Welcome to Mini Review Friday! Sometimes we read books that just don’t need a full on, 1000(ish) word review. Maybe it was just an uninspiring book or maybe it was a DNF we still have a little something to say about. Whatever the reason, I have a couple of books for you this week that are getting the Mini Treatment.
Something mysterious and terrible is happening throughout Victorian London: Ghosts are disappearing. When this reaches the attention of the Ghost Bureau, the diligent but clueless Mr. Lapsewood, a paranormal paper-pusher, is sent to investigate, and what he discovers is grave. The Black Rot has arrived—a voracious spiritual infestation whereby empty haunted houses suck in unsuspecting ghosts and imprison them. Lapsewood’s investigation weaves through the plotlines of several other memorable characters—both living and dead—including an undertaker’s son who can see ghosts, a serial throat-slasher reminiscent of Jack the Ripper, an evangelical exorcist, and many more. The living and dead must work together if they hope to destroy the Black Rot—before it destroys both the ghost and human worlds. – from Goodreads
“To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.”
I have not been shy about shouting my love for Deanna Raybourn’s books. In the past I have read and reviewed her first two Veronica Speedwell mysteries, A Curious Beginning and A Perilous Undertaking, both of which I feel I gave glowing reviews. Recently I have been a terrible book grump. Every story I have picked up I have ended up disliking even though their themes are up my proverbial alley. So, when I snatched Silent in the Grave off the shelf in the library I can honestly say that I wasn’t anticipating finding much joy in it. Especially not enjoying it so much that I end up reading the first three books in the Lady Julia Grey series in one week.
Whoops.
So, that brings us to today’s post. Today I will be discussing, as a whole, the first three books of Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey series. Honestly, I’m a little hazy on how many books are in this series. When you pull it up on Goodreads it gets into 5.5, 5.6, 5.7 etc. According to Raybourn’s website there are eight books in the series and novellas. Either way, several books, moving on…
Silent in the Grave starts with Lady Julia Grey witnessing her husband collapsing on the floor of their home. He had been ill for some time and Julia had been expecting his death but it was still a shock to her. Julia didn’t expect her husband’s death to be foul play so for the traditional year of morning after his death she was simply the grieving widow and thought nothing more about the circumstances surrounding his passing.
And that is where Lady Grey’s story begins. She along with the investigator Nicholas Brisbane embark on a journey to identify her husband’s killer. I must say that I completely fell in love with the characters in this book. Julia starts off as a shy, wilted thing. A mere shell of her former self. As she continues to investigate her husband’s death a strong and intelligent personality emerges. She is an unconventional woman for her time and she comes to embrace her uniqueness.
There is so much I can say about Silent in the Grave and the next two in the series. All of the characters show such depth. They are well thought out, have a purpose, and each has an unique personality. The mysteries themselves are fabulous. The first book has Julia’s husband’s murder and let me tell you, you will NOT see that ending coming. I never, not once suspected the killer. I reread the big reveal twice to make sure I understood it correctly. Simply amazing.
The next two books are also fantastic. Murder, mayhem, mystery, and a quirky little romance you aren’t sure is actually going anywhere. In the past I have made it abundantly clear that I am not fond of romance in what I read. The romance in these books, however, isn’t stifling. It doesn’t take the main stage in the story and you never feel like it detracts from what is actually going on. The focus is on solving the murders, connecting the dots, and finding hidden clues not on smoochy smoochies in the corner. However, I must admit, the smoochy smoochies are pretty heated.
I will say that the third book, Silent on the Moor, is not as good as the first two. The “who done it” becomes fairly obvious at an early stage which was disappointing. I kept hoping I was wrong. And the cast of characters for that mystery were not nearly as interesting as in the previous two books. It was still a good story, just not as good. I also think that the third one was not as good for me because of the setting. I just couldn’t picture the location in my head which made the story hard to follow.
Through this series and Raybourn’s newer series, the Veronica Speedwell mysteries, the author has quickly become one of my favorites. She writes strong, believable female leads and the stories she comes up with are completely engrossing. If you at all enjoy historical mysteries I would whole heartedly recommend picking up Raybourn’s books. You won’t be disappointed.
Read more about these books on Goodreads
Silent in the Grave | Silent in the Sanctuary | Silent on the Moor
Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2) by Sarah J. Maas
“Then Celaena and the King of Adarlan smiled at each other, and it was the most terrifying thing Dorian had ever seen.”
Ah, here we are again, back with Sarah J Maas. This is the fifth book of hers that I have read this year. I’ll admit, their success for me has been hit or miss. We’ve all heard the complaints about her writing. Namely, her lack of diverse characters. Since we all know that one I’m not going to go on about it for this book. Except right here. Moving on…
Crown of Midnight is the second book in Maas’s Throne of Glass series. I reviewed the first book in the series here. If you don’t want to read that one I’ll summarize it here: I was not impressed. Love triangle, assassin who does nothing assassiny, and a girl who is supposed to be a complete bad ass getting sassy over some frilly dresses. I can’t count how many times I rolled my eyes reading that thing. However, at the coaxing of Swetlana @ Reading Through the Nights, I gave the second book a chance. I am so glad that I did. It’s like Maas actually took note of everything wrong with the first book and attempted to correct it in this one. Well, almost everything.
First things first, let me just throw this out there…I really, really don’t like Chaol. Why in the name of Maas is he the captain of the guard? Push over pussy. He can’t even make logical decisions. Waste. Of. Space. Why in the world would the champion assassin choose him?! Weakness does not make an attractive character. Why would someone who is supposed to be so strong pick someone so mentally weak? No thank you.
We return to Celaena as the king’s champion and she is being given his dirty work. As an assassin, that means being sent to kill people the king sees as a threat. However, we quickly find out that she isn’t actually killing them and instead giving her targets the option to flee and never return. Not being imbeciles, they take her offer and she returns to the king claiming to have carried out the deed.
To keep myself from rambling, I think I’m going to resort to the good old pro/con list.
Look at that, my con list is shorter than my pro list! That hasn’t happened in a while. In a nutshell, this is a pretty good book. I’m genuinely looking forward to reading the next one. The way Maas ended the book left a lot of room for the story to progress and I certainly can appreciate that. She also corrected a lot of the issues I had with the first in the series which was a very pleasant surprise. All in all, a good read.
Find this book on
Goodreads | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository | Thrift Books
“If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist at all?”
Sigh. It is time for me to be “that guy” again. The time when I am the jerk that doesn’t really like a book that everyone else and their brother seem to love. I hate being that person. I start questioning myself. “Maybe I missed something? Maybe I didn’t understand what was going on? Maybe I’m emotionally crippled and just don’t give a crap about anything?” No matter what the reason, it can’t change the facts. Every review I’ve seen for this book has been gushing hearts and rainbows. Mine isn’t going gush or involve arm flails or happy squealing. Mine is more of a frustrated sigh.
Let’s begin with one of our main characters, Tessa. What a single minded, simple minded piece of work. She reminded me of Scarlett from Caraval. While Scarlett was only concerned with saving her sister from a situation she really didn’t need saved from, Tessa was only concerned with saving her brother from…guess what? A situation from which he did not need saved. Only thought in their heads was saving their sibling. They both even had awkwardly terrible romantic interests. Tessa had absolutely no depth of character and was as interesting as overcooked spaghetti.
Will. Don’t get me started on Will. Typical, dull, brooding dark horse male. “Oh, I’m so mysterious and complicated.” No. You’re not. You’re like a kid in high school leaning against the lockers with their arms crossed pretending to be cool. While Tessa is overcooked spaghetti, Will is that container of leftovers that has been in the back of the fridge for too long. Pungent and ready to be tossed out. Hard pass.
Also, is it just me or is this book 99% dialogue? Everyone seemed to always be talking but never really saying anything. I want to be shown what is going on in the story. Not be constantly told by never ending, dragging, pointless conversation. We were given very little insight into what was going on throughout the book because none of the characters shut up long enough for anything interesting to happen. Instead we had Tessa shouting and acting like a spoiled child, thinking that the world revolved around her. Cue Veruca Salt meme…
Oh, and what was obviously supposed to be this amazing and unexpected plot twist with the brother? Saw that 200 pages back. I’m sure someone spouted off the give away during one of the incessant dialogue blocks.
This “review” is quickly turning into a rant. Lets try to get back on track, shall we?
Nope. Can’t. Sorry. I just popped over to Goodreads hoping to find a good quote to drop in and break up my spewing rant. What I found instead was, you guessed it, more dialogue! Not even interesting dialogue, at that.
“Whatever you are physically…male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy–all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside.”
Wtf. Is that supposed to be inspirational? Personally, I don’t find being compared to a lamp particularly uplifting. Maybe it’s just me.
“Black hair and blue eyes are my favorite combination.”
Oh look! Here we have someone being superficial. That makes for a fun story.
“Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from Heaven.”
Give me a break.
For me, this book was filled with reasons for me to roll my eyes and drop it onto the coffee table or into my bag to try to trudge through again later. I wish I hadn’t pushed myself to finish it but I kept assuming there was a reason that everyone loved this story. I couldn’t find a reason. Dull, simple characters and a predictable story line do not a good story make. I’m typically a stickler for finishing a series once I start it but I will not be picking up any more of Clare’s books.
/endrant
Find this book on
Goodreads | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository | Thriftbooks
“This is always how the story would end,” he says to me. “Not with your screams. Not with your rage. But with your silence.”
Oh, I am silent. This book left me in a bad place. If any of you caught my rambling, emotion driven review of Golden Son you’ll know that I was over the moon about getting my hands on this book. I needed it like I need air. I thought my world was going to crash down around me if I didn’t get my weirdly small adult hands on this book. I had to have it.
Well, I got it and it has left me in a deep, dark place.
I hate to say it, but I have issues with this book. I wanted to adore it the way I adored Golden Son. I wanted to have that same connection with Morning Star as I had with Golden Son that gave me the burning desire to read more. I just wanted to love it. Is that so wrong?
“If you’re watching, Eo, it’s time to close your eyes. The Reaper has come. And he’s brought hell with him.”
As you can obviously see, my con list is longer than my pro list. For some reason, though, I still find myself giving it 4 stars on Goodreads. While I didn’t particularly like how the third book went, it still felt true to the story that Pierce had already set up.
We’ve all read those trilogies or series that, after a couple of books, they stop feeling true to themselves. The rules within their universe change and the characters change without reason but simply to move a story line along. At no point in Morning Star did that feel like it was the case.
Except the very end. The last scene felt incredibly forced and awkward, but besides that…
In a nutshell, did I love this book as much as I did the first two in the the trilogy? No. Was it still a good book? Yes. Do I think Brown could have done better? Absolutely.
Find this book on
Goodreads | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository
“You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if only you dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.”
Throne of Glass is the fourth Maas book that I’ve read, the first three being her A Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy. Those three books had a varying amount of success in entertaining me. The best, at least in my opinion, was the second book, A Court of Mist and Fury. While the conclusion, A Court of Wings and Ruin, fell well short of my expectations I still decided to give her Throne of Glass series a chance. I had high hopes that this book would contain the same spark that I had found with Mist and Fury or at least something close to it.
Throne of Glass begins in a labor camp with the prisoner Celaena. Celaena, we quickly come to find out, is a very successful assassin that was sentenced to the prison camp for her deeds. This is something I like about Maas. She isn’t afraid to make her main characters powerful females. It is certainly something that has been happening more and more across the genre but credit where credit is due.
Our assassin is recruited from the camp by the crown prince to participate in a series of tests set forth by the king. The winner of these tests will be given a contract under the king as a killer/spy/whatever need be for his kingdom. After the contract is fulfilled, this champion will be granted their freedom.
“Second place is a nice title for the first loser.”
Now, this premise certainly sounds wonderful. I expected all of the different champions to brutally demonstrate the attributes that got them selected to participate in these tests. With every turn of the page I anticipated a blood bath with swords and fists. Despite all of these trained killers all being in the same place, everything was really pretty tame. What violence there was is mostly given to us second hand. There are slightly vague and watery descriptions of gore and mutilated remains but no first hand accounts of fights to the death. No heroic swordplay or quietly slit throats. Just, “Oh, look at that blood in that hallway over there. How interesting.” Not exactly interesting, no.
What did this book focus on instead of bawdy dialogue and clashing blades? A love triangle.
There is no way for me to make this sound interesting so I’ll just throw it to you as it is. Celaena, our would be daring assassin, may be able to kill people but she is frightfully boring. She likes puppies and frilly dresses and pouts like a petulant child. For some reason the prince is enamored with her and so is her guard. The prince is a womanizer and the guard is a pansy. I do, however, like the prince more than the guard. He at least doesn’t try to hide the fact that he enjoys the company of females enthusiastically. While I appreciate his unapologetic attitude, it doesn’t make him any less boring.
Other stuff happens. Magic is involved. And a badass lady with a staff. And a ghost. You’d think those things would make the story great but all it did was salvage an otherwise dying plot.
While I did find this book predictable and average, Swetlana @ Reading Through The Nights has convinced me to give the next book in the series a shot. I’m told the second one is much better. I could feel the makings of a good story in this book it just never quite got there. Hopefully Crown of Midnight has that spark I was hoping for in this series.
WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words and was formerly hosted by A Daily Rhythm. It is open for anyone to participate, even without a blog you can comment on Sam’s post with your own answers. It is a great way to share what you’ve been reading! All you have to do is answer three questions and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
The three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
“One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare. I don’t think I have had a single person say something bad to me about this book. Everyone seem to be absolutely beaming about it! I admit, I am having trouble getting through the world building bit but I’ll get there. I want to enjoy this. Nearly all of the reading community can’t be wrong so I know it has to get better.
“You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if only you dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.”
Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas. I didn’t enjoy this one nearly as much as I hoped I would. The story felt like more of a love triangle disaster than anything else. Sigh. I’m still going to give the next book in the series a shot but, I admit, I don’t have high hopes. Maas can do better than this.
“Justice isn’t about fixing the past, it’s about fixing the future. We’re not fighting for the dead. We’re fighting for the living. And for those who aren’t yet born.”
Morning Star (Red Rising #3) by Pierce Brown. After the miraculous wonder that was Golden Son, this book was a bit of a drag. I actually made a pro/con list of everything I liked and disliked about it which will go up with the review next week. Hint- the con list is longer. Despite that, I still liked the book. I think. I’m still working it out. It didn’t meet the same standards as Golden Son but still…
“You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you”
Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe #1) by Rosamund Hodge. Currently, I have this one as a requested hold at the library so hopefully it comes in soon. Since it was released it has certainly had mixed reviews but I’m still interested. It seems that the consensus is that this book is a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast and that could be a lot of fun.
What are you reading this week?
Today I wanted to do something outside of my usual Monday post which is typically a tag. What I’m doing instead is a collection/list of books that I won’t be reading. Sound a little odd? I know. But these are books in my preferred genres that have had a lot of attention by other readers and media that I just won’t be reading.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I have spent nearly two decades in love with the Harry Potter series. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or Philosopher’s Stone) was first published back in 1998 and it didn’t take me long, even at a young age, to fall in love with it. The original series transported me away to a land of magic and wonder. Those books made my childhood heart sing. Despite that, I won’t be touching The Cursed Child. I don’t want those first memories of enjoying reading for myself to be tainted by this new story Rowling has put together. I’m sure the play is wonderful but those memories are too sweet to risk messing with and the reviews for the book version of the play aren’t positive enough to jump down that hole.
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I feel like this one shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. I just can’t get on board with the sparkly vampires and weak women. Nope! If I want vampires I’ll read some old Anne Rice because you can never go wrong with Lestat.
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. From every description and review of this book, I get the impression that it contains all of the things that I hate most. 1) A poorly executed love triangle. 2) A painfully slow beginning. 3) A plot that relies on the romantic aspect to move the story instead of action. Even the quotes on Goodreads sound annoyingly dull. They are short and generic with no substance- “Words can lie. See beyond them.” I just won’t be getting on board with this one.
Divergent by Veronica Roth. This one has left me waffling in the past but at this point I’m firmly in the “not reading that” column. There are a lot of dystopian novels that I like, The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon being a prime example, so what is my problem with this one? It’s sequels. I’ve read the reviews, I know how the story turns out, and lets just say that I’m not happy about it. Once I start on a series it takes an act of god to make me stop reading them so I don’t want to start on this and enjoy the first book just to be utterly disappointed in the end.
The Selection by Kiera Cass. Where do I even begin? This book currently has a rating of 4.15 on Goodreads and the positive reviews I’ve read of it are absolutely glowing. To say the least this series obviously has a strong following. However, for the life of me I can’t figure out why. A bunch of girls fighting for the love of a single rich man. While the rest of the world burns, they put on frilly dresses and think about love and money. This feels like Mean Girls in a poverty stricken world meets The Bachelor. That sounds like a great big pile of NOPE! What really drives me nuts is that the author apparently went to one of the local universities that is just down the road from me so everywhere I go I have to see this book. People seem very proud of her. I love my local library but every branch has her books on display in the front. It irks me.
What do you think? Are there any books you feel like you should love but just don’t have an interest in?
“For seven hundred years, my people have been enslaved without voice, without hope. Now I am their sword. And I do not forgive. I do not forget. So let him lead me onto his shuttle. Let him think he owns me. Let him welcome me into his house, so I might burn it down.”
It’s been three days since I finished reading this book. It left me a wreck so I waited to write my review in hopes that I would chill out about it. I haven’t. Pierce Brown, you left me wrecked and desperate for Morning Star. Desperate. Of course I had to go on a wait list at the library to get it. In the entire county the library system only has one copy of that book. WHY?! (Luckily they got it in pretty quickly and held it for me so I got to pick it up yesterday afternoon)
Despite my aching need for Morning Star, here I sit still brooding over Golden Son. I’m not even sure where to begin. This review is going to be a disorganized mess of enthusiasm and feels. ALL OF THE FEELS. Brown gave us love, hate, betrayal, violence, logic, apathy, desperation, more violence, prejudice, sadness, hurt, frightening levels of intelligence, violence…and it has left me a weeping, hollow shell of a book enthusiast.
But not so hollow that I didn’t wake a sleeping toddler and usher her into the car when the library e-mailed me that Morning Star had come in. Speed limits were broken. Over a book. Worth it.
Now, Golden Son…
“I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind – how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall.”
We return to our spy/warrior/widower/champion Darrow 2+ years after his spectacular victory in Red Rising. He is now captaining a fleet against his sponsor’s rival and he has become even more overly confident in himself. That particular characteristic would be highly annoying if he didn’t, for the most part, deserve that confidence. Unfortunately for Darrow, in this case, he didn’t. But, man, what an opening sequence. He had all the swagger and confidence of Captain Kirk (Pine, not Shatner) and I was rooting for him hard within the first few paragraphs.
Unfortunately this is followed by an epic fail on his part and he doesn’t have a Mister Spock to bail him out of the situation. Every ship’s captain needs a Spock type character in tough situations. Most of his crew dies and Darrow discovers that he is being cast to the wind by…you’ll have to forgive me here I can’t remember or find the man’s name to save my life. Usually I’d just open the book and look it up but I was a dunderhead and returned it to the library before writing my review. Stupid, right? Unless his name hits me like a ton of bricks I’m going to call him “the sponsor” although I admit that I am tempted to call him Caesar for my own amusement’s sake. Give me a break, folks. I have a toddler and am thirty. The brain and memory aren’t what they once were to say the least.
Anyway, Caesar (told you I’d do it) is going to effectively sell Darrow’s contract because he is convinced that Darrow isn’t worth the time or hassle. Darrow, of course, finds a way out of the situation. It includes quite the dramatic blood bath. Brown really knows how to write fantastic battles. He can make you hold your breath during hand to hand combat as well as big space fleet fight sequences. It is amazing. This man is a miraculous wonder with words. The divine with dialogue. The Zeus of…something. You get the point.
After this highly entertaining carnage Caesar (yup, still calling him that) decides to keep Darrow at hand. From here, the epicness reaches new heights. We get the amazing Sevro back. Goblin or not he is probably the most entertaining character in these books. You don’t always understand exactly why he does what he does and he can be a total ass but you can’t help but love him. He is our pocket sized Howler and is just phenomenal.
Mustang also returns and I have to admit I was a bit on a fence about her. In Red Rising I questioned a lot of her decisions although in the end she came through. In Golden Son she oozes a similar swagger to Darrow’s but it feels much less candid and earned. Then that confidence is punctuated by moments of meekness which makes her feel less genuine. I’m hoping that in Morning Star she gets sorted out because her character seems confused about who she is. It makes it difficult to like her.
I told you this review would be all over the place and I wasn’t lying. I just want to gush about it like a school girl with a crush.
To keep this under 1000 words (barely), I’ll just say that this book is epic. I liked Red Rising, but Golden Son blows it out of the water. If Red Rising is champagne on New Years then Golden Son is Dom Perignon after you win the lottery. Yes, folks, it’s that good. If you haven’t read these books and at all like fantasy, read them. It’s a space opera for the imagination. Now pardon me while I go dive into Morning Star feet first with a box of tissues handy because, like with GRRM, you just never know who is going to die next. I love it. I leave you with Dean who has some wise words to say about this book…
Find this book on
Sharing My Eclectic Reading
A book a day is bliss😍
Serving up stories since 2013
Stumbling my way toward happiness
Literary Weaponry 