gaslamp

Review of The Raven Spell by Luanne G. Smith

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Synopsis:
In Victorian England a witch and a detective are on the hunt for a serial killer in an enthralling novel of magic and murder by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Vine Witch.

After a nearly fatal blow to the skull, traumatized private detective Ian Cameron is found dazed and confused on a muddy riverbank in Victorian London. Among his effects: a bloodstained business card bearing the name of a master wizard and a curious pocket watch that doesn’t seem to tell time. To retrieve his lost memories, Ian demands answers from Edwina and Mary Blackwood, sister witches with a murky past. But as their secret is slowly unveiled, a dangerous mystery emerges on the darkened streets of London.

To help piece together Ian’s lost time, he and Edwina embark on a journey that will take them from the river foreshore to an East End music hall, and on to a safe house for witches in need of sanctuary from angry mortals. The clues they find suggest a link between a series of gruesome murders, a missing person’s case, and a dreadful suspicion that threatens to tear apart the bonds of sisterhood. As the investigation deepens, could Ian and Edwina be the next to die?

Review:
Oh my goodness. Finding another book/series to fall into after reading one you love can be hard, but this one called to me, and I am so glad I read it! From the beginning you are drawn into the peculiar lives of two sisters, and the depth and characterization of their relationship and sense of self outside of being sisters made this book truly spectacular. Edwina is left between trying to keep things the way they’ve always been, and growing/evolving and learning the truth of some things that she may not have wanted to know. Ian is great; a man with an uncertain past, who despite that relies on his intuition for what is right in many circumstances.

I absolutely love the somewhat steampunk/gaslamp type of world that we are drawn into, and how well developed and organized it is. I love that it’s so different from the type of magic/world that we seemed to be dealing in with The Vine Witch series by the same author. Of course I always love a good mystery. Honestly, this book hit almost all the marks for me in things I love, and I would highly recommend it to others (and am already well under way in the next in the series).

Star rating: ✯✯✯✯✯

Review of Curse of Shadows and Thorns: A dark fairy tale romance by LJ Andrews

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Synopsis:
A rebellious princess. A cursed rogue. A forbidden love that will bring a kingdom to its knees.

As niece of the king, Elise Lysander cares about two things: sneaking into gambling dens, and avoiding an advantageous marriage at all costs.

When her uncle holds the life of her deathly-ill father over her head, reluctantly, Elise puts her fate into the hands of Legion Grey, the handsome and mysterious dowry negotiator. He may be arrogant and infuriating, but soon Legion incites a blistering, forbidden passion she can’t ignore.

As their attraction grows, so do the dangers: attacks from black-eyed people, a cursed enemy who is more beast than man, and rumors of fae returning for the crown they believe was stolen from them long ago.

After a bloody coup upends the kingdom, Elise flees with Legion, but nothing is as it seems. The man she allowed into her heart reveals his own secret plans with the return of magic—and he has every intention of using Elise to see them through.

With war between magic and mortal on the horizon, Elise must pick a side to protect her kingdom. Does she stand with her people who stole the throne? Or with a man who lied his way into her heart and whose secret past could bring her destruction?
 
Filled with luscious world building, banter-filled romance, and epic battles, this first book in the Broken Kingdoms series is part Viking, part Beauty and the Beast. One-click to start reading today.
 
This series will be 9-10 books with four different couples, but characters will be interconnected throughout the entire series. 
 
*Author Note* Be prepared, these fairy tale retellings might begin as a slow burn romance, but the series progresses with the spice and steam. Book 1 is not the standard for the heat of the romance and each book gets spicier.

Review:
I started this book because I’d finished the Hades and Persephone series I’d been reading and wanted to continue along the fairy tale/myth route. This book, I wasn’t sure of when I started. I already had it on my kindle and picked it based on the title; not actually remembering any description. Later I realized I’d found it off booktok, but I digress. I was quite pleased I picked it, as I fell into it right away.

Most of the characters, save Elise, in the royal family seem unredeemable. Following her adventures really resonated with me, for I believe most will feel like her about marriage. The world was well built and developed, the characters the same. Now, I had figured out our “main twist” from almost the beginning, however, I absolutely never would have expected how the end would come about. Oh my goodness! I had to immediately start the second book because I absolutely fell in love with Elise and Legion and need to know what happens next!

Star rating: ✯✯✯✯✯

Review of The Silver Skull by Anne Renwick

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Synopsis (from Amazon):
An illegal border crossing. A fake marriage. A mad German count determined to create an army of unbreakable soldiers.

Lady Olivia is not all she seems. Trained for marriage to an assigned political target, her skills lie in programming household steambots to serve tea, dress her hair… and sound the alarm while she picks locks and listens at doors. Humiliated by a failed assignment, she decides to redeem herself by tailing a suspected double agent.

Lord Rathsburn must flirt with treason. Struggles to cure a horrible disease have met with unexpected complications. The cells he engineered can make a man’s bones unbreakable, but the side effects are fatal. He believed the research terminated… until his sister was kidnapped by a German count. Her ransom? A cure.

Piloting a stolen dirigible, he uncovers an unlikely stowaway, Lady Olivia. Arriving together at a crumbling castle, an impossible task is set before them: cure the count’s guardsmen. Amidst their fake marriage, a very real growing attraction, dying guardsmen and escalating hostilities, Lady Olivia and Lord Rathsburn are thrust deep into the world of international medical espionage from which there may be no return.

Review:
In the beginning I was quite sad because I expected that the Elemental Web Chronicles would continue on with Thornton and Amanda, and that they would continue solving crimes and working for the Queen. Once I got over that and gave Olivia a chance, I came to find the story quite amusing and enjoyed it.

Although I understand that Olivia’s abilities and intelligence were supposed to be suspect in The Golden Spider, I found it hard to believe the complete change in mentality that her mother was now shown/said to have. Although some characteristics of Olivia’s remained the same, the difference in her in this compared to how she was in The Golden Spider was at times hard to fathom. Treating this like a completely different novel, not necessarily one that should have flowed from one book to the next, made the changes easier to accept.

I quite liked Lord Rathsburn. He was gruff and not the greatest at dealing with people, much like the scientists I know. His familial loyalty was endearing, as was his sense of honour.

I did enjoy this novel quite a bit, though not as much as The Golden Spider.

Star Rating: 

Review of The Golden Spider by Anne Renwick

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Synopsis (from Amazon):
A stolen clockwork spider. A forbidden romance. A murderous spy on the streets of London who must be stopped before it’s too late.

Lady Amanda is tired of having both her intelligence and her work dismissed.
After blackmailing her way into medical school, she catches the eye of her anatomy professor from the moment she walks into his lecture hall. Is he interested in her? Or only her invention-a clockwork spider that can spin artificial nerves?

Lord Thornton, a prominent neurobiologist, has been betrayed.
Secret government technology has been stolen from his laboratory, and a foreign spy is attempting to perfect it via a grisly procedure… using gypsies as test subjects. The last thing he needs is the distraction of a beautiful-and brilliant-new student, even if her spider could heal a deteriorating personal injury.

Until her device is stolen and used in the latest murder.
Lord Thornton has no option but to bring her into his laboratory as well as the investigation where they must fight their growing, yet forbidden, attraction. Bodies accumulate and fragile bonds are tested as they race across London, trying to catch the spy before it’s too late.

Review:
Why did I wait so long to read this book? It was absolutely wonderful! There was everything one could want in a steampunk/gaslamp style novel: there was a plucky and intelligent protagonist who wasn’t willing to just take what society deemed acceptable as her future, a brooding intelligent gentleman, mystery, and forbidden romance!

Amanda was instantly connected to me (perhaps due to us having the same first name, Amy being a short form used for publishing). She is so intelligent but also a society lady, so her struggle to find someone who didn’t just see her as a baby maker was both realistic and frustrating, making her quite relatable. Thornton was equally relatable in his desire to get things done, done right, and even if it killed him to do it himself, he’d be sure it was finished.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone and everyone. I loved it, especially the ending!

Star Rating: 

Review of The Ink Master’s Silence by C. J. Archer

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Synopsis (from Amazon):

It should be a happy time for India and Matt, but forces beyond their control conspire to ruin their future. A distraction from their troubles comes in the form of murder.

When the editor of The Weekly Gazette is killed, controversial journalist and ink magician Oscar Barratt asks India and Matt to investigate. As the recipient of threatening letters written on magic paper, he believes he was the intended target. With suspects ranging from Oscar’s brother to guild masters and London’s elite, India and Matt have a lot of investigating to do.

But the more they dig, the more dark secrets they uncover. Secrets that involve blackmail and an exclusive club of magic collectors who want to preserve the value of their collections. When one of the secrets can give India and Matt the future they desire, will they give in to blackmail or sacrifice their happiness?

Review:
Oh, India. Finally, the chance of love with Matt, but family drama keeps them apart. I had expected that Matt’s uncle threatened something very different, and I am somewhat sad that Matt was so easily assuaged. This particular book felt like more family issues and like a set up for something more.

The way that relationships were portrayed in this novel, as they would have been then, was sad yet likely accurate for the time, but what was more sad was the stigma that having magic placed on people, and how some would be so prejudiced against it.

I cannot wait to see what happens in the next book!

Star Rating: 

Review of The Watchmaker’s Daughter by C. J. Archer

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The Watchmaker’s Daughter
Glass and Steele Book 1
By C. J. Archer

Star Rating: 
Genre: Fantasy
Number of Pages: 300

Date Started: October 23, 2016
Date Finished: October 27, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)thewatchmakersdaughter_ebook_final_small1
India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who’ll accept her – an enigmatic and mysterious man from America. A man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he’s ill. Matthew Glass must find a particular watchmaker, but he won’t tell India why any old one won’t do. Nor will he tell her what he does back home, and how he can afford to stay in a house in one of London’s best streets. So when she reads about an American outlaw known as the Dark Rider arriving in England, she suspects Mr. Glass is the fugitive. When danger comes to their door, she’s certain of it. But if she notifies the authorities, she’ll find herself unemployed and homeless again – and she will have betrayed the man who saved her life. With a cast of quirky characters, an intriguing mystery, and a dash of romance, THE WATCHMAKER’S DAUGHTER is the start of a thrilling new historical fantasy series from the author of the bestselling Ministry of Curiosities, Freak House, and Emily Chambers Spirit Medium books.

Review:
I honestly wasn’t sure what I thought this book was going to be like, but it was far better than I had anticipated.  I absolutely adore the depth that Ms. Archer puts into her characters, their backstories, their desires.  While it is often plot that drives a story, the deep characterization is what makes the reader truly feel for this heroine, who is far more outspoken and forward than most women (especially those looking for a husband) would be in that time period, which makes her all the more intriguing.  I love the relationships between characters, and the so obvious tension that no one is willing to push pass to address.

I absolutely love how important clocks are, and I had almost thought we were going to end up with a steampunk vibe, but although there is a bit of connection it is not enough to consider this novel that genre.  While there might be something supernatural going on, the events are expertly entwined with coincidences and knowledge that the heroine would have that it isn’t obvious.

Though Ministry of Curiosities is still my favourite of her series, this is my second so far.  India is a very strong female lead, someone that I found myself wanting to rally behind and see accomplish great things, and find happiness in life, even if she thinks she’s “spinster age”.  If you have the chance, I highly recommend this book.

cj
Author Biography: (From Amazon)
C.J. Archer has loved history and books for as long as she can remember and feels fortunate that she found a way to combine the two. She has at various times worked as a librarian, IT support person and technical writer but in her heart has always been a fiction writer. While she has written historical romance in the past, she now writes exclusively in the historical fantasy genre (with a large dose of romance). She has several series which occur in the same Victorian-era “world”, one after the other. Each series can be read alone, but it’s more fun to start at the beginning with THE EMILY CHAMBERS SPIRIT MEDIUM TRILOGY. Follow that up with all 9 FREAK HOUSE books, then the MINISTRY OF CURIOSITIES series. GLASS AND STEELE, her newest series, is set in an entirely different alternate Victorian London.

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