Finally finished with this mammoth book!

Boy, what a rollercoaster ride the The Last Hour of Gann was! Overall, I would say I had mixed emotions at various points throughout this book but for the most part really enjoyed reading it.

The premise of this book is about how a group from Earth sent by an organisation the Manifestors to start a colony in a galaxy far, far away crash land on an alien planet when the ship malfunctions. The main character is Amber, who has had a rough and hard upbringing on Earth, her mother a prostitute died and left her and her sister Nicci desolate. Her solution was to make a life on a new colony by joining the Manifestors, she would receive all the necessary things to start up life anew. When they crash land on this alien planet, the first life they stumble across is the Sword of Sheul, Meroaq (aka a priest Lizardman). The story then basically follows the two of them and the rest of the crash survivors as they try to navigate the dangers of the planet and make it to the Holy Temple, Xi'Matezh.

The book itself is split into several different 'mini-books' that break up various segments of the storyline. Personally the first two chapters which make up the first 100 or so pages I found pretty dry and confusing (particularly Meroaq's inroduction). The story as one may expect really kicks off once Amber and Meroaq meet and they have to learn to understand one another, learn how to cohabit and learn to cross the dangerous and desolate land to find the Holy Temple. It's during this time that the relationship between the two really blossoms across the book (and this really is a slow-burn romance) that develops between the two. It's an interesting concept because biological they are very different, human and lizardman, however I tried not to think too much about that concept.

The characters are what really drove me nuts about this book. Amber and Meroaq for the most part I really liked. Amber was a strong, resourceful and determined female character and I really liked her. She wanted to learnt to hunt, to learn to live off the land, to make things, to make a life and survive. I did find the fat-shaming a little repulsive and annoying, and the fact that everybody called her a bitch because she had strong views. This is just classic hatred of women for having a voice. If Amber had been a man, that never would have happened.

Meroaq was very surly, devoted and a little sexist but overall I really liked him. He always had Amber's best interests at heart and he was easily read through the bullshit that the other manifestors said.

However, the rest of the characters in this book were literally the worst. I think R. Lee Smith's intention was to obviously make them unlikeable, however they were such horrid human beings.

Nicci, Amber's sister was by far the worst character in this book. She was uncaring, spineless, whiny and such a wet-fish. She could do nothing for herself. Amber was her crutch for the whole book and the more the book went on the worse she got. In addition to her, was Scott, the 'leader' of the Manifestors who was one of the original crew. He was spiteful, power-mad and entirely idiotic. For the majority of the book Scott lead a hate campaign against Amber which grew old pretty fast and was frustrating at times. It's part of the reason I didn't rate this book higher because the story felt like it outgrew some of this tension and conflict between these characters. It did add good moments of drama and some interesting excitement, but I can't say I enjoyed reading about Scott and Nicci whenever they made an appearance.

The other major aspect of this book was the religious element as Meroaq was almost a zealot in his faith. However, I actually really liked the religious element and as the book drew on this really expanded and became a core basis for the book. I actually do not have a problem with religion being a core aspect of a book. After all, this was an alien planet and was all about following the word of Sheul. I think the religion aspect actually helped to deepen the world-building that R. Lee Smith crafted for this alien planet and enriched the cultural fabric of the story. I thought this was one of the most well-done elements of the book and really had an interesting story arc.

Overall I thought the book could have been a little bit shorter, tighter and with a little bit of editing to make some of the passages clearer. I did still really enjoy the book and definitely thought it was worth sticking with. I would issue a warning that the book did involve a lot of violence and rape as this is a very visceral and warrior-like world which wasn't always pleasant. However, it did feel realistic of the society and the situations when it happened with raiders and slave culture; this sadly reflected some harsh truths. Would recommend to all of those interested in new colonist/alien/science-fiction romance books.

Warnings: rape (lots of it) & violence.

Slave to Sensation is one of my favourite paranormal-romance series, but it's been a long time since I picked up the series or got to the final books so I thought a re-read was in order. I love Slave to Sensation as it has so many great concepts and develops some unusual and different aspects to the paranormal-romance genre.

Slave to Sensation is about three main "groups" of people, Changelings who are all shapeshifters in the forms of leopards, wolves, eagles, deers etc. Psy; these are psychic humans basically with immense mental powers such as telepathy, telekinesis, mind control, mind viruses and they are very scary people. The Psy are especially scary because they gave up emotion in 1979 in an attempt to stem their race's pathologically violent tendencies. Then there are the humans, who do not appear so much in Slave to Sensation.

The first novel focuses on the relationship between Lucas Hunter and Sasha Duncan and I adore both of these characters. Sasha intelligent, practical, kind and caring. She is determined and I love her character arc over the whole book as she grows in herself, her knowledge and her relationship with Lucas. Lucas is the love-interest and all around fierce, hot and scary hunter and leopard. He has some raw edges, but I really, really like Lucas. You definitely get the Alpha-vibes from him, but there isn't really that much macho-bs that you get in some paranormal romances with "Alphas". I love how strong and independent Sasha is. Not to mention the romance between these two is sizzling, although I also really like that there is an emotional vulnerability to it and a playfulness that means this isn't just about sex.

The second thing I love about this series is that it actually builds up a plethora of secondary characters and some good start to the world-building.

The World
We have the psy-net which is the psychic plain that all Psy connect to. In Slave to Sensation we begin to learn how this functions and runs and this is a big part of the overall world as the Psy can communicate on this plain and it functions as their life source. We have an alliance with the wolves, the SnowDancers who are DarkRivers (the leopard packs) closest neighbours. This relationship is crucial for the future books and the development of the Changeling-Psy relationships. Then you have the concept of Silence and the lack of emotion amongst the Psy. This is a major theme throughout all the books and how the lack of emotion has impacted upon the Psy race and hindered/helped them in different situations. In addition to this, the Changeling packs all have clear hierarchical structures, there is a human system of governance and justice, and the Psy have the Council who govern them. These clear concepts and world-structures really craft the world behind Slave to Sensation and make it a very strong book. I think this is one of the reasons I like the series so much as despite the romance aspect, there is still an interesting and engaging storyline.

Secondary Characters
The female characters in this book are equally well-rounded and interesting like Tamsyn the healer, like Rina (the soldier), Mercy (the sentinel) amongst the Changeling. Even Nikita Duncan (Sasha's mum) who is Psy is a character that begins to emerge in this first novel and despite her emotional silence, there is a level of personality and interest that develops about her. In addition to strong secondary female characters who I really like, you have an excellent villain, and a plethora of male secondary characters who are all interesting and have dark and disturbed histories ready for their own books in the series.

My conclusion is that I absolutely adore and love this book and would recommend to all paranormal-romance fans. I think having re-read this book my love for it has only increased!

2019 was a good reading year, I did not make it through many of my 10 books I wanted to read this year, but I indulged in a tonne of fantastic romances, paranormal-romance, urban-fantasy. I also got more into feminist non-fiction this year, which is a trend I want to continue into the new year.

Top 5 books of the year:
1. Becoming by Michelle Obama - I am in love with Michelle Obama, she is such an inspiring lady
2. Pachinko by Min Lee Jin - this book made me cry
3. Feral Sins by Suzanne Wright
4. Everything I Know about Love by Dolly Alderton - this book made me cry
5. The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata

Top Romance/Paranormal Authors of the Year
1. Patricia Briggs (Re-reading the Mercy Thompson universe has been a dreamy comfort).
2. Suzanne Wright
3. Marianne Zapata

Reading List:
1. Work like a Woman by Mary Portas
2. A History of the World in 21 Women by Jenni Murray
3. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
4. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
5. What Happened by Hilary Clinton
6. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
7. The Power by Namoi Alderman
8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
9. Becoming by Michelle Obama
10. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

My mission in 2019 was to read more books by women, diverse women and feminist literature, so I'm keeping track here:
1. Becoming by Michelle Obama
2. Everything I know About Love by Dolly Alderton
3. Work Like a Woman by Mary Portas
4. The Gynae Geek by Dr Anita Mitra
5. Queen Victoria by Lucy Worsley
6. I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
7. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
8. Why I'm No Longer Talking white people about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
9. Comfort Zones by Sonder & Tell
10. Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
11. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
12. The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier
13. The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
14. The Gender Games by Juno Dawson
15. Be the Change by Gina Martin
16. Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud by Anne Helen Peterson
17. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
18. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
19. A Manual for Heartache by Cathy Rentzenbrink
20. The Greater Freedom by Alya Mooro
21. Heartburn by Nora Ephron
22. She Wants It by Jill Soloway

Enemies was disappointing to say the least, especially as I love a good sports romance.

The Weak Points

I felt there were significant plot inconsistencies and character inconsistencies throughout the book that bugged me the most.

The sports-ness felt lacking as there was a little bit of college football, and some mention to Stone Reeves' career. Also Dusty said she didn't do football, hated football and then suddenly seemed to know all about football. It was just little inconsistencies like that that I didn't like.

The emotional aspect (although seemingly a little far-fetched, which I could have dealt with given it being fiction) was poorly executed again. I felt like some aspects were very over-the-top and very inconsistent.

Dusty - she was very contradictory in character, behaviour and attitude.

All the secondary characters - there was just a distinct lack of thought and craft into every character and consistency in their behaviour.

The plot - why is it always the rich male sportstar that has to swoop in and save the woman? Why can't some rich billionaire woman help out a struggling male sportstar?

Things I Liked

Stone Reeves - he was a solid character, he seemed to genuinely care about Dusty and his grumpy attitude was pretty consistent. Although again he did ridiculous things, dropping a concussed girl outside her house without coat, phone, keys and leaving her without thought.

Overall, I was just massively disappointed in Enemies and I think that led me to picking it apart a lot. It was an easy read and free on Kindle Unlimited, so I wasn't too put out. However, would definitely say there are much better sports romance stories out there.

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi was an interesting read with a unique premise. The book is based around the idea of a sin eater, who is an individual (usually a woman) who listens to the sins of the town and for their sins eats specific foods to take on those sins and relieve the sinner. The sin eater will then take these sins to their death and be judged when they meet the maker. The sin eater is not seen by anybody, they are not allowed to talk to anybody they are shunned from society. They are an outcast and pariah.

In Campisi's novel she takes a young girl who becomes apprenticed to the older sin eater after she is thrown in prison. However, when the older sin eater refuses to eat for a specific sin, the duty falls to the young and newer sin eater to eat the sin and uncover the mystery behind this sin. This novel combines historical fiction and mystery as the young sin eater struggles to come to terms with her new role, her new identity, her past and uncover the truth.

My biggest problem with the book was that Campisi lifted her entire royal family structure from Henry VIII and the tudors. The king had had six wives, two of which were killed, one was a plain Jane (Anne of Cleves), and the last one Queen Katryna outlived the king and married a Baron Seymaur. Henry's last wife, Katherine also married Lord Seymour.

Lord Seymour was accused of having an affair with Elizabeth and Baron Seymaur gets Queen Bethany pregnant

. One of his wives has a daughter Bethany, who is known for persecuting those that do no follow her religion. This again follows the idea of the Elizabeth or Mary's reign of persecuting Catholics/Protestants for their faith. This irritated me because I love Tudor England and Tudor history and because the whole story felt lazy. I feel like it would have been so much easier for Campisi to change the numbers or names further, rather than drawing on real history so much.

The actual plot and mystery was really solid, and I read this as a buddy read so I really enjoyed the slow unveil after each set of five chapters of a new plot twists and a new piece of information to discuss. I think the plot was clever in what it attempted and how it all connected together. However, I think this was again spoiled by the historical connection for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel and thought that it was a solid read that individuals who haven't studied Tudor England would definitely enjoy more. I think it had interesting ideas and a strong premise that just didn't quite work for me in its entirety.

Thanks to NetGalley and PanMacmillan for the eArc .

I just couldn't deal any further with this book, I had higher hopes for the series given that it's written by a variety of authors I really like.

It was just too much when the main character Jane gets whipped by her mother and then her first thought once she is free is that she needs to care for the vampire and take off her dress to wash it? I mean it was just ridiculous. I'm all for a bit of smut in a romance, but this was just ridiculous.

Your Ad Could Go Here is the first book I've read by a Ukrainian author and it was interesting to say the least. This book is a series of short stories that all appear to have moral messages, critiques of society and many of them appear to have almost magical realism elements to them as the line between reality and make-believe becomes very thin. My biggest problem with some of these stories was that I found them a little bit difficult to follow at times, and events in them were unclear. It wasn't until I got further into the stories that things became clearer.

The second short story examined a female friendship which crossed boundaries as the two young girls seemingly had a deeper relationship. However, this changed when one of the girls was found in an unseemly situation. This altered their behaviour towards each other and seemingly changed the trajectory of their lives. It tackled issues of stigmas around gender, sexuality and mental health. I thought this was an interesting short story that I could connect with and was one of the better ones.

The third short story was particularly disturbing as it examined sibling rivalry in a village. It paralleled the story of Cain and Abel with two sisters (although I'm not entirely familiar with the Bible story). This one definitely ventured into magical realism territory as one of the daughters made a wish with a creature that visited her in the night after her sister ruined her life. It was all very twisted and fairly unsettling.

The final short story was probably the one I highlighted the most as this looked at ideas of motherhood, the menopause, rape, stardom, and family relationships. I think the most powerful aspects were when the mother Olah spoke about how mothers have many scars on their body: stretch marks, veins, cuts etc, but they were willing to take that toll in order to have a child and provide for them a better future. This was quite a powerful message and there were lots of other rather quotable sections that stuck out to me.

Overall, this felt like a very mixed bag of short stories. I was hoping to learn more about Ukraine when reading them, but that wasn't really the vibe I got. Ultimately I would say I'm a little disappointed, but glad I took the chance to read these.

3.5 Stars


An Unrestored Woman was an interesting read. It was a series of short stories that focused on the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the long-reaching consequences this had. For those that know little about the Partition of India and Pakistan this was a contentious period in history and displaced between 10-12 million people based on their religion. The line was drawn by a British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe who made one trip to India and it was very unclear beyond religious lines how the nations were divided. This event resulted in the pillaging, massacring, burning of villages and communities on either side, and the rape and abduction of thousands of women. These women were commonly referred to as recovered women, however Rao chooses to change the terminology used in this book.

"Though the commonly used term for these women is recovered women, I have chosen to refer to them as restored. The distinction may seem trivial, but it is necessary, for I believe that while the recovery of a person is possible, the restoration of a human being to her original state is not." 

It was an incredibly traumatic and chaotic period of history and is still the cause of much conflict and tension along the disputed borders. Many of these women who were abducted were never returned to their communities and those that did were often seen as shamed and dirty, many of them chose to commit suicide or were forced to commit suicide by their families.

Shobha Rao's stories focused less on the rape and the pillaging, however she did touch on the consequences of these actions in more subtle ways. The majority of her stories seemed to actually be focused geographically on Pakistan rather than India. She covered a range of important themes: conflict between Muslim and Hindu communities, rape, pillaging, race, gender, colonialism, child marriage, prostitution, sexuality and more. I found some of her stories were distinctly better than others as some of them were very confusing with the introductions to some stories being a little discombobulated and unclear.

I would not say these stories were happy stories as the majority of the short stories touched on painful topics about family, grief, death, separation, and changes in lifestyle. However, they were interesting. Also many of her stories had ambiguous endings so it wasn't clear whether the characters survived, continued with their lives, what direction they went in which was a clever narrative for this type of story as you continue to wonder what happened to them.

I think my favourite short story was the The Merchant's Mistress where we have Renu, who was first featured in the first short story An Unrestored Woman. Renu was an interesting character; she was initially widowed when her husband was captured and burned and she ended up at a women's camp. From there she eventually left to travel onwards on her own. She was particularly interesting because there was considerable crossover in her gender identity when she dressed as a man and a woman. She moved fluidly between sleeping with the Merchant's wife and the Merchant and she had questionable moral standards. I found her story one of the most interesting and easy to follow.

The second story that was also really powerful was Unleashed as this focused on a couple who no longer lived in India. The woman and her sister had come over in childhood and grown up in America. The changes in standards and their behaviour were interesting as there were parallels between Anju and her sister. One of my favourite quotes was from this short story.

"Was defiance temporary, like a gust of wind that lifted you once, then set you down? Or was it always there, inside of you, like a small dinghy tied to the harbor of your heart, waiting, at the ready, to launch?"

Overall, I felt like there were a lot of strong aspects to this short story collection and I'd like to read more by Shobha Rao as I realise she has a full-length novel out Girls Burn Brighter which I will probably try to pick up from the library. I hope that the novel would cover the stronger elements of her short stories. I would recommend these short stories to those interested in Pakistan/India history and more historical fiction.

Pachinko was an absolute emotional rollercoaster as we began in a fishing village in Korea and were whisked away to Japan. The biggest focus of this book was the discrimination that Koreans face and faced in Japan, with them facing discrimination even once they were born there. This book highlighted so well, how in every society we 'other' people and brand them as "criminals or yakuzas" in the case of Koreans, and "dirty", "poor", "ill-bred", "ill-educated". To name but a few terms. This book broke my heart because it is all based on truth of what Koreans faced in Japan before WWII, during WWII and after.

However, this book is not just about the discrimination that Koreans faced. It is about a family that starts with the daughter Sunja of a couple in Korea and how the trajectory of her life and her decisions have impacted on her children and grand-children. We follow her journey to Japan with her new husband and the trials and tribulations they face their as she moves in with her brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Then she has her two sons, and we begin to follow their stories. Still always coming back to Sunja and her involvement in their lives. This story revolved around family and the support, heartbreak and problems that can happen within families.

Min Jin Lee crafted such strong characters, and although at times she did drop people out of the limelight who we thought you would learn more about. She did a fantastic job weaving the different storylines together for these characters and making me grow attached to them. I would not say I necessarily liked them all, but I did not believe that to be the point. Min Jin Lee wanted you to empathise and to feel what this family went through and how families can splinter, change and grow.

I was utterly drawn in with this book which surprised me as I thought it would be a little dry at times considering the length and the topic. However, I really enjoyed this one and finished it in only a few sittings. At times I could not put the book down and could not stop thinking about it. So it was really worth the read!

NB/ for those that do not know what Pachinko is, Pachinko is a gambling machine that has pins in. It was a machine commonly associated with criminals and Koreans in Japan because it was not seen to be a respectful profession.