Stolen Things - Review

 Title:  Stolen Things

Author:  R. H. Herron

Synopsis:  “Laurie Ahmadi has worked as a 911 police dispatcher in her quiet Northern California town for nearly two decades.  She considers the department her family; her husband, Omid, is its first Arab American chief, and their teenaged daughter, Jojo, has grown up with the force.  So when Laurie catches a 911 call and, to her horror, it’s Jojo, the whole department springs into action.

     “Jojo, drugged, disoriented, an in pain, doesn’t remember how she ended up at the home of Kevin Leeds, a pro football player famous for his on-the-field activism and his work with the CapB- “Citizens Against Police Brutality” – movement.  She doesn’t know what happened to Kevin’s friend and trainer, whose beaten corpse is also discovered in the house.  And she has no idea where her best friend Harper, who was with her earlier in the evening, could be.

     “But when Jojo begins to dive into Harper’s social media to look for clues to her whereabouts, Jojo uncovers a shocking secret that turns everything she knew about Harper – and the police department – on its head.  With everything they thought they could rely on in question, Laurie and Jojo begin to realize that they can’t trust anyone to find Harper except themselves… and time is running out.”

Review:  You all know I’m about mostly spoiler free reviews, and since this novel started off with a bang and didn’t let up, this review will be short.  Stolen Things is supremely well written, and extremely hard to read.  I’ll give you the trigger warning that I didn’t get: this novel deals with the rape of teenage girl.  It’s disturbing, it’s creepy, and it ultimately made me very uncomfortable; which is why you know it’s very well written.  I read the novel in about 3 hours.  I was speed reading because I just had to know what happened next.  I could absolutely have read it in 2 hours, but I had to keep taking breaks because the subject matter made me so uncomfortable.  If you decide to read Stolen Things make sure you have a lot of uninterrupted reading time available to you, and things to do during your reading breaks the will help you decompress (I cleaned and cooked).  This all said, I do highly recommend Stolen Things.  If a book made me feel this uncomfortable you know it was good!

**I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

Publisher:  Dutton

If you like this book you may want to read:

Snowblind by Ragnar Jonasson

Deeper Than the Dead by Tami Hoag

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The Gossamer Mage - Review

Title: The Gossamer Mage

Author:  Julie E. Czerneda

Synopsis:  “Only in Tananen do people worship a single deity: The Deathless Goddess.  Only in this small, forbidden realm are there those haunted by words of no language known to woman or man.  The words are Her Gift, and they summon magic.

     “Mage scribes learn to write Her Words as intentions: spells to make beasts or plants, designed to any purpose.  If an intention is flawed, what the mage creates is a gossamer: a magical creature as wild and free as it is costly for the mage. 

     “For Her Gift comes at a steep price.  Each successful intention ages a mage until they dare no more.  But Her magic demands to be used; The Deathless Goddess will take Her fee, and mages will die.

     “To end this terrible toll, the greatest mage in Tananen vows to find and destroy Her.  He has yet to learn She is all that protects Tananen from what waits outside.  And all that keeps magic alive.”

Review:  You all know that Julie Czerneda is one of my favorite authors, so when she asked if I would be interested in an advance copy of Mage I freaked out.  But, the freak out was on the inside because we were in public.  It was when I went to Albany NY.  Flights of Fantasy bookstore had a multi author event this Spring.  Julie Czerneda, Anne Bishop, Kristen Britain, and Deborah Blake were all there.  Last fall I promoted Julie’s new book Search Image, you can check out the live videos on Facebook and read the review of Search Image here on the blog.  It was my last blog push before taking a little break for my mental health, and I’m glad that it was for my favorite science fiction series.  So, anyway, I met Julie in person at this event and she asked if I would like to review Mage.  It was a crowded event and I was nervous (crowds in small spaces make me anxious, even when they are friendly book loving crowds), but I managed to blurt out an affirmative.  Poor SuperSteve had to listen to me chatter about it all the way home (it was a 4 hour drive and we stopped for dinner at Cheesecake Factory).  It went something like this:

Me: “I introduced myself, but she knew who I was!”

SuperSteve: “That was awesome.”

Me: “She asked if I wanted to review Mage!”

SuperSteve: “That’s awesome!”

Me: “I shook her hand.  And I talked to her!  I mean, I talked a little.  I was really nervous, and it was crowded.  But she knew who I was!”

SuperSteve: “That’s awesome!”

    Yeah, I admire authors like others admire actors.  But would you expect anything less from someone who is obsessed with books and reading?  So I got Mage in the mail, and even the cover is so pretty that I took tons of pictures of it. 

     I stayed up hours past my bedtime to finish The Gossamer Mage because once I reached a certain point, and you’ll know it when you get there, I could not stop reading and just had to know what was going to happen.  I think that this is Julie’s best work so far, and that’s saying a lot because I absolutely love her Web Shifter’s series.  Mage hooked me in the first page and held me spellbound until the final word.  As is typical with Julie’s works, the world building is perfectly done, and the characters come across so real.  The interactions with Kait, her son and her uncle are beautiful.  All of the details have been fully thought out and are absolutely wonderful.  And there’s maps!  Because of Julie’s attention to detail I became fully immersed in the story, and frequently lost track of the real world around me.  Mage is darker than anything I’ve read by Julie before (and I’ve read everything she’s written).  There is always a price to pay for magic, and the price that mages pay to use Her Gift is unique (and dark), and Mal’s quest to destroy the Goddess to eliminate that price is fascinating.  Even though this is a dark fantasy it has many light moments that balance out the dark perfectly.    

     The Gossamer Mage is the most beautiful work of art that I’ve read in a long time and I might turn right around and read it again.  It releases on August 6, 2019.  Thank you Julie and DAW for sending me an advance copy!  

Publisher:  DAW

If you like this book you may want to read:

The Night’s Edge Series by Julie E. Czerneda

Ephemera Series by Anne Bishop