Review: The Last Plus One by Ophelia London, Lindsay Emory and Alexandra Haughton

I'm deep into the university semester, so it's been novellas all 'round for me lately (as you can probably tell by the last 3 reviews). The latest is The Last Plus One, an anthology featuring one story each by Ophelia London, Lindsay Emory and Alexandra Haughton, all set at the wedding of a senator's daughter in Maine. Here are my thoughts: 

Bringing Home The Boss by Alexandra Haughton - 4 stars

Maggie's parents are the senator's groundkeeper and housekeeper, and she's always straddled the line between being a family friend and being the help. She's now a founding partner of a successful sportswear company, and no-one there knows of the circumstances in which she grew up, so it's a problem when her business partner and friend invites himself along as her plus-one. Cruz is entirely unaware of what he is walking into, or the trouble he is causing for Maggie. All he knows is that he can feel Maggie slipping away from him day by day. He doesn't know why, and he doesn't know how to fix it, but maybe accompanying her to this wedding - despite her protestations - will help. 

Maggie and Cruz's story was by far my favourite of the three. It was so evocative, with Cruz trying so hard to anticipate Maggie's needs and wants, and Maggie just attempting to hold it together long enough to make it back to life in Austin. The romance unfolded naturally and beautifully, and I loved it. 

Always on My Mind by Ophelia London - 3.5 stars
Ashton is the groom's sister, and she's agreed to be George Hawkin's date. For all he was originally her brother's friend, Hawk and Ashton have been best friends for years. Hawk has been biding his time, but with Ashton moving to Switzerland and him interviewing for a job at a prestigious private school, it's now or never if they're ever going to be together.  

Hawk and Ashton are very different people. She's a sex-positive therapist and researcher with next to no filter, and he's a buttoned-up teacher. I liked both characters, especially Ashton. The conflict between the two started off well, but I felt like it dropped off towards the end. They kept rehashing their differences, then did this big "I was wrong to want you to change", "No, I was wrong to want you to change" but it was just this big blame-myself-and-love-the-other-fest and I was left with little idea about how they were going to manage their differences - which had been so reiterated throughout - in the future. It wasn't a big thing, 

When We Were Young by Lindsay Emory - 3 stars
Bridesmaid and wedding planner Claire is livid when she finds out that Tom Harrington has been brought in as a last-minute groomsman. She hates him, and he hates her, and she doesn't know how they're going to get through this wedding being civil to each other, given their constant animosity and the unresolved one-night stand from college that still hangs over them. 

Emory did a good job of redeeming Claire, who had been called 'Wedding Planner Barbie' and 'The Meanie' by the two previous heroines. Unfortunately, the hero got no such treatment. Caught up in the fact that Claire doesn't fawn over him, he plays a cruel prank on her, throws her phone into the ocean and just generally acts like a dick. The bride spends the whole story reassuring Claire that Tom is really a nice guy, and she's right: he is a textbook Nice Guy. I'm deducting .5 stars for my issues with Tom, but even I have to admit, the ending still gave me loads of feels. 

Overall
The thing I enjoyed most about The Last Plus One can't be put down to any one story, but the way each built on the last, so that aspects of the same event as interpreted in varying ways. The characters in each story see things from a different, completely understandable position. Maggie (Story #1) thinks Claire (Story #3) is trying to prove she's a better friend to the bride and make a move on Cruz. Claire is genuinely perplexed by Maggie's attitude towards her, but in her anxiety over planning the wedding does accidently come across aggressively. Ashton (Story #2) is sour that, despite being the sister of the groom, she's been left out of the wedding party, and transfers her resentment to Claire as the wedding planner. Claire only took on the wedding planning because the Maid of Honor is sullenly useless, and because its something that she's good at, a way to pay back her friend for something that happened in the past. 

I loved the way it tied together as an anthology, and I'm off to find more multiple-POV, same event anthologies, stat!

Review: The Gossip by Jenny Holiday

4.5 stars
Release Date: 4 October 2016
I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. My opinion is my own.
*SPOILER ALERT*

Romance novels where there is a imbalance of power between the two main characters can very easily go wrong. But this one didn't. In fact, The Gossip went very, very right, thanks to Holiday's customary lovable characters, plus a funky 1980s setting. 

Dawn Hathaway garners social power and popularity through her popular gossip column in the university newspaper. Maybe, if she breaks a few college-level Watergates, her media mogul father will finally take an interest in her. 

In the meanwhile, someone else has taken an interest in Dawn: Arturo Perez, well-liked campus cop. He sees Dawn's vulnerability and isolation, and keeps a close eye on her over the course of her university career. With eight years between them in age, as well as the cop-student divide, he knows that nothing can ever come of it, but when Dawn is caught up in a tragic series of events, Art can't stop himself from stepping forward and offering his support. 

It's been a while since I read any Jenny Holiday and I'd forgotten how much I loved her. Her heroes are consistent favourites for the feminist ways they relate to their heroines, and Art is no exception. He's all too aware of how his position could potentially affect their relationship. When he realises trying to stay away from Dawn isn't going to work, and she insistent on being physically intimate, he gets creative: 

"This is how this is going to work," he said, using his teeth to gently scrape down to my collarbone, where he started pressing urgent, openmouthed kisses. "I require not just consent, but continuous consent."  (loc. 1276)

With this policy in place, Dawn must explicitly ask for anything she wants Art to do, or he won't proceed. Later, he explain his reasoning:  

I'd been so over-the-top with the consent thing because I was so wary of the age and power differentials between us and of the emotional wringer she'd been through this past fall. So many people in Dawn's life had let her down, had "not seen her". I wasn't ever going to be one of those people. (loc. 1382)

And he isn't. Art is caring, considerate, sweet and honest. His yearning from afar and his interactions with Dawn both gave me butterflies. Dawn, on the other hand, is a much more ambiguous character. She trades in gossip and values social acceptance and popularity, but it soon becomes clear that she has her reasons, and she isn't shallow or malicious. Holiday builds her up well over the course of the story, so that the reader becomes extremely fond of and sympathetic toward a character who initially seemed like an anti-heroine. 

The novella follows Dawn and Arturo's encounters over several years. At the beginning, there are their infrequent encounters as campus cop and student. Slowly, their odd repartee develops into an odder friendship, and then, from there, the romance. The plot similarly weaves throughout these time periods, before reaching a denouement in the final months. 

Readers should be aware that the plot does include a suicide, which also had the potential to be a deal-breaker. It was - in my opinion - handled with appropriate delicacy and gravitas, so that while it was affecting, it was never overwhelming. But that is, of course, a very personal judgement, and one that each person must make themselves, given their own circumstances and the circumstances of those around them. 

The Gossip won't be released until October 4, but you can pre-order it at Amazon now. Alternatively, you can read the preceding novella in the New Wave Newsroom series, The Fixer, which features Dawn's editor Jenny and her attempts to enlist art student Matthew in her crusade to save the college's historic art building. I didn't love it quite as much as The Gossip, but I still liked it a lot. 

Review: The Infamous Miss Rodriguez by Lydia San Andres

4 stars

In The Infamous Miss Rodriguez, Lydia San Andres has delivered another delightful story, set on the same fictional island in the Spanish Caribbean as her previous two books. It's a novella, but it's very well done, meaty enough to make for great reading, but not too meaty that it founders within a novella format. 

Nobody will listen to Graciela Rodriguez when she says that she doesn't want to marry Alvaro Medina, so she's taking matters into her own hands. She hopes that, if she creates a scandal, her well-to-do fiance will break the engagement. The sticking point is that none of her shocking acts are making their way through the grapevine. Unbeknownst to Graciela, that's due to Vincente Aguirre, who has been working with her guardian to prevent Graciela from sabotaging her engagement. But the more time Vincente spends with Graciela, the less inclined he is perform his role and ensure the wedding goes ahead. 

San Andres has such a strength for conveying the struggles and strictures of gender and class with extreme nuance. For Graciela, there's the sense that she's powerless to control her own life, and anger and annoyance at the microaggressions her fiance is constantly committing. As Vincente notes, Alvaro treats Graciela "as if she were a puppy yipping at his heels - tiresome, but too inconsequential to bother with" (loc. 300), and yet he doesn't treat her badly, so she doesn't have any cause to break the engagement. 

Graciela's experiences were so vividly and emotively written that it felt heart-achingly familiar. The part of me that is sick of the male microaggressions wishes that the horrible, dismissive fiance had received more comeuppance for his classism and sexism. But that's rarely achieved today, let alone in 1911, and anyway, probably the best comeuppance Vincente and Graciela can provide is to happily live their life. And I feel sure that they will do just that, because they were so good together. 

Review: Screaming Down Splitsville by Kayla Bashe

3.5 stars

I'm a big fan of both alternate histories and less-used time periods as settings, so Kayla Bashe's sweet F/F romance Screaming Down Splitsville was right up my alley. 

It's set in an alternate 1950s where Magi with special powers are imprisoned and subject to experiments. Flip was rescued from a facility and placed in a safehouse. She's happy cooking and playing mechanic while other inhabitants of the house go off on my rescue missions, but she's never forgotten the girl in the cell next to her's. Then, one day, she's sent on a rescue mission of her own, to save that very same girl. 

Emma Rose has long since given up hoping, so even once she and Flip are on the run, she knows it won't be long until she's caught and returned to a miserable and painful life as a dehumanised guinea pig. But Emma really likes Flip: she's caring and she's the first person in a long while who has made efforts to communicate with Emma, who is mute. But, with her powers still shackled and the belief that recapture is inevitable, will she be able to fight for herself and Flip, and what they might have together?

I had to keep reminding myself that this was set in the 1950s, not because it didn't have a strong sense of place (it did), but because I associate the 1950s with housewives and roast dinners, and the women here broke all the stereotypes. To borrow my grandmother's lingo, they're real go-getters, even when they don't realise it themselves. But this doesn't come at the expense of other facets of their characterisation, but I'm not going to into this too much (or at all), because I think it's better if you just experience Flip and Emma Rose for yourself.

Both girls were given strong and unique voices, as part of a beautiful and lyrical style of writing. However, I did feel like there were isolated incidences towards the end where the writing became a bit clunky, and resorted to showing rather than telling. 

Information about the alternate world in which the novella takes place was integrated well, never overwhelming the story, but not leaving the reader with too little context. There were times where I would have liked for there to be more background given, but that was more out of curiosity than anything, and I recognise that it probably would have overwhelmed the story. I do hope that the author chooses to expand this world; there's one secondary character in particular that I would like to see get her own story. 

Overall, Screaming Down Splitsville was a lovely little YA or sweet F/F romance, with the characters' tenderness and youth making for a great low-angst read. 

Review: The Terracotta Bride by Zen Cho

4.5 stars

The Terracotta Bride is a short story set in the Chinese Underworld. Siew Tsin was just a young woman when she got hit by a motor car and wound up in the tenth court of hell. There she finds a great uncle, who promptly sells her into marriage. Her husband Jungshen is a rich man, with pious descendents who burn money and goods so that he can live well in the Underworld. One day, Jungshen brings home another wife, a terracotta woman whom he names Yonghua, and she changes everything for Siew Tsin. 

This isn't a romance, though it does have some f/f romantic aspects. The writing is lyrical, Siew Tsin's characterisation was lovely and those two things make The Terracotta Bride poignant as hell (pun not intended). The worldbuilding is also amazing, and I would auto-buy any more stories Cho wrote in the same universe. It's a short story, so this is a short review, but, basically, I loved it.

Review: Haveli by Zeenat Mahal

5 stars

Haveli is the most exciting thing I've stumbled across since I started making an effort to read literature from/featuring different countries. I have never read anything like it, and I'm not sure I ever will again, since I've gone on to read some of Mahal's other novellas and, while they are all good, none of them has the X-factor found here. 

Set in the early 1970s, Haveli is the story of Chandni (or C., as she calls herself), who has been raised by her grandmother, the widow of the last Nawab of Jalalabad. The begum subjected her spunky granddaughter to strict and antiquated home-schooling, but nothing has prepared her for Taimur (aka Alpha Male). He's the son of family friends, and C.'s grandmother is pushing for a union between them. When C.'s long-absent father returns, offering another marriage prospect, she has decisions to make, and growing up to do. 

Haveli a novella, but it's masterful. There's the spoilt, naive, headstrong heroine with whom one can still sympathise, the Alpha Male hero, who really isn't such an Alpha Male stereotype after all, the family entanglements, the mix of the traditional and the modern, the practical and the quaint, the Western and the--I want to find a less loaded word than 'Eastern', but nothing's coming to me. Subcontinental? South Asian? Desi, maybe. Somehow, Pakistani seems too small; the protagonist twice refers to herself and her family as being Punjabi, and the familiar context once again reminds me that the Partition is more a religio-political division than a cultural one.

The 1970s setting wasn't very tangible, but it was still integral. Without the political talk about Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the possibility of "civil war" between West Pakistan and East Pakistan (aka Bangladesh), I would have been hard-pressed to guess at a decade, except to say that C. could not have been so unworldly in the internet age. I also assume that the nawab-without-a-title lifestyle that C. and her grandmother live is a product of its time, the 1970s being much closer to the days when the princely states retained technical independence under the British. 

For me, C.'s naivete was one of the things that made her narrative voice so strong and enjoyable, as was her irreverence, which was shown through in her banter with Taimur. The strength of C.'s personality means we only really see Taimur through her eyes, as Alpha Male. The nickname and the marriage-talk initially made me uneasy about C.'s future with him, but this was more the result of unchallenged prejudices than anything else. Once I started looking at the evidence on the page, it becomes clear that Taimur is a sweet bloke under all his bluster, and a good match for the headstrong C.

Towards the end of the story, C. makes an error in judgement, and attempts to fix it by dictating a plan to everyone, assuming that they will play the role she has allotted them. The lack of apologies and consultation means that she that it's only time that her strong-willed nature eclipses her likability, but the responsibility she takes for her actions also demonstrate her growth as a character, so I wasn't really put off by it at all. 

It's C.'s dynamic narration of the people and places around her that makes Haveli what it is. Mahal has managed to cram the characterisation and world-building of a full-length novel into her novella, and there really is no greater praise than that. 

However, as a final aside, I would also like to give her props for her name, which I suppose could either be an awesome pen name or a kick-ass actual name. The original Zeenat (or Zinat) Mahal - the last Mughal Empress of India - was the strong and politically astute wife of the last Mughal Emperor of India, and she basically ruled on his behalf until his deposition following the Sepoy Mutiny/First War of Independence. Seriously though, go and look her up. 

Review: The Convict's Bounty Bride by Lena Dowling

2 stars

You could be forgiven for thinking a book entitled The Convict's Bounty Bride would be set in the colony, but you'd be wrong. If you read between the lines of the synopsis, you can see it's set in London, but somehow I still expected that it would end up back in Australia at some point. It never did, but my annoyance at that was quickly overwhelmed by my annoyance at just about everything else. 

Quick plot run-down before I get all rant-y: James Hunter has served his seven-year sentence in the colony of New South Wales, and returned to London to claim his due from the family for whom he took the fall. Lady Thea Willers' father was counting on James dying during his sentence, but now James is back and demanding Thea's hand in marriage. Except Thea doesn't want to marry, instead having entirely unrealistic expectations about what she is going to do with her life (more on that later).

The combination of the writing style and novella-length made the story feel very abrupt. There was little attempt made to orientate the reader or set up the plot and characters, and the results are jarring. The whole thing gallops along, and - to continue the terrible equine metaphor - the reader can barely keep her seat for being whacked by passing plot twists. Literally every development in this book came out of nowhere and made its appearance too soon. 

Because the characters are very one-dimensional, the reader is unable to anticipate their actions, which was probably a blessing in disguise. I probably would have given up altogether if I'd known the heroine would be so horrible. She was, by turns, immature, cruel and criminally stupid. There's a scene where, determined to ruin herself so as not to be forced into marriage, she basically assaults the stable boy in full view of the stable master. And then she's so surprised her father is going to whip the poor boy - who might also lose his position - that she faints. 

The other reason I was completely baffled by the characters' actions is that they just don't act in the way real people do. When there is a Big Tragedy, the affected characters all have very weird and unrealistic reactions. James is the only one who actually shows any sense, but even this doesn't last long, as he proceeds to take Thea's virginity at a totally inappropriate time.  

As much as I disliked the Thea, I also didn't appreciate the way James viewed her as payment for services rendered. He never really gives up seeing Thea as an object; when he realises he cares for her, the reasons that are given are basically her body and her suitability as a colonial wife. 

But the biggest single thing was the lack of regard for the realities of the Regency Era in which the book was set. I mean, I'm no Georgian scholar, but I'm pretty sure random ex-convicts can't get vouchers to Almack's. And then there's Thea. The book opens with her asking her father if she can have a position on the board of their bank, because she wants to have a career. Dowling justifies this by referencing the fact that the famous Regency character Lady Jersey was the primary shareholder in her grandfather's bank, but I'd argue that it's one thing for a married Countess and social arbiter to be involved in banking, and another for the young, unmarried daughter of an Earl. 

The idea of Thea having a 'career' is odd. It is surely anachronistic for a young woman to aspire to such a thing (especially in something like banking, instead of say, writing), and I'm also pretty sure the concept of a 'career' was not commonly used in the same sense as we use it today. One had a profession, or a vocation. Where 'career' was used, it was because one had chosen a calling with steps of advancement, such as the military, rather than just some girl deciding to dabble in banking. 

Supposedly, Thea's desire to be a career girl comes from Mary Wollstonecraft, whom her father included in her education. That, in of itself, is a stretch, but I was willing to let it slide. But Thea's refusal to marry was based on a erroneous belief that Wollstonecraft never married, and I couldn't believe that she would not have known this. Even though Wollstonecraft had been dead for roughly 20 years, she still lived on in the Ton's imagination because of the exploits of her daughter Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein), whose affair with the married Percy Bysshe Shelley was grist for the gossip mill for years. Basically, everyone thought that Mary Godwin was no better than she ought to be, given her scandalous and unnatural mother.

But, if the idea of a Wollstonecraft-loving heroine appeals, I'd recommend The Likelihood of Lucy by Jenny Holiday, where the heroine won't give you homicidal impulses. 

Review: Frosty Relations by Tara Quan

4.5 stars 

Frosty Relations was so, so short, and yet it was the most well-rounded and enjoyable paranormal novella I have read in a long time. 

On Christmas Eve, HR assistant and supernatural familiar Mina Mao is sent on a blind date-slash-one night stand, only to find that her date is no other than Jack Frost, her boss and oldest family friend. 

In Jack, Quan managed a jackass hero whose behaviour I bought, but whom I didn't hate (although that's not true of his appearance in the preceding novella Flirting with Fire, when he came across as a Grade-A dick). He's a warlock, and warlocks can't properly contain and channel their power without a familiar. Mina's dad had long been Jack's father's familiar, and she was expected to take over that role for Jack, only it never happened. Nevertheless, she's ended up working for the Frosts anyway, and Jack's behaviour is simply him trying to draw her attention. A wee bit more redemption on Jack's part wouldn't have gone astray, neither would have some indication of how he and Mina would function as a couple, but we all also know novellas take no prisoners. 

Both Mina and Jack were very witty, and their shared history, which informs much of their present interactions, was sweet and poignant. Given its length, the backstory is remarkably nuanced, as is the worldbuilding surrounding magic. There's also just the right balance of story and page-turning sexytimes, which is something I often find skewed in paranormal novellas. 

Quan has found a really great formula, and she uses it to effect here and in the other stories in the series (though this one is definitely my standout).  I look more to reading more from her. 

Review: Angelborn by L. Penelope

3.5 stars

First of all, please take a moment to appreciate the beauty of that cover. Secondly, thanks to that random tweeter who introduced me to L. Penelope. And lastly, let's have a moment of silence to mourn the fact that Angelborn was a novella and not a full-length novel. Once again the format has left me feeling like I accidentally got an appetizer instead of a main meal. I'm still hungry and that's a testament to Angelborn, really. It was SO GOOD, but it all got wrapped up too quickly and I never really got to know the hero as much as I'd like and the epilogue was too short and now I want to cry.

Angelborn was a fresh combination of New Adult and Paranormal. Half-angel, half-human Caleb found his soulmate once, but she died before he could ensure they would be reborn together, and he was banished to the nether realm of the Wasteland. Now, by some miracle, he's escaped back to the human plane and to his reincarnated soulmate, Genna.

Being able to see and interact with the dead has defined Maia's whole life. She's managed to keep a relatively low profile at college, but then Caleb starts hanging around her roommate; sometimes Genna can see him, and sometimes he's invisible to everyone but Maia. Caleb's running out of time, and Maia's running from everything, including the boy who is clearly not meant for her.

Frankly, I found another character, the angel Helix, to have much more personality than Caleb, but I understand that he is an inherently amorphous character, having had his experience as a human constructed around his soul mate and then being stuck in limbo for 70 years. I loved Maia though; she was witty and tough, and yet all too vulnerable.

The world Penelope built for Angelborn was distinct, and I respected that it did not rely on a Judeo-Christian framework. The idea that angels harvest human souls because they act as power sources for their realm of Euphoria was neat, and, like many aspects, I wished there had been more detail.

Partly because Penelope's worldbuilding was so absorbing, my list of unanswered questions is massive. How did Caleb's angel dam meet his father? Why did Maia have the ability to see the dead? How did Wren, who brought Caleb back to the human realm, know how to escape the Wasteland? I get that a lot of these things are meant to be ambiguous and that the character themselves don't understand, but there are so many interesting titbits I want to know! Hopefully, Penelope chooses to expand this world, but even if she doesn't, she's a wonderful storyteller and I look forward to reading some longer works of hers.

Review: Flower in the Desert by Lavender Parker

4 stars 

In Flower in the Desert, tracker Jason Rivers is called in by the Feds to find a woman 'lost' in the Grand Canyon. He's done it many times before, but this time he feels a connection to the headshot he's given. The woman staring back at him - Ruby Lucas - is vibrant and beautiful, and a mother of two small children besides.  Intellectually, Jason knows she's probably dead, but he refuses to accept it. And when he finds Ruby still alive and fighting, he's determined to keep her that way, to get her out and back to her stable life as a lawyer and mother. What he's certainly not going to do is get involved with someone in such a vulnerable position, especially when he's pretty sure that her soon-to-be ex-husband left her out in the desert to die. Nor is he going to be her rebound from the murderous jerk, which means there is really no place for him in Ruby's life at all.

Jase and Ruby were both really fleshed-out characters, whose interactions were cute, touching and humorous, but what makes Lavender Parker's characters extra-refreshing is that they are both People of Colour. Jase is part Native American, having learnt his tracking skills from his Hopi grandfather, and Ruby is African-American (don't let the Eurasian cover model fool you). And guess what, publishers? Last I checked, the sky hadn't fallen in and there were no reviews on Amazon or Goodreads complaining that the characters were unrelatable because of their ethnicities. In fact, race is pretty much a non-issue in Flower in the Desert.  It is matter-of-factly mentioned when Jason first sees Ruby's photo that it's of an African-American woman, and his Native American ancestry is only brought up once or twice when relevant.

Although it was advertised as a novella, Flower in the Desert has the feel of a full-length novel, thanks to Parker's simple yet effective plot and understated characterisation, which made it engaging and different read. The second half was not as gripping as the first, but that's fair enough - it's hard to replicate the intensity of struggling to survive in a hostile environment.

However, I did have some quibbles with the HEA, as it touches upon one of my pet romance novel peeves. It really bugs me when children are integral to a storyline or character's life, but the reader is left to deduce their fate because they are not mentioned in the HEA. For example, the last we heard of Ruby's son, he was unsurprisingly having major problems with the fact his mum nearly died and people were telling him his father was responsible. This got to me, and I had to imagine a sequel where Ruby and Jase chipped away at Brandon's sullen and resentful pre-teen exterior to find the boy they knew and loved in his heart of hearts. I'm pathetic, I know, and I'm sure everyone without closure problems will find Flower in the Desert to be a fulfilling read in all aspects!

Review: Agnes Moor's Wild Knight by Alyssa Cole

3.5 stars

EDIT: I originally rated this 3 stars, but I've thought on it and it's being upped to 3.5 stars.

I've come to the conclusion that novellas are an intricate balancing act. Within a very short space, the author must achieve characters and plot comparable to much longer pieces of work.  Even if they succeed at this, the reader will often complain that a novella was 'rushed' or 'ended too soon'.  Though it irks me when other reviewers judge a novella as though it were a full-length novel, I'm going to do the same for Agnes Moor's Wild Knight by Alyssa Cole.  

The premise of Agnes Moor's Wild Knight is a fascinating one with so much damn potential, and therein is the reason I'm judging it pretty harshly.  Agnes is an African woman who is one of the 'Exotics' at the court of Scottish monarch James IV and his queen, Margaret Tudor (sister to the infamous Henry VIII). She is a novelty for the hedonistic courtiers, and James stages a tournament where a kiss from 'the Black Lady' is the prize. A mysterious knight who has hidden his identity dominates the jousting, and seems to want more from Agnes than a simple kiss.  

Cole does an excellent job of bringing a footnote in history to life, embellishing the real Tournaments of the Black Lady that happened at James' court in 1507 and 1508. For those interested in learning more about this historical basis, an interesting perspective on historical whitewashing and POC in James IV's Scotland can be found at the Secret Histories Project, while the British National Archives lists many different references to 'Moors' in the Treasurer's accounts from James' reign.

Unfortunately, the wonderful historical set-up comes at the expense of the story itself. With most of the first half devoted to Agnes position as an exotic outsider and the way she feels about this, the second half is rushed. There was little to no development of the characters as people after the knight's identity was revealed and he began to court Agnes. Without this I found myself uninvested in the relationship between the two.

So, as much as I hate to be one of those reviewers, my essential problem with Agnes Moor's Wild Knight was that it was a novella.  I would have loved to see it be a bit longer, allowing for more forward movement in the character's relationship, and more development of the male lead in general. Nonetheless, I'm eternally grateful to Cole that she wrote about such an interesting historical event that has been sidelined our larger historical metanarratives, even if I found the result less than superb.

Review: Ember by Bettie Sharpe

5 stars 

"I know you think you've heard this story before, but you're wrong. Some would have it that this story begins with a virtuous virgin, a young woman of honesty and integrity sucker punched by cruel fortune and forced to sleep among the cinders while her moral inferiors lived the which was meant to be hers. Bullshit. This is no fairytale." 

That's the first paragraph of Ember by Bettie Sharpe, and it's certainly not the last time the heroine, Ember, breaks the fourth wall to warn the reader not to glorify her. For all it has the same first-person narration and fantastic setting as the fairytale retellings of my childhood, it's no starry-eyed Ella Enchanted. In fact, it's completely different from anything I've ever read before.

The main character, Ember, is a witch. Not a sanitised bubbles-and-rainbows type of witch (I'm looking at you, Glinda the Good), but a legitimate witch, the kind that makes blood sacrifices and gets her revenge on those who've wronged her.  Her love interest is equally unconventional. At birth, Prince Adrian Juste was blessed with the universal regard of his subjects; men respect him, women want him, and neither can deny him anything. As much as he craves a life where he's not surrounded by sycophants, he's not above using his curse to get what he wants. And he wants Ember, the one woman who isn't affected by his unnatural charm.  

Ember is unburdened by conventional morality, and it makes her an unpredictable and memorable character. As a snarky anti-heroine, she's eminently relatable. Sharpe treads the tightrope between amorality and likability well, keeping the reader onside through Ember's loyalty to her step-mother and -sisters. In this adaptation, Ember's step-family are whores, forced to escape their homeland and make a new life with Ember and her father.  Once again, Sharpe deals with this sensitively, and provides the reader with a raft of great secondary characters at the same time.  One of the things I really loved about this novel was that all of its characters were well-developed, independent of gendered stereotypes. There was no cookie-cutter hero, or same-same good-girl heroine; each and every character was unique and interesting. This in-depth characterisation was countered by a realtively simple plot, but this too was well-executed. 

Potenital readers should be aware that there are a few more swearwords thrown around than usual. I didn't feel like they were gratuitous - Ember's character wouldn't have been half as bad-ass without them, that's for sure - but we each have differing levels of tolerance for these things. Ditto the level of sexuality. While Ember doesn't have any more sex scenes than your average romance novel, Ember and those around her are all overtly sexual beings. Frankly, it would have been weird if this hadn't been the case, given her stepfamily's profession and the Prince's curse!

If I had to critique one thing about Ember, it would be that it was sometimes scarce on details. This occasionally drew me out of the narrative, as I'd have to flick back a page or two to remember where a particular conversation was taking place or some other such thing that had been mentioned, but not reinforced through detailed description. However, I don't feel like this came at the expense of the characterisation or plot, and it didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Ember was a great read and, at the moment, it's $0.79 on kindle. THAT'S SEVENTY-NINE CENTS, GUYS. You can't even buy a Ghost Drop for 79 cents these days. And unlike many cheap reads on Kindle, there's not a spelling or formatting mistake in sight, in addition to a good plot and excellent characterisation. It's the mythical needle in a haystack, the hen's tooth, the black cat in the coal cellar. I'm getting overly poetic now so I'll stop, but if it sounds like your thing, go get it!

Review: Opening Act by Suleikha Snyder

4 stars

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a book in possession of a Princess Bride reference within the first two sentences is going to be an excellent read.  And Suleikha Snyder's Opening Act starts strong with a band called 'The Brute Squad' .  For those of you who have forgotten the line that comes from, or (heaven forbid) haven't seen the movie, here's a little reminder:

But back to Opening Act.  Journalist Saroj Shah has been in love with her friend, Adam Harper - guitar player of the aforementioned band - for years.  Adam's been burying his head in the sand for just as long.  But when Adam finally wakes up and decides he wants her too, Saroj isn't sure he's serious.  After all:

He was big, doofy all-American Adam.  She was Saroj "where are the twenty gold wedding sarees" Shah...No one looked at the two of them and thought, Yes, they should be together.  That makes sense.  

Most of the novel's conflict is internal, stemming from the hero and heroine's beliefs about themselves and others. When I first finished the book, I felt vaguely disappointed with this.  I kept thinking there would be some big denouement, but there never was and then suddenly it was over.  When I sat down to write this review, it was beccause I needed to vent about reaching the end before I was mentally prepared for it.  But this is not Snyder's fault; it often happens when I read books on Kindle.  The little percentage in the bottom right corner misleads me because it often includes 10%-20% samples of other titles.  

Anyway, once I got over my trauma at being abruptly ripped out of bookland, I re-evaluted and realised that Opening Act was actually a really wonderful novella.  Too often authors try to squeeze too much into a novella, or they use the format to avoid characterisation all together.  Sometimes, they manage both simultaneously.  But Snyder developed her characters and their attitudes well (I especially like the sidekick, Johnny Ray).  To have introduced an external conflict late in the piece would have spoiled the burgeoning relationship between Adam and Saroj, and overshadow Saroj's self-realisation, in which she de-colonised her mind to the point where she went "damn straight, I'm good enough for Adam and stuff what anyone else thinks".  (That's not a direct quote, guys, I promise.  Snyder's writing is heaps better than that.  See actual quote above about doofiness and sarees.)  

So, overall, I really liked Opening Act, and I probably would have loved it if I'd had a better conception of its length and content starting out.  But I do feel a bit weird about making it one of my #WNDB reads (or having them at all).  I've been reading the author's blog and she's understandably disillusioned by white people hijacking conversations that should be for POC.  I would hate to think that, in trying to broaden my horizons, I am being like those men who appear in the comments section of anything ever written about feminism.  Not the 'what about teh menz' ones, but the ones that think that my manslpaining feminism and talking over other people's lived experience, they are actually helping the cause.  It usually ends up with something like this:

But then she also wrote another post entitled If You've Read One of Us, You Haven't Read Us All, where she says: 

“I’ve read one author of color, so I’m done now” is a real thing. We feel it when we put books out there, when we pitch to editors and agents...Can you imagine saying, “Well, I read Sarah MacLean, so I’m full up. I don’t need to read Tessa Dare or Lisa Kleypas or Nora Roberts!”?"

My first thought on reading this was 'what would I do if I had to choose Sarah MacLean or Tessa Dare?' and it made me feel a bit panicky.  Back on topic, maybe fetishising diversity and patting ourselves on the back for reading something different isn't the best way to go about things.  But, then, maybe you can only fight fire with fire.  So, after talking that through and resolving absolutely nothing, I leave you with these two tweets to think about: