Accomplice to the Villain

 

By Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Book Three in the Assistant and the Villain series.

Evie has a new job, as assistant to Trystan Maverine, whose title is The Villain. Even though Trystan is The Villain, he is not as bad as one might think. Indeed, it didn't take Evie long to fall hard for the man and try her best to get a similar response from him. But he is a busy man and even though he is very much attracted to her, he is not receptive to her signals, no matter how blatant they are. He has a lot on his hands, as it seems something is very wrong with the magic in the kingdom and the king is not on Trystan's side and Trystan also has to deal a prophecy that foretells doom and gloom due to the fading magic. The prophecy is part of the reason that Trystan is unresponsive to Evie's advances. Which makes for much tension and suspense in the love story of these two characters.

Speaking of characters, the book is loaded with them, but even more than the main characters, the most appealing is probably the little frog, Kingsley, with his funny little signs that he uses to communicate since he can't speak beyond frog croaks, I suppose. 

The book is humorous and much of that humor is provided by Kingsley's signs, along with the witty dialogue and the clash between Evie and Trystan. 

I have to admit this review is based mostly from what I read about the book online. Because I really didn't like it, managing to read to only Chapter 5. I also have read no other books in the series, I didn't know it was a series so I didn't know what I was getting myself into. 

Two things I didn't care for was that it lacked an even flow and I often didn't understand who these people were and why they were acting the way they were. I also really didn't like the way Evie was throwing herself at Trystan, it just came off as unattractively aggressive. I set the book aside and thought I would eventually pick it back up and give it another go. But every time I thought I should go ahead and power through my distaste, I just did not want to. So I gave up and gave to someone else who was familiar with the series and was looking forward to reading it.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

The Poisoned King

 

By Katherine Rundell

Book Two of Impossible Creatures

Christopher is once more back in the magic lands of the Archipelago, this time summoned there by a small dragon who needs his help to save a girl from her uncle who is going to kill her in order to secure his right to the throne of her and her father's kingdom.

The uncle, Claude, thinks his older brother, Argus, is too liberal. He has talked the king, their father, into making expensive upgrades to the kingdom and increased the size of the military. Although where the money for all this is coming from is not public information. So Claude has decided he should be king and he has also decided not to wait for his father, the king, to die. He poisons the king and frames Argus. Argus is arrested and imprisoned and Anya is told she is to be sent away to a private school. But instead her escorts, three soldiers, were been ordered by Claude to kill her. She was told to drink poison but she tricked the soldiers and escaped.

On the run through the countryside from her pursuers, a boy on a massive sphinx flew to her rescue just in time. It's Christopher, once more back in the Archipelago for more magical adventures, there to help Mal save her father from execution and the kingdom from her evil uncle Claude. And further to save the dragons who are dying in mass in their mountain home from an unknown illness. An illness that has very much to do with the power-hungry and greedy Claude.

Like the first book in the series, it was fairly interesting. Set about a year after the events of the first book, once again the two main characters are both young teens. I was glad that the author didn't kill off Mal's little pet bird friend and that none of the good guys had to die unlike in the first book. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Impossible Creatures

 

By Katherine Rundell

Book One of Impossible Creatures. 

First there a strange green horse-thing running through the trees, followed by a beautiful silver unicorn. Next there was the cry of something in trouble which sent Christopher looking for what turned out to be a young griffin drowning the lake. Christopher rescued it and took it to his grandfather. Who took care of it and told Christopher that the lake was a hidden entryway into the Archipelago, a string of islands concealed by magic from the world, a land where the creatures of mythology survived, kept alive by the same magic that kept the islands hidden. He also revealed the he was the guardian of the portal in the lake and that someday Christopher would be the guardian after him. 

Returning to the lake with the griffin, Christopher was attacked by a demon dog with flaming ears. He tried to fight it off and would have died if a stranger hadn't appeared and told him to kill the monster by dousing the flames with mud. Together they put out the monster's fire which stopped it dead in its tracks. The girl, Mal, short for Malum, had come through the lake portal and she wanted the griffin and to return back through the lake. 

Things back at her home were not safe and Mal begged Christopher to return with her as she was on the run from an assassin who murdered her aunt and had tried but failed to murder her. But she feared he was hot on her trail and she had no one else to help her. And so he followed her into the lake and into the magical Archipelago and into a grand and dangerous adventure trying to figure out not only why Mal is targeted for death but why the magic that keeps the legendary creatures of the Archipelago alive is fading away.

Young adult or older kid's novel, the two main characters are probably about middle school age. They have lots of adventures together and encounter lots of strange, mythical creatures. Eventually they learn why Mal has been targeted for death and of her unique status in the Archipelago and in the whole world. It was a fairly enjoyable story although I did not like that the author killed off Mal's friend, the young griffin, the last of his kind. And Mal has a rather grim fate too which made for a not very happy ending. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews. 

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

 

By Becky Chambers

Book One of the Wayfarers series.

Rosemary Harper is a young woman in trouble. Running away from a notorious past that she did not create, she has spent all her considerable fortune on a new identity and an escape from her home planet of Mars. 

In her new identity, she has been hired as a clerical assistant to the captain, Ashby Santoso, of a private spaceship. She will be in charge of scheduling some stops and overseeing ordering of supplies and helping the captain organize his files and set up an archive of the captain's records.

The spaceship, named Wayfarer, is a private enterprise for hire. Captain Ashby and his crew build "tunnels" through space that are short cuts to manage the vast distances of space travel, basically stabilized "wormholes." It's a small crew, only nine members, including the captain and the built-in Artificial Intelligence that helps run the ship. Mostly composed of humans, three of the crew are not human, including the pilot, the navigator and the medical person/chef. And the AI, of course.

Of this mixed company, all are pretty much decent people with the exception of the navigator and the human in charge of the tanks that produce the algae-based fuel that helps power the ship. The navigator keeps to itself and the human is just unpleasant. Another source of power, for more the power-intensive chore to tunnel building, is ambi which a type of raw energy produced by black holes or other high energy phenomenon. 

Captain Ashby's operation is small time, compared to the huge tunnel manufacturing ships that take on the bigger projects. But a friend gives Ashby some inside info that enables him to be the first in line for a much more ambitious and lucrative project located near a planet held by the Toremi Ka, recent members of the Galactic Commons (GC). The Toremi are known to be rather blood-thirsty and their being admitted to the GC is likely based on the huge source of ambi near the planet held by the Toremi Ka. A questionable decision, certainly, given that the GC usually require that member species have reached a high level of technology and social advancement. While the Toremi are technologically advanced, their willingness to kill each other seems to indicate their lack of social advancement. But in the Toremi's case, the GC's greed has overruled common sense. And Captain Asbhy's crew and ship will be the ones to pay the price for that greed, unbeknownst to them, as they set out on a lucrative new job that will hopefully allow them to expand the capabilities of their tunnel-boring operation.

The book is mainly about the crew, how they get along with each other and work together to benefit of them all. Basically a crew of really decent and skilled persons, with very little conflict, although there are a few problems as can only be expected of people who live together for long periods of time in restricted conditions. 

The small angry planet of the title is Toremi Ka. My copy of the book was about 400 pages long and they only arrive at Toremi Ka after page 332. So the majority of the story is about the trip and the people onboard the Wayfarer and their interactions and the problems encountered on the trip. 

The story continues in the second book of the series, A Close and Common Orbit. I have put it on my wishlist because this was a pretty good story and I want to know more about the adventures of the crew of the Wayfarer.