Happy New Year, Blake Lively Sues CoStar for Sexual Harassment, To Kill a Shadow and To Shatter the Night by Katherine Quinn, Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal, Miss Amelia's List by Mercedes Lackey, and Jilted in January by Cara Maxwell

Happy New Year, my fellow readers! I hope that this year brings you a plethora of wonderful books and movie/TV adaptations of books to keep your mind and heart alive with creative sparks! I've got only one tidbit and five books to review on this, the last day of 2024, so lets get to it!

I watched It Ends With Us just recently on Netflix, and while I thought it was well done, I felt there was something off about the production right from the get-go. Now I know why, and I'm sickened that Lively's co-star treated her so cruely during the production of this film about a woman who ends her abusive relationship after the birth of her daughter.  Baldoni ought to be ashamed of himself.

The Bloom is Off

Following a press tour that managed to be more fraught than the rollout of Don’t Worry Darling, Blake Lively is suing her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment. Lively also alleges—with the help of damning private messages—that Baldoni launched a smear campaign intended to tank her career. This is a fantastic piece of reporting by the New York Times ‘s Megan Twohey, Mike McEntire, and Julie Tate, and it’s well worth your time, both for the specifics of this case and the generally chilling details about what a Hollywood take-down effort looks like in the social media era. It Ends With Us author Colleen Hoover, who tends to avoid the spotlight, spoke out this weekend in support of Lively, encouraging her to “Never change. Never wilt.” (That’s a reference to Lively’s character, Lily Bloom, who owns a floral shop.) If you missed it in theaters, It Ends With Us is streaming on Netflix now.

To Kill A Shadow and To Shatter the Night by Katherine Quinn are both romantasy/dark/horror adventure novels that, while beautifully produced with lovely cover art and dark blue-black end pages,falls prey to every trope and cliche of fantasy romances, including the poor-but-gorgeous petite heroine who is child-like but sexually attractive, yet trained from childhood to be a lethal assassin/warrior. She also, inevitably, has a very sad background story in which her parents were terrible people and abandoned her to die. Of course, the same thing happened (what a coincidence!) to the male protagonist, with whom she falls deeply in love almost instantly, and with whom she shares her scars, both external and internal. This, of course, bonds them even deeper, and somehow makes them lust after one another even more (he "gets" me! she "understands my pain"!). Ugh. Here's the blurbs: 

 

To Kill a Shadow: Jude Maddox knows nothing of love or even light. He knows only his grim duty as the Hand of Death, to lead the Knights of the Eternal Star into a land filled with nightmares and certain demise. It’s only when he sees her―a young woman with wild, amber eyes who’s as fierce, defiant, and swift as the shadow beasts themselves―that he feels the warmth of life in his blood…

The other Knights may fear their lethal commander, with his hard, merciless demeanor. Outcast Kiara Frey sees only a leader, a man who knows how to survive. Someone like her. But wanting him is as treacherous as the shadows themselves…and just as seductive.

With a kingdom on the verge of collapse, the Knights must now venture into the darkest heart of the land and uncover the secrets of the misted shadows, where evil will prey upon their minds and feast on their flesh.

It will betray their senses.
It will surpass their nightmares.
Most of them will die.

But they have no other choice. Because the only way to fight the darkness…is to become it.

To Shatter the Night: Welcome back into the Mist…in the astonishing sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller To Kill a Shadow…

Some fear the darkness. It’s the place where horror hides, concealing its rank, sharp teeth and insatiable hunger. But there is no darkness more feared than that of the mist that’s overtaken the kingdom...and its brave―and ultimately doomed― soldiers.

Except for Kiara Frey.
She has nothing to fear from the night. Not anymore.

Driven by the fury of her splintered heart, Kiara knows that the answers―and the only possible way to a future with Jude Maddox―begin with the realm’s most notorious thief, the Fox. Together, they hunt down the path to breaking Asidia’s dark curse, but in the shadows, something more horrifying than the mist lies in wait. Watching. Willing Kiara to find the game pieces set in place long ago.

As Jude and Kiara are lured to a sacred temple―a shrine that is the home to both exquisite dreams and chilling nightmares―Kiara’s newfound powers flourish but her shadows threaten to consume her.

Because here in these cursed lands, it’s not the darkness that destroys the soul...it’s love.
 

While the prose was lush and often too descriptive for my taste (I didn't need to read about how people die gruesome deaths), the plots of both these novels was straight as a string and moved at a clip, keeping the reader going until the easily predicted ending. The Gods and Goddesses of this world seem as flawed and petty as the people inhabiting it, and while that makes them seem more accessible, it also makes them seem inordinately cruel for using humans as game pieces on a cosmic chessboard. I'd give the first book a B, and the second a B-, and recommend them to those who enjoy "spicy" horror adventure novels.

 

Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal is a paranormal historic fantasy novel that was beautifully written and plotted to perfection. Here's the blurb: Ghost Talkers is a brilliant historical fantasy novel from acclaimed author Mary Robinette Kowal featuring the mysterious spirit corps and their heroic work in World War I.

Ginger Stuyvesant, an American heiress living in London during World War I, is engaged to Captain Benjamin Harford, an intelligence officer. Ginger is a medium for the Spirit Corps, a special Spiritualist force.

Each soldier heading for the front is conditioned to report to the mediums of the Spirit Corps when they die so the Corps can pass instant information about troop movements to military intelligence.

Ginger and her fellow mediums contribute a great deal to the war efforts, so long as they pass the information through appropriate channels. While Ben is away at the front, Ginger discovers the presence of a traitor. Without the presence of her fiancé to validate her findings, the top brass thinks she's just imagining things. Even worse, it is clear that the Spirit Corps is now being directly targeted by the German war effort. Left to her own devices, Ginger has to find out how the Germans are targeting the Spirit Corps and stop them. This is a difficult and dangerous task for a woman of that era, but this time both the spirit and the flesh are willing.

 

 The first line of this book was written by the wonderful John Scalzi, which is a delightful detail, but the rest of the novel is just as well written, with an action-packed and unrelenting plot that will keep readers turning pages just as rapidly as I was. The chapters are laden with the emotional turmoil of the time of the Great War, and the spiritualist movement that was on the rise at the time of the first decade of the 20th century. In fact, this book was so well researched and written that I had a hard time believing that there wasn't actually a group of mediums set to talk to dead soldiers about troop movements and positions. Ginger and Ben's love story is poignant without being too soupy or sentimental, and the ending was heartbreakingly beautiful. I'd give this stellar novel an A, and recommend it to anyone interested in the first world war and spiritualism.

 

Miss Amelia's List by Mercedes Lackey is her 17th Elemental Master's novel, which are all wonderfully addictive fantasy/romance/adventure books (I've read them all). Here's the blurb:

The seventeenth novel in the magical alternate history Elemental Masters series follows Amelia Stonehold and Serena Meleva as they navigate property acquisition, marriage proposals, and other ancient horrors in Regency England, but with the help of elemental magic

The year is 1815, and an American, Miss Amelia Stonehold, has arrived in the Devon town of Axminster, accompanied by her "cousin" Serena Meleva. She’s brought with her a list to tick off: find a property, investigate the neighbors, bargain for and purchase the property, staff the property and...possibly...find a husband. But Amelia soon finds herself contending with some decidedly off-list trouble, including the Honorable Captain Harold Roughtower, whose eyes are fixed on her fortune. Little does Amelia know that his plans for her wealth extend far beyond refurbishing his own crumbing estate — they include the hidden Roman temple of Glykon, where something very old, very angry, and very dangerous still lurks.

But Roughtower isn’t prepared to reckon with the fact that neither Amelia nor Serena are pushovers. And he certainly isn’t ready for the revelation that he has an Earth Master and a Fire Mage on his hands — or that one of them is a shapeshifter.

 

One thing that I love about Lackey's EM series is that her female protagonists are strong and bright enough to fend for themselves, even in an environment where its frowned upon for women to be anything but fragile and demur. Her heroines also usually have some type of physical or mental disability that doesn't hold them back from saving the day. Here both young women, Amelia and Serena face racism, misogyny and pathologically evil men bent on stealing their powers and fortunes. Lackey's prose is divine, and her plots are sturdy and straightforward, and never flag or slow for info-dumping. I couldn't put the book down, and look forward to book 18 in the series, hopefully coming soon. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who has read any of her other EM novels.

 

Jilted in January by Cara Maxwell was a surprising find on "stuff your e-reader with free books day" on December 26th.  While most of the books were by authors I've never heard of, and many looked to be self-published, this novel was well-edited and written with style. This subtitled "Rake Review" tackles racism and sexism while also providing a fairly spicy love story. Here's the blurb: No. Absolutely not. Persephone Cuthbert would rather walk over hot coals than say one word to the man who broke her heart—let alone help him.

The author of The Rake Review may have declared him the most marriageable man in London, but Persephone knows the truth. Edward Johns is the cold-hearted bastard who broke her heart. She will not allow him to play her or the unsuspecting ladies of London false.

Except Persephone has made helping people her life’s work. How can she refuse him when a man’s life is in danger?

Ten years ago, Edward Johns jilted the love of his life for the sake of familial duty. He’s hardened his heart to steel, and he has no desire to marry—he intends to leave all of that to his younger brother, Alfred. Until said wastrel disappears without a trace. 

 

Few romantic fantasy novels that I've read have a male protagonist who is half Chinese (or Asian of any kind), and fewer have a smart as a whip female protagonist who has a history with said gentleman and who doesn't want to allow him back into her heart or to toy with some other young woman's heart. Though she sometimes veers a bit close to "so smitten she can't think" territory, Persephone figures Edward out and the two manage to solve the "mystery" of his stupid wastrel brother's kidnapping, which wasn't a real kidnapping at all. I'd give this saucy and bright novel a B+, and recommend it to anyone looking for a smart romantic fantasy that's diverse and full of amusing dialog.