Tuesday Book Review

Four-star review of Spellbreaker by Charlie N. Holmberg

The latest duology by the author begins with the story about Elsie Camden, a spellbreaker or rather spell unraveler in a late 19^th century England where magic is real. She’d been left by her family with strangers, sent to the workhouse, worked in service for one noblemen and finally ended up working for a stonemason as a kind of secretary. She receives letters from someone she calls the Cowls that imply that the spells she’s asked to unravel will help the poor. In the process of unraveling one, she’s caught at it by as aspector or spellmaker. The story takes off from there. It may not be as exciting or original as most of Holmberg’s work, but I enjoyed it. I’ll look for book two when it comes out in 2021. 

Tuesday Book Review

 

Five-star review of The Buried World (Book 2 of the Grave Kingdom) by Jeff Wheeler

In the second book of the series, Bingmei’s adventures become more intense as she fights against the will of the evil Echion, the Dragon of Night. Many members of her ensign are there to assist her and so are a few former enemies. But she realizes she must fulfill her destiny as the Phoenix-Chosen. Filled with action and suspense, as well as excellent world-building that relies on Asian influences, this book is clean enough for even early teens to read. I’ve already purchased book 3 in the series and will start it soon.

Tuesday book review on Wednesday

 

Four(-and-a-half) star review of The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card

This begins with a longish story within a story about a boy writing down the history of Jason Worthing and his descendants. Snippets of the boy’s own story are interspersed with the history told to him by telepathy. Many interesting characters populate each. This is followed by a compilation of shorter stories that involve some of the people in the history. Running through it all is the use of somec, a drug that allows a person to sleep for a time dependent on their wealth and position, thus ‘prolonging’ their lives. But they aren’t really living during the time their asleep. Their memories are extracted and kept for them and then reintroduced when they wake. The use of somec allowed interstellar travel, which seems to be the only good use. Card’s writing was excellent as usual.

Tuesday book reviews on Wednesday

 

Three-star review of Butcher Rising (The After War 2) by Brandon Zenner

The second book in the After War series is bloody, violent and very unlike the first book in the series. I had a hard time reading about atrocity after atrocity committed by a group determined to control all of the United State. A large part of the book covers the efforts of Karl and his group to capture the town of Alice. I gave this three stars because the writing is very good; otherwise, I would have given it a one or two star review.

Tuesday book reviews

 

Four-star review of Beast by Anna Willett

Two well-written horror short stories make up this book. The first, Last Call, is a good reason to never visit a haunted house, even with a friend. In the second, The Widow, Dan’s experiences may have scared him straight. Both stories are filled with vivid descriptions. Since I’m not a fan of horror stories, if I hadn’t been given an ARC of these to read, I wouldn’t have picked this up. Perfect for this time of year, though.

Five-star review of New Worlds: Rogue Star #2 by Jasper T. Scott

Like the first one in the series, this is a fast-moving story, this time focusing on Logan’s attempts to find his son and on the amazing technology of the robotic Screechers who have invaded Earth. Logan, his wife and daughter are living in a hidden underwater city, but his son was left behind. Logan especially is a very believable character with many choices to make. Some of those get him into desperate situations. The wrap-up is far-fetched, but after all the twists and turns, why not?

Tuesday Book Review

 

Three-star review of Key Lime Die by Summer Prescott

Like the first book in the series, the first half of this one was build-up. The murder didn’t occur until the halfway point. As expected from that build-up, Marilyn was suspected of killing her rival pie maker. She did solve the crime, I’ll give her that. I like Marilyn and love key lime pie, but I don’t think I’ll read more stories about her misadventures.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

 

Five-star review of Rogue Star: Frozen Earth by Jasper T. Scott

I always enjoy this kind of science fiction story, especially if it’s as well-done as this one. A rogue asteroid is hurtling toward Earth. It will cause another ice age, affecting the northern half of the U.S.

Named for Richard Greenhouse who discovered it, the rogue hides an invasion by alien robots. Richard’s sister Kate, brother-in-law Logan, and their family don’t take his warnings that it’s coming until it’s almost too late for them to fly from New Jersy to San Antonio and join him in the compound he created. But the story really picks up after they do. The characters are real, and their reactions to the invasion by the aliens before the rogue arrives are also real. I’ve already purchased the second book in the series and will read it very soon.