Format: eARC

A+ #BookReview: Anatomy of Evil by Will Thomas

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
A+ #BookReview: Anatomy of Evil by Will ThomasAnatomy of Evil (Barker & Llewelyn, #7) by Will Thomas
Format: eARC
Source: purchased from Amazon, supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Barker & Llewelyn #7
Pages: 327
Published by Minotaur Books on May 12, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

In London of 1888, Private Enquiry Agent Cyrus Barker takes on his biggest case ever—the attempt to find and stop the killer terrorizing Whitechapel: Jack the Ripper
Cyrus Barker is undoubtedly England’s premiere private enquiry agent. With the help of his assistant Thomas Llewelyn, he’s developed an enviable reputation for discreetly solving some of the toughest, most consequential cases in recent history. But one evening in 1888, Robert Anderson, the head of Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), appears at Barker’s office with an offer. A series of murders in the Whitechapel area of London are turning the city upside down, with tremendous pressure being brought to bear on Scotland Yard and the government itself.
Barker is to be named temporary envoy to the Royal Family with regard to the case while surreptitiously bringing his investigative skill to the case. With various elements of society, high and low, bringing their own agenda to increasingly shocking murders, Barker and Llewellyn must find and hunt down the century’s most notorious killer. The Whitechapel Killer has managed to elude the finest minds of Scotland Yard—and beyond—he’s never faced a mind as nimble and a man as skilled as Cyrus Barker. But even Barker’s prodigious skills may not be enough to track down a killer in time.

My Review:

Private Inquiry Agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn have been on a collision course with this particular date with destiny since the very first book in this series, Some Danger Involved, opened in 1884 with Barker taking Llewellyn on as his apprentice.

This seventh book in the utterly riveting series of their adventures has reached the ominous year of 1888, the year that “Jack the Ripper” terrorized the streets of London’s most desperate and notorious neighborhood, Whitechapel.

Every single police agency – and there were plenty of competing jurisdictions and agencies in London in the autumn of 1888 – wanted the glory that would come from catching the killer – and zealously guarded their patch and every single scrap of evidence they managed to acquire.

In this compelling take on the investigation into the Whitechapel Murders, Scotland Yard, reluctantly and with a ridiculous number of caveats and restrictions, deputized Cyrus Barker and his apprentice-turned-assistant Thomas Llewellyn into the Metropolitan Police Department in order to avail themselves of Barker’s much vaunted expertise in investigation and manhunting.

And, in all probability, if all else failed, to have him on hand to use as a scapegoat if they couldn’t manage to close the case.

Which, or so history tells us, they didn’t. Unless one of the many conspiracy theories had it right after all, and the truth would have lit a powder keg that Scotland Yard was incapable of putting out.

Escape Rating A+: I picked this book when I did because I was on a long flight and needed something that was guaranteed to take me away from my current circumstances. I was one hundred percent certain that Barker & Llewelyn were the men for the job.

Which they absolutely were.

The fascinating thing about this particular entry in this long-running series is that its focus isn’t on the lurid details of the crimes, but rather on the intricate details of the investigation – including the interdepartmental rivalries, the political shenanigans, the conflicting social mores of the time and the various factions that needed protection – or demanded it – as well as the potential consequences of any of the various possible resolutions.

Barker and Llewelyn find themselves in the one place neither of them ever expected to be. They’re not just in the thick of the investigation, but they are embedded firmly into the Metropolitan Police. Barker prefers to be his own boss and run his own show, and Llewelyn is an ex-con. While neither of them expected to be welcomed in the Met with open arms, they’re continually astonished that they are there at all.

At the same time, the experience fosters respect on both sides that honestly neither side believed was possible. It will be interesting to see how and even whether that continues in future stories.

But the Ripper killings took place at the dawn of forensic science – and many of the techniques were still being hotly debated – even as “Jack” cut a bloody swath through Whitechapel and left damned few clues behind him – while the gutter press did their damndest to gin up readership with sensationalism.

The story runs at a compelling, page-turning pace as Barker and Llewelyn gather and discard clues and theories even as they walk the streets of Whitechapel night after night in an attempt to learn the territory so they can spot anything out of place – while they observe the day-to-day and night-to-night life of this district that most well-heeled Londoners would just as soon forget with understanding and empathy instead of the judgment and derision exhibited by their current colleagues and their usual clientele.

In the end, Barker gets his man – with Llewelyn’s able assistance – just as he always does. That the solution seems plausible even though justice can’t truly be served feels right, true to the circumstances, and even surprisingly satisfactory – in spite of the lack of historical closure.

Saying that I had a “good” reading time with Barker & Llewelyn this time around feels wrong – because the whole Ripper case is awful. I appreciated the way that the story dealt with the evidence of the actual killings without sensationalizing them more than has already been done elsewhere and plenty. The in-depth details, very much on the other hand, of the investigative processes of the police and the sheer amount of manpower they devoted to the case were fascinating.

And of course, I love these characters, so taking them out of their familiar haunts and watching them still get the job done added new layers to them, their association and their story. Which means that I will definitely continue my journey with Barker & Llewelyn with the next book in the series, Hell Bay, the next time I need to be swept away to Victorian London.

Grade A #BookReview: New Adventures in Space Opera edited by Jonathan Strahan

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Grade A #BookReview: New Adventures in Space Opera edited by Jonathan StrahanNew Adventures in Space Opera by Jonathan Strahan
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: science fiction, short stories, space opera
Pages: 338
Published by Tachyon Publications on August 13, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Have you ever wanted a faster-than-light trip to the future? Are you tired of reading science fiction novels that feel like they’re taking literal eons to finish? These fifteen award-winning and bestselling science fiction authors, including Charlie Jane Anders, Alastair Reynolds, Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Tobias S. Buckell, Ann Leckie, and Sam J. Miller, and more, are here as your speedy guides to infinity and beyond.
In “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance,” a cloud-based contractor finds a human war criminal clinging to the hull of the ship. The clones of “All the Colours You Thought Were Kings,” about to attend their coming-of-age ceremony, are plotting treason. During “A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime,” two outlaws go on the run after stealing a device from a space cult.
Here are the new, adventurous―and most efficient―takes on interstellar battles, sentient spaceships, and political intrigue on a galactic scale. Discover where memories live and die, and where memes rise and fall in moments. Remember, the future is sooner than you think, and there’s only so much time for visiting it.

My Review:

These space opera stories aren’t exactly new as they’ve all been published before in a variety of not necessarily widely available sources. But all are from the last decade and every single story represents an author who is at the top of their game. And, for the most part, they are marvelous.

I’m usually hit or miss with short story collections, sometimes they work, occasionally they don’t, and often there are a couple of stories that go ‘clunk’ and not in a good way and/or one or two where I can see why people liked them but I’m just not the right reader for them.

This particular collection only had three stories that weren’t absolutely stellar – all puns intended. Which means that I read through the whole thing and had at least a bit to say about each, leading to an overall Escape Rating of A.

“Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance” by Tobias S. Buckell
What is the difference between having free will but not having any real choices and being bound by contracts and programming – but having time to work one’s way around both? What does it REALLY mean to be human? And how much time and freedom does one need to find ALL the loopholes – and exploit the hell out of them? Escape Rating A for an absolutely beautiful asskicking of an ending.

“Extracurricular Activities” by Yoon Ha Lee (2018 Hugo nominee in the Novelette category)
Well, this just moved Ninefox Gambit up the virtually towering TBR pile, because I think this story is set in that universe and features one of the same characters, Shuos Jedai. Obviously one does not need to have read the series to get into this story because clearly I haven’t but just as clearly I most definitely did. Translating this to Trek a bit, because that’s what I was doing in my head, this story is what you’d get if Starfleet sent Section 31 to deal with the Tribbles, used Harry Mudd’s ship as cover – along with a much better looking version of Mudd – and it all worked out anyway in spite of all the reasons the entire operation should go terribly, horribly wrong. This is a story that shouldn’t be nearly as light as it turns out to be – but it is and it does and it was a LOT of fun along the way. Shuos Jedai fails up REALLY HARD in this story and it really works. Escape Rating A

“All the Colors You Thought Were Kings” by Arkady Martine
A different empire, different memories thereof. Three teens about to become cogs in the empire, except that they’ve chosen to take it over instead. A plot, a plan, a triangle of either siblinghood or romance or both, and a million to one shot that comes through but probably won’t change things half as much as they hoped. Escape Rating A

“Belladonna Nights” by Alastair Reynolds
What is the quality of mercy, and what does it mean to remember? Neither of which questions feel remotely like they should go together. I was expecting something about political shenanigans and jockeying for position and/or a bit of a star-crossed lovers romance, and what I got instead was something beautiful and sad and surprisingly elegiac. Which is exactly what the story is, an elegy for a people long dead, as seen through the eyes of the one person willing to remember them. Escape Rating A-

“Metal Like Blood in the Dark” by T. Kingfisher (2021 Hugo winner in the  Novelette category)
Not all learning organisms are human, and not all learning is on the side of the angels. But when your opponent is definitely working from the dark side of the Force, even a machine has to learn to fight fire with fire. Reminiscent of T.J. Klune’s In the Lives of Puppets in its story of machines being required to learn the worst lessons from humans – because some of them already have. Escape Rating A+

“A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime” by Charlie Jane Anders
This was just so deliciously, delightfully and dementedly over the top that it’s rolling on the floor laughing its ass off on the other side. A belly laugh of a tale, with a sensibility and a naming convention reminiscent of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Escape Rating A-

“Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard (2013 Hugo nominee in the Short Story category)
The weapons of conquest are not necessarily the kind that kill. Sometimes they just do their damndest to kill the culture instead and let the people conquer themselves. And sometimes the culture being appropriated manages to fight back in ways that aren’t exactly deadly weapons, but can be deadly all the same. Escape Rating A

“Morrigan in the Sunglare” by Seth Dickinson
Don’t read this one when you already have a sad because trust me, it won’t help at all. However, in its heartbreaking sadness it’s a beautiful story about what is, what was, what might have been, what it means to be human vs. what it means to have what it takes to defend those who are, what we owe to the people we love vs. what we owe to the people that love us AND it’s about saving what can be saved – even if that means we have to lose it. I have all the words and none of them convey this story properly because it’s beautiful and sad and HARD. Escape Rating A

“The Old Dispensation” Lavie Tidhar
My thoughts about this one went on two completely separate tracks. There are a TON of religious references in this far-future SFnal story, but what made all of that interesting was that every single one of those references, including place names and names of ships, originated in Judaism instead of any of the usual suspects. Very much on my other hand, however, the story doesn’t quite gel. The idea that the agent of the Exilarch was essentially dismembered and mind-raped was plenty creepy, and the whole idea of what the conflict was at its heart was kind of fascinating, but it didn’t pull together in the end and lost its way more than a few times in the middle. Escape Rating C

“The Good Heretic” by Becky Chambers
This was a heartbreaker in the best way, a story about friendship, and being true to yourself, and daring to be different no matter what it costs, and discovering that difference doesn’t have to mean bad or evil no matter what everyone else tells you. It’s part of the author’s Wayfarers universe but can absolutely be read as a standalone – I haven’t read Wayfarers yet but its moving up the TBR pile as I write. Escape Rating A++

“A Voyage to Queensthroat” by Anya Johanna DeNiro
There’s something in this one that reminds me of The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo, although I can’t totally put my finger on why. Part of it is the way that both stories are memoirs of secondary characters telling the story of someone famous and even legendary from a previously untold point of view, and that both have a gut-punch of an ending. I’m on the fence – with both stories actually – about whether the length was just right or whether there should have been just a bit more. Escape Rating A-

“The Justified” by Ann Leckie
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or of the one – even when the one is supposedly the ruler of all they survey. And sometimes the only way to obey an order is to disobey the person who gave it. I think I needed more background than I had, or something like that, because this one only sorta/kinda worked for me and I was expecting it to be a wow. Escape Rating B

“Planetstuck” by Sam J. Miller
This was a story that works and works heartbreaking well because it’s completely invested in and riding on its characters. So even though we don’t have nearly enough about how this particular universe works, it doesn’t matter because what we care about – and deeply – are the desperate feelings of its protagonist and its lesson that you really can’t go home again – no matter how badly you want to, because some gifts really do come at much too high a price. Escape Rating A+

“The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir” by Karin Tidbeck
A beautiful ending to a terrific collection. It’s a bit steampunk-ish, not in setting but in the feel of the way the world is set up, but the story it reminds me of most is Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis, in that this is also about the last voyage of a cruise ship that is much bigger than it appears from the outside. Escape Rating B

#BookReview: She Who Knows: Firespitter by Nnedi Okorafor

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: She Who Knows: Firespitter by Nnedi OkoraforShe Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: African Futurism, science fantasy, science fiction
Series: She Who Knows #1
Pages: 176
Published by DAW on August 20, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Part science fiction, part fantasy, and entirely infused with West African culture and spirituality, this novella offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a teenager whose coming of age will herald a new age for her world. Set in the universe Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, Firespitter is the first in the She Who Knows trilogy
When there is a call, there is often a response.
Najeeba knows.
She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call to the Salt Roads. What’s just happened to Najeeba has never happened in the history of her village. But it’s not a terrible thing, just strange. So when she leaves with her father and brothers to mine salt at the Dead Lake, there’s neither fanfare nor protest. For Najeeba, it’s a dream come travel by camel, open skies, and a chance to see a spectacular place she’s only heard about. However, there must have been something to the rule, because Najeeba’s presence on the road changes everything and her family will never be the same.
Small, intimate, up close, and deceptively quiet, this is the beginning of the Kponyungo Sorceress.

My Review:

The story begins, as so many of this author’s stories do, with a young African woman on the cusp of change in a world that has already changed and been changed from the one we know now.

In the case of this particular story and this particular young woman and this particular version of the future, Najeeba is thirteen when the story begins, and is about to go on a journey. A journey that members of her family take every year – but a journey that females are not supposed to undertake at all.

Not that there are laws against it, but there are rules – rules enforced by a social contract that have ossified into restrictions that no one challenges. Not until Najeeba comes in and tells her parents that she feels the call of the ancestral salt road every bit as much – if not a bit more and a bit sooner – than her father and her brothers.

In the desert, salt is life. Finding the best salt, the purest AND prettiest blocks of it, and selling them for the best price in distant markets, keeps her family and her village alive and prosperous. Most of the time.

Because her people have historically been considered unclean, untouchable outcasts. A judgment that Najeeba’s inclusion in the annual salt harvest is guaranteed to make worse AND more violent – even as it confers upon Najeeba the kind of power that is guaranteed to bring down retribution – both human and divine.

And gives birth, literally and figuratively, to a woman who will change the world.

Escape Rating B+: She Who Knows is the first book in a prequel trilogy of novellas to the author’s award-winning novel Who Fears Death. In a way that story literally gives birth to this one as this one gives birth to that, as Najeeba, “she who knows”, is the mother of Onyesonwu, “who fears death”.

I haven’t read Who Fears Death, although I have a copy in both text and audio and plan to listen to it. While it has certainly climbed up the virtually towering TBR pile after finishing She Who Knows, I don’t feel like I missed anything by reading this book first. After all, it IS a prequel and not a sequel. It sets the stage for Who Fears Death without giving anything away or providing spoilers.

What it does remind me of, a lot, is the author’s Desert Magician’s Duology, particularly Shadow Speaker. Not only do Najeeba’s and Eiji’s stories start from a similar place, as both begin their stories as girls on the cusp of womanhood, gifted or cursed (depending on one’s perspective) with magical powers, but both choose difficult paths that their birth cultures reserve for men and they also find themselves telling – and being told – their stories by and to strange desert sorcerers.

They are not products of the same Afrocentric future world, but their worlds are similar nonetheless. Meaning that if you like one, or if you have enjoyed ANY of the author’s previous and/or successive works such as the Binti Trilogy, there’s a very good chance you’ll fall right into She Who Knows as well.

In the end – and also as a beginning – this is a great introduction to Who Fears Death AND The Book of Phoenix, which is a much earlier prequel chronologically to Onye’s story. Not only is this a great story in its own right, but it’s also short which means that it provides an introduction in an easily consumed little package. And if that consumption leaves you with a taste for more – as it very much did this reader – this is, oh-so-thankfully, the first novella in the projected trilogy of equally short and undoubtedly equally salty and delicious stories.

I am definitely looking forward to the rest of Najeeba’s story, which will be continued in next year’s One Way Witch. In the meantime I can’t wait to see how the mother’s experiences in this book and the rest of the trilogy are reflected in the child in Who Fears Death.

 

A- #BookReview: Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
A- #BookReview: Time’s Agent by Brenda PeynadoTime's Agent by Brenda Peynado
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: climate fiction, science fiction, time travel
Pages: 160
Published by Tordotcom, Tordotcom Publishing on August 13, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

“What would you do, given another universe, a do-over?”
Forty years ago, archeologist Raquel and her biologist wife Marlena once dreamed of the mysteries they would unlock in their respective fields using pocket universes— geographically small, hidden offshoots of reality, each with its own fast or slow time dilation relative to Earth time—and the future they would open up for their daughter.
But that was then.
Forty years later, Raquel is in disgrace, Marlena lives in a pocket universe Raquel wears around her neck and no longer speaks to her, what’s left of their daughter’s consciousness resides in a robotic dog, and time is a commodity controlled by corporations squeezing out every last penny they can.
So when a new pocket universe appears, one that might hold the key to her failed calling, Raquel seizes one last chance to redeem herself to her wife, live up to her own failed ideals, and confront what it means to save something—or someone—from time.

My Review:

On the one hand, Time’s Agent is a familiar story about human greed and corporate rapaciousness, set in a near-future version of our world where climate change is proceeding apace, badly and past the point of no return, and the resulting dystopian society is running amuck right along with it.

And on the other hand, the way it tells that familiar story is through messing with time – even though Time’s Agent is explicitly not a time travel story – at least not unless Rip van Winkle’s story is a time travel story. Instead, this is a story about the “true” theory of the relativity of time. Not Einstein’s version, but rather Zall’s Second Law, the one that goes, “How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.”

The so-called “pocket worlds” that are discovered, explored and protected by their Institute represent vast, exploitable resources to the megacorporations that are well on their way to taking over the world. Some PW’s are fast relative to Earth standard time, and some are slow, and there are ways to monetize and use them up.

The Institute stands in the way of all that, at least until Raquel makes a terrible mistake and accidentally falls into a fast-time PW that spits her out forty Earth standard years later. Her disappearance – along with the disappearance of her wife who was inhabiting a slow-time PW around Raquel’s neck – turned out to be the catalyst for terrible changes, both for them personally and for the world in general.

Like Rip van Winkle, the place that Raquel and Marlena return to is nearly unrecognizable to the two “time travelers”. In the 40 years that they missed, their daughter died, their Institute was gutted, corporates control EVERYTHING, and the World War III that occurred in the interim pushed the entire Earth further and faster down the road to destruction.

The only hope that Earth has is to find a pocket world that is much more than a pocket. A world that is big enough to start both species and civilization over again. Raquel and Marlena’s only hope is to get there first and close the door behind them.

Escape Rating A-: Time’s Agent is a story where the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts, but the parts are what we have in our hands to read. In other words, this is a mixed feelings kind of review because well, my feelings about the whole thing are mixed.

What adds to my extreme mixed feelings is that the overall feeling of the story is profound grief. Forty years into a terrible future, Raquel is grieving pretty much everything, her marriage is fractured, their daughter is dead, her friends are scattered, her once-shining hopes have fallen into disillusionment, the Institute she believed was both her family and her calling has been suborned and her world is dying.

Raquel’s grief permeates the entire story, to the point where she’s justifiably wallowing for much of its length – and the story wallows with it. It makes sense from her equal parts depressed and horrified perspective but it makes for a difficult and sometimes low, slow and even ponderous read as she tries to get her shit together in a world where she doesn’t know if the place she left it last still exists.

The SFnal parts of this one reminded me of a whole bunch of things, not all of which are themselves SF. The combination of the way that the pocket worlds work, that you can go in to a slow time PW, stay a long time and come out at the same minute you left, physically unchanged but mentally quite different echoes the Star Trek Next Generation episode The Inner Light, while the differences caused by Raquel and Marlena’s absence from the world and the way in which that absence occurred recalled Yesterday’s Enterprise and the profound changes wrought by the Enterprise C’s presence or lack thereof at Khitomer.

The exploitation of both the pocket worlds and the people who used and abused those worlds and/or were abused by them calls to mind Charlie Stross’ Merchant Princes series and especially Kage Baker’s books about the rapacious, time-traveling and looting Company. Consider all of the above readalikes or watchalikes for Time’s Agent, albeit in different ways.

One of the fascinating things about this story, and that puts it over the hump from B+ to A-, is the way that the story is both set in and steeped in the author’s Dominican culture, and the way that the setting emphasizes the evils AND the pervasiveness of both colonization and colonialism, using that setting to point out that the fate of the pocket worlds and THEIR exploitation has all happened before, is happening now, and will all happen again. At the same time, the characters’ perspectives on their world before Raquel’s fall into fast time and her return provides a fascinating contrast by showing both Raquel and the reader just how easy it was for her to ignore the already worsening state of the world as a whole as long as her personal little corner of it was doing just fine.

And at the same time, while I don’t want to call this a solution because it isn’t a solution overall but is one for Raquel and Marlena, is rooted in the nearly forgotten and utterly subjugated history of their own people, and it’s answer that could only have come from the survivors of colonization and not its perpetrators, and that is utterly right and woven into this story from the outset.

In the end, I still have, as I said, some mixed feelings about this one. Admittedly, my most mixed feeling is that this would have been better at a longer length, with a bit more of Raquel’s and, as it turns out, Marlena’s, planning made a bit more manifest a bit earlier on. Because there’s a lot to unpack in this story and this reader at least ended up relying on resemblances to the above readalikes/watchalikes to vault over some of those hidden bits, as well as using those vaults to carry me past the depths of the protagonist’s wallow.

All of that being said, this is the author’s DEBUT novel. Considering that this is her first novel, the number of wild but mostly realized ideas combined with the heartbreaking poignancy of the portrayal of the protagonist’s grief and desperation have absolutely put this author on my reading radar and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!

A- #BookReview: Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews
A- #BookReview: Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth RevisFull Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: science fiction, science fiction romance, space opera
Series: Chaotic Orbits #1
Pages: 192
Published by DAW on August 6, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A high octane sexy space heist from New York Times-bestselling author Beth Revis, the first in a novella trilogy.
Ada Lamarr may have gotten to the spaceship wreck first, but looter’s rights won’t get her far when she’s got a hole in the side of her ship and her spacesuit is almost out of air. Fortunately for her, help arrives in the form of a government salvage crew—and while they reluctantly rescue her from certain death, they are not pleased to have an unexpected passenger along on their classified mission.
But Ada doesn’t care—all that matters to her is enjoying their fine food and sweet, sweet oxygen—until Rian White, the government agent in charge, starts to suspect that there’s more to Ada than meets the eye. He’s not wrong—but he’s so pretty that Ada is perfectly happy to keep him paying attention to her—at least until she can complete the job she was sent to pull off. But as quick as Ada is, Rian might be quicker—and she may not be entirely sure who’s manipulating who until it’s too late…
A phenomenally fun novella that kicks off a trilogy of sexy space heists and romantic tension, Full Speed to a Crash Landing is packed with great characters and full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end.

My Review:

It’s pretty clear – at least to the reader – from the opening pages of Full Speed to a Crash Landing that Ada Lamarr’s ‘Mayday’ isn’t exactly on the up and up. Even if her little spaceship does have a real, honest-to-larceny hole blown in its side – taking her airlock not merely offline but blown out into little bitsies in the surrounding black of space.

That hole is unequivocally real and true – although every other single thing about Ada’s story sounds like a fake and a lie – even the parts that aren’t either of those things. The government agent in charge of the Halifax, the much bigger and better funded ship that has dawdled to her rescue is certain that Ada has got something going on on the down low that necessitated her ship’s presence in this particular sector in orbit over this particular tectonically active (extremely active) baby planet.

He’s sure that both Ada and his ship are after the same quarry, the cargo ship that crash landed, very badly and in multiple pieces, on that earthquake-ridden and volcano prone little planetoid.

Agent Rian White knows what his crew is after, but he’s less than certain about Ada’s stake in this particular game. Only that he’s absolutely positive that she has one.

But he’s so bewitched, bothered and bewildered by the seemingly open but utterly devious smuggler that he doesn’t figure out that she’s already stolen everything she planned on until after she warps away with the contents of a much-sought-after and destructively secured datadrive, the key to opening it – and, quite possibly, his heart.

Unfortunately for Ada, she’s all too aware that he has hers – and that it’s the one thing she never expected to lose – let alone to a government agent who is too good and too good-looking for his own – or certainly her own – good.

Escape Rating A-: This one is pure, sheer, unadulterated fun. It just hits on so many levels in a way that keeps both the reader and the characters delightfully guessing every step of the way. Because we know from the beginning that Ada Lamarr is, as that old saying goes, no better than she ought to be. We know she’s an unreliable narrator because she teases us – along with government agent Rian White, with her secrets and plans and wheels-within-wheels plot even as she’s running out of oxygen and wondering if perhaps she went just a bit too far with her opening gambit.

At least until it works – and gives her one up on the stick up her ass captain of the Halifax. Who is NOT really in charge and is absolutely not Rian White – whose ass is delectable and absolutely does not have a stick up it. (And I’ll leave the rest of the possible salacious jokes and puns right here no matter how tempting they are. Ada has several thoughts in that direction but absolutely does not go there in this first book in the Chaotic Orbits trilogy – no matter how much she wants to.)

On the surface, this is very much a wheels-within-wheels long game kind of caper plot. Ada clearly has a hidden agenda from the off – even if she doesn’t reveal the full extent of it even inside the privacy of her own head. Rian sees the wheels spinning, even if he can’t see what they’re spinning around and about, Ada sees his wheels spinning and is attracted by his obvious intelligence. They’re both clearly playing with each other on multiple levels and that’s already fun.

Which gives the story a bit of lightness that brightens the world creation – because it’s equally clear that the way this particular SF world is set up is not all that light. And it’s a bit murky, at least at this early stage, whether Ada is on the side of the angels or on the side of the biggest paycheck. She’s undoubtedly morally gray, but one of the questions that we’re left with at the end is whether Rian White is even grayer, or not.

That the grayness revolves around a very interesting question adds a bit of depth to that world creation. Because this isn’t a case where the established government is evil in one way or another, the question is whether or not it can possibly be effective at fixing what’s been broken. Not a question of whether or not it’s on the side of the angels, but whether or not it has enough angels on its side to get the shit that needs to get done, done.

Between the caper aspects, the questions about which side is the righteous one in a universe going mad, and the possibility of romance – or at least eventual sexytimes – between its deceitful heroine and its play-mostly-by-the-rules hero, Full Speed to a Crash Landing fits right into the marvelous moment that science fiction romance is currently having.

So if you’ve fallen hard for Valerie Valdes’ Chilling Effect, Rachel Bach’s Fortune’s Pawn, Cat Rambo’s You Sexy Thing and/or Constance Fay’s marvelous Fiasco and Calamity, you’ll be as pleased as I am to know that the second book in the Chaotic Orbits trilogy, How to Steal a Galaxy, will be speeding our way in December. Rian White will be staking out an auction hoping it will attract Ada – while Ada plans to convince him to join her on the dark side – where the cookies are – by kidnapping him into her own questionably legal plans.

It should be a BLAST!

Grade A #BookReview: A Vengeful King Rises by Sophie Barnes + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Grade A #BookReview: A Vengeful King Rises by Sophie Barnes + GiveawayA Vengeful King Rises (House of Croft) by Sophie Barnes
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, historical romance
Series: House of Croft #1
Pages: 492
Published by Sophie Barnes on July 30, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

The only thing more lethal than his need for revenge, is the woman who's tasked with bringing him down.
Adrian Croft dreams of quitting the shady business he stands to inherit, of settling down, and of raising a family free from a life of crime. But when tragedy strikes, this fanciful dream is destroyed. All he wants now is revenge. His anger, however, threatens to cloud his judgment, making it harder for him to recognize danger when it approaches in the form of a beautiful woman.
Trained for covert operations as part of a secret government program, Samantha Carmichael's mission is to give British law enforcement a reason to prosecute the most powerful man in the country. But when common sense and duty begin to blur, can she remain steadfast in her goal, or will her loyalties shift as she gradually loses her heart to the one man she cannot afford to love?
One series, one couple, and the brutal challenges they must face
If you like What Angels Fear, Silent in the Grave, and Murder on Black Swan Lake, you’ll devour Sophie Barnes’ thrilling new series.
Buy A Vengeful King Rises and start this adventure today!

My Review:

The vengeful king that rises in this first book in the House of Croft series is Adrian Croft, the new ‘King of Portman Square’. It’s a position that Adrian never wanted, but has now been thrust upon him – willing or not.

The ‘King of Portman Square’ – at least when that powerful but unofficial title was held by his father or any of the Crofts who came before him, is a title of ill and dangerous repute. A repute that Adrian vowed to set aside after the death of his father.

The Crofts have controlled most of the criminal underbelly of London – if not all of Britain – for generations. During his father’s lifetime Adrian Croft became all too acquainted with everything dirty and dangerous that his father owned – because he was the one who visited each and every establishment to mete out his father’s justice.

Adrian wants to walk the straight and narrow, and for the family to make and maintain its fortunes through legal enterprises instead of gambling, prostitution, and blackmail.

But there are forces raised against his plan in all quarters. There’s a serial killer targeting young women of the aristocracy, killing any that he believes are only pretending to be chaste and virginal. He leaves his victims with a slit throat and a note attached to their corpses with one word – WHORE.

Scotland Yard can’t seem to find the killer, the pressure from above is mounting, and a decision is made to go after Croft – not because he’s the guilty party in THIS crime but because bringing down the vast Croft criminal empire will divert attention away from their inability to stop the gruesome murders.

The government sends in one of their best and most covert agents, Samantha Carmichael, part of a cadre of young female orphans trained as spies in case Napoleon had managed to invade Britain. Her job is to get close to Adrian Croft by any means necessary, find where he keeps his secret blackmail files, and procure rock-solid evidence of his criminal activities.

Even if she has to bed him and/or wed him to make it happen. Even if they both manage to take leave of their senses and lose their hearts in the process.

Escape Rating A: I picked this up because the author is one that I read whenever she has something new – and this book is very new indeed. Meaning that if you are expecting one of her signature frothy Regency romances you’re going to be surprised. A lot. And be utterly captivated and compelled.

This series opener worked well for this reader, because the House of Croft series is what you’d get if two of my favorite historical mystery series, C.S. Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr and Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford & Sloane, had a book baby – possibly midwifed by Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series. St. Cyr and Wrexford & Sloane expose the gritty, grimy underbelly of the glittering Regency, take place in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, all of their heroes are dark and brooding, and all of the relationships begin on a knife edge of secrets and lies, distrust and betrayal. While Maiden Lane, although set a century earlier, dives deeply into the same mean streets where the House of Croft holds sway.

But  St. Cyr, Wrexford & Sloane and the House of Croft work from different positions. Sebastian St. Cyr is an aristocrat who operates in the halls of power, of which he is not a member, quite, at least not yet., but certainly will be upon the eventual death of his father the powerful and well-connected Earl of Hendon. Wrexford focuses more on scientific advancement and the kind of technical and industrial espionage that leads to grandiose promises and economic crashes. Although both began their secondary interests in investigation after being falsely accused of crimes, they are otherwise completely legit.

Adrian Croft is none of the above. He has no title, but has a great deal of mostly illegally obtained wealth. He has power but seemingly no check on it. He doesn’t merely expose the Regency’s dark underbelly – he has the ability to control it.

Which means that each of these series may be set in the same time and place but they are not looking at it from the same direction.

Adrian comes to his investigation of the serial killer from the perspective of a victim. His young unmarried sister was one of the murderer’s kills. Not because she actually had sullied her reputation but rather because someone put her in the frame in order to force Adrian to take back the reins of the Croft criminal empire in order to hunt down her killer.

That nefarious person is still hiding in the shadows. Although now that he has achieved his objective I can’t help but wonder when we’ll see him again so that loose thread can be tied off – possibly into a hangman’s noose – in a later book in this series.

On the other side of this book’s equation there’s Samantha Carmichael. Because she is not, by any means, a typical Regency heroine. And yet, she’s not anachronistic. That Britain might create a spy program for undercover agents who can hide in plain sight is not implausible. It’s a bit early, historically, but if it were top secret enough we wouldn’t know, would we?

Just as this case is a test for Adrian, it’s also a test for Samantha. Her government handlers expect her to obey orders and yet are forced to give her considerable autonomy in order to carry out her mission. And in that autonomy, and the training to think for herself that it requires, Samantha starts to see the truth about her circumstances and begins to wonder if Adrian Croft is even a quarter as bad as he’s painted.

It’s clearly all going to end in tears and betrayals. The question that will hopefully be explored in the next books in the series, A Tainted Heart Bleeds (October) and A Ruthless Angel Weeps (January) is the question of whether they can find a way past the events that brought them together, or whether they will shatter, separately, together and with shrapnel flying all around.

I’ll be waiting with the proverbial bated breath for the next book, but in the meantime there’s a prequel novella, A Wounded Bird Sings, to tide me over.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling author Sophie Barnes writes historical romance novels
in which the characters break away from social expectations in their quest
for happiness and love. Having written for Avon, an imprint of Harper
Collins, her books have been published internationally in eight languages.
With a fondness for travel, Sophie has lived in six countries, on three
continents, and speaks English, Danish, French, Spanish, and Romanian with
varying degrees of fluency. Ever the romantic, she married the same man
three times—in three different countries and in three different
dresses.

When she’s not busy dreaming up her next swoon worthy romance novel,
Sophie enjoys spending time with her family, practicing yoga, baking,
gardening, watching romantic comedies and, of course, reading.

Contact Links

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#BookReview: Where is Anybody? by Simon R. Green

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Where is Anybody? by Simon R. GreenWhere is Anybody? (Gideon Sable, #5) by Simon R. Green
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: paranormal, urban fantasy
Series: Gideon Sable #5
Pages: 192
Published by Severn House on August 6, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Legendary master thief and conman Gideon Sable must pull off an impossible heist to save his partner's life in this fast-paced supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling British fantasy author Simon R. Green

Gideon Sable specializes in stealing the kind of things that can't usually be stolen. But these days the legendary master thief is officially retired from the caper game. Now, instead of pulling off elaborate heists with his crew of supernatural specialists, he runs a magical shop in the heart of London with his partner Annie Anybody. Still, he can't resist occasionally going out in the night to steal things when Annie's not looking. For old times' sake - and for the joy of the con.

But after one of his late-night illicit jaunts, Gideon returns to the shop to find that while he's been stealing, someone else has been hard at work . . . stealing from him. I have taken Annie Anybody, reads the note on the countertop. If you ever want to see her again, you must find and steal Time's Arrow. You have forty-eight hours.

Stealing the legendary Arrow isn't a challenge; it's certain death. But Gideon will stop at nothing to save Annie from their unknown enemy - with or without the help of his talented, terrifying former crew . . .

My Review:

Gideon Sable is a lot of things – thief, rogue, collector, jack of all slightly nefarious trades and a master of several of them – more than he admits but then he likes to be underestimated. It’s all part of the game, after all.

But he’s been trying to go straight – or as straight as anyone can who operates in Old Soho – after the events of Not of This World. But it’s not working for him. He misses the thrill of the hunt – and the curiosities and oddities store he inherited always needs more stock.

He may have sorta/kinda convinced himself that’s that’s enough to justify all of his occasional illegal forays into other people’s collections  – particularly as he only steals from people – and creatures – who really, really deserve it. But his partner, Annie Anybody, can always see right through him.

She always wears someone else’s face, so it’s easy for her to spot that her partner is wearing a mask of contentment that doesn’t quite fit. Gideon may always be ‘the man with a plan’ but this time Annie has a plan of her very own – and it’s much, much better than Gideon’s.

All he has to do is get the old gang back together – or at least as together as some of them can ever be – and ride to Annie’s rescue. Because Annie’s been kidnapped by one of Gideon’s many, many old enemies – and he’ll do anything to get her back. No matter how many impossibly well-guarded collections he has to burgle to save the love of his life.

But no plan – not even Gideon’s – survives first contact, especially when that enemy already knows all of Gideon’s tricks. As Annie’s kidnapper most definitely and absolutely does.

Escape Rating B: If the TV series Leverage had a book baby with the author’s own Nightside series the result would be Gideon Sable. Gideon is a liar, a thief, and a con artist, much like Nate Ford in Leverage – who is also ‘a man with a plan’. But Gideon, even though he usually operates outside the law and against the powers that be, only operates against villains who are much worse than he has any intention of ever being – even if those he considers fair game often represent that law OR are themselves among the powers-that-be. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Gideon Sable is right there waiting for some of them to step over a line that sometimes only he can see.

But he’s not really Gideon Sable. Or rather he IS Sable now but he hasn’t always been. In Old Soho, the mask and moniker of Gideon Sable belongs to whoever can steal it and keep it. In the first book in the series, The Best Thing You Can Steal, he had just assumed that identity – whoever he used to be.

This story, which looks like the final book in the series, reads like a bit of a victory lap for the character – in spite of his desperation to save Annie and enact some serious justice on whoever took her from him.

Along the way, first he has to get the old gang back together – and every single one of them needs help before they are available to help him. Even old friends and enemies manage to pop onstage for a brief moment and fans of the series will enjoy seeing most of them again – even the ones that Gideon himself would prefer to drop into a pit lined with spikes or vipers or both.

One of the things that has made this series work for me is that Gideon is a stream-of-consciousness snarkmaster of the first order and we see everything from inside his wry, cynical, sarcastic head. If you like his voice, you’ll enjoy the series – and probably most of the author’s other series – because the style is the same throughout and his worlds tend to bleed into one another – often literally.

Just don’t attempt to start here. It would be like reading the last chapter of a book before the first – before anything that’s going on in the ending has enough backstory to make sense. But all the books in the series are just barely above novella length, so if you like a lot of sass and snark in your protagonists then Gideon Sable might be your jam.

It certainly has been mine, and I’m sad that this series seems to be ending. At least I still have a few of his Ishmael Jones series left to read for when I next need some high quality snarcasm!

#BookReview: Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Lady Macbeth by Ava ReidLady Macbeth by Ava Reid
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Gothic, historical fantasy, historical fiction, retellings
Pages: 320
Published by Del Rey on August 13, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a reimagining of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.
The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men. 
The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.  
The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. 
But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world. 
She does not know this yet. But she will.

My Review:

This is another story we think we know.. We certainly do know how it ends, thanks to the Bard and “ Out, damned spot! out, I say!” although we usually get it wrong and misquote it as “Out, out damned spot!”

But do we really know anything at all? Shakespeare certainly played fast and loose with any history he got near, whether for dramatic license or to please the current monarch or, if at all possible, as much of both as he could cram into four acts.

Lady Macbeth observes King Duncan (Lady Macbeth by George Cattermole, 19th century)

Lady Macbeth, as a character in the play, comes off as an evil, villainous, witch – whether she actually practiced witchcraft or not. But was she really – and whether or not she was, how would Shakespeare know?

Because as much as we tend to think that all the past is just jammed together in a big ball of timey-wimey bits, the reality is that FIVE CENTURIES separate the historical Lord and Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare’s dramatically licensed interpretation.

In other words, he didn’t actually know a damned thing and neither do we, making his version entirely fictional and this book a thoroughgoing reinterpretation of that well-known fiction. This is a case where we don’t even know what we think we know.

So what do we have here? Lady Macbeth, the book in the hand and not the play in the mind, is part of the phenomenon of telling – or rather reinterpreting – a well-known story from the perspective of a female central character. A character who was either silent or just hard done by  in the male-centric version that put a man in the center of a story that may not even have been his in the first place – and didn’t bother to reckon with the restrictions and assumptions that hedged around women’s lives.

This Lady Macbeth, while she is certainly a schemer, is mostly scheming for her own survival in a world that makes her the property of her scheming father until he sells her to her murderous husband.

To put it another way, she’s doing the best she can to stay alive with the tools she has – her beauty, her position to a VERY limited extent, and the reputation her father has created for her as a powerful witch.

Which she might very well be, after all.

Escape Rating B+: I picked this one up and surprised myself by getting immediately stuck into it and couldn’t put it down. So definitely tick off the box for compelling. At the same time, I had the feeling that I’d read this one before. Not exactly this book, but something very much like it in its reinterpretation of a familiar character, and its female-centric but not feminist perspective.

(If you’re wondering – as I was – it reminds me of The Nightingale’s Castle by Sonia Velton, which gives Countess Bathory a similar treatment. Also, her portrait of Lord Macbeth reads like it owes a lot of its physical description to Henry VIII of England – which was just a bit weird. Plausible based on the limited information about the historical ‘King Hereafter’, but still odd to read.)

On the one hand, what makes this work is that we’re inside Lady Roscille Macbeth’s head, so we see her motivations and her mistakes, and intimately understand why she does the things she does. At the same time, we see her inexperience and naivete, because the poor girl is only 17 and a stranger in a strange land at that, when she is forced to marry Lord Macbeth.

One thing that her perspective emphasizes very clearly is that his is the power, not hers, no matter her reputation. Her choices are always circumscribed by his complete power over her very existence. He has all the choices – at least at the beginning. Towards the end it’s his previous acts that constrain those choices, not hers.

(Her angst over the things she has done, and their effect upon her ‘soul’ may go on just a bit too long for 21st century readers as it certainly did for this one. The past is another country, they did things differently there.)

In the end, she was the dagger, often, but he was always the hand wielding it, which is not at all what the play would lead one to believe. And has led most readers and viewers, over the centuries. Seeing that possibility, that perspective, through the eyes and mind of that dagger, kept me riveted to the story – as if at knife point.

A+ #BookReview: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
A+ #BookReview: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. KingfisherA Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Dark Fantasy, fairy tales, fantasy, horror, retellings
Pages: 336
Published by Tor Books on August 6, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic
Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.
After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.
Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.

My Review:

The name of that sorceress who comes to call on Hester Chatham and her brother the Squire is “DOOM!”.

That’s not what she was christened with – assuming she was christened at all. Or baptized or anything like that because she’s clearly evil. This evil has a name, and it’s Evangeline. She’s hoping to change that to Mrs. Squire, but in order to get her way she’ll have to get past the Squire’s sister, Hester.

Evil is sure that Hester will be a pushover – or she’ll simply push her over a balcony. After all, she’s done it before. She even does it right in front of Hester to one of Hester’s dearest friends.

But evil, as that saying goes, only triumphs when good men stand by and do nothing. Evil’s magic is such that most of the men, including the Squire, are quite literally standing by and doing nothing as she has utterly ensorcelled them – or at least the ones she thinks are important.

Seeing her friend die, watching her brother succumb to the sorceress’ seductive magic, discovering that the sorceress’ daughter is ANYTHING but her mother’s accomplice, spurs Hester to ACT. To do whatever she can and however she must in order to save her brother, her friends and even the sorceress’ desperate and despairing daughter.

All their lives hang in the teetering balance.

Escape Rating A+: This wasn’t what I expected, although having read quite a bit of the author’s work, I probably should have. I also had zero recollection of the fairy tale the story is loosely based on (The Goose Girl if you’re curious too), and that didn’t matter a bit, although if the idea of that drives you bonkers there’s a summary in Wikipedia, which some Wikipedian needs to edit to include this book in the list of adaptations.

Kingfisher writes both fantasy and horror and often in that mushy middle between the two. While this one is in that middle, it leans more to the fantasy side the way that the equally awesome (and award-winning!) Nettle and Bone did, rather than hewing closer to the horror side the way that her Sworn Soldier series (What Moves the Dead and What Feasts at Night) does.

Not that the acts that the sorceress commits are not plenty horrific – because they completely, utterly and absolutely are. But the way the story works its way out of her evil feels more like a fantasy. It also specifically feels a bit like a very specific fantasy, Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons by Quenby Olson. I’m certain that Hester and Miss Percy would be the very best of friends – and would have PLENTY of common ground to talk about!

I certainly enjoyed both stories for the same reason, their marvelous middle-aged female protagonists who take terrible matters into their own hands – after a bit of quite reasonable and reasoning reluctance – in order to get the best of the evil bitch attempting to put them down so they can save the day.

Which is when I felt like I got hit with a clue-by-four, to the point of chagrin that I didn’t figure out a whole bunch of things sooner. Not the way that Hester got the best of the sorceress, but rather the way that the story as a whole worked. And, as I mulled things over more than a bit, the way that Nettle and Bone and What Feasts at Night and a LOT of the author’s work, well, works.

The stories are feminist by example rather than by hitting the reader over the head with feminism. They simply show that women are beyond capable of doing all the things that men do, including being insufferably and thoughtlessly and selfishly and unironically evil

Meanwhile, the male characters serve in secondary roles. You know what I mean, the roles that women normally fill. In this story, and now that I think of it in much of the author’s work, women fill the big parts and do the big things, while men are the assistants, the helpmeets, the love interests, the dupes, and the fools. They’re sidekicks. And even, as in the case of Hester’s brother the Squire, they can be TSTL.

Which he absolutely is. He’s just lucky that Hester absolutely is not.

The icing on the cake of this story is that the Squire merely gets a lucky escape, while Hester is the one who deserved and certainly earned a glorious happy ever after.

A+ #BookReview: The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
A+ #BookReview: The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli ClarkThe Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy, urban fantasy
Pages: 208
Published by Tordotcom on August 6, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins are not cats.
Nor do they have tails.
But they are most assuredly dead.
Nebula and Alex Award winner P. Djèlí Clark introduces a brand-new world and a fantastical city full of gods and assassins.
Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins―resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories―have only three unbreakable vows.
First, the contract must be just. That’s above Eveen’s pay grade.
Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. Eveen’s a professional. She’s never missed her mark.
The third and the once you accept a job, you must carry it out. And if you stray? A final death would be a mercy. When the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen’s newest mission brings her face-to-face with a past she isn’t supposed to remember and a vow she can’t forget.

My Review:

Consider it 50/50 on the name. They’re not cats, they don’t have tails, (they’re also not wearing cat’s tails) but they absolutely are assassins and they are most definitely dead.

They are also not supposed to have a single, solitary memory of who they were when they were alive, or whatever caused them to swear themselves to Aeril, the Matron of Assassins and goddess of knives. And chefs, because knives.

Our story begins with a member of the Dead Cat Tail Assassins, Eveen the Eviscerator, taking a contract on behalf of her goddess. At first, it seems above board – or at least as above board as any contract to assassinate someone can be.

And that’s where things get interesting. And absorbing. And compelling. And utterly profane in the best way possible.

Because the person that Eveen is contracted to and absolutely MUST kill on pain of her own eternal torment is herself. Her old self. Her former self. The self she must have been twenty or so years ago, before she died and pledged herself to her goddess.

A self she is not supposed to be able to remember, because that’s the way the contract with the Matron of Assassins is supposed to work.

Someone clearly found a loophole. A big one. Eveen can’t kill herself, not even her rule-following, goody-two-shoes former self. Because seeing the person named Sky that she once was gives Eveen the one thing she’s not supposed to have – memories.

Not that either her past memories or her present ones explain not just how someone managed to tear this gigantic hole in the contract between Aeril and her contracted assassins, but a hole in the whole, entire, space time continuum.

And as big a question as that how is in a magical sense, an even bigger question is why anyone would go to this much trouble to torment one assassin, because this is way too big a mess to create for shits and giggles, and Eveen is merely one assassin among many.

But whether the motive behind this magical mess is in Sky’s long-dead past or Eveen’s recently dead past, this once and perhaps future assassin has until dawn to solve the mystery.

Or face consequences that this time she hasn’t even earned. Or has she?

Escape Rating A+: I picked this up because I adored the author’s Dead Djinn Universe, particularly the utterly marvelous A Master of Djinn. I wasn’t expecting this to be quite like that, although I certainly wouldn’t mind another foray into the Dead Djinn Universe, but I knew that whatever this turned out to be, it would be awesome. And it absolutely was.

Also cats. I fully admit he had me at cats. Even though I knew going in that there weren’t any actual cats.

What I was not expecting was a world that had some surprising resemblances to Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence/Craft Wars series, but it’s certainly there in the contractual obligations between gods and their agents, either or both of whom may be dead but still working and still bound by their contracts.

What makes this story work so well, so damn well in fact, is the relationship that develops between Eveen and Sky. They are day and night in so many ways, and yet, they are each other’s past and future and neither knows what caused the one to make the choices that led to the other.

In their mirror imaging of each other, they manage to reach through the silvered glass and work towards each other while still remaining who they are and it’s fascinating to watch. (It’s a bit like one of the Doctor Who episodes where the past Doctors get dragged into the present Doctor’s current dilemma, which was a lot of fun to see. Because it is.

At the same time, Sky’s astonishing advent into Eveen’s world lets Eveen show it to us as well. It’s a world that, for all its differences to ours, works both surprisingly well and every bit as badly in some of the same ways. Clearly, humans are gonna human, even when they’re dead. Or all powerful. Or both.

While the motives behind this whole mess are not, in the end, all that original, the execution (pardon all the puns) most definitely is, in a way that kept this reader at least on the edge of her seat until the bittersweet end. Which could, possibly, hopefully, lead to a new beginning.

Because if this turned out to be the start of a series, I absolutely would not mind AT ALL.