A Treachery of Swans

I saw A. B. Poranek's new book, A Treachery of Swans, at the library and of course had to get it. I enjoyed Where the Dark Stands Still a lot and wanted to see what she came up with next. I have to admit, I was not expecting a France-inspired story, but I was still along for the ride. I did have a bit of a hard time getting into it (I'd say it took around 50 pages), but once I got hooked I didn't want to put A Treachery of Swans down!

This time around, Poranek wrote a sapphic romance based on Swan Lake. In this world, a king's sorcière advisor drove the Three Mothers, goddesses who control life, death, and change/magic from their country. Morgane, the Mother of magic, cursed the land as she fled so that nothing beautiful would grow. She left behind a single magical crown that allowed the king to keep the crops growing. But the magic comes at a price, for every time he uses it he falls more steadily into madness. Due to the sorcière's actions, anyone who can use magic, who happens to have gold in their veins instead of the regular red, is shunned, blamed for the blight on the land.

Into this world is born Odile, a girl with golden blood who was taken in, along with her non-sorcière brother, by a sorcière named Regnault. He has been sending Odile on missions to steal Goddess gold, the only thing that can still allow sorcières to summon magic. After many, many years, they have enough for one final heist: Odile will take the place of Marie d'Odette, convince the Dauphin to marry her, and, on their wedding when the magical crown is brought out, they will steal it to summon Morgane back and heal the land! Except....things start to go sideways when the Dauphin's father, King Honoré, is murdered, and Odile's estranged brother is accused of the murder. Odile starts to investigate, wanting to clear her brother's name. She starts to get closer to the Dauphin, as well as to Marie, who witnessed the murder, all the while trying to convince herself that these people are her enemies, and she must stay to her task of stealing the crown.

I honestly quite liked the story (once I got into it). I liked the characters, especially the Dauphin. He is a kind-hearted gentleman, someone who many of the other nobles, his father included, think is too weak, but who has a quiet strength in genuinely caring about the people around him. I also quite liked Odile and how she grew through the story, slowly coming to realize what her father, Regnault, had been doing to her over the years (and what she had lost as a result). I also liked how the other characters, especially Marie, saw the good in Odile, no matter how much Odile insisted she was the villain of the tale.

I will admit that I was able to predict some of the twists and turns of the plot, like who the beast was and the truth of Regnault. But I still enjoyed how the story unfolded and how the characters discovered these things on their own. Though it did feel like there should be a part two to this story (which probably won't happen based on the epilogue), I quite enjoyed A Treachery of Swans as a standalone tale. 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

I read Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers last October (and apparently forgot to blog about it - whoops!) I really enjoyed it, and was looking forward to reading more by Chambers. So the last time I was browsing at Chapters, I stumbled on The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which sounded good. So I bought it and was excited to start it....

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is about a group of spacers on board the Wayfarer, a ship that creates hyperspace tunnels to connect different areas of the galaxy together. There's Ashby, the captain, who is in love with Pei, the badass alien captain of her own ship who comes from a very xenophobic society (if their relationship is discovered, she could be exiled from her entire species, not just her family). Sissix, his Aandrisk pilot (she's from a reptilian species). Kizzy and Jenks, his human mech techs. Corbin, their algae/fuel specialist, who is really good at his job but isn't very pleasant to be around. Dr. Chef, one of the last Grum who loves gardening and cooking for the crew. Ohan, a Sianat Pair (an alien who is infected with a virus that lets them understand and navigate through the universe, but at the cost of years of their life). Lovey (Lovelace), the ship's sentient AI. And newcomer Rosemary, the clerk Ashby hired on to help them secure better jobs. The crew are given the job of a lifetime: create a hyperspace tunnel to Hedra Ka, home of the Toremi Ka, a previously violent species newly entered into an alliance with the Galactic Commons (GC). They need to make their way to the planet then punch a hyperspace tunnel back to known space, a journey that takes them nearly a year (or a Standard, as the GC calls it). 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was a hard read for me. I actually stopped reading it to read Blind Date with a Werewolf (and I really considered not continuing The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet at that point) because I was really annoyed at how slow going the book is. The plot meanders, taking its sweet time to get anywhere. The crew makes stops in various places and meets various people. But for the most part there is little to no conflict. Pretty much all of the crew has secrets, but very little normally comes from them being revealed (for example, Rosemary lied about who she was. But it came to light because she didn't want to lie anymore, and pretty much everyone was okay with it. Ashby was apparently a bit upset, but we didn't get to see that in any real way). This was how almost the whole book operated: every chapter was a new destination or incident, which would have some (in most cases) minor conflict that was usually resolved at the end (but often not resolved in a real satisfying way either - there were a number of times where I thought "oh good, here comes the story" only to have the chapter end and a new adventure begin).

I also felt like we were following the wrong characters. The most interesting crew members (with the exception of Sissix) had more minor roles in the book. When Pei and her ship showed up, I was left wondering why we weren't following her as she went off on her more exciting adventures.

But there were some really good moments. I liked how Kizzy had trouble dealing with some boarders; I liked how that was handled by Chambers, and I like how it was resolved with help from Pei. I liked the Corbin story line, once we got there (I honestly wish that had happened sooner - I think the changes in him were interesting and I would have loved to see him grow with the rest of the crew more). I liked how most of the crew accepted Ohan's decision, at least through most of the story. Yes, they weren't happy with it (Sissix and Ashby had some words), but they were still ready to accept what he chose. And I really liked what happened after they finally arrived at Hedra Ka (though in some ways that also felt like the plot finally starting, but then it wrapped up right after).

I also want to say that the worldbuilding in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is great. The alien species were both interesting and different. They had different cultures and different ways, and it was great how the different characters interacted and came to terms with those differences.  One thing that did annoy me though (and I admit that this is super nitpicky of me) was how all the people of one species seemed to speak one language. Yes, the humans had trouble understanding some people who didn't speak their one language. But, say, all the Aandrisks spoke one language and no one ever had trouble understanding someone else who spoke that one language.

So that was The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in a nutshell. It had some great moments, and some really interesting characters. But unfortunately it's a slow meander to get to anywhere interesting.  I had much higher hopes for this when I started. :(

I'd also like to note, the other books in the Wayfarers series don't seem to be connected specifically with these characters (the second book follows people who were introduced in this one, but doesn't seem to have the Wayfarer crew in it). So maybe I'll give it a try one day. 

Blind Date with a Werewolf: a Novel in Stories

It's been awhile since I read anything by Patricia Briggs, so it seems fitting that her new book, Blind Date with a Werewolf: a Novel in Stories is the first book I read in 2026! 

In Blind Date with a Werewolf, Asil, the Moor, one of the oldest and scariest werewolves, is given the "gift" of five blind dates for Christmas (which, as he keeps repeating to his "Concerned Friends," is completely unnecessary as he doesn't celebrate Christmas). Asil has been barely controlling his wolf for a long time, after the death of their mate (and has been begging his Alpha to kill him, though the Marrock has always refused), and so thinks this is a bad idea. But his friends are betting against him (the rules are that he must stay with his date for 2 hours, no one must run screaming from the other, and Asil is not to kill anyone) and Asil likes a challenge, so he agrees. The five stories in this book tell the tales (or the aftermaths) of his five blind dates.

Prior to starting Blind Date with a Werewolf, I had been struggling my way through another book (which I put aside in order to read this). I was so happy at the speed in which I got into this book; I finished it in about three nights! Asil is a really fun character: he's full of interesting knowledge because of his age, but is still interested in the people and happenings around him. He's physically gorgeous and likes to play this up, but he never seems arrogant (he's just accepting of it as a thing, and often just wants to get past it). While a very dominant wolf, he is very protective of innocents.

His dates themselves are also very entertaining. He starts out with a vampire LARPer; while Asil isn't into men, he has no problems continuing on the date and even dancing with him. From there he meets someone who loves cats (an interesting option for his "Concerned Friends" to choose for a werewolf!), a platonic date with a fellow gardener, a ghost hunter, and a high society swinger. Of course, nothing goes as planned as vampires, witches, wyrms, fae, and other creatures make their way into his dates.

But along the way, Asil also starts to heal, and even finds his wolf talking to him once again! This is largely thanks to his fourth date, Ruby; something about her calms Asil's wolf, and even though they just go on one short date, Asil's wolf is convinced that she is "their" Ruby. I was really happy with how that all developed, and I hope to one day read more about them. :)

I absolutely loved this book. It was such a fun read and a great start to my year. :D