A Tale of Two Cities but with magic.
What I’m Reading Now: Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan
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What I’m Reading Now: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
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Review: Gage by Tess Oliver
I had thought that I bought this book because my Mom recommended it but when I was reading it I told her thank you and she didn’t think it sounded familiar.
And, now I don’t know if I want her to read it because there was a lot more sex in it than the ones she usually recommends and I’ve had some weird conversations about the contents of romance novels with my Mom.
But, if you’re into romance novels, oh my, do I ever recommend this one. Gage is a lumberjack. He’s thinking about getting out of the dangerous rough and tumble lumberjacking world and has the perfect opportunity when the owner of his favorite bar dies. (Total bummer. Everyone was very sad.) He’ll buy the bar, he’ll retire from lumberjacking in Montana, he’ll have a quiet, peaceful life. That is, until Summer, the bar-inheritor, decides that she would prefer to be a bar-owner herself.
Just knowing that, you know where the rest of the story is going. Will they get together? Will Summer’s asshole mother upset the apple cart because her father didn’t leave her anything? Will Gage go back to lumberjacking and meet his maker on the mountain? Who knows?!
I really enjoyed this novel. I liked the characterizations of the folks and there was just enough tension between the characters and outside life pressures that it wasn’t boring. I would totally read another book in this series. A+, good job!
What do you do about alleged Plagiarism?
This Tuesday Cassandra Clare is set to release the next book in her Shadowhunters Novels. Her series is highly popular and is now on it’s third series inside this world. The previous The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices were highly successful. The former has already inspired a movie (a really bad one) and a TV show (from what I’m told is actually not bad and is doing well in the ratings but I personally couldn’t get past the first 2 episodes). Unfortunately the release of Lady Midnight, the first book in The Dark Artifices series is under a little bit of a cloud. Sherrilyn Kenyon, the author of the Dark-Hunters series, is suing Clare for copying her ideas. Kenyon’s series was first published in 1998 and Clare’s in 2007. They both center around an elite set of supernatural warriors that defend the world against demons and other supernatural beings. Clare has of course denied it by saying she wasn’t influenced by Kenyon’s work. I have read all of Clare’s books but I haven’t read any of Kenyon’s Dark-Hunters books. I’ve read the Chronicles of Nick, which I love. Seriously, I can’t recommend it enough. The series is a YA spin-off of the Dark-Hunters series and has overlaps with her original series, with characters appearing in both. Are there similarities? Sure? Probably? I don’t think the idea of elite warriors who fight demons is new or original. So I’m not sure what the outcome is going to be but does it matter? Should I be concerned that Clare might have taken some ideas from Kenyon? It hasn’t changed my opinions of her books. They may have similarities but they are both very different in tone and style that they don’t feel the same. Actually, until this lawsuit I didn’t even occur to me that they were similar. Not the same way that drew comparisons between Julie Kagawa’s Talon series to Sophie Jordan’s Firelight series. I wouldn’t say that one copied another but they definitely pulled from the same ideas. I think this gets a little murkier is the fact that Clare has been accused for plagiarism before. During her fan fiction days, she was accused of adding quotes from TV shows and whole passages from an out-of-print book. There are whole debates about the ethics of fan-fiction. Some would argue that fan-fiction itself is a form of plagiarism. Needless to say this doesn’t help Clare’s cause but I don’t think it necessarily proves anything either because again, I think there is some ethical murkiness when it comes to fan-fiction. From what I’ve read, Fifty Shades of Grey is far closer to Twilight then Clare’s The Draco Trilogy was to Harry Potter but I can’t say for certain. So where does this leave me? I had already bought my copy of Lady Midnight before this came out so I will read it but my excitement towards it has lessened. As readers do we have a responsibility here or not? If so, what exactly is it? I’m kinda I’m curious to hear what others have think about this.
Review: Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard
Back in the complicated world of Mare Barrow. **Spoilers** She’s been betrayed by Maven. Her dead brother isn’t dead and also has a super cool power. Cal and Kilorn, two completely different boys who are totally in love with her are now in the same space. Oh, and Mare now has to deal with the grief of killing people while pushing a revolution into high gear. Yep, Mare has some things going on in her life. I’m going to do something different then just a straight review. I’m going to talk about how I felt reading this book. If you’ve read any of my previous posts about the first book, Red Queen. Then you know how excited I was. (Also how disappointed that Barnes and Noble didn’t deliver it on timed) I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed reading it and how it’s just as fast paced as the first. Less then a chapter in and we are already into our first battle. The emotional roller coaster I went through with Mare, Cal, Kilorn, Farley and Shade. One of which I was pretty sure wasn’t going to make it to the end of the book. (I won’t see who and sadly I was right). I could give you a synopsis of what happen but really, I’m probably spoiled enough of it already. Just go read it!
As I was getting more and more into the story, I started to notice some disturbing signs. I was pretty sure that I was not going to like how it ends I was starting to see the end game and like I alluded to before, someone was going to die. Someone was going to have face off with someone unpleasant and someone or someones were going to be heartbroken. So I started to stall. I figured I would just delay the inevitable. I distracted myself with other things. Since I was on vacation last week it was pretty easy to do. I told my mom what I was doing and her response. “This is why I read the ending first”. BTW, she totally does and it’s adorable but I can’t do that. That takes away the surprise! The suspense! So I read a little bit a time until it was time for me to go home and when you are on a small commuter plane, there really is nothing else to do but read. I had it finished before I got to Detroit. It was painful as I thought it would be. It didn’t play out exactly as I thought it would but yes the character I suspected was going to die, did. The confrontation I thought was going to happen, did happen but not at all how I thought it did and it lead to one crazy cliffhanger. And the heartbreaks were all around, myself included. Readers, why do we do this to ourselves? Why? The good news I have time to process everything that happened and get my emotions back in check before the next book comes out. The bad news (and also good news) is that there are two books to go. But really, is there anything better the agony and the ecstasy of a good book? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Review: Captain Marvel Vol. 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
I didn’t know much about Captain Marvel besides she is soon to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. OK, maybe not that soon since she has yet to be cast and her movie keeps getting pushed back. (Thanks a lot Spider-Man!) So, I thought I would give her a shot. If I’m going to start reading comics, I figured I might as well start with a character that I don’t already have a history with and start fresh. Not to mention I wanted to read a story with a female lead.
At first I felt I was a little bit behind. In the early chapters (or is it issues?) there were references of things that happened before the action of the story began. A previous Avengers mission, for one, Captain Marvel’s ex and why she wasn’t ready to move forward with her relationship with Rhodey, aka Iron Patriot from the Iron Man movies. So, I feel like someone needs to recommend me comics to read that might explain what happened before. We open on Captain Marvel and Iron Patriot retrieving an unknown vessel that is hurtling towards New York. Inside is an alien from a planet that has been destroyed. Later that night, Iron Man finds Captain Marvel, or Carol Danvers, at home. Which is the Statue Liberty. That’s right, she lives in the Statue of Liberty. As someone who lives in New York and knows how much rent is, I can’t even imagine what rent would be to live in the crown of the Statue of Liberty! There has to be a story about how she got such a prime spot. Just another perk of being an Avenger? Anyway, Tony Stark has decided that they need an Avenger in space and Carol immediately volunteers. So, she and her cat go into space in take back the Alien, Tic, to her people. The problem is that Tic’s people are refugees from a destroyed planet. They were resettled on to an uninhabited planet but now they are getting sick so are being forced to leave and without their sick. This doesn’t sit well with them. They have lost most of the their loved ones, they were not going to leave behind more. While in Space, Carol meets up with the Guardians of the Galaxy. You know, Peter Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot. This leads to one of the funniest moments between Rocket and Carol’s cat. It also leads to the real problem of the story which surrounds Peter Quill’s father, who is not a good man.
Carol Danvers is a great character. She’s smart, brave and little head strong (but who isn’t). She believes in the missions of the Avengers and will go to great lengths to accomplish those goals, even putting her self on the line. She’s also pretty funny. I like that. This was a very fun book. I’m looking forward to read more about her. I’m also happy because this helps my Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives reading challenge. I’ll admit, I’m a little behind.
Currently Reading: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
Everyone! It’s happening! The new book is coming out! Who is ready? Who else is excited! AHHHH!
Quick Review: Deadfall by Anna Carey
The sequel to Blackbird was satisfying as the first book. Deadfall picks up right where Blackbird ended. “Sunny” is reunited with Rafe, the boy from the island on the train to New York. Rafe memories have already come back to him and has made contact with other victims of the hunt in New York. Together they try to connect with the others and figure out how to bring them down. Things get even more complicated when Ben is sent in to try to bring her back but instead chooses to side her. The twists and turns go back and forth and we find out deep the game goes and far people will go for the ultimate thrill. The scariest part is how easy it is for people to look at others people as less then human. The hunters don’t see these kids as kids but as targets. To them these are just runaway kids with no futures and no one will miss so it’s totally okay to hunt them for sport. This novel is also written in second person like the first and lends itself to the urgency and the paranoia of our characters. In the end our heroine finds out who she is. Her memories are not fully back but for the first time in a long time she can be herself. For mystery and action fans, this duology is worth checking out.
What I’m reading Now: Riders by Veronica Rossi
Because there are not enough books about the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Review: Stars Above by Marissa Meyer
As you may have noticed. Kate and I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve been on vacation and had every intention of updating while I was gone but I was too busy enjoying doing nothing but hanging out with my parents and friends that blogging didn’t happen. Oops. Let’s try to make up.
Stars Above is a collection of short stories that takes place in the world of Lunar Chronicles. Most of the them are prequels, giving readers more insight into who the characters were before the action the novels. In the case of the first story, The Keeper, it fills in the story of how Cinder came to earth and how Michelle Benoit and Scarlett fit into her life before she became a cyborg. Glitches follows Cinder as she meets her step family for the first time and how she went from the great hope to the just the mechanic. In the Mechanic we get to read Kai’s first meeting with Cinder from his perspective and the final story, Something Old, Something New takes place a few years after the end of Winter where the whole gang comes back together for the wedding of two them. I won’t say who because I don’t want to spoil it but you will be happy. My favorite story was The Little Android. It’s the only story that doesn’t star anyone from the Lunar Chronicles but does feature a cameo by Cinder. It’s about an Android like Iko that wants to be more then just an android. She starts to have feelings with a human and buys an escort android body to pass herself as human to get closer to him. The problem is that the man is in love with someone else. We get a better view of what life is like for people living in New Beijing before Cinder’s revolution for androids, cyborgs and humans. It’s a very bittersweet story but beautiful written. This collection is worth it just for this story alone even if you are not a fan of the Lunar Chronicles. For the fans, it’s a must read.
2 Women, So Many Books 