The Mother Element (Glass and Iron,#2) by Monica Enderle Pierce – Review

Tags

5 stars x 2, aliens on earth, Book Review, earth invasion, genetic engineering, Monica Enderle Pierce, romance, scifi, scifi romance, series, space travel, spaceships

 

About The Mother Element

He would destroy the universe to keep her safe. She would become death to protect him.

Terran medic Rachel Pryne was designed by the Ohnenrai to destroy their pursuing foe before all life in the known galaxy and beyond falls prey to its aggression.

Ohnenrai leader Ehtishem Mahle was tasked with deploying Rachel into their deadly enemy’s path. Falling in love with her wasn’t part of the plan, but now he desperately needs a way to wield this weapon without ending her life.

The only possible solution to galactic extinction lies with Rachel and Ehtishem, but all they want is to survive and be together. Everyone else can go straight to hell.

 

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Review of The Mother Element

Warning: If you have not read Girl Under Glass, there may be spoilers for you.  Also, if you have not read it, turn around, go back and read it first.  You will be happy you did.

The Mother Element is the complex conclusion to the story that began in Girl Under Glass with Rachel Pryne escaping her earthly existence in a community where she was shunned, hassled and threatened with having her child taken away.  To escape, Rachel and daughter Pearl followed Ehtishem, the alien Ohnenrai soldier she healed.  She did not trust him, but he was her best option.  He became her savior without knowing that she was fated to be the savior of his people.  That is a very short synopsis of book 1.

Book 2 is the very tangled, multi-layered saga of Rachel and Ehtishem.  There is the romance, fraught with family issues (Ehtishem’s mother), cultural differences, and political pressure.  Also, the Ohnenrai people are in a fight for their existence.  At first I thought this was just another one of those stories about an alien race dying out and it is, but it is also so much more.

The Ohnenrai believe they have a solution.  It is the solution that is throwing the Ohnenrai into political unpheaval.  It is the solution that pits son against mother.  It is the solution that brings Rachel and Ehtishem together.  It is the solution that will require many to make the ultimate sacrifice.

I loved this spectacular Scifi Romance.  It had me constantly trying to work out so many aspects of the plot and of course, the ultimate ending.  Rachel is a strong yet vulnerable woman who seems to be in an impossible situation.  Ehtishem, once he has bonded with Rachel, is also in an impossible situation.   The romance between Rachel and Ehtishem is the glue that holds the entire plot together.  It inspires motivation, generates emotion, encourages action and gives us a reason to cheer.

The book is liberally sprinkled with Ohnenrai words and phrases.  Considerable thought went into creating this language.  While they are typically explained once, there were so many words, that remembering the meaning became problematic.  While the book does provide a supplement chapter of Ohnenrai phrases, it is difficult to use in the e-book form.  Suggestion to the author.  Either use fewer alien words, or add the list of words and phrases to your website.  Then a person could print it off for reference while reading.  Linquists will have no problem with the Ohnenrai language.

The Mother Element is one of my favorites of all the books I read in 2019.  If you are new to the series, be sure to start with Girl Under Glass and quickly follow it up with this winning SciFi Romance!

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A Heart of Blood and Ashes (A Gathering of Dragons, #1) by Milla Vane – Review

Tags

5 stars x 2, Book Review, fantasy, magic, Meljean Brook, Milla Vane, romance, series

About A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane

A generation past, the western realms were embroiled in endless war. Then the Destroyer came. From the blood and ashes he left behind, a tenuous alliance rose between the barbarian riders of Parsathe and the walled kingdoms of the south. That alliance is all that stands against the return of an ancient evil—until the barbarian king and queen are slain in an act of bloody betrayal.

Though forbidden by the alliance council to kill the corrupt king responsible for his parents’ murders, Maddek vows to avenge them, even if it costs him the Parsathean crown. But when he learns it was the king’s daughter who lured his parents to their deaths, the barbarian warrior is determined to make her pay.

Yet the woman Maddek captures is not what he expected. Though the last in a line of legendary warrior-queens, Yvenne is small and weak, and the sharpest weapons she wields are her mind and her tongue. Even more surprising is the marriage she proposes to unite them in their goals and to claim their thrones—because her desire for vengeance against her father burns even hotter than his own…

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Review of A Heart of Blood and Ashes

I’d like to make a prediction.  A Heart of Blood and Ashes is the going to be on my best of 2020 list.  You may say it is too soon to call, being only February 6th.  But wow!

Milla Vane is the alter-ego of Meljean Brook.  So I kind of knew what I was getting.  A complex, yet lush story line.  Sharply defined characters – flawed primary characters that are somehow still perfect and secondary characters that add depth and perspective to the tale. And a world intricately built just for them.  And me.  I immersed myself in A Heart of Blood and Ashes.

Maddek’s and Yvenne’s entwined stories are salient, agonizing and exhilarating.  I was amused as often as I was saddened.  These two have issues that keep them apart because there is a major communication issue.  But there is much to draw them together also.  Including a sizzling hot sexual attraction.  Speaking as someone who tends to skim those passages, I recommend you read them all.  Far from the usual, the sex scenes were creative, blazing and, dare I say, satisfying.

Maddek and Yvenne are still hanging out in my reader’s mind.  I will be more than ready when the next installment is ready.  The romantic fantasy world will never be the same for me!

Through Netgalley, the publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Cartier’s Hope by M.J. Rose – Review

Tags

3 stars, Book Review, historical, Hope Diamond, jewelry, M.J. Rose, New York City, news reporter, romance, suffrage

About Cartier’s Hope by M.J. Rose

From M.J. Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Tiffany Blues, “a lush, romantic historical mystery” (Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale), comes a gorgeously wrought novel of ambition and betrayal set in the Gilded Age.

New York, 1910: A city of extravagant balls in Fifth Avenue mansions and poor immigrants crammed into crumbling Lower East Side tenements. A city where the suffrage movement is growing stronger every day, but most women reporters are still delegated to the fashion and lifestyle pages. But Vera Garland is set on making her mark in a man’s world of serious journalism.

Shortly after the world-famous Hope Diamond is acquired for a record sum, Vera begins investigating rumors about schemes by its new owner, jeweler Pierre Cartier, to manipulate its value. Vera is determined to find the truth behind the notorious diamond and its legendary curses—even better when the expose puts her in the same orbit as a magazine publisher whose blackmailing schemes led to the death of her beloved father.

Appealing to a young Russian jeweler for help, Vera is unprepared when she begins falling in love with him…and even more unprepared when she gets caught up in his deceptions and finds herself at risk of losing all she has worked so hard to achieve.

Set against the backdrop of New York’s glitter and grit, of ruthless men and the atrocities they commit in the pursuit of power, this enthralling historical novel explores our very human needs for love, retribution—and to pursue one’s destiny, regardless of the cost.

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Review of Cartier’s Hope

I picked up Cartier’s Hope because I loved the author’s Tiffany Blues.  Both feature artists.  This time the medium is gems.

While Tiffany Blues described a lot of the art and influences of Louise Comfort Tiffany, Cartier’s Hope fell short of my hopes in that area.  Art was replaced with gem lore and history.  The history of the Hope Diamond figures largely in the story, so if you are a gem lover, you will find that information fascinating.

Like many of Rose’s novels, this book is about rich people acting rich.  The main character, Vera Garland, works trying to right social wrongs and advance the status of women – as a reporter writing under a pseudonym.  However, when the job is over, she goes back to her rich life style.  Though she does not share the prejudices of her wealthy family and friends, she does share their expensive taste in pretty much everything.  I believe the author was attempting to point out the extreme differences between the rich and the poor, but the poor were poorly represented.

As reporter Vee Swann, Vera plots to expose a blackmailer.  Doing so will involve Pierre Cartier, so she much also act as Vera Garland.  Her plan seemed iffy at best, based on a low odds that it would pan out like she wanted.  I kept thinking ‘Really?”

There is a little bit of a romance, but I didn’t embrace it.  There were too many secrets between Vera and Jacob.  While all secrets came out in the end, I did not feel the connection between the two.

Usually, I love this author’s books.  While Cartier’s Hope is a well written novel, it fell short for me.  But if you like M.J. Rose and/or gems, you might like this one.

Read Cartier’s Hope for the history of suffrage, women in newspapers, Pierre Cartier, the Hope Diamond.

Through Netgalley, the publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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