calissa

Published: Self-published in November 2007
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Genres: Fantasy, fairytale, romance
Source: Amazon
Reading Challenges: #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks, Once Upon A Time X
Available: Amazon ~ Kobo ~ Smashwords

Everyone loves Prince Charming. They have to—he’s cursed. Every man must respect him. Every woman must desire him. One look, and all is lost.

Ember would rather carve out a piece of her soul than be enslaved by passions not her own. She turns to the dark arts to save her heart and becomes the one woman in the kingdom able to resist the Prince’s Charm.

Poor girl. If Ember had spent less time studying magic and more time studying human nature, she might have guessed that a man who gets everything and everyone he wants will come to want the one woman he cannot have.

Ember is a twisted retelling of Cinderella. Almost all of the elements of the tale have been subverted in some way. Ember is not a meek, downtrodden girl but a prickly and powerful sorceress with an affinity to fire. She eschews the silks and satins of nobility because she feels more comfortable in wool and cotton, not because she’s deprived. Her step-family don’t abuse her and the prince takes on the role of villain. Throughout the story there are mentions of other fairytales (such as Snow White), each equally as twisted. And I loved every bit of it.

I particularly enjoyed the dynamic between Ember and her step-family. Although the relationship starts out as a mercenary one, genuine affection grows between them. They are practical, sexually liberated women who respect and support each other in the face of a world that hasn’t always been kind to them.

Memory of In the Forest of Stories recommended this delightful novella to me some time ago. It languished on Mt TBR for just enough time for me to forget what it was about (which, I’m bemused to say, wasn’t that long). So I was surprised to find this fairytale was much raunchier than I was expecting. There are explicit sex scenes that contain quite a bit of heat, while not overwhelming the plot. Readers should be aware that there are some issues around dubious consent.

If you like your fairytales hot and twisted, Ember is well worth checking out.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Published: July 2015 by Subterranean Press
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Series: World of the Five Gods #1.5
Genres: Fantasy
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Once Upon A Time X
Available: Publisher (print) ~ Abbey’s ~ Amazon ~ Book Depository ~ Booktopia

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

On his way to his betrothal, young Lord Penric comes upon a riding accident with an elderly lady on the ground, her maidservant and guardsmen distraught. As he approaches to help, he discovers that the lady is a Temple divine, servant to the five gods of this world. Her avowed god is The Bastard, “master of all disasters out of season”, and with her dying breath she bequeaths her mysterious powers to Penric. From that moment on, Penric’s life is irreversibly changed, and his life is in danger from those who envy or fear him.

Penric’s Demon is the first thing I’ve read by Lois McMaster Bujold and I can see I’ve been missing out.

I liked Penric. He’s reasonably intelligent but naïve, making him a great way to experience the World of the Five Gods for the first time. Having grown up in a rather backwater mountain valley, the city of Martensbridge is as new and amazing to Penric as it is to the reader. However, while I love a character with a sense of wonder, it was Penric’s kindness that really endeared him to me. He loves his home and gets disgruntled when people look down on it, even when he later concedes they may have cause. He also treats those around him with unfailing respect and generally believes the best of them. Bujold cleverly makes this both a hindrance and a help.

I found the author’s approach to demons to be quite a novel one. Saying more risks spoilers, but I will note I enjoyed it a lot.

The pacing was excellent. Bujold manages to skillfully convey information to the reader without resorting to info-dumps. I never felt lost or overwhelmed, even though the world was new to me. Being a novella, there’s always a risk that the story will feel too short or unfinished. However, there was enough conclusion to keep me satisfied while still leaving me craving more.

Overall, I found Penric’s Demon a great introduction to Bujold’s work and it has inspired me to seek out more.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Published: June 2013 by Purple Monkey Press
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Series: The Sunbolt Chronicles #1
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Source: Author
Reading Challenges: Once Upon A Time X
Available: Amazon ~ Book Depository ~ Booktopia ~ Kobo

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The winding streets and narrow alleys of Karolene hide many secrets, and Hitomi is one of them. Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned to hide her magical aptitude and who her parents really were. Most of all, she must conceal her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to undermine the powerful and corrupt Arch Mage Wilhelm Blackflame.

When the League gets word that Blackflame intends to detain—and execute—a leading political family, Hitomi volunteers to help the family escape. But there are more secrets at play than Hitomi’s, and much worse fates than execution. When Hitomi finds herself captured along with her charges, it will take everything she can summon to escape with her life.

Having been impressed by Khanani’s work in Thorn, I knew I needed to check out some of her other stories. Sunbolt is an original novella and the first in the Sunbolt Chronicles. With the sequel coming out next month, I thought Sunbolt would make a good starting point and wasn’t disappointed.

As with Thorn, Khanani does some interesting things with representations of race. Karolene is an island city with a dark-skinned population. The nations to the north are described as pale-skinned and exotic, a description which neatly inverts some racist stereotypes. The villain also inverts these stereotypes, being the most prominent of a very few white characters.

Hitomi herself is Asian, making her stand out in Karolene. She does everything she can to fit in, but her skin and hair will always mark her out as a stranger. This is a particular problem for someone involved in an underground movement. But, more than that, it also alienates her from the place she considers home.

I very much enjoyed Hitomi as a character. Her selfishness and prejudice was balanced out by fierce loyalty and courage. My one quibble is that even though she grows away from her flaws, the short length of the novella made this progress a little fast for my taste, leaving me feeling the emotional arc of the story wasn’t quite solid.

The story kept me on my toes with all its twists and turns. I particularly appreciated the way in which when things begin to go wrong, they go wrong in a very mundane way and snowballs from there. This made it feel realistic to me and it meant that the stakes for Hitomi grew correspondingly.

All in all, Sunbolt was both fast-paced and thought-provoking. I will definitely be seeking out the sequel, Memories of Ash, when it is released in May.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Published: February 2016 by Momentum
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Series: Graced #0.5
Genres: Fantasy, paranormal romance.
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge 2016, Read My Valentine
Available: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Kobo

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Civilization has ended.

Vampires, werewolves, and the Graced are at war with their human creators, and humanity is losing. But one girl might hold the key to salvation. Held captive with her fellow humans by alpha Wolfgang and his pack of weres, Laney secretly inches ever closer to breaking were and vampire blood dependency forever.

But Laney doesn’t have long. Their numbers decimated by plague, humans are being kidnapped and reduced to livestock. And when Laney and her sister are kidnapped by a neighboring vampire clan notorious for its “farming” of humans, their only hope lies in Wolf – who doesn’t know the shocking secret Laney has gone to great lengths to conceal.

With their lives and the future of humanity in the balance, can Laney and Wolf learn to trust each other before their races cease to exist?

Captive is a prequel novella to Amanda Pillar’s Graced. Given the latter was one of the highlights of my 2015 reading year, I had high hopes for Captive. Unfortunately, I found the novella’s ambition exceeded its scope.

The key problem with Captive is that it tried to do too much: it aimed to be a paranormal romance and an exploration of a post-apocalyptic world, as well as show a pivotal point in the world’s history and be an origin story for one of the characters from Graced. All within 100 pages. As a result, it doesn’t successfully manage any of these elements.

I didn’t find there was much chemistry between Laney and Wolf, with their on-stage courtship being limited to Wolf invading Laney’s personal space and kissing her a few times. The secondary relationships were far more entertaining. Laney’s sister Jane lacks a romantic bone in her body, so it was particularly amusing to see attempts to woo her. I hope we may see something more of her in the future.

As a fantasy story, it didn’t quite work for me either. It’s always difficult to write short speculative fiction because the premise and feel of the world needs to be conveyed in not much space. Captive faces a difficult challenge because it’s set in a world that isn’t our present day or the far future of Graced but something in between. A prologue in the form of a character’s diary entry tries to set the scene but ends up feeling like an awkward infodump that left me without a visceral feel for the world. Since the pertinent information comes up again later–repeatedly, in some cases,–I feel it would have been better to put the prologue’s word count to better use within the story itself.

Despite my criticisms, I enjoyed the story a lot. While the diversity of the characters isn’t as broad as in Graced, it is still casually present. Laney makes a great character. Physically, she’s never going to be a Strong Female Character, which makes her quiet courage all the more admirable. I also enjoyed seeing one of the characters from Graced make an appearance in the final chapters, albeit in a much younger form.

While Captive could conceivably stand on its own, some of the impact of the events it depicts would be lost. New readers are best off picking up Graced first.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Published: Self-published in September 2015
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Series: Dashing Widows #1
Genres: Regency romance
Source: Amazon
Reading Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge 2016, #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks, Read My Valentine
Available: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Kobo ~ Smashwords

Caroline, Lady Beaumont, arrives in London seeking excitement after ten dreary years of marriage and an even drearier year of mourning. That means conquering society, dancing like there’s no tomorrow, and taking a lover to provide passion without promises. Promises, in this dashing widow’s dictionary, equal prison. So what is an adventurous lady to do when she loses her heart to a notorious rake who, for the first time in his life, wants forever?

Devilish Silas Nash, Viscount Stone is in love at last—with a beautiful, headstrong widow bent on playing the field. Worse, she’s enlisted his help to set her up with his disreputable best friend. No red-blooded man takes such a challenge lying down, and Silas schemes to seduce his darling into his arms, warm, willing and besotted. But will his passionate plots come undone against a woman determined to act the mistress, but never the wife?

I wasn’t particularly fond of Anna Campbell’s story in A Grosvenor Square Christmas, but she managed to win me over with The Seduction of Lord Stone. It begins with three widows having tea as their year of mourning comes to a close (for two of them, anyway). Finally, society is easing its proscriptions over their activities and it’s time to enjoy their freedom. Caroline, in particular, is determined to make the most of it.

In light of this introduction, I was disappointed not to see more of the friendship between the widows. There were a few moments between Caroline and Helen. However, these seemed to occur mostly because Helen was also Silas’ sister and had motives of her own rather than out of genuine friendship. Fenella seemed to exist merely to provide a brief impediment to the relationship between Caroline and Silas. I found this a great shame, since Fenella and Caroline had such opposite attitudes to marriage; Fenella could have provided an interesting perspective for Caroline, had they spent any time talking together outside of the prologue.

The lack of female friendship meant that the focus was firmly on the romantic relationship between Caroline and Silas. Perhaps this was for the best, as it meant the pacing of this relatively short book stayed brisk. Caroline and Silas were enough to keep my attention on their own. The tension between them sizzled; I was surprised my Kindle didn’t combust! I liked that the dynamic between them was a little unusual, with the female protagonist looking to play the field while the rake was looking for something a bit more permanent.

For such a passionate person, Caroline was ruled by her head a lot more than I would have expected. She has very definite ideas about the way things need to be and is determined to stick to that, even if it means she ends up getting in her own way a lot. I found that quite realistic. Silas is a bit more flexible in his thinking, but still very clear on what he wants. At first, I found the ending somewhat unsatisfying, but the more I think about it the more I appreciate it.

Overall, I found The Seduction of Lord Stone a quick and enjoyable read. The foreshadowing of Helen’s story has me looking forward to the next book in the series.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Published: Self-published in July 2014
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Series: The Phoenix Adventures #2
Genres: Science fiction, space opera, romance
Source: Author’s website
Reading Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge 2016, #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks, The 2016 Sci-fi Experience
Available: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Kobo ~ Smashwords

Two years ago, on a deadly mission to the lawless Devil’s Nebula, Commander Zayn Phoenix’s life imploded. Now the former Strike Wing pilot fills his days with dangerous adventures alongside his treasure hunter brothers.

But his nights are another story: haunted by nightmares of one unforgivable act.

Until an assassin lures him into a hunt. A hunt for her freedom from the Assassin’s Guild. A hunt for a derringer used in an ancient and infamous assassination—of old Earth president, Abraham Lincoln.

Zayn is compelled to join the perilous adventure with Ria Dante that will take them straight into the heart of the Devil’s Nebula, but not for money, fame or treasure.

He joins because Ria has the face of the woman he left for dead in the Nebula years before.

When the Book Gannet saw my potential reading list for the 2016 Sci-fi Experience, they suggested I pick up some Anna Hackett to balance out the Big Serious Sci-fi. Since they’ve never steered me wrong, I went over to the author’s website where I picked up In the Devil’s Nebula as part of a free book bundle. I’m glad I did.

In the Devil’s Nebula was fast-paced fun. Actually, I was a bit surprised at just how fast-paced. I went into it expecting it to be mostly focused on the romance but found myself in the middle of an action adventure instead. The plot manages to combine space opera with heist story with romance and even tosses in a little Western just for fun. It’s a lot to jam into such a small space but the style is very cinematic and it hangs together well.

Naturally, the characters come with baggage. Back when Zayn was in the military, he was forced to mercy kill a team mate he was attracted to–a team mate who looks eerily like Ria. Despite this, Zayn isn’t much of a brooder and I liked that about him. He prefers to channel his grief into action, as the pilot for his treasure-hunting brothers. He also has a talent for conducting heists… when a certain someone doesn’t get there before him.

Ria is a member of the Assassins Guild who wants out. Of course, no one retires from the Assassins Guild, so she’s been forced to get a little creative with her retirement plan. But she needs help. I liked Ria’s boldness. She gets the attention of Zayn and his brothers by pre-emptively stealing the treasure they’re hunting. Yet while she’s bold, she’s not generally reckless and is more than capable of physically keeping up with Zayn no matter what sort of trouble they find themselves in. The sexual tension between these two is strong, though some of the early romantic moments could have been held for a beat longer.

However, it was the secondary characters that really stole the show. BEll is the onboard computer for the Phoenix Brothers’ ship. I liked that she had such a distinct personality and spoke in a very sassy, casual way. Then there was Lastite Lala, a teenager with a talent for explosives. Despite her young age and total lack of fear, Lala is capable of looking after herself and does a great job of keeping the protagonists on their toes.

In the Devil’s Nebula made for some light, action-packed reading. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be snagging the rest of the series for later.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Published: October 2014 by Smashwords
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Series: Tales of the Aekhartain (Historical Aekhartain #1.5)
Genres: Historical romance
Source: Smashwords
Available: Smashwords

Disclaimer: The author is a friend. I have done my best to give an unbiased review. Also, this review contains some spoilers for Unbound and Free.

Everyone deserves a second chance at love…

Barely even a wife before she became a widow, Briallen feels like she’s lost everything – and now she has to stand by while a group of strangers moves in to the house she once called home. As hard as that it is to face, it’s made even more difficult by a man she feels drawn to, and two children she can’t help but love.

Elisud’s world is changing. Homeless and wandering, with a grieving nephew on his hands, he has no choice but to live on the farm – even when he feels the constant call of the sea. Determined to make things right for his nephew and daughter, he can’t help but notice Briallen and the bruised look in her eyes.

Both battered by grief and woes, can these two wounded people ever see past their own pain and accept the love that’s kindled between them? Or will their own self-doubts hold them back?

Set in the British Iron Age, this romantic novella deals with an age-old tale of loss, grief, healing and love, with a little help from family.

Be With Me takes place between the novellas Jealousy’s Shadow and Unbound and Free. While it could conceivably stand on its own, it isn’t really intended to do so and new readers will be missing some important context. Healing and family are key themes of the novella (as the blurb above suggests), with Demairo’s recovery from the trauma of Jealousy’s Shadow being as much an integral part of the story as the romance between Elisud and Briallen.

That said, Be With Me is quite a different story to the novellas in Unbound and Free. Both feature some intense family dynamics, but where the focus is on violence and survival in Unbound and Free, it becomes more about interpersonal relationships in Be With Me. The tone is cozier and more domestic. I found this benefitted its historical aspect. In Unbound and Free, I wasn’t sold on this element; the setting felt it could equally be generic fantasy or historical fantasy. That’s not the case in Be With Me, where the details of day-to-day life come more to the fore. Every member of the family is expected to do their part and things begin to break down when this doesn’t happen, setting everyone on edge. The novella gave a very clear sense of what it is like to be part of a small community, almost to the point of claustrophobia. True privacy is hard to come by for Elisud and Briallen, making the moments they snatch together all the more sweet.

This more intimate setting also allows a nice exploration of the ways in which this society’s expectations have hurt both genders. While the relationship at the heart of the novel is a heterosexual one, it doesn’t use this as a pretext to pretend homosexual relationships don’t exist, even in this historical setting. However, while they may exist, they are not necessarily accepted, and it was interesting to trace how the consequences rippled outward. While the clan into which Elisud and Briallen have been adopted might ultimately love and need each other, their love is not always gentle; just as with any family, there are elements that are lazy, unpleasant and hard to love. Having reasons why they might be the way they are doesn’t necessarily make them easier to bear but it did make me nod in recognition.

The pacing Elisud and Briallen’s relationship was perhaps a touch uneven. There was a moment not long after they first meet that had me concerned they were veering a little too strongly towards insta-love. Yet on the whole, their relationship progresses slowly enough that it made me want to shake them towards the end.

I found Be With Me to be a sweet, character-driven romance that was well worth my time and an excellent addition to the Aekhartain series.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Published: July 2014 by Smashwords
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Series: Tales of the Aekhartain (Historical Aekhartain #1)
Genres: Historical fantasy
Source: Smashwords
Reading Challenges: Once Upon A Time IX
Available: Amazon ~ Smashwords

Disclaimer: The author is a friend. I have done my best to give an unbiased review.

Demairo’s life is far from easy. Living on an isolated island with a father who hates him and a mother he adores, things are difficult enough without the whispering voices that cry on the wind. Because this is no ordinary island.

Luckily Demairo is no ordinary child, and he has some unusual friends to support him. But a storm is coming, and no amount of crows, seals or shining stars can save him – unless he chooses to be saved.

A choice is only the start of the journey.

Set in Roman Britain (456AD), Unbound and Free is a collection of four stories following Demairo across almost thirty years as he finds out where he truly belongs.

Although the blurb calls Unbound and Free a collection of stories, I found it better to treat them as a single novel. The first of the novellas, Jealousy’s Shadow introduces us to Demairo and his family. It is clear from the beginning that the dynamics between them are uncomfortable at best, so if domestic violence is a trigger for you, it might be best to give this book a miss. Demairo’s father, Dewydd, is an abusive drunk who likes to take out his anger on the young boy. Demairo’s mother, Lowena, does her best to shield her beloved son, but there is only so much she can do, especially when she has to keep the household running almost single-handedly. She gets some help from her brother-in-law, Elisud, who, while as sweet as his brother is sullen, does nothing to stop the abuse. Of everyone on the island, it is Elisud’s young daughter Ceri who has the most success in defusing Dewydd’s moods, perhaps because she is too young to fully understand the situation.

Of course, the cast list wouldn’t be complete without including the island itself. Rumours on the mainland call it cursed. Only Demairo hears the voices of drowned sailors begging to be released from their torment, but his whole family feels their influence. The gradual corrupting of the characters is nicely handled, particularly in Lowena. Atmosphere is a strength of the novella, arising from the supernatural elements of the island and the tense family dynamics.

I’m not particularly good with history, so I couldn’t say how accurate the details of the story were. I wasn’t convinced the story needed a historical setting and would have worked just as nicely as a low-magic secondary world.

The stories following Jealousy’s Shadow deal pretty directly with the aftermath of the first novella, so I won’t say much about them. The bulk of the second novella, Unbound and Free, had an intensity that matched Jealousy’s Shadow, though in quite a different way. I found the expectations Demairo’s family had of him to be a little uniform for my taste, especially since they didn’t seem to be based on anything concrete.

Unbound and Free is intended to be an entry point for new readers into Lusher’s Aekhartain series and on the whole I think it works as intended, with the exception of a few short scenes that new readers may find cryptic.

Join me on Friday for an interview with Becca.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Earl Grey Editing will be closed from 20 December until 12 January, making this my last post of the year. I thought I would leave you with some of my favourite reads from 2014. These are not books that were necessarily published this year, just read by me this year. In no particular order:

( Books! )

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Current Mood: cheerful

Published: 2013, self-published
Format reviewed: E-book (mobi)
Series: Love Has No Boundaries
Genres: Contemporary romance, gay romance
Source: Available free online from the Goodreads M/M Romance Group

When Cal comes home from his first year at university, he discovers his family’s Texan ranch is in dire straits and that his mother has hired a handsome city boy called Joseph to help out. Like Amy Rae Durreson’s The Court of Lightning, this novella was written for the Goodreads M/M Romance Group’s annual challenge. It is a sweet romance with no sexually explicit content.

There was a lot to like about Running Deer and Hidden Badger. Joseph’s character is of Native American descent but is out of touch with his heritage. Instead of playing on the stereotype of the wise Indian deeply connected to Nature, Joseph is from Los Angeles and knows nothing about the expansive Texan landscape. He can barely ride a horse and Cal has to teach him the business of ranching from the ground up. Although it seems a bit of a stretch that Joseph doesn’t even know what a scorpion looks like, I was pleased that the story didn’t fall into the trap of racist typecasting I might have expected from the title.

Sarge also makes sure her Texas is firmly in the modern era. The ranch hands all have mobile phones for emergencies, Joseph has an interest in digital photography and Cal speaks to his (soon ex-) boyfriend via Skype. The ranch remains fairly isolated but it is nice to see there was no pretense that these technologies don’t exist.

The story itself is a lot of fun but has a few flaws that make me suspect there was a shortage of time and word count. The focus is very much on Cal and his family. While there are some strong hints about Joseph’s backstory, they are never followed up. This vagueness and the lack of stage time given to Joseph’s past leaves the novella feeling somewhat unbalanced.

Similarly, there are a lot of threads that are dropped as the story progresses. The opening suggests that racism might be a key issue and a particular threat to Joseph. However, after the opening that threat disappears entirely. Likewise, Cal’s boyfriend disappears with hardly a whimper, making it difficult to see why he was included in the first place. Instead of adding to the story, these shadow threats only serve to weaken it. The final confrontation needed more building up and I found the conclusion very abrupt.

Despite these flaws, I still enjoyed Running Deer and Hidden Badger. The characters were endearing and Sarge did a wonderful job of bringing the Texan landscape to life. I also very much appreciated the way she wears her fandom on her sleeve, with references scattered throughout the story. There’s a horse named Rincewind (after the wizard from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series), a property called Nine Tails (a reference to the Naruto anime) and Joseph uses the Tenth Doctor as a reference point for describing Cal to his mother. Overall, it was a nice, light romance that made my inner geek chuckle.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

The Court of Lightning is a fantasy m/m romance set in a world at war. For decades, the Court of Ice has been seeking to conquer the other courts. With the Court of Lightning defeated, the Court of Wind is one of the last remaining but they are under increasing threat. In order to survive, Master Artificer Arashan and paladin Tirellian must team up to venture into the ice-encased heart of the Court of Lightning. Deep within enemy territory, their old friendship thaws into something more.

This story was written for the Goodreads M/M Romance Group‘s annual challenge. My first encounter with the work of Amy Rae Durreson was via The Lodestar of Ys, written for last year’s challenge. I was very impressed and was therefore very much looking forward to The Court of Lightning. Overall, it mostly lived up to my expectations. Durreson does a wonderful job of taking the challenge prompt she’s been given and spinning something totally unexpected out of it. Her world-building is top quality, putting to shame some fantasy novels I’ve seen in print. She weaves magic and politics into something complex and vibrant.

Her character work is also excellent. The friendship between Arashan and Tirellian is at once comfortable and awkward, not always able to bridge the gap between extrovert and introvert. Shyness is shown not just as an endearing character trait, but one that inhibits and is struggled with. Her soldiers suffer from shellshock and the effects of the terrible lives they’ve had to lead. There is some explicit sex, but it is never out of character and does not overwhelms the plot.

My one criticism is that there was just a little too much jammed into the story. The Court of Lightning is around 6 000 words shorter than The Lodestar of Ys and I felt it could have used the extra length. The pacing felt ever so slightly off. Being a sweet romance, I would have liked a bit more of the romantic relationship between Arashan and Tirellian when it wasn’t being overshadowed by life-threatening danger, awesome though that was.

All-in-all, an excellent read and well worth the time. A few loose ends have me suspecting that we’ll see more stories in this universe from Durreson and I very much look forward to them.