Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. In this post, I will be doing a wrap up of all the books I read in December. This month is probably one of the few months of the year in which I managed to read 8 books. Unfortunately, not all were to my liking. Here goes:
1. NONFICTION: The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak
This book recounts the lives and feud of two Merovingian queens who reigned their respective kingdoms (in what today is France) during the Middle Ages. The first is Brunhild, who was queen of Austrasia for 46 years, and regent for her son for 17 of those years. The second is Fredegund, the queen consort of King Chilperic I of Neustria, and later regent of her son Clothar II. Brunhild arrived to the Frankish kingdoms as the bride of King Sigebert I of Austrasia, Chilperic’s brother, while Fredegund was a servant in the service of Chilperic’s first wife Audovera. Chilperic’s second wife, Galswintha, was Brunhild’s sister. The bitter feud between the two queens began however when Fredegund, intent on replacing Galswintha as queen, had her killed and Brunhild swore to recover her sister’s dowry, now in possession of Chilperic’s former servant but new and third wife. Fredegund’s son Chlothar II continued the feud after his mother’s death, and in 613 defeated Brunhild in battle. The old queen’s fate was death by dismemberment.
I knew little of the two queens when I first started reading this book, but Brunhild’s name rang a bell somewhere. I knew I’d read her name somewhere before but I didn’t know it if it was the same queen or not. The Brunhild I remembered was the powerful Amazon-like queen of the Nibelungenlied, and it was with this book that I found out that the Brunhild in the German poem may have her origins in Brunhilda of Austrasia. Nice. I gave this book an I Liked It And Will Probably Read It Again rating.
2. EBOOK: The Faceless Mage and The Unseen Heir (duology) by Kenley Davidson
I read these books for one of my book clubs and I admit I did not like them much. For starters, it took me a bit to get into the story because I did not like the author’s writing style. She wrote a fantasy romance like a contemporary one, and that took me out of the story (and world) constantly. The premise of the story was promising and I wanted to like it but the more I read, the more I realized that a lot of things didn’t make sense. For example, the male protagonist is supposed to be a night elf mage whose magic is the most powerful among his kin. But when his uncle challenges him to a duel at the end of the second book, it turns out that he’s even more powerful than Kyrion and is very likely going to defeat him? Also, a lot of things are left unexplained. I mean, does Leisa ever find out why her family left her behind? Does she ever find closure? By the end of Book 2, we still don’t know why she was left alone in Garimore. I also think that some of the most important parts of the book(s), like when Kyrion gets his magic back, were done in two sentences. I did like the magic system in these books, but I did not like them enough to continue on with the following two books in the series. I gave these books an I Did Not Like Them At All rating. These pictures are not mine.
3. The High King’s Tomb by Kristin Britain
This is the third installment of The Green Rider series, and it continues on with Karigan G’ladheon’s adventures after she transports the spirit of Mornhaven into the future. No one knows how far into the future Karigan took him though, so the king of Sacoridia’s most important task now is to fix the breach in the D’Yer wall. The only problem is that the knowledge to do so has been lost, and the guardians of the wall are not letting Alton D’Yer into it anymore since it was he, under Morhaven’s thrall, who was destroying it before. This book also introduces a new character, Grandmother, a formidable follower of Mornhaven and the Second Empire and the one who has concocted a plan to destroy the wall once and for all.
Like its predecessors, this book is very well written and it is a solid installment of the series. It continues on where the previous book ended, and we get to see Karigan trying to balance her responsibilities as a Green Rider with what is expected of her as the daughter of a wealthy merchant. However, there were aspects of her personality in this book that I didn’t really click with. At some point in the story, for example, she is staying in a brothel and when she finds out the nature of the establishment she is positively appalled by the prospect, and yes, I would think it a shock to find out that your father has visited one in the past, but her complete aversion to it seemed so unlike her. I thought (after all she has been through) that she was more mature at this point to react more like an adult than a child about it…I don’t know. Also, at the end of the book she becomes the avatar of a God and this prevented me from identifying with her as easily as before. She is the one to which everything extraordinary happens. Yes, I get that she is the protagonist of the story but the more she is placed among the Gods, the less I can identify with her. I don’t know why. This, however, doesn’t mean that the book isn’t good. It is, and I Really Liked It. I will continue on with the series.
In this book, the love triangle between Karigan, Zachary, and Alton continues. I wouldn’t say that it’s a genuine love triangle though because Karigan doesn’t love Alton as she loves Zachary. She’s just attracted to him. Alton is in fact more in love with her than she with him. Both Karigan and Zachary know that they can’t be with one another though, and Zachary’s position is forcing him to marry Estora. And I don’t hate Estora. She’s a woman who loses the love of her life only to be forced to marry someone she doesn’t love. Yes, it is a lot of angst and drama, but I think it is well done.
4. START OF A SERIES: The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne
The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne follows the same trope as Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames, but I enjoyed this book tons more. It is written in the same fashion as The Faithful And The Fallen (which I also read this year), but where the previous follows a vast array of characters, in this first book of The Bloodsworn Saga, we only follow three people: a huntress on a dangerous quest, a noblewoman who has rejected privilege in search of battle fame, and a thrall (slave) who seeks vengeance among the famed mercenaries known as the Bloodsworn.
In this book, as in his previous work, the author doesn’t shy away from describing the violence of battle. He also doesn’t back away from killing his protagonists when the plot guarantees it. In fact, I was expecting it and I was right. He kills several of them, and I admit I was sorry to part with these characters. But the book has several twists that I was not expecting, and I will definitely continue on with this series.
5. YA: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
This book was a little disappointing for me actually. For starters, it focuses little on the romance and the meetings of the Literary Society are just mentioned. We never actually get to attend one with the protagonist, nor to see her interact with any of its members. All of them just send her letters, after the fact. I think this book could have so much better, and I wanted so much to root for the couple but unfortunately it didn’t deliver and I was left rather disenchanted with it.
6. END OF A SERIES: The Heir of Novron by Michael J. Sullivan
This is the final installment of The Riyria Revelations, and it is a very good ending to the trilogy. I cannot say much about it without spoilers, but I enjoyed it very much. I will definitely read more by this author.
7. Blackveil by Kristin Britain
In this book, the fourth installment of The Green Rider series, Karigan goes into Blackveil on a reconnaissance mission for the king, whilst Zachary is severely injured after an attempt on his life. At this point, the knowledge to fix the wall has been recovered and Alton has begun his work to fix the breach in earnest. And there are also developments concerning the love life of the protagonists. Karigan, knowing that she cannot be with the king, starts contemplating the possibility of accepting Alton’s advances but is shocked, when she arrives at the wall, to find her best friend Estral there and to find out that she and Alton are in love.
Though obvious that these two were going to get together when Estral arrives at the wall, I still felt that their relationship was a typical example of insta-love, and it was written in such a way so as to take Alton out of the equation and introduce a new romantic interest for Karigan since the king himself is also unavailable now after his deathbed wedding to Estora. Yes, the king is married now and honestly I am not entirely opposed to seeing his relationship with Estora blossom into one of respect and love. So it makes sense to introduce a new love interest. A lot of people who have read the next book, however, don’t like him. Let’s see how I feel about him…
8. LIBRARY BOOK: Uncontrollable Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat The Next Pandemic by Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD.
This book is an account of everything that went wrong during the first few months of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the CDC wanting to make a COVID-19 test to detect the virus and not letting others develop one of their own. A lot of time was wasted in politics between the CDC and the government, he says, before the virus spread out of control. Gottlieb puts most of the blame, however, on the CDC and its refusal to let other manufacture a test because it wanted to be the sole proprietor of COVID-19 tests. However, the institution is not made to provide testing for the entire population of the country and this was an unachievable goal. The author also relates how the Chinese government refused to admit fault in failing to contain such a deadly virus within its borders and mentions that it might have accidently leaked out of the country. The author doesn’t openly advocate for this theory, but he does admit the possibility.
I found this book to be interesting in parts, but in others I thought that it was politically divisive and that it favored a conservative ideology.
That is everything I read this month. Thank you for reading. In my next post, I will continue my End of the Year Series with the second part of my most disappointing reads of 2022.
