Publishing Info: Bloomsbury USA Childrens, June 2018
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher
Book Description: Caro Oresteia spent her life waiting to be called by the river god, as those in her family had been for generations. But when she’s swept away on an adventure to save the Akhaian royal prince, Markos, her destiny is sealed by the sea god instead.
For now, Caro is landlocked, helping Markos reclaim his throne after nearly his entire family was assassinated in a political coup. Without any financial or military support, Markos is desperate for allies, and Caro has fought off more than one attempt on his life. When a powerful Archon offers his army in exchange for Markos’s marriage to his daughter, Caro must choose: Her love for Markos, or the fate of Akhaia? And more importantly: How much is she willing to risk to defy the sea god’s wishes and chart her own course?
With shipwrecks, lost treasure, old and new enemies, dark magic, and breathtaking romance, Sarah Tolcser weaves another epic story about chasing your fate.
Review: Remember a time, not so long ago, when “Pirates of the Caribbean” was actually acclaimed and not a national joke? I mean, those first few movies were a blast! I may, may, have even seen the first one in theaters three times. I remember being almost giddy over just how much unadulterated, unquestioned fun that first movie was offering up. Adventure! Romance! Great characters! And some top notch humor that the other films never seemed to really understand or replicate in all the many, MANY, iterations that followed. So you can imagine just how thrilled I was when I discovered about halfway through this book, that “Whisper on the Tide” was essentially what you’d get if you took that first movie and then took Kiera Knightley’s character from the third movie, but actually made her, you know, a good character and had her run the show.
While Caro has finally discovered her true calling, with the goddess of the ocean in her ear and a ship to her name, her time of late has been spent decidedly NOT at sea. After pledging herself to help Markos regain his lost throne, she’s recently discovered that much of what this help is made up of is running a few messages here and there and sitting through various speeches and rallies while Markos looks to drum up support for his cause. And all is not going well. The ocean god is displeased with Caro’s lack of sea time adventures and Markos few followers are pushing towards a marriage of convenience that would bring in much needed support. Caro has more and more difficulty seeing a path forward that allows her to keep both of her loves, the sea and Markos himself.
For all that the description of the story, both mine and the official one, puts a lot of weight on Caro’s decision about her future, part of what has made me like this series so much so far is Caro’s no nonsense approach to life and decision making. She doesn’t wilt away from tough choices and she is endlessly practical. In many ways, she sees her ability to make hard calls as her biggest asset to Markos, whom she often derides as getting too caught up in the emotions of things. Here, these character traits move the story along and keep it from being marred in the emotional duldrums of soap opera-ness that could have come about with a different character in this situation. But what makes it all the better is that through this book, Caro must learn that her own practicality and willingness to follow the harder path is not always a boon.
In short order, she’s back out on the ocean and beginning to understand how very little she knows of life as a sea captain, for all that she has her own ship and the ear of the sea goddess. The action never lets up and Caro’s adventures are filled with everything you’d want from a pirate adventure. We have storms, and ships sinking, and maroonings on islands, and lost treasure, and pirate lairs. Really, like I said at the beginning, all the best parts of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, though each with their own unique spin and connection to the larger plot.
For secondary characters, we sadly saw much less of not only Markos, but Caro’s magic-wielding cousin, Kente, was also out of commission much of the time. But what we did get from her was integral to the plot, and I liked the the fact that she had a role at all, as with the way the last book ended, I wasn’t sure we were going to see more from her. Markos, also, was abscenfor much of the middle portion of the book. I was ok with this. I still very much enjoyed the romance between him and Caro, and their banter and Markos’ own cluelessness about certain things were still some of the most fun pieces of dialogue in the story. However, by sidelining him and their romantic entanglements, Caro was given the space and time to really come into her own as a character and drive the plot on her own.
This also gave room to add a surprising new (?) character who I had not expected to see at all. I don’t want to spoil it, but I thoroughly enjoyed this addition and the character added a much needed sense of ambiguity and moral greyness to an otherwise fairly straightforward adventure story. To continue the “Pirates” compariosons, if Caro is Elizabeth and Markos is Will, this new character was Jack Sparrow and lived up to the utter delight that any character should be if trying to fill that role.
I also greatly enjoyed the expanded idea of Caro’s relationship with the sea god. While we heard a lot about the river god and the solid, calm prescense that he transferred to those who were chosen by him, we only briefly met the sea god in the last book. And true to the nature of the sea, she is much more volatile and unpredictable than the god of the river seemed to be. I was relived that she wasn’t reduced to just another magical ability for Caro, but given her own agendas and whims that often came into conflict with Caro’s. Their ongoing battle of wills was a large secondary driver of much of the story and I was very pleased with how it played out.
In the end, I enjoyed this book even more than the first. While “Song of the Current” had a slow start, this one jumped right into the action and never let off the gas pedal. Caro was her same sassy self, but was given more room to proactively drive the plot herself this go around. I still very much enjoyed the romance, but was pleased to see that it played second fiddle to the action and adventure. And between the ocean god and the surprise Jack Sparow-esque character, there was enough double crossing and cross purposes to keep readers on their toes about what would be coming next. If you enjoyed the first book, I’m sure you’ll love this one!
Rating 9: Take all the good parts of the “Pirates” movies, make them even better, and turn it into a book and ta da!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Whisper on the Tide” is a new title, so it isn’t on many relevant Goodreads lists, but it is on “Teen Pirate Books.”
Where Did I Get this Book: audiobook from the library!
Book Description: Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.
With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she’s ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.
But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her.
As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex’s secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.
Review: Sigh. I don’t know, I think I’m in some very specific, “Beauty and the Beast” related slump. Don’t get me wrong, you can tell from the above alone, this was better than the “Star-Touched Queen.” I mean, at least I finished it! There were things I legitimately liked about this story, but in the end, I was still very disappointed by yet another much-lauded retelling of this classic tale.
Nyx has known her entire life that she only has one destiny: to marry the Gentle Lord and try to save her world. But in reality, she is likely a sacrifice who will die on her wedding night at the hands of a demon lord who has imprisoned her world and tempted her people (including her father) with wicked bargains that never turn out well. But when she finds herself finally married and in a castle with secrets around every corner, she begins to question this mission. Who is this Gentle Lord really? How did he get here and what will it take to truly save herself and her people?
This story started out strong. As I said in my review of “The Star-Touched Queen,” I was enjoying this read as a palate cleanser for the first several chapters. The writing is strong, freed from the syrupy prose that drove me nuts with the former, the world-building was unique, and Nyx herself was complicated and interesting.
Nyx’s world is essentially a version of England had it remained under its Roman influences. Her people have combined the folklore of the original residents of Arcadia and the Roman pantheon of gods and myths. These myths and characters are sprinkled throughout the story, and I enjoyed this new take on the magical elements that came directly from some of these myths and how they could be twisted to fit a Beauty and the Beast like story.
Nyx also started off as a promising heroine. She’s a brave, strong young woman, but also embittered and resentful of the role she is meant to play. Her father’s deal required he choose one of his twin daughters to marry the Gentle Lord, and Nyx has felt the weight of being the lesser loved for her entire life. What’s more, her sweet and naive sister has played a complicated role in Nyx’s life. She is innocent and has done no wrong, and Nyx can’t help but resent her. And this resentment leads to Nyx’s own self-loathing at her inability to disconnect her father’s choices from her relationship with her sister. So this was all a strong foundation. Nyx is presented as conflicted, but determined. Not perfect, but recognizing her own flaws. Seemingly, a character I should root for.
The problem became that Nyx was SO conflicted that I couldn’t root for her because I could never be sure what her actual goals were from one page to the next. Once she gets into the castle, meets the Gentle Lord, and begins going about her mission, Nyx becomes a bundle of confusion and indecision. This would be fine, except for the fact that every other page she states that she is DETERMINED to do such and such. Then a few pages go by and she’s DETERMINED to do the exact opposite. Her emotions are all over the place, and they are all the most extreme at any point. She hates her sister and the Gentle Lord. But no, she loves her sister and maybe the Gentle Lord is OK. It got to the point that whenever she had a new revelation, I couldn’t invest any true meaning into it, because chances were good she was going to walk back that decision/emotion in just a few pages, depending on whatever position on things the person she next interacted with had.
There was also a dreaded love triangle introduced almost immediately. Granted it was a unique version of a love triangle (more on that later), but a love triangle it remained. What’s more, both points of the love triangle capitalized on flaws that particularly irk me in romances. One was pretty much an instalove connection, with Nyx and this man kissing on almost their first interaction and their practically announcing their love a few interactions later.
The other came with all the complications of the romantic character being a truly bad guy as far as Nyx knows at this point. Obviously, with any Beauty and the Beast story (or Hades/Persephone, what have you), you know going in that there is going to be a change of heart somewhere along the line. But my one requirement for these types of romances is that the change of heart comes AFTER the love interest has done something to make the heroine begin to question her assumptions about his cruelty. He needs to earn not only her love, but first even the opportunity for her to consider him as even a decent person who might be worthy of love. When the heroine, like Nyx here, falls for the “Beast” when he’s still full-on in beast mode and has done nothing to redeem himself, it’s not a tragic love story but instead another example of setting up unhealthy and scary expectations for the type of behavior that is acceptable in a romantic partner. No amount of “hotness” makes it OK. When Nyx first starts feeling drawn to him, he’s still only the demon who killed her mother and is actively killing more of her people. She has no reason to question this, even if we the readers know this tale backwards and forwards and can suspect there’s more to it than that. She doesn’t know that, and it makes any attachment she feels for him at this point just another example of problematic romances in YA fiction.
The other big problem I had was that this love triangle also gave away the answer to the end of the book. I had no problem whatsoever immediately guessing the secrets involved in this story right off the bat. Not only does this drain any dramatic tension from the story, but it damages Nyx’s characterization by making her seem rather dull-witted for not figuring it out herself. What’s worse, the author makes the bizarre choice of having Nyx discover the answer halfway through the story and then conveniently forget. And that’s not even getting into the fact that the device used to reveal these facts to her had killed every wife of the Gentle Lord before, but not Nyx. It’s never explained why not Nyx, not even a tertiary throw-away comment that would somehow make her an exception. Nope, she’s just special because the story needs her to be.
Between the love triangle, Nyx’s inconsistent and hard to root for characterization, and the early reveal of an obvious conclusion, I really struggled with this book. It did have a unique magical world set up and I enjoyed Nyx at the beginning, but after she arrived at the castle, the story took a distinct downwards trajectory and never managed to recover.
Rating 4: Another disappointing “Beauty and the Beast” retelling, this time with improvements to the heroine, but an unnecessary and plot-revealing love triangle.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Cruel Beauty” is included on a million Goodreads lists about heroines who fall for bad guys and best fairytale retellings, but I just can’t. Go read “Beauty” if you haven’t already. And if you have, give yourself a treat and re-read it!
Where Did I Get this Book: audiobook from the library!
Book Description: After a harrowing journey across the country, Leah Westfall and her friends have finally arrived in California and are ready to make their fortunes in the Gold Rush. Lee has a special advantage over the other new arrivals in California—she has the ability to sense gold, a secret known only by her handsome best friend Jefferson and her murdering uncle Hiram.
Lee and her friends have the chance to be the most prosperous settlers in California, but Hiram hasn’t given up trying to control Lee and her power. Sabotage and kidnapping are the least of what he’ll do to make sure Lee is his own. His mine is the deepest and darkest in the territory, and there Lee learns the full extent of her magical gift, the worst of her uncle, and the true strength of her friendships. To save everyone, she vows to destroy her uncle and the empire he is building—even at the cost of her own freedom.
Review: As I said in my review of the first book in this series, “Walk on Earth a Stranger” was pretty much what you’d get if you turned the old Oregon Trail game into a full length novel. Add in a small dash of fantasy with Lee’s gold sense, a few more references to the prejudices and wrongs of the time, and there ya go! As a travelogue, I very much enjoyed the story. But in the end, they arrived at California. Without the travel/Oregon Trail part of the story, would this series continue to hold up. And the answer is…kind of?
Lee and her friends have finally arrived in California, found a claim spot ripe with gold, relying on Lee’s gold sense, and begun to set up their own little town. But when a string of misfortune’s start befalling the growing township and its residents, Lee’s the only one to suspect the truth: her uncle Hiram is back after her and these little “accidents” are his way of warning her. Determined to set things straight once and for all, Lee and Jefferson set out to confront her uncle and gain Lee’s freedom. But it all goes wrong, and Lee is about to find out just how awful her uncle truly is.
So I have very mixed feelings on this book. But I’ll start with the things that I know I enjoyed. I still very much liked the mixture of a historical setting and Lee’s magical abilities. If nothing else, the author makes you feel like you’re in this time period. There are no missteps, and I always felt fully immersed in this world. The challenges of living during this period are clear: weather, nature, sickness/injury, they must overcome it all and the day to day life is so distinct and well-described that I never questioned the authenticity of this world. The real skill was then in merging Lee’s magical abilities into this world without disturbing the balance of realism. Her gold sense played a background role in the first book, serving primarily as a motivation for the villain and coming into play here and there when needed. Here, even with Lee’s growing understanding of her own powers, her gold sense still remains mostly in the background. It is the crux of the conflict, but it isn’t really used much beyond that, besides in the final conflict. This balance allowed the historical elements and characters themselves to serve instead as the main point of interest for the book.
I also still enjoyed Lee as a character. Here, she is forced to confront the role that she plays in the way that history is unfolding. Yes, she is sympathetic and “ahead of her time” for a character living in this period of history, but she is not excused from responsibility. She’s still claimed land that belonged to others and through her and the others mining for gold, irrecoverably changed the very landscape upon which they’re living. I liked that she wasn’t let off the hook for these actions and, while she recognizes the harm, she doesn’t have, or is given, any quick and easy solutions. What’s more, she doesn’t always come to these conclusions on her own, but must be informed of her own ignorance and remaining prejudices by those around her.
However, Lee wasn’t given much to do in this book, frankly. In the last, we saw how she contributed to the wagon train which she was a part of. She took action on her own and used her own skills, not just her gold sense, to solve problems. Given the nature of this story, Lee is sidelined for much of this book. It is up to others to plan and plot, and while she’s not strictly speaking a damsel in distress, she’s probably only one step away. And, because the story is told from her point of view, the reader is left with a lot of inaction and waiting, just as Lee is herself.
And in that time, the book becomes very hard to read. As I said, the author doesn’t flinch away from portraying some very ugly realities for what this time period could be like for many people, especially at the hands of the worst of the white settlers (though, as I said, even the “best” are not let off the hook for their own compliance and ultimate self-interest). While I admire this dedication to revealing the ugliness that existed, it also began to be almost too much as the story progressed. Because of Lee’s own captivity, the reader also feels like a captive audience to pages and pages of depravity and various horrors.
It is this combination of reduced action for Lee herself and this laser focus on some very tough scenes that made the story lag quite a bit in the middle. “Lag” is even a strange word for it, since boredom was definitely not the emotion most sparked by the harsh images presented. But plot-wise, the story did feel adrift and wallowing. The action picked up again in the end, and I liked that even in the resolution, things do not end in any type of perfect, utopia-like fashion. This specific horror might have been ended, but the world that they all are living in is unchanged.
Again, this story also resolves in a way that leaves me questioning where the third book will go from here, similarly to the first. While I did struggle with this book a bit, I’m still curious to see where things will ultimately end up and I’m sure I’ll pick up the next one soon!
Rating 6: A reduced role for our heroine combined with some really tough scenes seemed to negatively affect the pacing of this book. But the historical aspects are still excellent.
Book Description:Marco is faced with a difficult decision when his mother threatens to seize control over Visser One.
Narrator: Marco
Plot: Didn’t remember much about this one either, other than the obvious fact that the “reunion” that drives the title was between Marco and his mother, Visser One. And then I started reading…and became very concerned. And kept reading…and was a bit less concerned. And then it actually kind of turned into a good book?
But the beginning…man, it’s bad.
Marco decides to skip school and go downtown (for plot reasons cuz we’re literally given no other explanation.) He then just so conveniently happens to literally bump into his mother, Visser One, in the busy streets. What follows is a ridiculous series of events that in any other book would have never happened for so many reasons. At one point Marco morphs to a fly in the MIDDLE OF A FULL ELEVATOR but somehow we’re to believe that this is fine because he….puts a newspaper over his head? And then, after locating the office where his mother goes, fly!Marco gets sucked into an AC vent and ends up having to MORPH A HUMAN (whom he had conveniently acquired earlier to get into the building, somehow using the morphing trance to get through the door with him, claiming it was a “take your kid to work” day or something.) Again, there is zero reason for him to be morphing human when he could easily go back to bug. Not to mention the fact that when this happens, he’s alone in an office hiding behind a desk. A notably MUCH MORE HIDDEN spot than in the damn elevator where he just did this before. Whatever. He ends up back in the barn with the others and tells them that he found Visser One, and we can all pretend that this is the real start of the book since there’s almost a complete turn around in quality of the story after this point.
Jake quickly decides that they need to investigate this further, however he, Rachel, and Cassie are all out for a mission that night. This leaves Tobias, Marco, and Ax. Jake makes it clear that Marco is too close to this, and that because of this, Tobias has last say on what goes down. Later that night, the infiltrate the building in roach morph. After a wild ride down a stair banister, the small group make their way to the office. There, they see the horrifying image of a small Yeerk pool, portable Kandrona ray, and Marco’s mother, locked on her side with her ear in the pool. She’s free for a brief minute and Marco struggles not to go to her. They also notice satellite images of the free Hork Bajir in their valley. Before they can investigate further, the Yeerk reinfests Marco’s mother and the door is knocked down by Visser Three’s goons coming after Visser One.
Marco is not about to let his mother die at the hands of Visser Three, and he is able to spin it to Tobias that saving her could benefit them as well. Gorilla!Marco, Tobias, and Ax rush in and fight off the invading Hork Bajir. They manage to corner Visser One and get her talking. She reveals that she planned to find the free Hork Bajir and use that information as leverage to discredit Visser Three and regain her place on the Council of Thirteen. Visser One wants to strike a bargain: she will help them kill Visser Three, and the Animorphs will lead her to the free Hork Bajir. They agree, but Marco has a plan that will take out both Vissers and leave the Hork Bajir safe. They arrange to meet Visser One the next day.
As they fly away, Marco reflects on what it means to be ruthless and the fact that others have thought that of him in the past. Instead, he says that he is simply practical and sees a bright line between point A and point B. Through all the mess of worries & fears, the line is what drives his decisions. And that right now he sees a clear line, but one that will result in the death of his mother.
But for his plan to work, they need a specific morph. They fly to Cassie’s house and wake her up, asking where they can acquire goats morphs. She says there is a new mountain goat section at the Gardens, so the three make their way there and acquire the goats (not with out some knocks, of course).
The next day he begins to explain his plan and how it will result in them taking out both Visser Three and Visser one, while also convincing the Yeerks that they have destroyed the Hork Bajir colony. They will also need the help of Erek.
Using their best arrogant Andalite voice (Tobias is the best, having spent so much time with Ax), they instruct Visser One to go to the mall and buy mountain climbing gear. Various Animorphs keep an eye on her the entire time. They also assume that Visser Three will eventually spot her and send Controllers to follower her as well. Plus, they’re sure she has her own reinforcements.
As they head out, in the midst of a parlay between Visser One and Cassie, Visser One notes that there are significantly more Hork Bajir and Taxxon deaths in the casualty lists in the Yeerks’ fights with the “Andalites.” It is clear that she stumbles upon the truth, which only increases the stakes. No one can live who knows the truth.
In bug morphs, Marco, Jake, Cassie and Rachel stash themselves in her car, Tobias and Ax are waiting at the destination. Once they reach the mountain, they tell Visser One to start climbing. Jake tells everyone to go to bird morph. Rachel and Marco make it out of the car, but Jake and Cassie are still in the car morphing when Visser Three shows up in his limo and casually blows it up with a Dracon beam. Marco is the only one who sees it, and when he frantically calls for them, they don’t answer.
Sure that his friends are dead, Marco has no choice but to continue the mission, flying up the hill where he spots Tobias and Rachel in Hork Bajir morph meeting up with Visser One to “lead her to their valley.” As Marco continues to fly, he notes empty camp sites that look recently vacated. Ax has been successful at scaring away other innocents. When asked, he has to reveal to Tobias and Rachel the likely fate of Jake and Cassie.
The climb takes hours, with Tobias and Rachel having to slip away to re-morph every once in awhile. Far behind, osprey!Marco sees Visser Three and his Controllers making their way up after her, willing to let her live until she reveals where the free Hork Bajir have been hiding. On the way up, Visser Three morphs a new alien, one that is quite capable of climbing, and worse, has the ability to camouflage itself with its surroundings.
Marco demorphs and remorphs as a goat, and Ax meets back up with him in bird morph. Ax notes that the numbers are now not in their favor, with Visser Three having many more Controllers than they had anticipated. Marco snaps at him about not seeing any reinforcements anywhere. Ax then takes off. Goat!Marco zips up the mountain, quickly passing Visser One and arriving at the top near a cliff side with a sheer drop on three sides. When Visser one arrives, Marco “shows” her the Hork Bajir colony: Erek puts up a hologram of the Hork Bajir valley that has been “concealed” using another hologram in the mountainside. In a slip of tongue, Marco cracks a joke, even further confirming to Visser One that they are not Andalite warriors. What’s worse, Visser One is suspicious that she recognizes his voice and type of joke.
Visser Three is next to arrive. They both order their cloaked ships to attack. Visser Three with his Bug fighters and Blade ship and Visser One with a massive ship that Visser Three looks at with awe, calling it a Nova class Empire ship. He and Visser One go at it as well, each striking a hit on the other. Goat!Marco can’t stand it, and attacks Visser Three who shoots him in the leg. Visser One orders her ships to destroy the Hork Bajir colony and Erek displays the valley’s destruction. However, the guns are still hitting a mountainside that in reality is much closer than a valley floor. A fissure cracks the ground, leaving Visser Three, his troops, and Hork Bajir!Rachel & Tobias on one side, and Visser One and Marco on the other.
Marco whispers that he loves her and Visser One instantly recognizes him as “the boy.” Goat!Marco charges her, but at the last minute a tiger!Jake knocks him aside and osprey!Cassie scrapes Visser One upside the head, preventing her from shooting Marco with the Dracon beam. Visser One overbalances and falls backwards off the cliff. The free Hork Bajir show up, lead by Ax, and the battle between the ships rages above. Marco is only dimly aware of any of it.
He stays in bed for the next week, watching TV and trying not to think. Jake shows up and explains that once Visser Three saw the free Hork Bajir arrive, he and his Controllers skedaddled, but five free Hork Bajir were lost in the battle. He also explains that when he and Cassie saw the limo arrive, they went straight to roach morph, assuming that nothing can kill a roach. Cassie made it all the way, but Jake was midmorph when the car blew up and was knocked unconscious. Cassie stayed by his side and was only able to wake him up a few minutes before the two hour time limit was up.
A few days later, Rachel visits. She says she didn’t see Visser One’s body. Marco says the Yeerks would have cleaned up after themselves. She says that there were scorch marks where they burned other dead Controllers, but there was nothing where Visser One fell. Marco remembers a Bug fighter roaring past. Maybe it was able to catch her? Marco snaps that he doesn’t want her pity, but Rachel notes that telling him she may still be alive is worse. If Visser One was dead, Marco’s already being going through the stages of hate and sadness. If she’s alive, he’ll have to confront the same decision all over again. With some hope, they sit in silence and watch TV.
The Comic Relief: Like I said earlier, this book is very weird in the way it is written. The first 25% of the book is frankly awful, probably the worst I’ve read so far. There are no explanations for Marco’s choices and the plot convenience factor is out of control. He makes stupid decision after stupid decision, two that are against the most cardinal rules that Animorphs have: don’t reveal yourself by morphing public & don’t morph human. And his reasons for doing each are incredibly poor.
But when the story actually gets into it, there’s some really good stuff here. Whenever teh story focuses on Marco’s situation with his mother as Visser One we’re going to see some pretty heart wrenching stuff. What makes it worse and different than Jake’s situation with Tom is both down to who is Controlling Marco’s mother and who Marco is himself. Obviously, Visser One is a much more dangerous and well-protected Yeerk than whomever is currently infesting Tom. This makes the equation of saving her vs taking her out very different. Tom’s loss would have zero impact on the Yeerk war at this point. However, taking out Visser One is worth almost any cost, including the life of Marco’s mother.
And Marco himself knows this. Jake, though we’ve seen him hardening himself more and more through each book, is still hopeful for Tom (again partially due to his unimportance all told). But one of Marco’s defining characteristics is his all-consuming practicality of thought. He himself identifies it as ruthlessness. His metaphor of the bright line and how it drives everything he does, is spot on not only for how we see him in this book, but for the decisions and reactions to situations that we’ve seen from him in the past. Rachel is ruthless in a reckless, sometimes mindless, way. Marco is ruthless in a cold, conniving way. He knows what he is doing and he chooses to do it over and over again. At one point in this book, he thinks about what the history books will say if the Animorphs manage to win this war. That this Marco guy was cold. So cold that he took out his own mother. And while Marco hates this idea, he never wavers from following his plan. Of course, he hesitates at the last minute on the mountain, even intervening when Visser Three attacks her. But at the last, when he’s in goat morph, he chooses to go through with it. Had tiger!Jake not hit him, he would have succeeded in knocking her off that cliff. Everyone questioned his ability to make the tough calls throughout this book, but this one act really proves that the cold, calculating Marco will follow that line no matter what.
Our Fearless Leader: Jake has a few really good moments in this. They’re small, but notable. One, when he first sends them to check out Visser One in the office building. He can sense Marco’s reckless energy and wisely puts Tobias in charge (yet more evidence for my “Tobias should be second in charge” theory.) Then, when Marco is explaining his plan to take out both Visser One and Visser Three, Jake doesn’t question him. When Cassie explodes, saying that they can’t let this happen, that this is Marco’s mother, Jake silences her. Not only does he recognize that this is Marco’s decision, but the leader in him knows that this is the right call, and that the sacrifice of his best friend’s psyche or ability not to self-loathe himself is a price that needs to be paid. But again, in the end, Jake takes it out of Marco’s hands, knocking her out of the way. Had Visser One not fallen herself, one wonders if Jake would have been the one to actually push her.
Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel comes down hard on Marco a few times in this book, about whether or not he’ll be able to take out his own mother. Most especially after she’s heard that Jake and Cassie are dead. Marco almost suspects that she will take out Visser One right then and there and is relieved when she doesn’t.
But, like in the last book with Visser One, it’s Rachel that takes the time to follow up on Visser One and give Marco hope. She checked out the mountain side in detail and tells Marco his mother might still be alive. There’s no mention that any of the others thought to do this. She also notes that she doesn’t fell that telling him this is a kindness, but that it’s just a fact. As she and Marco are often the two most prone to relying on facts over kindness, this makes a lot of sense. She also stays with him, not hugging but sitting with him. It’s a very sweet moment and speaks to a unique connection that the two of them have, for all of their bickering in other stories.
A Hawk’s Life: Tobias also has a lot of action in this book. Not only does he end up as the leader in the late-night office raid, but he also does much of the talking to Visser One since he talks to Ax the most and is most capable of mimicking his patterns of speech. His dialogue for all of this is pretty spot on. When he feels that Marco’s plans are going sideways, we get another fun look at sarcastic Tobias which is, of course, the best Tobias. Then, of course, he’s with Rachel as one of the Hork Bajir that leads Visser One up the mountain.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie comes up with the mountain goat morph idea, and the fact that she is able to morph all the way to cockroach, unlike Jake, before the car is blown up is another example of her proficiency at morphing. It does seem like since she was in roach morph, she should have been able to let osprey!Marco know what happened instead of leaving him to think they were dead, so that’s strange.
When Marco first explains his plan to take out Visser One and Visser Three, she has this to say:
“She’s your mother!” Cassie exploded. “She’s not ‘Visser One.’ She’s your mother! Is everyone just going to let this happen?”
Jake sent her a cold look. “This is not the time, Cassie.”
It seems pretty inline with what we know of Cassie that she would be the one protesting this. After this bit, she goes on to say that they should be concerned about what state Marco will be in if they let this happen. And, as I mentioned in Jake’s section, he ignores her. It is a sign of her strong sense of friendship and concern for others, but on the other hand, she does make an already almost unbearable situation for Marco worse by having this outburst.
E.T./Ax Phone Home: Ax has some funny moments being offended by the others’ versions of how arrogant Andalites talk, but it does seem pretty spot on. Throughout the book, it’s made clear that he’s on board for Marco’s plan mostly because of his ongoing mission to take out Visser Three, the killer of his brother, at any cost. While he feels bad for Marco, he’s also pretty cold about his priorities, regularly suggesting that they just take her out now.
He’s also the one to think to get the free Hork Bajir as backup when it becomes clear that they are outnumbered.
Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Marco mentions that Tobias’s morph from bird to cockroach is particularly horrifying, noting that roach wings begin to form out of the top of his bird head.
Mother Nature didn’t come up with a birdbug on her own for good reason.
Couples Watch!: Not a lot of couple action in this one, as per typical for Marco or Ax books. But there is a pretty interesting moment between Rachel and Tobias. After Marco has told them about Jake and Cassie, Rachel is pretty hard on Marco. She continues to pick at him throughout the trip up the mountain, until at one point Tobias quietly interrupts her and says “That’s enough” and she immediately stops. Marco notes that he is surprised that Tobias stood up to her as he doesn’t do it very often. I think it’s another nice example of how Rachel and Tobias work well together. He mostly respects and values Rachel for the bad-ass she is, but he is also not intimidated or scared of her, and feels comfortable enough to speak up when he thinks she’s crossed a line. And Rachel respects him enough to listen when he does.
Also, when the three wake up Cassie to get the goat morph, her first words are “Jake?” Marco has some fun teasing her about this.
I’ve already briefly noted my feelings on the secondary Marco/Rachel thing that seems to go on. And like I said in her section, it’s important I think that she was the only one to follow up on the fate of Visser One and the one to sit with Marco and provide hope and comfort in the end.
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: Man, Visser One is so much smarter than Visser Three. It takes her all of what, maybe a few hours total, talking to and interacting with the Animorphs to figure out their secret. And it wasn’t even first down to any slip up on their part. She’s done her research and noted the oddness of the casualty lists, information that is equally available to Visser Three. And then when Marco slips up, she’s quick to zero in on a familiar pattern to his voice, meaning she’s spent the time to learn and distinguish between individual humans. All told, the Animorphs are super lucky they ended up with a fool like Visser Three instead of her.
We also got another example of Visser Three losing his shit at one of his own Controllers.
Evidently encouraged by Visser Three’s seemingly tolerant mood, another human-Controller made the mistake of offering an opinion.
The end result is a missing arm. Probably should count himself lucky for that.
Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Um, the entire last half? As I discussed in Marco’s section, his books that deal with his mother are always going to be rough. And here, unlike the last time, from the very beginning the plan is for her not to make it out of this, and it’s Marco’s plan on top of that. Throughout the entire story he struggles with what this says about him and about whether he’ll be able to pull it off in the end. And while he is able to, he is not able to stop himself from trying to give his Controlled mother one last bit of peace. He’s been reflecting this entire time on what he would say to his father when/if he found out, and what his mother would think if she knew what he planned. So, before charges, he tells her that he loves her. Not only does this confirm that the Animorphs are humans, but now Visser One knows WHO one of them is as well. And as we’ve heard about ad nauseum, once one is outed, it’s a quick step to the rest. But with all of the inner torment we’ve read for the entire book, it’s hard to fault Marco for this small moment of weakness right when he is making the worst decision anyone could be forced to make.
What a Terrible Plan, Guys!: With all that goes wrong, it’s hard to actually see what the original plan was. Just let Visser Three and Visser One duke it out? But this seems like a pretty bad plan, knowing they’ll both be bringing reinforcements, including massive space ships. It seems like a given that the Animrophs would get caught in the middle and be overwhelmed. Maybe they were just going to take off in bug morph and avoid the whole thing. Who knows.
The one part I really don’t get is the goat morph. It seems like a pretty blatant shoe-in for some editor being like “But they don’t get any new morphs in this! Add one!!” Not only is the goat morph not really necessary (Marco could have just flew to the top of the mountain and morphed something with power there), but it’s completely bizarre that they decided to go acquire these morphs in the middle of the night after returning from the city. There’s no real reason for the urgency, and it’s even stranger that then that leaves only the three of them with this morph. I mean, as I’ve said, it doesn’t seem like any of them really needed it. Ax and Tobias don’t even use it and there’s no clear point in the plan where it seems like they would have. And why wouldn’t they all get it and not just those three if there even was a purpose in having more than one goat. It’s pretty dumb.
Favorite Quote:
Oh, delusional Ax:
<It will certainly require good acting skills to imbue the fundamentally humble and dispassionate Andalite character with a taint of arrogance,> he said.
“Yeah. Humble is the very first word that comes to mind when I think ‘Andalite,'” Rachel said with a drawl.
Also, when Marco first realizes that his joke may have alerted Visser One to his identity and he starts panicking:
<It’s okay, Marco,> a gentle voice said. But not my mom. Rachel. <It’s okay, man. It’s okay.>
Scorecard: Yeerks 7, Animorphs 12
I’m giving this one to the Yeerks, specifically Visser One. By exposing themselves for longer periods and through talking to her, the Animorphs gave up their biggest secret to the most wily Yeerk they’ve run across. And what did they get for it? Nothing! Not a good day for our team.
Rating: If I was actually rating these books, I’d have a really hard time with this one. The Marco and Visser One stuff is excellent, just top notch. And the whole last half was action- packed and dramatic. But that first bit. It was so awful that I actually caught myself wondering if I had really forgotten this book and that this was another Ellimist/Crayak weird thing. Like, the Ellimist was somehow triggering Marco to do these things, because in any regular world, his actions were not only completely out of character but just stupid to read about. He successfully morphed a fly in an elevator full of people…really? REALLY?! We’ve been told it takes 2-3 minutes to morph and no one noticed a kid weirdly ducking down behind them and turning into a bug. Sure. Suuuurre. And then the blatant abuse of human morphing, again for no reason. I really can’t express how terrible I thought these opening chapters were. But, like I said, the book turned a huge corner and by the end I was really enjoying it. I just have to not think about the beginning or the rage takes over again.
Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!
While I make an effort to complete most books I read, every once in a while I come upon one that I just can’t get through. When I find myself repeatedly putting down a book to the point that attempting to finish it is taking up weeks of my time, I sometimes come to the conclusion that a book is a book, not a life and death contract to read until completion. There are too many books in the world that I will never get to to spends days on end trying to finish a book that I already know will not be my cup of tea. Sadly, one such of these books came across my desk recently.
Book: “The Star-Touched Queen” by Roshani Chokshi
Publishing Info: St. Martin’s Griffin, April 2016
Where Did I Get this Book: audiobook from the library!
Book Description: Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of death and destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire…
But Akaran has its own secrets—thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most…including herself.
Review: Thankfully, it’s been a while since I’ve had to write a DNF review. There have been a few stinkers here and there, but usually I was able to push through for one reason or another. In all honesty, I’m not quite sure what makes up the real difference between a very low rated book that I managed to get through, and one that I just put down. But with this one, since it was an audiobook, I had the extra discouragement of looking down at my book and seeing how many hours, and hours, and hours were left of it. And I just couldn’t.
The story is one that we’ve all (those of us who read fantasy/fairy tale fiction, at least) read before. And that’s not a mark against it! I love “Beauty & the Beast”/”East of the Sun, West of the Moon”/Hades & Persephone stories. They’re probably my favorite of the typical fairytale inspiration pieces out there. And luckily for me, there are a lot of them. But unluckily for this book, there are a lot of them THAT ARE BETTER.
As Kate and I have said many times, each reader has their book and each book, its reader. What’s more, this was a very popular book when it come out so I know this is an unpopular opinion. And I can even see some of the aspects that would have drawn other readers to it. For me, the best part of this story was its connection to India, its traditions, food, clothes, and own fairytales and legends. This setting and cultural connection provided a unique stage upon which to set a very familiar story. And if it had been successful in other ways, I would have been praising this all the day long for pushing the conventions of what we’re used to seeing for stories like this.
However, it was not successful in other ways. There were three main flaws that lead me to reaching a breaking point with this book: the main character, the instalove relationship, and the writing style itself.
Maya is a terrible leading character. If you asked me right now to name personality traits for this character, I couldn’t. Is she brave? Does she have a good sense of humor? What drives her? I don’t have an answer. In the very beginning of this book, we get a few hints that she has an interest in scholarly pursuits, but this never comes into play throughout the rest of the story, leaving it less as a character development piece and more of a “oh, well Disney’s Belle loved books, so…” What’s worse, the entire story is driven by events happening around her and her being lead by the nose by others. She literally decides to kill herself because someone tells her to. And then five minutes later, marries a complete stranger because he tells her to. She also has strong tendencies towards the “too stupid too live” trope. What’s that? The castle is dangerous and might tempt me down bad paths? Yes! I will immediately run away from those I know and not tell them about a mysterious door that is COVERED IN BURN MARKS AND CHAINS that is calling to me. Nothing suspicious there!
This all leads into the instalove. Amar arrives out of no where, tells her to marry him, and then proceeds to wax poetic about his great love for her throughout the rest of the story. But why. Not only can I not identify a single personality trait that Maya can call her own (besides cow-like docility, perhaps), but given the nature of their “marriage” they know nothing about one another. It’s not flattering to have a complete stranger proclaim undying love, it’s creepy. What’s worse, the “happy ending,” as it were, is arrived at about halfway through the story. But, again, because Maya is an idiot, she must make terrible decisions and ruin this. Again, because a complete stranger tells her to and against all of the “love” that she has for Amar.
The older I’ve gotten, the more curmudgeony I’ve been about instalove stories. I never liked them, but now it’s almost an immediate death knoll to any enjoyment I might find in a book. Do you know what readers mostly like about romance? They like reading about how it develops! What makes these two people form this incredible and rare connection with each other? How do they learn to know, trust, and rely on the other? What challenges do they overcome, either plot-wise or emotionally to make this burgeoning relationship work? I only need about a paragraph tops of them fully in love telling readers about how great it is. Authors like this have taken literally the most boring part of the story and made it the ENTIRE story.
And this ties neatly to the writing itself. This book takes purple prose and melodrama to a whole new level. If you cut out the metaphors (and that’s a generous term for what’s going on here) and sugary drool of prose out of this book, you’d be left with maybe half? a third? of what the book is now. Let me put my English major nerd glasses on for a moment here. A metaphor or simile or comparative description of some kind is meant to draw an image in the reader’s mind. It might not be the common image associated with whatever you’re discussing, but it must be clear and make sense.
“I want to measure eternity with your laughter.”
“I see only night and smoke, dreams and glass, embers and wings. And I would not have you any other way.”
What does this mean. Seriously. What. And that’s only two examples. When it wasn’t straight out not making a lick of sense, the insta-love congealed with the prose to form a sappy, saccharine, gushy mess. Amar (again, after knowing Maya for a day) says that he would literally trade anything…for a strand of her hair.
His voice echoed with all the desperation of someone who has not slaked his thirst in eons and had just spied a goblet of water sweating beads of condensation, thick as planets. His voice lulled me, coated me.
Sentence, after sentence, after sentence of this. It was exhausting. If, as an author, you just want to string together pretty words that sound pretty together, perhaps write a nice poem. A novel requires more. Words that makes sense together is a very low bar.
I did not enjoy this book at all. The Indian setting was unique and there was a horse friend that I liked, but neither were enough to get me past the overly wrought language and a heroine who I began to actively root against shortly into the book. There was a very distinct decision that she made about halfway through the book that cemented my decision to put this down, and I really have no regrets. There are too many books in the world. And, most notable in this case, there are too many books in the world that tell almost this exact same story but do it well. I actually moved straight on to “Cruel Beauty,” a book this has been compared to, and am already enjoying it so much more. And I’m on page 30.
Book: “Honor Among Thieves” by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre
Publishing Info: Katherine Tegen Books, February 2018
Where Did I Get this Book: bought it
Book Description: Petty criminal Zara Cole has a painful past that’s made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in New Detroit instead of moving with her family to Mars. In her eyes, living inside a dome isn’t much better than a prison cell.
Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she’s headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan—a race of sentient alien ships—to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers.
Zara seizes the chance to flee Earth’s dangers, but when she meets Nadim, the alien ship she’s assigned, Zara starts to feel at home for the first time. But nothing could have prepared her for the dark, ominous truths that lurk behind the alluring glitter of starlight.
Review: It’s been way too long since I’ve reviewed a sci fi novel on this blog. While I love the fact that YA fantasy fiction is booming, it does make me sad that sci fi fiction seems to have been left on the sidelines for the most part. I mean, you can have just as much fun in space as you can riding around on a horse with a sword! Arguably, more. I’ve also read a few of Rachel Caine’s books in the past, and the book description for this one, of a teenage girl forming a connection with a sentient ship/alien, sounded right up my alley!
So this book was a bit of a roller coaster for me. There were things that I really enjoyed. Things that I wasn’t expecting at all that I quite liked. And other things that kind of knocked me out of the story with too many questions about plausibility and the pacing of the plot.
To start with the things I really liked: the characters. Zara is a great leading lady and the authors walk the line fairly well in keeping with the hardness that has made up her life on the street, the trauma that still exists from her childhood, while also making her sympathetic, and more importantly, believable. Her harshness is well-grounded in past events, and as the story progresses and she forms a connection with Nadim and her fellow shipmate Beatriz, we see her not only begin to open up to those around her but begin to question her own understanding of friendship and loyalty and how damaged some of her past relationships really were.
Nadim was everything I could have wanted from a sentient ship/alien. He was sufficiently “other,” with his own biological quirks and distance from human concepts of gender and other social norms. As the story unfolds, we begin to unravel the mysteries of his species and see in what ways Nadim stands out from the other Leviathan. While his relationship with Zara and Beatriz are at the core of the story, we also see glimpses into the role he plays among his own people and social hierarchies that exist there. I particularly enjoyed the parallels between the Leviathan and whales, especially their unique relationship to sound and music.
Beatriz took me completely by surprise. As you can see in the book description, there is no indication that this isn’t just a Zara/Nadim story. Instead, the Honors program is set up to send two cadets into space with their own Leviathan, and Beatriz is Zara’s crew mate. We all know how much I love sisterhood/girl friendship stories, so I was thrilled when I realized that’s what was being set up here. What’s more, Beatriz is an excellent contrast to Zara. Originally, she struggles much more with the vastness of space and the otherness of Nadim. But she also brings unique strengths to the crew with her abilities as a pilot and masterful singing voice. What made this all the more interesting was the idea that while Zara and Nadim have a special connection, it is by no means the only connection that matters. Beatriz, too, is just as much a needed and valued member of this team. It really is more of a three-way relationship than a traditional romance, with each pairing having their own specific connections to each other.
My struggles with this book had a lot to do with the first third of the story. The pacing seemed off for much of the beginning, with Zara rushing through several different set pieces and action scenes before finally landing herself with Nadim. We have her on the streets! Then she’s caught! Now she’s in a facility! Now she’s famous! Finally out to space! It all zips by in only a few chapters. I get that the authors wanted to get to the good stuff, but the story might have been served better had these things been told in flash backs. As it stands, I felt off balance for the entire first third and had a hard time really connecting to the characters and the story because it was too busy jumping from one thing to another.
My other criticism also comes from this first bit and it’s a straight out plausibility issue. Again, I get that the authors wanted to get Zara to the ship as fast as possible and for her to go through most of her character growth through her experiences there. However, the way it is set up, we’re supposed to believe that all training and preparation for the Honors takes place over a single week. And that somehow, after that, they’re ready to go out on a year-long mission and manage complicated scientific and mathematical equations during their work. The way the Honors are chosen makes this even worse. It’s not like they’re coming from a pool of candidates who have all had rigorous training up to this point and could theoretically be made ready with a short turn around. No, this is just a random draw from the entire population and Zara herself has been living on the streets for years, with no education to speak of.
I would always have a problem with this set up, and it’s just made worse by the story its serving. I LIKED the science and action in this book. It’s a true science fiction story with discussions of the equations needed to pilot in space, the knowledge of natural science needed to explore new planets, and the machinery skills necessary to maintain a ship. But with each moment when these skills were necessary for their survival or the completion of a task, I was reminded of how impossible it would be for Zara and Beatriz to have learned any of this in only one week. So each time it came up, I was thrown out of the book. Again, maybe flashbacks to a longer training time period would have helped this. All I really needed was something saying that, say, even 6 months went by with blah blah boring training blah. Great! Now I can buy it! But as it stands, I had a real problem with it.
But those things aside, I still very much enjoyed this book. It reminded me of how awesome books in space can be, and it fully capitalized on the concept of a living spaceship forming a connection to its pilots. The action was suspenseful and varied, and the mysteries about the Leviathan that were answered and that still remain are enough to keep me reading. Plus, one can hope that now that we’re through the first book, in a second outing, I’d have less problems with their skill sets since maybe they just picked things up what with their time on the ship. If you like science fiction and are able to turn your brain off a bit, this is definitely one worth checking out!
Rating 7: Plausibility issues aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this story of teenagers in space with a living ship!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Honor Among Thieves” is a newer title, so isn’t on many relevant Goodrads lists, but it is on “Teenagers . . . IN SPACE!”
Book Description: They call her Traitor Kate. It’s a title Kate Brighton inherited from her father after he tried to assassinate the high king years ago. Now Kate lives as an outcast, clinging to the fringes of society as a member of the Relay, the imperial courier service. Only those most skilled in riding and bow hunting ride for the Relay; and only the fastest survive, for when dark falls, the nightdrakes—deadly flightless dragons—come out to hunt. Fortunately, Kate has a secret edge: she is a wilder, born with magic that allows her to influence the minds of animals.
The high king’s second son, Corwin Tormane, never asked to lead. Even as he waits for the uror—the once-in-a-generation ritual to decide which of the king’s children will succeed him—he knows it’s always been his brother who will assume the throne. And that’s fine by him. He’d rather spend his days away from the palace, away from the sight of his father, broken with sickness from the attempt on his life.
With their paths once more entangled, Kate and Corwin have to put the past behind them. The threat of drakes who attack in the daylight is only the beginning of a darker menace stirring in the kingdom—one whose origins have dire implications for Kate’s father’s attack upon the king and will thrust them into the middle of a brewing civil war in the kingdom of Rime.
Review: This is another book that I requested primarily based on the beautiful cover art. Another win for the “no models on covers” team! I was also intrigued by the dueling narratives, though I think I generally tend to be a reader who prefers only one POV. But, if done right, I’ve loved alternating narrators in the past, and I was hopeful for this one. Plus, I’m always there for any fantasy story that involves animal magic!
Kate is living a life in hiding. After her father was executed for attempting to murder his good friend, the king, Kate’s life fell to pieces. Where once she had a best friend and burgeoning love in Prince Corwin, now she has only estrangement and bitterness at his failure to stand up for her and her father. Her cozy life working alongside her father in the palace stables has turned to one fraught with danger and hard work as she tries to support herself as a mail carrier in a land full of dangerous beasts that kill any out after dark. All of this while she tried to hide her magical ability to influence animals from the inquisitionists roaming the realm looking to round up and dispose of those like her.
Corwin’s life, too, is not what he once believed it would be. After years in self-imposed exile, he has returned to a country that doesn’t seem to need him, being well run by his brother in his ailing father’s place. But when strange attacks begin to happen in daylight, Corwin and Kate find there paths crossing again, as they both strive against dark forces at work in the kingdom.
Both Kate and Corwin were strong narrators with compelling arcs of their own, plus the storyline of their re-building relationship. Kate’s magic was intriguing and throughout the story, we learn alongside her what she is truly capable of. What’s more, her story is an interesting take on persecution and privilege. Up to this point, Kate has been comfortable enough hiding her magic. She has believed the stories she has been told about the dangers of her magic and that of others like her. So, while she lives in fear of being caught, she hasn’t had to truly confront what life is like for those who didn’t grow up in a palace, free from suspicion primarily because of position. Throughout the story, Kate witnesses the harsh realities of what this type of persecution, based on nothing more than fear, is like for those who have not had this type of shield. Once she is thrown back into life alongside those in power, she begins to see that her role can no longer be that of a passive player, content to use her powers in secret and live a quiet life.
Corwin’s story is fraught with insecurity and doubt. His self-esteem and self-respect have been poisoned by regret over his lost relationship with Kate and his perceived failures of her and of his country. The story introduces an intriguing concept with a sort of test that historically has been signaled by the arrival of a two-toned animal. This test determines which heir will inherit the throne. In his early 20s, the time is well past when this sign should have arrived and Corwin sees this as confirmation of his own failures. When the sign finally does arrive, Corwin must learn to accept his own strengths and make his own choices.
I also very much enjoyed the romance between these two characters. This isn’t first love, as that happened earlier in each of their lives only to be cut short by the trauma of Kate’s father’s betrayal of Corwin’s father. So when they are forced back to each other, their is doubt, hurt, and betrayal that must be dealt with. Beyond this is the understanding that Kate, the daughter of a traitor, will never be considered a worthy consort for a would-be king. What’s more, they each have secrets: Kate’s own magic, which she fears to reveal to Corwin whose own mother was killed by an out-of-control magic wielder; and Corwin’s lost years which clearly added to the self-doubt he feels with regards to himself.
The world-building and magic system were fairly standard, but I didn’t really see this as a down side. I very much enjoyed the magical creatures who descriptions were terrifying and whose presence and limitations based on day and night clearly shaped much of what goes on in this kingdom. I particularly liked the magical system set up for the process of inheritance. It was a unique concept and the trials themselves were exciting. The villain was also quite good. There were numerous red herrings and the motivations and methods of said villain were also a good reveal.
Overall, I had a blast reading this book. I was able to slip quickly and easily into this world. I cared about both Kate and Corwin’s stories separately, and was invested in their relationship as a couple. My only criticism comes with the ending. There’s this great battle scene full of magic, fighting, and sufficient stakes, and then it kind of just…ends. I was reading an ebook version, so maybe I was just caught by surprise more than I would have been had it been a physical book, but things did feel as if they got wrapped up fairly quickly. I’m also assuming there is going to be a sequel, though I haven’t seem mention of that anywhere! All in all, however, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a fairly standard fantasy, but the strength of its two narrators and the solid romance kicked it up pretty high on my own personal rating scale.
Rating 9: Two main characters whom you can’t help but root for!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Onyx and Ivory” is a new title, so it isn’t on any relevant Goodreads lists, but it should be on “Multiple POV Fantasy Books.”
Book Description: The Animorphs are given the power to pursue eighteen-year-old Henry– a human Controller who has discovered Elfangor’s Time Matrix–through time, but one Animorph must pay for this power with his life.
Narrator: Everyone!
Plot: What I remembered from this book:
Tobias/Rachel kiss
The story starts out in the barn with our favorite team. But wait, is it our favorite team? Rachel’s not there, and instead Melissa is a member of the team. Jake is a burgeoning sociopath who is a hair’s breath away from turning in Cassie for being sympathetic towards her…slaves? And Ax’s opinion’s don’t matter. He’s just some dirty alien, anyways. The entire unpleasant scene is suddenly interrupted by the Drode. Everyone is back to themselves, and Rachel is once again there (turns out that in the other timeline she had been sent to some type of reform camp for being too aggressive for a woman). The Drode informs them that what they just experienced was the result of a Controller, specifically Visser Four, getting his hands on the Time Matrix that was discovered at the old construction site where they all met Elfangor. Crayak and Elfangor have once again struck a sort of deal with the Animorphs at the heart of it. They will be given a special connection to the Time Matrix that will allow them to time jump with Visser Four to try and re-capture it from him and undo his changes to history. But there’s a price: the life of one of the Animorphs.
Cassie and Marco know who the most likely casualty will be: Jake, with whom Crayak has a particular beef. But, at the same time, letting the future they so briefly experienced go forward is unacceptable. They vow to protect Jake, and the team agrees to the mission and terms. And so the time jumping commences!
Agincourt: The team find themselves in what seems like the middle ages, between two armies (French and English) that are about to go at it with horses, spears, and bows and arrows. Rachel and Cassie almost get taken out by an errant knight before they all manage to reconvene. From there, they begin looking for Visser Four. They realize that the best way to spot him will be to look for someone who is NOT covered in fleas and has terrible teeth. They finally do, just as the two armies collide. He’s in a tree aiming an arrow at the English king. Tobias manages to snag it out of the air. Rachel, Marco, and Cassie almost gets trampled in the fighting, but horse!Jake and HorkBajir!Tobias rescue them in the nick of time. Ax almost catches Visser Four and the Time Matrix in a local bell tower, but he manages to jump at the last minute.
Delaware River: It’s night, it’s cold, and it’s raining. And George Washington and co. are about to cross the Delaware. In human form, Marco and Jake end up on a boat alongside him when it all goes wrong. Visser Four had already warned the Hessians on the other side that they were coming, and a volley of bullets sprays across the boats. Jake falls, a bullet hole in his head. The team panics. Marco tries to hold onto Jake, but he falls into the river. Dolphin!Cassie tries to collect his body. Rachel insists that Ax attack the Hessians for killing Jake. In the chaos, they all jump again.
Battle of Trafalgar: The team is on a ship. They’re all still reeling from the loss of Jake and trying to find their way. Dolphin!Cassie gives up hope and heads out to sea. Marco and Ax fight their way up from the brig. Up above, Tobias and Rachel spot Visser Four. Chimp!Rachel follows him up onto the crow’s next, but just then canons begin firing. Rachel falls, blown in half by a canon ball. Back below decks, Marco and Ax almost nab the Time Matrix again, but just miss as Visser Four sets an explosion that blows up the ship. Another jump.
Princeton: Cassie and Tobias find themselves on what appears to be the campus of Princeton. But the American flag is not flying. Washington was killed crossing the Delaware, and America doesn’t exist. Cassie is done with all the death, morphs polar bear, and lays the smack down on a passing college student when he expresses some racist opinions. Suddenly, Marco and Rachel (!) show up. The team realize that the rules of this mission were that one, and only one, of the Animorphs would die. Are they all now invulnerable? They wring more news out of the terrified student and realize that Visser Four was likely here to kill Einstein. But history has already changed so much that he miscalculated. Einstein isn’t even here. The team realizes that their plans need to change. History has already been too damaged by Visser Four. They need to get back the Time Matrix for themselves, change history back, maybe even get back Jake. Time jump!
D-Day: Several of the Animorphs experience the unique horror of charging the beaches and seeing hundreds of soldiers gunned down. Ax is particularly horrified by the violence. In small morphs, they are able to escape the rain of bullets. As birds from above, they see a line of tanks making their way towards the beaches. They realize that the French are on the side of the Germans, yet more proof that the timeline has been changed in crazy ways. In an attempt to get at Visser Four, HorkBajir!Tobias gets shot in the chest, but miraculously just stands right back up, confirming their theory that they can’t die. Eagle!Rachel takes out a tank with a hand grenade, but afterwards, realizing that so much is different, has a panic attack after realizing that it is no longer clear who the bad guys are. In this timeline, Hitler is just an old man driving a truck. They manage to finally nab Visser Four and the Time Matrix, but the host body is too injured to survive for long. The Yeerk makes a break for it, but Marco manages to grab it. None of them want to be the one to kill it, so Marco takes one for the team and throws the Yeerk into the fire that was the tank. With the Time Matrix now in their hands, they debate what to do. Cassie is the one to come up with the solution: she asks the man whom Visser Four had Controlled where his parents met.
The 60s: They then time travel to that point to break up the meeting, figuring that if his parents never met, then he would never exist and Visser Four would never Control him and discover the Time Matrix. While they are waiting, they discuss the horrors that they saw and that at every point in history they visited, people were senselessly killing each other. They debate whether or not they could do more to change the world, making it a more peaceful place. While they are talking, several hippies wander by and are impressed by the Time Matrix itself. Suddenly, they are back in the barn.
They realize that one of the hippies admiring the Time Matrix had been the would-be mother and that her distraction had resulted in her missing meeting the would-be father. What’s more, Jake is back, alive and well, not remembering anything after their attempted crossing of the Delaware. The world may not be better, but it seems that at least things are back to the way they were.
Our Fearless Leader: Jake gets the short straw as he is out of the story fairly early on and misses much of the action. We have some good leadership moments from him, particularly during their first time jump when Cassie, Rachel, and Marco are in the middle of the battlefield about to be trampled at any moment. Tobias is going crazy with worry about Rachel, not wanting to focus on Visser Four at all, and just go in after her. Jake reminds him that Cassie is down there too, but that just wildly going after them will not get them anywhere. His calm, even in the midst of crisis, is really highlighted.
While I like the tie-in to Jake and Crayak’s particular beef when it comes to the likelihood that Jake will be the one to die, it also lowers the stakes quite a bit. There are a few of the Animorphs who, theoretically, we might have bought as actually being killed off in this book. Rachel or Tobias are probably the most likely candidates. But with Jake, there’s never any question that he’ll be back somehow.
Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel is at her reckless/brave best (worst?) in this book. In their very first jump, she and Cassie end up in a tight spot with a few knights when Rachel’s go-to response of morphing elephant doesn’t turn out so well. Though I did, as always, love the Cassie/Rachel scene!
<See, Ax? Told you it was Rachel. Any time you hear a bunch of screaming and see people running, you’re going to find our girl Rachel somewhere close by.> [Tobias]
“Very funny,” Rachel said. ” They started it. Cassie: Tell them who started it!”
Later, she has a really cool scene taking out the tank with the hand grenade, though it is questionable later whether this was necessary. Mostly, she was just gungho to take out Nazis. But once she realizes that the French were teamed up with Germany in this timeline, she begins to understand that she doesn’t know whether they were the enemy or not in this scenario. It’s a really small scene, but it does highlight Rachel’s own knowledge and fear of her recklessness. She’s scared by herself in this way.
But, as I’ve pointed out in the past, she’s also, again, the first one to go into danger to try to save one of the others. This time, she’s the first to try to save Marco when he gets stuck in the middle of the battlefield in the first jump.
A Hawk’s Life: This whole book is a perfect example of why Tobias should use his Hork Bajir morph more often. He uses it to great success multiple times within this book. It doesn’t hurt that the clearly alien morph is sure to freak out any nearby people, thus clearly the way quite effectively without having to even do anything.
He also has another impressive hawk moment when he catches the arrow that Visser Four is shooting straight out of midair.
Tobias is also particularly vehement about taking out Hitler in the D-Day jump. Cassie tries to talk him down, pointing out that they don’t know who he has become in this new version of reality, but through a series of events, HorkBajir!Tobias does end up killing him, rather accidentally. As everything gets undone, it doesn’t matter one way or the other, but now Tobias can brag that he did in fact kill Hitler at one point.
Tobias and Dean Winchester, getting it done.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie gets a lot of chapters in this book. As I discuss in Marco’s section, she and Marco have a unspoken plan to protect Jake. When they don’t succeed, Cassie succumbs to a moment of weakness and tries to flee out into the ocean in dolphin morph. Obviously this doesn’t work out, and she finds herself tugged along in the next jump anyways. It’s also nice to see her get mad and take things into her own hands when it comes to dealing with the racist guy in the Princeton jump.
She’s also the one to come up with the plan for out to set things right in the end. She’s not outright “killing” anyone, but her plan does result in the end, or more like, lack of existence, of a man’s life.
The Comic Relief: This is one of the first books where we’ve really seen a strong connection between Cassie and Marco. In the very beginning, when the Drode is laying out the situation, Marco is resistant to agreeing. It doesn’t take long for Cassie to realize why and for the two of them to come to an unspoken agreement about not letting Crayak take Jake. It’s nice seeing them both recognize the special relationship they each have with Jake. Rachel, too, has a close connection with him, but, as we’ve seen, she and Jake have a bit more of a fraught relationship than the BFF relationship that Marco has or the quasi-dating relationship of Cassie.
It’s also worth highlighting that Marco is the one to ultimately kill Visser Four. He tries to pass it off as a casual thing, but this is only marginally successful. But it does show that he is also willing to shoulder the burden when it is clear no one else is capable of it. Given their ultimate plan, though, I don’t know why this was so much of a concern. They change the timeline for the man he was Controlling, but it seems as if the Yeerk Visser Four would be alive and well back in their new timeline, so his “death” here is rather meaningless.
E.T./Ax Phone Home: After the Hessians shoot Jake, Rachel orders Ax to take them out. He tries to argue that they are innocent (at least of meaning to take out Jake specifically), but in the end, he goes for it. Throughout the rest of the story, we see this decision continue to haunt him.
On the beaches on D-day, he has a similar moment to Cassie’s where he thinks to just flee. He is horrified by the violence all around him, and struggles again to understand the duplicity of humanity, that people like his friends can exist yet throughout history humans just seem to kill each other. He is even more horrified when he learns the reasons for this particular war and what happened to the Jews.
Best (?) Body Horror Moment: There’s so much actual action taking place in this one, that we get a lot fewer descriptions of disgusting morphs. That said, this has to be one of the most violent books we’ve seen, made worse that it is drawing from history. Rachel’s death is probably the most gruesome. Her chimp body is literally blown in two and as she falls, she sees the remaining half of her own body still hanging from the ship’s masts. Then we switch perspectives to Tobias and get to have even more lovely descriptions of her blown apart body.
Couples Watch!: As I said, one of my big memories of this one was the Tobias/Rachel kiss. Once again they are blowing Cassie/Jake out of the water as far as relationship goals go. Tobias thought she was dead for like fifteen minutes, but the minute he sees her, he runs to her and kisses her. Cassie thinks Jake is dead for quite a long time, but when he shows back up in the barn, everyone’s kind of like “Oh, hey there!’ and Cassie casually kisses him on the cheek while talking about the philosophy of time and humanity. Romantic it is not. Seriously, what is with these two??
“Whoa, Cassie! That is so Rachel,” Marco said. [Cassie in polar bear morph threatening the Princeton guy]. I recognized the voice immediately. He’d come up behind us.
“Really,” Rachel said. “What are you doing? Stealing my act?”
“Rachel!” Tobias yelped. And a millisecond later he had spun around, grabbed her, and kissed her. Then he held her back at arm’s length.”You’re dead!”
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: Visser Four is obviously the big bad in this. But we never really get to know much about him. Throughout the book he’s seen more as a distant figure that they are chasing, and the few interactions they have with him are pretty typical Yeerk boasting.
“So. The Andalites pursue me still,” he sneered. “I was careless. I did not expect to be pursued. But I’ll be careful now. Yes. And you know what? It’s better this way. I have the power now! I have the POWER!”
More telling, when John Barryman is finally freed from the Yeerk, he is astonished and amazed that they are all just kids. He mentions how much the Animorphs are driving the Yeerks, and especially Visser Three, absolutely crazy trying to catch them. He tells them they’re heroes. Probably something they needed to hear about now.
Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Ax’s complete bewilderment and horror at the violence throughout human history really struck home. There’s a particularly heart-wrenching scene on the beaches when he witness a man get shot, and then sees a army doctor run up to try and help him and the doctor is shot too. All while trying to help a solder whose injuries were to dire to begin with.
Jake’s death, while not really worrying as something that will stick, is made more poignant because of Cassie and Marco’s silent agreement to protect him and how suddenly and completely they failed. In many of the other books, we see them get horrific injuries and then slowly start dying but have the time still to morph out to save themselves. Here, Jake is shot in the head. He’s dies in a second and there was absolutely nothing Cassie or Marco could have done about it. It really hits home how dangerous the war with the Yeerks is. This same thing could happen at any moment in their ongoing war, and the others would be equally helpless to stop it, and wouldn’t have a convenient time loop hole to get them out of it.
What a Terrible Plan, Guys!: Really, the fact that they were even for a second discussing messing around with the Time Matrix more than just trying to set things right. They’ve already seen how even the smallest changes have had huge repercussions on the world. How could they ever think they could figure out this impossible puzzle in a way that wouldn’t be disastrous somehow? And it’s not like this is even their first experience with time travel! In the last megamorphs book with the dinosaurs, they saw how fragile the balance was for things to need to happen in a very specific way to get to the world they knew. Plus, you have to assume that any further messing around with time would have been put to a quick stop by either (or both!) Crayak or the Ellimist.
Favorite Quote:
There’s quite a bit of dark stuff and deep, timey-wimey musings, but, as always, Marco quips win the day:
“Oh, man, the colors, man!” A “hippie” had come up to admire the Time Matrix’s shimmering globe.
“Right, the colors, whoa! Cool! Go away. We’re trying to figure out the space-time continuum here,” Marco snapped.
Scorecard: Yeerks 6, Animorphs 12
I’m not going to change the score for this one. Like the other megamorphs books, this one kind of exists on the sidelines of the main plot, so there aren’t any long-lasting repercussions from their success here.
Rating: I still really enjoyed this one. I forgot about Marco and Cassie’s mini alliance, and all the details of the historical time periods they visited. I had completely forgotten how this book started out, just dropping readers into the other timeline. I was pretty confused at first since I know the last megamorphs deals with an alternate reality and I started questioning whether I had somehow gotten the order mixed up and that was this one. And, of course, I’m going to love any book with good Tobias/Rachel moments!
Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!
Book Description: Caroline Oresteia is destined for the river. For generations, her family has been called by the river god, who has guided their wherries on countless voyages throughout the Riverlands. At seventeen, Caro has spent years listening to the water, ready to meet her fate. But the river god hasn’t spoken her name yet—and if he hasn’t by now, there’s a chance he never will.
Caro decides to take her future into her own hands when her father is arrested for refusing to transport a mysterious crate. By agreeing to deliver it in exchange for his release, Caro finds herself caught in a web of politics and lies, with dangerous pirates after the cargo—an arrogant courier with a secret—and without the river god to help her. With so much at stake, Caro must choose between the life she always wanted and the one she never could have imagined for herself.
Review: First off, a bit thanks to the publisher for sending this my way! Just in time for us all to gear up for the second in the series, “Whisper of the Tide,” to come out this June. And this was a super solid outing for a new fantasy series, so count me as on board that excitement train!
So I was one of those kids who went to summer camp. During middle school I just went to the regular camp, but then I discovered the magnificence of “themed” camps also offered through the sane organization. Specifically, sailing camp. It was a week long camp where a bunch of high schoolers and a few counselors pretty much sailed around this massive lake in northern Idaho and camped overnight at various places. So…yeah…I’m pretty much a sailing expert. Ha! Not all. But this little jaunt into memory lane is one of the reasons that I loved this book.
We’ve all read a million and one epic fantasies with dragons and magical powers A few trillion fairy tale retellings. And as much as I love both of those, it’s always nice to find a new take on the genre, and that’s what we get here. Not only does the majority of the story take place on the water, be it rivers or the ocean, but the main character’s entire life and that of her family revolves around living on and operating ships. What’s more, it is a crucial aspect of the magic system, the economy of the world, and its belief system.
I loved that the author went all in on this concept. She doesn’t hesitate to devote a decent amount of time describing ships and the skills necessary to successfully navigate them. I had a lot of fun picking out the few bits of knowledge I recognized, and it was interesting to learn even more. This may read as a bit dull to some readers, but I think if you know what you’re going to get and have an interest in sailing and ships, this sharp focus will be appreciated.
But the world-building goes beyond just detailed ship knowledge. As I said, the politics and economics of this world revolve in one way or another around the waterways. Caro’s path through this adventure is tied to the different parties involved who have an interest in what goes on out on the water. Caro’s mother and father both come from very different worlds, and I loved the very different outlook they both brought to what it means to love the water and the ships on it.
Caro, herself, was an excellent protagonist. It’s clear from the beginning that she is a skilled sailor, and as she moves through the story, she gains even more confidence in this area, all while still trying to find her exact role in this world. She’s pulled between the two opposite forces of her parents, and also is starting to suspect that she may be something altogether different than either of them would suspect. Here, the magic system was particularly interesting, including a very unique river god.
The other major player is Markos, a young man full of arrogance and swagger, and whose lot gets thrown in with Caro’s, much to her initial displeasure. This was a perfect example of one of my much loved romances: the dislike changing to love arc. But it’s also a tough one to pull off, with many authors succeeding a bit too well at the “dislike” portion, so much so that they can’t justify the love to follow. Here, Markos’s vanity and incompetence are humorous. And while it’s easy to see why he gets under Caro’s skin, as a reader, I was just having blast reading about his foibles. And, as Caro gets to know him better, he has clear strengths, such as an unbreakable love for his family and some pretty stellar sword skills.
For me, the unique world-building and the spot-on characterization of Caro and Markos are what truly sold me on the story. It does focus quite a bit on the sailing aspect of things, so if you have zero interest in ships and how they work, this might be a struggle. But for everyone else, jump on board!
Rating 8: This book was a romp, a fast-moving adventure full of ships, magic, and high stakes.
Where Did I Get this Book: NetGalley and BookishFirst
Book Description: When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed…unless the trials kill her first.
A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable–until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.
As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world–and of each other.
Review: I’m pretty sure “Furyborn” wins the competition for most hyped book this spring. Everywhere I look there are lists including it as most looked forward to, rave reviews, or options to get your hands on it early. So props to the marketing team for getting this one out there. However, as has become a bit of a habit for me with much-hyped books, I had some mixed feelings on this one. Mixed though! I did enjoy this more than “The Cruel Prince” which was my last big letdown from the hype machine.
Most of the things I enjoyed in this story were also directly tied to aspects that I did not. Unlike other books, the problems I had with this story weren’t connected as much to the actual characterizations we’re given or the overall story. Both were mostly strong. But there are writing choices throughout the story that frankly sabotaged the good efforts made elsewhere.
For example, to start out. Both Rielle and Eliana are strong enough characters on their own. They live in very different worlds, and while some of their struggles are similar (trying to find their place in the world & hiding/fighting against perceptions that might set others against them and those they love), they are distinct in their own right. They each have a unique voice, always an important element in shared POV books. I personally found myself a bit more drawn to Eliana. Her story has a bit more mystery (for reasons we’ll discuss later), and as a character, I enjoyed her more morally grey worldview. However, I didn’t dislike Rielle either.
The other side of this coin, though, is the fact that both of these characters feel cut off at the knees by the alternating POVs. It’s not even a complicated problem: each POV is simply too short. The reader is being constantly bounced back and forth between each girl’s story, that one can never really settle into either character or plotline. This results in me kind of just not caring, when all is said and done. Readers need a chance to settle into a character, to really come into their world and understand their motivations and challenges. But when we’re constantly bounced back and forth between two very different stories every few pages, there is never a chance to really get that moment where you become invested. It was a fine read, but it was just that, a read. I never felt like I was really in this world. I was always just reading about it.
This problem extends to the world-building. There’s a lot that needs to happen on this front for a story that is going to try to present two very different worlds, thousands of years apart. The author essentially has to do twice the world-building to successfully pull it off. But, again, because of the quick switches between one character and the other, I never felt like I had a clear understanding of either of these worlds. There are angels in one? But the details are foggy. The other world has a empire that is set on taking over the world, but why and how? These details are all interesting on their own, but it ultimately felt like the author had bit off more than she could chew. Or, at the very least, more than could be reasonably fit in one novel that also has a lot of other things going on.
The action was fun. There is no denying that this book moves, and it was this that got me through some of the failings in my full connection to either character or the world itself. What’s more, I enjoyed that the action was very different between each girl’s storylines. Rielle’s ongoing magical trials were exciting and fast-moving. Whereas Eliana’s were caught up in politics and the violent nature of what the world has become under this ambitious empire. But, again, this same fast-moving action was also part of the reason the world-building and character development felt stunted. There simply weren’t enough pages to fit in all of this action while also developing two fully-realized characters and two fully expanded worlds.
I did also have one major criticism of this book. I read a good article recently that questioned whether a prologue is ever necessary for a book. The author of the essay mentioned that very talented authors could pull them off (like J.K. Rowling and her prologue in the first Harry Potter book), but even then, did you need them? This book serves as a perfect example where, for me, the prologue actively damaged my perception of the story right off the bat. It’s not long, but in even those few pages, the author managed to spoil almost every single reveal that was to come throughout the rest of the book. I already new the secrets that plagued some of our characters, thus making their confusion and ultimate surprise incredibly uninteresting to read about.
Further, I feel like this prologue was meant to inspire curiosity about how one character ended up where she did. But instead, I felt spoiled for her entire plot and thus her chapters held very little interest. There was no real threat behind any of the things she confronted because I knew where she ended up. If I hadn’t already been losing interest in characters because of the quick jumps back and forth due to the POV switches, this prologue alone did enough to pretty much kill off my interest and curiosity in at least one of these two.
All of that said, there book is still a fairly strong outing in a new fantasy world. There isn’t a lack of action or story, and the characters are interesting on their own. The problems I had were all down to stylistic choices (too short of chapters between switches, an uneven balance between action and world-building, and an unnecessary and ultimately harmful prologue). I’ll probably still stick around to read the next books in the series, however.
Want to judge for yourself? Get your hands on an ARC of “Furyborn” before it comes out! Giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and ends May 10, 2018.
Book: “Whisper on the Tide” by Sarah Tolscer
Book: “Cruel Beauty” by Rosamund Hodge
Book: “Like a River Glorious” by Rae Carson
Animorphs #30: “The Reunion”
Book: “The Star-Touched Queen” by Roshani Chokshi
Book: “Honor Among Thieves” by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre
Book: “Onyx and Ivory” by Mindee Arnett
Megamorphs #3: “Elfangor’s Secret”
Book: “Furyborn” by Claire Legrand
The Library Ladies 