Review: Coral & Bone by Tiffany Duane

Discover the truth- redefine self- save the realms- count me in. Coral & Bone by Tiffany Daune was a compelling read. It kept me awake, even when I couldn't afford to stay up. I'd tell myself "just one more chapter," over and over again, then find myself thinking about the characters long after I'd set it down. This was never going to be a one sitting book for me because every few chapters the need to get back in the water would be too strong, and I'd simply have to go swimming. I suppose other than *spoilers* it would almost make an ideal bathtub book.  Naturally, reading about mermaids and sirens, and the watery realm of Elosia made me want to immerse myself- my family jokes that I'm a bit of a mermaid myself. It might have something to do with the fact that I sometimes swim in a mermaid tail- dead serious. Of course, in Coral & Bone, being a mermaid is not even remotely a positive thing.

Possibly my favorite book cover, ever.

As I wrote on Biblivoracious when I couldn't wait another minute to share my opinions after finishing this book, in Coral & Bone, Halen, a nearly 15 year old girl, finds herself having returned to the dreary small beach town where her family lived when her father drowned in open water, which she recalls in images of silvery tails. Halen also finds fire tingling beneath her touch and goes to school with earplugs in to block the overwhelming sensory input of the world around her. Of course, the run-in with mermaids some six years earlier was nothing compared to the drama ignited when she reencounters them after a mysterious young man shows up on her front stoop.

Early on, Halen passes out during a math test because she took out her ear plugs, and this moment sets the stage for the balancing act between her strengths and weaknesses throughout Coral & Bone. Again and again, her abilities push her over the edge, and again and again, she finds herself diminished by them. At times the wording felt ableist. Halen frequently questions her sanity toward the beginning, and yes, I imagine anyone being pulled from the mundane world into a realm with different rules and different beings might question their sanity, or at least struggle with disbelief. However, the frequency of "crazy" and "insane" statements detracted from the meaning of the words, because they felt like they were being used too liberally, and in place of words that better conveyed the context. Was it insane or was it disorienting? A touch more nuance would have been nice.

That said, Coral & Bone was full of delightful surprises- even the predictable parts surprised me. Sure, we all see them coming, but they unfold in subtly different ways, and it feels good to read the well foreshadowed event with the tiny little twist. Duane used foreshadowing well. I like that Halen was set up to be a bit of a swooning Bella, easily overwhelmed, easily captured, easily led along, despite obvious personal power, but then BAM- she makes choices without equivocation and sets her own destiny like a boss. I like Halen, unusual name, myriad personal quirks and all.

I also enjoyed Tiffany Duane's world building. There's a great amount of detail. While she's created a robust world filled with a magic system that relies on strict rules, there's a lot of room for expansion in subsequent books, and to date no flagrant ignoring of the rules constructed, so as to maintain the willing suspension of disbelief throughout the story. Coral & Bone also does this neat cross-genre thing. Yes, it's a paranormal questy fantasy with a romantic angle thrown into the mix, but the underlying story is invariably one about political issues and social justice. The ever present "destroy the bad guy, save the realms" element serves to illuminate the greater problem -- that Elosians truly believe in genocide as a route to national and personal security. The social justice issues dominate the landscape of the story, and make for an interesting tale.

All in all, I'm glad I read it, and now I just want to go swim and contemplate where Duane left off, and all the places she might take the story in the future.

SYNOPSIS:
Halen knows the sparks igniting under her fingertips are dangerous. She has spent her entire life trying to quell the tingly feelings that make her destroy things, but now that she is back in Rockaway Beach, where she watched her father drown, the flames have become impossible to tame.

Halen is trying to hold on, but when she is thrust into a mysterious new world, the underwater realm of Elosia, she unravels the secrets of her past and can’t help but ignite. As she explores Elosia, she realizes her life has been a lie. And when those who have deceived her come to her for help, Halen must choose—walk away or unleash the magick that could destroy them all.

AUTHOR BIO
I write stories about magick, love and dark creatures lurking in the shadows. When I'm not lost in Edit Land you can find me reading a book from my towering TBR pile or at the movie theater nibbling licorice. I don't have a lucky number, but my favorite time is 11:11. I completely believe that the fortunes found inside cookies will come true and that you must be careful when wishing on stars. I live on an island, so if you want to visit you'll need a boat, and if you want to survive the passage, be sure to bring candy for the mermaids.  

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Review and Giveaway: Phantom's Dance by Lesa Howard

When I was about Christine Dadey's age, I fell in love with an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical about a talented young singer and the talented stalker who fixated on her. Then I found a film adaptation that was far more beautiful than even the musical, that moved me to tears and sold the humanity of the Phantom so strongly that ultimately, it was sad that Christine's character couldn't ever truly choose him. Many adaptations and a gleeful reading of a good translation of the original later, there is Phantom's Dance, by Lesa Howard- a modern re-imagining of the classic tale of The Phantom of the Opera, wherein our aspiring star is not just a dancer in the ballet company, but in fact, a dancer studying ballet with no designs on becoming a musician. Completely modernized and technologically relevant, Phantom's Dance was a complicated piece for me.

First and foremost, I liked it, but... there is no way to adapt this story without a but, is there? Ultimately, the heart of the Phantom's tale is always going to be that a cunning, psychologically abusive, and ultimately violent older man takes advantage of a young and overly trusting girl in downright criminal ways, and she invariably fails to properly involve authorities. When it's a story taking place before the advent of electrical lighting, it is easy to accept Christine's choices, but in 2014, it is harder.

Phantom's Dance deals with a wide swath of social issues- infidelity, contraception and the threat of teen pregnancy, and edges up on discussion about eating disorders while blatantly addressing racism, classism, and rape. It's a fast moving book with a driving rhythm that pushes the reader along, right into uncomfortable territory. Uncomfortable is good. It makes a reader think.

Synopsis

Christine Dadey’s family uprooted their lives and moved to Houston for her to attend the prestigious Rousseau Academy of Dance. Now, two years later, Christine struggles to compete among the Academy’s finest dancers, her parents are on the brink of divorce, and she’s told no one about her debilitating performance anxiety and what she’s willing to do to cope with it.

Erik was a ballet prodigy, a savant, destined to be a star on the world’s stage, but a suspicious fire left Erik’s face horribly disfigured. Now, a lonely phantom forced to keep his scars hidden, he spends his nights haunting the theater halls, mourning all he’s lost. Then, from behind the curtain he sees the lovely Christine. The moldable, malleable Christine.

Drawn in by Erik’s unwavering confidence, Christine allows herself to believe Erik’s declarations that he can transform her into the dancer she longs to be. But Christine’s hope of achieving her dreams may be her undoing when she learns Erik is not everything he claims. And before long, Erik’s shadowy past jeopardizes Christine’s unstable present as his obsession with her becomes hopelessly entangled with his plans for revenge.

      

 AUTHOR BIO
I'm not the typical author. I didn't always enjoy reading or writing. While in school, I found it to be a chore I'd just as soon skip. I would rather have been daydreaming, my favorite past time. It wasn’t until I grew up and didn’t have to, that I realized reading was fun. I soon discovered that reading fueled my daydreaming. So, remembering a short story I'd written in high school, I began imagining expanding that story into a book. Before long I found I had loads of ideas for not just the short story but other books and stories as well. Fast forward a few years, a lot of studying about writing, practicing my writing, studying some more, taking classes from people who knew what they were doing, studying and practicing yet more, and ta-dah, author! In the same way I had learned I loved reading, I learned I loved writing, too. It’s just that writing is a lot harder than reading.

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Review & Giveaway: The Silver Sickle by Ellie Ann

In a world oppressed by false gods who seem to see to the heart of one's every impulse, Ellie Ann constructs a brilliant cogwork puzzle of characters, technology, motives, and hope. I don't use the term cogwork lighty here. When I'm not reading you can probably find me tinkering with something steampunk. Yes, we have conventions. Yes, I attend them. So, when the opportunity to review a somewhat steampunk YA science fiction novel came across my desk, I was oddly enough, a little terrified. Nonetheless, my curiosity won out, and thank goodness, because the World Building made me want to squee like a fangirl. Ellie Ann's writing didn't take me by the hand and explain every detail of her created society to me, instead she sat me down in it and made it so rich and full that while it was different, and oh, was it ever different, there were enough details that I could quickly merge with the story and enjoy learning about the culture she'd created, rather than feeling thrown from the book with tired explanations.

It wasn't just her world building though. Her characters have depth, idiosyncrasies, and world views that are simultaneously easy to relate to, but entirely foreign. Within the first three chapters I was emotionally invested, not only in the fate of Farissa and Zel, as individuals but also as a pair, but also in Gira - in trying to better comprehend these alien would be gods who had set themselves above even the rulers of men - and also the cogsmen, whose unique position somewhere between man and machine both intrigued me and raised so many ethical and technical questions.

I like this book because it was exciting, and it gives the reader something to talk about. Any YA book clubs out there? Looking for good science fiction that will provide ample ammunition for long conversations about civic duty and personal responsibility, individual versus group ethics, imperialism, exploitation, agency, and cultural
oppression. I like this book because it raised my heart rate and kept me up far later than I wanted to be up, despite the fact that I had class the next day.

Best of all, I love that when I finished this book, it was over. It is a stand alone novel, and while I'd love to read more about the Amar, I am a big fan of stand alone novels. This is definitely a good book for readers who not only enjoy science fiction, but like their female main characters adventurous, quick witted, and big hearted, and their male main characters  to be made of the awkward but loyal and mechanically brilliant sort of stuff that other heroes only dreamed of while trying to fix the hinge on a door.

The Silver Sickle is available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

     

Synopsis:

The end of humanity will come through the Silver Sickle . . .

Farissa lives every moment with reckless abandon, for it may be her last. Any day now, the alien goddesses will harvest her and take her to the mysterious Silver Sickle, never to return. She’s accepted that. What she can’t accept is this new idea of freedom Zel has planted in her head. She’d give almost anything to be with Zel, but how can she run from her destiny if it means putting the whole kingdom in danger?

Everyone in the desert kingdom believes the goddesses are immortal, but Zel has invented a way to kill them. Now all he has to do is convince Farissa to run away with him and plant a seed of hope in her heart that she’s not destined to die. Little does he know that one seed of hope could change the course of the future.

About the Author:

Ellie Ann is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller of science fiction, comics, and thrillers.

I was born in the jungles of Thailand, was raised in a small farming village in Iowa, lived in the middle of a Texan desert, and now abide in the Ozarks.
I like writing fairy tales, tall tales, thrillers, science fiction, and am seriously interested in transmedia storytelling.

I’m a creative editor for Stonehouse Ink. I’m a producer of interactive books at Noble Beast.

Come say hi! I don’t bite. Unless I’ve been turned into a zombie.

      

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Review: Creators by Tiffany Truitt

 Creators, the third book in Tiffany Truitt's dystopian saga of love, loss, and survival, Tess' story delves further into questions that matter not only to a young woman trying to survive in a world that has decided her kind is worth less than nothing, but resound in modern daily life as well: what does it mean to be a family, what makes someone human, how does love change a person, and what exactly is this thing called womanhood, and how can or should it define one. Interestingly, Creators probes myriad faces of womanhood from political, emotional, and social perspectives, all within the context of a world in which pregnancy, as often as not, is a death sentence. 

As with many books that deal with women's sexual roles set in post apocalyptic patriarcal dystopias, Creators deals heavily with issues of bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and consent in a way that, at times,  reminds me of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Truitt has an interesting way of addressing the social programming and propaganda that conditions people who are systematically being abused into not even realizing they're being abused through the kind of rape culture Tess observes as a direct result of the health crisis facing pregnant women in Tess' world.  In dealing with Tess and her father's relationship, it put me in mind of Dearly Departed, while raising the question, once again, at what point does one's responsibility to one's blood family stop, and their wider responsibility to one's species begin? Aside from the social justice issues which permeate Creators, Truitt writes with momentum and energy, propelling the story from one confrontation to the next. 

Of course, as Creators is the third book in the Lost Souls trilogy, you'll want to start with Chosen Ones, work your way through Naturals, and finish with the unexpected and rather breathless plot twists in Creators. Yes, I'm admitting that I was surprised, and it was good to be surprised. 

    

Review: The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis

Once in a while I get foundered on fantasy. One too many monstrous hoards of skeletons have been fought off by a beautiful virgin and her talking horse aided by her rag tag band of outcasts and misfit friends. I'm sure we've all been there. I admit it, I've been overdosing on fantasy. A lot. So when The Shadow Soul opened with dragon wings shadowing the landscape below with altogether human descriptors, I was pretty sure I'd reached my limit.
I was wrong. I was so so so so so wrong.
The Shadow Soul was positively transportive, left me feeling refreshed, and renewed my faith in symbolism, imagery, and the importance of world building and cultural preservation.

If you want to be drawn in quickly and immediately feel a heart bond with a girl whose life is entirely unlike yours, read this. If you want to follow the
story of a young man you'll want to love and throttle at the same time, read this. If you want to set out on a journey, read this.
I am usually a sprint reader. I sit down and devour a book cover to cover as quickly as possible, but this, I enjoyed in tiny little bits and pieces, savoring the word choice, enjoying Davis' prose, drawing it out like a dessert.
Blending elements of espionage, high adventure, magic, and of course, the unending war between good and evil, not just in the spirit war, but also in the realm of men, The Shadow Soul reminds me in many ways of Game of Thrones, but is very much rooted in it's own world and tells it's own story.
Thank you, Kaitlyn Davis. Thank You. I intend to enjoy the rest of this series.


You can read more reviews of The Shadow Soul on Goodreads, or purchase a copy through Amazon.

Review: Awakened: The Legends of Elyndia, by Kriston Johnson

Awakened: The Legends of Elyndia, is the story of Jade, a girl who was just trying to make it through high school without anyone causing trouble or sending her back to a shrink over the otherwise not too horribly-unusual detail that she kinda sorta sees demons starts out with an average day of drama filled school and goes down hill rapidly when her makeshift family is attacked in an abduction attempt and Jade is pulled into another realm by her would be assassin. From there, it doesn't really let up until the end.

Awakened surprised me. Just when I would start to decide that it was altogether becoming predictable, Johnson would throw a curve ball that I didn't see coming, and I admit, I liked that. Well, usually. Most of the time even. All but one. You can make up your own mind, but I sort of wanted to slap someone for acting without thinking just that once.
If you're reading this, you like fantasy, so it's not really a spoiler to say, "when dealing with faeries, choose your words wisely."

Yes, faeries. Faeries, demons, elves, elementals, angels, and all the beings of myth and high fantasy that you've learned to love over the years enmeshed in a struggle to save a world within a world from the vile tyrant Draven who would use Jade's latent powers to unleash all of the demons into the world in order to regain something once lost.

All in all, I liked the characters, and the world seems interesting, though Johnson left me with a lot of questions about Elyndia that I'm hoping she answers in the second installment in her series. I also hope to see more character development on the part of Jade and to learn more about the rakish Elemental who betrayed her.

Enjoy.

Check out more reviews on Goodreads. Awakened: The Legends of Elyndia is also available on Amazon and from Barnes & Noble. 

I received a copy in exchange for my review.

Review: Hunted: Cycle Thirteen Book 1, by Jill Kaelin

Way way back, many centuries ago, possibly as early as the 1980s, but I'm not sure I want to admit to my venerable age, I used to watch The Last Unicorn. I loved the notion of this fabled species and the unicorn who looked like a woman, and her battle to save her species from extinction. It augmented an already solid love for unicorns. Yes, I had the full unicorns bedding ensamble, including the canopy. I don't know how many times I've watched Legend, just for the unicorns. I grew up loving stories that contained them, but as a rule, they were high fantasy or written for children. Unicorns in YA are not exactly the most common thing. Angels? Yep. Vampires? Sure thing. Witches? You betcha. Dystopian futurism with technological wonderment? Whole shelves at the library. Unicorns? Not so much, well, except maybe Harry Potter. So, when I had the opportunity to read Jill Kaelin's take on one of my beloved mythical creatures (right up there with mermaids, I kid you not), I was excited, but cautiously so. I mean, really, how are you going to do YA about unicorns that doesn't involve a stable and possibly gallivanting through a high-fantasy background?

Well, Kaelin did it. Chronicling the thirteenth life of a modern day teenage girl, Skye, Jill Kaelin's novel Hunted: Cycle Thirteen Book 1 reintroduces the anthropomorphic unicorn and their unusual mystical powers in a story which creates urgency and an appreciation for the finer points of the unicorn mythos, such as the strong link between unicorns and virginity with a nod to Skye's purity ring and the notion that most unicorns are created, not born.

If you love tales of unicorns, shapeshifters, classic myths reimagined for today, and a good old fashioned girl meets boy meets insurmountable odds and no small amount of danger, it's a good book for you.