Book Review: The Bird and the Sword (Spoilers!)

 

Book Review: The Kiss of Deception (or, Why I Should Always Review a Book Before I Read its Sequel)

“My dress streamed behind me, now wedding me to a life of uncertainty, but that frightened me far less than the certain life I had faced. This life was a dream of my own making, one where my imagination was my only boundary. It was a life I alone commanded.”

Details & Synopsis

Title: The Kiss of Deception

Author: Mary E Pearson

Series: The Remnant Chronicles, Book One

Publisher: Square Fish

Release Date: June 2, 2015

My Rating: 4/5 stars

We meet Princess Lia as she is enduring the application of her wedding kavah, a ceremonial henna-like temporary tattoo representing the joining of her kingdom, Morrighan, with that of her intended, Dalbreck. All the while she is planning her escape with her friend and maid, Pauline. They plan to travel to Pauline’s hometown of Terravin to start a new, simple life in the inn of Pauline’s auntie, Berdi. Lia is excited to live the life of a free, hard-working woman, and for a while that’s what she has.

Book Review: Archangel

 

“There is something about you,” she admitted, “that makes me want to behave badly.”

Synopsis

In the land of Samaria, humans and angels intermarry and seem to work alongside one another in relative peace. Except that Jovah, a god as jealous and capricious as the Abrahamic deities he’s based upon, demands annual tribute and intercession by the angels to keep him from destroying the world. These choirs are led by the Archangel, who is appointed every twenty years, and his consort, the Angelica. Though Jovah has given dominion of Samaria to the angels, in theory humans benefit from their protection and can take their grievances to the Archangel. It is his duty to mediate between Jovah and humanity through angelic music.

Power corrupts, however, and angels are much more powerful than humans. They’re taller, stronger, and of course, they can fly. As this insidious corruption spreads throughout Samaria, the Oracle appoints the angel Gabriel as the next Archangel, and tasks him with finding the human woman Jovah has chosen to be his Angelica. That woman is Rachel, whose family was murdered by angels, and who went on to grow up in a loving nomadic tribe before being sold into slavery five years prior. As you’d suspect, their relationship is off to a rocky start, made the more complicated by the impending Gloria in which Rachel will have to sing and upon which the fate of the world hangs. Taken from bondage to live with Gabriel, Rachel must navigate her freedom, her newfound responsibilities as Angelica, and her relationship with Gabriel, all the while trying to figure out who is behind the evil spreading across Samaria.

Book Review: The Traitor Baru Cormorant

I think this might be one of the most important books I’ve ever read. Forget that “genre fiction” disclaimer, this is the real deal. I don’t even know what to say. Anything I do say may be too telling.

Book Review: A Court of Mist & Fury

 

Sarah J. Maas tricked me. She set up those familiar tropes in A Court of Thorns and Roses and then she hurtled A Court of Mist and Fury at them and knocked them ALL down. She did just enough with Feyre in ACOTAR that I thought, sure this is a kind of typical fantasy love story, with a typical alpha male who means well and who shows a typical lonely, broken girl peace and happiness while they save the world, but Feyre is so fleshed out! She’s got such a complete personality. She’s not just an “insert yourself here” kind of fantasy heroine. It’ll do. BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT.

BUT! Then she gives us A Court of Mist and Fury, and she shows us that this TYPICAL (I resist humming “Same Old Love”) depiction of romance is not necessarily desirable. It doesn’t fit. It’s not good to find your strength in someone else, it’s not good to be cloistered and protected from not only harm, but living, experience, and finding someone who is your EQUAL, not your keeper/husband/protector/mansplainer.