Captive by Amanda Pillar

Captive by Amanda Pillar is a novella set in the Graced universe, but at a much earlier period of story history. Although a few character names might be familiar, the two stories stand completely alone. If anything, Captive fills in some of the "historical" backstory that didn't fit into Graced, while telling its own story.

Vampires, werewolves, and the Graced are at war with their human creators, and humanity is losing. But one girl might hold the key to salvation. Held captive with her fellow humans by alpha Wolfgang and his pack of weres, Laney secretly inches ever closer to breaking were and vampire blood dependency forever.

But Laney doesn’t have long. Their numbers decimated by plague, humans are being kidnapped and reduced to livestock. And when Laney and her sister are kidnapped by a neighboring vampire clan notorious for its “farming” of humans, their only hope lies in Wolf – who doesn’t know the shocking secret Laney has gone to great lengths to conceal.

With their lives and the future of humanity in the balance, can Laney and Wolf learn to trust each other before their races cease to exist?

I enjoyed Captive quite a bit. I would go so far as to say I enjoyed the start of the novella more than I enjoyed Graced. This is probably partly because the main character is a scientist and I am biased. Where Graced was set seemingly very long after the apocalypse, so to speak, that resulted from the creation of vampires and werewolves and the subsequent wars, Captive is set much closer to that time period (but still after it).

The main(est) character, Laney, is a geneticist who had been working on "cures" for the vampire need for human blood and the werewolf need for human liver. Not, to be clear, changing their species back to human, just removing their need to farm humans. Having originally been part of a werewolf, er, farm, Laney, her sister and their fellow humans are captured by vampires in a raid. Their main goal is to survive until a way out presents itself. Unbeknownst to them, other characters are also working on rescuing them from the vampires.

I mentioned earlier that I particularly enjoyed the start of Captive. It would be more accurate to say that I enjoyed almost all of Captive but I found the ending rather abrupt. The main plot arc of escaping the vampires is resolved, but a lot of romantic (and other, spoilery) subplots are introduced near the end and I don't think this novella was long enough to give them enough space to properly develop. The time jumps at the end, to get to the second last chapter and the epilogue, didn't really help on that front. I think it would have been more enjoyable had the last portion of the book been longer. I certainly wouldn't've minded reading more of it.

Overall I liked Captive, even if I would have preferred more of it. I would recommend it to fans of Graced, but want to stress again that both stories stand alone quite well. I will certainly be reading any other novellas or novels Pillar writes set in the same world. This was almost a 4-star read, but I took off half a star for the abruptness of the ending.

3.5 / 5 stars

First published: February 2016, Momentum
Series: Same universe as Graced but with different characters and set much earlier
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley 
Disclaimer: The author is a friend but I have endeavoured to write an impartial review
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

The Last Quarrel by Duncan Lay

The Last Quarrel by Duncan Lay is the first book in a new trilogy, set in the same world as his other series but in different countries (and I think chronologically later, although I'm less sure when it comes to the Dragon Sword Histories). It is being released in five "episodes", with the final episode due out in a couple of weeks and the collected volume (ie all of book one of the trilogy) due out in late April. This is a review of the full volume, although I also posted a brief review of episode one a few days ago.

In the country, fishing boats return with their crews mysteriously vanished, while farms are left empty, their owners gone into the night, meals still on the table. In the cities, children disappear from the streets or even out of their own beds. The King tells his people that it is the work of selkies – mythical creatures who can turn from seals into men and back again – and witches. But no matter how many women he burns at the stake, the children are still being taken.

Fallon is a man who has always dreamed of being a hero. His wife Bridgit just wants to live in peace and quiet, and to escape the tragedies that have filled her life. His greatest wish and her worst nightmare are about to collide.

When an empty ship sails into their village, he begins to follow the trail towards the truth behind the evil stalking their land. But it is a journey that will take them both into a dark, dark place and nobody can tell them where it might end …

I had the luxury of not having to wait for the next episode to come out when I was reading this, since I got review copies of the whole lot in one go. To me this felt like an ordinary novel, albeit one where I had to change files every 250ish iPad pages. I didn't detect any modifications to the flow of the novel to account for the episode structure. The episode breaks came at the ends of chapters (of course) and while they were mild cliffhangers, they weren't any more cliffhanging than chapters normally are. To me it was the usual frustration of waiting to get back to the hanging point of view. But enough about structure, what about the book?

The early parts of The Last Quarrel has two point of view characters, which expand to three later on. There's the Crown Prince, who seems to be the only nice person among the nobility in the capital city. Along with his two offsiders — body guard and scribe/advisor/can't remember his official title — he quickly realises that the weird stuff is going on is not supernatural and tries to get to the bottom of it.

Not believing in a supernatural cause for the trouble is something the prince shares with the other main character, Fallon. Fallon starts off as a village sergeant, the only proper soldier around, and when the county's Duke disappears off his ship in a Marie Celeste situation, he takes it upon himself to investigate. He becomes increasingly convinced that people are behind a slew of mysterious disappearances, but few other people in power agree with him. He does catch the eye of both the Duchess and the Crown Prince, signalling a rise in his fortunes.

There aren't a lot of female characters in The Last Quarrel, but those that do exist are fleshed out proper people with agency. They also happen to become more important as the book progresses. For example, Fallon's wife, Bridgit, starts off without much of a roll beyond mother and wife. But her character has depth, initially in the form of a lot of anxieties. Her fears have a basis but they are a little frustrating since their purpose appears to be to slow down the plot. However, when the plot catches up with Bridgit she gets a chance to come out of her shell of anxiety and over-protectiveness (of her son) and really shine. I was pretty ambivalent about her character until events conspired to give her her own point of view sections. (I'd go into more details, but spoilers.)

Fans of Lay's might be wondering if his theme of having male characters in strong parental roles continues in this series. The short answer is: it does. It takes a little while for Fallon's relationship with his son to become central to the story, but when it does, Lay presents us with yet another type of father-child relationship.

Finally, I found the end a bit frustrating. Honestly, it was more of a cliffhanger than any of the episode breaks. But also, the "twist" contained (in full) in the last few pages was kind of obvious to me and I was annoyed that the relevant character fell for it. And then of course being the ending there were no pages left to explore ramifications. Gah! When does book 2 come out? Hopefully we won't have to wait too long.

So, is The Last Quarrel worth reading? Absolutely. If you're a Duncan Lay or BFF (big fat fantasy) fan then I highly recommend it. It took a little while for me to get far enough into it to really start enjoying myself (the opening wasn't bad, it was just more fun once the plot got into the swing of things). If you've read one or two episodes and are undecided about continuing, I would urge you to do so. The book improves, and the cast broadens, as it goes along. I think that's a danger in episode-ising a BFF novel. If the set up isn't super gripping then readers might be lost along the way. Compared with readers who might feel obliged to keep going if they bought the novel in full, and then end up enjoying it. So I'm not sold on the concept but I am sold on the novel and this new series of Duncan Lay's.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: Episode One from January, Episode Five March, Complete Edition April, 2015, Momentum Books 
Series: Yes. Book 1 of 3 (not sure what the trilogy names is, but apparently book two will be called The Bloody Quarrel)
Format read: eARC
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

The Last Quarrel: Episode One by Duncan Lay

The Last Quarrel: Episode One by Duncan Lay is the first of five "episodes" of the BFF (big fat fantasy) novel The Last Quarrel. They're being released a few weeks apart and as of writing episode four has just come out with episode five due in the last week of March. My plan was to review the whole book in one go since I'm not a huge fan of rationed episodes (I prefer to binge watch my TV as well), but since things have been quiet on the blog of late I thought I'd do a short review of episode one to whet your appetites. I'm still planning to review the rest of the episodes as a complete edition when I'm done.

In the country, fishing boats return with their crews mysteriously vanished, while farms are left empty, their owners gone into the night, meals still on the table. In the cities, children disappear from the streets or even out of their own beds. The King tells his people that it is the work of selkies – mythical creatures who can turn from seals into men and back again – and witches. But no matter how many women he burns at the stake, the children are still being taken.

Fallon is a man who has always dreamed of being a hero. His wife Bridgit just wants to live in peace and quiet, and to escape the tragedies that have filled her life. His greatest wish and her worst nightmare are about to collide.

When an empty ship sails into their village, he begins to follow the trail towards the truth behind the evil stalking their land. But it is a journey that will take them both into a dark, dark place and nobody can tell them where it might end...

The blurb above sums up this novel opening fairly well. As well as Fallon, we are also introduced to Prince Cavan, who is involved in his own investigation of strange occurrences in the capital city. While Fallon is concerned with selkie rumours, Cavan is dealing with accusations of witchcraft (not directed at him). I'm enjoying The Last Quarrel so far and I'm looking forward to getting through the rest of the novel.

I was sort of expecting this episode to end on an artificial cliffhanger, you know, to make people want to read the next one straight away. There sort of was, but it was the kind of mild cliffhanger that you would expect at the end of a chapter. I'm glad I didn't actually have to wait for the next episode, however. I flicked over to the next one straight away and read about another half a chapter before going to sleep.

So if you're used to reading fantasy books without enforced breaks, I would recommend having all the episodes lined up before you start. On the other hand, if you're not already a fan of Duncan Lay's, or haven't read any of his books before, Episode One offers a substantial chunk of story to help you decide whether to keep reading. More than a sample for a fantasy book would normally contain. (And as I type, Episode One is free from the Momentum store (usually $1), so why not give it a go?) I'm not sure I've been converted to the idea of episodic book releases, but reading the discrete episode files does give a feeling of satisfaction when you get through them quickly.

4 / 5 stars

First published: January 2015, Momentum Books
Series: Well, episode 1 of 5 of The Last Quarrel, which itself is book 1 of 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

Shatterwing by Donna Maree Hanson

Shatterwing by Donna Maree Hanson is the first book in the Dragon Wine series. It's a secondary world fantasy with dragons (as you may gather from the series title) and more astronomy that we usually see in a fantasy book. I've previously reviewed a couple of Donna's books, Rayessa and the Space Pirates, and Bespelled. What strikes me most about Donna as a writer is how flexible she can be. These three books have very little in common stylistically or even thematically, yet she pulls them off.

Dragon wine could save them. Or bring about their destruction.

Since the moon shattered, the once peaceful and plentiful world has become a desolate wasteland. Factions fight for ownership of the remaining resources as pieces of the broken moon rain down, bringing chaos, destruction and death.

The most precious of these resources is dragon wine – a life-giving drink made from the essence of dragons. But the making of the wine is perilous and so is undertaken by prisoners. Perhaps even more dangerous than the wine production is the Inspector, the sadistic ruler of the prison vineyard who plans to use the precious drink to rule the world.

There are only two people that stand in his way. Brill, a young royal rebel who seeks to bring about revolution, and Salinda, the prison's best vintner and possessor of a powerful and ancient gift that she is only beginning to understand. To stop the Inspector, Salinda must learn to harness her power so that she and Brill can escape, and stop the dragon wine from falling into the wrong hands.

The blurb is a bit deceptive in that it only covers about half the book. And I mean that in the most literal sense; part two breaks from the first set of characters to follow a new group of characters. It could almost have been published as two separate books and the structure really highlights how this is only the first book in the series. Having said that, the first section ended in a fairly conclusive way that didn't leave me so desperate to get back to those characters that I couldn't pay attention to the new characters. If anything, I'd argue that the first part was a bit more conclusive than the second, which ended on a minor cliffhanger.

But enough about structure. The most obvious thing to note about the content of this book that's not necessarily obvious is that it's dark fantasy. Dark as in brutal or "grimdark". There is rape and there is violence. Most of the worst rape happens off the page, but there's enough on the page that if you don't want to read about rape (or molestation or brutal beatings), then probably give this series a miss. The characters can be more or less divided into main characters and other "good guys" and "horrible men that don't think women are real people". And, I suppose, miscellaneous bystanders who are afraid of witchcraft.

I really enjoyed the story but there were times when the brutality got a bit much for me. Mainly this was towards the end of part one where Salinda, our first main character, is being brutally tortured. It's not that it's not relevant to the plot, but it wasn't fun to read (nor, I think, should it have been). Then, in part two, I was probably a bit over-invested in a new main character, Laidan, not being raped and it was a nail-biter for a while there. (I won't spoil which way it went.)

Anyway, the main thrust of Shatterwing is setting up the world and the overarching plot for the series. The worldbuilding is quite nice, with two moons in the sky, one of which broke up hundreds of years ago (called the "Shatterwing" because it's shattered and looks like a wing). There's some historical background that remains mysterious for the time being and I look forward to learning more about that in subsequent books. There's also the matter of the dragon wine, which has magical properties, and which is apparently the main thing keeping the human population alive. How did this come to be? I'm not sure, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Shatterwing is not for everyone and I wouldn't recommend it to people who wish to avoid reading about violence. However, I would recommend it to fans of dark and grim fantasy. The world may have dragons that eat people, but the real monsters here are other people.

4 / 5 stars

First published: September 2014, Momentum Books
Series: Dragon Wine book 1 of ? (possibly 4?)
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Disclaimer: Author is a friend but I've endeavoured to write an unbiased review
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge