Book Review: Red Glove, by Holly Black

This book is the second in a trilogy and therefore this review will inevitably contain spoilers for the first book, White Cat.

I don't have any red gloves...

White Cat is a tough act to follow and I was worried that Red Glove wouldn't live up to its promises, especially as I began reading it immediately after.

In Red Glove Cassel becomes less isolated and more involved with the other characters' lives. He has another mystery that he needs to solve - to get federal agents off his back, but the story is also about his developing friendships, the changes in his family relationships after the revelations of White Cat, and of course his relationship with Lila, cursed to love him. He is also being courted by Lila's father, who wants to use his abilities for his own criminal ends.

I felt like the mystery was a little less compelling this time, even though I guessed parts of the reveal in White Cat and didn't guess what had happened in Red Glove. However, the new worldbuilding details that were revealed along with the developments in Cassel's relationships more than made up for it. I loved finding out about the politics of the world, about the campaigns to give curse workers more freedom and those to persecute them. I really want to know more about Daneca's mother.

It's difficult to go into much detail without bringing in spoilers, so I'll end by saying that if you enjoyed White Cat, you will very probably also enjoy Red Glove, so what are you waiting for?

Book Review: White Cat, by Holly Black

Cassel Sharpe, our narrator, is the youngest in his family of "curse workers" - magic users. But unlike his mother and brothers and grandfather, he doesn't have any powers of his own. He's an outsider, isolated from his family, but also from the rest of the world, brought up to be a conman, and hiding a very dark secret. He doesn't know how or why, but he killed his best friend, Lila. His brothers have told him how they found him and protected him. His secret is safe, even from himself.

Cassel goes to a boarding school where he runs a betting pool to earn the money he needs to keep up appearances and to give himself a role to play in the school's social life. But the whole charade, as well as Cassel, nearly comes tumbling down when he wakes one night on the roof of the school dorms, after a dream about a white cat. Forced to return to his family home, he slowly becomes aware that his brothers are still keeping secrets from him.

This is the second series by Holly Black that I've read. I had mixed feelings about the Modern Faerie Tale series, as you'll see if you check out my reviews of Tithe and Valiant. I found it difficult to empathise with Kaye's story in Tithe and found the pacing hard to get on with, but on the other hand I loved the worldbuilding and adored Valiant - it's one of my favourite books.

I think that a lot of readers tried Tithe and didn't like it, so they've never given Holly Black another chance, and that's why I hadn't heard a whole lot about White Cat before reading it.

But for me it was a must-read. What I loved most about the Modern Faerie Tales was that the teenaged characters seemed so real. They have messed-up families, and create powerful bonds with their friends. They do things that are morally dodgy. They are by turns selfish and selfless. Sometimes they run away from their problems, and other times they try desperately to put their wits to work and fix everything.

I was hoping to get more of the same with the Curse Workers series, and I was not the slightest bit disappointed.  I really, really loved this book. I loved it so much that a) I got the second book in this series and started reading it immediately afterwards and b) I lent my copy of White Cat to my boyfriend (he also really enjoyed it - it made his Best of 2014 Books list).

As much as I love the classic paranormal creatures, vampires, witches, fairies and the rest, it was totally refreshing to read about something new. The idea of 'curse workers' is brilliant and fits in so well with the criminal gangs that Cassel's family are involved with. I also loved that the story revolves around several mysteries - Cassel is the perfect narrator for this, observant and critical. The writing is very well balanced between action and exposition.

I did guess some elements of the big reveal, but that didn't stop me enjoying how it all played out and there were some parts that I didn't anticipate.

In short, White Cat is amazing, Holly Black is underrated, and you should go read it now.

Book Review: Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

One night Rae feels like she needs to get away from everyone, including her family and boyfriend, and have some space to think, so she goes out for a drive by the lake. There she is kidnapped by a group of vampires. They take her to a heavily guarded house by the lake and put her in a room with another vampire, who is chained to the wall, yet able to reach her. Rae is clearly meant to be food, so she is surprised when the vampire doesn't devour her immediately, and instead asks her to talk to him. But he isn't like other vampires, and, it turns out, Rae isn't like other humans either.

 

Sunshine is a very strange book to review. I enjoyed it immensely but was also really annoyed by it! The plot is quite an unusual one as the bulk of the story takes place after Rae escapes the vampires and explores the effect this has on her life. Though she claims that she can't remember anything, and tries to convince herself that life will continue as normal, supernatural law enforcement officials that she has known all her life start turning their attention to her, eager to find out what happened that night. Her mother starts leaving protection charms around. And the vampire that she was held prisoner with hasn't disappeared either.

There's a lot of detail in this book. Rae goes off on a lot of tangents, which some readers don't like, but I loved it. I really enjoyed all the different elements that were brought into the story. The world building and characterisation was excellent and I was desperate to find out what Rae would do and what would be revealed about each character in the end.

And then it just stops.

And not in the first-book-in-a-series cliffhanger kind of way.

At The End of the story, almost nothing has been explained, let alone resolved. The one major relationship has developed, but that's it.

It's extremely frustrating. It seems like there is so much interesting material left to explore, but to the author, the most interesting part, that relationship, has developed, so that's the end of the book. To her it's a love story, but to me, it could have been a lot of other things as well. It could have been an epic about the end of the world. It could have been the best urban fantasy series I'd ever had the privilege of reading.

I respect the right of the author, who is extremely talented, to tell the story she wants to tell. But at the same time I can emphasise with all those people who find Sunshine annoyingly long-winded. I loved the detail, but when most of it turns out to have no bearing on the ending, it seems unnecessary. 

Would I recommend Sunshine? Yes, if you love urban fantasy and like vampires to be properly terrifying, and if you want to see some really interesting ideas, or if you enjoy reading about unusual romantic relationships. But if you like to have mysteries explained, don't get your hopes up about the ending.

I would more broadly recommend Robin McKinley's Spindle's End, which is also full of interesting characters but has a much tighter ending. I've also read Beauty, which is extremely popular, but I didn't like it as much as Spindle's End.

Book Review: My Soul to Take, by Rachel Vincent

Photo by rfduck

One night Kaylee and her best friend Emma sneak their way into a nightclub. They're having a great time, until Kaylee feels the urge to scream rising up her throat. She is convinced that one of the other girls dancing is about to die. Terrified, she leaves the building. The only one who can comfort her is Nash Hudson, one of the most popular boys at school, and his sudden interest in her is almost as confusing as the screaming.

She doesn't want him to find out the truth - this has happened before. Last time, she told her aunt and uncle about it, and they sent her to a mental health unit, where she was given drugs and not allowed to leave until she said she'd gotten over it, that her delusions were gone.  But when she confesses all, Nash seems to have an explanation...

I was originally drawn to My Soul to Take and the rest of the Soul Screamers series because it explores the banshee myth, and I was really intrigued to see how banshees could be placed into a teen fiction universe. I read a few positive reviews of the series, mostly from Jo at Once Upon a Bookcase, so I was quite looking forward to giving it a try, and happily I was given a copy at the MIRA Ink Blogger Party.

Kaylee is a thoughtful, strong-willed protagonist, who insists on pursuing the truth and won't take the easy way out. Nash doesn't have as vibrant a personality, but I'm sure he'll blossom in later novels, especially as his rivalry with Ted develops. The characterisation of the supporting cast was really good considering that this is a pretty short novel and there are quite a lot of secondary characters. I really liked Uncle Brendon, Aunt Val, Ted, and Emma. I didn't like Sophie, Kaylee's spoilt cousin, but I enjoyed disliking her and found her character convincing.

I did guess what Kaylee's dad's big reveal was going to be, but, despite various clues along the way, I didn't suspect what the final twists would be. At times the pacing is a bit off and it seemed to speed up a lot more towards the end, but I think pacing in a novel like this must be really hard. It's the first in a series of seven books, so Rachel Vincent had to give a realistic amount of information to the reader but also keep a lot of secrets, and I think she managed this really well, though Kaylee did seem a bit too accepting at times.

I don't think My Soul to Take is a lifechanging, must-read kind of book, but I'm sure it's not supposed to be. It's fun, competently-written supernatural romance/drama, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series. If you like supernatural fiction and would like a break from all the vampires and fairies, give this a try.

 

Book Review: Dead Witch Walking, by Kim Harrison

I didn’t actually know much about the plot of this book before I read it. I’d heard a few people saying that they liked the author’s work, and I’d listened to the episode of I Should Be Writing that featured an interview with her. When I picked it up to read last month, after getting through all my BISP month books, I did, what for me, is an unusual thing. I looked at the blurb.

Instantly I remembered why it had lurked on my TBR pile for more than a year. The blurb is appalling. I don’t know what it’s like on the UK edition, but I’ve got the US/CAN edition, and it tells you the protagonists name, that she’s a bounty hunter and witch, the name of the place where she lives, and that there are vampires there. It doesn’t tell you anything about the plot, or even about the world really. Usually when I write my little plot introductions for reviews, I get a bit nervous about doing the book the proper amount of justice, but this time I am confident, because the blurb set the standard so low!

Dead Witch Walking is set in an alternate universe, where, shortly after the discovery of DNA, a virus was bioengineered that decimated the human population. Previously humans had massively outnumbered all the supernatural creatures – or Inderlanders – but now the numbers are a lot closer to even. Rachel Morgan is one such Inderlander, working for their branch of the police, until she gets sick of getting all the worst jobs. One night she decides to quit, and to her surprise, successful living vampire Ivy and pixy Jenks offer to work with her. Their boss wouldn’t mind Rachel leaving, he’s wanted rid of her for a while, but when he finds out that Ivy is leaving with her, he puts a price on Rachel’s head. Hence the title, Dead Witch Walking. Rachel and her new partners have to find a way to work together to get Inderlander Security to call off the assassins before Rachel runs out of time.

I enjoyed Dead Witch Walking and I read it relatively quickly. I really liked the world in which it was set, however, there was something missing. A really strong protagonist. I’ve read several times that if writers are struggling to decide which character in their story should be the first person narrator, they should pick the one that is the most interesting. I just didn’t feel like Rachel was the most interesting character in the story, quite the opposite, in fact. I was really intrigued by Ivy and her relationship with her parents and other vampires, and by Jenks, his wife and many children. Rachel just didn’t seem that exciting by comparison, perhaps her life is just too straightforward, but I wondered whether the author was deliberately holding back information about Rachel, possibly to put it into later books. There was a lot that wasn’t really explained, like her relationship with her mother. I also couldn’t understand why Rachel was so impulsive, and why she would get herself into really risky situations without any sort of plan to escape them.

I have read on Goodreads and other websites that this series does get better, some people have even said that it’s worth persevering because the later books are amazing. I’m willing to give this series a couple more books to improve, so willing I’ve already got the second, The Good, The Bad and The Undead, on my TBR!

Book Review: Bite, by Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, and Vickie Taylor

Bite is a collection of supernatural romance stories, all featuring vampires. There is a range of writers featured, from the most famous and popular (Laurell K. Hamilton) to the virtually unknown (Vickie Taylor, who had only published mainstream romance before this).

The first story, 'The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death', by Laurell K. Hamilton, is set in her Anita Blake universe and narrated by Anita. It takes place between Blue Moon and Obsidian Butterfly. I have read most of this series so I was already familiar with some of the characters. In this story, a woman comes to see Anita at work because her daughter is planning to become a vampire. The girl is seventeen and has bone cancer in both legs. Her mother wants Anita to find her daughter before she is turned. But this assignment means that Anita has to go pay a visit to one of the boyfriends she is avoiding, Jean-Claude, vampire Master of the City.

I enjoyed this story as I enjoyed all Laurell K. Hamilton's earlier Anita Blake novels, although the human-wanting-to-escape-mortality-by-becoming-a-vampire plot is getting a bit overdone. I did think the ending was quite rushed, and I've always found Jean-Claude to be a pretty cheesy character - French accent and silk boxers? No thanks!

'One Word Answer' is the second story. It's by Charlaine Harris and features Sookie Stackhouse and some other characters from the Southern Vampire Mysteries series. One evening, a limousine pulls up outside Sookie's home, and a Mr Cataliades gets out, to tell Sookie that her cousin Hadley is dead - and that she used to be a vampire. I hadn't read any of Charlaine Harris' writing before this, and I was intrigued by this story, but not enough to run out and buy "Dead Until Dark" immediately, although I look forward to reading it at some point in the future. It seemed to have only slight erotic undertones so I wasn't sure how it fitted in with the rest of the stories, which are more explicit, but the characters were interesting.

The third story is by MaryJanice Davidson, and is called 'Biting In Plain Sight'. Sophie Tourneau is a vampire and a vet - everyone in her small town knows she is a vampire, but they accept it and it is not discussed. Liam is 38 and has been attracted to her forever, regularly pretending his cats are sick just so he can see her. He finally decides to make his move and invites her into his home for a drink after she has overseen his cat having kittens, but whilst there a news report comes on the television. There have been several recent deaths of teenage girls, officially suicides, but their parents believe they were killed. Sophie decides to investigate, and Liam insists on coming along. I enjoyed this story the most. I thought the vampire characters were the least conventional, and although, having not read any of the novels in the Undead series, I did not understand a lot of what was going on when Sophie and Liam went to see Queen Betsy, it worked better as a short story in my opinion than anything else in this collection. The blossoming romance between Sophie and Liam was sweet and well-developed.

Fourth in this collection is 'Galahad', by Angela Knight. This story was weird. It's the King Arthur/Knights of the Round Table legend - if all the men were vampires, and all the women were witches. Caroline was an English teacher until she slept with a vampire and her witch - Majae - powers were released. Now she suffers from painful visions, but can do pretty much anything with magic. One day she has a vision which leads her to meet Sir Galahad, and together they attempt to save the world by defeating evil vampires and witches. I could have got along with the premise if it wasn't for the jarring modern tone of the story. Considering that King Arthur et al originated in ancient England, there were an awful lot of Americanisms, and there was very little historical atmosphere. The rules of magic were never explained - Caroline can do almost anything she wants whenever she wants, and the whole thing seemed a little too much to me like an excuse for sex scenes. Lots and lots of sex scenes. Cringeworthy sex scenes. There are puns. Bad lines. More puns. If I keep this book, it will be because the many cheesy lines in this story are great to read out with friends and cringe over! Some people may be into really cheesy innuendo...but I'm not!

The final story is 'Blood Lust' by Vickie Taylor. This story is a bit more original than the title suggests. Daniel has just finished his project of creating synthetic blood, when Garth, the man who sponsored his research beats him up and takes the only copy of the formula, and his home, lab, and money away. Even worse, he has turned Daniel's girlfriend, Sue Ellen, into a vampire. When Daniel recovers he decides that they only way to have his revenge is to become a vampire himself, so that he can fight Garth and kill Sue Ellen to save her living a life she would not have wanted. Daniel tracks down Déadre, a lonely female vampire, and attempts to persuade her to help him. Unfortunately, the romance was unrealistic - Daniel and Déadre fall in 'love' within a couple of hours. The twist was not that hard to anticipate, but as a short story, it was more self-contained than the others.

If you are a reader of supernatural romance and you have never read any of these authors before, reading Bite is a good way to test them out, and if you are a real fan of any of these authors you will probably consider this book a must-read. I would also recommend it to anyone who wants a good giggle at the bad puns in 'Galahad'. Regular short story readers, however, would probably be unsatisfied by these stories, which, apart from 'Blood Lust', are not standalone short stories. I would describe this book as a sampler for the writers and their fictional worlds, as most of the pieces are not true short stories but excerpts.

As most of these stories feature "adult content", I wouldn't recommend this book for younger urban fantasy/horror fans, but there are several more age-appropriate short story collections out now, for example, the "from Hell" books.