Tag Archives: Fiction

Book Review: Hellbent by Cherie Priest

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hellbentHellbent
by Cherie Priest
338 pages
Urban Fantasy

I picked up Hellbent for one sentence on the back cover. “Her Seattle home is already overrun by a band of misfits, including Ian Stott, a blind vampire, and Adrian deJesus, an ex-Navy SEAL/drag queen.” I mean, doesn’t that sound like fun to you? Hellbent is actually the second book in a series about Raylene Pendle, a vampire thief; Bloodshot being the first. I’ve not read Bloodshot, but I didn’t need to to follow the action in Hellbent.

Raylene is contracted to recover a box of bacula – penis bones. (Snicker.) Not just any penis bones, but penis bones of various supernatural species. Lycanthropes, Basilisk, Sasquatch, to name a few. Supernatural bacula have a lot of magical punch, and will sell for a few million dollars apiece in Raylene’s world. Along the way to recovering the bacula, Raylene also has to keep her blind vampire friend from getting dusted by his old House, and solve the mystery of his sire’s murder.

It’s a fun read, and Raylene is a sarcastic, intelligent protagonist. There’s an undercurrent of romance between Raylene and Ian, AND Raylene and Adrian, but it’s never overt or a main part of the plot. From a drag show to penis jokes to outrunning a tornado, Raylene the vampire thief sails through her problems, collecting stray people to her as she does so. I admit I would have liked to see more ass-kicking; there was only one real action scene in the book, and it was very short. I was also a little surprised at how quickly an enemy turned into a friend, that seemed a little sudden. Overall, a fun, light-hearted vampire romp that doesn’t get bogged down by too much romance or politicking.

From the back of Hellbent:

Vampire thief Raylene Pendle doesn’t need more complications in her life. Her Seattle home is already overrun by a band of misfits, including Ian Stott, a blind vampire, and Adrian deJesus, an ex-Navy SEAL/drag queen. But Raylene still can’t resist an old pal’s request: seek out and steal a bizarre set of artifacts. Also on the hunt is a brilliant but certifiably crazy sorceress determined to stomp anyone who gets in her way. But Raylene’s biggest problem is that the death of Ian’s vaunted patriarch appears to have made him the next target of some blood-sucking sociopaths.  Now Raylene must snatch up the potent relics, solve a murder, and keep Ian safe—all while fending off a psychotic sorceress. But at least she won’t be alone. A girl could do a lot worse for a partner than an ass-kicking drag queen—right?

Dark Angels by Karleen Koen

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darkangelsDark Angels
by Karleen Koen
530 pages
Published 2006
Historical Fiction

I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, but what I do read tends to be based on medieval-to-renaissance England and France. The era of Kings and Queens and courtiers and courtly intrigue. Dark Angels fits solidly into that framework. It’s actually the prequel to a previously published book, Through A Glass Darkly, which I haven’t read yet but definitely will now! Koen weaves a masterfully written tale of a maid of honor to King Charles II of England‘s queen. Alice Verney is incredibly intelligent, cunning, and ambitious. At the same time, she has friends, and she will go out of her way to protect them as long as they don’t betray her. When the Princess of England, her current Lady, falls ill and dies in France, Alice returns to England to a court she hasn’t been part of for two years. Some things have changed, some haven’t, and Alice must muddle her way through politics that have been shaped without her hand in order to find her footing again. Between the raising of a new King’s mistress, a sudden wedding, the murder of a notorious transgender Madam, and the possibility of war, the book is a volatile tale that drew me in and kept me there.

I wrote and scheduled two reviews for this blog, in order to give myself a couple of days to read this longer, more substantial book, and then promptly stayed up until 4 am to finish it in one go! The glittering court of Koen’s imagination held me spellbound from the first page until the last. I loved Alice, then hated her, then loved her again. Koen had me both laughing with Alice and crying with her when tragedy struck. Alice is, at turns, arrogant, vulnerable, jaded, and a girl in love. She is an enchanting protagonist and one I look forward to seeing more of.

If you enjoy historical fiction, if you enjoy reading about the royal courts of England and France, I highly recommend Dark Angels. Koen reminds me of Philippa Gregory, though more vibrant.

From the back of Dark Angels:

Alice Verney is a young woman intent on achieving her dreams. Having left Restoration England in the midst of a messy scandal, she has been living in Louis XIV’s Baroque, mannered France for two years. Now she is returning home to England and anxious to re-establish herself quickly. First, she will regain her former position as a maid of honor to Charles II’s queen. Then she will marry the most celebrated Duke of the Restoration, putting herself in a position to attain power she’s only dreamed of. As a duchess, Alice will be able to make or break her friends and enemies at will.

But all is not as it seems in the rowdy, merry court of Charles II. Since the Restoration, old political alliances have frayed, and there are whispers that the king is moving to divorce his barren queen, who some wouldn’t mind seeing dead.  But Alice, loyal only to a select few, is devoted to the queen, and so sets out to discover who might be making sinister plans, and if her own father is one of them. When a member of the royal family dies unexpectedly, and poison is suspected, the stakes are raised. Alice steps up her efforts to find out who is and isn’t true to the queen, learns of shocking betrayals throughout court, and meets a man that she may be falling in love with – and who will spoil all of her plans. With the suspected arrival of a known poison-maker, the atmosphere in the court electrifies, and suddenly the safety of the king himself seems uncertain. Secret plots are at play, and war is on the horizon – but will it be with the Dutch or the French? And has King Charles himself betrayed his country for greed?

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

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terabithiaBridge to Terabithia
by Katherine Paterson
128 pages
Published 1977
Children’s/Young Adult

So let me just say up front: I’ve never read this book until today. I haven’t seen the movie. The little I knew about this book was “two children travel to a magical land and then something happens to one of them.” But my husband loved this book when he was young and kept pushing me to read it. I just did, and – it was not at all what I was expecting. I find it a little funny to say “it reminds me of Looking for Alaska,” when Looking for Alaska was written much later than Bridge to Terabithia. But I read LfA first. They do have some striking similarities. Boy meets Girl, Girl affects Boy’s life in a profound way, Boy loses Girl unexpectedly and has to deal with both losing her, and the changes she wrought in his life that can’t be undone. In Looking for Alaska, Miles went looking for his Great Perhaps and thought he’d found it in Alaska. In Bridge to Terabithia, Jess wasn’t looking until Leslie pushed herself into his world and brought that Great Perhaps with her.

Paterson paints a bleak picture of Jess’s life in the backwoods of somewhere-near-Washington DC. Surrounded by three sisters and his mother, while his father is gone all day working in DC, Jess appears neglected, stifled, and lonely. His family is very poor, but so are most of their neighbors. When Leslie and her parents move to the farm next door, tired of the big city and looking for a simpler life, Leslie brings Jess a window to the bigger world. Her parents tell him of things going on in far off places. And she takes him back into the dark woods behind their houses where they create an imaginary world called Terabithia. They reign as King and Queen of Terabithia, playing a game of pretend that starts as soon as they swing over the creek on a rope into a land that is solely theirs.

One thing that really stood out to me was Jess’s trip to the Smithsonian with his music teacher. Maybe it’s because I’m jaded, maybe it’s because the book was written in the 70s and it wasn’t considered a big thing, but – his young, pretty music teacher takes him, JUST him, to the Smithsonian museums. He’s 10, and has a bit of a crush on her as 10-year-olds are wont to do, so he’s constantly talking about her hair, her voice, the scent of her perfume – the whole scene was just creepy to me. A young female teacher taking a young boy on a solo trip? My husband said he didn’t notice anything wrong with the scene, but he was in 4th grade when he read the book! Nothing untoward actually happens between Jess and his music teacher, but the scene still just creeped me out.

Overall I can’t say I really have strong feelings about this book one way or another; it had a strong impact on my husband, but he read it when he was in the fourth grade. His comment was “the whole book is about being a child, and doing childish things, but not wanting adults to TREAT you like a child,” which does sound like something he dealt with, being an only child. Reading it as an adult just doesn’t have the same impact.

From the back of Bridge to Terabithia:

All summer, Jess pushed himself to be the fastest boy in the fifth grade, and when the year’s first school-yard race was run, he was going to win. But his victory was stolen by a newcomer, by a girl, one who didn’t even know enough to stay on the girls’ side of the playground. Then, unexpectedly, Jess finds himself sticking up for Leslie, for the girl who breaks rules and wins races. The friendship between the two grows as Jess guides the city girl through the pitfalls of life in their small, rural town, and Leslie draws him into the world of imagination – a world of magic and ceremony called Terabithia. Here, Leslie and Jess rule supreme among the oaks and evergreens, safe from the bullies and ridicule of the mundane world. Safe until an unforeseen tragedy forces Jess to reign in Terabithia alone, and both worlds are forever changed. 

Femme/Kinsmen by Bill Pronzini

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femmeFemme
by Bill Pronzini
175 pages
Published 2013
Mystery/Noir

Kinsmen
by Bill Pronzini
185 pages
Published 2013
Mystery/Noir

I’m not usually much of a mystery/noir fan – I enjoy mysteries set in fantasy worlds, or in urban fantasy, but not so much in noir, real-life settings. The cover of Femme caught my eye though, and since these were novellas, and short, I thought I’d branch out.

Not the best decision I’ve ever made.

kinsmenFemme and Kinsmen are part of Pronzini’s “Nameless Detective” series. They’re told from the viewpoint of a P.I. who is never named. Femme was the first one I read, and I just felt like the story drug on. You wouldn’t think a 175 page book could be slow and still get through the plot, but this one was. The plot was fairly simplistic. Our unnamed protagonist is called in by a bail bondsman to find the brother of a femme fatale. When they find the brother, they discover the femme fatale is not exactly the caring sister she’s portrayed herself to be. Since it’s a novella, I can’t really say much more without ruining the surprise. Let’s just say that the ONLY reason I decided to go ahead and read Kinsmen was because of its connection to my hometown.

Kinsmen is the story of a boy and a girl from the University of Oregon (GO DUCKS! …sorry.) who go missing on their way down to southern California to see their families. I felt like the action moved a little quicker, but it may be that I just enjoyed seeing places I used to haunt being prowled by our unnamed hero. Unlike Femme, where I felt like people got their just desserts in the end (for the most part), in Kinsmen two young lovers are caught by small-town bigotry to a tragic end. Again, it’s a novella, so I won’t say much.

Unless you’re a mystery/noir fan, I probably wouldn’t recommend these. Yes, they’re quick reads, so you won’t waste much time on them, but it’s still time I could have spent reading far better things. If you do like these, apparently Pronzini has written novels in this series as well, so they’re not all so short and simplistic. Perhaps I would have enjoyed one of those better, but if the pacing is the same as these, I probably wouldn’t.

From the back of Femme:

Femme fatale. French for “deadly woman.”

You hear the term a lot these days, usually in connection with noir fiction and film noir. But they’re not just products of literature or film, the folklore of nearly every culture. They exist in modern society, too. The genuine femme fatales you hear about now and then are every bit as evil as the fictional variety. Yet what sets them apart is that they’re the failures, the ones who for one reason or another got caught. For every one of those, there must be several times as many who get away with their destructive crimes…

In the thirty years the Nameless Detective has been a private investigator, he has never once had the misfortune to cross paths with this type of seductress… but in Femme he’ll meet Cory Beckett, a deadly woman who has brought some new angles to the species. New—and terrible.

From the back of Kinsmen:

Allison Shay was traveling home from the University of Oregon with her new boyfriend, Rob Compton, when their car broke down near the tiny rural town of Creekside, California. Soon after, Allison and Rob went missing without a trace.

Whatever happened, it felt like something bad to the Nameless Detective. Five days without a whisper of contact with the outside world. Long past the inconsiderate-kids stage; long past the silly and the harmless.

Kinsmen takes Bill Pronzini’s classic private investigator to California’s northeast backwoods, where an isolated community is determined to keep a deep, dark secret: why Allison Shay and Rob Compton really vanished.

The real question facing the Nameless Detective: are they still alive?

Fated/Cursed by Benedict Jacka

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fatedFated
by Benedict Jacka
278 pages
Published 2012

Cursed
by Benedict Jacka
277 pages
Published 2012

Fated and Cursed are the first two novels in Benedict Jacka’s Alex Verus series. Taken and Chosen are the next two, and I will DEFINITELY be getting my hands on those! I’m a big fan of the urban fantasy genre when done right, and Jacka does not disappoint. The books are very reminiscient of Jim Butcher‘s Harry Dresden novels, and even include a shout out within the first few pages that made me giggle. Unlike Dresden’s wizardry, Alex Verus is not a flashy mage. He can’t throw fireballs, he can’t shield himself, he can’t teleport. What he CAN do is see the future. All possible futures. He can flip through them in a matter of moments to find the one that ends with the result he wants. (Usually, his survival.) Constantly underestimated by the elemental mages, battle-mages, and other flashier mages around him, Alex continues to prove that, with proper ingenuity, his power can do a great number of unexpected things.

cursedAccompanied by his cursed Apprentice, Luna, and a friendly air elemental named Starbreeze, Alex gets into, and out of, some pretty hairy situations. Since he hasn’t sworn allegiance to either the light mages or the dark mages, he’s considered a rogue. In the first book, Fated, both sides use him to get to a powerful, ancient artifact locked behind multiple wards and booby traps. In the second, Cursed, Alex has to save a dear friend from being killed by a ritual used to drain magical beings of their magic.

These are both quick reads – I read them in one day while riding the bus to and from a job interview, and afterwards curled up in bed fighting off a migraine. The adventure is fast-paced and a lot of fun. If you’ve read and enjoyed The Dresden Files or Kim Harrison’s The Hollows series, I’d highly recommend you read these.

From the back of Fated:

Alex is part of a world hidden in plain sight. He runs a magic shop in London that caters to a clientele that can do much more than pull rabbits out of hats. And while Alex’s own powers aren’t as showy as some mages’ he does have the advantage of foreseeing the possible future – allowing him to pull off operations that have a million-to-one chance of success.

But when Alex is approached by multiple factions seeking his skills to crack open a relic from a long-ago mage war, he knows that whatever’s inside must be beyond powerful. And thanks to his abilities, Alex can predict that by taking the job, his odds of survival are about to go from slim to none…

From the back of Cursed:

Alex WAS a little-known magic-shop proprietor in London. But thanks to his second sight, he’s suddenly infamous for defeating powerful Dark mages. Now he’s keeping his head down, training his apprentice, and trying to prevent cursed artifacts from falling into the hands of novices – until he unearths the resurgence of a forbidden ritual. Someone is harvesting the life force of magical creatures – destroying them in the process. And draining humans is next on their agenda.

Hired to investigate, Alex discovers that not everyone on the Council wants him delving any deeper. Struggling to distinguish ally from enemy, he finds himself the target of those who would risk their own sanity for power. Alex still has the advantage of seeing the future – but he might not have a future for much longer.

The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch

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hangman's daughter

The Hangman’s Daughter
by Oliver Pötzsch
435 pages
Published 2010
Historical Fiction

I spent my entire day at the Maryland Renaissance Festival yesterday. (And man, do my feet hurt!) But it was an absolute blast; we watched the three sirens of “Sirena” sing some haunting melodies (and “steal” my husband’s soul and eat it as part of their act!), watched a couple of hilarious comedy shows (Fight School slayed me) and watched the final round of jousting. Did you know jousting is Maryland’s official sport? How cool is that?

On the way to the fair I finished The Hangman’s Daughter. The Hangman’s Daughter was originally written in German by Oliver Pötzsch, but my version was translated to English by Lee Chadeayne. I didn’t realize until I read the “About the Author” followed by “About the Translator” that it wasn’t written originally in English! It flowed exceptionally well. The story revolves around the mysterious deaths of three children, the midwife the town wants to pin it on, and a mystery surrounding the sabotage of the leper house being built just outside the walls of the town. The Hangman is actually one of the most sympathetic characters in the story, which I found unique. Usually the executioner/torturer is painted as evil. Along with his daughter and the town doctor’s son, an accomplished doctor himself, they attempt to solve the mystery of who’s killing children before the town can convict and sentence the midwife.

There are three more books in this series, The Dark Monk, The Beggar King, and The Poisoned Pilgrim. Definitely going to look for those!

(Edit: I have since read the aforementioned sequels, and reviewed them here. They were excellent!)

I REALLY enjoyed this book, and I will probably try to track down other English translations of this author’s work. I don’t read too many mysteries (though I do have a few more in the queue at the moment) but this book really swept me up and carried me along for the ride. It’s set in 17th century Bavaria, 70 years after the last witch craze. Jakob Kuisl is the town’s Hangman, and, as it turns out, one of the author’s ancestors! The author apparently wrote the novel as a way of connecting with his roots; he is descended from the Kuisls, who were Hangmen for generations.

I don’t want to say too much for fear of spoiling the mystery, so I’ll go straight to the back of the book.

From the back of The Hangman’s Daughter:

Simon turned the boy on his belly. With a vigorous tug he ripped open the shirt on the back as well. A groan went through the crowd.

Beneath one shoulder blade there was a palm-size sign of a kind that Simon had never seen before – a washed-out purple circle with a cross protruding from the bottom.

For a moment, there was total silence on the pier. Then the first screams rose. “Witchcraft! There’s witchcraft involved!” Somebody bawled: “The witches have come back to Schongau! They’re getting our kids!”