C. J. Daley
Thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the audio ARC. Apologies as this one definitely languished a bit. The narration is solid again, with continued voices/accents from the first production.
Much like the first novel in the series, this is some dinosaur goodness that brings to mind the likes of The Land Before Time and We’re Back! A Dinosaur Story. But as it’s not a scifi so much as an alt-history or even entirely fantasy world, with its talking dinosaurs and hierarchical nature, Jurassic Park just does not come to mind—even if it’s the largest dinosaur IP out there. Due in part to this one’s middle grade nature too though.
As I’ve only done audio for this, I’ve not seen the formatting for the physical copies. I hope there is some type of pictures or glossary, as the children interested in this could really learn some cool stuff and it’d help with visualization.
Our ragtag group of castaways are back…well actually they’re exactly where we left them. The carnivores are still hunting them. They are still without a home or even place to hide. They still desperately need proof to stop the incoming war, to save their people. And that is the impetus for this entire sequel. While that’s some truly heavy content—not to mention the carnivores in question not only want to stop them, but to literally eat them for dinner—the author does a solid job of suffusing humor, heart, and warmth into the story. Our friends are still learning to be around each other, to truly trust, and the way they flip flop and fumble is a fantastic way to showcase accepting others and their differences. Of showing emotion and accepting the way others feel.
But while this one was big on growth and character development, it was quite loose on plotting. As it’s middle grade, I suppose that’s not such a surprise. Their trek across the desert is a huge chunk of the novel, and when they finally arrive at their destination, the Fire Peak, the climax is already in full swing. But with that being said, this is once again a perfectly enjoyable story that makes you itch to see where they head next! I look forward to tackling book three at some point.
Thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the audio ARC. Apologies as this one definitely languished a bit. The narration is solid again, with continued voices/accents from the first production.
Much like the first novel in the series, this is some dinosaur goodness that brings to mind the likes of The Land Before Time and We’re Back! A Dinosaur Story. But as it’s not a scifi so much as an alt-history or even entirely fantasy world, with its talking dinosaurs and hierarchical nature, Jurassic Park just does not come to mind—even if it’s the largest dinosaur IP out there. Due in part to this one’s middle grade nature too though.
As I’ve only done audio for this, I’ve not seen the formatting for the physical copies. I hope there is some type of pictures or glossary, as the children interested in this could really learn some cool stuff and it’d help with visualization.
Our ragtag group of castaways are back…well actually they’re exactly where we left them. The carnivores are still hunting them. They are still without a home or even place to hide. They still desperately need proof to stop the incoming war, to save their people. And that is the impetus for this entire sequel. While that’s some truly heavy content—not to mention the carnivores in question not only want to stop them, but to literally eat them for dinner—the author does a solid job of suffusing humor, heart, and warmth into the story. Our friends are still learning to be around each other, to truly trust, and the way they flip flop and fumble is a fantastic way to showcase accepting others and their differences. Of showing emotion and accepting the way others feel.
But while this one was big on growth and character development, it was quite loose on plotting. As it’s middle grade, I suppose that’s not such a surprise. Their trek across the desert is a huge chunk of the novel, and when they finally arrive at their destination, the Fire Peak, the climax is already in full swing. But with that being said, this is once again a perfectly enjoyable story that makes you itch to see where they head next! I look forward to tackling book three at some point.
The Haunting of William Thorn
This did not work for me and I really wanted it to.
I hate having a negative review, and I might actually have DNF’d (which I never really do) but Angry Robot supplied a copy—so let’s start with some positive. Some of the writing, especially the truly haunting scenes, were written quite well. I’d actually notice myself falling into the cadence and getting with the flow. There is one particular scene involving a turned over portrait that I actually stopped reading to reread the entire section. It was unique, paced really well, and chilling.
For the most part, the rest of my experience was not so good. For me, I said yes to an ARC based off the beautiful cover and title. I love a great cover and a haunting. But I actually think the style is a little misleading. The cover with its portraits to me looks dark fantasy-esque, with their almost anime style jawlines. And that is not the vibe of the book at all.
Now, as a writer, I have pulled the trigger on releasing an ARC too early…and early reviewers called me out on it. But I also self release, and I can only assume this was read through by 1 or more AR person. The book is almost rife with errors. Not just the tiny things, like a ‘t’ making the word ‘it’ instead of the correct ‘is’. The things you can ignore. There were sentences, paragraphs, even some pages that didn’t really make sense. Character reactions seemed out of place, and there was more than one spot that was just randomly in first person? The book is broken into sections to mark William’s week at Hanbury Manor, but the chapters run on, and in more than one spot there’s mentioning of sleep and morning, but the section break comes later…making the day sections not make sense. I don’t say this to drag it, because editing is hard, but this almost felt overly rushed, if not bordering careless.
For me, the real problem lies with William Thorn. He is grieving, suicidal, struggling through something unbelievably hard. And he was unimaginably insufferable. Every time he spoke, every choice he made—how he flip flopped—grated on me for hundreds of pages. The book’s blurb promises a split timeline, and I would say that it is not. The book opens in the past, but the rest of the book is present day, with William sometimes reading journal entries from the past. These entries are short, never quite deep enough, and don’t really offer much in the way of ‘the past’. The book, if you can believe it, also tries to function as a forced proximity romance, but the proximity does not make sense, and it surely wasn’t romantic. Especially after a third act revelation that would have been earth shattering, and yet it’s so quickly thrown away. The ending did work for me, but it was a little too late.
I’m sure this will work for some, just wasn’t for me.
This did not work for me and I really wanted it to.
I hate having a negative review, and I might actually have DNF’d (which I never really do) but Angry Robot supplied a copy—so let’s start with some positive. Some of the writing, especially the truly haunting scenes, were written quite well. I’d actually notice myself falling into the cadence and getting with the flow. There is one particular scene involving a turned over portrait that I actually stopped reading to reread the entire section. It was unique, paced really well, and chilling.
For the most part, the rest of my experience was not so good. For me, I said yes to an ARC based off the beautiful cover and title. I love a great cover and a haunting. But I actually think the style is a little misleading. The cover with its portraits to me looks dark fantasy-esque, with their almost anime style jawlines. And that is not the vibe of the book at all.
Now, as a writer, I have pulled the trigger on releasing an ARC too early…and early reviewers called me out on it. But I also self release, and I can only assume this was read through by 1 or more AR person. The book is almost rife with errors. Not just the tiny things, like a ‘t’ making the word ‘it’ instead of the correct ‘is’. The things you can ignore. There were sentences, paragraphs, even some pages that didn’t really make sense. Character reactions seemed out of place, and there was more than one spot that was just randomly in first person? The book is broken into sections to mark William’s week at Hanbury Manor, but the chapters run on, and in more than one spot there’s mentioning of sleep and morning, but the section break comes later…making the day sections not make sense. I don’t say this to drag it, because editing is hard, but this almost felt overly rushed, if not bordering careless.
For me, the real problem lies with William Thorn. He is grieving, suicidal, struggling through something unbelievably hard. And he was unimaginably insufferable. Every time he spoke, every choice he made—how he flip flopped—grated on me for hundreds of pages. The book’s blurb promises a split timeline, and I would say that it is not. The book opens in the past, but the rest of the book is present day, with William sometimes reading journal entries from the past. These entries are short, never quite deep enough, and don’t really offer much in the way of ‘the past’. The book, if you can believe it, also tries to function as a forced proximity romance, but the proximity does not make sense, and it surely wasn’t romantic. Especially after a third act revelation that would have been earth shattering, and yet it’s so quickly thrown away. The ending did work for me, but it was a little too late.
I’m sure this will work for some, just wasn’t for me.
As always, my endless thanks to Shortwave Media for the physical ARC.
A group of 7 students, 2 group leads, and 1 director head into the woods for a backpacking trip. 10 people. So how the hell do they set up camp on the first night with 11 total? Something is clearly wrong, but they all seem to remember each other like there isn’t an extra. Those in charge even remember everyone from the pre-trip dinner, but how could that be possible?
This is an incredibly simple, creepy, eerie premise. It’s also short, so it had to be all about atmosphere. Which can be quite hard to capture in so short a time. This is where I originally struggled personally. I was creeped out, and my brain was screaming “alien” but I didn’t necessarily feel that creeping unease. Truthfully, I did get really sick during the reading of this one, which prolonged the time it took to finish, so that could honestly be on me. The one singular thing that I still struggle with though is the author harping on them using a 10-seat passenger van. I just found it odd that the main character needed to grasp that as his holy ground for knowing. Coming from the times of being a teen while only one friend drove, only smushing in a single other person doesn’t feel farfetched to me. Two smaller women or men sharing a backseat? That could easily have explained it, but the author had the main character take the 10 seats as confirmation. And maybe there’s a point to that that I am simply missing, but I feel like a well placed sentence explaining it away would have helped. As the instructor, is he such a stickler for safety and rules that he’d never seat an extra person perhaps?
I also wouldn’t have said no to another 30 pages or so. I feel like we get snippets of the students, but not all of them, and maybe not necessarily deep enough to have a decision be made on who the extra was. And maybe with his prying, one of them would have thought to ask “why are you asking this?…I was talking with so and so and they said you asked them that too…” and that would have added a layer of tension more to the atmosphere. But again, perhaps that is the point—the author’s subversion, or even perversion, of expectations.
Mildly spoilery (but also not) below:
Now the real surprise for me comes from the ending. At first, I thought it was okay but rather simple. Now, NOW I can’t stop freaking thinking about it. They said only ten of them are leaving the woods no matter what, that was the decision. Who in their right mind (especially because they clearly aren’t) could make that call? How would you live with it, not knowing if you were really right or not? Did you do the right thing, or did you condemn the world, unleashing something that was never meant to leave those woods? Oh my god, I seriously can’t get it out of my head, and therefore, it’s continually grown on me. There’s no answers here, no comforting end. If you can’t trust your own mind, your memories, what else can’t you trust? Can’t we trust?
As always, my endless thanks to Shortwave Media for the physical ARC.
A group of 7 students, 2 group leads, and 1 director head into the woods for a backpacking trip. 10 people. So how the hell do they set up camp on the first night with 11 total? Something is clearly wrong, but they all seem to remember each other like there isn’t an extra. Those in charge even remember everyone from the pre-trip dinner, but how could that be possible?
This is an incredibly simple, creepy, eerie premise. It’s also short, so it had to be all about atmosphere. Which can be quite hard to capture in so short a time. This is where I originally struggled personally. I was creeped out, and my brain was screaming “alien” but I didn’t necessarily feel that creeping unease. Truthfully, I did get really sick during the reading of this one, which prolonged the time it took to finish, so that could honestly be on me. The one singular thing that I still struggle with though is the author harping on them using a 10-seat passenger van. I just found it odd that the main character needed to grasp that as his holy ground for knowing. Coming from the times of being a teen while only one friend drove, only smushing in a single other person doesn’t feel farfetched to me. Two smaller women or men sharing a backseat? That could easily have explained it, but the author had the main character take the 10 seats as confirmation. And maybe there’s a point to that that I am simply missing, but I feel like a well placed sentence explaining it away would have helped. As the instructor, is he such a stickler for safety and rules that he’d never seat an extra person perhaps?
I also wouldn’t have said no to another 30 pages or so. I feel like we get snippets of the students, but not all of them, and maybe not necessarily deep enough to have a decision be made on who the extra was. And maybe with his prying, one of them would have thought to ask “why are you asking this?…I was talking with so and so and they said you asked them that too…” and that would have added a layer of tension more to the atmosphere. But again, perhaps that is the point—the author’s subversion, or even perversion, of expectations.
Mildly spoilery (but also not) below:
Now the real surprise for me comes from the ending. At first, I thought it was okay but rather simple. Now, NOW I can’t stop freaking thinking about it. They said only ten of them are leaving the woods no matter what, that was the decision. Who in their right mind (especially because they clearly aren’t) could make that call? How would you live with it, not knowing if you were really right or not? Did you do the right thing, or did you condemn the world, unleashing something that was never meant to leave those woods? Oh my god, I seriously can’t get it out of my head, and therefore, it’s continually grown on me. There’s no answers here, no comforting end. If you can’t trust your own mind, your memories, what else can’t you trust? Can’t we trust?
Huge thanks to Scholastic Press for the physical ARC!
I started this one at the same time as listening to 80s Ghosts by V.S. Lawrence. It also features paranormal investigating, just like the opening of this one. I loved the old school feel with the camcorder and its almost Blair Witch opening scare. I really thought for a second I was going to have dueling ghost novels, but LSU quickly deviates, which really surprised me. I was drawn in by the title, the obvious Scooby Doo vibe, and I was not expecting this to become a slasher investigation story.
To address the elephant in the novel…this is not really Scooby Doo-like in my opinion. And it’s trying to be, which then became a problem for me, as I had trouble drawing comparisons. The title is of course a very typical SD trope and there’s a blurb chosen that specifically references SD as well. There are four friends investigating, and even a dog, although they don’t include the dog when in public. Two girls and two boys and when they meet the new girl they even guess her name might be Daphne. It just didn’t encapsulate that spirit of SD in the way I wanted. It tried to be a darker, more adult (more like teen) version, but with the truly great Meddling Kids out there, this was a hard one to live up to.
It is however, a perfectly easy and enjoyable read. There is suspense, tension, and even stakes with some flip-flopping Scream-esque twists. The description of the ghoul did feel very SD with its almost cartoon style blue glow and manor filled with hidden entrances and tricks. It also gave an updated, modern take with its male best friends turned boyfriends, but then again it all felt very easy. Not that every story needs the relationship (especially queer ones) to be this incredibly arduous and eggshell-walking experience, it just didn’t add much. They were pure in a novel that’s pretty dark, but then again, the friend group has a pureness to begin with.
I think I’d gladly read another to see how this develops, as there were some well thrown in red herrings, but as it stands I’d love the see the multiple POV take on a more necessary feel. Much of this novel felt a bit empty.
Huge thanks to Scholastic Press for the physical ARC!
I started this one at the same time as listening to 80s Ghosts by V.S. Lawrence. It also features paranormal investigating, just like the opening of this one. I loved the old school feel with the camcorder and its almost Blair Witch opening scare. I really thought for a second I was going to have dueling ghost novels, but LSU quickly deviates, which really surprised me. I was drawn in by the title, the obvious Scooby Doo vibe, and I was not expecting this to become a slasher investigation story.
To address the elephant in the novel…this is not really Scooby Doo-like in my opinion. And it’s trying to be, which then became a problem for me, as I had trouble drawing comparisons. The title is of course a very typical SD trope and there’s a blurb chosen that specifically references SD as well. There are four friends investigating, and even a dog, although they don’t include the dog when in public. Two girls and two boys and when they meet the new girl they even guess her name might be Daphne. It just didn’t encapsulate that spirit of SD in the way I wanted. It tried to be a darker, more adult (more like teen) version, but with the truly great Meddling Kids out there, this was a hard one to live up to.
It is however, a perfectly easy and enjoyable read. There is suspense, tension, and even stakes with some flip-flopping Scream-esque twists. The description of the ghoul did feel very SD with its almost cartoon style blue glow and manor filled with hidden entrances and tricks. It also gave an updated, modern take with its male best friends turned boyfriends, but then again it all felt very easy. Not that every story needs the relationship (especially queer ones) to be this incredibly arduous and eggshell-walking experience, it just didn’t add much. They were pure in a novel that’s pretty dark, but then again, the friend group has a pureness to begin with.
I think I’d gladly read another to see how this develops, as there were some well thrown in red herrings, but as it stands I’d love the see the multiple POV take on a more necessary feel. Much of this novel felt a bit empty.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the audio ARC. This one was on my radar for a while, so I’m stoked I had the chance to bump it up my TBR.
I started this one at the same time as reading a paperback of Let’s Split Up by Bill Wood. It also opens up with a paranormal investigation, and even featured a camcorder, giving it that old school feel. I really thought for a second I was going to have dueling ghost novels, but LSU quickly deviated.
80s Ghosts features Chrissy Rodriguez, a down-on-her-luck paranormal investigator trying to make it big. I was so excited to get into this, and the parallels to my own ghost hunting story, BestGhost, made it even more enjoyable from the jump. Chrissy has the chance to investigate Merlin High with her crew, and although funds are already tight, she’s determined to make this work. A couple hotel room bookings later, they pack up into their very own Mystery Machine (a great nod IMO) and take off. As you can typically suspect in ghost hunting stories, there is not much discovery in the first couple nights. We get the set up, the backstory, the mystery, the tension, and maybe just the beginnings of a hint of haunting. And that’s just how I like it.
The novel has a bunch of nods to the 80s, some of which worked for me as a 90s kid as well. The overall description of how the kids acted back then, especially toward each other (something that I feel has certainly changed) kind of felt akin to Carrie. The mall scene brought back nostalgia for a time when cruising the various stores was the IT place to be. When pizza, a soda, and movies were only a couple bucks.
The novel is also unique in the sense that it blended a few things that are not typical for ghost hunting stories. Or at least I didn’t expect them. Chrissy has nightmares throughout that are part haunting/part clairvoyance, each one growing in intensity. There are multiple twists, not just ones including the spirits left behind, and it’s even a revenge story! While I did think to myself that they must have been some incredibly powerful ghosts to pull it all off, it’s certainly pulse pounding. There is redemption, a smidge of romance, character growth, and forgiveness. A lot of real life ghost hunting shows say they do it to help trapped spirits move on to the afterlife, and this one is no different…well except for the confirmed ghosts.
Great for fans of the 80s, Buzzfeed Unsolved/Ghost Files, and all things paranormal. It was nice to see someone follow a dream, even if it was at the stake of financial ruin, and it was nice to rope in Chrissy’s finding herself and acceptance.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the audio ARC. This one was on my radar for a while, so I’m stoked I had the chance to bump it up my TBR.
I started this one at the same time as reading a paperback of Let’s Split Up by Bill Wood. It also opens up with a paranormal investigation, and even featured a camcorder, giving it that old school feel. I really thought for a second I was going to have dueling ghost novels, but LSU quickly deviated.
80s Ghosts features Chrissy Rodriguez, a down-on-her-luck paranormal investigator trying to make it big. I was so excited to get into this, and the parallels to my own ghost hunting story, BestGhost, made it even more enjoyable from the jump. Chrissy has the chance to investigate Merlin High with her crew, and although funds are already tight, she’s determined to make this work. A couple hotel room bookings later, they pack up into their very own Mystery Machine (a great nod IMO) and take off. As you can typically suspect in ghost hunting stories, there is not much discovery in the first couple nights. We get the set up, the backstory, the mystery, the tension, and maybe just the beginnings of a hint of haunting. And that’s just how I like it.
The novel has a bunch of nods to the 80s, some of which worked for me as a 90s kid as well. The overall description of how the kids acted back then, especially toward each other (something that I feel has certainly changed) kind of felt akin to Carrie. The mall scene brought back nostalgia for a time when cruising the various stores was the IT place to be. When pizza, a soda, and movies were only a couple bucks.
The novel is also unique in the sense that it blended a few things that are not typical for ghost hunting stories. Or at least I didn’t expect them. Chrissy has nightmares throughout that are part haunting/part clairvoyance, each one growing in intensity. There are multiple twists, not just ones including the spirits left behind, and it’s even a revenge story! While I did think to myself that they must have been some incredibly powerful ghosts to pull it all off, it’s certainly pulse pounding. There is redemption, a smidge of romance, character growth, and forgiveness. A lot of real life ghost hunting shows say they do it to help trapped spirits move on to the afterlife, and this one is no different…well except for the confirmed ghosts.
Great for fans of the 80s, Buzzfeed Unsolved/Ghost Files, and all things paranormal. It was nice to see someone follow a dream, even if it was at the stake of financial ruin, and it was nice to rope in Chrissy’s finding herself and acceptance.
Loved the cover immediately, so I am so thankful I was chosen as an arc reader. Thank you to Tor Nightfire for the physical copy.
Eco horror is on the rise, and the spores and fungus, the sporror, will come for us all! Us a FanFiAddict actually do a lot of talk about all things fungus, especially with Adrian M. Gibson’s debut of Mushroom Blues, and A.J. Calvin being a certified scientist-badass, we are a bunch of fun-gals and fun-guys. So I know several of us were eager to get our hands on this.
The author does a solid job with laying the scene. It’s slow, as it is the real world. People may go missing, but nothing supernatural happens here. That, and we may need a tad of atmosphere to built up. I enjoyed the idea of Erin Harper heading for a little work away from work. She tells her boss there’s a new hotspot on the rise, one they must cover before someone else does, but truly she wants to turn her journalistic feelers out for her photographer and friend, Hari’s podcast. When too many disappearances for one town come to light, could her brother possibly have been lost out there too?
I was a tad shaky on the followup, the build, and the climax. On the one hand, don’t we all love determination, perseverance, and overcoming odds? On the other, I found myself wondering why THESE characters were pushing so hard for this. Erin has her brother to think about, but their qualifications otherwise are that they are hikers? When one character said no and left, I was like hello, sensibility! But in all seriousness, when fungus hiveminds become real, you protect the townspeople.
The owner of the Airbnb Erin stays at really came to mind to me like Lisa Emery’s portrayal of The Dama in The Walking Dead: Dead City. All high collared and mighty, but then ready to get her hands dirty. And while at first I wasn’t loving the hivemind mushroom-fugue-state chapters, they grew on me more and more and the reaching mycelium or hyphae brought to mind that first runner you see at the neighbor’s house in HBOs The Last of Us…which is just chef’s kiss spooky stuff.
This is a good story and it’s not overly long. It’ll grip your attention and you can easily rip through it…if you can handle the rot, decay, water logged skin, and eerie, creeping mushrooms.
Loved the cover immediately, so I am so thankful I was chosen as an arc reader. Thank you to Tor Nightfire for the physical copy.
Eco horror is on the rise, and the spores and fungus, the sporror, will come for us all! Us a FanFiAddict actually do a lot of talk about all things fungus, especially with Adrian M. Gibson’s debut of Mushroom Blues, and A.J. Calvin being a certified scientist-badass, we are a bunch of fun-gals and fun-guys. So I know several of us were eager to get our hands on this.
The author does a solid job with laying the scene. It’s slow, as it is the real world. People may go missing, but nothing supernatural happens here. That, and we may need a tad of atmosphere to built up. I enjoyed the idea of Erin Harper heading for a little work away from work. She tells her boss there’s a new hotspot on the rise, one they must cover before someone else does, but truly she wants to turn her journalistic feelers out for her photographer and friend, Hari’s podcast. When too many disappearances for one town come to light, could her brother possibly have been lost out there too?
I was a tad shaky on the followup, the build, and the climax. On the one hand, don’t we all love determination, perseverance, and overcoming odds? On the other, I found myself wondering why THESE characters were pushing so hard for this. Erin has her brother to think about, but their qualifications otherwise are that they are hikers? When one character said no and left, I was like hello, sensibility! But in all seriousness, when fungus hiveminds become real, you protect the townspeople.
The owner of the Airbnb Erin stays at really came to mind to me like Lisa Emery’s portrayal of The Dama in The Walking Dead: Dead City. All high collared and mighty, but then ready to get her hands dirty. And while at first I wasn’t loving the hivemind mushroom-fugue-state chapters, they grew on me more and more and the reaching mycelium or hyphae brought to mind that first runner you see at the neighbor’s house in HBOs The Last of Us…which is just chef’s kiss spooky stuff.
This is a good story and it’s not overly long. It’ll grip your attention and you can easily rip through it…if you can handle the rot, decay, water logged skin, and eerie, creeping mushrooms.
I had the opportunity to listen to this one through the Indie Ink Awards and I’m super glad I did. The narration by Richard Pendragon was stellar—great voice work and depth of character.
This is an urban fantasy with spice, both things that usually aren’t for me, but this was done very well. I know it’s a rough comparison to make at this point as many people want nothing to do with them (myself included) but for me this was one of the most successfully integrated urban fantasy’s featuring an almost entirely secondary world since reading Harry Potter. In the same way The Soul’s Aspect by Mark Holloway captures the school essence from HP, Mawce has done so on our own city streets. Glamours or magically enhanced items do little tricks on human minds that keep them seeing “normal” things, but behind closed doors, the entire world is magic. And this is of course enhanced by the main character’s shop and home, the Belamour, being a magic entity itself!
It’s incredibly representative, with gay, bi, trans characters throughout—all in prominent roles that are NOT ruled by the inclusion of their orientation. And while sex scenes just are not my cup of tea in books, there was definitely a well built tension in the book leading up to the moment. For me though, maybe just a few less moments…as there are several.
There is also some disability and neurodivergent rep as well, with Mael suffering from autism and magical synesthesia. While the first made me think like wow, magical people from magical lands still deal with the same stuff as humans, the second felt like an even cooler blend. He can sense, picture, even see people’s magical aura through his synesthesia and I thought that was just one of the cleverest little twists ever. The rep in general is handled well by someone showcasing it (at least IMO) as it seemed to inform the character more than control them.
The plot itself involves a human, Leo, hiring Mael to help track down a stolen dragon egg. The dragon egg belongs to his niece, and it is a bond that is meant to secure her place in the magical world. This leads to some interesting investigating, although as Mael’s best friend, a vampire, is an actual magical cop, I almost found myself wishing for a little urban fantasy/crime fiction blend. As you can imagine, the amount of power and effort needed to steal an actual dragon egg means that whoever took it won’t give it up easily.
Regardless, there’s tension, there’s suspense, there’s action, and there is a hell of a lot of tenderness bled throughout this one. Absolutely worth checking out.
I had the opportunity to listen to this one through the Indie Ink Awards and I’m super glad I did. The narration by Richard Pendragon was stellar—great voice work and depth of character.
This is an urban fantasy with spice, both things that usually aren’t for me, but this was done very well. I know it’s a rough comparison to make at this point as many people want nothing to do with them (myself included) but for me this was one of the most successfully integrated urban fantasy’s featuring an almost entirely secondary world since reading Harry Potter. In the same way The Soul’s Aspect by Mark Holloway captures the school essence from HP, Mawce has done so on our own city streets. Glamours or magically enhanced items do little tricks on human minds that keep them seeing “normal” things, but behind closed doors, the entire world is magic. And this is of course enhanced by the main character’s shop and home, the Belamour, being a magic entity itself!
It’s incredibly representative, with gay, bi, trans characters throughout—all in prominent roles that are NOT ruled by the inclusion of their orientation. And while sex scenes just are not my cup of tea in books, there was definitely a well built tension in the book leading up to the moment. For me though, maybe just a few less moments…as there are several.
There is also some disability and neurodivergent rep as well, with Mael suffering from autism and magical synesthesia. While the first made me think like wow, magical people from magical lands still deal with the same stuff as humans, the second felt like an even cooler blend. He can sense, picture, even see people’s magical aura through his synesthesia and I thought that was just one of the cleverest little twists ever. The rep in general is handled well by someone showcasing it (at least IMO) as it seemed to inform the character more than control them.
The plot itself involves a human, Leo, hiring Mael to help track down a stolen dragon egg. The dragon egg belongs to his niece, and it is a bond that is meant to secure her place in the magical world. This leads to some interesting investigating, although as Mael’s best friend, a vampire, is an actual magical cop, I almost found myself wishing for a little urban fantasy/crime fiction blend. As you can imagine, the amount of power and effort needed to steal an actual dragon egg means that whoever took it won’t give it up easily.
Regardless, there’s tension, there’s suspense, there’s action, and there is a hell of a lot of tenderness bled throughout this one. Absolutely worth checking out.