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.
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Daisy Jones & The Six is one hell of a tour of emotions, life and music. I don’t think a book ever made me tear up by page 38. And those were even happy tears!! Honestly, I just loved everything about this book from start to finish. It’s not happens every day that my extremely high expectations are met and I fell in love with a book everyone else seems to love. Just… go for it. Give this a read if your love the ’70s, rock and roll or just music in general. You won’t be disappointed.
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.
Limited Wish by Mark Lawrence
Limited Wish, the second book of the Impossible Times trilogy is just as fast paced, intriguing and full of heart as the first book was. Maybe even more so. Maybe some twists didn’t sit as well and was a bit predictable at places, but I’m just really nitpicking here. I would have jumped right at book 3 if I could, but alas, I have to wait – impatiently – for it to be released.
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!
Grimdark Magazine #19 by Adrian Collins
After a well deserved break – Adrian, chief editor of Grimdark Magazine (GDM) got married, congrats once again! – the Nineteenth issue was released with a strong line of contributors. You can read a short stories from Joe Abercrombie, Trudi Canavan, Alan Baxter, Michael R. Fletcher and Lee Murray, an interview with Geoff Brown and Syama Pedersen, two book reviews of The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht and Blood of an Exile by Brian Naslund, plus an article from T. R. Nepper.
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.