Book Review: The Secret Bride by Diane Haeger

Received: Own
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

Dear lord, is it that hard to Google??

I don't have too many good things to say about this book. The historical "accuracy" was pitiful. I know, I know, you may think, "But Small, it's historical fiction!" And, yes, I know.

But I don't like historical fiction that takes gigantic liberties with historical fact, especially when a quick trip to Wikipedia would set things straight.

And I'm not even talking about things like minor smushings of the timeline (which were definitely present— characters were walking around when they should have been dead years ago and others died too soon), but I can give a pass for when it makes for easier storytelling...which kinda sorta might have applied here?

I'm talking about stupid little things like getting Catherine of Aragon's hair color right (it's RED, not black!) or Anne Boleyn's birth order right (yes, there's contention, but modern opinion is she was the younger sister), or the number and birth order of Mary Tudor's sons right (none of her sons made it to the age of her book son, and, yeah, notice I'm using the plural, Ms. Haeger?).

Simple little things that don't require the author to be a master historian but do take enough effort to Google. And, really, I don't think I'm asking too much in that. I am not a super historian and my memory is awful and even I managed to pick up on these things.

You'd think an author who chooses to write in the genre would at least put in some minimal effort to get these things right. I mean, even the author's note was riddled with errors!  

Bonus points: It's poorly written! 

From a storytelling perspective, The Secret Bride was so, so boring. Nothing happened. Their "romance" plodded along with repetitive mentions of feelings but no actual showing of the development of said feelings. No reasons were given for why these two characters fell in love and would risk the wrath of the king.

Character development was inconsistent with history, but also super shallow. Mary and Charles don't feel like real people beyond the page. I couldn't muster up a care for their plight and the side characters were even less developed. Henry VIII's characterization was laughable.

Bottom line

The TV show was about a thousand times better in all major areas: storytelling, accuracy, and character development. And, yeah, I know all about the historical inaccuracies in that show.

I won't be wasting my time nor my shelf space on another book by this author.


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Mini Review: A Spy in the House by Y. S. Lee

A Spy in the House by Y. S. Lee
#1 in The Agency series
Owned (but no longer!)
1.5 out of 5 stars

I had such high expectations for this series, but it failed pretty much every single one of them.

I didn't get along with main character Mary at all and found her thoroughly dislikable. She made some stupid choices and broke all the wrong rules for all the wrong reasons. There is supposedly another seasoned spy on assignment as well (undercover even from novice Mary) and all I could think of was this better spy facepalming the entire time as Mary runs amok all over her covert ops.

Mary 's also not the nicest person in the world, which really made it hard to take her side, even when I agreed with her. To add insult to injury, her promised hate-turned-love romance fell totally flat for me and was more of an insta-love with feigned bickering and no spark.

Don't even get me started on the side characters who are all horribly one-note. The mystery was the only thing that (just barely) kept my interest, but that isn't saying much and it fell flat in the end. Or, should I say it exploded in comical, cackling improbable villain laughter? 

Worst of all was the historical stuff. I'm totally fine with a fluffy historical mystery that only pays petticoat homage to the time period (that is, historical accuracy sticklers be-gone, we're more focused on a general surface historical feeling), but this book took things too far.

I at least want SOME nods to the rules of the time (i.e. ladies do not go cavorting on the wrong side of town...and if they do, gosh, do it better, Mary!). I especially don't want a main character with modern sensibilities. Authors, if you want your main character to inappropriately and annoyingly spout off 21st century ideals left and right, then do not set your book in historical times. Nothing rips me out of a book and makes me dislike it faster than an anachronistic character on a modern soapbox.

Or anyone one a soapbox, really. I could really do without the soapboxes. Especially when the rantings come off like PSAs for 2nd graders. Show a little more respect for your readers, maybe?

_________________________________

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Book Review: Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George

 #1 in the Silver in the Blood series
Received: ARC from publisher, via NetGalley
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

Is it too early to call the Biggest Disappointment of 2015? 

Because Silver in the Blood is the forerunner right now and I'm heartbroken about that.

I love Jessica Day George books, but lately things have been kinda rocky. Is it me? Is it the author? Maybe an editor?

I don't know, but I can't shake the same complaints I had with Princess of the Silver Woods of thin, under-developed characters, flimsy world-building, and an overall unpolished feeling of "should have spent more time at the drawing board."

Structure, basics, and what to expect 

Silver in the Blood uses both letter writing between the two main characters, their diary entries, and third person narrative styles to tell the story. I'm mostly ok with this in theory, but the execution here made me scratch my head and wonder at the point of all those letters/diary entries. They just felt like unnecessary filler and I don't think they added anything to the story that we weren't already getting with the main part of the story.

 Then there's the pacing. It's just...so slow. The blurb tells you straight out about The Claw, The Wing, and The Smoke, as well as their shapeshifter heritage and the big prophecy, etc.

So, while the blurb doesn't quite spill ALL the beans, there's like, only a clarifying bean or two still left in the bag.

Which means I really don't want to spend over 150 pages figuring out the blurb. And having the two main characters deny the very obvious truth, over and over and over again.

Even if the blurb hadn't given everything away, it's still painfully obvious what is going on here and while maybe younger middle graders might not put all the pieces together that quickly, this is not a middle grade book. This is Jessica Day George's foray into "older YA" (there's nudity! and murder! and bad language! and "adult situations!"), and any teen is likely sharp enough to figure out the Big Reveal very early on.

A note on that target age thing 

Ok, so I said this is an older YA book because of content. I could also swear I read something about the author herself warning readers that this was a darker, older-audience book. And, yeah, it kinda is. Thematically.

Tone wise? It's total fluffy Jessica Day George middle grade fare. Down to the plucky oh so cute heroines who magically save the day with streamers and puppies and the cackling cardboard villains who are just big meanies. (None of which is a bad thing, in a middle grade book.)

Except there's the nudity and murder and stuff. Which of course isn't anything new for middle grade books, but it IS something that doesn't really belong with the Jessica Day George middle grade reader crowd. The things in this book might trouble some of my more sensitive younger readers, but the whole package is likely to make the older readers roll their eyes.

So, target audience conundrum, exacerbated by misleading marketing. A librarian's dream come true! Yay!

Back to those characters 

The two main characters are basically very shallow stereotypes of The Flirt and The Shy One, and neither of them are particularly likable (or, again, middle grade appropriate).

Dacia, The Flirt, was kind of reprehensible with the way she led on not one, not two, but THREE guys and then went back and forth between them based on who had the most power, prestige, good looks, wealth, and protection to offer her at any given time. Nice, right? This attitude holds true throughout the entire book.

Lou, The Shy One, wasn't quite as awful as Dacia, but she was nothing to write home about either. Sure, she didn't string guys along. No, instead she used her empowering transformation to...fall in love with an unworthy guy. 

I don't remember the exact translation now, but upon their initial meetings, he basically called her a slut, like, out of the blue, while he was stalking her (he hunts her kind) and engaging in behaviors that scared her and led her to give him some cutesy nickname along the lines of The Bad Man, but he was totally flirting so it's ok now! Or, well, he was actually stalking her family to annihilate their evil, but he noticed she was pretty, so, yeah. She just kind of let that whole Bad One thing go because of charming good looks and stuff.

And this is post-empowerment-Lou!

Both leading ladies engaged in such inexplicable, poor, and disrespectful decisions that I just can't get on board with them.

Why no DNF? Why ANY stars? 

I don't even know. I was hoping for better? My strong history of loving Jessica Day George books?

After the Big Reveal things took a turn for the crazy and, while this wasn't a turn to the crazy good, it was at least a turn away from the mind-numbingly boring first half and to the "oh the hell with it!" zany. At that point I threw my hands up and went with it. It was awful, but at least it was entertaining...ish.

Bottom line 

I'm a slow learner, but at this point I'm starting to absorb a few lessons: Jessica Day George is no longer an auto-buy author. I'm even hesitant to request any books for review (except the final Castle Glower book). Her books are now at cautionary library first level, and they're no longer at the top of my TBR, if they're on it at all anymore.

This is a sad day, but Silver in the Blood turned me off so hard.

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Tiny Reviews: East & Beauty

East by Edith Pattou

Absolutely awful.

For me.

I need to say "for me" because I'm starting to think I just might not like the original story. East of the Sun, West of the Moon, The Snow Queen, I don't know, there's something about all that trekking through cold, bleak tundras that turns me off. So maybe it's me.

Or maybe it's the book. It's so incredibly long and not much happens at all. The characters are bland, the plot drags, the flashbacks fell short, the side plot did nothing for me, the romance was unemotional, and the villain wasn't that interesting.

It's like everything was blanketed in muffling, dulling heaps of snow. There was just so much book here and so little substance.

The chapters are super short though, so it was easy to speed through East despite the mammoth size. I think that's the only reason I didn't DNF.

Library book
Rating: 1.5 out of 5

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Beauty by Nancy Ohlin

Snow White was never my favorite fairy tale either, but it's a princess story, so I'm always at least partially predisposed to liking it. And, overall, I did like this one. With some reservations.

Nancy Ohlin's version was definitely unique, twisting the traditional focus on Snow White's beauty into a story about body image and disordered thinking. This was a much deeper, sadder story than I usually associate with the original tale.

Nancy Ohlin did an excellent job exploring the relationship between the Snow White character and her mother and the disordered thinking and emotional pain between the two. These women are both damaged and ill and while it was very well done, it was also very uncomfortable to read.

Which is my main problem with the book. I don't like issues books, and this is definitely an issues book. Sure it's fantasy and takes place in a fantasy world with magic and potions, but it's really an issues book.

Check it out if you're looking for a short, unique fairy tale retelling like the Once Upon a Time series (particularly the The Rose Bride). Just be prepared for something much weightier and darker.

Own
Rating: 3 out of 5

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Book Review: The Kiss of Deception by Mary Pearson

Release Date: July 8, 2014
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co. 
Pages: 486
Received: ARC from publisher, via NetGalley
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

I really, really, really didn't like this book. I feel like there have been a million reviews for The Kiss of Deception lately and I'm so bleurgh about the book overall so I'm going for the bullet points.

Here we go, seven reasons I did not like The Kiss of Deception:

1. LOVE TRIANGLE. This one was especially insufferable. Lia gets to choose between an aimlessly moody prince with a bland personality and a wishy washy assassin who isn't assassiny enough to be cool but is way too assissiny for Lia to actually consider as a romantic partner (unless she's lost her mind, which, well, more on that later). Both choices are awful and shouldn't even be on the table for consideration, yet Lia somehow manages to fall for both of them. Can you hear me face-palming?

2. Lia is not very bright. You know how sometimes authors make their characters do unrealistically stupid things in order to advance the plot? Yeah, The Kiss of Deception is kind of the opposite of that. The plot is incredibly unrealistic in order to accommodate Lia's blinding stupidity. So, Lia's decision to run away from home (that would be, her ROYAL home), shirk her duties (which would be entering into a political alliance through marriage) and play barmaid in a tavern a few towns over? Yeah, no one will look for her, or find her!

SPOILER (except her brother, who finds her pretty fast...and lets her stay there because, um, royal responsibility is for suckers so enjoy shlepping drinks and crushing on the locals?)

3. Three quarters of the (very long) book is spent doing absolutely nothing. Also, incredibly uneven plotting. Where was the editor?

4. Total cliffhanger ending. Don't think I can be manipulated into reading book 2 by dangling all those loose ends in my face. I don't care enough about anything in this book to bother reading the next one, cliffhanger or no cliffhanger.

5. Lia destroyed a priceless historical heirloom. As a lover of history, antiques, and all such things I literally gasped when Lia casually discarded this object in a scene that I think was supposed to make her seem "free spirited" but just made her seem childish.

6. The world building was seriously lacking. Sporadic allusions to political disputes (with no substance), impending war (with no legit cause), and the existence of some kind of magic stuff all set in a generic Medieval-ish village does not constitute proper world building. Inserting vague story excerpts randomly throughout the narrative also does not constitute world building. Even if it's written in italics.

7. Look, I'm totally cool with unreliable narrators, but they have to be done right. When done right, they can completely make a book. There's so much wrong with the way it was done in The Kiss of Deception. It was obvious, but less because there were clues and more because it was handled in an awkward, clunky way. Absolutely nothing changed once it was revealed so I don't really see what the point of it was to begin with.

Bottom line

Awful. Disappointing. Almost enough to make me swear off this author if she hadn't also written the fantastic The Adoration of Jenna Fox.

Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 

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Book Review: The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges

The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges
Release Date: January 10, 2012
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages: 400
Received: ARC from publisher
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Summary

From Goodreads:

St. Petersburg, Russia, 1888. As she attends a whirl of glittering balls, royal debutante Katerina Alexandrovna, Duchess of Oldenburg, tries to hide a dark secret: she can raise the dead. No one knows. Not her family. Not the girls at her finishing school. Not the tsar or anyone in her aristocratic circle. Katerina considers her talent a curse, not a gift. But when she uses her special skill to protect a member of the Imperial Family, she finds herself caught in a web of intrigue.

An evil presence is growing within Europe's royal bloodlines—and those aligned with the darkness threaten to topple the tsar. Suddenly Katerina's strength as a necromancer attracts attention from unwelcome sources . . . including two young men—George Alexandrovich, the tsar's standoffish middle son, who needs Katerina's help to safeguard Russia, even if he's repelled by her secret, and the dashing Prince Danilo, heir to the throne of Montenegro, to whom Katerina feels inexplicably drawn.
The time has come for Katerina to embrace her power, but which side will she choose—and to whom will she give her heart?

Review

Four things I want out of an historical fantasy, 
and where The Gathering Storm went wrong for me

1. I want to feel like I'm there

I was really looking forward to immersing myself in Tsarist Russia and living and breathing the Russian court and culture, but sadly, this didn't happen. Aside from the traditional Russian naming conventions used*, I would have assumed the setting was England and the characters were all British.

*(Talk about a mouthful! The inclusion of traditional Russian naming conventions is a great way to pad a book with an extra 50 pages!)

2. I want a main character of her time, but interesting

One of the reasons I love historical fantasy is because it allows for more interesting female roles than in straight-up historical fiction. I was totally on board with the idea of Katerina as a necromancer.

But reading about Katerina the duchess who wants to be a doctor? Eeeeh, I'm having a MUCH harder time buying that.

It's not that I'm against women doctors or the idea of a woman bucking society's expectations (Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman fangirl, right here!), but I just couldn't believe that a duchess of that time period would be willing to throw everything away to become a doctor.

And keep in mind, being a doctor wasn't a glamorous job then. Being a doctor was a perfectly acceptable career...for someone in the middle class. That Katerina was so brazenly gung-ho about it didn't ring true to me at all and made her seem spoiled and naive. 

(Plus, I straight up didn't like her)

Katerina seriously irritated me. She constantly contradicted herself by saying one thing and then doing something that completely undermined what she said.

She never really acted like she wanted to be a doctor. Sure she talked about it a lot, but when actually placed in a situation where she could whip out her doctor hat, she seemed uncomfortable and clueless. Her crowning moment was squeamishly tying on a bandage. Forgive me if I'm unimpressed. 

Katerina pulled this "talk the talk, but not walk the walk" when it came to learning about her necromancy powers, too. She said she needed to learn more (and oh boy is THAT an understatement!), but she then spurned almost every opportunity she was presented with.

She pooh-poohed advice given to her to protect herself from magical threats because she refused to believe those threats could possibly exist. You're a necromancer, honey! Why is it such a stretch to believe Bad Magical People exist too? Her actions made zero sense to me, and yet I'm somehow supposed to buy that she's a smart cookie? I'm having trouble making the connection.

Rejecting princess-ness and knocking everyone who enjoyed such things wasn't winning her any points with me either. I like balls and princesses and girly things like that. I'm also uncomfortable with people who elevate themselves by putting down others, and so I couldn't get on board with Katerina's constant scorning and belittling of her peers.

3. I want a smooth integration of magical elements

The magical elements in some historical fantasies are integrated so well that I have to remind myself that the magical parts are not actually based on fact. That wasn't the case here.

I was totally confused about the rules of The Gathering Storm's magical elements. Because the book is narrated by Katerina and she flat out refused to learn anything about the paranormal creatures, the rules surrounding them were extremely vague. The who, what, where, when, why, and how of it all seemed muddy and inconsistent. 

For example, there were vampires, witches, necromancers, and a host of other paranormal creatures, and at some points it seemed like they were all "out" in society. But then other times it seemed like they were a big secret and the vast majority of people had no clue they existed. And if they found out, there would be DIRE consequences. So, um, which is it? I'm very confused. 

4. I want it to be more exciting than my history textbook

I was bogged down by the slow pacing and the endless balls that seemed to serve no purpose to the overall plot (and I usually like balls). My inner child even piped up a few times to whine "Are we there yet??" I suspect The Gathering Storm has come down with a serious case of series stretching.

Writing style. I REALLY noticed.

The Grand Duchess and the Grand Duchess enter a room, and then the Grand Duchess leaves.

When I wasn't tripping over all of the Katerina Alexandrovnas I was thoroughly confused with the over-used vague titles.

If a story has more than one Grand Duchess or Grand Duke etc, then I don't recommend referring to all of them by their title instead of their name. That applies doubly when they're all present at the same time.

This also really didn't help establish the characters as individuals, especially given their personalities were so sparsely developed.

Editing errors

As if I wasn't already confused enough, editing inconsistencies threw me for a loop. At one point Katerina is wearing a ring on a necklace, but a few sentences later the ring has magically appeared on her finger! A character who knows nothing of the paranormal suddenly does! This sort of thing occurred a lot.

Full disclosure though, I did read an ARC, so many of those inconsistencies may have been corrected in the final version.

Will I read the sequel?

No. I am a little curious about the plot because there were some interesting bits there, but I don't think I could put up with Katerina much more. The writing and editing left too much to be desired and I'm not going to muddle through it again.

Do I recommend it?

That depends. Even if the writing improved, I still personally wouldn't like Katerina and the lack of realism. BUT, readers who enjoyed Jennifer Bradbury's Wrapped might not mind this at all. I had similar complaints about Agnes in Wrapped and I know a lot of people loved her and didn't mind the historical stretches.

Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 

Do you have any questions about The Gathering Storm that I haven't addressed? 
Feel free to ask in the comments!

Add this book on Goodreads
Buy The Gathering Storm

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Book Review: All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Release Date: January 11, 2011
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages: 256
Received: Library
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars 
Goodreads Page

There are NO spoilers in this review!

You can read this review even if you haven't read the previous books in the series.

Summary

From Goodreads:

Sarah Vida has given up everything for love. From a legendary family of vampire-hunting witches, Sarah was raised to never trust a vampire, to never let her guard down, and to avoid all tricky attachments of the heart. But now Sarah IS a vampire—changed by the boy she thought she loved. Her family has forsaken her, and Sarah herself is disgusted by her appetite for blood.

Aida Vida is Sarah's older sister, the good, reliable sibling who always does her family proud. But when Aida's mother insists that Sarah be found and killed, Aida is given the one assignment that she may not be able to carry out.

Taking place over just twenty-four hours, ALL JUST GLASS tells the story of a game-changing battle that will forever change the world of the Den of Shadows. And at its center is the story of two sisters who must choose between love and duty. Dark, fully-imagined, and hard to put down, ALL JUST GLASS will thrill Amelia's fans—old and new.

Review

This is the sequel to Shattered Mirror and book 7 in the Den of Shadows series, but DON’T STOP READING YET! I promise this review doesn’t have any spoilers for the previous books.

But let me just gush about Shattered Mirror for a minute

Shattered Mirror was published in 2001 when Amelia was a teenager, but you’d never guess her age based on her book. I devoured Shattered Mirror and have been singing its praises for years. Two hot vampire brothers—one good, one seductively bad—and the girl in the middle of the two (sound familiar?). Only in Shattered Mirror, the girl is a witch and vampire hunter, which adds in a whole level of delicious forbidden love and conflict.

The vampire and witch lore is so thorough I feel like that world could actually exist around me. Her characters were real and likable. I care about those people. I squeaked with joy when I heard there would be a sequel.

Time Gone By

While ten years have passed in the real world, practically no time has passed between Shattered Mirror and All Just Glass. The events of this book take place over the course of a mere 24 hours. I thought this was gimmicky and unnecessary, adding nothing at all except mild annoyance. I suggest just ignoring the time stamps at the beginning of each chapter. You won’t miss anything.

Who the heck are these people?!

All Just Glass features almost all of the main characters from the first book and throws in a few more. The cast is HUGE and I had a hard time keeping track of everyone. I could barely tell the difference between a bunch of characters, having to rely solely on superficial traits (that one’s the witch with vampire blood, that one’s the witch with psychic powers, etc).

Even worse, the characters I knew and loved from the first book had nothing in common with their versions in this book. Nikolas had such a strong and distinct personality in Shattered Mirror, but here he’s completely different and barely present. This was the biggest let down for me.

The other characters from the first book met the same fate. They all felt washed out and incomplete, relying solely on the development of the first book (which in many cases contradicted their actions in this second book). As the characters stand in this book, I don’t care at all about any of them and they all score a big whopping ZERO on my WWMCD Test.

Where am I? Who am I?

The plot pacing felt uneven, jumping around with repeated promises of interesting events and then fizzling out. The tight plotting and steadily building pace of Amelia’s earlier books was absent here. Instead events seemed to meander around without coherent form or goal. I wanted to chuck the book across the room at the epically anticlimactic ending.

Making matters worse are all of the competing narrators. The book is written in the third person, but the focus shifts from character to character with little rhyme or reason. Some characters’ focuses are returned to again and again, while others only have one or two scenes (scenes, not even whole chapters). This felt sloppy and convoluted, especially since most of the characters all sounded the same.

Secrets were revealed for many characters, presumably to create depth and “shades of gray.” I ended up disliking them even more. I also felt like this added confusion because none of their secrets are revealed coherently. Ever run text through a translator and eventually you get the gist of what was written but the details are missing and you’re left with a jumble of broken English? That’s what this felt like to me.

Whatever tension there might have been was completely killed for me after numerous letdowns and the realization that even my memories of these characters couldn’t make me care about what happened to them now.

  

Bottom line

Read Shattered Mirror! And, really, all of the first four books in the series. Each ends as a standalone, so you can pick one up and not have to worry about reading a whole series or dealing with loose ends. I’m very disappointed with All Just Glass, especially since I know the author is capable of much better.

 Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 

This book satisfies the following challenges:

• Most Awaited YA Releases Challenge
• YA Series Challenge
• Morbid Romantica Challenge
• Library Reading Challenge

Other books in the series--Each can be read as a standalone! (click on their covers to go to Goodreads): 

 

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