Tag Archives: Fantasy Review

Review: Bewitched and Betrayed

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Bewitched and Betrayed
by Lisa Shearin
Ace Books – $7.99

Reviewed by Superwench83.

Any novel that begins with the words, “I was being chased by a pissed-off naked guy with a knife,” is a hook for me. And in typical Lisa Shearin style, Bewitched and Betrayed continues to hook the reader beyond the first line, pulling you along cliffhanger after cliffhanger, barbs and gibes in ready supply.

If you haven’t yet fallen in love with Raine Benares and her weapon-laden, spellsinging companions, now is a fine time to pick up the first book and work your way up to Bewitched and Betrayed. You could read them out of order, I suppose, but I recommend starting from the top. Bewitched and Betrayed resolves a series-long subplot thread which you will be dying to learn the answer to. So unlike those of us who have devoured each book as it came out, you don’t have to wait for the resolution. Instant gratification!

As for those who have long anticipated this release, you won’t be disappointed.

In Bewitched and Betrayed, it’s business as usual for Raine–which means it’s not usual business at all. She’s fought goblins and dark mages and hordes of demons, but this time she’s fighting death itself, in its many and varied forms. It seems that her dead enemies don’t have the courtesy to stay that way, and the lives of people she loves–one of whom she’s finding out just how much she loves–are at risk. Meanwhile, Reapers have set their sights on Raine, who is a source of thousands of souls, thanks to her bond with the soul-sucking rock called the Saghred. But even these concerns must be set aside when a dear friend is falsely imprisoned and a high-ranking official is put on an evil mage’s to-kill list.

Not typical for most girls, but then again, Raine has never been average.

I always find it hard to discuss sequels and series without giving something away, yet without speaking in such general terms as to make my words completely useless. So for already-established fans, let me just say that you can expect more of the stuff you love about the Raine Benares books–sexy goblins and sexier (in my opinion!) elven Guardians, wry and witty humor from Raine, explosions, political intrigue…and pirates, of course. Oh, excuse me, not pirates. They’re “seafaring businessmen.”

Plot-driven adventures with characters so vivid you feel like you’re right there with them through every disaster. These books are like potato chips–you can’t stop eating them up. It’s a rare gift to craft a book as riveting as Bewitched and Betrayed. Lisa Shearin has written four of them. The adventure continues with Con and Conjure next spring, and I cannot wait!

Review: The Mall of Cthulhu

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The Mall of Cthulhu
by Seamus Cooper (on Twitter)
Night Shade Books – 13.95

The Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper is the funniest book I’ve read since Kimberly Frost’s Barely Bewitched. I laughed so hard that at one point, I thought I was getting chest pains. It was a muscle cramp, but for a moment there I wondered if this novel would put me in the hospital — or even on my eventual date with destiny.

Ted and Laura are bound by a shared supernatural experience that they still have not gotten over, ten years later. When they were freshmen in college, a nest of vampires tried to lure Laura into a fateful bite. Instead, young Teddy becomes an ax-wielding vampire slayer and rescues her. Neither can ever share the incident with anyone else and be believed; thus, they remain in each other’s lives.

Except since Laura is a lesbian, they can’t get too closely into each other’s lives.

Now, ten years later, Laura is a junior FBI agent and Ted is a barista at a Starbucks — er, at Queequeg’s, a coffee shop. Readers of Melville will recognize the reference.  Ted has perfected the Latte, using a slightly altered version from Queequeg’s prescribed ratios.

Unfortunately, when a man comes in and orders a half-soy, half-caf, Ted knows there’s something wrong with him. Who ever orders half-soy? He is a total jerk, so Ted doesn’t bother to tell him when he accidentally leaves a CD behind. Instead, he pockets it and uses his break time to deliver Laura a cup of coffee.

When Ted comes back, he discovers that the disturbed coffee drinker is back, and he’s shot up the entire store. He demands the CD from Ted at at gunpoint. Ted unleashes his hidden evil-fighting talent, and eventually discovers a plot to call forth the sleeping elder god/horrific monster, Great Cthulhu.

As with most really humorous novels, it is difficult to summarize the plot. You simply have to be there. So I’ll just go over some highlights.

This novel spoofs HP Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu. I’ve never read it, but I’m familiar with the story. The Mall of Cthulhu makes fun of Lovecraft’s racism — most of his villains are apparently dark-skinned — by making all the villains Angry White Men. And it makes fun of Lovecraft’s famously bad dialog — even Stephen King made fun of it in his On Writing — by having his villains go into long-winded tirades that end in the villain promising that Ted will beg for . . . well, I’ll let you read it.

The chest-pain-inducing scene came when Ted has traveled to Providence and sets up Ted to “surveil” the mall under the cover of a pushcart salesman. She doesn’t want him to get distracted by actually selling stuff, so she orders stuff that supposedly no one would ever want. Guess what happens?

Even the eventual meeting with Great Cthulhu is hysterical while remaining true to Lovecraft’s description of the monster/elder god. Cthulhu is asleep, you see, in a non-Euclidean dimension, in the dread city of R’lyeh (which I could not help but to pronounce as “Raleigh” even though I knew it was probably wrong). And Ted is bored. And when Ted gets bored, you never know what he’s going to do.

If you are at all familiar with Lovecraft, this is going to be a blast. If not, then don’t worry, because everything is hilariously explained. I loved it. It was a huge amount of fun.

Debut Graduate: The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker

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The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker
by Leanna Renee Hieber
Paperback = 6.99
Dorchester

With radiant, snow-white skin and hair, Percy Parker was a beacon for Fate. True love had found her, in the tempestuous form of Professor Alexi Rychman. But her mythic destiny was not complete. Accompanying the ghosts with which she alone could converse, new and terrifying omens loomed. A war was coming, a desperate ploy of a spectral host. Victorian London would be overrun.

Yet, Percy kept faith. Within the mighty bastion of Athens Academy, alongside The Guard whose magic shielded mortals from the agents of the Underworld, she counted herself among friends. Wreathed in hallowed fire, they would stand together, no matter what dreams—or nightmares—might come.

Reviewed by Superwench83

War between the spirit and mortal realms looms, threatening to take first London, then the world. And according to her ghostly guide, only Percy Parker can stop it, by facing the underworld herself–by traveling into the land of the dead.

In The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker, Percy’s strangely beautiful saga continues, along with all the ghosts, gods, and ghastly apparitions. In Darkly Luminous, the battles are more intense, the characters more intense–everything is more intense. The Guard have spent their lives trying to keep the spirit and mortal realms apart, and now they face a possibility they never considered–that they themselves may be the ones to open the way for the underworld to flow into their own. But even greater is their fear for Percy, fear that she may have to travel literally into hell and back…and fear of her promised betrayer yet to come.

A great deal of character development takes place in The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker. Percy grows from a timid, mousy girl into a woman who, though sometimes meek, can be a force to be reckoned with, capable of holding her own. Michael has a much more expanded role this time, his powers as Heart of the Guard given more time onstage. The plot itself facilitates character growth; to survive this darkness, The Guard must be united, all differences set aside, their hearts laid bare. No more can they hide their secrets.

As the title might suggest, Darkly Luminous is at times lovely, at times chilling. Strangely Beautiful featured devil-dogs and voices in the dark. Darkly Luminous features hordes of underworld minions, demons made of ash, and a kingly though skeletal figure swathed in robes that match his ruby eyes. When Percy cuts her hand and a creature of Darkness greedily laps from the pool of blood, this is only a taste of what’s to come.

I did see a couple flaws in the continuing romance. The conflicts between Percy and Alexi seemed immature at times, their emotions changing rapidly and for seemingly petty things. I think it’s because there wasn’t enough space in the book to develop their fears and inner plights fully. I also found the dialogue overly sentimental at times. But these critiques are only a blip in what was a wonderful book.

I do want to give a heads up to any other Catholics out there that there are a couple things that might make you cringe a bit. No attacks on the Church or anything like that, just things that don’t jive with Catholic belief. But it absolutely will not prevent me from reading this one again. There is no offense, no malice at all intended.

After her stunning debut novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, Leanna Renee Hieber had a lot to live up to, and she passed the test. Another chapter in the struggle between worlds is brought to an end–but still the Great Work goes on.

Debut Review – Three Days to Dead by Kelly Meding

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Three Days to Dead
Kelly Meding (website)
Dell
Mass market paperback, $7.99

Reviewed by Raven

A murdered woman wakes up in the morgue, in a stranger’s body, with three days to figure out who killed her and why. After those three days are up, she’ll be dead for good. With that plot, I couldn’t pass this up. It’s 100% high-concept, as they say in Hollywood. You can hook your audience on the plot with one sentence (okay, maybe two). I got hooked, at any rate.

Blurb:

She’s young, deadly, and hunted—with only three days to solve her own murder…

When Evangeline Stone wakes up naked and bruised on a cold slab at the morgue – in a stranger’s body, with no memory of who she is and how she got there – her troubles are only just beginning.  Before that night, she and the other two members of her Triad were star bounty hunters — mercilessly cleansing the city of the murderous creatures living in the shadows, from vampires to shape-shifters to trolls. Then something terrible happened that not only cost all three of them their lives, but also convinced the city’s other Hunters that Evy was a traitor . . . and she can’t even remember what it was.

Now she’s a fugitive, piecing together her memory, trying to deal some serious justice – and discovering that she has only three days to solve her own murder before the reincarnation spell wears off. Because in three days, Evy will die again – but this time, there’s no second chance…

However, one of the downsides of a high-concept plot is sometimes the book (or movie) ends up being mostly plot-driven, and characters don’t get developed as fully as readers (or viewers) might like. That was the biggest problem I had with Three Days to Dead.

The plot itself was fine. It hit all the right beats in the right places and included a twist I hadn’t predicted to get the characters out of a tight spot near the end (I did predict the subsequent twist on this twist). The story was resolved satisfyingly. But as someone who reads for character, I felt a lack.

Evy Stone, the murdered protagonist, is a bounty hunter who hunts “Dregs,” non-human creatures who would love to replace humanity with themselves. Actually, not all of these creatures are bad, and Evy doesn’t hunt indiscriminately. The novel includes a bunch of supernatural races, some pure evil, others less straightforward. Kelly Meding even manages to get away with elves.

Now, Evy should have been a character I’d enjoy spending time with. I tend to go for dark characters with gray morality and trauma and tragedy in their pasts. It doesn’t get much more traumatic than dead, and I think you could say as a bounty hunter operating on the fringes of society, Evy’s in the gray zone. Granted, she had some strikes against her. She’s a kickass female urban fantasy protagonist, and I’ve kind of had my fill of those. But I went into the novel hoping I’d like her because I liked the novel’s hook so much.

But I had trouble empathizing with Evy. Actually, there was only one character I found myself empathizing with, and he wasn’t major AND he got killed off (it’s not a spoiler since I’m not telling you who he is). The characters served the plot well, but they didn’t give me the emotional connection I was looking for. That made this novel less memorable and engaging than it could have been. Also, if a novel is the first in a series, which this one is, and has a self-contained plot, which this one does, then the main reason I’d go out and buy the next book would be I couldn’t get enough of the characters. If the characters didn’t leave as much of an impression on me as I would have liked, I probably won’t buy the next book (or get it as a review copy).

Of course, not everyone is like me. I’d love to hear from other people on why they continue to buy the books in a series.

My final verdict on Three Days to Dead: For fans of highly plot-driven urban fantasy with a kickass female protagonist, I can recommend Three Days to Dead as a read you’ll probably enjoy. But if you read for character, you might want to browse significant chunks of this novel to make sure Evy’s going to work for you before you commit.

Review: Dream of the Dragon Pool: A Daoist Quest

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Dream of the Dragon Pool: A Daoist Quest
Albert A. Dalia
Pleasure Boat Studio

Reviewed by Superwench83

Excerpt from author’s blurb:

Forced by the emperor’s exile order, Li Bo travels up the great Yangtze River toward certain death in distant Burma/Myanmar. Yet Li, not so concerned by his imminent death, regards his trip as a quest for his lost sense of poetic inspiration. Along the way, he unwittingly befriends the emperor’s most powerful shamaness who is trying to escape from the palace to Mount Wu and serve the mythical Rain Goddess, mistress of that sacred mountain. Li Bo accidentally awakens the dark forces of the Blood Dragon and its ghostly slaves. They are in pursuit of a magical sword, the legendary Dragon Pool Sword that Li Bo finds himself in possession of after a dream visit from a Daoist Immortal.

The cast is rounded out by Li’s traveling companion, a wandering blade veteran of the Tang dynasty’s Central Asian conquests, known as the “Iron Talon;” a mysterious swordsman-musician, who travels with a ghost-catching drunken monkey; a “dream assassin,” capable of killing people from within their dreams; and a blond, green-eyed, Central Asian female ghost, enslaved by the Blood Dragon’s powers.

Written by a China scholar with two masters and a Ph. D. in the nation’s history and religion, Dream of the Dragon Pool by Albert A. Dalia is an authentic Chinese adventure full of ghosts, swords, and magic. Dalia is an adequate storyteller, and few other novelists could compete with the rich base of Chinese historical knowledge he brings to his tale. Yet while the story was interesting and at times entertaining, Dream of the Dragon Pool read like an amateur novel, albeit one with potential.

The main mark of amateurism which hit me in this novel was the dialogue, much of which is trite and forced. Good dialogue is much tighter than real conversation. It is there to do more than just show two people talking–it must communicate plot movement, it must characterize, it must develop the scene. Dalia’s dialogue rarely does these things. It also doesn’t resemble real conversation. Good dialogue doesn’t mimic conversation, but it does resemble it. And in real conversation, people don’t always answer questions directly. They are evasive; they answer questions with questions. When a person says something, they may be already thinking of their next comment, so their response won’t match up perfectly with their companion’s words. I don’t want to get into a deep dialogue discussion, but suffice it to say that this book’s dialogue is stale and wanting.

Another issue I had was the point of view. Most of the time, the story was your standard multi-viewpoint novel, getting into various characters’ heads, no all-knowing narrator in sight. But every now and then, the author interrupts the story’s flow with a scholarly aside about the number of miles long a river is and what battles were fought there and all sorts of other irrelevant info. Dalia actually did a good gob incorporating the relevant research details into the story–a tricky task–so it was almost disheartening to see these chunks of useless data cluttering up the narrative.

Other issues include purple prose, clumsy plotting, and under-developed characters. The text is riddled with superfluous adverbs and adjectives. Certain plot details make little logical sense other than that the author had to write them this way to make the plot work right later. As for the characterization, it wasn’t all bad. The ghost Chen is fairly sympathetic, the swordsman Ma entertaining. But all in all, the characters are one-dimensional. There are no deep, secret longings or hidden motives. There is a lack of personal stakes.

And yet I did say this book had potential. Dalia knows how to set a good story pace and demonstrates some skill in spinning a yarn that makes the reader ask, “What happens next?” Despite the purple prose, he also has a gift for description, and some of these passages paint a beautiful, vivid picture. The trouble is, this is not enough to carry the book. Dream of the Dragon Pool is typical of many amateur efforts I’ve read. It has the makings of a good book, but it lacks a professional’s finesse. If you like the idea of a medieval China historical fantasy, if you like mythology, there’s a good chance you will find some entertainment value here. Just know going into it that Dream of the Dragon Pool is a duckling rather than a swan.

Debut Review – Soulless by Gail Carriger

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Soulless
By Gail Carriger (website)
Orbit
Mass market paperback, $7.99

Reviewed by Raven

Soulless was a fun novel. Mix Victorian England with vampires and werewolves and a coy sense of humor, and this book is the result. I think I can safely recommend it for fans of urban fantasy and Jane Austen (I know, Jane Austen is Regency, but still).

The narrative style and characterization made the book. That coy sense of humor I mentioned? It’s front and center in the tongue-in-cheek narration. In some books the narration is invisible, but in others you want to savor the turns of phrase the writer uses. Soulless falls into the second category.

Then we have our heroine, Miss Alexia Tarabotti. She’s not your typical Englishwoman of the time. For one thing, she’s devoured all of her father’s scientific books, so she knows far more about subjects like biology and anatomy than any proper young lady should know. She’s a spinster. She can negate supernatural powers with a touch. She’s also (*gasp*) half Italian. Shocking.

She’s surrounded by a cast of fun and quirky secondary characters, and let’s not leave out her love interest, Lord Conall Maccon. He’s single, gorgeous, and an Earl, which makes him the toast of London society despite his unfortunate Scottish heritage. He’s also a werewolf employed in the intelligence community, and he leads the investigation that forms the core of the plot. Miss Tarabotti, of course, does most of the actual work.

The plot itself is serviceable, but it’s not the novel’s strongest point. In fact, I guessed who the ultimate villains would be as soon as they were mentioned. They were also flatter characters than our hero and heroine and their friends. And some of the final resolution was just a little too pat. I found it wasn’t the story that kept me turning pages, it was Miss Tarabotti and the narration.

Here and there I had a few technical quibbles. Point of view switching in the middle of a scene. Occasional misused words. However, I was having so much fun with the book that I overlooked those.

I did have one big issue with the romantic relationship, and I can’t tell you what it was because it would be a spoiler. Now, if you know me, you know romance is often not my thing, but I’m fine with it as long as everybody involved acts like a rational human being (I can’t stand storylines where our heroine mentally reverts to a 13-year-old maturity level as soon as she meets the hero). In Soulless, nobody became suddenly immature. I actually thought the romance was handled very well except for that one spoiler I can’t reveal. Sorry.

Overall, this novel was a treat. I’ve already flipped back through more than once to reread particularly delicious scenes. Soulless will be taking its rightful place on my bookshelf.

Book two in this series, Changeless, releases on March 31, 2010.

NOTE: I’m not the one who thinks there’s anything wrong with being Italian or Scottish. That’s the prevailing opinion among London socialites in the book.

Debut Review: The River Kings’ Road

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The River Kings’ Road
by Liane Merciel
Gallery Books
Hardcover – $26

I was excited to hear about Liane Merciel’s The River Kings’ Road because it has been a while since I’ve seen any debut epic fantasies by women.

The River Kings’ Road centers around a handful of characters. Brys is a mercenary, mostly motivated by his own self-interest, but who does rescue the infant son of his lord from a horrific attack during which an entire town is stripped of its blood. He manages to get away just before the spell goes off, but the infant has little chance of survival without its mother. But then, fate puts Odosse in his path, an unwed mother who gladly accepts the task of wetnursing young Wistan, even though he is the child of her enemy.

Shortly afterward, the Blessed Knight Kelland is recruited by the local lord to investigate what happened in the town. You can think of Kelland as a sort of paladin. He is famous in the area, known as the Burnt Knight because of his black skin. His friend and companion is Bitharn, a young female archer who is in love with him. This complicates things because Kelland is sworn to chastity — and his chastity is tied to his power.

And then we have Leferic, the conflicted young uncle to the poor Wistan. Leferic is a morally gray character. In fact, all the characters are gray to some extent — except maybe Kelland — but Leferic is the grayest of them all. His only friend in the world is Albric, who was his tutor and mentor, and who would do anything for him. Anything.

The point-of-view characters are everyone except Kelland and the main villain, the Maimed Witch. One of the problems I had with this novel is the choice of POV often prevented me from getting as emotionally into the plot as I would have liked. For example, we can only see Kelland’s struggles to remain morally pure through Bitharn’s eyes. Brys is so morally ambiguous that his actions often made me wince. I did like him, anyway. We only get in his head a little bit, where we learn about a very interesting woman who does not make an appearance in this novel. Many pages in the opening chapters are given to Leferic, but I didn’t think that every scene was necessary and I kept wanting to move on to the other characters. Odosse is very likable, but she comes across as simpleminded at first. And because we are never behind Kelland’s eyeballs, we must witness the final battle through another character’s eyes.

The strengths in this novel are the difficult choices that all of the characters face. Brys struggles with his own self-interest vs. a sense of honor that he seems to want to stifle. Leferic struggles with the consequences of his actions. Albric struggles between his sense of honor and his sense of love and duty toward Leferic. Bitharn struggles with her desires. And Odosse has more than one heart-rending decision to make. Kelland was the most fascinating character. He’s a man out of place for two reasons, his race and his Blessed status. I did wish we could have spent some time in his point-of-view.

The Maimed Witch is probably one of the most evil, well-conceived and horrific villains I’ve ever come across. One both pities her and is horrified by her. And she ends up having an unexpected and intriguing (if indirect) connection to one of the other characters.

It might be easy to pigeonhole these characters into typical fantasy tropes, except they don’t fit there comfortably. Leferic isn’t your typical evil and ambitious young lord. He seems capable of redemption. There’s no trope that you could ever place Odosse in. Bitharn does seem similar to characters like Valaria from the Conan the Barbarian movie, but without the kick-assitude. Kelland can be seen as a sort of Galahad, but not really. Galahad was never tempted. Maybe he’s more like Lancelot. But not really. Brys might be seen as a warrior with a heart of gold, but I’m not sure if he has a heart of gold. And the maimed witch? Dang. I can’t pigeonhole her anywhere.

The ending took the novel in a direction I didn’t expect at all. It did make sense, but the direction of upcoming novels might swerve away from certain characters. Odosse, for example, seems quite fixed by the end of the novel, and it’s hard to see her having a large part in the next novel. Bitharn, certainly will take center stage and possibly Brys as well.  I don’t get any sense of how many books are planned in this series; it’s simply called A Novel of Ithelas.

Ultimately, I would have liked to have felt a better sense of connection to the characters. I would like to have seen more pages devoted to Kelland and Bitharn, and fewer devoted to Leferic and Albric. I’m not a big fan of the George R. R. Martin style of multiple viewpoints, and the only novel I’ve really loved that has employed this technique is David Anthony Durham’s Acacia series. The shorter length of this novel (348 pages) doesn’t seem to support the multi-viewpoint technique. Yes, I’m complaining that the novel was not long enough. Give me at equivalent time between all the characters if they are all going to have equal weight.

My problem with this novel was probably me. Given the choice between a character development epic and a multi-viewpoint epic, I’ll take the character development epic every time. If you enjoy the multi-POV storytelling style, then there is much to enjoy in The River King’s Road.

Debut Review: Spellwright

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Spellwright
by Blake Charlton
Tor Books
Hardcover – $24.99 (discounted at Amazon and elsewhere)

Reviewed by Superwench83

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Not so in Blake Charlton’s world. In his novel Spellwright, not only can words break your bones, but they can chop off your limbs, stab your heart, and create all sorts of mayhem. Combined with a classic fantasy plot and a sympathetic hero, this high-concept idea becomes a story that is utterly fresh, while retaining that familiar fantasy genre feel.

Even if you read Spellwright for nothing else, the magic system alone makes this novel worth your time. This is a book for language lovers. A magic system based wholly on the written word. But not the written words as we know it. In Spellwright, magicians use their bodies to form their spells, forging letters from muscles and rolling them down the arm and off the hand. Different languages affect the world in different ways. One, for example, is a physical language. It can be used to create solid barriers, where the words act as densely-packed molecules to form physical objects. And with a magic system built around the written word, spellcasting requires proper spelling. It’s like HTML and other computer languages—one wrong letter can alter things enormously. Except that faulty HTML generally isn’t lethal.

In a world where magical power depends on a magician’s ability to spell, someone with a spelling problem is someone with a disability. Such people are called cacographers in Spellwright. And that’s one of the things I really found interesting about this book. It examines both the way our society views people with disabilities and the way they view themselves. Even more interesting is that Blake Charlton knows firsthand what his cacographer protagonist is feeling. Severely dyslexic himself, he spent his school years in learning disabled classes and struggled with reading until he discovered fantasy books. His personal understanding makes Spellwright a poignant look at the life of those with learning disabilities.

The protagonist Nicodemus Weal’s struggle is a sympathetic one, and the grace with which he handles it makes him endearing. The only real complaint I have with this book is that I wish the secondary characters had been as endearing as Nicodemus. I felt that they lacked the appeal which Nicodemus had because their conflicts weren’t as personal as his. While likeable, they didn’t inspire the same love as Nicodemus did.

Spellwright is a story with a prophecy, a magician, and a dragon. It also gives whole new meaning to such words as “ghostwriting” and “purple prose.” I loved being able to read a story with such a classic genre plot without feeling like I’d read this book a hundred times before. It’s like painting a beige room red—it’s the same room, but with a whole new look entirely. Spellwright is a wonder-filled and exciting read, and I’m very much looking forward to the next book.

Two eBook Reviews

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I’ve read two ebooks recently. This isn’t something I usually do, but I did want to try out the experience. Neither of these authors expected a review when I began reading. I don’t normally do reviews of ebooks, and that hasn’t changed, for now, because I still don’t have an ideal reader.

Here are short reviews of both.


Survive My Fire
by Joely Sue Burkhart
Drollerie Press – $2.49

Sensual Fantasy

Survive My Fire is a dreamlike voyage through a land of shapeshifting dragons, poisoned sands, acid lakes and a volcano that — rather than lava — spews pure despair.

Chanda is a dragon, cursed by the gods and her own actions to remain in this form until she meets an impossible set of conditions. Jalan is a warrior who must slay her in order to remove the curse on his land.

Survive My Fire has a fantastic opening – it begins with the moment Jalan comes to slay Chanda, who only wants to eat him. I cannot do justice to the wonderful voice of this novel, so here is the opening paragraph:

A foreign scent intruded while I slept. A warrior. Miles away and on foot, he wouldn’t reach my lair until dusk. Sweat and musk, muscle and pride. Oh, how tasty, how divine a feast.

Right away there is a mighty battle, which ends when Jalan survives long enough to take advantage of her only weakness — a weakness similar to his own: during the nights of the full moon, Chanda the dragon becomes a woman.

The attraction between Chanda and Jalan is immediate. The opening chapters of this story has a number of sex scenes, some of which can get a little racy and even violent. But there is never rape; it’s more like dominance. Normally this would turn me off, but Ms. Burkhard wove it so flawlessly into the plot that I cannot fault her for it. The plot centers absolutely on Chanda and Jalan. All other characters are minor. Both Chanda and Jalan grow quite a bit as a result of their love for each other. Due to the short length of the story ( which is a novela rather than a novel), this works out fine. The presence of any other character would have made the story longer.

The voice is what captured me in this story, and what held me throughout. It is otherworldly, surreal and utterly engaging. It had to be, because Chanda — at first — seems so evil. Absent a connection to her, the reader needed another reason to keep reading. Here, both the plot and the voice do a terrific job.

Call of the Sea Gypsies
by J. G. Paine
Cobblelestone Press – $3.99

Erotic Romantic Fantasy

Forgive the lack of cover; it was a bit too naughty for me to post here. Just click through the publisher site to see it. I know the author will forgive me; she’s a dear friend and knows I’m a bit prudish. Ms. Paine asked me to read this when she sold it simply because she wanted to share it with me. The only thing that really makes it explicit is the naughty language — and yes, it is very naughty. But there is only one sex scene, along with a couple of sexy dreams.

Marna has lived away from the sea for years because in her heart she knows something within is calling her there, and it frightens her. But now she has returned because her grandmother has died under suspicious circumstances. As soon as she arrives back in Grey’s Harbor, trouble greets her. Several locals start pressuring Marna to sell her grandmother’s house. Her old childhood friend is also here, Morgan, and she is unsure whether he is still a friend or not. There is certainly something strange and intoxicating about him, and he never, never takes off his gloves.

And what of the old man who seems to be watching her?

Call of the Sea Gypsies is about the mythology around selkies. Ms. Paine especially played on the sensual nature of selkies, and wove it into a transformational sex scene near the end. Ms. Paine’s background is in writing mysteries, and it shows because a mystery is at the heart of the story, and it resolved in a way I never guessed. Ms. Paine’s writing style echoes the contemporary nature of the story – transparent and invisible, never intruding.

I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading Call of the Sea Gypsies. Maybe I have a skewed impression of what erotica is all about. But I enjoyed the story much more than I expected.

Review: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

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Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
by Ben H. Winters
Quirk Books
Trade Paperback – $12.95
Author Article – “How I Wrote Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”

Reviewed by Superwench83

“The family of Dashwood had been settled in Sussex since before the Alteration, when the waters of the world grew cold and hateful to the sons of man, and darkness moved on the face of the deep.” So begins Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters, and a fine beginning it is—setting us up for a mannerly, man-eating tale full of wit and wonder.

When their father is eaten by a hammerhead shark, the Dashwood sisters and their mother are forced to leave their home behind, for it is their brother’s inheritance. In a world where the ocean has crept inland and even the gentlest sea creatures have acquired a taste for human flesh, a home with proper defenses round the perimeter is a must. The Dashwoods’ new home on Pestilent Isle has such defenses, but it is a strange place, and becoming stranger still. Nonetheless, it is a home, and they are pleased to have it. Now the sisters only need suitors who can protect them from giant octopi and devil-dolphins. In their world, such a man is one to swoon over.

If you think it sounds absurd to mash a Jane Austen novel up with a nautical horror tale, you’re right. It’s absurd. And brilliant. Far from ruining Austen’s clever prose, the startling contrast of manners and monsters makes her social commentary even more biting. I have so many favorite lines from the book that I can’t even begin to quote them all.

The book’s basic plot is the same as in Sense and Sensibility: It is about the Dashwood sisters’ trials in love. But there is much more, just as the original is more than a romance. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters has an amusing yet disturbing undercurrent, blending delightful wit and a feeling of unease about what darkness lies beneath the surface. While the casual mentions of “the giant tuna that had lately tried to consume her mother” or “taking appropriate enjoyment in every opportunity to dine upon the hated foe” are humorous, there is also a strong sense that terrors unknown are just around the bend.

Only Margaret senses the deeply unsettling air of Pestilent Isle. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands this youngest Dashwood sister’s role, which I enjoyed because Margaret seems like almost an afterthought in the original story. Marianne is too absorbed with herself and Willoughby to notice anything amiss, but Elinor’s strange visions of a five-pointed star add to the unease. These flashes of foreboding lend Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters a very different kind of suspense than what the original story had.

Yet despite all the gloom, there is a sense of wonder in this book. Best of all is Sub-Marine Station Beta, an undersea city where the streets are canals and tamed sea creatures replace gondolas as the usual transportation. Beneath this dome of glass, residents must wear Float-Suits at all times. These suits act as breathing and floatation devices in case of emergency. This city is accessible only by submarine, but it is worth the trip, for Sub-Marine Station Beta is home to a host of sights, such as museums and the famed Kensington Undersea Gardens. Such inclusions almost lend Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters the feel of a steampunk novel.

The only issue I had was that some of the added storylines weren’t resolved as adequately as I would have liked. There was never a clear answer as to what caused the Alteration, and I felt that this was the one explanation that needed to be given. The focus of this book is Austen’s original story with some new settings and twists, and I understand that a long passage devoted to the Alteration’s origins might have taken away from that. But I still feel that there should have been more closure on some of the added fantasy elements.

If you’re not familiar with Sense and Sensibility, you can certainly enjoy Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and you probably will if you enjoy both classic literature and fantasy. But Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is definitely an experience which is best appreciated if you’re familiar with the original work. It is amazing how well the new bits of text blend with the old, and you’ll only be able to enjoy that if you know Sense and Sensibility. Ben Winter’s writing masterfully captures Austen’s own style so that his additions fit into the original text almost seamlessly. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters has all of that Austen charm, but is a venture into uncharted literary seas.