One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Fantasy; Young Adult
Series: Healer, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 390 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Mira Books publisher Harlequin via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Avry knew, when she healed the girl, that her days of running would be over. She knew that her actions would be reported and she'd be executed for being a healer. But she couldn't lie there and listen to a child drown on the fluid in her own lungs. She just couldn't. So Avry did what she was born to do.

After the plague that killed two-thirds of the population of the Fifteen Realms, the survivors placed blame at the feet of the healers who were rumored to be responsible, rumored to have denied their healing to those who had fallen ill. Since then, her kind has been systematically hunted and killed. It didn't matter that the rumors were wrong, that the healers didn't actually start the plague. It didn't matter that the remaining public was misinformed about a healer's ability to cure plague victims.

So Avry knew saving the child's life would mean the end of her own. She had no idea that she'd be rescued by a small band of men in desperate need of a healer. She had no clue that her journey with them would take her across the Realms, or that their race against time stirs the eddies of conflict in an approaching war, as remaining leaders start to maneuver for control and power and Realms are realigned.

She didn't know her fate would become intertwined with that of a man she'd just met and couldn't trust, or that she would be called to save a man she considered a vicious criminal. She had no idea that her life would never be the same. Then again, Avry thought she'd be dead.

She'll find out that death would have been easier.


It's been several years since I read Maria V. Snyder's Study series. In fact, The Study Series Bundle was one of the first things I downloaded on my very first Kindle after a friend lent me Poison Study in paperback. Over three years and fifteen hundred books later (no, not all of them read...yet), I couldn't miss out on her new series, despite it being outside my normal preferences.

I very rarely read in the Young Adult category, so I can't even say for sure that this is a Young Adult book. I don't know what the parameters are for such a label and wouldn't presume. I can say that if I were a young adult, or a parent of one, I'd consider the material in this book age-appropriate. Avry is twenty, but the subject matter and the content are such that it would work for late teens.

I enjoyed the creativity and imagination of the world building. I loved Avry, who is strong and sharp and loyal...but also fallible and flawed. She makes a solid narrator, and I was thoroughly entertained by her wonderful logic. Even though I would have loved a glimpse or two into the head of the bane of her existence, Kerrick of Alga, I found the first person perspective worked well for the storyline.

It's an ambitious storyline at that. The journey that Avry takes with Kerrick and crew isn't just a physical one. There's a large amount of personal growth involved as well. I liked the scope and depth of the tale, if it fell a little flat for me in execution. My biggest problem was with the pace and the tone of the narrative. Avry is a fairly dry, sardonic character who has spent three years living as guarded a life as possible. She's not exactly one for a lot of emotional expression.

Unfortunately, as she's relating the events of the story, those events seem to unfold in as emotionally monochromatic a way as possible, with little to no inflection. Things traumatic and horrifying are related to the reader with the same emotional impact as Kerrick finding yet another cave or the group deciding who takes first watch. For all that the story is interesting on a mental level, it had almost no emotional impact on me at all.

That severely impacted my appreciation for the threads of romance betweeen Avry and Kerrick, which completely failed for me until very late in the book. Everything was so unemotional that I just couldn't sense any connection between them at all - except for general aggravation - until the last few chapters of the book. Compounding that issue was the abrupt transition of the romance. The enemies-to-lovers theme is a favorite of mine, but Avry and Kerrick rode their mutual antagonism so far into the story that the flip, when it came, was too abrupt and too late to feel it balanced out the preceding strife.

Also a concern was the somewhat uneven amount of description in the book. Some aspects of the world, the characters, the political situation, and more are glossed over in almost perfunctory fashion, other things are described in such detail that it became overwhelming. The pace of the book overall is fairly slow and steady, but there were times when details became extreme and bogged down the narrative.

Still, I enjoyed the story. Perhaps not quite as much as I did the Study series, but it's early yet, and I did enjoy Avry enough to want to find out what happens next in this lovely fantasy series. There were just enough plot threads left dangling to keep me wondering, but not so many that I felt this book was incomplete. That, along with the imagination and creativity of the world and likability of the characters, is what will draw me back to this series in the future.

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Chronicles of Elantra, Book 1
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 507 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle




She is a Hawk, one of the three branches of the Lords of Law for the city of Elantra. The branch most adept at solving crimes in the city, though members of the other two may disagree. Regardless, Kaylin Neya has been a Hawk for seven years.

Seven years, since she fled the fiefs of Nightshade as nothing more than an illiterate, orphaned waif. Seven years, since several unspeakable crimes created a noxious cloud of horror that slicked the streets of the fiefs with misery and terror. Seven years, since the horrific betrayal of the one person who had been her whole world. Seven years, since the mystical markings on her arms and thighs had mysteriously appeared...since each brutally murdered child was found with the same marks on their tiny, eviscerated bodies.

And now the murders have started again in Nightshade.

The Hawklord has put her on the case because of her familiarity with the fiefs. Also because of the marks on her arms, she's sure. She won't, however, be investigating alone. With her will be a member of the Dragon caste, Tiamaris, a learned male familiar with Nightshade and more than familiar with the string of murders in the past. Also at her side will be Severn Handred, new Hawk and former Shadow Wolf. Also formerly of Nightshade.

But those are pitifully few words to describe Severn. There are none that fully encapsulate the man or their past. The rage that he incites in Kaylin is only held in check by the slimmest of margins, but ending the ritualistic homicides and catching the serial killer who is marking and slaughtering children in her old stomping ground takes precedence. She has no illusions. She'll need Severn, Tiamaris, and a whole lot of luck, to have any hope of doing so.


I'm a little late in starting the Chronicles of Elantra series, but now that I have, I'll definitely be sticking with it. This series opener was a hell of a read. Sagara introduces her complex and layered world with an intense, plot-driven story, a heroine with a pitch-perfect blend of strengths and weaknesses that appealed, and a fabulously diverse cast of secondary and ancillary characters. I got dragged into the melee that is Kaylin's life and was swept away by it all.

I have to admit, there's a lot of information to absorb. Sagara doesn't hold back when sketching out a pretty large and comprehensive world full of several different races, their diverse traits and cultures, and a surprising number of unique and complex characters. Secondary and ancillary characters included. Throw in an intense and sometimes painful plotline full of mystery, danger, and action, and all the sundry details surrounding it, and you've got a book that requires you to keep a lot in your head as you go along.

Personally, I enjoyed it. It was a lot, yes, but I really liked how Sagara blended the world-building and story. There wasn't a bunch of exposition front-loaded in the book, or doled out in a quagmire of info dumps that slowed down the pacing. Instead the world was introduced and fleshed out, and the various characters and cultures explained and expanded in bits and pieces as they pertained to the storyline as the story evolves. It was nicely done and provided a lavishly authentic world of vibrant depth and dimension.

Kaylin was a delight for me. I'm not always easy on my heroines, I know. I'm picky. Kaylin, however, was a very endearing mix of curiosities, confusions, and competency. She was a hot mess in some areas, a soft touch in others, and always she was full of gritty determination with a passion for justice. She's a haunted girl, sure, but also a fearless Hawk and a dedicated young woman.

There are moments when she's not the most mature character (by far), the smartest, or the most patient. Lots and lots of moments. Just about every moment, actually. But instead of that annoying me as it has with other fantasy and urban fantasy heroines in the past, Sagara uses Kaylin's flaws to help define her and make her believable. She tends towards insubordination, is physically incapable of being on time for anything (I can relate to that), and she isn't the most educated kid in class by far, but she has a gift for grasping obscure connections and seeing intricate truths. She's unpolished and unvarnished, streetwise, and loyal to a fault. She's not stupid, she's no one's damnsel in distress, and she'd likely kick the ass of anyone who suggested such a thing.

I sorta loved her a little.

I also loved her and Tiamaris and Severn together. They were fabulous fun, and the contentious history between Severn and Kaylin packed a powerful punch once revealed, one that added a tension to their relationship that was keenly felt throughout the book.

There's no romance here, per se. Not at this point. The vibe was such that it will probably happen some time in the future, but after everything that happened seven years ago, I have to be honest, I don't think I would have been ready for something to develop between Kaylin and Severn. That's a lot of baggage. For both of them. And much needs to be healed between them first.

The narrative of this story has a couple of quirks that bear mentioning. Many of the conversations and informational scenes are written with a wealth of subtext, allusion, and half-spoken truths versus the more traditional plainly stated ideas, thoughts, and actions. That can be frustrating as hell when you feel like a bunch of stuff is flying over your head in what should be a simple conversation. Oddly enough, in this book and this world, it worked for me. It seemed to fit the characters and the situations and added a layer of intensity to the intrigue that kept building throughout the book. I just didn't mind biding my time until things were made clear.

Without doubt, this series debut excited me. There's so much there, and because of everything it contained, it's easy to imagine limitless possibilities for subsequent books. Of course, that's the bright spot to being so late in starting this series. There are plenty of books to read before I'm caught up, so all that potential is just a few clicks away. I have to admit, that's a pretty sweet consolation for my tardiness. I can't wait.

Quotables:

"History is not our guide, it is not our friend. It is a passing stranger, one which shadows legend, sprinkling it with the seeds of truth."

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Sylph Series, Book 3
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 336 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Dorchester Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


Six years ago, a young girl named Solie was brought to a castle to be a sacrifice, to die at the hand of a pompous king's son so he could enslave a battle sylph, a magical creature from another dimension. Things didn't go so well for the son or the king. They went much better for Solie, who named the battler and became his love and master.

He made her his queen.

For six years Solie has ruled as queen of Sylph Valley. The battle sylphs protect their queen and the hive above all things. Their power is legendary, their rages terrorize. They are the unstoppable force and the immovable object in one fiercely protective being of unimaginable power. It's been a peaceful six years. No one dares try to cross the battlers in Sylph Valley. At least, until now.

A new source of evil slips into the valley and like a pestilence, spreads death and decays hope, stirs fear and incites rage. This evil twists the lives of those it touches, creeping, clawing its way ever closer to its goal, destroying whatever is in its path in a carefully plotted and insidious plan to kill the queen. This is an evil that not even the mightiest of battle sylphs can defeat. Unfortunately, not even battlers can defeat what they can't sense...even when it's right in front of them.


I'm such a huge fan of this series. I have been right from the beginning. It's such a unique and brilliant blend of complex characters and imaginative storylines ripe with dashes of humor and devious machinations by both the good and the not-so-good. There is intrigue, action, magic, and elements that are deeply disturbing for their grim darkness and viciousness. The first two books in the series were among the most memorable of all the books I read last year, and this one is no different in that respect.

I have to hand it to McDonald, there are aspects of the plot of this book that are utterly brilliant in concept and execution. The conflict in the plot was less expansive than that of the previous book, where a whole kingdom needed to be overthrown, but for all its containment, it is chilling and disturbing in ways that churned my stomach in places. The Bad Guy in this book is one of the baddest I've had the pleasure of reading lately, and my heart bled for the victims. Especially Claw, who has seen little more than horror since he crossed over into this world. He's such a tragically broken sylph I couldn't help but feel for him.

Of course, my favorite characters from the series are back. Ril and Leon return from their successful rescue mission of Lizzy (The Shattered Sylph) early in this book, and it's lovely seeing Ril finally finding some peace with both Leon and Lizzy. This book also has a wonderful ensemble case of familiar characters who have great chemistry when they're together, whether it's intermingling in their day-to-day or fighting together against an outside threat. There are also some great new characters that I enjoyed meeting in this book, especially the healer sylph. Her plot threads were a delight that gave new insight into the world the sylph come from.

This book doesn't have the romance thread that existed in the first two books, but I didn't miss it. The romances in this series have never really worked for me because of the young age and the naivety or innocence of the female romantic lead characters. Not having to deal with it in this one was a nice treat.

I wasn't quite as fond of the overall plot of this book as I was the previous one. It felt a bit lacking to me in both depth and complexity in comparison, and it dragged a little for me in the middle. It also didn't leave me feeling the same sense of urgent suspense that I did when Leon and Ril were trying to find and rescue Lizzy, though that's not really a criticism, just commentary on how much I love the characters and the dynamic between Leon and Ril. I felt Justin's ancillary plotline was painfully predictable (I saw that one coming from the middle of the previous book) and surprisingly two dimensional. It could have been better woven into the other threads and developed earlier to keep it interesting, but it seemed too in-your-face to manage much beyond surface conflict. And few of the characters in this book really bugged me, too.

I've never been a Solie fan. She was far too girlishly innocent and naive for me in the first book and though it's obvious that she's matured some, she still strikes me as someone both immature in her rule and not all that bright in the grand scheme. Heyou, her battler, flat-out annoys me. He's always been young, but he seemed both young and overly goofy in this one, like a cross between a twelve-year-old on a sugar rush and an excited puppy. Heyou is the queen's consort, I'd think he'd start maturing at least a little over six years. That didn't seem to be the case here.

I also struggled with Gabralina's character and her battler Wat. I totally recognize and freely admit that my issue with them is a major personality flaw within myself, but I had a struggle sympathizing with characters who go beyond simple-minded and slightly touched in the head into the realm of too stupid to live. Both Gabralina and Wat fell into the latter category in several places in this book and I had difficulty maintaining sympathy for either of them. Well...until Wat's situation deteriorated to such an extent that I couldn't help but feel ill at what was being done to him. He had all my sympathy then.

All of that brings me to an issue that I've been struggling with throughout this series, despite how much I've enjoyed each of the books. It's an issue that really came to a head in this book. I'm getting very uncomfortable and dissatisfied with the roles of the female characters in this series. They all seem to be young, innocent, and so naive it's painful, or they are not-so-young and have been victimized in one way or another. Some have gone from one to another as part of the story. None of the women in this series have any power independent of the sylphs, and they are often written as lacking intelligence, worldliness, or self-sufficiency. They tend more towards being untried, inexperienced, naive, silly, or gullible.

Solie may be queen, but from what I've seen she's too kind of heart, too gentle and timid to rule her people. Mace's widow embodies several stronger characteristics, but she's been set apart as an atypical female in their culture, and she's both older and not a main character. Leon's daughter Lizzy has the potential to be a sharp, savvy woman, but she's untried and untrained, and at only eighteen, she's still a girl to me.

There are just no strong female heroines who have any significant presence in this series. The women have battlers to fight their fights, and they're protected and cossetted by the sylph who are their mates and by the hive battlers in general. Despite having a girl as queen, the society seems feudal and patriarchal. That aspect of the series has never appealed to me, but seemed even more pronounced in this book. I'd kill for one single large-and-in-charge heroine capable of using wit and wiles to her advantage in this series.

Still, I love the series, and this book has many wildly excellent scenes with tense plotting and lovable characters. Parts of the book broke my heart, parts made me whoop in triumph. I'm dying to know what comes next. I'd highly recommend readers new to the series start it from the beginning, though. No amount of exposition, no matter how carefully woven into the story, can make up for being introduced to these characters and sinking into their relationships with them as they develop, seeing their journey towards a mutual destiny begin, and experiencing it all with them as it goes. Queen of the Sylphs is a strong book and a great installment of a fantastic series that I highly recommend.

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Series: Lunatic Life, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 156 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Bell Bridge Books via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Not My Normal Cuppa, But...

Starting at a new school for senior year is no easy thing, but at least Tara Luna has a lot of experience with new schools. Her Uncle Pat, Tara's guardian since her parents' death years ago, is a throwback to hippie days, a free spirit with wanderlust in his soul. New schools were old hat to Tara. Still, she wasn't exactly looking forward to what she knew was coming.

Fortunately Tara, who wouldn't mind being a normal girl but had long since given up that particular pipe dream, at least knew she had the...undying...support of her two best friends. Sure, they were the ghosts of a long-dead young man and woman who had watched out for Tara as long as she could remember, but what with that whole beggars/choosers thing, she couldn't really complain. And maybe their new home and her new school wouldn't be so bad.

Stumbling into a dark and draining spirit in the kitchen of their new rental home and drawing the taunting scorn of a trio of popular cheerleaders on the first day of classes seems to provide all evidence to the contrary, however. On the bright side, there's a cute guy in a couple of her classes and he's been nice to her right from the start. If he knew she's a psychic who can see and speak to ghosts he'd think she's insane, but still.

Her life is crazy, that's for sure, but Tara is used to it, such as it is. But the dark spirit haunting their new home turns out to be the murdered ghost of a former resident and one of the cheerless cheerleaders goes missing one afternoon after school. Suddenly crazy would be an improvement on Tara's lunatic life, and her abilities, not to mention her protective poltergeists, may be the only things that can help Tara solve one murder and prevent another.


Young Adult fiction isn't my forte. I don't read much of it, and when I do, it's more the sort of stuff that is intended to appeal to adults as well. This one isn't quite complex enough to do that, yet I couldn't help but be entertained by the spunky, forthright Tara and the charming secondary characters, in particular bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold Flynn and ghosts Millicent and Henry.

This isn't a YA novel oozing teen angst and relationship drama, a fact that I heartily appreciate. There are many very popular vehicles for that fiction, but I'm not a fan and I try to avoid it. This book is more akin to a paranormal Nancy Drew mystery, really, and that was part of what I liked about it. I certainly don't have the experience to compare it to much of anything else out there, but I found myself smiling throughout the book and really enjoying Tara's personality as she dealt with a new school, making new friends, and trying to do the right thing for the dead and not-yet-dead. I don't know that it was all that realistic or true-to-life on a character level, and there were a few parts...and characters...that even I recognized as being a bit too good to be true, but there were also a few - very brief - moments in which the all-too-real darker side of life was on display.

It was mostly a simple, sweet, fun tale about a psychic girl who struggles with life and tries to do the right thing. There was a bit of mystery, a bit of spookiness, and a bit of grim horror. It isn't terribly complex, it isn't some sweeping epic, but it is entertaining, and it is definitely enough to have me wondering how Tara is going to solve the crime of DeeDee's murder and what her lunatic life is going to look like now. I'm surprised...pleasantly surprised...to say that I'm interested in finding out.

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Sylph Series, Book 2
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 336 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


It was meant to be nothing more than a small taste of freedom, a tiny rebellion against overprotective guardians, and a chance for a girl on the cusp of womanhood to stretch her wings a little. Eighteen-year-old Lizzy Petrule and her friend Loren slipped away from the group who traveled to Para Dubh from their home in Sylph Valley and headed to the docks. They wanted to see the ocean. Lizzy was unaware of the danger, of the nature of some of the people who do business at the waterfront of the much larger, harsher kingdom. Loren's water sylph Shore whisked Loren away from the large, scary man she'd been flirting with moments before he lunged for them both. Lizzy, not having a sylph, wasn't so lucky.

When Leon Petrule and the battle sylph Ril returned from the queen's mission, Solie pulled Leon aside to break the news that his daughter had been taken by slavers from a distant kingdom. The battle sylphs she had sent out to find Lizzy had come back with a bit of information on the kidnapper's likely destination, but empty-handed. Heartbroken and with little hope on how to find her, Leon returns to his family to mourn.

Sensing his master's misery, Ril races to the family's side, and when he finds out Lizzy has been taken, he digs down deep, to the proof of a secret he's held close to his heart for years. He's loved Lizzy since he watched her being born. She saved him from the madness of seeing his master kill the woman he'd come through the gateway to claim and since then he's waited for her to grow, to mature. He'd wanted her to be his queen, but Solie ascended instead. He nearly killed himself making Lizzy his master.

And he can find her.

Leon, Ril, and a young man named Justin travel south to the edge of the world, to a kingdom of unimaginable size and power, with thousands of sylph, several hundreds of which are the deadly battle sylphs. They go to find Lizzy and bring her home. They go because they love her. They go...and what they find, what they experience, what they risk, and what they lose will change their lives forever.

I have a confession to make. I'm an addict. It's horrible, I know, but it's true. I can't get enough. I'm completely hooked on battle sylphs. It's not an easy addiction to have, either, as you get the oddest looks when you finally do the responsible thing and try seek help. No one seems to understand quite what you're talking about and people start whispering to each other and pointing at you when they read the little questionnaire thingie you filled out at the doctor's office. Can't imagine why. And hello...rude!

Alas, I fear I'm doomed to the ravening madness of utter fangirlness. I, of course, blame my sylph dealer, L.J. McDonald. It's all her fault. How dare she create this unique, breathlessly original world and populate it so deftly with these amazing, tortured creatures who would do anything for the love of a woman? How could she be so callous to her innocent readers by spinning such dastardly epic tales of slavery, hatred, fear, and murder, of the battle against tyranny and oppression, and the equality of women in a society that views them as chattel? Does she have no conscience? That much awesome storytelling just isn't legal!

This particular kick-ass, gut-wrenching book prominently featured the two most intriguing characters from the first book among its ensemble cast. Adviser and enforcer for the queen, Leon Petrule and his battle sylph Ril, the broken warrior, have a relationship defined by a complex mix of conflicting emotions. Their master/battler history is brutal and tragic, and even six years after Leon's awakening to the true nature of the battle sylph and his understanding of what he did to the battler he loves, their relationship is still a quagmire of cautious partnership and long-remembered pain. For me, it's the most brilliant aspect of both books so far.

That doesn't mean I didn't love the storyline of this book, of course. It started out with some genuinely humorous moments, and became more and more serious as the book progressed, and I found myself utterly captivated by what I was reading. By the time Leon, Ril, and Justin got to Meridal you couldn't have pried my Kindle from my hand with a crowbar, and you would've been wise to watch your back had you even tried.

McDonald has an impressive ability to make irredeemable actions somehow forgivable, and irredeemable characters ultimately lovable. Lest we forget, the reason Leon Petrule, one heck of a protagonist, has a battle sylph at all is because he brutally, if expediently, slaughtered a young woman years ago. To say his past is checkered is oversimplifying to the nth degree. He so deeply regrets his actions, and feels such remorse over not only what he did to the girl, but the effect it had on Ril, that he remains sympathetic. With even the tiniest miss in his character development, his past atrocity would have been an ultimate deal breaker for me. It's testament to McDonald's mad skills that it is not.

Not every single aspect of the world and this book was quite as rosy. While I wasn't nearly as put off by Lizzy as I was by Solie in the first book, she still wasn't my favorite character, and I'm still not fond of how young the lead female characters have been in this series. Lizzy's immaturity, naivety, and ignorance, and the brutal consequences of all three, frustrated me not because it wasn't well written, but because I flat out don't like damsels in distress. I thought her character functioned better as a symbol than an actual person in this book, though I can't help but be thrilled for her and Ril.

As in the first book, my pleasure with the ensemble cast and my love for the storyline far outweighs my minor grievances. Eapha and Tooie were fantastic, and the paired up group of battle sylph and their loves among the concubines was a delight in both character and story. And I just can't say enough about Leon and Ril, though I thought Justin was a toss. His involvement occasionally seemed contrived and heavy-handed. I missed the characters I became so fond of in the previous book who weren't included, or were included in this book only briefly, but the strength of the story and the new characters thoroughly entertained.

I'm hooked on this series. Completely, irrevocably hooked. I'd caution readers about one thing, though. This series is considered by some to be fantasy romance. I can understand why, but I disagree. Yes, there was a relationship between Solie and Heyou in the first book, and yes, there is one between Lizzy and Ril in this one, but while the development and evolution of those two relationships may be the driving force behind the story that's written in each case, the actual forming and evolution of those relationships are strictly ancillary plot threads that remain on the fringes of a layered plot full of action and suspense. If you go in expecting or wanting a more traditional romance arc, you could be disappointed. For my personal tastes, it's a plus, because like I said, both Solie and Lizzy were very young in age and in action, and seemed closer to little girls than grown women - so much so in parts that I had to force myself not to think about their age. Having a major romance plotline with them in the lead roles wouldn't have appealed to me.

This book, on the other hand, did appeal to me. It gave me the perfect hit of sylph love. For an addict such as myself, we live for those hits. The good news is that the next opportunity to satisfy my addiction will be out in a few weeks, with the third book in the series, Queen of the Sylphs set to release mid-September in paperback (according to Amazon.com) and late September for the Kindle (according to the publisher). The best news is I have an ARC of QotS that was provided to me courtesy of Dorchester Publishing and NetGalley.

Just...um...ignore my girly squeal and shimmy of pleasure.

I am resolute in my determination not to cave to the sylph withdrawal, however, and to hold off reading and reviewing QotS until closer to the release date. Who knows how long it'll take to get my next fix after what I'm sure will be QotS delight? I must manage my battle sylph addiction! I can do this. I'm strong willed! I will not give in!!

*Glances at her Kindle, pursing her lips and muttering under her breath*

I'm gonna fold like wet cardboard.

The Sylph Series:

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Sylph Series, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 336 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Dorchester Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.



It was late the night a young farm girl named Solie slipped away from her family farmstead in the kingdom of Eferem to avoid her father's insistence on an arraigned marriage. The innocent seventeen-year-old ran towards her aunt, the one woman she knew who may understand her plight and assist her in getting away. Solie didn't make it. Before she even got close, she was kidnapped by the king's men, bound and carted off to the castle. Her arrival was witnessed by an air sylph master named Devon, grim with understanding as he stood waiting to do his job and full of pity for the unknown girl who would lose her life so a deadly and fearsome battle sylph could be bound to the prince.

As the air ship he was waiting on finally arrived, and Airi, his air sylph, went to help the ship land, Devon was exposed to even more dangerous information. The wounded ship carried two battlers and their masters. The king had sent them together to fight someone or something, and that alone was rare enough to have made him wonder...if it hadn't been for the fear. Devon was too petrified by the hate spewing from the battlers to dare question the events of the night, and even if he had, it wasn't likely the battle sylph masters would deign answer him.

Then again, even with the cold facts it's doubtful Devon would have had the first clue that before the sun rose on another day, his life in Eferem would be over. Soon enough he would realize that his reality was about to alter dramatically...and forever...and his future was aligned with the shocking destiny of one young girl who will be queen and the battle sylph who loves her.

As a long time and ravenous reader, I've always understood that there are and will always be books that I love, books that I loathe, and a majority that fall somewhere in between. Occasionally, though, there are books like The Battle Sylph, books that go beyond that scale and garner a much rarer response. They excite me.

The Battle Sylph isn't a perfect book. It had characters that I wasn't crazy about. Solie, and to a lesser degree Heyou, annoyed me with their youth and inexperience and left me wondering at the intended market for the series, because I kept getting a Young Adult vibe from both of them that set my teeth a little on edge. Solie is, after all, only seventeen and Heyou described as very young for his kind.

Fortunately, this fantasy book features an ensemble cast instead of offering them up as the two lead characters, so my irritation with Solie and my occasional exasperation with Heyou was muted by a few characters who really shined. I adored Ril and Leon, loved their backstory (while tragic and horrific in parts, it was powerful and intense), their conflicts, and their relationship development, and was captivated by each of them as characters - both solely and together - as their situations evolved through the book. Mace was fantastic. There was something about him I found particularly compelling, though he had less angst around him than Ril did. Galway and Devon were also nice characters who added much to the story, and I can't help but hope that we see more of Thrall in the future. And that Claw finds some peace.

Okay, I admit it...I'm a sucker for the battle sylphs.

Back to the book. Like I said, not perfect. Besides the characters, I also had had some issues with the story, and felt it lacked a little complexity in the plot conflicts as the world was being developed and fleshed out. With fantasy favorites including such notables as Anne Bishop's Black Jewels and spanning back to my younger days with Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar and Piers Anthony's Xanth, complexity of plot and creativity of world building has to go pretty far to make an impact on me. While I liked what McDonald put forth in this debut, I think there were aspects that could have been more clearly defined and widely expanded in both world and story.

And yet...

The Battle Sylph excited me. It did. Unlike some widely popular fantasy heavy hitters that inundate a reader with complex political intrigue and mind-melting social and cultural minutia, which I tend to find a bit overwhelming for various reasons, I found the book eminently readable with its casual and contemporary narrative, and thought the world created around the story was unique and original. I love the idea of the sylphs, the concept of a patriarchal feudal society in which women are little more than pawns and chattel, easily expendable and too forgettable when it comes to snagging powerful warriors from another dimension to serve a corrupt monarchy, only to have the true nature of the sylph and their relationship with women indicative of something else entirely.

There's lots of potential for fantastic conflict there as the growing awareness of the truth demands a massive paradigm shift and huge change in the traditional power structure on a fundamental level.

All of those heady points left me hungry for more of the fascinating world and the characters I fell in love with. More than that, though, they left me excited for a new series that may not be quite as layered and complex as some of my fantasy favorites just yet, but definitely has the potential to be so. I can't wait to start The Shattered Sylph, which I quickly snagged for my Kindle even before I finished the last page in this one. The Battle Sylph is a wonderful fantasy debut that left me happy to have come across it and thrilled to see what comes next. And very, very excited.

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Mystic Circle, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 425 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


Fifteen years ago the family of halfling Jindesfarne Mistweaver was caught in the middle of a vicious magical battle between the Lightfolk and Dark ones. All but one brother were slain, and that brother, Rothly, was maimed physically and magically. And he blamed Jenni for it all.

But no more than she blamed herself.

Disowned by her brother, stripped of her entire family, ripped apart by guilt and loss, she fled her family's land in Northumberland, England, and moved west through America until she landed in Denver. There she built a little world for herself living as the human Jenni Weaver, away from the magics of the Lightfolk and the treacherous power of the Eight who rule, powerful elemental beings she blames for their poor treatment of halflings in general and her family in particular. It was they who started the portal ceremony early. It was they who share responsibility for her family's death. But it is Jenni who pays the steepest price for self-guilt and burning resentment.

Now fifteen years later, a knock on her door draws her back into the world she turned from, forces her to take up again the elemental balancing that is her gift, once eschewed. The Eight had offered her brother something he couldn't resist to take on a dangerous task he was ill-equipped to complete and now he is lost in the interdimensional mist that only Jenni and he can enter. They use her love for him to manipulate her into taking up his task and risk herself once again for the Lightfolk. She must balance the elemental power of a rising force of the purest magics or risk unimaginable wild forces of creation and destruction letting loose on the world.

With little more than Aric Paramon to be her guardian and guide, a half Elf, half Treeman who was her lover on that fateful day of greatest loss, Jenni faces a bitter battle against forces of great evil, and her emotions and the horrors of the past threaten to break her before the fight even begins. Only by healing from wounds still fresh in her psyche and soul and embracing the full grace of her nature can she even hope to survive, let alone triumph. But the risk of opening herself up to that sort of pain once again may prove too much for Jenni to take.

What a rich, deep, magical world Robin D. Owens has created with this series debut! Straddling the human and Lightfolk worlds, Enchanted No More offers up a thorough, three dimensional reality that is both intriguing and captivating as Jenni and Aric work together for the good of the world at large. I was very impressed with the complexity and originality of the concept for the fantasy elements of the Lightfolk cultures and the plot of the story in general.

Jenni was a fascinating heroine. Her journey was more about forgiveness and finding an internal balance that allowed her to heal from her loss and take her rightful place in the Lighfolk community than it was about battling an external foe, and that proved to be surprisingly compelling. Especially when the events that traumatized her so deeply were combined with fresher conflicts over the status of halflings in the Lightfolk world. Yet the threat posed by malevolent Darkfolk and their shadleech monsters was also taut and thrilling and provided much juicy action for reading enjoyment.

Owens was masterful at the slow, steady evolution of Jenni throughout the book, and I thought her development was completely realistic and sympathetic. I was particularly fond of the deft strokes of relationship mending between her and Aric as the story progressed. Aric was, much like his nature, a steady force of immutable strength, and while that could have tipped over into stagnancy for the character, his own issues of dissatisfaction for how his people's needs have been ignored and the dissidence between him and his father, along with the sometimes too-restricting fealty to the Eight kept his character interesting, real, and fresh.

As a couple, Jenni and Aric complemented each other, and while there was a definite romance subplot, it evolved in a satisfying and natural way that seemed very organic to the characters' growth and development and remained respectful of their past. Secondary and ancillary characters richly populated all threads of the plot and some of the most enchanting aspects of the story surrounded some of the least powerful of the beings in it. Owens impressed me with the many and varied personalities so finely woven into the tapestry of the tale.

The narrative took me a while to get used to, and the book did start out slow for me. The stylistic touches in the narrative aren't completely to my taste, as there is very little world building or explanation of the fantasy aspects. What I learned about the Lightfolk and their connection and interactions with humanity I had to divine through the actions and dialogue of the characters. I don't like to be overwhelmed with exposition (who does?), but I do prefer to feel a little less like I've been dropped into a foreign land, unaware of the rules or the inhabitants, unable to speak the language, and forced to muck about until I suss things out on my own. There was a little too much self-sussing for my tastes, especially for the first half of the book.

I also thought that the events of the tragedy fifteen years ago were a little over emphasized and repeated a bit too often through most of the book. It got to be repetitive for me, and because the loss of Jenni's family was such a decisive breaking point in her life, every time it was mentioned it forced the focus back to the pain and subsequent negative emotions surrounding it. I found that a little depressing, but also noticed it seemed to segregate Jenni a bit - from other characters and from me as a reader. Even the narrative surrounding those times of reflection seemed different than the rest of the book, full of shorter, choppier sentences that lacked description and flow, almost like each mention of the past was a wound not yet healed that seeped into even the text that described it.

Jenni's journey, though, from a woman closed off from her heritage, one limping through a full human world with little more than her work and her cat, to a strong, adept master of her magical craft who embraced herself and the people she cares about, was a true pleasure to experience. As was the romance with Aric and the major plot arc of the quest to balance the magic bubbles.

I do hope the future of the series delves more into the blend of Lightfolk and human cultures, because there were many fascinating techno-magic meldings mentioned or referred to and I found my interest more than piqued about them, and about the presence of the Eight in Denver. Seeing a more balanced blend of fantasy and reality would appeal to me, as Enchanted No More did seem to focus mostly on the fantasy elements - and rightly so. The Mystic Circle series has caught my eye and I plan to follow up on the groundwork laid here as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me free of charge for the purpose of an honest review. All ratings, comments, thoughts, and opinions are my own.

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Series: Milrose Munce, Book 2
Rating: 5 Stars
Length: 4081 Locations
Formats: Kindle



For the seditiously unpopular (among the living, anyway...the dead actually think quite highly of him) Milrose Munce, life couldn't be better. After triumph against an evil guidance counselor (and all around bad chap), he and his girlfriend Arabella are basking in the golden era of goodliness at school, firmly ensconced in their own superiority of all things wickedly weird. But life being what it is, something new and grotesquely horrific is quite literally growing in those not-so-hallowed halls...and in the vents, and across desks and blackboards and even...if they sit still long enough...the students.

This verdant oddity definitely attracts Milrose's attention; he even musters up some mild concern, but his darling Arabella seems peculiarly (which for the girl should make her almost normal in comparison, yet truly doesn't) unfazed by the creeping cornucopia. Then two of the people most dear to Milrose disappear, and more than his concern is mustered.

First, the new and beautiful principal, Caroline Corduroy is suddenly gone from her office, an office that is now completely overrun with flagrant flora, then his soul mate, the reason for every ounce of the happiness in his heart, his Arabella, disappears without a trace...or topiary. Disturbingly heartbreaking, her loss truly incites Milrose's panic and occasional despair, but also births his determination to deflower this current pernicious threat as it spreads through the school.

Milrose, along with his creepy coterie of grotesquely gruesome ghosts (great guys and girls, all...well...except maybe for Percival), must discover the cause of the spreading fungal malignancy and alter its aliveness before Arabella and the almost as wonderful Principal Corduroy are lost forever. Oh, yeah, and saving the school...again...would be nice, too. But mostly Arabella.

Welcome (or welcome back) to the world of Milrose Munce, my favorite overachieving underachiever, and the brilliant - if twisted - mind of author Douglas Anthony Cooper. I love this world. I wouldn't want to live in this world, but I do so enjoy visiting. Cooper has created a masterpiece of the hilariously macabre (again), and once again wowed me with his deliciously sarcastic and frighteningly lovable characters doing significantly sardonic and slightly terrifying things.

As far as heroes go, you can't get much better than the reluctant Milrose, who would much prefer being not at all heroic, but can't seem to help himself. Academically brilliant, he's less than the most intellectually superior in greenery hostage situations, and while I'm sure that says something horrific about the quality of education in public schools in a socially conscious way, I doubt social consciousness has ever been considered as rip-roaring a good time as Milrose's passionate pursuits.

Pursued passionately.

I love this book. I've loved both of them, actually, but this one offered up a more layered and cohesive plot than its predecessor (not that Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help wasn't layered or sticky or anything, this one was just more so), and Milrose got a chance to sneak beyond the halls of matriculation in several scenes I thoroughly enjoyed. Arabella's disappearance obviously lessened her appearance in this one, but I loved what Cooper did with some of the ghosts, making their roles more visible in the arc of the conflict than in the previous book.

Frankly, though, I've got to stop reading about Milrose when I'm in public, because the sound effects draw the most peculiar stares. Gaggled giggles, snickering snorts, chuckled chortles and the like come so fast and often that anyone within hearing range thinks I forgot to take my medication this morning. This is a funny, funny book. Galactically funny; universally funny. Not to mention sharply, intelligently funny (which is my favorite kind). It's that humor, along with the unique and original characters and story, which has turned me into such a rabid fan of these books (ignore the slavering, please...it's impolite to stare).

Douglas Anthony Cooper has, in the Milrose Munce exploits, created a reading experience that is simply but sublimely satisfying for me. It happens sometimes (if you're...you know...lottery-lucky). Sometimes you stumble across a book that hits on so many of your happy spots, or appeals on so many levels, or is so stylistically in sync with your reading preferences, that the book resonates with a bizarre sense of intrinsic rightness in your pleasure centers, whistling a jaunty tune as it makes you feel good. For me, that's Milrose Munce (or possibly gastric distress...but my money's on Milrose). Yes, it's a book that points in the YA direction - though I'm not convinced that's the right market. It's perfectly fine for them to read, as far as the material goes, but I actually think I appreciate this more as an adult than I would have when I was young (those many, many, many years ago). Hey, I would have loved it back then, don't get me wrong...I just don't know that I would have appreciated it (or...ahem... possibly understood it) as much as I do now.

Not to be repetitive or anything, but I repeat, I loved this book. Milrose Munce is like...the legitimate but disturbed love child of Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew...if those mystery-solving kids married, got rich on a pyramid scheme, relocated to the Twilight Zone, bought the House on Haunted Hill, munched down on a few of those funny-type mushrooms, and birthed progeny. Then named said progeny Milrose.

Milrose Munce and the Plague of Toxic Fungus is a funny, fast read with characters that are as entertaining as they are gruesome, has a plot that works a little better than it's predecessor but is still weird and occasionally incomprehensible (in the best ways), and is set in a world that's highly unusual. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves their inner sarcastic and wisecracking social outcast (who would probably be beloved by gruesome ghosts).

Some Favorite Quotes:

"Corporal punishment was abominable, yes, but the casual threat of illegal brutality was one of the few things that made life worth living."  ~ The Thoughts of Milrose Munce

"You're a sick man, Milrose Munce."
"Yeah, well, you're dead. Which is like sick to the power of ten."  ~ Hurled Harry and Milrose Munce

"Unhand me, you piteous filth-bedecked excuse for a mild infestation..."  ~ Milrose Munce

"I'm just a kid trying to lead an intelligent, entertaining, useless life."  ~ Milrose Munce

"With great frivolity comes great responsibility."  ~ Cryogenic Kelvin

"I've never felt that way about laws. Let's just ignore them."
"Sure buddy. Start with gravity. Let's see you ignore the law of gravity. As a kind of test case."  ~ Milrose Munce and Cryogenic Kelvin

A caution for Kindle readers: there are several sections of the book that have formatting issues and a typo or two can be found as you read along. Nothing so egregious that it pulled me out of the story, as it was mostly issues with random paragraph indentations, but that may bother some readers more than it did me.

Disclosure: An electronic copy of this book was provided to me by the author for my review. All ratings, comments, thoughts, and opinions are my own.

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Raine Benares, Book 4
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 384 Pages, 6060 Locations
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


Once a Seeker with modest magical talents, Raine Benares is now bonded to a soul-sucking rock known as the Saghred and got both a major power upgrade and a plethora of people out to kill her so they can steal it and use it for their own nefarious purposes. Fortunately, Raine's not dead yet, and neither are the people she cares most about. For Raine, that constitutes a good day. Unfortunately for Raine, that's all that constitutes a good day in the continuing nightmare that is life as the Saghred's bondservant.

Now she's racing around trying to catch the twisted, evil souls that slipped from the Saghred when the Demon Queen managed to open it. The megalomaniacal psychopath Sarad Nukpana is one of those souls, but Raine has a deep, sinking, terrifying suspicion that she won't have to hunt down that monster. She has no doubt he'll be coming after her. When the dessicated corpse of a high ranking elven general is literally dropped at her feet with a message for her from Nukpana, her suspicions are confirmed. And worse, he says everyone she holds dear is next.

Another fun day in the life of Raine Benares.

Bewitched & Betrayed is just as action-packed, just as teeming with lovable characters, just as wild a roller coaster ride as the first three books in the series. Told in first person from Raine's POV, she is the core of the series and I adore her. She's such a feisty, stubborn elf, and despite odds most surely stacked against her, manages to grit her teeth (mostly to stop the screaming), lock her legs (uh...mostly to keep herself from fleeing in terror), and fight back with everything she is and ever will be. The narrative, her internal monologue, is rife with sardonic and self-effacing humor that makes her ever so sympathetic and lends a lot of humor to a seemingly never-ending series of increasingly deadly situations.

She's not fighting alone, though. She's got the elven force of light that is Paladin Mychael Eiliesor, and the seductive darkness that is goblin Tamnais Nathrach, as well as her cousin Phaelan and her bodyguard Vegard, among others. In fact, the longer she's chained to the Saghred, the more genuine friends and allies she realizes she has. That's probably a good thing, because the number of her enemies sure aren't getting any smaller. As secondary and ancillary characters, they're all richly drawn and nicely fleshed out. Even the horrifying ones.

And holy cow, Mychael was given a bunch of fantastic character development in this book. He was included in more of the story than he's been in the previous books (more Mychael is always a good thing) and we get to find out a little about his past. I loved every minute of it. Not to mention how much I adored the resolution of the romantic triangle between Raine, Mychael, and Tam. My hat is off to Lisa Shearin for that, because not only was it finally resolved and done without a lot of needless angst, it was also done with aplomb and in the big picture, genuinely furthered the overall series arc. I love it when that happens.

There are still a few issues, and they've been issues throughout the series. This book suffered a similar excess of exposition as other books in the series. In fact, because both the episodic book plot threads and the overall series arc plot threads are so complex and layered, with each book Raine's "synopsis" segments get longer and longer. Because I've read each book in the series, those sections seriously bog down the pacing, even as they allow for new readers to catch up with what's been going on so far. I'd love to see a far more condensed version of the exposition in future books.

One of the biggest issues I had with the previous books was far less prevalent in this book. Repetition in the narrative has been a complaint of mine since the first book in the series, Magic Lost, Trouble Found. Information and phrasing in the narrative was oft repeated throughout the books. There's still some of that, but to a far lesser degree. And while Raine of course mentions being a Benares and all that implies more than once, it seemed much less frequent than in previous books.

A few other big positives for this book were the resolution of a few of the dangling plot threads, the introduction of a couple of intriguing new characters, and some absolutely delicious series arc plot progression. I felt at the end of the last book, The Trouble with Demons, that Raine and Co. weren't any better off at the end of it than they were at the beginning, and the problems just kept on getting deeper and deeper. In this book, though the problems are far, far from over, the characters have scored a few key victories and everyone seems to be ready to continue the fight more positively and proactively. It's like the gloves are off and the growing anti-Saghred and anti-Nukpana force is ready to not only up the game a notch, but blow their opponent right off the board.

Personally, I can't wait to see what comes next. Thankfully, I won't have to wait long, as Con & Conjure will be available 3/29/11. 

The Raine Benares Series: