampersand tries and is certainly working on it at the start of the book (and that's very sweet), but everything derails when one of Ampersand's syphyles (...family members, more or less?....) lands on Earth, looking for the two of them to die together as last survivors, more or less. Also, this is because the ah...head alien group...has found out about humanity being the other species in the universe, they're coming here in five years, and they will basically wipe out humanity for being a threat. And someone Cora reasonably thought was gone from the world turns out not to be, so that's also traumatizing AF. 

Meanwhile, the Earthlings are debating whether or not to consider aliens "people" or go with a "Third Option" along the lines of oh, remember that whole 3/5 of a people thing during slavery? It's one of those things where you know the right thinking people will be all "hell no" to this, but the bad guys are going to get their way about it and all things will go to hell on Earth. When two of the aliens ask for asylum, who knows what'll happen with that, either. 

The second alien, originally dubbed "Enola Gay" in the media and later renamed Nikola, takes more of a center stage in this novel, along with Kaveh, a famous journalist who decides to befriend Nikola and Cora to find out the real truth. Kaveh has connected with Cora's shitty dad Nils in the past, but this isn't as big of a deal in this book as you might think. (Shitty dad stays in Germany, thank goodness.) 

Ampersand spends most of the book in some kind of "blue screen of death" state and frankly, isn't available to do much or help for a lot of it. And Cora's so freaking traumatized by everything that it's horrifying. Therefore, the budding adorable friendship between Nikola and Kaveh takes center stage. While it doesn't become a whole literal bond thing between the two, Nikola's calling Kaveh "dear clever creature" is darned cute and I really enjoyed them together, even if NIkola's not listening to Kaveh about "no, seriously, don't go down there and meet the people" goes extremely poorly. Kaveh becomes more of a narrator since frankly, Cora's not really in the shape to do it and reading her unrelieved in this book would probably be unbearable. 

I admit, I am probably confused a good chunk of the time as to what is going on with the aliens. They are extremely alien aliens and at times I just don't think I get what they have going on. That might just be me, I don't know, I'm not very technical. There's a fine line to walk between "REALLY ALIEN ALIENS" and having them humani-ish enough for the likes of me to get it, which is where this series goes.

That said, I really enjoyed the discussions of "personhood" in this, both in the "Third Option" sort of way and in the "how the amygdalines define a person" way, which is why Ampersand created the bond with Cora that he did. Very intriguing. 

Kaveh made the book for me. He makes this work, he is a positive light in this world (along with Nikola to some degree, who's balancing between "the Earthlings are doomed and yet I am very interested in this species, is there anything I can do about this?"). On the one hand, he's a bit unreally perfect in the "I happen to be a rich genius journalist and I'm handsome and well-meaning and my family is full of nice people who made me the confident guy I am today" way. On the other hand, he's a recovering alcoholic, his brother killed himself and it really messed him up, and he behaved in a manner that ended a relationship very badly. But Kaveh has been in the dark places and gotten himself out of it, which is something really needed in this book since Cora is so far down the hole.

Kaveh and Cora become boyfriend and girlfriend. This is a bit controversial for me given the age difference and power differential (she's 21 and traumatized, he's 35 and see above), BUT he is utterly supportive of her and caring and she NEEDS THAT since literally nobody else in her world is doing that for her AT ALL. I seriously wondered if it was ethical for them to get into a sexual relationship, even though as far as both Kaveh and I can tell, she definitely consented to such and even though Cora's a wreck, she seems to be into the relationship as much as she can be. Even Kaveh himself is deeply concerned and has doubts about whether or not this is a good idea, but plugs along anyway? They are also bonded in the "we are the only two people in the world who are close to aliens" sort of way, as well. Kaveh gets that on some emotional level, if not a sexual partner level, Cora loves Ampersand--and he can deal with that. Hooray!

Before I go further, let's have Kaveh's Quote Corner:

• "Welcome to Earth. I'm not going to punch you in the head."
• "Goddamn but this situation got more and more fucked-up every second. There was no right or wrong thing to do, no way to un-fuck this, only the path of least harm, and he could only hope that whatever he did from here on in fell on that path." 
• "I'm not particularly threatened by him. Like, there are some things about being human he is never going to get. Like, he's never going to understand why 'Dick in a Box' is funny."
• "If he is a part of the package that is you...then okay. I can roll with it. We're in uncharted territory. But that's kind of fun in its own right. I said I know you're in love with him, that doesn't mean you don't love me. I know you love me differently than you love him." 

...........

And then, the ending. The ending pretty much ruined everything for me. It's not quite the level of "aliens wipe out Earth" (YET, I'm sure that's where book 3 goes if there is a book 3) level of depressing, but a certain thing happened that bummed me out so much that I don't think I will be able to continue reading if there's a third book. On a not-terribly-related note, I am a huge fan of Seanan McGuire and have NOT been able to make myself read "Where The Drowned Girls Go" because literally everything about it sounds horrifying, depressing and sad--and that's about where this book I just read here ends. I don't think I can take experiencing more things going to hell after this. I'm really sad. I'm too sad to even spoiler space discuss this. Things end on a very dark and depressing place and I'm not sure if I want to know where it goes from there, sigh. Or if I can take that while living in the already-nightmare 2020's. That may just be me, though.

I read this interview with the author (note: while I'm not spoiling the ending, this interview does towards the bottom) and I note this quote:

Also, I wrote much of this book during COVID, which I guess is pretty obvious considering it’s just a bunch of people arguing over how to deal with this slow-moving disaster. I don’t want to write a narrative where the solution is hopeless. But the longer this goes on, it’s harder to make a case for any type of human cooperation. 

....Agreed. 

Three and a half stars. 

Caraval

By Stephanie Garber.

I'm not sure what is going on with this. 

Scarlett and (Donna)Tella are sisters with an abusive father, living on some kind of captive isle. Scarlett is obsessed with Caraval, some kind of magic show/game/thing her grandmother told her about it. She's written letters to the guy who runs it, Legend, asking that he come to her isle for years. But once she writes to tell him she's engaged (to some nameless count who writes nice letters), she finally gets an invite to Caraval, if she can just get herself to some other island. A suspiciously helpful "random" sailor named Julian helps the girls escape and then follows Scarlett into the game, for reasons of his own. The game turns out to be "find your sister 'cause Legend kidnapped her," and everything is mysterious and weird.

I can't say that things come out of nowhere in this one--I feel like things are set up in world and this stuff isn't out of the blue--but at the same time, things are confusing-ish, I suppose? Other players in the game don't really matter since the whole thing seems set up to deal with Scarlett's family drama. Weird, mysterious, magical things happen like having to literally die for a few days to get a dress (not worth it, I say). It's supposed to be all beautiful and mysterious and magical and mostly I was just "....I dunno, I feel as confused as Scarlett here." 

Scarlett's perennially vacillating between desperately trying to find her sister and developing the hots for Julian even though she doesn't want to. Julian's motives are god only knows what,  but he's hot and kind of helpful and Scarlett somehow trusts him anyway? They do give great hormones, though. Tella's not in the book much, but frankly she's kind of self-centered (even Scarlett thinks so) and probably not worth this much bother. However, I did enjoy a twist at the end regarding her that gave me much more respect for her character instead of always being a selfish bimbo-y girl. 

...I don't know. I wasn't quite in love with this one and wasn't sure if I was going to finish it? Maybe it's just a Not For Me But For Other People sort of thing. Three stars. 

Tear Down The Throne

By Jennifer Estep.

Previous book here.

Loving this book. The plot of it sounds fairly simple and mostly revolves around Maeven's new scheme to force Leo and Gemma to get married by forcing him to go through "The Gauntlet", some kind of historical Unger* ritual thing. Gemma is conflicted AF between "I've had feelings for this guy since like age 12" and "Oh dear god, his mother and older brother are fucking eeeeeeeeevil murderers." Would you want to marry into the Morricones? Heck no. And of course there's a bunch of murder scheming going on with Milo and his fiancee and her secret boyfriend, and god only knows what Maeven's up to, but Gemma doesn't want to marry Leo if Maeven is in favor of it. That can't be good, right?

• Y'know what, I think the author needs to write some books on the Ungers, because man, do they ever have a weird/unusual/very forceful and stringent culture. Xenia needs a book/prequel, something, in particular. 

Anyway, this book has a lot of cool plot developments, moments of adorable, and hot sex. 

• I continue to love the use of the sentient liladorn plant. That's really cool.
• Gemma's dead mother was a time magier, and she ends up factoring into the plot in some really cool ways. 
• Gemma and Leo are ADORABLE, and the gifts section of the book in particular is full of "awwww."
• There is a baby strix named Violet who loves gargoyles at first sight AND IT'S THE CUTEST THING EVER I WANT ONE.
• Gemma and Maeven's "it's complicated" relationship continues to develop. Gemma can't bring herself to let Maeven die when the opportunity arises, and Maeven admits to having her own "it's complicated" relationship with Gemma's mom back in the day.
• I love the foreshadowing/past plot development setups in this one. 

It's hard for me not to spoiler this, because I love it so. I probably said more than I should, but screw it. Four and a half stars.