The Rose Throne by Mette Ivie Harrison - Book Review

Ailsbet loves nothing more than music; tall and red-haired, she's impatient with the artifice and ceremony of her father's court. Marissa adores the world of her island home and feels she has much to offer when she finally inherits the throne from her wise, good-tempered father. The trouble is that neither princess has the power--or the magic--to rule alone, and if the kingdoms can be united, which princess will end up ruling the joint land? For both, the only goal would seem to be a strategic marriage to a man who can bring his own brand of power to the throne. But will either girl be able to marry for love? And can either of these two princesses, rivals though they have never met, afford to let the other live?

. . . .

Mette Ivie Harrison is a less-known author.  I get pangs of guilt tearing into indie books, so I’m going to try to soften my ranting here, but make no mistake; I would not recommend this book.

I get what Harrison was going for here.  Romance in a Victorian-esque setting, with gender-specific magic involved.  Issa and Ailsbet are both princesses, both honor-bound to marry not for love, but for political advantage.  The world of Rurik and Weirland is largely influenced by its magic; the masculine tewyr and the feminine neweyr.  I won’t really get into the specifics of the magic system because it’s all very dull stuff, but basically in Rurik, it’s punishable by death for a man to have newery or for a woman to have teweyr.

So, yeah, what this novel aims for is a story of forbidden love and forbidden magic, set in a fantastical setting, with one Big Bad Evil King villain.  But what it aims for and what it delivers are two very different things.

The Rose Throne is…boring. There, I said it.  Even before the really annoying aspects come into play, the emotionless prose makes for a very dull read.  I have no idea who any of the characters are on a deep level, just shallow things that anyone with a pen can write about.  But the most annoying thing about this book is King Haikor of Rurik.  This villain has been given no depth, no dimension.  He is just a plot device bad guy, insulting half of his kingdom and poisoning the other half.  To say it’s excessive would be an understatement.

The romance is…not good.  The lack of feeling in the writing style makes it impossible to care about, and there was little to no build-up before the two characters were “in love”.  Kellin, the main romantic interest, is King Haikor’s polar opposite, overdone in his righteousness and willingness to sacrifice – though not quite­ as plot-device –y as the king.

The writing was decent, I’ll give it that.  Grammatically correct, good sentence structure, no run-on sentences or painfully overused words.  But the same can be said about Webster’s dictionary, and I’m pretty sure you’d find more enjoyment in those pages than in the pages of The Rose Throne.

I feel like the potential for a very good book was there, but The Rose Throne didn’t deliver on any of it.  If I didn’t have an OCD need to finish books, I doubt I’d have made it past page 50.  I kept hoping it would get better, but alas, it didn’t.

The Rose Throne - 2 out of 5 stars

YA Epidemics #4 - Immortal Hottie Falls For High School Girl

John Green said it best in his vlogbrothers review of Twilight; “I want to explain why it’s wrong for adults to have relationships with teenagers; It’s not because we look old.  It’s because we are old.” (click here for this must-see video) 

And yet, one of the hottest YA trends out right now is one or another type of immortal being getting the feeling in the pants for high school girls. (My nerdfighter is showing.  Can you see it?)  It's gross and disgusting for a twenty-five year old to fall for a sixteen year old, but a ninety year old can as long as his face says teenager?  Oooo-kaaaay....

Don't get me wrong, I've fallen victim to this double-standard plenty of times - Cole in Everneath, Stanton in Daughters Of The Moon, um...uh...well actually that's about all I can think of, but I'm sure there are other examples.  But come on, just because I've found myself enjoying this trend occasionally doesn't mean I'm not going to poke fun at it.  My readers know me better than that by now.  I know I'm being a hypocrite, but every now and then, I'll step back from the ledge of book-hottie -fueled hormones and acknowledge the pedophilia aspect of the relationship.

Isn't it kind of twisted?  Really, now.  Great-great-grandpa gets a boner for the head cheerleader. (Yeah, thinking about it in those terms isn't as sexy anymore, is it?  You're welcome.)  Head cheerleader is confused by the wrinkle-less face and Channing Tatum abs and brings Geezer home to Mommy and Daddy.  Who are also duped by youthful appearances.  Cheerleader and greats-grandpa kiss a lot before greats-grandpa gets a different kind of pang, one of the conscience variety.  He tells cheerleader "Uh, hey.  Remember how I told you I'm seventeen?  HAHA APRIL FOOL'S!  Yeah, I'm really ninety."

 

  No, wait, I mean,

 

Forgot how cute you were for a minute, my bad

 



But even if these immortals existed in real life, the relationships portrayed would never work. Disregarding both the He's-still-ninety thing and the I'll-never-age-but-you'll-be-wrinkly-in-a-few-decades thing, there's a huge maturity gap between Immortal Exhibit A and High School Student Exhibit B. Living for several decades is going to give you a seriously different perspective than any teenager alive, and there is no bridging that gap. The only reason an immortal guy would want a young girl in any way that isn't paternal or sibling-al (whatever) would be for...well...you know. The sex. And that would make him not a hottie hot powerful hot guy, but a hottie hot superhuman creep.

But I do understand. All those "hot" adjectives have the power to make all of us girls forget the teensy little "creep" noun. I get it. (No. I definitely don't. Hence the post.)

But aside from the gross-out factor of the age difference, what I just can't understand is why an author would choose to make her protagonist seventeen when she could make her eighteen.  Still gross, but at least eighteen is legal.  And it's only one year.  Unless there is a reason integral to the plot for your MC to be seventeen falling in love with a ninety year old, for God's sake, make her eighteen!  It does absolutely nothing to your story, but spares our very western, modernized sensibilites.  Because, for some reason, that one year really does make a difference to well over half of us.

Now I'm going to go bury my face in a thesauras to remind myself that there are more adjectives to describe an attractive man than "hot" while you show me some comment love. (Pretty please?)

How often do you feel that nagging sense of wrongness in the back of your head when you read one of these relationships?  Do you at all?  If so, how likely are you to ignore it if the story is well-written?  If not, is it because you don't mind it or because you've never given it much thought?  Would having a legal adult for the protagonist make a difference?

And a quick reminder; Follow PaperFantasies through bloglovin to have your YA Epidemic posts available right at the click of a button. Because who needs Google Reader, anyway?

Shadowfever By Karen Marie Moning - Fever #5 Book Review

"Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it's good."

MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever.

Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sister’s murderer. But after discovering that she descends from a bloodline both gifted and cursed, Mac is plunged into a secret history: an ancient conflict between humans and immortals who have lived concealed among us for thousands of years.

What follows is a shocking chain of events with devastating consequences, and now Mac struggles to cope with grief while continuing her mission to acquire and control the Sinsar Dubh—a book of dark, forbidden magic scribed by the mythical Unseelie King, containing the power to create and destroy worlds.

In an epic battle between humans and Fae, the hunter becomes the hunted when the Sinsar Dubh turns on Mac and begins mowing a deadly path through those she loves.

Who can she turn to? Who can she trust? Who is the woman haunting her dreams? More important, who is Mac herself and what is the destiny she glimpses in the black and crimson designs of an ancient tarot card?

From the luxury of the Lord Master’s penthouse to the sordid depths of an Unseelie nightclub, from the erotic bed of her lover to the terrifying bed of the Unseelie King, Mac’s journey will force her to face the truth of her exile, and to make a choice that will either save the world . . . or destroy it.

Oh my god.

Oh.  My.  God.

Oh my god!!!!

I’m having trouble finding other words to describe this book, but we’ll start with these;

Dark
Suspenseful
Tense
Sexy
Un-freaking-believable

And the only one that really matters; BARRONS! BarronsBarronsBarronsBarrons….  Really, I could go on all day like this.

I know I’m mega-late to be jumping on the bandwagon of hype for the Fever series, but I don’t care.  I am making it my life’s mission to shove this down the throat of every dark urban fantasy reader I know who hasn’t already read this.  The days of shock over liking this series after a questionable first book are long over.  For the past four books, I’ve been gasping, grinning, panting, laughing, and tearing through pages like the obsessive bookworm that I am.

By the end of Dreamfever, I was having some serious doubts that Moning could deliver all the answers that were still barely hinted at after four books in the last one without info-dumping all over my expectations, but she delivered.  Boy oh boy oh Barrons…er, boy, did she deliver.  Throwing about a hundred and one curveballs along the way, and supplying us with one of the biggest twists I have ever read.  Ever.  Seriously.  I’m still reeling over it, and I finished the book days ago.

I can’t get into this book without calling down the wrath of the spoilers – seriously, I can’t; it was that eventful of a book – but by now we all know what this series is about; ex –preppy-girl Mac and her complicated relationship with employer Jericho Barrons, and their search for the Sinsar Dubh; a book of fae magic so evil and ancient that it took on a sinister sentience and life of its own.  At its core, that’s what the Fever series has always been about.  The mystery, the character growth, the increasingly dark tone and atmosphere, and the perfect suspense have certainly made it seem like it’s got a deeper central plot to it, though.  This proves that a talented enough author can take the most simple idea, layer it with amazing characters, sexy sexiness, agonizing mystery and a dark setting, and give us one of the most addictive reading experiences ever.

Oh, and Barrons.  Can’t forget Barrons.  I get the naughties just typing out his names.

Beneath the obvious kick-assery of Shadowfever, there were a few flaws, which I feel obligated to list even though I loved this book to an almost alarming degree.  My biggest issue with it and the only one that actively took away from my enjoyment was Barrons’ identity reveal.  We find out what he is, but it’s not as satisfying as I’d have hoped.  It works for the story and it makes sense, but my hands-down favorite character was not the cause of my biggest OMFG WTF DID MONING JUST DO TO MY HEART??? moment, and that…well, it made me sad.  Barrons is supposed to have a monopoly on OMG moments in this series, it just seems wrong for him to not own the biggest one.

Mac’s narrative is still riddled with too many questions, maybe even a little more so in Shadowfever than the previous books.  By now I’m mostly used to it, but I did notice it and even rolled my eyes at it once or twice.  I love her character development, she’s got a permanent place on my Most Kick-Ass Heroines list, but man, that girl muses a lot.  How she doesn’t have a perpetually thoughtful expression, complete with drawn brows and pursed lips, is beyond me.

But ignore those flaws because I would unhesitatingly, without a doubt recommend this series to anyone and everyone who can handle the darker side of reading.  Each one gets better than the last, and by the time you get to Shadowfever, you’ll have a treat of a book whose ending will leave you in a reading slump just because you know the next book you read can in no way compare to the thrilling ride Moning took you on with her Fever series.

 

Shadowfever - 5 out of 5 stars

Top Ten Tuesday #4; Characters I'd Crush On If I Were Also A Fictional Character



I'd like to thank the girls over at The Broke And The Bookish for hosting this addictive weekly meme.

As you may or may not be aware, beneath all the bluster and criticisms of my reviewer persona lives a fourteen year old fangirl for those swoon-worthy book hotties.  (Which is weird, considering I'm 22.)  This week's Top Ten Tuesday is right up her alley.  Expect gushing and "omg"s coming.

 

Top Ten Characters I'd Crush On If I Were Also A Fictional Character

Which I'm not, and I still do

 

 

1. Akiva from "Daughter Of Smoke And Bone" - Duh.  Helloooo, I'm known as the DOS&B book-pusher to my blogger friends, and Akiva is a huuuuuge part of the reason for that.  This troubled winged warrior has leapt off of the pages he was born on to become imprinted on my brain, as real to me as any boy I know.
2. Jericho Barrons from the "Fever" series - At the risk of sounding unfaithful to Akiva, I'm going to admit something that shocks even me here; I wasn't sure Barrons would settle for second. If there was ever a character made to lust over, it's Jericho Barrons.  He is the alpha-male of alpha-males, and he's good at everything he does. For raw sexuality, this man comes out on top of any list I could make.
3. Etienne St. Clair from "Anna And The French Kiss" - Admittedly pretty far behind Akiva and Barrons, St. Clair has earned his number-3 spot by the addictive romance he brings to the pages of Anna.
4. Adrian from the "Vampire Academy" series - Though I don't like him in Bloodlines, this Moroi owned the pages of Vampire Academy.  Dimirti, who?
5. Hunter Niall from the "Sweep" series - As one of my biggest teenage crushes, I couldn't not include Hunter in this list. Wiccan, witch, and British?  Yes, please!
6. Jean-Claude from the Anita Blake books - I'm admittedly not a fan of the later novels in this series, but Jean-Claude is still a no-brainer addition to this list. He's a vampire to rival Lestat, with better hair and a better wardrobe.
7. Eric Northman from the Sookie Stackhouse books - The third and last vampire on this list, Eric is the only reason I read as many of those books as I did.  I couldn't stand Sookie herself, but Eric would always show up, steal a scene (and the whole damn book), and reel me in for the next book.
8. Peeta from "The Hunger Games" - How can you not love the boy with the bread? My favorite part about his romance with Katniss is that it wasn't overly-romanticized to steal the book.  But the scenes between the two were so impossibly sweet that it's still one of my favorite book romances.
9. Jack from "Everneath" - The hero for every guy/girl stuck in The Friendzone.  Jack and Nikki's love is epic, but if Nikki loses her senses and chooses Cole, I'll be right there to, um..."console" Jack.
10. Lan from "The Wheel Of Time" - Okay so he's not exactly the romantic interest you'd think would evoke the fangirl reaction, but he totally did.  He stole my heart with one line; “I will hate the man you choose because he isn't me, and love him if he makes you smile.” Awww!

So there you have it, my top ten fictional crushes!  I love them all, and be warned; I am willing to fight over every one of them. There will be eye-gouging involved if it comes to the first two.

What are some book hotties you've fangirled (or boy'd) over?  Share in the comments, or link to your TTT if you have one so I can show your blog some love!