roadtripreader's Reviews (357)

 Rinse Repeat: you get a mate! you get a mate! Everybody gets a mate!

In this second installmemt of Warts and Claws Inc we get hot an bothered with a Demon-Fae, An aura-reading witch and a big broody Manticore shifter. I mean this office is full of horny employees  - HR is weird like that.

Where's the camera. Oh there. This is my awkward "Office stare".

But listen there is an overarching sinister subplot and it is building up really nicely. Mystery, intrigue, double agents, sexy double crosses etcetera. I find that I am warming up entirely to the Omega world in doses.

Romance/Spice/Plot🔥😅Spoiler Alert: everyone is horny . I'm okay with the way this series dives right into sexual tension so fast it's like whiplash. It's paranormal, it's crazy, It's spicy.

Structure:-3 the writing is awful but bearable. The same phrases are recycled over and over have been used in both books "let's figure this out" and other cringe-inducing statements. Grammar and syntax issues did rear their ugly little heads but the story moved and after a while I just shrugged it off. I'm a stickler for good grammar in the classroom though.

Characters:  Cinder is hot in that lithe kind of sapiosexual kind of way. Lora is adorable and frightening and fun. And I could just eat Mich with a spoon.

Favorite/Curious/Unique Scene:: `
Warning: you may need to stand in a waterfall and just cool down after this.

Favorite/Curious/Unique Quotes:
●If I didn't know any better, I would say that somebody had cursed me - but cursing a demon was damn near impossible (Lora on Monday Morning Madness
●God damn, I was entirely too thirsty this morning (Hehehe - Lora on being a bit of a horn-demon)

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Romance books by 2025 

I too would like a futuristic, bionic, part human, assassin-mercenary penpal. Exactly whom do I petition? Can't be Mobius or Loki, they're not running a tight ship over there.

Sometimes I wonder if Temporal warfare is possible in more than a speculative hard science fiction way. Probably not. But humans are wily creatures very likely to will time-travel into existence just to spite the linear construct of this intangible thing. So yeah give it about 5 centuries (if WW3 doesn't happen this year)and the Blue/Red wargames will probably be in full swing.

Plot/Storyline/Themes
This book is about time and communication. Something shifts when Blue and Red begin the tentative task of human/humanlike communication. Their written word, correspondence shifts something in both of them. Makes sense, their whole purpose is extermination, erasure, editing, putting things into play. They hardly connect with others of their kind.

Characters: Politeness never dies, I mean not if it can help it.  Blue and Red engage in sweeping long letters in a predator vs predator or at least sociopath vs sociopath hunt. Like an affair or secret rendezvous, the threat of being found out does something to these far-future hybrid-humanlike entities. A thrill and fear mixed in with a little foreign feeling called self-doubt.

♡Did her adversary—did Blue—ever read her letter? Red liked writing it— winning tastes sweet, but sweeter still to triumph and tease.  (Red, the one possibly being "ghosted" by blue).

♡I ought to begin with an apology. This is not, I’m afraid, the omen you were anticipating (Blue, on why she left Red on read).

Favorite/Curious/Unique Scene::
Blue in the Temple of the Pilgrim. That's definitely an effective and clinical method for mass murder - which is horrifying.

Favorite/Curious/Unique Quotes:
●When Red wins, she stands alone (Red on being a solitary being)
●When Blue wins - which is always - she moves on to the next thing (Blue on arrogance and ambition).
●Red has her excuses ready: Since her disobediance, she's been a better agent, more meticulous. (Red on willingly engaging in correspondence with Blue).
●Never let facts break a good joke. (Red on her "Green Thumb" or lack thereof)

Favorite/Curious/Unique Concepts:
■Mackintosh and Siri hehe, I cackled.
■Time warriors manipulating time threads and laughing at the dead scientist who theorized that time is linear. 
■One group of TimeWarriors plant seeds whilst the other group rip things out of the ground - bones, har, skin, nails - that kind of thing.
■Oh and lest I forget - those stealthy shadowy seekers trailing Blue and Red.

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Science Fiction books by 2025 

Best way to procrastinate for my fellow procrastinators - read Minor Mage

Okay but I would read the hell out of a little adventure book with Kiki (Kiki's delivery Service, Eiko Kadono), Mona (Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking. T. Kingfisher) and Oliver here our little Minor Mage.  This was such a delightful little read full of real world-problems as seen through the eyes of a (barely) 12 year old, burdened with the task of solving his village's great catastrophe.

After reading this book, I got my rear in gear and ticked off a couple of things on my to-do list because honestly if a 12 year old (who is still riddled with self-doubt and becoming more self-aware) can take on an insane and impossible quest then I can damn well go on a grocery run, paint that wall I have been putting off for a week and write a few pages of an essay.

By the way, how do Armadillo's do in snowy climates?  Is it like taking a Husky to the desert?  Because if it is, as much as I want an armadillo, my climate just won't do.  *sad face*.  I feel like I learnt so much about armadillos without meaning to.  I love that little dude, Eglamarck the Armadillo

Plot/Storyline:  The village of Loosestrife has a problem, actually 2 problems.  The adults have completely lost their ability to reason and in a panicked, desperate and almost mob-like state, they've basically threaten a twelve year old wizard to end the drought ... or else. The other problem is, well, the drought. See that sounds like the beginning of a Horror Story.  But turns out you need to be T. Kingfisher to take that horrifying concept and turn it into this sweet, hilarious wholesome novella. I loved this whole quest. Oh and there's a talking armadillo.

Characters:  Oliver, son of a mercenary mom, is a brave major minor mage, let's get that out of the way.  He is also adorable! Considering that the child-hero Oliver is so ill-equipped for this quest that he didn't even pack water satchels and proper food.  The child opted for biscuits and drinking ditch water on the side of the road. If that doesn't say minor mage I don't know what does. Even his Armadillo was a bit skeptical of his skills as they embarked on their quest.

Favorite scene: 
"Tying somebody’s shoelaces together with magic had seemed incredibly funny when he was six. Now it just seemed like a waste of magic."
See I disagree little Ollie - this is excellent magic I wish I knew.  Also, Escape from the Brylerys was both hilarious and thrilling.

Favorite Quote/Concept:
Oliver has a love-hate relationship with potatoes, I mean he only mentions the spuds in his inner monologue maybe fifty times.

"Thy? Oliver thought. Who says thy anymore? It’s a writing word, not a speaking word…" (Oliver on the creepy Mr Brylery)

They’d been scared. Scared people did cruel and stupid things, sometimes (Oliver on the adult villagers of Loosestrife)

Fear was bad, fear and boredom together were practically unbearable. (Oliver demonstrating a keen understanding of the human condition - or at least my condition)

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Fantasy books by 2025 

 The Wedding Bees walks this line and falls on either side and usually on the same page. Something will start off so cute in one paragraph and veer off the rails into cringe by the end of the second paragraph and somehow find itself in cute territory by the next page. It gave me whiplash.

Yeah whatever to that. I just wanted to LOVE this book and feel the absolute warm and fuzzies.  It made me think of Practical Magic and the Good Witch and although it's no Sarah Addison Waverley Sisters kind of magic realism it does have that little glow about it. I ended up really enjoying the character development and the growth. I ended up rooting for Ruby and falling in love with that weird apartment building in Alphabet City. It is a sweet little tome.

Favorite concept:
Elizabeth The Sixth and all her predecessors! Well who knew bees could be familiars?
Yeah so bees are always stinging my dogs and my dogs are always trying to eat them so I mean as good as cats no? 

The hive sees you as a threat, and this new ghost is their response.”
Everything in this world is a trypophobics nightmare. That's the one with the circles right? Yeah this would be a nightmare to watch if it were on screen.

A thought-provoking end to this duology. I never forgot of this weird world in which "ghosts" are electronics shoved into human faces so violently their skull contorts and swells and is eventually misshapen- but it doesn't kill them it makes them something more.

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Plot/Storyline: Worldbuilding as with most Tchaikovsky work - right up there with the best of them.

This installment is just as mindbending and laced in Abrahamic themes as the first. From the Trees where the Hives reside, to the Village Lawgiver and Ghost-Doctor to the Order of Cain and the "Bandage-Men" - this world expands and develops in a macabre way.

Characters: Handry did a full 180 and is now as scary as Sharskin if not more. In the beginning of the book he has more power than he ever had in his entire life both Pre and Post Severance.
●Melory The Expert System, Iblis The Architect have grown into their roles as defiers of the "ghosts" in their heads. Iblis more so but Melory fights an uphill battle and it's beautiful to behold her loyalty for her twin Handry.
●I love that an Antivirus  was basically introduced to the environment. Amorket of Jalaino is a GIANT trypophobia trigger if this duology ever makes it onto the big screen.

Favorite scene:
So many old human things appearing as alien, unnatural and new in this world.
● "Priest,” came the call from outside. “We’re come from Tsuno to get word to you. Hardly let our heels cool since we left it.” A village on his route, towards the edge of where people lived. A frontier place, nowhere anything important happened, surely, and yet here was Graf telling me, “They need help, priest. They have a war.”

Favorite Quote/Concept:
●  "Eyes of the Ancestors" I prefer the ones for swimming or diving and now that I think of it - yes they do look alien.
● "I can’t even swear it’s better than dying alone in the woods. But it is something, and you will have comrades to share your misery.” (Handry on joing the Order of Cain)

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Speculative Fiction stories by 2025 

The only good thing about this story is the Author's Note. Without it, I would be UTTERLY CONVINCED he ate a human. 

So I guess - great writing? Shitty story that lives up to the extremem horror subgenre. 

l'appel du vide

Hear me out, this cover is probably one of the spookiest out there and not because of the bloody ears - poor kid just look at his eyes.  I mean then the opening sentence is that ... yeah okay. Matt Shaw is fast becoming a favorite horror author and that's saying a lot because I went from no horror books on the shelves to 30 days of Horror for October.  Who knew I could build up my tolerance?

Plot/Storyline: A 10 year old boy with intrusive thoughts his  family on the brink of breaking.  Excellent pacing, I don't think I could have stomached a full length novel but a novelette, sure.
Characters:  I hate bullies with the fire of a thousand suns.
Also, yeah dogs are the best.  Shout out to Sammie. You were a good boy!
Ben, Alice and Roy - for a horror this made me really sad.

Favorite scene: The dream sequence in Chapter 12.  Something very unnerving about it because it was beautiful until it was not.  And plus, a boy and his dog.
Favorite Quote/Concept:
The intrusive Thoughts, The voice in the head, Ben's Cancer - the thing was such a cheeky creepy tosser. 
"The back was always where the idiots sat"Good to see this is universal in schools
"If the victim laughed with the bullies then, the bullies weren't doing their "job" properly"

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Short stories by 2025

 

 Better Than The First

The first book was all rain and storms, snakes, sharks and the tropics of Midwatch I loved it. This one is heat, horses, camels, an oasis, burning and The Red Desert. I loved it. The imagery Danielle L Jensen uses is just so vivid.

Traitor Queen manages to be of the rare sort - levels up. The pacing, the characters, the machinations of the inner sanctum of the Maridrian castle, the Red Desert, Valcotta and so much more. Themes of blame, accountability, redemption, forgiveness and grudges are handled so well I felt the internal struggle of the characters as they dealt with these things.

Plot : Less espionage and spy games and more war meetings and moving chess pieces set up in the first book. I loved the thrill of the escape, the daring move into territories that were life-threatening for the characters, in particular, Aren as this feels like an ode to this character.
Lara is not coddled and the reader is not meant to pity her. She made mistakes that cost lives and she spends this book atoning for them. She is an FMC of action. A warrior, literally and figuratively. I loved watching her grow, Queen of Ithicana.

Characters:

●Keris is fast becoming my favorite character in the series. He is the craftier version of Lara and too sexy it's criminal. I do love that the next two books focus on him.

●The characterization of key wives in the harem, namely Coralyn, the Veliant sisters even the introduction to Zharra who forms the second half of MCs for the "The Inadequate Heir" installment.

●Aren is given so much more page space and I love it. Where the first book was all about his physical strength, resolve, military strategy - this book gives us endless opportunity to learn the inner workings of his mind. I thought it impossible to love a character anymore than I already have; well there you have it. My favorite character in the whole series.

Favorite scene:
● Honestly, one of the greatest escape sequences I've ever read. The Veliant sisters free Aren. I lost count, 9, 12, 100? A formidable force of sheer will and determination
●Aaaaww Aren at the stables with the horse. He is so cute in this moment. "Focus on staying on the saddle" (bloody Cheeky Lara)

Quotes Keris has the majority of gems in the first part of the book
● Idle hands may do the devil's work, but idle minds ... (achieve a prince's ends )
● obnoxious Veliant shit (Aren on Keris)

StoryGraph Challenge 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt 150 Romance Books by 2025