I fell in love with the premise of this book immediately. A crew of woman sailors out for revenge against the regime that killed or hurt their families. It just seemed like the book I needed to read right now. Caledonia Styx, the captain is a flawed heroine for sure but she is also a good leader. Wracked with guilt after hesitating to kill the Bullet, member of the so called Army that rules the oceans, that lead to the death of her own family. She builds her ship and crew along with her friend Pieces. Many of her decisions on her personal desire to kill this one Bullet and this at times clouds her judgment. The weight of being the Captain and responsible for the lives of her crew members weighs heavily on her as their mission becomes more and more dangerous. After taking on one enemies ship they take on a Bullet. She doesn’t trust him but he offers her information that she can’t deny and things start moving very fast.
From the very beginning this book was intense. I could feel the tension that the characters were feeling throughout their journey. The story is in Caledonia’s point of view and we get a glimpsed of a determined but also conflicted girl. She is a born leader and has the complete loyalty of her crew but has so many doubts and fears that she can’t see it. Almost the entire book , Pieces tells her how much she needs to let go and trust that her crew has her back and just when I thought the message got through, she does something stupid but I won’t go into that because that would spoil the end. That’s the beauty of this book. It really is about female friendship. Caledonia only succeeds because of the crew she assembled and that’s a powerful message. Often girls are taught to be in competition with each other but we can be so much stronger together. All of the characters are fully fleshed out. We don’t get as much of their back story but we get full character traits and that each girl is their own person. In the upcoming books, I hope we get more of her crew and where they came from and how they joined the crew. I really loved this book and happy and sad that it’s a trilogy because I don’t want to journey to end but I also want to read the next book like right now.
The Princess Diarist is as heartbreaking as it is heartwarming. Carrie Fisher dusted off her old diaries she wrote while filming the first Star Wars movie in 1977. Like everything in her life, she is brutally honest about what she saw and what she did and tells it with a biting sense of humor. Reading this a year after her untimely death is definitely after bittersweet as she was more or less correct about her own obituaries would say and what pictures they would use. The bulk of this memoir is focused on her affair with costar Harrison Ford, who as you know played Han Solo. Passages of her diary talks of her struggle to deal with the knowledge she is having an affair with a married costar and how she is falling in love with him even after telling herself that she wouldn’t. She also talks about how she struggled on the set, being told to lose weight and hours in hair and make up and keeping up the facade that she was more experienced than she actually was and of course the awkward promotion of the movie after the release. Carrie Fisher became Princess Leia in this diary and the transition wasn’t smooth. There was a lot bumps and bruises along the way but she eventually found peace with her alter ego. Honestly, we are lucky to have had Carrie as our Princess Leia and as our General Organa.
I’ll admit that I had a little trouble getting into this one. I get the feeling that V.E. didn’t plan on this being a trilogy originally because while there were a few loose ends it was wrapped up pretty nicely and could have ended where it did. That meant that she sort of had to start all over again setting up the world and the characters. Lila had left Red London to seek adventures and find herself on a privateer’s boat. Kell and Rhy are left dealing with the new bond between them and the knowledge that their lives are tied to each other. If one dies so does the other. All three are restless in their new realities so of course it’s a good time to put on an international tournament of magic. The Essen Tasch, a competition with neighboring nations Faron and Vesk. A good way to expand the universe but it also meant it took a lot of pages building up the games that by the time we finally do and we get all of characters in one place again, the book is more then two thirds over and you blink and the games are over. I just felt it needed a little less setup and more action. Especially since the real story was going on in White London and we only get a glimpse of. The one saving grace is it has one hell of cliffhanger, with not just one or two but at least three characters lives in peril at the final page. It’s a good thing, I went ahead and bought the last book because I have to know what happens next.
I knew from the description of this book it would be one I would love. I don’t know why I waited so long to pick it up. Kell is an Antari, or a person who has special magic that allows him to go between different worlds. He travels from Red London to Grey London to White London and back. He is the official ambassador between the different Monarchs of the different but he also has a side business of fencing items between back and forth which is strictly forbidden after what happened to Black London. Black London was overrun by magic that it devoured itself. Red London shut it’s doors to the other London’s leaving White London to deal with Black London and Grey London without magic at all. Delilah (Lila) Bard is a thief in Grey London, stealing to get by. She has big dreams of being a pirate and leaving London behind. When one of Kell’s transactions goes bad he is forced to team up with Lila to save all the Londons. It’s a fun read that is full of twists and turns and has some great characters. Kell seemingly has nothing to be upset about being he is treated like a prince and is like family to the Royal family of Red London but he knows he is just one of their possessions. He may live with them and treated as a soon but he wouldn’t be if he wasn’t useful to them. Lila is a orphan who only has herself to rely on. Together they make one of a hell of team. Lila is one smart cookie. On more than one occasion it’s her wits and fast thinking that gets them out of trouble. Kell is not so bad himself. When he figures out what is going on, he knows whatever he has to do and it means sacrificing himself to save others. I can’t wait to read what happens next for Kell and Lila.
2 Women, So Many Books 