May 2015 wish list

Some good ones coming up in May, although several here I'm really not sure are my thing.

Books I'm definitely planning to get


Once Upon a Marquess, by Courtney Milan (May 2015)

There's never a firm release date with Milan's books, but according to her website this will be out in April or May, so here's hoping it's early in the month. It sounds great, but Milan is an autobuy author, so I'd buy it whatever it was about.





A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (May 5)

This is a companion to Life After Life, which I loved.





Day Four, by Sarah Lotz (May 21)

I recently read Lotz's The Three and thoroughly enjoyed it. This seems to be along the same lines, so I'll be reading it.



Books that interest me and I'll keep an eye on


Sacrati by Kate Sherwood (May 4)

I'm not sure about this one at all. I love Sherwood's contemporaries because they're so grounded and real. This is fantastical and features slaves and possibly (from what I can glean from the blurb) a 'gay-four-you' plot. Not my sort of thing, but I might try this anyway.





Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace (May 5)

I added this one to my wish list a while ago based on someone's comments about it. I remember that much, but I can't remember exactly what this person said! It does sound quite interesting and different!





A Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country by Helen Russell (May 12)

I have a bit of an obsession with Scandinavia, so I might give this a try.





The Shore by Sara Taylor (May 26)

Not sure, sounds like a bit too much misery for my taste, but the blurb includes the line "Through a series of interconnecting narratives that recalls the work of David Mitchell and Jennifer Egan..." which does tempt me!





Sweet Agony, by Charlotte Stein (May 28)

I haven't liked all of Stein's books, but I keep picking up her new ones!

Komarr, by Lois McMaster Bujold

TITLE: Komarr
AUTHOR: Lois McMaster Bujold

COPYRIGHT: 1998
PAGES: 384
PUBLISHER: Baen

SETTING: Futuristic
TYPE: Sci-fi
SERIES: 8th full-length title in the Vorkosigan series

Accident or Treachery? Komarr could be a garden-with a thousand more years work. or an uninhabitable wasteland, if the terraforming fails. Now the solar mirror vital to the terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship hurtling off course. The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest Imperial Auditor, Lord Miles Vorkosigan, to find out why.

The choice is not a popular one on Komarr, where a betrayal a generation before drenched the name of Vorkosigan in blood. In the political and physical claustrophobia of the domed cities, are the Komarrans surrounding Miles loyal subjects, potential hostages, innocent victims, or rebels bidding for revenge? Lies within lies, treachery within treachery-Miles is caught in a race against time to stop a plot that could exile him from Barrayar forever. His burning hope lies in an unexpected ally, one with wounds as deep and honor as beleaguered as his own.

I feel like a bit of a broken record, but best include the warning anyway: spoilers below for earlier books in the series! So if you haven't read those, just go and do so. Please, you won't regret it!

In Komarr, we see Miles in his new life. His supposedly temporary appointment as Imperial Auditor was made a permanent one at the end of Memory, and he's been assigned his first proper case. A ship has crashed into the Soletta Array, a system of solar mirrors that is crucial for the planet of Komarr to get enough sunlight for terraforming to take. It was a bit of an inexplicable accident, and given Komarr's history of rebellion against their Barrayarran Imperial masters, ImpSec want to be sure they can rule out sabotage. Thus, Miles is dispatched to investigate, together with a fellow and more experienced Imperial Auditor, Professor Vorthys.

But things get more complicated than expected. The Soletta incident has some bizarre characteristics, and there's also clearly something amiss in the terraforming project. Not to mention the personal entanglements. Professor Vorthys has family in Komarr, a niece who is married to one of the Barrayarran administrators. He and Miles stay with them, and the better Miles comes to know Ekaterin Vorsoisson, the more he likes her.

I enjoyed every minute I was reading Komarr. The investigation is twisty and really well done (Miles does NOT get involved in easy cases), and I was riveted by the embryonic romance. First of all, it was interesting to see Miles, right from the beginning, from a woman's point of view (the POV switches from Ekaterin and Miles). And Ekaterin herself was... unexpected. I, like most of his family, expected Miles would end up falling in love properly with some sort of exciting galactic lover, like the imposing women he's so often got involved with. Ekaterin is not that. She is, to all appearances, the perfect proper Vor lady. She married young and had a child and her life is subsumed in supporting her Vor husband. She's serene and demure. But her life hasn't been easy, and it becomes clear that her imperturbable serenity is more a defense mechanism than a part of her personality. It was particularly interesting to see her marriage in real time at the beginning of the book, rather than in some sort of flashback. It wasn't an over-the-top abusive marriage, but it was quite clear how her husband's emotional manipulation ground her down. It was sad and frustrating and oppressive, rather than scary. And by the end of the book, we see that Ekaterin is just as impressive as Miles' previous girlfriends, just in her own way.

I also loved the secondary characters: Ekaterin's Uncle and Aunt Vorthys and her son, Nicky (who's not some perfect plot moppet). Even Ekaterin's husband was well done, and felt completely real. Not to mention the setting, which gives us the opportunity to see more about how Barrayar is seen from the outside.

The thing is, Komarr didn't feel quite as satisfying as the previous few books have. I think that might be because it felt like Miles was having it too easy. Bujold has got me used to a certain approach, which is basically her putting her characters through the wringer and facing them with the very things they fear. This doesn't happen here. Miles' professional situation is stable and assured. He's in a job that's perfectly suited to his intellectual talents, but where there isn't (or rather, shouldn't be) very much risk, physical or careerwise. His status ensures that all those around him defer to him and scramble to do his bidding. He enjoys the respect of his peers, whom he respects just as well. I thought at the beginning that the angst was going to come from the fact that the woman to attract his attention is married. But even that obstacle disappears quite easily, and then the only thing between him and his objective is that Ekaterin has had a bad marriage and is now understandably skittish.

What it comes down to, I think, is that Miles is in an unusual position of power all through this book, where he can even dictate to ImpSec. For all his extremely privileged upbringing and background, circumstances conspire in all the previous books to put him at a disadvantage and having to struggle to overcome this. In previous books, I've always been afraid for him. I wasn't here. It makes the book very pleasurable to read, and I loved it, but it didn't punch me in the gut, like pretty much all the previous ones have.

On to A Civil Campaign!

MY GRADE: A B+.

Tempting the Player, by Kat Latham

TITLE: Tempting the Player
AUTHOR: Kat Latham

COPYRIGHT: 2014
PAGES: 228
PUBLISHER: Carina Press

SETTING: Contemporary UK
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: 3rd in the London Legends series

Libby Hart and Matt Ogden are perfect for each other—as friends. They've known each other for ages. They act as each other's plus-ones. They even share custody of a dog. And if there's always been a little spark between them, so what? It's never been worth jeopardizing their friendship.

Professional rugby player Matt is fighting for a starter position with the London Legends—and that's not the only thing he's fighting. A crippling fear of flying means he's struggling to get his career off the ground. He has no time for a relationship, even if Libby does make him ache. As an airline pilot, Libby's looking for a stay-at-home husband so she can have a family without sacrificing her high-flying career. Matt's certainly not that man.

But just because they don't have a future together doesn't mean they can't have a right now. When Matt asks Libby for help overcoming his fear, they agree to take a vacation from their platonic relationship—whenever they fly together, they can have sex. It's the perfect way to resolve all that built-up tension. As long as they can avoid getting a little too comfortable...

I've accumulated a fair few sports romances in the last few years, especially those with less common sports. I'm not into the celebrity fantasy and do not care to read about superstar athletes, so the less blockbuster sports tend to work better for me. Latham's books feature heroes who play Rugby Union, which is a sport I like (much as I love Rugby League, good adopted Northerner that I am). It fits the bill for me quite well, because while the top players are superstars and get the press attention and celebrity treatment, your average Premiership player gets a good but definitely not obscene salary and attention only if he does something outrageous.

The hero of this book is definitely in the latter category. Matt Ogden is actually struggling to get into his team, even fearing his contract might not be renewed at the end of the season. And his fear of flying isn't helping his cause. The team has to do a fair bit of travelling to away games, and every time it's a big drama.

Matt's neighbour, Libby, is the perfect person to help. Libby is a pilot, and she's got some ideas about how to get Matt over his fears.

Matt and Libby have been attracted to each other for quite a while, but both know they are not well-suited. Libby's pilot father, whom she adores, was a terrible husband. For reasons that made very little sense to me, this has led Libby to the conclusion that the only way she can be happy is by getting married to a man who's happy to stay home with their children. And Matt, younger than her and only just building a career of his own, is definitely not that man.

But the time they spend together while dealing with Matt's fears of flying feels like time outside of their usual lives, and they give in to temptation.

This was disappointing. Oh, there was a lot here I liked. I liked that Libby is confident and self-assured and good at her job. I liked that Matt is in a bit of a vulnerable position in his work, having moved to a bigger team from one in which he was the big star, and having found it hard to break into the starting line-up. His confidence is way down, and when he finally gets a break (in circumstances that are really sad), he's terrified of having his fear of flying mess everything up. Most athlete heroes are incredibly amazing and top of their fields, so this element was refreshing. I also liked that Matt and Libby are friends at the outset, and feel comfortable with each other. They co-parent a dog called Princess, which added some really nice moments.

All the other stuff, however, was not so great. I basically found the conflict unbelievable. The motivations, especially on Libby's end, didn't quite work. As I suggested when describing her big plan of demanding that any man she marries is a stay-at-home dad, I didn't get why her father's infidelities and him being a pilot would lead to her being so convinced that this is the only way forward for her. Also, while on one hand, I liked that Libby values her career and absolutely will not give it up, it felt like such an obviously bad idea. It’s so rigid, putting the fatherhood role above the relationship between her and her future husband. I’d have huge issues if it was the hero who did it, and it bothered me here as well.

I also hated the characterisation of Matt's horrible, evil first wife, whose fault it's intimated it is that Matt is a bit of a commitment-phobe. She's such a stereotype. She ‘trapped’ Matt into marriage, cheated on him with lots of men, told him about it in the most hurtful way possible, ensuring he destroyed his career at his club, threatened to go to the papers if he didn’t give her more money... need I go on? This was cartoonish and annoying. I’m getting quite sensitive to this sort of thing, to the point that if a review mentions a book has an evil other woman, I’m much less likely to buy the book.

This is the third in a series of connected books, and we see quite a bit of the previous couples and there are some suggestions that other characters will get their own stories. Nothing I saw here tempts me to read any of these.

MY GRADE: A C.

The Three, by Sarah Lotz

TITLE: The Three
AUTHOR: Sarah Lotz

COPYRIGHT: 2014
PAGES: 480
PUBLISHER: Hodder & Stoughton

SETTING: Contemporary, varied locations
TYPE: Horror
SERIES: None

They're here ... The boy. The boy watch the boy watch the dead people oh Lordy there's so many ... They're coming for me now. We're all going soon. All of us. Pastor Len warn them that the boy he's not to--

The last words of Pamela May Donald (1961 - 2012)

Black Thursday. The day that will never be forgotten. The day that four passenger planes crash, at almost exactly the same moment, at four different points around the globe.

There are only four survivors. Three are children, who emerge from the wreckage seemingly unhurt. But they are not unchanged. And the fourth is Pamela May Donald, who lives just long enough to record a voice message on her phone. A message that will change the world.

The message is a warning.

Pamela May Donald is on her way to visit her daughter, who's teaching in Japan, when her commuter plane crashes into a forest. We're with her as the plane goes down. We're also with her she lies dying on the cold ground, terrified by what she's seeing, and as she records a voice message on her mobile phone.

And then the perspective changes. It's months later, and we're reading a book published by an author who's been investigating the disturbing events sparked off by "Black Thursday". Because Pamela's plane wasn't the only one that went down that day. There were 4, each in a different continent. And in 3 of them, a single child survived.

Through fragments of different materials (interviews, chat transcripts, reports), we find out more about what it was that happened after the crashes. At first we only know that it was something really disturbing and that all sorts of conspiracy theories have flourished, and Lotz only gradually gives us more details.

The Three was terrifying. I read it compulsively, but I had to stop myself at least an hour before going to bed and read something fluffy and nice, otherwise I knew I'd have nightmares all night (that said, I did have a very strange dream the first night... David Cameron was reading me a socialist version of a Dr. Seuss book. Inexplicable).

The events that are being described are creepy enough. The children survivors are clearly a bit 'off', but the ways in which this is the case are really well done. The little girl, especially. *shivers* And the structure really helped. Having the narrator/compiler have the benefit of hindsight worked to ratchet up the dread. Even the innocuous, straightforward sections at the beginning, before people are really aware that something's wrong, were given a whole new perspective by the little introductory paragraphs. For instance, before the first chat transcript between two Japanese teens, one of whom is the cousin of one of the crash survivors, we're told these were recovered from their computers. I shivered. These little hints didn't feel annoying or manipulative, as they were exactly what an author would write if she was certain her readers would know what had happened already. It really worked.

I know some people have trouble with this sort of "found material" approach (the complaints I've seen centre around there not being a protagonist), but I love it. It almost always works for me, and it did so here. It wasn't perfect, mainly because if you have so many different voices they do have to sound different, and some of them didn't. The chatting Japanese teens, for instance, didn't ring 100% true and sounded a bit too similar to others. But on the whole, this was great. I loved having the different perspectives, and I loved that we had a sort of double layer of unreliable narrators. You don't know if the people telling their stories are being truthful or are lying (or even whether they're completely deluded and psychotic). You also don't know whether the author compiling the material, who ends up being a character in her own right, has an agenda, and is therefore manipulating what bits and pieces get included in the book. This structure worked beautifully with the subject matter.

For all that I enjoyed the hell out of these books, I did have some niggles. Mostly it raced along, but there was a spell round the middle where it felt like the narrative was going round in circles. The forward momentum was resumed after a while, but those sections needed better editing. I was also a bit queasy about some of the US characters, mainly Pastor Len and the people who start following him and his end-of-times theories. These characters felt a little too cartoonish, too unsubtle.

The big problem I had, though, was with the ending. No spoilers here, I'll be quite general. A lot of the enjoyment in this book was in the journey, the mysterious events and the wondering about just what on earth is going on, but you do need some sort of resolution. Lotz gives us one here, of a sort. It's not something definite, and the reader needs to decide what she thinks it means, but it's something. It felt unsatisfying, though. What I interpreted explained some things, but for a lot of them I still thought "But why would they...?". I'm not sure if the problem is in my interpretation or in us not being given enough to go on, but reading other reviews, it sounds like it might be the latter. Anyway, if any of you have read it, I'd love to discuss the ending, to see if you've reached the same conclusions I did.

Even with a problematic ending, I still really liked this. Lotz has another similar-sounding book coming out (not a sequel, but seemingly connected to this in some way), and I'll definitely be buying that.

MY GRADE: A B.

Otherwise Engaged, by Amanda Quick

TITLE: Otherwise Engaged
AUTHOR: Amanda Quick

COPYRIGHT: 2014
PAGES: 352
PUBLISHER: Putnam

SETTING: Victorian England (mostly)
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: None

One does not expect to be kidnapped on a London street in broad daylight. Yet Amity Doncaster barely escapes with her life after meeting a man in a black silk mask who whispers the most vile taunts and threats into her ear. Her quick thinking, and her secret weapon, save her - for now.

But the monster known in the press as the Bridegroom has left a trail of female victims in his wake, and will soon be on his feet again. He is unwholesomely obsessed by Amity's scandalous connection to Benedict Stanbridge - and Benedict refuses to let this resourceful, daring woman suffer for her romantic link to him-as tenuous as it may be.

For a man and woman so skilled at disappearing, so at home in the exotic reaches of the globe, escape is always an option. But each intends to end the Bridegroom's reign of terror in the heart of the city they love, which means they must also face feelings neither of them can run away from...

Otherwise Engaged has a very exciting start, one that had me hoping that we were back to vintage Amanda Quick and eager to know what would come next.

Amity Doncaster is an explorer and an adventurer. Her accounts of her travels in the Flying Intelligencer are very popular and have gained her a nice following. Her latest trip has taken her to the Caribbean, and it's while on one of the islands that she hears someone calling her from a dark alley.

Amity is a sensible, intelligent woman, so she doesn't just go haring in. Cautious reconnoitering brings her to Benedict Stanbridge's aid. Benedict has been attacked and left to die in the alley, and he's desperate for someone to take a letter to safety. Amity agrees to do that, but she can do more. Her father was an excellent doctor, and through her travels with him she's learnt enough medical skills to be very good in an emergency. She performs some first aid and helps Benedict back to her ship (where he also has a cabin booked) and nurses him back to health.

He recovers and during their time on board while the ship travels to New York, they become close. But Amity is on her way back to London, while Benedict must go to California, for reasons he can't disclose (just as he can't talk about what happened back in the island and what was in that letter that was so important). He promises he will tell Amity the truth as soon as he's able, though, and promises to look her up when he's back in London.

The action moves to London some months later, when Amity is kidnapped by a serial killer known as The Bridegroom, who's been terrorising London. Amity manages to escape and we're told this makes her notorious for the second time. Why the second time, we readers wonder? A clue might be in why The Bridegroom claims he choose her as his next victim: she must not be allowed to trick an honourable man like Benedict Stanbridge into marriage. Huh? I couldn't wait to find out what was going on.

And then... it all got boring and plodding. Benedict and Amity team up with her sister and a police detective to try to discover the identity of the Bridegroom. There's also stuff going on around the secret mission Benedict was on when he was injured in the island, with someone (probably in the employ of the Russians!) chasing after the stuff he discovered.

That element was pretty bad. The suspense plot was preposterous and overcomplicated. Seriously, the conclusion was ridiculous, with 3 (count them, 3!) different villains operating quasi-independently and with motivations that, in two of the three cases, were basically "this person is insane". And the investigation was painfully predictable. Quick includes a particular scene in every single book she writes. The hero and heroine call on someone for information. They find the place deserted but go in anyway, and find that person collapsed in a pool of blood. Sometimes they're dead, sometimes merely knocked out. But they're always out cold. I sometimes wonder if she does it on purpose, as a sort of challenge. It's annoying, to be honest.

Also, Quick's writing is driving me crazy lately. She is painfully unsubtle. She bangs home every single point and logical deduction several times. It's as if she feels we readers are stupid. To be fair, I have only noticed this since I started listening to her books on audio, so it might be that the mind slides over it without noticing in written format. I'll be reading the next one, rather than listen to it (and I will read the next one; I'm not quite ready to give her up).

My review so far is mainly moaning, but I didn't hate this. The romance is kind of nice, and I liked Amity's sister and the supportive relationship those two have. I also liked the touches of humour, like the housekeeper, who's just as enthusiastic as her bosses about the investigation (and as effective in her enquiries!). And Benedict is cool. He's an engineer and wants nothing more than to be rid off this spy stuff and go back to engineering. Nice characters, all, but pretty thin.

MY GRADE: A C.

Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold

TITLE: Memory
AUTHOR: Lois McMaster Bujold

COPYRIGHT: 1996
PAGES: 480
PUBLISHER: Baen

SETTING: Futuristic
TYPE: Sci-fi
SERIES: 8th full-length title in the Vorkosigan series

Dying is easy. Coming back to life is hard. At least that's what Miles Vorkosigan thinks and he should know, having done both once already. That was when he last visited the planet of Jackson's Whole, while rescuing his brother. Thanks to quick thinking on the part of his staff, and incredible artistry on the part of the specialist who revived him, his first death won't be his last. But his next one might be, a realization he finds profoundly unsettling.

Even after he returns to military duty, his late death seems to be having a greater effect than he's willing to admit. Unfortunately, his weakness reveals itself to the world at large at just the wrong time and in just the wrong way, and Miles is summoned home to face Barrayaran security chief Simon Illyan. But when things begin to go subtly wrong in Imperial Security itself, 'Who shall guard the guardians?' becomes a more-than-rhetorical question, with a potentially lethal answer. Things look bad, but they are far worse than Miles imagines, as he discovers his worst nightmares about Simon Illyan don't compare to Illyan's worst nightmares-or are they memories?

This is many readers' favourite in the Vorkosigan saga, and by the time I finish reading the series, it may well be mine. I'm going to try to not include spoilers in the review below, but I will need to be, well, spoilerish to properly discuss anything!

In Memory Miles faces the fall-out of some of what happened to him in Mirror Dance. Or rather, he tries not to face it, and his efforts lead to things going horribly wrong for him, and in front of Simon Illyan, too. Miles is left to face the consequences of his actions while stuck in Barrayar. But in the midst of a fog of misery, he finds a mission when Simon's memory chip goes wrong. Something about how ImpSec is dealing with it doesn't sit well with Miles, and he feels it his duty, both to the Emperor and to the man who's been like another father to him, to get to the bottom of things.

I was sure at the beginning that the book was going to be about how Miles got back this life he had created and that meant so much to him. It wasn't. It was about Miles becoming a whole person again by coming to terms with the Lord Vorkosigan part of his character, realising that he'd put his all into his Admiral Naismith persona and neglected what is actually a huge part of his character.

The way this was done was just perfection. First there's the crisis. That, while painful to read, had me thinking back to my secondary school literature classes, when we studied classical tragedy. Miles' downfall is not external. It's not something that happens to him, but something he does to himself. It's inevitable, being who he is. It all had the whiff of hamartia (the "tragic flaw" in the protagonist's character so many classical tragedies are based on).

But, and here's a big difference, here this is just the start, not the conclusion. Miles' reaction to seeing his life crash down on him is all about growth and change. There were some elements in his actions that I expected (his doggedness, his determination to do what is right), but his resilience and willigness to change the very course of his life surprised me (just as much as it did Cordelia, which I thought was a nice touch. She'd been coming across as almost supernaturally perceptive about her family in previous books, so it was good to see that some of Miles' depths were hidden from her, as well as from the reader).

That change in Miles' life marks a change of direction of the series as well, which is a move that I find hugely admirable. It's much easier to just keep giving readers more of what they want (have got used to?). More books about Miles having entertaining galactic adventures, again and again. It's much tougher to do what Bujold does here and change -and bring readers fully with her. It felt at the end of the book that this was a necessary change, both for Miles and for the series, and absolutely the right move.

Memory is much more understated in the adventure side than previous books, but that didn't mean it lacked excitement. There were plenty of emotional highs and lows, and the stakes were extremely high, easily as high as in previous books.

There's a bit of romance here, not for Miles, but for several characters I love. That was all lovely, both sweet and funny. We also get a mystery plot in Miles' ImpSec investigation. That is not just something for him to do while he comes to term with his new life, but an interesting, clever mystery in its own right. I feel quite proud that I figured it out right ahead of Miles, but because there was so much book left, I thought there might be a few more twists and turns left.

Turns out not, the mystery is resolved earlyish, and we get an extended aftermath, a bit like Jane Austen does in her novels, where all the conflict has been resolved, but you get more about how things work out for people. I actually loved this, although I must say I did get the impression I should have had stronger feelings about the final scene with Elli Quinn. The thing is, I found it hard to believe this was a hugely emotional thing for Miles. I never felt he really loved Quinn, a feeling strengthened by the revelation early in the book that Miles has also been sleeping with Taura all along, in a sort of friendly way. That was the only tiny bit of the book that I didn't think perfect, but it's a small flaw!

MY GRADE: An A.

Talon, by Julie Kagawa

TITLE: Talon
AUTHOR: Julie Kagawa

COPYRIGHT: 2014
PAGES: 461
PUBLISHER: Harlequin Teen

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: YA paranormal romance
SERIES: Starts a series

‘There are a dozen soldiers hiding in that maze. All hunting you. All looking to kill you.’
To the outside world Ember Hill is an ordinary girl, but Ember has a deadly secret. A dragon hiding in human form, she is destined to fight the shadowy Order of St. George, a powerful society of dragonslayers.

St. George soldier Garret is determined to kill Ember and her kind. Until her bravery makes him question all he’s been taught about dragons.

Now a war is coming and Garret and Ember must choose their sides – fight to save their bond or fulfil their fate and destroy one another.

I read this one for my book club. In fact, I read past even the first few pages only because it was for my book club. It was appallingly bad, so much so that I had a sneer on my face the entire time I was reading it.

Ember and Dante are dragons. They can shift into human form and Talon, the organisation that governs their kind, has been training them since birth. They are now ready to live for a while among humans and learn how to pass for humans themselves, and we meet them on their way to their "foster family". And we start out as we'll go on, with clumsy infodump after clumsy infodump, under the guise of Ember and Dante's handlers checking that they remember their cover and all sorts of details about their own very nature that no one with half a brain would think they could have forgotten.

The story is basic paranormal YA. Ember makes friends and hangs out with other teens, two of whom have secrets of their own. Garrett is undercover himself, as he's part of the Order of St. George, a military sect devoted to hunting dragons. They've received information that a female dragon hatchling has been placed in the area, and he and his partner are trying to figure out who she is. There's also Riley, whom Ember and Dante immediately recognise as a dragon himself. He's clearly a rogue, someone who's left Talon and as such should be immediately reported to the authorities. But Ember doesn't want to.

Can you guess where this is going? I could smell the love triangle from about page 15. It was just as badly done as the rest of the book.

This is a profoundly stupid book... offensively stupid and juvenile and contrived.

The world-building is stupid. The whole nature of Talon as an organisation doesn't make much sense, and I never understood what the hell was the point of Ember and Dante's mission. And also, if you take security so seriously and feel you need to be in full alert all the time, you might want to think of an unobtrusive name for your dragon-girl to take, not fucking Ember!

Ember is as stupid as her name. She's exactly the sort of character that makes me so cautious about what I read in the YA genre. She's supposed to be a dragon who doesn't know how to behave as a human teenager, but I didn't believe that for a minute. She was all stroppy teenager. I didn't think she needed practice at all. She had the melodramatic self-involvement and penchant for idiotic risk-taking down pat. And of course, she's beautiful (flowing red hair, natch) and effortlessly good at everything she tries, whether it's surfing or the combat games her evil trainer puts her through. Tiresome.

The whole thing is predictable and as unsubtle as an anvil falling on your head. I hated every second I spent reading it and felt a huge sense of satisfaction at the cliff-hangerish ending because I will not be reading the next book and it felt like a liberation.

I am, I confess, looking forward to book club next week. The person who suggested Talon was this guy in his mid-30s who didn't seem at all like the sort to go for angsty teen paranormal romance. And he suggested it because it was a book he was already reading (which seems to me to defeat the purpose of a book club, but what do I know). Anyway, I'm very curious to see if he knew what he was suggesting or whether "This book I'm reading" meant that he'd had a peek at page 1!

MY GRADE: An F.

AUDIOBOOK NOTES: The audiobook narration was almost as bad as the book itself, which seemed fitting. The female narrator was particularly awful. The way she rendered the teenage boys' voices was excruciating. Every time they spoke, even the nice ones, I wanted to slap them. It was all stupid drawls and "duuuuude". Ugh. Ember's voice also made me want to slap her, but at least her melodramatic teenage stupidity was text-based, so it was actually a successful performance. The male narrator wasn't much better, and in similar ways (it was the teenage girls' voices he was crap at).

The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7, by Maxim Jakubowski (editor)

TITLE: The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7
AUTHOR: Maxim Jakubowski (editor), and many, many authors (see below)

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 544
PUBLISHER: C&R Crime

SETTING: Varies
TYPE: Varies, all have something to do with crime, but not all are traditional mysteries
SERIES: Many of the stories are part of series

The must-have annual anthology for every crime fiction fan - the year's top new British short stories selected by leading crime critic Maxim Jakubowski.This great annual covers the full range of mystery fiction, from noir and hardboiled crime to ingenious puzzles and amateur sleuthing. Packed with top names like Colin Dexter, Christopher Fowler, Alexander McCall Smith, Robert Barnard, Peter James, Natasha Cooper, Sophie Hannah, and many more.

The "Mammoth Book of X" are a very popular collection of anthologies. They cover all sorts of topics (Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance, Mammoth Book of Zombies, Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy, Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories and so on), and tend to be big bricks containing lots and lots of pretty short stories.

This one sounded like a great idea, and a quick scan of the authors included revealed several names I recognised and had been meaning to try for a while. Unfortunately, once I started reading I was disappointed. I read about a quarter of the stories and was really not impressed by most. There were only 2 which were ok, but even those weren't that great. For the others, reading the short notes I made about them (which I've copied below), I think the best word I can use to describe them is "pointless".

Since this seems to be a collection driven by the editor's taste and I felt this sample gave me enough of an idea of what that taste might be, there really was no point in me continuing to read.

Quick summaries of the stories I read:

MR E. MORSE, BA OXON (FAILED), by Colin Dexter

Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse series is one I've been meaning to read, so I'd hoped this would be a good introduction. It's kind of put me off instead. The case was pointless, the writing opaque and Morse himself didn't come across as a particularly interesting character. Story (failed).


GHOSTS, by John Harvey

PI asked to investigate death of a young man in a fight by the victim's mother; must get culprit's girlfriend to turn on him. Much too short, felt like the executive summary of a story. Not interesting, either. Pointless.


THE BLOOD PEARL, by Barry Maitland

Could have been good, with an exotic and unique setting (people who've been fleeced by a con man get involved in plot to steal pearls from his cultivation grounds in Western Australia).Unfortunately I found the characters completely uninsteresting and unbelievable.


THE COMMON ENEMY, by Natasha Cooper

This one was good. Good characters and really, really sad. Girl hasn't come home from friend's house and her mother goes out to search for her. Not a mystery, though, just the story of a tragedy.


BLOODSPORT, by Tom Cain

Really short story, but I liked it. It has a special forces soldier with a sniper's sight trained on the British Prime Minister. Interesting ideas and well-written. Also quite surprising.


THE RAT IN THE ATTIC, by Brian McGilloway

Not terrible, but quite predictable. Elderly woman accuses her neighbour of running over her cat, and police officer goes talk to him to keep her happy. As soon as the whole thing about the roof having no snow on it was said, it was completely obvious what was going on.


ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT ALREADY, by Tony Black

Bad. Girl kills boy who raped her using Rohypnol. No way were these characters believable schoolkids. Another pointless, much-too-short one.


HOGMANAY HOMICIDE, by Edward Marston

Set in 1906, this story features Dr. Crippen as a detective (yes, the famous murderer; this is not just someone of the same name). The mystery was not at all interesting and I found the idea of having Crippen as hero to be in poor taste, especially because Marston seems to be justifying why he would want to kill his wife some years later.


And a list of the other stories in the anthology.

FRUITS, by Steve Mosby
A PLACE FOR VIOLENCE, by Kevin Wignall
FOUR HUNDRED RABBITS, by Simon Levack
HISTORY!, by Toby Litt
THE MASQUERADE, by Sarah Rayne
TAKE DEATH EASY, by Peter Turnbull
THE PARSON AND THE HIGHWAYMAN, by Judith Cutler
SPECIAL DELIVERY, by Adrian Magson
A BLOW ON THE HEAD, by Peter Lovesey
CHICAGO, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
THE HOUSE THAT GOT SHOT, by Barbara Nadel
THE OCTOPUS NEST, by Sophie Hannah
WALKING THE DOG, by Peter Robinson
THE VELOCITY OF BLAME, by Christopher Fowler
SOMEONE TAKE THESE DREAMS AWAY, by Marc Werner
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE, by Alexander McCall Smith
12 BOLINBROKE AVENUE, by Peter James
APPETITE FOR MURDER, by Simon R. Green
THE OTHER HALF, by Mick Herron
SWORD LILIES, by Sally Spedding
LOVE HURTS, by Bill Kirton
FUNERAL WEATHER, by Kate Ellis
A YEAR TO REMEMBER, by Robert Barnard
TIME OF THE GREEN, by Ken Bruen
VIVISECTION, by Bernie Crosthwaite
STAR’S JAR, by Kate Horsley
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A VICTIMLESS CRIME, by Paul Johnston
AND HERE’S THE NEXT CLUE..., by Amy Myers
FRECKLES, by Allan Guthrie
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, by Val McDermid

MY GRADE: A DNF.

Obsession in Death, by JD Robb

TITLE: Obsession in Death
AUTHOR: JD Robb

COPYRIGHT: 2015
PAGES: 416
PUBLISHER: Putnam

SETTING: 2060s New York
TYPE: Police procedural & romance
SERIES: By my count, 42nd full-length title in the In Death series

Eve Dallas has solved a lot of high-profile murders for the NYPSD and gotten a lot of media. She—and her billionaire husband—are getting accustomed to being objects of attention, of gossip, of speculation.

But now Eve has become the object of one person’s obsession. Someone who finds her extraordinary, and thinks about her every hour of every day. Who believes the two of them have a special relationship. Who would kill for her—again and again…

With a murderer reading meanings into her every move, handling this case will be a delicate—and dangerous—psychological dance. And Eve knows that underneath the worship and admiration, a terrible threat lies in wait. Because the beautiful lieutenant is not at all grateful for these bloody offerings from her “true and loyal friend.” And in time, idols always fall...

Eve Dallas has made many enemies over the years, but in Obsession in Death she comes against someone who considers hirself a friend. A well-known defense lawyer has been found dead in her home, and when Eve and Peabody respond to the call they are surprised to see the message written on the wall next to the victim. It's addressed to Eve. It makes it clear that the killer is an admirer of hers and is trying to tie the loose ends Eve herself cannot (being, as she is, constrained by the rules of her job). The dead woman is a macabre offering, and Eve is sure it won't be the last. And when this person realises Eve is not properly appreciative, will they turn against her and go for the people she cares about?

This was a middle-of-the-road kind of entry in this series. Nothing special, but good and satisfying and working perfectly well as a comfort read. This is one of those cases where the investigation combines the development of the plot and the personal aspects of the series (which can sometimes be a bit separate).

It's obvious the killer takes some sort of twisted inspiration from Eve and sees quite a few similarities between them. So Eve has to consider this, and it leads to an acknowledgment of just how much her life has changed since the solitary days before she met Roarke. The number of potential "bad" victims, people the killer could target as a "favour" to Eve, is large, but the number of potential victims if the killer turns and starts to go after Eve's friends is even larger.

The only aspect that didn't work so well was that I felt Robb overestimated how well we readers would remember previous books. The 40+ books in this series all cover a period of about 2 years in Eve's life. This means that when Eve and her team discuss the victims and their involvement in previous investigations, they don't do a lot of verbal catch-up. This makes sense; they all remember the cases well. I didn't, and I've read every single book in the series. Some of the earlier ones I've actually read multiple times. This includes Rapture in Death, which is where the first victim shows up. The thing is, that book came out almost 20 years ago (!). I reread it more recently, but I still had no idea who all these people Eve was talking about were. Fortunately, there's a wiki for the In Death series and that was really helpful to remind myself of what had happened. Still, Robb really should have realised the great majority of her readers would not remember the books as well as she does!

MY GRADE: A B.

March 2015 reads

A mixed month. Some solidly enjoyable reads, but also a few duds, including (especially!) some I was sure were going to be great.



1 - Komarr, by Lois McMaster Bujold: B+
review coming soon

Miles is sent to Komarr to investigate an accident that might be sabotage, gets involved in another mystery and meets a woman. I enjoyed this very much, but it lacks the compulsive quality of the previous few books.


2 - The Rescue Man, by Anthony Quinn: B+
review here

Reread for my March book club. It's set in Liverpool during World War II and the 1860s. The main character during the WWII sections is an architect who is making a record of Liverpool's noteworthy buildings right before the war starts. To hurry the process he decides to substitute drawings for photographs, and that's how he meets a photographer couple in whose lives he becomes very involved. During the war, he also becomes a rescue man, part of the crews going into bombed buildings and getting people out. And all the while, he's researching and reading the diary of a famous architect from the 1860s.

 I thought the WWII sections were as fantastic as I did the first time I read the book. Their account of what it would have been like to live in a city during a heavy blitz felt vivid and believable. They were also full of characters I cared about. And this time I liked the 1860s sections even more, because last year my friends and I spent the Heritage Open Day visiting the works of Peter Ellis, the architect Quinn's character is based on. It's fantastic stuff. And by coincidence, one of my friends had also got tickets for a tour of the Hardmans' House. The Hardmans were a photographer couple, much like the characters in this book, and their house (which served as their studio and business) has been preserved as it was in the 40s and 50s. I'm not sure if the characters here were based on the Hardmans, but I suspect they might have been, and having seen their house really enhanced my enjoyment of those sections.

This is a love letter to Liverpool, and since I share that love, I thoroughly enjoyed it.




3 - The Reece Malcolm List, by Amy Spalding: B
review coming soon

YA. It features a young woman going to live with her long-lost mother, a famous author, after her father dies. The main character was a bit too passive for my taste, but I was interested, especially in her relationship with her mother.




4 - The Magicians, by Lev Grossman: B
review coming soon

This is billed as Harry Potter for adults, with a young man suddenly being offered a place into a college for magic. The worldbuilding is really cool and I enjoyed that aspect, but I found it hard to care about the characters. They do feel realistic, though!



5 - Kiss of Steel, by Bec McMaster: B-
review here

This is steampunk with vampires. A young woman on the run from a powerful aristocrat finds refuge in the rookeries, where the hero rules. An ok read, but it lost steam (haha!) along the way.




6 - Flirting With Disaster, by Victoria Dahl: B-
review coming soon

The reclusive heroine is on the run and living under a false name. The hero is a US Marshall working on a case in the neighbourhood, exactly the sort of person she doesn't want becoming curious about her past. Not as good as Dahl's usual books, I'm afraid.



7 - Heartless, by Mary Balogh: DNF
review here

This was written 20 years ago and it shows. Very dated, with a martyr heroine, an unbelievable villain and a pretty offensive characterisation of the Evil Other Woman.




8 - Talon, by Julie Kagawa: still listening
review coming soon

Audiobook. YA featuring a dragon-shifter heroine trying to pass for a normal human and avoid the attentions of an organisation devoted to hunting those of her kind. I'm reading this for my book club, otherwise I would have abandoned it after the first chapter. It hasn't got any better.




9 - The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin: still reading
review coming soon

This is an old one, from the late 70s. I haven't got very far into it, but I picked it up because it was described as being really clever and a bit like the game Clue!