Month: September 2023

Serena’s Review: “Godkiller”

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Book: “Godkiller” by Hannah Kaner

Publishing Info: Harper Voyager, September 2023

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Kissen kills gods for a living, and she enjoys it. That is until she finds a god she cannot kill: Skediceth, god of white lies, who is connected to a little noble girl on the run.

Elogast fought in the god war, and helped purge the city of a thousand shrines before laying down his sword. A mysterious request from the King sends him racing back to the city he destroyed.

On the way he meets a godkiller, a little girl and a littler god, who cannot find out about his quest.

Review: I was drawn in by the fantastic cover art for this novel, but I stayed for the book description of a young woman whose mission in life is hunting down gods. I’m always a sucker for fantasy novels that deal with wars with gods as I think the themes of religion and fantasy play so well together, each dealing with belief and how that shapes an individual, for good and bad. And this one definitely lived up to my expectations!

While the above book description mentions both Kissen and Elogast, I still went into it with the expectation that this was a single POV story, probably because the title implies that the godkiller, Kissen, would be the main character. And, while I would argue that she still is, the story is in fact not only a dual POV between Kissen and Elogast, but also includes the young girl, Inara, and, surprisingly, the god Skedi as well!

And while Skedi by far has the fewest chapters, I do think his inclusion was integral to the success behind the general premise of this story. The prologue and Kissen’s story set up one clear narrative with regards to gods: they are dangerous and bring only harm to those around them. But Elogast’s history and perspective, and Skedi’s very existence, complicate this narrative. What’s more, Skedi is not a perfect rebuttal, being a very flawed individual in his own right. Instead, his POV serves to highlight the chaotic nature of the gods in this world and to blow wide the discussion regarding inherent nature and how that plays into the ways we regard those around us.

I also really enjoyed the relationships that are built up in this story between all of the different characters. Yes, there is the slow-burn romance between Kissen and Elogast, always a winning feature for me who enjoys a love story included in my fantasy. But all of the characters had nuanced and interesting relationships between them as well! Kissen and Inara, with Kissen’s long-standing dislike of children being slowly worn down in the face of Inara’s strength and persistence. Between Inara and Skedi, we see a long-standing friendship tested with betrayal and misunderstanding. Between Skedi and Kissen, we see how immediate distrust and bias can push people (and gods!) into harming those around them and betraying their own most basic moral baselines. For his part, Elogast’s relationships to all of these characters was the most straight-forward. But I think his more steady character type served as a necessary foundation upon which to anchor much of the chaos created by those around him.

I will say, however, that my one big quibble came down to the geography of this world. This is such a weird, obsessive point that I know many people won’t even care about, but for me, I kept hyper fixating on it throughout the book. The story includes a map in the beginning (yay maps!) and it lays out one of the major cities as across a large body of water from the rest of the world. And then much of the story itself it taken up with the characters travelling to this city. And yet, it seemed like they travelled completely by land, were able to spot the city from quite a distance across land, and generally never acknowledged the layout of the map. I could very well have been missing something, but throughout the book, I kept getting confused about their actual route and looking at the map and just being even more confused. I did read an ARC, so maybe the artwork or these references weren’t finalized (though the word “references” underplays how much the geography plays into the main storyline). Weird quibble, but I couldn’t complete my review without mentioning it as it did take up a serious amount of my reading time, flipping back and forth between the text and the map.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! It felt refreshing in an often-crowded genre, while also relying on some tried and true character types. There were some legitimately surprising twists and turns towards the end of the novel that lay out an interesting path forward for the next book.

Rating 8: A deceptively simple premise belies the depths to be found in this fantastic fantasy debut tackling themes of religion, family, and what makes up one’s very nature.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Godkiller” isn’t on any Goodreads lists, but it should be on Gods and Goddesses Books

Kate’s Review: “Beneath the Surface”

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Book: “Beneath the Surface” by Kaira Rouda

Publishing Info: Thomas & Mercer, September 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: On a weekend voyage, the power-hungry children of an aging billionaire are unprepared for a storm of deceptions in a novel about ruthless family ambition by USA Today bestselling author Kaira Rouda.

You are cordially invited to an overnight voyage on the Splendid Seas.

An invitation to Catalina Island from billionaire CEO Richard Kingsley. For his sons, Ted and John, and their wives, it’s an opportunity to curry favor, gain control of a real estate empire, and secure their family’s futures. For the controlling patriarch, succession is a contest. He and his newest wife won’t make it an easy win.

Then Richard’s estranged live-wire daughter, Sibley, crashes the party. She’s the least of the night’s surprises. As the stakes for the inheritance of the Kingsley legacy are raised, the beautiful waters of the Pacific look more like a menacing illusion.

Let the games begin for a family who has everything money can buy, and has used lies, deception, and more to keep it. This weekend one of them will be crowned heir. One is in line to lose everything. That’s the plan. But in the coming storm, so much can go dangerously wrong.

Review: Thank you to Thomas & Mercer for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Though I was late to the game when it came to the show “Succession”, my husband and I have been making our way through and enjoying it as a show that we can watch together and be captivated and mortified by the horribleness of the billionaire class. We haven’t finished it but I know basically everything thanks to the Internet, and it boggles the mind how there is pretty much no one to like, and yet I am so invested in their nonsense. So when “Beneath the Surface” by Kaira Rouda came my way and had comparisons to “Succession” to boot, I knew that I wanted to read this book. Bring on more wealthy people behaving just abhorrently, evidently I can’t get enough.

You mean jumping into a thriller with toxic family dynamics and gratuitous displays of wealth to compensate? Yes Roman, we ARE doing this. (source)

If you are still kind of suffering from “Succession” withdrawals, I do think that “Beneath the Surface” will scratch that itch at least a little bit. It’s a similar set up of an uber-wealthy family dealing with the impending stepping aside of the head of the family company, and the children who all want the coveted CEO spot. In this case it’s real estate tycoon Richard Kingsley, and his children are uptight John, charismatic but duplicitous Ted, and the estranged and wild Sibley. While it only takes place over one weekend and doesn’t rise to the same complex and unnerving heights as the Roys in many ways, I did like seeing the awful kids try and gain favor with their awful father while his awful fourth wife looks on with superiority as well as her own duplicity. I mean, I love this kind of soapy and catty drama as bad people are bad to each other, and “Beneath the Surface” is fun enough that it reads fast and kept me going and awaiting every twist and turn with bated breath. I just really enjoy all the drama that comes with rich people behaving badly (unless we get a “Boar on the Floor” kinda deal like on “Succession” and then I just get uncomfortable), and “Beneath the Surface” has a lot of that.

I will say that the characters, however, could have been more fleshed out. We had a few first person perspective from a few of the characters. There’s Paige, the wife of second son Ted who has been supportive and patient for years, putting her own career on hold to raise their children and to bolster her husband. There’s John, the oldest son who feels like the company should be his birthright but has stumbled enough that his father is disappointed and reluctant. There’s Serena, Richard’s fourth wife who is comfortable being a trophy wife but has her own reasons to want security and power within the company hierarchy. And Richard himself, who enjoys pitting his children against each other. And none of them really move beyond two dimensional archetypes of what we would expect from characters such as these. I think that Paige was the most well rounded and complicated, as I greatly enjoyed her chapters and found her to be the most engaging, but most everyone else hit each point of their roles without growth, or if not growth, glimpses into the layers that we are being made privy to on this tense and high stakes yacht weekend. And as for the supporting characters who don’t have perspective chapters, they are pretty standard and static.

All in all, “Beneath the Surface” is entertaining and fast paced. I enjoyed the plot, and while I needed more from the characters, if this does indeed turn into a series I would PROBABLY keep reading just to see where some of these characters end up, and how their story trajectory changes.

Rating 7: A catty and sudsy plot make for an engaging read, although none of the characters really moved outside the boxes they started in.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Beneath the Surface” is included on the Goodreads list “Can’t Wait Books of 2023”.

Highlights: September 2023

The official signal of summer winding down has happened hear in Minnesota. No, not Labor Day, the end of the Minnesota State Fair. When the ridiculous amounts of fried food, farm animals, and quirky crafts wrap up, you can officially feel Fall in the air. For Kate that means the start of the beloved spooky season. For Serena that means bracing herself for the not so far away winter. And for both of them it means school starting for some of their kids! Regardless, it also means a new list of books we’re looking forward to!

Serena’s Picks

Book: “Godkiller” by Hannah Kaner

Publication Date: September 12, 2023

Why I’m Interested: Um, the cover is awesome? Also, I just love fantasy stories that deal with gods and wars and fantasy religions. There just such a depth of potential in plots like these. Add a tough-as-nails godkiller, a young girl who just happens to be tethered to a small god, and disillusioned knight and I’m all in! This one has been out in the UK since January, so there is already a decent amount of positive buzz around it, which just makes me all the more excited!

Book: “A Study in Drowning” by Ava Reid

Publication Date: September 19, 2023

Why I’m Interested: While I struggled with some of the darkness of Reid’s most recent fantasy novel, I still very much enjoy her writing style in general. Add to that a few tags like “gothic fantasy” and “academic rivals” and this was a no brainer for me! The story follows a young woman who is commissioned to come to a mysterious manor to work on architectural designs. While there, however, dark and confusing things begin happening and the only one available to help is her academic rival. Expect a review of this one soon!

Book: “The Fragile Threads of Magic” by V. E. Schwab

Publication Date: September 26, 2023

Why I’m Interested: I feel like I’ve been going on and on about beautiful covers a lot recently. Well, here I am to balance that out. Man, do I not like this cover. Not only do I not like it in its own right, but its one of those covers that makes me mad because the entire first trilogy was done in a style that I really loved! So not only are they going a lesser route here, but now my books won’t match! And no, absolutely NOT will I be persuaded to “upgrade” my entire series to this style. All of that of course has nothing to do with the fact that this is probably my most anticipated book of the year. I absolutely adored “The Shades of Magic” trilogy, and it ended in such a satisfying way that I was frankly shocked to discover that Schwab was not only returning to this world but to the same characters, several years later! Can’t wait for this one!

Kate’s Picks

Book: “Your Lonely Nights Are Over” by Adam Sass

Publication Date: September 12, 2023

Why I’m Interested: I really enjoyed Adam Sass’s thriller “Surrender Your Sons”, and when I saw that he was writing a queer teen slasher novel I, of course, had to get my hands on it! Along with that, anything described as “Scream” meets “Clueless” is going to be on my radar. Enter “Your Lonely Nights Are Over”! Dearie and Cole are queer best friends who feel two against the world in their high school, their friendship notorious, especially after ruffling feathers in the school’s Queer Club. But when a long dormant serial killer known as Mr. Sandman starts killing again, and is targeting the other members of the Queer Club, Dearie and Cole have to use their wits to try and find out who is behind the murders. Not only as potential victims, but as people that others think aren’t so innocent. It sounds promising!

Book: “Earthdivers (Vol. 1): Kill Columbus” by Stephen Graham Jones and Davide Gianfelice (Ill.)

Publication Date: September 19, 2023

Why I’m Interested: Obviously one big factor is that Stephen Graham Jones is one of my favorite horror authors. But another is that this is his foray into graphic novels! I also got to not only get this book at ALAAC23, but I got to meet Jones and he was a delight. So yes, “Earthdivers (Vol. 1): Kill Columbus” is definitely a book I’ve been looking forward to. In a not super distant future on a dying Earth, a group of Indigenous people find a strange cave that can transport people back in time. They research and realize that the moment things went wrong is when America was founded, and one of them is chosen to sent back in time to stop it from happening. Which means he has to kill Christopher Columbus. Jones sure isn’t holding back, and I know that it’s going to be amazing.

Book: “What Kind of Mother” by Clay McLeod Chapman

Publication Date: September 12, 2023

Why I’m Interested: “Ghost Eaters” was a favorite read of mine last year, and I knew that I was going to jump all over whatever Clay McLeod Chapman followed it up with. So I was amped when I saw “What Kind of Mother” hitting the book spheres. And also terrified. Because I know that Chapman goes hard. And I knew that it had themes that can get under my skin. Madi returns to her hometown after leaving during her teenage pregnancy years before, making ends meet by palm reading. When she reconnects with old boyfriend Henry, she learns that his own son Skyler disappeared a few years before when he was just a baby. Then she starts having visions of Skyler, and wonders if she can actually find him. But this is Clay McLeod Chapman, and you just know it’s going to be far more than that.

What books are you looking forward to this month? Let us know in the comments!

Serena’s Review: “House of Marionne”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “House of Marionne” by J. Elle

Publishing Info: Razorbill, August 2023

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the author!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: 17 year-old Quell has lived her entire life on the run. She and her mother have fled from city to city, in order to hide the deadly magic that flows through Quell’s veins.

Until someone discovers her dark secret.

To hide from the assassin hunting her, and keep her mother out of harm’s way, Quell reluctantly inducts into a debutante society of magical social elites called the Order that she never knew existed. If she can pass their three rites of membership, mastering their proper form of magic, she’ll be able to secretly bury her forbidden magic forever.

If caught, she will be killed.

But becoming the perfect debutante is a lot harder than Quell imagined, especially when there’s more than tutoring happening with Jordan, her brooding mentor and— assassin in training.

When Quell uncovers the deadly lengths the Order will go to defend its wealth and power, she’s forced to choose: embrace the dark magic she’s been running from her entire life or risk losing everything, and everyone, she’s grown to love.

Still, she fears the most formidable monster she’ll have to face is the one inside.

Brimming with ballgowns and betrayal, magic and mystery, decadence and darkness, House of Marionne is perfect for readers who crave morally gray characters, irresistible romance, dark academia, and a deeply intoxicating and original world.

Review: Well, I’m predictable at least. If you give me a beautiful cover and mention the words “dark academia” in your book summary, there’s a decent change I’ll check out your book. Also, “Bridgerton” season three has been taking foreeeever to come out, so the reference to ball gowns and high society is a nice little perk to my current interests. Unfortunately, this was one of those cases where a lot of excellent individual ingredients were thrown into a single pot, but the end result was a mess.

But, first, some of the good individual ingredients. I liked the writing style, overall. It did fall a bit on the younger side of YA for my own personal preferences, but everything ran smoothly and I had a clear idea of the scenes we were exploring and the characters making up this world. It seems silly to point out, but whenever a writer manages to tell a story without throwing me out of the narrative with awkward word choices or jilted or repetitive sentence structure, that’s already a great win, and Elle manages all of that here. Overall, I was pretty into the book in the first little bit. I also like a lot of the ideas that make up this world, but this is also where things began to fall apart a bit.

Once we get to the magical world of it all, we quickly discover there are several different societies with different histories and priorities of magic. Luckily for me, I always check out the end of a book, author’s note, etc. before really starting a book, so I was able to discover an appendix with the histories of all of these houses. However, unless a reader also happened to look at the back of the book like I did here, the world-building given in the actual text is very confusing and sparse. The details provided in the appendix were sometimes key to understanding some of the politics of this world, and by hiding this information at the end of the book, it presents a challenging reading experience.

There were also aspects of the world and magic that seemed fairly arbitrary. For example, the women have these tiaras that are essentially part of their heads? And the men have masks? And somehow these are connected to their magical abilities? It’s all very obscure and never explained in any way. Instead, it’s easy to see the author simply picturing this world in this way, and then plopping it down in the book without much support for the entire concept. There were other aspects of the world and magic like this that, as I went a long, became increasingly frustrating to just roll with.

I also really struggled with Quell. Fairly early on, she comes across as a very unserious person who isn’t appreciating the reality of her situation. We’re told that her mom has had them on the run her entire life to protect Quell from those who would harm her for her strange magic. But then the second they are separated, Quell chooses to run straight to the very people her mother has been running from. It’s a bizarre choice, and one that isn’t well supported unless Quell is just a dunderhead. From there, she proceeds to become a Mary Sue, quickly conquering magical tasks that others have been struggling with for years at the school. The were some legitimate twists and interesting choices that Quell makes towards the end of the book, but these were too few, too late.

As is often the case, if I struggle with the main character, I also struggle with the romance. For what it’s worth, I didn’t actively dislike the romantic interest. He was perfectly fine for the type of character he was supposed to be. But my increasing frustration with Quell made my interest in the progression of this romance to wane fairly quickly. Again, there were some interesting turns towards the end in this regard as well. But also again, it wasn’t enough to save my overall reading experience.

Rating 6: A frustrating main character and confusing world left me feeling fairly turned off on this YA fantasy.

Reader’s Advisory:

“House of Marionne” can be found on these Goodreads lists: YA Releases September 2023 and Can’t Wait Sci-Fi/Fantasy of 2023