Shields in Shadow was an exciting popcorn read – thriller-type pacing, good gory battles, and some fun characters to root for. All in all it looks to be a great start to a series that is worth keeping an eye on.
SPFBO: Dragon’s Price: Rise of the Horned Serpent by Daniel Potter
We’ve read and reviewed this book for SPFBO5. Please keep in mind these are personal thoughts only. We will update this post as the judges read along and add their opinions. This book has already been eliminated from the competition, but one of us liked it enough to write a full review.
SPFBO: The First Round of DNFs by Jen (Bunnyreads)
The pokey person in the group is finally getting around to her first round of mini-reviews for my DNF’s! Please note, that this is only my opinion and my ratings, and these books still can end up as semi-finalists if one of my fellow judges deem them worthy. Once we have a couple of books all of us thinks won’t make it, Timy will write up announcement posts.
SPFBO: The Werewolf Whisperer by Camilla Ochlan and Bonita Gutierrez
SPFBO 5 review!
SPFBO: The Vessel of Ra by Catherine Schaff-Stump
SPFBO 5 review!
Crown of Coral and Pearl by Mara Rutherford
The story was quick, lots of fun, with some fluttery first-time love feelings, and a good dose of danger for our heroine to overcome. I liked the first half because of the setting and the sisters, and second half for the characters and the intrigue. The ending felt a tad bit rushed but I enjoyed this book as a whole and blew through it in a few sittings.
Red and Black by Nancy O’Toole Meservier
The characters do have a lot of introspection and awareness of their own faults with good reasons for their choices. At times I thought they were maybe a little too aware of their own shortcomings during these self-examinations but the characters really were wonderfully handled. Even Calypso and other support characters had motives beyond just being bad, for the sake of being villains.
The Ragged Blade by Christopher Ruz
This one was an assorted bag of fabulous, and some odd, not quite sure how I feel about it stuff. It’s a slow building world that relies on the MC Richard, to tell the story through a combination of flashbacks – partly through sharing stories with his daughter Ana (who is mute for the most part), combined with present day events.
Gedlund by William Ray
As military fantasys go, I found a lot to like in this one. There’s a lot of battles which get progressively bigger until the finale. There are organising troops, gun use, and marching – some of my favorite parts were the parade row marching and just any of the scenes where they had to keep or use a tempo. I especially loved the use of sound combined with the visuals to bring the scenes alive.
Pride Month: RainBook Recs – Part 2
We thought it would be fun to do a little something in recognition of Pride Month here at Rockstarlit BookAsylum. So, I went through and picked books that I had enjoyed that had some LGBTQ content, and matched the pride flag to the dominate color of the covers, with varying degrees of luck.