Fantasy Archives - Proud Book Reviews

March 9, 2023March 10, 2023

These Violent Nights – Rebecca Crunden

This book contains:

Extreme class segregation and persecution
“Ownership” of people similar in some ways to slavery
Descriptions of and the aftereffects of genocide
Drugging
Attempted rape
Attempted and completed murder.

Thorn is the primary character we follow for roughly two thirds of the book, however, we also spend about one third following Lucien.

Thorn is a human who’s suffered immense trauma from the Suriia and is hell bent on revenge for the murder of her family while also trying to do her best to protect her “little sister” Thistle. She’s a tough nugget, strong willed, suspicious of all and entirely dedicated to her cause.

Lucien is a Suriia of unknown origins (until the last third of the book) who’s suffered immensely at the hands of humans. Not initially from the same Earth as Thorn is, he’s suffered similar trauma but responds in quite a different way. For him, he’s all about creating a safe space for his family to live out their days without drawing more attention to themselves than they need to.

Thorn and Lucien are battling their own demons while trying to find a better life for themselves and their loved ones. We follow Thorn until she meets Lucien and then go back a bit to get a bit of Lucien’s history until he meets Thorn. And then everything changes, and we learn exactly how intricate everything is, and follow them as they do their best to fix it.

I’ve read and reviewed the entire of The Outlands Pentalogy, and really enjoyed Rebecca’s writing. So when I discovered she’d entered this book into the 2022 Book Bloggers Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA), I thought I knew what I was getting into. But boy was I wrong!

Although I did have mixed feelings about this as I read it. I loved the first third, then was super confused for the entire of the second third and felt betrayed and so conflicted. But then my trust was restored in the final third. If you read this, please give the second third a chance! It will make sense and work out for the best by the end of it!

I promise!

By the very end I was so happy, and while I’d kinda like to know what happens further in the future for all of them, I’m not disappointed in how it ended.

February 27, 2023February 27, 2023

City of Strife – Claudie Arseneault

This book contains:

Strong racism and class system themes, depictions and impacts.

Characters

We follow quite a few characters, almost in a Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time level of complexity and interweaving of characters. There seem to be three main groups of characters broken up into the Lower City, the Dathirii and the Myrian’s.

Arathiel, Larryn, Hasryan and Cal are all from the Lower City, all coming from different backgrounds but united in the fact that they’re otherwise excluded from society.

Diel, Jaeger, Branwen and Camilla are part of the Dathirii family who hold a position of power in the Upper City. While in a position of power, they’re different to the other families in that Diel (as the head of the family) can’t stand for injustice and abuse and makes a stand against it, and his family support him.

Nevian, Varden and Master Avenazar form the main Myrian characters, and they almost couldn’t be more different. From the scared and scarred apprentice, the racially hated-should-be-a-slave Head Priest and the sadist crazy man with a ridiculous amount of power.

Arathiel arrives back in Isandor after more than a century away from home, and while he’s changed significantly, much of the city hasn’t. As he finds his place, we meet more and more characters and discover the intricacies of the Isandor society and the individuals who live within it.

As they form bonds and new alliances, the webs weave and strands break as the story develops.

I loved the Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones vibes I was getting almost right from the beginning. While I’m sure following so many characters could be hard for some readers, I love it, especially when you have a world as complex as this.

All the way throughout, as the story unfolds, I found myself being drawn more and more into it and becoming more and more invested in the characters. By the end, I couldn’t wait to get started on the next book. While it’s out, I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, but I will DEFINITELY want to come back to this series to keep reading!

There’re 4 books in the series out now, and this is only the first book.

I have my own theories about where this is going to go, but I’ll have to get to the rest of the series to find out!

February 20, 2023February 20, 2023

Zealot – C. Vonzale Lewis

This book contains:

Depictions and descriptions of a cult and it’s impacts to the members and their families
Description of paedophilia
Description and depiction of both protective and ritualistic murder
Emotional and psychological control.

We continue to follow Nicole, picking up almost immediately after Lineage finishes. While she’s gained more confidence, has a stronger sense of herself and her beliefs; there are still huge gaps missing for her that she’s trying to puzzle out.

Nicole formally joins the group hired to find the killers of a young woman and joins the hunt to find all Blood Magick users. As they search, Nicole discovers more and more about her past and her place in the world today while more and more Gods seem to congregate on Tulare Island.

In their search for answers, they discover more than they ever thought possible.

While I really enjoyed this, I didn’t think it was as captivating as Lineage. The main reason for this stems more from the pacing than anything else I think.

It felt like the main story was written, then they realised that some context was missing and found places to shove it in at random points. The end result being that some parts felt like a normally paced book, and others felt like we were trying to shove 3 chapters worth of content into the space of like 3 pages.

It felt weird and made it hard to keep up with each of the details. And for reference, I barely had an issue keeping up with everything that happened in Game of Thrones throughout all the currently published books. I think if the book was a little longer, maybe not spaced over a couple of days, this could have been much better.

I still enjoyed it though!

The action, following along as each piece of info is delivered and figuring out how it all pieces together. That was definitely interesting. I just think I would’ve preferred a little bit more time taken in certain parts to help it flow easier, be easier to remember and also feel more realistic.

December 19, 2022December 10, 2022

Lineage – C. Vonzale Lewis

This book contains:

References to, discussions of and descriptions of substance abuse
Casual sex with numerous people
Attempted murder and the aftermath of murder described
Suggestions of cannibalism.

Nicole is the centre of our story and boy is she wild!

Nicole is unapologetically herself in the bluntest, in your face, truthful and persistent way. She has her own thoughts, feelings and opinions and she makes absolutely no excuses for them let alone tries to hide it.

Nicole is not the kind of girl who has a clear career pathway, instead, she jumps from job to job struggling to get by without having to borrow money from her parents. But she can’t let this last opportunity slip through her fingers because it’s the absolute last job she can go to without having to move back into her parents’ place.

But Tribec Insurance has weird vibes right from the get-go and weird things keep happening to her both in and outside of work.

I reached out to Carla to get a copy of this after reading the excerpt in the BBNYA competition because I was just absolutely shocked that it didn’t make it through to the final round. While I can understand how it lost some marks in the scoring (there are some grammatical and spelling errors, but not enough to truly bother me, especially when the story grabs me so utterly) I still can’t believe it didn’t make it through.

By the time I reached the end I was so enthralled I had to skip straight to buying the next book in the series because I needed more. The rollercoaster, the questions left unanswered and the hints of there being SO MUCH MORE to what was going on than what we knew was too much for me. I needed the next one straight away.

December 15, 2022December 7, 2022

Lineage – C. Vonzale Lewis

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the 50 books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 10 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Blurb

Smart-mouthed Nicole Fontane has a way of getting herself into trouble.

She’s been fired from every job she’s had but still refuses to work in her father’s apothecary shop because of his practice of Earth Magick.

On Tulare Island where Nicole grew up, Magick has always been a way of life—one she’s determined to avoid at all costs. With less than two hundred dollars in the bank and rent due, Nicole is forced to take a job at Tribec Insurance as a last resort. Little does she realize, the moment she sets foot inside the building, she becomes a pawn.

Tribec’s proprietors, the Stewart family, are curiously preoccupied with the Naqada, the mysterious pre-dynastic Egyptian society. It seems creepy but harmless at first, until the eerie atmosphere, disappearing Magick wards, and the smell of blood inside Tribec bring Nicole to a startling conclusion. The Stewarts are practicing Blood Magick—the deadliest of the Five Principles.

By the time Nicole uncovers the truth, people near and dear to her are going missing, and all signs point to the Stewarts and an archaic blood ritual to an Old One. To prevent catastrophe, Nicole must confront a hidden past and unlock the Magick buried within. But can she set aside her deep-rooted fears to work with a team of vigilante Mages? Or will the clock run out on Nicole and those she loves?

Author Bio

My name is Carla Vonzale Lewis and I like my martinis shaken… never stirred.

Carla was born in Georgia, but please don’t mistake her for a Georgia peach. She’s more like a prickly pear. Speaking of being born, someone asked her recently if she remembered her birth. And she had to say, “Yes, I do remember that handsy doctor pulling me out into the cold. Right Bastard!!!”

Despite being born in the South, she grew up in California. Every once in a great while she gets to experience all four seasons. But mostly, it’s just heat.

When not writing, Carla enjoys reading, binge watching shows on Netflix, and trying to convince her husband that getting a dog is a wonderful idea.

And one day, she will discover how many licks it actually takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

December 12, 2022December 10, 2022

Dark Apprentice – Val Neil

This book contains:

Attempted and completed murder
Assault and sexual assault
Poisoning (not trying to kill).

Nikolai and Medea are the main characters, with almost all of the story told from Nikolai’s point of view.

Nikolai is a powerful wizard who’s determined to be the biggest, strongest dark wizard in history. Unfortunately for him, he’s apprenticed to a wizard who won’t teach him and who’s determined to have him learn only things that can help people or pretend to hurt people.

Medea is an autistic (don’t worry, this is explained in the author’s notes at the end so it wasn’t over the top and stupid in the book) mage who’s practically immortal and determined to not train anymore dark wizards. Given her history with apprentices, she doesn’t want to have to kill any more of them.

Nikolai finds out about Medea by accident, but as soon as he does, he’s intent on figuring out how to convince her to take him on as an apprentice. From there, we follow along as Nikolai does his best effort at a “normal” apprentice wanting to learn to try and convince Medea to take him on.

When he finally does convince her, we follow along to Medea’s home and the beginnings of his training to become the strongest wizard he can be.

As I read this, I knew there was something about Medea that wasn’t “normal”, it wasn’t until I got to the authors note at the end that I understood why. What I appreciated and I think many people will, is that Medea is autistic, and rather than describe her as the over the top, media exaggerated type of autistic, Val has gone to the effort to describe her as authentically as possible.

Autism has a spectrum with many ways of presenting in each individual. Where most depictions of autism is very far at one end and exaggerated, Medea clearly sits somewhere in the middle where you can tell that there’s something different to “normal”, but you can’t necessarily quite put your finger on what it is.

In terms of the rest of the story, it was your typical kind of fantasy with twists and turns, magic and some drama. The twist at the end is probably something I should have guessed (I certainly feel like I should have guessed it), but I didn’t so I was shocked when it was revealed. And then the big outburst that happened flipped a switch and it was amazing to see it all come together so well and made me instantly wonder “what happens next?”

Since the second book (Dark Mind) wasn’t out yet when I finished this, I couldn’t jump straight in but I really should ask for a copy because I’m stoked to keep reading!

December 8, 2022December 7, 2022

Fear and Fury – Jamie Jackson

Blurb

Meet Megaera, Meg for short. She’s like Deadpool, except for funner.

For a girl with the power of fear the recruitment attempts from both sides are never-ending. A self-described not-a-hero, villain-leaning humanoid, Meg just wants to live her life, work her dead-end job and have everyone else (especially the heroes) leave her alone. But when a bigger fish who can turn superpowers back on their users enters the picture and threatens the person Meg loves the most (herself), she must turn to the last group of people she would admit she needs help from.

Forced to team up with the heroes she despises (but won’t murder, because let’s face it, orange is not the new black), Meg will have to face the choices from her past that she won’t get therapy for. Self-centered, snarky, sarcastic and a little bit dramatic, she’s going to have to save the world, even if that wasn’t her intention. And try not to get shot in the process. Because that shit hurts.

Author Bio

Jamie lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, three feral children and two badly behaved dogs.

She has BAs in English and Theatre, her favorite part of which was working backstage on traveling Broadway productions.

You can find her on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram under @VillainLeaning or follow her Facebook page, Adventures of a Villain-Leaning Humanoid.

October 10, 2022July 30, 2022

A Time of Prophecy – Rebecca Crunden

This book contains:

Civil war
War crimes
Human experimentation (without consent)
Genocide
Murder.

Following Kitty, Nate and Thom throughout the book we’re constantly changing perspectives depending on what’s happening. All three are fighting fit and ready to accomplish anything they set their minds to.

Kickstarting the overall storyline for this book is Kitty being brought back into the Kingdom to stand trial for releasing a strain of the Plague that had no antidote and resulted in millions of people dying. When Kitty goes with them to be interviewed on her part in this happening, she learns the current state of the Kingdom and realises that she can’t continue with her life in the Outlands knowing what’s happening within the Kingdom.

I’m going to come right out with my main gripe about this book.

It needed to be longer.

There, I said it!

Rebecca has created such an intricate, complex world that the events that play out in this book can’t be covered in the same depth as the previous books in the same number of pages. It just doesn’t work.

Kinda like the final Harry Potter book was split into two movies coz they knew they couldn’t do it justice in one movie. This book needed more time than a single book can provide AND give us the same level of detail and quality I’ve come to expect from this series.

So in a way this gripe is also a compliment (because Rebecca has created such a rich world), so you should definitely take that as the positive it is!

I just really wish Rebecca had decided to write a longer final book since we couldn’t make it 6 books given the name of the series (The Outlands Pentalogy). While it’d take longer to read, I definitely think it would’ve been worth it!

October 3, 2022July 30, 2022

A Dance of Lies – Rebecca Crunden

This book contains:

Revenge (including psychological torture, physical torture, bloodshed and murder/killing).

Unlike the first three books, this book mostly follows Kitty, but also has moments of following Thom or Nate allowing us to gain perspectives from all three of them during their time in the Outlands.

Kitty, Nate and Thom are building a life for themselves in the Outlands despite Quen constantly attacking them and the others from the Kingdom wanting to return to fight for freedom. As tensions reach breaking point, Riddle and Kitty develop a special bond that has Nate questioning the future of his relationship with Kitty.

Coming straight off the back of A Promise of Return, the pace and drama of this just wasn’t the same. It’s not that it was bad, it’s just that I wasn’t constantly wishing I could stop what I was doing and keep reading.

There were certainly stretches of the book where I felt that way. But to set up for those parts, others needed to be a bit slower, more relationship focused and less adrenaline pumping.

The main reason for scoring this one a little lower was that we’ve gone from following just one character then whole way through, to occasionally swapping perspectives. Being book 4 and the first time this is happening it thew me off a little which also threw me out of my reading zone.

If you go in expecting to suddenly change perspectives a couple times you may not experience that “thrown” feeling quite so much. But I wasn’t expecting it, so it did throw me.

Otherwise, the culmination of all the build up at the end surprised me, drew me in but also left me wondering what was left to cover in the fifth and last book of the series.