Monday 7 December 2020

In Picardy's Field by Hannah Byron

 

In Picardy’s Fields is a historical fiction novel in the Resistance Girl series and is set in WW1.

 

Agnès de Saint-Aubin is a successful surgeon doing her part to help to save lives during the war. She is secretly in love with her co-worker Alan Bell, but will never let on as he is married. Agnès is a baroness but has a dark secret regarding her heritage that, during the alliances in the war, she doesn’t want exposed. She and Alan go to Dragoncourt, a château belonging to dear friends of hers, that has been turned into a war hospital. While there, tragedy strikes, and Agnès must fight to protect her patients, her friends, and herself.

 

Maddy is one of the family friends and is at a finishing school in Switzerland. She decides that the war effort is far more important and sneaks out of the school to join her family. When she realises Dragoncourt has been commandeered by invading German soldiers, she vows to rescue those imprisoned.

 

While this is not normally a genre I would read, the author asked me to review the book and I was pleasantly surprised. First, the story itself was full of depth and angst, and while a story about the war would seem to be predictable, this one was told with such warmth it drew you in quickly. Very often, when reading war materials, the emotion behind those who have to “mop up” after the battles is never addressed and you only hear about the incidents in the fights. This gives a beautiful insight into the bravery the medical staff showed and the tough decisions they had to make while observing their medical oath.

 

Agnès and Maddy are amazingly strong characters. In the beginning I felt Maddy was rather flighty but she stepped up and became a hero very quickly. I loved her monkey and their loving relationship contributed to her helping Maddy in a most unlikely way. Agnès really showed her mettle when put under the immense pressure she faced and the two ladies deserved the accolades they received.

 

The writing is very comfortable to read and flows easily. The action was balanced well with the emotional aspects and although I did find certain sections a little too convenient and the ending a bit sweet, the characters deserved it! The editing was very good and the one or two mistakes did not interrupt the reading.

 

This book has definitely opened my eyes to the genre and while not a beach read (there are parts that will definitely get your heart going), it’s a beautiful book able to be enjoyed while curled up on a couch with a cup of tea nearby.



Thursday 26 November 2020

The Future is Yours by Dan Frey

 Anyone for a peek into the future?

Ben and Ahdi were varsity buddies where strange circumstances brought them closer together. Adhi had a quantum computing idea for his dissertation about having a computer talk to itself one year into the future, thus being able to allow the user to see into the future, and now that Ben has studied it, he is convinced he can market the idea. Things start to go a little wobbly when personal feelings interfere with their project and suddenly what was supposed to be a certainty in the future seems to be going off into tangents. What started off as a great idea has now become a contentious legal and potentially dangerous military issue. Is the idea worth protecting and if so, how far will they go to do it?

A computer that allows you to see exactly one year into the future. No thanks! I would hate to see the decisions that I had made, as the reasons for the decisions would not be clear in the present. You would never know what influenced the decision or what anomaly cropped up in that year.

What was interesting was the marketing and how people were buying into the product before it was even completed or was working correctly. Are people so desperate to know where they will be or are they too lazy or scared to make decisions now if they know the future is laid out for them?

I found the style of the book, having been written in the form of emails, transcripts, and social media postings, rather interesting to read but also difficult to get into deeply. You only get to see “published” words and not necessarily a person’s internal thoughts and feelings so connecting with the characters deeper than what was laid out in correspondence was not easy.

The ending was not that big a surprise as you could take a guess where it was headed and I felt the discrepancies and the changing/not changing the future was a little thin. I must admit that a lot of the sciency stuff I did gloss over (both times I read the book even though I tried harder the second time!)

Overall a very interesting concept, but there was something lacking for me to be able to fully invest in it. Perhaps it was the 2-D characters (due to the way we got to know them) or maybe it was the fact that the story was fed to you in chunks and it felt like the bits in between were missing.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for an ARC of the book.

Friday 18 September 2020

The Sun Sister by Lucinda Riley

 

This is the 6th book in the Seven Sisters series and is the last one currently available.

 

Electra needs help but refuses to admit it. She thinks she has her drug and alcohol problem in hand and that it won’t impact on her modelling career. Her new PA disagrees. Then, enter Stella, a complete surprise from the blue, who turns out to be Electra’s maternal grandmother. And Stella has the answer to Electra’s past.
Going back a number of years we find Cecily, a kind and innocent young lady who has been wronged by a scoundrel of a man. Celia sets off to Kenya to live with her godmother and experience some of the world. What she finds is a colonial outpost steeped in debauchery and a climate and wildlife she was not prepared for. As Cecily finds her way in the new territory, she lands up looking after an abandoned baby – one of a royal line. This baby will change her life forever and her love for the child will ensure a strong ideology to carry on.
Paths will cross over time and the impact will be wide-spread on many levels.

 

I must admit I went into this book already feeling as though I was against the main character. Electra was a case of me, me, me and the teaser at the end of the previous book did nothing to endear her to me. The formula came through in this story again. Sister doesn’t know where they come from so sets out to find their past, enter a love interest, they find out they are related to someone famous and their life moves in a different path. So at the end of this one you find out there is still another book to come as the missing sister still needs to come into play.

 

As for the story itself, I loved Cecily’s story and the crazy ride that was Kenya. What she endured was remarkable and the bond between her and Stella beautiful. The tie ins with the later years across continents and the linking of racism really brought Cecily and Stella’s decisions home.
While Electra’s rehab journey was commendable, I didn’t feel vested in it. Even though her deeds in helping Vanessa and ultimately her further project for Harlem was of pure motive, I felt her emotions were somewhat wishy washy. Maybe it was the sheer length of the book or the formula that was always at the back of my mind saying “You know what will happen next.” Too many tenuous links and the characters were not rounded out. I even found myself just rushing to the end so that I could find out what happened to Pa Salt as what was happening before that did not speak to me. And when I got to the end, I was very frustrated.

 

Not my worst read, but certainly not my best.




 

 

The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley

 

The Moon Sister is the fifth instalment in the Seven Sisters series and is all about Tiggy (Taygete) and her quest to find out where she comes from.

 

Tiggy has always felt much closer to animals than humans and has a calming and healing knack with them. When circumstances force her to start work at Kinnaird in Scotland, she jumps at the opportunity but finds her initial work and dwelling not quite what she expected. Granted, her boss is great and she certainly feels uplifted in his company. His wife, however, is frosty and threatening and seems to think Tiggy is after her man! Kinnaird is in financial trouble, and after an incident with a rare white stag, Tiggy decides the time has come to find out where her olive skin and silky black hair fit in. Spurred on by a gypsy on the land called Chilly who tells her she has special powers, she sets off to Granada in Spain.
The back story here is one of Lucia – a child born to dance with the passion to take the world by storm. We move in her story through her father’s ambition and lecherous ways, and how her stalwart mother did everything she could to protect the rest of the family through times of war and poverty.

 

This felt like an extremely long section of the series. And very oddly like a tale of two halves. I completely understand how there is meant to be two sections to join the past and present, but since this is Tiggy’s story it felt like most of it was dedicated to Lucia and her family and only then do we find out where Tiggy fits in. The backstory with Tiggy and her boss at Kinnaird was slightly odd and her “accomplishment” (can’t say more because of a spoiler alert) right at the end was way off base. The romantic interest formula played its hand and I have a bad feeling that the one she spurns will crop up again.
Even though Lucia had amazing talent, she was one of the most annoying and childish characters and I almost wished I could just jump past her sections.
The Pa Salt mystery is still playing in the background and as we came close to finding out a major clue it just got brushed aside.

 

The series is really running out of steam and I’m almost dreading reading Electra’s story next.








Void Fate by Suren Hakobyan

 

Void Fate is a dark fantasy novel with a dystopian thriller twist.

 

What would you do if you’d gone to sleep and woken up to find everyone bar you and four of your friends were gone? Just vanished. And not just that, but sound seems to have gone too. Not to mention no sign of animals anywhere. There has been a rush of people disappearing recently and a suspected serial killer on the loose—is this part of it? As Aram, Michael, Daniel, Arthur, and Harris try to find out what has happened to them and the rest of the planet, they will find themselves trapped in a world that makes no sense. Why is the town surrounded by a dome? Why does the landscape change every now and again? Who are the cloud-like demons that chase you down and kill you? And most importantly, will they remain sane enough to find their way out?

 

The story grabbed me quickly as I envisaged a stale and leftover world like The Langoliers but trapped like they were in Under the Dome. The author has spun a tale on a number of levels, where not only is the basic issue of where they are and what they will do about it addressed, but he covers what happens when humans are put in extreme situations and what they will do to survive. So here you have a group of friends who by all means, having known each other as long as they had, should be very close and trusting of each other and having each other’s backs. However, as we progress through the story, we find out how fear and mistrust cause them to commit deeds they would never normally do.  Or is that to do with the madness the new world is forcing on them? The author has very cleverly weaved in what they suspect to be happening with the disappearance of the bodies and it’s a novel take on an alternative world.

 

However, I did find the pacing very slow in this. Considering that they knew they were trapped somewhere and had to do something early on to get out there was quite a bit of space left in the book for events to happen. A lot of the time it was just them moving from one location to the next, and while I understand it was to avoid being detected, the moving just seemed to be the same thing happening over and over told a little differently. So you’d have something interesting happen and then a move, then something interesting happen and then a move. It felt like it took too long to get to the point. I never really connected with the characters, even though the short chapters and POV jumps helped the reader to understand the situation from all angles. Or maybe it was because of the quick jumps that you never really got to stay in a character’s head long enough to properly feel their emotions. The dome angle was never explored, which I felt strange and the introduction of secondary characters certainly made your trust waiver from one camp to the next.
There were some punctuation and grammar mistakes throughout but nothing major that would stop your flow of reading.

 

I would definitely recommend this book but note that there is profanity and a scene of abuse.

 

 


Monday 31 August 2020

Playing Doctor by John Lawrence

 

To become a doctor requires a sensible, responsible, and studious person, correct? I guess John didn’t get the memo. Having worked in a number of different professions, all completely removed from medicine, he decided to have at it. And have at it he did—with no less than two mountain bike crashes and injuries which caused short-term memory loss before starting med school.

 

The self-deprecating humour really kept me going through the book. It was definitely an original take on a doctor’s experiences and gave a new meaning to warts and all. TV shows have glammed up the road to the degree and this book breaks down the first four years of med school and shows you the piles of paperwork, studying, and lack of sleep. However, it also shows you the parts of the practical rotation I never expected! In the back of your mind you understand that a doctor should know a little about everything before they specialise, but reading about the experiences they have to go through in all the departments like OB-GYN was hysterical! To realise that they sometimes had to practise on colleagues had me cringing. The road through the different departments was described with fun yet with sensitivity – especially in the burn and psychiatric wards. The cardiology comparisons were brilliant, like if you were a proficient water-skier, you had a higher chance of being able to keep the retractors open correctly because you had the stance down pat! After all the drama he went through and the experiences just to get to residency, I’m not sure whether to applaud him or admonish him for putting me off going to the doctor ever again . . .

 

The author has a brilliant style of writing that keeps you engaged and doesn’t bog you down with technical details. There were some punctuation errors but they didn’t detract from the overall mad journey of med school. A thoroughly enjoyable book, able to be read in one sitting as you join the doctor-to-be in celebrating his successes and . . . well, let’s not talk about the other shall we  . . . 

 

Thanks to ReedsyDiscovery for the advanced readers copy. 

https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/playing-doctor-john-lawrence

Journeys through Faladon by The Ruinsong Order (ForgeFiction)

 

Ürbon is a Jödmun – a race whose body is of stone, needs no sustenance and is immortal. While on a journey to capture a prize he has been told would be greater than all others, Ürbon’s ship is attacked by elves. After quickly defeating the elves, he tries to take them back to their island but he and his crew are imprisoned. He manages to escape and on his way off the island, finds Bjarl in a volcano – a legendary axe with magnificent powers. Ürbon also stumbles on the Geck’tek who are a race of lizardmen and await the one who will free them. Thinking that Ürbon is the one, a Geck’tek called Tlupic is chosen to accompany Ürbon and they set off to find the rest of his crew. Their journey takes them from a ship called The Swift Eel to a desert where they meet Askia – a Sonasian with a magic staff. In this land they come across the Sentriel, Hydrulian – a god left over from years gone by who has seemingly multiple personalities and likes to play tricks when he is bored. Which is very often. Cue reanimated skeletons, vampires, night demons, dwarves, and a number of other races, battles and magic, and you have the makings of an all-you-can-eat fantasy buffet.

 

I struggled to follow the main thread of the story as the plot ran into a number of tangents – some of which were never finished off. Each scene they seemed to find themselves in had a fight or altercation and it was as though the different authors had been given a part to write so decided to add a fight scene into each one. Because of the number of action scenes, there was never really time to get to know the characters properly and I found it rather jarring when characters giggled. Here you have a giant man of stone or deadly skeletal wights in an ancient chamber and there was giggling. I found it strange too that there was no swearing in the book and then halfway in, some hectic language was uttered by Maka the warrior princess! Aside from the lack of character development, I felt that there were just too many sidelines. As I started reading the book I got pulled in and thought it laid a great foundation for a fantasy novel. Then it just branched off in too many different directions and, in doing so, plot points were just touched on instead of explored.

 

What really let this book down, unfortunately, was the lack of fine-tuning from a proofreader for the book as a whole. The mistakes completely interrupted the flow of reading and ranged from formatting problems where sentences were cut off in the middle to start again on another line or chapters either started on the middle of a page or two pages after the last chapter, to punctuation missing to things being spelt differently between sections in the book (even the geck’tek changed spelling in places). There were words mixed up like using decent instead of descent or who’s instead of whose which made for some very confusing sentences. I think that having this many authors contributed to not only that, but the differing styles of writing that came across. There were also obviously different writing programs used which led to things like curly and straight quotation marks being alternated. The POV jumps were sometimes rather jarring too.

 

The book had great potential with an interesting premise and characters which, had they been fleshed out properly, could have driven this book to a more cohesive story. I do commend the authors on how they worked together but a more holistic look at the book is needed.