Entreat Me and Lover of Thorns and Holy Gods – two books by Grace Drave – Review

Tags

5 stars, curse, fantasy, favorites, Grace Draven, magic, romance

About Entreat Me

Afflicted by a centuries-old curse, a warlord slowly surrenders his humanity and descends toward madness. Ballard of Ketach Tor holds no hope of escaping his fate until his son returns home one day, accompanied by a woman of incomparable beauty. His family believes her arrival may herald Ballard’s salvation.

…until they confront her elder sister.

Determined to rescue her sibling from ruin, Louvaen Duenda pursues her to a decrepit castle and discovers a household imprisoned in time. Dark magic, threatening sorcerers, and a malevolent climbing rose with a thirst for blood won’t deter her, but a proud man disfigured by an undying hatred might. Louvaen must decide if loving him will ultimately save him or destroy him.

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Review of Entreat Me

Loved, loved, loved this story!!!

There are so many reasons. The scarred, cursed, really old hero Ballard. The not-so-old-yet-not-young, outspoken, widow heroine Louven. The devoted, contentious sorcerer Ambrose. The matter-of-fact cook/housekeeper Magda Even the nasty, morally bankrupt villain Jimenin. Every story needs a villain!

The setting is also such a great part of the story. Ballard’s castle, ensorceled to dissuade outsiders and allow time to pass more quickly outside the castle than within. There are roses that grow in winter and attach the cursed.

The castle had a strangeness about it— places where torchlight flickered one way while the shadows it cast scampered another; stairs ended in opposite directions without ever turning.   The walls echoed in tight places instead of cavernous ones, and she’d once clearly heard a tapestry in Cinnia’s bower whisper a poem she knew from childhood.

Like every Grace Draven book I have read, the book stayed with me for days after I had finished. The story is ages old, yet fresh. It is complex and direct. The romance is simple and challenging. But mostly, it is the characters that hold a place in my heart. Ballard and Louven are deep, thoughtful and honest characters that I would invite into my home anytime.

About Lover of Thorns and Holy Gods

A trilogy of short stories from the worlds of Master of Crows, Entreat Me, and Radiance.

STRONG BLOOD (3,504 words) – Ballard de Sauveterre from ENTREAT ME crosses time to share a drink with Silhara of Neith from MASTER OF CROWS and discovers a connection that spans generations.

CROW AWAKENED (2,975 words) – A short follow-up to THE BRUSH OF BLACK WINGS in which a terrified Silhara finally learns why his beloved wife Martise is fading before his eyes.

A MATTER OF TRUST (5,336 words) – A cultural divide is resolved in the most delightful way between Brishen and Ildiko Khaskem. Takes place after RADIANCE and before EIDOLON.

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Review of Lover of Thorns and Holy Gods

This will be a quick review about three very short stories by one of my favorite authors. This is for those of you that have read Entreat Me, Master of Crows, The Brush of Black Wings and Radiance. You will be familiar with the characters and, I trust, happy to get a glimpse of their lives after the epic goings on in the novels. I was especially pleased with Crow Awakened as it confirmed what I determined was going on at the very end of The Brush of Black Wings.  I loved these stories!

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Why I Wrote Flotsam – Guest Post by R. J. Theodore

Tags

fantasy, guest post, mosquitoes, R J Theodore, Steampunk, trees

Today’s guest is the author of Flotsam.  I would call Flotsam a scifi steampunk fantasy – in other worlds – very cool!

Why I Wrote FLOTSAM
Or, How Stories are Itchy Mosquito Bites and it’s Totally Okay if You Want to Scratch at Them

by R. J. Theodore

I was possessed. Inspired. I was taken in by the fantasy of a world I preferred over my reality. I was lonely. And bored. I was fresh out of college, I had a new job, and I feared my real-life adventures were over.

I believe everyone has books in them. For me, the summer of 2003 planted and nurtured the seed that became the sprout that became the mighty sequoia of my author career. Mind you, neither I nor my career is sequoia-sized.

Me? I’m small. Perhaps birch or dogwood-sized, but this isn’t about the accurate portrayal of me as a woody plant. This is about epic fantasy and swashbuckling and otherworldly magic. I’ve got a book. And I believe you’ve got a book. We’re book-having trees – pick your variety – and we’re bursting at the seams with stories.

Don’t think so? Fight me. I started as an innocent with no idea I was going to write FLOTSAM until I was in the middle of the thing.

I could have laughed off the idea, amused myself with a single illustration of a character who appeared to me while I was watching a flick, and then moved on with my life. If I hadn’t been in the uncomfortable transition between college and corporate life that summer, the vaporous form of a female pirate captain might have been only a passing fancy quickly forgotten.

And I think that’s what happens to sort folks into writers and non-writers. People have ideas and, as if the idea were a mosquito buzzing around their head, they wave it off. Maybe a passing comment, but the very notion of inviting that story mosquito to drink from their veins is unapproachable. Society likes blockbuster movies based on bestselling novels, but I don’t think society really values the moment when the idea happens, unless that idea is a tennis racket which syncs with your smartphone to schedule follow-up meetings with your opponent to gloat about your score. The pieces of stories which come to us from flashes of inspiration are not things we readily want others to know about, especially if we are trying to fit in with the society that we perceive wants an “As Seen on Shark Tank” product promising to make life effortless, instead of a book that demands an investment of time and attention.

I think the reason I write books when other people don’t is I hear that whining buzz and my instinct is to bare my throat to it, rather than shoo it away. This instinct wasn’t always so … instinctive. First, I had to welcome the buzz when I heard it. It helped I was suffering a new, unfamiliar anxiety and I was eager to escape. Talis’s story, daydreaming of it and eventually recording it, provided a welcome distraction.

I’ve recently heard the suggestion that story-creators are addicts. That those who go from idea to finished work are those who give in to the compulsion to create. I know I have an addictive personality, so I’m all for that explanation. No matter what I do, this invented world is on my mind. I nearly destroyed my wrist and back trying to illustrate the story, because coming out of art school, visual expression was all I knew. I worked at my oversized pages whenever I had spare time, driven to get my story into the world. I thought I would be free once it was done. That was never ever going to be an option.

Now I know I will never be free of story ideas. They swarm around me, buzzing so loud I may miss entire conversations. It’s as distracting as the metaphor makes it sound, and as itchy as the mosquito bites are in real life. Except this itchy saliva also wakes you out of dead sleeps and shoves you toward your keyboard.

But once I let the idea of FLOTSAM bite me, I had no other choice. Giving into that first story granted me an extra-sensory perception. Now I see stories in everything. Offhand comments; the warm glow of flame over the ash in a fireplace; the crescent shadows cast by leaves during an eclipse; the texture of a handwoven net preserved from the 1800s; vocabulary; weather; steak knives. Stories are everywhere.

I was compelled to write FLOTSAM and, by writing FLOTSAM, I am now compelled to write more. I didn’t shoo away that mosquito, and I can’t seem to shoo away these next swarms. Life as a storyteller is all about ending up as their pincushion.

I let my character tell me about herself, about her world, the people in her life, the ship she dreamed of, and the things that got her out of bed in the morning. And through chronicling it all, I discovered what I wanted out of life as well.

FLOTSAM is her story tangled with mine. As Talis comes to grips with her desires and what she’s willing to do to obtain them, it mirrors my own journey to learn what I wanted and what it’s worth to me.

It wasn’t what either of us expected.

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About Flotsam

Captain Talis just wants to keep her airship crew from starving, and maybe scrape up enough cash for some badly needed repairs. When an anonymous client offers a small fortune to root through a pile of atmospheric wreckage, it seems like an easy payday. The job yields an ancient ring, a forbidden secret, and a host of deadly enemies.

Now on the run from cultists with powerful allies, Talis needs to unload the ring as quickly as possible. Her desperate search for a buyer and the fallout from her discovery leads to a planetary battle between a secret society, alien forces, and even the gods themselves.

Talis and her crew have just one desperate chance to make things right before their potential big score destroys them all.

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About the Author

R J THEODORE is hellbent on keeping herself busy. Seriously folks, if she has two spare minutes to rub together at the end of the day, she invents a new project with which to occupy them.

She lives in New England with her family, enjoys design, illustration, podcasting, binging on many forms of visual and written media, napping with her cats, and cooking. She is passionate about art and coffee.

FLOTSAM, Theodore’s debut novel, is available in print, digital, and audio from Parvus Press.

Connect with the author:
Author Web site: https://www.rjtheodore.com
Publisher’s Web site: https://parvuspress.com/flotsam/
Twitter account: https://twitter.com/bittybittyzap

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See my review of Flotsam here.

Short Reviews – Two YA SciFi

Tags

Book Review, fantasy, Frances Hardinge, L. Penelope, scifi, young adult

Reviews by Linda

A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge
Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles, #1) by L. Penelope

About A Face Like Glass

In Caverna, lies are an art — and everyone’s an artist…

In the underground city of Caverna the world’s most skilled craftsmen toil in the darkness to create delicacies beyond compare. They create wines that can remove memories, cheeses that can make you hallucinate and perfumes that convince you to trust the wearer even as they slit your throat. The people of Caverna are more ordinary, but for one thing: their faces are as blank as untouched snow. Expressions must be learned. Only the famous Facesmiths can teach a person to show (or fake) joy, despair or fear — at a price.

Into this dark and distrustful world comes Neverfell, a little girl with no memory of her past and a face so terrifying to those around her that she must wear a mask at all times. For Neverfell’s emotions are as obvious on her face as those of the most skilled Facesmiths, though entirely genuine. And that makes her very dangerous indeed…

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Review of A Face Like Glass

Wow, for all you science fiction readers this is a must read. I think from page 1 to 487 you will be caught up in the tale of an underground world in which an above ground outsider finds herself. The 12-year-old girl will lead you thru all the emotions we humans take for granted that are not allowed to show on the faces of the inhabitants of the Caverna. She encounters all kinds of treachery and deceit once she is thrown into the center of the royal court. Her ability to show real emotions on her face makes her a very feared and dangerous  person to the Grand Steward leader of Caverna.

I want to thank one of our patrons for recommending this book as a good read.

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About Song of Blood and Stone

Jack’s mission behind enemy lines to prove that the Mantle between Elsira and Lagrimar is about to fall nearly cost him his life, but he is saved by the healing Song of a mysterious young woman. Now he must do whatever it takes to save Elsira and its people from the True Father and he needs Jasminda’s Earthsong to do it. They escape their vicious captors and together embark on a perilous journey to save Elsira and to uncover the secrets of The Queen Who Sleeps.

Thrust into a hostile society, Jasminda and Jack must rely on one another even as secrets jeopardize their bond. As an ancient evil gains power, Jasminda races to unlock a mystery that promises salvation.

The fates of two nations hang in the balance as Jasminda and Jack must choose between love and duty to fulfill their destinies and end the war.

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Review of Song of Blood and Stone

This book tackles not only class issues but brings out racism. Thru the avenue of science fiction she lets her characters fight the prejudice of magical and color differences . In this world biracial romance is not tolerated, nor is romance allowed between the classes. Our heroine and hero win the battle against evil magic , but I am sure that the next book in the series, will still be dealing with prejudices of the human race. I recommend you read it when it comes out in May. You will find it hard to put down.

Note:  Song of Blood and Stone was originally self-published by the author in 2015. The book has been revised and reedited and will be released again by St. Martin’s Press on 5/1/2018.

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