Review: Truth In the Dark by Amy Lane

Ooh, friends, I’m so in love with Amy Lane’s work. Not only does she write fabulous stories, but she’s got a hell of a narrative range. To date, I’ve read two of her sweet contemporary romances, one dark-as-hell SF offering, and TRUTH IN THE DARK [Amazon | Scribd], a fairy tale that straddles the line between these two extremes.

Naef, a young woodworker, has been tormented all his life because of his appearance, and he’s raised a prickly set of defenses against future hurt. The only people he’ll allow close to him are his sister and his mother. When said sister hesitates to marry her true love because it would mean leaving Naef on his own, her suitor proposes a solution to settle her fears. Naef will spend a year as companion to the suitor’s cousin, freeing his sister from worry while introducing Naef to an unusual community where he can start fresh.

The cousin in question turns out to be a man cursed with the shape of an anthropomorphic lion and saddled with the improbable name Aerie-Smith. Aerie-Smith’s got an island full of subjects whose animal forms are more confining than his own, and he promises Naef a home for a year if he’ll end his stint as companion by performing one regrettable act will not only secure Naef’s family’s future but also free everyone from their curse.

The resulting story is part “Beauty and the Beast,” part “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” And I cried so damned hard.

Review: Freckles by Amy Lane

Warning: FRECKLES [Amazon | Scribd] is quite possibly the cutest book ever. You will squee.

Carter's boyfriend just dumped him and the head of his law firm has got him working on a case that’s legally sound but morally reprehensible. He needs something positive in his life, and he gets it in the form of a tiny, fluffy puppy a kid hoists on him in a parking lot. Carter has no idea what to do with a puppy (if Freckles even is a dog and not a hamster, as her size suggests), so he rushes straight to the nearest pet store with a veterinarian attached and has the good fortune to meet Sandy, a vet tech who's willing to give the occasional cute, dog-loving lawyer some after hours help with the whole pet ownership thing.

Their relationship is sweet and mutually supportive, but it's the dog angle that sold me on this nominally holiday romance. (The Thanksgiving and Christmas bits are light enough that you can read this any time of year, as I did.) Freckles is a tiny Shih Tzu/Chihuahua cross, and I recognized so much of what Carter goes through as he adjusts to dog ownership and strives to be a good caregiver for her. I've had dogs all my life, barring an eighteen-month dogless stint when I was very young, but my wee Murchie is the first dog who's really been mine. He decided I was his person mere hours after we met, despite family plans to the contrary, and I spent a certain amount of time freaking out about how I was now responsible for this 2.5-pound fluffball who was brand new to the world and correspondingly lacking in common sense. I wanted to do right by him, and I was terrified he'd get sat on or stepped on or otherwise injured during one of his exploratory forays into the great unknown¹.

I still worry he'll get sat on or stepped on, especially since he's a bit too inclined to trust people will notice he's there and work around him. That's a dangerous attitude to adopt when you're still only 3.5 pounds and you're the same colour as the kitchen floor, y'know?

Review: Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

I had no choice but to read Becky Albertalli’s debut novel, SIMON VS THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA [Amazon | Scribd], in two sittings. (It would’ve been one, but I was too sleepy to keep going.) It won my love right from the first line, and kept on earning it as it took me deep into every facet of Simon’s wonderful, difficult, hopeful, beautiful life.

It will be on my Best of 2016 list. I’ll tell you that for free, spoilers for future posts be damned.

I loved it so much, and on such a visceral level, that I want to rant about it to the rooftops without the limitations of coherence, so we’re gonna take the short, gushy, ungrammatical route:

Review: Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

Mia Corvere has spent the six years since her father’s execution transforming herself into an instrument of vengeance aimed at the men who branded him a traitor rather than a hero. She’s good, but she knows only a Blade of Niah, dark goddess of assassins, could hope to achieve her aims. And the brutal test for admittance to Niah’s school beneath the Silent Mountain is nothing compared to the trials teachers and students alike have in store for her.

Here’s the thing: I want to tell you all about NEVERNIGHT [Amazon | The Book Depository] because I loved it deep in my soul--but the books I love the most are also the books I most struggle to talk about. So I’m gonna ramble, and I’m not gonna say nearly enough, and I’m gonna pray what I do say is enough to convince the fantasy-readers among you to seek out NEVERNIGHT as soon as ever you can.

It’s one of those glorious books that spoke both to my current self and to the me who discovered adult-marketed fantasy just over twenty years before the day when I plucked NEVERNIGHT off my library pile and dove in. The timing made it feel like more than simply a great read. It was a fucking amazing anniversary present.

Review: Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton

Thank goodness for people who gush about books on Twitter, and for everyone who RTs them. A couple months back, I witnessed a storm of enthusiasm for Marie Sexton's WINTER ORANGES [Amazon | The Book Depository | Scribd] and knew I had to read it.

Because y'all, this book is awesome right from the premise on up. Jason used to be a child star/teen hearthrob in the JTT mold, but these days he’s muddling along through an assortment of horror sequels and one-off TV guest spots. Despite this decline in his fortunes, he’s been the tabloids’ favourite mark ever since they caught him making out with his best friend Dylan a year back. Ugh. Desperate for some privacy and a little time to reevaluate his life, Jason buys a furnished house in a small Idaho town and decides to hole up there until at least New Year's.

His plans change somewhat when he discovers his new possessions include a cursed snow globe with a Civil-War-Era farmer attached. Ben hasn’t talked to anyone since his sister bound him to the snow globe a hundred and fifty years ago to prevent him from joining the army, and he’s beyond thrilled someone can actually see him. Jason is initially less thrilled to have an incorporeal person living above his garage, but once he accepts Ben is a) not a paparazzo on a mission and b) real, the two of them quickly become friends, and eventually boyfriends.

Which is super awkward because to outsiders, from the local sheriff to a deeply concerned Dylan to the photographers who eventually track Jason down, it looks like Jason’s holding long, involved conversations with himself.

Review: Yotsuba&! Volumes 1-12 by Kiyohiko Azuma

The Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical Version:

OMG you guys YOTSUBA&! is my new favourite I love everything about it it’s the sweetest comic in the entire world and just thinking about it makes my heart happy Yotsuba is the best and so are all her friends I love that they’re GENUINE friends too in defiance of all the tropes that ruled my childhood reading list comics needs more of this especially children’s comics oh man do I ever wish I’d had YOTSUBA&! when I was a kid she enjoys everything and she’s so determined to see the wonder in the world and maybe that’s because she’s an alien but the series hasn’t touched on that in ages so let’s just treat her as a small girl the art is so expressive and motion-filled and I looooove all Yotsuba’s obsessions she gets REALLY REALLY INTO THINGS and the older people in her life are awesome at nurturing whatever she’s currently into and helping her discover new interests too I basically just wanna be like !!!!!!!!!!!!! whenever it comes time to rec this comic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! because it’s so awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it’s my new favourite !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I’m a giant pile of feels !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you're sighted please read it then come find me and tell me how much you loved it because you’re gonna love it unless you hate kids and/or you have no soul it is THAT GREAT I'm making it a near-universal rec I'M GOING THERE AND I NEVER GO THERE.

The Sensical Version:

When the world gets really, really heavy, I go in search of some fictional relief from it all. I often turn to the sort of books that leave me a quivering wreck, since I appreciate the chance to cry over something outside my everyday experience, but on rare occasions I’m lucky enough to find something that’s uplifting and genuinely nice.

I count myself incredibly lucky to have discovered YOTSUBA&! in June, right as I reached the point where I had to disengage myself from a certain nearby country's news media lest it destroy my mental health.

Review: Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Let's begin with a brief primer for those of you new to Guy Gavriel Kay's work.

Many of Kay’s books, including CHILDREN OF EARTH AND SKY [Amazon | The Book Depository], take place in a secondary world that’s followed a similar historical progression to ours. Similar is the key word there; while certain events and characters have their roots in historical fact, all the place names are different, the key players aren’t necessarily the same people as their real-world counterparts, and the geography doesn’t quite match up with ours.

I often recommend Kay to litfic readers who’d like to try fantasy but are leery of the genre. He adopts a traditionally literary approach to plot and character, while the fantastical elements tend to emerge organically once the reader's accustomed herself to the rest of the setup. One might find a ghost lurking between the pages, or an old god the contemporary religions can’t quite seem to oust. Occasionally, a character does outright magic, but such scenes have become increasingly less common in the sorta-alternate-history section of Kay’s bibliography. He’s interested in the circumstances that might cause magic to fade from the world, and in the ways magic finds to cling on even as its influence becomes less than it once was.

He’s also a prime pick for fantasy-shy readers because he doesn’t really write series. You should read the three-volume Fionavar Tapestry and the two-volume Sarantine Mosaic in publication order, but everything else works perfectly well as a standalone--with the caveat that those of his books that take place in the same world are richer if you know something about that world’s history.

Review: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

I was unfamiliar with Pam Muñoz Ryan until I saw her most recent release, ECHO, mentioned as one of the few diverse-authored books honoured at this year’s Audie Awards. I immediately investigated it, borrowed it from Hoopla, and started listening.

That was one of my better choices. ECHO is my sixth five-star book of 2016 and the best children’s novel I’ve read (or listened to) in years.

The book explores four slightly interrelated storylines, each separated by years and miles. We begin long ago in the Black Forest with Otto, a young boy who meets three women who bear an eerie resemblance to the characters in the book he’s reading. Prompted by his story’s plot, he invites them to each play a tune on his harmonica, setting in motion a spell that could change their fate even as it links several children who're yet to be born.

Germany, 1932. Friedrich desperately wants to become a conductor, but he’s got a facial birthmark, a history of epilepsy, and a father and uncle who vocally disagree with the Nazis. He’s got one shot to prove his worth: ace his Conservatory audition on his extremely non-German harmonica.

Pennsylvania, 1935. Mike promised his grandmother he and his younger brother would always stay together; a prospect that’s all but impossible given the adoption climate at their orphanage. Mike dreams instead of joining a traveling harmonica orchestra so his brother can find a new home without worrying about Mike, but his plans change when a wealthy yet standoffish woman enters their lives.

California, 1942. Ivy’s family relocates in the hopes of finally earning their own home. Ivy makes the best of the sudden move by caring for an abandoned house and teaching her neighbor to play the harmonica, but her new town's racism threatens to derail her optimism.

Ryan introduces us to each of the main characters in fraught circumstances that push them in highly personal ways: a solo walk across a potentially hostile town; a new opportunity for adoption; a dream quashed, yet quickly replaced by a bright chance. These are all highly empathic struggles that tie into fears many children--many people--experience every day. Will I be too different? Will anyone ever love me? Will I have to abandon my aspirations so someone else can achieve theirs?

Review: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

I attempted to review the first three books of the Raven Cycle, with varying degrees of success, so I figure I ought to make an effort with the finale as well. Preserve some continuity and all that.

Plus, THE RAVEN KING forced me to expand my Top 12 list into a Top 16¹. It’s serious between us, y’all, and I’d like to mark the occasion.

At the same time, though, this was a 6-star read. 5 stars is my “I loved it to the point of incoherence and/or verbosity” rating. 6 stars dials the incoherence angle right the hell up, especially when we’re talking about a highly anticipated finale I really, really don’t want to spoil for y’all.

So we’re taking the Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical route, with the understanding that I might imply some stuff about the other three books but I won’t get all, “OMG LEMME DESCRIBE THIS EXTREMELY VITAL SCENE” on you.

Review: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

A couple years back, Rainbow Rowell wrote a contemporary YA novel called FANGIRL. I talked about it at great length because I loved it deep in my soul, and I’m bringing it up again now because CARRY ON has a vital connection to that earlier work. Cath, FANGIRL’s protagonist, is a popular fanfic writer hard at work on CARRY ON, SIMON, her own conclusion to the bestselling Simon Snow series. Said series follows a young wizard through his eight years of schooling, in which he faces off against both a dark force called the Insidious Humdrum and his own possibly vampiric roommate, Baz.

In Cath’s version, Simon and Baz fall in love instead of (or maybe as well as) killing each other in the Grand Denouement, as events are trending towards in the source text from which Cath takes her inspiratioin.

Rainbow Rowell’s CARRY ON isn’t Cath’s fic. Nor is it the canon series conclusion Cath finally gets to read at the end of FANGIRL. Rather, it’s Rowell’s take on the idea of a young adult fantasy series ender that brings the protagonist into a new kind of conflict with the antagonist.

And it all happens without the previous seven books in the series, since no one who's liable to read CARRY ON really needs them. We all know how children's fantasy series work, so we can guess most of what's happened prior to this. Besides, Rowell slots in all the relevant details as the current book’s plot demands.

Review: The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams III, and Dave Stewart et al

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Fair warning: I’m about to use the phrase "religious experience."

I know, I know. It’s overblown and hyperbolic and it’ll prevent you from ever taking me seriously.

Worst of all, I mean it without a shred of irony or exaggeration. THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE [Amazon | The Book Depository | comiXology] was, for me, a religious experience from the second it was announced until the moment I read the last page of the deluxe edition’s extensive back matter.

This is partly because stories are at the very core of my religion, for reasons I'm never comfortable elaborating on in public. Whether we're talking sacred or secular, I'm forever fascinated with the way life-defining stories shift according to who’s doing the telling--and according to what comes to light, and what stays hidden from whom, as the story unfolds.

THE SANDMAN shares my preoccupation. It never loses its bone deep awareness of stories as a vital, ever-shifting, highly subjective force.

"Religious experience" is also apt because because SANDMAN was the first of what I think of as the comics; the ones that reach into my very soul because something in them calls to something in me. The world is never the same after I’ve discovered one of the comics. It hasn’t been the same since I discovered SANDMAN in the pages of a massive coffee table book about DC Comics, or since I scraped together $19.21--a hefty amount to Teenage Me--and ordered a steeply discounted¹ copy of PRELUDES & NOCTURNES from Amazon’s fledgling Canadian operation.

I’ve returned to SANDMAN over and over in the decade and a half since then, and I can’t wait to reread it again with OVERTURE under my belt. Because this final/first volume casts everything that came before (or after) it in a new light.

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

First, I must inform you I’m about to talk about a fourteen-book series in its entirety. There are some implied spoilers for the early books, though I’ve made an effort not to venture into what I’d consider seriously spoilery territory overall. General opinions and observations abound, but I promise I'll never be all, "Lemme tell you the results of so-and-so’s attempt to resolve this vitally important plot point."

Second, this isn’t really a review. It’s a reminiscence; me talking about a story that meant a lot to me when I was a young fantasy fan, and that has surprised me by still meaning a lot to me now I’m a somewhat older fantasy fan. There are subheadings and tangents below, plus footnotes.

The Wheel of Time was with me for almost twenty years, hovering unfinished in the background. It had a huge influence on Young Me, and Current Me looks forward to rereading it now she knows how it ends.

That won’t happen for a decade or so, though. I ain't that eager.

(Okay, I sort of am, but I’ll resist. This latest reread/catch-up took me a solid year. I need time to recover.)

Now that we’re all clear on what this post is...

Review: A Countess Below Stairs/The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson

Friends, there’s only one way a girl can possibly review A COUNTESS BELOW STAIRS (aka THE SECRET COUNTESS¹), Eva Ibbotson’s nonmagical historical fairy tale about an impoverished Russian countess who takes a job as a chambermaid and falls in requited love with the unattainable owner of the estate at which she works.

That’s right. We’re gonna gush.

The Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical Version (also the only version)

OMG YOU GUYS this book is the best thing ever no seriously it is my FAVOURITE I know the little description up there makes it sound like an average romance but it is not IT IS PERFECT it’s one of the eight books I’ve love straight from the first word² to the last because it is so so so beautiful the prose is staggering Eva Ibbotson has this GIFT to reach straight into any given emotion and make it manifest so you don’t just read it you FEEL it I cried my way through the whole damned thing³ with some extra-intense wretched sobbing at the end⁴ Anna is so wonderful like she could easily be too perfect but she’s not because you REALLY SEE why everyone loves her and you love her too and her relationship with Rupert is so understated they mean so much to one another and they connect so beautifully but it’s all between the lines⁵ and it’s like that with every single character Ibbotson excels at showing by telling you meet a person and suddenly you know everything about them but it’s not overkill you WANT to know these things you LOVE them except the villain Muriel you don’t love her she is a terrible horrible person who’s all ableist⁶ and anti-Semitic⁷ and totally into eugenics which everyone initially thinks is about breeding chickens because Hitler hasn’t happened yet⁸ but it’s not she’s trying to make a master race OMG I HATE HER SO MUCH and you will too she does wrong by the Honourable Olive and NOBODY DOES WRONG BY THE HONOURABLE OLIVE AND GETS AWAY WITH IT⁸ and also there are a great many Russians and I’m still so bummed I can’t go to Russia perhaps the Russians are unrealistic but whatevs I love them so I don’t care if people don’t actually react to their changes in circumstance with such aplomb⁹ sometimes I call Murchie Pupsik¹⁰ and the Honourable Olive gets to hold Pupsik it’s a total awwwwww moment and don’t you even get me started on that fucking ball I will start bawling right here right now so help me bawling over a ball how appropriate is that DAMN I can’t even say enough about this book so I’m not even gonna try just believe me on this okay I acknowledge it’s not perfect because of Sebastien and the maids¹¹ but everything else about it is spot-on and I give it seven stars out of five because IT IS MY FAVOURITE BOOK PLEASE READ IT¹².

Review: Skip Beat! vols 1-34 by Yoshiki Nakamura

A little more than a month ago, I toddled off to my local library and plucked SKIP BEAT! off the shelf. I’d never heard of it before, but it met my two important criteria for the comics I choose on a whim: it was the first volume in a series, and it was written and drawn by a woman¹.

It changed my entire world.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter have no doubt noticed my feels-laden tweets about it all. SKIP BEAT! quickly joined the likes of SAGA, BONE, and STRANGERS IN PARADISE as one of the comics; a lovely, rare occurrence, and something to gush about from the rooftops.

Which, fair warning, is what I’m about to do, at great length and with the occasional gif from the anime or elsewhere.

But perhaps you're clueless as to what SKIP BEAT is all about. Fear not! I can explain!

Sixteen-year-old Kyoko Mogami² follows her childhood friend and uber-crush, Sho, to Tokyo so she can help him on the road to stardom. She buys all his albums, stokes his ego by hanging his posters all over their apartment, and works two jobs so she can keep him in the manner to which he’s become accustomed (because heaven forbid Mr Big Singer Man should dip into his own pay cheque once in a while). Blinded by love, Kyoko is happy to accept a few scraps of affection from him--until she overhears his true opinion of her and realizes he’s been using her all along.

Enraged, Kyoko swears off love and vows to get revenge against Sho in his own sphere: showbiz!

Easy to say; hard to do. Kyoko soon realizes it’s tough to become famous, even if you’re willing to dress up in a chicken suit and/or join the number one talent agency’s deathly embarrassing Love Me Section, a group devoted to developing its members' loving instincts by assigning them odd jobs that let them give back to the showbiz community. Things only grow more awkward for her when she begins working with Ren Tsuruga, the agency’s top star, who takes acting very seriously and has nothing but disdain for someone with Kyoko’s motives.

The next thirty-four volumes are THE BEST THING EVER OMG.

They’re so very much THE BEST THING EVER OMG that right here, right now, for the first time in the history of the world, I’m going to write three reviews.

I think Lory, Kyoko’s boss, would be proud of me for such flamboyant excess, not to mention my deep and enduring love for all things SKIP BEAT!.

We shall begin, of course, with a Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical Review so’s you can get an at-a-glance idea of what SKIP BEAT is all about. From there, we’ll run through a List of Things You'll Find In SKIP BEAT in case you ain’t much for short, gushy, ungrammatical paragraphs. And finally, for the main event, I present to you a Sensical Review in which I gush for an ungodly number of words.

It is not for the faint of heart.

Review Rerun: Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming by Rachel Hartman

A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my old blog, Stella Matutina.

Y'all know SHADOW SCALE, Rachel Hartman's second novel, topped my Most Anticipated list for 2015. I'll have a review of the book itself on March 10th, and I figured I'd mark the occasion by revisiting Hartman's other books.

AMY UNBOUNDED is an indie comic Hartman began in 1996. It's set in Goredd, just like SERAPHINA and SHADOW SCALE, with a few differences we can chalk up to writerly evolution and the need to fit the world to the current story. Many of the issues remain uncollected and Hartman has definitively decided not to continue the series, but one wonderful, out of print trade collection exists. I strongly encourage you to track a copy down.

I love AMY UNBOUNDED: BELONDWEG BLOSSOMING a little bit more every time I read it, to the point where it's fast approaching Old Friend status. It doesn’t matter how well I know the characters or their story; they never fail to thrill me, entertain me, rip my heart out, and make me think.

I love it so much because:

Review: The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine

Don’t you just love it when you read five 5-star books in a row? And don’t you love it even more when it happens at the very beginning of the year?

I mean, this is the first time it’s actually happened to me, seeing as how I’m picky as all hell, but I could get used to it real easy.

The first four 5-star reads were, of course, volumes one through four of SAGA, which we talked about last week. This week I shall do my best to say cogent (yet enthusiastic) things about THE GIRLS AT THE KINGFISHER CLUB, Genevieve Valentine’s non-magical retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”

Valentine transports the story to 1920s New York, where Jo Hamilton does everything in her power to help her eleven younger sisters lead a halfway decent life. It’s far from easy, given how their social climber of a father confines his daughters to the upper floors of his town house lest anyone see how terribly he failed in his quest for an heir. The girls aren't allowed visitors. They can't go out. They can't even purchase anything beyond the bare necessities, all ordered via catalogue and so guaranteed to disappoint upon arrival.

In a moment of desperation, Jo breaks her father's rules and takes the eldest among them out for a secret night of dancing in the city’s speakeasies--a practice that soon becomes both ritual and rite of passage as more of the sisters grow old enough for such outings. The nighttime excursions let the sheltered girls dance, drink, and meet people from outside their father’s suffocating home, keeping the despair from overwhelming them.

But when Mr Hamilton decides it’s past time he offloaded his enormous brood onto the right sorts of husbands (read: people just like him), Jo must find a new way to keep her sisters safe.

OH MY GOD.

No; seriously; OH MY GOD.

Some books, you know straight off the bat they’re something special. Cautious, picky-as-hell reader that I am, I was desperately in love with THE GIRLS FROM THE KINGFISHER CLUB by page twenty. It’s the sort of story that reaches out to you with an invitation not only to explore the beauty of the night clubs and the thrill of each dance but also to bear witness to the suffocating pain of a life lived largely behind closed doors.

It's an irresistible combination: gorgeous and dark, flashy and empathetic, and entirely up my alley.

Review: Saga, vols 1-4 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

It’s past time we talked about SAGA.

I mean, if you’ve ever asked me for comics recs, I’ve either told you to read it or squeed with you if you've already done so. SAGA is currently the comic, by which I mean it's the latest comic to sweep into my life and bowl me over. Y’all know I read (and rave about) a lot of the things, but it’s rare for me to get deeply, all-consumingly excited about one. So when another of the comics¹ lands in my lap, it kicks things up a notch. I wander around in a comics-addled daze for anywhere from a month to several years. I tell everyone about this wonderful, glorious text. I push it like it’s my job. And sooner or later, the people around me start to listen.

SAGA isn’t just a comic. It’s the comic, and you need to read it.

What’s it about, the uninitiated among you ask?

The war between the winged citizens of Landfall and the horned people of its moon, Wreath, has raged on for as long as anyone can remember, and boy is it ever bloody. Since the destruction of one celestial body would mean the destruction of both, each side has called for a sorta-truce on their home turf and instead taken the fight to various other moons, planets, comets, and what-have-yous throughout the galaxy.

You can imagine how much this thrills the rest of the galaxy.

Marko, a soldier from Wreath, grows so sick of the constant fighting that he turns himself in to Landfallian forces as a conscientious objector. He expects to live out the rest of his short life in a prison camp, but his prospects change when Alana, a winged soldier with pacifistic ideas of her own, is assigned to guard him. They connect; Alana busts Marko out of jail; they go on the run; they get married; and, most importantly, they have a winged, horned baby named Hazel.

Neither Landfall nor Wreath can allow Hazel’s existence to become public knowledge, so both sides contract an assortment of freelancers, soldiers, and governmental officials to kill the couple and recover the proof of their illicit affair. It doesn't go particularly well for anyone..

Anyone except the reader, that is, because the resulting story is amazing.

No, seriously. Amazing.

Review: Warchild by Karin Lowachee

I’ll warn you up front: I’m incoherent about WARCHILD. I loved it, desperately and completely, and I can’t get it out of my head--but that makes it all the more difficult to talk about. I loved it in such an intensely emotional way that I’m tangled up in my own thoughts.

I'm not happy with this review. I've left things out. I've glossed over important points. I almost want to trash it and just keep mum about the book.

But the people (which: you) need to know, so here it is. WARCHILD is my best book of 2014, surpassing even THE MAGICIAN’S LAND (albeit only by a hair), and I want you to read it, please and thanks.

That is, I want you to read it if it's safe for you to do so. The threat of sexual violence permeates the text, from the pirates’ treatment of their captives to the soldiers’ banter, and emotional manipulation is never off the table. I intend to praise WARCHILD to high heaven and recommend it to everyone who so much as hints they’re in the mood for some excellent science fiction, but it’s by no means a safe book for all readers. Consider this your trigger warning.

Okay?

Review: The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

As is so often the case with the books I most love, THE MAGICIAN'S LAND demands two reviews.

The Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical Version:

OMG BEST BOOK OF 2014 RIGHT HERE there's no point in beating around the bush it is THE BEST I loved it SO MUCH it was EVERYTHING I COULD EVER POSSIBLY HAVE WANTED I mean there's a magical heist and FUCKING ASMODEUS and also FILLORY and OMG WE GET ELIOT'S POV and ALSO JANET's and I AM INCAPABLE OF THINKING ABOUT THIS BOOK IN ANYTHING OTHER THAN CAPSLOCK BUT I'LL TRY STARTING now also there are all these great magical workings that tie into the first two books thematically and we see Quention becoming more truly himself and OMG I LOVE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SO MUCH sorry those caps just slipped out and the sheer amount of power in Lev Grossman's prose you guys omg I kept giggling and gasping and swearing at the book because when I really love things I swear at them and also I kept my hand clamped over my mouth a lot which is what I do when I'm seriously worried about fictional characters and I kind of don't even want to talk about this book because it was so perfect but I also want to say everything about it everythingeverythingeverything because IT WAS SO PERFECT if you loved the first two books you need to read it right away why haven't you done that yet get on that right now please and thanks.

Review: Ember by Bettie Sharpe

Ember is fierce, proud, and in firm control of her heart--until she sets eyes on Prince Charming, whose curse compels everyone who sees him to love him.

Ember isn't about to let a spell force her to feel anything, let alone something as soul-destroying as love. A powerful witch, she embraces dark magics to ensure she never, ever falls under the Prince's sway again.

But a look can go both ways. Charming is determined to find the woman willing to resist his curse, and he is every bit as stubborn as Ember.

Let's get a big, fat disclaimer out of the way first off: laid out in its simplest form, EMBER sounds rapey. This is an enormous lie. This gorgeous, affecting novella is a testament to each person's right to choose what will happen to them, romantically or otherwise, and to spend their lives among people who've chosen them with love in their hearts.

Sharpe handles it so beautifully that this 32,000-word self-published novella remains the best thing I've read so far this year.