A Discovery of Witches

It's hard to judge a book fairly when having listened to it on audio. For one, the book opens on some every-day boring stuff. The main character, Diana, is off doing research for a paper, going to yoga, and rowing on the lake. Can I say the novel takes these boring tasks and makes them interesting? Unfortunately, all I can say is I enjoyed the narrator of the tape, so I stuck with it.

If you can get past the boring stuff at the beginning, this is a pretty interesting novel. It's full of human history as well as witches, demons, and vampires. The world building is done very well, and I really like the idea of vampires operating on a wolf pack mentality, diet, and sensory range. I also greatly enjoyed the cast of secondary characters.

The relationship between the two main characters can be a little... disconcerting at times. Mathew can come across as overbearing and demanding and Diana can seem needy and weak. And the keeping of secrets between the two of them is a constant source of frustration. Though, for the most part, their relationship comes off well.

I did enjoy this book, but from what I've seen from reviews of the next two books, I'm not sure I'll be continuing with this. But I would say it's worth a try for anyone who might be interested.

The Night Circus

The Night Circus, is essentially a story of two real-magic magicians who are pitied against each other against their will to a battle to the death. What makes the story so intriguing is the circus itself and how the lives of these two characters intertwine with other people in the circus.

My main issue with this story is how the chapters are not written in chronological order. From one aspect, this echos the mysterious feel the circus itself holds. But from another, it adds confusion for the reader. Especially when certain chapters take place years after the time of the chapters surrounding it.

For example, we are introduced to a character named Bailey, whose chapter, is placed between other chapters that take place years before he's even born. At first, I was thrown off, wondering who this Bailey was when he didn't connect with any other characters I'd been introduced to at that point. Then, I started to like Bailey, and I wanted to read more of him. And then chapter after chapter passes without mention of him. We finally do catch up with him in the proper time line. But then why take one chapter and set it so far off? Why not have his whole story fit more chronologically so I'm not thrown off when I first meet him and I get to continue to read about him when I grow attached to him? The placement of that first chapter makes no sense to me.

It's possible the author was trying to create a certain feeling of suspense or foreshadow by mixing up the chronological order of the chapters, but sometimes even this fails. There's several references in the book of a blinding light that will mean something bad for the circus. As we're following a character who is trying to figure out what happened, we are jumped into the past in a chapter that reveals some of what happened or at least gives the reader enough information to guess, all the before the character we are following figures it out. Why ruin the suspense like that?

There are certain readers, I think, who respond well to such a mixed way of telling. But I was thrown off so many times (not just by the order of chapters, but how some chapters begin in such a way that you have no idea what is going on in relation to what you just read), that I didn't care much for it. I think I would have liked this story a lot better if the chapters had been in order according to their time line.

The other thing that really annoyed me was the complete lack of relationship development between the two main characters. They have one meeting full of electric charge between the two of them - a terrible romance clique, even if it is real in the case of these two - and then the narrative jumps three years and they are desperately in love with each other. We don't get to see their love develop at all. We're just supposed to accept it. And I felt cheated for not getting to see the love grow between them.

Now, I did listen to this story on audio CD, and I had a friend point out that the mixed chronology is less jarring in print. However, what really bugs me is I just can't justify why the chronology is mixed. I don't see the reason behind it. And I really can't get over how glossed over the love story was. Even if I did like the print version better, the issues I take with how the story was told and the love story in particular would still probably bring the book to three stars. I did enjoy the characters, and I did enjoy the circus. But the love story is such an important part of the plot and with the story's structure being so mismatched ... I don't feel loving the circus and the characters can make up for that. I'm sure for the right reader, this book would be perfectly enchanting.

Devil May Cry

I decided to read this after reading Acheron because it involves Acheron's daughter. I wanted to read about her and the moment when she and Acheron meet. And in that I was satisfied. In other ways ...

As I've said before, I love the mythology in these books and the interactions between the gods - learning about their mistakes, their loss of power, their family relations. I eat it up. The modern day vampire romance doesn't do much for me. And having the main characters throw themselves at each other after a few minutes of having met doesn't help. But, it comes with the territoriality. Honestly, I think the romance genre could be done well if an effort was made to form realistic relationships. But, I digress.

All in all, I wasn't very interested in the plot of this book. And I found myself reading it just so I could get to the end and be done. One of the things Kenyon usually does well in her novels is sass. Kat dishes out a lot of it and Sin dishes it back to her. For the first few chapters, I loved it, but then it started to get annoying. I don't know if it was too much or if I was just annoyed at everything else.

This book is basically one huge pity party. Through the entirety of it, Sin is constantly wondering and often out right asking Kat if she's going to betray him. Even after she confesses her love for him and risks her life on more than one occasion and bends over backwards to help him out, he's still wondering when she's going to put a knife in his back. And then Kat starts questioning if he's going to betray her, like Sin's issues have rubbed off on her or something. And then Acheron starts - it's a wonder I actually finished this book instead of throwing it against the wall and saying the heck with it!

As side from the story itself, there's a lot of information in here that deals with what is in Acheron, and some of it is near word for word scenes that go into the book. Why, as an author, if you knew you were going to write a book on a particular character, would you pack so much information into the previous novels? Part of my enjoyment of Acheron was that most of it was new to me. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it that much if I had read the series in order and had had so much of it explained to me beforehand.

I won't be continuing with the rest of series, but that was pretty much a given. I only really wanted to read Acheron, which I've done. The rest of this series really isn't for me. But if you're interested in trying it out, my recommendation would be to pick up Dance with the Devil and go from there.

Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit

The synopsis of this book is extremely misleading. You'd think the Gwen in the novel is the Guinevere who becomes Arthur's wife, but she's not. In fact, the novel opens just before Arthur's wedding. The protagonist of the novel is a girl who shares Guinevere's name and who lives on the very outskirts of Arthur's kingdom. In fact, she mentions they are so far on the outskirts that anything Arthur does would barely cause a ripple for her and her family.

The book is interesting to a certain extent. You can tell Lackey really did her research on this one as she goes into great detail involving the goings on of the castle, the clothing, the decor, etc. The religious aspects are interesting to. Part of me wanted to continue with the story just so I could fully understand this world Lackey had put together.

Yet, the pacing of the book is slow. By chapter six, I still had no idea why we were following this not-Guinevere around. We learn about her sisters, none of which she is particularly attached to, and her desire to be a warrior, which is fulfilled as she undergoes training. And training itself is nothing particularly interesting either.

If I'd had this in book form instead of audio CD, I would have been skimming over the pages in the hopes to getting to something more substantial. As it was, I kept listening to the book for background noise, not because I had any further interest in it. A third of the way through the book is when the plot finally gets moving. And even then, it's in such a sinister way as to make me certain that not only would I not enjoy this book but I'd be frustrated and angry until the final pages.

I've read Mercedes Lackey before and enjoyed her work. I thought I was going to like this, and I really wanted to. The detail she puts into the world is admirable, and from what I've read from other reviews of this story, she goes into some of the less favorable tales of Arthur - the killing of all the May born babies in an effort to kill Mordred, the switching out of Guinevere for a fake one so that Mordred can have the real one...

I think it's clear that Lackey set out to do something specific with the book, and I applaud her efforts. It's possible she even succeeded at what she had hoped to do, but this book - with it's slow pacing and what I'm sure was to be an utterly depressing plot - isn't for me.