Never Too Late

So after trying my first ever Nora Roberts book, I decided to give a Danielle Steel book a chance too. I chose Never Too Late, one of three Danielle Steel books I recently picked up from some relatives. It tells the story of Kezia, a widowed woman who decides to start fresh in New York City. But after a tragedy strikes the city, she befriends her new neighbour, a well known movie star names Sam who is also recovering from the death of his spouse. And as the two start spending more time together, they start to wonder if they might have a second chance at love.

Never Too Late also features their adult children navigating their own relationships. Kezia's youngest daughter Felicity is a supermodel who is proposed to by her much older boyfriend. When she accepts, and starts planning her wedding, it makes her older half-sister Kate jealous. Kate, and aspiring writer, has been with her boyfriend for four years. After going to meet her father in Africa (and discovering he doesn't live up to the fantasies she had of him), she decides she wants more out of life. She gets engaged to her boyfriend, but he refuses to set a date or even talk about the wedding. Meanwhile, Sam's son has been up front with his current girlfriend that he doesn't want to get married (and doesn't even want her moving in). But she has her sights set on marriage with him anyway! 

I'm not going to lie, the ending and how these relationships turn out was fairly predictable from the point the book let's you know that Sam has a son who is Kate's age. But that part of the story was still probably the most fun of the book. I honestly felt like Kate was the most interesting character with the most growth. Everyone else was fairly flat and stagnant.

Never Too Late is also not very well written. The book tells you almost everything without showing you much, and is extremely repetitive (a thought will be repeated not only a few times on the same page, but multiple times in the book). I started wondering if Steel has an editor because the book reads very much like an early draft. :(

Needless to say, Steel's books do not seem to be for me, so I will not be reading the other two I got. :(

The Witness

I've never read a Nora Roberts book before. But after asking my partner's mother what she was reading, her explaining The Witness to me, and then offering it to me after she finished, I decided to give it a shot. 

The Witness is the story of a young girl, Liz, who, during her one act of rebellion against her controlling mother, witnesses a double murder. Liz and her friend accidentally got involved with a couple of mobsters, one of whom was ratting the mob out to the police. So the mob retaliated, killing her friend at the same time. When they realized that Liz had witnessed everything and gotten away, they came after her, even when she was in a witness protection program. And so she had to run again, relying on no one but herself to stay safe.

Fast forward about a decade, and Liz, under a new name, finds herself in a small town in the Ozarks. There she attracts the attention of Brooks, the chief of police, whose curiosity is piqued by the beautiful girl who keeps to herself and goes everywhere with a concealed weapon. As much as Liz tries to keep him at arms distance, Brooks manages to worm his way into her heart. But can she risk being with him when she knows the mob is still after her (and will kill everyone she loves if they need to to get to her?)

I honestly quite enjoyed The Witness. I loved both Liz and Brooks, and how their relationship blossomed. Liz doesn't really know how to behave in social situations due to her upbringing, so she's very blunt in an endearing way (she often catches herself after she says something to make amends and try to better understand the situation). Brooks is an upstanding man who wants to do right by everyone, even if that means he doesn't exactly follow the law to the letter. While it gets him into some trouble, you know he has everyone's best interests at heart. 

I did find the end of the book was a bit abrupt though. I expected some sort of showdown with the mob, especially after there was a random part of a chapter from one of the mobster's perspectives about halfway through the book (then the book never went back to their perspective). There was also a sex scene that was a little steamier than I normally like to read (as I told my partner, I am perfectly okay with them "fading to black" so to speak). But otherwise, I found this a very enjoyable read. The plot was interesting, the characters were great, and I enjoyed how their relationship grew. I'll have to give more Nora Roberts a try one day. :)

The Dallergut Dream Department Store

The Dallergut Dream Department Store was the second book that a friend from work recommended to me. It is the story of Penny, who gets a job at the titular Dallergut Dream Department Store, where dreams are sold to the dreamers who visit Penny's world when they sleep. In this world, our brains don't create our dreams; instead, there are beings who craft dreams (and it's a whole big thing in Penny's world, where the big dream makers are celebrities and they have a yearly award ceremony that everyone watches). The dreams are paid for after the fact, with strong emotions that the dreamers experience. Those emotions can be bought and sold, and used as needed (added into cookies and drinks, sprayed on furniture to create a certain feeling, stuff like that). 

The Dallergut Dream Department Store is Penny's first year working for Dallergut, from her initial interview into the new year. She begins learning the ins and outs of the business, and meets some of the dream makers, all the while tending to the dreaming customers' needs. Most of the chapters are interspersed with stories of dreamers in the waking world (and how the dreams they choose to purchase influence them). These dreamers are often loosely connected, in that one may be friends with another, or hear of another's life, but otherwise their stories standalone.

The characters who work at (or around, in the case of the dream makers) Dallergut's store are quite varied and eccentric. I enjoyed a lot of them, especially Dallergut. Dallergut is both wise and infinitely curious, asking questions that make the others around him think. He values curiosity and insight, as that was largely how Penny was hired in the first place. 

Unfortunately, while the world and the characters are interesting, I found the story of the book largely lacking. I started losing interest in reading it part way through (possibly in part because it reads like a bunch of kind of boring short stories after the initial wonder of the setting wears off). I actually really struggled to finish reading the book (I found myself wishing I was reading one of the graded French readers I've been reading lately instead). It's such a shame: The Dallergut Dream Department Store has a lot of promise, but failed to live up to that. :(

The Rainfall Market

A friend at work recommended You Yeong-Gwang's The Rainfall Market to me (as well as a second book) after I told her that I've had a bit of a tough time reading lately. The Rainfall Market is a really quick read at only 209 pages, so I thought it was a great place to start. 

The Rainfall Market is the story of Kim Serin, a girl who feels like her life is a depressing mess. Her father passed away, her sister disappeared, her mother has no time for her, and she has no friends. When she hears that if you write a letter to the mysterious Rainfall Market, a magical place where you can exchange your misery for a better future, she jumps at the chance to obtain an invite. Once there, she has until the rainy season ends (about one week) to make her choice, or she will disappear forever.

But Serin isn't alone. As the holder of a golden ticket, she is given a guide cat, Issha, who can help her find the future she wants. Together the two of them go searching through the Rainfall Market, meeting (and often helping) many of the inhabitants (the Dokkaebi, a race of human-like beings who take and use different emotions and memories of humans) in search of the perfect Dokkaebi orb to bring back to her world for a better future. 

The Rainfall Market is a really cute and overall feel good story (though I admit, even though it has a happy ending that I kind of saw coming, I was crying at some of the events that got us there). This is the perfect read for when you're in need of something more light-hearted. :)  

Hulk vs Thor: Banner of War

The same friend who lent me Dark Knights of Steel, Volume 1 lent me Hulk vs Thor: Banner of War.  I wasn't really expecting much from it, but wow was this a wild ride!

After a tragedy in El Pasco, Bruce Banner removed himself from the world, trying to stop anyone else from getting hurt. He separated his body and consciousness into three: Hulk's body was acting like a space ship, taking them out away from everyone. Hulk's psyche was powering the engines by fighting ever increasing (simulated) threats, and Banner himself was the captain of the spaceship. Unfortunately Thor gets wind of where Banner is, and tries to bring him back to face justice, resulting in an all-out brawl between the two! Unfortunately Hulk's powers/madness are contagious; is even the God of Thunder safe?

I wasn't expecting to enjoy this one as much as I did. One of the things that I really enjoyed was that Odin's ghost is currently inhabiting Mjolnir; after hitting Hulk, his spirit is able to enter the control room to talk to (and fight) Banner himself! The two of them ultimately work together to end the fight after Thor is infected; Mjolnir-wielding Hulk was a very unexpected but fun touch to the end of this story, too!

I'll admit that I didn't follow the story super well at times (I basically had to describe some of what happened as "space magic," even though I know it wasn't really magic at play at all). But it was really crazy, a lot of fun, and definitely worth the read!

Dark Knights of Steel Vol 1

A friend of mine lent me Dark Knights of Steel, Volume 1 awhile ago, and I finally sat down to read it today. Dark Knights of Steel sets Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in a medieval fantasy setting with an alternate history for Kal-El. In this setting, Kal-El's parents escaped the dying planet Krypton when his mother was pregnant; Kal-El is born on Earth. Batman's parents were the rulers of one of the three kingdoms, but after they were killed by the Green Man (Lex Luthor who found the Green Lantern ring and became the Joker), Kal-El's parents took over. Bruce was the bastard son of the Waynes (Thomas isn't his dad here) and so would never have been accepted as the ruler. 

While the Els rule fairly peacefully, magic is banned from their kingdom. Batman is tasked with rounding all of the magic users up and imprisoning them. Due to this, and a prophecy from John Constantine, the neighbouring Kingdom of Storms wants the Els dead. With the help of the Green Man, Green Arrow launches an arrow and kills Jor-El, starting the three kingdoms' descent towards war.

What's really fun is that Dark Knights of Steel takes you in some really unexpected directions. There were a few moments that I did not see coming because the story plays with what you know of the characters: for example, Dark Knights of Steel's Kal-El is not the same (Superman) Kal-El who we're used to. But you don't realize it until the story unfolds.

I thought this was a fantastic reimagining of the three superheroes, and I can't wait for Volume 2!!!!

Graphic Novel Interlude

I have a pile of graphic novels that a friend lent me.  While I really want and need to read some of the books I own (I'm going to be moving in the nearish future), I decided it was a good idea to get through the books that people have lent me first (so I don't accidentally pack and/or lose them).

So I started with Godzilla vs The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which was a pretty ridiculous romp. Rita finds a magical stone that lets her travel to another world without the Power Rangers, but finds Godzilla instead!  Tommy was brought along with her, and tries to stop Godzilla from destroying the world, mistakenly thinking Godzilla is one of Rita's monsters. The other Rangers come to help, and after failing to take down Godzilla, they realize that he is their best bet in stopping Rita and an alien race called the Xiliens who keep summoning more and more monsters to destroy them!

Next up was Sonjaversal. I'm not familiar with Red Sonja at all, but I still enjoyed this graphic novel. The different Sonjas of the multiverse all pray to their god or goddess, and gain power but in exchange for keeping to a condition.  The gods or goddesses are all different, the conditions are all different, but that is the essence of their power.  Saint Sonja is the only one who can commune with the gods or goddesses directly.  It is her job to keep everyone true to their oath.  When they break their oath, she has been pitting the oathbreakers against each other, with the winner being forgiven.  But no matter how many Sonjas she sends after Red Sonja, they all die!

This was a very interesting graphic novel which seems to open up so many story possibilities for the many different Sonjas (and honestly just for coming up with all kinds of creative takes on Sonja).  I also really liked how the Sonjas were all so different.  While they were (almost - shout out to Lacrosse Sonja!) all great at killing, they killed in different ways. Some were futuristic Sonjas, others were more modern, and yet others were more fantasy-esque.  Even the devil was a Sonja!  

While I admit that I probably won't specifically go looking for more Red Sonja stories, I did enjoy reading this one.

Next up was Die!namite Volume 1, which was an insane story bringing various Dynamite characters together into a zombie apocalypse that threatens the entire universe! I didn't know who some of the characters were (like Project: Superpowers), but I did recognize Red Sonja, Vampirella, and John Carter (from Edgar Rice Burroughs' books). No one is safe as the zombie plague spreads from world to world and throughout time! 

While this one started out rather interesting, it really shone at the end.  Our heroes have retreated to the last safe place and are being assaulted by zombies.  They realize that the whole cause of the plague is that Hel is looking for her assassin who forsook her and is hiding there from her.  With the help of Hel's super-powered zombies (members of Project: Superpowers who succumbed to the zombie outbreak almost immediately), they manage to take down Red Sonja.  But rather than becoming a zombie, she ends up assuming the mantle of Hel's assassin.  And in an even crazier twist, she murders Hel and assumes command of the undead army herself!

While I was expecting at least one of the main characters to become a zombie by the end, what happened with Red Sonja took me by complete surprise!  

Prior to that moment, I was on the fence about reading more of this story.  But now that this happened, I would definitely like to read Volume 2!!!

Finally, my friend lent me Operation Dragon. Have you ever wondered what WWII would have been like with dinosaurs?  This graphic novel helps to answer that question!

A disgraced ex-cop named Rick and a mobster trying to escape his past named Tony cross paths in the Pacific Theater.  Despite hating each other from when they previously met, the two end up working together with an intelligence officer on a mysterious mission.  Her mission brings them to a hidden island where the Japanese have been raising and training dinosaurs as their super-weapons!  

Operation Dragon is a lot of fun.  It takes a little bit for the story to really get going (the book holds off on revealing the dinosaurs, even though thanks to the cover and the book's blurb, the audience is well aware of what is happening. But once the trio get to the island, and the US Rangers show up and attempt to rescue them, things really get going.  How will the US forces escape?  And how will they stop the Japanese from shipping dinosaur eggs out to the rest of the Pacific Theater?

I also really liked the interplay between the three main characters, especially Rick and Tony. How they went from absolutely hating each other to being able to work together made this story that much more interesting. 

So there we have it - the pile of graphic novels I got through over the last few days!  

I'd also like to note that previously on this blog I missed talking about was Crossover Volume 2.  My friend who lent me these four graphic novels lent me that as well.  I reread the first volume and then read the second one awhile ago. Unfortunately I forgot to post about it here at the time, and now I don't remember what I thought of it.

Starlight

After hearing that I went out snowshoeing one really cold weekend, someone at work recommended that I read Starlight, Richard Wagamese's unfinished final novel.  Starlight is a love letter to the land, and the person who recommended it to me thought I would like it since I like being out in nature.

In Starlight, a woman and her daughter flee an abusive situation and find their way to the town where Frank Starlight lives.  Starlight is a farmer who takes beautiful pictures of animals thanks to his connection to the land - he is at home there, and the animals feel that connection thanks to his movements and silence.  Starlight takes them on, providing boarding and wages in exchange for the woman to clean his house, which was a bachelor pad thanks to only Starlight and Eugene Roth, his friend and helper on the farm, living there.  The four of them slowly become a family, spending more and more time out in the woods and learning Starlight's ways.

It's really unfortunate that Starlight was unfinished.  It ends rather abruptly (the publishers include a note on how they think the book was going to end, based off of a novella Wagamese wrote which was his source material for Starlight, and off conversations he had with friends about the novel), and reads very much like the early draft it is.  Despite that, it has some absolutely beautiful passages, specifically describing the natural world.  

The one aspect I wasn't fond of were the two men tracking the woman.  The person who recommended Starlight warned me that the beginning is a difficult read, but once I got through that, it would be better.  But the two men continued to track the woman through the entire novel (the abrupt ending was when they finally found her and were going to go after her).  As the book stands, I felt it would have been better without that stuff, being instead the healing journey of the woman and girl on the land.  But the book is unfinished, so had Wagamese been able to finish it, this part may have been a lot more rewarding.  

Where the Crawdads Sing

My parents read Where the Crawdads Sing a couple of months ago. I decided to jump in and read it sooner rather than later so I could talk to them about it when it was still fairly fresh.

Where the Crawdads Sing is the story of Kya, who is abandoned by all of her family by the age of 10. First her mother walks out of her abusive relationship, then slowly her siblings leave until she is left alone with her father. He stays for a few years before leaving her too. Kya grows up with the marshlands as her family, learning to survive and thrive thanks to the skills she picked up from her family before she was abandoned. 

The story takes place between two timelimes: Kya's past, and 1969, when she is grown up and accused of murdering the town's star high-school quarterback. The first timeline is overall rather depressing as people leave her, or are prejudiced towards her, with a few notable exceptions, like Jumpin', the black man who sells Kya gas and takes care of her as best he can, his wife, Mabel, and Tate, a boy a few years older than Kya who befriends her and teaches her to read. In 1969, the story mostly follows the investigation of the death of Chase by the sheriff and his deputy, until the two timelines merge. I found the story got a lot more interesting once the timeliness merged (it was enjoyable before that, but fairly depressing, and a lot more meandering; it became a lot more focused once Kya was on trial). I also didn't see the ending coming, which was a fairly nice surprise, and elevated the book in my opinion.

While at times I had a hard time coming back to read the book (I started it before Christmas), overall I found it ab enjoyable read. I also enjoyed reading the back pages (the interview and note from the author).

The Unfamiliar Garden

 Continuing with Benjamin Percy's Comet Cycle at the recommendation of a friend, I read book 2, The Unfamiliar Garden.  This is the book that my friend said was even better than the first one, and I wholeheartedly agree!

The Unfamiliar Garden takes place in Seattle/Washington State.  The night of the meteor shower five years ago, Jack Abernathy, a professor who specializes in fungus, went out into the woods to do some research.  He brought his eight-year-old daughter, Mia, with him so he could keep an eye on her (and so his police detective wife, Nora, can get some sleep).  But while his back was turned, Mia disappeared.

Five years later, Jack is a mess.  He no longer cares about his job or his work, and Nora divorced him.  For her part, Nora has thrown herself into her work as a homicide detective, bringing down murderers thanks to her ability to see the bigger picture.  But the rains have returned to Seattle, leading to a flowering of fungi.  And after one of his grad students gets sick after bringing in samples, Jack discovers a new parasitic fungus that seems to be infecting all animal life, including humans.  And Nora starts seeing a rash of copycat ritualistic murders with no rhyme or reason, which ends up leading her to team up with her ex-husband to stop them.

I really liked The Unfamiliar Garden.  The narrative was a lot tighter than The Ninth Metal because it was only following a few characters, most of who were more interconnected right from the beginning than the ones in The Ninth Metal.  

I also really liked the plot and pacing of The Unfamiliar Garden.  While I kind of knew from the beginning what was going on, it didn't matter.  I'm also not a huge horror fan, but the horror elements in the book really worked.  The plot also moves along at a really nice clip, which made me not want to put the book down (once I was near the end, I stayed up to finish it rather than wait for the next day!) 

Very much recommended.  I hope the third book in The Comet Cycle is as good as The Unfamiliar Garden!

The Ninth Metal

 A friend at work recommended The Ninth Metal to me.  Along with saying it was a fast and entertaining read, he told me that the second book was even better.  So I grabbed it from the library and gave it a read over the long weekend.  

The Ninth Metal is the story of how the world changed after flying through the debris field of a comet.  The comet debris rained down on the Earth, changing people, places, and technology for ever.  One place that was changed was Northfall, Minnesota.  The debris field that rained down on the area is mine-able, causing a sudden boom to the dying town.  Everyone is flocking to Northfall much like they did during the gold rush in an attempt to make their fortune, mining the new omnimetal, which has revolutionized the world as a self-propelling power source.

But the omnimetal isn't just a power source.  "Metal heads" are grinding it down to dust and smoking it, gaining strange visions during their highs.  And some people, like ten-year old Hawkin, are blessed (or cursed) with strange new powers from the omnimetal.

The Ninth Metal mainly follows several characters from Northfall: John Frontier: youngest son of the Frontier family, who run a mining company that is profiting from omnimetal while trying to keep other corporations out; Victoria, a PhD physicist recruited by the government for some top-secret work in Northfall; and Stacie, a rookie cop who wants to help others.  While their stories and lives seem quite discreet, slowly they are drawn together by the events that unfold in Nightfall.

While I wasn't sure where the story was going in the beginning, I quite liked The Ninth Metal.  I'm looking forward to reading the second book in Benjamin Percy's Comet Cycle, The Unfamiliar Garden, soon!

The Diamond Eye

 I got my dad Kate Quinn's newest book, The Diamond Eye, for his birthday this year.  After he finished reading it, he gave it to me to read as well.  I'm a big fan of her novels, so I was really looking forward to it!

The Diamond Eye is the story of Lyudmila "Mila" Pavlichenko, a USSR history student who enlists in the army when the Nazis invade her country in WWII.  It's based off the true story of Mila's life as she becomes an extraordinary sniper with an official tally of 309 kills.  In Quinn's author note at the end of the book, she explains some of the creative license she took with the story, but almost everything in the book is based off of Mila's memoir (with the very notable exception of the assassin in the US who was after FDR).

In The Diamond Eye, Mila is a young mother who is struggling to get a divorce from her older husband, who seduced and impregnated her at 15. Mila lives in Alexi's shadow - the older doctor is certain he is destined for greatness.  And though he is no longer interested in her, he doesn't want anyone else to have her, and so makes her life miserable.  When she finds that he has taken her son to a shooting range when the boy is very young, she storms over there to get him.  In the aftermath of their confrontation (Slavka heard his father say he will never be a man if she babies him so much), Mila promises that she will be as much a father for Slavka as a mother.  And that promise starts by learning how to shoot.  But after she finishes her advanced marksmen course, the Nazis invade.  Knowing that she cannot live with herself if she doesn't fight to keep her son safe, Mila enlists.  After a harrowing couple of months on the front with only a shovel, she eventually obtains her first rifle, and shows her commanding officer that she is able to shoot.  And that sets her on the path to her 309 tally kills.

The first part of The Diamond Eye tells of Mila obtaining those 309 kills.  While it was interesting to read, I admittedly felt like this was in some ways a story I had heard before from Quinn, just with different trappings (I'm specifically thinking of the Night Witches of The Huntress, where the women pilots were fighting to not only repel the Germans, but to be respected by the men around them).  Interspersed through this were passages setting up the second part of the book, where Mila was sent on a diplomatic mission to the United States as a guest of Eleanor Roosevelt.  An assassin was hired by enemies of the Roosevelts to kill the president; the assassin has decided to frame Mila in the plot to do so.  It was when these two pieces of the plot came together that the book really took off.  The end of the book was a really intense read - I didn't want to put the book down!  I also didn't see some of the things coming, which always makes for a good read (as long as the twists don't come out of left field).

I really liked the triangle that was Mila, Lyonya, and Kostia.  Lyonya and Kostia were such opposites (Lyonya had a larger than life personality, but was ridiculously kind-hearted, while Kostia was the silent and steadfast type), but they brought out the best in each other, and in Mila as well, as both her lover and her sniper partner.  I also really liked how Mila grew through the story, coming into her own in all areas of her life.  Honestly, I just really liked Mila, and wouldn't mind reading her memoir one day. :)

All in all, another excellent novel by Quinn.  I heartily recommend it. :)

A Few Graphic Novels - Jan 2022

 A friend of mine lent me some graphic novels a little while ago and I finally got around to reading them today. 

First was Return of the Valkyries, a random story where Jane Foster brings more Valkyries back (?) in the middle of Marvel's The King in Black event.  Right off the bat I was kind of in trouble because I knew nothing about The King in Black (but the book does a good enough job of giving you the gist of things so I get that it's like a chaotic god named Knull is attacking the earth with an army of symbiote-dragons).  It opens with Jane Foster ferrying the best super-human, Sentry, to death because he failed to stop the mad god (I'm not a comics expert, but I have never heard of this guy before so his death meant nothing to me). :( On the way to the afterlife, they find the body of the Celestial whose head is being mined elsewhere (where the Collector lives in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie).  The body has been trapping souls and manages to snag Sentry's.  While trying to get him back, Jane frees another lost soul (and fellow Valkyrie). They return to Valhalla where Brunnhilde fills Jane in on what they're dealing with (the Celestial's body is tied to Knull.  Breaking the bond between the two will weaken Knull.  But the rescued Valkyrie isn't interested in joining the fight, so Jane hatches a desperate plan with two others.

I found this one kind of hard to follow at times.  Yes, I understood the main plot and what was going on.  But I had a hard time keeping track of what all the characters were doing and why (and also who was dead vs who wasn't, as the dead Valkyries all show up to help).  I also have no idea what the rescued Valkyrie's name is (I'm sure it says it somewhere, but I didn't catch it, even though I caught her dead lover's name, and the names of some of the dead Valkyries).  This story also kind of felt out of place to read it on its own - it would probably be a lot better within the context of the King in Black storyline.

Next was Star: Birth of a Dragon. Star (aka Ripley Ryan) is a character from Captain Marvel.  While interviewing Captain Marvel, Ryan was kidnapped and later gained superpowers, attempting to kill Captain Marvel (she failed, but I think she killed many in New York).  To stop her, Captain Marvel ripped a hole through her chest.  But she didn't die.  Instead she somehow ended up bound with the reality stone.  Sentenced to prison on the Raft, she breaks out and just wants to be left alone.  But her uses of the infinity stone are clumsy, and she suddenly has a whole pile of superhumans looking for her to obtain it!

 This was a really interesting read.  Ryan is suffering from PTSD after being kidnapped and having Captain Marvel punch a hole through her.  She's trying to deal with that while also trying to control her new powers.  And to make everything worse, guess who shows up, but Captain Marvel herself!  I think what really made this story shine was at the end when Carol Danvers doesn't understand what happened (and just how traumatized Ryan is by her), why Ryan chose to make a deal with the Black Order rather than fighting with her and Scarlet Witch. I'm not sure if that PTSD will feature in future stories with this character, but I'm definitely interested to read more!

Finally, I read Crossover Volume 1: Kids Love Chains.  This one has a really interesting premise.  All the people of all the comic books have suddenly appeared in our world, blurring the lines between what is real and what is fake.  The comic people have erected a barrier over one of our cities.  Any of the comic people caught outside of the dome are immediately surrendered to the police when caught.  

In the middle of all this is Ellie, a young girl whose parents were caught on the other side of the dome.  She works in a comics shop with Otto.  When a young comic girl, Ava, is found in the shop, everyone panics and the shop is lit on fire.  Ellie, Otto, and Ava escape, and end up embarking on a journey to return Ava to her world (and hopefully find Ellie's parents along the way).  

I really, really enjoyed Crossovers.  It was a really interesting look at what could happen if our world collided with the fantasy world of comics (in a very District 9 kind of way).  The one issue I had with it was that I didn't really know who any of the characters in it were (although there was a list at the end with thanks to people whose characters appeared in this, so that was helpful).  I loved the ending, and can't wait to read more of Ellie's adventures!

Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook

 

Wow.  

A friend of mine recommended Christina Henry's Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook to me a few months ago.  We were talking about fairy tales after I read Beasts and Beauty.  The way she described it to me reminded me of Brom's The Child Thief (which, even as I was reading Lost Boy, is a very apt comparison).  

In Lost Boy, Jamie (the person we know of as Captain Hook), is Peter's first lost boy.  He knows he is special because Peter tells him so.  But over the years, Peter has brought more and more playmates to their island, and it's fallen to Jamie to take care of them because Peter could care less if they live or die on his island (just so long as they aren't annoying him and he's having fun).  But one day, Peter brings Charlie, a five year old boy back to the island.  Charlie is much younger than any of the other boys, and can't really keep up or play their games with them because he's too little.  So Jamie takes to protecting the little one, to Peter's great annoyance.  And Peter starts plotting in his sly way to get rid of the little one so Jamie's attention will be back on him for good.

This version of Peter Pan is very, very similar to Brom's: he's bringing children specifically into danger, and doesn't care because he can just get more of them.  And like in The Child Thief, the character of Captain Hook is fantastic (although these characters are very, very different).  Brom's Hook was a grown up trying to make his way home.  Henry's Jamie is a boy who is far older than he looks who grows up as he starts to see through Peter's glamour and lies.  Jamie felt so real, trying to care for everyone and keep them safe even though it was an impossible task and he didn't know all the rules (because Peter deliberately kept them from him).  

The supporting characters are also great.  The Lost Boys all had in ways childhood innocence that you can see falling away as the story unfolds.  This was most noticeable with Charlie, though you see it through some of the older boys like Nod as well.  

Henry wove a superb story which I couldn't put down.  I'm looking forward to reading more of her work (and also maybe rereading both this and The Child Thief one day)!

The Rose Code

  The Rose Code is Kate Quinn's latest book.  This time she tackles Bletchley Park and the Enigma Machine.  When I heard that's the setting for this newest book, I knew it was perfect for my dad.  Once he was finished reading it (he loved it!) he passed it on to me. I wasn't familiar with much about the Enigma Machine and Bletchley Park, so I wasn't sure what I would think of it, but I trust Quinn's writing and was very happy to give this one a read!

The Rose Code is the story of three girls who end up working at Bletchley in various capacities: Osla, a socialite who wants to make a difference and prove to the world that she isn't just a silly deb, Mab, a girl who has been trying to better herself to snag a better life, and Beth, a timid girl who has been terrorized by her mother all her life.  It follows the three through the ebbs and flows of their friendship during the war years and beyond, through heartbreak, betrayal, and redemption.

I really enjoyed the mix of personalities here (Quinn's books have all had fantastic characters!) Osla was a super bubbly person whom everyone underestimated because all the men just thought she was air headed and silly.  She's based off a real person, whom a good many things that happen in the book happened to (just not the bombing she survived in a London night club).  I loved her relationship with Prince Philip and was super sad when it ended (even though I knew the outcome, both from real life, and from the very beginning of the book).

Beth was also based off of real people (two ladies, rather than just one).  She's quite the interesting character - she's shy and naive, while also extremely cold at times (while it's never said, I believe she is on the autistic spectrum).  She was always mentally beaten down by her mom, so it was great to see her grow into her own (and realize that she is, in fact, brilliant at code breaking).  The book goes back and forth between Bletchley and about two years later, when she's in a mental asylum trying to escape, so a good chunk of the book had me wondering what had happened to her for her to end up here when she was very much sane?

Many of the other characters in the book are either real people (like Alan Turing), or based off of real people (like Giles and Harry).  But Mab is fictional, created in honour of the many women who helped keep Bletchley running.  I loved Mab: she knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to work to get it. 

Oh, there was also a cameo by Ian Graham from The Huntress.  I was surprised I recognized him in it (I vaguely remembered him being a war correspondent, then confirmed it was him when I read a synopsis of The Huntress).  Very fun nod for people who have read her other books! ;)

While reading The Rose Code, I will admit that I saw some stuff coming before it was revealed, like the truth about Mab's relationship with Lucy, and what was going to happen to Francis. But it was okay - even knowing things were coming, they were still massively impactful as they unfolded.  Also (and importantly), the book kept me guessing about who the traitor might be right to the end, so that was great, being blindsided by it.  Quinn masterfully fed in how the traitor got information as well - when it was revealed, I realized I as the reader had fallen for their tricks as well!

The Rose Code was another fantastic WWII era by Quinn.  I look forward to her next book, whatever it might be!

Dungeon Born

 A friend of mine really wanted me to try Dakota Krout's Dungeon Born, the first book in the Divine Dungeon series.  It tells the tale of a soul that gets sucked into a soul gem and becomes a brand new dungeon.  The dungeon, names Cal by Dani, his wisp servant/friend, needs to grow and evolve, attracting adventurers to attempt the dungeon (and hopefully die along the way, feeding Cal energy and new toys to play with like weapons and runes).

Dungeon Born is also the tale of Dale, one of the sheepherders who discovered the dungeon (and the only one to live to tell the tale).  Dale ended up selling all his belongings to buy the entire mountain the new dungeon is on, knowing that all the people who will be interested in the dungeon will make him rich once word gets out.  This leads him into the Adventurers' Guild and training to become an adventurer.  It also leads him into politics as all the people who want to use the dungeon don't realize that he owns the entire mountain.

I'm not going to lie, the beginning of this gets a bit rough.  Krout's world is very much like an RPG system, complete with leveling of the characters, and for awhile Dani's explanations to Cal about everything really made me feel like I was reading an RPG rule set rather than a fictional story.  But once you get past that, the story gets super fun!  I'm quite excited to see where things go in Dungeon Madness, the second book in the series!

The Huntress

Both of my parents read The Huntress by Kate Quinn and recommended it to me, so for the long weekend I decided to finally give it a read. :)

The Huntress is told from three different perspectives: Jordan McBride, Ian Graham, and Nina Markova.  Jordan is the seventeen year old daughter of the widowed owner of an antique shop.  She is thrilled (yet admittedly somewhat jealous) when her father confides that he is seeing someone. Annaliese seems wonderful, but after Jordan captures a calculating expression with a chance snap of her Leica, Jordan is left wondering if there is more to Annaliese than meets the eye.

Ian Graham is a war correspondent who worked on the front lines of WWII.  After the war, he's sworn he will not write again, but instead has turned his attention to finding Nazis who have escaped justice with the help of his colleague and friend, Tony.  While they have been successful in their hunts, one person still eludes them: Die Jägerin (The Huntress), the woman who killed his brother.  But thanks to a new lead, and with the help of Ian's wife, Nina (a a Siberian woman who dreamed of flying. She made her way to Moscow and into the Night Witches, an all-female squadron of bombers. Ian married her during the war to keep his brother's promise and get her to England - they planned on divorcing but never got around to it), they're finally on Die Jägerin's tail.

I absolutely loved this book!  The characters were fascinating (and fun - I loved Nina!), and even though you know who Die Jägerin is, the story is riveting - how is she going to slip up?  How will everyone figure out who she is? What's also really neat was that a lot of this is historical fact, just dressed up in fiction...Nina herself was fiction, but a lot of her exploits as a Night Witch actually did happen.  I can't wait to read more from Quinn! :)

Who We are: Reflections on My Life and Canada

Elizabeth May's Who We Are: Reflections on My Life and Canada is another book my brother lent me quite some time ago.  May wrote it just before the 2015 election, reflecting on the changes Prime Minister Stephen Harper had enacted since becoming Prime Minister, both in terms of gutting Canada's environmental protections, and in terms of politics (how particularly under him, MPs are no longer representing their constituents, but are instead reprimanded severely for not towing the party line).  May looks at her own life, at what brought her to helm the Green Party of Canada, while also examining what Canada was, and what Canada can be once again.

For the most part I enjoyed May's writing.  But I did find I got bogged down in the middle of a lot of her chapters, often from having to flip back to see either who or what organization she was talking about.  I really wish there had been a listing of people and places rather like a Shakespearean dramatis personae (I have this problem a lot with nonfiction books).  But all in all, I'm glad to have (finally) read Who We Are; it's an eye-opening book into just what exactly is happening to Canadian politics in the modern world.

Overlord: The Undead King

After finishing Iraq Under Siege, I wanted to read some fiction.  So I chose to read Overlord: The Undead King by Kugane Maruyama, a Japanese Light Novel (translated) that a friend lent me sometime ago. 

In Overlord, Momonga is one of the last players of a virtual world that is being shut down.  He stays in the game until the last minute, wanting to enjoy all that his guild had built during the game's heyday.  But when the servers shut down, Momonga finds himself still his character in what looks like the game world.  The NPCs who were always silent are now talking and have the backstories and personalities the guild members wrote for them (including the last minute change Momonga made for Albedo, which he feels incredibly guilty of).  Now Momonga needs to figure out where they are and whether or not he can trust all of the NPCs; he must now be the Overlord in truth!

I found Overlord a bit slow going in the beginning, even though it was necessary to set up the game world of Yggdrasil before everything became real.  But once the servers went down and the NPCs came alive, the book became super fun! I loved Momonga's attempts to appear outwardly calm and collected for everyone while internally he was freaking out.  I also loved that Maruyama included an intermission part way through the story that showed what the main NPCs were thinking of Momonga.  The end fight was also incredibly fun, where Momonga is trying to be super cautious but discovers that whatever world this is, he's so much more powerful than everyone.  It's a very fun story, and I'd love to read more!

Iraq Under Siege: the Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War

Continuing with my reading of books people have lent me, this time I chose Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, edited by Anthony Arnove. My brother lent this to me quite some time ago, and I admit I had a hard time psyching myself up to read it because I knew it would be pretty heavy.

Iraq Under Siege is a collection of essays from people protesting the lengthy sanctions that were imposed on Iraq by the UN Security Council after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.  Initially the sanctions were going to be lifted after Iraqi forces withdrew from the area, but the sanctions ended up in place until after the Invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Many of the authors visited Iraq during that time (this is the first edition of the book, so prior to 2000 when it was published) and saw firsthand the devastation the sanctions and wars had wrought on the civilian population and infrastructure of Iraq.

While a very interesting and alarming read, I did find the book to be a bit repetitive by the end.  The same statistics and sources were used by many of the authors.