Destiny’s Hand: Book One of Destiny’s Exodus

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

Okay, I’ll just start off this review saying I was confused. The story starts off in one plot, after a murder, and it seems like the goal of the story would be to figure out what happened. Then we pop over to some other guy who is probably someone running the place or something, and he says a couple of things. Then we’re spending a bunch of time with a guy and his girlfriend as they talk in extreme detail about how history is being rewritten and they want to stop that, so then it seems like the goal of the book is to fix history. Then there’s some sort of AI that is smart but being kept stupid or something, and it seems like the book must have something to do about that.

But then we go into the past of the girlfriend character, where she seems to be contemplating suicide and another women walks up and explains, in great length, how awesome the girlfriend character is. During this time we learn that she was 15 and a bunch of guys are creeping on her.

All the while, made up technical terms and names and places and… ‘things?’ are being constantly mentioned. I was so lost. I had no idea what kind of storyline I was supposed to be following or even what half the things they were talking about were. The dialogue was stiff and constantly dropping more information, as well as jumping back and forth between time, people and places in order to drop more information. Because the dialogue was 90% exposition, I didn’t really feel like I knew any characters, either, I was just being told things about them.

On top of that, the two main characters spend a huge portion of this discussing how they’ll be able to talk about stuff. They’re openly and blatantly talking about what they want to do, not just in this “love pod”, but while they’re walking somewhere. They’re doing so without any fear of being caught, so if there are all these places they can talk openly like that, why not just discuss their super top secret plans in those places?

Which was another problem. 25% in and we mainly see… two people talking. Nothing is happening, just these two talking about potentially doing things at some point. In reality, the thing I was most intrigued by was why the one guy was so interested in having the other guy braid his hair. At first I thought there was a sexual interest, but then were both clearly and creepily shown having interest in women (and I say creepily because apparently there were minors involved, and the other is pretty much a stalker) or being obsessed with the girlfriend that apparently everyone is obsessed with.

So in all the constant chatter of AIs and history revision and secrecy, the thing I got most curious about was the guy braiding his hair. I think because it was the thing that was actually shown and not explained.

When I got to the second part of the story, I quickly realized I was once again reading about someone sitting around and talking. And then he was thinking to himself. And even when action started about 50% into the book, it felt like so much of it was talking. So much of the text involved, “And then he overclocked. And then he stopped. And then he overclocked again. And then his drone’s AI was green. And then it was blue…” Taking out the constant status updates would greatly reduce the amount of unnecessary text and stop slowing down the book.

Another problem was that I would start in a scene fine, like with Katelle going somewhere in a dress. All right, I’d be on board, following her. But after some time she’d still be walking around, pondering over things that have happened in the past, talking about different people she knew, and I’d be really unclear what he goal was. I started off thinking she wanted to meet Milden and make a connection or something, and then the story would go off on other tangents, and I’d start wondering what the dance choreographer or bodyguard or her batchsister had to do with anything. The action stopped and it felt more like I was being given history lessons about each character than following her on a mission. By the time she got to Milden I was questioning if I was remembering correctly what she was trying to do, because the story had gone all over the place in between with no mentions of him.

As another example, Katelle is dealing with a body. During this, it goes off on a tangent for four decent sized paragraphs about her history with medical care and how she felt nervous about continuing on in the field. Probably not the best time to reminisce, and this is the sort of thing that slows the story to a crawl often.

So this was my experience reading the book. It felt like I was reading about characters talking about a story instead of experiencing the story.

It was about the last 30% of the book that picked up. I was fairly interested in how the characters would carry out their mission and lay the blame on others. Characters were reluctantly recruited or used and they started running into some real problems. I liked it more when Katelle controlled things using her wits rather than because everyone thought she was attractive.

That’s not to say I think the book should be thrown out. My best advice for this book would be to get a good editor. There are good ideas there, and a whole world. Someone needs to make sure they’re presented in a way that’s easy to follow.

Just an example of one of the lines that confused me:

Kat, you’re a one one blue bird.

I have no idea what that means other than it’s suppose to be a compliment. There are a lot of strange phrases and odd dialogue that could be cleaned up, and I don’t just mean the made up words and jargon. An editor could help this book a lot.

I give it about a 3/10, because I had to struggle to get to the end.

Nine Lives of Adam Blake

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

The “Nine Lives of Adam Blake” was an interesting book. In the beginning, we start with a main character who isn’t necessarily that likeable. He’s not in a good place in his life and he’s obsessing too much over a woman, while getting drunk and not being particularly social.

Then, he dies. And that starts the point where he actually starts becoming more sympathetic. He goes back in time and is revived at age 12, remembering everything from a life where he died at age 30 and all of his regrets. The way he progresses from there makes a lot of sense. He’s confused about why he’s alive again. He has no idea how it happened or for what purpose. After awhile he makes choices differently, spends more time with his family, and avoids some of the decisions he regretted in his first life. On his thirtieth birthday he’s afraid that he’s destined to die – a fear anyone would probably have. But it comes and goes and he lives on.

In the end, though, that doesn’t work. He gets to the end of his life again, and though he lived much longer his second time around he realizes that he’s dying alone.

And he comes back again. His frustration at not understanding what he’s supposed to do is palpable. It’s easy to imagine that anyone would feel the way he does. He continues through life again, living and dying and trying to find solutions. Eventually, in one life he publishes a book that states everything that “is going to happen”, explains his situation, and asks if anyone has a solution. He becomes world famous for his predictions and ends up rich and famous. But here, he realizes that he might have a horrible choice to make. In a previous life, he had married Tamar and had a beloved son named David. Now, in this life, when he meets Tamar she has been in a relationship with someone else, and though the relationship didn’t work out she had a beloved daughter from it. The choices he makes in his next life may determine which child gets to exist, and it’s a difficult choice to have on his shoulders.

There’s more confusion because sometimes events happen that he doesn’t believe can be caused by his actions. In one life Tamar is never born, and he doesn’t understand why that would have changed.

The book works pretty well, because the protagonist’s actions make sense. After living several lives, it makes sense for him to write a book and ‘put it all out there’ in the hopes that he could find a solution. Finding out that he’s in one life without Tamar, he decides to commit suicide because “he’ll just come back again, anyway”. Wondering how he managed to change the world in a way that prevented her from being born plagues him. He goes through a lot trying to figure out his situation, and I was never left feeling, “Why doesn’t he try XYZ?”

The ending is bittersweet, but works. As it turns out, the theory is that he’s not being taken back in time so much as traveling through dimensions, essentially. What this means, though, is that in one of the worlds where he committed suicide, the world is continuing on without him and his sister and everyone will have to deal with his death, not understanding what happened. He also keeps reliving a fairly similar life, which I can imagine would get pretty old after awhile. He doesn’t get to see the distant future or past, and he’s constantly alone going through this. The book ends on a seemingly more hopeful note, where he’s come to terms with it and lives in the moment, but it’s hard to imagine a human living through eternity like this.

I’m not sure we got close to too many characters. Even characters like Tamar and Ruthie, I feel like I could only say a few lines about exactly who they are.

The book held my attention throughout and it gives people a lot to think about. It handles the subject well, and I didn’t feel like it overlooked obvious things for him to try. If the premise looks interesting to you, give it a read! I give it a 10/10.

Warrior Lore

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

This is a short book with translations of Scandinavian folk ballads and some explanations of what they’re about and what is happening in them.

On one hand, it’s not the type of book for me because I’ve never been fond of things like poetry and such. On the other hand, it’s probably the perfect type of book for me to review because I translate and I can appreciate how difficult it is to try and keep a rhythm and rhyming scheme while keeping the same meaning. It’s hard. I can imagine the amount of effort it took to try and put it together in English and I’d say it came together pretty well.

Before each ballad, there are short explanations discussing what happens in the ballad, whether they’re based off real historical figures and who they were, and what happened to them in reality or in other ballads. I would say this is akin to studying Shakespeare, because it’s not necessarily obvious what’s going on in the ballad’s themselves without an explanation.

I think the one that amused me the most was when Thor crossdressed as the troll’s bride. I also liked that a guy ran home with an oak tree tied to his back. Old tales really didn’t make a lot of logical sense.

Others are pretty sad and telling of the times, like when a woman is kidnapped and forced into a brutal marriage and dies, only for one of he daughters to be kidnapped the same way later.

Like I said, it’s fairly short, and there’s not too much of note to say. The sources that he translated from are documented. If you’re interested in this subject it would be a good book to look into – I didn’t really see any problems with it. It was neatly put together and had a clean Table of Contents and all. It did everything it set out to do, so I give it a 10/10.

The Gift of the Quoxxel

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

“The Gift of the Quoxxel” is a very light-hearted and silly tale. There are two POVs: some chapters follow King Norr, and others follow Captain Gadd, the pirate.

Before I get into the story, I’d like to comment on the formatting. I usually don’t mention it, but this book is put together exceptionally well. Each chapter has a fancy header, many have a vibrant illustration at the end, there are links within the story that lead to a glossary explaining unusual words, and there are even music sheets with lyrics linked. It’s obvious the author has put a lot of time and care into this and it looks wonderful.

If I were to suggest additions as a reader, I would say to add links back in the footnotes. Sometimes I accidentally hit a link when I was flipping pages, and I’d have to go find my place again. This would take more work with some words that are linked more than once, but I think it would be worth it. There were times when I skipped the notes simply because there might be five links on a page, and I knew that I would have to bookmark the page and browse back to it each time. The extra time it took doing that would mess up the pace of the story. A quick return link on the note itself would fix that.

As for the story itself, it’s very whimsical. To get the cons out of the way first, there were times that I was confused. Confusion mostly came from events happening suddenly without much explanation. For example, at one part Captain Gadd was being hung off the ship. And then he was on board the ship again and being cut free. I really wasn’t sure what happened to get him from position A to B. This is common throughout the book. An example:

“His roundness is a contributing factor,” Dingley added, “not unlike a pearl.”
“Yes!” the king concurred. “Uncle Fenwad has pearl-like attributes. No doubt we’ll find the two together in the same spot.”
“I’m sure he’s somewhere,” said Vayla. “He’s very introverted, so it’s difficult to say.”
“SOMEWHERE could be ANYWHERE,” Norr was getting frustrated.
“The pearl is not at the bottom of the stairs,” Dingley emerged out of breath from the stairwell, “but we did find Uncle Fenwad.”

It never says Dingley is going downstairs to check, he just suddenly has. In this case it was easy to figure out that he went downstairs, but other times actions aren’t mentioned and it’s harder to decipher what happened. There’s also another part where Bink meets Pearl, and is surprised that she can talk. However, he’s only just met her, so I wasn’t sure why that surprised him.

It also does need some editing. There were many places that were missing commas in particular.

Besides that, the story is cheerful and bright, full of quips and colorful (literally on some pages). It’s full of humor and clever jokes. Even the glossary has jokes. Some excerpts I liked:

“Yes, yes! Parents! Urgent!” the king motioned to Dingley. “Reminder — “Norr dictated, “leash law for children … question mark … feasibility.”
“Right!” Dingley scribbled officiously.
“Footnote,” added the unsmiling Vayla. “Muzzle law for government officials… hyphen … inevitability!!
(There is a missing quote at the end.)

“SHUT IT!” Crippen thundered. “How’s a man to mutiny proper with merry moppets mucking about?”

As you can see, there’s quite a few of them. The book is full of quips. I was interested to see what would happen when King Norr and Gadd finally met, and there definitely was a lot of fun in the story.

If you read the quotes above and enjoyed them, you would probably love this book, and I’d recommend taking a look at it. It’s also good to note that I don’t think there was anything in here that would be inappropriate for younger audiences. The characters are generally good-natured, and there isn’t much in terms of violence. It might be hard for small kids to understand because of the jargon, but I bet a teenager would get a kick out of this.

I give it a 8/10.

Children Books: The Pink Dolphin Tale: (Preschool Values book) – Bedtime Stories Picture Book for Early & Beginner Readers fiction (Balu Baldauf Series 6)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a pretty straightforward and simple tale, which is what you’d expect from a children’s book. The main character finds a dolphin that continually depends on him no matter how big she gets. Eventually she has to learn that she can take care of herself.

The value is good – learning to be independent. The story is fine for young children. There’s nothing wrong with it on that front.

The reason I’m giving it the score I am is because of several spelling and grammar errors that I found. If a book is only about ten pages, which each only have a few sentences, there shouldn’t be any errors. Story-wise, I think it’s fine for kids. I personally wouldn’t give this to my kids right now because I don’t want them to memorize spelling errors or grammatical errors. Hopefully these get fixed.
I give it about a 6/10.

NOTE: The author has said that she has fixed these issues now.

Tainted (The ARC) (Volume 1)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within).

This book has a pretty decent premise to work with. The surface of the Earth has been contaminated and people have moved underground in order to survive. Even so, the people living underground have to be tested to make sure that they don’t get sick, and if they turn up “tainted” they disappear.

The main character, as well as pretty much everyone in the book, has dealt with losing many important people in her life. Finally, she wants to uncover what really happens to the people who are tainted.

It’s not bad. I was really curious to see where it would go, but two things majorly bogged down this book: Elle and forced romance. In a book where characters are being carted away to never come back, a lot of time is given to her romantic interests. I found myself pushing through those parts and waiting for it to get back to the actual story.

It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. She loves her best friend, but she can’t tell him she loves him, and she has no idea that he likes her even though it’s blatantly obvious (she’s also doesn’t think she’s pretty like the other girls, even though more than one guy is infatuated with her. To quote the book, “But with my large blue eyes, thick lashes and long brown hair they see me as cute, rather than hot.”).

At first I gave it the benefit of the doubt, but then the uglier side of forced romances reared its ugly head: jealousy, anger, possessiveness… Sebastian sees Elle with another man and he throws a tantrum. If a high school girl told me that a boy was acting like that around her, I wouldn’t find it romantic. I’d tell her to stay far away from him.

The other romantic interest is thirteen years older than her. I don’t remember if Elle’s exact age was mentioned, but she’s still a student. This is creepy. And to be honest, I don’t mind that she thinks he’s sexy. That wouldn’t be weird for someone her age to think that about an older man, but it makes him really, really creepy.

I’m not sure timelines added up. She talks about meeting Ryan a year before, and then talks about him disappearing for months at a time. And based on the brief meeting shown in the book, if that’s how their meetings go and then he leaves for months, how much time could she have spent with him total? Half an hour? And how did Sebastian come to the conclusion that she’s dating a man that she sees for a couple minutes every few months anyway?

The second thing that bogged down the book was Elle herself. She’s very negative towards most other characters.

In the beginning, she gets detention for not paying attention in class.

If I didn’t have this stupid detention, I’d already be on my way back home to see Quinn.

Why doesn’t she say anything about why she was distracted? Most people are empathetic, and if this is a common situation then it should be easy for her to explain with a simple, “I’m sorry, Ms. Matthews, I’ve been having a hard time concentrating because my friend is getting tested today.” Even later in the book it makes it clear that people are very understanding about this. She probably could have avoided detention easily if she just said something.

The first other girl who wants Sebastian’s attention is depicted horribly by Elle, and she didn’t even do anything. She just happened to talk to the guy that Elle likes. And this sort of bitterness towards side characters continues through the book. It’s very strange and nonsensical in places.

For example, when Chelsea is taken, Elle is upset that other other kids are gossiping and the other half are acting devastated even though they didn’t know Chelsea. Then, when Sebastian is taken, she’s upset that the other kids are all being sickeningly sweet to her. First: nothing they do makes Elle happy. If they gossip like normal, she’s mad. If they’re upset, she’s mad. If they try to be nice to the person who lost someone, she’s mad. Second, why are the side characters reacting so differently based on who was taken? Why are they nice when Sebastian is taken, and rude when Chelsea is taken?

Elle is absolutely clueless about obvious things. She has no idea why Sebastian gets upset when she talks to another guy. She sees Sebastian talking to Chelsea, and then Chelsea is taken and he’s upset, and she immediately jumps to the conclusion that they must have been dating. Why? This makes as much sense as Sebastian thinking that Elle is dating some guy she talks to for a couple minutes every few months.

Not only that, but this uncaring attitude towards other characters pops up in weird places and makes both of them seem unexpectedly cold. For example, again with Chelsea: Elle is mad that she thinks Sebastian is trying to find the “tainted” people because of Chelsea’s disappearance. Sebastian has to convince Elle that it’s not about Chelsea.

What did Chelsea ever do wrong? What would be so horrible about him wanting to find his friend? Why is Chelsea not worth finding? They basically have to agree that this character doesn’t matter for it to appease Elle and it’s just awful. I felt terrible for Chelsea, having two people sitting there discussing about how meaningless she is and how much they aren’t doing this to find her. It doesn’t reflect well on the main characters.

Elle has glimmers of hope throughout the book. At one point, another guy, Cam, is trying to get the attention of a girl he likes during a dance. Elle gets close to him and:

When I get to him I stand on my tiptoes to get close to his ear. ‘Just ask her to dance already!’ I yell loudly.

This is cute. This isn’t self-absorbed or forced. This is her genuinely being interested in helping someone else when she knows he has a crush.

Once his arms are around me I begin to cry. Like really, embarrassingly cry.

This is another part that I like, because it’s understandable. People don’t usually like to cry in front of other people, and most would probably be embarrassed if they had a breakdown in front of someone. I get this. This is a part of her character that I understand and want to see more of.

Unfortunately, that gets overshadowed by this Elle for most of the book:

Away from everyone who doesn’t understand what it’s like to lose your best friend.

I’m pretty sure every character in this book knows what that’s like.

It also takes her about 19 chapters to do anything proactive. Before that, other people have secret connections. Other people have theories. Other people have to push her into doing things, and she complains the whole way.

Chapter 20 and on the book picks up a lot. I liked these chapters and was interested in seeing what would happen.

There was another time that stuck out to me with Elle being oddly angry at people again:

I look at the boy’s face on the paper and then angrily shove the picture back into my pocket, not caring if it crinkles. The doctor had been supposed to help me, not get me thrown in remand.

The only thing the doctor did was tell her exactly what she wanted to know so that she could get tainted blood. Which she successfully did. It was her own fault that she got caught. He wasn’t involved with her break-in at all, and now she’s beating up the photo of his grandson? The message he desperately hoped that he might be able to pass on? Why? He didn’t do anything but help her!

But besides that, the last part of the book went pretty smoothly and kept me engaged. I wish the rest of this book had gone like that. In my opinion, Sebastian and Ryan could have been completely deleted and it could have been the Elle and Quinn show, and it would have been better. Nothing about the romance worked for me – both characters were uglier when it was the focus. Jealous, angry, possessive, snippy, mean, clueless, bitter… They didn’t become characters I wanted to root for or spend time with. It didn’t add to the story for me, either. The same story could have been told without Sebastian, and perhaps in a much more interesting way (imagine if Elle was the one making connections, learning how to play with her CommuCuff, deciding on her own to sneak into restricted areas…)

If you want to read a dystopian book and romances like these don’t bother you, then you may enjoy this book. People who have read my reviews probably know that I don’t like certain portrayals of romance. I would be interested in seeing what happens next – I just hope Sebastian doesn’t take over again.

I give it a 6/10.

Trial By Fear (Fallen Powers Book 1)

The author of this book gave me a free copy in exchange for a review.

(Spoilers within)
“Trial By Fear” has a pretty good setup. The main character, Beon, starts out as a boy who has been raised by goblins and wants to escape. He makes an attempt, and it goes very badly very fast. This makes for a good beginning, as I was curious where it would go from there.

I think the book needed to be longer. It shot through a lot of scenes, and left me confused in places. For example, there was a flashback scene where Beon states that “he’s in his room”, but I had no idea what that meant. Did he mean his room back where he was raised by the goblins, which would make the most sense as feeling like ‘his room’? Did he mean the room that he stayed at after being saved? Did he mean the room in his flashback? The story didn’t provide much detail about his statement and left me a bit disoriented as he was in a flashback, then back in present – and at the time I wasn’t clear exactly about his present circumstances, either.

Basically, it needed to slow down. Another issue was the amount of characters. This is a short book, and there are a lot of names thrown around in it – Beon, Rezon, Cheltok, Calandria, Calno, Kayna, Lisilsa, Garor, Vorray, Arlia, Derap… Needless to say, there wasn’t enough time for all of these characters to be developed. Many of them appear briefly, and their backstories are gone through in a flash.

On the other hand, there’s nothing really bad in this book. There’s some violence, but I didn’t think it lingered too long on gory details. There’s a good setup. I think my favorite character development was when Beon first learned to read. After getting praise, he began almost obsessively writing. It made sense for him, after living with constant insults his entire life, to really desire to succeed and get more praise. I wish the story had slowed down and given more scenes like this.

This book doesn’t really have an ending, it just stops. It felt more like I read half of the book and the next half of the book was missing. We basically got the “training montage” and then it ended.

A teen may very well enjoy this book. If it looks interesting to you, go ahead and give it a try. I give it about a 6/10.

Rebellion (Chronicles of Charanthe) (Volume 1)

(Spoilers inside)

Having read this book, I can say it did suck me in for a good portion of it. It took me awhile to get into it, especially because I didn’t know where it was going, but it made enough sense in the end why Eleanor was picked and for what. Some parts may have been overly long, but overall it was a fairly fastpaced adventure with a lot going on.

There were a few common writing problems this book suffered from that struck me immediately and made it harder for me to get into at the start. One is the “protagonist centered universe”. Eleanor, for example, wasn’t given the job she wanted because of her attitude. I believe we’re supposed to take her side because she’s worked so hard, but no one wants to work with someone who has a bad attitude, so I don’t really take her side. The only reason we would take her side on that is because she’s the protagonist. The exact same character from a different point of view could easily be painted as a villain: “She works so hard and is talented, but her personality…”

My initial impression in this book was not just that Eleanor didn’t agree with the system, but that of the people she lived with her entire life she didn’t trust any of them enough to speak in private. It’s one thing to put on a face in front of officials, but it’s another when the main character can’t have a real, private conversation with anyone she’s lived with her entire life. Surely she’s not the only one who ever has different thoughts? Little things like that left me feeling like she almost had disdain for the people she grew up with.

I had several little issues at the beginning, but I think the biggest was Eleanor’s sudden fame. After she leaves the school she starts pick-pocketing, and eventually gets caught. In a panic, she pulls a knife on a guy then immediately runs away. This seemingly makes her incredibly famous across cities (note: she doesn’t use the knife, she just got scared and pulled it out). I had some issues with that.

1. Is there no other crime going on at all that’s more worthy of note? Really? Why are people being assigned as police in different places if this is the most noteworthy crime happening? So much so that word of her spreads to other cities in a flash about the “assassin”.

2. Everyone will recognize her because she has red hair. Are there really no other women with red hair in the world? How did she end up with red hair if no one else has red hair? I know some hair colors are more common than others, but even if only 1% of the population has red hair, that still means that there would be a few dozen others running around that city. Not to mention there are simple ways to disguise hair color.

Now, I know the guy recognized the knife she had, but the amount of fame she got for this seemed ridiculous, and it also seemed weird how fast word spread of the non-incident. They sail for weeks/months and they’re still worried about her being recognized in some far away land. She didn’t do anything worthy of note. It felt too forced.

Now, beyond that, there’s a lot that happens in this story and it’s a pretty decent read. At times I was lost on what the characters were supposed to be accomplishing (for example, when she’s at the Academy, I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish by drugging her and holding her hostage. I was never clear on that, especially when they’re upset that she escaped). When I set it aside and just assumed that they must have been trying to do something productive, the story moved along fine.

I found the relationship between her and Raf fairly believable. They went through a lot together, so it made sense. I predicted he would come back the next year, but that was all right.

At times Eleanor could be frustrating. At one point she wondered Raf might be hiding from her and why. At the same time, she was hiding information from him, so it was hypocritical, and she didn’t even think of this when she was wishing he would trust her. She wasn’t trusting him, either.

There were also other points that felt forced. For example, at the Academy another student, Jorge, goes out of his way to try and kill her more than once. In front of people. For some reason Eleanor gets labeled as the crazy one, though. Why? Other people are there to witness what happened, so why would she be written off as crazy? Do they really find it acceptable for another student to attempt to choke her in the middle of lessons? Or for that same student to stalk her with a pair of knives and demand a fight? They would also have seen her try to walk away several times before scaring him off. There was absolutely no reason why they held these things against her instead of him. It was like she needed to feel left out for drama, and that was the only reason for them to be against her instead of him.

There’s also a point when she overhears Ivan scheming with Jorge, and she goes through a list of people and reasons why she can’t talk to them. She completely forgets Laban. During the second half of the book, after a certain point, he mostly disappears, and she never tries to bring any of these things to his attention even though she knows him and he’s on the council.

I actually liked that she laughed off her wounds and focused on more important things. At one point she looks at a mirror and wonders when “her changed features had stopped horrifying her”, but this is a case of being told and not shown. She worried about how she looked about once in the book, and otherwise laughed it off.

There were also times when I was waiting for her to fix things but instead they just fell in place for her. For example, towards the end, she beat one of her other classmates on a test by essentially cheating off of him. When she tells this to them, they’re understandably upset at her. Instead of trying to do anything to sort things out with them, she mostly mopes or hangs out with the other boys (that they don’t like). I know she’s had an experience with Raf that would make her close to him, but there’s no reason why she should snub the people she’s been with for a year, especially when they have reason to be upset. I was waiting for her to tell Laban or someone else on the council, and then bring it back to them and inform them that she had told the council in order to at least try to make things right with them. Instead, she let’s them be mad at her without any attempts to fix the situation, and things just sort of fall in place for her and they forgive her. I wanted her to be more proactive about things like that. I would have loved to see her work more on getting along with people. Joke about the way Daniel is a “smug bastard” or something.

And one last thing that I noticed that bothered me: at the end of the book she distances herself from Raf and thinks that he’s “just like the others from Venncastle”. It’s fine for her to argue with him and disagree with him, and get mad about the things she got mad about, but this made no sense. She had previously overheard Ivan and Jorge talking, and she heard them talk about how Raf was rooting for her instead of him. She knows already that they believe Raf is on her side. I didn’t see any reason why she suddenly lumped him in with the rest of them. It made sense to be awkward around him or try to avoid him, but not to suddenly act like “all people from Venncastle are scum” or something.

There were very minor errors in this book. First paragraphs weren’t indented, and once in awhile there would be a missing word or quote:

Even now they were older, most of the girls wouldn’t venture beyond the first few trees.

…the girl can make good on her promise to drive all your custom away.

Overall it was written well, though, and errors were few and far between.

I think Daniel actually ended up being my favorite character. Although he was smug and stubborn, he stuck to his beliefs. I was glad he ended up on the council as well. A lot of the other students I didn’t get too much from beyond “they’re from Venncastle” or “they’re not from Venncastle”.

I really wasn’t sure what rating to give this, because for a good portion of it I was reading quite happily, but there were definitely parts that frustrated me, and it took awhile for me to get into it. I saw another reviewer thought it slowed down when they got to the Academy. I can see what they mean, but it still read fine for me at that point. I didn’t think it slowed down too much, and I at least liked reading about Daniel and the way he interpretted things differently. It was only awhile after they got to the Academy that it slowed down a lot for me.

So I think it is an enjoyable read, but I settled on my score because there were a lot of things that bothered me and it did take up a good portion of the book. I give it a 6 out of 10.

The Black Cane (Dowager Diaries Book 1)

Synopsis:
The decision to help one small boy turns eight elderly women’s lives upside-down. Danger becomes a way of life. If the women are going to save the boy and stay alive, they are going to have to use skills that have been dormant way too long.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a non-reciprocal review.
(There will be spoilers).

I was excited to read this book. A group of elderly ladies who play bridge together become detectives? I was all in.

There are several cases handled in the book besides the main one which I liked. I also like that the main case was mostly wrapped up by the end of the book. I was worried that, like many series, it would end on a cliffhanger to try and draw readers back. I don’t like that. I prefer a complete story in one book, even if it connects to other books. Instead of dragging on the main story with Marc, it starts up a new mystery that will be continued in the next book.

In general I didn’t find much to dislike about the characters save for Marc. He got better as the story went on, possibly because he took a backseat in the story, but when he first showed up he read more like a caricature than a child to me.

I liked Amelia and may have been a little biased because she was a translator. Most of the characters were fine, though there are quite a few and they didn’t all have time to be developed. That’s all right in a case like this where a few characters can be focused on in one book and a few others can be focused on in the next. I’ve only read the first book, though, and I could honestly only name a few of the members off the top of my head, so I hope the others each get a chance to have the spotlight in the future.

As far as the writing, this book came off like a nice rough draft to a story. There were a lot of errors I caught, mostly missing quotation marks or grammatical errors.

Examples: “There was lots of good-natured complaint about the luck of the cards…”
“If it were reasonable…”
“When she completed that chore. she and Darlene had time…”

On top of that, the prose could get repetitive. There’s a lot of:
XX said, “Hi.”
YY said, “The weather is nice today.”
ZZ said, “I don’t feel comfortable speaking.”

I know it’s better to use ‘said’ than browse through a thesaurus and throw in weird words, but there was little variation in how a lot of the dialogue was put together.

A good editor could have helped correct the errors as well as smooth out some plot points. Overall I liked the mysteries they solved but I wish some things had been addressed, like how people were hearing about the club. It seemed strange that someone like a school boy they had never met would know about them and I would have liked an explanation. There were also pieces of dialogue that could have been fixed up, like:

“A retired cop could come in handy, because I’m sure there is a crime involved here somewhere.”

This is in response to a child being kidnapped, held hostage, starved and beaten, among other things. The fact that she seems unsure about there being a crime involved sounds off.

I know it’s expensive for an indie author to hire an editor, but I think it would be worth it. There’s a lot of good ideas here that just need polished.

In the end, I give it a 6/10. Good ideas are nice, but presentation is important, too, and I hope the author finds the resources to work some more on this book.

About the Author:
From living off the grid in the Arizona desert, Eileen has moved to the woods of upstate New York. She has authored a standalone adventure novel called Desert Shadow. She is also the author of Alicia Trent Series. The Black Cane : Dowager Diaries Book 1 is her latest release.

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