What Are You Reading Wednesday
May. 22nd, 2019 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricCurrently Reading:
Fiction: The collection 'A Hand of Knaves', in which I have a story. Also, Kerry Greenwood's 'Away with the Fairies' and, slowly, Redwall.
Lit Mag: Still Meanjin summer 2018! About halfway through an essay by Alexis Wright
Academic: Nothing
Other non-fiction: Zip and zilch.
Recently Finished:
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a fun historical-fantasy type read. The set-up is similar to that of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: 1800s Britian, complex magical system intertwined with the political, interface with faerie. Unlike JSMN, this is a book that has... actually thought about the politics of the British Empire and worked that into the setting and plot. I liked Zacharias very much, with his quiet interests and his complicated feelings for his white guardian-and-former-slaveowner. The key pieces of withheld information, despite the relatively close 3P POV, were dropped at just the right time and to good effect.
My chief complaint is that Prunella's character deserved to be better fleshed out (she ended the book without having significantly grown in character, although her circumstances had changed), and the ending for her worked well for Zacharias but felt rather under-done for her arc. I am guessing the second book will balance that somewhat.
KJ Charles, Think of England and Spectred Isle. Previous reviews still stand. I enjoyed both, and this time Saul's burned-out disillusionment really Got To Me.
The Infamous Miss Rodriguez by Lydia San Andres
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Perhaps my impression of this suffers for the fact I read it on the heels of a batch of full-length KJ Charles novels, and this is a novella. I like the setting, I like the basic premise, but it felt under-done, and the single steamy scene didn't really do it for me.
I'll continue awaiting the second full novel in this series, but I think I'll skip the other novella.
View all my reviews
Up Next: I have an Alyssa Cole novella for brain candy, and Educated for... the opposite of brain candy.
Music Notes:
Listening to Grace Petrie in a vain effort to make myself feel better about politics. When that fails, there's 'Year of the Rat'.
Fiction: The collection 'A Hand of Knaves', in which I have a story. Also, Kerry Greenwood's 'Away with the Fairies' and, slowly, Redwall.
Lit Mag: Still Meanjin summer 2018! About halfway through an essay by Alexis Wright
Academic: Nothing
Other non-fiction: Zip and zilch.
Recently Finished:
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen ChoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a fun historical-fantasy type read. The set-up is similar to that of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: 1800s Britian, complex magical system intertwined with the political, interface with faerie. Unlike JSMN, this is a book that has... actually thought about the politics of the British Empire and worked that into the setting and plot. I liked Zacharias very much, with his quiet interests and his complicated feelings for his white guardian-and-former-slaveowner. The key pieces of withheld information, despite the relatively close 3P POV, were dropped at just the right time and to good effect.
My chief complaint is that Prunella's character deserved to be better fleshed out (she ended the book without having significantly grown in character, although her circumstances had changed), and the ending for her worked well for Zacharias but felt rather under-done for her arc. I am guessing the second book will balance that somewhat.
KJ Charles, Think of England and Spectred Isle. Previous reviews still stand. I enjoyed both, and this time Saul's burned-out disillusionment really Got To Me.
The Infamous Miss Rodriguez by Lydia San AndresMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Perhaps my impression of this suffers for the fact I read it on the heels of a batch of full-length KJ Charles novels, and this is a novella. I like the setting, I like the basic premise, but it felt under-done, and the single steamy scene didn't really do it for me.
I'll continue awaiting the second full novel in this series, but I think I'll skip the other novella.
View all my reviews
Up Next: I have an Alyssa Cole novella for brain candy, and Educated for... the opposite of brain candy.
Music Notes:
Listening to Grace Petrie in a vain effort to make myself feel better about politics. When that fails, there's 'Year of the Rat'.