Review: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I first noticed this series had blown up to the point of getting almost all the books reissued in humongous hardcovers, I thought ACE had gotten all seven that has been self published up to 2024 or so. Nope. Turns out this is as far as they’ve gotten, but the seventh book will be reissued by ACE this fall, and promises to be even bigger and bloodier than any of its predecessors. And given that this book is an 800 page monster of spinning story wheels and more repetitive plot than you can blame on the in universe majorly malfunctioning AI, that’s saying something. As always, I’m still here for Princess Donut (who now presents a much needed recap of the previous book, emphasizing the most important events and glossing over some others, but those she glossed over tend to be the ones I remember most anyway.) That, plus Carl’s backstory finally getting some revelations (and Dinniman is quick to acknowledge that while Carl was a PNW boy all along, he and Dinniman are definitely NOT the same person) is why this book gets a 2.5 rounded up to 3.

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Review: Faithbreaker

Faithbreaker by Hannah Kaner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Sorry to say that while this series started out strong, in the end, it kinda fizzled out for me. Not that it was an awful and unreadable book, not by a long shot. But the heavy focus on tons of POV characters in a relatively small space, it made the series increasingly slow and unfocused, bogged down with characters and ships I couldn’t get behind (although I do love how the series has always been good at including queer rep, though Elo and Arden are def a ship I’m not on board with because I like the glimmers of chemistry between Elo and Kissen much better.) But hey, we’ll always have that cover love for this series too, especially this book with its odd looking winged jackalope little guy.

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Review: Coldarius: The Betrayal

Coldarius: The Betrayal by D.L. Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first book of Coldarius was a fighter punching above its weight class for sure, but this second half of D.L. Hannah’s Platirius prequel duology really saves its most devastating moments for last. Even after reading all her previous books in quick succession this year, it was still tough to predict exactly how this book would unfold, and as I read it in one sitting, Hannah’s narrative threw every curveball it could. No spoilers, but just a request to any readers who haven’t begun this saga yet - the drama Force is strong with this one. I’ll miss Coldarius and this arc of the saga for sure, but before the summer is over, I’ll be able to start reading the next series chronologically, the new trilogy of JanIus in all its glorious royal purple packaging.

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Review: The Survivor Wants to Die at the End

The Survivor Wants to Die at the End by Adam Silvera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Silvera was starting to lose me a bit with his increasingly sprawling Infinity Cycle and its focus on too many obnoxious and unlikable characters in its ensemble, but with this return to the world of Death-Cast, he starts to un-lose me, because this book is where he starts getting right again, much of what he messed up in his other series. While this book is a great big brick of a book, just over 700 pages like Infinity Kings, it's a more streamlined story for sure, focusing a lot more on its two queer, neurodivergent protagonists as is traditional for this series. In this case, we get Paz (aka Pazito, though that nickname gives me the giggles every time because of its rhyme with the name of Silvera's real-life dog Tazzito) and Alano, both of whom were introduced as boys in The First to Die at the End.

Review: The Butcher's Masquerade

The Butcher's Masquerade by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I’ve worked my way through this series, it’s been a roller coaster for me in terms of quality. It didn’t start out as great as I expected given its massive hype (let’s not forget, Ace bought up all the books and has been reissuing them in very fast fashion in hardcover these last few months), and while it did improve for me after another book or two, we’re at a point where I’m giving it once again a 2.5 generously rounded up to a three. It’d definitely be lower based on how monstrously bloated the story has become - seriously, this did not need to be 700 friggin’ pages, and with the next book being longer, I’m afraid it might be what breaks me as a reader. (Carl would not approve, he of the “They will not break me. Fuck you all” mantra.) Really, it’s Princess Donut who keeps me going with this series, so for her I will also return for Book 6 and its promise of a deadly new challenge that very specifically piques my interest after how repetitive and self-parodying this book got at times…

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Review: South of Nowhere

South of Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Colter Shaw returns for his fifth Jeffery Deaver novel in a storyline that might just be too high budget for the CBS series adaptation Tracker, unless they saved that budget for a season premiere or finale. Oh, and some of the details about Colter’s family wouldn’t be able to be incorporated into the show anyway, since the show is definitely taking its own path in that regard. Here, however, Deaver presents a book that plays out like a disaster movie crossed with an actually good Yellowstone that makes its points about natural rights and Indigenous rights without hiding under a veneer of right wing rhetoric. Though it stretches credulity that Colter’s mother can speak the nearly extinct Ohlone language well enough to leave a voicemail for Mrs. Petaluma, an Indigenous woman who refuses to leave her home even when there’s a flood almost certainly coming, Deaver does do a great job acknowledging the Native peoples of Northern California, particularly the Miwok who are the true custodians of this land. (The exact location of Hinowah doesn’t really match most actual geography, but it’s definitely Miwok land up in the Sierra Nevada somewhere - my headcanon places it between Truckee and Susanville.) Coming from the same series that skewers urban California corporate politics in a previous book, here Deaver takes his lens to rural California to examine water rights, real estate terrorism, and Indigenous land rights long ignored after centuries of broken treaties and genocide.

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Review: His Face Is the Sun

His Face Is the Sun by Michelle Jabès Corpora
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is for sure a serious candidate for my favorite book of the year, and will at least stay in the top 5 if it doesn't outright hit the number one spot. An expansive high fantasy set in a fictional kingdom inspired by ancient Egypt (the author is herself of Egyptian descent and took inspiration from stories passed down by her father and her grandparents), with four protagonists in different social classes, each one with a distinct voice and story arc...it's a long and sprawling book, but it's for this that we read top tier fantasy, and this is some S-tier material up there with the likes of Bardugo in her heyday and Chakraborty in particular. And with Sourcebooks giving it a lovely physical package with elaborate sprayed edges, it looks the part and plays it to perfection. No spoilers - hell, go into this book with as little foreknowledge as possible. If any book deserves a well-packed hype train full of passengers, this is it.

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