This is a prequel to the author's Lords of Rainbow which I shall never read because this effort completely turned me off. The language was way-the-hell too florid and rambling and I had no idea what this was about, much less what the succeeding story will be about, because after reading a third of this very short 'prologue' I was clueless as where it was going or what point it was trying to make. Worse, I had by then lost all interest in finding out. This is why I do not read prologues. They're utterly worthless, as is this.
Thursday, September 2, 2021
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman
"Searching for a new purpose, failed academic Frank moves to a small, sleepy Georgia town to chart the history of his family’s estate." Because that's sure going to change the world for the better. Yawn.
She's So Dead to Us by Kieran Scott
"After her wealthy family falls from grace, Ally Ryan is reluctant to return to her ritzy hometown" Oh boo-hoo! Who gives a flying shit about the lifestyes of the spoiled rotten? Really?
Pieces of Our Past by James Hunt
The first thing that should warn you away from this is the title. "When a child disappears in the dead of night, Seattle missing persons detectives Jim North and Kerry Martin investigate — but this case will put their partnership to the test." North goes South. I preferred James Hunt the Formula One driver.
A Daring Journey by Jeanne St James
There's nothing remotely daring about this. "On her flight home, Mac finds her heart racing after meeting pilot Damon. When Trevor, a man from Damon’s past, shows up, the trio’s chemistry ignites." Seriously? That didn't work so well for the Rockton Chemtool plant....
The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years by Edward Gross, Mark A Altman
I'm not at all surprised that Kirkus reviews champions this. That makes perfect sense. I don't think it's happenstance that their name is almost the same as 'Circus'. But the last thing this world needs is more William Shatner. That's not even the worst thing. The title suggests there will be at least one more volume. The Original Series has shat its load and needs to be TOSsed along with the entire mentalprise. It's as tedious as Star Bores. Barf.
Sword of the Seven Sins by Emily Colin
"From a New York Times bestselling author" and yet she's forced to unload her oeuvre for ninety-nine cents on Amazon! "Eva is horrified when she’s chosen to serve the Commonwealth as an executioner. In a society governed by the code of the Seven Sins, love is forbidden." How would that even happen? This is nothing more than a cut-rate handmaid's tale and even that was dumb. The whole idea is bullshit from the off. Nope.
Excess Baggage by Judy Astley
"Single mom Lucy is in desperate need of a vacation — so she agrees to join her dysfunctional parents and siblings on a Caribbean getaway." Ri-ight - because that would be the perfect relaxing vacation. If a novel begins with a dumb-ass plot like that, it can only get worse! No thanks.
Aunt Dimity and the Duke by Nancy Atherton
"When 40-year-old Emma Porter sets out to tour the gardens of England," Why is her age important? "Aunt Dimity’s ghostly intervention leads her to a Gothic mansion - and an extraordinary mystery!" Why doesn't the meddling Aunt Dimwitted solve the frigging mystery herself? Another hard pass. Well, it wasn't that hard! LOL!
The Atlantis Bloodline by CA Gray
"As a member of a covert organization, Kaison has been tasked with tracking down Ada the last survivor of a magical bloodline" Kaison? A caisson is a chest or wagon for hauling ammunition. Seriously? And why is he tasked with finding her? Why not a private detective? If there's magic, why not use magic to find her? None of this makes any sense! "If he succeeds, Kaison can earn his sister’s freedom… but what happens when he starts to fall in love with Ada?" I can answer that: we get another dumb-ass so-called romance which is why I will not be reading this crap.
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
This is yet another diversion into the classics. I find the author's name amusing for some reason. In conjunction with reading this, I also watched the Disney movie John Carter which was loosely derived from the novel and was a huge loss for the studio, despite making some 300 million. That's bad business right there: your movie makes THREE HUNDRED MILLION and you still lose money on it? I am not a fan of Disney, but despite the movie being mildly entertaining and the novel being mildly readable, I have no intention of pursuing this series.
I don't know if George Lucas, in creating his Star Wars empire ever acknowledged how much he borrowed from Burroughs, but in my opinion he took a lot. Special snowflake super-powered savior guy and a princess to win? Telepathy? A desert planet? Sword fighting? Multiple alien species? Epic battles on land and in the air? Strange alien animals? Weird flying craft? It's all there. The leaders in the story are known as Jeds and Jeddaks. Is it a coincidence how close this is to Jedi?
I understand that this novel was written in a different era, and long before we knew a lot about Mars, but the story itself doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense even within its own fictional framework, and the hero of it, John Carter (it's convenient that his initials are JC, for a white savior, huh?!), really ought to have been named Mary Sue for all the luck he has going his way and the lack of effort he puts in to get the consistently sterling results he obrains. It's like everything he does, he becomes expert at, and everything that happens to him quickly facilitates his meeting whatever goal it was he had been hoping to reach.
As was the wont back then, this work was serialized in early 1912 before appearing as a 66,000 word novel. For this reason it has all of the prevailing white male privilege of that era, including all of the viewpoints that you'd expect. There is no enlightenment here, so you have to take it as you find it, or avoid it. Carter is a veteran of the US civil war (on the side of the South of course!) and shortly after that ended, he took to prospecting in the southwest USA. He gets to Mars accidentally through a portal hidden in a cave he happens upon. There is no explanation offered for the presence of this portal on Earth, much less its specific location.
Burroughs buys into the antique notion of Martian canals, born of a misunderstanding. Astronomer Schiaparelli described features (that were very likely optical artifacts) as 'channels' which in his native Italian was 'canali'. This was misunderstood as 'canals' - an artificial construction by intelligent beings on a planet that was drying-out, aimed at channeling water from the icy poles to support the rest of the planet. Burroughs uses this idea, just as did HG Wells, and Ray Bradbury. Burroughs also invents a huge river - no doubt based on the River Styx, along which people at the end of their lives were borne.
Mars is known to the natives as 'Barsoom', and it's been suggested that this is based on numbering the known heavenly bodies, starting with the sun and including the moons, 'bar' being the Martian word for eight. This makes no sense within the story, but I guess it could have been Burroughs 'rationale'. The five named planets are these: Rasoom (Mercury), Cosoom (Venus), Jasoom (Earth), Barsoom (Mars), and Sasoom (Jupiter), but since the word for 'one' in Barsoomian is 'ay' and not 'ra', this numbering theory would seem to be a non-starter!
People seem to praise Burroughs for such inventive world-building, but it really isn't. In fact, it's extremely derivative, and scientifically makes little to no sense. It's just a jumble of random ideas that apparently caught his imagination. Martians are green and with six arms? The equivalent of a dog has ten legs and is super-fast? There are wonderful flying machines in one part of the planet, and wagon trains in another? Mars is dry? None of this is really very imaginative. Some of it's plain dumb.
Anyway, Carter discovers, due to the weaker gravity on Mars, that he is very strong and can leap to great heights because his bones and muscles developed under Earth's gravity. The thing is that there are humans (or very like humans) on Mars - called red humans because of their tan - and any one of them ought to have been able to develop Carter's ability if they had only worked-out, yet in thousands of years, no one ever did? There's also a race of green Martians who are fifteen feet tall and have six limbs, but Carter can easily vanquish them because of his superior strength and agility. There are other races, but none that we meet in this volume.
Carter takes up with the green Martians who hatch from eggs after a five year 'gestation' period. He rapidly rises to a position of power despite being a curiosity, a non-native, and something of a prisoner. He learns their language quickly, but here's the weird thing: we're told that they say very few words aloud, and have only the simplest of spoken languages; they communicate a lot by telepathy, so he develops his telepathic skills just like that. Yet repeatedly throughout the story, these simple people, lacking a significant language, physically speak great volumes of complex words and sentences to him and there's never any more mention of communicating telepathically! So Burroughs is inconsistent at best.
The lack of air on Mars is overcome as the author reveals that there is (one!) atmospheric generation facility to keep the oxygen levels renewed, but this is part of the problem (especially at the end of the story), since the technology levels on Mars are wildly variable, particularly between the greens and the reds, although no reason is given for this.
Development of hand weapons seem to have halted at a late medieval level with simple guns and swords, yet the red society's power is derived from nuclear sources! The divide is, admittedly, largely between the greens and the reds, but the greens pilfer hugely from red airships that they shoot down with their long range rifles, so why their technology is so backward I have no idea.
The rifles are a problem. We're told that they can theoretically hit a target three hundred miles away, and reliably nail one that's two hundred miles away, but on Mars, the horizon is only two miles away, so how that weapon is supposed to work at a hundred times that distance, I have no idea! There's a vague allusion to wireless guidance technology, but this is completely out of line with the greens technology level, so none of this made any sense. His misuse of 'staunch' perhaps did back then: "I endeavored to staunch the flow of blood" This is really supposed to be 'stanch'.
The red humans have flying machines which employ an 'eighth ray' for propulsion, which is bullshit and nonsense, but hey, this is fiction! There are supposedly nine 'rays' and the eighth and ninth are talked about in this volume, but none of the others are discussed, so I have no idea what those are supposed to be.
The problem with this is that at one point, when JC is being suitably heroic once more and Mary-Sue-ing his way into yet another plum position, he encounters another human with a flying machine that has been downed due to a mechanical problem. Again this is highly convenient because we later learn that the stranded guy is a relative of a high-level official and thus provides yet another easy access point for Carter - which he promptly wastes.
We're informed that JC can't rescue this guy on his own flyer because they're fragile, but earlier we were told the eighth ray is so powerful that it accidentally launched an unsuspecting airship crew into orbit. How is this fragile? Did Burroughs mean that the ship's construction is fragile? There was no suggestion of that earlier, and these 'single occupant' airships are sixteen feet long so there seemed to be no reason why it could not have lifted two people if they sat on it carefully. I'm just saying!
Naturally, Carter meets a princess of the red humans and they almost immediately fall in love. They always use both names, so she's always Dejah Thoris and he's always John Carter, never John or Carter, and the both speak of themselves in third person at times. It's annoying. Everyone is quite warlike - whether that's because Mars is the god of war or the author just chose to make his story that way for dramatic purposes, I don't know, but despite this belligerence, no one invented a machine gun. Go figure! Even the red humans can't get along because there's a war between different factions of those, and the princess is supposed to marry her enemy against her will in order to secure peace, but you know that ain't happening.
So Carter gets into a position of palace guard at his enemy's stronghold, giving him freedom to roam the palace and search for the princess who is conveniently being held there. He is always - I mean always - hiding in the right place at the right time to discover key pieces of information. At one point he deserts his guard post to go look for the princess, and becomes hopelessly lost. He rests his back against a wall for a minute to catch his breath since he's apparently exhausted from roaming the hallways in search of her, and this wall just happens to be the one to the princess's quarters!
Instead of biding his time and making a plan, he bursts in there and slaughters the four guards who are berthed inside her room(!) She informs him that she has to go through with this wedding and that he cannot kill her intended because it is forbidden for her to marry the murderer of her intended. Dejah Thoris isn't actually a person, she's a tool, a lure, a trophy, a possession, a MacGuffin who is constantly in need of rescue, a bargaining chip. She's never an agent of her own, and is nothing if not a perennially half-naked eye-candy prize to be bartered and won.
Carter is equally lucky in fleeing the palace. Despite there being an uproar over the four guards he slaughtered, he manages to accidentally find his way to a truly convenient escape point from the palace. Unable to jump out of a high window in daylight (people apparently look up on Mars) he chooses to hide inside an elaborate lighting fixture, which happens to be hanging above the precise point where a group of people gather to explain everything that's going on.
Again with the luck: I read later of another of his adventures, "The building was an enormous one, rearing its lofty head fully a thousand feet into the air...The fact that Barsoomian architecture is extremely ornate made...a perfect ladder for me all the way to the eaves of the building" A thousand feet up! This is the guy who is so out of shape that he gets breathless searching the palace and yet he climbs a thousand feet with no trouble?
This kind of thing happens again and again, tediously so. For example, at one point, Carter is flying one of the little aircraft to Helium, a major Martian city which is a thousand miles away (I guess fuel running out is never a problem on Mars). Now this is the single most distinctive city on Mars, but he can't find it because his speedometer and compass are damaged, and he gets lost. Despite flying over several cities where he could have stopped and asked for directions, the idiot doesn't stop until he espies a massive battle going on between green Martians. Despite knowing how deadly a shot these people are, instead of avoiding the battle, he flies right over it like a moron, and gets shot down.
Why these fighting Martians even care about shooting him down when amidst a massive battle, is left unexplained, but he happens to land, in a field of ten thousands fighting Martians, precisely at the point where his friend is engaged in combat, and ends up saving his friend's life! This results in his becoming even more highly elevated in their society. Note that since Mars has no magnetic field to speak of, a compass would be useless there, but Burroughs could not have known that.
When Carter is trying to find an associate in the dark dungeons, I read, "Fortunately among the first I examined I found his jailer, and soon we had Kantos Kan with us in the throne room." Yep, he goes right to the jailer who has the very keys he needs to free the guy. He rallies a force of a hundred thousand green Martians who come with him to attack the enemy red Martian city and this takes no effort at all to talk them into joining his personal crusade. Despite needing three days to gather all the help he requires, he arrives at the enemy city right at the precise moment his precious princess is about to be wed, just in time to stop the proceedings!
There's an air battle which I imagine would have been rather thrilling to readers in 1912 when air travel was in its infancy, but the author utterly fails to think through the fight. He has the airships drawn up (like David Weber does in more modern sci-fi battles) as though the space in which they fight is two dimensional, so they're organized like ships of the line, static, and firing cannon at one another in broadsides! Eventually some ships' captains think it through and manage to rise above the others and drop bombs on them, but when it comes to taking on the million man enemy army, instead of flying over and dropping bombs on them, these idiots quit the ships and deposit their 100,000 men on the ground and fight it out with the million man enemy army - and they still win!
Carter is the most lucky klutz ever to blunder into a situation where he can't lose. So like I said, it's interesting enough to read purely from a historical perspective to see how people viewed both themselves and Mars (and non-whites and women) back in Burroughs's day. It's not something I was remotely interested in continuing on into other volumes. It is a free read - you can find it online, at places like Project Gutenberg, There might even be an audiobook version of it there - I dunno. For me though, like Carter's bride, it laid an egg.
Solatium by GS Jennsen
This seems to have been my month for reading novels which have a title starting with 'S'! This was your standard short teaser introduction to a series which left me unmoved and unimpressed.
The book description for this is dishonest. It says, "Though humanity conquered the very stars, it remained unable to conquer the darkness within." So we’re conquering stars, but "He’d intercepted her as she pilfered a stack of disks from a merchant kiosk" we’re still using disks?
That struck a sour note right there, but I read on because it was so short, and discovered that the next bit of the description, "a young woman who's lost everything but her soul fights to reclaim her life from a violent, sadistic criminal despot" is bullshit too. She does nothing. She's a maiden in distress rescued by a couple of white knights who want to take down her cruel overlord for their own purposes! All she does, essentially, is to get out of their way! They ostensibly use her to get the layout of the building for their assault, but what, they're conquering stars and yet they have no miniature spy drones they can send in there? The telegraphing of the relationship between the girl and one of her saviors is pathetic and I lost all interest in having anything to do with such an unimaginative and predictable series in short order.
Sleepwalking by Cara Malone
The blurb describes this as a novella, but at only 15,000 words, it's actually a novelette. For me, I'd call it a prologue and had I known that's all it was I would never have embarked upon it. I don't do prologues. It was only some sixty screens on my phone where I do most of my ebook reading, so it's a fast read, but that's usually not a good recommendation for me!
The problem with a story like this is that you know exactly how it's going to end, so what the author has to offer you is an interesting way to get there, and this author seemed like she was dedicatedly pursuing the most predictably plodding route she could map. On top of that, there were multiple grammatical and other problems. If the story had been enthralling, I would have not paid so much attention to them, but in so short a story, it bothered me that there were so many silly errors.
I read, for example, what's turning out to be an increasingly common goof in YA stories. One character had a "geometric deer skull tattooed on her bicep." Nope! It's biceps, unless the vperson seeing this has weird x-ray vision and could see through the skin to an actual bicep, which is one of two attachments that the biceps muscle has to the scapula. Each bicep joins to form the biceps which is the bulge we see when the arm is flexed.
Later I read, "Okay, fine. If that's your criteria." Criteria is a plural. In this case what was needed was the singular: 'criterion'. These two main characters are a senior college student and a college graduate, and both are English majors, so this ineptitude in employing the English language is not only inexcusable, it's laughable. Unfortunately, standards are definitely falling.
In another variety of problem, I read, "Morgan righted the coffee table and set the empty glass down..." This is the same empty glass that Morgan had already placed in the sink a few paragraphs before. Another such issue was when I read, "That's when the term 'bipolar' first came into their lives." Nope! Morgan mentions that term twice before, so it had already been in their lives prior to this!
Right after the bipolar, there was about three paragraphs where Morgan begins by taking out her phone and doing a search for something, and ends by closing her laptop! I want a phone that morphs effortlessly into a laptop! Again, really sloppy writing. This author takes no pride in her craft.
Later, I read, "Leah took her outstretched hand and it was like electricity was firing between their palms" Ri-ght.... Seriously? This sounded far too ridiculous even as a figure of speech. Further on, I read, "What was so special about Leah that it could make Morgan cast aside six years of happiness for an illicit kiss in a coffee shop?" Nope. Morgan had already said it had been some three years of relative bliss before things had begun to go downhill, so there was no such six years, and that certainly applies to their recent history. In fact, it's Morgan's miserable relationship that triggered her interest in Leah. It was like the author had repeated instances where she couldn't remember what she'd written just a short time before - either that or she simply didn't care about what she was writing, and if she doesn't, why the hell should I?
Anyone can make a goof-up or even several, but when there are so many in such a short space in a story that's already dropping below being so-so, it's too many for me. But let's look at the quality of the story itself rather than the actual text it was written in. The first of the two main characters is college senior Leah McAllister, who is apparently pursuing an English degree, but has no clue what she will do with it once she graduates. This doesn't make her look too smart.
I mean, she's had three years of college already, yet not once in those years has she really had any inspiration about what she'll do after her senior year or, given she has no idea, why she's still doggedly pursuing this English major instead of trying something new and of more utility to her. This doesn't make her at all appealing to me as someone I want to read about unless something truly weird and wonderful is going to happen, and I don't include falling in lust in such a list. This is also a problem with this story - as so often happens in these 'romance' tales. The author badly confuses lust with love and it makes the story shallow, stupid, and unappealing.
Further rendering Leah stupid is her ridiculous and persistent denial that she's at least bisexual and more likely, an out-and-not-out lesbian. If she were in high-school, this confusion over her sexual leaning might be understandable, and even as a college freshman you can probably get away with it, but as a senior after three years or more of college? No. I don't buy it this at all, especially when virtually the first thing she does in this story is have a totally random hookup with a female named Christy, who is pretty much a complete stranger, in an alley behind a bar. I mean, seriously?
Leah allows Christy to digitally bring her to an orgasm - apparently the most powerful she's ever had - and afterwards the two part and never see each other again (not in this prolog anyway), and Leah is still having doubts? She's a frigging moron, period! And worse, she exhibits zero capacity to learn and no smarts about delving into a potential partner's sexual history before engaging in sex with them. Christy doesn't even wash her hands before taking her out into the alley and fingering her for fuck's sake!
Morgan, the other main character is in her mid-twenties and has been in a relationship for six years with this girl Ali, with whom she lives. Ali is undiagnosed bipolar sufferer - as far as Morgan can tell from scrolling on her morphing phone. Apparently she's tried to talk Ali into getting medical help but Ali reacts badly to that, yet not once has Morgan thrown down the gauntlet and said let's get help before we break up this relationship for good, nor has she suggested couples therapy so she shares that burden with Ali.
It's like Ali's sole purpose in this story is to be an albatross around Morgan's neck; an artificial impediment to her getting it on with Leah right from the off. Or getting off with Leah right from the on! LOL! Despite Morgan supposedly caring for Ali, she doesn't authentically behave at all like she cares. She never tries to sit and talk with Ali or to discuss this situation to maybe figure out what changed or how - like did something in their environment cause this change? Was it something in her diet?? Is it age related or tied to some past viral infection? She considers none of this. Her entire effort seems to be repeatedly looking up the online definition of bipolar and then closing her laptop that used to be a phone. It's pathetic. She never has even considered going to her own doctor or to a support group to ask her how she can best approach dealing with Ali.
The worst thing about this relationship is that Ali had been (with Morgan's knowledge and cooperation) trying to get pregnant through implants. This despite that the last three years (as far as I can tell - the text is vague) not exactly being a bed of roses, and despite Morgan having this bipolar suspicion - which is especially relevant to any attempt to get pregnant and ought to have been raised with the implant doctor, but evidently wasn't. So Morgan is a moron too.
In short there were far too many issues, too little authenticity and a plethora of poor writing techniques and choices. I cannot commend this at all.
Witch Rising by Amber Argyle
I should have known to avoid this novel as soon as I read the title, but I did not. More fool me! The book blurb describes this as a fast read, but what it actually means is that it's not a novel - it's a short story with a cliffhanger ending. It's essentially a prologue to a series which I shall not read and for good reason. For example: you'd think in a short work like this, the author would recall what she wrote, but apparently not. At one point toward the end, I read, "It had been eight years - eight years of forcing herself to forget - but she had remembered one song." Nope! The author apparently forgot that she'd had the witch sing up a wind to try and save her stepfather's life. Now a handful of screens later, she's trying to recall what the song was? It wasn't eight years it was a couple of days! That's bad writing, right there.
Lilette is your usual trope special snowflake who is a witch as her mother is, but mom and dad are killed. Lilette believes it was her fault. Put to sea in a barrel(!), she eventually ends up on an island where the chief is a jerk. Lilette is protected by a kindly man until he dies and she, now fully grown, is left at the mercy of Bian, the tribal chief who wants her for his own. She tries to escape but her escape is thwarted. End of story - or rather, end of prologue. Now you have to buy the series to find out what happens next, but guess what? Lilette was such a boring damp rag of a character that I honestly don't care what happens to her. And this is why I don't read prologues. They're a waste of time as was this.
The book blurb makes this claim of Lilette: That she's the "most powerful witch ever born" Lie! She's a wuss who (as is typical in this type of story) hardly ever uses her magic and least of all when she actually needs it, as is evidenced by her being unable to magic her way out of that barrel, by her using a knife instead of magic to free herself from her initial capture, by failing to use the magic to stop people overtaking her sailboat as she tries to escape, and by failing again to use it to stop them retaking her prisoner. In short, she's the worst witch ever and her magic is quite evidently useless.
Another claim: "when her secret is revealed, the only thing that can save her is her song." Lie. It never saves her - not in this short story. Another claim: "It's time to rise up and become what she was always meant to be." Lie! She never does. Not in this short story. There's also the claim that this short story "will keep you bewitched long after you finish it." Lie! I did not like it and will forget it quickly. This novel was garbage and as is so often the case, the blurb lied like a dog.
Steamborn by Eric Asher
Errata: "Jacob didn't think he'd never forget the cheers of the crowd that broke the calm." Double neg. "You keep your eyes away from it when stretch the tensioner." Should be 'when you stretch' or 'when stretching'. "...and he figured something with a name like catacomb had to be small." This is the place he’d already been told had trains running through it at one time! Small?!
This is another novel where the very title ought to have warned me off it, but I did not heed my better instincts! It was (purportedly - more anon) a steampunk novel about this guy who lives in a world where improbably large insects and other such critters threaten humans in a walled city. The size of the insects is ridiculous because not only would they be unable to support their own weight were they significantly larger than they were in pre-history (and these are really large), they would also suffocate, because air would not circulate through their breathing tubes.
The largest insect ever to have lived was something that looked like, but wasn't, a dragonfly, and that was almost 300 million years ago. It measured a little under 30 inches across in terms of wingspan, less than eighteen inches long, and weighed maybe a pound. The largest centipede-like creature was only 3 feet long. The inability of insects to breathe adequately at large sizes and to facilitate locomotion when growing so large, is what constrains their size. The author offered no explanation for the ridiculous size of these creatures - at least not in the portion I read. I was willing to let that slide if I got a good story in return, but it didn't happen.
The biggest problem though, was that this novel was all over the place and it moved at a glacial pace. The first 25% had passed before anything noteworthy happened, which was an attack from the insects trying to get in from outside the city and as soon as that was over, it was back to the doldrums, like these giant insects overrunning the city walls happens all the time and isn't any more of a problem than a mild annoyance despite all the deaths. You can quite safely skip that first quarter of this novel and not miss a thing. This is a problem with series. They're bloated with extraneous material.
It felt to me like the author hadn't thoroughly thought-through how traumatized people would have been by such an event as a giant insect attack. There would be all kinds of issues associated with such a sudden and deadly attack, but not a one of those issues got a mention here. It was like the author was dead-set on telling his character's story and he wasn't going to let the reality of his world intrude no matter what.
The guy in the novel is supposed to be an inventor, but never once did he talk about devising weapons to fight-off the insects. He was like, oh well, insect attack, scores injured and dead, but let me make this one artificial hand for this injured kid and then well forget about all of that and go explore the tunnels under the city. It was entirely unrealistic.
By magical coincidence, he and his exploring companion hear two people talking down in the tunnels and it proves to be some critical information, but it was such an improbable coincidence that it felt completely manufactured. Why would the bad guys even be down there in the first place when they could have met anywhere and had a private conversation? Predictably this dipshit klutz gave away that someone was listening, and it seemed obvious to me who was going to pay for his dumb mistake, so by then I'd had more than enough of this. I couldn't be bothered to read any farther, and I ditched it. This was one of those purported steampunk stories that isn't really steampunk. Instead, it has a mention of steam items here and there, but the main story has nothing really to do with that genre at all. I can't commend it based on what I read.
Lust by Hildred Billings
Errata: "Not is was putrid." Say what? I have no idea what the author meant by this sentence! 'nor was it putrid' maybe? "Not when Lust pushed beneath the sweaty silk of Mercy's breasts and discovered her breasts." Huh? "Lust cried out with a high, wanting peal as Mercy gave in to her latent nymphomania" Wanting or wanton? Latent nymphomania?
Having enjoyed the first novel by this author that I had ever read, I embarked upon reading several more, but not a one of those others was anywhere near up to the same standard as that one. Even that had some issues, but I was willing to let those slide because the rest of the story was a decent effort. This one however, was a sorry excuse for a story and not even a novel - it's really a short story at best designed as a loss-leader to lure readers in to a series. I typically detest series and this effort only served to reinforce that view.
This is nothing more than a sex romp and has no story to tell. Ostensibly it's about this young woman named Mercy who has come to the end of her tether and right as she's about to throw herself off a bridge, this 'goddess' Acedia shows up to save her. In reality, Acedia never was a god. It was one of the original eight deadly sins along with the more familiar seven: Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Wrath, but it got dropped or lost somehow.
This book has it that Acedia is actually a goddess who has seven incarnations, and this series, which I am not pursuing, the first of these 'avatars' is named Lust of course, and she's unleashed upon Mercy, like all she needs to shed her suicidal thoughts is to get laid good. Barf. I think this was an entirely wrong-headed approach. The series talks like it's performing some sort of a public service in addressing issues, but it's not. You can't 'cure' a suicide by getting them laid. It doesn't work like that, and it's shameful that this author doesn't know better. I cannot commend this; on the contrary, I condemn it. It was more bad writing and I am done with this author now.
Stay Here Tonight by Hildred Billings
Errata: "not thinking of the bad things that's happened to her." - this employs an incorrect verb person. It should read, "not thinking of the bad things that have happened..." "director Francis Ferrari, bedecked in a floor-length gown and letting her brown curls fly free" This is maybe not an error, but usually the female from of this name is Frances. "The paparazzi was out in full force" Paparazzi is plural. The singular form is paparazzo, named after a character in a Fellini movie. The feminine form is paparazza "She's biting at the chomp to date me." Chomping at the bit....
This novel is essentially a clone of Billings's novel Hold me which I actually liked. This one is really the same story: a high profile, rich, sexually promiscuous woman who 'won't be tamed' falls for a 'commoner'. It's also one of those ludicrous "let's dishonestly pretend we're a couple" stories that inevitably, predictably, tediously, boringly becomes a real romance. Yeah. Right. Okay.
The story again had endless, dangerously risky sexual behavior without consequence. Again it had a cold fish power woman and a magical lower-level woman who falls for her. Again it mistook hot sex for a loving relationship. I grew tired of it quickly. I think I have one more Billings novel to read on my list, but whether I'll get to it after this is another matter! I certainly can't commend a 'write by numbers' novel like this one at all and the lack of attention to the detail of getting her English right was annoying.
January Embers by Hildred Billings
This book stopped me dead in my tracks at chapter two when I saw that it was going to be a two-person PoV novel. No thanks. It wasn't even first person - it was third person, but still the author evidently experienced this inexplicable need to split the narrative and even be repetitive. Why? I dunno. I wasn't exactly enamored of it from the first chapter, but I was willing to give it a chance until I encountered that tediously pedantic approach. It contributes nothing to the story and it means every chapter has to have a label to identify whose thoughts we're sharing. Barf. No thanks. This is one of several of this authors books I will review, only one of which i actually liked!
The Fastest Woman on Earth by Francesca Cavallo, Luis san Vicente
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is a remarkable story of a truly strong female character in real life who overcame a childhood inability to use her legs, and abandonment by her birth mother, to grow into being a competitor in the Paralympics and other contests, from sprinting to marathons, and winning scores of medals, including seven Paralympic golds.
Tatyana was abandoned at a home for kids in Russia, and spent many years there, getting around using her hands for legs for her first six years, because the home could not afford a wheelchair for her. This made her arms very strong. Deborah McFadden happened to visit this home as a commissioner of disabilities working with the US Health Department, and ended up adopting Tatyana, who then went on to her successes in school and in pursuing higher education academic studies.
This is a great introductory book not only to this outstanding athlete, but also to the Paralympics and to people with disabilities. I commend it as a worthy read.
Night Creatures by Rebecca E Hirsch, Sonia Possentini
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the BeeGees song that spent eight weeks at number one in the later seventies, tied to the movie Saturday Night Fever, but reading this I kept finding that lyric in my head, suitably adjusted, of course:
Listen to the ground, there is movement all around
There is something going down, and you can feel it
There are creatures in the air, there are critters everywhere
And it's something you can share, if you believe it
Those denizens of night come with the waning of light
Taking over the world as we sleep
They're hunting and gathering, and spreading through the night
They are Night Creatures, Night Creatures!
They know how to live it!
Night Creatures, Night Creatures!
Of course that song was Night Fever, but now you know happens when I haven't had enough sleep! Gorgeously-illustrated by the elegantly-named Sonia Possentini, and written with panache by Rebecca Hirsch, this book takes a look at some of those living things that populate the evening, night, and early morning, such as bats, bobcats, fireflies, mice, owls, rabbits, raccoons, skunks and others. The book talks a little about each, their favored time to prowl, their diet, and so on. It's makes for an absorbing and educational introduction to a world not many young children are familiar with, and I commend it as a worthy read.
The Littlest Yak by Lu Fraser, Kate Hindley
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Amusingly and colorfully illustrated by Kate Hindley, this little picture book, told in rhyme by Lu Fraser, is an amusing and entertaining journey through the eyes of Gertie, the littlest yak in the herd. She so wants to grow up and be big like her family, but she learns there are some things that only a little yak can do. The focus of this cute little book is only on growing up and not being in a huge hurry to do so, but it would have been nice to learn a little more about yaks! Technically speaking, Yak (from Tibetan 'yag') refers only to the male of the species, the female being a 'nag' so I can see how that wouldn't fly! They're closely related to your everyday cow you might see out when you're driving in the country, or on TV, but yaks have a dense fur that keeps them warm in some of the harsher climes where they're found. Other than that, I commend this book as a fun and worthy read.
Thursday, August 19, 2021
The Artful Read-Aloud by Rebecca Bellingham
This was a non-fiction abridged audiobook about the importance of reading aloud to children to engage them in the written word and enrich their lives. That's a sentiment I am fully onboard with, but it felt to me like this was written more for teachers than for parents and there's an awful lot of PhD-Speak in it. I don't believe it's going to reach those parents who would most need it and most benefit from it. I made it to about the halfway point and gave up on it because of this and other issues.
It started out well-enough, but there were so many lists in it - in just the 50% I listened to - that it was hard to keep track and there was no ready 'take-home' message from any of it. The blurb talks about ten principles, but there were scores of them in the lists. I have no idea what the specific ten principles were because everything was so mixed up and repetitive that it just confused things - and in an audiobook, you cannot readily go back and re-read a paragraph or find the particular spot to re-reference something you heard earlier with any facility.
The other problem, especially given that this was an audio-book is that the reader, who was also the writer, did not offer any real examples of what she meant in the text. She would refer to some technique or to something in a book that would make you want to stop and talk about it, or that would make you want to read it in a special way to better engage listeners, and then she would not read an example to illustrate what she meant. This was an abridged version, so maybe the full version offers that. I don't know. All this version offered was a website to visit where presumably, you could hear examples, which is frankly an annoyance, especially since you cannot get to that without logging in, which requires your email address, so no! I am not giving my email address out so it can be handed around so I can get more spam than I already do! And not when that stuff ought to have come with the book.
There was one amusing contradiction in it when, after a chapter bemoaning how children these days never look around them, because they're always looking down at their device, the very next chapter started with a chapter quote about the importance of looking down - which contradicted what the author had said previously! LOL! I am not a fan of chapter lead-in quotes. They're pretentious and meaningless to anyone but the author, and typically they have zip to do with the content of the chapter they precede. Additionally, though the author kept mentioning older students, she seemed like her focus was primarily on very young children, and on fiction - she never mentioned the possibility of applying this technique to non-fiction works. Not in that first 50% anyways.
Though the book claims it's speaking to all parents and guardians of children as well as teachers, to me it felt strongly like it was only speaking to professionals as judged by the educational buzzwords being tossed around, and the academic-level speech and concepts being used. For example, the author frequently referred to an alphabetical scale by which books - and I assume book reading difficulty/ease - are measured. She kept talking about things like "the O, P, Q band" and so on, using one or another triplet of sequential alphabet letters, but nowhere was there any explanation whatsoever as to what that was, what it meant or how to use it!
With my wife's solid support, I've raised two children and put them through school and never once have I encountered this scale. This is what I mean by PhD-speak and why I feel the book is aimed at professionals with little regard for your everyday parent or guardian out there. It would not have hurt to explain what that scale meant, but the author kept on referring to it without evidencing any desire to explain it at all. Maybe in the unabridged version this is explained, but that doesn't help here, and it's a lousy way to treat your reader.
Another issue regarding elitism was that there are authors mentioned here and there as worth paying attention to (without really giving us a reason why or a short example of their work to judge by), but I hadn't heard of a single one of them! I do not count myself as any sort of great authority on children's fiction by any means, but I am very widely-read across all genres and age ranges, yet not one of the names she mentioned was familiar to me at all.
Worse, she mentioned a Newbery award winner, which turned me right off. I have no respect for 'award-winning books' which to me are almost (not quite, but almost) universally trite, pedantic, and tedious to read. There wasn't a single well-known or widely popular author on her reading list apparently, and when she spoke of someone I had never heard of as an "acclaimed" author, I had to wonder momentarily what it was that made that author so acclaimed? Was it just that this author happened to like her? Was it that this author had read her name a few times? Or was there something more? I dunno, but it tried my faith in her examples and her assertions to have things like that put out there unsupported.
The author made a lot of references to the performing arts and there are authentic parallels to be drawn between those, and the act of reading aloud to engage a child's mind, but I'm not a theater-goer and I detest musicals, yet these were the only things the author referenced, as though other such forms: TV, movies, streaming services, YouTube, for example, are beneath her. It felt snobbish and elitist. I suspect most of the people who would truly stand to benefit from this book are not theater-goers either, so this felt, ironically, like it was falling on inattentive ears.
So while I whole-heartedly support the idea of reading to children in your care, even if you do not embrace any of the suggestions this book offers (it's still better than not reading!), personally, I found this book to be of little helpful in any signifcant measure. Instead, to me it felt rushed, confusing, and babbling, which is precisely the opposite of what you need to be if you wish to artfully read aloud to children. Consequently, I can't commend this.
Sunday, August 15, 2021
Set Fire to the Gods by Sara Raasch, Kristen Simmons
"In a world controlled by mercurial immortals, Ash and Madoc," Wait! In a novel titled 'Set Fire to the Gods," one of the characters is named Ash? Really? Is this a parody? "...gifted with elemental powers, race to stop an ancient war from destroying humanity." Can anyone say "Amazon's 'The Boys' clone"? Yawn. Or if you can't say that can you say "Steelheart" by Brandon Sanderson clone? Could publishing this novel be a Raasch decision? Que Sara....
Damselfly by Chandra Prasad
"After their plane crash-lands on a remote island, Samantha and the other members of her fencing team face a powerful and mysterious enemy." Yes, it's the peope who build gates to allow access through fences. Samantha and her fencing team are finished! Oh, wait, not that kind of fencing? Dammit! Sorry, I guess I need to build some fences.... But while I do that, can anyone say Lost rip-off? Although since that rambling pile of tedium was so bad, maybe this will be better. It can't be worse, can it?!
Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews
Magic rises? Really? That's your title? This is supposedly "A #1 New York Times bestseller with nearly 30,000 five-star Goodreads ratings!" So why in fuck are you reduced to selling at a discount in a book flyer? Is 30,000 sales not enough? That probably means you had at least another fifteen thousand sales for people who liked it less. $2.00 a pop for the ebook means what, 40 - 70 cents a copy for the author? Let's call it 50 cents multiplied by 45,000 units, means you made well over $20,000 for this effort. How much more do you want people to give you for volume 6 of a series where you're essentially telling the same story over and over again, which is what a series is? On it goes: "In Atlanta, mercenary Kate Daniels" Wait: you didn't call her Kat? Damn! You're going to get drummed out of the urban fantasy writers club for that! And no, you don't get kudos for not using 'Kat' because you used Kate which is pretty much the same damned thing. "...strikes a deal to save a pack of shapeshifters from a deadly ailment." Why? They're shapeshifters! They're boring, overblown, substandard, YA material. Let 'em rot! "But the gambit puts her own life at risk." I see what they did there! They put 'gambit' in the description so people will think it's about chess. Nice try. Judged by the cover though, where this chick basically fights in a leather tank top,'game butt' might play better to your reader base....Barf.
Pawsitively Poisonous by Melissa Erin Jackson
"In a quirky Oregon town," Stop right there. Quirky is an automatic 'no' when it comes to book descriptions! If it had said 'querty' I might have been interested. "...magical shop owner Amber becomes a suspect when one of her friends is murdered. With an inquisitive police chief on her trail, can she prove her innocence while keeping her secret safe from the world?" Once again, under American law, you do not have to prove innocence. The prosecution has to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, numbnuts. And how hard ought it to be for a witch to solve a crime when she can use magic for fuck's sake? Barf.
Hold Me by Hildred Billings
Errata: "In Sapporo she would text a friend or gone to a party to score some sex." should read ‘have gone’ or 'would go’? "She bore her teeth" - No! She bared her teeth! "Jun was always one who treaded it with trepidation." - 'Trod'. "as Jun brought their vulva together" - 'Vulvas' "She chose the softest voice had" - 'she had'
This was, overall, an enjoyable read. I fell in love with the main character Junri - unrequited as it was! It was a chalk and cheese romance between two women who were not only set apart by a decade in age, but who also hail from widely different backgrounds: Junri Isoya being heir to a hotel empire - if she plays her cards right - and Saya Nemoto being an itinerant worker from a relatively backward part of Japan. They meet when Saya rebels against an abusive coworker. Junri intervenes, and the relationship continues on and off as Saya swings back through her 'home base' of Nagoya between jobs.
Junri isn't happy at being sent to manage the Nagoya hotel, but her uncle, the current chairman, tells her she is badly in need of experience before he can consider her as an elligible heir for taking over when he retires. After resolving the harrassment dispute, Junri never expects to see Saya again, and is both unnerved and excited to find her waiting in the corridor by her temporary hotel accommodation that night.
Thus begins their on-again off again relationship as Saya drifts in and out of Junri's life between working trips to different parts of the country, alternately thrilling her and driving her to distraction as Junri falls ever more deeply for the feisty, exciting, enigmatic, and intriguing young woman.
I really enjoyed this for the most part, but I ran into an issue here and there which took some of the pleasure away. I found the acciental encounters between Junri and Saya to stretch credibility too much: that in all of Tokyo, for example, they should both happen to be riding the same train at the same time and encoutner one another. Additionally, it was a bit much to swallow that one night when Junri is out having a few drinks, she just happens to be walking down the precise alley behind the exact bar that Saya exits right as Junri passes the door.
I also didn't like that Junri so readily leapt into bed with complete strangers without a moment's thought about STDs. We live in a world rife with them, and some are becoming more and more resistant to treatments. Some are deadly; some are debilitating. Naturally no one wants a rather explicit and erotic story like this to screech to a halt for a lecture on veneral disases right in the middle of the 'action', but a word of caution carefully embedded in the characters' exchanges here and there would be entirely appropriate.
Reading this, it seemed to me that someone as smart as Junri wouldn't take such risks, not when her career was at stake and she was so proper and cautious in all other aspects of her life, so this lack of concern betrayed her character quite glaringly. There's a big difference between trading partners within a small group of trusted friends, and wantonly stepping outside that group, and thereby betraying everyone in it. It would surely ring alarm bells for someone like Junri, yet it never did; never once were STDs talked about between anyone in the entire story. That, to me, is a big problem with novels of this nature. I think authors have a responsibility and it makes me sad to see so many of them shirk it.
There were some writing issues, such as when I read, for example, "she could still smell Saya’s body in the sheets" - this was two months after Saya had left. Seriously? Yuk! Those sheets wre in dire need of a serious wash! At another point, I read, "who was used to sex in public sometimes" which felt badly-worded. Something like 'used to occasional sex in public' would sound better. Later, I read, "In the countryside, with people who don’t judge others" yet Saya's whole problem had stemmed from her growing up in exactly such a place, so this made no sense to me!
These were relatively minor issues which I see often, especially in novels which are one-person operations without the might and mein of a big publishing conglomerate behind them, complete with book editors and so on. For me, the biggest let-down was the reveal of Saya's 'problem' toward the end of the novel. It would be easier to talk about this were I to publish a spoiler here, but I won't do that.
I'll just confine myself to saying that I felt let-down when this supposedly relationship-crippling issue turned out to be such a mundane and minor one when all was said and done. It felt like a betrayal of Saya's character. This was a woman who had proven herself to be impressively resilient, strong, and independent. It seemed to me like this 'problem' would have been been the least of Saya's worries, and yet it's built-up to be this towering onstacle when it really isn't anything at all, especially given Junri's position of wealth and power. In my opinion, that whole bit ought to have been changed to turn it into something truly critical, or it ought to have been ditched altogether, and Saya's objections left to what were really potential problems, such as Saya's itinerary lfiestyle versus Junri's necessarily static one. I never did consider their age difference to be an issue.
But the author had won me over plenty before this happened, so I wasn't going to let this sour me on the whole story, which for the most part, was well-written, inventive, amusing, absorbing, and heart-warming. I commend it as a worthy read. This (the novel not my review!) was published in 2013, and there's a suggestion at the end of it that there could be a book 2. Whether this materialized or not, I have no idea, but I am not a fan of series, so I doubt I will read any sequels. I do intend to read other novels by this author, however.
Friday, August 13, 2021
A Quiet Death in Italy by Tom Benjamin
"After a body is found floating in an underground canal in Bologna, investigator Daniel Leicester quickly realizes that the case is far more complex than it seems" Yes indeed! For this was Canal Number Five, the river of perfume, which waters the Perfumed Garden! This is a sex romp like you wouldn't believe with stiffs popping up all over the place, and a bunch of wankers trying to relieve the tension. And why is someone named Daniel Leicester trying to solve a crime in Italy? Is it just a bunch of Bologna?
The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day
A "harrowing nightmare by a master of the sleepless night" (Kirkus Reviews). Sorry Circus, er, Kirkus, but the author is female. Shouldn't that read "a mistress of the sleepless night?" Maybe not. And I guess better a Rayder Day than a day raider, but no, just no, because Kirkus.
Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra, Dhonielle Clayton
Not sure why it took two people to write this, but with that fluffy title and a claim from Kirkus that this is a "page-turner with a heart" convinced me that this is more of a stomach-turner. So a definite no to the novel, but given that this is about Ballet I may take a look at the Netflix version. That might not turn my stomach, but there's never a guarantee with these things.
The Gryphon Chronicles by EG Foley
"A bundle of rollicking fantasy adventures: Twelve-year-old pickpocket Jake relies on his wits to survive the streets of Victorian London. but when he develops mysterious powers, a sinister..." Three no's here. 'Chronicles' in the title, and 'rollicking' and 'sinister' in the description mean a flat refusal to even consider entertaining this loser novel. Avoid everything with 'chronicles', 'saga', or 'cycle' in the description unless you truly enjoy pretentious shit.
Almost Missed You by Jessica Strawser
Now 'Jessica Strawser' is a name to conjure with, but this is a definite no for the pretentious title alone. "Violet has a happy marriage and a wonderful child - but when her husband, Finn, leaves and kidnaps their son, everything she thought she knew begins to unravel." Clearly this Violet is clueless. She should never have married a fish appendage in the first place. I know it bites, but this is what you get for sharking your repsonsibilities....
Comfort & Joy by Kristin Hannah
Obviously with a title like that, this story is about a romance between a fabric softener and a dishwashing liquid.... "Divorcée Joy books a spontaneous trip for one to the Pacific Northwest, where she bonds with Daniel and his young son. When her world is turned upside down, will the holiday bring much needed solace and magic?" Or will they find themselves in Australia by mistake? I could be so very wrong, but my guess is that it will lead to a battle between hordes of walking dead, and pitchfork-wielding Oregonians who try to clean up the problem and soften material disagreements.
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
Rory Power? Really? Eeh! Maybe, but I have my doubts. If Kirkus thinks this is a "staggering gut punch" that's enough to put me off it for life. The plot has it that "a mysterious illness sweeps through the Raxter School for Girls, Hetty breaks quarantine to find her missing friend - and makes a shocking discovery that upends their entire world." Yep. 'Shocking' is another bellwether word in a book description - warning you to avoid it like the plague. Dual narrators is just one more turn-off.
Uncle and Ants by Marc Jedel
Everyone's named 'Marc' now so as not to use the commonplace 'Mark' but since everyone uses it, 'Mark' is actually the lesser commonplace of the two these days! LOL! "Did someone orchestrate the accident that put Marty Golden's sister in the hospital? A quirky uncle becomes an amateur sleuth as Marty takes care of his nieces while scouring Silicon Valley for a killer!" How is he doing both at the same time? No, seriously, I really want to know. What the evidence shows here is that this idiot guy needs the definition of 'taking care of' clearly explained to him. The key turn-off words here are 'quirky' and 'sleuth' - both serious no-no's for a novel.
Shield & Shade by Misty Hayes
Misty Haze...um...Hayes? Seriously? The plot here is that "Years ago, Zoey was found in the woods after wandering away from home - with no memory of how she got there. When she learns the impossible truth of what happened, Zoey's world is turned upside down" Impossible truth? Upside down? No wonder it's a misty haze novel. No. definitely not.
The Demon Seekers by John Shors
From a USA Today bestselling author who still evidently needs to unload his work at a discount: "A century after aliens turned Earth into a barren wasteland, 17-year-old Tasia hunts the monsters who destroyed her planet." Seventeen? Seriously? What qualifies her to do this? Of course, the gung-ho crew at Kirkus claim it's "An exhilarating tale with an engaging protagonist that will have readers eagerly anticipating sequels." Not me. I'm not even anticipating the first volume. Barf.
Feyland: The Complete Series by Anthea Sharp
"A complete series of mesmerizing fantasies from a USA Today bestselling author! Dive into the realm of Feyland" I won't touch a book in which the author doesn't have the guts to call them fairies! This author is even more chickenshit than that, and doesn't even use fae! She's off with 'fey' which is a different word altogether.
No Love Like Nantucket by Grace Palmer
"After her brother's tragic death..." what death isn't tragic? Seriously? "...fiftysomething inn owner Toni struggles to process her grief. When she leaves Nantucket for a trip overseas, will she finally discover the person she's meant to be? A poignant story of love, loss, and second chances." What second chance? Does she find a new brother? Seriously? If Nan took it, she ain't gonna get it back.... Maybe her Pa took it?
Wired by Evelyn Adams
"Billionaire Luke is used to getting what he wants" Why is the billionaire always named Luke?! "He wants sassy, strong-willed Claire. Sparks fly as they're caught in a steamy power struggle" Bullshit! Claire needs to be named Violet, as in wilting, because you know she's going to just collapse like a used condom. Strong-willed my ass.
Broken Promise by Linwood Barclay
"When widower David moves back to his hometown of Promise Falls, he stumbles into the mystery of a murdered mother's baby - whom his cousin has been raising as her own." Promise Falls, really? This a definite no.
The Nostradamus Equation by Christopher Cartwright
What did Nostradamus find on his perilous 1562 expedition into the desert? Modern-day adventurer Sam Reilly follows Dr. Zara Delacroix to the Sahara in search of an ancient text that holds the answer" Nostradamus was a delusional 16th century asshole. "A riveting, action-packed read!" Doubtful.
Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith
"When Pony starts at a new high school, he plans to fly under the radar and keep his trans identity hidden." Pony? Seriously? As in hung like a horse? Neigh.
Serenade by Heather McKenzie
"All her life, Kaya has been closely guarded - supposedly sheltered from her father’s enemies. It’s not until she’s kidnapped by Luke that she experiences freedom for the first time." Seriously? Kidnapping is a good thing? This author is dangerously delusional. The book description continues: "As she learns the truth about her family, she faces her growing feelings for Luke, who has his own secret." This is all kinds of wrong, so no. Definitely no.
When Maidens Mourn by CS Harris
This one is out because it has 'sleuth' in the book description, but the blurb has it that: "In 19th-century England, a woman studying the legend of King Arthur is murdered - and sleuth Sebastian St Cyr sets out to unravel the intriguing case" How is it intriguing? And that name? Is it supposed to be pronounced 'sincere'? Sebastian Sincere?! Really? No. No. No. And that title? Maidens? Really?
The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey
"Bank owner Ben Roselli is dying — and his executive VPs are in a ruthless competition to assume control." And poor deceased Arthur isn't going to get a penny of that sale price....
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