Monstress, Volume 01: Awakening is Some Good #%@!ing Art
There, I said it. That's all there is to it.
What's this? I should probably give you a little more than that? Persuade you, you say. Alright, don't get your feathers ruffled like so, I'll do it. I've taken the initiative now.
Volume 01: Awakening has a unique art style, slick and gorgeous, showcasing the full skill of Sana Takeda. Obviously inspired by Manga, it's also informed by Takeda's work on Marvel series such as X-23 and Ms. Marvel, resulting in an amalgamation that's unlike most art I've personally come across: Gold and brown and grey are often the colours that dominate the many panels of the first issues of Monstress in particular, creating a human world that looks luxurious but feels cold and metallic. Dominated by science and religious fanaticism alike, the human side of the world of Monstress is nothing short of disturbing. The upper echelons of human society are unnerving, to say the least -- humans auction off arcanics (we'll get to those in a minute) for pleasure, experimentation or ...a meal. Disturbing how easily it would be to see this happening; all we need is a comfy distinction of human versus 'other' and what ammounts to cannibalism is suddenly acceptable.
Arcanics are half-human and half-ancient. That is to say, they'll often look like humans, only they'll usually have a fluffy fox tail, or cat ears or angelic wings; something giving away the fact they've got a bit of magical, immortal biped animal-like grandpa/grandma genetic material in them from several generations ago. Arcanics will always be mortal...I think. There's a lot of them though. Part of the beef arcanics have with humans is that the power behind the human government. the religious Cumaea sect, has been chopping arcanics for their bones, producing a magical resource called lilium for a little while. Lilium has all kinds of wonderful properties -- enhancing life duration, healing those at the very edge of death, and only Marjorie M. Liu knows what else. Knowing this, it's understandable how humans and arcanics traded some serious blows a while back, a war that ended in tragedy and death, and a tentative peace hobbled by mistrust and downright hatred. I mean, humans hunt cats and put them in cages because they are in fact an arcanist-allied race of hyperintellectual, many-tailed...well, cats. Nothing unusual about that, actually.
The tone of this graphic novel is dark, as you might've guessed by now. But it needs to be said and underlined: this is a dark story, a story of death and brutal violence, much of it perpetuated by our own heroine, Maika.
Maika is dangerous. Possessing power that no arcanic should, Maika's ignorance of that same power makes her both horrifying and sympathetic. A tragic backstory plays up the sympathy but the power slumbering inside of her is hungry; and whenever that hunger manifests, we get treated to some pretty dark shit. As for who she is as a character? Determined, angry, looking for answers. There is an underlying softness to her, a caring that she seems intent of not showing but which nevertheless comes to display every once in a while, in particular towards the later issues of this volume, whenever we see supporting character and adorable girl-fox-who-is-scared-shitless Kippa.
Kippa is kutta! And by that I mean, cute. I don't know what phonetic nonsense I was going for there. She's loyal despite being afraid most of time -- but she's got a really good reason so don't think any less of her.
What else, what else? There's a cat! His name is Ren, he's a nekomancer, which I'm pretty sure sounds intentionally like a necromancer and that fucks with my head in several ways, mostly because I want to see a cat raise the dead, oh how I want that. New short story idea? You bet! But also, this cat is way too much like me, it's uncanny.
I am in love with this, and it's no surprise how successful, popular and critically acclaimed it has become. The writing is on point, offering dramatic tension, character development and plenty of conflict. The art, as you have seen, is a wonder. This truly is a praiseworthy graphic novel, an example of the heights that this mode of storytelling can reach, up there with Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Kieron Gillen/Jamie Mckelvie's The Wicked + The Divine. I've already ordered the next two volumes and can't wait for the fourth, releasing in October of this year. I wish I hadn't waited this long to get my hands on it, Monstress truly is that kind of story.
Oh, and the antagonists? Some of them are pretty fucking scary, and you just can't put them in the ground, no matter how hard you try. Besides, no matter how hard you try, you won't do as well as Maika Halfwolf will so you might as well take a seat, open up this volume, and enjoy the ride!
Monstress, Volume 01: Awakening is Some Good #%@!ing Art
There, I said it. That's all there is to it.
What's this? I should probably give you a little more than that? Persuade you, you say. Alright, don't get your feathers ruffled like so, I'll do it. I've taken the initiative now.
Volume 01: Awakening has a unique art style, slick and gorgeous, showcasing the full skill of Sana Takeda. Obviously inspired by Manga, it's also informed by Takeda's work on Marvel series such as X-23 and Ms. Marvel, resulting in an amalgamation that's unlike most art I've personally come across: Gold and brown and grey are often the colours that dominate the many panels of the first issues of Monstress in particular, creating a human world that looks luxurious but feels cold and metallic. Dominated by science and religious fanaticism alike, the human side of the world of Monstress is nothing short of disturbing. The upper echelons of human society are unnerving, to say the least -- humans auction off arcanics (we'll get to those in a minute) for pleasure, experimentation or ...a meal. Disturbing how easily it would be to see this happening; all we need is a comfy distinction of human versus 'other' and what ammounts to cannibalism is suddenly acceptable.
Arcanics are half-human and half-ancient. That is to say, they'll often look like humans, only they'll usually have a fluffy fox tail, or cat ears or angelic wings; something giving away the fact they've got a bit of magical, immortal biped animal-like grandpa/grandma genetic material in them from several generations ago. Arcanics will always be mortal...I think. There's a lot of them though. Part of the beef arcanics have with humans is that the power behind the human government. the religious Cumaea sect, has been chopping arcanics for their bones, producing a magical resource called lilium for a little while. Lilium has all kinds of wonderful properties -- enhancing life duration, healing those at the very edge of death, and only Marjorie M. Liu knows what else. Knowing this, it's understandable how humans and arcanics traded some serious blows a while back, a war that ended in tragedy and death, and a tentative peace hobbled by mistrust and downright hatred. I mean, humans hunt cats and put them in cages because they are in fact an arcanist-allied race of hyperintellectual, many-tailed...well, cats. Nothing unusual about that, actually.
The tone of this graphic novel is dark, as you might've guessed by now. But it needs to be said and underlined: this is a dark story, a story of death and brutal violence, much of it perpetuated by our own heroine, Maika.
Maika is dangerous. Possessing power that no arcanic should, Maika's ignorance of that same power makes her both horrifying and sympathetic. A tragic backstory plays up the sympathy but the power slumbering inside of her is hungry; and whenever that hunger manifests, we get treated to some pretty dark shit. As for who she is as a character? Determined, angry, looking for answers. There is an underlying softness to her, a caring that she seems intent of not showing but which nevertheless comes to display every once in a while, in particular towards the later issues of this volume, whenever we see supporting character and adorable girl-fox-who-is-scared-shitless Kippa.
Kippa is kutta! And by that I mean, cute. I don't know what phonetic nonsense I was going for there. She's loyal despite being afraid most of time -- but she's got a really good reason so don't think any less of her.
What else, what else? There's a cat! His name is Ren, he's a nekomancer, which I'm pretty sure sounds intentionally like a necromancer and that fucks with my head in several ways, mostly because I want to see a cat raise the dead, oh how I want that. New short story idea? You bet! But also, this cat is way too much like me, it's uncanny.
I am in love with this, and it's no surprise how successful, popular and critically acclaimed it has become. The writing is on point, offering dramatic tension, character development and plenty of conflict. The art, as you have seen, is a wonder. This truly is a praiseworthy graphic novel, an example of the heights that this mode of storytelling can reach, up there with Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Kieron Gillen/Jamie Mckelvie's The Wicked + The Divine. I've already ordered the next two volumes and can't wait for the fourth, releasing in October of this year. I wish I hadn't waited this long to get my hands on it, Monstress truly is that kind of story.
Oh, and the antagonists? Some of them are pretty fucking scary, and you just can't put them in the ground, no matter how hard you try. Besides, no matter how hard you try, you won't do as well as Maika Halfwolf will so you might as well take a seat, open up this volume, and enjoy the ride!...more
Genuinely loved this thicc boi. Some have called it cliched, yet--so are the vast majority of human beings you'll meet. I do reckon it could've used sGenuinely loved this thicc boi. Some have called it cliched, yet--so are the vast majority of human beings you'll meet. I do reckon it could've used some curtailing. ...more
I don't beat around the bush, but these Giant Days reviews are me mostly pointing at funny parts of the volume and giggling like a schoolboy, so...some spoilers ahead, if you care?
First off, that #21 cover has some bitchin’ ‘Susan as hard-boiled detective’ art.
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Our girls have been burgled! Well, their apartment has, which is somehow even worse, considering it forces us to visit Susan’s room.
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The issue turns very serious when Daisy reveals to Esther and Susan that the only keepsakes she had left from her parents have been stolen, too, which opens the door to us learning so much more about Daisy’s childhood than we did before.
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So like her to end up being the grown-up, calming down her friends. It’s not long until the girls come up with the latest insane plan, this time to reappropriate Daisy’s keepsakes! However could that go wrong, you ask? For one, we get to see Esther in what I can best describe as un-Esther clothing. That, my friends, is a vile attack on goth chic fashion, and I will not stand for it. I mean, just look at what it does to Esther:
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I adore how Susan is into her role, though; she’s trying really hard to pass off as one of those sly criminals we all root for from our living rooms…I’ll let you imagine how well that goes for her. It’s a fun, warm story that once more deepens the friendship defining the pages of Giant Days, and I shan’t spoil the conclusion, but by the opening of the following issue (#22), DAISY’S SMOOCH BUDDY IS IN THE HOUSE! Of course, Daisy freaks out:
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Meanwhile, Esther is being a responsible employee, and learning the joys of hard work, and Susan is having trouble climbing up hills—who knew smoking like a chimney might slow you down somewhat?
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Daisy’s adventures with Ingrid, meanwhile, demand more and more of her, drying her goodness like a fig, until the sweetest human in slice-of-life is turned once more into an evil hound of hell (see previous volumes for more of this). On the off-hand that’s not enough, we do get to see Esther experiencing cosmic horror:
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As the following issue commences, we’ve got Ester feeling lonely, Susan coughing like she’s a seventy-year-old smoker instead of a nineteen-year-old one, and Daisy enjoying life to the max. Sounds like a great time for a party, doesn’t it?
But here’s the trick, we’ve been getting some panels with the girls’ neighbour, an elderly grumpus, and with a party incoming….whatever’s bound to happen? Conversations, is wot—and only those conversations that truly showcase the depth of that penetrative intelligence so many nineteen-year-olds possess.
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This, truly, is when I realised how much I love Ingrid’s character—she has no filter whatsoever and it’s altogether too funny to watch the chaos her words create.
I am particularly fond of how the Hulk versus Wolvering conversation comes back around when Esther is having an interview for her (possible?) dream job:
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Come Issue #25, it finally happens! Not since the very first volume have we experienced the joy of one of our characters being this sick, not since then have we had the chance to fully appreciate the myriad ways in which disease can be used for a thousand brands of comedy! And now, threats:
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The three girls become infantilized by the parental presence in their life in the span of three weeks, until tragedy strikes and Susan murders a man in cold blood:
Any literally retelling has to contend with several points. The first isThis review was originally published over at my blog, The Grimoire Reliquary!
Any literally retelling has to contend with several points. The first is fidelity: Is this work true to the original, in spirit if not in letter? The second is style: Does this new version seek to violently break with the original in its stylistic choices, or is its aim to emulate? With Maria Dahvana Headley’s 2020 translation of Beowulf, the purpose lay more in breaking with tradition, in bringing in a feminist perspective in a text traditionally glorifying the heroically masculine. Madelline Miller, on the other hand, succeeds in creating a work that keeps faith with the Iliad while bringing in the strengths of the novelistic form—a depth of psychological realism that breathes life into Patroclus and Achilles than ever before.
This is no great secret. The Song of Achilles has been out for ten years—TEN YEARS! Everyone has read this book before me, okay? I want to acknowledge this. I’m late to the party and not fashionably late, either; and if I hadn’t fallen in love with the absolute greatest Achilles fan-girl, who knows at what point I would have read it? On the off-chance that you haven’t yet picked Miller’s debut up, are waiting for the right time to come and bonk you on the nose…do yourself a solid, pick it up.
Madelline Miller’s Circe was one of the first books I reviewed, back in 2018. It’ll forever remain a favourite retelling of mine and a part of me always feared that visiting this earlier work of hers might be a smidge disappointing. What if her inexperience showed? The lyricism of her prose is downright addictive and I feared, at some level, that The Song would not quite measure up.
I needn’t have worried. Miller’s debut is equal to Circe in every way, even as the two are very different works by the very nature of their protagonists. Circe was a tale of loneliness lived and companionship found; The Song of Achilles is a love story, tender and more bittersweet than grapefruit peel, and the defining work on the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles. I started this review by touching on fidelity and it is this that Miller does so well. Achilles, as she writes him, is everything I imagined—calm, collected, gracious but also prideful, capable of wrath as only someone who has never experienced failure may be. Miller shows the humanity of him long before she shows the godly spark—and so makes that inhuman aspect of him all the more monstrous, all the more alien. Patroclus, as the point of view character who sees and knows Achilles best, amplifies the shock, the surprise at those few occasions that see Achilles’s hubris revealed in full.
Patroclus, too, is much like I imagined him. Perhaps one point of contention should be mentioned early on—I was surprised Miller didn’t make him more of a fighter but this concern was handled very well in the latter part of the novel. I was given a view of a man who is forced to learn cunning when the boy he was had none. The need for cunning is great—when gods and prophecies offer knowledge on the circumstances of your death, you’ve got to turn creative.
I said “bittersweet” about The Song and I’ll die on this hill. A commonly recurring motif is Achilles’s response to other Greek heroes as to why he hasn’t fought Hector yet: “What has Hector ever done to me?” Every time I read this, I turned misty-eyed; like the Olympians with their prophecies, we readers too feel the bitter irony of such times.
It’s a joy to see so many of the Greek heroes together. Agamemnon is as much a lil shit as anyone who’s ever heard of him will recognise; Odysseus is the smartest man in every room, and whenever Miller makes mention of cleverness, I immediately recognise her words as foreshadowing to his appearance—and ha, I was right! Chiron is as stable a character as any I have seen; and the short scene between Priam and Achilles hurt me in the most wonderful way, because it reaffirmed that very humanity that Miller captures so brilliantly in Achilles.
There’s more to say, of course—the novel is chock-full of cleverness, some of it pointed out to me by my brilliant reading companion, like a play on the names Patroclus and Cleopatra that I didn’t initially even notice; so, if you’re able, find yourself a reading buddy half as awesome as mine, and spread your wings, Icarus! You’re sure to fall for this one.
[Thank you to koki for reading this with me <3]...more
I’ve always enjoyed Jason Aaron’s work. He’s a talented scribThis wonderous, ponderous review was originally published over at The Grimoire Reliquary.
I’ve always enjoyed Jason Aaron’s work. He’s a talented scribe and his Thor runs are some of my favourite Marvel works in the past decade–despite not having read that work’s conclusion in the face of War of the Realms. Catching up on his Doctor Strange run seemed a no-brainer after I spied a somewhat mangled copy of The Last Days of Magic at my local library. Since I never say no to a mangled copy of anything, I checked it out immediately, expecting nothing less than moderate amounts of entertainment.
If only it were so.
There is fun to be had, certainly, but it comes in the weirdest moments: Scarlet Witch with a shotgun (she is a mutant, and a mystic, but surely her magic operates by different rules than Stephen’s?), a creepy Lovecraftian agony monster that Stephen and Wang have been keeping in the dungeon; how quickly my excitement turned to bitter, bitter disappointment, the further I read into this.
I do not like Strange’s voice. That’s wholly subjective, a matter of preference–but I’ve grown fond of a wiser, more experienced Master of the Mystic Arts.
I do not like magic here. It’s boring and not magical, and I don’t care enough to get why mutants are affected by the lack of it, too.
I don’t like the art much, either. Chris Bachalo’s art is a massive hit or miss for me. Perhaps as long as a decade back he did a tremendous run on one of the flagship X-titles at the time (I want to say…X-Men Legacy?), which appealed to me; here, I am often lost and struggling to piece together what is going on. A lot of it has to do with colouring, I think–issues 6-9 are a clusterfuck but whoever coloured issue 10 gets Fil’s No-Prize of the Month.
I borrowed this one from the library; when I returned it, they had the third volume…I have shackled myself to this Strange, Strange man and freedom is little more than a delirious hope at the farthest edges of my mind.
Disappointing. If you see a ruffled copy at *your* local library, know that it is a trap.
But do support your libraries, they need it.
And here’s a terrible joke I came up with, to celebrate this comic book:
A wizard and a scientist dude walk into a bar. Wanna see a magic trick, asks the wizard. Haha, wizzerd go brrr, says the Empirikul scientist guy. Then he bashes the wizard’s brains in.
It is a fool who pushes his favourite new mania to the side, only to return and review it six months later! Yes, I did it, and I accept my guilt with a bowed head. Whatever the circumstances of 2020–and aren’t they a thrill?–mine is a sin not to be underestimated. I’ve ignored my sacred duty to spread the word about John Alison’s wonderful Giant Days too long; time to get back to it, and as I don’t have any more Star Wars comics I want to read and review just now, I’m reviving the Sunday Comics* column to talk about a menagerie of other comics. Without further ado: Greeting, reader…
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They’re back! Esther, goth-queen of the universe; realist Susan whose feet are so firmly on the ground, Newton wouldn’t have needed to get bonked on his head to figure out gravity was a thing (he’d have gotten it the moment his eyes found her); and Daisy, whose name I shamefully keep forgetting but who reminds me so much of one of my best friends, it’s not even funny anymore. I’ve called her Daffodil, I’ve called her Lilly, even, but Daisy is somehow beyond me!
There’s also McGraw and Ed, our likeable secondary characters. This volume of Giant Days opens up with an Ed-centric story, which is–you guessed it, all about a shit experience in the bedroom with someone Ed quite fancies; that someone then makes fun of him, which…not cool, dudette!
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Really, miss University-Paper-Editor? (The girl on the side of the middle panel, tho–art game is as strong as it gets.)
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There’s bad form and then there’s this. We don’t shame inexperienced folks, Fish-Dress-Lady. That’s something we just don’t do; if everyone was this much of an asshole to people society would begin to crumbl–oh. Oooh. I think I’m beginning to identify the problem of our time, here.
Jokes aside, if you’ve never had bad sex, you haven’t had enough of sex at all. Bad sex is a great lesson in humility, too! I’ve had it–more than once, too! Keeps me humble.
Then, there’s Esther, whose strength of manic personality is one of the shining beacons that is the inferno of life outside my window.
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Am I in love with her? Nope. Am I her, but with dangly bits? You betcha! Esther is in deep trouble–or so she’d have you believe her. Her best friend from high school, Big Lindsay has come to town, and she’s all about that party lifestyle. Esther offers a tragic story of a bad girl corrupting an innocent, and Daisy buys it wholesale:
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It’s poppycock, surely. It must be.
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Uh.
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Uuuuuh. Aaaanyway…
Turns out Lindsay isn’t all bad. She’s the life of the party and she’s got the cutest puppy-dog eyes you’ve ever seen, but there’s more to this punk-y twenty-something year-old.
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But you can find out for yourself. She’s a very wholesome character, despite an ultra-extroverted nature that makes me want to scream in a paper bag, then hide behind my pillow fort.
But hey-hey-hey, I hear you ask. What’s Susan up to? She’s strangely absent, isn’t she? Our realist has been working hard on a campaign to make the university a better, more just place. A worthwhile pursuit, Susan! S-Susan?
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You don’t look so good, Susie. Maybe…maybe Ester could help.
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Then again, maybe not.
This is as excellent a volume as the previous two, with jokes that never fail to deliver. The art continues to not only punctuate the sharp dialogue but breathe stunning life into these characters–as you can see.
It’s some of the finest times you can have with a comic book and I’m eager to talk your ear off about Volume 04, which I read last night–it only gets better!
*formerly Sunday ComiX, due to some exceptionally horrible X-Men puns and jokes I made for several months in…2017? 2016? It’s been a while!
This review can be found over on my blog, The Grimoire Reliquary. It was part of The Write Reads's Ultimate Blog Tour.
Knightmare Arcanist was a joy tThis review can be found over on my blog, The Grimoire Reliquary. It was part of The Write Reads's Ultimate Blog Tour.
Knightmare Arcanist was a joy to read, and went by as fast as any of the novels I’ve read over these last few months.
Shami Stovall has created a readable and endearing world in the setting of her Frith Chronicles, full of magic and mystical beasts, but also countless dangers. …Okay, I can only come up with two right now, but they’re pretty pirates and the plague.
At least one of those is topical to the current clime, I say.
Volke has been disliked all his life, for crimes committed by the parents he hardly knew. A gravekeeper’s apprentice, and with only his adopted sister Illia and their foster father William for company, Volke has dreamed of becoming someone important, someone with the power to help folks and show the world he is better than his parents. Despite plenty of difficulties early on, Volke shows he possesses the heart of a true hero. That, or a really kickass best friend/foster sister in the face of the aforementioned Illia, who is such a great, fun character–and she’s far from the only one. The whole cast was exemplary, and I quite enjoyed following their individual relationships with Volke shift and change.
It’s not much of a spoiler to say that Volke succeeds in finding a magical beast to bond with; the book isn’t called Knightmare Gravekeeper, awesome as that title is. Volke and his sister, as well as a pair of other young arcanists from the same island as our ex-gravediggers all join in the guild of Volke’s childhood hero, Gregory Ruma.
More than anything, this book reminded me of an anime, an old favourite of mine by the name of Fairy Tail. What called that comparison to mind are the guilds full of magicians arcanists who go out adventuring into the world.
My single issue is, the climax is a little too fast, a little too neat. Considering the danger Volke and his fellow arcanist apprentices face, I would’ve hoped for a slightly longer action scene–which is not to say the one we got wasn’t entertaining.
The cover is quite the beauty, however.
A few threads are left very much left open and to be resolved in the sequel — a few budding relationships, a few hints at romance, the future of all six of our promising arcanists. I might be annoyed in another novel, but any sequel baiting Knightmare Arcanist engages in is wholly successful. I want to read on — I’m eager to, in fact!...more
That’s not an apt enough description for the book in its entirety, far from it – but it does encapsulate my impressWhat if Romeo was a bit of a prick?
That’s not an apt enough description for the book in its entirety, far from it – but it does encapsulate my impression of its first quarter. And indeed, throughout I could never escape the impression that there’s something almost Shakespearean in Angela Boord’s Fortune’s Fool. The setting is inspired by Italian city-states in their hay-day, with all the backstabbing, trade rights and struggling for power. The story is heavy on personal drama, and is, when all is said and done, one of the most enjoyable love stories I’ve encountered in a long while.
Kyrra d’Aliente has lost everything. Once the only daughter of one of the most powerful noble families in the land, Kyrra is a gavaro, a mercenary for hire at the services of the highest bidder. Her story begins thus:
My right arm is made of metal. A man named Arsenault made it for me, but he never told me its secrets. He didn’t have time. He gave me the arm and sent me to safety, then he rode off to die. My arm shines like silver and withstands all weather and all blows, but it isn’t a dead thing. No leather straps attach it to my stump, no belts or buckles of any kind. The metal grows right into my flesh. From the sculpted whorls of my metal fingerprints to the dimple of my metal elbow, it might be the arm with which I was born. Except that it’s not. That arm lies rotting in a cedar casket I the ground beneath a cork tree, an arm of meat, kin and blood like any other woman’s. Not that anyone can tell I’m a woman. I dress like a man and work as a gavaro, wielding my sword for coin. People know me as Kyris. But the name I was born with is Kyrra. Kyrra d’Aliente, only child of Pallo, the Householder of House Aliente.
It’s a hell of an opening. Everything about it is concrete, in the past, and the way the narration is handled introduces strong character voice in a way both memorable and interesting. After, it’s a bit overwhelming – plenty of names and events in short order aren’t easy to digest at first but bear with the first few chapters and you’ll find your way into the world of Renaissance not-Italy.
This novel adopts a familiar structure, interposing the events of Kyrra’s past in order to shine a light on her present. The tenses used, past and present, work well in this framework, and the change in tone is immediately felt. No confusion in that aspect, for which I salute the author; many have messed it up.
It’s length, while daunting, is excused by the story contained within… for the most part. I can’t escape the thought that some of the scenes weren’t necessary and may have been a little too padded out. Despite that, I was surprised when, upon finishing the last page of Fortune’s Fool, I immediately wanted to read more.
Of the three novels I’ve reviewed for booknest’s SPFBO scorecard, this brought me the most in terms of enjoyment. The prose is very fine indeed – I’m impressed by the skill at display here. Brood’s characters have that little something that makes you buy into the illusion of fiction, that makes you believe these are real people you’re reading about.
The action was serviceable for the most part, though several scenes stand out, especially the concluding one. Magic, gods – these elements awoke in me that sense of wonder and intrigue that’s one of the mainstay reasons as to why I read fantasy. Nothing Sanderson-esque about it, no element of a “hard” magic system; what is here goes for wonder and mystery. In that, it succeeds.
My score for Fortune’s Fool is an 8.5 out of 10. There’s a lot to enjoy in this book, and though it might not appeal to everyone, it did resonate with me in more ways than one. ...more
Reread in September 2022 - as funny the second time as it was the first. New visual jokes noticed, old ones appreciated anew.
This review was originalReread in September 2022 - as funny the second time as it was the first. New visual jokes noticed, old ones appreciated anew.
This review was originally posted over at my blog, The Grimoire Reliquary. If you missed out on my joyful review of the first volume of Giant Days, you can click here.
I barely began my reading of the second volume of the brilliant slice-of-life when already I found myself transformed by it! How, you ask – and I won’t just tell you, I’ll show you!
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You see here how one Esther de Groot (my two-dimensional female self) denounces the monstrous injustices of modern, post-industrialist society, a system that seeps away anything and everything unique about human beings! RISE UP MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, TO BLOODY REVOLUTION. It’s a funny pictury, is wot it is.
What happens in this second volume, then? The girls go to a Christmas prom before leaving for Christmas Break – for those of you unaware, before the corona, we had a little something called trah-veh-ling, I think, it’s been a long time – and off they go, enjoying their break; only, Susan gets in trouble with someone who has a grudge against her. Issue 06 is about the girls finding out just wot has happened to fierce, angry Susan, and, would you know it? Before too long, Esther has to use her drama field, the one we spoke about in the previous review.
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Oh, and mustachio man threatens some guys with the most worker class threat I’ve ever read, and I love it.
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Did I mention that he and Susan smoosh booties?
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Meanwhile, the third one – wot’s her name again? She has a crisis of personality. Or is it a crisis of consistency?
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Oh, I got it! It’s Petal.
…No, that doesn’t sound right. Anyway, I have to give it to Tulip here, she steals the show throughout the volume, especially when she transforms into a weird Texan who wants to smoke meats – don’t try that at home, kids, you can’t handle it – after watching plenty of Friday Night Lights. But Daisy’s greatest trait has to be her absolute commitment to whatever metaphor she makes use of:
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All is well with Susan and Daisy, even as the two of them face myriad difficulties. At the core, they remain true to themselves.
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Esther, however – she gets into a bit of a toxic relationship with a guy in his late 20’s, a TA in her English Lit class. I’ll not get into it, but by the end of it, our goth princess of doom’s got herself sorted, I’d say:
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This manic grin’s wot I live for. It was entertaining to see lovey-dovey Esther, quite unhinged, though:
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Well, then. This second volume’s got everything the first one had – the cheeky humour, the brilliant characters, the art that never fails to express said characters in ways thrilling and hilarious; in a word, the heart. This is another 5/5 read for me. Get it, read it, laugh your heart out. It’s therapy, and it works wonders.
And now, having pronounced this graphic novel fit to read, I go to my rest.
The lights blinked twice and went out. I strapped the safety belt on, consThis essay was originally published over at my blog, The Grimoire Reliquary.
The lights blinked twice and went out. I strapped the safety belt on, conscious of the blinking lights, conscious, too, of the cry of the toddler several rows back. A long flight, with no end in sight.
Next to me on the plane sat my creative writing instructor, a woman roughly the age of my mother. She is a writer of some renown, owed in equal parts by the fame she has found for renovating notions of character, and by the infamy she had been subject to for her frank, uncensored—what some would call selfish—account of her messy divorce with the father of her children. This story she told in a well-known novel from 2012.
We kept our silence over the duration of the lift-off, for no other reason than for the fact that neither of us had much to say. Now she took a deep breath and addressed me. “These last few months have been a time of transition for me.” A time of change, she adds, makes you conscious of nothing so much as the process of transformation itself. Everywhere she looked, she saw men and women struggle through one transition or another. Old lovers, friends, odious neighbors, acquaintances – everyone is transitioning, either through periods defined visibly through outside factors; or through internalised ones, at work in everything we touch, everything that touches us.
What drives it? She considered, looking down the aisle at the air hostess awhirl with activity. Just when I thought to call her attention again, my teacher’s voice picked up once more. ”It’s motion, and it’s static, this constant of ours.” Like with so much else, she said, change is defined by how we embrace it; through acts of will or surrender. Viewing the act of change like this offers you a good stage to talk about evil and love and parenthood, she said, and loneliness, and of so much more that goes into the human condition. She stopped, gaze narrowing as if she were fast-forwarding through what she just said. “An acquaintance of mine told me recently, ‘Loneliness is when nothing will stick to you, when nothing will thrive around you, when you start to think that you kill things just by being there.’”
But how does that connect to change, I asked. It leaves a mark, she told me, the kind that doesn’t come out with a bit of soap and a long soak. It shapes your thoughts and changes your inner self, and creates distance that's difficult to overcome.
I thought I knew what she meant, I told her. I’d been lonely, myself. Was lonely, still—now and again.
She said, “We don’t even realise it. It dawns on us only once we turn around and look back. Something a friend told me struck a note with me. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, ‘that you always changed everything and I changed nothing and yet we’ve both ended up in the same place.’ That’s how this silent, all-encompassing process works. You might have only caught glimpses of it this far, you’re—what, twenty-five?”
“In August.”
“You have noticed then, how people enter your life seamlessly, without flaw—and exit in much the same vein. You won’t be surprised to learn that sometimes, they come back. And sometimes, you’ll pick up where you left off, as if no time has passed at all, and no matter how much either of you has changed, you’ll find…it doesn’t matter at all. Does that negate the transition in the first place? “
I nod.
She curved her lips upwards as she told me, “It’s the way of change.” It’s not a one-way street, she said, this transformation of ours. At the right time, with the right person, time flows backward, and you again return to that twenty-something-year-old, or that little girl, or boy.
She spoke for a long time, and I listened to all she said, and lost myself. The words she said were rarely about herself, but rather about the world as she saw it, and the people whose words helped her see it the way she did. My teacher had an understanding of human nature like few others I’d known. To immerse myself in her words was to catch a glimpse of that understanding, take possession of it—however fleeting. I was envious and almost lustful of that knowledge; the more she spoke, the more I wished to hear.
After the plane landed but before the seatbelt lights went off, I turned to her. She’d grown silent for the duration of the landing, once more withdrawing into herself.
“Thank you, Faye,” I told her. “Your guidance is invaluable. I think…much of what you’ve told me today will leave its mark for a long time to come.”
She nodded, her face serious. “I’m glad of it. But I’m curious – what do you think?”
I attempted to mimic Cusk’s style in this mixture between a review and an essay – I hope you’ve enjoyed the results. Some of the words I inserted into her mouth are direct quotes from the novel – I’ll leave it to you to judge which ones!...more
Originally published over at booknest.eu for SPFBO 4.
Symphony of the Wind is impressive in its scope, a novel that’s intricate in its characters and aOriginally published over at booknest.eu for SPFBO 4.
Symphony of the Wind is impressive in its scope, a novel that’s intricate in its characters and ambitious in its worldbuilding; more impressive is the fact that it’s Steven McKinnon’s first self-published book. Ambition, McKinnon certainly does not lack.
The biggest compliment I can throw at McKinnon is this – reading Symphony reminded me of the first time I picked up Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon; the action starts early on and it hardly ever lets up. McKinnon throws us readers deep into a world that feels fully formed though unknown and he’s not afraid to let us sink or swim on our merit. He’s provided the tools to dig deep into a fictional world that runs on ignogen, a material that’s as unstable as enriched uranium; its myriad applications make the dangers of its extraction and use worthwhile, however.
I haven’t read such an interesting twist on steampunk since Senlin Ascends (though no two stories could be less alike). Symphony of the Wind is a story of rebellion, of corruption and the excesses of power and religious zeal but more importantly – of men and women struggling in the dark, attempting to make it out into the light. Thank all things dark and evil that it’s 660 pages, else I don’t know how the author would’ve tackled as much as he did as well as he has.
McKinnon writes well. I tell you, he does! His prose is elegant and visual; reading some of the action scenes in the later half of Symphony was like getting shot after shot of adrenaline right into my spinal cord. One high stakes chase scene in particular, as well as a secondary villain by the name of Pierro, made for a spectacular sequence that had me cheering for heroes Serena and Gallows throughout. And Pierro…rarely have I disliked a large chap as much as this one. I just wish someone smacked his big stupid face with a brick!
Speaking of Pierro, Symphony’s villains are a memorable lot, and one that I loved to hate every step of the way. Again, I’ll draw a parallel with Malazan; none of these bad people are evil for evil’s sake. It’s either fate or purpose or...okay, there’s a pair of villains that’re just led my vainglorious personal ambition and greed for power, as well as an absolute psychopath that’ll give any Resident Evil 2 player a flashback to Mr X, but—BUT—about half the villains of the novel truly believe that what they’re doing is for the best. That’s the stuff of truly memorable fantasy villains.
What didn’t mush quite well enough for?
Gallows, one of our two main PoV characters, was somewhat polarizing. At times, I really liked him but at others, he seemed overwhelmingly judgemental of the behaviour of other characters, or their skills, when he was guilty of similar behaviour or worse. There’s an argument to be made that this makes him more realistic but there was a little something that bugged me about the sudden switch from badass action hero to judgy lad.
Several of the characters and their PoVs played a small enough part that they didn’t leave an impression. It was almost as if their existence were a reason for major protagonists and antagonists to have further connections to one another, reasons to push them further into conflict. I can’t help but feel that McKinnon is compelled to show where every thread of the story eventually goes in detail; sometimes, less is more.
One more thing worth mentioning is, there was something off with the speech of a couple of the characters. Too many ‘reckon’-ings perhaps, a few too many interesting characters given cliched military jargon and other choices in vernacular that were used without nearly enough measure. From this point onwards, I can only see Steven McKinnon improving. He’s set up a world I’m excited to read more about, characters I want to follow, and though I dislike a few things, these don’t take away from the enormous amount of enjoyment and thrills I got in my time with Symphony of the Wind.
My score for Symphony of the Wind is an 8 out of 10 for SPFBO 4, and 4/5 stars on Goodreads! I can heartily recommend this to: • Anyone who loves well thought-out fantasy with wonderous world-building; • Dark stories that’ll get darker; • How-to guides to nearly successful dictatorships; • Cool leads, cooler antagonists; • I’m serious, you’ll just want to punch, claw at and stab all the villains! They’re just so sleazy and nasty, all of them! • So much excellent action! Gunpowder, treason and plot! Plots. Multiple plots. • And more! Prob’ly! ...more
Some of these stories, I really liked. Others...I listened through without much interest, while doing chores and buying groceries. The general tone isSome of these stories, I really liked. Others...I listened through without much interest, while doing chores and buying groceries. The general tone is melancholic, as anyone who's come by the title or cover will have guessed. I enjoyed my time with this one and don't regret picking it up as a daily deal at all....more
An enjoyable read, especially as performed by Rosario Dawson over on Audible. I thought "Artemis" had a pretty fun premise -- a heist gone wrong with An enjoyable read, especially as performed by Rosario Dawson over on Audible. I thought "Artemis" had a pretty fun premise -- a heist gone wrong with unexpected consequences for everyone involved. On the moon! I also liked Jazz, though I can definitely see why some people hated her character. Reminds me of someone I used to know, though, and I love that lady!...more
This one, I got on one of the Audible.co.uk (Audible — it sales books that speak to you!) Daily Deals. It tells the story of Dunstan of Glastonbury, oThis one, I got on one of the Audible.co.uk (Audible — it sales books that speak to you!) Daily Deals. It tells the story of Dunstan of Glastonbury, one of England’s most beloved saints. It’s a fictionalised account of the patron-saint of blacksmiths, a man who saw and served in one capacity or another seven kings of England, put the crown on the heads of several of them, and supposedly even held the devil by the face with the help of his tongs.
Wild stuff! This fictionalised account of his life explains away the miracles in ways both amusing and sobering, showing Dunstan to be a man of impressive willpower, action and greatest cunning. It’s this cunning that serves to raise Dunstan from son of a minor Thane to Archbishop and Kingmaker. A very fine novel, though it took me a while to get into. Perhaps too much time was spent on Dunstan’s childhood but it served to develop his character well.
Dunstan’s sins are many, nearly as many as his great successes. The characters of the myriad kings he served under come alive on the page, and even though I knew what was coming (history nerd alert!) to most of them, I was still overcome by tension — Iggulden’s easy prose and the wry tone of his narrator, an older, experienced Dunstan at the dusk of his life, did much to make this a captivating listen.
The narration was also fantastic — thank you, Geoffrey Beevers!
“What is a first line, but a door flung open by an unseen hand?”
I’m just excited to have finally taken my first steps into the unimaginably vast, detailed world of historical fiction. I’ll be reading (or listening to) more Iggulden in the future…but first, I think, it’s time to explore Ken Follet. It’s been a long time coming....more
This review is part of BookNest.eu’s #SPFBO 2018 finalist round. As such, I received the book for free. Originally published at: http://booknest.eu/reThis review is part of BookNest.eu’s #SPFBO 2018 finalist round. As such, I received the book for free. Originally published at: http://booknest.eu/reviews/peter/1464...
Out of Nowhere is a good read with solid characters, realistic dialogue, a likeable main character, but also a meandering plot and an antagonist whose name I don’t remember three days after finishing the novel (and that’s the least of my complaints about him). Let’s dig into it!
Sean Danet is an immortal paramedic with the ability to heal the wounds and even some diseases of others. He’s been around for centuries. For many of those, he’s been a soldier, and rather good at it. Not because he enjoys killing, even if he’s as skilled a killer as any you’ll find, but because where there’s a battlefield, there’s plenty of wounded. Wounded who won’t question a miracle, or at least aren’t likely to strap Sean to a pyre and light the match up for it.
Being a paramedic is similar, and as an added bonus, no one is trying to kill Sean – most of the time, anyway. That all changes when Sean heals a man during a routine night out, and the man seems to recognise something is off about the paramedic. People close to Sean start getting attacked soon after, and everything escalates from that point onward. I found the time spent in Sean’s head thoroughly enjoyable. Not only is he damn likeable, but he’s also surprisingly humane for an immortal and he reminds me of the main character in the cancelled TV series Forever (a major bonus, trust you me). He possesses a distinctive enough voice to make him memorable; while far from a Philip Marlowe or a Vlad Taltos, he’s definitely got the sarcastic outlook and quirky personality necessary to earn a spot in the pantheon of tough but likeable assholes.
The supporting cast isn’t one to throw away, either. Sean’s best friends Nique and Pete are both capable paramedics who stick by their friend when the going gets tough, even if there’s a lot of teasing involved. All the dialogue between the paramedics, their problems all feel very real, and small wonder – author Patrick LeClerc is a paramedic himself, and he also cooks, another trait shared by Sean. Sarah is the love interest, a beautiful linguist whose instant chemistry with Sean might irk some readers, though I didn’t mind it one bit. I thought it was rather sweet and cute, in fact! She's also really smart -- putting Sean to shame on a few occasions; and loyal to boot.
Where Out of Nowhere falls short is a villain who simply isn’t memorable enough, whose reason for going after Sean is trite and uninspired. He’s also dealt away with in such a clean, neat way – almost like he’s a problem to be solved. This antagonist doesn’t really reveal much about Sean, nor does he offer an overwhelming enough threat that I felt at any point could in truth threaten the main character.
Another problem I had was the fact that Sean, for all the years he spent in the shadows of men and women of great fame and historical importance, apparently never crossed paths with other gifted individuals such as himself. You'd think he would be far from the only powered individual with the desire to kick it up with the best and brightest of the times!
The first half of the novel takes its time setting up Sean’s life and relationships, and while his voice was enough to personally get me through, I can’t help but feel that a stronger conflict would’ve made those 130 pages that much more memorable. Thankfully, the dialogue, with its witty quips and historical references was good enough to make them enjoyable, even if at times I found myself wondering, “Was something supposed to happen now?”
I’d be happy to read Sean Danet’s further adventures. I only hope the next novels in the series are better served by their respective antagonists, and that the conflict drives the characters I’ve come to like to new and interesting places.
My score for this #SPFBO finalist is a 6.5 out of 10! I thought long and hard about this, and while I at first wanted to give it a 7 out of 10, I decided that some of the problems it has, weigh down on it too much for that score. However, its spot in the ten #SPFBO finalists is well and truly earned!...more
I returned to the Harry Stubbs adventures with his second outing, Broken Meats, and here is what I have to say.
David Hambling’s attempts to bring theI returned to the Harry Stubbs adventures with his second outing, Broken Meats, and here is what I have to say.
David Hambling’s attempts to bring the world of Lovecraft to a turn-of-the-20th-century London have ensnared my imagination. I enjoyed Elder Ice well enough, though I felt its elements of Lovecraftian horror and suspense were slightly understated. In stark contrast, Broken Meats did quite a bit better with these elements, relying less on references and reinforcing the strange and aberrant elements by introducing a secret society or two, an insane and charismatic dead sorcerer, and an absolutely fascinating support character in the face of Yang, a member of the Chinese underworld, come to London for a reason no one can figure out.
Yang needs a guide, and that’s where our very own Harry Stubbs comes in. Since the events of the Elder Ice, Harry has been unlucky in finding the respectable work he wishes for himself – a man with a boxer’s physique like his has a certain set of preconceptions working against him. But Stubbs is an example as to how appearance-based preconceptions really don’t work; as we share his headspace, Harry’s intellect shines through, and his voice is both clever and jocular depending on the situation. His loyalty is also inspiring, and the rapport built between him and Yang makes for a very satisfying friendship I didn’t expect.
Speaking of defying expectations, Broken Meats has a lot of plot twists! The story thrilled and surprised me especially towards its end; I give myself points for suspecting a character’s motivations for giving Harry some curious information that didn’t entirely click with me early on during a scene in a pub…but I didn’t quite see all of it and when Hambling revealed it to me, I was impressed.
The pacing is excellent, exactly as it needs to be to keep a perfect balance between light-hearted scenes and the darker, more sinister events eating away at Harry’s well-constructed and rational world. An edge of chaos is felt and carefully kept at bay for most of the book until Stubbs is placed in situations that directly wrestle control away from him, and that’s when the heartbeat of the Lovecraftian essence of these stories can be felt the strongest.
When reviewing the Elder Ice, I mentioned that a few lines of the dialogue pulled me out of the world; happy to say, that’s no longer the case. Either Hambling has improved, or I’ve become less of a nit-picker! Though seeing as how very invested I was in Broken Meats, I do believe the prose, the plot, the pacing, and the character dynamics are much improved! This being said, I am a firm believer in continual improvement, and I’m looking forward to reading the remaining two Harry Stubbs Adventures to see if that is indeed the case here. Hambling’s next title, Alien Stars is quite a bit larger than these past two novellas, standing at 231 pages; as reference, Broken Meats was 144, and The Elder Ice was a bare 88. I do believe Alien Stars is easily a novel at this length!
At any rate, Broken Meats gets a 4.5/5 from me, with a bump to Five Stars on Goodreads.
You’ll enjoy this if: • You’re interested in turn-of-the-century London; • You like boxing, as Harry thinks in boxing terms often enough, you’ll find plenty to bite into, here; • You like characters who’re not caricatures over the way they look; • You like the Cthulhu mythos, but better; • Secret, esoteric societies do anything for you; • And More, Prob’ly! ...more
Unexpected twists and turns, laugh-out-loud moments, even a few times I nearly got choked up -- this third volume continues Vaughan's amazing streak! Unexpected twists and turns, laugh-out-loud moments, even a few times I nearly got choked up -- this third volume continues Vaughan's amazing streak! ...more
Banebringer might very well be my favourite debut novel of 2018.
Carol A. Park’s first novel deserves a whole lot of attention for its solid characterBanebringer might very well be my favourite debut novel of 2018.
Carol A. Park’s first novel deserves a whole lot of attention for its solid characters, worldbuilding, romance and an impressively deep and deliciously complex magic system! These are the aspects of Banebringer I will be expanding upon during the length of this review, so sit tight and enjoy!
Banebringers (or Gifted, as they prefer to be called) are the chosen of the old, sacrilegious gods of the land, blessed (or cursed) with amazing powers. Invisibility, pyrokinetics, darksight and water manipulation, healing abilities and so much more, they are all gifts of the patrons to their Banebringers. And that’s just the start – this isn’t just elemental magic; it’s also blood magic. When a Banebringer bleeds, their blood quickly turns to aether, a silvery substance that can be used by another Banebringer to reproduce the abilities of the first. And just in case that’s not enough, if one of those remarkable Gifted is killed, their death opens up a tear in reality, which summons a most horrible, terrible no-good monstrosity, whose badness and horribleness is directly proportionate to just how much the Banebringer in question has used his powers over the span of their life. It’s an interesting system. Park uses it with imagination and does plenty I didn’t see coming, and for that, she gets the highest marks!
The first of the two leads in this novel is the assassin Sweetblade, who also goes by the name of Ivana and will soon be getting a prequel, called—you guessed it—Sweetblade! I hear it’s shipping out in December, and I’m looking forward to reading it. The second lead is Vaughn, our resident Banebringer, a young nobleman’s son who is dogged by his old man at every step as he tries to navigate around a world that fears and hates him. Sounds a bit magically X-Men, doesn’t it, and that might be why it appeals so much to me. I’ve ever been a gigantic sucker for a marginalized people trying to survive against an unjust world.
The dynamic between Ivana and Vaughn starts off at a pretty antagonistic level, which makes their partnership of convenience that much more fun to read, and I feel that I should give yet more props to Carol Park for the spin she gives on a relationship we’ve all read dozens of times. She makes the love-hate relationship between our two leads feel fresh again, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it. Both characters are flawed, scarred and very, very human, and the conflicts they face give both of them memorable character arcs, which are nothing to sneer at. This is one of those novels where we can definitely talk about character agency.
The romance and worldbuilding are also nothing to sneer at, and neither are the supporting characters. From an antagonist whose connection with both Vaughn and Ivana is very personal, to a Banebringer leader forced in a tight spot by his constituency, to a spy and confidant with a good sense of humour, this novel has quite the colourful cast.
This is the first in a series of planned novels, though I don’t know whether this’ll be a trilogy or not. The ending is self-contained enough not to bother anyone, at any rate. What I would suggest is you get yourself a copy at the price of $3.99, and you spend a few days reading through it; you’ll be sure to enjoy it!
I’m happy to give it five stars on Goodreads, and a sky-full of in my heart!
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Banebringer in return for an honest review! ...more