Ahoy there me mateys!  This book was so not for me.  The humor was juvenile and too filled with poop, vomit, and stupid.  The characters felt like caricatures of Bayou life and none of them were redeemable.  The plot was dumb and uninteresting but I kept reading because I wanted the dragon to be cool.  Sadly, at 46% the dragon pissed on the arm of the main character and that was enough.

HOWEVER, the book included a bizarre spelling of the French word for mosquito which led me down an awesome rabbit hole about language.  I have a love of words and much like the foray into mispronounced words I recently took, this journey involved hours of reading about etymology of the French language.  Turns out the spelling of mosquito in the book came from Missouri French also known as Paw Paw French.  This language is not to be confused with Louisiana French, Canadian French, or Traditional French.  It is also NOT French Creole.  I didn't even know that Missouri or Louisiana French was an  official thing.

Now my French language usage has declined a ton since me schooling days.  Today I can order food and ask directions.  But I still have enough basics to love the differences between French variants.

After reading about the loveliness that is Paw Paw French, the First Mate and I looked into the Oïl languages of which one is Walloon.  Walloon is spoken in Wallonia in Belgium and its formation began in 980.  It is not quite a dead language yet but is cool.  Example:  French - Salut! = Walloon - A.  Then there was an adventure into the differences between creole and pidgin.  But I will stop here.  Though dorks like me can click all the links above to fall down that same rabbit hole if it suits ye.

So while I am trying to get the actual book out of me noggin, I am grateful to it just the same.  Arrr!

Side note:  If ye really want to be a dork with me then get me started on the OED.

Ahoy there me mateys!  Those who have been aboard for a while know that urban fantasy and I are not usually friends.  In fact we tend to be enemies.  I can't explain why.  It's just a truth.  And yet recently I loved the DFZ series.

Then when I was perusing me Goodreads' ports for plunder list to find something that fit me mood, the First Mate told me to scroll back up to see what had a caught his eye.  Apparently his unconscious mind was finding me the perfect book because I adored slouch witch.  I loved it so much that the next day I binged these next two books in the trilogy and the bonus novella.  Seriously I never really do that and for an UF series no less!  I took me longer to find time to write this combined review then to gobble up the books.

Though I try to post no spoilers, this be for the rest of a series and so read ahead at yer own peril . . .

So after the events of book one, Ivy just wants her life back to normal.  However, when she is offered a job on the set of her favorite reality series, of course she takes it.  The second book has Ivy assigned as a PA (production assistant) to help solve a murder that involves magic.  Now as far as film and film sets work, this book isn't really realistic at all.  This book was so silly and ridiculous that I kept rolling me eyes.  I kept reading though because I just love Ivy and her awesome cat Brutus.  Ivy is just so funny.  The plot wasn't completely the point.  The relationship drama was a bit dumb too.  The solution for who-dun-it wasn't a surprise.  But again Ivy and Brutus win.  I was entertained enough to immediately pick up the next book.

Book three was excellent fun and much better than the middle book.  Ivy's time on set not only kicked her butt but also had an unintentional magical side-effect that I can't share cause of spoilers.  Ivy finds herself drawn into yet another murder mystery.  Brutus is awesome.  This investigation unfolds very nicely.  The complications involved are so funny and there were unexpected events all over the place.  The romance still stays in the background while evolving well.  I absolutely loved how this series wrapped up.  Seriously delightful.  Especially the epilogue.  I am so glad I read it and would gush more but can't cause of spoilers.

Then there comes a bonus novella that is a holiday story set after the series is over.  There is a missing Christmas tree artifact that if not found signals very bad things.  So Ivy has to find it.  I really enjoyed getting to see Ivy and Winter settled into their new life routine and what Ivy's role has become in the magical world.  And of course Brutus rocks.  I am glad I read this.

Much thanks to Matey Sarah @ Brainfluff for letting me know about this fantastic series.  Arrr!

Ahoy there me mateys!  Those who have been aboard for a while know that urban fantasy and I are not usually friends.  In fact we tend to be enemies.  I can't explain why.  It's just a truth.  And yet recently I loved the DFZ series.

Then when I was perusing me Goodreads' ports for plunder list to find something that fit me mood, the First Mate told me to scroll back up to see what had a caught his eye.  Apparently his unconscious mind was finding me the perfect book because I adored slouch witch.  I loved it so much that the next day I binged these next two books in the trilogy and the bonus novella.  Seriously I never really do that and for an UF series no less!  I took me longer to find time to write this combined review then to gobble up the books.

Though I try to post no spoilers, this be for the rest of a series and so read ahead at yer own peril . . .

So after the events of book one, Ivy just wants her life back to normal.  However, when she is offered a job on the set of her favorite reality series, of course she takes it.  The second book has Ivy assigned as a PA (production assistant) to help solve a murder that involves magic.  Now as far as film and film sets work, this book isn't really realistic at all.  This book was so silly and ridiculous that I kept rolling me eyes.  I kept reading though because I just love Ivy and her awesome cat Brutus.  Ivy is just so funny.  The plot wasn't completely the point.  The relationship drama was a bit dumb too.  The solution for who-dun-it wasn't a surprise.  But again Ivy and Brutus win.  I was entertained enough to immediately pick up the next book.

Book three was excellent fun and much better than the middle book.  Ivy's time on set not only kicked her butt but also had an unintentional magical side-effect that I can't share cause of spoilers.  Ivy finds herself drawn into yet another murder mystery.  Brutus is awesome.  This investigation unfolds very nicely.  The complications involved are so funny and there were unexpected events all over the place.  The romance still stays in the background while evolving well.  I absolutely loved how this series wrapped up.  Seriously delightful.  Especially the epilogue.  I am so glad I read it and would gush more but can't cause of spoilers.

Then there comes a bonus novella that is a holiday story set after the series is over.  There is a missing Christmas tree artifact that if not found signals very bad things.  So Ivy has to find it.  I really enjoyed getting to see Ivy and Winter settled into their new life routine and what Ivy's role has become in the magical world.  And of course Brutus rocks.  I am glad I read this.

Much thanks to Matey Sarah @ Brainfluff for letting me know about this fantastic series.  Arrr!

Ahoy there me mateys!  Those who have been aboard for a while know that urban fantasy and I are not usually friends.  In fact we tend to be enemies.  I can't explain why.  It's just a truth.  And yet recently I loved the DFZ series.

Then when I was perusing me Goodreads' ports for plunder list to find something that fit me mood, the First Mate told me to scroll back up to see what had a caught his eye.  Apparently his unconscious mind was finding me the perfect book because I adored slouch witch.  I loved it so much that the next day I binged these next two books in the trilogy and the bonus novella.  Seriously I never really do that and for an UF series no less!  I took me longer to find time to write this combined review then to gobble up the books.

Though I try to post no spoilers, this be for the rest of a series and so read ahead at yer own peril . . .

So after the events of book one, Ivy just wants her life back to normal.  However, when she is offered a job on the set of her favorite reality series, of course she takes it.  The second book has Ivy assigned as a PA (production assistant) to help solve a murder that involves magic.  Now as far as film and film sets work, this book isn't really realistic at all.  This book was so silly and ridiculous that I kept rolling me eyes.  I kept reading though because I just love Ivy and her awesome cat Brutus.  Ivy is just so funny.  The plot wasn't completely the point.  The relationship drama was a bit dumb too.  The solution for who-dun-it wasn't a surprise.  But again Ivy and Brutus win.  I was entertained enough to immediately pick up the next book.

Book three was excellent fun and much better than the middle book.  Ivy's time on set not only kicked her butt but also had an unintentional magical side-effect that I can't share cause of spoilers.  Ivy finds herself drawn into yet another murder mystery.  Brutus is awesome.  This investigation unfolds very nicely.  The complications involved are so funny and there were unexpected events all over the place.  The romance still stays in the background while evolving well.  I absolutely loved how this series wrapped up.  Seriously delightful.  Especially the epilogue.  I am so glad I read it and would gush more but can't cause of spoilers.

Then there comes a bonus novella that is a holiday story set after the series is over.  There is a missing Christmas tree artifact that if not found signals very bad things.  So Ivy has to find it.  I really enjoyed getting to see Ivy and Winter settled into their new life routine and what Ivy's role has become in the magical world.  And of course Brutus rocks.  I am glad I read this.

Much thanks to Matey Sarah @ Brainfluff for letting me know about this fantastic series.  Arrr!

Ahoy there me mateys!  Those who have been aboard for a while know that urban fantasy and I are not usually friends.  In fact we tend to be enemies.  I can't explain why.  It's just a truth.  And yet recently I loved the DFZ and The Lazy Girl's Guide to Magic series.  So when Melanie @ grabthelapels gushed about S.M. Reine's work, I figured I would take a chance.

Ye see this book is about a cat who can turn into a human.  It is a cozy mystery with homage to Edgar Allan Poe.  The title and the psychic cat as a main character convinced me to try it.  The fact I got it for free didn't hurt and it is short at 67 pages.

Ultimately it ended up being okay.  I actually very much liked Mr. Poe the cat, the neighbor who helps him, and the overall tone.  However, the mystery was boring and the world building a bit not to me taste.  I wouldn't mind reading the rest of the series if it were free but don't want to spend me loot on it.  But having just read two UF series back to back could just mean that I am very much done with the genre for a while.  That fact I can find any enjoyment in UF at all is still a marvel to me.  Arrr!

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this fantasy eARC from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

I love Marie Brennan and Tachyon Publications so I was excited to get this and it is awesome.

Have ye ever heard about the end of the world?  Well Driftwood is the purgatory where worlds hang out just before they end forever.  Yer world slowly starts disappearing before eventually being engulfed by the Crush.  Driftwood itself is a collection of the last pieces and parts of a variety of worlds slowly being consumed and the people who inhabit them.

As the author says on her website:

"Driftwood is inherently a place of fragments, the large, coherent structure of a novel felt like fundamentally the wrong approach to storytelling in that setting.  But there’s a way around that. Call it a fixup if you want — a book assembled out of pre-existing shorter material — or a mosaic novel, with the story being told through many voices and many sub-tales . . . It’s made up of the short stories I’ve written already, plus a novelette-length tale that’s new, and it’s all stitched together with a frame that gives context and greater meaning to the pieces within it.  Which makes the text kind of like Driftwood itself.'

The novel's interconnected short story format was a little confusing at first cause ye be tossed right in.  I quickly became fascinated by Driftwood.  There is a character, Last, who is the frame holding the stories together.  Last's world is long gone but somehow he didn't go with it.  He passes his time being a translator and guide.  His presence is felt all over Driftwood and he seems to be the only constant.  He is a mystery with no good answers but lots of speculation.

I loved the world building, the different people, how the economies worked, the magic elements, and the mixing of cultures.  The short story format was tantalizing and always left me wanting more.  More about every world, more about the characters ye merely glimpse, and just more stories altogether.

The only real dissatisfaction came from the book ending too soon even though it was fantastic and kinda perfect in how it ended.  I could certainly read more about Driftwood and while I loved the mosaic novel, I would also love more of Last's life and backstory.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Tachyon Publications!

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this horror fantasy novella eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here are me honest musings . . .

The cover drew me in and three things convinced me to read this book:

1. I love Robert Jackson Bennett as an author;
2. It is a Subterranean Press book and they do great work; and
3. Who doesn't like to read about haunted motels?

This novella tells the story of two brothers who decide to go into business by renovating an old motel in West Texas.  Their past was dysfunctional to say the least and they are trying to get a little bit ahead for once by catering to the workers of the fracking industry.  However the motel has an unsavory familial past which bleeds into the brothers' present.

This is an atmospheric read where the graphic elements of the story are not the focus and happen off the page and yet the horror is always present.  The blending of psychological and paranormal elements is so well done and balanced.  For such a short story, it packs an both an emotional and philosophical punch about generational abuse, the effects of trauma, society's reactions to violence, sibling relationships, and class privilege.

The story is unsettling, sad, disturbing, and yet ends on a hopeful note.  I feel that this novella highlights the author's skills.  It is a book where the subject matter wasn't quite what I was expecting and yet I ended up being fascinated by how it turned out.  That ending was so bittersweet.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Subterranean Press!

Side note: This novella reminds me of how much I need to visit his backlog.  Arrr!

Ahoy there mateys!  A long while back in 2017, Matey Sarah @ brainfluff reminded me that this series existed.  I had the two books in omnibus form and they were five stars reads.  Then Matey Sarah told me there were two more books in the series!  So I recently I re-read the omnibus and then moved into new territory with book three.  While I try to post no spoilers, proceed at your own peril . . .

The main character of these books is a steerswoman named Rowan who is the member of "an order dedicated to discovering and disseminating knowledge."  This order is almost all women.  Men are very, very rare.  A steerswoman  shares her knowledge for free and does not lie.  All she asks in return is that if she asks any question then it must be freely answered.  Don't answer and a steerwoman's knowledge is cut off forever.  Steerswoman are intelligent, respected, and awesome.  They are in control of their own destiny, travel constantly, and better the world.

The first book started with the mystery of an unusual stone and took place in Rowan's homeland.  The second book is set in the region called the Outskirts where Rowan's best friend, Bel, lives.  Rowan goes there to solve the mystery of the stones.  She finds an answer but it only leads to more questions.  In the third book, Rowan finds herself in the company of Janus, a steersman who quit the Order under mysterious conditions.  Janus isn't talking, demons are attacking, and there is an unusual artifact with mysterious powers.  Not to mention the continuing drama of the strange stones and magicians that Rowan is also trying to solve.  She thinks all these elements are linked but can't find the common ground.

Frankly things are a mess.  The interesting part of this book is that Rowan is forced to stay put in one town and do tasks that aren't part of her strengths.  It is weird but fun to watch her struggle and make bad choices.  It was fun to get insight into "regular" folks lives.  I particularly enjoyed Steffie as an addition to the bunch.  Assumptions keep being made all around and prejudices challenged.

This book also continues the trend of further blending more sci-fi into the story and it's cool.  Minor plot points that bothered me were how slow on the uptake Rowan could be in this book and that Bel wasn't a major character.  I get the reasons for both (and they made sense) but still bothered me.  Also the pacing in the second half of the book was off and Rowan's explorations and leaps of intuition were unrealistic.  I loved a lot of the new elements and plot twists but the reveal took too long for me.  I feel like there really wasn't any momentum to the overall story arc of the series in this book.

Can't really get into more because of spoilers but I still be looking forward to the next book.  Arrrr!

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this young adult fantasy eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

I had heard good things about this author's previous works.  Upon seeing the beautiful cover (can ye see the ship in the eyeball?) and finding out it was a sea yarn with pirates I was sure this would be awesome.  However, I read 70% before abandoning ship.  I seem to be in the minority with this one.

To be fair, the premise didn't really make sense to me from the very beginning,.  I wasn't sure why the father would just dump his daughter on an cutthroat island at thirteen without even a knife for protection.  How she survived the four years there was kinda glossed over.  But Fable is a fun character and I really did want an explanation for her father's betrayal.

I enjoyed the elements around Fable's diving abilities and gemstones.  I liked the structure of how the crew of the various ships were set up.  I thought a lot of the nautical elements were well done.  But really as I kept reading, the book just got more and more nonsensical.  The fun story elements are there but not fleshed out enough.  Everything just seemed so surface level.  And the hints of romance were annoying.  So why did I keep reading?  Well I just needed to know why Fable was dumped and what her inheritance was going to be.

Turns out the explanation is silly and the set-up for the rest of the novel didn't really make sense or sound appealing.  Plus the romance began to take more center stage and didn't buy it.  I wanted more diving, more swashbuckling, and more adventure.  But not much really happens during the middle of the book.  Fable's father just made no sense either.  While I have a soft spot for plucky girl characters, not all of Fable's choices made sense.  Also the other characters felt surface level too and I never really bonded with any of them.

I really would have loved to love this book but the elements were not mixed to me taste.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Wednesday Books!

Ahoy there mateys!  Though the first mate and I have very different reading tastes, occasionally we do recommend books to each other.  Books the first mate introduced to me included xom-b, holes, and the perks of being a wallflower.  He and I both read the following:

hollow kingdom (Kira Jane Buxton)

We read and talked about the book and I enjoyed his viewpoint so I ordered asked him to write a review.  So you get one from me and a bonus additional review from me crew.  Please note that I write like I talk and the first mate writes like he thinks.  Hope you enjoy!

From the Captain:

I was on the fence about reading this but the idea of the apocalypse told from a crow's point of view kept bringing me back.  The First Mate read this and tipped me over the edge.  It ended up being an okay read.

I did really love the first half of the book.  The set-up of the story and the introduction to S.T. (the crow) and Dennis (the dumb dog) were excellent.  I thought it was a lovely touch that S.T. was a crow that wanted to be a human and just wants to help his human friend, Big Jim.  The humor of Big Jim being a kinda conservative redneck was especially well done given the heart that S.T.'s viewpoint adds to the situation.  I ended up caring about Big Jim because S.T. does.

The highlight of the book was of course the relationship between S.T. and Dennis.  The secondary highlight was the idea of the various ways the animal kingdom communicates in an internet sort of way.  The problem for me is that once the book went from being about helping Big Jim and expanded to helping the domestic animals, I started to lose interest.  Then the author killed off a fun character for NO reason and that irked me.  The book proceeded to shift into animal politics, had info dumps, had several false endings, and had a plot twist dealing with the humans that I found unnecessary.  There were so many plot problems in that second half.  Of course the author can choose to write what they want but it was not what I wanted the story to become.

No regrets but I won't be reading the sequel.  Arrrr!

From the First Mate:

This book is a bit uneven, but I really quite liked it. Considering that I’m a soft-hearted fool when it comes to animal death and this book features a fair amount of animal death and I still found it an enjoyable read, I’d say that my enjoying it was a win.

The Captain had mentioned Hollow Kingdom to me because I have a fondness for unconventional narrators. I like chatty narrators (exposed to Tristram Shandy and Joseph Andrews in my formative literary years) and especially narrators who are weird in some way. S.T., the narrator of Hollow Kingdom, is plenty weird in that he’s a crow that doesn’t want to be a crow, wants to save his best friend from this pesky little zombie apocalypse that’s occurring, and routinely rides around on the stupidest dog in existence. The Captain had cautioned that she’d heard the book was full of scatological, dudebro humor, but that’s not really the case. There’s some scatological events (Dennis the dog “yarfing” and some shitting) but it didn’t come across to me as though it was played for laughs. More in the vein of: these are biological processes and they happen.

At its best, Hollow Kingdom is a novel about identity, friendship, community and responsibility. S.T. starts out just wanting to fix his friend, Big Jim, and continue on his path of becoming a radical mofo. He ends up participating in a war, teaching other animals how to save domestics, and finding community with those he’d previously despised. We meet some awesome characters (Genghis Cat being the most awesome of all) and many of the adventures are quite engaging, tense, and well written.

On the other hand, there are quite a few elements of the novel that simply don’t work. The zombie apocalypse aspect is really superfluous to the rest of the story. If Buxton had simply had humans die out instead of what happens to them, the story doesn’t really change all that much. There’s an infodump about 2/3rds of the way through that tells us what’s going on with the humans, and I just didn’t care. Additionally, some of the characters that were killed off seemed kind of wasteful and really left me scratching my head over whether they were necessary to the story at all. There are also interlude chapters devoted to various animals from around the world and how they’re dealing with what’s going on. I did not enjoy the interludes, except the two that featured Genghis Cat.

Structurally the book feels like it should have ended at about the halfway point. Most of S.T.’s growth has occurred by that point, he’s taught all that he’s going to teach, and there’s a pretty good moment where various characters come together. And then it just kind of continues. There’s a couple of battles, some more deaths (some earned and others feeling very cheap), and then an ending that really felt out of place and unnecessary.

The reason to read Hollow Kingdom is the joy of the base premise. An intelligent crow narrates the apocalypse. The narration was enjoyable enough that I was able to overlook most of the novel’s problems while reading. Thinking back, the problems become very evident when I’m not grinning to myself over the enjoyable narration.

Worth giving a shot if the premise appeals and you’re a fan of chatty narrators. Avoid if domestic animal death cuts you to the quick.