A thought-provoking and largely unenjoyable, unsavoury satire. But we don’t read books like this for a mind-numbing escape to the land of faeries. This is a philosophical irony based on the shaping of the history of our patriarchal world—and its subsequent de-robing. 

I’m getting that many of the readers didn’t get the satire…but this is a well crafted piece of satire on 5000 years of our own patriarchal trained history and it is successfully uncomfortable when these tables are turned—and yet we accept it as societal norm when painted the other way. Hmm…

One reader remarked about Thunde being fetishised as a black man and how that was racist and uncomfortable. Well, yes reader, that there is precisely the point: the world does it to black women at every turn, and who bats an eye or raises a fuss? If only we were so upset about the way women are treated (especially black women)   I read a remark about how the representation of Saudi women ‘throwing off their clothes’ and engaging in licentious behaviour was extreme and improbable—but again, the point isn’t being made about Saudi women here, now, is it…?

A moving story. Real and current. Very relatable regardless of your own state or citizenship.

Written by a lawyer who is immersed every day in ‘cases’ of this nature, the story draws you into the plight of stateless humans in our midst. In sad reality, the voices that speak out for them are so muffled amid the clatter of the world’s issues. This novel gives a stage to the people and cases of the numerous ‘lawyer-speak’ academic works the author has already published. In this, she personalises the technical jargon, brings to life the people caught in difficult to understand legal loopholes and shoved indignantly in the world’s crevices, the people stuck between greedy nations vying for power and autonomy, cultural preservation, or world dominance. But the people in the middle are the ones hurt and forgotten. This book is a reminder, a real voice among fiction that speaks up for the side of social injustice that country borders and nationalities create.

Put it on the Canadian curriculum for social studies and English literature please—it will stir positive discussion and provoke action among a generation of young Canadians whose parents and grandparents have come to this wonderful land from places that move our hearts, places of war and political turmoil, places of disaster—the sacred, horrific places in which we can no longer live, but never want to forget.

Grandiose setting for a less than complex execution of a fairly flat story.

It starts off as a proper tale in the medieval city of Prague, set in the centre of Europe, while England and Spain vie for power on the fringes of the world. The forte of this novel is the setting, briefly taking us to great scapes of exotic end-of-the-Dark-Ages scenery, but the idiot at the centre of the story is at times too stupid to bear. And the women he manages to snag need their heads checked; I cannot for the life of me see the attraction...

I enjoyed the almost Dickensian character descriptions—they popped from the page with unique and dazzling humour. They and the promise of Prague in the throes of medieval politics kept me reading, but goodness there were a number of ridiculous distractors from the plot(plot?) of this novel (such as an impressive number of dumb and desperate women easily drawn in by this doofus of a man). Somehow, the entrails of this haphazard plot managed to fall into place by the end. Miraculously.

The main character was wholly unlikeable—the epitome of mediocre European white male basking in making zero decisions as life happens favourably to him everywhere he goes with little thought of the potential consequences… Well, okay, I concede: he’s sorry for his self-fulfilment once or twice. But then he moves on and gives it nary a second thought.

Quite like what I’m about to do with this novel…

This was a baby step better than the first two…a step more mature, more complex, with better writing, plot, and characters that engage the reader. The two main characters lace in and over one another, missing each other at every junction—even though they are beside one another, holding each other the whole way… and this play back and forth builds tension and anticipation and just when you think a sigh of resolved relief is around the next tree or through the next river of magical waters… a wisp of something that might have been tangible disappears. Again. And in the recapturing of what’s been lost in between there is <i>quite</i> a bit of repetition. 

Battles happen. Lives are lost. Growth takes place in everyone; we get the story from the perspective of Reid and Lou, but enough of Bo and Coco and Ansel are present, and they are developed complex sidekicks now, all having grown and matured since that first book…

Aw heck, it were fun tho wernit? 

Jumping right into the middle of the action, this cheeky, sarky, accidental disaster of an adventure hits the spot when the hankering for unravelling an absurd conundrum of twists and shocks comes a-knocking.

Our boy is a thief, he won’t deny it to us, but he plays to everyone else as the decent upstanding author—which he also is, and a respectable one, at that. He makes colossal errors in judgement because of his irresistible impulses towards satisfying unhealthy curiosities, but they fuel his passion for his other reputable profession. And his ability to transform mistakes into opportunity keep his pockets well-stuffed.

The one-liners are whips of wit, and Charlie is at once a charmer and a gobsmacking fool, deep down decent and still the dirtiest of scoundrels, honest and upright, while yet double-crossing the clandestine criminals in his midst. You might figure out this whodunit early on, but the twist of what actually got done leaves you guessing till the end.

And then there’s Victoria…the woman who truly knows him, though if she saw him in the street, she’d walk right past him, and yet, in her, he places all his trust. She is the only one among a cast of characters who delivers a sense of authenticity on a stage of deceptive actors. As the plot unfurls, Victoria is the voice of reason and truth, of good sense—whether or not Charlie listens to her wise advice is another thing…

And that ending! A tip of the hat to all ‘cosy mystery’ lovers, it’s a one-room reveal-all wrap-up with a hook, line and surprise; a cross between Poirot and Angela Lansbury’s method for murder-mystery solving.

See you in Paris, Charlie.

hmm… number two still has the childish feel of teenagers pretending to be adults while not really understanding the responsibility of being an adult, and dragging all their immaturity into adult-type decisions…

But then there were some heightened bits of action that kept it rolling and a creative few facts about witches and witch hunters, a smattering of magical animals and werewolves, and a bit of fantasy circus intertwined. Many of the adults in the story are misguided, untrustworthy types, and even the 'trusted' ones raise the creep flag. Plot twists and scheming and a whole lot of supposed surprises come in this second half, and the whole thing is a mess of action and people discovering secrets about others and secrets about themselves, and no one is really who they think they are, and certainly not who we think they are. Except, the ‘bad guys’ really are bad with no fuzzy grey-areas. Everyone else, however, is painted in opaque grey, and you just never know…

It gets ugly at times in these thick intimate relationships, what with everyone keeping the truth to themselves, and hiding their feelings. Some characters are only there to make you hate them so they can be used as the hated fodder set up as targets for all the needed hatred at the climax—to facilitate that last major plot twist. Other characters are more like bits of folded paper shoved under the short leg of a wobbly table.

In parts, it feels like a bunch of particularly whiney Gen-Z youths have been accidentally crammed into an historical late-1700s faux-French landscape that in fact is not very French, neither is it true to its Romantic Era setting. It’s heavy with chatter you’d find on the DM feed of a seventeen year old who thinks themselves smarter than the average adult, but these teens are capable of wielding knives and swords and feel mature enough to tie the knot.

So, it’s entertaining, at least.

The title makes sense, though.

A decent adventure, interesting, but nothing superb or revelatory about old Brucey. Middle of the road, simplistic execution, more bland and functional than bold or fancy, and when descriptive, leaned hard on an adverb addiction in lieu of any of the creativity we have come to expect from Lu in her other original writing.  It kind of reminded me of things I wrote when I was 14 ( <— ‘not a compliment’).

A ‘New Adult’ veiled and vulgar adventure that interacts with the content of ancient literature in a modern setting, twisting the messages and intentions of ancient literature and spiritualism to fit the fictional purpose of this dark, ‘hell-bent’ novel.

A riddle hidden in ancient literature needs unravelled to open the gates of hell and rescue a lost boy, and Galaxy ‘Alex’ Stern is the only brave one willing to face the demons. But not everything is what she perceives, and with the help of a diverse set of misfit friends, she is on the brink of discovering the worst deception that will unveil all the ugly truths she really never wanted to know. But the truth will out. 

It’s the novel version of ‘Stranger Things’ for voting-aged adults, Dante for the new millennium, a new generation of foul-mouthed drunk-and-high Shadow Hunters… a ghoulish story poking its nose in all the dark corners of life’s psychological dungeons, unearthing every human regret, and stepping into grim horrors, if you can handle it…

I was hoping this was the end. But no, this was the middle journey. (But, of course: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso...) I’ll probably forget what happened in this book before the next one comes out—which was my major disconnect as I listened to the first 4h of this one. Oh well.

The last fifty percent was engaging and it ended on a climactic note of pure evil danger. 

A crass, stark misery of a mystery; a darkness illuminated in comedic shades against the shadowy backdrop of a controlling Sicilian Mafia; a corrupt police force housing a rogue, but faithful food-loving detective, immediately likeable despite his glaring downfalls; a setting dripping the dregs of life into a vat of messy late-Twentieth Century politics and social insecurities; cynical, yet hopeful, and somehow poetic in the delivery, a reminiscent feel of Hemingway’s prose with a touch of Kerouac; a sarky celebration of all things Sicilian with a sprinkling of Italy on the fringes.

I hear there are 28 Montalbano novels translated into English… after that, I’ll have to brush up on my Italian to devour the remaining 17…

Another gem for humanity and sports and healing from all the things in the world that can cause our mental hiccups and face-plants…