Scattered Seasons (The Season Avatars Book 2) by Sandra Ulbrich Almazan
Author Almazan tries to combine Regency-style romance with fantasy in Scattered Seasons, similar to Patricia Wrede in her Mairelon the Magician but doesn’t quite work. Gwen is a noblewoman, betrothed to neighbor William (whose mother fits all the mother-in-law stereotypes) and also the Avatar of Spring in waiting. She is infected by a cursed pottery shard that renders her unable to remember how to use her healing magic.
The characters are not too bad but the plot is far thinner than it needs to be. Their ancient enemy is attacking the four season avatars in hopes of disabling their sponsoring “gods”. In the bulk of the novel Gwen chases from one end of the country to the other to find her other three co-avatars in waiting, all while dodging her disapproving fiance and family; the actual action is at the end.
I ended up skimming the book, curious whether anyone was ever going to do something or we were just running around. (I have had quite enough novels that waste hundreds of pages tromping from place to place.) Also there was no map and the book had only hints of the enmity and world building.
The Afterword mentioned that book 1 in the series used the same characters as young people.
2-3 Stars
Death by Advertising by J. R. Kruz, Interesting Short Story that Just…Ends
Death by Advertising could have been, should have been good. Tess’s longtime friend and business partner Judy is supposedly dead. She announced it with a beautiful ad for the funeral home, an ad that had the funeral attendees sign up for their final packages in droves. Judy was a marketing genius who worked with artificial intelligence to design unbelievably effective ads – as witness her funeral home copy.
Supposedly Judy has been cremated and her ashes scattered, but the doctor who signed the death certificate died the year before and the whole thing makes no sense. Unless, of course, Judy is alive. Or the AI cooked the whole thing up.
I was drawn in and curious what was going on. Instead of getting more information, author J. R. Kruz simply ends the book. Instead of an interesting novella we have a truncated short story that left me feeling gypped.
2 Stars because it has so much promise, 1 Star for the ending.
One Way Ticket by Alia Hess, Freebie Novella for the Travelers Series
One Way Ticket isn’t bad but it isn’t very good. Protagonist Sasha is a ne’er-do-well who just lost the grandmother that he loved and who kept him more or less straightened out. Sasha finds an website that claims to be able offer a semi-effective vaccine against North American Hemorrhagic Fever, the disease that killed 99% of the people in North America and is still deadly years later.
Sasha decides to go, even though he must leave the cat he loves, everything and everyone he knows, and despite knowing the vaccine has some unpredictable bad side effects or partial effectiveness. It was interesting to watch a young man decide to take a huge leap into the unknown, away from the heavy government surveillance, drinking, scummy friends.
I might try reading one of the longer books in the Traveler Series as One Way Ticket has promise. Author Alia Hess gives this away to entice readers to her longer novels and mentions the second book, Chromeheart, reintroduces Sasha.
3 Stars
Showdown (Wyrd West Chronicles Book 1) by Diane Morrison, “Weird West” Fantasy/Western/Cattlepunk Novelette
The author tries something new, combining post apocalyptic story with westerns with fantasy, and it’s interesting enough to read but not enough that I want to read any more.
Kudos to the author for making her setting feel real, a cross between the OK Corral and hell spawn attacks in a barren, dry Canada sometime after a Cataclysm destroyed our civilization and unleashed magic and evil galore. She embeds her otherwise stock characters (think Luke Skywalker as the sherrif out to stop the evil gunman) with some feeling, making them a notch above cardboard.
I just don’t like the story or premise or characters and won’t read any more in what is now a series of six novellas. Writing is decent,using flashbacks to show us the young boy and setting.
2 Stars
Spinning Time Preview by D. F. Jones Teenagers, Lust, Jealousy, Didn’t Get to the Time Travel Part
I received a preview of Spinning Time via Instafreebies and won’t be buying the full novel. It is billed as time travel but the preview showed a bunch of teenagers drinking and partying. Rich Julia decides to date the local weirdo Phillip and her former boyfriend decides he is jealous and picks a fight.
The Amazon blurb for the full novel mentions Julia gets tossed 70 years into the future and must find a way back to Phillip. Sorry, no.
1 Star
Winter Wren by Miranda Honfleur, Blade and Rose Short Story
Winter Wren is a short story designed to introduce us to Miranda Honfleur’s Blade and Rose series. The story was pretty good although the ending and some of the character interactions were unappetizing. I may buy the full novel, Blade and Rose, although it sounds a little melodramatic in the Amazon blurb: “A kingdom in turmoil or the love of her life. Which one will she save?”
Edgehill (The Kingdom of Shadows Book 1) by Thomas Rouxville.
The cover on Edgehill is great. The novel is really, really bad. Our heroine Athena learns she is a Guardian of the Kingdom. The kingdom is threatened by shadow that its king has invited in and all the men are called to the army.
Sadly, we never learn what a Guardian is. Is Athena supposed to have magic? Wisdom and diplomacy beyond her years? What does a Guardian do? 74 Pages and we never ever get to this rather crucial point.
Of course the ladies left in town have no idea whatsoever how to act with their husbands gone; they are unable to run a farm or a mill or bakery or shop. Not to worry, Athena will show them! Not at all clear how ladies who stood beside their husbands for years would not have learned pretty much everything the man did, nor how an 18 year old girl will be able to teach anything.
I finished this only because I was sure we’d finally learn just what is going on with the Guardian business, but nope, no answers here. Luckily it was a freebie.
1 Star
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