Review: A Whisper in the Walls

A Whisper in the Walls by Scott Reintgen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second novel of Reintgen’s Waxways trilogy shifts away from dark academia in favor of a dark apprenticeship as Ren enters the service of House Brood, with the goal to take them down from within. Pretty classic setup, but there’s more to the story than that, as another family wronged by the Broods in the past, House Tin’Vori, prepares their own long game of revenge. Dahvid Tin’Vori, in particular, is a great anti-hero/anti-villain (really, he’s just morally extra gray here) with the ability to draw magical powers from tattoos, similarly to Adrian in Marissa Meyer’s Renegades series. But it also depends on the skill of the tattooist, and his current artist Cath really has her work cut out for her as she needs to get these tattoos just right for Dahvid. It’s another blazing fast read, but the finale’s gonna need to take its time to savor, due to its length and subject matter…

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Review: A Door in the Dark

A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first book in a YA fantasy trilogy that somehow slid under the radar despite coming from the same publisher that used to present all the Cassandra Clare books, from an author who’s long been skilled at sliding under the radar with good material. I happened to see the complete trilogy on a shelf at B&N, so my mission, and I choose to accept it, is to read them all. This first book is a very unusual combination of subgenres: dark academia and survival thriller. It also taps into the romantasy enemies to lovers trend a bit, but it’s my hope that these leads stay enemies in the end, because like a lot of such lead characters, they’re an anti-ship for me. In this case, purely because Ren has strong personal reasons for wanting to bring down Theo’s ill gotten gains. Luckily, I’ve already got Book 2 ready to start today.

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Review: Never Flinch

Never Flinch by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had high expectations for this one, even after I was a little less impressed than I'd been hoping for with Holly, because Holly Gibney is a fan and creator favorite for a reason. But here we have Holly's latest case - or, more accurately, cases. There's a lot going on in this book, and it's so convoluted that it proves very difficult for the whole story to coalesce cleanly, and even King himself admitted that this one was hard to write for many reasons. What it all boils down to is, there's a mysterious killer stalking Holly's hometown of Buckeye City (finally it more or less confirms my longstanding headcanon that Holly lives in Ohio), and the Robinsons are involved with the upcoming return concert of long-retired soul singer Sista Bessie. While Holly is away bodyguarding for a controversial feminist speaker of a similar vibe to Susan Day in Insomnia, she's also having to contend with a stalker who turns out to be two personalities in one body, one male, one female, both toxically manipulated by Evangelical preachers with dirty money up the wazoo. The Psycho-like quality of this character in particular feels like it's King's way of reminding his Constant Readers that after his heavy moralizing in Holly, he really isn't a perfect leftist at all, never has been. But he's still a liberal at heart, exactly as expected for a man of his always-welcome anti-Trump, anti-Evangelical convictions, the latter being what shows much more in this book.

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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.