Weekend Tales

Tags

Art, currently reading, historical, Karen Hallion, Madeline Martin, N. E. Davenport, romance, sci fi, WWII

Today I am sharing the books I am currently reading or listening to. If you feel so inclined, do the same by posting in the comments at the end.

I chose this poster in honor of Women’s History Month which kicks off this week. This poster and many other very
cool posters like this are available at Society6 from Karen Hallion Illustrations.

Clicking on the book covers below will take you to Amazon. Use of these links supports this blog and is very much appreciated. I also recommended checking with your library (if you want to save some $$$).

On my Kindle, I have an advance copy of The Blood Gift by N.E. Davenport. Last year, I read The Blood Trials, the first book in this Scifi duology. I really like the first book, and so far, book 2 is pretty good. However, with over a year of elapsed time between books, I am finding it hard to remember all the finer details of book 1. I hoping it all comes back to me as I continue.

About The Blood Gift

After discovering the depth of betrayal, treachery, and violence perpetrated against her by Mareen’s Tribunal Council and exposing her illegal blood-gift to save her Praetorian squad, Ikenna becomes a fugitive with a colossal bounty on her head.

Yet, somehow, that’s the least of her worries.

Her grandfather’s longtime allies refuse to offer help, and the Blood Emperor’s Warlord is tracking her. She’s also struggling to control the enormous power she was granted by the Goddess of Blood Rites…and come to terms with the promises she made to get such power.

Amidst all of this, the Blood Emperor wages a full-scale invasion against Mareen and leaves a trail of decimated cities, war crimes, and untold death in his wake. As the horrors increase, Ikenna and her team realize they must assassinate the Blood Emperor and quickly end the war. But the price to do so is steep and has planet-shattering consequences.

The price to do nothing, though, is annihilation.

War has erupted. Alliances are fracturing. And Ikenna is torn between her loyalties, her desires for revenge, and the power threatening to consume her. With the world aflame, only one thing is certain: blood will be spilled.

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My current audiobook is The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin. I downloaded this from my library. I view it as a companion book to The Last Bookshop in London, which I listened to and loved last year. Both books are based on the events of World War II, with book-centered heroines. But each takes place in a different European location.

About The Librarian Spy

Ava thought her job as a librarian at the Library of Congress would mean a quiet, routine existence. But an unexpected offer from the US military has brought her to Lisbon with a new mission: posing as a librarian while working undercover as a spy gathering intelligence.

Meanwhile, in occupied France, Elaine has begun an apprenticeship at a printing press run by members of the Resistance. It’s a job usually reserved for men, but in the war, those rules have been forgotten. Yet she knows that the Nazis are searching for the press and its printer in order to silence them.

As the battle in Europe rages, Ava and Elaine find themselves connecting through coded messages and discovering hope in the face of war.

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Tell me! What are you reading?

The Ice Ghost (Rewilding Reports, #2) by Kathleen O’Neal Gear – Review

Tags

5 stars, Adventure, Book Review, Cli-fi, Ice Age, Kathleen O'Neal Gear, Post Apocalyptic, sci fi, series

Review of The Ice Lion

Quiller is the victim of Trogan’s prophetic visions.  While he forces her to find the Old Woman of the Mountain, Quiller’s husband RabbitEar and her friend Lynx try to rescue her.  The adventure through the underworld will test everyone involved, reveal some of the Jemen’s secrets and raise more questions about how the people living in the current Ice Age came to be and what their purpose is. 

God save me from religious leaders. Especially if the flock is kept ignorant.  The mysterious leaders can make anything up!  I’m talking about Trogan, who Quiller’s people believe is an evil witch.  Evil is a pretty good description for him.  High-handedness, threats and violence are not justified because Trogan, is being led by a ‘god’. 

While Quiller and company are trekking through the underworld, her tribe, the Sealion People are threatened by the Rust People (Trogan’s tribe). Among the tribe is Quiller’s adopted family, which includes enigmatic son Jawbone.

I have found this evolving story to be fascinating.  Between a post-apocalyptic ice age, human genetic manipulation, advanced human abilities, and the humanity of the Ice Age archaic peoples, I have embraced the story arc.  To get the most out of this book, read The Ice Lion first, then pick up The Ice Ghost.  The next installment will be highly anticipated by this reader.

Through NetGalley, the publisher provided a copy of this book so that I could bring you this review.

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About The Ice Ghost by Kathleen O’Neal Gear

In the brutal Ice Age caused by the ancient Jemen war, many archaic human species, including Denisovans and Homo erectus, hover on the verge of extinction. There seems no way out, until the greatest Neandertal holy man, Trogon, has a vision. Legends say the truce that ended the old war left one hostage in the hands of the victorious rebels: the godlike Jemen leader known as the Old Woman of the Mountain. According to Trogon’s vision, only one person knows the location of that burial cave. Trogon must capture young Quiller and force her to lead him there…for the Old Woman may not be dead. She may only have been in stasis for a thousand summers, and when reawakened she will save them from oblivion.

But according to the Denisovans–Quiller’s people–Trogon is the most powerful witch alive. He’s up to something evil that will surely spell their destruction. He must be stopped before it’s too late.

Quiller’s best friend Lynx must brave towering glaciers, dire wolves, and prides of giant lions to save her and stop Trogon.

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Links

Add The Ice Ghost to your Goodreads shelf:

Purchase The Ice Ghost (releases May 17):

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The Ice Lion (Rewilding Reports, #1) by Kathleen O’Neal Gear – Review

Tags

5 stars, Adventure, Book Review, Cli-fi, Ice Age, Kathleen O'Neal Gear, Post Apocalyptic, sci fi, series

About The Ice Lion by Kathleen O’Neal Gear

One thousand years in the future, the zyme, a thick blanket of luminous green slime, covers the oceans. Glaciers three-miles-high rise over the continents. The old stories say that when the Jemen, godlike beings from the past, realized their efforts to halt global warming had gone terribly wrong, they made a desperate gamble to save life on earth and recreated species that had survived the worst of the earth’s Ice Ages.

Sixteen-summers-old Lynx and his best friend Quiller are members of the Sealion People—archaic humans known as Denisovans. They live in a world growing colder, a world filled with monstrous predators that hunt them for food. When they flee to a new land, they meet a strange old man who impossibly seems to be the last of the Jemen. He tells Lynx the only way he can save his world is by sacrificing himself to the last true god, a quantum computer named Quancee.

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Review of The Ice Lion

If you don’t read the blurb (which is an iffy representation of the book, by the way), when you start reading this truly awesome book, you might think this is a story about some prehistoric people. You will read about tribes such as the Sea Lion people, living off the land, struggling against both nature and each other. Then stuff gets thrown in. Like the zyme (a slime that covers the ocean surface). Like the name Hoodwink, which stands out among names like Lynx, Ice Giant, Bluejay, and Mink. And talk of the Jemen, the more advanced beings from that past. There is also a mysterious watcher, observing members of one tribe help another and wondering if he can hope.

It will become obvious that the story takes place far into the future, after man has brought ruin to his environment and caused an ice age. But the tribes don’t know this, because the live only for today and tomorrow.

Lynx is a young member of the Sea Lion tribe. He has been accused of cowardice, because his wedding party, including his wife, was slaughtered by Lions. As punishment, he is abandoned in the wilderness to experience a spirit quest. Survival means he may become a gifted shaman. Otherwise, he faces death. During his quest, Lynx meets Arakie, and old man that Lynx believes to be one of the Jemen. The reader knows there is both more and less to the old man. He is wise, but not all-knowing. He seems to be part archeologist, part biologist, part futurist. He really is quite enigmatic and I really like his place in this story. The travels of Lynx and Arakie will put Lynx in the position of changing the life of an outsider.

Quiller is Lynx’s friend. Ex-lover really. Disappointed when he decided to marry someone else, she is still determined to help him make it back alive. But first she must join a scouting group looking for the Rust people, their tribe’s mortal enemy. In doing so, Quiller will connect with the Rust people in an unforeseen way.

The icy setting with its mountains and ocean, provide a cold backdrop to the warmth of the peoples, who’s lives are going to be inescapably altered when paths cross and the past is excavated.

I loved this book with it’s juxtaposition of primitive people against a technologically advanced past. The people are in for some big changes and I am eager to see where the story goes.

Through NetGalley, the publisher provided a copy of this book so that I could bring you this review.

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Links

Add The Ice Lion to your Goodreads shelf:

Purchase The Ice Lion (releases June 15):

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