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House of Earth and Blood book review

The House of Earth and Blood is the first book in the new Crescent City series by Sarah J Maas. Bryce Quinlan is a half-human and half-fae living a life of work and partying in Crescent City. Her world crashes when her best friend is murdered by a demon. But as hard as that was, things become more difficult when the demon behind the murder re-emerges two years later. Now Bryce is being roped into the investigation and she is seeking revenge.

Hunt Athalar is an angel of death. A slave and assassin to the Archangels, Hunt has been recruited to track down the murderer stalking the streets of Crescent City. He doesn’t want to work with Bryce, but if they find who is responsible, Hunt can win his freedom. Together, Bryce and Hunt will face a formidable enemy and risk their hearts along the way.

So, that is the jacket-cover overview of the book. Now for my thoughts.

Book cover for Sarah J Maas’s House of Earth and Blood. I find this cover very busy and slightly baffling – and that is after I read the book. Image from the internet.

It was good. And it was long.

Let’s start with the things I liked about the story. I loved the world setting. It was a fun mix of technology and magic. The world was flavoured with ancient Roman/Greek vibes mingling with the modern urban fantasy trend of multiple supernatural races. There were angels and demons, vampires and werewolves. There were temples housing oracles and a goddess called Luna! The environment felt Mediterranean in climate. The city was a mix of ancient stone buildings and modern glass skyscrapers. And it worked. The old-new city was vibrant, the mix of different races was seamless. I loved that Bryce worked for an antiques dealer. The magic played well with the modern technology. It was all integrated and fun.

The story itself was compelling. There was lots of emotion to be had. Life for Bryce really collapsed when Danika was murdered. The struggles she faced felt believable and tragic. Certainly the twists and turns were gut-wrenching as the story progressed.

Hunt’s story paralleled Bryce’s, though older and blunted by time. His decisions and their consequences again seemed realistic. His slow change in attitude and the budding hope made for a power shift in the book.

It was good, but there were things that I didn’t love. I read a lot of Sarah J Maas’s Throne of Glass series, which was young adult. I was expecting something similar in tone and language. House of Earth and Blood was far more adult. There was a great deal of swearing, drugs, alcohol and sex in the book. Between the tone, language and themes, it was a mature story with an adult (over 18 years old) focus. Which was reflected, I suppose, by the age of Bryce also in her early twenties.

Book cover for Sarah J Maas’s House of Earth and Blood. I like this cover better than the other one for its simplicity. Though I don’t know what it is representing. Image from the internet.

I also found the pacing of the book a challenge. Every time I thought we had reached an endpoint there would be a new twist. The betrayals that happened along the way were epic. My first thought was I didn’t like them, but reflecting later I was impressed with how the actions of a person can seem both good and bad when viewed through different lenses. I think each shocking twist worked, but it did make the progression to the conclusion feel like a string of mini-peaks – more awkward than anything.

Finally, this is book one in the Crescent City series. I don’t know how many books are going to be in this series, which I assume will focus on the evil Empire. The Empire is evil and change is never easy. But while I liked this book, I worry that this series will become bloated and melodramatic. Is there really more to be done with Bryce and Hunt? Or will Maas take a different approach and follow other related characters. I think the latter holds more hope for a good sequel, but the last teasing scene in the book left me hesitant about the future of Crescent City.

So, in summary. I loved the world being developed. The story was interesting with strong characters and high emotional impact. This is an adult book that is long. Worth reading. 4.5/5 stars.

One Crazy Summer – Book Review

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As part of our book club, I got to read One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. It is a children’s book deserving of its many awards.

Set in 1968, Delphine and her sisters travel across the United States to Oakland, California to spend a summer with the mother who abandoned them 7 years earlier. Amid all the family drama, Delphine and her sisters also face a time of racial upheaval in the States.

Book cover for One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia; image from the internet.

With well described, believable characters and a clear writing style for a younger audience there is a lot happening in this story. It is emotional and very relevant for today’s audience. The book is solidly written. It moves forward at a good pace, while dealing with a number of personal and societal issues.

While I didn’t love it, I would recommend the story to really everyone. Racism is an issue. It is forefront in the news. And this book deals with how that looks for those living through it. With an eleven year old protagonist, the author doesn’t preach the problems of racism. But she shows it in the way the characters interact with the people around them. The discussion is thoughtful and sensitively done.

As for why I didn’t love the book – there was a lack of dragons, magic and space elves. In short, it is just not a style of story I really enjoy. But I do appreciate the strength of the writing and the message the story brings forward. I also struggled with the mother abandoning her kids – which was more emotional than I need in my life at present (I am working on my stress levels). The young audience is still not my favourite at present. But this is entirely just where I am at in my life and not a reflection on the quality of the book – which was a quick read.

Another book cover for One Crazy Summer; image from the internet.

Overall, well written with a poignant plot 5 out 5 stars.

Cinderella is Dead – Book Review

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I was debating the merits of writing a reflection on the book: Cinderella is Dead. As I neither love nor hate the book, there is not a lot I have to talk about. So, instead I am going to reflect on the reactions of other readers.

But first, Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron features 16-year old Sophia living in a very restrictive world post-Cinderella. Sophia is not excited to attend the mandatory ball, where matches are made as she is more interested in princesses than princes.

I liked that our lead protagonist was female, coloured and a lesbian. I liked that the book really questioned the arc of fairy tales. Sophia’s world treats the Cinderella story like scripture, which brings forth so many problems. And really, it is always important to question what you read and the common ideas held by society. I also liked that Cinderella was real, 200 years dead, but still a member of this world. I didn’t love that the target audience was young adults. The writing was really geared towards a younger reader, which simply does not interest me at present.

And that pretty much sums up my perspective on this book. I would give Cinderella is Dead 3.5 out of 5 stars. It was solid, but not super amazing.

Then I did some research to see what other people thought. Reviewer A loved the book – 5 out of 5 stars. Reviewer B hated the book – 1 out of 5 stars.

I would agree with Reviewer A, Sophia was candid, straightforward and determined. These were great qualities in pushing the story forward. She knew what she wanted and she sought to change the world around her rather than break under the expectations of others. And yes, the King was a terrifying villain. He was not only evil, but inspired his followers to be just like him. This was striking considering the state of our world at present. A morally corrupt leader will draw out the worst in his people.

While I think Reviewer A gushed overly about the story, they did pull out some good highlights. In contrast Reviewer B seems to have been ridiculously harsh. Reviewer B thought Sophia had no empathy or sense of the world around her, concluding that the main character was entirely selfish. While I will concede Sophia is far from a complex character, I don’t think it was blind-selfishness that had her standing up for herself. The world in this book was harshly patriarchal. It was extreme in the way women had zero control in their lives. And Sophia was a counter to that. She was determined not to give in to the expectations of others. In a longer narrative, you might have been able to look at more shades of grey, but I think the message of standing up for yourself and your neighbors against tyranny is too important to dismiss as selfish. It wasn’t just that Sophia wanted to marry another girl, it was that she wanted to have control in her life. She wanted a world, where married women were not abused and cruelly discarded. Where daughters were treated with respect and given agency in their own futures.

Reviewer B did bring up at least one dumb moment, where the characters act stupidly. The book is not perfect, I will admit that. And there are some questionable actions by the key characters, personally the whole seeing the future moment seemed irrelevant. However, overall, I don’t think it deserved the level of hate.

In the end, I maintain my rating of 3.5 stars. A good book with diversity at the forefront. I am just past the young adult (tween) age group.

The Best We Could Do

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The Best We Could Do is an illustrated memoir by Thi Bui. While this is not a book I would normally have chosen to read, it was picked by my new book club as one of the reads for the summer. The following review will have spoilers – can you have spoilers in a memoir?

The Best We Could Do was well done. There are some interesting and powerful messages in the text. The biggest point in its favour was the illustrated narrative – it was a fast read! Which is something I appreciate in a genre I am not drawn to. The illustrations – yes, think comic book, but for adults – is coloured in black, white and rust. The rust really adds to the historic feel of the story.

One panel from the book The Best We Could Do – image from the internet.

The story is one person’s reflection on their family history with a particularly strong focus on Thi’s relationship with her parents. In fact, a considerable amount of time is spent looking at both her mother and her father – their childhood and early years of marriage.

Thi Bui’s family is from Viet Nam and her memoir touches on some of the turbulent years of the country before her family finally fled to America. I don’t know anything about Viet Nam or its struggles. But I do know something about Cambodia. I could not help but draw a number of comparisons between the stories I have learned of Cambodia and what I was reading about Viet Nam. It reminds me how difficult life is in many parts of the world. How hard change is for the people living through it. But most striking for me, was the hardships faced by refugees fleeing abhorrent conditions, taking nothing with them, and then faced with so much uncertainty and cultural difference when they immigrate to a new country. That reminder was what I took away from the book. And a stronger desire to be more understanding and compassionate when interacting with people coming to Canada as refugees.

We do not know what they have been through and so it is difficult to appreciate how challenging this move is. Particularly for families fleeing for their lives. They bring nothing with them but a sliver of hope. Hope that leaving everything behind will mean more opportunities for their children. Hope that they will be able to rebuild a life in a foreign land where the customs are so different. It is very humbling to reflect on the sacrifices these families make and the numerous challenges they face. I work with a number of newcomers, so I found this aspect of the story very meaningful to me.

Book cover for The Best We Could Do – image from the internet.

The other strong theme running through the book is that of maturing. The challenges we face as we grow from child to adult and how that reshapes our relationship with our parents. Tied to this idea are the traits we pick up and adopt because of our parents’ histories. What we carry forward from their experiences – for good or ill. I was less interested in this personal reflection. I feel I have thought about my own relationships to my parents and as I am not a parent, I cannot look in the other direction.

While the story The Best We Could Do, is not one that I naturally gravitate towards, it is a powerful and well composed book. Except for the non-linear beginning which left me rather confused about Thi’s father and his past. However, the illustrated nature of the book helps to break down the complexity of the narrative. I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5 and recommend that you try the story. It is not a huge time commitment, but it is certainly eye-opening for those who have not gone through such challenging circumstances.

Twelve Dancing Princesses

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Today I am going to talk about K.M. Shea’s Twelve Dancing Princesses. This another of the Timeless Fairy Tales, which are individual fairy tales set in the same world. In fact over time they have developed another world wide arc that is playing out in the background and in the Fairy Tale Enchantress series.

As always, beware of spoilers.

Book cover for Twelve Dancing Princesses. Image from the internet.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses is unlike many other retellings as it focuses very little on the princesses. In fact the main character, Quinn of the Farset military, gets roped into trying to break the princesses’ curse by her fellow forest soldier. Only a little time is spent following the princesses – three nights to be precise.

Since the Twelve Dancing Princesses is the 10th book in the series, it plays more of a role in the world-wide story arc than the books at the beginning of the series. For this reason it is less of a stand-alone. It is also less constrained to the traditional plot line of the twelve dancing princesses. Yes there are nightly dances and yes the king is searching for someone to solve the mystery (and break the curse). But this story is about Quinn, how she meets the young King of the Elves and saves them. In saving the Elves, Quinn also saves the Princesses.

Interestingly enough, the Princesses are not entirely blameless in their curse. Two of the twelve are the reason the others become cursed. I like that there is a greater range of characterization of the twelve princesses, however little time is spent with them.

The story is enjoyable and I like what it does for the bigger plot-line. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

When thinking about my review for this book, however, there were two things that I wanted to discuss. The first was the idea of authenticity – how much should a re-imagined story follow the original plot-line? Clearly, the author has chosen to take the Twelve Dancing Princesses in a different direction. She is barely interacting with the titular characters. Is this good, bad, or just a thing?

For me, I don’t think you need to follow the original tales that closely. In fact some of my concerns for other books in this series is that they tried too hard to follow our general understanding of the fairy tales which made for very clunky endings. These are good places to start, then let creativity run free.

I will make one additional note though, if your story deviates too much from the original source material – call it something else. I watched a movie that was supposedly about King Arthur but was so wildly different from the tales I grew up with it was abrasive. The movie would have been a hundred times better if it were called A Roman Soldier or such. To title your book in a specific way, like the Twelve Dancing Princesses, and then write a story about a forest ranger, can be off putting to some readers. They will expect one thing and get something completely different. Which is not the best example, because the curse and the twelve princesses do follow the traditional plot very well. The reader just follows a different character to get to the same information point.

The other thought I had while preparing this reflection was about favourites. The Twelve Dancing Princesses is the favourite fairy tale of a friend. She loves the different incarnations of this story. This, however, is not my favourite. I much prefer Beauty and the Beast. I really like relationships that start as mistrust and turn to love. But I also really like that Beauty and the Beast takes place over a long period of time. These characters learn to love each other slowly. So, it made me wonder, what fairy tale is your favourite? Which story do you read in all its different incarnations?

The Snow Queen – Book Review

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I just finished reading the Snow Queen: The Complete Saga by K.M. Shea. This fairy tale is written in two parts: Heart of Ice and Sacrifice. The Complete Saga also includes a number of short stories at the end.

As with any review, beware of spoilers.

Snow Queen: Heart of Ice book cover from the internet.

The Snow Queen takes place in the same world as the other Timeless Fairy Tales by K.M. Shea only a hundred (or so) years earlier. I am not positive, but I am pretty sure it was written after the author had written several of the other books in the same world. So, it is a bit of a prequel to the great world events, while at the same time acting as a complete story.

Rakel is the Snow Queen, a princess born with Magic. In this time frame magic users are hated and feared. Rakel is despised by her parents and locked first in a cold, isolated tower then exiled to a distant mountain peak in the northern kingdom of Verglas. While Rakel grows to love her magic, she is frightened of people – as they often want to kill her or call her a monster. All that is about to change when the Chosen decide to invade.

While her first instinct is to let the people of the kingdom suffer, that doesn’t last long. And soon Rakel sets off to save a neighbouring village. She wields her magic to protect her people and over time becomes the hero of her kingdom.

For Rakel, her journey is about making friends, learning to trust other people and to live in a world beyond her ice castle. She finds love in a colonel from the invading army, a best friend in an outgoing thief and loyalty in the Captain of her guards and the attendant who has served her for the past 8 years.

Snow Queen: Sacrifice book cover image from the internet.

It is a sweet story that clearly delineates good versus evil. Yet, it does take time to look at motivation and method. The story draws parallels between the power Rakel has and uses as the Snow Queen and that of her enemy, the leader of the Chosen. While Rakel is reluctant to kill, Lord Tenebris, leader of the Chosen is off to enslave everyone without magic. Both these characters have faced discrimination, yet both have come out of that experience with two different objectives. Rakel would rather hide away from the world. Her goal is not to cause pain to others because she knows what it is like. Rather, her strength lays in her ability to forgive (also in her incredible control over ice, snow and temperature). Tenebris wants to punish those that have hurt him. He will be the strongest and will demonstrate his strength by ensuring no one has the power to hurt him again. He also wants revenge. Death and destruction are his goals.

The death count may be low for Rakel, but just to be clear her army does not hold the same views. They are killing the enemy, occasionally there is imprisonment, but there is still a lot of death. So, yes the good guys try to be better, but in war there no real heroes. And that is something this book does not really touch on. Granted this is a nice, straightforward fairy tale of good versus evil. The message the book spells out is that forgiveness and love are stronger and more important. But I think it tries to portray the battle as too clean. In a war like this, both sides would have lost. However, that would have made for a different and more complex tale to tell.

Snow Queen: Snowflakes book cover image from the internet (this is the collection of short stories).

This was a good story. And with the chaos of the real world, sometimes we need these unrealistic heroes to exist so we have something to strive for. Sure no one is going to be as perfect as Rakel, the Snow Queen (not just because magic on that scale doesn’t exist). But we can all try to be a bit more like her: kinder, more empathetic, and far more forgiving.

Final rating for the Snow Queen: 4.5 out of 5 stars. Another good book my K.M. Shea.

Sinister Magic – Book Review

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It is summer reading! Look at how many books I am getting through. So, this latest book was urban fantasy rather than scifi. This is book 1 in Lindsay Buroker’s new series, Death Before Dragons. The title Sinister Magic. Beware of spoilers.

First, to be upfront and honest, I like Buroker’s writing. I don’t love all her series and I haven’t read all her books – though I have read quite a few. This is still good writing. The characters are engaging. There are a range of personalities and viewpoints. There are also a range of races in this particular novel.

Book cover for Sinister Magic: Death Before Dragons, Book 1. Image from the internet. Please notice how bad-ass Val is with her magical tiger and cleverly named sword. (Note that is sarcasm abut the name of her sword.) Yes, there is also a dragon.

For one of the first times I do not love her female protagonist. I certainly want to love Val (Valmeyjar). She has obvious issues: inflammation of the lungs possibly related to stress that is certainly a problem when slaying evil monsters. She has relationship problems, mostly because everyone she knows has their life in danger by proximity – including an ex-husband and daughter. Though, I do like that she has family. A mother she struggles to relate to along with her own ex and daughter. But few other friends, mostly a tiger from another dimension. She is also a half-elf. And who doesn’t remember being a child and wanting to be a half-elf?

I love Val’s let’s get this done attitude. She is confident, snarky and stubborn. All excellent traits in a storybook heroine. I love that she has a moral outlook, a challenge when she is essentially an assassin against magical beings. What I don’t love about Val is her approach to killing everything. She is off to save her friend, but in doing so causes a great deal of damage. While this is pretty standard fare in action films, it does question how morally sound is Val’s decision to kill things for a living. Especially when the Dragon appears and offers a different system. Granted we don’t know the details about the Dragon Courts Justice system, but mass slaughter is not the primary method.

I do like how there is some effort put into questioning Val’s methods for dealing with rogue magical creatures. I am not suggesting they should be ignored, but is killing them without trial or effort at rehabilitation really the best option? The fact that Val appears to be so narrow minded in her dealings with magical creatures (amusing because she is half magical herself) is my biggest problem with the story.

This is not a reflection on the writing. Rather, Buroker’s portrayal of Val left me thinking poorly of the main character. And while I agree you can have great stories with unlikeable protagonists, these are not usually the stories I read. While on one hand I admire Val for her ability to defend herself and friends while taking down large and scary monsters. I find Val’s use of weapons heavy handed when dealing with problems. I prefer characters that solve problems cleverly with words (and occasionally swords), like Amaranth in the Emperor’s Edge series. Though, Sinister Magic is at least aware of all the collateral damage Val causes.

Conclusion: Sinister Magic is a good book, but I don’t particularly like the main character. Still, I am interested to see where the series goes next. I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

All Systems Red – Book Review

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All Systems Red is the first book in Martha Wells’ series the Murderbot Diaries. It is actually a novella rather than a full length novel. As I sit here on the back deck, I really don’t know what to say about this book. I liked it but I didn’t love it. I am interested enough that I have ordered more books in the series from the library. Ultimately it did not move me – I neither loved it enough to gush, nor hated enough to complain.

Book cover for All Systems Red by Martha Wells; first novella in the Murderbot Diaries series. Image from the internet.

It was not what I expected, which I suppose is something. First from the title, I thought Murderbot was more actively killing humans. It wasn’t. I was mildly surprised that its job was security – but very low end security.

From a friend’s review I also expected it to be funnier than it was. There were no laugh-out-loud moments in the story.

I was interested in how Wells developed the character and dealt with a constructed lifeform. I thought the setting was different enough and the future of mega-corporations fine – not new, but certainly concerning.

I struggled a bit to learn and follow the humans in the story. Their names were confusing as was the use of pronouns. I don’t know if I struggled because the pronouns did not match my expectation of gender for the names or if they were intentionally misleading because Murderbot didn’t care. Aspects of the world were difficult to understand. Were all the researchers on the planet corporations looking for mineable resources? Are there any governments in this future space setting, or only money making corps? How are constructs different from augmented humans? What parts are organic?

Certainly there are some interesting questions about personality and defining life. And I do give the author huge props for creating a shy, apathetic artificial construct who wants to spend all its time watching the entertainment feed.

Overall, the writing is strong. The author is able to raise some interesting points about humanity and our future. While I found it a bit confusing, other readers may not. It was not something that resonated with me, but it was a well written book (novella) – 4.5 stars out of 5.

We will see how the other novellas go.

Sentinels of the Galaxy – Series Review

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The series is Sentinels of the Galaxy by Maria V. Snyder. There are currently two books: Navigating the Stars & Chasing the Shadows. Beware of spoilers in the following reflection.

Maria V Snyder’s Sentinels of the Galaxy series currently has two books. The third is not out until November, but it is already on my reading list. So, short review – I like this series.

The first book, Navigating the Stars, follows Lyra Daniels as she is forced to move across the Milky Way Galaxy to a new planet because of her parents’ research. Her parents are expert archaeologists studying terracotta warriors found on different planets. Lyra is nearly 18 Actual Years old and she definitely acts like a teenager. She spends time getting into trouble on the advanced data-communications-navigations system, the Q-net. But there are troubles ahead when looters come and attack the dig site. Lyra is drawn into danger. The book ends with Lyra’s death and her subsequent resurrection as Ara Lawrence.

Book cover for Navigating the Stars; book one in the Sentinels of the Galaxy series by Maria V. Snyder. Image from the internet.

The second book, Chasing the Shadows, continues to follow the first person narrative style of Ara Lawrence (aka Lyra Daniels). To hide the fact she isn’t permanently dead (only flatlined for a few seconds), Ara became a security officer for the dig site. Using her rapidly growing worming skills (future based hacking), Ara needs to track down the bad guys who not only looted the dig site, but destroyed many terracotta warriors and released the alien shadow-blobs. These hostile life forms (HoLFs) are deadly and growing in intelligence.

I read the first book a few weeks back (maybe a couple of months) and I don’t remember all the details very well. But I feel like I actually prefer book two to the first book. Which is very unusual. As for why I liked Chasing the Shadows better, I think it had more explanation. There was more science, more aliens and generally more explanation of the plot. The first book was more about Lyra/Ara and setting up the world. But the second book was more about explaining the world, about finding answers. And these were interesting answers. I suppose in many ways the second book was more fantasy than the first book.

The author’s take on space travel was interesting. It is generally not my favourite way of dealing with the space travel, but it ranks high for most thoughtful. In this world, there exists a Crinkle Machine, that connects two distant points in space. For this reason ships (and their passengers) are able to travel great distances in the blink of an eye – but with constraints. They are traveling into the future. So while it may not seem like very long inside the Crinkle Process, the rest of their friends and relatives are aging. And actually, Snyder did a good job selling this feature. It was rather sad when you thought about it. But people continued to travel and to age differently than those left on planets.

It does raise some questions, like why those people from Earth manage to maintain the same sorts of outlooks. But for the people on the outer reaches of explored space, it is an interesting problem.

Book cover for Chasing the Shadows; book two in the Sentinels of the Galaxy series by Maria V. Snyder. Image from the internet.

One of the aspects that I don’t love is the teenager-ness of the main character. While, Lyra/Ara is well written and reasonably believable. I find that I am at a point in my personal life when I really don’t want to read about teenagers. They are a strange mix of child (classified as someone adults readily ignore and who sees adults as one dimensional beings) and adult (classified as someone who can be trained in combat). Teenagers are hormonal, with epicly dramatic relationships. And while Snyder does a pretty good job of balancing out Lyra/Ara with her parents being present, it is still one of my least favourite aspects of the books.

Still, these books are well written. They have an interesting take on space, travel and aliens. The characters are complex, detailed and well crafted. And the story is interesting. Rating of 5 out of 5 stars (or 4.5 if I am feeling stingy). Good stories, definitely recommend. And truthfully I am excited for the next book.

Wayfarer’s Keep – Book Review

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Today we are going to look briefly at Wayfarer’s Keep by T.A. White. Note: there will be some spoilers in the following passages, including a briefly discussion about the final boss.

Wayfarer’s Keep is the third book in The Broken Lands series. It stars Pathfinder Shae and Warlord Fallen as they descended upon the stronghold of the Pathfinders.

Book covers for the first three books in the series from the internet.

First a confession: while I have read the first two books in the series, it was not recently. My memory for details is not the very best. So this review is based on what I remember with a focus on my impressions of this story.

It was clearly a book in a series. It actually felt like the third book in a trilogy, there was a sense of completion with its final battle. Though it was not a very firm conclusion, leaving plenty of room for the big bad guy to return. Or related minions to harass the people of this world.

The Broken Lands are a strange place. There are the Highlands, the Lowlands, the Outlands and the Mists. Things are a strange mix left over technology from some great cataclysm and monsters. There are lots of monsters making the world a very hostile place for humans. This book takes the already ferocious creatures and adds the new mythicals – intelligent ferocious creatures. It kind of feels like a comic book where the heroes have leveled up, so their foes must also level up otherwise there wouldn’t be any tension.

The story is composed of a lot of battles. There seems to be a lot of fighting in these stories. And with a Warlord for our second main character, the fighting is heroic and glorious. Which is fine. It is not the smart solution to the problem, but reading about heroes fighting their foes to win the day is a very solid story arch.

It is interesting how magical the advanced old technology is described. It is also interesting some of the imagery chosen by the author. Large, cannon like guns are described as flowers that open up before sending their projectiles.

Book cover for Wayfarer’s Keep from the internet.

Treachery is one of the issues faced by our leads. Who to trust? How to earn the trust of others? The intrigue was okay, but not very subtle. Again, these characters are more blunt instruments that beat the problem to death. While this may not have been the intent of the author, the characters did not actually express any subtlety in their actions. Though, I suppose there was a moment of misdirection. And I did like that the author final addressed Shea’s mysterious past connection to the Broken lands. Even if I was left feeling slightly disappointed there wasn’t more to her much alluded to journey.

The plot as I reflect on it, became a fetch quest into the Badlands – that no one is supposed to enter. Here our heroine faces the Darkness. I don’t remember if it had a name, but it was the Heart of Evil that taints the land and manipulates the minds of the weak. And like every other Heart of Evil Darkness, it cannot truly be killed. Only weakened and chained and left to await the next hapless idiot who tries to free it.

The book was fine. It was probably as good as the others in the series, but I don’t remember them very well to make a confident comparison. It is not my favourite series by this author, but it does have some interesting elements with its post-apocalypse society filled with deadly things to kill. The focus on epic battles was fine, just not my favourite. The final sequence of facing the great old evil was not unexpected and I would probably have liked something less predictable.

For this one, I am going with 3.5 out of 5 stars. If you liked the first two, then I am sure you will like this too.