Book Review: Cold Fire by Kate Elliott

Finished: January 3, 2012

Pages: 512 (Paperback)

Author Kate Elliott

Add It: Goodreads

Series: Spiritwalker (#2)

Publisher: Orbit

Source: Purchased

Only one thing is certain: when Hallows' Night comes, the Wild Hunt will ride - and it feeds on mortal blood. Cat and her cousin Bee are caught in a maze of intrigue, treachery, and magic. Everyone seems to want something from them: the Cold Mages are trying to take them prisoner, and the warlord who wants to conquer all of Europa seems sure they have a special destiny to aid him whether they want to or not. Worse, hidden powers deep in the spirit world are rising, and they are the most dangerous of all. Cat must seek allies and figure out who she can trust in order to save the ones she loves. For if she doesn't, everything will be lost.

There will be spoilers for book one of the series: Cold Magic. To see my review of Cold Magic instead read it here.

Quote: “I can’t endure these constant protestations about the chains women bind on men. In truth, the chains all bind women at the feet of men.”

His eyes opened, corpse-still one moment and full of ire the next.

“Bold Taranis spare me from the compaints of virgins!” His voice was resonant, as lovely as a caress, even in anger. “Especially ones whose black hair is a snare to entwine the helpless and whose dark eyes provoke the tenderhearted to grief. How I despise the beauty of women!”

“Only because you feel entitled to something you have no natural right to possess!”

Cover Love: For some reason I really love the covers for this series. I like that the girl isn't white washed and that the Cold Magic cover was blue and Cold Fire has an orange/red theme.

Thoughts: After Cold Magic got off to such a rocky start for me, I was very much hoping that the sequel would not go down the same path. Delightfully, it did not. Cold Fire picks up where Cold Magic left off. While the first half of Cold Magic was weighed down by awkward amounts of exposition, Cold Fire doesn't suffer the same fate. Since much of the detailed world Kate Elliott was building was already set up in Cold Magic, we are allowed in this installment to focus more on the characters and the action. New characters and magic are introduced but I did not feel that it was too much, or find it confusing. We are thrown right along with Cat on to an island inhabited by zombies and fire mages. I found the new storyline to be exciting and never dull.

I liked Cat and Bee in the first book but I must say I absolutely fell in love with them here. They're very strong women. It's nice to see females who can be both romantic and gullible but also strong and logical too. I think too often female characters get written as too much one or the other, falling into a certain role, instead of standing on their own two feet. We watch Cat make mistakes. We watch her get drunk and act in ways she'd like to forget. We watch her swing a sword like a genuine badass and approach situations rationally. It's wonderful...

"He said nothing. Yes, he was physically handsome, and attractive in some other intangible way. After those first disastrous days, he had made an effort to help me. His kiss had certainly pleased me in a most startling manner. But I did not love him. How could I? I didn't even know him. And whatever he might think, he did not truly know me. He only believed he did."

I like that above all else Cat stays loyal to her cousin Bee and that is not lost in this book. Having grown up together and relied upon each other through it all, Bee and Cat do not dump each other when it's convenient, or when they'd rather be with a man. They are not catty toward each other or in competition. Even if blood does not necessarily tie them together they never even dwell on it. They know family is not defined by blood and that's something I really respect. We also finally learn more about Cat's parents in this installment. I liked the twist.

My favorite thing about this book was probably the romance. I don't swoon too often. It takes a lot for a romance to impress me. I found myself deeply invested in Andevai and Cat's relationship. I thought it was passionate and respectful. Built upon something important. I liked that neither character sacrificed who they were or expected anything of the other that they did not want to give.

I am immensely glad that I stuck it out after the rough start of book one in the series, because the world Kate Elliott has built and the characters here are way too good to miss. Like Cold Magic, this book definitely isn't a light read, Kate Elliott's book are lengthy and detailed and full of heavy world building. This book was more fast paced than the first though and I hope that the third book is even more impressive.

Recommendation: Fans of rich Fantasy stories who enjoy slow burning romances and tough heroines.

Rating:

Four out of Five Coffees

Cold Fire is on sale now in paperback. You can purchase it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository and other retailers. The final book in the trilogy, Cold Steel, will be released in September of 2012.

Review: Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Finished: November 10, 2011

Synopsis: In Deuce’s world, people earn the right to a name only if they survive their first fifteen years. By that point, each unnamed ‘brat’ has trained into one of three groups–Breeders, Builders, or Hunters, identifiable by the number of scars they bear on their arms. Deuce has wanted to be a Huntress for as long as she can remember. As a Huntress, her purpose is clear—to brave the dangerous tunnels outside the enclave and bring back meat to feed the group while evading ferocious monsters known as Freaks. She’s worked toward this goal her whole life, and nothing’s going to stop her, not even a beautiful, brooding Hunter named Fade. When the mysterious boy becomes her partner, Deuce’s troubles are just beginning… 

Quote: “There were different kinds of strength. I knew that now. It didn’t always come from a knife or a willingness to fight. Sometimes it came from endurance. Where the well ran deep and quiet. Sometimes it came from compassion and forgiveness.” 

Thoughts: Zombies! Enclave is just one offering of many in the YA Dystopia genre these days, but the difference between Enclave and a lot of these books, is that Enclave actually has something that feels original to offer. On the surface Enclave is much like a lot of the other Dystopia offerings out there. It’s the end of the world as we know it and we’ve got a heroine who intends to fight the system, the oppressive one put in place by those left behind, who only feels beautiful when she’s fighting.

“I never felt beautiful unless I was fighting, and even then it was something that went beyond skin and bone into the kinetic joy of successive movements.”

One difference here is that Deuce does not start out as a rebel. This is a large part of her struggle throughout the novel, and adds a nice depth to her character. Despite the kindness in her heart, Deuce agrees with the leaders and believes in the necessity of making hard decisions for the better of the people, even if it may mean hurting one person.

Another thing worth mentioning is the writing itself. I found myself writing down various sentences because they were just so lovely. Aguirre succeeds here, not only with her characters and story, but also with her distinctive writing style.

An enthralling thriller that kept me in its grip until the very end, the only issue found within Enclave for me was it’s use of the dreaded Love Triangle™. Second only to Instalove™ in the “Biggest Romance Cliche An Author Can Ruin Their Novel With” list (a list I just made up perhaps) the Love Triangle™ has ruined many an original novel with its ability to ruin characters in an instant and detract from any originality found within the rest of the story. While I will concede that the Love Triangle™ made a little more sense here than in other books, given the fact that it represented Deuce’s inner struggle of Kindness vs. Survival Instinct, it still pulled me away from characters I was otherwise coming to care about.

I hope that the sequel to Enclave packs the same punch and can deliver to us more depth to the story that Aguirre has started here. I would recommend this to anyone who devours Dystopia novels with the same fervor as I do. 

Edit: A few different reviews now have made me consider this book in a new light. One review belonging specifically to one of my favorite reviewers: Ms. Library. Toward the end of the book there is use of the Bad Boy Trope that I tend to find so abhorrent, but at the time it didn't bother me, because from my perspective the author didn't seem to be romanticizing this character. In fact, I thought he was just being used to further Deuce's development as she struggled with choosing between her survivalist side, and the side of her that needed to realize every person counted, and she needed to think of more than herself. I thought, and still think, that he was being used to show that the attitude Deuce was raised with was wrong. So as unnerved as I was by Deuce not exactly rejecting his affections, that didn't bother me.

One thing that does bother me though, that others have mentioned, is the detached way that the author handles a character who was raped. While I understand that the author was trying to show us a horrific world in which characters had to make these hard choices to survive, I do think in retrospect that she could have dealt with the subject of rape in a more compassionate manner. In fact, Ceilidh's Review points out that at one point Deuce thinks to herself that if the character were stronger, the rape wouldn't have happened. I must have missed that part, because I find that absolutely appalling. Rape is never the victim's fault. EVER. So despite really enjoying this book when I read it and feeling like it was one of the better dystopian offerings out there, I will be bumping this down from four stars to two.

Rating:

Two out of Five Coffees

Review: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Finished: September 14, 2011

Synopsis: In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born. But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.
Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history. His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive. [from goodreads]

Thoughts: Boneshaker was the first Steampunk book that I’ve read. It was definitely very action packed. I could not put it down. I found the character of Briar to be very interesting and likeable. I also loved the side characters and would love it if they popped up again later in the series. I found Zeke’s character to be very realistic. In a lot of books nowadays fifteen year old boys are written to seem older than they really are. Zeke was appropriately scared when he should be and looked to his mother for guidance. He made several stupid decisions that irritated me but that is to be expected of a teenager. Though I did think that his bad choices were at times a bit too convenient for the story. That was my only real complaint with the novel, and the only thing that keeps me from calling this book a favorite, or giving it a five star review, is that I felt a bit disconnected from the two main characters, and cannot say that I cared about them a lot. I cared more for the side characters than the main two.

Putting the characters aside, the world building was great. I could really imagine this town and the wall that surrounded it. I also found the end to be satisfying and did not predict the twist. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an introduction to Steampunk novels.

Rating:

Four out of Five Coffees