Review: American Gods

Title: American Gods

Author: Neal Gaiman

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Gore, blood, death, death of spouse, murder, murder of children, suicide mentions, guns, excrement, kidnapping, car crashes, explicit heterosexual sex, body horror, prison, racist language, transphobia (brief), near drowning, autopsy procedures, vomit (mention), animal death, eating human remains

Back Cover:

Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You’ll be surprised by what – and who – it finds there…

Review:

The story is a solid adventure through magic and a bunch of different mythologies, with Shadow following Mr. Wednesday through a lot of crazy stuff and meeting a host of interesting people. Then at the end it hits you with a bunch of twists one after the other and bumps a very good book up to a fantastic one. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Shadow is not, in a sense, a character. He’s there, sure, and he says things and does things, but he doesn’t feel like a fully realized person and I don’t think he’s supposed to. He has a lot going on all of the sudden that he doesn’t really know how to deal with, and even another character points out that he doesn’t seem very alive. That’s a part of his character’s journey, but he also functions as his namesake – a few stereotypes stacked together into the shape of a likeable but not remarkable shadow we the reader can follow to experience this world and these events.

And said world and events are worth experiencing. The gods came with immigrants from the Old World, but America has forgotten the old gods and worship the new ones of technology and innovation that they create. There is a storm coming. Gods live among humans and survive on the worship and sacrifice they are given, and as you might imagine, the “new gods” of TV and phones and the internet are getting a bit more worship from Americans than Odin and Anansi and Ishtar. Mr. Wednesday wants to do something about that.

His full plan isn’t clear until the end of the book. But in the meantime, Mr. Wednesday takes Shadow all across America and to places beyond reality, meeting old gods and new ones and legends and monsters. Shadow rides a carousel into Odin’s hall, plays checkers with the Slavic god of bad fortune in a dusty Chicago apartment, sporadically lives an ordinary life in a small town under an assumed name, and journeys to the halls of the dead. He meets a host of fascinating characters, some human but many not so much, and it’s great to just follow him around and experience all the wonder and magic under the skin of the world we’re familiar with.

And then the book comes up on the end and hits you with several twists, one after the other, but it doesn’t feel startling as much as the puzzle pieces finally fall into place all at once and the picture revealed is shockingly different from what you thought it would be. (To be fair, I probably would have called one of the twists early on if I’d been reading it instead of listening to an audiobook, but the other ones I don’t think I would have seen coming either way.) Up to this point the book was absolutely good, but those twists bumped the needle of my opinion from “solidly good, I recommend it” to “stunning and magnificient.” Whatever your opinion of the idea or the storyline or the characters, this book is worth studying just for technique, because this is how you write a twist ending. The whole story is great, but with the ending, it’s a masterpiece.

Review: Good Omens

Title: Good Omens

Author: Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of animals, fire, fatphobia, eating disorders, homophobia (mention), racial stereotypes, outdated racial terminology, mild body horror

Back Cover:

The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.

Review:

I’ve never read anything by Neil Gaiman, so I can’t speak for that, but if you like the way Terry Pratchett’s books are written then you’ll thoroughly enjoy this. (I also have not seen the show yet, since I was strongly advised by a friend to read the book first, but I will be watching that eventually.)

Aziraphale the angel and Crowley the demon are a lot of fun in the way they contrast. Aziraphale is strict, fastidious, and always plays by the rules. Crowley is bold, hedonistic, and not a huge fan of rules. They’re enjoyable in their own right and especially fun when they bounce off each other.

The book also has a remarkable amount of other point-of-view characters – such as Anathema Device, a witch and the last descendant of Agnes Nutter and possessor of the only book of her prophecies (which are very accurate, if not very clear); Newton Pulsifer, who fails at most things and joins the nearly-defunct Witchhunter Army nearly by accident; and Adam, the Antichrist, who I really didn’t like much at all (possibly because he was the Antichrist and not supposed to be liked, possibly because he was an 11-year-old boy in small-town England in the late 80s, which is about as far from relatable as it’s possible to be from a mid-twenties nonbinary person in a medium city in America in the 2020s).

It also contains a delightful cast of secondary characters, including the slightly batty and only other Witchhunter Army member Sargent Shadwell, the fake psychic and probably-sex-worker Madame Tracey, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and a crotchety old man who writes so many complaints to the local newspaper that they don’t have room to print them all and who only shows up for one chapter but I think it’s the funniest chapter in the book.

This whole book is funny, though. In between the whole “end of the world” and “cosmic battle between good and evil” and “literal Antichrist and son of Satan” bits, you also have laugh-out-loud lines and hilarious moments where ordinary people are completely gobsmacked by supernatural things that seem very ordinary to most of our main cast.

This review is not going to accurately encapsulate this book, because this book is a lot of things. It’s a bit of a rumination on human nature, and a bit about how the Divine Plan doesn’t make a lot of sense (or doesn’t seem to be planned at all), and quite a lot of implications that good and evil aren’t all that different when it comes down to it, but it also has flying saucers, people being in underground tunnels without really being sure why, Atlantis, rains of fish, Crowley and Aziraphale being mistaken for a gay couple, major highways actually being demonic symbols, and a lot of humor.

This book is long (or maybe it just feels that way since almost everything that happens takes place over about 7 days). I will admit, I skimmed over several of the longer tangents and only read about half of the footnotes. But it’s still quite enjoyable, and if you enjoy Terry Pratchett’s works, you’ll enjoy this one too.

Review: God’s War (DNF)

Title: God’s War

Series: Bel Dame Apocrypha #1

Author: Kameron Hurley

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death (sometimes graphic), gore, blood, insects, vomit, sex, selling body parts, bodily mutilation

Read To: 39%

Back Cover:

Nyx is a bel dame, a bounty hunter paid to collect the heads of deserters – by almost any means necessary.

‘Almost’ proved to be the problem.

Cast out and imprisoned for breaking one rule too many, Nyx and her crew of mercenaries are all about the money. But when a dubious government deal with an alien emissary goes awry, her name is at the top of the list for a covert recovery.

While the centuries-long war rages on only one thing is certain: the world’s best chance for peace rests in the hands of its most ruthless killers. . .

Review:

Do I give up on books too easily? Perhaps. I enjoyed this one while I was reading, but I put it down for a little bit and don’t feel any burning desire to go back. So I’m DNF-ing it here, and if I come back to it, then I’ll update this review.

The absolute best thing about this book is the world. Exploring the world-building is why I liked this book so much while I was reading. It’s definitely a fantasy world, but it’s also very Arabic, from the religion to the clothing. Nyx’s country is locked in a Holy War with a neighboring country, who seem to worship the same deity and have the same religious texts but interpret them very differently (Nyx’s people are matriarchal, for example, while the neighboring country is patriarchal). The chapters switch perspectives between Nyx and Rhys, a refugee from the enemy side who gives an interesting perspective on the other side of the war. I loved all the details about the religion and the culure and all the little details of how the world works.

The technology/magic thing was really cool, too – it’s 100% bug-based. (Seriously, if you’re in any way squeamish about bugs, this is not your book.) Cars are powered by bugs. Bio-scanning energy fields protecing cities are powered by bugs. Healing is done with bugs. Magicians are magicians because of their ability to work with bugs. Bugs are everywhere and it’s very weird and very unique and personally I think that’s a good thing.

The bad thing is that the most interesting thing about the book is the world. The characters (mainly Nyx and Rhys, our alternating narrators) were overall bland. Nyx is the tough-as-nails take-no-shit I’m-too-badass-for-rules female bounty hunter stereotype. Rhys is mostly played off as a weak character to foil off of Nyx’s strength, and his main redeeming quality is his moderate skill with bugs. Neither of them were particuarly compelling in and of themselves, and to me, they (Rhys especially) served more as a vehicle to deliver world-building than anything else.

The plot also meanders quite a bit. Where I put it down (nearly 40% through), Nyx and Rhys were just getting the assignment to retrieve the missing emissary. The book opened following Nyx through collecting one of her bel dame bounties, then that abruptly ends as she gets stripped of her bel dame title and thrown in jail for a couple years. Then it spends an extended amount of time on Rhys’s backstory before Nyx and Rhys even meet. Then Nyx sets up her bounty hunting crew, and the book tries real hard to set up a rivalry between Nyx and her team and another bounty hunter and his team, but it really failed at making me care. It takes nearly 40% of the book wandering through all this before even starting the plot that was mentioned on the back cover.

Of course, take all this with a grain of salt – if you can’t tell by the distinct lack of reviews around here lately, I’ve been in a bit of reading slump. This is very possibly an “it’s not the book, it’s me” situation. The world-building was fantastic and the main reason I liked it so much while reading, but the plot and characters really aren’t compelling enough for me to want to finish it right now. I’m leaving open the possibility of coming back to it, though – because if nothing else, this world is really, really cool.

The Bel Dame Apocrypha series:

1. God’s War
2. Infidel
3. Rapture

Review: Not Even Bones

Title: Not Even Bones

Series: Market of Monsters #1

Author: Rebecca Schaeffer

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood/gore, body horror, torture, pedophilia mention

Back Cover:

Nita doesn’t murder supernatural beings and sell their body parts on the internet—her mother does that. Nita just dissects the bodies after they’ve been “acquired.” But when her mom brings home a live specimen, Nita decides she wants out — dissecting living people is a step too far.

But when she tries to save her mother’s victim, she ends up sold on the black market in his place — because Nita herself is a supernatural being. Now Nita is on the other side of the bars, and there is no line she won’t cross to escape and make sure no one can ever capture her again.

Nita did a good deed, and it cost her everything. Now she’s going to do a lot of bad deeds to get it all back.

Review:

This book is really really dark and really really gory and also really really good despite (or perhaps because of) all that.

Nita is the narrator. She doesn’t kill people or sell their body parts, but she does dissect the people her mother kills so her father can sell their body parts. A huge part of the emotional arc of the story is Nita insisting to herself that she’s a good person, and then as things get worse and worse crossing her own lines and trying to reconcile the fact that she may not be that good after all. I don’t read enough antiheroes to be able to positively identify her as one, but I know that despite all the bad things she does, I liked her a lot.

The story actually takes a little bit to get to the “Nita gets sold on the black market” part, but I was okay with that. It took time to set up a complicated dynamic between Nita and her mother, establish a world where nonhuman creatures are known and some of them are on a “legal to murder them” list, and tease a few things that get explained later on. And once it gets into the “Nita gets sold” part, wow, does it get intense.

This whole book is intense and vivid. Rebecca does an amazing job writing about pain – and there is a LOT of pain in this book. Torture, cutting off body parts, broken bones, stabbings … Normally the amount of sheer violence in this book would put me off, but somehow I didn’t mind (that much). It was intense, but it was also engrossing.

What I didn’t realize when I picked this up is that it’s first in a series. I’m actually not sure if I want to go on to the second book. There are some loose ends that weren’t tied up and that’s the only reason I’m considering reading book two – I really just wish everything had been resolved at the end of this one. It was really good, don’t get me wrong, and I enjoyed it. I just don’t know if I can handle another book as violent as this one. If I do, it’ll be sometime in the future, not immediately.

The Market of Monsters series:

1. Not Even Bones
2. Only Ashes Remain
3. When Villains Rise

Review: Street Spells

Title: Street Spells: Seven Urban Fantasy Shorts

Author: Various (see back cover)

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: See review

Back Cover:

Magic stalks modern streets.

Werewolves and witches. Demons and elves. Street Spells compiles seven new and exclusive short stories featuring mythical beings hidden in plain sight.

Aimee Easterling: “Scapegoat”

Tori Centanni: “Dead Goblins and Overdue Rent”

Rachel Medhurst: “Magically Hidden”

Dale Ivan Smith: “Siloed”

Becca Andre: “Alchemy and Destiny”

N. R. Hairston: “Dirty Magic”

Kat Cotton: “Run Away”

Break out of jail, hunt down magical art thieves, and dabble in alchemy as you discover a new author (or seven) in this page-turning collection of paranormal shorts.

Review:

This book is a mixed bag – three of these stories I really liked, and three of them I didn’t even finish. Literally the only thing these stories share is genre, and since my opinions on them vary greatly, I’m going to tackle them all individually.

“Scapegoat” by Aimee Easterling

Trigger warnings: Attempted sexual assault, mild whorephobia

I did not finish this one. It’s one of the longer ones and I didn’t get very far into it. It started with a nineteen-year-old stripper getting almost assaulted on her way home, then she gets saved by a werewolf who turns into a guy that she knew from the strip club, who then asks her to leave town with his pack … because he wants her to be his mate or something? It was like the cringiest werewolf romance ever in the first five pages and I just skipped ahead to the next story.

“Dead Goblins and Overdue Rent” by Tori Centanni

Trigger warnings: Death, blood, zombies

This was one of my favorites. It had the urban fantasy idea of a character with powers navigating a supernatural world while still trying to do ordinary things like make rent. The story was creative, the mystery aspect was good, and I just love characters that win because the antagonist didn’t know they had some sort of ridiculously strong power. The story was left weirdly unresolved, which is my only criticism, but I enjoyed this one.

“Magically Hidden” by Rachel Medhurst

Trigger warnings: Guns

Another longer one, and another one I didn’t finish. The concept was actually interesting – two agents from “Magical MI5” are trying to prevent a museum robbery, and they think they succeeded until they realize they were outwitted. But I couldn’t stand the “romance” between the two main characters, which mostly consisted of the narrator lusting after her partner. I gave up at the line “Mr. Hunky Pants – that’s short for Gerard -” The only thing the narrator seemed to care about was getting in her partner’s pants and I couldn’t tolerate it even to figure out what happened during the museum robbery.

“Siloed” by Dale Ivan Smith

Trigger warnings: Magical torture, blood, death

Another favorite. A very creative story about a guard at a prison for supernatural criminals who gets caught up in a betrayal and escape plan. The world (or at least, the tiny part of the world that was the supernatural prison) was well-developed for as short as the story was, the main character was sympathetic, and the plot is really good, including unexpected enemies and an unexpected ally. I was impressed with how much the story managed to do while still being fairly short.

“Alchemy and Destiny” by Becca Andre

Trigger warnings: None as far as I read

This one I didn’t finish, but I think that might just be me, since it wasn’t a content issue at all. The story started okay, if bland – one brother in a family of Hunters being picked on by his other brothers because he’s more skilled than them. I stopped reading because the way the characters and story were written was something I would expect to see in something I wrote when I was 13. The style was more like my middle school fanfiction than anything I would expect to see published, and I didn’t enjoy it.

“Dirty Magic” by N.R. Hairston

Trigger warnings: Violence, blood, death, organized crime

This is another one that I really enjoyed. It’s one of the longer ones (I think the longest), and deserved the page time. The main character has the ability to open portals between worlds, and uses that ability to hide criminals on the run (who pay her well) and victims of violence (which she does pro bono). When one of the victims she hid goes missing again, she sets out to find and rescue the woman. The setting is great, with several interesting worlds, and I really liked the main character. There’s also something bigger going on than just one missing woman, and overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable story.

“Run Away” by Kat Cotton

Trigger warnings: Homelessness

I am not really sure how I feel about this story, and I think part of that is because it was so short. The main character is a homeless minor (15 I think) who gets chased by some sort of red-eyed shadow entity. She randomly bumps into this adult man who takes her home, feeds her, and helps her deal with the demonic thing. I just couldn’t get over how weird it was for this adult man to take this minor girl home, and even though nothing happened, it still made me super uncomfortable. The story never tells you anything about this man. Why is his house a safe place from the shadow thing? How does he know how to help the main character deal with it? You never find out anything about him besides his name. He’s just … there, with no answers, and it left me unsure how comfortable I really was with the whole situation.

Review: Bruja Born

Title: Bruja Born

Series: Brooklyn Brujas #2

Author: Zoraida Córdova

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, traumatic injury, car crash, cannibalism, fire

Spoiler Warning: This book is second in a series, so this review may contain spoilers of the first book, Labyrinth Lost.

Back Cover:

Three sisters. One spell. Countless dead.

Lula Mortiz feels like an outsider. Her sister’s newfound Encantrix powers have wounded her in ways that Lula’s bruja healing powers can’t fix, and she longs for the comfort her family once brought her. Thank the Deos for Maks, her sweet, steady boyfriend who sees the beauty within her and brings light to her life.

Then a bus crash turns Lula’s world upside down. Her classmates are all dead, including Maks. But Lula was born to heal, to fix. She can bring Maks back, even if it means seeking help from her sisters and defying Death herself. But magic that defies the laws of the deos is dangerous. Unpredictable. And when the dust settles, Maks isn’t the only one who’s been brought back…

Review:

This book is intense. The emotions and the drama and the atmosphere and everything grab you from the second paragraph and none of it slows down until the epilogue. I actually had to take a break after the first two chapters because I was not expecting that many feelings (and that intense of feelings) at the very beginning.

This is Lula’s story. I thought before I picked it up that it was going to be a continuation of Alex’s story from Labyrinth Lost, but it actually follows Alex’s older sister Lula. It happens after the events of Labyrinth Lost and continues the story of the Mortiz sisters through a different set of eyes.

I didn’t expect to like it as much because I was already invested in Alex from the last book, but that really wasn’t an issue. I didn’t necessarily love Lula in the usual sense of “loving” characters, but I felt her pain and her emotional conflict and I got really invested in her. She’s a tragic heroine who tried to fix something bad and made things much worse, and I was rooting for her the whole way.

This book is dark and there’s a lot going on. I can’t even touch on the plot because the true state of things slowly gets revealed as Lula and her sisters discover things and they don’t even find out the sheer magnitude of what’s happening until near the end. The story is full of difficult decisions and emotional pain and it was thoroughly absorbing.

There’s also a lot more of the bruja world – there’s more than just brujas dealing with magical things, and this book reveals more of a complex and fascinating world hiding under the world we know. And the end hints that we might get more of it in the future.

Also, despite being such a dark book, it has a mostly happy ending.

I thought going in that the Brooklyn Brujas series was only two books, but I’m glad I was wrong. There’s a third book coming out in 2019. My guess is it’s going to be about Rose, the youngest Mortiz sister, but I’m okay with that. If it’s anything like the previous two books, I’m sure I’ll love it.

The Brooklyn Brujas series:

1. Labyrinth Lost
2. Bruja Born
3. Currently Untitled (2019)

Review: Labyrinth Lost

Title: Labyrinth Lost

Series: Brooklyn Brujas #1

Author: Zoraida Córdova

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Blood

Back Cover:

Nothing says Happy Birthday like summoning the spirits of your dead relatives.

I fall to my knees. Shattered glass, melted candles and the outline of scorched feathers are all that surround me. Every single person who was in my house – my entire family — is gone. 

Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can’t trust. A boy whose intentions are as dark as the strange markings on his skin.

The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland…

Review:

I put this on my to-read list because there was magic and I’d heard it was gay. That’s about it. I picked it randomly when reserving books at the library, and when my fiance saw it sitting on the dresser I couldn’t even tell him what it was about. That’s how little expectations I had for this book.

The good news is, this is a great book.

It really was. The magic was amazing, Alex was a strong character with good development and growth, the plot seems straightforward but throws some twists in at the end, Los Lagos is an amazing setting (just as dark and twice as strange as you’d expect, but with a definite Wonderland vibe), and the layers of magic are revealed slowly and wonderfully.

It’s just … a beautiful book, really. It’s the kind of story that if you saw it visually, it would be elegant and graceful and eerie, rendered in dark purples and blacks and silvers. The writing and the mood is gorgeous, and it made me want to go out and practice magic and cast some powerful spells.

I only really had two problems:

1. It’s never really explained why Alex is afraid of her magic. All you get is something about the family cat being possessed, and her magic kills it? And somehow that made her father leave? It’s not clear.
2. It wasn’t gay. I was told it was, and I kept expecting a romance between Alex and her friend Rishi. (Maybe there will be in the next book, but there wasn’t here.) But on the bright side, there also wasn’t any romance with Angsty Brooding Hero Nova, either.

I feel like breaking it down and analyzing the components of it will ruin the magic. It was just … fascinating and absolutely gorgeous. And it ended on a twist. I’m totally looking forward to the next book (next year …).

UPDATE August 2018: I’m reading Bruja Born, the second book in the series, and apparently Labyrinth Lost was gay at the end – I just somehow missed it. That’s my fault (although I’m not sure how I managed that), so if you’re looking for a gay ending, it’s here.

The Brooklyn Brujas series:

1. Labyrinth Lost
2. Bruja Born (April 2018)
3. Currently Untitled (2019)

Review: Win the Rings

Title: Win the Rings

Series: Cracked Chronicles #1

Author: K.D. Van Brunt

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Back Cover:

The Army’s most valuable weapon is not any kind of gun, missile or tank. It is kids—kids who are special, trained, lethal. Jace is one of them. She has been the property of the Army since they found her when she was five. But the Army does not control all special kids. Gray is one that got away, and he has spent most of his sixteen years hiding from the Army.

Now, the Army has found out about Gray and they cannot allow him to roam free. Operating on the theory that it takes one to catch one, Jace is sent out with a special ops squad to hunt Gray down, but Jace is not the only one pursuing him. She has competition, and the competition is after her too. What ensues is a desperate chase through city after city as duty and honor collide with love and sacrifice, as Jace must decide whether the enemy of my enemy might be my friend.

Review:

I was not super excited about this book going in. The cover was meh (yes, I judge books by their covers) and I didn’t understand the title, but the back cover copy sounded just interesting enough that I said, “why not.”

Jace reminded me a lot of Max from the Maximum Ride books, if Max had never escaped the School. And trust me, that’s a high compliment – Max is one of my all-time favorite characters. She didn’t have Max’s sarcasm, but she had the tenacity and the awesome kick-butt skills. I loved her.

I also enjoyed Grey, who was actually a point-of-view character. He was Jace’s opposite in many ways – much less violent and angry, and a lot fewer skills – but while I loved Jace for the awesomeness, I loved Grey for his humanness. He loved his sister and was willing to make a lot of sacrifices to keep her safe.

This was like the best of both plots. There was Jace’s side with the army stuff and impressing the heck out of people who aren’t accustomed to the idea of a shapeshifting teenage government agent. Then there was Grey’s side, living on the run, using his shapeshifting to steal from thieves, and trying to live some semblance of a normal life. Even the details of shapeshifting were great. It was all completely fabulous.

Win the Rings was a surprise hit for me. I absolutely loved it. And I can’t wait to read the next book, whenever it comes out.

I received a free review copy of Win the Rings from the author. His generosity in no way influenced, or sought to influence, this review.

The Cracked Chronicles:

1. Win the Rings
2. Dance of the Pink Mist
3. A Freedom to Fight For

Review: New Sight

Title: New Sight

Author: Jo Schneider

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Releases: April 22, 2014

Back Cover:

Most sixteen years olds’ biggest worries revolve around school dances and good grades, but Lysandra Blake has a much bigger problem to worry about: She wants to rip peoples’ eyes out.

When Lys finds herself tied down in a psych ward after attacking her own mother, everybody around her is convinced she’s gone insane. The doctors don’t have answers, and Lys is about ready to give up when the mysterious Mr. Mason appears, telling Lys that she’s not insane—she’s addicted to a rare and deadly drug that she has no recollection of using. With this knowledge, Lys is thrown headfirst into a world of daunting, magical powers that are not only unbelievable; they are extremely dangerous.

Review:

The synopsis sounded a lot like there would be psychic powers, but it was listed as fantasy, not paranormal. So I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but magic and psychics are both good with me. Plus, the mental illness angle sounded awesome. So I figured I’d try it.

Lys was interesting. She was protective and brave, and didn’t really think about herself when someone else was in trouble. But she could be naive and slow to pick up on things (or that could just be that I picked up on stuff faster than average). I absolutely loved the fascinating descriptions of her mental-illness thing. Even though the narration was third person, I had to double-check that fact because her emotions came across so well.

Brady, a fellow inmate/drug-addict/whatever-you-want-to-call-him, was my favorite character. He was the light-hearted, fun one, who always seemed happy and optimistic. The ending definately raised my opinion of him, too.

I only half liked Kamau (another inmate). The reader part of me thought he was a little too much of a perfect love interest (at least until the end when he started to play much more into the plot). The teenage girl part of me wished I could find a sweet, caring guy like him.

New Sight kind of had an ensemble cast. I say “kind of” because even though there are a lot if I were to name them all, they were never onstage all at once. So the story didn’t usually feel too crowded, but there are far more characters I could mention if I had the space.

This synopsis is one of those that gives you a teaser of the first few chapters – because that’s about how long this one lasts for. Then it moves on. There’s a group working against Mr. Mason which may or may not be evil (or maybe Mr. Mason is the evil one). Lys and a group of friends go on the run from these people. And that’s about as far as I’ll go, for risk of spoilers – but it gets better.

I absolutely loved the idea behind New Sight. This kind of magic isn’t exactly original, but that it acts kind of like a psychic power and kind of like a drug … brilliant!

New Sight was original, fascinating, brilliant … and I wish spoilers weren’t a problem, because I’d love to mention so much more of the plot. There’s so much more than you read on the back cover, and it gets so much better. I totally enjoyed the read. There’s not much sequel room here, but I’d be interested to find out what Jo Schneider is writing next.

I received a free ARC of New Sight from the publisher. Their generosity in no way influenced, or sought to influence, this review.

Review: Aether Warriors

Title: Aether Warriors

Series: The Hidden War #1

Author: Dean Ravenola

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Back Cover:

Young Chase’s life is suddenly turned upside-down as he discovers he has been chosen as an Aether Warrior. He is the last member found of a small group of gifted children that will be trained to lead a war that has been ongoing secretly for centuries. Strange creatures, hidden bases, and perhaps even a betrayal lie in store for Chase as he follows his destiny.

Review:

Why did I pick this up? Partly because I like magic stories, partly because it generally sounded interesting, and partly because the author is nineteen years old. As a teenage writer myself, I’m always happy to support one brave enough to publish his writing on his own.

I liked Chase. He had a not-so-idyllic childhood, but he still turned out okay – friendly, caring, and loyal, if a little bland. I wish he had more time between arriving at the Golden Scales base and the traitor being a traitor to discover and show off his skills. But overall, I enjoyed reading about him.

I don’t want to say a lot about the other characters, for risk of revealing the traitor. (Unfortunately, I found it really obvious who the traitor was, but it’s hard to say how much of that was just my plot psychicness.) But I liked almost all of Chase’s team. The exceptions were Juno, who wasn’t really social (and whose name always made me think of the Roman goddess of motherhood, even though this Juno is a guy), and sometimes Jasmine, who rubbed me the wrong way.

The story starts off pretty basic. Weird stuff happens, Chase unleashes supernatural abilities and gets taken away to join a secret group of similarly gifted people. Then it gets a little more exciting, with a mythical creature zoo (of sorts), magic and magical weapons, powerful relics, and, of course, a similar group of magic people that are evil. And there’s a traitor. There weren’t a whole lot of layers to it, but I enjoyed the magical action and watching Chase’s team operate.

I really don’t like writing this, but I’ve always promised honest reviews, and I feel this deserves a mention. The writing was not as good as it could have been. This is one of those books were the basics of a good story are there. There’s plot, protagonists, antagonists, action, and all the elements of a classic hero’s quest fantasy. But it wasn’t fully fleshed out to its full potential. The author really needed another year or two of writing practice under his belt. (I say this as a writer myself – I see a lot of his mistakes in my own older works. Practice can work wonders.)

I did really enjoy Aether Warriors, which is why I’d urge Dean Ravenola to take another look at it. It has some awesome potential, but it will need a little help in getting there.

I received a free review copy of Aether Warriors from the author. His generosity in no way influenced, or sought to influence, this review.

The Hidden War series:

1. Aether Warriors