[blog tour] maiden – teresa a. harrison

Title: Maiden
Series: The Lightwalker Series
Author: Teresa A. Harrison
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Format: E-book
Release Date: October 13th, 2018
Pages: 282 pgs.
Genre: New adult, fantasy, historical fiction

Goodreads | Amazon
I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher and Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for my honest review.

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Synopsis:

Marta and Jayme are childhood friends with different beliefs. Marta dreams of becoming a healer. Jayme has been schooled by the black-coats, a group of priests who claim women are inferior, and he fears Marta is jeopardizing her eternal future.

Despite a heated debate over Marta’s soul, Jayme betrays her to the priests. The consequences of this betrayal change Marta’s life forever and sends Jayme on his own journey.

After a brutal massacre, Marta awakens deep in the forest overcome with grief for her lost sisters, but the world will not let her rest. The tragedy has changed her. She hears the call of nature, eventually steering her toward a small cottage in the wilderness. There she learns of nature’s magic and what it means to be a LightWalker. The path is there for her to follow. If she’s strong enough to embrace it…

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Author Info:

Teresa Harrison grew up in Decatur, Illinois, and graduated from Eureka College with a BA in Speech and Theatre. She has a son and daughter-in-law and now two beautiful grandchildren.

She met her husband, Glenn, while on a spiritual journey to Sedona, AZ. They realized they had something special, but they lived on opposite edges of North America. Two years later, she joined Glenn in Southern California.

Teresa has been studying spiritual topics for nearly 40 years and is a Reiki Master, a Breathwork Facilitator, an herbalist and teacher. She has studied Universal Laws, Reincarnation, aromatherapy, yoga, meditation and many other spiritual topics.

Teresa has been reading and telling stories her whole life, and now she has finally written one of them down.

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There’s always been this inextricable link between autumn and Celtic folklore in my mind. The thought of faeries and guardians lurking about in misty, chilly forests is such a comforting visual for me. Of course, it was only fated that Maiden, Teresa A. Harrison’s start to the Celtic folklore-inspired Lightwalker Series, fell into my lap at this time of year. This magic-infused coming-of-age story is great for not only existing fans of the young adult fantasy genre, but also for those who are just starting to get their feet wet into something more mystical.

After eighteen long years, it’s finally Marta’s turn to join in the celebration of Beltane, a Pagan festival honoring the start of the summer season. Despite a heated argument with her childhood friend Jayme, she’s ready to become one of the priestesses that protect her village from harm. A betrayal leads to a great massacre of the Pagans at the hands of the village’s growing Catholic contingent, but Jayme makes sure Marta’s life is spared. It’s here that Marta and Jayme are awakened to the magical world intertwined with the reality they knew — and the roles they both play in preserving it for generations to come.

Let me just warn you, dear reader, of something right off the bat: the massacre scene near the beginning is not pretty and it certainly be triggering for some. It is, however, the only scene in which there is a ton of bodily harm and character death, but if that content is off-putting to you, then this book may not be for you.

As someone obsessed with world-building, I cannot say enough about the gorgeous world Harrison crafted within the pages of Maiden. Her prose is filled with lush, detailed descriptions of both the magical and mundane worlds, making it a breeze to imagine every little thing happening in the story. Honestly, I could read Harrison’s descriptions of the clothing donned by Marta over and over to make sure I got all of the intricacies of the detail. I could easily picture Little Man and his ever-expanding cottage; Old Mother and her cave domicile leaped right off of the page and into my mind. Fans of well thought-out fantasy worlds would really like these aspects of the book.

Harrison’s talents with world-building also lend themselves to being adept at character development. Both Marta and Jayme took turns that surprised and delighted me along the way. Jayme, in particular, started out so egregiously bad as a character that it almost turned me off of the book altogether. (For context, I was also starting this book the same week as the Kavanaugh confirmation and we all know how that went for reasonable people everywhere.) As time went along, he was confronted with consequences for his actions, which actually allowed him to grow as a character. It was exciting to see the progression he made personally to meet his destiny.

Marta, too, went through a similar transformation. Though she wasn’t a “bad” or “evil” character before, she did start out pretty naive and selfish. These traits are generally par for the course for young women in “coming of age” type stories, but, again, Harrison puts Marta through the wringer in her magic training so that her development feels organic, not forced. She comes out of her trials and tribulations as the elegant, wise priestess she was meant to be.

I have a few gripes, though, about the book that prevented me from rating this higher, but they weren’t enough to turn me off of the book altogether. I was a little annoyed at Jayme having such a significant role on the book when everything else about it led me to believe that Marta would be The Main Character: she’s the titular Maiden, the cover features her, and the official synopsis is all about her starting the journey to be a Lightwalker. I’m certainly not opposed with her sharing the spotlight with Jayme, but I do think that it’s a little unfair to lead readers into expecting one thing, and then presenting them with something else.

Furthermore, and this is more so just a personal pet peeve, I did think that there tended to be a bit of navel-gazing happening. For those unfamiliar with the term, navel-gazing is when a character gets lost in their head and thoughts for so long, that they might as well be doing nothing but gazing at their navel. There were quite a few instances, especially in the early days of both Jayme and Marta’s training, that they tended to get caught up in their thoughts for a few pages. While there’s nothing wrong with giving some introspection into the feelings and motivation of a character, I don’t think that it should be a main expository tool.

Overall, Maiden is a lovely story that’s perfect for both long-term fans of fantasy and those just starting to stick their toes in the genre. It’s filled with a fair amount of great character development — and good politics, to boot — and gorgeous world building that makes this book wonderful for curling up on a picnic blanket for some afternoon reading. (Which is exactly what I did.)

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[book review] perfect harmony – emily albright

Title: Perfect Harmony
Series: n/a
Author: Emily Albright
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Format: E-book
Release Date: September 18th, 2018
Pages: 298 pgs.
Genre: Young adult, contemporary, romance

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

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I’m reviewing a ton of contemporary romance books lately, which is totally out of character for my usual tastes. Subconsciously, I think I’m trying to get myself amped up for my upcoming wedding, but I digress. Through this foray into the genre, I’ve found a few duds that are rife with stereotypes that cause my eyes to endlessly roll. I cannot, however, say that about Emily Albright’s latest novel, Perfect Harmony. In a sea of lackluster predictable books, I can definitely say that this is a shining, cozy beacon of romance leading us safely back to shore.

It’s Pippa Wyndham’s senior year and she’s determined. Determined to keep her first chair cello spot, determined to attend the top music college in the country, determined to achieve every goal she puts in front of herself. However, new student Declan Brogan has other ideas. After transferring from New York City, Declan’s set to make his mark at his new school — which means uprooting Pippa from her top spot. What will they make from their bitter rivalry: beautiful music or a cacophony of teen angst?

My five star reviews are not given lightly, but this book made me swoon and sigh like no other books have done lately. While the “bitter rivals dance around their feelings for each other” trope is par for the course at this point, the way in which Albright tackled it makes her a maestra. The undercurrent of Pippa and Declan’s rivalry still ran through all of their interactions, but readers were still treated to the two being friendly with one another. I mean, they’re both supremely talented teen cellists; real recognizes real. More often than not in books of this genre, this type of personality detail is generally overlooked in favor of creating more surface-level drama. However, I respect Albright’s inclusion of building an actual reason for whatever tension that existed between them.

On top of that, the majority of the featured characters — including Pippa’s brother Phillip, her best friend Quinn, and her romantic interest Noah — are all fully fleshed-out characters with their own personalities, desires, and goals. In a good amount of contemporary YA, all of the focus throughout the story is naturally on the two main romantic interests, but readers are very rarely treated to how intricate the world around the romance is. We get to see Quinn struggling with the loss of her father almost ten years on. We see Noah waffling between going to college because his parents want it for him and taking a gap year to find himself. These characters are real and flawed, rather than just emotionless background characters. World building like this is, admittedly, difficult to do, but it’s so nice to see someone like Albright take up the helm to make it easier for readers to fall into the situations she’s created.

Probably my favorite thing about the entire book is being shown, not told, exactly what playing music does to Pippa. It’s not enough to just be told that, yep, she’s a good cellist because of reasons. Albright takes readers a step further and actually puts them in the midst of Pippa’s thoughts, feelings, and sensations as she’s immersing herself in performing. While I can definitely relate to this as a former choir and theatre performer, that’s not a shared experience that other readers might be able to empathize with had these pieces were not included in the writing. I felt the chills that ran up and down her spine when she and Declan were in sync with each other. I felt every crescendo of intensity rolling through her body. These scenes were quite impressive and kept me turning page to page.

Every time I keep thinking that I’m ready to ditch the contemporary romance young adult genre to stay strictly in fantasy and paranormal, it’s books like Perfect Harmony that keep me coming back. Though the plot and idea itself are rather formulaic, it’s the skillful and breezy way in which Emily Albright has honed her craft to create this novel that sets it above the rest. She’s turned a fan of me yet; I can’t wait to dig my hands into her other books.

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[blog tour] the fear of falling – amanda cowen

Title: The Fear of Falling
Series: none
Author: Amanda Cowen
Publisher: Amanda Cowen Books
Format: E-book
Release Date: October 8th, 2018
Pages: 310 pgs.
Genre: New adult, contemporary, romance

Goodreads | Amazon

 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher and Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for my honest review.

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Synopsis:

When Ella Jones’ twenty-first birthday ends with a bang – literally – she never imagined it would be with her best friend since freshman year, Ryan Owen.

A year later, after their so called “mistake”, they’re still best friends and about to rock their Senior year at the University of San Francisco. But when Ryan returns from spending a summer in Australia and brings back a friend, Liam George, who takes an immediate liking to Ella, Ryan starts to question the Aussie’s intentions with his best friend. The trouble is, Ryan has a girlfriend of his own, and Ella and Ryan swore they would never cross that line again – until they do.

They try not to let their second slip up affect their friendship, but when Spring Break forces them to vacation under the same roof; and Ryan’s ex walks back into his life, Ella is shocked by a fierce stab of possessiveness. And when Ella continues to see Liam, Ryan finds himself plagued by unfamiliar jealousy. With their friendship strained for the first time, Ella and Ryan face an alarming truth: Maybe they can’t be just friends. Maybe they are falling faster than expected. And maybe, deep down, they want to.

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Author Info:

Amanda Cowen can be found eating cupcakes, singing off-key, or watching a good RomCom when she isn’t trapped on her computer writing stories. She is an “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” fanatic, a hater of roller-coasters and a country music junkie. She lives in Thunder Bay, ON where the summers are short and the winters are long.

Amanda would love to hear from her readers. Become a fan on Facebook, follow her on Instagram @authoramandacowen, or follow her on Goodreads.

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I’ve never been the biggest fan of contemporary new adult romances for one big reason: they’re all so similar that I don’t just feel myself rooting for the main couple. They don’t have any kind of real chemistry that makes me feel like they absolutely belong together. Color me shocked, then, when I found myself breezing through Amanda Cowen’s newest novel, The Fear of Falling, while traveling to and from seeing a friend for a day trip. Does it transform the contemporary NA romance genre? No, but it’s a fun ride from start to finish and was actually capable of making me swoon just a little bit — all good signs.

In The Fear of Falling, the story follows college best friends Ella and Ryan, who are determined to prove that men and women can stay just friends. Ella is singularly-focused on completing her Bachelor’s program in Animation to live her dream working at Disney Animation Studios. Ryan, however, has big shoes to fill to succeed in his law program so he could one day be named partner at his father’s firm. Despite it all, they end up making one little mistake on the night of Ella’s 21st birthday and suddenly, they find themselves wanting to study each other instead of their books. Will they fall for each other or out of friendship altogether?

Okay, let’s address the biggest thing here: you know how this story ends before it even starts. Kind of. I’m not going to spoil how they get there, but know that this story does have a happily ever after. After all of the disgusting nonsense going on just a few blocks from my home right now, a happily ever after ending in my reading material is just what I need to maintain my sanity.

Again, plot-wise, we’ve all seen it before: boy and girl have some quirky meet-cute, they have a will-they-or-won’t-they friendship, there’s a random night of drunken passion, they end up dating other people, they finagle their feelings for each other. But there’s something charming in the way Cowen moves the story along. Scenes like the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes concert help give the readers a better understanding of exactly how much Ryan and Ella truly pine for each other and build some fun tension that birthed little butterflies in my stomach.

Books in this genre are usually rife with soulless main characters that want to do nothing but fuck each other silly; they’re mere vehicles for the authors to live out their wildest sexual fantasies. While that works for some people, it really does not work for me. However, I can certainly commend Cowen on creating a handful of interesting, fun characters with actual motivations, desires, and feelings. We’ve all been Ella, trying to weave our way through the uncertainty of early adulthood relationships. We’ve all been Ryan, trying to decide which path is right for us. We’ve all had Liam moments, where we drop everything holding us down to start fresh elsewhere. Because we can really see who these characters are, it makes it so easy and lovely to root for their victories and feel sad for their pitfalls.

What really brought me out of the reading, though, were the constant grammatical and syntax errors littered throughout the novel. I can understand using sentence fragments as a stylistic choice when wanting to emphasize a point. Authors do it all the time. Abandoned gerund phrases, however, are particularly egregious. For example, phrases like “His eyes travelling the entire length of my body from my feet to my eyes,” were used regularly, even though the sentences these phrases were intended to modify came just before their use. Furthermore, there were several instances of the wrong form of your/you’re used in many areas, as well. Yes, hiring a copy editor can be an expense that many authors cannot spare, but the majority of the errors that cropped up throughout the novel could easily be caught in Microsoft Word using the editing tools.

Also, a nerdy note: Ryan, the main romantic interest is supposed to be a huge Star Wars geek, yet he references “Hans” Solo a few times. “Hans” Solo, not Han. Though that’s not a major detail in the story, it was enough to make me bury my face directly into my pillow for a few moments.

I approached this book knowing that it wouldn’t contain anything groundbreaking for the contemporary romance genre — but that’s okay! Not every book has to be the most amazing thing I’ve read in my life. If Cowen’s goal was to write a fun, engaging story that keeps readers flipping pages to root for her main characters, then I say she absolutely achieved that goal with The Fear of Falling. If anything, she helped this old grouch reevaluate how much fun a contemporary romance can be.

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abandon – meg cabot [book review]

Title: Abandon
Series: Abandon Trilogy
Author: Meg Cabot
Publisher: Point
Format: E-book
Release Date: April 26th, 2011
Pages: 185 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Young adult

 

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I don’t often rate books under three stars — and even less frequently under two stars — but when I say that books like Abandon are an absolute disappointment to the young adult genre, I stand by my conviction. This book is nonsensical and, frankly, insulting to fans of YA for being so utterly pedantic. Meg Cabot is responsible for one of my favorite YA paranormal series, The Mediator, so I know she’s capable of so much more than what she’s presented in this book. This just ultimately felt like a cash grab to leverage the trend of paranormal YA romance.

Pierce Oliviera has come back from the dead. Literally. Since she was revived from legal death two years prior to the start of the novel, she’s struggled with keeping a firm grasp on the world of the living. Pierce’s tenuous grasp on mortality led her mother to uproot everything to move to Isla Huesos, Florida to start fresh following a series of scandals in her previous home in New England. Once there, she starts to feel even worse than before, like there’s something — or maybe someone — from her past keeping her from focusing on the present. Will she successfully convince everyone of her sanity, or is she doomed to repeat the folly of Persephone?

When looking for books to populate my newly-minted Google Books account, the Abandon trilogy appeared as a recommendation; given my love for Cabot’s work in the past, I immediately dropped the money for it. Post-Abandon, however, has me questioning my taste level. It has everything that I’ve come to hate as a reader: insta-love, ending on a cliffhanger, a nonsensical plot, vapid characters — the list goes on. And now, because I paid for all three books, I feel self-pressure to read the other two. Ugh.

I expect insta-love between characters to come from newer writers, especially ones just dipping their toes into creative writing through fan-fiction. Meg Cabot, who wrote the beautiful slow-burn between Suze and Jesse in Mediator, fucking knows better than to write a couple like John and Pierce. The main couple originally met back when 7-year-old Pierce attended her grandfather’s funeral; John was an immortal demi-god of the Underworld who seemed deeply interested in her at that time. Lovely age gap there. Once she briefly dies in her teenage years, they meet in the Underworld — and he instantly wants to protect her. Because of course he falls in love after .03 seconds of knowing each other. After Pierce comes back to life/escapes the Underworld, their entire will-they-or-won’t-they relationship is spent with her screaming at him whenever he appears among the living to save her from some doom she’s gotten herself into. Because, again, she’s just so perfect and worth it after knowing her for no time at all.

When it comes to a coherent timeline within the plot, there really is none. The book starts right when Pierce and her mother move to Isla Huesos, Florida immediately following some nebulous, mysterious event that happened at her old school. She goes to the graveyard on the island, argues with the King of the Underworld, and then embarks on a series of expository flashbacks for several chapters. After the flashbacks stop, we get a few more chapters of continuing the story around Pierce’s first couple of weeks at her new school, a few more expository flashbacks, and then the climax of the plot occurs somewhere along the 85-90% mark. There are threads of some sort of linear plot structure, but they’re so thin that they’ve easily snapped. Of course, as is standard with every book that’s set up to be the first of a trilogy, Abandon ends on a cliffhanger. Even though this book infuriates me, I now almost feel obligated to read the next installment so I can get some resolution to Pierce’s current situation.

What attracts me to Meg Cabot’s stories are her heroines: they’re usually full of personality and all easy to root for, with clear motivations that make them feel real, despite their often fantastical situations. You want Mia Thermopolis to kick ass being a punk princess. You want Suze Simon to be a great Mediator with Father Dom. I don’t feel the same sort of pull towards Pierce Oliviera. Her defining personality traits seem to be stomping around and yelling at any one in her path. She’s constantly reminding herself to “Check [herself] before [she wrecks herself],” based on a tattoo she saw on the wrist of a school guidance counselor, yet she never actually follows this mantra. All Pierce seems to do is wreck things and she often acts on her feelings without thinking of their repercussions. Several people die — including herself — over the course of the novel due to her rash decisions and yet she doesn’t tend to show the smallest shred of ownership over what she’s done. Again, I see no reason why John feels attracted to her.

On the other side of the coin, I don’t see why Pierce feels so utterly attracted to John, either. Given their history — his asking her dubious questions about mortality when she was seven, followed by kidnapping her to his private chambers in the Underworld (twice) once she hit puberty — signs point more toward Stockholm Syndrome than genuine romantic attraction. In the scenes they share, you don’t really get any sense of John’s personality, either, other than that he felt obliged to follow Pierce around everywhere and protect her from all of the messy, dangerous situations she’s walked into. Their relationship feels shoehorned in just to follow the pattern of Hades and Persephone instead of developing naturally (wow just like Mia and Michael and Suze and Jesse!).

Was I expecting this to be Meg Cabot’s best work? No, absolutely not, because nothing can beat Remembrance, the Adult installment of the Mediator series. However, given the quality of the rest of her work — even lesser known books like All American Girl and Avalon High — I was hoping that Abandon would at least be of the same caliber. Overall, with all of the glaring problems within its pages, it’s clear to me that this book is nothing more than just a quick way to ride a bandwagon and cash in.

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tale of a dragon princess – lizzie colt [book review]

Title: Tale of a Dragon Princess
Author: Lizzie Colt
Publisher: Nine Star Press
Format: E-book
Release Date: August 20th, 2018
Pages: 62 pages
Genre: Fantasy, LGBTQ
I received a copy of this book from the publisher on Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

 

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The thing that high fantasy and historical writers tend to gloss over (or entirely erase) time and time again is this: queer people absolutely existed, regardless of social status. Princesses, even those that turn into dragons, absolutely fell in love with other princesses — and often. Luckily, Lizzie Colt’s debut novella, Tale of a Dragon Princess, allows readers the opportunity to see the development of one such sapphic relationship. However lovely the subject matter, though, there are quite a few significant issues within the novella’s execution that give me pause.

Following Princess Mellie, Tale of a Dragon Princess chronicles the experiences of one young woman faced with a dreadful curse placed on her as an infant. When night falls, she turns into a powerful ice dragon capable of freezing kingdoms. On the eve of the blue moon following her eighteenth birthday, Mellie and Adie — a princess from a neighboring kingdom — travel to lift the curse before she’s forced to live with it for good.

I absolutely cannot undercut how important it is for authors to tell stories of their own voices. As a fellow queer disabled lady, it was awesome to see solid representations of those identities. Mellie is described as only having had relations with women in the past, whereas Adie has enjoyed the presence of multiple genders. It’s rare that I see fiction that not only celebrates all sapphic identities, but also doesn’t pit them against each other, as if bisexual and lesbian folks need to fight to be The Best Sapphic Identity. I’m glad that Colt has recognized that this kind of solidarity is important, especially as a queer woman herself, and has included it in the novella.

Furthermore, Colt has included good disability representation through Adie, the warrior princess.  Upon her first introduction to the audience, our attention is drawn to fingers on her hand that are underdeveloped and don’t function. Adie mentions that she’s continually underestimated as a warrior because of her disability, but also that she’s taken it in stride to become the strongest fighter she can. When she’s reintroduced later for Mellie’s journey, her fingers have been replaced with a prosthetic version that allow her to grip things and maneuver better. She’s not made a character to pity; she’s ready to kick ass.

While I do appreciate the wonderful representation for marginalized identities, I still think there’s a lot of room for improvement in the rest of the book. One of the more glaringly obvious things that could be improved is Colt’s proclivity to literally tell us, the readers, exactly what’s going on rather than showing us through the prose. The vast majority of the story’s action takes place within the confines of quotation marks from the characters’ speech rather than their actual interactions with each other. As a result, dialogue is often long and self-referential, with everyone essentially giving a long speech every time they talk.

Because actions are delegated to the dialogue, I found that character and setting descriptions, as well as plot structure significantly suffered. Any descriptions we’re given of any of the characters — Mellie, her parents, Adie — are very surface-level, reduced generally to just hair and eye color. Adie’s race, for instance, is not revealed into far later into the story, after she’s halfway through the journey with Mellie. In terms of the plot holes, I noticed that large swaths of time would pass between each of the chapters: sixteen years passes between the first and second chapters, then later another two-year jump. Each chapter feels more like a series of vignettes rather than following a linear timeline because of this. It made me feel like there was no sense of urgency with actions leading to a climax, then natural resolution, which is almost crucial in a high fantasy story.

Overall, I did think Tale of a Dragon Princess was cute and did a good job at turning the spotlight on some marginalized groups that often don’t get the attention they deserve. However, I felt like there was a fair amount of substance lacking in terms of everything else that makes a story engaging: world-building, character building, and plot structure. I think if Colt took the time to expand upon the world and societies she created, this story would be an excellent addition to my collection.

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