Confession: I picked up this book not realizing it was volume 4 of a series. It still mostly made sense though, and I didn’t figure out it wasn’t book 1 until the end. It’s historical fiction, set in Victorian England, as Richard Francis Burton returns home from discovering the source of the Nile, but then it goes steampunk with time travel, spirits, vampires, etc. There’s a lot of real life historical people in this story, and thankfully there’s an appendix with the specifics at the […]
I’ll live in the modern mundane world, thanks
The series title is more informative than the book title here. Between Two Thorns is volume 1 of the Split World series. World 1 is Mundanus, modern reality as most of us know it. World 2, The Nether, is a connected alternate reality set in Victorian era society where various clans ruled by individual Fae live as immortals. Cathy is born into one of the most prominent wealthy families in the Nether but she does not fit in. She doesn’t like the strict social rules […]
Mystery of the Book Smell
I really enjoyed volume one of this series (The Accidental Alchemist), and I was looking forward to volume 2. The Masquerading Magician keeps up a lot of the things I liked about the first book, adds some good new stuff, but in the end loses some of the intrigue the novelty of the first book had. Two additions make this book almost as good as the first: Dorian’s backstory and Zoe’s fellow alchemist Tobias. The recurring subplot of trying to save Dorian from turning fully […]
Broken steampunk promise
I was ready to like Stormdancer, love it even. But when you promise me “a stunningly original dystopian steampunk world with a flavor of feudal Japan”, that’s what I should get. The dystopian label is fine; I take no issue with that. The book delivers. If this back cover blurb were more accurate, it should say “feudal Japanese world with steampunk flavor”. The book is far more historical fiction than it is steampunk, and the two elements don’t meld together very well at all. This […]
Magic Ladies Run the World
In many ways Sorcerer to the Crown is what Jane Austen would have written if she were a full on fantasy writer in modern times. It would have to be modern times because the hero is black and the heroine is brown. It has to be fantasy because this world has magic users, magical creatures, and familiar spirits. And almost everyone is smart, except the human villains who turn out to be totally impotent; it’s their magical accomplices who have both real power and personality. […]
Wrath and Frustration or Austen Mishandled
If you read The Paper Magician, get ready to feel wrath and frustration. Ceony Twill is quite possibly the most irritating heroine I’ve read in a long time and I really want to strangle her. I’ll probably settle for getting this book away from me as soon as I can. Ceony is a know-it all, she’s selfish, she’s immature, and she refuses to learn from her mistakes. True she’s had some problems in her life, but as her flashbacks show, a lot of them are […]
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