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: Ghosts and Liars by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

Kathryn Ann Kingsley's second book in the Impossible Julian Strande series, Ghosts and Liars is, if it is possible, darker, more psychologically twisted, sexier, and somehow even better than Illusions of Grandeur. 

I feel like this second book is told ever so slightly more from the perspective of the ghost than the first book, and I really enjoyed that. 

Now, for the record, I feel like for all that I've mentioned that it's dark and psychologically twisted, I know there's a lot of C-PTSD readers out there, so I'm going to just throw out there that omg, the gaslighting, manipulation, and other flavors of unhealthy abusive relationships get covered in this novel to some degree- if not portrayed per se, then perhaps discussed. On the one hand, if you're going into a dark romance, you probably know what you're likely getting yourself into. On the other hand... if you can't read people exercising poor judgment, well, you've been warned.

But like I said before when talking about book one, I've read this pair five times, and for a reason. It's good. The characters are deep multidimensional constructs, and oh, dear me, the magic system is even more exquisitely detailed in this novel, and the geekery abounds. 

I also read Ghosts and Liars first as a Kindle Unlimited offering that I later bought in order to have in my own personal library forever, because I know it will be one of those stories to which I continue to return.

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. 

Prince Lestat: This Calls for a Drinking Game

Okay, Anne Rice, I'm looking at you. Some words just don't merit this kind of usage, so while I generally love you and your writing to bits, we have come to a point where the best way to enjoy your paranormal writing is with the

 Preternatural Drinking Game. 

The rules are simple.  Every time you read the word preternatural, take a drink,  and enjoy that tipsy reading experience.  If you prefer to abstain from such libations, then maybe enjoy a square of good chocolate. Then the word won't be quite do irksome.  This game can be played with any of her otherworldly books, so grab some wine, chocolate, or whatever is going to get you through it and play along. 

The Book of Life

I'm just really sad that I wasted all these hours on this anti-feminist, misogynist, rape culture piece that is filled with veiled excuses for domestic violence and for all it's feeble counter-kyriarchy talk, is just as patriarchal as everything that has ever been wrong with the worst of the paranormal genre, when the book isn't continuing the series' road trip through different genres.

Yes, A Discovery of Witches started strong and with so much mind boggling promise that I got caught up in it. I really thought it might be The Historian with more para. No. So much no. Save your self respect and just don't do it.

Call Me Grim

Call Me Grim- Fast paced in the way that only a story on a tight countdown that starts with stalker and cheating death can be. So very good.
— Biblivoracious (@Biblivoracious) August 13, 2014

Elizabeth Holloway hits the ground running and does nothing but pick up pace throughout Call Me Grim, the edgy YA novel that brings new meaning to the phrase "damned if you do, damned if you don't." In Call Me Grim though, Libbi isn't the only one who has to worry about damnation, she's got the soul of her best friend to worry about.

Full confession, I thought the premise had about a 75% chance of being pure cheese. It wasn't. This was like winning the book review lottery. The characters are fully formed, the dialog engaging, motives genuine, plot twists interesting and even surprising. I was impressed. Moreover, I can see this growing into an interesting series that is about something a heck of a lot larger than boy meets girl or girl saves friend, and I like that.

The premise: death saves a girl, but there's a catch, a huge catch, and it just might be a fate worse than death, caught me off guard. I was ready for "girl dies and gets offered a job to atone," or "girl inherits family job of collecting souls," but "girl trades in a chance at heaven to keep her friend from going to hell, all because the current reaper has personal reasons for wanting out of the whole reaper gig," well, where do I send the "thank you for your originality card?"

Pacing aside, what I liked the most about Call Me Grim, was that it contains a lot of food for thought, especially about what it means to be a friend, and the moral weight of our ties to one another. I'm not sure if that's what Holloway was aiming for, but that's what I came away with... well, that, and a heck of a rollercoaster ride of a story.


I received an ARC to review from the publisher.

City of Heavenly Fire

City of Heavenly Fire: Great characterization but many déjà vu moments. Wordy at times, but offers solid closure. A+ expanded world building
— Biblivoracious (@Biblivoracious) August 1, 2014

Sometimes I just can't write without spoilers, and for that, I apologize. I'll try to keep them out of the first paragraph. Of course, this is the sixth book in the series, so if you haven't started The Mortal Instruments yet, stop reading now- everything is a spoiler (but not so spoilerly as the movie which pretty much blew the entire plot of the next few books... so, if you haven't started, and you think you want to, go ahead and do it. I've stuck with it for six books. It's not Harry Potter, but it's high-drama paranormal adventure, and positively pwns Twilight, even when it's uncomfortable to read).

Now on to the spoilers, because Spoilers make this book what it is- not so much in that the plot turns that make the reader gasp need to be pointed out, but because I feel like it could have been about 150 pages shorter, and a lot of what made it needlessly long was Clare writing around things in that almost spoil the Infernal Devices series. No, that's not true, they really do. When you say to someone who hasn't read the other series "oh look, here's these characters, alive all these years later, with complex relationships that turned out this," when that's the end of the other series, yeah, that's a spoiler. Rather than come out and say who those characters are, Clare spends a multitude of pages writing around who they are so that those who have read it will know, but those who aren't won't- but it becomes redundant and verbose. Yes, it's nice to see characters I loved from the other (my preferred) series return, but cutting to the heart of it wouldn't have hurt anyone. Actually, it might have saved my wrists some strain.

Now, on to the meat of the story. This plot focused on solving problems for everyone more than Clary's internal struggle regarding, well, boys, and the struggle between grasping for your own salvation and self surrender. I liked that. However, once again, her mother proves to only be good at being a plot device who gets herself kidnapped. Really? Can't we go another route? I admit, I'm tired of people getting kidnapped. It was like we'd come full circle back to City of Bones. Clary's mom gets kidnapped by relatives, Simon gets kidnapped by vampires... yeesh, haven't we been there and done that?  The motion of the plot was forward, but the elements were backward.

Again, the main themes were ageism, racism, and whatever ism we use when talking about the extra damaging bigotry that surrounds non-conforming sexuality. If the Shadowhunters have anything down, it's kyriarchy. Although, it sure is nice to see that the younger generations of Shadowhunters are making some positive steps toward a more inclusive and accepting future.

City of Heavenly Fire opens by introducing an entirely new cast of characters who later integrate with our central band of taciturn teenage warriors, and I hope to see them again in subsequent writings by Clare. She has a tendency to recycle characters within her world, and really, theirs was the only story left open in the end.  I particularly liked Emma Carstairs, and hope that things with her and her best friend don't turn to ash because of secret reservations in her heart, and that, right there, is what Clare does best. She creates characters that make you care deeply about them. That is why I still go back for more, even if the whole "kidnapped by Morgensterns" trope is wearing thin. I go back because I care about what happens to the people who inhabit her world.

Dream Girl

       Despite writing with powerful and excellent voice and despite fabulous imagery, S.J. Lomas' novel, Dream Girl, just couldn't keep me hooked. Strong characters in interesting situations could not make up for how often I found myself thrown from the story by the tense switches between character. Christine looked, Gabriel sees, she ran, he runs, she dreamed, he wrote. It was too distracting, which is sad, because Lomas has a lot to offer, and the dark atmospheric qualities of Dream Girl make me want to be able to recommend it. I hope to see more from this author in the future, because seldom does a writer establish such strong voices so quickly in a story, and I'd like to read some more from S.J.'s imagination.

Wicked as They Come

For my full review of Wicked as They Come, 

click here

In the Shadow of Blackbirds

Click here for my full review.

The Heavens Rise

Click here for a full review of The Heavens Rise