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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
In a world where Russian wizards have waged war on the U.S., fracturing it into several separate countries, traveling across the continent is fraught with danger. You need to hire gunslingers to protect your journey. Someone like Lizbeth Rose, who may or may not have some magical powers herself.
With the exception of the rape scene in the beginning of the book, I quite enjoyed this adventure, especially our heroine Gunnie Rose. I wish there was more magic involved but since this is the first book in the series, I suspect more magic will be involved moving forward.
Books 1-4 are currently available for free with #KindleUnlimited and Book 6 is due out next summer, so there’s time to catch up!
Thank you to Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, for the free copy for review.
With the exception of the rape scene in the beginning of the book, I quite enjoyed this adventure, especially our heroine Gunnie Rose. I wish there was more magic involved but since this is the first book in the series, I suspect more magic will be involved moving forward.
Books 1-4 are currently available for free with #KindleUnlimited and Book 6 is due out next summer, so there’s time to catch up!
Thank you to Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, for the free copy for review.
Easy, engaging read. Once you pick this book up, you’ll be hard pressed to put it down!
This book is a fantasy western with magical elements. However, it was a little too action-packed for me. I would have preferred a little more character development or world building.
When I read the blurb for this book, I was intrigued. I almost stopped reading after the first chapter because the main character, Gunnie Rose, simply didn't interest me. I'm glad I stuck with it, but I don't know that I have any real interest in reading the sequel. So, I liked it for its uniqueness, but I think the delivery was lacking.
This one was hard for me to figure out what was going on (maybe due to audiobook vs print).
More like a 3.5 read for me and the beginning was entirely the reason for that. Harris is in that rarified stratum where her name seems to mean editors do less editing because I can't think of any other reason why no one questions FIFTY pages of introduction. The actual story doesn't start until 55 pages in. And what's worse, the intro nearly drove me off.
This is a dystopic alternative history that I can't even figure out the time period. I'm assuming the 1940s but you can't quite tell because we keep getting referred back to 1918 and the Russian revolution and the 1918 flu. But then we have FDR being assassinated and America literally falling to pieces (I was amused Canada snatched up some of us). The northeast reestablished itself as a British colony (seems somehow unlikely) Russia has the west coast (where their exiled Tsar rules and is a major plot point), the south is its own country and Mexico got Texas partially back and the rest is Texohoma (Where our heroine lives) and the Native Americans got back some of their lands (another thing that seemed unlikely if this IS 1940, they were pretty damned and sadly broken by then)
Our protagonist is a Gunnie, a Western styled gunslinger (seriously, are there no rules because she shoots people dead every five minutes) named Lisbeth Rose. And it opens with her and her lover's crew escorting a family into another (and better) territory than Texohoma. So yeah honestly fifty pages on these characters who won't play a role other than in Gunnie Rose's memories seems a lot, especially when it has an on page rape of one of the family memories (allowing Rose to blast the crap out of the rapists mid-rape), the murder of a child, and a pack of wild dogs savaging another child (and then the brutal killing of said dogs). Yeah it establishes how awful this world is but it is so long that I just couldn't care by the end of it. It's like I get it. This place is bad. Can we move on, maybe without rape scenes and brutalizing children? And that's me saying this. I have a taste for dark fic.
So once Rose is back from this mission she finds two Grigoris, Russian witches, at her home wanting to hire her. Without spoiling things, let's leave it as a) Rose is keeping a major secret that impacts this mission and b) she hates the Grigori. If she helps them, it may save the Tsar's life (He is a hemophiliac) It might keep what's left of America from getting worse. But more important to her, it pays well.
Rose reluctantly accompanies them and there is death at every turn. Once Gunnie Rose takes the mission, the story really takes off. The characters are great and I enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had started at page 55.
This is a dystopic alternative history that I can't even figure out the time period. I'm assuming the 1940s but you can't quite tell because we keep getting referred back to 1918 and the Russian revolution and the 1918 flu. But then we have FDR being assassinated and America literally falling to pieces (I was amused Canada snatched up some of us). The northeast reestablished itself as a British colony (seems somehow unlikely) Russia has the west coast (where their exiled Tsar rules and is a major plot point), the south is its own country and Mexico got Texas partially back and the rest is Texohoma (Where our heroine lives) and the Native Americans got back some of their lands (another thing that seemed unlikely if this IS 1940, they were pretty damned and sadly broken by then)
Our protagonist is a Gunnie, a Western styled gunslinger (seriously, are there no rules because she shoots people dead every five minutes) named Lisbeth Rose. And it opens with her and her lover's crew escorting a family into another (and better) territory than Texohoma. So yeah honestly fifty pages on these characters who won't play a role other than in Gunnie Rose's memories seems a lot, especially when it has an on page rape of one of the family memories (allowing Rose to blast the crap out of the rapists mid-rape), the murder of a child, and a pack of wild dogs savaging another child (and then the brutal killing of said dogs). Yeah it establishes how awful this world is but it is so long that I just couldn't care by the end of it. It's like I get it. This place is bad. Can we move on, maybe without rape scenes and brutalizing children? And that's me saying this. I have a taste for dark fic.
So once Rose is back from this mission she finds two Grigoris, Russian witches, at her home wanting to hire her. Without spoiling things, let's leave it as a) Rose is keeping a major secret that impacts this mission and b) she hates the Grigori. If she helps them, it may save the Tsar's life (He is a hemophiliac) It might keep what's left of America from getting worse. But more important to her, it pays well.
Rose reluctantly accompanies them and there is death at every turn. Once Gunnie Rose takes the mission, the story really takes off. The characters are great and I enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had started at page 55.
I do not like dystopian novels. BUT I love Charlaine Harris and figured the world she set Gunnie Rose in wasn’t that far off the fantastical world Sookie inhabited. I am glad I trusted one of my favorite authors. It was fun, interesting and engrossing. There were some gruesome descriptions but nothing overwhelming. I enjoyed the twists of history more than I expected. I hope she writes a bit more of Gunnie Rose’s story because I really liked this book.
Just not for me. I gave it 1/2 the book and then stopped forcing myself to read on. I had hoped it would read more like the Sookie Stackhouse books.
"Is there a sheriff?" she asked our host.
There was a kind of ripple of chuckling, and it made its way through the little crowd. "No," Jim said. "We got enough troubles without a sheriff."
"Then it doesn't make any difference what we do with the body," I said to Jim. "You got no beef with me killing him, I take it."
"He wasn't shooting at none of us," Jim said, and there was a lot of wise head nodding.
Hey! Charlaine Harris (she wrote the Sookie Stackhouse books and a lot of other stuff, more on that in a bit) is writing a Western series with 5 books in it so far--and more on the way--and it's pretty good! And because it's Charlaine Harris, there's a trace of magic in it and a relatable heroine with an always entertaining interior monologue. But best of all, our heroine is a badass who ain't giving no fucks and I love that for her.
(I wonder if there is a name for this sub-genre. Like instead of solarpunk or dieselpunk, it's.....cactuspunk? Prairiepunk? I will continue to workshop this.)
In this alternate version of the United States, there actually is no United States, just a collection of somewhat connected territories living in various states of lawlessness after FDR was assassinated (I put this story to take place in the mid to late 1930's.) Lizbeth "Gunnie" Rose lives in Texoma and that makes traveling the roads with a crew of gunnies essential. This works out great for her because she's good at it, she can live an independent life, and maybe one day she'll be able to buy a fridge before she hopefully meets the best thing someone in her job can have: an easy death.
Cue title card.
The story starts off with a bang and soon Lizbeth finds herself looking for new employment, which comes in the form of a pair of Russian wizards on a mission to find a man Lizbeth might know. She also knows that he is dead, so already things are complicated. The Russians aren't being totally forthcoming about what they are doing but, then again, neither is Lizbeth. What follows are gun battles! Magic! Double crosses! A lot of killing! A lot of desert! And a pretty exciting, twisty plot.
Uhm, I don't read romance novels, ok? Is this a romance? Ok, I don't really read romance either, but I do love Charlaine Harris because romance, if there is one, is usually a small piece of the whole story, and that's especially true here. Gunnie has some chemistry with someone, that's about it.
(There is a small amount of sex, which is fine since it's otherwise a pretty grim, bloody story and it's maybe a page's worth.)
This gave me 4 stars of entertainment and I am ready to read the rest of the series immediately. Speaking of which--
Charlaine Harris series power rankings:
Slay the house down boots. Houston, I'm deceased:
Gunnie Rose
Lilly Bard
Partial slay:
Southern Vampire series (Everyone on this planet hates the way this series ended, but if you suffered through True Blood, you should know the books are much better.)
Like One Third Slay:
Harper Connelly
I don't know how to feel:
Aurora Teagarden (too cozy for me, but try this if you like that genre or the Hallmark movies.)
There was a kind of ripple of chuckling, and it made its way through the little crowd. "No," Jim said. "We got enough troubles without a sheriff."
"Then it doesn't make any difference what we do with the body," I said to Jim. "You got no beef with me killing him, I take it."
"He wasn't shooting at none of us," Jim said, and there was a lot of wise head nodding.
Hey! Charlaine Harris (she wrote the Sookie Stackhouse books and a lot of other stuff, more on that in a bit) is writing a Western series with 5 books in it so far--and more on the way--and it's pretty good! And because it's Charlaine Harris, there's a trace of magic in it and a relatable heroine with an always entertaining interior monologue. But best of all, our heroine is a badass who ain't giving no fucks and I love that for her.
(I wonder if there is a name for this sub-genre. Like instead of solarpunk or dieselpunk, it's.....cactuspunk? Prairiepunk? I will continue to workshop this.)
In this alternate version of the United States, there actually is no United States, just a collection of somewhat connected territories living in various states of lawlessness after FDR was assassinated (I put this story to take place in the mid to late 1930's.) Lizbeth "Gunnie" Rose lives in Texoma and that makes traveling the roads with a crew of gunnies essential. This works out great for her because she's good at it, she can live an independent life, and maybe one day she'll be able to buy a fridge before she hopefully meets the best thing someone in her job can have: an easy death.
Cue title card.
The story starts off with a bang and soon Lizbeth finds herself looking for new employment, which comes in the form of a pair of Russian wizards on a mission to find a man Lizbeth might know. She also knows that he is dead, so already things are complicated. The Russians aren't being totally forthcoming about what they are doing but, then again, neither is Lizbeth. What follows are gun battles! Magic! Double crosses! A lot of killing! A lot of desert! And a pretty exciting, twisty plot.
Uhm, I don't read romance novels, ok? Is this a romance? Ok, I don't really read romance either, but I do love Charlaine Harris because romance, if there is one, is usually a small piece of the whole story, and that's especially true here. Gunnie has some chemistry with someone, that's about it.
(There is a small amount of sex, which is fine since it's otherwise a pretty grim, bloody story and it's maybe a page's worth.)
This gave me 4 stars of entertainment and I am ready to read the rest of the series immediately. Speaking of which--
Charlaine Harris series power rankings:
Slay the house down boots. Houston, I'm deceased:
Gunnie Rose
Lilly Bard
Partial slay:
Southern Vampire series (Everyone on this planet hates the way this series ended, but if you suffered through True Blood, you should know the books are much better.)
Like One Third Slay:
Harper Connelly
I don't know how to feel:
Aurora Teagarden (too cozy for me, but try this if you like that genre or the Hallmark movies.)
mysterious
tense
medium-paced