Death’s Mistress by Karen Chance

A Spoiler Free Re-read Review

Death’s Mistress is a lot of running around. Detective Dory on the case with her headless sidekick! It’s fun and chaotic in a good way. At least Dory has a path she’s more or less following, so we get to follow along with her.

I am ridiculously glad Dory, Louis-Cesare, and Radu actually manage to talk their shit out and give each other info. This makes me happy. Would have been better if it had happened at the fricking start, but, ya know, considering how little this shit tends to happen, I’ll take what I can get.

Christine… look, I’m not a fan of religious characters. Especially ones who are suuuuper devoted to their deities. Especially ones who decide they are monsters because of what they are due to that religion. Especially when your religion is predicated on a deity who, ya know, “has a plan for you” but apparently that plan is thwarted because you've decided your life path isn't part of the plan you don't have any details of… but I’m digressing. Anyway… Christine reminds me of Anne Rice’s Louis. All self-deprecating and depression over being a vampire. Like, seriously, if you’re THAT depressed about it and already believe you’re damned, just kill yourself. Save everyone the trouble of taking care of the mess that is you. And then there’s that thing that is brought to light later… that was semi-interesting. Interesting enough to want to discuss but… spoilers. I would also like to take this opportunity to say: suicide is not a way out for humans. Don’t do it. Please get help. You are not a self-hating vampire. Thank you.

The politics in here do not excite me. I’ve never been one for politics. Especially vampire politics, which I imagine are similar but more complicated than human politics. Complicated by actual power dynamic, like, magical power.

The side effects of fey wine on Dory in this book… uh… they’re random as fuck. Like, they definitely serve some of the emotional plot’s purpose, but… they happen randomly and it’s weird. I do think it’s interesting that Dory’s only NOW discovering that vampires still have human emotions.

After Cassie’s ride through the Ley Lines, Dory gets a crash-course in the sport. Because reasons. I wasn’t a big fan of this part and it really just seemed like a non-sequitur for most of it. Literally just a long setup for a murder reveal. Speaking of Cassie, I do wonder what she’s up to during this fiasco. She is mentioned, but it’s really just a mention. But yay, Cassie reference!

Geminus is super creepy in a “not only am I gonna assault you but I’m gonna turn you into artwork” kind of way. And, like, kudos to Geminus for creating a new type of artwork, but… ew.

As much as I love creatures from non-western mythologies being brought in, I would also love for the authors to do a little more than cursory research on them. The luduan is described as a dog (dog-ish) whereas “actual” luduan are deer-like creatures. They’re depicted looked a lot like the shisa or Chinese guardian lions, so I understand the mixup. But still, a look at the wikipedia article would have cleared that up. But, ya know, otherwise, pretty good job using a non-western mythological creature.

But yeah, those are my thoughts on Death’s Mistress. I will add that I’m not exactly a fan of info-dump endings, but this one is alright. Only alright. Not the best ever. And the villain of the piece… well… there was a rant. 

Favorite Line

“Sycophants are always easy to find. They are also easily swayed by the next power who promises them more.” - Mircea Basarab

Keeper of Enchanted Rooms by Charlie N. Holmberg

A Spoiler Free Review

I would kind of like to be Hulda when I grow up. I have always enjoyed characters like her. The no-nonsense, neat as a pin, teacher-y types. Hulda, McGonagall, Mary Poppins… I’ve been very attached to these characters since I became familiar with the type.

Anyway, I was very drawn into this Keeper of Enchanted Rooms. Loved it almost from the first sentence. It’s pretty damn delightful. A comfort read, really. Not overly much happens for much of the book, which was a nice change of pace for me. Just kind of, slice of life in a slightly magical world.

Silas Hogwood is a slower-paced villain, almost overshadowed by the relationship issues between Hulda and Merritt. Well, more than “almost.” I’d say he’s the villain while the antagonist is Hulda and Merritt’s inability to actually talk to each other. Silas had the misfortune of having an abusive family and his motivations make sense, even if his solution is absolutely reprehensible.

I love the Whimbrel House. He/She’s great, for an enchanted house. The concept’s good, too. Rarely are the enchanted houses featured. They just kind of exist. This one has personality and is quite cute once Hulda and Merritt get a handle on him/her. I won’t go into that more, though, as it is definitely a spoiler.

I feel like I should talk about Merritt, as he’s kind of the driving force behind the plot but… he’s kind of boring. Characters like him are honestly a dime a dozen. He’s an eccentric male author who’s basically just a large child. Nothing especially interesting there. Same with Beth and Baptiste. They’re just kind of there. Mostly background color to Hulda and Whimbrel House.

I would very much like to go on a little rant about burgeoning relationships and twists regarding those relationships, but upon further reflection, that would be a spoiler. Suffice to say: I fucking HATE relationship twists caused by people NOT talking to each other properly. I think they largely aren’t handled well. This one had a bit of a plot reason for happening (Hulda goes on a research binge during it), but it really bugged me as soon as it started. Also not entirely sure how I would have fixed it, but it still bugged me.

Anyway… Keeper of Enchanted Rooms is a whimsical romance that kind of sneaks up on you. Kind of. Of course the book centered on a male and female protagonist with very little going on is going to end up as a romance. Of course it is. Not that it’s bad. It’s not, just typical, is all. But yeah, Keeper of Enchanted Rooms is a nice, mostly chill read that I really enjoyed.

In Other News

I have finished another OviPets project!

 

This is Mokumon. Based on the Digimon of the same name. Part of my "Village of Beginnings" project and overall giant Digimon project. Took me a little under a year to complete.

Darkness Rising Series Overview

Darkness Rising by Kelley Armstrong

A Semi-Spoilery Overview

Encompasses both Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising 

Welp, neither of these trilogies lived up to their ominous-sounding titles. I went in expecting something more in line with what Savannah went through at the end of Thirteen and it ended up being closer to the end of a CW teen school drama. Nothing remotely world-changing or even particularly dark happened in Darkest Powers or Darkness Rising. I think literally the worst things that happened were Nicole murdering Serena and the helicopter crash. I guess you could count Chloe accidentally raising an entire cemetery as “dark” but I saw that coming a mile away so it didn’t feel “dark.” None of this is to say that the trilogies were bad. They weren’t, really. A little bland at times, yes, but not bad.

I think it’s very safe to say that neither the Edison Group nor the Cabals know how to deal with people very well. It’s honestly hard to say which is worse… the circumstances are both similar and very, very different. Both were like: oooohhh, shiny experiments! Sure hope they don’t turn into PEOPLE some day. Sure hope we never have to tell them what we did to them. Oh no! We have to tell them now! Oh no! They don’t want to be under our control! Imprisonment! Murder! Just… you guys. What. The. Hell. Did. You. Think. Was. Actually. Going. To. Happen. You should have Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters that shit. Tell them the truth but make it as normal as you can! These are people, not objects. Thank the universe Sean Nast is helming their future at the end. He and Lucas Cortez were at the top of my “best case scenario Cabal people” list.

Anyway, specifically on Darkness Rising: I quite liked Maya as a protagonist. She was fairly chill through most the the trilogy. Capable in almost every scenario she’s put in. It was definitely refreshing after dealing with Chloe in Darkest Powers. I’m glad Maya did the smart thing with her love triangle, even if I would have loved to see some polyamory involved. Probably just me. But anyway, Maya was a good protagonist.

Rafe and Daniel, being Maya’s love interests/besties were the best fleshed out of the group of Project Phoenix kids. They were bother differing shades of chill boyfriend. Made a nice departure from the Dereks and Clays of the male love interest spectrum. Other than that, I don’t really have an opinions on them. They were there and supported Maya as best they could given the circumstances.

Still not sure how I feel about Ash. He kind of faded into the background once the Project Genesis kids were introduced and didn’t have much time with the Phoenix kids to get really well established. I kept envisioning a young Sam Carter from the Stargate universe whenever Sam was mentioned. Hayley was notable only because she shares a name with my bestie. Nicole for kind of the same reason (my sister’s original legal name this time), though it did help that she was psychotic so… yeah. Most of the rest of the characters were just kind of there and pretty one-note, which is completely understandable in a cast this large.

I think that’s mostly it for my thoughts on Darkness Rising. Better than Darkest Powers but mostly managing to hit the same story beats. Got your setup book, your wandering/traveling book, and your conclusion book. Not sure Darkest Powers would do well as an omnibus, but maybe a two book split instead. Not really sure.

The Rising by Kelley Armstrong

A Spoiler Free Review

I honestly found The Rising to be alright. There was a lot crammed into the last third of the book. The first third kind of felt like flailing and the middle was much more active than I think I was expecting. There’s a lot going on in this book. The last third basically serves as a coda for both the Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising trilogies. So yeah, lots going on.

Not sure how I feel about Ash. He largely just comes across as bratty and much younger than Maya and the others. And, with the introductions of Ash, welcome to a lesson in racism from a white author out of the mouth of her Native character. Not that this conversation shouldn’t be had, and often, just, uh, feels a little weird to me… the also white person. As I’m thinking about it (I write these reviews over time and not usually all at once), it would also be odd to NOT encounter racism at all. I honestly think Armstrong does a good job tackling the issue.

I am very glad the Interracial Council and Lucas got brought up here. Heck, I breathed a sigh of relief when Sean Nast showed up. Of all the Cabal people who could have wound up in charge of the Genesis and Phoenix kids, Sean was the top of the list for the ideal person to handle them.

Well Derek’s definitely coming across as more of an ass than he probably needs to be. Not that I didn’t think he was to begin with, but still… Getting these two groups together would probably have excited me if I were younger, but now it’s just like… ya’ll are all waaaay too pigheaded to be any type of real help to each other. Not how it turns out, but those were the initial thoughts. I think Kit being there definitely helped smooth things over between the groups.

Okay first, the ending of this book and this series feel rushed. Second, polyamory is a thing that ought to be considered whenever a love triangle is brought to light. You have more options than monogamy, even as a teenager. Work that shit out. And of course Maya does work that shit out and in a much less dramatic way that I was thinking it was going to go, so I’ll just let all this stuff lie. Definitely wasn’t counting on Armstrong to go the polyamory route. I do also want to say that there’s a paragraph toward the end talking about the dating pool needing to be wider and… just ugh. Why’s everyone always have to be super focused on dating? Romance is not and should not be the end-all, be-all for anyone, period. End mini-rant.

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong

A Spoiler Free Review

Nothing like starting out with an improbable helicopter hijacking and probable character death. Having never been in a helicopter myself, I can’t speak to the realism here, but… I really don’t buy any of what happened in the first 15 pages of this book. Just… feels like they all should have been dead, or crashed, at the very least. Not gonna say I was glad when they did eventually crash, but… yeah. I think it would have happened a lot sooner than it did.

Teens wandering around in the forest is no more interesting than teens hitchhiking across states. I question the adults who are going after them, too. Like, if ya’ll had shown up without guns — even if they are tranq guns — your case would be a lot easier to argue. But no, you choose violence so the teens have a very valid excuse for running the fuck away from you. Seriously, the Cabals and the Edison Group really need lessons in how to treat people.

Anyway, that’s pretty much how this book went. Maya and the others basically running away from Cabal operatives, hoping to head home, and eventually making it. I guess it was a little more entertaining than The Awakening, but not by much. At least there was barely any relationship drama to get into, so that was nice. I’m definitely not a fan of full-on relationship drama.

I did like the fact that Maya and her friends actually talked to each other about their plans. Glad to see actual group dynamics in action. I also like how Maya’s transformations were described and went down.

Pretty bog-standard Armstrong trilogy middle book, to be honest. Ya know, based on the one other specific trilogy of hers I’ve read. Not much actually happened aside from the beginning and the ending.

The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

A Spoiler Free Review

After reading the Darkest Powers Trilogy, The Gathering was a breath of fresh air. That said, it’s definitely more up the alley of a CW show than it is anything else. There’s just a lot of teen drama. Not especially boring but also not especially engaging, either. I won’t say I was bored at any point while I was reading, but I also don’t really remember a lot of the details.

I thought Maya was a satisfactory protagonist. She’s spunky, has an actual personality, and is grounded as a person. The other characters are honestly blurs, in my brain. I remember the secondary characters — Daniel and Rafe — of course, but most of the others… nothing interesting pops up. They’re there to fill out Maya’s world and they do that well.

It is a little interesting to have a completely outside perspective on the St. Cloud Cabal. And by outside, I mean human. Having read other books set in Armstrong’s Otherworld, I know who the St. Clouds really are, even if their aims are beyond me, and Maya, at this point in the Darkness Rising trilogy. Of course, the mention of Dr. Davidoff from the Darkest Powers trilogy made me roll my eyes. But he’s only mentioned in this book so… yeah. Not a big thing.

I’m not normally a fan of abrupt endings. In fact, I never picked up any of the Divergent series after the first one because of this. However, I’m going to continue with the Darkness Rising trilogy, mainly because I know it’s a trilogy and I like the author. But yeah, do be warned, it just ends out of nowhere.

I would also like to mention that I read the "Enhanced Edition" on Kindle. It's got a couple little short stories that sort of flesh out a couple things from the book and a yearbook section and character profiles. I probably would have eaten this up if I were younger, but... yeah. That's definitely stuff for a younger audience than my 33 yrs.

American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett

A Spoiler Free Review

The tone of American Elsewhere reminds me a lot of NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Kind of spooky but not exactly. Foreboding, is more the word. Wink somewhat reminds me of The Stepford Wives, though I’ve only experienced the 2004 movie and never read the book. Honestly, the thing I would liken American Elsewhere as a whole to the most is Fringe, a TV show from 2008. It’s weird and keeps building on the weird until you end up in the realm of the Eldritch Horrors… which I guess isn’t actually Fringe-y, but it’s close.

I quite enjoyed American Elsewhere, but at the same time I’m not sure I can properly discuss it without giving away spoilers. Basically, prepare yourself for a general sense of foreboding mixed with fringe-science and eldritch horror. Actually, I didn’t find that part super horrifying, but there were definitely gross bits I’m sure my brain is keeping me from fully imagining. I’m not super well versed in Eldritch Horror anyway, so… yeah. I dunno. I pretty much just filed it all away under “super alien that’s actually alien” and left it at that.

Anyway, American Elsewhere is very good. It sucks you into it in such a way that I think a reread would be best served by reading it all in one go. However, I do think reading it in chunks, like I did, served the story well. It allowed me to process what was going on a lot better than I probably would have had I read American Elsewhere all in one go. The reader is pulled along slowly and slowly conditioned for the ending, which is mind-bendy and actually more fun than the rest of the book, in my opinion, of course.

That’s another thing, American Elswhere isn’t fun, exactly. The foreboding tone makes it hard for any fun to really be had. There are moments where the reader can breathe, but the tone definitely keeps up throughout. Of maybe I was just breathing in between stints of reading, I don’t know. Definitely hard to say. Also don’t expect to be super emotional at any point. Even the ending just felt like letting out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding more than eliciting any type of emotion from me. Not bad, by any means, but… yeah. I keep saying American Elsewhere is foreboding, and I really, really mean it. Can’t shake that feeling even as Mona and Gracie drive away from Wink. It just sticks.

Character Spotlight

Mona Bright - Main Character. Spends most of the book very confused and looking for answers. Is kind of a badass.

Gracie - Honestly kinda boring for a majority of the book and then... turns into a ten-second deus ex machina.

Mrs. Benjamin - Honestly my favorite character. I love me some kooky old lady characters and she definitely fits the bill.

Mr. Parson - Kinda had in mind the old man from that Pixar Chess short who then turns into Jonathan Lipnicki from Stuart Little because reasons.

The Ganymede - A great concept for a villain. Also pretty darn human for really hating humans.