Category: tbr

June Reading Update

~ VenusBloo ~ Leave a comment

Well, despite my best intentions, I have already let the year get away from me!  I meant to do regular reading updates here on the blog – at least monthly – but I’ve lapsed terribly.  Most of that is due to reading slumps, but I also struggle sometimes with feeling obligated to stick to my reading plans when I just want to mood read.  So, I’ve decided to change my reading update format a bit. 

First, I plan to list the books I’m focusing on reading right now.  Yes, that was a plural “books.”  I hardly ever read one thing at a time.  I usually have something going in physical format, an e-book on my Kindle app on my phone, and sometimes another book on my actual Kindle!  So, this part of the update will be a place to spotlight these books and how I feel about them so far.

Then the other part of reading updates will be a list of what I plan to read next.  Luckily, StoryGraph has an “Up Next” feature that is perfect for this.  I have to limit myself and quit creating these crazy TBR lists that are borderline unachievable.  I still create monthly lists, but I pick my next reads from those and add them to my Up Next on StoryGraph.  This helps keep me focused on the books I really want to get to, and it has the added bonus of making these reading update posts a reasonable length.

Currently Reading:

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

In all honesty, by the time this post is live, I may have finished this book.  At the time of writing, I am 60% into the book, and it is flying by.  This is an epistolary novel which is one of my favorite types of novels, so I already knew I’d like it.  At its heart, it is a love story between two introverts who manage to find commonality through letters in a world where most people live on permanently anchored ships and the only piece of dry land is an Atoll.

E., who lives in the famous Deep House at the bottom of the ocean,  reaches out to Henerey for the first time due to his work as a scholar and her need to figure out what that strange fish swimming outside her window could be.  There’s a bit more to the story than that, but this gives you an idea of the central thread running through it.  I am loving it so far, and I can’t wait to finish it!

Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey

I just started this book the other day, and I’m already nearly 100 pages into it.  Infinity Gate is the first book in a planned series by M.R. Carey, and it explores the existence of the multiverse.  Within the multiverse is a political entity called the Pandominion that rules over certain parallel worlds.  The story is narrated by an artificial intelligence, and it explores something known as the Pandominion War. 

So far, I’m still in the set-up stage of the book, but it feels like events are about to escalate.  I am really enjoying the writing, even though some people might have trouble with portions of the book that focus on scientific principles and explanations.  I like that the story begins on our version of Earth, and there’s definitely already some climate change commentary going on there.  If all goes well, I’ll probably finish this book over the weekend.

Up Next:

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

I’ve been trying to read more horror and more science fiction, so this book is perfect for that!  Ghost Station takes place on an abandoned colony planet where a crew has been tasked with finding out why it was abandoned and re-establishing the colony.  Unfortunately, a brutal murder reveals much more is going on here than is first apparent, and Dr. Ophelia Bray, the team’s psychologist, is tasked with figuring out who the killer is before any more murders can take place. 

If I commit to participating in Summerween this year, I am definitely getting this book on my list!

Catchpenny by Charlie Huston

Sidney “Sid” Catchpenny is a thief with a unique gift.  He can travel through mirrors, and he’s used this uncanny ability to steal and traffic in magical objects.  Naturally, such a career can lead to a person owing certain other unsavory individuals debts.  So, when Sid is given the opportunity to pay off those debts, he jumps on it.  Unfortunately, as is often the case with these sorts of deals, Sid finds himself in a much more complicated situation than he anticipated.  Now, he has a mystery to solve, and once it’s unraveled, Sid’s world may never be the same.

The first thing that drew me to this book was the cover.  I don’t know what it is about that yellow and the eerie image of the girl on the front, but I was intrigued enough to read the synopsis.  That’s what really hooked me, and I added it to my TBR.

Echo of Worlds by M.R. Carey

I am not looking at the synopsis for this book until I finish the first one, so I will leave it to you to click the link to the book’s StoryGraph page to read the summary for  yourself.  Just know I have read enough of the first book that adding the second book to my “Up Next” was a no-brainer.

Foul Days by Genoveva Dimova

Kosara is a witch of Chernograd who spends her days fighting monsters.  Unfortunately, one of those monsters, Zmey the Tsar of Monsters, is also her ex.  He’s finally tracked her down, and the only way to escape is to sell her shadow, the source of her magic, for passage to Belograd.  Kosara has since fallen ill to a wasting sickness that only reclaiming her magic can heal.  There’s just one problem.  Zmey has her magic, and he’s using it to infiltrate Belograd in his hunt for her. 

I am usually pretty picky about books that mix fantasy and romance, but this one sounds like the stakes may be high enough to overcome my usual qualms about the emerging romantasy genre.  The good news is, if I like it, there’s a sequel coming out later this year!

The Fractured Dark by Megan E. O’Keefe

I’m not going to lie, I’ve had this book for a while.  I read the first one, The Blighted Stars (read my review here), last year.  I’ve been waiting for the entire trilogy to be available so I could finish the last two one after the other.  That time has finally come! 

The StoryGraph summary didn’t have any spoilers, so her it is:

Naira and Tarquin have escaped vicious counter-revolutionaries, misprinted monsters, and the pull of a dying planet. Now, bound together to find the truth behind the blight that has been killing habitable planets, they need to hunt out the Mercator family secrets. But, when the head of Mercator disappears, taking the universe’s remaining supply of starship fuel with him, chaos breaks loose between the ruling families. Naira’s revolution must be put aside for the sake of humanity’s immediate survival.

Well, that’s my reading update!  I know it’s at the end of June, but I wanted to at least get one out there.  I’ll likely have another update by mid-July, and after that, I plan to do an update at the beginning of each month.  I may also add a section for what I finished reading since the last update.  That might be better as a separate wrap-up post, though, so we will see.

Have you read any of these books?  Do you see anything you might like?  Let me know in the comments below!

ARC Review: How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive by Craig DiLouie

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**All the links in this post are to the book’s StoryGraph page for reference. I do not receive any compensation for clicking these links!!**

Book: How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive

Author: Craig DiLouie

Pages: 320

Source: NetGalley

Publisher: Redhook

Genre: Horror

Publication Date: June 18, 2024

Summary:

Horror isn’t horror unless it’s real.

Max Maury should be on top of the world. He’s a famous horror director. Actors love him. Hollywood needs him. He’s making money hand over fist. But it’s the 80s, and he’s directing cheap slashers for audiences who only crave more blood, not real art. Not real horror. And Max’s slimy producer refuses to fund any of his new ideas.

Sally Priest dreams of being the Final Girl. She knows she’s got what it takes to score the lead role, even if she’s only been cast in small parts so far. When Sally meets Max at his latest wrap party, she sets out to impress him and prove her scream queen prowess.

But when Max discovers an old camera that filmed a very real Hollywood horror, he knows that he has to use this camera for his next movie. The only problem is that it came with a cryptic warning and sometimes wails.

By the time Max discovers the true evil lying within, he’s already dead set on finishing the scariest movie ever put to film, and like it or not, it’s Sally’s time to shine as the Final Girl.

My Review:

I was given a free advanced reader copy of How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive by Craig DiLouie by Redhook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you, Redhook!

Max Maury is a hot up-and-coming horror movie director with the conclusion of his debut movie trilogy fresh off the press.  In the Hollywood horror scene of the 1980’s, he is the next big thing in slasher horror, and everyone wants a piece of the action.  He’s made the leading actor and actress of these movies rich and famous, and they’re thirsty for more.  Other would-be actors are practically throwing themselves at him, begging him to put them in his next film.

Max, though, is disappointed in himself.  After he hears people in the audience laughing instead of gasping during his latest movie’s premiere, he feels like he’s failed as a horror director.  He feels like he’s sold out to his sleezy producer, like he’s only in it for the money instead of creating real horror.  At the premiere after party, Max wanders off to escape the praise he doesn’t feel he deserves, which is where he stumbles upon a copy of a film that shouldn’t exist.  It’s a horror movie that ended in the deaths of all but three crew members, and through a series of coincidences, Max ends up with the camera used to film it.

The view of this film coincides with Max meeting Sally Priest, a bit actress with ambitions of being cast as the next Final Girl.  She inspires him to film the most realistic, best horror movie ever made.  Max decides the best way to do that is with his new camera, and he wants to make Sally Priest the star.  However, the camera is more than it seems, and the cost of using it could be more than Max or Sally are able to pay.

This is probably obvious from the description of the story, but How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive’s plot was pretty meta.  The entire story is about the filming of a horror movie and all the steps that going into movie-making in general.  It also refers to and abides by the “rules of horror,”  such as having a Bad Girl, a Final Girl, etc.  The true story isn’t about horror movies or making them, though.  It’s about the horror story of the cursed film camera and a director willing to do anything to make his dream come true.

Max and Sally, along with various other people throughout the story, become characters in the very movie their filming.  It’s a story within a story, of sorts, and for the most part it works.  Unfortunately, abiding by such a predictable story structure made every twist and turn the story took very predictable.  I won’t go into spoilers here, but let’s just say, even though some of the horror rules were subverted, the results were still easy to anticipate.  I did find the story suspenseful at times, but this predictability made it a slow read, which is difficult to accomplish in a novel barely over 300 pages.

Additionally, I feel like movie buffs or cinephiles may get more out of reading this books than I did.  The parts of the story focusing on Max’s point of view often include a lot of technical terminology and movie-related jargon that, to me, wasn’t really necessary.  It felt like a lot of this internal dialogue about how movies get made was just there to pad out the story instead of moving the plot forward.  I enjoy watching movies, and I mostly understood what was being described.  I just didn’t care about it in relation to the plot. 

Finally, I just didn’t find this book very scary at all.  Sure, it’s a thought-provoking premise.  A director uses a cursed film camera to create a real horror movie because the camera kills people.  There are some graphic descriptions of some of the deaths, but I’ve never found blood and gore to be scary – it’s just gross.  I feel like DiLouie leaned a bit too hard into the horror movie creation process rather than writing a horror story.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

I gave How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive by Craig DiLouie three out of five stars.  The book was well written, and DiLouie obviously did his research regarding how movies are made.  However, I found the story predictable, and there was a lot of info-dumping via character internal monologue that did little to characterize or move the plot forward.  I definitely found his previous novel, Episode Thirteen, much more suspenseful and scary.  I wish he would’ve used more of the psychological horror from that book in this one (you can read my review of Episode Thirteen here).  In the end, this book just felt like a gimmick.

Have you read anything by Craig DiLouie?  What kind of horror books do you enjoy reading?  Let me know in the comments below!

ARC Review: Court of Wanderers by Rin Chupeco

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**The links in this post are to the book’s StoryGraph page for reference. I do not receive compensation for clicking these links!**

Book: Court of Wanderers

Author: Rin Chupeco

Pages: 448

Source: Gallery/Saga Press, NetGalley

Publisher: Gallery/Saga Press

Genre: Fantasy, Horror, LGBTQ+

Publication Date: April 2, 2024

Summary:

Remy Pendergast and his royal vampire companions return to face an enemy that is terrifyingly close to home in Rin Chupeco’s queer, bloody Gothic epic fantasy series for fans of Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree and the adult animated series Castlevania.

Remy Pendergast, the vampire hunter, and his unexpected companions, Lord Zidan Malekh and Lady Xiaodan Song, are on the road through the kingdom of Aluria again after a hard-won first battle against the formidable Night Empress, who threatens to undo a fragile peace between humans and vampires. Xiaodan, severely injured, has lost her powers to vanquish the enemy’s new super breed of vampire, but if the trio can make it to Fata Morgana, the seat of Malehk’s court—dubbed “the Court of Wanderers”—there is hope of nursing her and bringing them back.

En-route to the Third Court, Remy crosses paths with his father, the arrogant, oftentimes cruel Lord of Valenbonne. He also begins to suffer strange dreams of the Night Empress, whom he has long suspected to be Ligaya Pendergast, his own mother. As his family history unfolds during these episodes, which are too realistic to be coincidence, he realizes that she is no ordinary vampire—and that he may end up having to choose between the respective legacies of his parents.

Posing as Malek and Xiaodan’s human familiar, Remy contends with Aluria’s intimidating vampire courts and a series of gruesome murders with their help—and more, as the three navigate their relationship. But those feelings and even their extraordinary collective strength will be put to the test as each of them unleashes new powers in combat at what may be proven to be the ultimate cost.

My Review:

I received a free advanced review copy of Court of Wanderers by Rin Chupeco courtesy of Gallery/Saga Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, Gallery/Saga Press!

A quick warning – do not read this review if you haven’t read the first book! Events in Court of Wanderers follow directly after the ending of Silver Under Nightfall, and it’s just not possible to discuss book two without spoilers for book one! You have been warned…unless you like spoilers…stop reading!

If you need a quick refresher, read my review for Silver Under Nightfall here.

The end of Silver Under Nightfall was full of revelations for Remy, Xiadon, and Malekh. First, Remy found out that his own father is responsible for The Rot – the name for mutations that have infected some vampires turning them into grotesque monsters that are only truly killed by sunlight. Lord Pendergast has been using his own son’s blood to create the mutations and to control them. He believed it was the only way to get the upper hand against the Night Court vampires, and he uses it as a means to draw the Night Empress out. Which is when Remy figures out the Night Empress is his mother, and Lord Prendergast still holds quite a grudge against her for leaving him.

These are not the only shocking revelations for Remy, though. Apparently, the Night Empress has her own mutations now, and she uses them in battle against Lord Pendergast’s mutants right outside of Elouve. Luckily, the good guys win, but not without loss. Unfortunately, winning didn’t lead to any answers either, and now both humans and vampires have a much bigger problem to deal with than before.

Almost any vampire can be infected by The Rot, and the resulting mutations can cause a lot of death and destruction with few ways to stop them. So, all the leaders of the remaining vampire courts have decided to meet, form an alliance, and plan a way to stop both The Rot and the Night Empress and her court for good.

Now, Remy, Xiadon, and Malekh must travel to the Allpriory, a place of great importance and history for all vampires. Remy must hold his own in a group of the very creatures he used to kill, and they only know him as a Reaper. So, when there are mysterious deaths, he is the first to be blamed. However, when there is an attempt on Remy’s life, it becomes clear that more is at work in the Allpriory than first appeared. Remy, Xiadon, and Malekh must survive on multiple fronts while seeking answers to the problems of The Rot and the Night Empress, and it does not go the way they will expect at all.

First of all, my favorite thing about this book was the vampire lore. Rin Chupeco has crafted a really unique world with rich cultures and traditions. The vampires and their courts are no exception. In fact, they have more complex cultures than the humans do. Each court has it’s own rules and ways as dictated by its leader, but there are a lot of things the vampires hold in common. One such custom involves familiars. Anyone who reads a lot of vampire books will already have an idea of what a familiar is, but in The Reapers duology, being a familiar has a whole new connotation. It’s a role of subservience, and not all vampires treat their familiars as people. They’re more like pets. This is what Remy has to emulate while he’s with Xiadon and Malekh in the Allpriory.

Luckily, it’s not as difficult as Remy thought, since he has such a great relationship with Xiadon and Malekh at this point. This was another part of the book I really enjoyed. Just like in book one, the romance is mostly secondary, but Rin Chupeco does such an amazing job at using the romance to enhance characterization. It all felt real, and it all helped the reader understand each character in more depth. There’s is one scene about 3/4 of the way through the book where Malekh is discussing he and Xiadon’s relationship with Remy with Lord Pendergast that perfectly encapsulated Malekh’s character, and I could not get enough of it!

On top of that, I also enjoyed all the mysteries and subplots this book had. Parts of the story that take place at the Allpriory are almost like a locked room mystery, and it was done extremely well. Then, there’s the mystery of how Remy’s mother became the Night Empress, and what she is trying to tell him in his dreams. There’s also the mystery of whether or not all the vampire courts are actually capable of working together long enough to thwart all the threats they face. Finally, there’s also the question of whether or not the vampires and humans can forge a lasting alliance in the aftermath of all these events.

There are so many twists and turns in this book. I was able to guess quite a few of the twists in the first book, but I barely saw any of the twists in this book coming. The only negative thing about The Reapers is that there isn’t another book! I would at least like to have a short story or novella in the future regarding a certain engagement that happens in the book, but alas, this is a duology. I will just have to re-read them instead.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I gave Court of Wanderers by Rin Chupeco four out of five stars. It is a great sequel, and it managed to continue building the world introduced in the first book. I loved all the mysteries, character relationships, and additional lore introduced in the book. I wish there was a bit more to read, though. The ending felt a little rushed, and I don’t feel like the epilogue explained enough about what happened after the events of the book. This is the only reason I knocked one start off, and it was still an amazing read. Sometimes a short duology or stand-alone book is easier and less intimidating to keep up with, and if you’re looking for something like that definitely give The Reapers a go!

Do you plan to read The Reapers duology? What about other books by Rin Chupeco? Let me know in the comments!

January Wrap-Up & February TBR

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**Links below are for the books’ StoryGraph pages for reference. I do not receive any compensation for clicking links.**

The first month of 2024 is already behind us, and now, it’s time for a recap of what I read in January 2024.  I also want to take this opportunity to review where I am on keeping up with my reading goals, compare what I wanted to read to what I actually read in January, and list my February TBR.  I had initially planned to do a post every week about my reading, but I felt like that might be overkill.  Instead, I’ll just try to do these combo posts of reading wrap-ups and the next month’s TBR’s in the first week of each month.

January Reading Wrap-Up

I managed to read 5 books in January, and every single one of them was an ARC!  That is definite progress for me, since I tend to devolve into a mood-reading gremlin.  I was also able to write reviews for each of these books.  Keep an eye out on my blog for those, but for now, I’ll list them along with my star rating for each.  You’ll just have to read the reviews to find out why I rated them that way!

As far as my goals are concerned, I had plans to read 9 books in January. Unfortunately, I didn’t have as much time for reading as I would have liked.  In particular, it took me almost two weeks to read The Tainted Cup even though I really enjoyed it.  So, a few of the books I had planned for January will show up in my February TBR below.  I’m hoping to read more in February, and I’ve already started 3 books!

February 2024 TBR

My main goal for February is to stay caught up on ARC’s for books releasing in 2024.  So, the non-negotiable for me is to read the two books coming out in February and the two books coming out in March that I haven’t gotten to yet.  All the other books I’m listing are books I’d like to get to, but I won’t be upset if I’m not able to.  At the pace I’m going so far, though, I should finish at least 3 books by this time next week.  That will put me on a perfect pace to get through this entire list over the course of February.

As you can see, I’ve already started three of these books.  I’ll likely finish The Shining first followed by Fathomfolk and To Cage a God over the course of the next week to week and a half.  I’m so excited to finish the Mead Mishaps series and read Shadow Baron as well.  I’m thinking later in the month I may also do a post about books coming out in March and April that I’m excited about.  April is looking really stacked, so I definitely need to keep up with my TBR in February!

Have you or do you plan to read anything on my lists?  What books are you excited about this year?  Let me know in the comments!

ARC Review: The Magician’s Daughter by H.G. Parry

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**All links are for the book’s StoryGraph page for reference. I do not receive any compensation for clicking these links.**

Book: The Magician’s Daughter

Author: H.G. Parry

Pages: 390

Source: Orbit

Publisher: Redhook

Genre: Fantasy, Historical

Publication Date: February 21, 2023

StoryGraph Summary:

A young woman raised on an isolated island by a magician discovers things aren’t as they seem and must venture into early 1900s England to return magic to the world in this lush and lyrical historical fantasy.

It is 1912, and for the last seventy years magic has all but disappeared from the world. Yet magic is all Biddy has ever known.

Orphaned as a baby, Biddy grew up on Hy-Brasil, a legendary island off the coast of Ireland hidden by magic and glimpsed by rare travelers who return with stories of wild black rabbits and a lone magician in a castle. To Biddy, the island is her home, a place of ancient trees and sea-salt air and mysteries, and the magician, Rowan, is her guardian. She loves both, but as her seventeenth birthday approaches, she is stifled by her solitude and frustrated by Rowan’s refusal to let her leave.

One night, Rowan fails to come home from his mysterious travels. To rescue him, Biddy ventures into his nightmares and learns not only where he goes every night, but that Rowan has powerful enemies. Determination to protect her home and her guardian, Biddy’s journey will take her away from the safety of her childhood, to the poorhouses of Whitechapel, a secret castle beneath London streets, the ruins of an ancient civilization, and finally to a desperate chance to restore lost magic. But the closer she comes to answers, the more she comes to question everything she has ever believed about Rowan, her own origins, and the cost of bringing magic back into the world.

My Review:

I was given a free advanced reader’s copy of The Magician’s Daughter by H.G. Parry courtesy of Orbit books in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you, Orbit!

The Magician’s Daughter takes place in a fictional version of Great Britain during the early 1900’s in which magic is not only very real, it’s becoming increasingly rare.  Magic in this world comes from schisms, or openings in the very fabric of reality.  Magic leaks through the schisms, and mages collect and use the magic for spells and workings.  However, as the years have gone on, the schisms have closed one by one until it seems there will one day be no magic left in the world whatsoever.

The Council’s approach to this problem has been to collect and hoard whatever magic they can find.  Magic is given out sparingly and only in approved circumstances and to approved people.  Harsh new laws against any unauthorized magical use are enforced with violence, imprisonment, and sometimes execution.  The real problem is no one truly understands why the schisms have closed or how to get them back.

Not everyone agrees with hoarding magic as the solution, though.  Rowan O’Connell is like a magical Robin Hood that constantly steels magic from the Council for both his own use and the use of other mages.  He does this while searching for a solution to magic becoming more and more scarce.  Naturally, the Council would like nothing more than to put a stop to Rowan’s thievery, but there’s just one problem – they can’t find him.

Rowan lives on a magical island off the coast of Ireland called Hy-Brasil with his familiar Hutchincroft and ward Bridget, or “Biddy” as she’s often called.  Rowan rescued Biddy from the shores of Hy-Brasil after a shipwreck, but he’s never allowed Biddy to leave the island, for reasons he hasn’t shared with Biddy herself.  Then, when Biddy is seventeen, everything changes.  Rowan is forced to allow Biddy to leave the island and use her as bait in a trap for the Council.  Their success or failure will determine the fate of magic in the world forever.

On the surface, The Magician’s Daughter is a coming of age story for Biddy.  She has lived on the magical island of Hy-Brasil her entire life.  Anything she knows about the outside world is what she’s read in books and stories.  She doesn’t know how a young woman like herself should dress or behave in the outside world.  As a result of her education being largely through literature, she’s also a bit naïve about what leaving the island will be like.

Over the course of the story her belief in herself and Rowan are challenged severely.  I will say she reasons through each situation as logically as she can considering how little she knows about the real world.  One thing she had going for her is her knowledge of magic.  Even if she can’t use it herself, her understanding of certain magical principles and how to use magical objects saved her a number of times.  It was very gratifying to watch her grow as a person throughout the book.

Looking deeper at the story, though, there were several themes addressed that could have been plucked straight from today’s news stories.  The first of these can be summed up as conservation.  The overuse of magic became a huge deal by the end of the book, and it is also a metaphor for overuse of resources in the world today in my opinion.  On the one hand, Rowan and others like him felt that magicians should be giving back instead of just taking magic.  The need for balance was a running theme in regards to magic throughout the story.

People like Rowan believed that magicians are just as much caretakers of magic as they are users of it.  Again, this can be compared to how we treat our world and its natural resources. The Council’s proclivity to hoarding magic for a select few is similar to how wealth is hoarded in the world today. There should be controls, and there should also be checks and balances on that control.  However, too much control is also a bad thing.  It’s all about balance.

In the end, Biddy, Rowan, and others learned these lessons, but not without intense struggle and costs.  I really enjoyed reading about how Biddy worked through problems.  She has a unique perspective being a non-magical person in a magical world.  She also manages to work through her naivete to the point I didn’t find it annoying.  Some books try to make characters ignorant to then turn around and patronize them, but this book didn’t do that.  In spite of some of the bloodier scenes, this book definitely had a cozy feel to it that left me feeling warm inside by the very satisfying ending.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I gave The Magician’s Daughter by H.G. Parry four out of five stars.  It’s a fantastical coming of age story woven with mystery and magic.  I loved all the characters, but I especially loved how Biddy didn’t give up no matter what.  Even when she thought people closest to her had betrayed her, she kept going until the problem was solved.  I also enjoyed the unique take on magic the story had and the metaphors for common problems in the world today.  Anyone looking for a fantasy story just a shade darker than cozy should give this book a read.

Have you read any books by H.G. Parry?  Are you interested in this one?  Let me know in the comments!

ARC Review: City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

~ VenusBloo ~ 3 Comments

**The links below are to the book’s StoryGraph page for reference. I do not receive any compensation for clicking links.**

Book: The City of Stardust

Author: Georgia Summers

Pages: 352

Source: Orbit

Publisher: Redhook

Genre: Fantasy, Magical Realism

Publication Date: January 30, 2024

Summary:

Curses are made to be broken.

For centuries, generations of Everlys have seen their brightest and best disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor is a woman named Penelope, who never ages, never grows sick – and never forgives a debt.

Ten years ago, Violet Everly’s mother left, determined to break their curse, and never returned. Now Violet must find her mother, or she will be taken in her place.

To do so, she must descend into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge. She must also contend with Penelope’s quiet assistant, Aleksander, who she knows cannot be trusted – and yet to whom she finds herself undeniably drawn.

Tied to a very literal deadline, Violet will travel the edges of the world to find Marianne and the key to the city of stardust, where the Everly story began . . .

My Review:

I received a free advanced reader’s copy of The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers from Redhook via Orbit books in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you, Redhook and Orbit!

Violet Everly has lived her entire life in the Everly house.  She didn’t go to school or make friends, and she didn’t visit the park or the zoo.  Her mother left years ago, and she’s only had her uncles to keep her company.  They’ve done their best to raise her and educate her, but more than that, they’ve done their best to hide her.

You see, the Everly family has been cursed by an ageless woman named Penelope for generations.  Each generation one of them must die, and now Violet is the last of the Everly’s.  With her mother gone for the past ten years, Violet is the only one left to take her place.  Her uncles’ plan seemed to be working, until one night Penelope figures out what they’re hiding.  In an effort to buy themselves some time, Violet’s uncles bargain for ten more years.  Ten years to find a way to break the curse.  Ten years to find Violet’s mother, Marianne.

All this time Violet has believed the curse is just a family story, and like any other story, it isn’t real.  That is, until she meets Aleksander.  He introduces her to magic and describes a world that can’t possibly be real.  A world where the stars are gods and magic is made of stardust.  It is this world Violet suspects her mother may have disappeared into.  The only problem is if magic is real, then so are curses.  Violet’s time is running out.  She now only has one year left to find her mother and break the curse.  The question is, will that be enough?

So, you know those conspiracy theorists who believe everything is run by a secret society in the background?  In The City of Stardust they’d be right.  That other world Aleksander tells Violet about is Fidelis, and he lives in it.  Aleksander is Penelope’s apprentice, and it is his life’s goal to become a Scholar. Scholars are like magicians with the Talent to manipulate star metal.  They’re the magical engineers of Fidelis, and they can travel between worlds.  This makes it quite lucrative for them to trade between the worlds.  Thus, a society of Scholars rules many things in the background.

Above it all is Penelope.  She scares even the Scholars, and she’s after Violet.  The mystery of why Penelope cursed the Everly family is the core conflict of the entire book, but it’s far from the only mystery.  Finding out who Penelope really is and what makes the Everly family so special are also mysteries that get unwound by the end of the story.  I really enjoyed how interwoven the past was with the present and future in this book.  I also enjoyed how the characters almost all affected the story in their own way.

I say almost all because the only thing I didn’t care for with this book was the introduction of a few characters that didn’t seem to be more than a convenient plot device.  Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but the way the characters were written, it seemed like they were meant to be more important than they were.  Instead, they just served to give Violet information along her journey to break the curse.  It wasn’t information she could’ve have gotten a different way either, so it just bothered me a bit.  It didn’t bother me while I was reading, though. It was only after sitting with what I had read for a while that this occurred to me, so it’s unlikely to distract anyone reading the story.

Another thing I will caution readers about is the violence and descriptions of that violence in the book.  It’s a bit unexpected, so just be aware it exists in the book.  If this type of thing bothers you, then you may not enjoy certain parts of the book. 

Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this story.  Georgia Summers’ writing is almost like music.  It just flows and has feeling.  Everything is so descriptive and real.  I truly cared about the characters, even when I wanted to strangle one of them for continuous betrayal (no spoilers!). 

The one thing I was left thinking is how cheated Violet was of her life from the family curse.  She’s essentially lost her mother, never knew her father, and lived cloistered for years.  Then, when she finally feels free, she finds out she has a year to break the curse or die.  It really made me think, what would I do if I knew I had a year to live?  Would I exhaust every option to keep living, as Violet did, or would I do something else?  If I knew magic and other worlds were out there, I might just follow in Violet’s footsteps after all.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I gave The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers five out of five stars.  It was certainly the best book to start 2024 with, and I’ll definitely be re-reading it at some point.  This book is written with lyrical prose and beautiful descriptions.  The main characters have depth, and I cared what happened to them.  The ending is bittersweet, but that’s just life in general.  I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for their next read in fantasy and magical realism.

Do you plan to read City of Stardust?  What other books have you read so far this year?  Let me know in the comments!

ARC Review: Deep Freeze by Michael C. Grumley

~ VenusBloo ~ 2 Comments

**All links are to the book’s StoryGraph page for reference. I do not receive any compensation for clicking links.**

Book: Deep Freeze

Author: Michael C. Grumley

Pages: 336

Source: Forge

Publisher: Forge Books

Genre: Thriller, Sci-fi

Publication Date: January 9, 2024

Summary:

 From the bestselling author of the Breakthrough series: In his next near-future thriller, Michael C. Grumley explores humanity’s thirst for immortality—at any cost…

“A fast-paced juggernaut of a story, where revelations pile upon revelations, building to a stunning conclusion that will leave readers clamoring for more.” —James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sigma Force series

The accident came quickly. With no warning. In the dead of night, a precipitous plunge into a freezing river trapped everyone inside the bus. It was then that Army veteran John Reiff’s life came to an end. Extinguished in the sudden rush of frigid water.

There was no expectation of survival. None. Let alone waking up beneath blinding hospital lights. Struggling to move, or see, or even breathe. But the doctors assure him that everything is normal. That things will improve. And yet, he has this nagging feeling that there’s something they’re not telling him.

As Reiff’s mind and body gradually recover, he becomes certain that the doctors are lying to him. One-by-one, puzzle pieces are slowly falling into place, and he soon realizes that things are not at all what they seem. Critical information is being kept from him. Secrets. Supposedly for his own good. But Who is doing this? Why? And the most important question: can he keep himself alive long enough to uncover the truth?

My Review:

I received a free advanced review copy of Deep Freeze by Michael C. Grumley from Forge Books in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you, Forge!

Deep Freeze takes place in a near-future America where secret labs are very real, and those running them have their own agendas.  John Reiff ends up in such a lab after he is seemingly killed rescuing people from a bus accident.  The bus he is on careens off a bridge into an icy river, and everyone makes it off except John.  He is understandably surprised when he wakes up, who knows how many days later, in a hospital barely able to move or talk.

Now, all of this sounds like a very interesting set up for a thriller, right?  In fact, some of the marketing I’ve seen for the book compares it to books by Blake Crouch.  I loved Pines by Blake Crouch, and Upgrade was a fun time (even if the last few pages seemed to negate the protagonist’s entire argument).  So, I went into this book with expectations for a thriller with sci-fi elements about a man on the run searching for answers.  That, it turns out, is not quite what I got.

I did not in fact even finish this book.  It’s been a very long time since I have DNF’ed a book, actually, and it takes quite a bit to make me do so.  I did give this book a chance.  I read over 100 pages of the book, but when the most exciting thing to happen in the course of the first 100 pages of a thriller is the bus crash in the first 10 pages, then there’s a problem.

Following the accident, very little of interest happens other than a little background information being trickled out about the lab and the people running it.  I know the author was trying to be mysterious, but the whole cloak and dagger government conspiracy was obvious even with frustratingly few details being revealed.  I didn’t really care about the characters or what was happening to them because by the 100 page mark I still didn’t know anything about them!

Speaking of characters, the main turn off for me with this book was that John Reiff is obviously a rip-off of Jack Reacher.  They’re both Army vets with no home, no middle name, and a roaming nature.  They’re both tough and prefer to solve problems with their fists.  John Reiff even says something almost exactly the way Jack Reacher said it.  When asked why he wanders around, Reiff responds with how he wants to see more of the country he has spent his life defending on his own terms.  It was all a bit too on the nose and became very distracting for me, since I’m a huge fan of Jack Reacher.

Don’t get me wrong.  This could have been done in a very interesting way because taking a character like Jack Reacher and dropping him into a sci-fi thriller is certainly an intriguing prospect.  This book, unfortunately, did not do that.  Instead, John Reiff is a washed out copy of Jack Reacher, and he’s stuck in a lab for the first third of the book.  It just wasn’t executed very well for such an interesting concept.

A few other more minor things that bothered me about this book were the treatment of the main female character and the author’s obsession with explaining every scientific detail about process and machines used in the lab.  It almost read as if he just learned all of this cool science stuff and had to share it with the world.  It honestly came off a bit patronizing. 

Which brings me to how he treated the main female character.  Other characters in the book almost constantly mention how brilliant she is and how talented she is as a scientist.  But in the same breath they will mention how naïve she is and how weak it makes her seem.  It’s like she wasn’t allowed to be brilliant without a caveat while the men were allowed to have few, if any, flaws in their character.  Consequently, male characters often seemed to talk down to the female character, and it was incredibly off-putting to read once I noticed it.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy or even finish this book.  While the concept was what drew me to the book in the first place, its poor execution and  other flaws were distracting enough that I didn’t want to go back to it after putting it down.  Plus, I am fine when authors want to take an archetype and spin it into something new.  However, when it becomes obvious that rather than using an archetype, they just ripped off a character from another book, I don’t agree with that.  Maybe other people will still find the story enjoyable, but it just wasn’t for me.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

I gave Deep Freeze by Michael C. Grumley one out of five stars.  This book unfortunately had too many flaws that were too distracting to keep me interested in reading.  I really wanted to like this book, since the ideas behind it were so interesting.  The only thing that even tempted me to keep reading was unraveling the mystery in the background, but it wasn’t enough for me to pick it back up in the end.

Have you tried reading Deep Freeze?  Did you like it or not, and why?  Let me know in the comments!

ARC Review: Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire

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**All links are to the book’s StoryGraph page for reference.  I do not receive any compensation for clicking these links.**

Book: Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

Author: Seanan McGuire

Pages: 160

Source: Tor

Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

Genre: Fantasy, Portal Fantasy

Publication Date: January 9, 2024

Summary:

Antsy is the latest student to pass through the doors at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children.

When the school’s (literally irresistible) mean girl realizes that Antsy’s talent for finding absolutely anything may extend to doors, Antsy is forced to flee in the company of a small group of friends, looking for a way back to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go to be sure that Vineta and Hudson are keeping their promise.

Along the way, they will travel from a world which hides painful memories that cut as sharply as its beauty, to a land that time wasn’t yet old enough to forget—and more than one student’s life will change forever.

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known is a story that reminds us that getting what you want doesn’t always mean finding what you need.

My Review:

I was given a free advanced reader’s copy of Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire by Tor books in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you, Tor!

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known picks up a few months after Lost in the Moment and Found.  Antsy has made her way Eleanor West’s school, and she is trying to carve a small space for herself there.  It’s difficult for Antsy because while she may appear to be a teenager like her schoolmates, she’s still just a nine-year-old girl inside.  Interacting with others at the school is often confusing and distressing for her.  So, when people like Sumi decide to befriend her, she is cautiously happy to be finally fitting in.

However, Antsy left the Store for Lost Things with a new talent.  She can find anything, and she quickly learns that finding Doors is also within the scope of that talent.  When some of the other kids at the school find out that Antsy has the ability to get them home through their Doors, they corner her.  Antsy, Sumi, Kade, and friends find the only escape they can which is through another door, and they have no idea what is on the other side.

So far, I have loved every single one of the Wayward Children books by Seanan McGuire, and this one was no exception.  I really enjoyed Antsy’s introduction in Lost in the Moment and Found, and I was excited to see what became of her after she made her way to the Home for Wayward Children.  This book sees her go from a scared child desperately trying to fit in to someone who takes charge of ensuring injustice is stopped. 

Her time in the Store also gave her an expertise about that doors that no one at the West Home previously had.  She was able to share that expertise with people like Kade to help explain how the doors work, and in turn this gets explained to the reader as well.  I think this helped give Antsy some much needed confidence.  Once she was confident in her talent, abilities, and knowledge, she was able to make sure the Store was being run properly.  No more children would go through what she did in ignorance.

I also feel like this book hints at the beginning of the end of the Wayward Children series.  Readers learn more about Kade and the world he fled and why.  We also learn more about Sumi and when she may be going back to Confection.  Another character, that I won’t reveal which one because of spoilers, finally gets to go back home through their door as well.  Even though there are still some new people present from Where the Drowned Girls Go, I think everyone finally realized that the Doors can’t be forced.  They appear when they think people are ready, and you really have to be sure before you travel through them.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I gave Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire four out of five stars.  This is yet another beautiful entry in an enchanting series.  I will definitely be re-reading these books for years to come.  I have enjoyed following everyone’s stories and why or why not they seek to go back through their Doors.  The ending of this book was so bittersweet, and it almost made me cry with happiness.  Anyone who has been following this series should definitely read this book!

Have you read any of the Wayward Children books?  Do you plan to start?  Let me know in the comments below!

2024 Reading Goals & Plans

~ VenusBloo ~ 7 Comments

I never seem to manage to get these types of posts up on the exact first day of the year, but at least we’re in the first week of the year this time! For 2024, I’m trying to keep my goals and plans pretty simple. I’m also going to refer back to this post throughout the year to see how I’m progressing with my goals. That being said, this post is going to be a bit of a long one and split into a four parts:

  • January 2024 TBR
  • Reading Goals
  • Blogging Goals
  • Project Backlist

January 2024 TBR

**All links are to the respective book’s StoryGraph pages for reference. I do not receive any compensation from these links.**

  1. The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers (releases January 30, 2024)
  2. What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (releases February 14, 2024)
  3. The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (releases February 6, 2024)
  4. That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf by Kimberly Lemming (Releases February 6, 2024)
  5. Wyngraf, Issue 4 edited by Nathaniel Webb
  6. To Cage a God by Elizabeth May (Releases February 20, 2024)
  7. Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan (Releases February 27, 2024)
  8. Tonight, I Burn by Katharine J. Adams
  9. The Bladed Faith by David Dalglish

These are the books in the order I plan to read them for January 2024. I’m already ahead of the game too because I finished The City of Stardust and What Feasts at Night already this week! I do have a few other books on my list, but it’s not a huge deal if I don’t get to them. I’m prioritizing ARC’s, and I’m only going to read other books if I have time.

2024 Reading Goals

Which brings me to my reading goals for 2024! I will be the first to admit that these goals are pretty ambitious, especially considering I’ve gotten back into knitting this year. However, I am determined to put a dent in my backlog. It’s getting ridiculous, and I think these goals will definitely help with that.

  1. Read mainly ARC’s
  2. Get to 80% feedback rating on NetGalley
  3. Read 75 books
  4. Read 100 pages per day

My biggest goal this year is to read mainly ARC’s because I have an entirely too large backlog of them. I’m currently prioritizing ARC’s for books that release in 2024. That way I’ll be ahead and on task before tackling the overdue ones. This was also a goal in 2023, but I ended up letting myself mood read and re-read a lot of things instead. Thanks to this spreadsheet from Kal at Reader Voracious, though, I figured out a few things. 

First, I need to read about 84 ARC’s to get to an 80% feedback rating on NetGalley. I calculated this based on how many I currently have on my shelf on NetGalley and took 80% of that. Pretty easy. Then, I used Kal’s spreadsheet that I already had filled out to see how many pages total were in all of these ARC’s and divided that by 365 (for the number of days in the year). That’s how I came up with needing to read about 100 pages per day to get through them all.

So, knowing all of this, I feel like goals 1, 3, and 4 all support the ultimate goal of improving my NetGalley feedback rating. I’m also going to be a bit more judicious in requesting ARC’s. Right now, I don’t plan to request any, but if a publisher emails me something they think I will like then it’s unlikely I’ll say no to those. 

2024 Blogging Goals

Now, how do my reading goals tie into my blog? Well, in a few different ways, and both my blogging goals and reading goals are meant to support each other. I’m mainly using my blog to help hold me accountable to reading what I should instead of devolving into a mood reading gremlin again this year.

  1. Post at least once per week
  2. Post monthly TBR’s and Wrap-up’s
  3. Blog hop at least twice per month
  4. Post quarterly Project Backlist updates

One thing I realized over the course of 2023 is that my blog is actually growing! I wrote 32 posts in 2022 and had 684 views on my blog that year. In 2023, however, I wrote 44 posts and had 5,316 views. That’s a 677% increase in views, and I only wrote about a dozen more posts. Part of that increase is due to reading and reviewing more popular titles, but I feel like making an attempt to be consistent with posting last year also had an affect. 

Either way, making sure I post to my blog at least once per week accomplishes a few things. It helps hold me accountable to reading continuously, and it will help my blog see more traffic. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not totally focused on traffic to my blog, but it will help ensure I have access to the books I want to read and that my readers want to read about. My blog hopping goal will also help with this. Plus, I want to get to know other bloggers in the book community, and blog hopping is a good way to do that.

My other two goals are primarily to help hold myself accountable to my reading goals. Posting my planned TBR’s each month and then following up with Wrap-Up posts will definitely do that. It’s embarrassing to post about something and then not follow through. Additionally, participating in Project Backlist will help, and posting about my progress quarterly is another way to hold myself accountable (read more about Project Backlist below). Granted life happens, so there will be times I’m not able to stick to my plan. I’m going to try not to beat myself up about it, though, because progress is still progress no matter how small.

2024 Project Backlist

So what is this Project Backlist thing I keep mentioning anyways? Project Backlist was created by Kal at Reader Voracious at the beginning of 2023, and the main goal is to help participants buy less and read more of what they already own. Let’s face it. Most of us are more easily classified as Book Dragons rather than Book Worms due to our book hoarding tendencies, especially me. So, I will be happily participating in this challenge again for 2024.

Project Backlist has a list of goals that participants can use or participants are also encouraged to create their own goals. The main goal I’m going with for 2024 is ARCrastinator – clear overdue ARC list. Now, I have over 100 ARC’s that are overdue at this point (I know it’s a sad state of affairs over here). So, I won’t be able to clear them all. Hence, my goal of an 80% feedback rating on NetGalley. That is still a huge chunk of my ARC backlog, and participating in Project Backlist is going to help me achieve that.

As I mentioned above, I also plan to post quarterly updates on my blog on how things are going both with my own goals and with my Project Backlist goals. Be sure to follow my blog to get email updates for when those posts go live!

Click here to find out more about Project Backlist on Kal’s blog – Reader Voracious.

Do you set reading goals every year? What are your goals for 2024? Let me know in the comments!

ARC Review: The Blighted Stars by Meagan E. O’Keefe

~ VenusBloo ~ 1 Comment

Book: The Blighted Stars 

Author: Megan E. O’Keefe 

Pages: 544 

Source: Orbit 

Publisher: Orbit Books 

Genre: Sci-fi, Space Opera 

Publication Date: May 23, 2023 

Goodreads Summary: 

When a spy is stranded on a dead planet with her mortal enemy, she must first figure out how to survive before she can uncover the conspiracy that landed them both there in the first place. 
 
She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found and Naira Sharp knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside. 
 
He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study rocks and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the mining of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. 
 
Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy his ship before it lands. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them. 

My Review:

I was given a free advanced reader’s copy of The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe by Orbit Books in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you, Orbit! 

In the far future of The Blighted Stars, humanity has managed to expand beyond our solar system to colonize other worlds.  These worlds compatible to human life are known as Cradles.  Unfortunately, one by one these worlds have fallen to a planet-wide fungal infection known as Shroud.  It consumes all plant life on the planet making them uninhabitable.  This has forced much of humanity to live in space stations, and the search for the next viable cradle world is never-ending. 

Fueling the cradle world search and supporting humanity in space is one all-important mineral known as relkatite.  Humanity uses it to power their warp cores and to add enhancements to their bodies.  The entire relkatite mining trade is controlled by the Mercator family, which as you can imagine makes them one of the most prosperous and powerful families in the ruling conglomerate known as MERIT.  Each family in MERIT controls a different aspect of life, be it relkatite mining or space station manufacture or farming, and this helps maintain balance in the ruling class. 

That is until a defector from the Mercator family accuses their leader, Acaelus, of causing the Shroud.  Naira Sharp, Acaelus’s former body guard, decides to join a group rebelling against the rule of MERIT known as the Conservators. She personally leads teams that destroy the Mercator family’s ships in an attempt to stop the spread of the Shroud to more worlds.  At least until she’s caught, and the testimony of Tarquin Mercator, Acaelus’s son, leads to her imprisonment. 

It’s safe to say that within the world of The Blighted Stars, if two people were ever meant to be mortal enemies, those people would be Naira Sharp and Tarquin Mercator.  Naira firmly believes Tarquin’s family is responsible for the destruction of worlds which would support human life.  Meanwhile, Tarquin, a university trained geologist with multiple degrees and extensive experience with Mercator mining techniques, firmly believes his family has nothing to do with the spread of the Shroud.  So, of course they both end up marooned on the same planet with limited means of escape. The events that follow are full of subterfuge, desperate attempts at survival and escape, and a dash of complete and utter betrayal.   

So, how exactly do mortal enemies end up stranded on the same planet?  Well, that’s where body printing comes in.  Humanity has developed technology that allows the digital mapping of human minds which can then be downloaded into printed bodies.  Relkatite makes this possible through pathways that allow the mind to integrate with the body.  Printed bodies can be customized with additional pathways, such as pathways that enhance strength, cognition, and agility.  People can also cast their minds across space with this technology making space travel much more convenient.  Travelers can store their minds in the ship and print a body when they reach their destination.   

Without giving too much away, let’s just say body printing comes into play quite a bit in this story.  It’s an interesting concept that I haven’t run across in other science fiction I’ve read, although I’m sure it isn’t a new concept.  It also brought up all kinds of ideas while I was reading, such as if you can print a body for yourself, then there’s no reason you can’t print a body that suits you better.  For example, Tarquin mentions his father allowed him to map his mind as soon as possible, so Tarquin could print himself a body that fit him better than the one he was born in.  It is heavily implied that Tarquin is trans, and his new body suits the gender he identifies with.   

So, body printing seems like a great thing.  Except it left me wondering, if people in this world can just print a new body, then are they functionally immortal?  It turns out this technology is limited by the human mind’s endurance – not only its ability to endure the decades of life but its ability to endure death.  Printed bodies can still be killed, and if they are killed in traumatic enough ways it causes the mind to crack.  Cracked minds are incapable of living in a printed body without experiencing immense mental pain and strife.  They often awaken and begin screaming uncontrollably.  Naturally, cracked minds are considered dead minds because of this. 

Needless to say, the world of The Blighted Stars is not necessarily a nice one.  The ruling families of MERIT can be ruthless, and Acaelus Mercator especially has a reputation for ruthless and brutal tactics to maintain control of his employees and interests.  Rather than technological advancements creating a better society, I would argue they helped create a feudal space faring society in this book.  Planets are being destroyed by a fungal plague forcing people to live and work on space stations owned by the ruling families of MERIT.  MERIT owns everything people need, and the only way to get it is to pledge loyalty to a family and work for them.   

Also,  reprinting a new body for yourself isn’t guaranteed.  With relkatite being a precious resource, it costs a lot of money to be able to reprint.  If someone dies while working for one of the MERIT families there is no guarantee they will be reprinted.  Family leaders may decide that employee doesn’t have the skills needed for the next job and leave their minds in storage rather than pay the Phoenix Fees required for reprinting.  Life in this world is far from perfect, and immortality is still a dream. 

There was only one thing about this book that messed with my immersion a bit.  I won’t say what it is specifically because it’s a huge spoiler, but a trope was used that’s become common in modern science fiction across multiple mediums.  When it was first revealed, I put the books down in my lap and said, “Really?!”  However, once I understood the scale and implications of the situation, I was fully on board with the story again.  So, if this happens to you, just keep reading! 

Obviously, I absolutely loved this book.  There are so many interesting concepts and ideas brought up in its pages, and I’m still thinking about the repercussions of what happened at the end.  I won’t give anything away, but let’s just say it changes the entire dynamic between the two main characters.  The ending also made me very happy I have book two, The Fractured Dark, to read as soon as I can.   

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I gave The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe five out of five stars.  O’Keefe used tropes in new ways that readers won’t expect.  Many times while reading I thought things would go one way and instead I ended up surprised by the turn the story took, especially with the ending.  The story manages to weave together world-building and characterization with thought-provoking moral dilemmas and social issues.  Anyone looking for a deep-thinking space opera will definitely want to check this book out.  If you like what you read, then you’ll be happy to know it’s a planned trilogy with the third book, The Bound Worlds, set to release in May 2024! 

Have you read any of Megan E. O’Keefe’s books before?  Do you plan to read this one?  Let me know in the comments!