Having finally read The Hero and the Crown, it felt like it was time for a re-read of the Damar book I had actually read. The Blue Sword is set many centuries after Aerin the Dragon Slayer saved her kingdom from magical threat. Damarians now seem to be chiefly desert dwelling nomads and expert horsemen. They are now threatened both by magic wielding enemies to the north and ignorant colonists from the Homeland (read: Imperialist Britain). Corlath, the Damarian king tries to propose an alliance with […]
Nazi Hunting in High Places
This debut novel by author Cara Black centers around her heroine Aimee Leduc, a French female private eye who gets mixed up with violent neo-Nazi skinheads, Jewish survivors of the holocaust, and a secret Nazi organization which is staging a comeback and whose tentacles reach into the highest offices in Europe. The author’s scope is ambitious, her history fascinating, her writing is evocative, and I give her extra kudos for creating a female PI when the genre is so male-centric. But her novel’s biggest weakness, […]
This book is no longer on Amazon for some reason
I found Kim Wright’s “City of Mystery” series through Amazon, I’m pretty sure I got the books for my Kindle for free, or close to free. I will always give a free mystery a try (and believe me, there are plenty of lousy ones out there that I’ve happily downloaded and just as happily deleted after the first few chapters). This series is actually quite good. City of Bells, the fourth book, takes place in Calcutta, India. For those of you who aren’t familiar with […]
War: What is it good for?
Though the ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu wrote it more than 2,500 years ago The Art of War is still referenced and used today. Its relevance applies not only to war, but it has far reaching applications to leadership, business, etc. I’m more of an organizer/to do list maker than a long term planner, strategic thinking isn’t my strong suit, so I knew that I could learn a thing or too from this ancient tome. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need […]
Sexy Spies + Overwrought Plot = Not-so Sexy Spies
I’m a bit of a self-loathing historical romance reader. Some (Flowers From the Storm, The Grand Sophy, Outlander, Lord of Scoundrels) are really great but the vast majority can best be described as disappointing. In fact if you use Mrs. Julien’s infamous tally (and really, why wouldn’t you) as a guidepost, a meager 10 out of 75 historical romance novels read in 2014 warrant her coveted recommendation. Many of the characters and plotlines are relatively homogeneous because there are only so many variants of “wealthy […]
The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
I alternated between really liking this book and being very annoyed by it. I think if it had been one or two hundred pages shorter, I would have liked it a bit more. But with the hardcover clocking in at almost 600 pages, it didn’t have enough story to justify the length, which led to lots of filler to drag through. “He can’t really love anyone, you know, and in the end such people are always alone, no matter how much other people once loved them.” […]
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