Book Review: The Stolen Kingdom

The Stolen Kingdom

Jillian Boehme

2/5

I'd like to start with saying thank you to NetGalley and Tor Teen for providing me an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. The Stolen Kingdom is a standalone fantasy that alternates between the perspectives of Maralyth, a vintner's daughter, and Alac the spare heir to the throne. Maralyth becomes embroiled in a plot to overthrow the king and his two son's via a coup that would result in the death of the whole royal family. They infiltrate the castle as nobles, but Maralyth and Alac quickly grow closer and she doubts her resolve on their plans.

I love a good standalone book, but only if the events of it can be neatly tied without feeling rushed. Everything about this book felt rushed and so the fruition of the events was weak. There wasn't enough time spent on the characters, the relationships, or the magic. There was no training for anything, just doing. Maralyth was instantly capable of being a noblewoman and instantly capable of using her magic for whatever she needed it for. There was no real huge conflict or roadblock to their success aside from their feelings which weren't developed enough to feel like a huge issue. 

The book had the potential in the basic plot to be super interesting, it just didn't have the time to make any of these points feel impactful. Major things would happen and I would just be like, that's it? Maybe I'm too used to long series in which people come back from the dead multiple times for their revenge, but everything was just too easy. If you want a quick read, this could be an easy fantasy book to digest but only if you're the type of person who avoids emotional entanglements with your characters.

Book Review: Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1)

Shatter Me

Tahereh Mafi

3/5

Juliette Ferrars has spent the past three years being passed between asylums and hospitals and blood tests and shock therapies. She lives in a dark room where she is given little warning if she will be provided food or shower privileges. This is because of her powers, when people touch Juliette, they die. 

I think I originally read this book in 2012, I was 13 and in middle school. That's probably more of the audience that it's intended for, but I feel like it was a much more interesting book to read now. I remember not liking Juliette because I thought she was too emotional, turns out she has like the perfect storm of a tragic backstory and pretty good reason for being unstable. Her romance with Adam annoyed me because it felt undeveloped, even to me as a 13 year old. It's easier to understand now having read the whole series, if you were locked in a room for years and everyone reviled you for your whole life it would be easy to fall in love with the first person to show you kindness. I don't know what Adam's excuse on that is though. 

I also hated Warner during my initial read and was surprised to sympathize with him during this read. The book was extended to a hexology, and though I haven't read the final book, it's much easier to love him now. The bar isn't all that high either. I respect their traumas a lot more than I did as a child and I'm excited to see how I perceive the rest of the series.

Book Review: An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6)

An Unexpected Peril

Deanna Raybourn

5/5

I'll start by saying thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC in return for a fair and honest review. I'm extremely invested in the characters in this series and I honestly don't think that any of their adventures could be boring at this point. In this sixth installment, Stoker and Veronica are investigating the potential murder of a fellow Curiosity Club member. In doing so, Veronica discovers that she looks very much like the Crown Princess of the Alpenwald, paving the way for her to step into this princess's shoes when she mysteriously disappears for a bit. 

Nothing shocked me more than the first book in this series did. Though I think this book fell a little short of where the other books did in terms of the mystery, I think it made up for that with the banter and character development of our two protagonists. I read a lot of historical fiction and when I tell people that, they expect it to be something stuffy or difficult to understand. Veronica Speedwell is anything but, though it doesn't completely disregard the mentalities of the time period in definitely infuses it with witty conversations and personalities that a typical person would not expect.

I had 33 highlights in this book, more than I think I've ever done in any book. I can't describe how clever everything has been during the course of this series. Everything that you expect is completely subverted, from the tropes to the mysteries. When we were first introduced to Stoker in the first book, I don't think I could ever have expected him to be quoting Keats and stealing sweets. And Veronica, she has her moments but she's really growing and realizing that you don't have to be all of one thing. While I have loved her throughout the entirety of the books, I love that she's not so selfish and that she recognizes the things that she wants even outside of her independence. I really appreciate that their growth is authentic to their characters, they're consistent to who they were at the beginning they're just stronger and better people.

So as I do every year when one of these books comes out, I strongly recommend reading this series. It has literally everything that you need from a book and continues to get better with every installment. Veronica and Stoker will always hold a special place for me and I'll keep reading them as long as they keep being written.

Book Review: The Alchemists of Loom (Loom Saga #1)

The Alchemists of Loom

Elise Kova

2/5

Arianna has spent the last two years ridding the Loom of Dragons and Dragon influence. Dragons being the ruling class of predators that dominate the Fenthri of the Loom. She is a chimera, a magical blend of the two races that many deem unnatural and doomed to a cursed existence. When she finds an injured Dragon, she agrees to aid him in finding the Alchemists in exchange for a boon. In helping him, they both learn a lot about each other's worlds and how much different everything is than it seemed. 

It was slow-paced. Too many changes in POVs for me to really fall in love with any of the characters. I was struggling to find my rhythm with the book and somehow it was short but soooo long. Arianna was frustratingly tight-lipped about everything and I wasn't seeing any justification for her mechanical prowess or for the emotional entanglements which were supposedly so intrinsic to her character. The phrasing was repetitive, if I read "the woman I loved" one more time I was just going to DNF.

It was interesting enough for me to maybe pick up the next one just because it was so slow-burn. I want to see the culmination of events but I don't know if I have the patience to read through it all. I read Air Awakens a few years ago and thought it was a pretty good series and really liked her most recent standalone so I think it's somewhat due to me not being much of a steampunk fan. I still like Elise Kova but I don't know if this series is for me.

Book Review: The Dark Days Pact (Lady Helen #2)

The Dark Days Pact

Alison Goodman

3/5

After being basically thrown out of her home and thrown headfirst into the deep end of a shadow world she didn't even know existed, Lady Helen has to adapt to living a whole different kind of life. She also has to balance her growing feelings for Lord Carlston, who is still technically married and kind of being consumed by some dark demon mania. She's being pulled in ten different directions and the stakes are only getting higher. 

I struggled with this one a bit because I feel like it dragged a little. I wasn't really feeling chemistry with her and Selburn or her and Carlston for most of it and it was being described as such a big deal. The last hundred pages redeemed most of the book for me because they were way more exciting and had more interactions between the protagonists. But a lot of this book felt like filler, which is the cardinal flaw for so many second books in a trilogy. 

I do really love the world that Alison Goodman is creating though. When you add paranormal elements to historical fiction, it gets tricky to stay authentic to the other cultural elements of the time. I think that she does a great job of balancing how stressful it would be to turn your back on every single mandate that has been instilled into Lady Helen's head since birth. It isn't just the instantaneous need for rebellion, she's growing with the book. 

I'm still pretty invested in the ending, like I feel a need to finish reading. I hope that the next one is more action-packed. There are also a lot of things that need to be resolved so I hope that everything can be tied up in the conclusion. 

 

Book Review: What the Wind Knows

What the Wind Knows

Amy Harmon

3/5

Anne has spent basically her entire life with her grandfather as her best friend. She has written novels, traveled the world, and just grown up with his constant presence. When he dies she promises to take his ashes back to Ireland where he was born and spent his childhood. She goes to the exact place he told her to and finds herself transported back to the 1920s to when her grandfather was a child. Mistaken for his mother, she takes it as an opportunity for more time with him and the man who has been raising him. 

It's a little bit of a weird premise and time travel always trips me up when I think about it too hard. But as a basic love story I think it was pretty interesting. Anne is a little bit of a difficult character to like though only because we have to be told how much we should admire her for her strength rather than observe it on the pages. I also don't trust protagonists who don't have any friends except for the ones who have to be their friends and then rely immediately on the male protagonist. I think to be a strong character even in a more romantic book you need to see how they interact and form friendships with other side characters. All of her friends were his friends and she didn't have a lot on her own timeline. 

The ending was confusing to me too. I didn't mind it as much as I probably should have because I like a neatly tied standalone, but I'm just kind of not impressed by how time travel was explained. I think that the rise and fall of the book was also a little weird, it was like we didn't get to the main conflict till 75 percent in and then it was over. It was like the revolution was supposed to feel important but didn't get the page time that it deserved, it really didn't feel like all that much of a problem.

It seems like a roast but it's always easier to point out flaws than it is to talk about what you like. I didn't hate it, I was generally rooting for the characters and wasn't able to completely figure out what was going to happen in the end. This is my fourth Amy Harmon boo, I think she's good at keeping me interested and making me want to finish reading. I do think she relies on similar relationship dynamics across different genres though. But I would read other books by her and recommend this one if you like a slightly trippy romance that's still pretty much just a romance.

Book Review: Spellmaker (Spellbreaker Duology #2)

Spellmaker

Charlie N. Holmberg

3/5

I got an ARC of this book from NetGalley in return for a fair and honest review. Spellmaker is the second book in this duology following the adventures of Elsie and Bacchus. Elsie is a spellbreaker who has spent the last ten years hiding from registration and committing acts that she thought were the betterment of society. When she is turned in for her refusal to register it's looking as though it's between life in prison and the noose. Bacchus saves her but only by promising to marry her. Now they have to plan for their upcoming wedding while simultaneously hunting down a murderous spellmaker. 

It wasn't a bad book, I read it super fast and I wasn't bored. It's just that so many things felt like they were opened and set up to be super interesting and then were just too neatly resolved. I applaud the fact that it blended the supernatural with just regular problems. Like I said in the previous review, these books might be set in the 1800s but they're really not for fans of like Victorian era romances or anything. More for the lack of technology and the simplicity in the respect. 

Again, I think it was an ending that completely satisfied everything that was opened in the first book but it could have been done in a more dramatic way. I recognize that not every problem has to be magic in a fantasy book but like I wouldn't have minded. I think that maybe it tried a little too hard to shut everything down and stick to a duology and it was a little flat because of it. I would still recommend the duology, I am a little disappointed though.