Title: Kismet's Kiss

Author: Cate Rowan

Release Date: August 2010

Price: $3.94

This is an unlikely tale of love. Our hero, Kuramos, is Sultan of Kad, father of three children, and husband of six women. Our heroine, Varene, is a royal healer from Teganne, where they don't practice polygynous marriages (yes, polygynous, the people Kad aren't wild about a 'multiple husbands' scenario). She is brought to Kad after a mysterious illness strikes the people closest to the Sultan—his wives and children—as well as certain other members of the royal household. With his own physician dead of an unrelated accident, Kuramos must turn to his enemies, requesting that Teganne send their own healer to aid him. Soon Varene and Kuramos find themselves intensely attracted to each other, but both are struggling with the vast cultural and social differences that separate them and challenge their ideas of what true love should look like.

This is another story that I began as a free read on my kindle, and purchased after reading the first 10%. The price is a bit higher than the other tales I have reviewed so far (in fact, at $4.00 it is close to what I pay for my beloved Terry Pratchett books when they are on sale) but I think it is worth the cost. This romance was unique and surprising. The story is told in the third person, typically from Varene's or Kuramos's point of view. At first, while in Varene's point of view, I bristled a bit at her sense of superiority over Kuramos's culture. I feared that this book might simply endorse old colonial stereotypes. But I was pleasantly surprised. Those colonial views were Varene's, not the authors, and they slowly changed over the course of the book. The book neither endorses nor outright condemns polygyny, though over the course of the book the general sense is that a monogamous relationship is preferred. However, Rowan explores the vast cultural web of her fictional country of Kad, creating a society in which the reader can see the logic of accepting multiple wives, even if this is not endorsed as a positive arrangement. Rowan demonstrates that things are rarely black and white.

There are, however, several things that bothered me about this book. The first is very minor. All the characters in this tale are hundreds of years old. Kuramos, for example, is over 200. But there doesn't seem to be any real point to this longevity. It doesn't serve any function in the story, leaving me wondering needlessly about it for far to long, only to realize that this aspect of the fantasy world Rowan has created is essentially inert in the story. I say this is minor because Rowan has written other tales in the same universe, and in those tales it may well be that this longevity serves a purpose. If not, it seems to be difference for difference's sake, which I found mildly annoying. It was as though the author was whispering in my ear 'see, this is a fictional world' every time someone's age was mentioned.

The second thing that bothered me was more substantial, and more problematic to blog about; the ending. I don't want to give the ending away, since I found this to be an entertaining read and I don't want to spoil it for others, but I must express some of my dissatisfaction here. The main plot arc of the mysterious illness striking members of the sultan's family mostly wraps up surprisingly early in this tale. Basically, that plot arc is all but finished by the time you are a little more than half-way through the book. As I looked at my Kindle's indicator and realized that I was almost 60% of the way through, and the mystery was mostly solved, I was puzzled. What was the rest of this book going to be about? Just the romance?

Basically, yes. Not that there wasn't a lot to explore in the romance. There was cultural differences, scars from previous relationships, and six wives to deal with. That's a lot. But I felt a bit cheated. Romance novels without story-lines just seem a bit boring to me. I was losing interest as I flipped through the pages. Near the end, there are some surprise plot twists, but they felt to me as though they came right out of the blue. There was little foreshadowing of these events, and I began to feel as though these was less of a coherent story than an attempt to rekindle my interest late in the game with some stuff pulled out of thin air. I think the mystery could have been handled in a more suspenseful way than it was, and I got the impression that the story was somewhat sacrificed to the romance.

Finally, the conclusion of the romance story arch also left me feeling a bit dissatisfied. I wanted another chapter or two illustrating how things would play out. And I'm not entirely convinced that I buy everyone's motivations and decisions. We are dealing with eight people in this relationship, effectively: Varene, Kuramos, and the six wives. I don't feel that I got to know all the characters well enough to accept their decisions (and with one in particular, I don't buy the decision at all as fitting with the character I came to know).

However, Kuramos was a strong, sexy and appealing male lead. Varene was an enjoyable and sympathetic female lead, and the surprise of having a romance in this unique situation kept me reading. I'm impressed with the angle, and with how effective it was.

Title:

The Hedgewitch Queen

Author:

Lilith Saintcrow

Release Date:

December 2011

Price:

$2.99

I got a trial sample of this book on my ereader for free a while ago, and the sample just sat there as I kept being distracted by pesky things like real life. Finally, one quiet evening, I found that I had time to take a look at this book. I began reading the sample. I continued reading the sample. I couldn't put it down. In a style reminiscent of Jacqueline Carey, Saintcrow created an alternate history set in what appears to be Renaissance-era France. In fact, it was a bit too much like Carey's work at first. But I really enjoyed Carey's novels, so wasn't put off by the similarity.

The story is told in the first person past-tense. The main character, Vianne, is a noble woman serving the princess and next in line to the throne of Arquitaine. She's also a hedgewitch. At the start of the book it isn't quite clear what this means other than that Vianne spends a lot of time digging in gardens and running around in something called 'garden boots' (I was picturing Wellingtons here for no good reason!). But it is clear that there is a distinction between two kinds of magic, 'court sorcery' and 'hedge witchery' and by the very sounds of each name, you can guess that hedge witchery is near the bottom of the pecking order in terms of glamour and importance. So, the MC is a noble woman, but she's frequently dirty and running around in boots instead of slippers, and she practices a type of magic that is devalued by those around her. Translation; she's sort of an outcast, or a geek if you will.

But this magical system isn't what grabbed me. In fact the magical system is never clearly explained, though there seem to be some important connections between Court sorcery and the monarch. No, the assassination is what grabbed me. The assassination that pulls Vianne's world down around her in the dark of night, leaving her holding the dead bodies of those she cares about one moment, and running away with a tall dark stranger the next. Enter the hero of the book, Tristan. He's a dark, broody and secretive captain of the king's guard, and is now all that stands between Vianne and death. It was at this point that my free trial ran out and I hastily pressed the 'buy' button on the kindle store website.

Now, looking back, I can fully understand why I selected to buy this book for a measly $2.99, but I ended up dissatisfied. The MC spends a large chunk of the next part of the book (in fact, about 50% of the total novel) ill. She loses consciousness. A lot. She sleeps. A lot. She is shivering and weak all the time, and she spends a lot of time trying to get her sluggish wits working. The reader is told again and again that Vianne has a sharp mind. Her companions report this, she reports it, and even her own vague memories of unraveling unspecified court intrigue are supposed to illustrate and support this facet of her character. But it is very hard to believe these reports and these memories when she is unable to get her wits working for about 50% of the book. She misses things that are obvious to the reader (and also, often, obvious to her companions) and frankly doesn't seem to have a very sharp mind at all. That, combined with her constant illness and weakness, and with the fact that the story is told in the first person, results in a frustrating read.

I tried to cut Vianne some slack. She did just witness the murder of several people she cared about—that's gotta be a shock (to say the least!). And she caught a flu or fever, so of course her wits aren't working as sharply as they normally would. I recognize all of this. But the illness and sluggishness just seemed to drag on too long. I found myself losing interest in the main character.

And then there was the romance. I really wanted to like the romance. I was in the mood for a good romance. For me, this wasn't it. Tristan has all the characteristics of a good hero. He's brooding, secretive (in a way Vianne never seems to pick up on—then again her wits are sluggish) and occasionally has a precise, controlled violence that's pretty appealing in a renaissance hero. He's a bit pig-headed, but not too much. And (and this is a classic romance-move) he's been pining for Vianne for a long, long time. Perfect, right?

Romance is an individual thing. I think the Tristan-Vianne romance might work for some, but for me it fell flat. I'm going to try to explain why: I believed that he cared for her, and even loved her. I believed his emotions entirely. But, I didn't believe hers. This is especially odd, since the tale was told in the first person. Or maybe it was because the tale was told in the first-person that this was my reaction. Vianne never tells the reader that her pulse quickened, stomach flip-flopped or heart skipped a beat at the sight of Tristan. She never gives us any physical indication that she cares for him. In fact, for a while I wasn't sure whether she did care for him. She admits that he's attractive, but that seems to be the extent of her interest in him, almost as though he's merely eye-candy. Rather, it seems that she comes to care for him only because she recognizes that he loves her. Sort of: “oh, he loves me. Well, I guess I should be with him then.” Yes, she says that she loves him. But it doesn't feel as though she loves him.

By the time my ereader informed me that I was 80% of the way through the book, I was determined to see it through to the end, but I was pretty tired of the story. However, I will admit that, in the last few pages, there is an interesting twist. I was glad to see it, and it has left me mildly curious about the next book in this series. But, since I'm not invested in the romance, I doubt I'll be buying the next book.

Title:

“The Toil and Trouble Trilogy: Book One”

Author:

V.J. Chambers

Price:

Free

Facing a break from the day job, and willfully ignoring a pile of work I should have otherwise been doing, I hit the road and went to crash at a friend's place for the weekend, bringing my ereader with me. I fully intended to spend time catching up with my friend, but then V.J. Chambers hit me with a literary ton of bricks!

I began this book with lowered expectations. After all, I had just 'purchased' it for free, so how good could it be? The beginning was not inspiring, as I realized that it is written in the present-tense, a quality I usually detest in stories. It began with the story of a teen-aged girl who was making out with a boy on the bleachers. Really, the bleachers? This is an old, highly stereotypical image, and I was already losing interest. Besides, the girl in question (our protagonist, Olivia) has a car. Can't she just ask the boy (Brice) to head back to the back seat? It has to be more comfortable than the bleachers. But, with my friend already in bed for the night, I decided to flip through a few more pages. And in the next page or two, the stereotype was shattered. Entirely.

While these two characters are trying to figure out how, exactly, the act of copulation was supposed to work (I did mention that they were teen-agers, right? Did I also mention that they were drunk? And inexperienced?) one of them, Brice, turns into a monster. Not a werewolf. Not a vampire (thank God) but a Berserker. The clearest way I can think of to describe a Berserker is to compare them to Reavers from the Firefly series by Joss Whedon a few years back. They are human-shaped still, but act like rabid animals.

Our MC, Olivia, immediately jumps into action to bring Brice safely to her Nona who may be able to preform a magic charm on him, while avoiding having her formerly-amorous-now-rabid friend tear a piece out of her jugular. This is the reader's introduction to the magic-system in this story. It hits like an 18 wheeler. Up until this point I wasn't even sure the book belonged in the Fantasy genre.

From here Olivia gets caught up in a tangled plot to try to uncover dark secrets about her parents' past, discover what has become of her mother, and watch her back as her treacherous cousin, Vincent, competes with her for control of the family 'business'. She juggles all this while dealing with her growing feelings for Brice, their relationship only complicated by his tendency to revert to a Berserker every night at midnight.

The world is contemporary, and the magic fits into it seamlessly, and uniquely. Far from the stereotypical novel I feared with the opening bleachers scene, Chambers has found a novel and intriguing role for magic to play in her world. My one quibble about the magic system is that there are too many unanswered questions. I don't know how the magic of Olivia's family works, exactly, or whether it's difficult to use. I don't entirely know if this is a magic everyone can preform if they have the right training, or whether it requires innate talent. Besides a few entertainment examples, I'm not even sure what the magic is—or can be—used for. Chambers spends little time on the details here. But this is just book one of three, and a lot of the intrigue surrounds magic-use, so perhaps more information is delivered in the next few books.

Overall, the book was a page-turning, fast-paced, enjoyable read that kept me from seeking interpersonal contact for a large part of the weekend! Olivia is a well-rounded main character and fairly believable as a seventeen-year old. Many of the other characters do not seem as multifaceted but that's often the case with first-person narratives. At times, though there is a lot of action happening, the plot did not advance as quickly as I'd like, leaving me feeling frustrated. But in general the book grabbed—and held—my interest from the moment Brice's eyes turned red, signaling his change.

Will I buy the next two books at $3.99 a pop? I am not sure yet. Though I enjoyed this tale quite a bit, I left it feeling an odd lack of curiosity about what will happen next in the mystery-plot surrounding Olivia's family. I don't quite know why this is but, for some reason, I don't feel that I care enough about the mc to be worried about what happens to her. But who knows. As the weeks stretch on, curiosity might get the better of me.

And how does one become a Berserker? Believe it or not, its a magical STI.