Shadowfell – Juliet Marillier

Publisher’s Summary:
“Sixteen-year-old Neryn is alone in the land of Alban, where the oppressive king has ordered anyone with magical strengths captured and brought before him. Eager to hide her own canny skill—a uniquely powerful ability to communicate with the fairy-like Good Folk—Neryn sets out for the legendary Shadowfell, a home and training ground for a secret rebel group determined to overthrow the evil King Keldec.

During her dangerous journey, she receives aid from the Good Folk, who tell her she must pass a series of tests in order to recognize her full potential. She also finds help from a handsome young man, Flint, who rescues her from certain death—but whose motives for doing so remain unclear. As Neryn struggles to trust her allies, they both hint that she alone may be the key to Alban’s release from Keldec’s rule. Homeless, unsure of who to trust, and trapped in an empire determined to crush her, Neryn must make it to Shadowfell not only to save herself, but to save Alban.”

Juliet Marillier is one of my favorite authors for myriad reasons, but the one that summarily expresses why I love her writing has everything to do with her uncanny ability to weave spells with words, transporting me to the vibrant world her characters inhabit; without fail, she leaves me longing for more time spent in their company. I should have known better, then, and experienced not a moment’s worry when I felt myself being put off by Neryn’s repetitious exclamation of “gods” in the first couple of chapters. I should have trusted Marillier, because after firmly setting aside that pet peeve and moving forward I was rewarded with a wonderful, absorbing read that sang quietly in my blood after reaching its temporary conclusion.

From early on it’s clear the story being told is the surface of a very deep well, one that Marillier descended to the bottom before she began writing Shadowfell. Imparted to the reader is the sense that she knows the lay of the land, the history and mythology beyond what’s presented on the page at hand, and as a result the world-building is seamless. Rich with layered details, I might have been treading the rough, uneven ground beside Neryn, experiencing the perils of the landscape with her, that’s how tangible the world was.

I’ve not read all of Marillier’s books, not yet, but based on those I have it’s evident her heroines share similar traits: strength, determination and compassion chief among them. Neryn fell in line with those that’ve come before her, demonstrating wisdom beyond her years and enviable courage. I liked her very much, as I did several secondary characters, most of them being Good Folk Neryn encounters on her journey to Shadowfell. And then there’s Flint, who quickly won a spot next to Red and Stoyan as a favorite Marillier hero. He’s…he’s…classic Marillier. Tortured and steadfast; stealing quietly into your heart and making his home there. Here’s a little taste of him, because I can’t help myself:

“There is a choice. You are weary; now is not the time to speak of it.” After a moment he added, “You have a long road to tread before you are well enough to travel again, even accompanied. You don’t like it that I am the one you need to keep the wolf from the door; that comes as no surprise. But I am the one you have. At some point we’ll both have to risk telling the truth.”

I sat down with Shadowfell, promising myself I’d read one hundred pages before setting it down to get on with other things I wanted and needed to do. You can imagine what happened: one hundred pages turned quickly, and I thought, fifty more. So went my evening until I’d read the entire book without pause. And now I’m left to eagerly and impatiently wait for Raven Flight‘s July release.

If I Stay – Gayle Forman

Publisher’s Summary:
“In a single moment, everything changes. 17-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck…”

Swayed by several tempting reviews and at my best friend’s persistent urging, I picked up a copy of Gayle Forman’s If I Stay with high expectations that were mostly met.

Perhaps what I enjoyed most about this novel was the tight-knit family at the heart of it. Setting aside the fact that Mia loses them for the moment, I cannot easily call to mind another YA title in which both parents are a constant, positive presence in the protagonist’s life. That for seventeen years Mia’s parents were involved in her life and choices; that they supported and challenged her was refreshing. The same can be said of Mia’s appreciation of them. Speaking in terms of relatablity that type of parent-child relationship is a closer representation of my childhood, and seems to be one not often found in YA lit. Mia’s understated grief struck me all the harder because of that closeness, and made her choice seem an impossible one; I cannot begin to imagine the strength it took to make it. For that reason and several more, I was invested in Mia and her story, and that overcame any reservation I might have had regarding other aspects of the novel.

I’m somewhat hesitant to pick up the sequel, because as Angie mentioned in her review of this title the ending is quietly affecting, so well-done as to be pretty much perfect. And as much as I liked Adam, I never truly felt the need for more of him in If I Stay. I wanted Mia playing her cello, remembering the nights she spent reading her little brother Teddy another chapter from Harry Potter, or listening to her parents talk about their rebel-rousing pasts and fashion sense. I will pick up Where She Went someday and remain happy to have read this one until then.

“I’ve had disappointments and I’ve been lonely and frustrated and angry and all that crappy stuff everyone feels. But in terms of heartbreak, I’ve been spared. I’ve never toughened up enough to handle what I’d have to handle if I were to stay.”

Mind Over Murder – Allison Kingsley

Publisher’s Summary:
“Cousins and best friends, Clara and Stephanie Quinn run The Raven’s Nest Bookstore, where people go to find their most coveted reads. But they have no idea it’s the psychically-gifted Clara who’s reading them…

The bookstore has made an enemy of the town crier, Ana Jordon, who claims that the store’s occult collection is “poisoning” the town’s youth. Meanwhile, the store’s number-one employee, Molly, has made no secret of her anger over Ana’s antics. So when Ana is found dead, killed by the bust of Edgar Allen Poe* sculpted by Molly, the evidence is stacked against her. And Clara must rely on her gift to make sense of this senseless murder…”

As far as this reader is concerned, cozy mysteries live up to their moniker. With their typical settings being quaint, small towns, and/or their sleuths often wandering behind a bakery or coffee/tea shop counter, down the aisle of a bookstore or library, these books have a warm, comforting aura about them that is undiminished by the crime committed within the pages. It’s a subgenre I enjoy immensely and read widely within, especially when I’m in the mood for or in need of something light and, well, cozy. I’m not picky; the only thing I ask of these novels is that the sleuth be engaging. When that isn’t the case, it’s that much harder (if not impossible) to accept or forgive the character’s penchant for irrational behavior. (And if you’ve never read one of these, trust me, cozy mystery characters seem to have been born with irrational and illogical grafted to their DNA.) As for Clara Quinn, she fell shy of the mark.

One of Clara’s defining characteristics is her stubborn refusal to use or rely on what she and her cousin call the “Quinn Sense,” but there’s one problem here: Beyond knowing it’s paranormal in origin and passed down through the family, this “Quinn Sense” was never fully articulated. More than willing to suspend belief, I couldn’t appreciate this otherworldly aspect of Clara’s character or understand why it was necessary to the plot, because she 1) shut down the “voices” she heard 98% of the time, and 2) questioned whether or not those voices were her ability making itself known or if it was her own instincts manifesting in a brief inner monologue. I think these voices were supposed to alert her to lies being told? I think they were supposed to warn her of impending danger? I think part of it was an ability to interpret dreams? But I know the many references to the “Quinn Sense” became tedious quickly.

Aside from that, I couldn’t get a handle on her personality, which may be chalked up to the fact that she was so often influenced or overruled by secondary characters that she became an extension of them rather than her own person. She didn’t want the Quinn Sense and refused to use it, but one puppy-dog look or wheedling plea from her cousin, Stephanie, and there goes Clara, agreeing to use it. Clara didn’t want to engage in any number of asinine – not to mention dangerous – schemes, but she did because Stephanie pressured her into carrying them out using nostalgia, guilt, or both. And that’s not touching on how she treated the man I assume will become her love interest or her relationship with her mother (whom I have to admit to disliking, an unfortunate trend that extended to almost every character introduced in this first book).

Characters aside, I likewise wasn’t engaged by the plot or the writing, which goes to show that this particular cozy just wasn’t for me.

*This was directly copied from the back of the book, which shoves the blame for spelling Poe’s name incorrectly right off my shoulders.

The Summer I Turned Pretty – Jenny Han

Publisher’s Summary:
“Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer — they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.”

Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty tops the list of most requested books by my teen patrons by a country mile. Their interest, prompted by enthusiastic word-of-mouth promotion, proved to be contagious, leading me to purchase a copy to determine what the fuss was about. That infectious curiosity coupled with the warm, fuzzy feeling a spate of recently released YA contemporary fiction titles provoked in me upon thinking of them meant I settled on my couch, book in hand, with high hopes. The longer I read, however, the more baffled I became.

Not twenty pages in and it was a chore to turn to the next one. But I did. I kept turning them, partly because I was determined to understand what so many other readers saw in the story, the characters, and leveling a judgment on either based on a paltry number of pages wasn’t fair; and also with the lingering hope that the tide would turn and I’d fall in line with the positive response I’d run headlong into since the book’s release. I’m sorry to say that just didn’t happen.

I cannot recall the last time I encountered a character as grating as Belly. Immature and contrary, Belly inevitably responded to the changes that go hand in hand with getting older by sticking her tongue out or pouting, which she herself readily admits to doing: “And, okay, maybe I did pout a lot, but it was the only way I could ever get my way.” (If you’re wondering if perhaps that self-awareness somehow made her behavior more acceptable to me, no, it didn’t. Because there was no move to grow, to move beyond adolescent behavior and prove that she was no longer the child she was convinced everyone else saw her as.) As I read, I began to actively track certain responses, which illustrates, to my mind, how one could easily become annoyed with Belly, but also the considerable amount of repetition in the text.

The following examples only account for those that I could easily recall the location of to backtrack to and record.

Belly exhibiting a woe-is-me attitude, bemoaning the fact that the boys – Conrad, Jeremiah and her brother, Steven – left her out of their fun:

Pg 17: “Even though it was one of the only times I was included in their fun…and it was a reminder that I was an outsider…”
Pg 26: “…but it was feeling different, like an outsider, that I hated.”
Pg. 28: “Everybody had somebody but me.”
Pg. 197: “Why was it that even when I had my own friend I still felt left out of their club?”

I’d like to note here, before moving on, that in this case I wanted to sympathize with Belly. But her desire to be included didn’t seem to stem from true loneliness or a sense of saddening isolation so much as from anger at not being included when she thought she should or deserved to be. The kind of anger that would make a child stomp his or her foot, kicking up playground sand in the process, and then retreat, arms crossed, to the sidelines. More concisely, Belly wasn’t getting her way and she didn’t like it, which often led to my next point.

Belly, the tattletale:

Pg 17: “I used to cry about it, run to Susannah and my mother…The boys just accused me of being a tattletale.”
Pg. 29: “Quickly I said, ‘Steven, if you don’t let me go, I’ll tell mom.’ Steve’s face twisted. ‘No, you won’t. Mom hates it when you tattletale.’…I’d lost my chance. Now I just looked like a tattletale, a baby.”
Pg. 101: “‘Leave me alone,’ I said defiantly. ‘You can’t hurt me or I’ll tell Mom.’”
Pg. 184: “I’m telling Jeremiah.”

I’ve already mentioned her propensity for sticking her tongue out:

Pg. 204: “I scooped out a chunk of watermelon and stuck my tongue out at his retreating figure.”
Pg. 207: “I stuck my tongue out at him and spread out my towel on a lounge chair not too far away.”
Pg. 224: “‘You can’t. It’s my birthday.’ I stuck my tongue out at him.”

It extends beyond those examples with more of the same, but also other actions and thoughts that made me grit my teeth; made it impossible for me to relate to Belly, or want to continue with her story. But, again, I did. Why? Well, there’s the fair shake thing, but there’s also the fact that in the back of my mind was the knowledge that other book bloggers had expressed delight in the romantic interest, and I thought, okay, maybe I’ll warm to him and the romance will sweep me off my feet before all is said and done. And, once more, that did not happen.

Shortly before the 200 page mark, Belly thinks of Conrad: “He made it so hard not to love him. When he was sweet like this, I remembered why I did. Used to love him, I mean. I remembered everything.” After reading that, I set the book down on my lap, combed my memory and thought for sure that there must be a hole in it, because I couldn’t remember Conrad being anything but surly and borderline rude to Belly (during the summer she turned pretty and all the ones that came before it). And in case you were wondering what prompted the line of thought above, it was “Good night, Bells.” Basically, common courtesy and a single, sentimental consonant; that’s all it took to engender an intense infatuation. Conrad’s appeal completely and unfortunately eluded me.

It’s odd, how radically different my experience with The Summer I Turned Pretty was from most everyone else’s, but it proves the adage ‘every book its reader.’ This particular book just wasn’t meant for me.

Dead Iron – Devon Monk

Publisher’s Summary:
“Welcome to a new America that is built on blood, sweat, and gears…

In steam age America, men, monsters, machines, and magic battle for the same scrap of earth and sky. In this chaos, bounty hunter Cedar Hunt rides, cursed by lycanthropy and carrying the guilt of his brother’s death. Then he’s offered hope that his brother may yet survive. All he has to do is find the Holder: a powerful device created by mad devisers-and now in the hands of an ancient Strange who was banished to walk this Earth.

In a land shaped by magic, steam, and iron, where the only things a man can count on are his guns, gears, and grit, Cedar will have to depend on all three if he’s going to save his brother and reclaim his soul once and for all…”

On occasion, you have to determine whether or not the positive aspects of a novel outweigh the (entirely subjective) drawbacks that dogged the story, which proved to be my experience once Dead Iron was done, the last page turned. Considering how completely I embraced the cover and premise, my expectation was flat-out love. In actuality, I liked the book, certain bits and bobs that comprised the whole very much, and will most definitely meet up with Cedar Hunt once more when the sequel, Tin Swift, is released this July. Love, though? That’s a mighty strong word; one I can’t throw around with sincerity, despite the fact that I would, in the end, recommend this title (with caveats).

My enjoyment of the story stems, first and foremost, from Monk’s language. One key piece of writing advice handed out at nearly every turn in a writer’s life is ‘show, don’t tell’; this book, composed of strong, evocative language, illustrates why that advice is not only valid, but how it elevates storytelling, allowing the reader to not only see what’s happening, but to smell and feel it alongside the characters. That was most certainly the case here – for me. It should be said, however, that if copious use of metaphors and similes sets your eye to twitching, well, you may not find the writing as lovely as I did. (It should also be said, just to clarify, that the language isn’t flowery or saccharine. At times it’s quite simple in the comparison it draws: “Sound was lost inside this cavern like a scream behind a gag.” The writing has an abundance of shades and tones.) Additionally – and this is a personal preference – the western setting allowed Monk the opportunity to inject a wonderful, leisurely drawl that seeped into the atmosphere as well as the dialogue. A skillfully inserted – and judiciously used – reckon gets me every time. As does the manners of the time period, which are as often employed to veil threats and cautions as to be polite.

Next up on the list of things that rang my bell: the characters. Going in, you should know that there are a lot of them, and that the chapters alternate between Cedar Hunt, Jeb and Mae Lindson, Rose Small, and the villain of the piece, Shard Lefel, whose paths are twined from the beginning. And while the narrative doesn’t rely on them to the same degree, there are others: the Madder brothers and Mr. Shunt, for instance. While their lives aren’t laid bare – meaning there are hints of backstory that remain unexplored throughout the entirety of the novel – there’s enough there, or there was for me, to become invested in the majority of them; Cedar, Rose, and the Madder brothers most notably. From the start, I knew Cedar was going to appeal to me. He’s a man struggling under the weight of grief; cursed by the gods with a dual nature that would turn an educated, rational man into a ravenous, destructive force; and, in true gentleman cowboy fashion, his word is his bond, he’s kind to women and children, and can handle himself in a fight. Rose is this lovely mix of quirk and grit; a woman ostracized for being thought different, erroneously judged and considered to be touched in the head. And the Madders? Well, they’re brothers – one of my biggest weaknesses – and they’re not at all what they seem. I ricocheted like a steel ball in a pinball machine between irritation, exasperation, and delight when it came to those three. In the end? Maybe I really can throw the word love around, because they managed to wrest it from me.

As for the drawbacks…

One was simple enough: a tendency toward repetition. Of thoughts, action, and concepts or motivation. Knowing I would struggle to explain this, I marked down an example. The following two snippets are taken from consecutive paragraphs:

“They circled the boy, brushing against him to smell, to record, to savor the blood of the child who helped bind metal to a dead man’s flesh.”

“…tears streaming his face, as the free matics touched and stroked and sniffed and plucked, scenting, tasting, recording him.”

This is an extreme case; the word record is used twice, for instance, and essentially both paragraphs are describing the same situation with very little variation. One would have served the story’s purpose just fine. There were other times when something similar occurred, but maybe it was a character having the same thought or expressing the same motive within too short a span of words. Repetition is something I struggle to tolerate in books and encountering it has been a deal breaker more than once. Here, though? While I observed it happening – even shook my head a bit at how unnecessary and avoidable it was – the repetition didn’t dim my appreciation of the writing. Still, it seemed worth pointing out.

Also, and this is just picking up on something I stated above, the alternating points of view didn’t allow the reader the time to get to know any of the characters deeply. Pasts are hinted at, possibilities introduced, and the threads that are left dangling from the spool might prove to be frustrating or disappointing to some. It didn’t have either effect on me. I enjoyed the mystery – the Madders are a prime example, and I’m still not certain what they’re all about – and look forward to learning more about each of them turn as the series continues. The biggest problem with this angle might be that the villain is not as effective for not fully understanding what led him to the course he chose to set out on.

Finally, the story’s focus is rather limited despite several things going on around the crux of it. Each character seems to have one fairly clear goal and they are determined in their pursuit. To that end, and, again, despite events whirling like a dervish around the main conflict, you may think that the story doesn’t have much momentum. Does that make sense? It wasn’t that it was slow – I read it in a matter of hours – or boring, or without action, but…it may feel superficial. That sounds awful, and perhaps it’s not even accurate, but I’m having a hard time putting my finger on a way to explain it. And that may be due in part to the fact that it just didn’t bother me beyond realizing that others might be put off by it.

When all is said and done, I think the book will stand on whether or not you enjoy the writing and are invested enough in the characters as they are presented in the here and now of what’s happening to them. It worked for me for both of those reasons.

Before I wrap this up, a favorite bit of dialogue that packs a whole lot of insight into Cedar’s character, but is also just remarkably well-done. Set-up: Cedar has gone to the Madder’s to acquire a tool to assist in his hunt for a missing boy. This is what one of the brothers says to him after agreeing to give him what he wants…at a cost:

“You’re a cautious man for someone who uses a gun to end his sentences…”

The Fault in Our Stars – John Green

Publisher’s Summary:
“Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.”

I’ve loved books that have made me laugh, and I’ve loved books that have made me cry, but I cannot recall ever finding one that prompted both responses simultaneously. Now I have; this is it. By the time the last pages of The Fault in Our Stars were in sight, I found myself in possession of a damp, mascara stained Kleenex and wearing a smile so wide it ousted my lopsided dimples. Continuing this line of thought: It’s also been a long time – no, that’s not accurate; I can’t think of another time when this has actually happened – but when I finished the book, I got up, went to grab another tissue, and sat on the lip of the tub, tears falling apace as I tried to bring myself back from the subdued and exultant place where the last ten words had left me stranded. I’m not going for melodrama here; John Green wanted this book to make his readers feel, and, in my case, that’s exactly what it did.

But this is where my thoughts stall. Beyond recounting my emotional state while reading it, which is easy enough to do even if I feel like a surface stripped of its fine varnish, I…have no idea what to say about the book. I keep typing, and I keep hitting the delete key, and I think if I just keep doing that something will come out that won’t sound…lame. Like, okay. Should I take for granted that John Green is widely considered an intelligent and  incredibly talented writer, and therefore not comment on how well-written the novel is, deftly exploring heavy themes in a way that resonates rather than alienates? Should I assume that most people know he is capable of creating characters that seem so unreal and yet completely possible, probable, even, though I’ve never met anyone remotely like any one of them, and altogether avoid talking about how Hazel and Augustus got under my skin and stayed there, not because of or in spite of the cancer and how either one dealt with it, but because they both charmed the pants off of me? Figuratively speaking, of course. Though, that Augustus…

Or, here’s a question: Do I need to say anything at all? Read the first chapter. I doubt you’ll need further convincing to keep at it.

If I had my way – and I do, if only in a limited sense, because: librarian – I’d put this book in the hands of every single person I spoke to in a day (and in days to come). It’s a book that should be read, one that needs to be experienced, and that’s saying something, I think, coming from me, if you consider the fact that I typically cringe at the sight of most realistic fiction like it’s a shark in a tank, flashing its painful-issues-and-angst shaped sharp teeth whenever I get too close. Don’t get me wrong: John Green’s books have teeth. They’re worth risking the bite.

And that is the end of that painful metaphor. Okay. Now it’s done.

Just…Disregard all of this. Read The Fault in Our Stars for yourself. And when you’re done? I hope it will have affected you as greatly as it did me.

Deadly Intent – Kylie Brant

Publisher’s Summary:
“Forensic linguist Macy Reid is an expert on kidnapping, having been abducted when she was a child. So, she is the perfect investigator to be called in when a Denver tycoon’s eleven-year-old daughter is abducted-for the second time. But Macy’s biggest stumbling block may be a member of her own team: Kellan Burke, the wise-cracking, rule- breaking investigator who relishes getting under Macy’s skin-and who just may be the man to help her confront the demons from her past.”

Rather than detracting from its appeal, the formulaic nature of romantic suspense is a great comfort. Knowing what to expect allows me to adjust my expectations, effectively putting a blinder on my critical eye. After reading Kylie Brant’s Deadly Intent, though, I realized that I had made an incorrect generalization: it’s not romantic suspense as a whole I find comforting, it’s particular authors writing within the genre. With this novel, I found myself going through the motions, turning pages without investment, and receiving no payoff to speak of at its conclusion.

Being a somewhat standard feature of the formula, having the heroine and hero grapple with the fallout from a previous affair – be it a one night stand or a long-standing relationship – typically does not put me off my stride. After all, misunderstanding breeds conflict. But here’s my caveat: it shouldn’t be that transparent. The misunderstanding, or whatever causes the dissolution of the couple’s previous relationship, should have enough depth to make the antagonism that flares up between the h/h when they find themselves once again in each other’s company a justifiable reaction. That was not the case here. Once revealed, the reason for Kell’s get-under-her-skin banter and Macy’s furious, internal denials of Kell’s supposed charms could not support five pages of that behavior, let alone the two hundred plus that was devoted to it. As a result, I did not care about them as a couple, making the eventual resolution of their relationship a moot point.

Macy’s unique profession (forensic linguist) initially drew me to the book, but it played such a small role in the story as to be irrelevant. On the flip side of that coin, the investigation itself, which paired various concentrations of forensic science with good ol’ fashion detective work, wasn’t subtle. And, unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. The characters, most of whom are considered to be at the top of their game, did not come across as sharp, intelligent individuals. Instead, they might have been actors reading a script. They were fed the words, but the intent seemed to be often beyond their grasp. The more I read, the harder it became to suspend my disbelief, but when the kidnapped, traumatized eleven year old showed up the professionals with remarkable displays of ingenuity it became an impossibility.

I can’t say much more, or offer particulars to prove my points without spoiling the plot, but from my perspective, Deadly Intent was built on superficial conflicts, shallow character development, with little romance or suspense present in the story.

One Salt Sea – Seanan McGuire

Publisher’s Summary:
“October ‘Toby’ Daye is settling into her new role as Countess of Goldengreen. She’s actually dating again, and she’s taken on Quentin as her squire. So, of course, it’s time for things to take a turn for the worse.

Someone has kidnapped the sons of the regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. To prevent a war between land and sea, Toby must find the missing boys and prove the Queen of the Mists was not behind their abduction. Toby’s search will take her from the streets of San Francisco to the lands beneath the waves, and her deadline is firm: she must find the boys in three days’ time, or all of the Mists will pay the price. But someone is determined to stop her-and whoever it is isn’t playing by Oberon’s Laws…”

My biggest obstacle when approaching this review is how to refrain from sounding like a broken record. Stellar series such as this one, the kind of series that maintains an unrepentant level of quality, that imbues each new release with narcotic delight, forces the reviewer to scour her vocabulary, searching for a word or phrase that hasn’t already seen the light of day in a review that came before the one in progress, hunting for a word that complements the high bar set by the author’s work. It’s not an easy task. It is, in fact, so daunting, it makes me want to throw in the towel and say, simply but emphatically, “Oh, for the love of – Just read these books! Thank me later.” So close. But I can’t because Toby, Tybalt and Seanan McGuire deserve more from me than that.

It frustrates me to do so, but let me recap my still-stands sentiments regarding the series to date: Toby is one of my favorite UF heroines, hands down, having won me over with her vulnerable strength and determination, her ability to get knocked on her ass and struggle up, and her unswerving devotion to those she cares for; Tybalt, King of Cats, is one of my favorite UF heroes, hands down, having claimed me with his sexy-as-sin ways, his dedication to his people and those he cares for, his belief in Toby, and his, well, everything; Seanan McGuire’s absorbing world-building entranced me, not being a reader who generally takes note of such things while reading, and continues to get better, deeper, and more vital with each book; and, finally, there’s the host of secondary characters that burrowed under my skin from book one and won’t let go. Reading that back, it merely scraped the surface of my sentiments, but my point is fairly plain: The October Daye series is necessary to me and my reading life. I love it. I crave it.

One Salt Sea cemented Seanan McGuire’s status as one of the best urban fantasy writers today, and not because it was the best book in the series, per se, but because she took me places I’d not thought to go, and because the story told in the pages of this particular book teased my emotions in unexpected ways. To take up the middle portion of the previous sentence – took me places blahdy blah – I’ll refer back to my claim that this series’ world-building is entrancing and raise it now to downright wondrous. McGuire took me under the sea. When I was younger and my family visited EPCOT, there was a ride – Horizons, unfortunately gone now – that gave you a choice: space, the desert, or under the sea. Pick one and see what it might be like to live there. Nine times out of ten I chose the sea. I wanted to know what it would be like if I were inoculated to the dangers of no air, able to move effortlessly through the water, unaware of its pressure on my body, and this despite my Jaws traumatized state of being. Seeing it through Toby’s eyes, so tactile, so wouldn’t it be something if it was just like this, turned me into a little kid again, giddy at the prospect of exploring something beautiful and new. Granted, Toby had her hands full and wasn’t able to stay long, but her time in the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist made me as happy as the proverbial clam. Come to think of it, any time Toby visits some place new, be it the Shadow Roads or Goldengreen, I feel just so. The world-building is that good, I swear. Now, as for the latter part of the first sentence in this getting-longer-by-the-second paragraph, I can’t say much for fear of spoiling some BIG things, but let’s leave it at this: while my mind is firmly, and I do mean firmly, set, I felt a momentary pang of emotion that, for a quiet moment, leveled me. Just like that. And now, more than ever, the possibility of what might come next leaves me breathless.

For all that happens, and while I can’t explain it, One Salt Sea felt like a more subdued story. Hushed even, at times. Little things affected me more than ever before, particularly involving Quentin, Toby’s friend and newly appointed squire, and Raj, Tybalt’s sweetly fierce nephew. Those two almost – almost – match Tybalt’s hold on me. I also increasingly find myself enjoying the friendship that Toby and May, former fetch turned roommate, have settled into; it’s perhaps odd how blind I am to female friendships in UF books, usually because the friend has annoying tendencies that make me want to slap her silly and so I gloss over it, but that is not the case here. And my hope that characters introduced in this installment return in future books is not unwarranted as McGuire’s track record of not creating an inconsequential secondary character is still going strong. They all mean something to Toby, for good or ill, and have a place in her world and life, which I heartily appreciate.

Now, you didn’t think I’d be able to wrap up this review without mentioning Tybalt, did you? Even if it is just to say that the very thought of him makes me want to purr like the cat I am not but he most assuredly is. As ever, I loved every second Toby and Tybalt shared the same space, every time Toby thought of him, every word Tybalt said, and he had some deliciously heartrending and mending things to say (more of those little things affecting me hugely), and every action he took to protect her. And what makes matters more amazing? Knowing that we haven’t even begun to see or know all that he is. Oh, Ashes of Honor, you cannot find your way into my hands soon enough.

Did One Salt Sea offer everything I’ve come to expect from an October Daye novel? Obviously, I’d say. Did it give the love I carry inside of me for Toby, her friends, and her world a booster shot? Absolutely. Do I think you should find a copy of Rosemary and Rue, the first book, and set down with it, comfy and with hours to spare, to discover her and them and it for yourself? Well, yes. Can’t you tell?

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer – Michelle Hodkin

Publisher’s Summary:
“Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed. There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love. She’s wrong.”

Note: This was an incredibly hard review to write, but I believe I’ve managed to avoid including spoilers.

My inability to connect with the female protagonists of too many recent YA novels has directly contributed to my ongoing reading slump. Their voices, or lack thereof, do little to compel me to follow them through hundreds of pages, and so, time and again, I set their books aside. The general premise of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer was enough to hook me, and by the time Mara started to grate on my nerves, I was determined to see the thing out.

I liked Mara. At first. Coping with the aftermath of a traumatic event inspired some sympathy in me towards her character. But what went much further towards winning me over? Her back-and-forth banter with her older brother, Daniel, and her obvious fondness for her little brother, Joseph. Make no mistake: Mara is the caustic, take-’em-out-at-the-knees type. And she remained her caustic self (some readers say witty, I say caustic) around Daniel, but in those moments with her brothers, a sweet side came out, betraying a vulnerable aspect of her nature. That, more than anything else, is what I initially responded to. Unfortunately, at some point her decision-making process fell apart. She was no longer the smart, sharp girl she originally seemed to be, and it didn’t ring true, for me at least, that the cause of this degeneration was her mental state. If that had been the case, if I really bought into her unraveling, it would have been one thing. But it got to a point where her character stopped being likable or worthy of sympathy. By novel’s end, all I felt toward her was growing frustration.

It’s stating the obvious, I’m sure, to admit that my favorite characters in the novel were Daniel and Joseph; the same applies to me saying that my favorite interactions involved one or both brothers and Mara. If I’m being particularly honest, Daniel may have been a bit too good to be true, and Joseph perhaps a tad bit too precocious, but that didn’t matter much to me. I’m a sucker for strong family units in fiction, and both of these boys, in their own way, were really there for Mara.

Now. Noah. What to say about Noah? Some wonderfully sexy things came out of his mouth. A girl could fall prey to such talk. I wasn’t entirely immune myself, but at the same time he was no Etienne St. Clair or – and this one might be slightly closer to the mark considering their personalities – Nico Rathburn (in that he didn’t evoke the same kind of Oh God emotion in the pit of my stomach). Noah cultivates a certain reputation for his own reasons, some of which are easily sussed out, but I never quite got a handle on him, or believed his motivation for becoming so inordinately loyal to Mara.

To sum up: I was on a see-saw with the two main characters, one I occasionally wanted to level off, but would have played in the park for days and days with the brothers.

I’ve mentioned before, and forgive me if this is becoming redundant, that I love mystery novels. I have since I was very young and, really, I blame my father: he set my little feet on that path, gave me a nudge, and enabled my need for all things deductive along the way. But what does that have to do with Mara Dyer? Considering the twisting, spiraling trajectory of the plot: everything. And for once, my must-figure-things-out brain pretty much got the better of me. See, I found myself preempting the twists. The slightest hint of a twist on the horizon and, instead of settling into the story to ride it out, I pulled myself from it to work the possibility of what might occur (or what it might mean) the same way I would a Rubik’s Cube, pushing and prodding and snarling until things lined up just right. And so the ending? That supposed-to-be-shocking, cliffhanger ending? Didn’t shock me in the least. Didn’t leave me wide-eyed and scratching my head while attempting to understand what just happened. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was obvious, but there was a trail of breadcrumbs to follow (and to pick up if, like me, you just can’t stand to see them litter the floor). To be fair, I didn’t figure out everything (though I do have a few suspicions).

If you don’t nurse the same tendency to latch onto mystery threads like the proverbial dog with a bone, that last paragraph (and this one too) is irrelevant. I felt the need to include it because being only semi-present (or semi-immersed) for at least the last quarter of the novel affected my reading experience as a whole. Why? Because the secondary result of working the mystery angle so hard was the dulling of the creepier aspects of the story. And, honestly, that was a shame. Every now and again I like a good shivery moment while reading.

If I haven’t gone on enough about it already, there was one thing about the novel that, like my father, enabled my pulling apart of the threads: the pace. It was…leisurely. Not slow, necessarily, but the story took its time unfolding, lingering when the mood struck, more so in the beginning as Mara acclimated to her new school, to Noah’s baffling attention, and to dealing with the discomfort prompted by her mother’s continued perception of her mental and emotional state. If pacing is an issue for you – meaning you prefer fast-paced, action-imbued stories – you may want to take this book’s slow and steady roll into consideration beforehand.

As it turns out, this is one case in which I cannot definitively say that I did or did not like the book. I read it – and, despite how it may seem based on the tone of this review, doing so wasn’t a hardship. Finishing it in a single day is evidence of that. And I’ll likely read the next book. After all, I have to see how some of my suspicions pan out. So. Well. There you have it.

Aftermath – Ann Aguirre

Publisher’s Summary:
“Sirantha Jax has the right genes—ones that enable her to “jump” faster-than-light ships through grimspace. But it’s also in her genetic makeup to go it alone. It’s a character trait that has gotten her into—and out of—hot water time and time again, but now she’s caused one of the most horrific events in military history…

During the war against murderous, flesh-eating aliens, Sirantha went AWOL and shifted grimspace beacons to keep the enemy from invading humanity’s homeworld. The cost of her actions: the destruction of modern interstellar travel—and the lives of six hundred Conglomerate soldiers.

Accused of dereliction of duty, desertion, mass murder, and high treason, Sirantha is on trial for her life. And only time will tell if she’s one of the Conglomerate’s greatest heroes—or most infamous criminals…”

Has there been a more aptly titled novel in recent memory? No. I don’t think so. Because in the aftermath of the emotional gut punch that was Killbox, this book – despite the turmoil that ebbs and flows around Jax within its pages – is a sweet sigh.

Sirantha Jax’s emotional evolution over the course of this series is one of the most rewarding character arcs I’ve ever read. This fifth installment finds her in a mature headspace that the Jax of Grimspace days would have scoffed at, but at her core, Jax is still stubborn, still determined, and still craving the rush of grimspace. She’s not resigned to her fate; she’s accepting of it and willing to meet it head-on. And, more than anything, she’s come to understand how important her patchwork family has become, that she doesn’t have to bear her burdens alone. This settled-in-her-skin Jax makes for wonderful company. And that’s perhaps the primary reason why I found this book so…warm, like water lapping at my feet, and comforting.

I’ve one word for the second reason: Vel. That glorious Ithtorian wrapped me around his talon from the very beginning. In this book, Vel wound the wire tight, tangling me around his every gesture, his every word and wa. (Because the other thing that is so rewarding about this series are the relationships, and not just that between Vel and Jax, though theirs is my favorite. I’ve read few other books in which bonds are formed so beautifully; these characters fight for what they get, including each other, and so each friendship and relationship is forged from equal moments of pain and contentment, which in turn makes them real.) If you could see my book, see the many places I dog-eared the page, you’d see what a hold Vel has on me.

What I’m trying to say, in a very clumsy fashion, is that Aftermath, like every Sirantha Jax book that came before it, was wonderful. There were parts of the story that, you know, if a person could glow with happiness, I would have rivaled a field of fireflies.

If you enjoy stories that engage your emotions, stories that put you through the ringer, and characters that live on the page and grow before your eyes, this series should top your list of ones to check out.