Tag Archives: fantasy

Feb27

Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel

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Thank you to NetGalley and Ballentine for an ARC of this wonderful book for review.

The author took inspiration from the Ten Avatars of Vishnu and wrote this story of an alternate reality as if India didn’t gain its independence back in 1947. The beginning of the story was set in the 1960s and we follow the main character and her allies for a number of years.

This non-independence for India in the 1940s made for interesting reading in a couple of ways. One, the characters who were front and center were normal young women who stepped up to fight for freedom from their oppressors. The author didn’t spare any detail on just how cruel an occupying force can be on the citizens of the country they are subjugating. Some of the scenes were brutal and heart-wrenching.

Most of the young men of the fictionalized town in the story were sent off to fight in a war that they weren’t responsible for making. They were basically the bodies needed to engage the enemy and had no choice as they were drafted.

The women of the town stepped up even more once the men were gone and waged their own war against the government occupation.

One of the things I enjoyed a lot about the story was learning more about the Ten Avatars of Vishnu. The author was very skillful in how she wove them into each of the chapters of the book. The action in the chapters were each tied to one of the incarnations and each chapter ended with a tale of a certain avatar. There were ten chapters representing the ten avatars. The tie in stories of Vishnu added so much flavor to the story. A very clever way to tell the tale. Each of them taught lessons that we can all learn from such as compassion, courage, and justice. I especially enjoyed that the main character’s name was tied so closely to one of the avatars. Again, very clever.

I admit I didn’t know much about all the avatars of Vishnu when I started reading and this book really taught me about them in a way that was easy to read and comprehend. I found myself doing research to refine what I was learning in the book. I love learning about the culture of India and find myself reading a number of fiction tales set in that region as they are interesting and enlightening. This one gets five stars from me for the adventure, alternate history with women at the forefront and for the lessons learned about the Hindu religion.

BLURB:

Kalki Divekar grows up a daughter of Kingston—a city the British built on the ashes of Bombay. The older generation, including her father, have been lost to the brutal hunt for rebels. Young men are drafted to fight wars they will never return from. And the people of her city are more interested in fighting each other than facing their true oppressors.

When tragedy strikes close to home, Kalki and her group of friends begin to play a dangerous game, obtaining jobs working for the British while secretly planning to destroy the empire from the inside out. They found Kingston’s new independence movement, knowing one wrong move means certain death. Facing threats from all quarters, Kalki must decide whether it’s more important to be a hero or to survive.

Told as ten moments from Kalki’s life that mirror the Dashavatara, the ten avatars of Vishnu, Ten Incarnations of Rebellion is a sweeping, deeply felt speculative novel of empowerment, friendship, self-determination, and the true meaning of freedom.

Jun17

New Lease on Death by Olivia Blacke

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Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

Courtney, 40ish and Ruby, 20ish are roommates.  They have differences. Courtney is quiet, private, loves plants, and had an alcohol problem. Ruby is free-spirited, outgoing, desperately in need of a job, and wants to make her way in the world away from her family. And oh, yeah, Courtney is dead and Ruby is alive. Which makes it hard to communicate with each other, to say the least.

The two of them team up to try to solve the murder of the guy who lived across the hall.

The book was quite clever and part of the fun of solving the mystery of who done it was the mechanics of how they learned to work together once Ruby learned she wasn’t living alone in their apartment.

Courtney helps Ruby with some much needed hidden money as well as assisting her to find employment.

I enjoyed the interactions between the two main characters as well as the mystery itself. And the fact that the author named the deceased Courtney Graves and the 20-year-old Ruby Young was not lost on me. J

There’s clearly another book planned as there’s one overarching plot point that I kept screaming about that will hopefully be resolved in the next book.  I’m not a fan of cliffhangers and I’m glad this book was not one. Yes, there is an overarching plot to tie book two to book one but we got resolution of the mystery of how the neighbor died and who was responsible and that satisfied me.

Can’t wait for the next book as these characters are delightful and fun to read. Dark, yet fun, this is a great read.

This one gets five stars from me.

BLURB:

In this darkly funny supernatural mystery about an unlikely crime-solving duo that launches a commercial, unique, and genre-blending series, death is only the beginning.

Ruby Young’s new Boston apartment comes with all the usual perks. Windows facing the brick wall of the next-door building. Heat that barely works. A malfunctioning buzzer. Noisy neighbors. A dead body on the sidewalk outside. And of course, a ghost.

Since Cordelia Graves died in her apartment a few months ago, she’s kept up her residency, despite being bored out of her (non-tangible) skull and frustrated by her new roommate. When her across-the-hall neighbor, Jake Macintyre, is shot and killed in an apparent mugging gone wrong outside their building, Cordelia is convinced there’s more to it and is determined to bring his killer to justice.

Unfortunately, Cordelia, being dead herself, can’t solve the mystery alone. She has to enlist the help of the obnoxiously perky, living tenant of her apartment. Ruby is twenty, annoying, and has never met a houseplant she couldn’t kill. But she also can do everything Cordelia can’t, from interviewing suspects to researching Jake on the library computers that go up in a puff of smoke if Cordelia gets too close. The roommates form an unlikely friendship as they get closer to the truth about Jake’s death…and maybe other dangerous secrets as well.

Dec1

Cover Love: Twelve Days of Christmas

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This is my upcoming new release blurb and cover.

Just imagine…Imagine if the twelve days of Christmas weren’t about Christmas at all.  What if the Partridge in a pear tree was actually a chef named Otto Partridge who found a pear orchard to pick some fresh pears for his restaurant? Imagine the two turtle doves as a pop duo? What if the eleven pipers piping were bakers on a baking challenge show? And what if the six geese a-laying were sassy birds full of advice for a young girl looking to earn money for a prom dress?

A mixture of stories sure to appeal to a variety of readers. Some are set in historical times, some are modern, some fantasy and some romantic. All of them fun and mostly light-hearted. Something for everyone. And none of them Christmas…except for the last one, which involves the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… the traditional kick off for Christmas festivities.

May6

A Rip in Time by Kelley Armstrong, a Review

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I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I really liked this story. I’ve read some of Ms. Armstrong’s work in the past and her prose is always easy to read and enjoyable. The premise here of a modern day female detective transported through time when she’s attacked in a dark lane in old Edinburgh is creative and right up this reader’s alley. Being a huge fan of Edinburgh and having experienced the magic of the city firsthand, in this reader’s opinion, it’s the perfect setting for the story. A very atmospheric town and extra creepy in 1869 when the lighting would have been candles or gas lights.

The heroine is plucky and savvy and learns quickly that she’ll have to work hard to try to fit in where most everything is unfamiliar. The work she has to do as a housemaid is tough yet she realizes a roof over her head in those hard times is worth the backbreaking chores. Even the cleaning of the chamber pots.

Ms. Armstrong does a great job evoking the era in housing and the sights/smells of an old city as well as the biases against women and people of mixed race.

The supporting characters are well-drawn and appealing with each having unique qualities. I especially enjoyed the brother and sister and how they interacted with the heroine as well as each other and the local police detective. There were parts that strained credulity, but being as it’s a time travel story, realism was always going to take a back seat.

The heroine was flawed and made mistakes which made the tale more exciting. A perfect heroine is always dull. The person whose body the heroine was transported into was a wicked person and I’m glad the heroine made many attempts to try to make things right with the people the real housemaid harmed.

It appears there will be more stories with these characters which is great as they each have their own unique back story and I, for one, look forward to exploring more of old Edinburgh with them and learning more about their lives.

Jul20

New Short Story- Fungus Amongus

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I love to support Toys for Tots. Every year, my kids and I would go and shop for children less fortunate than them. My youngest is working here in our hometown and we still donate every year. I was pleased to hear that one of my publishers was putting together a horror/fantasy anthology to benefit this charity and I wanted to participate.

My husband inadvertently gave me the idea for a story when he accidentally poked his eye on a bamboo plant putting it in the floorboard of the car. When he went to the eye doctor, she said the plant had scratched his cornea and gave him a fungus.

Well, it was off to the races with my imagination. What if someone got a fungus in his eye and it grew and grew into a mushroom crawling out on his face???  And what if someone decided to try to rescue him and was given seemingly impossible tasks to do so? And what if all we’d ever believed about magical creatures was turned upside down?

It was a super fun story to write and I can’t wait for it to be out in the world.

To hold you over until Sept, here’s a fungus/mushroom growing on an oak tree in my yard. Almost like it was hanging out to be part of the story, right?  🙂 IMG_3948

Dec3

Available Now- The Thirteenth Gate

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It’s out in the world now. The Thirteenth Gate is a Christmas story about a runaway. It’s a magical tale.

BLURB:

Clarissa, a teen raised in foster care, runs away in the middle of a Christmas snow storm and learns valuable lessons from a mysterious old man who may hold the secret to her future.

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Jan10

Another Anthology Recommendation

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Whortleberry Press has released its Valentine’s Day Anthology last week. The stories are all Sci-Fi, fantasy or horror. I have a story in it called My Celluloid Valentine and it’s a paranormal fantasy (or is it?). You’ll have to read it to find out if it’s a fantasy or the truth. It was one that came to me whole and practically wrote itself. I love it when that happens.