Review: Nona the Ninth

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Expanding the trilogy to four Locked Tomb novels?

We've been officially Red Queen-ed.



So...Nona. She's a pretty interesting little character, introduced at the very end of Harrow the Ninth with all the mystery as we suddenly ported over from the apocalyptic futura gothica of the series so far and into what could almost pass for the present day.

Review: Legends & Lattes

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"High fantasy and low stakes," the ad campaign says? Well, you know what? It's pretty accurate a summary of the style of this book, but so is the fact that, like a coffeehouse ought to be, it's a cozy and comforting kind of read. We start with Viv the orc coming off a pretty intense battle, but she's finally realized that there's gotta be more in this life, and so she decides to take up a whole new vocation. As it happens, there's a vacant building, and a hot bean juice invented by the gnomes, and a few eager job applicants (among them the lovely succubus Tandri), and a particularly inventive way of describing what's so mainstream to us the readers in a way to appeal to the denizens of this fantasy world. Again, comfort food - and for that, I'm absolutely not surprised that this book lives up to its pretty strong hype.

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Review: Furysong

Furysong by Rosaria Munda
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Yeah...I think it's safe to say I figured out why Piéra Forde didn't want to finish this book. There's one scene in particular that I know just had to be everything that destroys her heart and then some, and I'm not gonna lie, I felt seriously sad reading that scene too. It was such a gut punch, and unexpectedly strongly emotional for a series that, honestly, I had such a difficult time connecting to all along. Maybe because we've mostly stuck with Lee and Annie as POV's, and they're still not the best developed, not like Griff and Delo (the latter of whom joins the POV rankings in this book.) But for this trilogy of dragons and revolution, I now declare anoshe and hope to see more from the mind of Rosaria Munda someday soon.

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Review: The Dawn of Yangchen

The Dawn of Yangchen by F.C. Yee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

F.C. Yee already gifted us Avatar fans with two novels about young Kyoshi, and now he's back with the first of a promising new duology - at the very least - about Avatar Yangchen, the most recent Air Nomad Avatar before Aang in the cycle. I admit, there's not a lot to know about Yangchen because she gets so little attention in the main series - certainly compared to Kyoshi and Roku, Aang's two nearest predecessors, or Avatar Kuruk, who came between Yangchen and Kyoshi. If not for the fact that Kuruk's life story is very short and a serious downer, I'd be more surprised that Yee skipped past him to tell Yangchen's story instead. (Well, also, there's the fact that Yee has only ever written books with female protagonists to date, and that's a pattern this book keeps up.) But for this new book, I'm getting the vibe, even more so than with the Kyoshi novels, that this is the official commissioning of a novelization for which at least one upcoming work at Avatar Productions will be based. Well, they're already doing at least one Kyoshi project, I believe. But this book, especially with its story of a mysterious organization called Unanimity threatening to use a weapon of untold mass destruction in the face of the Earth King's dreadful leadership, it's absolutely the kind of story that would fit in perfectly to this universe. So far, though, there's no official announcement of the second book, but there's no way Yee isn't about to write one of those soon...

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Review: Flamefall

Flamefall by Rosaria Munda
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Okay, so I said that this book was an improvement over its predecessor while I wrote my review of that one, but in the end, I have to say that this one still ended up being a pretty solid three star piece. Introducing a new POV character who stood out from Lee and Annie, Griff, was pretty nice to see (as was his pretty sweet, if stressful, romance with Delo), as well as the fact that individual chapters in this book tend to be much shorter so as to focus on a single POV character rather than the constant jumping between Lee and Annie. But overall, Lee and Annie are just too...I dunno, I feel like they're pretty weak as characters, they're just too samey as personalities and POV's. But you know what? I'll still power through into the third book just to see what it was that made Piéra Forde so heartbroken about it...

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