Okay, it’s not actually going to be that Mega. >.> There will be a semifinalist at the end though!
Esme and I have been going strong for a billion SPFBOs now, and the last couple years have hit me pretty hard. So, this year I opted to take 5 out of the 30, instead of 15. Just to be safe, in case I just couldn’t read a whole 15 again.
So, here’s what I have to say about my 5 books!
Hyperborea – Severed Legacy by E.M. Zolotor
Hyperborea is the story of Eos and Maxima Bellator, who are orphan siblings with magical powers that the American military/government (or, what’s left of it as this is very much a dystopian America) use as their own little power sources, or alternatively… soldiers.
People from a place called Hyperborea (a mythical place along the lines of Ultima Thule or maybe Laputa?) are up to shenanigans like kidnapping Maxima, and so it’s up to Eos and his friends to rescue her, and also probably save the world.
I set this one down twice before I ended up actually finishing it. It was an alright book, but I kept finding things that annoyed me and so it took a bit to really capture my interest. I thought Eos was annoying at first, and the bad guy was so mustache twirlingly bad that I rolled my eyes every time he said anything. Sounds like explosions were almost always written out like BWOOM! and I was over it after the second or third time, and there were a few times that the point of view would change slightly within the same paragraph, which was a little confusing.
With all that said, I did end up finishing, and I found it an alright read all around. It reminded me of Escape to Witch Mountain (the old one, y’all… no, not that one, the older one…) given that these were two quite alien siblings being used for their magical powers. More military/warlike, but it gave me the same vibe. I loved that movie when I was a wee little stardrifter. So it got me in the end. It also had really neat little pictures drawn at the beginning of each chapter which were nice. I rated this one 6/10 stars.
The Lost Wings by Camilla Vavruch
The Lost Wings is the story of Moira, who is a princess of the Air people of the sky land of Aurora. One night she gets caught in a storm and she is blown off of Aurora, loses her wings, and ends up on the ground with no way home. She befriends one of the Water people (a mermaid named Nerida), and a dragon named Pyrros. I assumed the dragons were the Fire people. This is an elemental adventure, anyway, so we’re rolling with it.
Moira and her new friends go on the adventure of a lifetime, searching for a way to get her wings back, and what an adventure they have. Witches and dragons and mysterious islands, oh my!
This was a cute middle-grade-ish book. It’s YA obviously, but it seemed closer to middle-grade than like… high school to me. It’s a fairy princess, a dragon, and a mermaid going on an adventure, so, I mean… yeah?
I thought Moira was so mind-bogglingly naive at the beginning that I almost put the book aside. I mean I know that’s kind of the point, as she is very sheltered and hasn’t been in the outside world at all, but sheesh. Ultimately, I’m glad that I didn’t stop reading, because she does have quite a bit of growth over the book, and so that was nice to see. Nerida had a ton of character growth over the course of the story as well, and I really ended up liking her character in the end.
Some things in this one were a little Deus Ex for my liking. Like, one or two of the baddies that threaten Moira at least are suddenly gone, because reasons. There was one baddie in particular who was present for a while, and then was suddenly like ‘MUAHAHAHA I’M ACTUALLY EVIL!’ and then is out of the picture like 4 pages later, lol.
That said, a fairy princess, a mermaid, and a dragon go on an adventure? Wee stardrifter would have loved this book! And hey, she had no idea wtf Deus Ex Machina is, so… bonus, right? I rated this one 7/10 stars.
Runelight by J.A. Andrews
This is the story of Kate, who is a Keeper. Keepers are kind of like… story-telling mages who do a lot of magical research. They’re pretty well respected across the realm. Once upon a time, Kate and her brothers were exploring a cave, and found a puzzle box. Then some strangers came and stole the box, and her brother Evan went missing. She and her brother Bo have spent twenty years trying to find out what exactly the box is, and where Evan went, with no luck.
One day, an elf named Venn showed up at the Keepers’ Stronghold with the puzzle box, saying Bo has gone missing but that he told her to give Kate the box. Kate and Venn go on an adventure to find him, and find themselves going from reluctant travel companions to… maybe friends, actually?
This takes place in the same world as J.A. Andrews’ other books, and is obviously related. I haven’t read either series and still really enjoyed myself with this one. I latched onto Kate immediately, and so it was really easy to cheer for her, and to hope that her woes would be resolved. I also really liked Venn, who I felt grew a lot as the book went on.
I thought this was fantastically written, it was easy to get sucked into the story, and it had twists and turns I didn’t see coming. The audiobook is also read by Kate Reading, which was a bonus! (Not an actual bonus, that isn’t how this contest works). I found myself listening to this one for hours at a time, and enjoyed it a lot. I rated this one 8.5/10 stars!
Checkmate by K.D. Tabith
Checkmate is the story of Luka Lockehart, who has spent his life trying to hide his shapeshifting abilities in a society that shuns them. He’s done so by becoming one of the best Cesse players in all of Siacci. It is also the story of Theodori Hunter Wolfborn, a warlord and werewolf who has been commanded to conquer Siacci, and he is planning to first kidnap the best Cesse player in the kingdom and use them to come up with a strategic plan. But he kidnaps the wrong person, and doesn’t know it.
Luka’s been kidnapped and his werewolf kidnapper thinks he is his greatest rival! Oh no! Also the werewolf is hot, and wants Luka to help him conquer the city! OH NO!!!
Okay, so, this is a gay werewolf chess romance. Yes, you read that correctly. Gay Werewolf Chess Romance. I went into this one quite excited to see where it would go. How is Luka going to get out of this? How is Theo going to react when he realizes that Luka isn’t who he is pretending to be? Can this book convince me chess is sexy?
I read a lot of M/M romance, and I’ve also been known to read some werewolf romance. I saw this one described as omegaverse before I read it and so I was a little skeptical going in. I mean I don’t fault people for liking what they like but I don’t generally like omegaverse stuff. It can get… way too weird for me. Thankfully, this one didn’t seem to get into anything exceptionally odd. There isn’t even a smutty scene between the main characters. There is smut, don’t misunderstand, just not between the main characters, lol.
I read this book in one sitting, because I had a hard time setting it aside. It’s a quick and easy read. The story progresses in a way that makes it easy to get immersed. I found Luka annoying in the beginning because he is very prideful and boastful but as the book went on and I learned his backstory a little bit, I found myself kind of latching on to him.
So, a gay werewolf chess romance, I guess. It did not convince me on the chess is sexy thing, but I did appreciate how the author managed to use chess as a romance trope in a M/M shifter romance without it seeming weird. I rated this one 7/10 stars.
Cursed King by Danielle Paquette-Harvey
This is the story of Nathan. He is the titular Cursed King. He is cursed because he is a vampire/werewolf hybrid. Hybrids aren’t exceptionally rare in this world, but as he is the king of the vampires, it’s a little odd. Nathan is set to marry a vampiress named Samantha. She is from a good and noble vampire family. However, because he can’t drink anything but but blood, he keeps his own source of blood, a woman named Emerald, as his vassal. He’s a bit concerned about how well Samantha and Emerald will get along. Meanwhile, political shenanigans are going on in the background with the elves and a group of people who worship a rather brutal god.
This book was trying to do a lot of things, and I’m not sure it succeeded at any. At least, it didn’t with me. It seems to have its own little fanbase, so it doesn’t need me, but gosh I have things to say about this book…
I’ll start with the good. Uh, the smutty scenes were pretty good? LOOK, I KNOW WHAT I LIKE, OKAY? I liked Emerald. I thought she was good. Good for Nathan, good at helping and supporting her loved ones. Just good. Go Emerald go.
Hokay, so… the not-so-good.
This one was… weird. There are… a bunch of things that made it so:
Chapter one has Nathan talking about how everyone knew that vampires slept with their vassals, because the feeding made humans horny AF. Then how he knew from the very first time he saw his vassal Emerald that he wanted her, despite her being a teenager at the time. They waited though. For the sex part, at least? The feeding was fine when she was a teenager, obviously. He didn’t take it further, and she definitely didn’t ask him to until she was an adult, like teenagers aren’t the horniest creatures in existence already without this magical vampire bitey horniness on top, but okay.
Nathan being concerned about how his fiancée Samantha would react to Emerald, because you know, Emerald was important, but for survival. lol, survival. Okay, we’ll roll with you pretending you’re not obviously in love with your vassal from page one. ‘WHY CAN’T I JUST LOVE THEM BOTH?!’ – I mean am I the only one who thinks that people who are in the prime of their lives for centuries would a billion million percent be polyamorous? I mean monogamy seems silly when you’re going to be alive for a thousand years, but okay, that’s beside the point. This isn’t a treatise on why romance tropes are often silly, lol.
Then there is Samantha. Chapter two is from Samantha’s POV, in first person. We learn, from her inner dialogue, all about how sexy she thinks Nathan is, and how he gets her all warm in the nethers when she sees him, can’t wait to be married to him, is having trouble waiting until the wedding to get busy, et cetera. So, it’s generally really weird when all of this inner dialogue becomes completely moot down the line.
There’s *gasp!* ‘what a twist!’ and there’s *sigh* ‘that makes no sense.’ and this was the latter.
This takes place in an entirely fictional place, and yet something was described as exotically Spanish at one point? Someone was described as wearing jeans and someone else was wearing a tunic. The taverns were described like you would find in a typical epic fantasy world but there were lamps and electricity. It was just… weird. It was hard for me to imagine it because it sounded half Shannara and half Twilight and my brain didn’t know which way to go with it.
The line: “Fuck me, and if I like it, I’ll make you my son.” was in there somewhere, and I… I just. I can’t un-read that, guys, and so you now get to bear this burden along with me.
Y’all. People appear to love this book, and you know what? U do u boo. Go forth and love what y’all love. I did not love this book, and I rated it 3.5/10 stars.
A semi finalist!
It’s really hard to make these surprising when you’re rating them as you go lol.
My semifinalist is (obviously?) RUNELIGHT by J.A. Andrews!
I’m looking forward to reading more books in this world!
And now it’s time for me to start on Esme’s semi finalists. We’ll see where we end up! BYE FOR NOW!
superstardrifter 