This unoriginal story is not for me! The two authors John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard have made so many mistakes, I wonder if this book ever got edited.

Showing vs. telling: especially in the beginning many elements are told instead of shown through character interaction, environments or action. It’s a big conglomerate of info-dumping that could have been avoided or altered to make me immerse into the story. Especially the “Prologue”, a retelling of the alien invasion, is rather boring in that regard.

Alternating POVs: this makes for a very disharmonious read as you will often encounter several POV changes in one chapter. Also the book mixes heavily omniscient and first-person narration which makes it that much more difficult to read or connect to the main characters.

Characterization: The Illyri are far too human! Their physiology is similar to humans but for being a bit taller and having no eyelids. I couldn’t detect many cultural differences from humans either. Many of the secondary characters seem rather one-dimensional.

High Fantasy instead of Science Fiction meets Young Adult: This book feels rather like a high fantasy mix with young adult characters. Why fantasy you ask? There is the Illyri Sisterhood, kind of your version of intergalactic witches. Next are the Illyri overlords who live in castles on Earth: Edinburgh castle, the London Tower, the castle in Prague, you name it. Why does an alien nation have a need for Earths dusty, medieval castles, I have absolutely no clue. And where are they living in the USA, where there are no castles? Disney Land?
The human resistance meets in old, shabby pubs and inns. I was quite honestly reminded of Lord of the Rings and awaiting the appearance of Frodo at any moment. Evil arrives instead in the form of another very common horror-movie plot twist: parasites have taken over the Illyri and next on their menu is Earth.

Of course our main male human love interest is 16 and already high up in the resistance army hierarchy. He has killed, he is one of the best spy masters we are told. Etc. I couldn’t care less. His name is Paul, of all names available the authors decided on this one. Paulus is Latin for “the small one”. I felt rather disappointed by the premise.

One other minor point: If you tell people that the European headquarters for the aliens is in London, you’d better think again: England (as part of the UK) are a group of islands at the left side of the European continent. The UK is de facto in the European Union but doesn't use the Euro (as if the pound stirling is so much better)! Most British think of themselves as non-Europeans and there is also a big discussion on whether to pull out of the EU. It's kind of hilarious if you think about it, that the european headquarter should be in London. If I were an Alien race I would put myy headquarter there where it already is, in Straßbourg. (And France has also some very nice chateaux)

And to think that Scottish people now lead the resistance? There is even some mentioning of fighting at the Hadrian’s Wall. Next our Scottish lairds are wearing long hair and kilts. LOL.

So for my first Booklikes post I thought I'd summarize a few of the books I've been reading lately. Mostly I read textbooks for university, but considering I'm not counting those as pleasure reads, we'll forget them (until my grades drop drastically). As for fiction and novels that have been in bed with me lately, let the list begin!

 

• The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
• Frost Bitten - Kelley Armstrong
• Bellman & Black - Diane Setterfield
• The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

 

 

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

 

This book has been one of my favorites since I first picked it up in 2011. Erin Morgenstern is a genius, and the appeal of this book cannot be denied. It's the result of National Novel Writing Month (an annual literacy awareness campaign wherein people from all over the word write 50,000 words in the month of November to promote illiteracy awareness. I've competed and won a couple times, it feels great!)

 

The Night Circus is about, well, a circus. A traveling 19th century circus which appears without warning. It is only open from dusk until dawn, and is a public venue for two magically inclined competitors, sworn and bound to compete against one another until a victor is declared. New tents are constantly appearing in the circus, filled with wonderful, sensory illusions. 

 

Frost Bitten - Kelley Armstrong

 

Frost Bitten is actually from the middle of a supernatural book series I consider guilty pleasure reading. I own the entire series, from the anthology to Men of the Otherworld. This particular book sat on my shelf for several years, and although I have reread this series several times, I somehow always managed to skip over Frost Bitten, and never realized. Three nights ago, I realized, and in delight, plunged into this "new" book. I was up until 3 am on a school night, devouring the final chapter. Can't say I regret it, either.

 

The Otherworld series is about female supernaturals, everything from werewolves to witches to a necromancer. There's plenty of gore, bitch-calling, and unrealistic sex scenes. I wouldn't call any of the books in the series a "feminist read," but there is a hell of a lot of girl power in a series about female protagonists who kick bad-guy ass and look good doing it. The whole Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong is the ultimate post-breakup, PMS indulge fest reading material!

 

Bellman & Black - Diane Setterfield

 

In all honesty, I haven't finished this book yet. While it's written by literary mastermind Diane Setterfield who also penned The Thirteenth Tale (the reason I requested an advanced reader copy of Bellman & Black) I don't know if I like this new, unreleased novel as much. I'm struggling to get through it, feeling obligated to finish it and review it because I requested it and was accepted, and not wanting to read it out of obligation. So here we are, a few chapters in, and consciously comparing the opening pages to its predecessor. I'll get back to you on this one.

 

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

 

This book is an anomaly. It's mind-blowingly original, creative, inspired, and ultimately, a brainteaser. As the title suggests, it's a book about the wife of a time traveler, who is left behind every time her husband travels. He often goes to visit her childhood self, causing pause for thought: did they meet because he randomly traveled back to her childhood; or did they meet because she ran into him in his present and caused such a disturbance in his life with her previous history and knowledge of him? Can there be one without the other?

This book makes me feel like a philosophical quantum physicist which is just ridiculous: I'm actually a closet romantic. Of course this novel is also a love story, they married after all. It's dramatic and chaotic and unusually funny. Time travellers, of course, can't take anything with them. Not even their clothes. Good thing Henry doesn't need glasses. Or have any sexual piercings....

I actually wanted to like this but somehow it didn't work all that well for me. The Braxana and the Azean have been at war for generations. Braxana have a complicated society that's obscure to all but the initiated. Azeans are masters of genetic science and have their own rules that are also complicated and strange. Neither like each other and both consider that they know best. Zatar and Anzha are two generals on each side and they have made this war their own. Somehow it just didn't work for me, it was interesting but I just didn't care all that much about any of the characters and when there were leaps in time I often didn't follow what was happening quick enough. I can see why some people would love it, but I could also see why some would dislike it. Maybe if I had read it earlier in my life I would have preferred it. I'm going to read the sequel to see if I want to keep them both.

I actually wanted to like this but somehow it didn't work all that well for me.The Braxana and the Azean have been at war for generations. Braxana have a complicated society that's obscure to all but the initiated. Azeans are masters of genetic science and have their own rules that are also complicated and strange. Neither like each other and both consider that they know best. Zatar and Anzha are two generals on each side and they have made this war their own.Somehow it just didn't work for me, it was interesting but I just didn't care all that much about any of the characters and when there were leaps in time I often didn't follow what was happening quick enough. I can see why some people would love it, but I could also see why some would dislike it. Maybe if I had read it earlier in my life I would have preferred it. I'm going to read the sequel to see if I want to keep them both.

Three Blue Suits: Mr. Froelich/Herbert W... Elijah Conquest (book One) by June Spears

3 Stars

Elijah is a vampire with a conscience, he doesn’t take life and he never visits the same victim twice. He becomes obsessed with finding Isobel, the woman who changed his life forever by showing him the darkness. Driven by lust and his thirst for blood he seeks fulfilment from a number of sources, male, female, human and vampire.

I’m not quite sure what the actual story line is because Elijah and Isobel meet up fairly early in the book so I don’t think that’s it. There are lots of vampires who feed from each other as well as from humans. Some of them are new, some are old, some have no issues making new vampires, while others refuse to subject others to their same fate. There is a darker, evil vampire who attacks other vampires making them as vulnerable as humans, so maybe this threat is the core for the plot, I’m just not really sure, it is pretty mixed up and fast moving going off in all directions.

There were a lot of irritating editing issues, typo’s missing words and wrong word usage, that could have been picked up with a couple more read through’s. I sometimes get quite frustrated when writers rush to get their work out there before the manuscript is type perfect, it lets the book down and lets the author down.

Copy supplied for review.