Inkspot Fancy

This book received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Urban fantasy is a genre that's starting to become like romance in a way - there are certain tropes and expectations that readers have started to develop. The main character (usually but not always a woman) with some form of power and a dark secret in their past works as a detective or merc in a supernatural society. There's also usually at least one, usually more, excessively hot love interest. It's comfort reading, a pure vein of escapism. You know what you want coming in, and the best ones feed that need with enough of a twist to let their heroine stick in your memory.

And this is one of the good ones.

From the moment Sara has a no-nonsense conversation with her first client of the book, I knew I liked her. She's tough and angry and capable, a woman who actually feels ground down by life but still seeded with an inner fire that won't let her give up and won't let her allow people to walk all over her. She's doing good work, doing it her own way, and is focused on a tough but somewhat hopeful future for those she's working to protect.

And then the Powers That Be come in and ruin everything for her. Because that's what Powers That Be do.

In this book, those come in the form of immensely strong (both magically and monetarily/politically it seems) people whose code names are based on major arcana cards for the Tarot. (There's also a set of families corresponding to the suits and another set of families as well, I think - if there's one rough point early on it's that a lot of information gets thrown at you really fast and it's not easily clear how it all connects. I'm pretty sure some of it will come into play in later books, but a lot of it went in and out of my head).

So anyway, Sara is forced to go to a city she doesn't want to visit and face parts of herself and her past she doesn't want to remember in order to do something she DOES want very much to do - save young people with psychic powers, young people who are being kidnapped and/or killed in horrifying numbers as awareness of the reality of psychic powers becomes more and more accepted. And while this concern for children is another thread that seems to run through urban fantasy, it's rarely more visceral than it is in this book. I also liked that.

The action is quick-paced and engaging, the voice of the prose is just perfect and the characters are all well-rounded and fascinating, with complex stories and motivations. It's just a well-written story all around, a quick read that felt like it was over too soon (not because the story felt incomplete, as sometimes happens, but just because I wanted MORE).

There was one other thing that did bother me about this book, and I wonder if this might be one of those romance-book things that I just don't get. And here there be spoilers, so proceed with caution, but it has to do with how one of the main male characters treats our heroine. Spoilers! You are warned!

So, the guy who sends Sara on the main mission in this book and brings her to Vegas is The Magician, a guy with some seriously powerful mojo. And early on in the book, he notices she has a necklace that will prevent people from having sex with her and decides to see how far he CAN go.

I think I'm supposed to read the scene as she's giving permission even while she's protesting. Like I said, maybe this is some sort of romance-y ravishment thing I'm just not used to? But... eh. It reads like he thinks because her body's responding, she has no right to decide with any other part of herself and he gets to do whatever he wants. And that felt so uncomfortable that it not only poisoned the scene, it poisoned the character. I don't like him. I hope they never end up together. I mean, Jesus, who sees an anti-having-sex charm as some sort of invitation? It's pretty much the opposite of an invitation. I'm going to hope this was intentional and we're meant to dislike him.

Also, this kinda happens again with another character, but at least he makes it clear that he knows he's flaunting her boundaries and doesn't care. It also never feels like they're setting him up as a love interest.

So that knocked it down a bit for me, but overall, I liked this and I will most assuredly be checking out the next book. I love the grit and glitz and grunge and glory of setting it in Vegas, and the setup of her world has a lot to explore. If you like urban fantasy, I think you'll find a lot to enjoy here.

Valley of the Raven is a modern maybe-fantasy story straddling the line between middle-grade and YA fiction, following the adventures of a group of school kids who discover a terrible danger to the beautiful forests around their town - and the town itself. The story involves a long-ago love, a legacy of protection, and a bit of magic.

So when this story is focused on the kids or on the bad guys and their respective adventures and choices, it's a pretty compelling and interesting book. The kids mostly have an easy, natural flow to their conversations (although there are times you might find yourself asking "They're how old again?") and they all have fairly distinct personalities. The prose itself is great, the pacing solid and the overall story, largely entertaining. If it were just that, this would be a fairly enjoyable adventure.

Unfortunately, that's only half the story. The other half is, for lack of a better word, preaching. There are entire chapters dedicated to the atrocities and complications of the relationship between the US government and the various native tribes that predated the USA. Which could be really interesting and compelling, but it's generally done in the form of a teacher teaching a class. Sure, a classroom can be an interesting place to learn and grow. But *reading* about a classroom, and then about the kids reacting to the class... no. It's just too much. Yes, the things the kids are reacting to ARE bad, and it's good they're thinking about it, but it's so heavy-handed that it feels unnatural.

There are a few other issues as well. The kids are a little too adept for one - Sure, kids can and should be the stars and the ones pushing the action in a story like this, but the whole sting operation at the end stretched my belief a little too far. The main six or so kids, I could keep track of, but at a certain point, the cast balloons and is hard to keep track of.

But at its heart, this is a solidly written adventure story with some clever and interesting protagonists. If you have a larger suspension of disbelief and a greater tolerance for info dumps than I have, you'll probably enjoy this. I'm afraid it just wasn't for me.

So, I think I might have run out my interest in this series.

I feel a little guilty. In this volume, things have moved on but the central problem still remains - the Wretched Egg, the being whose power got the whole thing started, is still there, still a danger, and the powers that be want to take everything out once and for all before something horrible happens again.

This should be the high point, the major excitement, but I just... I don't care. Ganta and his persona traumas were almost never the most interesting part of this series for me. The thing that kept me coming back was the absurd premise and how a variety of people reacted to being forced to be part of that absurd premise. So now, with all that stripped away, what we have is Yet Another Shonen Manga with less interesting characters and frankly, MORE characters than it feels like it can reliably give things to do.

In this volume, Makina is getting the Deadmen together again to go back and destroy the root of all their suffering. Since the Deadmen are mostly having trouble reacclimating to life as normal people or normal prisoners, most of them seem pretty cool with the chance to get back in the action. But Ganta is hesitant because, unlike the rest, he knows who they'll have to kill and he's not sure he can do it. To his credit, at least they don't dwell on his indecision too long. We all knew what path he was going to take.

Now, if you're invested i his personal journey, his obstacles, his relationship with Shiro and his angst, then I think you'll enjoy this arc. And I don't think this is a bad book in and of itself. But it just does so little that interests me personally, that I'm having trouble working up any interest in paying money for the right to read more of this.

Well, I did it again. One of these days I'm going to learn to check a book before I read it, to see if it's the first book in the series or falls somewhere else on the timeline. For once again, I started reading a new series in the middle.

I don't know if this series has a name, but it does seem to have three books, each looking at the life and love of one of three sisters, each with her own unique powers. And in this one, we get to meet Daisy, a young woman whose horrible husband had isolated and degraded her during their time together. Finally free, she's trying to rediscover herself and her own ability to enjoy pleasure. Unfortunately, a werewolf running around London is making it look more like death is on the agenda.

She finds unwanted protection in the form of Ian, the Marquis of Northrup, who finds her at the scene of an attack and whisks her away, ostensibly to warn her not to tell people what she actually saw. You see, most people don't know that things like werewolves exist, and there's a vast network of people working to keep it that way.

There's a wonderful push-and-pull tension between the two leads. They're both quick-witted and clever, with a good head for banter, and it makes their exchanges feel natural, a sheer pleasure to read, unlike sometimes when it feels like the book itself stops to make way for a passage of witty banter before it all goes back to normal. It reminded me a bit of the old Thin Man movies, honestly. :)

The plot of the story is half supernatural action, half mystery, as the character try to work out who the werewolf is and how to find it before any more people die. And of course, there's a good bit of interpersonal drama as well - stress born from Ian once pursuing Daisy's sister and the mistrust that kindles between them initially, Daisy leaning more about who she is and what she wants and can do through her friction with other people, and of course, the exploration of Daisy and Ian's growing attraction.

The sex scenes are well written, the mystery plot is engaging if not precisely a mystery (in that I don't think you can figure out too early who it is other than by sheer guessing. The information you'd need to know the answer is withheld in many cases until late in the book.)

It also brings up an aspect of living as a werewolf that I hadn't ever thought about before, and it made for a fascinating answer to the werewolf thing.

There were some problems. I didn't care much for the reveal of whodunit. If you read it, you'll probably see what I mean when you get there. But luckily, for being the central question, it doesn't actually take up that much time in the book, so it's a small complaint. Overall, this was a really enjoyable book, and if you're into historical paranormal fantasy, I think it's definitely worth a read!

Now to go back and read book 1...

Quantum and Woody Must Die, aka Quantum and Woody vol. 4, sees the collection of a few short stories and the five-part miniseries that gives the book its name. First, Quantum and Woody are asked to help save the Earth from a meteor with the help of another superpowered being.

This has consequences that no one could have guessed - specifically in the form of creating a new foe for our heroes! But that's not all. They've racked up a goodly number of enemies throughout their antics, and some of those come together with one plan in mind - Quantum and Woody must die!

This book is weirdly easy to review. Did you like the earlier Quantim and Woody books? Then you will probably like this one too. It's the same mix of 90% wacky, sometimes highly offensive humor and 10% serious stuff mixed in. The characters continue to be their simple-on-the-surface, complex-at-the-heart balls of mistakes and regret, and you all know you wouldn't have it any other way.

While I enjoy the miniseries that makes up most of this book, I have to say my very favorite part is the new baddie. It's a familiar face with a completely new grudge, and a character who's so uncharacteristic for this series that it's both refreshing and a little bit weird. :)

So, yeah. I love this series, and if you love it, this continues in the same awkward vein. And if you don't know if it's for you, start at the beginning. Somewhere around the talking pregnant cyborg male goat with laser eyes, you're going to probably feel lost.

Received from Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Reviewing a single issue of a comic book is something I don't usually do because it can be so hard to form an opinion on what is usually just a small part of the story. An issue 1 should have enough to hook the reader, but it will often just introduce the conflicts and characters central to the plot and maybe kick off a big inciting incident. So giving it a star rating can sometimes be equally hard.

But for what it is meant to be - an introduction to this story - I found this book fairly interesting. It's a post-apocalyptic tale of the last human on earth, just living his normal life - making his commute (full of antagonistic mutants and crazed gods), getting to work (where his coworkers prepare unusual greetings for him) and doing his job. That job? Looking for the Life Seed.

To start with, the art in this comic is just gorgeous - which, given that it's got Bernard Chang on it, doesn't surprise me in the least. One of the truly fun things about this first issue, for me, was the look of the thing - the expressive and varied characters, the interesting angles and the way the whole thing has been rendered with a loving tongue-in-cheek style. It's a beautiful book.

The story is a little harder to love though. I feel like this premise is a little all over the place. Despite being a normal human, our hero, King, is a badass among badasses. It's a little off-putting to me when I feel no sense of concern for the welfare of a character. King also has an attitude to match, and while that didn't bother me per se (I like a good jackass with an ego), if you don't like that kind of character, this is REALLY going to rub you the wrong way.

The story had a really strong start, but somehow it felt choppy in the middle of his commute - like there were certain worldbuilding pieces they wanted to fit in before we got down to the business of the plot and they didn't all quite work. It felt a little forced. Things smoothed out once he got to work, but the book is also a little short. I don't know if it's industry standard to run 24 pages, or just a necessity because of advertising, but it feels like this book could really have used the extra few pages to flesh some things out.

Overall, there's nothing super unique about this take on humanity ending the world. The dialogue can be clever, especially with regards to the way the past has been handed down, and I love a lot of the designs of the characters. There's a cliffhanger at the end that's got me curious about the next volume. It's a fun book with some great art, but it's probably not going to work for everyone and will outright irritate some. But if some weirdness is your thing and this description sounds interesting, I'd give it a shot.

This week, the question is - what character from the last book you read would you like to spend Friday in the bar with? For me, it was Sinclair from the Agent of Hel series for his friendly, down-to-Earth attitude!

Read the full post at Inkspot Fancy, my website.

Hayate the Combat Butler 11

So, did you know Izumi has a weird little grandmother who drinks blood to stay young and commands a herd of angry stray cats (and a monkey)? Because she does. She does all of those things. It's rather weird. And when Izumi loses her powers and it seems that only Hayate('s blood) can restore them, granny gets it in her head to get that help no matter what. Admirable purpose I suppose, but she's very... insistent.

Speaking of Izumi, we also get to meet her parents finally, which answers a long-standing question about one of her consistent failings.

In the latter half of this book, everyone heads off to the hot springs. They all have their own reasons, but none of them seem to be "to relax at a hot spring." Bigger boobs? Better grades? Finding aliens (haha, like that would happen)? Sure. But when Nagi gets lost on her way there, she and Nishizawa have some unexpected time together. I really like the two of them hanging out and their interactions.

This is a really fun volume, answers some old questions and aside from a visit from the creepy butler, is highly enjoyable. (I know, I know creepy butler's advances on Hayate are meant to be funny, but his seeming disinterest in listening to "no" moves it from funny to awkwardly attempted-sexual-assault-y).

Hayate the Combat Butler 12

The first half of this volume is a continuation of the hot spring story, but it actually got surprisingly sweet and tender. Nagi finds out just how much she means to Hayate, and is willing to share her memories of her mother - and a deep regret she's held onto since she was a little girl. It wasn't unexpected per se, but it was surprising that things got this serious.

After they go back home, things get a lot more episodic. Hayate travels into the mansion's "garden" (the distances within it are measured in km), the whole group helps out as a cafe and we get to learn about the sharing of the most mundane of stories in what might be one of my favorite chapters in this entire series - and one of the ones I think is the funniest.

But the first part is really the highlight. For something that occasionally strays from the general hijinks premise, it's strange that it's one of the strongest parts of the overall series. But if you're in it for the wild nonsense, it might not be right up your alley.

As winter settles over the town of Pemkowet, a new chill is in the air - that of the town's past actions coming back to haunt it. And the implications of that are more than hellspawn Daisy or any of her friends and allies could have guessed.

And I very much enjoyed this ride. :)

This is the final book in this series, something I did not realize when I started it. But the book does a good job just in itself of showing that things are coming to an end. Relationships progress, Daisy's fears are made more tangible and the question of her demonic heritage is brought more to the forefront. Questions about the nature of the gods and goddesses in this waning world for them are brought up.

In the aftermath of the debacle of Halloween, Daisy's faced with the appearance of a terrifying Night Hag who's scaring people in their nightmares, And honestly, I thought the reason the hag had come to Pemkowet was actually very clever. But while she's dealing with that, something far more sinister and evil is worming its way in. And that main plot actually brings together a lot of the disparate elements of the series in what I thought was a pretty great ending. And if that explanation makes it sound like this book had two different parts to it, yeah, that's kind of the case. It felt less like one cohesive plot than others, and more like the first third of the book was a novella set in the same universe that got attached to the rest to make length. It's not bad, but it is jarring.

Daisy, in her role as Hel's (Norse goddess of the underworld) liaison, has never felt like she was actually this active. This time it's not so much trying to work out a mystery. They know to an extent who the enemy is, even if the full extent takes a while to come to light. It's a matter of how to save themselves from what's coming for them.

That being said, a decent chunk of this book is taken up with a budding and not at all unexpected romance between Daisy and Stephan, one of the Outcast, or ghouls. Because of the particulars of both their lives, it's an interesting relationship, and I like that Daisy feels no shame about exploring and enjoying their connection. And as she still also has feelings for Cody the werewolf, I appreciated that the book never made either man out to be lesser, or an idiot.

As mentioned before, there's a really great ending (or at least I thought so, though YMMV especially based on how the conflict is written) and it gives a solid conclusion to a lot of the major outstanding plot threads, including Daisy's demonic heritage, the deal with werewolf clans and the question of the Outcasts.

In general, if you liked the earlier books, I think you'll probably enjoy this one, whether or not you find it to be a technical star. And if you haven't read the earlier ones, I'm not sure this would be a great place to come in. It assumes a lot of knowledge from earlier volumes, I think.

I don't get why crossovers can't be unobtrusive.

In the case of this book, the crossover in question was the Black Vortex storyline. It occurred in segments in I believe three different books. And while I'm not a huge fan of that, I understand why it happens. But it presents a problem when trying to collect the issues.

There was a crossover a while ago between I think Deadpool and the Thunderbolts. And when they collected it, they just put the whole crossover in its own book, and the people collecting either could get it and get the whole story. I really prefer that method of collecting, but the more common one, it feels, is the one here - they just include what was in the series the volume is collecting and summarize the rest. And it just doesn't really work. The summary doesn't really smooth over the gaps though, and as a result, the whole thing feels stilted and strange.

Now, the first part of this book? That I loved. First, Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde are trying to have a date, but with him in space and her on Earth, they're having it holographically, which has to be a little weird. And when you add in that there's mercs trying to get at Peter everyplace they go, it makes to an awkward date. But things get even more awkward when the situation forces Kitty to go to space - which is totally not her thing - and be all badass.

Peter and Kitty have a great chemistry when they're together, which made parts of this book really excellent. The art is solid, and I have a soft spot especially for stories about superheroes doing mundane things. But then the Black Vortex crossover happens and it just doesn't work. Meh.

Hayate the Combat Butler 9

Oh, this volume. It makes me laugh. It makes me uncomfortable. It's an interesting, weird interlude in the story of Hayate.

Hayate wants to thank Hinagiku for her help earlier by getting her a nice present for her birthday. This, of course, leads into hijinx, as he encounters a friend from his old high school while out, Nagi gets a bit jealous, and he learns something new about Maria. But in the second half... well...

You know Hina dolls? They're a set of display dolls associated iwht a festival, and Izumi has a cursed one in her set. Sakuya, with her incredible powers of knowing what will cause chaos, breaks the thing, releasing a curse - which targets Hayate. And makes him dress like a woman.

This is not the first time this particular plot point has been used, but this is the first time it's quite so protracted and blatant. He starts out in a maid costume, but it goes further before the end. And while he's all girled up, he encounters the guy I like to call Creepy!Butler. And Creepy!Butler falls in love. Instantly. And then when he finds out that Hayate is not the woman he thinks, he gets rather... angry. Kidnaps Nagi. I assume just foregos his work while he's having his episode.

It's funny, but it's also kind of uncomfortable and I wanted to flag it in case it might bother you as well, dear reader.

Hayate the Combat Butlet 10

So much love! Hinagiku investigates her feelings toward Hayate! Saki goes to a marriage interview! Britney loves Senpai! And a new mechanical butler loves to corner the market on butlering.

The mechanical butler is actually the lion's share of this book. With Hayate studying hard for exams, he's been given some time off and the robot butler is called in to cover his duties. And if you've made it to book 10 of this series, you are expecting that to go wrong in a certain sort of way. And it utterly betrays those expectations in a pretty fun way. :)

A copy of this was received from Netgally in return for an honest review.

Everyone who knows D&D-style gaming knows the scenario - the group of adventurers gathering around a table in a tavern, learning about the latest quest that they'll all eventually agree to go on, in search of mysteries, money and fabulous magical items. The only difference is that instead of a young group of adventurers out to make a name for themselves, the crew in The Dragon Engine are already famous, their exploits beginning to drift into history books and awed legend.

Beetrax The Axeman has a map said to lead to the five fabled abandoned dwarven cities in the mountains - a place with lakes of molten silver, heaps of gems and - because sheer money would not be enough for avowed heroes of the realm - three jewels known as The Dragon Heads, rumored to have healing properties and grant immortality. So they're off - the band coming back together for one last grand hurrah before time takes the chance away from them.

I think the fact that this is a set of older heroes, of retired heroes taking one last grand adventure, is one of the things that really made this book sparkle for me. The world is full of strapping teenagers fulfilling their destiny through bravery and perhaps a bit if stupidity. And this book itself sort of pays a compliment to the way the younger generation must come up, and how the older generation can shape them. But the fact that these are adults, full-fledged adults in a fantasy world dealing with personal lives that are looking for more stability, made it stand out.

Our main character, more or less, is the previously mentioned Beetrax, also called Axeman by his friends. He's joined by his best friend Dake (a swordsman), Dake's wife Jonti, aka The Ghost (also a swordsman I believe), Lillith (some sort of magic used, mainly a healer), Sakora (a melee fighter) and Talon (an archer). And the interactions between these characters are one of the best parts of this book. They are people with history, some stated outright and some implied in more subtle ways. To take Beetrax as an example, his friendship with Dake is painted in the way the latter knows when to push the former and when to leave him alone; his history with Lillith is spelled out pretty explicitly; and his past with Talon, I don't even know because they are apparently friends and also apparently kind of hate one another. So who knows, maybe it's just how two very different characters end up finding a common ground, or maybe it's that they already have a common ground. After all, when it comes time to stand and fight, they're the two most likely to do it, the martial heart of an incredibly martial group.

Oh, and speaking of explicitly, just be warned - there's a lot of references to groins in this book. Groins are constantly being grabbed, punched, stabbed, squished or used in more violent or more... pleasurable ways. Lots of groins. You have been warned.

But much as I like the characters, the plot also kept me moving along. It's high-action stuff-never-goes-right stress at its best. By the time the group gets up into the mountains, I had a hard time putting the story down because stuff just kept happening, and I had to know how they would deal with the new stuff, and as they dealt with it, more stuff would happen. Situations get to the point where all seems hopeless, and the solutions, incomplete as they sometimes are (in a good way), never feel cheap.

I also have to give a shout out to the descriptions - all of them, but especially the dwarven cities, painted in a dark cast with their fire pots illuminating the deep delvings, the streets lined with metal trees. The fight scenes are also created to be crystal clear and splashed with gore, so you understand every stab and slash, every lopped off head and split spleen.

There were times I really wanted to give this five stars, but there's a few things that hindered it, for me.

First and biggest is that this isn't really a complete book. I understand that it's part of a series, but it's a pet peeve of mine when an individual book in a series doesn't have its own arc. It almost was - it could have been. There's a decision made nearly at the end which could have wrapped things up nicely, but since the decision had already been discussed and essentially made earlier in the book, it felt like they simply started the next phase of the story and then the book just stopped.

Also, every character pretty much gets a little bit of a backstory flashback. However, some of these feel more integral than others. For instance, when Dake was first introduced, I sort of expected him to be the group's leader, and his flashback, in addition to explaining some of his previous actions, also helped me understand why his bearing made him feel like the leader at first. But for other characters, it doesn't seem to have that much impact or connection to what's going on. Maybe it'll prove more important to later books.

Finally, there's this phenomenon in fanfic called "pair the spares." It's just what it sounds like - the author puts together the characters who have chemistry (in their eyes) and then, if there's two extras, they sort of end up together without having many scenes or showing terribly much chemistry. Others may disagree, but there was a couple in this who seemed to be together out of obligation. Again, I hope later books will justify it more.

Still, this was a highly enjoyable book, well worth reading. It's unapologetically fantasy - The good guys are our heroes, the bad guys are unabashedly evil, and there's adventures and fights and sneaking into people's homes while they're presumably out to take all their stuff. :D I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Fairy Tail can be a bit of an up-and-down series, but when it is on, it is on. And this book, this one was on - there's emotional scenes and the culminations of some long-standing plots and desires. And at the heart of it all, as is always the case in this series, is the bond between friends.

The dragons have come from where they were hiding, fighting against Face and Achnologia. With Face shut down, that leaves just the one terror in the skies - well, until Zeref saunters in with his typical give-no-craps attitude. If you've been following along with the series (and I cannot imagine this being a worthwhile read if you don't have the background of the last few volumes), you know Gray's dad asked him to destroy End, and he finally has the book in his hand. But this isn't the last volume of the series, so not everything works out tidily. Still, there's enough to put an emotional cap on the most current arc.

And then, timeskip.

Timeskips seem to be all over major manga series, but I really enjoyed this one. It makes sense - give the characters time to explore their own strengths and pick a direction for their lives not bound by the guild. I particularly love what Lucy spends her year doing. It's wonderful to see some particular dreams of hers realized, but at the same time it's even sweeter to see the close regard for her old guildmates that she holds in her heart. Lucy really is the emotional center of this story at times, and her faith is truly sweet.

This is a great book, and it's setting up a fantastic, travel-intensive next arc with plenty of new things to learn about all our favorite characters. :)

The Blue Sword is the tale of Harry, a young woman who's just moved to the edge of the desert after losing her parents. She's come to Damar, a desert land shared by the Homelanders, which are Harry's people, and the Hillfolk.

Her life isn't bad - those she's been taken in by are kind, her life is fairly easy, and her brother's presence keeps her socially in the circles. But there's something missing - something her soul wants but that she can't quite put her finger on. Until she gets kidnapped by the king of the Hillfolk and finds answers to questions she hadn't known she was asking.

Harry is an interesting character - she doesn't hate or disparage feminine things like so many of her sort would, and she also doesn't pine for the chance to use a sword and smack people around. She breaks a lot of molds for this kind of heroine, which I very much loved. She's smart and strong and selfless but not to the point of stupidity. Let's hear it for an intelligent lead character!

Though I have to admit, the thing about this book that struck me the most was that Harry has remarkably little reaction to being kidnapped. She's more worried about blending in with her captors than about getting back, or if her brother might be worried, or whatever. It's a little surprising, but it doesn't really hurt the tale. It's made clear that there's something within Harry that's always been calling out to this world, and in getting there, she finally finds where she belongs, so it really works. :)

McKinley's writing really makes this book sparkle. The descriptions are fantastic and breathe life not only into the hot, arid Homelander settlement (which reminded me of the setting from a Shirley Temple movie) and the open spaces and hills where the Hillfolk dwell in their tents to ride their horses. Also, I very much enjoyed the way she described Henry feeling the power of her magic. It was subtle and natural, but you could still feel the power of it.

Corlath, the male lead of this book, is likewise interesting, if not quite as well rounded as Harry. You can see he's a bit at loose ends when we first meet him - he sits uneasily atop the power structure of his people, aware war is coming and unsure how he's going to save his people from it. Kidnapping Harry is an act of desperation in a way, but it's one that saves him, gives him a focus, and helps him see a future beyond the coming war.

If you enjoy traditional high fantasy with compelling characters, great descriptions and a little bit of magic, give this one a go. It's a lovely book, and also a very quick read.

I got my first Net Galley book this week! I'm hoping to have a review soon, but I'm rather excited about it. The cover and the description are making me psyched!

Also, I finally made myself a website. Today's post is Friday in the Bar, wherein I consider instead of who is my favorite character, what characters from various media I might want to have a drink with. I started off easy - which character from my favorite book, Dark Tower 3: The Wastelands, would I want to have a drink with. Who from your favorite book would fit (if maybe not foot) the bill?

Ever get the Diamond comic previews and, while flipping through, see a book you've never heard of by a creator you've never heard of, but whose premise is so fascinating that you just have to give it a go sight unseen? Such it was with me and "Last of the Sandwalkers," and I don't regret it for an instant.

On its most basic level, this is a book about bugs who go on a trip and find adventures. But that's like saying "Watership Down" is a book about bunnies who go on a trip and find adventures. And while Sandwalkers isn't quite as dire as "Watership Down," it does share that book's ability to be enjoyed by young and old.

Lucy believes there is other life outside the walls of Coleopolis, a city of beetles. So she and her band of scientists and explorers (Raef, Mossy and Professor Bombardier), along with their grumpy financier, set off past the ruins of a city that was destroyed by the gods and into the desert in search of knowledge.

One of the truly delightful things about this book is that it walks an incredibly fine line, having its characters talk in scientific terms quite often and explaining definitions from time to time, while never getting boring, making the information feel textbook-y or losing the character of the people... er, beetles doing the talking. the dialogue is clever, the art cute and easy to follow, and the characters fascinating if sometimes a bit broad.

So, these folks are traveling out across the desert when they come across an astounding find - a human skeleton half buried in the sand. They document it and call for moths to come pick it up. But before the moths can arrive, the expedition's financier, Professor Owen, betrays the group (it is sudden, but also inevitable) and takes the discovery back to the city under his own name.

This is good and bad. Bad because, well, he's lying and betraying the group, and it puts them in danger. But in a way it's good, because through this, Lucy and her group find themselves in a new place, meeting a variety of fascinating new life forms as they try to work out how to get home. They even meet new allies.

This was a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I also learned a bit about beetles and spiders along the way. :) If you or someone you know - even or maybe especially kids - likes bugs or just doesn't mind them and likes learning, give this book a try. It's a delight.