The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass by Adan Jerreat-Poole

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Adan Jerreat-Poole is, I believe, Canadian which may account for some of her "English" spellings of words in this novel - words like 'sombre' and 'glamours'. This shows my ignorance because I'd always thought that Canadians used American spellings. However, it's always good to read outside of one's comfort zone, especially since far too many novels published in the USA seem to take the position that it's the only country in the world and nothing of interest happens anywhere else! I beg to differ!

I liked this novel because it was operating outside the box and far from the beaten path. Far too many novels play it safe - clone someone else's work and turn it into a trilogy. I blame publishers for pushing this boring approach and writers for kow-towing to it. I love the ones which don't comply!

The story here is that Eli (not sure how it's pronounced: E-lie? Ellie?) is less of a person than an object - an assassin 'robot' almost, constructed by witches out of organic bits and inorganic bobs. She can pass through the vortex between the witches' world and the human world, and her 'job' is to take out ghosts. And I don't mean date them!

These ghosts are not the incorporeal remains of a dead human. They're wispy beings which are almost zombie-like in some respects, and which typically occupy a human body. They can't be seen by humans, and the witch powers-that-be detest them. Eli's maker, a witch who is growing in power and influence, hands out her assignments proudly because Eli is the best assassin. She has seven special knives that help her do her work to perfection, and she has never failed. Until she does. That's when things change.

It takes a while for Eli, who constantly grows and evolves throughout this story, to figure out exactly why the ghosts are a problem for the witches, and all the time she is learning and seeing her world in very broader strokes. She discovers she's in a much different world from the one she'd thought she was in. In pursuing her last assassination - the one mission that's doomed to fail - Eli encounters two people: Tav, a non-binary person who is a biker, and Cam, a gay cab driver. These two become close to her - the first people in the human world she's ever been drawn to.

I've seen some reviews of this novel that praise it for including genderqueer characters, but in some ways it's rather overdone here. It's not a problem that they're included, but that they risk overwhelming the story to the exclusion of all others. At times it starts to feel like there are only gender-queer people in this world.

To me, the way to fix a problem where the pendulum has been pushed too far and for too long in one direction isn't to push it forcibly and equally back in the opposite direction, but to weld it firmly in the middle so no one is cruelly excluded or artificially included ever again. As it happens, in this story it wasn't too intrusive despite Eli being apparently non-cis as well. Perhaps I didn't mind so much because I really liked Eli as a character. She's definitely one of my strong-female character icons.

I enjoyed the story and read it quickly. I liked the originality. I enjoyed the different take on witches and ghosts and the magnificent world-building. This was a tour-de-force of inventive thinking outside the box and it was a most welcome read. There were some technical issues no doubt caused by Amazon's crappy Kindle conversion process. I'm not the kind of reviewer who gets to read a hardback print version, so I got the e-version and there was the trademark Kindle mangling in evidence here.

One classic example of this is the embedding of the page header (alternating title and author on even and odd pages) right into the text, so I would read, for example: "She clenched her hands. THE GIRL OF HAWTHORN AND GLASS Took a breath in." The way I avoid this in my own published work is never to include page headers or footers (including page numbers) in the version I'm using for ebooks. I don't even use the headers in the print book version. What, is your reader going to forget what they're reading? I have a little more faith in readers than that.

The book also contained some abstract images that were included between chapters and sometimes as section separators in the text. These images were apparently broken-up and turned into Kindling by Amazon as well, although without having seen the original images, it's hard to tell. In other instances of generic Kindle mangling, the text was missing a line break between speech from different characters, so I'd read it all on one line:
"Hey, it usually works like a charm." "I'll bet." Eli rolled her eyes."

And one final observation: I'm sure that even in Canada, there's a difference between staunch and stanch. I read, "Tav staunched the bleeding" but unless Tav was making Cam bleed in a loyal and committed manner, she didn't staunch it. She stanched it. I've seen this error increasingly in YA novels and I find it sad. The error was repeated later as "one hand staunching the flow of blood." Nope! Stanching! There was one lone error in spelling that I noticed: "you will owe use a thousand glamours," which I think should have read 'us' rather than 'use'. Presumably that sort of thing will be corrected before this is published officially.

But we've all been there and I'm not going to downgrade such a stellar book for some minor issues. I thoroughly enjoyed this and I commend it as a worthy read. I look forward to the next offering from this author.

The Truth-Teller's Tale by Sharon Shinn

Rating: WARTY!

You know there was nothing outright bad about this novel, but there was nothing great about it either, and in the end, that was the problem. It was bland to the point of pointlessness. I read it very nearly all the way through - all except for the last few pages and by then I had begun to seriously resent the time I'd wasted on this when I could have been reading something more memorable and engaging. As it was, it was not even really a story; it was just a meandering ramble that really had nowhere to go, but downhill.

The problem was that it so quickly became perfectly obvious exactly what was going to happen, who the mysterious visitors were, and where everyone would end up. If you're going to tell such an obvious story, then you at least need to spice it up a bit with some misdirection and red herrings. The author never did. I don't know if she was foolish enough to believe that no-one could see the glaringly obvious truth (in a novel where 'truth teller' is part of the title!), or if she understood that and simply didn't care, but the fact that it was so painfully obvious to the reader, and yet not a single one of the three main female characters even had a clue, tells me that this author evidently delights in writing about truly stupid female characters. Why female authors do this to their characters I do not know, but it happens a lot and it always pisses me off.

The story is set in a sort of medieval world where there are three kinds of gifted people, all of whom seem to be female for some reason. One of these kinds is the wish-granter. She has the power (so-called) to grant any wish, but since we later learn that she has no power to choose which wishes are granted and which are not, it rather neuters her power, and renders it completely random.

The other two kinds of people are represented by the mirror twins who are the main characters. That is, they are identical if one is seen directly, and the other seen in a mirror reflection. The have the palindromic names of Adele and Eleda - something that was again obvious from the start, and while the reader has the advantage of seeing the names in print which makes it a bit easier than if we'd simply heard them, it's not impossible to figure it out. Yet no one ever does! Maybe it's just that the whole city is stupid?

One of the twins is compelled always to tell the truth. She has the power to discern truth about a person and typically cannot prevent herself from speaking it. The other has the seemingly pointless power of never revealing a secret. It's quite literally impossible for her to tell a secret that's been shared with her Again, that power seems a bit dumb, but because she is so similar to her sister, there is the quirk that sometimes someone who thinks they're sharing a secret that will never be passed on, makes a mistake and speaks it to the truth-teller. This plays such a small part in the story that it seems pointless, but it does again illustrate how dumb these people are.

That was the whole problem with this: the pointlessness of it. There really wasn't a story here to tell. There was never any adventure, never anything at risk, never any great revelation, never anything unpredictable, never any thrill or danger, and never any real romance or heartbreak for that matter. It was bland to the point of being tasteless and I cannot commend it as a worthy read. It's the middle book in a trilogy. I hadn't read the first, and it's not necessary; they're stand-alones it would seem, but I'm done. I have no desire to read any more of this trilogy or or any other Sharon Shinn novel. This is the second work of hers that I've been disappointed with and the thought of reading anything else by her now just leaves me cold.

Copy Boy by Shelley Blanton-Stroud

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I made it about fourth-fifths the way through this. In the end I was driven away from it for several reasons, not least of which was because the story seemed to drag, and it went frequently off at inexplicable tangents that always made me feel like I'd missed something, somewhere in the text.

It started out a bit confusing and a bit boring frankly, in a chapter that dragged on for twenty pages or so. To me it felt like that part ought to have been told in brief flashbacks or better, in brief flashes of memory of earlier events, triggered by things the main character sees and does in the present. I'd rather that than have had all these pages devoted to it. I'm not a fan of flashbacks at all, nor am I a fan of prologues, and this felt like a too-long prologue.

Despite this disappointment, I decided to press on because the premise of the story appealed to me, but though I stayed with it and it improved to begin with, it went downhill again, and then picked back up, and so on, so for much of the novel it felt like I was riding a reading roller-coaster in terms of how much the novel alternately engaged and bored me. I liked it best then the main character was interacting with "Sweetie" and "Rivka" the two girls Jane, aka Benny, lives with when she first arrives in San Francisco. This part of the story was far too quickly over with for me.

This frequent readjusting from one locale to another was part of the story, but it made it feel a bit disjointed, like it was more than one story about more than one person. Paradoxically, despite this, we got little sense that Jane had moved from the country to a big city. There was no real world-building to speak of, so the action could have taken place anywhere, and Jane adapted so readily to big city life and taking cabs, handling money, and drinking with the boys, and so on, that it felt completely unreal. Everything came far too easily for her.

Jane started out as a strong character, who was interesting and who was someone I wanted to root for, but at other times, and increasingly, she made stupid decisions for no good reason that I could see. She also had a lot of sheer luck in the investigation she was pursuing - far more than was reasonable, which stretched credibility too much for my taste. In the end she became an unpredictable loose cannon doing things which made no sense to me at all, and she quickly lost me as a fan. She came off as really flighty and I lost interest in reading any more about her.

For most of the story she's disguised as a young man and pursuing a career such a young man might pursue, and it seems like too quickly she forgets she's really a girl, so we get very little of her insights into how her life differs now compared with what it was before, and given her impoverished roots and the superficial change of gender on top of that, there were such huge differences between how she had grown up and how she was living now that it didn't make sense she would have so few observations to share about it. There was a major disjunction between the two lives she led, and her serious lack of any real reaction to it felt completely wrong.

Things in her life seemed to fall into place without any real effort on her part, and the story she pursues at the newspaper doesn't always make sense to the reader. At least it didn't to me. I mean, the overall story made sense, but the details of how she put it together seemed completely haphazard to me. It feels like successful leaps are being taken in her investigation without the author sharing much about how she makes those leaps. Either that or I wasn't following the story as well as I ought to have been for one reason or another.

Jane wasn't the only one whose life made little sense though. Both Sweetie and Rivka are two of the other characters who could have been really interesting, but their behavior didn't seem to follow any rational trajectory, and neither does Mac's. He's Jane's too-easy route into the newspaper business. Additionally we seem to have Robert Oppenheimer - the nuclear physicist - introduced into the story for no good reason! How or why that came to be I know not. In the end then, this story had too much and not enough and I could not enjoy it, so I cannot commend it as a worthy read.

Don't Mess With This Witch by Liz Lorow

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Errata:
“...not a plant like a Fichus or Gardenia.” A fichu is a square of lace used to preserve modesty on low-cut gowns in the 18th and 19th century. I believe the author meant ficus.

“I had no control over a porcupine wandering into my neighborhood in rural England. They live there." No, they don’t! Britain has no porcupines! There are porcupines around the Mediterranean, but southern Europe is as far north as they get. Britain has hedgehogs which are unrelated to porcupines and much more cute. I had a couple as pets growing up there.

“...he flexed his bicep.” Doubtful! Biceps, yes, bicep? Not so much! I don't see how you can have a character who almost chides someone for not using 'whom' and then doesn't know that the bicep is only one part of the biceps which is the muscle that gets flexed! In another part of the novel I read, "Recommended? By whom?" Seriously, no one but the most pretentious people use that in speech, and you certainly don't hear it from a 16-year old in juvie.

“You’re itching is driving you crazy” - confusion of 'your' and 'you’re'.

Reading this book was like a roller-coaster in terms of my wanting to rate it a worthy read, and not. I kept changing my mind and I had multiple issues with it. In the end that;s what decided it. I read the thing the whole way through - except for the epilogue (I don't do epilogues or prologues) and I didn't hate it and in general the writing wasn't awful either, and I enjoyed some of the characters, but in the end, there were so many issues that I can't in good conscience rate it positively.

I like stories where a team gets together to achieve an end. I just published one myself, so I was a bit disappointed that what seemed to be a team forming here ended-up not becoming one. On the other hand I liked the main character - for the most part. She was smart and amusing and strong, which is a big plus for me, but countering that were the parts of the book where she was effectively infantilized by the trope YA guy named, of all things, Logan. I could have done without him. So that's the way this story hit me all along - one time I was up for it, the next I was having grave misgivings about it.

At one point Logan, the main character's love interest, says, “I was raised to respect and protect women." This turned me off the story because it became yet another YA story where the girl is the maiden in distress and the big tough guy is the white knight coming to save and protect her! Genevieve, the main character, needed no one's protection. I can see a guy saying that - guys do say those kinds of things, but the fact that there was no push-back from Genevieve was what was wrong. We need to get past this idea that women are universally weak and helpless and in every case, need a strong man to take care of them. It's that kind of thinking that leads to abuses: putting women on a pedestal on the one hand and slapping them with the other.

In another instance, I read, "Logan leapt to his feet and extended his hand to help me up." Again this suggests Genevieve is the weak one who needs the help. I know some people might view this as merely being gentlemanly, but unless you have a later scene where Genevieve extends a hand to help Logan up, this bias against women being capable of taking care of themselves is really an abuse. If Logan respects women, why does he constantly treat them like they're always in need of help? It felt sexist, especially in this case, given how powerful Genevieve truly is. In another instance, Logan said, "I don't want you going anywhere without me...Someone needs to be with you to protect you." Again with the infantilization. it was almost as nauseating as how many times characters rolled their eyes in this book or the incessant number of times Genevieve opened or closed her eyes. It was like she was doing that constantly!

Her power was also an issue in that she felt rather like a 'special snowflake' - like she never had to work for a thing; everything she tried to do was a great success, powers came to her just when she needed them, and she always had the right spell for the job despite her evidently substandard education on the topic. It was a bit too much. She never had to struggle for anything.

I liked the idea of witches in juvie. That's what drew me to the story in the first place. It was different, original, and interesting. The students were captive, but they were expected to follow an academic schedule - and they had a surprising amount of freedom, but their magical powers were somehow suppressed so they could not use them - and yes, these witches seemed more like magicians than witches. Not that the book description helped, since it wasn't at all honest in describing what happened: "Now the administration needs Genevieve’s help to find a student/inmate who escaped." No, they don't! They never asked her to do that. She did it all by herself!

That didn't detract from the story for me, but it does reinforce my own tack in avoiding Big Publishing™ because the people who write the back cover blurbs seem never to have actually read the story they're describing, and worse, the people who illustrate the front cover seem never to have read it either. I know those who do not self-publish have little say in their covers or book blurbs, which is why I pay zero attention to the front cover when deciding which books I want to read. They're highly misleading, and I laugh at authors who have dramatic cover reveals because they're so pathetic and juvenile. In this case, the cover showed a young woman with straight black hair, yet the antagonist in this novel has wavy brown hair. I honestly don't see how you can confuse the two. I guess it wasn't edgy enough for the cover photographer, huh? They'd rather misrepresent it.

But enough about the cover. I read a book for the content, not for the pretty picture on the front. One of the first issues I had with this, other than the silly trope of having spells cast in rhyme, was the fact that this juvenile witch detention center had an off-limits library! What? Why? Why would they put dangerous books in a detention center that could potentially enable these witches to escape? It made zero sense. A regular library? Yes! An off-limits one? No!

Though this wasn't a high-school, another issue (other than purloining 'muggles' from JK Rowling and changing one letter to make it somehow 'different') was the trope high-school bully, in the form of a teacher who routinely brutalized the children by subtly undermining their education, and using their failures to add months onto their sentences. I know there needs to be a villain in these stories, but this felt like lazy writing, with a teacher having that much power and evidently no review or oversight. It just felt like too much.

One of the issues I have with magical novels is that the authors tend not to think things through and truly envision what a world with magical powers would be like - even one where magic is kept hidden from the public). With few exceptions, they tend to have the world be exactly the way it is today, just with the addition of the magicians, or witches, or whatever, and it really doesn't work very well.

For example, in this story, there was a section where Genevieve says, “At least I didn’t live in Centralia, Pennsylvania. That town is deserted because of a coal fire that’s been burning underground since nineteen sixty-two." This is true. In fact recently, there was an article on CNN's website that talked about a stretch of abandoned highway there which has been literally covered in graffiti and has become a tourist attraction, but the authorities are covering it up because it's not safe for tourism.

So far so good, but this novel isn't our world: this is a world where there are witches with powerful magic, and yet none of the witches have been out there to try and stop the burning? If you're going to reference real-world events, then then it seems to me to necessitate a witch's perspective to go along with it. Why haven't the witches stopped the burning? Do they not care? Can they not do it? To suggest there are immensely powerful witches and yet this fire still burns, like the witches frankly don't give a damn, leaves a hole in the story for me. I think you really need to address why witches didn't make a difference. Or not mention the situation at all.

There was an instance where Genevieve is trying to hide behind a pole and I read, "I had to become invisible - something I’d never tried before, or skinnier - something every witch has tried with varying success.” This felt like body-shaming - that witches are universally overweight, or think they are. This felt like something that could have passed unmentioned, or if you have to mention it, then maybe say some witches have tried it. To call out every witch and suggest they're overweight or have a poor self-image felt like an awful thing for a female author to do to her fellow females.

So while this writer can write and tell a decent story in general terms, for me there were far too many loose ends and examples of thoughtless writing for me to rate this as a worthy read. I wish the author all the best in her career, because based on this one, I think she has some good stories to tell, but this particular one was too hobbled with issues to fly and sad as it makes me, I can't commend it as a worthy read.

Wave, Listen to Me! Vol 1 by Hiroaki Samura

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Me and this graphic novel ebook did not get along at all. There were several reasons for it. The first is the fiction that "This book belongs to:" with my name and email address, when the book never has or ever will belong to me! It's set up as one of those so-called 'social DRM PDF' books, but it's never actually a download, so if you close your browser before having read all of it, it's gone, and you have to go back to Net Galley to get it back again. It's not social at all. It's anti-social and falsely criminalizes reviewers who do not get paid for this, but do it out of the goodness of their hearts. I've never shared a review book, and have no intention of doing so, and personally I'm going to to quit requesting for review any book that employs this system in future.

Another issue is that the book is almost 200 pages long, but this format offers no way to navigate it quickly. If you want to get to page 196, you have to continually swipe the screen bottom to top since this vertically scrolls. It's a nightmare when writing a review and trying to find a specific page to verify something. It won't allow any fast scrolling, so if you stop swiping, the pages stop scrolling.

When you get there, you're greeted by this: "The success of this book depends on influencers like you..." Good luck with that after my experience! Once at the end, the fastest way to get back to the beginning is not to swipe again, but to close the entire thing and re-download it from Net Galley. The fact that it is faster that way is the very definition of insanity gone wild.

The next issue is that this is a manga, but it doesn't start from the back and read to the front as these typically do. It starts from the front, but then the pages are backwards, as compared with the western way of reading, so instead of starting at top left, you have to start at top right and read right to left. Not being an avid reader of manga this is a chore I have to keep reminding myself of, but it's manageable. What really irked me though was the rampant racism of the illustrations.

When Scarlett Johansson was picked for the role of Motoko Kusanagi in the live-action Ghost in the Shell there was an outrage because the character was perceived as Japanese. I agreed with that outrage. I was also outraged that because she gained notoriety for her role as Back Widow, she became the go-to girl for a host of other action movies, leaving other, capable actors of assorted ethnic backgrounds locked-out of those roles. On the one hand I can't blame an actor for wanting to ensure their financial security, but Johansson has a net worth of well over $150 million and she had a steady movie career long before Iron Man 2 came along, so I have to wonder about someone who repeatedly takes roles that other, less financially comfortable actors could admirably fill.

But I digress. The point is that here in this comic book we have every single Asian portrayed with western features. I have to ask: where is the outrage? I'm quite used to the huge-eyed and pointy-chinned representations of manga characters, but these were drawn realistically, and with some skill, yet not a single one of them was Asian despite all of them having Asian names and the entire comic book being set in Sapporo, which is the capital city of Hokkaido, an island which is part of the State of Japan. For me this is wrong. What are they afraid of - that readers might be turned off a book because it has fur'ners in it? That might apply some forty percent of the people in the USA who support a clearly racist, bigoted, and divisive president, but it doesn't apply to people like me who enjoy and welcome diversity in our reading.

The content page of this comic was rotated ninety degrees for reasons unknown. It was in landscape mode even though the entire comic other than that was in portrait format. So anyway, the comic is about a woman named Minare who is pissed-off with some guy, and vents about him to a stranger in a bar. Rather than give her a look and move carefully away from her, the stranger invites her to his radio station and records her venting on air, and she becomes a celebrity. This is a tired plot that has been done many times before and this version brought nothing new to the story. In fact, for me, it was confused, rambling, and incoherent, and I lost interest in it very quickly. I can't commend it based on the third or so of it that I could stand to read. Sadly, there far too many loudmouthed jerks who become celebrities in real life without having to read about them in fiction. I can not commend this as a worthy read.

The Black Room by Luke Smitherd

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a free portion of a novel from Barnes and Noble. Set in England, it turned out to be the start of a novel the author is apparently still writing. He put the first bit out for free, as a teaser for the rest of it, for which people will pay, of course. He hopes. It's a bit like writing a series and putting the first volume out for free. Unfortunately I'd mistakenly thought it was a whole first novel of a series so I was a little surprised that it was so short and ended on a huge cliffhanger until I realized what he'd done! He has several rather frenetic screens of explanation at the end of the excerpt.

This story was downright weird, which is why it appealed to me! I like 'em when they go off the rails or jump out of the rut of most novels, so that was a big plus. This one is about this guy who wakes up in a darkened room and all there is in there, is a screen for him to look at. Very soon he realizes that the screen is the view out of someone's eyes - a young woman's of course, since he's a young guy himself.,/p>

He's apparently in her head - literally, though the interior isn't anything like he might have imagined it would be. As time passes he learned not only more about her, but more about the place where he's confined, which is distinctly strange. He's naked and rather afraid of the darkness that surrounds him so the whole experience is freaking him out almost as much as it does her.

He can't communicate with her at first, and when he finally manages it, she does freak out. Apparently she had issues with voices in her head a while before, and now she thinks her insanity is returning, but eventually they start a working relationship and the guy manages to convince her that this is real and not her own twisted imagination, so they embark on an effort together, to try and figure out what the hell is going on.

That's about where it ends. The story was interesting, but I don't know if it's interesting enough to make me want to read more. I might pursue this. I can't deny I'm intrigued to find out where that premise goes, but at the same time I'm afraid it's going to end up being a dumb story and I'll regret wasting time reading it! LOL!

However, based on this excerpt, I can't do other than rate it a worthy read. It was engrossing and it did keep me reading. The ending was not an ending, so that was a let-down. It's also a very British novel, so for me it wasn't a problem, but some of the lingo might fox non-Brit readers. That's not a negative - just an observation.

I'm not a reader who thinks the only novels worth reading are American or set in the USA, so I delve around and read anything that's of interest no matter where it originates or who writes it. Others may find this one eminently readable because of its 'Britishness'. Or you may find, as I did, that this author uses 'whilst' way the hell too much! Regardless of all that, I commend this one. Besides, it's free, and short, so what do you have to lose, apart from a bit of time?

The First Sister by Linden A Lewis

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is the first in a trilogy ("The First Sister"). The thing is that there was nothing on Net Galley to indicate this was part of a trilogy. I would probably have not requested it had I known, because I've had little success with YA trilogies. But you work with what you have, so here goes! It was described as "Combining the social commentary of The Handmaid's Tale with the white-knuckled thrills of Red Rising." I did not like The Handmaid's Tale, and I'm not familiar with Red Rising at all, but the book description interested me, so I went ahead and selected it for review.

Unfortunately, and this is doubtlessly because it's a trilogy, the book took forever to get going and moved at a lethargic pace, while paradoxically doing next to nothing in terms of actually starting in on a story. Combine this with the multiple PoVs, all in first person - a voice I despise - and a tedious audio diary transcription from one of the characters who was unimaginatively named 'Hiro', and it seemed that the characters in this book were conspiring to irritate and bore me.

First person is so two persons ago, and very quickly I lost all interest in Hiro's non-story anyway. I began routinely skipping their sections. Even so, I made it only to 25% of the way through before I was forced to DNF this novel as a cause infâme, which is the opposite of a cause célèbre. Life is too short to spend it on stories that don't inspire, excite and engage. Your mileage may differ. I hope it does. It would be a sad world if we all liked the same things.

My first real problem was that I didn't buy into the scenario where there would be, in the future, a religious order of sacred prostitutes, nor was any help given to the reader as to how this had even come about. Instead we were simply presented with the fait accompli of a going concern. and expected to run with it. For me it was too thin, especially since the author was surprisingly coy about what exactly it was that these women did. Apparently there were three only on this entire troop ship, one of whom was reserved solely for the captain. The other two evidently had their work cut out for them, whatever it was.

The whole point of volume one of a series is that it's a prologue. I don't do prologues and I don't like volume 1's for that very reason, so it was ironic to me that this one told us so little about the world we're in. The comparison to Red Rising may or may not be apt. I can't speak to that, but personally I'd feel insulted were my work to be compared with someone else's like mine is a poor clone rather than something original, but as long as we're making comparisons, for me, a better one is to Star Trek, and it's a negative one, I'm sorry to say, because Star Trek has this same problem. In this story, just like in Star Trek, we have people doing everything, with not a robot in sight.

What happened to all the robots? We have them today in volume and they're getting better and better. So what went wrong? Was there a robot plague and they all died out such that there are none for the military and so human cannon fodder is required as usual? And on that score, why are there no sex dolls in the future such that women are required to serve as something for the men to masturbate in? But why would men prefer that if the women aren't very attractive? At one point in chapter 3, I read this: “She’s handsome for a woman." I'm sorry but WHAT?!

Again, we have sex dolls today and they're becoming more and more lifelike, but while they're a long way from being remotely human in any way, this story takes place well into the future. And still: no sex toys? It doesn't work without some sort of explanation as to why there are none and so there have to be actual humans in servitude to men - and on a ship captained by a woman?! Naturally there has to be human interest, but the trick of writing a good human interest story is to set it in a realistic future and still make it work. This future felt artificial and sterile. Humans are still doing all the fighting in person? There are no robots? No drones? No AIs? It didn't work for me.

Why would these women voluntarily have their vocal chords disabled or removed or whatever it was they had done with no explanation as to why, and give up their voice? Isn't a voice part of a good sex life? Obviously these women were not allowed to just say no, so their voice would have been useless for that, but why were they denied any expression of pleasure, whether real or just faking it? Women are fighting right now to have a voice, and yet in the future it's gone? Why? How did it happen? In the portion I read, that question got a Trumpian response: no intelligent answer, just redirection and deflection. Why would adherents of a female-oriented religion, with a goddess at its head, put themselves in physical service to men? We get no answers - not in the 25% I read. I needed more than this novel was apparently willing to provide, and that's one of the reasons why I began writing myself, so maybe it's not a bad thing!

As the book description tells us, "First Sister has no name and no voice." Even without a physical voice, she could still have set herself apart and showed some backbone, but she did not. Perhaps she grows a spine later, but will she also grow integrity? She's lacking that, too. She was so pathetic to me in that first quarter of this novel that I couldn't bear to read any more about her. I've read too many real-life stories about people in her position who have shown their mettle. I'm not interested in a fictional one who doesn't appear to have any, let alone know where to find some and I'm not about to read three novels where one would do in the faint hope she'll get some in the end.

When I open a new novel I'm always hoping to be shown something new; something different; something I've longed for without, perhaps, even realizing it. I've read many novels like that. Sadly though, I've read many more that were not like that at all: ones that took the road most traveled instead of least. It's nice to be surprised, but that didn't happen in this case. While I wish the author all the best in their future endeavors, I can't in good faith commend this particular one as a worthy read based on what I experienced from it.

Ellie Jordan Ghost Trapper by JL Bryan

Rating: WORTHY!

This is an ebook I got as a loss leader for a series. I'm not into series - they tend to be derivative, repetitive, and boring, and the first volume is nothing but a prologue. I don't do prologues, but the premise for this particular volume sounded interesting and as a stand-alone story, it proved readable in the end.

Just as the title says, Ellie Jordan is a ghost trapper. This story takes place in a society where there's wide belief in ghosts and hauntings, and where evil and vengeful spirits exist, and her job is to catch them. Her job is made easier because of people's beliefs and that fact that even people she hasn't met have heard of her organization. The detection part of her work comes in finding out who the ghost is and what it's needs are so it can be lured into a containment vessel and removed.

Nowhere does the story go into anything about whether Ellie needs to be licensed by the City of Savannah, Georgia to do her job, or whatever, which seemed a bit strange given how her job seemed to be treated very much like any other service job! Pipes blocked? Call the plumber. Ghost infestation? Call Ellie Jordan!

It does go into how she became a ghost trapper though, and commendably not in a flashback, but in a decently-written trip down memory lane. She works for a guy who used to be a police detective. They met when her house burned down when she was in her teens, and have stayed in touch. When Ellie graduated college, she went to work for him, and he's been grooming her to take over the business.

She gets called to a house haunting that seems run of the mill, but once the ghost is removed, things get worse, not better! It seemed a bit obvious, but not too obvious, what was going on, so that wasn't a problem for me, and I liked Ellie's relationship with Stacey, the photographer who's new to the business and so serves as the reader's link to learning about Ellie's job.

There's also a new guy drafted in, and I wasn't sure what purpose he served. The story would have been fine even without him. The only function he actually appeared to fulfill was that of Stacey's future love interest, which is a good reason not to like series. There's no point in having him in this story and if all he does is set up a later romance, then I can do without that and so can the story.

There were one or two writing problems, but nothing big. At one point I read (of a door), "It was sunken at the back of a small brick porch under the shadows of a sharply peak roof." This to describe a door under a portico, which would have saved a lot of writing if the author had only looked it up. It's not hard to find this information these days. But given what he wrote, it should have been 'peaked roof'. At least he didn't write pique roof! LOL!

Another instance was where I read, "I nodded, eased the door closed, and slid the deadbolt back into place." Again, the wrong term was used. A deadbolt is a lock, not a bolt as such. Doors these days usually have the regular lock and a deadbolt right next to it (below or above) which is turned with a key from the outside, and a rotating latch on the inside. The bolt Ellie was referring to here was a regular slide bolt. The deadbolt is called that precisely because it cannot be slid across like a regular bolt.

Finally there was: ' "Thank you," I said, though I had no intent of drinking it' - which should have been 'no intention' not 'no intent' unless you put 'to' after it in place of 'of' and remove the 'ing' from 'drinking'. I guess that would have made it passable. There was one more thing that bothered me. It was when Ellie referred to someone's spouse: "The wife, a pretty woman named Elizabeth Sutton" I didn't get why her looks were relevant.

This was first person voice, and as such it was Ellie's opinion, not the author's/narrator's (if I might make such a dubious distinction!), so it's not entirely unreasonable, but it bothered me because first of all, her looks were irrelevant! It's not like Ellie was judging a beauty pageant!

Secondly it didn't seem like the kind of observation Ellie would make. She wasn't given to classifying women by their looks, whereas a male author tends to be, and far too many female authors too. I don't find this focus on women's looks to be useful or appropriate unless there's something specific about her looks that's relevant to the story. It serves only to demean female characters and by extension, women in general. It's one thing to have a character say it; it's entirely another to have the author say it, even when it's supposedly the first-person voice character's comment.

This is one reason why first person voice irks me, and although it was not so bad in this story, I'm about ready to quit reading such novels period. I've already ditched all of my print book first person novels unread, and I certainly refuse to buy any more such novels unless there's a really good reason to, but lord knows how many I have infesting my large collection of unread ebooks!

But I digress. Back to the topic of classifying women by their looks: we need to be better than this, and YA novels are particularly egregious on this score, even when written by female authors. There are other things an author could have written, had they honestly felt it to be necessary: 'an intelligent-looking woman' maybe? An intense looking woman? An energetic woman? A harried woman? An easy-going woman? A woman who looked tired? A woman with sharp features? A woman with soft features? But unless there's a solid narrative reason for categorizing her, why not just say, "His wife's name was Elizabeth, and she...'? If you're not going to describe her husband as a 'handsome fellow' or something like that, then why go out of the way over his wife? And why 'The wife'? Why not 'his spouse' or 'his partner'?

Other than these few negative criticisms, the novel wasn't bad at all. I do not feel any great urge to go read the next one, but I might read another at some point down the road. As it stands, I commend this as it is as a worthy read.

Fire in Frost by Alicia Rades

Rating: WARTY!

I gave up on this ebook right around the fifty percent mark. It had started out pretty decently and in spite the first person voice which I typically detest, I was getting along with it and growing interested in the main character, but the more she felt her psychic powers coming in, the more stupid she got it seemed, and if there's one thing I can't stand to read, it's a YA novel where the female author seems absolutely determined to make her main female character as dumb as a brick. I quit right after an incident I shall describe below. I can't commend this based on the half of it that I read.

The basis of the story is that young Crystal has a psychic mom, who of course in the tradition of YA novels like this, has never told her daughter a thing about her powers and her daughter wasn't smart enough to notice. Of course her daughter is the most powerful psychic in several generations, and when her period starts, she starts, first by seeing the ghost of a dead classmate, who died in a house fire the year before, and things escalate from there to the point where the daughter magically seems to be able to do anything.

I'm not a fan of the road most traveled, so I started losing faith in this author when this business of her powers arriving at puberty was introduced. I was even willing to let that slide if the story was good, but it got worse. She 'connected' with a crystal ball (her name's Crystal, get it?!) at her mother's new age shop. The ball wasn't even crystal, it was glass, and I began to wonder why the author hadn't simply named her character Crystal Ball. When she tried to use this glass orb, she had to light candles first. So there was nothing new or different here, the author taking the path of least resistance, otherwise known as Lazy Avenue South.

In the ball, Crystal saw a dark figure kidnap a young girl from her bed. Of course, it being the way of things having to be so vague as to be useless in these stories, there was zero information about who this was or when it had happened. Instead of being fascinated with her powers working so well, and trying to learn all she could about what was going on, Crystal freaked out and threw the ball on the floor, and it didn't break!

The very next morning, she's toasting a bagel and turns on the TV supposedly for the weather (apparently Crystal doesn't have a cell phone - maybe she uses a crystal radio...), she catches an item on the news about a young girl being abducted from her home and is too stupid to put two and two together. She just blindly turns off the TV and leaves for school.

Crystal has a best friend named Emma and despite this purported BF status, they neither of them seem to tell the other a damned thing, which serves only to betray the author's claim of their supposed closeness. I was willing to let that go until it got really bad. Here's one incident, as an exemplar of how bad it was. Crystal is in the restroom with Emma, who doesn't know she's psychic since her powers have only just come in.

Crystal is obsessed with people accusing her of being a witch if this gets out and her being shunned at school which is why she's told no-one. Why in this day and age would anyone accuse a psychic of being a witch? Far too many idiots actually believe in psychics - they pay good money to have their fortune told and so on. Why would there be a witch hunt? None of this made any sense to me, especially in light of the fact that the very reason her mother had settled there to begin with was the prevalence of people who live there and who have psychic abilities.

Anyway, Crystal finally decides to come clean with Emma, so they go into the bathroom and check the stalls, which are empty, and Crystal reveals her secret. Then Emma leaves and Crystal uses the stall. Finally she comes out and starts washing her hands, and another stall opens and this other girl is there who has apparently been there all the time and heard everything!

Excuse me? Didn't the author just say they checked the stalls to insure privacy? So how did they miss her? Does she have the power to make herself invisible? Frankly, I think the author just lost track of what she'd written, or simply didn't think it through properly.

I mean if all they'd done was to glance idly under the doors and left it at that, and the character who eavesdropped had been established as someone who sneaks into bathrooms to spy on people, then yes, maybe, but the author established none of that. She didn't say they looked under doors, she wrote that they checked each stall! This was really bad writing. The author isn't a bad writer per se, but some of her plotting was awful, and to use the old 'I heard it through the bathroom vine' trope is sadly unoriginal and lacking in imagination.

This other girl hiding in the stall threatens Crystal that if she doesn't help her, she'll tell everyone about her psychic powers, and expose her, and Crystal immediately caves-in, fearing being branded a witch! LOL! In reality she could just have claimed that everything this girl is saying is bullshit and got Emma to back her up. It turns out his other girl thinks her best friend Kelli is being abused by her boyfriend Nate, and she wants Crystal's help to prove it. If that's the case, then why not just say that to Crystal right from the start and ask her for help instead of threatening her? Again it made no sense! There was no feeling of female camaraderie here at all.

Crystal seems really reticent about telling Emma anything, and vice versa. This made no sense given they're supposedly best friends, but Crystal outright lies to Emma about why she has to sneak off after school. She has to sneak off to meet this girl who apparently couldn't tell her a thing about what she wanted in an empty bathroom, and insisted they meet later! This made zero sense either. Even when Crystal knows this is a good and useful thing to help with, she still lies to Emma about it. Why? It made zero sense.

Having seen Crystal talking to his girlfriend, this guy Nate threatens Crystal, pinning her against the locker and holding her by her throat, and all Crystal does is cower down wondering how she will ever get proof that he's abusing his girlfriend, instead of thinking, "He just abused me! I'm going to report him to the principal!" And why would Nate even care about one single short exchange he'd witnessed from a distance, between Crystal and his girlfriend? Not one thing in this whole series of events made any sense at all. It was really poorly plotted.

So characters who'd started out quite engagingly, were suddenly stupid and cardboard-thin and it really made the story go downhill. It's not that the whole novel is badly-written; some of it is quite well put-together, but it just didn't feel realistic any more when all this stuff began to go down. It felt like poor-quality fanfic. It was poorly designed, and completely unacceptable as a viable story. I can't commend it.

Bellamy and the Brute by Alicia Michaels

Rating: WARTY!

This is - quite obviously from the title, a take on the Beauty and the Beast fairytale, and it's not my usual fare, but since I'm working - on and off, and nroe off than on lately! - on my own redux of a fairytale, sometimes I take stock of what other authors are doing. I don't consider them my competition because I don't write quite like other authors, but it never hurts to look up from that keyboard once in a while and see what's going on around you. This to explain why I embarked on this, a first person voice YA novel which I normally flee from. While it wasn't completely awful, it had multiple, predictable issues, and I certainly wasn't much impressed considering this was supposed to be professionally published.

The novel is larded with YA trope and additionally, there are some curious writing peccadillos in it. Aside from the ritualistic first person PoV which I typically detest because it's tired, annoying, and derivative, but which fortunately wasn't overly nauseating in this particular story, there's the trope of the jerk of a school jock who's after this girl Bellamy. She of course has no interest in this brute because she's saving herself for a different brute!

Also, there's the predictable alienation and school bullying which is the hallmark of ninety percent of YA high-school stories. People make fun of this girl because her dad thinks he can see ghosts. How everyone else knows about this was not explained at least up to the point where I quit reading which was a little under halfway through. I'd thought about quitting before then, more than once, but I kept on going. Foolishly, it's now clear.

There is of course the single-parent family trope, but I can't really call it on that because that's part of the original story. One thing I didn't get was the choice of the name Bellamy for the main character. It know a lot of parents think it's cool to use some family's last name as their daughter's first name (Mackenzie, Madison, Reilly, etc), but while Bellamy (bel ami) is of French origin (it means good friend or nice friend), it has no direct correlation to the name Beauty; however, I was willing to let that go.

Another strange occurrence was when Bellamy visited her mother's grave late at night for no apparent reason (except of course for her to encounter a shadowy hooded figure this one night - and we all know who that is - Tate the stalker!). But in the real world, why not stop by the cemetery right after school? There's no reason to go late at night. The thing is though that the text said "I located her headstone with very little effort," and I had to wonder why was it any effort at all to find her mother's headstone if she'd been in the habit of doing this for two years? It made no sense.

Sometimes, the text itself would make no sense, as when I read, "I had my dad, which was more than most people could claim to have." What the hell does that mean? That most people have no father? Their father is dead or a deadbeat dad? That they can't connect with their father? This is patent nonsense! I have no idea what she meant by that, but clearly, whatever it was she was trying to say, it's ridiculous.

There was another part which was equally meaningless. I read the following:

"I never see her," he murmured just before I could leave.
I paused, my hand on the doorknob. "Never see who?"

This would have been perfectly fine except that it appeared very shortly after several maudlin paragraphs about it being 2 years to the day since her mom's death, so how could she not get what her father was referring to? This kind of writing makes your main character look stupid. As if that wasn't odd enough, her dad's habit of continuing to call his 17-year-old daughter 'munchkin' was truly an irritation.

It wasn't as much an irritation though as the author's fetish with starting every other sentence with a present participle, making her sound like a tiresomely passive person. Okay, so it wasn't literally every other paragraph, but even I was surprised by how common it was when it reached a point where it had become not just noticeable, but actually irritating, and I went back and checked to see if it was occurring as often as it felt like it was. I found in the first few screens the following:

• "Making my way to the front room, I..."
• "Noticing a stack of boxes near the door, I..."
• "Pointing to the paper laid on the counter, he..."
• "Standing on tiptoe, I..."
• "Pushing those depressing thoughts aside, I..."
  "Flipping it to the employment section, I..."
  "Spotting an ad requesting a summertime babysitter for two young kids, I..."
  (these were all on the same screen in three successive paragraphs)
• "Hanging up the phone, I..."
• "Edging slowly down the hall, I..."
• "Retreating to the kitchen, I.."
• "Pausing with the fork halfway to his mouth, he..."
• "Frowning, I..."
• "Hesitating for a moment, I..."
• "Raising his eyebrows, he..."

Seriously? This screams lazy author and even worse, bad editor.

I pressed on and followed the story to the point where Bellamy and Tate (the 'brute' of the title) were about to start on investigating why two ghosts haunted the Baldwin mansion where Tate lived and Bellamy was babysitting his two younger siblings for the summer. Why Tate himself, who is permanently housebound (living in the Tate Gallery! LOL!), cannot do this is left unexplained.

These ghosts were terrifying, and Bellamy first encountered Tate fleeing from them after she'd predictably gone to the forbidden third floor. I guess it's supposed to be obvious that the brutishness of Tate is a curse for the evil his family has perpetrated (and some that he himself did), but the novel makes the serious mistake of letting slide Tate's real brutishness, Tate which is that he is a manic and cruel.

He mistreats Bellamy repeatedly and she always finds an excuse for his unacceptable behavior. Just when it seems like he might be about to reform, he gets into an unnecessary fight with this tediously trope school bully who's been trying to get into Bellamy's pants for a while. She's had no problem fending him off, but Tate treats Bellamy like she's a helpless a child who can't protect herself and needs managing! He takes over control of her life at that point by going after this bully. He gets into a physical fight with him and beats him savagely, and Bellamy sees no problem with his behavior. The beaten bully leaves with the clichéd threat, "This isn't over!"

It was for me. I could not stand to read any more about this from that point and had lost all interest in learning what the deal was with these two ghosts. The ridiculous thing about that was that right when Bellamy and Tate finally decide to confront the ghosts and discover what it is that causing them to haunt the Baldwin mansion, neither Tate or Bellamy ever thinks to ask who the ghosts are or what happened to them. This proves both of these guys are morons.

This trope of the ghosts showing up and only bit by bit revealing their story is so tired, and so clichéd. The ghosts appear unable to speak, but they can write. They evidently cannot manipulate air to voice words, but they can manipulate physical objects and wreck Tate's room one evening like a pair of deranged poltergeists. It was pathetic and illogical.

So I'm done with this story and with this author. I can't commend it. It was indeed brutish and awful in the end and kept getting worse the more I read of it.

Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher

Rating: WORTHY!

Here come six reviews of an entire series one after another!

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I really can’t get into fantasy stories with witches and wizards, and fairies and dragons, elves and dwarves, etc. That is to say, it has to be something particularly special and appealing before I’ll get into it, because most of that stuff turns me right off. So it was curious then that I got into Jim Butcher's series, and entirely uncurious that I don’t read his wizard series. What the difference is between the two in terms of why the one attracts me and the other repels, I can’t say! It pretty much boils down to: I may not know much about fantasy but I knows what I likes! I don't much like series, but this one was exceptional in more than one way.

I got reading this when a friend of my wife loaned her the first book in the series, and she asked me if I was interested. Of course, I leaped at the chance, but then I found out she was talking about reading the book, so I was a bit less enthused, but I was not so turned-off by the lesser offer that I couldn’t get into it, which was a bit of a surprise. The story was written well, which is always a big plus with me. Butcher is very skilled at what he does.

The problem with this series is that it wasn't finished when I began it, so once I caught up to what was last written, I had to wait for the next installment, which was, I think, the 5th book. Waiting is never a good thing with me! I lost my steam and got into reading other things and it wasn't until after the whole series had been published that my interest in it resurfaced. At that point we bought the entire series in hardback and once that had been procured, I embarked upon a mega-read of the entire thing.

It was at that point that I became addicted and pretty much turned into a Codex Alera evangelist! I don’t know what it was that brought this on, but it just caught me and that's when I fell deeply in love with Kitai (don’t worry, my wife never reads any of my stuff, so my marriage is safe!).

I can go back in there even now and re-read the Kitai scenes and love them just as much as I did originally - and probably more. That time in vol 1 when they first encounter each other and go through their challenge is outstanding to me, and I wrestle with this, but I think it’s only exceeded by the next time they encounter each other in vol 2 after a separation of a couple of years. That encounter in vol 2 is classic literature as far as I'm concerned. I want to hug Butcher and clap him on the back and shake his hand for writing that scene.

Anyway, enough of this sappy crap, let’s look at the individual volumes, but a few words of explanation for the series is in order before we do that. The story is that Butcher wrote this series when challenged by someone in his writing group to create a good story based on a really crappy premise. Butcher, so the tale goes, said he could meet such a challenge based on two crappy premises, and the premises with which he was inflicted were: Pokémon and the legend of the Roman Lost Legion!

He decided to set his story on another planet where some power of which we learn nothing allows for, or forces, races from different planets to arrive on the same planet. The Pokémon element is, of course, the furies (more on this anon). The Lost Legion is the Alerans, a human race with strong Roman legion influences.

The planet on which Alera resides is also occupied, as we learn through the volumes, by a race of ice giants in the north, the Marat, a completely different species of humanoid life, in the south, and across the ocean two more races: the Canim - a race of sentient and aggressive wolf people, and the Vord, an aggressive, insectile and sentient race which is, as the name might suggest, like Star Trek's Borg: compelled towards assimilation and domination.

And so to vol 1. I saw at one point that Amazon was asking $400 for this book in hardback! Woah! Who says organic books are on their way out?! but Amazon consists of a bunch of USDA Grade A assholes, so enough said about that.

Vol 1 introduces us to the main characters of course, and there's a lot of chopping back and forth as we meet them all and start to learn who they are and why, and what they're up to. Normally I don’t like this approach and have been known to get confused by so many introductions so quickly (who me?!), but Butcher again excels at this and clearly sets out who's who and what's going on without writing reams of tedious or confusing exposition. I don’t know where he learned to write but I want to take that course!

The main character (ostensibly, because I'll have to disagree in a minute or two) is 14-year-old Tavi, which as usual I mispronounced. I started thinking it was Tah-vee, but evidently, as becomes clear over the course of the entire series, it’s really Tay-vee, because (and we don’t learn this until much later), it's short for Octavian. In a world where the citizens all have at least one 'fury', Tavi has none.

A fury is a connection with a natural power or spirit, which can manifest itself as a ghostly animal (hence the Pokémon element!). This connection allows those who have it to manipulate the 'elements'. Normally this is where I would check-out, because these elements are, as usual in this kind of story, earth, wind, and fire, along with water, metal, wood, and air. I stayed with this because Butcher again has a way of describing these powers and showing their use without it looking like some juvenile magic. On day, when out with his uncle Bernard, a tough giant of a man, Tavi encounters a Marat warrior and his uncle is injured. The latter arranges for himself to be carried back home to "Bernardholt" - a kind of homestead - using his earth fury.

Tavi is to follow, but of course, Tavi goes astray and encounters a cursor - an official messenger of the First Lord (effectively, the king) of Alera, Gaius Sixtus - right when a deadly wind storm, powered by wind furies, comes hurtling down off the mountains. He saves Amana's (the cursor's) life by hiding with her in the memorial to the dead son of Gaius Sixtus: the Princeps Septimus. Those who are a lot sharper than I was may see where this is going at this point!).

Eventually, Tavi gets the injured cursor home to Bernardholt where his aunt Isana, Bernard's sister, who has a water fury and is therefore a healer, fixes her up, and eventually she and Bernard (whom Isana also fixed up) fall in love. Meanwhile out and about on another occasion with an apparently simple-minded servant who has a story all of his own, Tavi and the servant are captured by the Marat, deadly foes of the Alerans, a people who should not be in the Calderon Valley. The warrior who captures him is of a different tribe from the one he initially saw with his uncle, and Tavi is not killed, but held prisoner.

This is where Tavi encounters the real protagonist of this series for the first time. Her name is Kitai. This is another thing for which I hate Jim Butcher immensely because the name is kick-ass! I wish I’d thought of it first. Kitai appears to be male and is very hostile to Tavi. So, of course, the two of them are sent upon a trial, the winner to decide both Tavi's fate and the question of whether this Marat tribe will side with the Alerans or with another and hostile Marat tribe which wishes to eject the Alerans from the valley.

The trial involves them stealing a species of mushroom which has healing properties, but which is in a deep crater harboring a Vord infestation. In the course of this theft, Tavi discovers, as Kitai raises her smock to keep it out of some water, that she's a girl. She denies this! She's a whelp, she insists, and it isn't until she comes of age and is assigned to a tribe that she will become a girl. She desperately wants the horse tribe, whereby she will bond with her horse and take on some of its qualities and it some of hers, resulting in a lifelong pairing as a warrior team.

Kitai is seriously injured by the Vord during the theft, and she urges Tavi to leave her, telling him hoarsely (which is funny because she wanted the horse tribe!) that his plan was a good one, and he must apologize to her father, on her behalf, for her failure. Tavi refuses to abandon her. He realizes that one of the two mushrooms he has stolen will heal her, and he pours some of its juice onto her wound, and makes her drink some too, and as he does so, suddenly, there is a frozen moment where they become completely and intimately aware of each other, and Kitai's eyes, which had been of mixed coloration, suddenly resolve to match Tavi's green eyes. Kitai has bonded with Tavi. Never has this happened before! I'm sorry, but I have to quote this!

Tavi dropped the knife, slid down the rope, and ran to Kitai He seized her and began dragging her back toward the ropes, grunting with effort but moving quickly, jerking her over the ground.

"Aleran," she whispered, opening her eyes Her expression was pained, weary.

"Aleran. Too late. Venom. My father. Tell him I was sorry."

Tavi stared down at her "No," he whispered. "Kitai, no We're almost out."

"It was a good plan," she said.

Her head lolled to one side, eyes rolling back.

"No," Tavi hissed, suddenly furious "No, crows take you! You can't!" He reached into his pouch, fumbling through it as tears started to blur his vision There must be something She couldn't just die She couldn't They were so close.

Something stuck sharply into his finger, and pain flashed through him again. The crows-eaten mushroom had jabbed him with its spines. The Blessing of Night.

Fever. Poison. Injury. Pain. Even age. It has power over them all. To our people, there is nothing of greater value.

Weeping, Tavi seized the mushroom and started tearing off the spines with his fingers, heedless of the pain. Shrieks rose all around him, came closer, though the still-blazing branch seemed to have confused some of the Keepers, to have temporarily slowed their advance.

Tavi reached down and slipped an arm beneath Kitai's head, half-hauling her up. He reached down to the wound over her thigh and crushed the mushroom in his hand.

Musty-scented, clear fluid leaked out from between his fingers and dribbled over the wound, mixing with blood and yellowish venom. Kitai's leg twitched as the fluid touched it, and the girl drew in a sudden breath.

Tavi lifted the rest of the mushroom to her lips and pressed it into her mouth. "Eat it," he urged her. "Eat it, you have to eat it.".

Kitai's mouth twitched once, and then began to chew, automatically. She swallowed the mushroom and blinked her eyes slowly open, focusing them on Tavi.

Time stopped.

Tavi found himself staring down at the girl, suddenly aware of her, entirely aware of her in a way he never had been aware of anyone before. He could feel the texture of her skin beneath his hand and felt the abrupt compulsion to lay his fingers over her chest, to feel the beat of her heart beneath it, slowly gaining in strength. He could feel the surge of blood in her veins, the fear and regret and confusion that filled her thoughts. Those cleared as her eyes focused on him, widened, and Tavi realized that she had felt his own presence in the same way.

Not moving her eyes from his, Kitai reached out a hand and touched his chest in response, fingers pressed close to feel the beating of his heart.

It took Tavi a frozen, endless moment to separate the beating of his own heart, the rush of blood in his own ears, from hers. They beat together, perfectly in time. Even as he realized it, his own heartbeat began to speed, and so did hers, bringing a flush of heat to his face, one answered in her own expression. He stared at the wonder in her eyes and saw that it could only be a reflection of that in his own.

The scent of her, fresh and wild, curled up around him, through him like something alive. The shape of her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth. In that single moment, he saw in her the promise of the beauty that would come in time, the strength that had still to grow, the courage and reckless resourcefulness that matched his own and flamed wild and true in her.

The intensity of it made his eyes blur, and he blinked them, tried to clear the tears from them, only to realize that Kitai was blinking as well, her eyes filling with tears, going liquid and blurry.

When Tavi had blinked the tears away, his eyes returned to hers-only to find not opalescent swirls of subtle, shifting color, but wide pools of deep, emerald green.

Eyes as green as his own.

"Oh no" Kitai whispered, her voice stunned, weak. "Oh no" She opened her mouth, started to sit up-then shuddered once and slumped in his arms, abruptly overwhelmed with exhaustion.

The frozen moment ended.

Tavi lifted his dazed head to see the first of the Keepers edging past the blazing blanket and branch. Tavi hauled himself to his feet, lifting Kitai, and stumbled toward the ropes. He stepped into the loop at the base of one, then reached over to the other, and wrapped it around his waist, around her legs, tying her to him. Even before he was finished, Doroga had started hauling the rope up the face of the cliff. The other rope came in as well, where Hashat must have been pulling it along to keep it tight.

Tavi held on to the rope, and to Kitai, not really sure which one he held tighter. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed, and did not open them again until he and Kitai sat at the top of the cliff, in the cold, fresh, clean snow. When he opened his eyes again, he sat with his back against a stone and idly noted the fresh earth beside him, where Doroga had uprooted the boulder and hurled it down.

A moment later, he realized that Kitai lay against his side, beneath one of his arms, warm and limp, half-conscious. He tightened his arm on her, gently, confused-but certain that he wanted her to sleep, to rest, and to be right where she was.

(Furies of the Calderon by Jim Butcher pp 306 - 308)

When they finally get out of the crater, Kitai's aunt, of the horse tribe, demands of Kitai's father, Doroga, that he do something about this, but he is adamant that the bond has been made and cannot be changed. Moreover, he's beholden to Tavi for saving his daughter's life. While Kitai realizes what this means, Tavi is clueless (as we discover he often is during this series). He thinks no more of it.

Unfortunately, Kitai doesn’t appear any further in vol 1, which means that the story goes downhill somewhat from there! But Butcher is just teasing us for her triumphant return in vol 2.

The rest of the story consists of assorted subterfuges and misleading plays by a guy called Fidelias, who used to be a trusted cursor, but who is now a rebel against the First Lord. The climax of vol 1 is an assault by Atsurak, a bloodthirsty leader of a Marat tribe, upon a fortification which is supposed to be protecting the Calderon Valley. Lead by Bernard and Amara, and with the aid of Dorog, Kitai's father, who is even more massively built than Bernard, the garrison successfully holds off the attack.

In gratitude, the First Lord declares Bernard and his new love Amara to be the new Count and Countess of the garrison, and Isana is granted the right of steadholder in Bernard's place - the first woman in Aleran history ever to be a steadholder and gain her citizenship of Alera in her own right. Tavi is granted a scholarship to the academy, despite his having no fury powers.

And therein lies vol 2!

Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher

Rating: WORTHY!

The next episode in Jim Butcher's Adventures of Kitai in Alera takes place two years after the events of Furies of the Calderon. This is solely to give Tavi time to grow up somewhat so he's at least a bit more on par with Kitai although of course, he never actually succeeds in becoming her equal or in holding his own against her formidable feminine force.

The book begins with a prolog, which frankly annoys me, and I tend to ignore such things: introductions, prologs, etc? Bleccch! (Yes with 3 c's). If it’s important enough to read, make it chapter 1 for goodness sakes! What’s with the prolog crap? Seriously. Call it chapter 0 if you have to, just get it done. Besides, wasn't volume one the prolog to volume 2?!

Having said that, this prolog was one of the very few I've ever found to be worth reading, and even then only the part where it details the interaction and amusing discussion between Kitai and her father, Doroga, chief of one of the Marat tribes, and rider of some sort of giant ground sloth. In fact, I'm going to unapologetically quote that section right here because I laughed out loud when I first read it, and it still tickles me immensely. Kitai is so unapologetically feisty!

She and her father have come, at Kitai's urging, to visit what the Alerans call the wax valley - the site of a Vord infestation, not to be confused with the Calderon Valley. The Vord had occupied this small valley and coated it in their 'croach' - a living substance which breaks down organic material and converts it into food the Vord can use.

It was in this valley, treading carefully over the croach so as not to break it and awaken the Vord, that Kitai and Tavi came in vol 1 to get the mushrooms, and where, at the end of their trial, they became bonded inextricably. Since that time, neither one of them has seen or been in contact with the other. Tavi is clueless about what their bonding means, but Kitai is not, and she resents it immensely, feeling robbed unjustly of her heart's desire to join the horse tribe of the Marat.

As her father overlooks the valley, he sees what Kitai has already discovered: the Vord have gone, and the valley is now dead:

Kitai began to feel cold for the first time since spring. She turned to squint behind her, shielding her eyes from the sleet with one hand. She wore a brief cloth about her hips, a belt to hold her knife and hunting pouch, and nothing else. Wind threw her thick white hair around her face, its color blending with the driving snow.

"Hurry up!" she called.

There was a deep-chested snort, and a massive form paced into sight. Walker the gargant was an enormous beast, even of its kind, and its shoulders stood nearly the height of two men above the earth. His shaggy winter coat had already come in thick and black, and he paid no notice to the snow. His claws, each larger than an Aleran saber, dug into the frozen earth without difficulty or hurry.

Kitai’s father, Doroga, sat upon the gargant’s back, swaying casually upon the woven saddle cloth. He was dressed in a loincloth and a faded red Aleran tunic. Doroga’s chest, arms and shoulders were so laden with muscle that he had been obliged to tear the sleeves from the red tunic-but as it had been a gift and discarding it would be impolite, he had braided a rope from the sleeves and bound it across his forehead, tying back his own pale hair. "We must hurry, since the valley is running from us. I see. Maybe we should have stayed downwind."

"You are not as amusing as you think you are," Kitai said, glowering at her father’s teasing. Doroga smiled, the expression emphasizing the lines in his broad, square features. He took hold of Walker’s saddle rope and swung down to the ground with a grace that belied his sheer size. He slapped his hand against the gargant’s front leg, and Walker settled down amicably, placidly chewing cud.

Kitai turned and walked forward, into the wind, and though he made no sound, she knew her father followed close behind her.

A few moments later, they reached the edge of a cliff that dropped abruptly into open space. The snow prevented her from seeing the whole of the valley below, but for the lulls between gusts, when she could see all the way to the bottom of the cliff below them.
"Look," she said.

Doroga stepped up beside her, absently slipping one vast arm around her shoulders. Kitai would never have let her father see her shiver, not at a mere autumn sleet, but she leaned against him, silently grateful for his warmth. She watched as her father peered down, waiting for a lull in the wind to let him see the place the Alerans called the Wax Forest.

Kitai closed her eyes, remembering the place. The dead trees had coated in the croach, a thick, gelatinous substance layered over and over itself so that it looked like the One had coated it all in the wax of many candles. The croach had covered everything in the valley, including the ground and a sizeable portion of the valley walls. Here and there, birds and animals had been sealed into the croach, where, still alive, they lay unmoving until they softened and dissolved like meat boiled over a low fire. Pale things the size of wild dogs, translucent, spider like creatures with many legs once laid quietly in the croach, nearly invisible, while others prowled the forest floor, silent and swift and alien.

Kitai shivered at the memory, then forced herself to stillness again, biting her lip. She glanced up at her father, but he pretended not to have noticed, staring down.
The valley below had never in her people’s memory taken on snow. The entire place had been warm to the touch, even in winter, as though the croach itself was some kind of massive beast, the heat of its body filling the air around it.

Now the Wax Forest stood covered in ice and rot. The old, dead trees were coated in something that looked like brown and sickly tar. The ground lay frozen, though here and there, other patches of rotten croach could be seen. Several of the trees had fallen. And in the center of the Forest, the hollow mound lay collapsed and dissolved into corruption, the stench strong enough to carry even to Kitai and her father.

Doroga was still for a moment before he said, "We should go down. Find out what happened."

"I have," Kitai said.

Her father frowned. "That was foolish to do alone."

"Of the three of us here, which has gone down and come back alive again the most often?"

Doroga grunted out a laugh, glancing down at her with warmth and affection in his dark eyes. "Maybe you are not mistaken." The smile faded, and the wind and sleet hid the valley again. "What did you find?"

"Dead keepers," she replied. "Dead croach. Not warm. Not moving. The keepers were empty husks. The croach breaks into ash at a touch." She licked her lips. "And something else."

"What?"

"Tracks," she said in a quiet voice. "Leading away from the far side. Leading west."
Doroga grunted. "What tracks?"

Kitai shook her head. "They were not fresh. Perhaps Marat or Aleran. I found more dead keepers along the way. As if they were marching and dying one by one."

"The creature," Doroga rumbled. "Moving toward the Alerans."

Kitai nodded, her expression troubled.

Doroga looked at her and said, "What else?"

"His satchel. The pack the valleyboy lost in the Wax Forest during our race. I found it on the trail beside the last of the dead spiders, his scent still on it. Rain came. I lost the trail."

Doroga’s expression darkened. "We will tell the master of the Calderon Valley. It may be nothing."

"Or it may not. I will go," Kitai said.

"No," Doroga said.

"But father-"

"No," he repeated, his voice harder.

"What if it is looking for him?"

Her father remained quiet for a time, before he said, "Your Aleran is clever. Swift. He is able to take care of himself."

Kitai scowled. "He is small. And foolish. And irritating."

"Brave. Selfless."

"Weak. And without even the sorcery of his people."

"He saved your life," Doroga said.

Kitai felt her scowl deepen. "Yes. He is irritating."

Doroga smiled. "Even lions begin life as cubs."

"I could break him in half," Kitai growled.

"For now, perhaps."

"I despise him."

"For now, perhaps."

"He had no right."

Doroga shook his head. "He had no more say in it than you."

Kitai folded her arms and said, "I hate him."

"So you want someone to warn him. I see."

Kitai flushed, heat touching her cheeks and throat.

Her father pretended not to notice. "What is done is done," he rumbled. He turned to her and cupped her cheek in one vast hand. He tilted his head for a moment, studying her. "I like his eyes on you. Like emerald. Like new grass."

Kitai felt her eyes begin to tear. She closed them and kissed her father’s hand. "I wanted a horse."

Doroga let out a rumbling laugh. "Your mother wanted a lion. She got a fox. She did not regret it."

"I want it to go away."

Doroga lowered his hand. He turned back toward Walker, keeping his arm around Kitai. "It won’t. You should Watch."

"I do not wish to."

"It is the way of our people," Doroga said.

"I do not wish to."

"Stubborn whelp. You will remain here until some sense soaks into your skull."

"I am not a whelp, father."

"You act like one. You will remain with the Sabot-ha." They reached Walker, and he tossed her halfway up the saddle rope without effort.

Kitai clambered up to Walker’s broad back. "But father-"

"No, Kitai." He climbed up behind her, and clucked to Walker. The gargant placidly rose and began back the way they had come. "You are forbidden to go. It is done."

Kitai rode silently behind her father, but sat looking back to the west, her troubled face to the wind. (Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher pp 1 - 5)

Of course she ends up going. But more about that anon, with another quote! I love the moody way she behaves here, but I have to admit this piece isn’t exactly clear about what’s going on. I think Doroga means for her to watch Tavi, but not go to talk to the master of the Calderon Valley, who happens to be Tavi's uncle, the Count Bernard. Doroga has met Bernard, fought at his side, and become friends with him. Kitai has never met him, so Doroga visits Bernard.

We find Tavi in Alera's capital Alera Imperia, home of the First Lord. He's attending the academy. He still has no furies, but he has friends, and he has a job as a page to the First Lord. He also has a school bully who is only important here in that he allows us to learn of Lord Kalare, one of those who have their eyes focused jealously upon the First Lord's position.

The capital is vastly different from the rustic background from which Tavi hails. It’s all ruthless politics, and since the First Lord is both gaining in years and heirless, his son having been killed in a battle against the Marat many many years before, there is much jockeying for position amongst the lesser lords to see who will take his place when Gaius Sixtus dies.

Tavi is in training to be a cursor - an official messenger of the First Lord and part time spy. His best friend is Max, a black sheep, and disowned son of one of the Lords of Alera. Max can impersonate the first Lord, but he is very much a ladies man and when he gets himself into trouble and tossed into jail, and the First Lord becomes incapacitated, Tavi comes up with the improbable idea of having Max impersonate Gaius in order to keep the kingdom stable until the First Lord can recover.

To achieve this end, Tavi has to break Max out of jail, which is pretty much impossible since this is fortified military tower, not some little down-town lock-up. Tavi can think of only one person who could help him. There is a thief at large in Alera Imperia known as The Black Cat, who seems to be able to come and go as he pleases, lifting whatever goods he wants, by-passing all the fury-crafted alarms and barriers, and never getting caught. Tavi has been assigned to try and figure out who this thief is, but he has not yet succeeded. Now he decides to recruit him, to gain his aid in breaking Max out of jail. Here’s how he captures The Black Cat, and I have to say that I think this is my all time favorite portion of any novel:

A sudden quivering excitement filled him for no reason whatsoever, and Tavi abruptly felt certain that his instincts had not led him astray. He found a pocket of deep shadows behind a chimney and slipped into it, crouching into cautious immobility.

He didn't have long to wait. There was a flicker of motion on the far side of Crafter Lane, and Tavi saw a cloaked and hooded figure gliding over the rooftops just as lightly and quietly as he. He felt his lips tighten into a grin. He recognized the grey cloak, the flowing motion. Once again, he had found the Black Cat.

The figure eased up to the edge of the roof to stare down at the vocalists, then dropped into a relaxed crouch, hands reaching down to rest his fingers lightly on the rooftop. Beneath the cloak's hood, the Cat's head tilted to one side, and he went completely still, evidently fascinated by the singers. Tavi watched the Cat in turn, an odd and nagging sense of recognition stirring briefly. Then the Cat rose and ghosted down to the next rooftop, his covered face turned toward the bakery, with its tables piled high with fresh, steaming sweetbread while a red-cheeked matron did a brisk business selling the loaves. A quality of tension, of hunger, entered the Cat's movements, and he vanished over the far side of the building upon which he stood.

Tavi waited until the Cat was out of sight, then rose and leapt to the roof of the bakery. He found another dark spot to conceal his presence just as the dark-cloaked Cat emerged from between the two buildings across the street and walked calmly through the crowded street, feet shuffling in a rhythmic step or two as he passed the vocal ensemble. The Cat slowed his steps by a fraction and passed the table just as the matron behind the table turned to deposit small silver coins into a strongbox. The Cat's cloak twitched as he passed the table, and if Tavi hadn't been watching carefully he would never have seen the loaf vanish under the thief's cloak.
The Cat never missed a step, sliding into the space between the bakery and the cobbler's shop beside it and walking quietly and quickly down the alleyway.

Tavi rose and padded silently along the rooftop, reaching to his belt for the heavy coil of tough, flexible cord looped through it. He dropped the open loop at the end of the lariat clear of his fingertips, and opened the loop wider with the practiced, expert motions his hands had learned through years of dealing with the large, stubborn, aggressive rams of his uncle's mountain sheep. It was a long throw and from a difficult angle, but he crouched by the edge of the roof and flicked the lariat in a circle before sending it sharply down.

The loop in the lariat settled around The Cat's hooded head. The thief darted to one side, and managed to get two fingers under the loop before Tavi could snap the line tight. Tavi planted his feet and hauled hard on the line.

The line hauled The Cat from his feet and sent him stumbling to one side.

Tavi whipped the cord twice around the bricks of the bakery's chimney, slapped it through a herder's loop in a familiar blur of motion, then slid down the roof to drop to the alley, landing in a crouch that bounced into a leap that carried him into the Black Cat's back. He hit hard, driving the Cat into the wall with a breath-stealing slam.

The Cat's foot smashed down hard on his toes, and if he hadn't been wearing heavy leather boots, it might have broken them. Tavi snarled, "Hold still," and hauled at the rope, trying to keep his opponent from finding his balance. There was a rasping sound and a knife whipped at the hand Tavi had on the rope. He jerked his fingers clear, and the knife bit hard into the tightened lariat. The cord was too tough to part at a single blow, but the Cat reached up with his free hand to steady the rope and finish the cut.

The lariat parted. Tavi slammed the Cat against the wall again, seized the wrist of the thief's knife hand and banged it hard against the bakery's stone wall. The knife tumbled free. Tavi drove the heel of his hand into the base of the Cat's neck, through the heavy cloak, a stunning blow. The Cat staggered. Tavi whirled and threw the thief facedown to the ground, landing on his back and twisting one slender arm up far behind him, holding the Cat in place.
"Hold still," Tavi snarled. "I'm not with the civic legion. I just want to talk to you."

The Black Cat abruptly stopped struggling, and something about the quality of that stillness made him think it was due to startled surprise. The Black Cat eased away the tension in the muscles that quivered against Tavi, and they softened abruptly.

Tavi blinked down at his captive and then tore the hood back from the Black Cat's head.

A mane of fine, silvery white curls fell free of the cloak, framing the pale, smooth curve of a young woman's cheek and full, wine-dark lips. Her eyes, slightly canted at their corners, were a brilliant shade of green identical to Tavi's own, and her expression was one of utter surprise. "Aleran?" she panted.

"Kitai," Tavi breathed. "You're the Black Cat?"

She turned her head as much as she could to look up at him, her wide eyes visible even in the dimness of the alley. Tavi stared down at her for a long moment, his stomach muscles suddenly fluttering with excited energy. He became acutely conscious of the lean, strong limbs of the young Marat woman beneath him, the too-warm fever heat of her skin, and the way that her own breathing had not slowed, though she had ceased to struggle against him. He slowly released her wrist, and she just as slowly withdrew her arm from between their bodies.

Tavi shivered and leaned a little closer, drawing in a breath through his nose. Strands of fine hair tickled his lips. Kitai smelled of many scents, faint perfumes likely stolen from expensive boutiques, the fresh warmth of still-warm sweetbread and, beneath that, of heather and clean winter wind. Even as he moved, she turned her head toward him as well, her temple brushing his chin, her breath warm on his throat. Her eyes slid almost closed.

"Well," she murmured after another moment. "You have me, Aleran. Either do something with me or let me up."

Tavi felt his face flare into a fiery blush, and he hurriedly pushed his arms down and lifted his weight from Kitai. The Marat girl looked up at him without moving for a moment, her mouth curled into a little smirk, before she rose with a thoughtless, feline grace to her own feet. She looked around for a moment and spotted her ill-gotten loaf of sweetbread on the ground, crushed during their struggle.

"Now look what you've done," she complained. "You've destroyed my dinner, Aleran." She frowned and stared at him for a moment, annoyance nickering in her eyes as she looked him up and down, then stood directly before him with her hands on her hips. Tavi blinked mildly at her expression and stared down at her. "You've grown," she accused him. "You're taller."

"It's been two years," Tavi said.

Kitai made a faint, disgusted sound. Beneath the cloak she wore a man's tunic of dark, expensive silk, hand-stitched with Forcian nightflowers, heavy, Legion-issue leather trousers, and fine leather shoes that would have cost a small fortune. The Marat girl had changed as well, and though she was obviously little taller than before, she had developed in other, extremely interesting ways, and Tavi had to force himself not to stare at the pale slice of smooth flesh revealed by the neckline of the tunic. Her cheek had a reddened patch of abraded flesh sharing space with a steadily darkening bruise, where Tavi had first slammed her into the wall. There was a similar mark upon her throat, though it was slender and precise, from where Tavi's lariat had caught her.

If she felt any pain, it didn't show. She regarded Tavi with intelligent, defiant eyes, and said, "Doroga said you would do this to me."

"Do what?" Tavi asked.

"Grow," she said. Her eyes raked him up and down, and she seemed to feel no compunction at all about staring at him. "Become stronger."

"Um," Tavi said. "I'm sorry?"

She glowered at him, and looked around until she spotted her knife. She reclaimed it, and Tavi saw that the blade was inlaid with gold and silver, the handle set with a design of amber and amethysts, and would probably have cost him a full year's worth of the modest monthly stipend Gaius permitted him. More jewelry glittered at her throat, on both wrists and in one ear, and Tavi gloomily estimated that the value of the goods she had stolen would probably merit her execution should she be captured by the authorities.

"Kitai," he said. "What in the world are you doing here?"

"Starving," she snapped. She poked at the ruined loaf with the tip of her shoe. "Thanks to you, Aleran."

Tavi shook his head. "What were you doing before that?"

"Not starving," she said with a sniff.

"Crows, Kitai. Why did you come here?"

Her lips pressed together for a moment before she answered. "To stand Watch."

"Uh. What?"

"I am Watching," she snapped. "Don't you know anything?"

"I'm starting to think that I don't," Tavi said. "Watching what?"

Kitai rolled her eyes in a gesture that conveyed both annoyance and contempt. "You, fool." She narrowed her eyes. "But what were you doing on that roof? Why did you attack me?"

"I didn't know it was you," Tavi said. "I was trying to catch the thief called the Black Cat. I suppose I did."

Kitai's eyes narrowed. "The One sometimes blesses even idiots with good fortune, Aleran." She folded her arms. "You have found me. What do you want?"

Tavi chewed on his lip, thinking. It was dangerous for Kitai to be in Alera at all, much less in the capital. The Realm's experiences with other races upon Carna had invariably been tense, hostile, and violent. When the Marat had wiped out Princeps Gaius Septimus's Legion at the First Battle of Calderon, they had created an entire generation of widows and orphans and bereaved families. And since the Crown Legion had been recruited from Alera Imperia, there were thousands, tens of thousands of individuals in this city with a bitter grudge against the Marat.

Kitai, because of her athletic build, pale skin, and hair-and especially because of her exotically slanted eyes-would be recognized immediately as one of the barbarians from the east. Given all that she had stolen (and the humiliation she had inflicted upon the civic legion in the process), she would never see the inside of a jail or a court of law. If seen, she would probably be seized by an angry mob and stoned, hanged, or burned on the spot, while the civic legion looked the other way.

Tavi's neglected stomach gurgled a complaint, and he sighed. "First thing," he said, "I'm going to get us both some food. Will you wait here for me?"

Kitai arched an eyebrow. "You think I cannot steal food for myself?"

"I'm not going to steal it," Tavi said. "Think of it as an apology for ruining your sweetbread."

Kitai frowned at that for a moment, then nodded cautiously and said, "Very well."

He had just enough money to purchase a couple of heavy wildfowl drumsticks, a loaf of sweetbread, and a flagon of apple cider. He took them back into the dim alley, where Kitai waited in patient stillness. Tavi passed her a drumstick and broke the loaf in half, then let her choose one. Then he leaned back against the wall, standing beside her, and got down to the serious business of eating.

Evidently, Kitai was at least as ravenous as Tavi, and they demolished meat and bread alike in moments. Tavi took a long drink from the flask and offered the rest to Kitai.

The Marat girl drank and wiped her mouth with one sleeve, then turned to Tavi, exotic eyes glittering. She dropped the empty flask and studied him while she licked the crumbs and grease from her fingers. Tavi found it fascinating, and waited in silence for a moment.

Kitai gave him a slow smile. "Yes, Aleran?" she asked. "Is there something you want?"

Tavi blinked and coughed, looking away before he started blushing again. He reminded himself sternly of what was at stake and that he did not dare allow himself to be distracted when it could cost so many people their lives. The terrifying weight of his responsibility drove away thoughts of Kitai's fingers and mouth, replacing them with twisting anxiety. "Yes, actually," he said. "I need your help."

Kitai's playful little smile vanished, and she peered at him, her expression curious, even concerned. "With what?"

"Breaking into a building," he said. "I need to learn how you've managed to get around all the security precautions in the places you have raided."

Kitai frowned at him. "For what reason?"

"A man is locked inside a prison tower. I need to get him out of the Grey Tower without tripping any furycrafted alarms and without anyone seeing us. Oh, and we need to do it so that no one knows that he's missing for at least a quarter of an hour."

Kitai took that in stride. "Will it be dangerous?"

"Very," Tavi said. "If we're caught, they will imprison or kill us both."

Kitai nodded, her expression thoughtful. "Then we must not be caught."

"Or fail," Tavi said. "Kitai, this could be important. Not just for me, but for all of Alera."

"Why?" she asked.

Tavi furrowed his brow. "We don't have much time for explanations. How much do you know about Aleran politics?"

"I know that you people are all insane," Kitai said.

Despite himself, a low bark of laughter flew from his lips. "I can see how you'd think that," Tavi said. "Do you need a reason other than insanity, then?"

"I prefer it," Kitai said.

Tavi considered it for a moment, then said, "The man who is locked away is my friend. He was put there for defending me."

Kitai stared at him for a moment and nodded. "Reason enough," she said.

"You'll help me?"

"Yes, Aleran," she answered. She studied his features with thoughtful eyes. "I will help you."

He nodded seriously. "Thank you."

Her teeth shone white in the dim alley. "Do not thank me. Not until you see what we must do to enter this tower." (Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher pp 264 - 270)

This marks the only occasion upon which Tavi bests Kitai.

Having successfully liberated Max, Tavi, with the help of another reliable soldier, Captain Miles, sets about his daring subterfuge of replacing Gaius until he's well enough to resume his position.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tavi's aunt Isana, having heard from Doroga of the apparent Vord interest in Tavi, becomes concerned for her nephew and resolves to go to the capital and plead for his safety directly to the first Lord, whom she detests intensely. Unfortunately, when she arrives, she's unable to really see him because he's not really there, and several attempts are made on her life. Having thus failed with the First Lord, she falls into the clutches of the Aquitaine family, another rival for the Gaius' s position. They promise they will take care of her and her nephew if she will align herself with them and give them her allegiance. This she agrees to do.

Meanwhile, Tavi has befriended the Canim ambassador and learns from him that there is some interesting, dangerous and odd activity underneath the city which turns out to be, upon investigation, the Vord, who are evidently being aided by another of the Canim race.

As Tavi tries to figure out what to do, and to manage his vicarious and illegal impersonation of the First Lord, we find that the other odd couple, Amara and Bernard are not exactly on easy street. Isana resents Amara, and Amara resents herself for the same reason: she is unable to have children and she feels that because of this, Bernard should ditch her and find a more fertile spouse. Count Bernard isn’t interested.

As the novel draws to a close, we're faced with an assault on the First Lord's palace by the Canim in a coup attempt. Of course, the only people who can defend him are Tavi, Max, Miles, a few palace guards, Kitai, and the Lady Aquitaine, who happens to be present. They fight a running battle which they win, but barely. Tavi passes out, in fear of Kitai's life.

He recovers, and is discharged from his duties as palace page. As his final task, he's required to deliver a letter of welcome to the new Marat amabassador. I leave you with that scene:

He left the First Lord's suites and walked slowly into the north hall. He paused to ask a passing maid where the new Ambassador's quarters were located, and she directed him to a large set of double doors at the far end of the hall. Tavi walked down to them and knocked quietly.

The door opened, and Tavi found himself facing Kitai as he had never seen her before. She was dressed in a robe of dark emerald silk that fell to her knees and belted loosely at the waist. Her hair was down, brushed out into long and shining waves of white that fell to her hips. Her feet were bare, and fine, glittering chains of silver wrapped one ankle, both wrists, and her throat, where the necklace was set with another green stone. The colors were a perfectly lovely complement to her large, exotic eyes.

Tavi's heart suddenly beat very quickly.

Kitai studied Tavi's expression, her own face somewhat smug, and she smiled slowly. "Hello, Aleran."

"Urn," Tavi said. "I have a message for the Ambassador."

"Then you have a message for me," she said, and held out her hand. Tavi passed the envelope to her. She opened it and frowned at the letter within, then said, "I cannot read."

Tavi took the letter and read it. "Ambassador Kitai. I was pleased to hear from the crown guardsman you passed on the way into the palace yesterday morning that Doroga had dispatched an envoy to Alera to serve as an ambassador and emissary between our peoples. While I did not expect your arrival, you are most welcome here. I trust your quarters are satisfactory, and that your needs have been adequately attended to. You have only to inquire of any of the serving staff if you have need of anything else."

Kitai smiled, and said, "I have my own pool, in the floor. You can fill it with hot water or cold, Aleran, and there are scents and soaps and oils of every kind. They brought me meals, and I have a bed that could fit a mother gargant giving birth." She lifted her chin and pointed at the necklace. "You see?"

Tavi saw very soft, very fair skin, more than anything-but the necklace was lovely, too.<.p>

"Had I known of this," Kitai continued, "I might have asked to be an Ambassador before now."

Tavi coughed. "Well. I, uh. I mean, I suppose you are an Ambassador, if the First Lord says so, but for goodness sake, Kitai."

"Keep your opinions to yourself, message boy," she said disdainfully. "Continue to read."

Tavi gave her an even look, then read the rest of the note. "In order to help you better understand your duties here, I suggest that you take the time and effort to learn to understand the written word. Such a skill will be an immense advantage to you in the long run, and enable you more accurately to record your experiences and knowledge so that you may pass it on to your people. To that end, I am placing at your disposal the bearer of this message, whose sole duty for the next several weeks at least will be to teach you such skills with words as he may possess. Welcome to Alera Imperia, Ambassador, and I look forward to speaking with you in the future. Signed, Gaius Sixtus, First Lord of Alera."

"My disposal," she said. "Hah. I think I like that. I can have you do anything, now. Your chieftain said so."

"I don't think that's what he meant when-"

"Silence, errand boy!" she said, green eyes sparkling with mischief. "There are horses here, yes?"

"Well. Yes. But…"

"Then you will take me to them, and we will go for a ride," she said, still smiling.
Tavi sighed. "Kitai… perhaps tomorrow? I need to make sure Max is all right. And my aunt. We're having dinner this evening."

"Of course," she said at once. "Important things first."

"Thank you," he said.

She bowed her head to him a little. "And you, Aleran. I saw you against the Cane. You fought well. It was cleverly done."

And then she stepped up to him, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on the mouth.

Tavi blinked in surprise, and for a second he couldn't move. Then she lifted her arms and twined them around his neck, drawing him closer, and everything in the world but her mouth and her arms and the scent and fever-hot warmth of her vanished. It was sometime later that the kiss ended, and Tavi felt a little wobbly. Kitai looked up at him with languid, pleased eyes, and said, "Cleverly done. For an Aleran."

"Th-thank you," Tavi stammered.

"My disposal," she said, satisfaction in her tone. "This promises to be a pleasant spring."

"Uh," Tavi said. "Wh-what?"

She made a little sound, half of impatience, half of disgust. "When will you stop talking, Aleran?" she said in a low, throaty growl and kissed him again, drawing him back into the room, until Tavi could kick the door closed behind them. (Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher pp 450 - 452)

Perfect.