Book Reviews

Going, Going, Ganache (Cupcake Bakery Mystery #5) By: Jenn McKinlay

Going Going Ganache

Going, Going, Ganache (Cupcake Bakery Mystery #5) By: Jenn McKinlay

Plot:

After a cupcake-flinging fiasco at a photo shoot for a local magazine, Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura agree to make amends by hosting a weeklong corporate boot camp at Fairy Tale Cupcakes.  The idea is the brainchild of billionaire Ian Hannigan, new owner of SWS (Southwest Style), a lifestyle magazine that chronicles the lives of Scottsdale’s rich and famous. He’s assigned his staff to a team-building week of making cupcakes for charity. It’s clear that the staff would rather be doing just about anything other than frosting baked goods. But when the magazine’s creative director is found murdered outside the bakery, Mel and Angie have a new team-building exercise—find the killer before their business goes AWOL.

Review:

So happy to be able to continue this series. By the end of the first chapter I was craving cupcakes and it didn’t get any better. I love Mel, Angie, and Tate, but I think Marty is my favorite. He’s part grouchy old man and wise old sage. He was easily my favorite in this book.

Now, onto what I didn’t like. This was easily the weakest book in the series so far. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book, just not my favorite. The love triangle I was afraid was happening two books ago reared its ugly head in this book big time. I hate love triangles so freaking much. I feel like it’s an easy way to create drama and it makes the relationship the lead ends up with seem less somehow. Well it makes it feel less when the lead seriously thinks about dropping her original squeeze for the next. Mel’s reasoning for what she ends up doing is weak and makes me doubt her.

Angie and Tate’s relationship is finally making some progress but it’s still going at a snail’s pace.

I’m hoping for more progress in relationships in the next book and a resolution on the love triangle.

4/5

Magic Shifts (Kate Daniels #8) By: Ilona Andrews

MagicShifts_CV

Magic Shifts (Kate Daniels #8) By: Ilona Andrews

Plot:

After breaking from life with the Pack, mercenary Kate Daniels and her mate—former Beast Lord Curran Lennart—are adjusting to a very different pace. While they’re thrilled to escape all the infighting, Curran misses the constant challenges of leading the shapeshifters.

So when the Pack offers him its stake in the Mercenary Guild, Curran seizes the opportunity—too bad the Guild wants nothing to do with him and Kate. Luckily, as a veteran merc, Kate can take over any of the Guild’s unfinished jobs in order to bring in money and build their reputation. But what Kate and Curran don’t realize is that the odd jobs they’ve been working are all connected.

An ancient enemy has arisen, and Kate and Curran are the only ones who can stop it—before it takes their city apart piece by piece…

Review:

*Sigh* There are few things better than a new Ilona Andrew’s book. Normally I put off reading as long as I can, but when this was delivered to my kindle at midnight the only thing keeping me from reading it was the fact my kindle was downstairs and I was warm and cozy in bed. My laziness wins out over a new book apparently.

Anyway, I devoured this book in one day and now the wait begins for the next. I was curious to see how Kate would figure out how to fight her super powerful father and thought they had forgotten about it until the absolute end of the book and I realized the entire book was really a way to fight her father. It was interesting and unexpected since I didn’t try and think up my own solution. Nothing I could come up with would be better than what Andrews creates. NOTHING.

The book starts out immediately with Kate killing some ghouls and because of that it took me a few pages to get into it. I wanted to know how they were coping living in the suburbs, I wanted all the relationship stuff. I was impatient but they didn’t make me wait too long. I am a little concerned about how things there are developing. I hope in a later book a human that isn’t a difficult/annoying person is introduced. They’ve moved from one pack but they’re being joined by everyone it feels like. On one hand I love the characters and I’m glad they’re there, but how is that going to work with the real pack?

So many questions left in the series and there are so many amazing characters that I feel that Ilona Andrews should be in line to have their consciousness uploaded to a computer so that we will always have a new book

5/5

 

The Mystery Woman (Ladies of Lantern Street #2) By: Amanda Quick

Mystery Woman

The Mystery Woman (Ladies of Lantern Street #2) By: Amanda Quick

Plot:

Beatrice Lockwood, one of the intrepid ladies of Lantern Street, is in the middle of a case when her past comes back to haunt her.  Joshua North, a former spy for the Crown, has come out of a self-imposed retirement after a disastrous case that left him scarred and forced to use a cane.  He is hunting the villain who is blackmailing his sister.

The trail leads him to Beatrice who is his chief suspect.  But when he realizes that she is not the blackmailer they set out to find the real extortionist.  Passion flares between them as they dodge a professional assassin.  Meanwhile a mysterious scientist intent on resurrecting his dead lover using an ancient Egyptian formula for preserving the bodies of the dead is also hunting Beatrice. He is keeping his dead love perfectly preserved in a special, crystal-topped sarcophagus filled with the special fluid.   But he needs Beatrice’s paranormal talent to activate the reviving properties of the preservative in the coffin.  Time is running out for everyone involved.

The two cases collide at a mysterious country-house filled with artifacts from ancient Egyptian tombs.  The drama concludes in the mad scientist’s laboratory where Joshua discovers that the past he thought was dead is still very much alive — sort of.

Review:

I love Amanda Quick, Jayne Castle, whatever she wants to call herself. Under her Quick name her books are more historical but they still have the paranormal bent which is great. I’m not a huge historical romance reader but the addition of psychic powers makes it so much more fun.

Joshua was, possibly, the first male lead I’ve read who openly refuses to believe in psychic abilities. He’s polite to Beatrice and never really calls her a liar or fraud, but he says that her observations were made because of logic. It’s cute and never really gets annoying and was actually kind of refreshing.

Beatrice was your normal strong female who has psychic powers and lives in the Victorian age. Nothing really amazing about her, I liked her, but nothing really stood out. I did feel bad for her sexual encounters, though, Joshua could have worked a bit harder in that area, if you know what I mean.

4/5

 

Firefight (Reckoners #2) By: Brandon Sanderson

Firefight-by-Brandon-Sanderson

Firefight (Reckoners #2) By: Brandon Sanderson

Plot:

They told David it was impossible–that even the Reckoners had never killed a High Epic. Yet, Steelheart–invincible, immortal, unconquerable–is dead. And he died by David’s hand.

Eliminating Steelheart was supposed to make life more simple. Instead, it only made David realize he has questions. Big ones. And there’s no one in Newcago who can give him the answers he needs.

Babylon Restored, the old borough of Manhattan, has possibilities, though. Ruled by the mysterious High Epic, Regalia, David is sure Babylon Restored will lead him to what he needs to find. And while entering another city oppressed by a High Epic despot is a gamble, David’s willing to risk it. Because killing Steelheart left a hole in David’s heart. A hole where his thirst for vengeance once lived. Somehow, he filled that hole with another Epic–Firefight. And he’s willing to go on a quest darker, and more dangerous even, than the fight against Steelheart to find her, and to get his answers.

Review:

Sanderson certainly knows how to write a climactic ending. I was on the edge of my seat as the book came to a close and immediately wanted to read the next. In the heat of the moment I forgot all the little things that annoyed me and had to know what was going to happen next, now that I’m done though all those little things are rearing their heads.

David is an annoying protagonist. I’m not sure if it’s just because he’s acting like a typical nineteen year old boy or if the writing really is inconsistent. One minute David is figuring out something that no one else has before, the next he’s acting like a complete idiot. Flashes of brilliance followed by extreme idiocy. Could just be a typical nineteen year old boy.

I enjoyed how the world was developed but I’m not really liking the Reckoners. They deal with too much black and white and are so resistant to anything they don’t immediately understand. They don’t seem willing to explore new ideas and it was a constant battle for David to get them to do anything.

There were a few deaths in the book but none of them hit me. The characters just didn’t resonate with me and their loss felt like nothing. Their deaths didn’t impact the story in any way except to prove that someone was evil and honestly I already didn’t like that person.

There’s a short story in between this book and the first, Mitosis. I bought it while it was on sale, but was in the middle of reading something else and then totally forgot it. I highly recommend reading it before this book because it’s referenced several times and seems to do a fair amount of world building by explaining Epics powers and weaknesses.

Even with what I disliked this book was still great. I didn’t think it was as dark as the first and I ended up flying through it. Excited for the next in the series, but I have a wait since its current release date is Feb. 16, 2016.

4.5/5

Clariel (Abhorsen #4) By: Garth Nix
Not the cover I had but super cool

Not the cover I had but super cool

Clariel (Abhorsen #4) By: Garth Nix

Plot:

Sixteen-year-old Clariel is not adjusting well to her new life in the city of Belisaere, the capital of the Old Kingdom. She misses roaming freely within the forests of Estwael, and she feels trapped within the stone city walls. And in Belisaere she is forced to follow the plans, plots and demands of everyone, from her parents to her maid, to the sinister Guildmaster Kilp. Clariel can see her freedom slipping away. It seems too that the city itself is descending into chaos, as the ancient rules binding Abhorsen, King and Clayr appear to be disintegrating.

With the discovery of a dangerous Free Magic creature loose in the city, Clariel is given the chance both to prove her worth and make her escape. But events spin rapidly out of control. Clariel finds herself more trapped than ever, until help comes from an unlikely source. But the help comes at a terrible cost. Clariel must question the motivations and secret hearts of everyone around her – and it is herself she must question most of all.

Review:

It’s been years since I read the original Abhorsen books and I think that turned out to be a good thing. I’m normally not a fan of prequels but because it’s been so long since I was in this world it didn’t feel like a prequel. I barely remember anything from the first books and reading this one just made me want to go back and re-read them.

The book was a great cautionary tale of what happens when people shirk their duties and don’t teach children important things. The whole situation that Clariel found herself in would never have happened if so many people had done their jobs. The king shouldn’t have just given up on life. The Abhorsen should have grown a pair. Her parents should have actually taught her about her history and why certain things were done. Total disregard for the importance of their duties.

I really couldn’t help but feel sorry for Clariel. She just wanted to live in her woods and no one would let her. The ending is bittersweet and I won’t ruin it here, it goes perfectly with the endings of the previous books, though.

I’ve got a whole pile of books checked out from the library and now I’m going to have to resist re-reading the first three books in the series. I’m really looking forward to Nix’s next book and hope we don’t have to wait as long for it.

5/5