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So, I don’t know. I'm barely into this and Tella is super annoying. Like immature and fragile in a way I don’t remember her being in the other books. She didn't always make great decisions, but I remember being bold and living with conviction (even when she was naive and super wrong). This feels like Garber is trying too hard to generate conflict for the sake of manufacturing a story. 

On the plus side, things turn around fairly quickly. Tella goes back to being bold and a little reckless. There’s some more magic and everything ends better than expected. In the end it’s a decent, magical little story. But a very little read with even less story.

I just love the world-building in this series, from the setting to the magic systems to the characters. I also love the emotional depth of the stories, and that the sole focus of that depth wasn’t on the romance. I know that romance is something that readers have come to expect with Nora Roberts novels, but the fact that it isn’t given the priority is something I’ve come to love about her fantasy novels, that her characters are so multidimensional with stories that involve more than romance. For me, it’s the relationships that truly make this story for me, whether those of friendship, of family, and of romance.

I adore Breen as a protagonist, love her story as she changes and grows and finds her strength. She is so determined to learn, to become stronger in all the skills she needs to battle and defeat Odran, but she never forgets to care for the people around her. I also love her determination to be true to herself, to never compromise again and who and what she is… for anyone. That’s something that’s often difficult to do in reality, so I love the empowerment of that in her character.

There’s much to love in this book, from a cast of great characters to the gorgeous setting, from the rich magic mythology to the twisted storyline, from the slow moments to the action and betrayal.

More Women's Fiction Than Science Fiction. Seven years ago, in 2018's The Space Between, Meserve managed to take a quasi-science/ science fiction concept of a NASA scientist discovering an asteroid behind the sun and spin an electric missing person tale around it - and did so quite well.

Here, she again delves into the "science fiction" element... without ever writing a convincing science fiction book. Yes, it has elements of scifi - the main thrust of the plot is that it is now possible to "time travel" into your own memories and there is now tech to do exactly this. But that is where the science fiction begins and ends here, and other than a (brief) realistic look at the price of such groundbreaking tech and how it would spread to even remotely common use, there really isn't an actual "scifi" bent to this particular tale.

Now, if one approaches this from more of a "women's fiction" tale with a few nods to scifi... it actually works a LOT better and is actually quite a strong story... that just needed those nods to scifi to make it work. As a women's fiction tale of a mother devastated over her son's death and another mother devastated over something she did that can never be forgiven, both seeking to understand what happened and both desperate to have even a few more minutes of their lives before said events... this is a truly compelling tale.  

Meserve manages to weave all four central characters' stories together seamlessly, though the fact that all use the same tenses and even the same verbal stylings *can* make it a bit hard to distinguish which character you're reading, particularly in the beginning bits of a hand-off. And still, you can almost see TV/ film producer Meserve - her "day job" when she's not writing - thinking of camera angles to show viewers certain elements of certain scenes that the characters themselves won't necessarily realize at the time. Which is actually a cool effect that she brings to the page quite effectively.

Overall I think opinions will likely be divided on this tale based on which side of it you give more weight, which is why I'm trying to caution you in this review. If you come into this book expecting a science fiction book... if you're familiar with/ enjoy science fiction before this book, you're going to be disappointed at the science fiction within it. If you're coming from a more women's fiction world and perhaps this is (somehow) your first brush with scifi... the scifi may well work for you here. On the other hand, if you're coming into this book expecting more of a women's fiction tale with scifi elements to make it work... congratulations, that is *exactly* what you've found.  

If you're more of that first more scifi-oriented crowd that is perhaps looking to branch out but need something somewhat close to your scifi preference in order to take a baby step outside of that space to just test the waters... this really is a strong women's fiction tale that will allow you to do just that, and you'll likely find something you genuinely enjoy here. So take the chance.

Either way, maybe you think *I'm* the idiot here and that I have no clue what I'm talking about regarding this book. PLEASE, read the book, write your own review - and feel free to call me out as the idiot you think I am, should you feel the need. :)

Very much recommended.

Beautiful Execution Of LGBT / Elderly Story Wrapped In Murder Mystery. This was an excellent and beautiful story of several different types of people who don't often play lead roles in stories coming together to create a particularly powerful one.

You've got women loving women - in 1972. You've got a whole group of elderly people living in a retirement community in 2024... along with a much younger recluse living in an RV she parks near the community. And yes, you've even got both cameo and more expansive scenes with different dogs and even a cat.

Payne handles all aspects of this tale with remarkable care and a particular penchant for showing that no matter our backgrounds or where we find ourselves, we all strive for community and family... and often times, we can be our own worst enemies in having them if we aren't careful.

The fact that she was able to bring so much near psychological horror level tension into the tale, and even a brief sprint of (somewhat comedic, though this may have been unintentional) action late in the tale truly shows just how well Payne knows her craft, as everything was done pretty damn close to perfectly.

Yes, this is a slow tale - it moves along at about the pace of the elderly people using walkers that so many of the characters are. But it is also a particularly beautiful one in both the characters it chooses to use and the story being told here.

For those looking for more elderly people in books or more naturally LGBT - without feeling forced or preachy at all - this is absolutely a book you should check out, and I genuinely believe you'll enjoy. If you're a reader that, for whatever reason, *doesn't* want to read about either of those types of characters... eh, this really isn't your book. Just move on in peace rather than one starring it because it has such characters.

Ultimately this really was yet another strong tale from Payne, who has done a phenomenal job throughout her career of creating just such tales.

Very much recommended.

Utterly Horrific. The crimes of Josef Mengele (Auschwitz) and Shiro Ishii (Unit 731) during WWII will (hopefully) live on in infamy throughout human history as among the worst things governments have ever done. Sadly, even since then, humanity has shown its horrific side more times than any of us care to really think about, be it genocides in Myanmar and Rwanda, the continual sex trafficking that despite efforts has never been eradicated, the child sex scandals that have rocked so many once-trusted professions, and many, many other ways.

While none of the above should be downplayed in any way whatsoever, they *do* set the stage for the horrors of this particular tale in that we know that most of those involved in the above were the bad guys. They were monsters clothed in scrubs or robes or wearing ties. Here, the monster is... well, the government itself and the sheer ineptitude of its bureaucracies and even legislative and executive leadership - not to mention the judicial leaders that are *supposed* to alleviate some of the worst excesses of the legislative and executive branches, but as Barrett Lain shows here, rarely do when it comes to the mechanisms of putting condemned criminals to death via lethal injection in the United States.

What Barrett Lain lays bare here in this very well documented (29% of the overall text) expose are the true horrors of lethal injection - the very execution method *specifically created* to give the *illusion* (as Barrett Lain makes clear) of a "humane" murder. Except that, as noted often within this text, the particular mechanisms of how this is done in humans are actually so barbaric and horrific that they are actively outlawed for use in animals!

No matter your position on capital punishment, no matter how much you may think a particular convicted criminal (or even, as is so often the case in social media, people merely accused of various crimes and yet so many still clamor for their execution before even a criminal conviction, without any form of legal due process as guaranteed for all persons - not just citizens - in the US Constitution) "deserves" to die... you NEED to read this book.

Read this book, and consider your own conscience. Can you honestly say after reading this book that this particular method is truly reasonable in its actual application today? Can you honestly say after reading this book that you are 100% comfortable with your own loved one going through this exact process? Because as others have noted in so many other works about the other problems with the American retribution system, there are next to no actual guarantees that you or your own loved ones won't face this fate at some point, no matter how good and righteous you may feel you are - there are simply far too many laws - even laws with felony penalties! - within the US now, to the point that *no one* can truly know when they are not running afoul of at least one of them in any given moment or action. Read this book, examine your own conscience, and truly ask yourself if you could do this job or ask your best friend to do it. Read this book, examine your own conscience, and ask yourself if you could bear to allow your children to witness this process.

Read this book, examine your own conscience, and write your own review.  

As SCOTUS has decreed, as documented by Barrett Lain here, that the condemned must offer an alternative to lethal injection for their challenges to have even a possibility of even being heard, let me state clearly here now that I would vastly prefer a firing squad to the inhumane and downright barbaric practice of lethal injection. As for me, while I've been an advocate of permanently ending the death penalty in favor of life without parole for many years now, even I hadn't been fully aware of just how utterly horrific this particular execution method - posed to the US public as the more "humane" option - truly is, and I for one now count as one calling for the end of this particular method even if capital punishment must be allowed to continue.  

Read this book, examine your own conscience, and let the world know in your own review whether you agree with me or not.

Very much recommended.

Dark Tale Well Told From An Interesting Perspective. First, I gotta give props to Holmes for the way she handled the trigger warning in this book. I personally prefer them to be on the author's website so those (like me) who prefer not to have any spoilers at all going into the book can have that experience, yet those who need/ want trigger warnings can still find that information as well. (Also, to be clear, Kindles automatically begin just after the table of contents in a book, so if a trigger warning is included at that spot, it *cannot* be easily skipped.) This noted, if you as an author are going to put one at the front of the book... maybe use a version of the one Holmes used here. ;)

As to the actual story here, it is one of those slower psychological thrillers where you *know* some *dark* stuff is going on largely behind the scenes... and even get the occassional glimpse of it from other characters... yet getting our main character to the point of seeing that which she has spent a lifetime not seeing.... takes some time.  

One good thing that Holmes chooses here that keeps the book from going even more into the darkness is that while *some* aspects of the behind-the-pages darkness make it onto the page - enough to get a glimpse of all that is happening - that particular element isn't shown as much as perhaps some readers may want. Instead, Holmes focuses much more on the views of the wife who thinks her family is finally safe and can live a normal life... except that she keeps catching her husband having hushed conversations about... something. This, to me, is the far stronger storyline as it is one of the *less explored* stories in the genre generally.

There are a lot of characters here, absolutely, and while it can get a touch tough to track them all in the beginning, as the story plays out it does become much more clear who is doing what and when, particularly in the rather explosive climax.

For those who prefer their stories ended in nice little bows that wrap up every single thread... yeah, this aint that. And is actually a stronger tale because of it... and, perhaps, one that means that Holmes intends to come back to this world. Time will tell. ;)

Very much recommended.

Less Romp. More GirlBoss. Set in the aftermath of Young Rich Widows (though with curious timing, as that book was supposed to take place in 1986, this one is supposed to take place in 1987, and yet at least one character has had events happen that would mean this book would need to be in 1988 at minimum), this is less of the borderline comedic romp Young Rich was and far more GirlBoss now as the titular Widows all find themselves in various positions of power and influence themselves. Oh, and there is a complex murder mystery here with even more twists and turns - of more serious, if less life threatening, natures - than the first book.

And this is actually a good thing, as it shows a great deal of growth of our four lead characters even from the first time they show up in this book all the way through the end. The friendships they managed to create through the first book are going to be put to the test in several different ways here, and while there is a decent amount of comedy still left to be had... it is almost more of a Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants / Crossroads (the 2002 movie with Britney Spears) type tale here (and indeed, Spears' last line in Crossroads could well be the ending line here).

Ultimately this really was quite good and a remarkable follow up to Young Rich Widows... specifically *because* it didn't follow the exact same type of tale and instead went the direction of showing growth in all aspects, even as it remained true to the core of the tale and stylings of the book that came before. This noted, much like say a Big Fat Greek Wedding or a Mamma Mia, while a second tale works much better than one might expect given where the first tale ended... maybe the series ends here. Or maybe Belle, Fargo, Holahan, and Lillie find a way to continue it one more time that makes sense without being a blatant cash grab. But for me at least, this really does work as a finale to these characters and this world, so we'll see what happens going forward.

Very much recommended.

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

An Inheritance of Magic is the second book in a new urban fantasy series by Benedict Jacka. Released 15th Oct 2024 by Penguin Random House on their Berkley Ace imprint, it's 336 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout. 

The author is talented and prolific. He knows how to write engagingly, and the world building here is very different from the Iron Druid chronicles. The story reads more YA(ish) than his other work, however, there are definitely non-YA descriptions and themes here, so sensitive readers should tread carefully. Happily the cat (Hobbes! ;) ) from book one, lives and is a great character in his own right (spinoff short stories, please, Mr. Jacka). Additionally and importantly, MC Stephen, who is basically an everyman James Bond with magic, now has a support "Q", his best friend Colin who is an appealingly nerdy sidekick who's also a dab hand with "real world" science he uses for good, dreaming up sigils with modern armour and weapons solutions, enhanced with drucraft.

That being said, there is also humor here, clever descriptive prose, nods to the sort of bureaucracy urban fantasy that brings Stross, O'Malley, Aaronovitch, Holt and the other boys in the band to mind, and further explanations of a really good magic system being expanded and refined. 

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours 47 minutes, and is capably narrated by series narrator Will Watt. He has a well modulated classically trained voice and does a range of regional accents of both genders, well and seamlessly. His cut crystal RP voices for some of the Ashford reps are also slyly humorous, taking pokes at them aping the upper class they represent. Sound and production quality are very high throughout the read.

Four stars. Given the publisher, this will be on most library acquisition lists already. It's a solid follow up to the first book (which was difficult reading because of some violent themes and descriptions). 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes. 

This isnt a bad book so far. A little exposition heavy and a little repetitive at the beginning. I can tell this is an early piece by Wright but it’s decent so far. 

By the end there were several potentially interesting threads. But none of them were really explained well or impacted the story with the depth they could have. (show spoiler)[The idea of bloodsworn was cool but never really explained. We only understood why it was important two-thirds of the way through when they can’t be killed by sorcerers] (hide spoiler) . I can’t even remember the others but through the last third there were a handful of things I thought were interesting that didn't really go anywhere. 

When Miri gets around to telling about the attack, I suspected as much since her mother was the Lion Queen, but the attack on the castle is remarkably similar to The Witcher. This is like an only thinly veiled fanfic where Wright wrote her own story for Ciri (even the name is super similar to Miri). I’m not really faulting her for it because that sort of story can be fun. But I think it would be better slightly more thickly veiled. Also it’s weird there’s no mention of the princesses father. At all.

And yet, for all that it’s a decent enough early work by an author that I think is worth three stars. The characters aren’t exceptionally deep but the occasional duel pov helps and the romance is sweet. It’s clear that Wright has potential to write interesting stories. 

This is not a typical Nora Roberts romance, although there is a romantic element. Instead, at its heart, the story is Breen’s. It’s her journey to herself, and the way she finally found the life she was always meant to have. The Breen we meet at the beginning of the book is not the Breen of the end, even as her new life is still something she’s settling into. It was empowering to watch her grow from the subservient mousy girl-woman her mother had molded her into to a strong, capable women who’s embraced her autonomy. There were so many moments that I wanted to reach into the book, grab her mother, and shake her silly!

One of the things I loved most, beyond Breen’s growth, was the support system she had…in our world and in the Fey world. Her best friend, Marco, is the kind of best friend we all need. He loves her fiercely, believes in her, pushes her just the right amount to get her to live her truth and see the best in herself. He’s 100% in her corner, always. And Sally, local drag queen and bar owner… she embraced Breen as her own becoming Breen’s “mother of her heart.” She and Derrick, her husband, along with Marco, were the loving family Breen didn’t have with her own biological mother, and that kind of love was truly beautiful.

But the Fey world… the family and friends Breen had known and forgotten so long ago. They embraced her as one of their own, as if the absence had not been so long. The setting was so beautiful and enchanting, the perfect place for Breen to come into her own once again.

I loved this book so much. The magical and lush setting, the quirky and diverse cast of characters, the sweeping epic feel of the story… all of it was utterly engrossing!