Review: The Black Coast, by Mike Brooks

 

When the citizens of Black Keep see ships on the horizon, terror takes them, for they know who is coming: for generations, Black Keep has been raided by the fearsome clanspeople of Iwernia. Saddling their war dragons, the Naridans rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own homeland by the rise of a daemonic despot who prophesies the end of the world, they have come in search of a new home. Meanwhile the wider continent of Narida is lurching toward war. Black Keep is about to be caught in the cross-fire of the coming war for the world – if only its new mismatched society can survive.

"Meet the wave head-on, and trust in your ship". Mike Brooks' The Black Coast is the first book in a trilogy dealing with a larger threat to the world, but this first volume sets the stage for a grander conflict, focusing instead on the battle for integration between two people that have only ever been enemies but now need to find a common ground. The clash of cultures and customs feels believable, with one culture pretty rooted in mysoginy and the other teeming with homophobia; but perhaps they can take the best of each other and make something greater. Daimon and Saana, on opposite sides, work hard to make this alliance work.

This is a multi-POV epic that doesn't only deal with this conflict, but also jumps to other two realms to prepare the stage. Here we have a myopic warrior hailing from the same culture as the raiders, the princess of Narida dealing with a dinastic threat against her brother the God-King, and a street-rat stumbling onto a plot far greater than she could possibly imagine. All POVs are well-handled, but since their stories don't seem to come to a resolution, one certainly hurries to return to Daimon and Saana and their fight for the survival of their people.

The world-building is phenomenal. The author does some really interesting things with language, creating a culture where the six genders are represented by different diacritics on the pronouns, and another culture where speakers define themselves by their relationship to the person they're talking to (thus "this servant thinks", "this brother thinks", "this son thinks", and so forth). Also, the dragons are very much dinosaurs. They're called dragons, but the way they're described makes it pretty clear that they're our dinosaurs or something very similar.

One of the cultures is very queernormative: queer people can marry and adopt children. While the two main romances of this book are straight, there are a few queer POV characters and it certainly seems like there will be more of that in the other books of the series.

The Black Coast is a solid introduction to a fantastic epic story.

✨ 4 stars

Review: Tarnished are the Stars, by Rosie Thor

 

A secret beats inside Anna Thatcher's chest: an illegal clockwork heart. Anna works cog by cog -- donning the moniker Technician -- to supply black market medical technology to the sick and injured, against the Commissioner's tyrannical laws. Nathaniel Fremont, the Commissioner's son, has never had to fear the law. Determined to earn his father's respect, Nathaniel sets out to capture the Technician. But the more he learns about the outlaw, the more he questions whether his father's elusive affection is worth chasing at all. Their game of cat and mouse takes an abrupt turn when Eliza, a skilled assassin and spy, arrives. Her mission is to learn the Commissioner's secrets at any cost -- even if it means betraying her own heart.

"We do not have to use the same words or share the same definitions to understand one another". Rosie Thor's Tarnished are the Stars is a YA scifi book with big ideas and a big heart. Set in a distant future, it follows the descendants of the people of Earth as they settled in a space station and, later, on a terraformed planet after Earth's destruction. The majority of the population still lives on the station as the terraforming didn't have the desired effect, and people are dying of a heart disease. The main characters will have to try and find out the truth.

The plot is pretty straightforward and there are no big surprises; even the few big shocking moments were a bit predictable. The timing of certain events also felt a bit convenient. But this book sticks the landing with its heartfelt exploration of abuse and self-discovery. Two of the characters are brought up in a hellish manner, abused by their caretaker. While one understands that the other is being abused, they seem blind to their own abuse, until finally the veil is lifted from their eyes too. I found that very believable. Then we have the precious moment of self-discovery of another character, who's asexual and aromantic and finds the words to describe their nature thanks to another character. Both terms are explicitly used, and it was lovely to find them in the text.

There's also a little bit of wlw romance, with a quick enemies-to-lovers that despite its startling speed packs quite a punch when a moment of betrayal eventually comes. The relationships between various female characters - including the supporting cast - are certainly quite varied and interesting, ranging from an old love, to a friendship marred by loss, to a mistress/pupil relationship turned sour. The villains' motivations turned out to be a bit confusing, but the Commissioner got a backstory that was more complex than I thought.

The world-building was simple but clear enough, and the idea of clock-hearts sounded interesting enough that I would have liked it to be explored more.

Tarnished are the Stars is a good read for a questioning teen who likes the genre.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: A Restless Truth, by Freya Marske

 

The most interesting things in Maud Blyth's life have happened to her brother Robin, but she's ready to join any cause, especially if it involves magical secrets that may threaten the whole of the British Isles. Bound for New York on the R.M.S. Lyric, she's ready for an adventure.
What she actually finds is a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and a beautiful stranger in Violet Debenham, who is everything—a magician, an actress, a scandal—Maud has been trained to fear and has learned to desire. Surrounded by the open sea and a ship full of loathsome, aristocratic suspects, they must solve a murder and untangle a conspiracy that began generations before them.

"A person is a theatre". Freya Marske's A Restless Truth is the delightful sequel to 2021's exhilarating A Marvellous Light. The author makes the daring decision to change the beloved protagonists from the previous novel, and write about the sister of one of them. The plot follows some time after what happened in the first novel, as the mystery gradually unfolds and our heroes try to find out the truth.

Maud is different than her brother; she'd headstrong and very stubborn, but she's been sheltered all her life. She finds her match in the older performer Violet, whose walls are high and impenetrable. Their short game of seduction - the book takes place over the course of a week - is thrilling, as the more experienced Violet shows Maud that women can be with other women and Maud is allowed to explore her own attraction. Like the previous book, this one is definitely on the spicy side, with a few descriptive sex scenes that range from tender to intense. Maud and Violet grow to have a complex and nuanced relationship as they navigate their respective boundaries and their places in life.

The action unfolds in a single setting, the ship crossing the Atlantic. This allows for a sharper focus and a smidge of claustrophobia, which works well for the unfolding of a mystery, but also doesn't help relate to the characters as we have so little time to watch them interact. In contrast, the previous book excelled in showing the slow dismantling of the characters' walls together with the unfurling of the central mystery. The first book also had more worldbuilding, whereas here we don't discover much more of the bigger world, although we see some tantalising details of how other countries' magic works. English magicians use a complex series of hand gestures that remind me of Lev Grossman's The Magicians novels.

The supporting cast steals the scene sometimes. We meet again Lord Hawthorn, who had an unfortunate introduction in the first novel, and a delightful new character, Ross. The other passengers of the ship are a wild variety of characters, and it's fun to slip into the whudunit game together with the protagonists. There's daring action and investigations and misunderstandings aplenty, making this a solid sequel and a much-needed middle-book as it sets the stage for the final book of the trilogy, which will feature other two characters.

A Restless Truth is an incredibly fun read with a lavish prose that feels like an embrace.

✨ 4 stars

Review: The Impossible Contract, by K.A. Doore

 

Thana has a huge reputation to live up to as daughter of the Serpent, who rules over Ghadid’s secret clan of assassins. Opportunity to prove herself arrives when Thana accepts her first contract on Heru, a dangerous foreign diplomat with the ability to bind a person’s soul under his control. She may be in over her head, especially when Heru is targeted by a rival sorcerer who sends hordes of the undead to attack them both. When Heru flees, Thana has no choice than to pursue him across the sands to the Empire that intends to capture Ghadid inside its iron grip.
A stranger in a strange city, Thana’s only ally is Mo, a healer who may be too noble for her own good. Meanwhile, otherworldly and political dangers lurk around every corner, and even more sinister plans are uncovered which could lead to worldwide devastation. Can Thana rise to the challenge—even if it means facing off against an ancient evil?

"She was more than just the Serpent's daughter". K.A. Doore's The Impossible Contract is the second book in a trilogy of standalones set in a wondrous city standing high from the sands. Ghadid is the true protagonist, its setting rich and interesting, the book showing us even more of the city, but also what lies beyond the sands. Ghadid houses a family of elite assassins, and each novel follows a different one.

This second volume is focused on the journey of Thana, with her heavy heritage of being the daughter of a legend. The book explores her struggles well, but also her forging of her own path as she stumbles upon a plot that could destroy the world as she knows it. She also finds a delightful romance in the meanwhile, a sort of meet-cute with a kind healer, a woman with a big heart and clear morals. The love interest's profession sparks an interesting and compelling conflict with Thana, whose own profession after all, means she has to end lives.

The world-building is truly phenomenal, with an interesting water-based magic system and its more sinister possible use. This is a land were necromacy is real, while deemed blasphemous, and where souls can be swallowed or possessed; where zombies can be created. But things aren't black and white, and when we spend some time with Thana's mark, the en-marabi Heru, we may find him too compelling and wickedly funny to want him dead. We also meet again the previous book's protagonist, and it was definitely interesting to see how he was faring.

The pacing was a little weird towards the last third, but the book made up for it with its fast-paced, exhilarating conclusion.

The Impossible Contract is a fun adventure with a fascinating setting.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older

 

On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university—and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems.
Pleiti has dedicated her research and her career to aiding the larger effort towards a possible return to Earth. When Mossa unexpectedly arrives and requests Pleiti’s assistance in her latest investigation, the two of them embark on a twisting path in which the future of life on Earth is at stake—and, perhaps, their futures, together.

There is life on Jupiter. Malka Older's The Mimicking of Known Successes is a cozy holmesian mystery set on a colony on the giant planet. Humanity has depleted Earth's resources and moved to Jupiter to live on floating platforms; but there's who wants to fix Earth's ecosystem in order to return there. Our Watson, Pleiti, is a scholar at university, working on that very same problem, and when a university man disappears, the investigator Mossa rekindles her old flame with Pleiti and lets the woman help her in the investigation.

What follows is a delightful mystery novella, perfectly self-contained, filled with interesting details about the world-building. The colonies on Jupiter are vividly described, and the situation on Earth clearly explained. Alongside the investigation, Pleiti reflects on her old relationship with Mossa, and it was lovely to see their romantic tension reignite into a satisfying conclusion.

The Mimicking of Known Successes is a lovely mystery for readers wanting to branch into scifi.

✨ 3.5 stars