Review: The Contortionist by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

 

Remember the time you were driving on your daily commute and you saw it: that one thing that was just entirely not the way you remembered it being, and you were dang sure that you didn't see the changes taking place? That Mandela Effect feeling of "something is very wrong in the universe?"

Well, welcome to Cora's world when one day the long abandoned and decaying Harrow Faire is suddenly no longer abandoned or decaying, but open again and hungry for guests.

Kathryn Ann Kingsley creates a glorious blend of creepy circus and carny freak-show with modern wit and skepticism.  If I had to toss a few stories in a blender to lead you to The Contortionist, I'd start with Something Wicked This Way Comes, add a little The Night Circus, and follow up with some good old fashioned Black Butler. 

I'd just go with an emphatic "do read," but it's more than that. Read it for the way Kingsley writes differently abled characters. Read it for the spider's web of atmosphere. Read it for the way you find yourself wanting the heroine to walk into the maw of the beast. Read it for the villains: the gloriously sexy villains. Read it for the existential questions it begs you to ask yourself, like "what would you give," and perhaps a little more on the nose, "what's your favorite color?"

It's book one. I want to devour the whole series like a glutton. I want to bathe in the atmosphere, and glut myself on surreal nightmarescape. I want to drink this story in and roll it around on my tongue and taste all the sweetness with the faint bitter edges. Beautiful stuff.

Fans of Kingsley's work might be surprised that it isn't particularly graphic. Regardless, it's breathtaking. 

I'm looking forward to having this whole pretty set on my library shelf soon.

Review: Kiss of the Damned by Elena Lawson

 Elena Lawson's first book in the Fallen Cities: Elisium series, Kiss of the Damned took me a little by surprise. It takes place in a world in which demons and angels have become a part of commonplace everyday life in much the same way that supernatural creatures have integrated into the world in the Anita Blake series, only in Lawson's world, if you're diabolical, you basically get quarantined into one of the Fallen Cities. Only the divine are allowed to interact with the human population, because, you know, racism. I mean, no. I said what I meant. 

The story centers around a wickedly abused girl, Paige, who knows nothing about her real origins, but in truth doesn't belong among the humans she thought she was one of, and is quickly and brutally introduced to life as in St. Louis, now one of the isolated cities of demonic creatures. Lets just say it's a less than pleasant transition for her.

I think what I like about the story is that while it is a story about awakening powers and adapting to a new world about which the main character is just as unaware as the reader, it doesn't feel quite as explainsy as a lot of similar set ups do.

I am, however, not sure how much I want to continue the story. I like the set of powers I see her developing and the arc it seems like the book is traveling down, but I am not entirely sure I have the emotional energy for the kind of emotional pain Paige is looking at at the end of book one. Let's just say that the cliffhanger it ends on is kind of brutal and sometimes I ask myself "do you really want to do this to yourself?"

The worldbuilding has been interesting so far. The slavery within the fallen city and segregation of races based on origin makes for some interesting social commentary. If books that deal with divine and diabolical entities and the notion that just because hell is home doesn't mean you're entirely evil is your thing, this might be a good book for you.

 

Review: To Love a God (Lily of the Valley Book 1) by Evie Kent

Oof. Where to start with this one? 

If Evie Kent's To Love a God were a story AO3, one would have to list content warnings like noncon. It's a dark romance. There is violence. There is bloodshed. Abduction. Deception. Explicit content. All the things.

And boy howdy, is it one hell of a good ride.

This story is a wonderful opportunity to indulge in a time honored guilty pleasure: rooting for the "bad guy." In this case the "bad guy" is more like "the trickster god," and the damsel in distress is more of a street wise New Yorker. Pitting Nora against Loki wasn't exactly what the villagers who guarded his mountain prison had in mind when they abducted her and brought her as an offering to their captive god, but sometimes someone looks like they'll be a shrinking violet only to find out they're a little more shrieking violent. 

So yeah, if dark is up your alley, it's a great find. I to Love a God on Kindle Unlimited, and I'm glad I did. 

Review: Illusions of Grandeur by Kathryn Ann Kinglsey

It isn't like I read this book 5 times or anything. Because I totally at least skipped around one of those times, so only the first four count, right?

Okay, this bookk is the first in a lovely pair of exceedingly dark romance novels. Did I say dark? I mean Vanta Black dark. I loved it.

Like the setting, the architecture of the story is delightfully detailed and not quite as linear as you'd expect. It's perfectly delightful. Between ghosts, rumors of murder, a young woman starting over, a house full of old fashioned automatons, a charismatic magician, and a the true hero of the story, a little plastic octopus, it's a delightful story. Once you start following Alice down this rabbit hole, you won't want to stop.

Of course, this isn't for the prude out there. The story gets not only steamy, but explicitly steamy. But full props to Kathryn Ann Kingsley, when it gets super steamy, it's at least plot furthering. 

Beyond the delightful layers of dark paranormal mischief and even darker lusty goings on, I loved the world building that Kingsley did in this book. While the paranormal aspects are exceedingly far from normal, her careful world building gives it the uncanny magical realism feel that makes it seem like something that just possibly could happen, and I like that.

I recommend checking it out. I read Illusions of Grandeur free on Kindle Unlimited, but I liked it so much that after my third read through I bought it.