Tag: novel

Demon Hunter, by Aubrey Law

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Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

I wouldn’t call this great literature, by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, in many ways, it’s not very good. But I must admit: I was entertained, and was far from unhappy to realize that I’d picked up an omnibus of books 1-5 further into my reading list. I’m not sure I’m going to bother with reviewing those following installments; certainly not independently, it would be a bulk package, if at all. But I’m going to read them, and probably enjoy them. What’s interesting is, the author has created a protagonist who is, in many ways, a terrible person. But by then pitting them against arguably worse people, the reader is left on her side.

It begins a long time in the past (round about the birth of Christ, I think), when royal princess Annis has to flee after her mother, Amelia, kills her father. Annis had been trained in the dark arts, and vowed to continue building on these skills, until she is eventually powerful enough to take revenge on Amelia. Over a millennium later, her lifespan extended unnaturally and now a skilled Black Witch, Annis is captured by witch-hunters, tortured and executed, her soul descending into hell. After biding her time in torment for centuries, she seizes the chance to escape, finding herself in modern-day Los Angeles and occupying the flesh of a sex slave called Ashley.

She’s not happy about it, and certainly has the skills to punish those unfortunate enough to be on her lengthy list. Methods of dispatch Annis can use include: making your heart explode, forcing you to kill yourself, and – a personal favourite – Exoskeleton, a spell that violently relocates all the victim’s bones to the outside of their body. Given everything she can do, seems odd that the main quest in this book is for a weapon, the Judas Dagger, forged from the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas Iscariot for his betrayal of Christ. Compared to Exoskeleton, sticking ’em with the pointy end seems very low-energy. Admittedly, there are a lot of entities on her trail too, though so far none pose much of a threat.

You could call this trash, to which I would nod, and reply, “Yes. Your point being…?” So far, there have been precious few indications of pretension or depth, with Annis simply reacting – usually violently – to the circumstances in which she finds herself. There’s hardly a sympathetic character here. Sonja, another sex slave who is rescued by Annis, comes closest but she quickly ends up turned into a ghoul who needs blood to survive, and isn’t too fussy about its source. I hope we get someone who represents a bit more of a challenge for Annis, because when you can stop an opponent’s pulse dead, most battles don’t last long. Albeit a bit guiltily, I confess to being not disinterested in finding out.

Author: Aubrey Law
Publisher: Independently published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 7 in the Revenge of the Witch series.

The Killing Game, by Kate Bold

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ★★★

Bold is an incredibly prolific author, whose site lists eight separate series of novels, with a total of sixty-four books between them. The series are mostly named in the format, “<PROTAGONIST NAME> FBI thriller”, which does suggest a certain production-line quality to them. I wonder if, perhaps, they are each set in a different part of the country, in order to get the local market. By chance, this one is set around Arizona, where I live – I think it’s the first such action heroine novel I’ve read, and this did add a certain level of interest. “A Tempe reference! I’ve been there!” Hey, I’m easily pleased, what can I say?

The heroine here is Alexa Chase, a former member of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, who quit her job after spending too long staring into the abyss, in favour of a position with the US Marshals in Arizona (I’ve been there!). However, she’s dragged back in to the worst case of her time there, when notorious serial killer Drake Logan escapes from custody during a prison transport. With the aid of his cult-like acolytes, he begins a spree of death and destruction across the state, but with a sinister agenda. He wants to tap into the bleakest parts of Alexa’s psyche and make her embrace his twisted philosophy, with the aim of bringing her across onto the dark side.

There’s an obvious Silence of the Lambs influence here, in the story of a female detective hunting a charismatic serial killer, with whom her relationship goes a bit too close. The most obvious difference is, Logan is not a lone wolf, instead having disciples willing to do his bidding – which is, basically, to get in the way of Alexa’s investigation. It’s an interesting concept, though largely relegated to a side-issue here. Bold instead rolls out some of the usual tropes, like Alexa being given a new partner, FBI special agent Stuart Barrett. Give yourself two points if you immediately guess she initially hates him, but grows to respect his talents over the course of the book. I’d not be surprised if there’s sexual tension in future volumes.

Otherwise, it’s mostly straightforward stuff, and falls into the category of consistently competent, but equally consistently unremarkable. There are a couple of elements which feel like they’re set up to be more important than they are – at least here – such as Alexa’s relationship with the daughter of her neighbours. I was expecting Drake to kidnap her or something: nope. Maybe down the road this matters. This certainly wasn’t a chore to read, but despite being the first book to have scenes set in Sedona (I’ve been there!) and Bumble Bee (I’ve… driven past the turn-off to it), there just was not enough impact to make me enthusiastic about the series. If I was told a well-trained AI wrote this, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Author: Kate Bold
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Alexa Chase suspense thriller series.

Outcast, by Vanessa Nelson

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

This is a solid slice of urban fantasy, taking place in a city surrounded on all sides by The Wild. This is more or less what it sounds like, a wilderness inhabited by a variety of monstrous creatures, most of which pose a significant threat to human life. They’re kept out of the city by magical barriers, but these are imperfect. When they fail, and the creatures enter the city, it’s up to the Marshals to hunt them down and contain the threat. One such is Max Ortis, though she only joined them after being kicked out of the Order, eight years previously.

The Order are the magic users and their bodyguards, and at that point, Max was the sole survivor of a mission to seal the Grey Gates. These keep the demon Arkus in the underworld, but Max’s role led to her becoming persona non grata with the Order, and her subsequent dismissal. Her role in the matter has remained known to very few since then. Now, a series of murders are taking place around the city, which have all the hallmarks of being ritual sacrifices, intended to re-open the Grey Gates. Though not technically within her jurisdiction, Max is brought in to assist with the investigation, due to her unique position between the secular and spiritual groups. Turns out the case strikes a lot closer to home than is comfortable for her.

There is quite a lot going on here, not least because Max has to keep up with her regular work, in addition to assisting in the murder investigations. It becomes something of a running joke that she is always being pulled back in, just when she’s looking forward to some down time. There’s a failure of the barrier to handle, with the subsequent intrusions to be tidied up. In addition, she also uncovers some severely questionable entertainment at a local drinking establishment, which poses a threat to the city, in addition to its dubious nature. Oh, yeah: and a demon who whispered out of the shadows to Max as a young child, shows up in her life again. Gratifyingly, this leaves absolutely zero room for romance  (at least in this volume).

Instead, there is quite a lot of Max getting all manner of snot kicked out of her. Even though there are various healing and cleaning spells available to her, she seems to spend a lot of time getting patched up, in order to go back on duty. There’s no doubt the creatures she faces are a real threat, though Nelson does seem to skip describing them in much detail. I’m not certain what a “Keliotrope” looks like, beyond being a) big, and b) unpleasant. Another issue was Max’s apparent ability to think her way out of paralysis at the end. These didn’t impact my overall enjoyment too much; it’s a good start, self-contained yet laying the groundwork for future installments to go in some interesting directions. 

Author: Vanessa Nelson
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 5 in the Grey Gates series.

When Women Were Warriors: The Warrior’s Path, by Catherine M. Wilson

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Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆

To be frank, I was expecting rather more action given the title here. Almost all of it, however, takes place “off-screen”, as it were, being described second-hand, rather than experienced. It makes sense in the context of the book, and it’s not badly written. But when you use the word “warrior” or derivations thereof, not once but twice in your title, it would seem fair to expect a higher quotient of… warrioring. I tagged this as fantasy, mostly because it clearly takes place elsewhere and/or elsewhen. It is fairly grounded e.g. no dragons or vampires, but certainly contains elements I would call mystical.

The book tells the story of Tamras, who is sent to join the house of Lady Merin, hoping to progress through the ranks of apprentices and become a warrior woman herself, like her mother before her. Tamras feels too small and weak to succeed, but bonds with another outsider there, Maara, a mysterious woman with no past, who came from the north and whose loyalties are consequently suspected by the others. Maara initially rejects Tamras, but after the warrior is hurt while fending off cattle raiders, it’s Tamras who is largely responsible for nursing her back to health, and the pair begin to forge a relationship. After providing valuable information, Maara wins Merin’s trust, although others in the house still perceive her as a threat.

There is a great deal of sitting around here, though I suspect that might be partly the point. To quote Maara, “Most of a warrior’s days are uneventful” this coming after a month when she and Tamras have been part of a group which spent a month guarding against further livestock theft, without very much happening at all. The nearest to proper action are the reports of the battle where the warriors successfully repel an attack, thanks to Maara’s intel. I liked the setting, this being a world where gender – at least, in this part of the world – is not seen as an issue, with men and women fighting side by side. It’s also definitely lesbian friendly – more so than action heroine friendly, I would suggest.

For there was a point, probably about two-thirds of the way through, that I realized the author really wasn’t interested in providing an adrenaline-packed thrill-ride. This is much more about the relationships between the women – we poor men rarely merit a mention – and in Tamras’s growth as a person. Taken as that character study, it’s by no means bad: Wilson has a good turn of phrase, with some of the more spiritual experiences having particular weight. But at other points, it does feel more like sword ‘n’ soap-opera, and the overall sense of much more interesting stuff happening elsewhere became overpowering before the end. The rating above reflects that; while on purely literary terms, it’s likely better, I was left wanting less talk and more fighting.

Author: Catherine M. Wilson
Publisher: Shield Maiden Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 3 in the When Women Were Warriors series.

The Solid-State Shuffle, by Jeffrey A. Ballard

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Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

There’s an interesting setting here, and the concept isn’t bad. However, the author is flat-out terrible at explaining things, and that derails the book badly. There were entire pages which seemed to be an written almost in another language, such was the level of technological gobbledygook spouted – and I write as someone who works in the field. Too often, it felt as though the writer was using technology as an alternative to magic: whatever needed to be done, there seemed to be some gadget, gizmo or app which the heroine or her allies could whip out to perform the necessary task. 

This takes place in a future America where the coastal areas have fallen to the rising sea levels; for example, much of what was Seattle, is now under water. Into this largely submerged city comes Isa, the leader of a trio of thieves who had to high-tail it away from the East coast for reasons that are unexplained. They’ve now set up in Seattle, and we first encounter them robbing the vault of a bank that is now under water (literally, rather than in the financial sense!). They successfully heist an SSD drive, intending to loot the cryptocurrency they believe is on it. Except, it doesn’t contain money. Worse still, it belongs to Colvin, the local boss of criminal activity. Strike three? He then hires Isa and her team to recover his stolen property and find out who’s responsible.

The suddenly sticky situation results, obviously, in the trio having to execute a lot of fancy footwork, in order to find out who set them up, and play the reverse Uno card. Unfortunately, this is where the author loses the plot (again, literally). There are real drives, fake drives and copies of drives whizzing around between the various factions, like a game of three-card monte. And just like three-card monte, once you’ve lost track, you’re probably going to lose interest. I know I did, and the story limped towards the (largely predictable) finish line thereafter, with only the characters doing much to sustain interest, and that in a split decision.

For all of the three are problematic. Isa, who’s the main protagonist and the first person perspective, is a mouthy bitch to put it mildly. It’s a personality trait which gets her into trouble and renders her mostly unlikable, since the targets of her poison tongue are not always deserving. Then there’s Winn, her lover and newest member of the gang, who is too angsty for my tastes, suffering a perpetual crisis of conscience over their activities. Finally, we have Puo, who is the technical support. I just wish the tech support people I have to work with were one-tenth as supernaturally competent, managing to get the drop on even those supposedly more skilled. At least the author ended the story without a cliffhanger. Take your positives where you can.

Author: Jeffrey A. Ballard
Publisher: New Rochester Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 5 in the Sunken City Capers series.

The Guardian Initiative, by Liane Zane

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Literary rating: ★★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

Like the previous two books, this conclusion to the Unsanctioned Guardians trilogy (a prequel to the Elioud Legacy trilogy) was a generous gift to me from the author. (There was no pressure to write a positive review; the book stands easily on its merits, and she knew I’d liked the previous installments, as well as the original series.) Given their prequel status, it’s not really necessary to have read the Elioud Legacy books to enjoy reading these three; though if you have, it does give you more acquaintance with and understanding of the main characters (and conversely these books flesh out the background of the original three, and answer questions readers of those may have had). But the Unsanctioned Guardians books DO need to be read in order. Most of my general comments about the first two apply to this one as well; the premise builds organically on the preceding books, and the author’s style, literary vision and handling of content issues is consistent across all three books.

About a year has elapsed since the events of the previous book. CIA agent Olivia Markham landed on her feet sufficiently, after the events in that one, to preserve her career with the Company; but since then, at her request, she’s been moved to a desk job. For most of the interim, she’s been in charge of an agency safehouse in Montenegro, which fronts as a free clinic for the town’s numerous foreign refugees, run by an NGO that’s not aware of the CIA connection. (The clinic work is real; when she was recruited by the agency in the first book, Olivia was a college pre-med student, and she has EMT certification.) She’s also fallen in love with a French medical doctor at the local hospital; the two are living together, and will get engaged in the first chapter. But …she’s about to cross paths with an Islamic terrorist mastermind from the previous book. Meanwhile, Italian spy Stasia Fiore is still investigating the theft of a Predator drone from the Italian military; and Capt. Beta Czerna is soon to be approached by a desperate woman who needs help in rescuing her sister from the clutches of a Polish crime lord who’s into sex trafficking (among other villainous things). Circumstances are about to converge these plot strands, and bring all three ladies together for a violent, high-stakes thrill ride.

As before, Zane moves the action of the tale briskly through a variety of European locations and a trip to Morocco, in this case, making considerable use of Internet research to handle the physical geography of her scenes with photographic realism. Again, she demonstrates her strong knowledge of espionage tradecraft and modern weaponry, and handles action scenes well. The body count in this book is significantly less than in the previous one, but the suspense factor is taut and constant. There’s brief reference to loving pre-marital sex, as well as to off-screen sexual violence, but nothing explicit in either case. One short scene could be described as “sensuous,” but it consists of three sentences. Bad language is minimal, and within the bounds of reasonable realism. We’re still essentially in the realm of descriptive fiction, rather than the supernatural fiction of the first trilogy; but here there are a couple of brief incidents, not observed by viewpoint character Olivia, that suggest a bit of supernatural assistance, and readers of those original three books will readily recognize their old friend Zophie at one point.

My only minor criticisms were that in one place, we have a truck that apparently drives itself onto the scene, and nobody picks up on that fact; and in another, a character assumes knowledge of a location she wouldn’t know at that point. But that nit-picking stop me from greatly liking the book, especially given the strong emotional effect of the storyline. This is a wonderful depiction of the forging of a team that has each other’s backs, and of female friendship under fire (literally). Zane’s handling of Olivia’s moral and emotional growth here is also powerful and superb. All of these factors ably set the stage for readers to move on from here to the Elioud Legacy trilogy, if they haven’t already read it. The kick-butt quotient here takes account of the fact that we have not just one, but three gun-toting heroines racking up bad-guy corpses.

Author: Liane Zane
Publisher: Zephon Romance; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a print book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

The File, by Gary Born

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

Not many novels come with a ringing endorsement from a former director of the CIA, but Gina Haspel calls this “A thoroughly enjoyable, engrossing thriller.” Argue with her, and she’ll send you an exploding cigar, or something. While it certainly isn’t bad, the rating above reflects its likely moderate appeal for readers here. A general audience might be more impressed, especially with regard to the second half, where the heroine becomes more of a passenger. Things begin at the very end of World War II with a flight out of Berlin carrying documents intended to secure the future of the Reich. It doesn’t reach its destination, crashing in the depths of the African jungle.

Almost eighty years later, a botanical expedition stumbles across the downed plane and its cargo. When word seeps out, various very interested parties converge on the Congo, intent on securing the contents by any means necessary. Surviving the initial onslaught is Sara West, daughter of the expedition’s head, who bails with the documents, and the parties in hot pursuit. In the jungle at least, Sara has more experience and proves eminently capable of turning the tables on her pursuers. After escaping the wilderness, she convinces one of the hunters, CIA agent Jeb Fisher, to change sides, and his assistance becomes increasingly valuable as they head through Africa, into Italy, and eventually to Zurich. There, they make a final stand, in the unlikely location of a venerable Swiss bank.

The above should hopefully explain why this feels like a book of two halves. I really enjoyed the first half, with Sara using all her knowledge, built on years of living in the jungle, to stay one step ahead of the opposition – or sneak up from behind on them. She rarely over-powers her enemies, relying more on stealth, wits and turning their own resources against them. It is still a bit of a stretch to imagine a young woman, untrained in combat, taking out a whole slew of Russian special forces. However, Born certainly sells the illusion well enough to work. The problems arise with the arrival of Jeb, not least the ease with which he disobeys orders to take Sara’s side.

Thereafter, he also becomes the main protagonist. While it makes sense that his skills would become more important outside of the jungle, it results in Sara being somewhat (though not entirely) sidelined. There’s also the almost inevitable romantic dalliance, and I feel that having a Jebina instead of Jeb, might have addressed that, and a lot of the problems I felt hampered the second half. It’s still a decent enough read on its own terms, building nicely towards the grandstand finale – although I can’t imagine even Swiss authorities taking so long to get to a hellacious firefight in downtown Zurich! But I feel it does not do Sara the justice she deserves, especially after the impressive heights reached earlier on.

Author: Gary Born
Publisher: Addison & Highsmith Publishers, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Standalone novel

Louisiana Longshot, by Jana Deleon

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Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

A Goodreads friend gave this novel (the first book in the author’s Miss Fortune Mysteries) five stars, which put it on my radar; and I downloaded the e-book edition when I discovered that it’s offered for free, as a teaser for the series. While my rating isn’t as high as my friend’s, and I didn’t expect that it would be, I did turn out to like the book somewhat more than I expected to.

Our protagonist and first-person narrator here is “Fortune” Redding. We’re not told her real first name (“Fortune” is the handle she’s used to answering to, but it’s indicated, well into the book, that it’s a nickname, short for “soldier of fortune”) or her exact age; but she’s worked for the CIA for eight or five years, depending on which figure we go with, since we’re given both in different places. (I took the first one to start with, so picture her as about 30, joining the Company just after college.) The affiliation was a natural one for her; her father, with whom she had a prickly relationship, was a top CIA agent, and after his death when she was 15, her remaining teen years were overseen by a couple of CIA officials, one of whom is now her boss. (Her mother had died years earlier.) She’s a seasoned assassin (of verified baddies), with a VERY long list of kills to her credit, and zero compunctions about her line of work. But she’s neither a psychopath nor a moral nihilist; on the contrary, she’s basically a kindhearted person (albeit an emotionally-constipated loner with no confidential friends), who sympathizes readily with those in danger and distress.

That trait got her in trouble on her latest mission. It wasn’t supposed to be a hit; she was simply posing as the glamorous mistress of a drug dealer, delivering money for him to a Middle Eastern crime boss. But (as we learn along with her, at the debriefing in the first chapter) her meeting was compromised by an unknown leak in the CIA, who’d tipped the bad guys off as to who she was. They’d decided to test the tip by setting up a situation where she’d have to act to try to rescue a 12-year-old sex trafficking victim, figuring that she could then easily be dealt with, since she’d come unarmed. Unhappily for them, Fortune’s quite adept at improvising a weapon when she has to; though she doesn’t care much for high heels, she dispatched the head honcho with a stiletto heel on the shoes she was wearing, and got away clean, presumably with the 12-year-old. (We learn about this only in a terse second-hand report; I’d have loved to read it in real time!) Now, the deceased’s brother Ahmad, also a big-time crime lord, has put her picture all over the Dark Web, with a million-dollar price on her head (ten million, if she can be delivered to him alive to be tortured).

If Ahmad can be taken out, the contract on her will be moot, but in the meantime, she needs to be stashed in a safe place –and one that can’t be compromised by the unidentified leaker. Luckily, her boss’ niece, librarian and former beauty queen Sandy-Sue Morrow, just inherited a house in Sinful (population 253) in the bayou country of southern Louisiana from a newly-dead aunt on her mother’s side. The two weren’t close; Sandy-Sue has never been to Sinful, and she has no social media presence due to a stalking incident years ago. With summer just starting, she’s scheduled to go down there to inventory the house’s contents and prepare it for sale. Before the very unwilling Fortune can say “culture shock,” her boss has packed the real Sandy-Sue off for a summer in Europe, and our heroine is in route to Louisiana to hide under this new identity. It’s only supposed to be through the summer months; and in a small, quiet southern community, nothing’s apt to go wrong, right? But the flooding caused by a recent hurricane unearthed and moved a lot of debris in the backwoods, and on Fortune’s first evening in town, the late aunt’s dog fishes a human bone out of the bayou behind the house. It proves to have belonged to a very wealthy, and universally hated, town resident who disappeared some five years ago….

As mysteries go, this one is not deep or in some respects very plausible, but it is entertaining. Despite the author’s use of a humorous tone in most of it –though it has its serious moments, some of them deadly so (literally!)– it’s not really an example of the “cozy” subgenre, nor even of the broader stream of more “genteel” who-dunnits in general. That tradition features more actual detection in terms of sifting physical clues and witness statements, and eschews directly-described physical violence. There’s little of the former here, and definitely some of the latter in the denouement. (Action-heroine fans may be pleasantly surprised to find that Fortune’s combat skills won’t necessarily have to go to waste in this new environment!) But the mystery of who killed Harvey Chicoran doesn’t necessarily have an immediately obvious solution (many characters, and no doubt readers, may assume that the widow did it –but did she?). There will be twists and turns in solving it, and Fortune’s involvement in that effort will provide her –and readers– with challenges, adventures, excitement and danger.

A weakness of the book is that a lot of the humor exaggerates the quirkiness and peculiarities of the Louisiana bayou country’s rural inhabitants to the point of caricature. It plays to stereotypes that too many urbanites have about the South, and rural people in general, which reflects culpable ignorance of cultures outside their own. Fortune herself is a prime example; she seriously wonders, for instance, if the community she’s going to has electricity. (Rolls eyes profusely.) She also has a tendency to reduce women with Sandy-Sue’s background to despised, stereotyped “Others.” Some characters, like the members of the Sinful Ladies Society (membership is only open to “old maids” or widows of 10 years standing, to avoid contamination by “silly man thinking”), are steeped in misandry, and Deleon views that as funny. This is mitigated to a degree by the fact that she’s native to the region (which I’ve visited) herself, does reveal some basic affection for it, and depicts it with some realistic local color; and by the fact that she does portray a couple of male characters positively. There are also a few inconsistencies that should have been caught and edited out.

On the positive side, this is a tautly paced book that keeps you turning pages, or in my case clicking frames (I read the first two-thirds of it in one sitting, and could and would have read it all if time had allowed!), with a tightly-compressed plot that unfolds in less than a week. Even if you disagree with some of Fortune’s attitudes, she is honestly likable, with a wryly humorous narrative voice that’s appealing (at least to this reader). She exhibits a willingness to look at herself and grow through exposure to new experience, which I like; and I appreciated the strong depiction of female friendship and loyalty. There’s a certain amount of bad language here, mostly of the h and d-word sort or vulgarisms, but not much profanity and no obscenity; and there’s no sexual content nor any romance at all (though I understand that a romance develops in subsequent books in the series). While Fortune describes herself, though not out loud, as a “heathen” (when she’s informed that everybody in Sinful who’s not one of the latter attends one of its two churches), and some humor based on the foibles of the church-goers, there’s no actual pushing of an anti-Christian agenda.

I only read this book as a diversion, because it was free; I don’t plan to follow the series. But I don’t regret making Fortune’s acquaintance, nor visiting her in her new-found community. :-)

Author: Jana Deleon
Publisher: Self-publihed; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a print book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

The Killing Complex, by K.G. Leslie

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Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆½

There’s something to be said for sparse simplicity, and this delivers on that concept in spades. Except for occasional flashbacks, the entire things takes place in one location: a facility somewhere in Europe. It’s where Cassie ends up, locked in a cage, after being abducted while on a trip from Britain, intending to find herself. She’s then deposited in a hall and made to fight for the amusement, gambling or whatever of online spectators. She starts off facing animals, but through pharmaceutical treatment, her strength, speed and savagery are enhanced, and the opponents – both fauna and, eventually, her own species too – become more vicious. The shock collar around her neck ensures her compliance.

In the early going, much of this unfolds inside Cassie’s head, as she goes through what perhaps seems inspired by the five stages of grief, from rejecting the reality of her predicament, through anger, and ending up in a personal commitment to do whatever is necessary in order to survive – even if this comes at the cost of her own humanity. But just when she’s on the edge of becoming a soulless killing machine, she’s relocated, and placed next to another prisoner, Thomas. He was also abducted, but more recently, so hasn’t been ground down by his situation yet, and his optimism reignites Cassie’s own interest in life. But is everything quite what it seems, or are there other agendas at work?

Without giving them away, there are a couple of very effective twists here, which I did not see coming – and, indeed, I defy anyone to say they did. The first is something of a cheat, considering how much of the time to that point has been Cassie’s internal monologue, and this has carefully hid a key piece of information. But the second works particularly well, because it demonstrates that the bad guys here aren’t stupid: Carrie is going to need to do more than bludgeon her way out. Good though she certainly is at that, as is proven repeatedly. This isn’t a book for animal rights activists though, with Cassie working her way up from herbivores to the top of the food chain, in addition to her human opponents.

I do wonder quite why the people are wasting the remarkable drugs, which help Cassie survive massive damage as well as enhance her fighting abilities, on an inter-species fight club. I’d have said the military-industrial complex would pay better than Fanduel for that stuff. But sadistic perverts gonna pervert, I guess, and so here we are. By the end, I was galloping through the pages, staying up well past my usual bedtime to do the dreaded “one more chapter.” It does end on something of a cliffhanger: usually that’s something I don’t like, but I didn’t feel like I’d been sold half a story here, and can definitely see further entries appearing here down the road.

Author: K.G. Leslie
Publisher: Self published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 3 in the Killing saga.

Caught in Crystal, by Patricia C. Wrede

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Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

One of my favorite fantasy authors, Patricia C. Wrede [pronounced as “Reedy”] began her writing career in the late 70s; this book, published in 1987, is part of one of her earliest bodies of work, the five-novel Lyra series. However, it’s essentially a stand-alone; though all five of the books are set in the author’s fantasy world of Lyra, they’re all about entirely different sets of characters, widely separated geographically or chronologically (or both –like Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Lyra has a very long fictional history), and are unrelated in their plots.

As is usual in traditional fantasy, Lyra is a low-tech world much like medieval Europe, except that magic really works there and is universally recognized as a reality. Also unlike medieval Europe, it has no equivalent of the Roman Catholic Church; such religion as it has is a vague polytheism that doesn’t bulk large in the story. It’s home to five races (at least some of which can interbreed): humans, the elven Shee; the furred Wyrds, who are somewhat cat-like, but are as big as small humans, use spoken language and have opposable thumbs; the mostly aquatic Neira; and the gray-skinned sklathran’sy, often referred to by humans as “demons,” but as in the work of such writers as Piers Anthony and Robert Asprin, not evil fallen angels but just a non-human race with a talent for magic. (In fact, all of the non-human Lyran races have a more natural affinity for magic than humans, and that factor plays a role in this novel and probably the series as a whole.)

Our protagonist is Kayl Larrinar, who when the book opens is a 36-year-old innkeeper in a back-water village, five years a widow, and a caring mom to two kids (Dara and Mark, ages 12 and 10). But (although we learn some of these details a bit more gradually), she’s not native to the place. Orphaned or at least separated from her parents young, she was first raised among Thar raiders but then taken in as a child by the Sisterhood of Stars, an all-female clerisy of warriors and sorceresses who wield considerable influence in much of Lyra. Trained as a swordswoman (though her sword is now buried beneath her hearth –but she still knows how to use it), she was one of the order’s best.

But she broke with the Sisterhood 15 years ago, after an ill-fated expedition to the mysterious and ill-omened Twisted Tower that stands in the remote and inhospitable Windhome Mountains (the expedition where she met her late husband, a Varnan wizard). She never wants to see that place again. Now, however, sorceress Elder Sister Corrana, one Glyndon shal Morag (another survivor of the expedition and a fellow wizard and friend of Kayl’s husband), and an unsavory gaggle of Magicseekers, a human organization determined to get their hands on magical power by any means, fair or foul, are all converging on the inn, and the Tower’s casting its shadow again.

When I first read this novel in the 90s (I’ve now read it twice), I was really impressed by the wonderfully textured world-building. As I know now, that’s helped by this being the fourth book set in the same world. But it’s still impressive! The magic systems (built in the case of the Sisterhood on the use of true names) also have some thought behind them.) Kayl’s a very relatable heroine, a good and conscientious mom whose relationship to her kids is developed well, and realistically; plenty of real-world single moms, I think, could easily identify with her. There’s an element of clean, low-key romance that was also a plus for me. Wrede tells her story at a deliberate pace that allows for character development; and while there are points of suspense and danger, serious violent action occurs only at the climax of the plot. Kayl can (and does) handle herself very well in combat, but that doesn’t take up much of the plot.

So as action-heroine fiction goes, this is on the low action side; but that element is there, and some baddies who tangle with Kayl won’t tangle with anybody else again. (She’s good with a sword, but her knife-throwing skill is jaw-dropping.) Readers who prefer more exoticism and less realism in their fantasy, a plot-driven and faster-paced story, and more violence and sexual steam won’t like this as much as both my wife and I do. But for my part, I appreciated this as an involving, serious fantasy tale that respected my intelligence as a reader. And the positive message of cross-racial and cross-cultural friendship and respect, and the negative view of prejudice, have grown more rather than less relevant in the ensuing decades.

For me, the primary enjoyment of this reading experience was in spending time with these three-dimensional, vital and likable main characters. Even though Lyra is well-realized, it’s not such a fascinating setting in itself that I feel any need to re-visit it centuries later with totally different characters. But I can enthusiastically recommend this as a great adventure for fantasy fans who want a stand-alone rather than a gargantuan series.

Author: Patricia C. Wrede
Publisher: Ace (paperback) and Open Road Media (e-book); available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a print book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.