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Book Review: The Wolf Queen

4/2/2020

Book Review:

The Wolf Queen (The Hope of Aferi #1)

Cerece Rennie Murphy

LionSky Publishing, 2018

A-

The Basics:

A powerful group of sorcerer women called the Amasiti once lived in the Land of Yet, helping the people around them with their healing, life-giving magic. That was long ago, but just as the Land of Yet is on the brink of civil war between a power-mad Hir and the people he has long abused and neglected, a reclusive young woman named Ameenah discovers that the legacy her mother left her may be older and more important than she ever imagined.

The Downside:

The plot of The Wolf Queen is slow to start, which is okay, given the richness of the opening worldbuilding, but it’s also fairly slight when it arrives. Even when Ameenah is given what seems to be an impossible task, she completes it almost immediately with luck rather than any steps of problem-solving. There are also the standard fantasy themes of the past being an ideal to return to, and of a person’s blood and gender and foretold destiny determining their potential, rather than their choices and efforts.

The Upside:

In spite of how little actually happens in it, The Wolf Queen is an engaging read from start to finish. Ameenah is coolly steadfast in her innate knowledge of her possession of herself, in the face of an entire country’s gaslighting insistence that she owes herself to the Hir, to the resistance, or to the false fairytale that both have spun around her. The setting stands out from the usual medieval-Europe fantasy backdrop, featuring magical creatures based on gazelles and secondary characters who’ve escaped from the nightmare of diamond mines. While traditional in some places, the themes also touch on the range of different kinds of power, and how those that are less violent, more constructive, and easier for the unscrupulous to co-opt and take advantage of aren’t necessarily weaker or less admirable.

Altogether a unique escape into a magical world that comes alive almost from the first page.

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Quarantine Reads — Freebies and Markdowns

3/24/2020

Hey, everyone,

I dearly hope, as you read this, you're in good health and hunkering down somewhere safe and warm if you can.

If you or someone you know is sick, I wish you a speedy, uncomplicated recovery.

If you're on the front lines providing healthcare, food, utilities, household essentials, shipping, sanitation, and other life-saving services, I thank you, and I hope from the bottom of my heart that you'll finally, miraculously receive the living wages and all-around consideration you've always deserved for the work you do.

As a writer, editor, and voracious reader, I'm one of the lucky ones in all this. I'm used to working from home alongside my husband, and apart from worrying about other people, fending off existential dread about the world, and nursing some disappointment over a few specific events I was looking forward to, I actually enjoy the day-to-day of quarantine living.

Like many purveyors of digital media, Matt and I are cutting prices and offering new freebies, in the hopes that everyone will have access to something fun to pass the time in isolation — preferably something that doesn't require going to a store or waiting on our overstretched physical shipping infrastructure.

If this isn't the time to read an ebook, I don't know what is.

If you've already read all of our indie books that you're interested in, or if Horror and dark Sci-Fi just aren't what you turn to in times like these (they are for me, but it's a totally personal thing), I recommend checking out the Smashwords Authors Give Back sale for tons of different indie options across genres.

As for our catalogue, here are the details on discounts and freebies:

Obsessed monster hunter, Mina Todd, and easy-going skeptic, Ben Pastor, wage a secret resistance against the shape-shifting aliens infesting their small town of Prospero.

The whole 4-book Prospero Chronicles series is marked down from $9.96 to $3.96 through the end of March. (Amazon doesn't allow individual non-KU books to be marked down any further than $0.99 on short notice).

Amazon
Smashwords
Barnes & Noble: book 1, 2, 3, 4
Apple: book 1, 2, 3, 4
Kobo: book 1, 2, 3, 4

This YA Horror/Sci-Fi series is about neurotic, mismatched teens struggling to trust each other so they can deal with an alien invasion of shapeshifters. The fourth book involves their entire town being quarantined while they fight for the fate of the world, and it might be my favorite thing I've done so far.

Once upon a time, on a glamorous space station called Eris, there was a young woman who could spin base metals into gold…
At least, that’s what she tells people to separate them from their money.

The Acid Test of Naia Mills is going to be free on Kindle from March 30th through April 3rd (using my KU allowance of free days). Also, if you're a KU member, you can read it for free whenever you want.

Amazon

This one's a Sci-Fi retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin" set in the distant future, after humanity has survived the death of Earth and joined a wider bi-galactic community. Not without growing pains, of course. It's part of the Escape Velocity series of Sci-Fi folktales, but they can be read in any order. No cliffhangers, no reliance on previous installment info.

Once upon a time, on the second planet from Apocrytus, there was a monster whose face men trembled to behold…
Or they would, if they knew who she was. Perhaps she should leave more survivors

The Kryssitid Gaze will be free on Kindle from April 6th through April 10th (again, my limited allowance of free days from KU). It's also included with your KU subscription if you have one.

Amazon

It's another Sci-Fi folktale retelling in the Escape Velocity universe, this one based on the legend of Medusa. It's more R-rated and darkly comedic than Acid Test, revolving around an alien woman's efforts to survive when her planet is overtaken by a violent, dogmatic cult. Tonally, I'd describe it as Deadpool meets Ginger Snaps.

When an aspiring teenage actress is given the chance to participate in human trials for a revolutionary new beauty supplement, she sees her one chance for a camera-ready body and a real career. But what the treatment turns her into may be even more monstrous and cutthroat than her professional world.

Some Side Effects May Occur will be marked down from $2.99 to $1.20, both as part of the Smashwords sale and on Amazon, from now through April 20th.

Amazon
Smashwords

It's YA Horror/Sci-Fi set in the not-too-distant future, during a beauty arms race.

When the ghost of a handsome young man named Joshua Thorne appears to a lonely bookworm named Angela, begging her to help him solve his own murder, she follows him eagerly into the hidden world of jumbled memory and fantasy he calls the Pocket. The truth of his story is hidden there somewhere, but it might not be the story either of them is hoping for.

Out of the Pocket is also going to be marked down from $2.99 to $1.20 from now through April 20th, both in the Smashwords sale and on Amazon.

Amazon
Smashwords

This is the YA Fantasy that won me my Feminist Book of the Month author cred :) It's a satirical, trope-subverting take on Paranormal Romance, and it's intensely claustrophobic.

Fifteen-year-old Cassie Fremont and her tiny band of teenage survivors take a road trip across the zombie-infested U.S. to rescue their stranded friend, and no amount of blood and guts along the way will quell their sense of snark. Now, if only they knew how to drive.

My first-ever published novel, Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know Of), will be free on Smashwords only, from now until April 20th.

Smashwords

It's a YA Horror-Comedy that I don't usually do promotions on, because I'm quite frankly a little embarrassed. It's easily my roughest, most juvenile published work, but it's also been one of my more popular, and I figure, maybe some silly zombie-smashing action is exactly what's needed. So, I'm tossing it out there for all who could use it right now.

That's all for now, although there's a chance I'll be announcing a new indie release as well before all this is even close to over.

Stay safe, and happy reading.

Book Review: I Am Magical (magnifiqueNOIR #1)

12/23/2019

Book Review

I Am Magical (magnifiqueNOIR #1)

Briana Lawrence

Sewn Together Reflections, 2017

Grade: A

The Basics:

In a city besieged by mysterious giant monsters, a group of magical girls begins to rise, one by one, to meet the challenge. But between fending off attacks using their exploding cupcakes and sparkling pixels, they have to figure out how to live together, make it to their classes on time, and talk to their families about what they do and who they are.

The Downside:

The action can be a bit repetitive and low-stakes, with each monster inevitably succumbing to having enough magic thrown at it. That's okay; a bit of lighthearted monster-smashing is rarely a bad thing, but the informed nature of the danger makes it all the more grating to see the girls constantly scolded for just about everything they do. (How dare they not build their whole lives around never worrying anyone?) Lawrence is obviously on the girls' side, and this undermining that they face is a real-world problem thoroughly worthy of depiction and criticism, but its pervasiveness throughout each girl’s storyline does become tiresome. Between the different dynamics of three different magical girls’ home lives, it would have been nice to see at least one example of someone wholeheartedly supporting one of them, without a perpetually underlying tone of, “Well, I understand that this is what you need to do, and you have a right to do it, but I still really wish you wouldn’t, so you totally owe me for not trying to stop you.”

The Upside:

While the fights themselves can be a noisy blur of powers and punching, the monsters are nicely memorable in that they hide in plain sight, always as that person in the crowd. The creep stalking younger girls at bus stops. The crude provocateur harassing women at the gym. Even the diva who expects the whole store to wait while she demands the manager’s attention. Each one represents a piece of toxicity or hostility that most women — and sometimes most people — can relate to coming up against in public spaces, which makes them quite satisfying to see obliterated in magical girl fashion.

Indeed, it’s the social, human, non-magical aspects of I Am Magical where most of the storytelling magic actually happens. For starters, the audacity of the team makeup is a thing of beauty unto itself. Every single member of magnifiqueNOIR is female, black, and somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

All of them.

They’re all in their own phases of asserting their identities and dealing with their own related challenges, and most importantly, they’re all distinct, complex people who cannot be summed up simply by checking boxes on a questionnaire.

Without ever forcing a pedantic, on-the-nose discussion of the matter, magnifiqueNOIR flatly rejects the old tendency to introduce more representation into existing structures in timid, measured, token doses, celebrating the tiniest victories and carefully never asking for too much. Instead, it seems to ask, so what if it’s statistically improbable for there to be this many LGBTQ+ black women all in one place, coincidentally brought together by something other than having those things in common? It’s still far more probable than anyone being able to generate exploding cupcakes out of thin air, so why not? Why not go all in and make up some ground in a media stream that so often offers far less than statistically accurate representation of all of these things?

The girls also all have different relationships with traditional femininity, both aesthetically and in the activities they pursue, and with how that meshes with their staggering cosmic powers and the nontraditional aspects of their private lives. Bree is a gamer girl and all-around geek who’s conventionally attractive and loves it, especially when she’s cosplaying for her YouTube channel. Marianna is a fashionable plus-sized baker who can conquer the day in heels. Lonnie is a muscular kickboxer who lives in unisex comfortwear. None of them are wrong, and no authentic expression of gender is ever at odds with the state of being a capable, complete human being.

For anyone who loves reading about magical girls kicking butt, this is a new series not to be missed, brimming with positivity and geekery in equal measures.

Want more Fiona J.R. Titchenell? Subscribe here for personalized updates on new books, discounts, giveaways, and more. You can also join me on Facebook and Twitter, or (best of all) become a patron to gain access to exclusive extras!

Book Review: Dark Fairy Tale Queens

10/8/2019

Book Review:

Dark Fairy Tale Queens 1-3

Anita Valle

2015-2017

Grade: A

I’m going to mess with the format a little for this one. Usually I break my reviews up into a summary, what I liked, and what I didn’t like, but because this is a novella collection, I’m just going to go one installment at a time.

The Dark Fairy Tale Queens series starts out with a pretty simple concept. What if Cinderella were the villain of her own story? That’s not to say that this story has a hero; the wicked stepmother and stepsisters are just about as wicked as ever, and the idea seems to be that abuse is cyclical and breeds more of itself.

That’s a fascinating yet intuitive take on the Cinderella story that I’m amazed I’ve never seen done before — even as a kid, Cinderella’s goodness always struck me as improbable under the circumstances — but dwelling on the themes makes this version sound quite a bit more serious than it actually is. The actual experience of reading it is, in a word, wicked. There’s simply no better way to describe it.

It takes a very special story to make me follow a truly unlikeable protagonist, let alone a whole unlikeable cast, and I’m not normally a fangirl for evil queens who are actually evil. In a world where women are so casually vilified for things like wielding power, having informed opinions, and challenging the status quo, I tend to prefer reimaginings that treat traditionally evil female characters as misunderstood or at least morally gray. In Valle’s hands, however, Cinderella’s shallow, vindictive, manipulative self-indulgence is more readably fun than I ever would have thought possible.

This book is like what would happen if Cinderella were a Telltale Game, and after playing through it a few times with the intuitive good decisions, you decided to pick all the options that make everyone behave as badly as possible just to see what would happen. The story turns out substantively pretty much the same, of course, but the tone and the details are night and day. That’s where Sinful Cinderella is at its most deliciously clever, the way it tours through every essential cosmetic beat of the fairy tale, from pumpkin to ball to slipper, but with a completely different set of motivations that actually make more sense than the original.

Possible downsides: some of the dialogue outlining the themes of love and hate and evil feels a bit on-the-nose, and there’s an assault that can be read as retribution for Cinderella simply daring to go to a party looking killer (hardly one of her actual “sins”), but if you squint just right it kind of blends into the gloriously chaotic train wreck of how much everyone in this universe sucks.

In this continuation of Dark Fairy Tale Queens, Snow White is making plans to run away with her boyfriend, Hunter, to escape her stepmother, the wicked queen Cinderella. But she won’t be satisfied with just making good her escape; first she wants revenge on Cinderella for killing her father (never mind that he was a monster, it’s the principle of the thing), and she wants a love apple to share with Hunter, a spell that will keep their love strong and fresh for the rest of their lives, no matter what.

She’s going to need it, because unlike everyone else in the Dark Fairy Tale Queens universe, Hunter is decent, right through to the core. As much fun as this series’ heroines’ twisted minds can be, Hunter is a breath of fresh air, not to mention an ever-tightening reel of tension, as his childhood sweetheart love for Snow grapples with his dawning understanding of just how venomous she is.

When Snow makes Hunter promise to kill the pregnant Cinderella for her, she finally drives just enough of a wedge between them to set in motion a phenomenally awkward love triangle between stepmother, stepdaughter, and the sweetest man in the kingdom.

Meanwhile, Cinderella’s magic mirror has shifted its seductive attentions to the new fairest woman in the land, calling Snow’s worst nature even closer to the surface, and Cinderella’s fairy godmother ties the series closer together with a reappearance as a peddler of magic apples.

Possible downsides: Because Sneaky Snow White deviates more from the structure of its source fairytale, the pacing is a bit unconventional and treads water in a few places. Snow White also rather uncomfortably describes one member of the Dwarves (a rape gang that had previously chased her through the forest) as “a bad apple, but loveable.” Then again, she’s comparing him to herself while planning to cut open her stepmother and steal her unborn baby, so her judgement on what makes a person lovable can be assumed to be as fractured as the fairy tale she inhabits. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize this may be a deliberate comment on how only male characters usually get to fill the “loveable asshole” archetype, often while being assholes far beyond the point where they should qualify as loveable. Complaint retracted.

This is a story about what Rapunzel would be like if her narrow education at the hands of an evil witch and total lack of social awareness had taken her in a rather less princess-like direction. Raised in a tower by the previous book’s Snow White, this Rapunzel is an especially bratty teenager who’s determined not only to see the world but to claim her birthright and crown herself queen. At the same time, she’s compellingly pitiable, desperate to have a “friend” with no concept of what that means, and unlikely ever to find out given the universe she was born into.

This installment is also so much more than a Rapunzel revisiting. While Sneaky Snow White’s deviation from its main fairy tale inspiration and incorporation of multiple tales caused some growing pains for the series, it pays off big time in Rotten Rapunzel. The story mash-ups accelerate around an original plotline with a will of its own, switching up roles and taking advantage of repeating fairy tale tropes to distill a non-repetitive dose of the most iconic bits. This novella alone contains threads of Rapunzel, Snow White, Cinderella, The Snow Queen, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, and possibly some foreshadowing for Jack and the Beanstalk. I might even have missed some, and they’re all working together as if they were meant to all along.

If you love Into the Woods but wish it had a bit more Game of Thrones mixed in (the meanness and scheming, not the R rating), you’re going to adore Dark Fairy Tale Queens.

Possible downsides: There’s what seems to be a classic Fake Nice Guy character here whose arc feels underserved and unresolved. He spends the story doing bad and ill-advised things to impress a girl, who’s made it abundantly clear she’s not interested, and whining about how she won’t give him a chance. Rapunzel even falls into the trap of telling this girl how horrible she is for “tormenting” him (the girl is incidentally horrible, like everyone in this series, but not for saying no when she means it). Of course, Rapunzel is also a socially stunted megalomaniac who’s planning to magically roofie said Fake Nice Guy for her own use, so her opinions on this don’t count for much. Still, I wish the plot had dealt with him in a more conclusive way, even if only by letting him win and unmasking him in the process. On the other hand, letting him flounder pathetically in the background without ever being all that important arguably has its own sort of justice to it, and there might be more resolution coming down the road. I guess we’ll just have to wait for Bad Beauty to find out!

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Book Review: Who's Afraid of Amy Sinclair?

9/2/2019

Book Review:

Hopefuls #2: Who’s Afraid of Amy Sinclair?

Jenn Gott

2019

Grade: A

(Also check out my review of Hopefuls #1: The Private Life of Jane Maxwell)

The Basics:

After dying in a car wreck in her ordinary home universe, Amy Sinclair (“Clair” to her friends) has been resurrected in the body of her comic book universe doppelganger and reunited with her wife, Jane. Now she’s a mind-reading superhero on a team that Jane runs, and the two of them are surrounded by versions of people and places that are almost like the ones they remember, but not quite.

It’s all a lot better than being dead, but as Clair works to reconcile two sets of memories, as well as adjust to her invasive new superpowers, she begins having visions of her alternate self and wonders just how “back” her real self actually is.

Meanwhile, the team’s traitorous ex-member, Cal, has resurfaced as a political candidate running on an anti-superhero platform, and Clair’s erased doppleganger’s supervillainous ex-lover is back in force and bent on revenge.

The Downside:

Before delving into nitty-gritty analysis, I want to stress how much I continue to love this series, including the amount of analysis it invites. Unfortunately, this is the seemingly obligatory installment in a superhero series where the necessity, ethics, and legalities of superheroes are called into question, and as usual, the internal logic of the universe suffers for it.

Given how thoughtfully and incisively Gott handles Jane and Clair’s romance, and the challenges they face simply being themselves in the world, I think it’s a safe bet that her intentions are very different from those behind the best-known stories about the debatable need for superheroes, like Civil War (a vehicle for an anti-gun control message in its original comics form) or The Incredibles (a Randian rant against accountability for the rich and powerful). In fact, one of the oft-repeated messages of Who’s Afraid of Amy Sinclair? is one of responsibility and nonviolence. Killing isn’t the answer. Never escalate. Find another way. Yet one of the key scenes that ought to drive this point home only leaves the reader (or at least this reader) distractedly wondering how one of these no-kill superheroes made it this far in her career with a pair of twin pistols as her signature weapons in the first place, without ever having to grapple with the moral and emotional ramifications of pulling the trigger before this one defining moment.

Everything to do with the election plotline and its vigilante controversies feels adrift in this twilight zone of being too connected and yet not connected enough with reality, with rule-of-cool comic book concepts buckling under real world weights they aren’t cut out to bear. As a character, Cal’s portrayal is so spectacularly, uncomfortably realistic, particularly in his methods of exerting social control, that it’s hard not to look for timely parallels in everything remotely connected with him, yet his anti-superhero agenda seems to be a simple betrayal of his friends, our heroes, rather than any kind of cohesive metaphor.

Bottom line, it’s just really, really hard to craft a story around this theoretical comics-universe issue without getting bogged down in the reality that — as much as we may love fantasizing about having awesome abilities that would allow us to help people and solve problems single-handedly without having to deal with slow, flawed, official systems — superheroes do wield ridiculous amounts of power with no qualifications, often irresponsibly, and bystanders in their worlds have fair reason to be nervous. It’s a big ask, and I’ve yet to see any version of this story that 100% works.

The Upside:

This installment is, first and foremost, the story of Clair's rebirth, and in that respect, it's a complete and resounding success.

Like Jane in the first book, Clair has been dropped into a world where her life turned out very differently for the version of her who grew up there. Unlike Jane, if Clair digs deep enough, she has access to the memories and feelings that will allow her to piece together how exactly that happened. But does she even want to understand her alternate self? The Amy Sinclair of this world is a much darker and more complicated figure than the glimpse Jane got of her in book one. The thought that Clair could just as easily have been this other woman, that this other woman in fact has a stronger claim on her life than she does herself, is terrifying. Yet as painful as it is, Clair is compelled to look, to acknowledge her dark potential and all the strokes of luck that gave her the life she knows.

This is also the obligatory sequel to a romantic series opener in which the couple are required to fight a lot, but their conflict is much better realized than many. While some of the instigating moments that push Jane and Clair apart don’t feel quite as well motivated as they could be, once the distance begins to grow between them, Gott does an achingly fantastic job of capturing the snowballing misery of two people who love each other, but whose lines of communication have failed. That distance doesn’t feel like drama for the sake of drama either, clumsily extending a courtship story that’s already finished. It’s an integral part of Clair’s war with, and struggle to understand, herself.

The points of divergence between Clair and her counterpart are closely linked with the different versions of Jane each one had in her life, and how they made her sexual orientation and identity easier or harder to embrace. Alternate Jane, aside from being a supervillain, is cold, closed-off, and mired in deep denial about herself that manifests as callous homophobia. Instead of coming out alongside her version of Amy Sinclair in high school, alternate Jane pushed her away, deeper into the closet, and ultimately into the arms of emotionally unavailable women she could more easily keep separate from her “real” life.

Even the different names of the two versions of Amy Sinclair are emblematic of the crucial departure between them. Clair, our heroine, renamed herself early in life by shortening her last name, because she didn’t click with her given name. Amy, her erased comics universe doppelganger, tried to do the same but was eventually browbeaten into calling herself Amy again, cramming herself into the confining box she’d been assigned to, after those around her (led by Jane) refused to accept her gesture of self-definition.

Under all the masks and car chases and superpowered punch fights (which are still great fun and as awesomely cinematic as ever), this is a story about conquering everything from gender expectations to moral crises to imposter syndrome, in order to truly know yourself. It’s a worthy continuation of the Hopefuls series, and I look forward to seeing where these heroes are headed next.

Want more Fiona J.R. Titchenell? Subscribe here for personalized updates on new books, discounts, giveaways, and more. You can also join me on Facebook and Twitter, or (best of all) become a patron to gain access to exclusive extras!

Introducing Escape Velocity: Feminist Folktales from Beyond the Stars

8/24/2019

So I know I've been a bit of a ghost lately, but I promise, there's a good reason. Better yet, that reason is finally ready to share.

I've been working on a new series of sci-fi folktale retellings called Escape Velocity: Feminist Folktales from Beyond the Stars.

I use the term "series" in the loosest sense. These novellas will all take place within the same sci-fi universe, involving many of the same planets and alien species, but each one will be a self-contained reimagining of a specific fairy tale, myth, or legend. Start anywhere, stop anywhere, no risk of cliffhangers.

How many of these there might ultimately be depends on you guys. If you like them, tell me! More importantly, tell all your friends! There are plenty more folktales out there itching for an overhaul involving badass ladies and laser weapons. If these are a hit, I might even get Matt in on the fun too.

For now, I've got two of these bad girls on the shelves today.

That's right, no countdown. I've been neglecting my reviews, my social media, (my laundry, my loved ones...) all for the sake of getting these ready to enter in the 2019 Kindle Storyteller contest, which closes for entries at the end of August.

I made it! And just in time for Women's Equality Day, too!

What this means for you is that you can read these right now, and if you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can do it for free. (If not, they're only a buck each.)

If you prefer to go old school, paperback editions are coming in a few days as well.

Without further ado, let's take a look at my new lovelies!

Once upon a time, on a glamorous space station called Eris, there was a young woman who could spin base metals into gold…

At least, that’s what she tells people to separate them from their money.

Naia Mills is a con artist, a Human orphan scraping to get by in a galaxy that doesn’t want her, more than a century after her ancestors rendered the Earth uninhabitable. She travels the stars selling fake gold jewelry and elixirs, until the day she unknowingly swindles the son of a space station commander. Now confined to the station and threatened with a slow death in a radioactive penal colony, Naia has three days to buy her way to freedom with an impossible act of alchemy.

Eager to get out from under his father’s thumb, and fascinated with Naia’s profession, the commander’s son is an easy dupe and willing accomplice, but to get their hands on the gold they both need to escape, they’ll have to make a deal with the local mob, and a queenpin so powerful and private that even her closest associates don’t know her name.

(Click here to read on Kindle)

I've always wanted to adapt "Rumpelstiltskin." I honestly don't know why Disney hasn't gotten around to it yet; it's well-known and brimming with potential. For one thing, its princess comes about as close to saving herself as the Grimms' heroines ever do. Of course, in my version, her shot at survival comes in the form of an identity theft caper, and she'll have to decide what it's worth to her to save the prince as well.

Once upon a time, on the second planet from Apocrytus, there was a monster whose face men trembled to behold…

Or they would, if they knew who she was. Perhaps she should leave more survivors.

Meligora lives for revenge, but it’s not as dreary as she thought it would be. Her old life ended when the Brotherhood took control of her planet and started rounding up women for mandatory “conversion,” removing their stingers, wings, and most of their eyes, looting their bodies for their valuable reproductive organs, and leaving them docile shells of their former selves. But after her own botched procedure turned her into a lethal weapon instead of a slave, she learned to make the best of things, bending Brotherhood enforcers to her will and slaughtering them in droves each night.

She knows it’s only a matter of time before someone tries to stop her, but when a young Human bounty hunter finally follows her trail of corpses, he offers her a choice: stay a wanted killer of dime-a-dozen thugs, or join him in tracking down the man who mutilated her.

(Click here to read on Kindle)

Unlike "Rumpelstiltskin," I picked the legend of Medusa because of how abjectly horrible and in need of fixing the original story is. Seriously, look it up. Or don't, if you want to continue having a good day. Naturally, I took a lot more liberties with this one, and the result is an intense yet fun revenge fantasy that I'd roughly quantify as a blend of Deadpool, Aliens, and Ginger Snaps. I'd also unreservedly call it my most bizarre work to date.

So that's that! For today, anyway. Thanks for checking out what I've been up to this summer, and if I've sufficiently intrigued you, happy reading!

(Note: because these are on Kindle Unlimited, they're not available in digital form anywhere other than Amazon. However, if you're interested in writing a review and aren't set up for mobi files, email me.)

Book Review: The Private Life of Jane Maxwell

8/11/2019

Book Review:

Hopefuls #1: The Private Life of Jane Maxwell

Jenn Gott

2017

Grade: A+

The Basics:

Jane Maxwell, a comics artist and writer recently fired from her job in the wake of a social media firestorm kicked up by bigoted fans, finds herself dragged into a parallel universe where her hit superhero series is reality. Mostly. This world’s alternate versions of her high school friends really are the superheroes she based on them for her comics, with one exception. Instead of the male headliner Jane’s publisher demanded, the real heroes’ leader is Jane’s own counterpart. And she’s missing.

The team needs Jane to pose as her alternate self to draw out a diabolical new villain who’s wreaking havoc on their city. Jane wants to refuse, much more comfortable living on the safer side of the page, but there’s one other important difference in this alternate reality: Jane’s late wife, Clair, is still alive.

The Downside:

There are a few little errors and some awkward transitions between past and present tense. About half of the superhero team is pretty undeveloped, but that’s okay. Having a full team is necessary to the concept and setting, and they take an understandable back seat to the main characters’ story.

There’s also some slight muddying of the themes, in the nature of Clair’s superpowers and place on the team. Jane has often had misgivings about giving Clair’s character something as passive as empathy, which keeps her out of most of the action, but then finds out it’s because that’s just the way she is in the alternate universe — the same alternate universe where the sexism of her publisher generally doesn’t apply. That said, Clair’s powers are pretty essential to the plot, and she’s much more interesting than the average mind-powered love interest (*coughJeanGreycough*).

The Upside:

The Private Life of Jane Maxwell is an absolute must for any prose-reading comics fan, written with evident understanding and love for both media. Thoughtful internal monologue, too detailed to be contained in little square text boxes, is interspersed with visual descriptions so bright and vivid they’re like having the lovingly composed pages of a comic book beamed directly into your mind, all wrapped around a story that embraces both the colorful, silly melodrama and the complex emotional speculation that comics universes are capable of.

For all the lush, immersive description, not a word is wasted without pulling the reader deeper into the story and the hopes and fears of its characters. Within a few short chapters of being introduced to Jane, seeing her thrown into a room with her dead wife’s doppelganger has the kind of impact so many superhero TV shows can only dream of pulling off with the help of five or six seasons of familiarity and context.

This is a story that contains flamboyant costumes, evil twins, and a guy called Doctor Demolition. It’s also a story that delves deeply into what it would feel like to learn that your life is just one possible version of itself, and to meet another version of your lost love, who isn’t lost and was never your love, at least not yet. Where so many writers would only get as far as recognizing that this is awkward and painful, Gott pushes through to what comes after that, what the strange nature of their relationship is, and how that shakes their understanding not only of relationships but of their own identities.

The result is a unique adventure and love story, plus an introduction to a compelling new superhero title with the potential to be as iconic as the best of them.

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Cover Reveal and Giveaway: Thorn, by Intisar Khanani

7/1/2019

Congratulations to Intisar Khanani on the cover reveal of her new Harper Teen edition of Thorn!

In honor of the occasion, she's giving away two $25 gift cards and a Thorn-inspired prize pack. She's also sharing a sneak peak inside the book itself.

The giveaway is at the bottom of this page, but first, let's take a look at the book! You can also read my review of Thorn here, but keep in mind, it's based on the original indie version. Harper Teen has added some lovely embellishments to the cover, and I'm curious how the inside will have changed too!

About Thorn

A princess with two futures. A destiny all her own.

Between her cruel family and the contempt she faces at court, Princess Alyrra has always longed to escape the confines of her royal life. But when she’s betrothed to the powerful prince Kestrin, Alyrra embarks on a journey to his land with little hope for a better future.

When a mysterious and terrifying sorceress robs Alyrra of both her identity and her role as princess, Alyrra seizes the opportunity to start a new life for herself as a goose girl.

But Alyrra soon finds that Kestrin is not what she expected. The more Alyrra learns of this new kingdom, the pain and suffering its people endure, as well as the danger facing Kestrin from the sorceress herself, the more she knows she can’t remain the goose girl forever.

With the fate of the kingdom at stake, Alyrra is caught between two worlds and ultimately must decide who she is, and what she stands for.

“Thorn is a lovely atmospheric fairytale fantasy about a girl and her found family. I loved it!” — Gail Carriger, New York Times-bestselling author of the Parasol Protectorate series

“Intisar Khanani is in my top five favorite authors writing today. A stunningly talented storyteller whose lyrical writing just blows my socks off every time I read her.” — Grace Draven, USA Today bestselling author Eidolon

Excerpt from Thorn

“Princess Alyrra,” the king says. I rise and lift my eyes to his. He studies me as if I were a prize goat, his gaze sliding over me before returning to my face, as cold and calculating as a butcher.

“We have heard tell of you before.”

“My lord?” My voice is steady and calm, as I’ve learned to make it when I’m only half frightened. For all my prayers, there’s no sign of softer traits in the man before me.

“It is said you are honest. An unusual trait, it would seem.”

Dread curls tight in my belly. I force some semblance of a smile to my lips. There is no other answer I can give that my family will not despise me for. My brother has gone rigid, his hands pressed flat against his thighs.

“You are most kind,” my mother says, stepping forward.

The king watches me a moment longer, leaving my mother waiting. Just when I thought I might finally escape my history, how my family sees me, I find I am mistaken. There is no better future to hope for now. The king has come for me, knowing full well I am nothing to my family.

Thorn is coming March 24th, 2020! You can pre-order your copy here, or add it to your Goodreads reading list here.

About Intisar Khanani

Intisar Khanani grew up a nomad and world traveler. She has lived in five different states as well as in Jeddah on the coast of the Red Sea. Until recently, Intisar wrote grants and developed projects to address community health with the Cincinnati Health Department, which was as close as she could get to saving the world. Now she focuses her time on her two passions: raising her family and writing fantasy. She is the author of The Sunbolt Chronicles and Thorn (HarperTeen 2020).

You can find her on her website, Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Giveaway Time!

Ready for swag? Of course you are.

Here's how it goes. One U.S resident will win a Thorn-inspired prize pack, including a great snowy owl enamel pin, a gorgeous "quill" style calligraphy pen set, a hand-painted watercolor feather on a page from Thorn, and a "fairy dust" candle. That lucky winner will also receive a $25 gift card.

Non-U.S residents are not eligible for the prize pack but can still enter to win a second $25 gift card.

The drawing will be on July 18th, and you can enter below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Review: Catalyst Moon #2: Breach

6/2/2019

Book Review:

Catalyst Moon #2: Breach

Lauren L. Garcia

2017

Grade: A-

(You can read my review of Catalyst Moon #1: Incursion here)

The Basics:

With the completion of Stonewall’s mission to escort Kali to her new home-slash-prison in Whitewater City, the sentinel and mage have little excuse to have anything more to do with each other, but the feelings that bloomed between them on the road refuse to fade, pulling the two of them into a treacherous double life.

Meanwhile, the Thralls, victims of a spreading epidemic of demonic possession, are not only threatening the physical safety of the kingdom but turning its people against the mages, whom many suspect of being the cause. As for the mages, an escape plot is stirring within the bastion among Kali’s more rebellious friends, giving her only a few short weeks to decide where to place her loyalty, and her hopes for her future.

The Downside:

I may be the only person in the world who actually prefers the first Catalyst Moon book to the second. This is probably because I'm exceptionally picky about my love stories, and the romance is even more of a focal point in this one, in spite of Stonewall and Kali spending more time apart in it.

I’m still rooting for these two; they’re so genuinely sweet and serious about each other that it’s hard not to, but given how thoughtfully subversive the series is in so many ways, I was disappointed by the forced drama of them failing to communicate vital information for inadequately motivated reasons. It’s far from the most toxic of standard romance tropes, and not a disqualifying one on my shelf when I like enough other elements, but still one of my literary pet peeves just for being lazy and tired.

The Upside:

Breach’s deeper exploration of the world and people of Catalyst Moon, on the other hand, takes some of the most fascinating details of the first book and brings them to the next level.

The status quo of the kingdom, from its commodification of magic users, to its caste system, to its assumption that the monsters of its children’s stories are nothing more than stories, is clearly fraying at the seams, waiting for someone to apply the right pressure in just the right place. Well, not just someone. Therein lies the difficulty. It’s going to take a lot of someones to break the old system and build a new one, and much of Breach is about the difficulty of getting enough someones pulling in the same direction. There are plenty of people with every reason to be dissatisfied, certainly, separated to all corners and entrenched in their own coping mechanisms. Many have convinced themselves that the way things are is the right way or the only way. Others fight ardently for their own interests while clinging to their irrational prejudices against each other.

The political side of the story makes for a frustrating read, but in a much better way than this installment’s romantic misunderstandings. The state of the world of Catalyst Moon is integrated much more smoothly into the story than is the case in many comparable fantasy epics, presented through the subplots of a sensibly sized cast of characters, all of them organically introduced and then cinched together in new ways. Breach comes together like a cat’s cradle, weaving together threads from Incursion so efficiently that the process can almost go unnoticed until the interlocking pattern surprises with its elegant intricacy.

Once the forestory at the bastion takes off, it happens quickly, culminating in a tense finale that pulls insistently into book three — a pull I have not resisted.

More on that soon.

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Book Review: Catalyst Moon: Incursion

5/16/2019

Book Review:

Catalyst Moon: Incursion

Lauren L. Garcia

2016

Grade: A

The Basics:

Kali is a mage, born with the power to sense and manipulate the magical particles of the universe. Imprisoned for life for her poorly understood abilities, Kali’s highest hope for herself is to be reunited with her childhood friend and fellow mage, Eris, who claims to know someone who can heal the chronic pain in her leg.

Stonewall is a sentinel, sworn to protect the outside world from the dangers of mage powers, and addicted to a substance that makes him immune to the effects of magic. During a routine mission escorting Kali on her long-awaited transfer, an attack by possessed bandits leaves the two of them adrift from the rest of Stonewall’s squad and dependent on each other for survival.

The Downside:

Apart from a minor sprinkling of typos and some bland or lacking visual descriptions, Incursion’s only real drawback is the episodic slightness of Kali and Stonewall’s plot. They travel toward their destination and find themselves faced with a problem that must be solved by one of their skillsets or the other. Then they travel some more, and another, often similar problem springs up.

The journey nevertheless serves its purpose of bonding the two characters, to the point where the end of the road becomes a swelling source of dread. That, combined with Eris’s more urgent subplot of escape attempts, makes any plot weakness on Kali’s side easy to ignore.

The Upside:

In its extensive depiction of powerful women, Incursion is a remarkable blend of incisive commentary and freedom from old patterns. When deciding how women are treated in a fictional universe, female authors typically have to choose between writing what we know or writing what we wish for. Both strategies have their place, but rarely does an author manage to combine the two as effectively as Garcia.

There is no sexual inequality or stigma within the Catalyst Moon universe (as far as we know in this installment). Mages are female as often as male. Sentinels are female as often as male. Random bandit warriors are female as often as male. Characters in positions of authority are female as often as male. Some characters have relationship hangups, but no one seems to be afraid of sex or think of it as a weapon. This is all so normal that no one even feels the need to mention it.

And yet, the story is about a mage who happens to be female, and a sentinel who happens to be male.

Mages are hated for being born in a way they didn’t choose, excluded from participating in society, ridiculed for being enigmatic but discouraged from learning or teaching anything about themselves, resented for being necessary, required to use their abilities on demand, distrusted for using them at all, and often told how lucky they are to be taken care of.

Sentinels are raised on rhetoric of duty, honor, tradition, and emotional repression. They’re taught that their role is divinely ordained, that mage magic is evil and scary and theirs to control, that they’re doing the world a grand service in their custodianship of the mages, and that abusing their own bodies and minds into an early grave is a small price to pay for being able to pass as beacons of strength.

I sense a metaphor — a metaphor that carries over strikingly into the challenges the pair faces, as they struggle to forge a meaningful understanding between them.

As a social critique, as a forbidden romance of opposites, as an intriguing fantasy world, as an introduction to an epic to come, and as everything else it sets out to be, Catalyst Moon: Incursion is a page-turning delight that has me already digging into its sequel.

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