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LITTLE LIST OF REVIEWS #11: Historical Romances

- Meg

Today’s Little List of Reviews features three historical romances that I’ve recently read! All three are new to me authors, and two series I will continue with and one I will not!

LITTLE LIST OF REVIEWS #11: Historical RomancesTitle: Knight of Desire by Margaret Mallory
Series: All the King's Men #1
Published by Forever
Published: July 1st 2009
Genres: Romance
Pages: 354
Format: Mass Market
Goodreads

FEARLESS IN BATTLE
His surcoat still bloody from battle, William FitzAlan comes to claim the strategic borderlands granted to him by the king. One last prize awaits him at the castle gates: the lovely Lady Catherine Rayburn.

TENDER IN BED
Catherine risked everything to spy for the crown. Her reward? Her lands are declared forfeit and she is given this choice: marry FitzAlan or be taken to the Tower. Catherine agrees to give her handsome new husband her body, but she's keeping secrets, and dare not give him her heart. As passion ignites and danger closes in, Catherine and William must learn to trust in each other to save their marriage, their land, and their very lives.

 I had an omnibus of the first two in this series, but I decided I liked the original covers and I don’t think the third book was going to be released in the newer format, and I’m a completionist. So. I enjoyed this for the most part. I think it was more due to the setting and the history involved with the medieval setting than the actual characters themselves. The heroine was true to form, discovering herself after being married to a terrible man who held no regard for her. But the hero got annoying after a while. Like yes, you’re a decent person for not forcing yourself on her, but he kept complaining about the heroine’s trauma repeatedly, and it got tiresome after a while. Overall, I’m going to continue the series and hope the heroes get better in the subsequent titles!

LITTLE LIST OF REVIEWS #11: Historical RomancesTitle: Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt
Series: Maiden Lane #1
Published by Grand Central Publishing
Published: August 1st 2010
Genres: Romance
Pages: 382
Format: eBook
Source: Library
Goodreads

A man controlled by his desires . . .
Infamous for his wild, sensual needs, Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire, is searching for a savage killer in St. Giles, London's most notorious slum. Widowed Temperance Dews knows St. Giles like the back of her hand-she's spent a lifetime caring for its inhabitants at the foundling home her family established. Now that home is at risk . . .

A woman haunted by her past . . .
Caire makes a simple offer-in return for Temperance's help navigating the perilous alleys of St. Giles, he will introduce her to London's high society so that she can find a benefactor for the home. But Temperance may not be the innocent she seems, and what begins as cold calculation soon falls prey to a passion that neither can control-one that may well destroy them both.

A bargain neither could refuse.

 I didn’t really care for this one. I liked the heroine and her work the most and that she felt torn toward duty and her desires, but like…………… so much of this was over the top for me, even for a historical romance. I don’t know what it was, honestly. I kept reading it though, I enjoyed the writing itself, but the story wasn’t for me. The hero was pretty terrible to the heroine and never makes any effort to forgive himself towards her for it. There was also a buildup to bondage but nothing was ever fully committed to on the page, so it’s teasing but in the not fun way??  I don’t think this series is for me either, because I read the first couple of chapters from the second in the Maiden Lane series and didn’t like where the story was going to go. I have another first book in a series by Hoyt, so I’ll give that one a go soon to see if it’s just me with this particular series or if it’s the author I don’t mesh with.

LITTLE LIST OF REVIEWS #11: Historical RomancesTitle: Never Kiss a Duke by Megan Frampton
Series: Hazards of Dukes #1
Published by Avon
Published: January 28th 2020
Genres: Romance
Pages: 358
Format: Mass Market
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

A disinherited duke and a former lady are courting much more than business in the first novel in Megan Frampton's newest titillating series, Hazards of Dukes.
Everything he had ever known was a lie…
Sebastian, Duke of Hasford, has a title, wealth, privilege, and plenty of rakish charm. Until he discovers the only thing that truly belongs to him is his charm. An accident of birth has turned him into plain Mr. de Silva. Now, Sebastian is flummoxed as to what to do with his life—until he stumbles into a gambling den owned by Miss Ivy, a most fascinating young lady, who hires him on the spot. Working with a boss has never seemed so enticing.
Everything tells her he’s a risk she has to take
Two years ago, Ivy gambled everything that was precious to her—and won. Now the owner of London's most intriguing gambling house, Ivy is competent, assured, and measured. Until she meets Mr. de Silva, who stirs feelings she didn't realize she had. Can she keep her composure around her newest employee?
They vow to keep their partnership strictly business, but just one kiss makes them realize that with each passing day—and night—it becomes clear to them both that there's nothing as tempting as what is forbidden…

 While I liked this one, liked the characters, liked the writing, nothing much happened. This was definitely the set up to the series, had a lot of supporting characters that I’m looking forward to reading about in the rest of the series, and Frampton’s writing is engaging! The chemistry between the hero and heroine was believable and sparkling, but aside from the development of themselves and their relationship, the heroine hires the hero to work in her gaming den, they fall in love, the hero finds out some things about being and not being a duke, and it’s a happy ending. I’m not sure I’ll purchase the rest of the books aside from the fourth I bought thinking it was part of a new series, but I’ll definitely read them from my library!!

BOOK REVIEW: The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: The Hobbit, by J.R.R. TolkienTitle: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
Series: The Lord of the Rings #0
Published by Del Rey
Published: September 21, 1937
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 305
Format: Mass Market
Source: Purchased
Buy: Bookshop(afflilate link)
Goodreads

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent.

 According to Goodreads, I hadn’t read The Hobbit in eight years. EIGHT! I had been waffling for a few months about revisiting Tolkien’s stuff, and once I saw that it had been that long, I decided to start rereading! The Hobbit is my least favorite part about The Lord of the Rings saga, but it also feels wrong to start reading The Lord of the Rings without beginning with The Hobbit. I think part of the reason it’s been so long in between rereads (I used to read it all at least once a year!) is that I have such a nostalgic view of it because it was a series I was obsessed with right around the time the movies were released. So after seeing how long it’s been since I’ve read them and seeing the films again in IMAX this year, it’s time for a journey back to Middle Earth.

It was everything I remembered it being, and I appreciated the story for what it was! It definitely reads like a children’s book in some places and feels a little over-told sometimes. I also tend to forget the huge gap in between the publication dates of The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, and it’s evident already as I’ve already started The Fellowship. Tolkien developed so much about Middle Earth that it’s astounding, and with all of these new covers and editions being released in 2020 and in the near future, I want to revisit as much of it as possible.

Bilbo is one of the most relatable fantasy characters to me, someone who only wants to stay undisturbed in his little hobbit hole with a few small adventures here and there, until Gandalf comes along and takes him on a real, true adventure. The whole adventure, Bilbo is “puzzled, yet cheered” and carries on no matter what happens to him. Even though he’s a grumpy hobbit, he’s a grumpy optimistic hobbit, and that sort of optimism helps get him untangled from the worst sorts of situations.

And Bilbo’s last riddle with Gollum certainly wasn’t a riddle.

BOOK REVIEW: Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire, by Dan Hanks

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire, by Dan HanksTitle: Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire by Dan Hanks
Published by Angry Robot
Published: September 8th 2020
Genres: Historical, Fantasy, Fiction
Pages: 380
Format: Mass Market
Source: Publisher
Buy: Bookshop(afflilate link)
Goodreads

An ex-Spitfire pilot is dragged into a race against a shadowy government agency to unlock the secrets of the lost empire of Atlantis...

In post-war 1952, the good guys are supposed to have won. But not everything is as it seems when ex-Spitfire pilot Captain Samantha Moxley is dragged into a fight against the shadowy US government agency she used to work for. Now, with former Nazis and otherworldly monsters on her trail, Captain Moxley is forced into protecting her archaeologist sister in a race to retrieve two ancient keys that will unlock the secrets of a long-lost empire - to ensure a civilisation-destroying weapon doesn't fall into the wrong hands. But what will she have to sacrifice to save the world?

It felt like those in the west had a talent for skipping straight out of one war and into another, as though they had a lust for it, while the locals would be left to clean it up when they had gone. More and more, the glorious ideas of “Empire” were revealed to be nothing more than fancy dressing when you saw the realities of those who came to suffer beneath its polished boots, blinkered ambition, and secret agendas.

Dan Hanks’s Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire is a action-packed adventure that reminded me a lot of a cross between Marvel’s Captain America and the Indiana Jones universe with a dash of The Mummy and National Treasure. Captain Moxley is a take-no-shit heroine who races to protect her sister from a shady section of the United States government involving Nazis, genetically modified beings, and aliens? Yes, this novel is incredibly pulpy and uses a lot of familiar tropes to the genre, but it’s a page-turner with a lot of heart and a lot of insight that made me want to see where Captain Moxley was headed.

One of the things I liked the most about this was that Hanks does explore colonialism and the “empire” in archeological history and what that means for everyone involved. It’s an important conversation to have when we consider how many, if not all, of the artifacts of our museums come from colonialist “exploration.” I loved the dynamic between Samantha and her sister Jessica, and I thought the balance of being a protective sibling while also learning to let the other make choices because she’s her own person was well done. I also loved the genderbent characters and how those flips toyed with the genre’s tropes and expectations. Even though I took my time reading it (thirty minutes for lunch only leaves for bite-sized reading sprints), I found it easy to follow and compulsively readable with a lot of fun surprises throughout. It’s pulp fiction at its best and pulls in so much of what I like reading in genre fiction and making it new, too.

This book feels like an action-adventure film or even a video game, and once you’ve strapped yourself in, you’re in for a ride. There are a few anachronisms, mostly in the use of language, but in the scope of the novel, it’s not entirely noticeable at all in the midst of it all. Because it’s so cinematic, I think these anachronisms are to be expected. But if that sort of thing bothers you, then it’s something to be aware of!

I really hope to see more from Hanks and this world he’s created with Captain Moxley, and this ends with a set-up for a sequel, so I hope there’s one coming out in the future! I’d love to see how Captain Moxley continues to handle her relationship with her sister and the discovery/exploration of Atlantis and everything else that has come with finding those amulets and the Hall of Records.

Thank you to Angry Robot for sending me a complimentary copy of this book to review and feature! All opinions are my own.

Little List of Reviews #8

- Meg

Welcome to another little list of reviews! I have a little backlog of reviews that I’ve been wanting to post, mostly for me since these are ones that I bought myself (and one free arc from my old job). They’ve been sitting as empty drafts since like… May, maybe, and it’s time to get those written and move on so I can write about other things!

Little List of Reviews #8Title: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
Series: The Invisible Library #1
Published by Roc
Published: June 14th 2016
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 341
Format: Trade Paper
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

Collecting books can be a dangerous prospect in this fun, time-traveling, fantasy adventure from a spectacular debut author. One thing any Librarian will tell you: the truth is much stranger than fiction...   Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it's already been stolen.   London's underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested—the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something—secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself.   Now Irene is caught in a puzzling web of deadly danger, conflicting clues, and sinister secret societies. And failure is not an option—because it isn’t just Irene’s reputation at stake, it’s the nature of reality itself...

FEATURING BONUS MATERIAL: including an interview with the author, a legend from the Library, and more!

 Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library is the first in a series of books that involves libraries, special books, and dragon-shifters. I loved the world-building and desperately wanted to become a Librarian while reading it, and this novel serves its purpose as a set-up for everything else because it was a lot more telling and description than it was character-development and depth. That doesn’t deter me from wanting to continue the rest of the series (and I’ve got most of them, as far as I can recall), so I’m looking forward to seeing where the adventure goes next. I’m a little weird about steampunk as a genre because it can get confusing in its setup, depth, and exploration, but I thought Cogman’s delivery and worldbuilding led to in-book plausibility and created a solid foundation.

Little List of Reviews #8Title: Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
Series: The Crescent Moon Kingdoms #1
Published by DAW
Published: December 31st 2012
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 367
Format: Mass Market
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

From Saladin Ahmed, finalist for the Nebula and Campbell Awards, comes one of the year's most acclaimed debuts: Throne of the Crescent Moon, a fantasy adventure with all the magic of The Arabian Nights. 

The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, home to djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and heretics, are at the boiling point of a power struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious master thief known as the Falcon Prince. In the midst of this brewing rebellion a series of brutal supernatural murders strikes at the heart of the Kingdoms. But these killings are only the earliest signs of a plot for the Throne of the Crescent Moon that threatens to turn the great city of Dhamsawaat, and the world itself, into a blood-soaked ruin.

 Saladin Ahmed’s The Crescent Moon is one of the most engrossing fantasies I’ve read in a long time. The second I picked it up and started reading it, I fell in love with the atmosphere, the language, and the story. It sank deep into my soul, and I’ve not been able to stop thinking about it since I read it. I felt like I was right there in that world, standing just off to the side as everything unfolded. It features a ghul hunter, a magnificent shapeshifter, and a holy warrior dervish, and each of these characters felt so refreshing and real that I forgot sometimes that this was pure fiction and not based off of something that had once happened once upon a time. But perhaps it did… If you’re looking for something incredible and breathtaking, pick this one up. I do hope one day he’ll continue on with the series, but this also functions as a completely perfect standalone.

Little List of Reviews #8Title: Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
Published: May 7th 2019
Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 350
Format: ARC
Source: Work
Goodreads

alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

The universe began as an enormous breath being held.

From the acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others — the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film Arrival — comes a ground-breaking new collection of short fiction: nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories. These are tales that tackle some of humanity's oldest questions along with new quandaries only Ted Chiang could imagine.

In "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In "Exhalation", an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will.

Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic — revelatory.

Contents:- The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate (2007)- Exhalation (2008)- What's Expected of Us (2005)- The Lifecycle of Software Objects (2010)- Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny (2011)- The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling (2013)- The Great Silence (2015)- Omphalos (2018)- Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom (2018)

 I can’t sing enough praises about Ted Chiang’s writing. He’s one of my all time favorites, and I was so excited to see his newest collection of stories on the arc shelf at my old job. These are mostly reprints, I believe, but each one is fantastic. There are very few writers who can like… make me straight up cry with the magic, scope, and depth of their writing, but this is a collection you’ll not want to miss.

BOOK REVIEW: The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: The Mirror Empire, by Kameron HurleyTitle: The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley
Series: Worldbreaker Saga #1
Published by Angry Robot
Published: September 1st 2015
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 608
Format: Mass Market
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past... while a world goes to war with itself. 
In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. At the heart of this war lie the pacifistic Dhai people, once enslaved by the Saiduan and now courted by their former masters to provide aid against the encroaching enemy.
Stretching from desolate tundra to steamy, semi-tropical climes seething with sentient plant life, this is an epic tale of blood mages and mercenaries, emperors and priestly assassins who must unite to save a world on the brink of ruin.
As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler is tasked with holding together a country fractured by civil war; a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family to save his skin; and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father's people or loyalty to her alien Empress.  
Through tense alliances and devastating betrayal, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself. 
In the end, one world will rise - and many will perish.

 And some of us believe in freedom of the individual over the tyranny of the common good.

After reading Kameron Hurley’s Stars are Legion, I immediately wanted to read everything else she’s written. I picked up The Mirror Empire at work because it was the only other thing aside from Stars are Legion that we had in stock by her at the moment, and I started reading it as my first pick for a Tome Topple read-a-thon this month. I wasn’t disappointed, and it was one of the best epic fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time.

The Mirror Empire subverts the popular tropes found in epic, patriarchal fantasy. While not as visceral and gross as Stars are Legion, this world Hurley has created in The Worldbreaker Saga certainly skeeved me out at times. Some of the buildings are organic, some of the weapons are organic (and attached to bodies by way of seeds in the wrists, of which I imagined coming out much like Wolverine’s claws???), some of the magic is blood magic. It’s the sort of fantasy with the perfect balance of violence and horror that gives you chills and thrills down your spine.

The story is complex and ambitious and takes a little while to get used to because nearly everything about the worlds in The Mirror Empire is different from our own familiarities. It calls into question our own ideas and expectations of gender, gender roles, family structures, and “how things have always been done.” The way in which Hurley does this is subtle. The questions and observations about our own society are covert but become a series of questions you as a reader begin to ask yourself as you explore the lives of the main characters in the story. For example: why is it generally acceptable to us as a society for women to be kept small, beautiful, and always ready for (male) consumption, but when it’s subverted and the men are kept small, beautiful, and always ready for (female) consumption, it’s striking and odd? I enjoyed the trope subversion immensely, and I want to keep reading the series to see where she goes with it next.

It’s certainly a mirror that reflects the best and worst of the expectations of the fantasy genre and our society, and if that’s an intentional pun, I like it. I think if you like epic fantasy and are looking for something new and different in the genre, you should check this one out!