Review: For No Mortal Creature

For No Mortal Creature by Keshe Chow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Obsessed ghosts traveling through ghostly realms looking for a sword is definitely my jam.

Jia Yi discovers she has resurrection magic, which throws her life into turmoil for several reasons: firstly, she is now being asked to carry out a mission for a prince; second, she still needs to save her dying grandma; and third, the boy who once betrayed her has been haunting her since his untimely death a year earlier.

It was a really interesting setup to me, as I'm a big fan of thinking about ghosts and the afterlife. This explores an afterlife made up of levels - ghosts can still die, and lower through the levels as they do.

I've never read Wuthering Heights, but I presume Lin's unhelathy obsession with Jia Yi is very much why the author compares the two. I didn't like him at all, and that obsession was all red flags to me.

Essien, on the other hand, was warm and safe and absolutely stole my heart to the point that I was very mad any time Lin got in Jia's face.

Definitely some interesting relationship dynamics here.

There's also the thread of family - Jia's grandma is a huge part of the motivation for this story, and her sisters play roles as well.

There's plenty of action, and some rather interesting beasties on the other side to up the stakes. There's drama and a bit of a mystery, though at times it did feel like the story was being put to the side in favour of the spice between Lin and Jia.

It was quite a simple plot, so I would have liked a little more padding in this area, but the ghostly world was enough to keep me interested. I didn't totally buy the obsessive relationship between Lin and Jia - I saw it from his side but hers left me unconvinced. It felt like maybe it was pushing the Wuthering Heights angle a little too hard; I think perhaps maybe less might have been more in this case. However I 100% believed the thaw between Jia and Essien, and enjoyed reading their interactions immensely.

To be fair, I do feel like the Brooding, Over-Protective Bad-Boy type is done to death, so that's just another reason I prefer Essien to Lin. When will people stop romanticising the RED FLAGS? Please, ladies - get yourself an Essien.

This was a quick read that I quite enjoyed, with an entertaining take on death and the world beyond. Characters to love and loathe, an easy plot to follow, and plenty of action.

Highly recommend for fantasy fans.

With thanks to the author, Penguin Teen Australia and NetGalley for an ARC

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Review: The Everlasting

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wasn't quite the 'epic love story across time' that I wanted, to be honest.

The down side to a time travel story that revolves around the same chunk of time being done slightly different each time is that you get a lot of repetition.

I got bored. *shrugs*

We've got a nerdy lil guy from the present day, and a giant, Amazon-esque knight lady from Ye Olde Days. It's their 'love story across time' that we're witnessing, and it really just did nothing for me.

It's a unique pairing - not really the aesthetic duo you'd normally get, which I kinda appreciated to be honest. But the love never felt natural to me - it felt forced for the sake of the story. Like the moment they meet, there's a 'spark' or whatever, but there's actually no signs of them ever falling in love? It's essentially talked about more than shown (view spoiler)[aside from some awkward finger-banging scenes and the like (hide spoiler)].

Added to that, she's a knight that supposedly had all these grand adventures but we never witness any of them?? This book essentially TALKS about fun things and then delivers NOTHING.

The writing style bothered me - it's written as though the lovers are telling the story to each other, so it's all, 'you did this, you did that'. Did not work for me. Clever? Sure. Entertaining? No.

Also, time travel. It does my fkn head in and this was no exception. This felt flimsy at best.

I just found the whole thing to be quite bland, unfortunately. I was hoping to be drawn into an epic, 'our love transcends all boundaries' kind of story (I guess something along the lines of The Time Traveller's Wife) but this didn't even come close.

Maybe romance fans will get more out of this - I feel it's probably a little too weak for fantasy fans to get any real kick out of it.

With thanks to NetGalley for an e-ARC

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Review: Hint of Copper

Hint of Copper by Steven R. Burt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Narrated by Kyle Shive
Presented by AudioBee Productions LLC

This was an easy listen, though by the end I was kinda done with all the twists and turns.

It moves around a LOT, and I think if I was reading a physical book I'd enjoy the pace of the action, but as an audio book I found it just made the story seem to go for a lot longer than necessary.

The story follows a private detective who is looking for a lost uncle. The whole case becomes more and more tangled as it goes on, and it began to feel a bit ridiculous so I was sort of only half-listening by the end.

It's set in the 40s so the bad guys are Russian, and my god the accents were so hard to take seriously. I like this narrator when he's narrating, but when he does voices they often seem horribly out of place. One of his male characters sounded female so I was constantly confused.

The audio took a level of seriousness OUT, so it ended up being much lighter than it should have been. There are high stakes and body counts and plenty of guns and blood, but ultimately I never really cared about anyone.

I think this would be better for a physical read. There is plenty going on, and a physical read will get rid of the ridiculous voices and make the bad guys far more threatening.

I didn't totally hate it, but it's not my usual breed of thriller. I think others paying more attention to the details will really enjoy the twists and turns, but for me it was just an average listen.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio ARC

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Review: Fateless

Fateless by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fantastic fantasy with a cracking pace and characters to fall in love with.

I'll be real - there's not a lot that's particularly new here, but you give me Aladdin vibes and I'm usually gonna be pretty happy.

Sparrow is a Top Thief, contracted to The Most Dangerous Job ever. It naturally goes horribly awry and she finds herself fleeing her home with her Funny Friend and Brooding Protector in tow.

In spite of the cliche characters, I kinda loved them. *blush* I mean, there is a reason why they are reoccurring stereotypes - they are loveable, if done right.

Kagawa allows us to get to know the characters, and fall in love with them slowly but surely. They work well together, and there is a great balance of sass and tenderness. I'm quite vocal about not really liking romance but I did get sucked into this one completely because it was written well as a side-effect of the story instead of the entire plot. Masterfully done.

The story is great fun, with plenty of action keeping our characters on their toes. There's challenge and high stakes and magical creatures that will make your skin crawl with their creepiness.

It's a really fun story that kept me invested, so I'll be keen to check out the sequel.

I'd say similar vibes to two of my faves - The City of Brass and The Stardust Thief but not quite as epic as those. This is a little more YA.

Highly recommend for fantasy fans that like the action and magic to feature, with a small serve of romance on the side.

With thanks to Harper Collins for an ARC

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Review: Misery

Misery by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bruhhh this sh*t was INSANE.

That Annie Wilkes lady is CRAZY.

Every time I read a Stephen King novel I have a similar reaction: 'THIS is why they call him The King'.

The man truly is a master at creating atmosphere.

Plot: Paul Sheldon, writer, is rescued from a car accident by his Number One Fan. She's going to look after him HER way, and being a Stephen King novel you know that way is not going to be a whole lot of fun for Paul Sheldon.

Describing this story to another person just simply doesn't do it justice. The horror is in the small moments and the pauses in between. The storytelling does all the work here and it is GOOD work.

I was captivated from start to finish, visibly cringing in places and even knowing what was coming (I've seen snippets of the film) didn't help soften the blow when it came.

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said so I must just agree that this is one of Stephen King's best, crafted masterfully to evoke spine tingling and bone chilling.

Highly recommend for horror fans, but also to writers wanting to develop their craft.

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Review: The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel

The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel by Stephanie Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the books years ago and, while I enjoyed it, it didn't quite live up to the hype for me. I liked the characters for the most part but the story was confusing and kinda messy.

Sadly, I felt very much the same about this graphic novel adaptation - if even more confused.

There's no time taken to build the setting or the characters, so what we get is mostly a mess of things happening. I've read the story before and I STILL found it hard to follow.

On that note, I don't know how well this will be read by those who haven't read the books. This very much strikes me as fan service; it banks on the popularity of the books rather than trying to build a story that will grab new readers.

The artwork, while cute, didn't reflect my interpretation of the characters, and some parts of the action were too muddled to follow. Some interesting techniques used but it really didn't work for me - the style strikes me as childish and more frivolous than the tone of the story calls for.

I think, sadly, the graphic novel just doesn't hold up to the novel. There's too much nuance in the book that gets missed in this format, and for grahpic novel fans that have no experience of the book, I think this one is just too 'out there'.

I wouldn't recommend it to the uninitiated, but fans of The Raven Boys should be happy just to have more, and to see characters they love brought to life.

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Review: Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Such mixed feelings!

It felt brilliant but contrived, slow yet action-packed, dull yet fascinating.

It's a lot of words, and a lot of deeds.

The writing is convoluted and the kind of style where you want to give yourself a gold star every time you figure out what its saying.

When I paused around the 400-page mark to read some other stuff, I didn't really want to pick it back up. But when I forced myself to I didn't want to put it back down???

What a mystery.

In general, the story follows the mechanations and manipulations of Thomas Cromwell, a man who began life as a blacksmith's son and eventually rose to become the king's righthand man.

There's a whole mess of characters that are hard to keep track of - particularly as everyone seems to have multiple names/titles - but there is a list at the front of the book to refer back to.

There's definitely plenty in this book that I didn't follow - it's a lot, and the writing is such that the author goes out of her way to make us work for it. But the general gist of what's going on gets easier as it goes along and we finally start to figure out who is who.

There's also no real goal - it's a portrait in time, following the big players of the English court during the early 1500s. Cromwell has his own status and power which continues to grow, but there's no real goal stated. I found it difficult to follow along at first with no purpose, but then I also found that I never wanted to put it down. Somewhow this mess of characters had sucked me in.

It was a strange experience for me - I was desperate to be done with it because it was such a tough slog, but at the same time I never wanted to leave it unfinished. I still found I wanted to know what would happen, and now I'm keen to move on to the sequel (after a well-earned break!)

This is not an easy read by any means, but fans of historical fiction will be well-rewarded if they persevere.

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