Author Archives: Goddess in the Stacks

Upcoming Books, a rare DNF, and Faire!

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wolvesHi! Summer’s almost over (thank god, I’m so sick of this heat!) which means the Maryland Renaissance Festival is starting again soon! I’m not working the Fair nearly as much as I have the past two years, so I should be keeping up on at least the Saturday reviews, though my Tuesday posts might suffer. Between The Canadian Book Challenge, and the tempting books on my Litsy feed, though, I’ve been reading a lot! I’ve also started to get a few books from Goodreads giveaways, so you can look forward to a review of The Wolves of Dynamo, and The Awakening (which is also written by a Canadian author, so it doubles for the Canadian Challenge!) I’m always amused when I get a random book in the mail, since all the giveaways say you’ll be notified by e-mail….and you never are! Just surprise books in the mailbox! (Which I’m really not opposed to!)

I started to read Oryx and Crake – gave it 130 pages, in fact,  before I tossed it. It was too disconnected, and jumpy, and it just IRRITATED me. I loved The Handmaid’s Tale, I was excited to read more Atwood, but I couldn’t handle it. So that’s a rare Did Not Finish for me. There’s a Litsy read along for it this month, so I’m going to keep an eye on it and see if they convince me to give it another shot, but I doubt it.

darkmoneyAhead in the next month of reviews is a debut fantasy novel about a kingdom that’s lost its magic, an absolutely FANTASTIC London Steampunk Vampire/Werewolf series, a YA GLBT novel, and Station Eleven, a Canadian dystopia. I also have Dark Money requested from the library, but heavy nonfiction like that always takes me longer to read, so I’m not sure when I’ll post that review.

Also from the library currently I have The Courier, another Canadian dystopia; A Hundred Veils, about an American caught in the Iranian Revolution; The Last Neanderthal, a novel about an archeologist and the ancient people she’s studying; and What the Dead Leave Behind, “A Gilded Age Mystery.”

courierAs you can probably see, I’m trying to diversify my reading away from just sci-fi/fantasy and romances! The Canadian Book Challenge is helping with that, and I’m making a concentrated effort to pick up more diverse books in general. (Litsy is also making my TBR list absolutely GINORMOUS.)

In a couple of weeks I’ll be making a trip to the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, one of the oldest free public library systems in the United States. (Established in 1882!) I’ll take pictures and make a post dedicated to that visit! Anyone in Maryland can get a library card for their system, so I’ll also be doing that and gaining access to another library system besides my county system. I’ll probably mostly use it for ebooks, but there’s a branch close enough to swing by and pick up books if I need to, as well.

 

Book Review: Red Winter Trilogy

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RW1Red Winter
Dark Tempest
Immortal Fire
Annette Marie
Fantasy
About 350 pages each
Published 2016, 2017, 2017

So I didn’t actually realize this series was written by a Canadian author until the end of the first book, when I skimmed the “about the author” section! I picked up the first book on a whim – the entire trilogy is free on Kindle Unlimited – and I am so, SO GLAD I DID. This trilogy is amazing. It’s a little anime-like – the illustrations are definitely drawn in anime style and there’s about ten per book – but it’s simply beautiful writing, blending elements of Japanese mythology with a beautifully sweet romance and an epic fantasy task. (Release trapped gods and goddesses and stop a goddess.) The main character was likeable, sweet, and a little naive, but she realizes why she is naive and consciously works to overcome that.

The first book starts with a revelation – Emi has been training for ten years to receive her goddess into her body, with the expectation that their personalities will meld – only to discover that the goddess’s divine energy will instead destroy Emi’s mind and personality. She will be dead while the goddess inhabits her body. Which will be happening two months from the book’s beginning, so she doesn’t have much time to change her fate. The goddess herself is not unsympathetic, and wishes it could be different. I loved the interaction between Emi and her goddess. The compassion, love, and regret shown by Amaterasu means it’s impossible to dislike her, even though we know she’ll be the agent of our protagonist’s death.

RW3But all is not as it seems among the gods, and Emi is attacked by someone who should be an ally, and defended by those who should want her dead. Conspiracies unravel in the second book, as Emi and her friends race to finish the task set them by Amaterasu – a task that must be finished before the winter solstice, when Amaterasu will descend into Emi’s body and destroy her mind. Dark Tempest ends with the task still uncompleted, and Immortal Fire picks up immediately. (I read almost the entire trilogy in one sitting – I finally set the third book aside and got some sleep before the final confrontation.)

RW2I don’t want to say too much, and I’m only going to include the description on the first book, because I don’t want to spoil anything. I liked Emi, I absolutely loved Yumei, the dark, standoffish Crow Lord, and Shiro the kitsune was an amazing character. Reveals and pacing and dialogue and action and exposition were all excellently done. This is a gorgeous, absorbing trilogy and I highly recommend it.

 

 

This is the second review for my Read Canadian Challenge, you can find the rest here:

  1. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth
  2. this post!
  3. Station Eleven
  4. The Courier
  5. The Last Neanderthal
  6. American War
  7. Next Year, For Sure
  8. That Inevitable Victorian Thing
  9. All The Rage
  10. Saints and Misfits
  11. Tomboy Survival Guide
  12. The Clothesline Swing
  13. The Wolves of Winter

From the back of Red Winter:

In a few short months, Emi’s mortal life will end when she becomes the human host of an immortal goddess. Carefully hidden from those who would destroy her, she has prepared her mind, body, and soul to unite with the goddess–and not once has she doubted her chosen fate.

Shiro is a spirit of the earth and an enemy of the goddess Emi will soon host. Mystery shrouds his every move and his ruby eyes shine with cunning she can’t match and dares not trust. But she saved his life, and until his debt is paid, he is hers to command–whether she wants him or not.

On the day they meet, everything Emi believes comes undone, swept away like snow upon the winter wind. For the first time, she wants to change her fate–but how can she erase a destiny already wrought in stone? Against the power of the gods, Shiro is her only hope … and hope is all she has left.

 

About the author:

Annette Marie is the author of the Amazon best-selling YA urban fantasy series Steel & Stone, which includes the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award nominee Yield the Night. Her first love is fantasy, a limitless realm of creativity where she can break all the boring rules of real life, but fast-paced urban fantasy, bold heroines, and tantalizing forbidden romances are her guilty pleasures. She proudly admits she has a thing for dragons, and her editor has politely inquired as to whether she intends to include them in every single book.

Annette lives in the frozen winter wasteland of northern Alberta, Canada (okay, it’s not quite that bad). She shares her life with her remarkably patient, comparatively sensible husband and their furry minion of darkness — sorry, cat — Caesar. When not writing, she can be found elbow-deep in one art project or another while blissfully ignoring all adult responsibilities.

To find out more about Annette and her books, visit her website at www.authorannettemarie.com.

Book Review: Angry Optimist – The Life and Times of Jon Stewart

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angryoptAngry Optimist: The Life and Times of Jon Stewart
Lisa Rogak
Biography
225 pages
Published 2014

So I’m a little ambivalent about this book. Jon Stewart took over at The Daily Show the same year I graduated high school. I was 16 and only starting to pay attention to politics. I was also raised quite conservative Christian – the pundit we listened to the most was Rush Limbaugh. And here was a man saying things that were the total opposite of what I’d been taught – but also things that resonated a lot more with me. Many years later, when The Daily Show and Jon Stewart were labeled the most trusted voices in news media, I had no trouble at all believing it. He not only knew how to speak to my generation, he also spoke for us. All the things we were thinking, he was out there shouting. He was our window into this grown up, corrupted world of politics, and we loved him for it.

Not to say he’s perfect. I’d heard – and Angry Optimist mentions – that he can occasionally be a rage-filled asshole. That the staff of The Daily Show has a woman problem. (As in, not enough of them, and can’t keep them.) So while I do admire the man, I am not blind to his flaws.

The book is interesting – I learned more about his early life and career – but nothing really game-changing. And perhaps that says something about Stewart. There aren’t really any skeletons in his closet, or scandalous stories. He’s just an angry Jewish comedian.

Rogak’s style of writing is easily consumed; I read the entire book in about three hours. Perhaps part of why I find it so anticlimactic is that she ends it with this sense of not knowing what Stewart might be up to next, and whether, if he does decide to leave The Daily Show eventually, if the show will end with him – and we know those answers now, three years after the book was published. Stewart has retired (barring the occasional appearance on Colbert’s show) and Trevor Noah is doing an admirable job of holding down the fort after Stewart’s exit. (With less anger, and a little more befuddlement, which is a fun change.) I was also a little disappointed that she mentions Stewart’s friendship with Anthony Weiner – but doesn’t say anything about how he took the ribbing from Stewart over Weiner’s rather unglamorous exit from politics.

I have also heard that the audio book is not good – apparently the narrator is boring. So I’d recommend the print book over the audio, if you choose to read it.

From the cover of Angry Optimist: 

Since his arrival at The Daily Show in 1999, Jon Stewart has become one of the major players in comedy as well as one of the most significant liberal voices in the media. In Angry Optimist, biographer Lisa Rogak charts his unlikely rise to stardom. She follows him from his early days growing up in New Jersey, through his years as a struggling stand-up comic in New York, and on the short-lived but acclaimed The Jon Stewart Show. And she charts his humbling string of near-misses – passed over as a replacement for shows hosted by Conan O’Brien, Tom Snyder, and even the fictional Larry Sanders – before landing on a half-hour comedy show that at the time was still finding its footing amidst roiling internal drama. 

Once there, Stewart transformed The Daily Show into one of the most influential new programs on television today. Drawing on interviews with his current and former colleagues, Rogak reveals how things work – and sometimes don’t work – behind the scenes at The Daily Show, led by Jon Stewart, a comedian who has come to wield incredible power in American politics. 

Book Review: Never Never

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neverNever Never
Brianna R. Shrum
Fairy-tale Retelling (Fantasy)
356 pages
Published 2015

Where do I start with this one? I had ups and downs with this book. It’s a retelling of Peter Pan, from Captain Hook’s viewpoint. And it reveals that James Hook was actually a boy taken to Neverland who thought it was going to be temporary, but then Pan refused to take him home.

I LOVE that it showed Hook as a sympathetic character. And in my interpretation, Hook is still that lonely 13-year-old boy that Pan stole, artificially aged through the tricks of Neverland. Being a 13-year-old boy explains the hysterical fear of the crocodile, and the blind rages at Pan. He’s still a child, without the emotional maturity of a man, and that explains a lot of his actions in the original Disney movie. (Which is incorporated in the last part of the book.)

I was disappointed in the ending of the book. Not in the writing – the writing was fantastic – but in the actual events. I wanted a different ending. (I’m trying not to spoil too much!)

And Hook’s romance – well. It was unexpected, but it made sense, and I enjoyed it. For a while it was the only pure thing he had, but even that was spoiled by Pan. Hook really just couldn’t catch a break.

It’ll be interesting to see how this compares to the other Hook retellings out there, which I’m planning to read as well – Peter Pan is one of my husband’s favorite fairy tales, and I love seeing fairy tales from the villain’s point of view.

To sum up: A solid retelling from Captain’s Hook point of view – the ending was not quite what I wanted, but villain’s stories almost never end happily for the villain, I suppose. Definitely worth the read.

From the cover of Never Never:

James Hook is a child who only wants to grow up.

When he meets Peter Pan, a boy who loves to pretend and is intent on never becoming a man – James decides he could try being a child – at least briefly. James joins Peter Pan on a holiday to Neverland, a place of adventure created by children’s dreams, but Neverland is not for the faint of heart. Soon James finds himself longing for home, determined that he is destined to become a man. But Peter refuses to take him back, leaving James trapped in a world just beyond the one he loves. A world where children are to never grow up.

But grow up he does.

And thus begins the epic adventure of a Lost Boy and a Pirate.

This story isn’t about Peter Pan; it’s about the boy whose life he stole. It’s about a man in a world that hates men. It’s about the feared Captain James Hook and his passionate quest to kill the Pan, an impossible feat in a magical land where everyone loves Peter Pan.

Except one.

Book Review: This Common Secret

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commonsecThis Common Secret
Susan Wicklund with Alan Kesselheim
Memoir
268 pages
Published 2007

Let me begin by saying I am a feminist. I am pro-choice. This was a difficult read because it talks about the lengths people will go to infringe on the rights of women like me to make that choice. Dr. Wicklund goes into detail about the dangers she personally has faced as an abortion provider – from stalking, to assault, to arson and death threats. The murders of Dr. Hill and Dr. Britton are mentioned, and the attempted murder of Dr. Tiller. (An attempt on Dr. Tiller’s life was successful two years after the publication of the book.) She resorted to wildly varying routines, different methods of transportation, elaborate disguises, as well as hiring private security guards, none of it really alleviating her fear that she could be next.

Running throughout the entire book is Dr. Wicklund’s concern for her patients. She is a dedicated, compassionate woman who wants nothing but the best for the women in her care. In many cases, that’s not actually abortion. One of the things that makes her an excellent doctor is ferreting out what is really in her patients’ best interests.

The book is mercifully short; I have no doubt she had many more stories she could have told, but the topic is brutal and hard to read, and keeping it concise and on-message was well done. I still had to set it down and play some mindless video games when I was done, as it was a little overwhelming.

In the ten years since the book was published, nothing has really changed. The New York Times has a short read on the major acts of violence against abortion clinics and providers. The National Abortion Federation has a longer database on all acts of violence against clinics. Their summary is eye-opening – all statistics below are from 1977 to present. (They have it broken down further by decade and year on a downloadable pdf.)

Murders – 11
Attempted Murders – 26
Bombing – 42
Arson – 186
Attempted Bombing/Arson – 98
Invasion – 411
Vandalism – 1643
Trespassing – 2925
Acid Attacks – 100
Anthrax/Bioterrorism Threats – 663
Assault & Battery – 239
Death Threats – 545
Kidnapping – 4
Burglary – 255
Stalking – 583

That doesn’t include the pure amounts of hate mail, picketers, hate mail, and blockades. This is what providers persevere through to give us health care. To provide a LEGAL PROCEDURE so women don’t die from performing it on themselves in an unsafe manner.

This Common Secret also touches on why people keep it a secret. Why people don’t talk about their abortion. And why people should. If more people realize that the women that get abortions are your neighbor, your sister, your grandmother – not just that “whore that slept around” – although she, too, deserves an abortion if that is the right choice for her. Maybe they would rethink their opposition to it.

I’m honestly probably not giving this book justice – it’s a decade old, but could have been written yesterday. And I am infuriated by anti-choice assholes.

From the cover of This Common Secret:

Susan Wicklund was twenty-two-years old and juggling three jobs in Portland, Oregon when she endured a difficult abortion. Partly in response to that experience, she later embarked on an improbable life journey devoted to women’s reproductive health, attending both undergraduate and medical school as a single mother. It was not until she became a doctor that she realized how many women share the ordeal of unwanted pregnancies – and how hidden this common experience remains.

Here is an emotional and dramatic story covering twenty years on the front lines of the abortion war. For years Wicklund commuted between clinics in different states and disguised herself from protesters – often wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a .38 caliber revolver. Her daughter, Sonja, experienced seeing wanted posters with her mother’s face on them and riding to school in police cars to get through the human blockades at the end of their driveway.

Wicklund also tells the stories of the women she serves, women whose options are increasingly limited: counseling sessions in which women confide that they had used combinations of herbs – or worse – to attempt a miscarriage; or patients who have been protesters, but then find themselves bearing an unwanted pregnancy; and women who claim to want an abortion, but nothing they say or do convinces Wicklund that the decision is whole-hearted.

This Common Secret brims with the compassion and urgency of a woman who has witnessed the struggles of real patients. It also offers an honest portrait of the clinics that anti-abortion activists portray as little more than slaughterhouses for the unborn. As we enter the most fevered political fight over abortion that America has ever seen, Wicklund’s raw and revealing memoir shows us what is at stake.

 

Book Review: The Crown’s Fate

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crown's fateThe Crown’s Fate
Evelyn Skye
Historical Fantasy
417 pages
Published 2017

The Crown’s Fate is a sequel to the amazing debut novel, The Crown’s Game. The first book left me crying and a little traumatized, it was so elegant and heart-breaking. The second has proven to be a worthy successor, and healed most of the hurts caused by the first.

The two books tell the story of two enchanters in Tsarist Russia competing to become Imperial Enchanter. The competition, unfortunately, must end in the death of one of them, so Russia’s magic can be solely controlled by the Imperial Enchanter, and therefore be stronger for defending the realm. It only complicates things that one of the competitors is the heir to the throne’s best friend. And what happens when the two competitors fall in love?

Along the way, we see creative enchantments, volcano nymphs, elegant masquerade balls, battles for succession, and a quick glimpse of Baba Yaga’s house. (Oh, how I want to learn more about that!)

These two books are really amazing, but make sure you have the second on hand before you finish the first! I read the first when it was published, last year, and had to wait a year before being able to read the second! (I’m actually surprised I didn’t post a review of it.) I don’t know if Vika and Nikolai’s story will be continued past these two books, but there is room in the world Skye has created for more stories, even if it doesn’t focus on the two enchanters. Especially now that magic beyond the control of the Imperial Enchanter is stirring in the land once again…

I’m not going to include the plot description from the book cover this time, because it contains MASSIVE spoilers for the first book. I will instead post the plot description for the FIRST book.

From the cover of The Crown’s Game:

Perfect for fans of Shadow and Bone and Red Queen, The Crown’s Game is a thrilling and atmospheric historical fantasy set in Imperial Russia about two teenagers who must compete for the right to become the Imperial Enchanter—or die in the process—from debut author Evelyn Skye.

Vika Andreyeva can summon the snow and turn ash into gold. Nikolai Karimov can see through walls and conjure bridges out of thin air. They are enchanters—the only two in Russia—and with the Ottoman Empire and the Kazakhs threatening, the tsar needs a powerful enchanter by his side.

And so he initiates the Crown’s Game, an ancient duel of magical skill—the greatest test an enchanter will ever know.  The victor becomes the Imperial Enchanter and the tsar’s most respected adviser. The defeated is sentenced to death.

Raised on tiny Ovchinin Island her whole life, Vika is eager for the chance to show off her talent in the grand capital of Saint Petersburg. But can she kill another enchanter—even when his magic calls to her like nothing else ever has?

For Nikolai, an orphan, the Crown’s Game is the chance of a lifetime. But his deadly opponent is a force to be reckoned with—beautiful, whip smart, imaginative—and he can’t stop thinking about her.

And when Pasha, Nikolai’s best friend and heir to the throne, also starts to fall for the mysterious enchantress, Nikolai must defeat the girl they both love . . . or be killed himself.

As long-buried secrets emerge, threatening the future of the empire, it becomes dangerously clear . . . the Crown’s Game is not one to lose.