Review: Wind and Truth

Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dear Brandon Sanderson:

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU STORMING DID.

You took ten days of intense in universe buildup to a contest for the ages, for the world, for the Cosmere…and because it’s you, the man who wrote Mistborn as a targeted subversion of fantasy and chosen one tropes all along, you gave us your Infinity War. And unlike that infamous ending, we won’t be waiting a year for it to be resolved. It’ll be at least seven till we get the next adventure, even though some of our storming faves won’t be around for the next one after all the loopholes and Shadesmar and space-time-warpage and breaking of everyone’s fragile psyches.

Review: Nicked

Nicked by M.T. Anderson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Loosely based on a true story about a crew going out to heist away the bones of St. Nicholas at a time when Bari, Italy, had a plague problem - because while it’s pretty standard procedure for relics to have miracles attributed to them, these bones specifically are said to weep healing tears like a phoenix. This had a great premise, but the execution left a bit to be desired, in part due to being barely over 200 pages, but also trying to pull off a tricky tonal balancing act that doesn’t really land. I suppose it’s trying to be like if the Coen brothers did The Decameron, but it’s just too short a story to go from snarky, distractingly modern-sounding treasure hunters to extensive flashbacks about the life of St. Nicholas himself. Still, as far as “books set in Italy in the time of plague” go, it’s a damn sight better than The Stone Witch of Florence.

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Review: The Rivals

The Rivals by Jane Pek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second Claudia Lin mystery explores more of the sinister AI behind the dating apps of this world (which, let's face it, they're probably just as full of bots and shit in reality too.) With Claudia herself now back in the good graces of her employer (thanks to Komla being out of the picture), she actually seems to fall instead for a potential mark whom a client has asked her to track because she seemed too good to be true. Well, like Claudia, Amalia is a superfan of a popular Asian mystery series in universe - though Amalia's fave is a morally grey Cold War world with a mixed-race protagonist threading the line between English aristocracy and Cambodian sovereignty, quite different from Claudia's fave, Inspector Yuan and his pretty classic and straightforward mystery plots. But yes, I still ship Amalia and Claudia far more than Claudia and Becks, whose chemistry feels bizarrely one sided at best and nonexistent at worst. If this book has a flaw, it's that it hints at boiling family drama but doesn't really do much with it, even when a huge personal reveal or two comes along. But Claudia's unique POV (I strongly suspect she, like me, is neurodivergent) keeps my interest from start to finish, and the ending leaves me wanting so much more when Book 3 eventually comes along...

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Review: Sun Strike

Sun Strike by J L Pawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This latest iteration of Generation Icarus reaches its conclusion in three books instead of four, although Pawley does indicate in the acknowledgments at the end of the book that there could yet be more adventures in the pipeline for the Flight. And yet, if this is the end of the road, it's been a great one for these characters, even if they pass along a terrible case of "post-dramatic Jess disorder" to the readers every time. But while this book brings everything to a rapid boil before wrapping the story up, it's also got a lot of sweet, heartful, and humorous friendship and relationship moments. Personally, though, my favorite is when Hawk and Falcon discover what TVTropes calls "Oh Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!" But in true bromance fashion, they lean into the ridiculosity and tease each other like Fawk is, in fact, a seaworthy ship. And in true Flight fashion, I declare this series ave atque vale, at least for now...

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Review: Fledgling

Fledgling by S.K. Ali
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This much hyped YA dystopian piece, the first of a planned duology, takes the reader to a futuristic world heavily inspired by Arabia and Persia - hell, if not for Rumi’s poem about how “hope is the thing with feathers,” this book might not exist in the form under which it’s currently out in the world. Unlike a lot of examples of the genre, this book follows a great deal of POV characters, with a certain core three emphasized from the start, and several more joining the fray over time. Also unusually, the closest POV, the one that’s most noticeably in typical YA dystopian first person present tense, is that of an Upper Earth princess with tons of shelter and privilege in her life, though she quickly learns just how downtrodden the people of Lower Earth are. While the multiple POV’s are somewhat to this book’s detriment, especially after more of them join in and it’s harder to tell some of them apart, this book is still very fast paced for being over 500 pages, and builds up to a pretty bleak ending. Hopefully the sequel will offer a little more hope for some of these revolutionaries, because they’ll need it for if they win. (And that’s a big “if…”)

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Review: Immortal Dark

Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tigest Girma debuts with the first book of a new trilogy that straddles the line between YA and adult with a unique new adult dark academia style. With its specifically Ethiopian vampire mythos, university setting existing at one right angled remove from the modern world, the mystery of a missing sister, and a spicy but not explicit romance, it's the kind of book that you'll never find anywhere else. While I do wish there had been more done with the mystery aspect, the book does do a pretty good job of making what could have been a trite and trendy enemies-to-lovers routine something more fresh and memorable and palpable. And hopefully, Girma sticks with her trilogy plan on this one, to go against the grain of so many series these days being stuffed into two books instead.

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Review: The Third Wife of Faraday House

The Third Wife of Faraday House by B.R. Myers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The latest historical mystery from B.R. Myers goes into gothic realms on the shores of Nova Scotia, with a protagonist who winds up (unhappily, of course) stuck having to marry a wealthy captain with a grand old manse on the coast outside of Halifax. He's been a serial monogamist, and Emeline is to be the titular third wife...except the second wife hasn't quite shuffled off this mortal coil yet, and that's just the tip of the mysterious gothic iceberg in this land of fog and strange mushrooms and an attractive French reverend. Myers gives this genre some serious new life with some of the best mystery twists I've seen yet.

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