liseyp's reviews
1358 reviews

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Kell is one of the last Antari, magical brings powerful enough to cross the boundaries between worlds. Lila is a pickpocket who dreams of adventure. When she picks the wrong pocket and adventure finds her, life will never be the same again. 

 

I had to read this one because my daughter recommended it, and while she rarely reads she’d ordered the two sequels before she was halfway through this one. I’m not as big a fan. Having read more widely I find that this pales in comparison to the Realm of the Elderlings or Mistborn series. 

 

However, the characters are decent. There’s a sense of threat and pacing that carries the story along. And some reasonable world building. But, perhaps best suited to people who are intimidated by longer fantasy series, and are looking for a lighter entry to worlds of complex magic and tradition. 

The Shadow Key by Susan Stokes-Chapman

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Thank you to the author, publisher Harvill Secker, and online book club The Pigeonhole for the chance to read this. This is an honest and voluntary review. 

 

After losing his job as a surgeon in disgrace Henry Talbot accepts the position of family doctor at an estate in Wales. Refusing to believe local legends of ill luck and counter charms, Henry is intrigued at what he believes are more scientific reasons behind the death of his predecessor and the ramblings of the mentally ill lady of the estate. 

 

A compelling gothic mystery. 

 

 I liked both main characters. Henry Talbot avoids being either as stereotypical as the villagers assume he will be, while not being too virtuous either. Linette, as the daughter of the estate family left to basically raise herself is also a well-balanced character. 

 

Although the villains are occasionally almost cartoonishly evil in how unredeemable they are, the plotting is well-paced enough that this doesn’t distract from the story too much. 

Dark Road Home: A tense and gripping Irish crime thriller by Sheila Bugler

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Thank you to the author, publisher Canelo Crime, and online book club The Pigeonhole for the chance to read this. This is an honest and voluntary review. 

 

More than two decades after leaving home Leah Ryan returns to her small Irish hometown at the same time to discover that her high school boyfriend has been murdered and it may all tie back to the night her mother was severely injured in a hit and run incident. 

 

Ambitious story, but story-telling style pulled me out of the plotting too often. 

 

The core story of the woman returning to a small town who know many of the parts of her she tried to run away from then discovering the secrets her friends and family were hiding from her, is a good one. 

 

The main character of Leah is likeable, and there are some decent supporting characters. The story could have been greatly improved with more focus on a couple of them though. The lead detective investigating the murder feels more a source of exposition than of driving the story forward. And the darker characters which would have been more interesting to explore remain quite surface level too. 

 

Plus, and this is absolutely a matter of personal taste, I’m not a fan of story styles where there are info dumps to catch readers up who aren’t paying attention - and it irked me particularly in this one because I thought the author had done a really good job of seeding the back story until one character has to spell it all out for those who weren’t paying attention. One of the advantages of reading on a format where you can see other readers’ reactions and views as they go through the book, means I know many readers appreciated the recap, but it really pulled me out of the story and contributed to that character grating every time they appeared. 

 

Also, and again I’m sure this is also personal preference, but, ‘twists’ that are delivered by people in peril, fade to black, next chapter opens after a time jump when all imminent peril has been removed, just feel like a ‘cheat’ move. And it happens twice. 

 

There is a core of a good story here, and lots of potential in the delivery, and I think that just makes me more disappointed, because it just falls short for me. 

The Puppet Master by Sam Holland

sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.

Not for me. I have no issue with swearing where it helps with characterisation, but this just felt like a 12-year-old showing off by swearing every second word. I didn’t care about the main character and had no sense of world building. There are vampires and semi-vampires so what. Life is too short to keep reading this.

The Collapsing Wave by Doug Johnstone

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

After helping an alien octopus (Sandy) flee across Scotland Ava, Heather and Lennox are trapped. The US Army has taken charge of investigating the aquatic alien lifeforms and are using Heather and Lennox’s connection to the creatures to perform inhumane testing.

 

The found family bond between the four main characters from The Space Between Us continues to be the warm beating heart of the second book in this series. We get to find out more about Sandy and their fellow Encaladons, and unfortunately explore more of the harsh reality of how an encounter with a peaceful alien race would likely play out with military superpowers. 

 

High tension, great characters and big concepts all delivered in fewer than 300 pages without a word wasted. 

The Curator by M.W. Craven

mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A criminal mastermind who manipulates other people to commit crimes. Is he simply a myth or a real threat. Sergeant Washington Poe and analyst Tilly Bradshaw are hot on the trail to uncover the truth.

 

A fun read. I found some of the drama of the final resolution was undermined by how many obstacles were put in the way of the dash to rescue. It was pushing the boundaries of how much I could suspend my disbelief.  And the ‘I know but you don’t’ gradual reveal of all of the facts got tired very quickly. But, Poe and Tilly’s relationship provided a strong highlight which kept me interested.

Goodbye Birdie Greenwing by Ericka Waller

emotional funny sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Medical student Will Raven and housemaid Sarah Parish are both keen to rise above their  station. The debt and threats of violence for non-payment which hangs over Will and the societal barriers placed on Sarah by both her sex and class may however be insurmountable. But, Will and Sarah team up to uncover the truth behind a series of deaths.

 

Great characters, excellent plotting, and plenty of historical facts/context without it seeming like a lecture. I love Chris Brookmyre’s solo books, although I’ll admit to a certain amount of trepidation about how that would translate to historical crime fiction. 

 

But, the balance between his plot and character development experience and his co-author Marisa Haetzman’s subject matter knowledge combine to make this debut novel by Ambrose Parry (their joint pen name) truly excellent.

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Oxford is the centre of the British Empire’s dominance. London may be where Parliament and industry is, but Oxford manages the silver and the magic of language that powers the silver industrial age. Students come from around the world using their knowledge of their native languages to fuel research at Babel.

 

I’ve commented on a recent review that I can have a hit or miss relationship with fantasy fiction. And, while I’ve heard many good reviews of Babel I was concerned that it would stray into the complex world building that overlooks the plotting that is common amongst fantasy novels I don’t get on with.

 

Actually the world building here is simple. So simple in fact that the fantastical element of silver imbued with magical features by translated word pairs is almost irrelevant. The story feels like it could have been told quite easily without this aspect at all and just worked as a straightforward reimagined historical novel to make a point about colonialism and privilege.

 

The language focus on where words come from and common ancestry was interesting initially, but overdone. I found my brain skipping large sections of this, and likewise I skipped over most of the footnotes because it felt they were just distracting from the story.

 

While it’s a very slow burner I did eventually feel engaged in the outcomes for the characters, although it took over halfway through the book before I felt like there was enough depth to care about them enough to be worth keeping reading. Until that point I was constantly fighting the temptation to just give up.

 

More worthy than enjoyable, and actually I think I’d have preferred to read non-fiction about the reality of colonialism, because I’d at least have gone into that expecting the experience to be more educational than entertaining.