A COMPLEMENT OF SCOUNDRELS, debut (on several levels) revenge thriller with magical trimmings

A COMPLEMENT OF SCOUNDRELS
S.V. LOCKWOOD
Bindery Books | Kist Reads (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: There are many ways to bring down the man who betrayed you—and Myria Cadessa has thought of them all.

Cracking the Elysius Vault should’ve made Myria the richest thief in all Carintheum. Instead, it shattered her crew and left her rotting in jail while her double-crossing master walked away with everything that should’ve been hers.

But now she’s out, and it’s time to settle the score. Reunite her crew? A pleasure. Steal back everything her erstwhile leader took? And then some. She’ll just need to trick the king of all tricksters, with the law on her heels, and a troublesome new ally whose loyalties seem as conflicted as his feelings for Myria. It’s the most audacious heist she’s ever attempted, but she failed her crew once. This time, she’ll make it right—at any cost.

A Complement of Scoundrels is a bold, raucous journey through the underbelly of an empire where the devil’s rules reign, and morality, loyalty, and friendship are values few can afford. But where there’s a wit, there’s a way—and Myria has plenty of that.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Woman-led cast in The Count of Monte Cristo, among thieves in *London/Oxford, with less romantic pining. I absolutely co-sign each of these changes as an improvement.

Well? What're you waiting for? Go buy one.

Look, I'm annoyed enough that I can't in good conscience deliver the scathing insult-ridden takedown I threatened that guy Kist with, and there's still eyes looking at me like I should say something else only nice. Get him to restart weekly reading updates on YouTube instead of paywalled and we'll talk.

Yeah, yeah, not the author's fault blahblahblah. You want nice? Go find somebody nice, get them to tell you about Author Lockwood's way with banter that takes in-jokes between strangers and gives us chuckles as well as a sharper picture of the speaker's inner workings.

The world of Carintheum is given inner workings as well, and as deftly and eloquently. I'm pretty fussy about magic systems; I'm not naturally drawn to reading about magic because it doesn't exist, like gawd or vampires or mpreg. It's got to be presented, as it is here, in a way that lets me suspend disbelief; Myria's experience of the magic she and her partners in crime encounter a the very beginning of the book totally convinced me this was well thought out, so I relaxed right away. It was trust well placed because I never had any reason to revisit my decision to believe this was in-universe plausible stuff happening. It's a real pleasure to encounter an author whose assured and enjoyable presentation of prose could disarm my long-ago-acquired suspiciousness so fast.

The initial conditions of Myria's life as we join her set the other facet of worldbuilding, the society in which the magic is used, as a sort of pre-Victorian time starting industrialization...just not quite as we did in our rather fallen world. Magic as a harvestable, refineable resource capable of being extracted led to some very interesting consequences indeed...Myria's unique relationship to the resource is a very enjoyably used take on an old fantasy trope, the magically deprived in a magical society. It also explains the source of her betrayal that would otherwise have made me feel a bit cheated, so very well done indeed Author Lockwood for seeing a problem and turning it into an advantage.

The scoobygroup Myria forms also suffer deprivation on account of her betrayal on top of losing trust in her. It's the reason this revenge plot, very much a thriller wearing lace cuffs and expensive shoes, is so firmly rooted in the complex social and societal webbing Author Lockwood presents. The depth of field means the machinations and the interrelationships don't ever flatten out into that dreadful second-rate diagrammed-sentence feeling padding so very common when an author isn't given time, or space on the page, or guidance in choices, to fully realize the basis of their world and its social network. Author Lockwood was very well served in this regard.

So what happened to that vanished quarter star? I'll tell you, old girl: the catchphrasiness, the very real and human tendency of people to settle into mannerisms, wears thin in a book. It's great when the characters themselves bicker and banter about it, as Leo and Myria do from the very start. But reading a novel is being married, deeply in the hip pocket of the characters without the IRL ability to pat the partner's pate just a touch too hard while saying "oh, very amusing, dear," thus earning a respite from the actually cute and endearing behavior that's annoying you right then. I also felt a case of quibbles coming on with Myria's found-family dynamics resolving neatly...having the crew's emotional hurts coming up in different ways at different times would be more like establishing the firm intent to return to Carintheum as I feel positive is the intent in this author's (and more than likely publisher's) mind.

I can't offer a perfect score but I can most certainly see Author Lockwood's ability to wring one out of me is definitely there.

CITY OF SOULS AND SINNERS, second in the House of Devils dark romantasy series

CITY OF SOULS AND SINNERS (House of Devils #2)
KAYLA EDWARDS
Scarlett Press/Simon & Schuster (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$23.00 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In the sequel to City of Gods and Monsters, Loren Calla and Darien Cassel have settled back into their old routines, grateful that the whirlwind of dangers they’d faced on Kalendae and the weeks leading up to it are now behind them—or so they think.

But Loren soon finds herself caught in a new storm of trouble when the Terran Imperator blackmails her into working for him. There’s only one problem: he expects her to use her magic, and she doesn’t seem to have any of it left. To keep Darien and the other Devils safe, she agrees to everything the imperator asks of her. But the secrets she is forced to keep from Darien, and her involvement with the imperator’s son, threaten to drive her away from Darien in ways she might never recover from…

As Randal Slade’s successor, Darien wants nothing to do with the throne his father once sat in, but the city of Angelthene has other plans. The Magical Protections Unit asks for his help in taking down the illegal arms trade his father once dabbled in, and to do that Darien must claim his place at the top of the tiers of Darkslayers—a crown the other circles are willing to kill to possess. As he spirals deeper into the secrets his father kept, he makes enemies of friends and friends of enemies—and finds himself buried so deep in Angelthene’s underbelly that he is uncertain he’ll ever get out of it. And if that wasn’t enough, Darien fears he is going crazy when he starts to see creatures that only he can see…

Return to Angelthene in City of Souls and Sinners, a gripping, action-packed tale that tackles themes of love and loss, light and darkness, and the battle between good and evil—and what happens when you can’t tell which is which.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I somehow did not notice, or possibly retain, the information that this is #2 in a series...and that it's got child abuse as one of its themes. It's a serious no-go area for me. It is presented to us in flashback, so supposed to be cushioned that way...we know it came out okay since it's been survived.

Nope. I'm seeing the damage, the awful burden the adult carries and not happy to see it in the flashbacks. It's also a cishet romance, moderate steam, so not going to appeal to me there either. (At. All.) So how'd that fourth star appear?

Clocking in at 750ish pages, it should've been a serious effort to connect the worldbuilding dots for someone stating here, yet it wasn't. It's possible I'd be more annoyed at the slower pace if I'd read the first one. As it was it felt as though I was being given a shot at really getting in there, getting the lay of the land. I felt the magic system was a bit fuzzy, but then checked my response because it's book two so shuddupppp. I flipped past the steamy bits, but it's not like that's anyone's *fault* I'm just not the audience. Darien does some world-class yearning for Loren. I'm always happy to see a man presented as unashamedly being in his feelings for someone, and dude's down bad for this (dull to me) woman and not a bit hesitant to say so: "Do you want me on my knees? Do you want me to beg, is that it? Because I will, I’ll crawl for you."

The size of the cast wasn't as much of an issue as I'd thought it would be. I took in the nicely detailed map in the front matter, then hit the dramatis personae that kept going and going...and turns out I kept up fine because there was enough real estate to do a decent amount of character building for most everyone.

It's on the downside, though, that there are as many opportunities as there are for the romantasy reader with a taste for the yearn to get their fix. Five fewer would not make a negative impact on the story itself. I'm also not convinced we needed the urpsome flashbacks about horrific child abuse. Like, at all. I'm admittedly totally outraged by the topic, but even someone who does not have my sensitivity could see the ease with which we-the-reader could get along fine with only dealing with the aftermath would give the same result.

I mean:

"You belong with me." His words were a declaration. A shout out into the universe, a claim that could not be challenged. "No one else. This—" He lifted her left hand to his chest, flattening it right above his heart, his strong pulse thumping under her palm. When he spoke, his eyes burned with passion and intent. "This is yours. From now until the day I die, and every day after, I am yours. Got it?"

Who needs the cruelty?

BLACK SALT QUEEN, non-Western woman-led fantasy for successful (self-)gifting

BLACK SALT QUEEN (Letters from Maynara #1)
SAMANTHA BANSIL
Bindery Books | Violetear (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$3.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: There can be no victory without betrayal.

Hara Duja Gatdula, queen of the island nation of Maynara, holds the divine power to move the earth. But her strength is failing and the line of succession gives her little comfort. Her heir, Laya, is a danger—a petty and passionate princess who wields the enormous power of the skies with fickle indifference. Circling the throne is Imeria Kulaw—the matriarch of a traitorous rival family who wields recklessly enhanced powers of her own—with designs to secure a high-ranking position for her son and claim the crown for her family. Each woman has a secret weakness—a lover, a heartbreak, a lie. But each is willing to pay the steepest price to bring down her rivals once and for all.

Filled with passion, romance, betrayal, and divine magic, Black Salt Queen journeys to a gorgeous precolonial island nation where women—and secrets—reign.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Filipina Author Bansil gives us a gorgeously written, beautifully described fantasy epic in a secondary world that feels fresh to me. I'm not the biggest reader of fantasy...I've lost fifty pounds!...but mostly it's because I am *mortally*tired* of Eurocentric settings that retell European history plus magic. I'm old, I studied history, I read about history, so I'm maybe a bit jaded because I read mostly European slants on the world's broad sweep of history. The problem with being an Anglophone reader is it has too little variety of subject and viewpoint. We need more translated non-fiction, fiction, trashy novels, sci fi...everything.

This book doesn't need to be translated, nor does it need to be viewed through any lens but that of fantasy worldbuilding. It's rooted in precolonial Philippine culture, adding fantasy elements; this is a part of world history I'll bet big money most of my fellow old white people have less knowledge of this cultural milieu than they do of Middle Earth...very few of y'all need any context to know who Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, Legolas are or represent.

Getting onto fantasy worlds requires investing into the worldbuilding required for you to feel mise-en-scène. When someone doesn't enjoy that process' iteration in a particular work, they call it "infodumping." The first third or so of this story is more worldbuilding and conflict-establishing narrative. I enjoyed it, though I know the pace suffers for its necessary thoroughness. (The drug, akin to Dune's spice, that enables the powerful to wield their powers, is more present than the powers themselves.) Shorthand available to Eurocentric story settings isn't ready to hand here.

My favorite quality of the story told here, first in a projected series that I very much want to happen, is that every power-wielding woman in this story is aware of her power's cost, to her and to those she uses it for and on. They are women, not girls learning the ropes as is so deeply, tediously common. They've ruled their world for a while, they're now being responsible and planning for the succession to power as they realize mortality is no longer distant. Imeria and Duja are shrewd, flawed people with many problems to solve, many characters to assess, many judgments to render. (Note to Duja: think twice about your idea of Laya.)

I would give the book all five stars but for the straight "romance" building up for Laya. It's not gonna work out, which is not my problem with it; it's that the two are waaay too young to be in this situation and Duja is, perhaps calculatedly, not helping Laya figure anything out. It's a niggle, really, because I can certainly see why this happens; it's just...well...to me, it's brutal to play with people you *can* help out.

So that's my missing quarter star explained. I think, on balance, I'd eagerly push this story at fantasy readers fourteen and up, slightly more to women than men. Any younger giftee whose taste you're passingly familiar with would be a good target for receiving one.

SORCERY & SMALL MAGICS, charming queer love story in a magical fantasy world

SORCERY & SMALL MAGICS
MAIGA DOOCY (The Wildersongs Trilogy #1)
Orbit Books
$19.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Desperate to undo the curse binding them to each other, an impulsive sorcerer and his curmudgeonly rival venture deep into a magical forest in search of a counterspell—only to discover that magic might not be the only thing pulling them together.

Leovander Loveage is a master of small magics.

He can summon butterflies with a song, or turn someone’s hair pink by snapping his fingers. Such minor charms don’t earn him much admiration from other sorcerers (or his father), but anything more elaborate always blows up in his face. Which is why Leo vowed years ago to never again write powerful magic.

That is, until a mix-up involving a forbidden spell binds Leo to obey the commands of his longtime nemesis, Sebastian Grimm. Grimm is Leo’s complete opposite—respected, exceptionally talented, and an absolutely insufferable curmudgeon. The only thing they agree on is that getting caught using forbidden magic would mean the end of their careers. They need a counterspell, and fast. But Grimm casts spells, he doesn’t undo them, and Leo doesn’t mess with powerful magic.

Chasing rumors of a powerful sorcerer with a knack for undoing curses, Leo and Grimm enter the Unquiet Wood, a forest infested with murderous monsters and dangerous outlaws alike. To dissolve the curse, they’ll have to uncover the true depths of Leo’s magic, set aside their long-standing rivalry, and—much to their horror—work together.

Even as an odd spark of attraction flares between them.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Forced proximity/mismatched temperaments/social class disparity stories are almost always going to frustrate me. No exception here.

The young men are in that magic bubble of time where all the world's new, fresh, and exciting, the education you're receiving in class is only part of what you're learning, and everything is still possible. Great start, then. Add onto the plus side being queer isn't any kind of issue in this milieu. I'm going to say the quiet part out loud: Magic curses are as good an explanation as any for the reality of human desire. (Which, incidentally, is not consummated...a lot like Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunners series, you're not getting a HEA or even HFN in this story.)

If that's a dealbreaker for you, this isn't your best investment of eyeblinks. I was on the bubble about that aspect of the story, but I'm willing to go with it because I like these boys. Carping, whiny brats that they are, they're also tentatively figuring out the limits of their magical powers (a stand-in for real-life capabilities and drive for success, with the same drawbacks and problems we all face) as they each need the other's innate skill to complete any magical aim. If there's a better metaphor for a successful love relationship, I don't know of it.

Leo, our PoV character, is privileged and gifted beyond his comfort zone in his branch of magic. He's a chatterbox and uses words beautifully. It's a great way for him to distract others from the huge depths of his talent. Grimm is aptly named, as he's learned from a hardscrabble beginning that resolute focus on results is The Way To Succeed. They're excellent complements for each other's strengths.

Why, then, was I frustrated by the story I'm clearly enjoying? I don't like the implications of forced proximity. "Forced" is always going to trouble me. The feelings developed in forced proximity are, well, forced. Like forcing a plant, the result is at best an attenuated version of the unforced thing. I mistrust the trope because life has taught me not to trust forced feelings for long.

I'm sure, though, that others feel differently. I'm also sure that the book's ending is not placed where it is for no reason or simply by chance. Author Doocy understands the material she's working with. Her skills are very much congruent with the material's focus on the communication these young men are learning to give and receive. So I will set aside my unease in the face of my trust in her storytelling skill.

Again I remind romance readers that this is fantasy first, romantic fantasy to be sure, but romance-novel endings are not included. Much to be praised, and much to enjoy, so recommended reading.

THE SIEGE OF BURNING GRASS, complex consideration of the moralities around war

THE SIEGE OF BURNING GRASS
PREMEE MOHAMED
Solaris Books
$8.99 ebook platforms, available now

Rating: 4* of five

Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

The Publisher Says: A stunning meditation on war, nationalism, violence and courage by a rising star of the genre.

The Empires of Varkal and Med’ariz have always been at war.

Alefret, the founder of Varkal’s pacifist resistance, was bombed and maimed by his own government, locked up in a secret prison and tortured by a ‘visionary’ scientist. But now they’re offering him a chance of freedom.

Ordered to infiltrate one of Med’ariz’s flying cities, obeying the bloodthirsty zealot Qhudur, he must find fellow anti-war activists in the enemy’s population and provoke them into an uprising against their rulers.

He should refuse to serve the warmongers, but what if he could end this pointless war once and for all? Is that worth compromising his own morals and the principles of his fellow resistance members?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: As you would expect from Premee Mohamed, this is a carefully constructed secondary world, with a deeply tendentious story playing out inside its rules. Moral greyness and relativistic morality are always welcome sights in the secondary-world fantasy genre. Meditating on what makes a villain villainous, what makes it possible to fight and kill in service of peace (as George Carlin famously observed, "Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity"), all the while still feeling Very Certain of one's own cause's Rightness. No one in one of Author Mohamed's worlds is Right. That being the reality of life on the Earth I like seeing it shown this way in very appealing fiction.

Bioengineering plays a very significant role in this fantasy world. (Including a use of wasps that absolutely *never* would've occurred to me!) I think it is best to leave the whats and hows of that fact alone, as there are surprises in store that hang on those hooks. If I am transparent about it, I would have been five-star warbling my fool head off had some of those fascinating facets found even greater, and sooner, uses in the story.

While I comprehend the metaphorical use of a flying city, I am deeply skeptical of any use of them because they use unrealistic tech to solve...nothing. There is no actual, practical benefit to a flying city that is not outweighed by real, unaddressed increases in the complexity of urban living. I guess the metaphorical "coolth" and visual appeal is just too much to resist, and the people with the flying city in this story definitely seem like the sort of culture that would develop one. Still...just no. Resist the pointed contrast of tech "coolth" to natural development and augmentation!

The absolute joy of the read is the very carefully natural debate between the competing moral certainties of pacifism and Security Über Alles from the alleged same side of the war. This is, to me, the best use of fiction: Don't give one side the monopoly on the good stuff or the bad stuff. Humankind doesn't, hasn't, and won't ever work like that. As you are telling this story, albeit set on a different world, to Humankind, follow our rules when it most counts. This being one of Author Mohamed's storytelling's strong points, I always enjoy her stories.

So, while not a masterpiece, this story of pacifism and its moral greyness, warmongering and its honest, if misguided, aims, and what men will do to WIN, is one fine read, indeed.

Cornelia Funke's MIRRORWORLD series, RECKLESS I: THE PETRIFIED FLESH is first of 5-book illustrated YA Dark Fantasy Series

RECKLESS: The Petrified Flesh (MirrorWorld #1)
CORNELIA FUNKE (tr. Oliver Latsch)
Pushkin Children's Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$9.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Jacob has uncovered the doorway to another world, hidden behind a mirror. It is a place of dark magic and enchanted objects, scheming dwarves and fearsome ogres, fairies born from water and men born from stone. Here, he hunts for treasure and seeks adventure in the company of Fox - a beautiful, shape­shifting girl, who guides and guards him. But now Jacob's younger brother has followed him into the mirrored world, and all that was freedom has turned to fear. Because a deadly curse has been spoken; and Jacob must risk his life to reverse it, before his brother is turned to stone forever... Revised and updated by Cornelia Funke, The Petrified Flesh is the first book in the thrilling Reckless series.

First book reviewed here—Second book reviewed here
—Third book reviewed here—Fourth book reviewed here

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Don't mistake "young adult" for "fluffy." This story of brothers, orphaned early in life by a father whose abandonment of them without a word also cost them their mother to her grief, as they find the "Mirrorworld" that their father vanished into...inside his study!

This is a portal fantasy, with a secondary world that resembles our own enough to be an alternate-history wrold except for the fact that magic works. "Austry" is the name of the Mirrorworld country the brothers, and their father before him, arrive in, not the Austria they leave behind. The family's disintegration, as abetted by the mirror, is not something that the hero Jacob is trying to fix or to escape, like Meg in A Wrinkle in Time or the Pevensies in The Chronicle of Narnia. Jacob's a young adult, he fled into Mirrorworld to find a place for himself not look for someone else. Of course he finds others...a bad father-figure but a good mentor in Albert Chanute, innkeeper and treasure hunter in Austry, a girlfriend of sorts in Fox the shapeshifting...fox. He's got a life as a treasure hunter! He's met the Empress six times! (But don't tell Chanute that, he's only met her three times for treasure-hunting and now he's past it, so there'd be jealousy and trouble.)

The stakes this secondary world introduces to us could not be higher. Jacob's treasure-hunting ways are threatened by the Goyls, put a gar- in front and you'll get it, finally having effective leadership and thus starting to win battles in the eternal war between humans and their kind. What matters about that is that Will, Jacob's brother, has been bitten by a Goyl and is suffering the inexorable fate of such: He's turning into the stone creature that we call a Goyl but, since he's human, he won't survive the change. He will be a stone human...dead, but still walking without his soul. And Jacob, whose running away to find a life in this other world, now can't figure out how to save Will...and his refusal to share knowledge of Mirrorworld with Will is what left him susceptible to the bite in the first place. Oh! Wait! That's not enough pressure, not enough baggage. Will's utterly innocent girlfriend Clara finds the mirror and enters Mirrorworld, too!

Now, let me not spend more time in Spoilerville than is necessary. Will and Clara are serious Mary Sues. The world happens to them. They're not possessed of Jacob's trove of information...and this is something he quite rightly blames himself for not imparting to his adoring little brother. He spends just enough time recognizing that he's set these conditions in motion, and the success or failure of Will's future life among the living not-Goyls is entirely on him.

Celeste/Fox surprised me as a character. Will is younger than Jacob and he has a blah girlfriend, but Jacob's magical girlfriend is...a real full-bodied relationship partner! I wasn't thinking that would work in a kid-aimed story. But this, with its neither dwelt-on nor avoided sexuality and its frank presentation of bodily suffering...Chanute's arm is lost for a singularly stupid reason, for example, but it's before the story we're being told now starts, and is reported not experienced...is part of the not-quite-adult storytelling world. I'd give this to any sixteen-year-old and expect them to feel positive about it. Not younger, though. The consequences of stupid actions aren't minimized!

But sometimes, stupid people just can't be forced to stop being stupid. Clara simply can not be made to see what is completely obvious to the meanest intelligence: She is NOT in her own birth-world anymore and can NOT act like she's out for a particularly strange walk there! It gets wearing, her insistence that Jacob act as though her world's rules still hold sway. And he, fool of a man that he is, keeps explaining and explaining why her way won't work! Because she's unwilling to learn!

But Jacob...he's fighting through death and resurrection, he's fighting enemies he knows are enemies as well as friends he doesn't know are worse than enemies..."Who makes peace when you can have victory?" muses one such...Jacob fights until the fabric of Mirrorworld finally delivers him the thing he's consistently asked for, demanded, begged to receive. The thing he's died inside and out to cause to happen.

He's received the gift of an ending.

What a lovely way to make your portal fantasy pop! Make it such that there is no more severe betrayal that can occur to anyone in this world. Give everyone an ending. Then, stand back and watch the fun begin!

So perfect for its intended audience, so much in accord with the end-of-adolescence access of adult emotions but without the perspective to manage them. This should take the world by storm, and I hope it will.