Tuesday Book Review

Four-star review of Boy of Chaotic Making (Whimbrel House Book 3) by Charlie N. Holmberg

In the third book of the series, Merritt, his now fiancée Hulda and Owein (in the body of a terrier) travel to London at the request of Queen Victoria who offers to put Owein and his magical abilities into the body of a boy who will one day marry Lady Cora, who is a relative to the Queen. As usual, many of the large cast are well-developed characters. Moral issues involved in the story, and that Merritt in particular wrestles with, forced me to downgrade this novel from a full five-star review, but the writing, as is usual for Holmberg, is excellent. I do enjoy reading about Merritt and Hulda and the development of their relationship, their magical abilities and uses. And I do love how Owein’s soul continues to grow no matter what form it’s in. I’ll look forward to more books in the series. 

Tuesday Book Review

 

Five-star review of The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

This was a fun paranormal/horror story, or rather two stories intertwined. One is the story of super-nice guy Benny Catspaw’s childhood filled with psychopathic people including the wife of the headmaster of the boarding school he was sent to. The other is his present day where he’s just lost his job and was about to lose his girlfriend. In the second, the intervention of a seven-foot tall Craggle named Spike as well as a girl named Harper Harper help him through a series of confrontations with people who abhor his niceness. I always enjoy Koontz’s books, but this was one of, if not THE best ones.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

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Five-star review of The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle Book 1) by Patrick Rothfuss

 

This first in a two-book series is a prime example of a story within a story. We spend the first five or six chapters firmly in the current time for innkeeper Kote, his student Bast and Chronicler before we begin to get into the main history of Kvothe. Some would say it’s not the main story, but I read it as such. We only get his boyhood and early teens in this book, but so much happens. His early days with a band of Ruh, his efforts to stay alive in Tarbean, and his time in Imre and at the University with his first love Denna weaving through. But the last chapters show how important the framing of the story is. The writing is excellent, the way it plays out the story kept me reading when I should have been doing other things. Every time I picked the book up, it transported me to the world that Rothfuss created, a world filled with magic and magic users, myths and legends.