Annie Bellet: Justice Calling

The first book in the Twenty-sided Sorcress fantasy series.

Format: ebook
Publisher: Doomed Muse Press
Page count from GoodReads: 154 including the first two chapters of the next book
Publishing year: 2014

Jade Crow owns a gaming shop in Wylde, Idaho. She’s hoping to go unnoticed among all the shifters, leprechauns, and other magical people who make up about half of the town’s population. She’s a sorceress, and they have a reputation for being evil among other supernatural folks. Also, her mentor, who is really evil, is hunting her, and if he finds her, he will kill her and her friends.

One day, a drop-dead gorgeous man walks into her shop. Unfortunately for her, Alek is a Justice, a police officer among the supernaturals with the power to be the judge, jury, and executioner when needed. He has seen in a dream that Jade is responsible for the life or death of several shifters. She, of course, denies everything. However, her best friend Harper sees a stuffed fox. But it isn’t a fox – it’s her mother in her fox form. Harper is, of course, upset, and Jade insists on investigating what happened to Harper’s mom. During the investigation, Jade must use her magic, and she knows that her evil mentor will be drawn to her.

Jade wants to keep her friends safe, and that means leaving them behind. But first she will find out what happened to Harper’s mom.

This was a fast-paced, quick read. Jade is the first-person narrator. She’s a nerd who learned to use her magic by thinking about them as D&D spells. Her focus is a 20-sided die. She’s been in hiding for over two decades and hasn’t used her magic much, so she’s rusty. She’s instantly attracted to the handsome Justice, but fights her feelings. She has a spirit guardian who looks like a giant wolf but is invisible to others.

Her friends are as loyal to her as she is to them. They stick together.

I loved all the references to books, movies, and games.

 

Steven Brust: Lyorn

The seventeeth book in the Vlad Talos fantasy series.

Format: Audio
Length: 10 hours 2 minutes
Publication year: 2024
Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell

Lyorn is the seventeenth book in Steven Brust’s very entertaining fantasy series Vlad Taltos. Vlad is a human, or Easterner as they are called in this world, in a world ruled by Dragaerans, or elves. Every Dragaeran belongs to one of the seventeen Great Houses. The vast majority has been born into their House, and their personality, looks, strengths, and weaknesses reflect that House. The only exception is the House of the Jhereg, the House of thieves and assassins who will take in strays, cross-breeds, and even Easterners – for the right price.

Vlad’s father paid the Jhereg for a Barony and a place in the House, so Vlad is a Jhereg. Vlad’s father is dead, but Vlad is still alive, despite his many enemies. He’s been on the run for years. He still is, but this time from the left hand of the Jhereg, the sorceresses. He needs a place to hide, and one of his friends manages to get him into a theatre, because the theatre has been protected against psionic abilities. He gets to know a few of the people, but he has other problems to solve, which is hard because he can’t leave the building.

The story is about theater. Vlad takes on different roles in the story. He also sees the theatre troupe practising their play. That play, a musical, is based on a previous play, which in turn is based on a book that is based, loosely, on historical events. Vlad reads the book, and every chapter begins with an excerpt from a play. Most, or maybe all, have been parodied from real plays. At first, I was disappointed that these plays took time away from Vlad and his friends, but I ended up enjoying them after a couple of chapters.

This is a book for people who have enjoyed the previous books. Some of the characters from the previous books return, and they’re not introduced. The Sorceress of Dzur Mountain, Sethra Lavode, appears as does Kiera the Thief. One of Vlad’s closest friends, his former right-hand man Kragar who, now runs Vlad’s former criminal organization, is a pivotal character.

I enjoyed this book a lot, after the bumpy start, but there are hints about the larger scheme moving in the shadows, which make me impatient to know what is really going on.

 

Uncollected Anthotology issue four: Portals & Passageways

Collects six short stories under the theme portals and passageways.

Format: ebook
Publisher: Knotted Road Press
Page count from GoodReads: 304
Publishing year: 2016

JC Andrijeski: “Kirev’s Door”: Kirev is a young seer. Humans have made seers their slaves: they’re sent as children to ”rehabilitation camps” which are actually concentration camps. From there, the children are sold to rich humans. The seers have psionic abilities such as telepathy. The seers fascinate humans, but humans also fear them, so a law is enacted that forces all seers to wear collars that inhibit their abilities. A rich human man has bought Kirev and abuses him. However, Kirev is part of an underground movement that aims to free the seers. He uses his owner to get close to his target, whom he will assassinate.

This was a very dark story.

Annie Reed: “Rites of Passage”: Finn is a protector who kills creeps, demons that are trying to bring their very powerful and very evil masters into the world. One night, he goes into a production plant that had been shut down. He had met a creep there before and decided to see if another was there. Unfortunately for him, not just one monster is lurking in the plant. While he fights them, he remembers his first battle.

Dayle A. Dermatis: “Save a Prayer”: Nikki Ashburne was a Hollywood party girl until she died briefly and now she can see ghosts. Three of them hang around her all the time and are her friends. Now, one of her living friends, Rudy, needs help. Rudy is a ghost hunter, but he has gadgets to see ghosts. Now he needs help with an abandoned building that’s supposed to be haunted.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: “The Streets Where We Live”: Portia is a witch, just like her two sisters. Portia teaches literature at a university. An old acquaintance from high school, Genevieve, reaches out to her, and she knows it’s bad. Fifty poor kids have been rehearsing a show at Vaudley Theatre. Now, the theatre has been ransacked, and the kids are missing. The police think that the kids did millions of dollars’ worth of damage to the theatre, so they aren’t even looking for the kids. But Genevieve knows that the kids didn’t do it. She’s desperate for help. Portia agrees to investigate. But what she finds out is so powerful that she needs her sisters’ help.

Leslie Claire Walker: “Silver Dust”: Silver is a Faery Princess who saved her people from a disease by taking the disese into herself. She was cured, but the price was losing her memory. She’s also on the run from the Faery. Now, her boyfriend, whom she doesn’t remember but whom she cares about a lot, hasn’t returned. She must return to the world to look for him. Also, her shadow is acting very strange, and for the Faery, that means death.

It’s a sequel to the short story ”Phoenix” in the Uncollected Anthology issue two.

Leah R Cutter: “War On All Fronts”: Tong Yi works for Huli Transport. He’s paid well because he needs to deliver messages between different supernatural creatures. He can see some of them. Now, a war has begun, but Tong Yi has no idea between whom and why. Huli Transport is strictly neutral, and Tong Yi has to carry more messages than ever. At the same time, he has to deal with his drug-using older brother, who steals stuff from their parents and from Tong Yi.

It’s a sequel to the short story ”Dancing with Tong Yi” in the Uncollected Anthology issue one.

I’ve read Rusch’s story before and enjoyed it just as much when I reread it here. I enjoyed all the stories, especially because they continue from short stories I enjoyed. Still, I think they can be read as stand-alones.

 

Kristi Belcamino: The Queen of Spades

The first book in the Queen of Spades thriller series.

Format: ebook
Publisher: Liquid Mind Publishing
Page count from GoodReads: 200
Publishing year: 2019

Eva Lucia Santella White isn’t your average housewife. She’s happily married with two kids, but she has a dark secret: she used to be a ruthless Mafia boss. However, the other bosses weren’t happy with her, and she had to leave Sicily. Now, she lives under an assumed name in the US. She hadn’t told her husband, Matthew, about her past or about the price on her head.

She’s at the parent volunteer meeting when her phone rings. It shows the picture of her decapitated husband’s head. She runs home, but she’s too late: her family has been murdered. She grieves and vows revenge. She must find out which of her enemies had done this and find him. However, the murderer has framed her. Eva must dodge both the police and assassins while looking for the murderer.

This was a fast-paced thriller. Eva is described as a very competent woman. She’s very good at both unarmed and armed combat. She practices the ancient martial art Gladiatura Moderna. While I mostly enjoyed her tale of revenge, she was captured a couple of times and threatened with rape. I didn’t like that at all.

Eva is the main third-person narrator, but there are a couple of other POV characters, such as the assassin and, later a mob boss and his wife.

Eva is focused on finding the killer, but she also has a soft-spot for people in pain, and she helps a couple of others even though it slows down her hunt. This was a good beginning to the series.

 

Alesha Escobar: The Tower’s Alchemist

The first book in the historical fantasy series the Gray Tower Trilogy.

Format: ebook
Publisher: Creative Alchemy Inc.
Page count from GoodReads: 286
Publishing year: 2011

Isabella George is an alchemist and spy for the British Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. America hasn’t yet joined the war. Isabella is tired of the war and her undercover missions, which often don’t end well. She’s lost too many friends and seen too many innocent people die. She wants to retire, but agrees to do one more mission. The Nazis have developed a deadly gas, and a French professor know a lot about it. Isabella must go Paris, kidnap the professor, and bring him to Britain. Of course, the mission is far more complicated.

The story is set in an alternate WWII. The Grey Tower trains wizards. However, some people with magical abilities don’t go to the Tower or leave it. They’re called warlocks. The world has also Cruenti warlocks who suck other wizards’ blood and the Black Wolves, which are corrupted wizards. Isabella routinely uses magical items. However, most of the time she carves runes, such as a Circle of Healing, and runes for Air and Fire to cast spells. She also has body magic, which means that when she touches someone, she can bend their minds or bodies.

Isabella is an experienced spy and alchemist. She’s loyal to the Allies. Even though she works for SOE, she’s an American. Her father was also a wizard, but he died years ago. Her mother and brother aren’t involved in the war. She’s good at both hand-to-hand and magical fighting. There’s also a little bit of romance because she has two love interests.

She relies on local contacts and allies. However, she also meets other wizards, most of whom she knows.

This was an interesting start to a series. The world-building was great. However, it ends in a cliffhanger. Nothing was resolved in the end.

 

Kerry Greenwood: Death in Daylesford

The 21st book in the historical mystery series starring Phryne Fisher.

Format: Audio
Length: 11 hours 4 minutes
Publication year: 2020
Narrated by: Julia Franlin

I’ve enjoyed the previous mysteries with the elegant and smart Phryne, and this was no exception. The familiar cast returns even though Phryne and Dot are away at a spa.

Phryne receives a mysterious invitation to visit a retreat for shell-shocked veterans of World War I. She doesn’t know the sender, retired Captain Herbert Spencer, but decides to go anyway with her faithful companion Dot. They arrive in the small rural town and discover that young women are disappearing. However, when a man is murdered right in front of Phryne, she decides to investigate.

Meanwhile, Phryne’s wards Jane, Ruth, and Tinker start their own investigation when a girl from Jane and Ruth’s school is found dead. Unfortunately for them, Detective Inspector Robinson has assigned elsewhere, and Detective Fraiser is heading the investigation, and he’s like a bull in a china shop. But fortunately, Dot’s fiancee, Detective-Sergeant Hugh Collins, is also investigating and he wants the trio’s help.

The mysteries are fine and so are the investigations. However, the book has some strange errors, for example Ember, Phryne’s cat, is now female and a kitten. Also, Tinker and the girls seem to keep company than themselves. Last time, they were around 13, but now he’s in the police academy and the girls have a classmate who is pregnant. It’s been quite a few years since I read the previous books, and perhaps Greenwood wants to leap the series forward in time. However, nobody else has aged so that seems strange.

Otherwise, I quite enjoyed the book.

 

Victoria Goddard: The Sisters Avramapul Omnibus

An omnibus of three fantasy short stories. Part of the Leading Ladies of Fantasy bundle from Storybundle.

Format: ebook
Publisher: Underhill Books
Page count from GoodReads: 195
Publishing year: 2025

This omnibus has three short stories: ”The Bride of the Blue Wind”, ”The Warrior of the Third Veil”, and ”The Weaver of the Middle Desert”. All of them focus on the three daughters of the Bandit Queen of the Oclaresh. Their people live in the desert, and they learn to stay alive at a young age.

In the first story, each of the sisters goes alone into the desert when they’re fourteen. They expect to see visions about where their lives, will take them. The eldest, Arzu-aldizarin, goes to the weavers and learns their trade. The second one, Paliamme-ivanar, sees strange lands and stranger companions. She goes to the Black Mountain to train as a Warrior. But the third sister, Sardeet- savarel, was already a great beauty and so one of the Wind Lords takes her as his bride. The god takes her to his blue palace in the sky. He gives her keys to all the door in the palace, but the stone door must be kept closed. She would be given all the desired except for a door out, and she could ask anything she wanted, but every answer she would pay with a day of silence.

Sardeet was content with her husband, but when she becames pregnant, she starts to learn that there’s something strange and wrong with the god. However, she can’t escape. But her sisters realize that Sardeet is in trouble and they will come to help her even though the path leads them through the gates of the eastern mountains pass, where only the gods, the dead, and the heroes of legend can go.

The second short story focuses more on the middle sister, Pali, but Sardeet features a lot, too.

In the third short story, Pali and Arzu go to meet Sardeet. All three are drawn into another worldly adventure.

These were very interesting and wonderful stories in an Arabian-tinged writing style. I enjoyed the bond between sisters and their loyalty to each other. They are distinct from each other.

The setting and the characters aren’t as deep as they could be in a full novel, but the stories are just the length that they require.

I enjoyed these stories a lot and will look for Goddard’s other books.

 

Julia Huni: Luna City Limited: The Phoenix and Katie Li

A scifi romance novella that was originally published on Vella on Amazon as a serial. It was part of the space opera sisterhood bundle at Storybundle I bought in 2023.

Format: ebook
Publisher: IPH Media
Page count from GoodReads: 161
Publishing year: 2022

Katie Li lives on the Moon in Luna City. She sells novelty items, such as the zero-gravity whoopee cushions. She lives with a roommate Harry. She wants to travel one day, and to do that she must be in great shape because she’s lived a long time in Moon’s low gravity. She exercises religiously.

One day, she sees a very handsome blond man in a store and that evening that very same man comes to Katie’s roommate’s party. He wants to talk with her. However, first she takes first care of her best friend, who is drunk out of her mind. Katie takes her friend to Katie’s bedroom… where the man is already going through Katie’s things. Katie is furious, but he explains that he’s looking for a missing computer chip and that he’s a spy. The chip is in a box of mints. Katie lets him take the mint box, but the man gives her a drug that makes her forget him.

However the next day, Katie runs into the man in a park and starts to remember things. He calls himself Nick, and he needs her help with a mission. She knows that she should just walk away, but she can’t. She ends up being drawn into a web of secrets and lies.

This was a fun, cozy sci-fi story. Katie is an ordinary young woman who is dazzled by Nick’s good looks. She knows she shouldn’t get involved, but does it anyway. She’s the first-person narrator. Her best friend Marjatta is a wealthy socialite, but still very loyal to Katie.

The Luna City is divided into domes named after different cities, such as the Paris dome. The citizens are very clearly divided by wealth. While the poorest aren’t put out the airlock, they live in hovels in train tunnels. Everyone knows that the mob owns the government, and you’re better off not having to deal with the local police. Against such a dark background, the story itself is cute and light.

Katie is very attracted to Nick, but sometimes she’s convinced that he’s only using her as a cover. We don’t get Nick’s POV. The story has lots of twists and turns, keeping the reader guessing.

 

Five science fiction collections Kickstarter

Dean Wesley Smith has a Kickstarter project Five science fiction collections. It has five science fiction short story collections from Smith.

“This campaign has five science fiction collections as the focus. Fifty stories. Every backer gets those five collections in electronic with every reward.”

“And there is a second featured reward where you can get five more science fiction collections. 100 science fiction stories, many of which have never seen the light of publication before.”

Stretch goals have more SF short story collections. The rewards include two writing workshops: 50 science fiction prompts and How to use “What if this goes on?” to write science fiction short stories. Other rewards include all nine Seeders SF books from Smith and other cool stuff.

It’s already funded and has eight days to run.

 

Rachel Aaron: the Last Stand of Mary Good Crow

The first book in the Crystal Calamity fantasy Western series. Set in the year 1876.

Format: ebook
Publisher: Aaron/Bach
Page count from GoodReads: 522, including a preview of the next book in the series
Publishing year: 2022

Two of the POV characters have major secrets that are revealed early on. I decided to reveal Rel’s biggest secret here because it’s hard to write about her without revealing it, but I won’t tell Josie’s secret.

Mary Good Crow is half Lakota. All her life, she has been made to feel that she isn’t good enough. Not for her family who abandoned her when she was young, not for the nuns who raised her, and not for the Lakota who exiled her after only living with them for a year. And not for the white people who scorn her.

The mystical crystal is the most valuable item in America. It’s mined from the caves near the town of Medicine Rocks, Montana. The caves also have the mysterious Dark, where nobody can see literally anything, and torches and lanterns give no light. People also hear strange and scary things in the Dark. Mary is one of the few people who can hear the crystals sing, so she’s become a guide in the caves. However, some customers want to scam her or rape her, so she’s always on her guard. She has no friends. However, she’s a warm and caring person, even though she’s had a very rough life. She just can’t show that side of her. When the latest group of customers tries to rape her, she escapes and is reluctant to return to town. But hunger forces her to return. That’s a stroke of luck, because a local gunfighter, Rel Reiner, hires Mary to take both Rel and their friend to the caves. Mary thinks that something is off, but she can’t turn down the money.

Rel Reiner works for the local whorehouse as a gunfighter. Her biggest secret is that she’s a woman masquerading as a man. Also, when she eats crystal she can see the spirits of dead men. Of course, eating crystal shards isn’t good for her health. She has a couple of other secrets, too. She needs to find out who killed her family, especially her mother and younger brother. She agreed to work for the town’s whorehouse madam because the madam claims that she can find the killer. But it’s now been six months, and Rel is no closer to knowing who the killer is. When Rel’s oldest friend Josephine Price comes to town, her employer wants her to persuade Miss Price to sell her company to the whorehouse. Rel has no choice but to agree.

The biggest crystal mining company in Medicine Rocks was Price Mining. However, six months ago the owner Sam Price fired the miners and went on longer and longer journeys in the caves. It is said that the Dark and the crystals affect a person’s mind. Sam fell ill and died. He left the company to his niece Josephine Price. Josie comes to town to take over the company. She has no idea that Sam has shut it down, but thinks that she’s coming to manage a rich, working mining company. The townspeople are hostile toward her, and the company’s remaining assets, such as the claiming documents and most remaining crystals, have been robbed. However, Josie finds a clue that Sam found something extraordinary in the caves. Josie is desperate to get money, so she, her oldest friend, Rel, and the guide Mary Good Crow head into the caves. Josie also has secrets.

There’s a fourth POV character, Jean-Jacques Lucas, who is a lieutenant in the US cavalry. He’s not as racist as the other cavalrymen.

The women are very different from each other. Josie is a mild-mannered young woman, but she’s also smart, very determined, and caring. Because of her past, she longs for independence, and the only way to get it is to get wealth, crystals. Rel made herself a man to find the killer. She thinks that going to the caves with Josie and Mary will get her the name. Either they will find crystals, and Rel will get a share or she will force Josie to sell the company to the whorehouse owner. Mary is timid. She’s learned to keep herself small and as invisible as possible to keep herself safe. Still, she’s a very caring person, and once she learns to trust someone, she will stick by them no matter what. I enjoyed reading about all of them.

I really enjoyed Rachel Aaron’s Heartstrikers books. This is different and not as compelling as the Heartstikers, but it was mostly enjoyable. Sometimes it felt a bit too long.

The world-building is mostly wonderful. It’s set in the year 1876 and a one major historical event is a plot point. Because this is based on history, some characters are racist and/or sexist.

This is an excellent beginning to the series, and it ends in a cliffhanger.