Tag: opinion

Books, fantasy, great reads, Reviews, scifi, Urban Fantasy

Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs

Karen

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I read this book twice back to back it was so interesting, and I never do that. I have been following the Mercy Thompson series for awhile but the last two books have changed, with the plots having more twists in them, but not in a bad way, breathing new life in this series for me. First the blurb.

Attacked and abducted in her home territory, Mercy finds herself in the clutches of the most powerful vampire in the world, taken as a weapon to use against alpha werewolf Adam and the ruler of the Tri-Cities vampires. In coyote form, Mercy escapes only to find herself without money, without clothing, and alone in the heart of Europe…

Unable to contact Adam and the rest of the pack, Mercy has allies to find and enemies to fight, and she needs to figure out which is which. Ancient powers stir, and Mercy must be her agile best to avoid causing a war between vampires and werewolves, and between werewolves and werewolves. And in the heart of the ancient city of Prague, old ghosts rise…

I want to be straight up honest with you guys, even though I loved book nine I still went into this book with a lot of doubts. I really didn’t like a lot about this preview into the story: (1) I don’t like Adam and Mercy being split up. Look I get that this series is about Mercy, but at this point they are accepted in my mind as a team and honestly I’m getting fatigued with them having trouble in their relationship no matter if it is physical or mental. I just want them to be together and happy already! (2) New characters. The one complaint I’ve had with the last few books is that characters have been bleeding over from Patty’s other series (Alpha and Omega) or just new people are constantly be introduced. I like the core characters and when we are always meeting others they don’t get enough, or any, page time. (3) Personally I didn’t like the idea of this series going to Europe. Just didn’t. I don’t have a good reason except maybe too much change to fast? I don’t know I just was not excited for this idea either.

So when I got an ARC from netgalley of this book I actually went into with more of a critical eye than I’ve ever gone into any of Patricia Briggs books. I had decided if this book fell flat that this might be the end for me and the Mercy Thompson series which would be sad since this is the longest standing Urban Fantasy series that I still read. I’m happy to say this book was fantastic, it made me a believer again. Chapter by chapter all my doubts went away, I became so engrossed in the story that I just didn’t care that Adam and Mercy were separated, or that all new people were in it..and this is the brilliant part. I noticed that Patty has started to evolve as a writer, she is still an amazing Urban Fantasy author but she has taken what she does so well and built on that making her stories richer and more complex. It has forced someone like me, who was comfortable with our relationship as reader/writer to pay attention again, even to the point with this book, reading it twice to make sure I got everything out of it. That is a great story.

If you are new to this world I suggest starting with Moon Called but if you know these books you need to preorder this now, it releases on March 7,2017

Here is the Amazon link https://www.amazon.com/Silence-Fallen-Mercy-Thompson-Novel-ebook/dp/B01H17UAF4/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Books, indie author, Out of the Box Blogs

Do $$$ Effect How We Rate?

Karen

I just finished Time Heist by Anthony Vicino. It’s been on my TBR for awhile, and I got it on sale for $0.99 so it was a steal. I like Anthony’s writing, sometimes a bit overelaborate, I’ll give you an example at one point the helicopter thingy (not his words) is crashing and the windshield cracks. This is what Tom the main character thinks Asphyxiation on account of too much air felt too paradoxical a way to die. Though, in the end, I suppose breathing eventually does us all. I was thinking what would have summed it up better? Oh shit. But that’s me, not a writer. And there are times when the clarity of Anthony’s writing is just stunning to me. Tom is addicted to a drug called Quick Sliver. There is a moment when he is detoxing in the middle of the, well everything honestly, and he really doesn’t have time for it (yeah that’s a pun, time) so his partner gives him a hit. It’s then he thinks this...I pitied the living. The dead were my idols. This drug was my god. I read that and thought Anthony you talented s.o.b.

But that’s not what I’m really talking about, what I do want to know is this, I gave this book 4 stars because for $1 it was quite good. In fact if I liked the ending I would have given it 5 stars and written glowing reviews to high heaven everywhere I could think of. But what if the book cost $7 or $8? Now if the ending was different I would have gone with 4 stars, but if not 2-3 stars. And that got me thinking, should my reviews have price factored in? Is that fair, especially if your dealing with a published author who has no control over the price? I do it because I think I was always raised that, the more you pay for it, the higher standard it must adhere to. But is this a proper additude to have in my book reviewing? I’m feel like it’s almost unconscious for me but I’m curious to hear others thoughts on the matter.