Jeweled Fire

Jeweled Fire by Sharon Shinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Corene grew up as a princess in the royal court of Welce, believing she had a decent chance of becoming the next queen. When that changes, she is left without direction or purpose and decides to make a big change to demonstrate her independence. Stowing away aboard a ship headed for Malinqua and a chance to become a queen there by marrying one of the empress's three nephews seems like a grand adventure...until she realizes the current ruler is playing a mysterious game of her own, and the visiting princesses competing for the throne are more like pampered hostages than guests. Still, the chance to reinvent herself gives Corene the opportunity to make close friends--something she's never really had before. Along with Foley, her steadfast bodyguard, Corene and her new friends must uncover the secrets hidden by members of Malinqua's court if they are to survive the struggle for succession.

Corene wasn't my favorite character in the first two books, although she definitely grew on me as Ms Shinn developed her character and gave glimpses of the hurting girl beneath the spoiled behavior. She really gets her chance to grow up and shine in this volume of the series, though! Her impulsive behavior at the beginning definitely fit with the developmental stage of an older teenager, but by the end of the story, I kept thinking she was older than her chronological age.

Interestingly, none of the primary characters in this book has magical abilities, unlike in the two previous volumes. This makes for a different feel to the story. Not better, not worse--just different.

For readers' advisors: character and setting doorways are primary, story and language strong secondary doorways. Sharon Shinn is a master of world-building! The 3 mild swear words--2 in the same sentence--are the reason I hesitate to mark this book as "clean reads." There are strong elements of romance and murder mystery, although not enough to label them as either of those genres, especially romance since the story would remain even if the romance between Corene and Foley were removed. Book #3 in this series starts off at a leisurely pace that intensifies as it progresses toward the suspenseful climax. Despite the entire book taking place outside Welce, it still should be read in series order so as to fully understand and appreciate the history and context.

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Royal Airs

Royal Airs by Sharon Shinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book #2 in the Elemental Blessings series features Princess Josetta and her sister Princess Corene. When Corene flees her abusive stepfather, she is rescued by professional gambler Rafe Adova not too far from the shelter Josetta runs just south of the Cinque, the five-sided boulevard separating the nicer part of Chialto from the slums. That encounter is a turning point the lives of all three, as well as the start of an unexpected turn in the complicated politics of the nation.

I was grateful for the explanatory charts of characters, blessings, calendars, and money that Shinn includes at the start of the book. I referred to them time and again to help me keep track of the complicated relationships between characters, especially. It had been a while since I'd read the first book in the series, and the family connections are even more muddled now, thanks to revelations in Book #1 (Troubled Waters) as well as in the second half of Book #2.

For readers' advisors: setting and story doorways are primary, character secondary. One swear word, and the few sex scenes are nearly entirely offscreen.

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Still Life with Shape-Shifter

Still Life with Shape-Shifter by Sharon Shinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second book in this series is much better than the first, in my opinion. I found Melanie to be a more sympathetic character--the protective older sister who's practically raised her shape-shifting sister, Ann. Ann is young and heedless, fun-loving and full of enthusiasm. She doesn't worry about much of anything, whereas Melanie worries constantly. Enter Brody Westerbrook, a secondary character in book one, who is researching a book on shapeshifters, and all of Melanie's instincts go on high alert. Matters are soon complicated by their mutual attraction and Ann's mischievous impulse to invite Brody to go with them for lunch, dinner, and pie. Soon, though, Melanie starts noticing that Ann tires more easily, a concern echoed by Ann's boyfriend William, brother to Dante from the first book.

The chapters from Melanie's point of view alternate with chapters from Janet's point of view. Janet starts out as a teenage girl who has compassion for an injured wolf, first feeding and then bandaging his leg. Since this is a book about shapeshifters, it comes as no surprise to readers that the wolf is only a wolf half the time and the rest of the time is a teenage boy. The two develop a friendship and then fall in love, a relationship that continues even as Janet goes to college and graduate school.

It takes until nearly the end of the novel before the two storylines intersect. I kept waiting and waiting, trying to figure out how the characters were connected since they lived in separate states and didn't seem to have anything in common other than their loved ones' genetic trait of shapeshifting. Shinn left the timeline purposefully vague--it's not clear until the last couple of chapters when Janet's story actually takes place.

I am curious to see how many books Shinn writes in this series. This one has a lot of world-building aspects, establishing more rules and context for the existence of shapeshifters, more parameters and potential characters. I have a hard time knowing how to categorize it, as I can't quite bring myself to label it fantasy, although in many ways it is. I may change my mind later--who knows?

For readers' advisors: character doorway is primary, story secondary. There are a few sex scenes and some swearing. Nothing terribly explicit, though.

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The Shape of Desire

The Shape of Desire by Sharon Shinn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I've been struggling with how to rate this one. Sharon Shinn is one of my favorite fantasy writers. And yet...meh. This one didn't do it for me. Too much angst. I kept forgetting the main character was supposed to be in her thirties. She behaved much of the time like she was 19--come to think of it, she reminded me of Bella from Twilight. I didn't exactly dislike her; I just wished she'd grow a spine and not waste so much of her time moping over her boyfriend. And there didn't seem to be a solid foundation for a 15-year-long relationship, which is unusual for a Sharon Shinn novel.

I thought the premise of the story had potential: the difficulties of being in love with a shapeshifter who was increasingly not in human form. How do you balance your life to hide his secret? But why did Maria feel compelled to make up SO many lies? She lied to practically everyone about practically everything, and for no really good reason. I never understood why she couldn't just tell people she had a boyfriend named Dante who traveled a lot? Why did she try to hide his existence? When she did need to lie to protect him, why didn't she stick to as much of the truth as she could? That would have made her life--and everyone else's--so much better and less complicated. Instead, she lied constantly, even to Dante eventually. It's not a recipe for healthy, successful relationships, and it's utterly unnecessary. I can understand being apprehensive about broaching a difficult topic with your partner, but if after 15 years together you can't trust him enough to be sure he didn't murder people in parks, then maybe you should not be sleeping with him like a rabid, horny teenager!

I had such a hard time getting through this. It did eventually get a little exciting toward the end. If it hadn't been written by Shinn, I'd have given up and quit reading it after the first couple of chapters, though.

*sigh* OK, Ms. Shinn, enough with the contemporary paranormal stuff. Please go back to writing another Twelve Houses novel or something!

For readers' advisors: tons of swearing and sex. I'm struggling with appeal doorways because the book wasn't very appealing to me, but technically I'd say the doorways are character and story.

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Troubled Waters

Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I love Sharon Shinn's books! She has this amazing ability to create whole new worlds and make you wish you lived there with her characters. I don't know whether this will be a stand-alone novel or the start of a new series, but I'd love for Shinn to write more of them.

Shinn's newest book begins just after Zoe's father has died. A few days later, a wealthy stranger arrives and announces that he is there to bring Zoe to the capital to become the king's fifth wife. A grief-stricken Zoe numbly acquiesces, but when they actually arrive in Chialto, she suddenly realizes she doesn't want to marry the king and makes her escape. Over the next few "quintiles" (a quintile is 72 days), she learns who she is, what she can do, and what she wants.

The story begins a little bit slowly, which is appropriate for someone in the fog of grief, but gets going as Zoe reawakens to life. It's not quite as gripping as her Twelve Houses series (my favorite!), but it's an excellent tale told well. (Darien Serlast reminds me a bit of Tayse, of Mystic and Rider fame.)

For readers' advisors: character and setting doorways, primarily, although story picks up in the second half. It's also a good crossover book (i.e. adult book for teens).



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Never After

Never After by Laurell K. Hamilton


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

OK--I have to get this book off my desk and turned back in, so here is my shorter-than-usual review:

These are upside-down romance novellas, with the heroine of each trying to get OUT of marrying someone.

The first two novellas in the book were OK. Laurell K. Hamilton tells a story about a young girl whose father basically sells her to a known pervert/dirty old man/rapist, and she chooses to escape by publicly announcing she's going to rescue an almost-mythical prince, believing it's better to die that way than be tortured by her vile husband-to-be.

Yasmine Galenorn writes about a selkie hiding from the selkie prince who raped her a century ago as a way to force her into marrying him. He finally catches up to her in the Puget Sound area and nearly kills her fiance, her supernatural friends, and her.

I enjoyed the last two novellas the best. Marjorie M. Liu tells of an unconventional princess whose father sells her in marriage to a fearsome warlord in exchange for border protection. She goes on a journey to the magical Tanglewood forest in search of guidance and discovers both some new friends and the dangerous ice queen imprisoned by a crown of thorns. (This story was hard to put down.)

Sharon Shinn's novella, "The Wrong Bridegroom," is the story of a spoiled brat of a princess whose awful father holds a bloody tournament, with the champion getting to marry the princess. The post-tournament journey to meet the future mother-in-law is eye-opening and character-building. (Shinn is a master with character development.)

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General Winston's Daughter

General Winston's Daughter by Sharon Shinn


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm not quite sure how to categorize this book. It's YA because the eponymous character, Averie, General Winston's daughter, is 18 years old. It's fantasy in that Shinn set her story in a made-up world, although no one has magical abilities or rides dragons or has any other trait typical to the genre. Other than that...it has elements of romance, although that's not the focus. It's almost a commentary on war--the complexities of aggression, suppression, and rebellion--but not entirely.

What it is, is excellent, especially if you love character development. The story begins with Averie and her chaperone, Lady Selkirk, sailing to Chiarrin, a hot, dry country recently invaded by the Aebrian army, of which Averie's father is the commanding general. Averie is joining her father and fiance (also an officer in the army) with little understanding of the military and political maneuvering shaping her world. But as she befriends both a lieutenant from the long-since conquered country of Xan'tai and a young Chiarrizi woman, she begins to reevaluate her country's actions, both current and historical.

The climax of the book took me by surprise--it was far bigger in scope than I had anticipated. Which is pretty much all I can say about it without revealing too much.

For reader's advisors: character and story doorways. No sex or bad language, although there are some kisses by moonlight.

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Gateway

Gateway by Sharon Shinn


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3 1/2 stars, actually.

Gateway is the story of Daiyu, a Chinese-American teenager who buys a ring at a fair in St. Louis, MO, and ends up in a world called Jia the instant she walks under the St. Louis Arch. She's been brought there to infiltrate the upper echelons of the local Han society and get close enough to the charming prime minister that she can slap a bracelet on his wrist and send him back to his own world before he can do any more damage on Jia. During her training, she falls in love with a young stonepicker called Kalen, who is the only person she's certain she can trust.

This is the first of Sharon Shinn's books set partially in our world--specifically modern-day St. Louis. I found it a little difficult to get into the story for some reason (most likely because I ended up reading in such short chunks), and I thought the characters were a little less well developed than usual. But the story gets quite exciting by the end, and I did enjoy the book overall. I just had a hard time believing in the romance between Daiyu & Kalen, and I wish Aurora & Ombri's characters had been more three-dimensional.

For reader's advisory purposes, the main doorway was story. Character was probably intended to be the secondary doorway.

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Quatrain

Quatrain by Sharon Shinn


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sharon Shinn is one of my favorite contemporary authors because her stories are compelling, her main characters feel like people you know or want to know, and the worlds she creates seem real.

In Quatrain, Shinn tells four stories set in four separate worlds. The first--"Flight"--fits into her Samaria series--just before Gabriel becomes Archangel. Salome has spent the past 17 years avoiding angels and raising her niece, Sheba, and now her past is about to find her again.

In "Blood", Kerk's search for his long-lost mother leads him to a new understanding of the gender-based power dynamics in gulden society and a new appreciation for one particular indigo woman. This novella fits into the world Shinn created for her novel Heart of Gold, and the only thing I didn't like about it was that it wasn't longer! I actually exclaimed aloud in protest as I turned the last page and realized I'd come to the end.

The third novella, "Gold," is set in a world I didn't recognize (although for all I know, it may be from one of the remaining Shinn novels I haven't yet read). A petulant seventeen-year-old crown princess is escorted to safety in the magical kingdom of Alora to wait out the impending war. The longer she stays, the less she remembers her home and family. I think it's the weakest of the four stories, but I give Shinn credit for her portrayal of the self-absorption of so many teenagers.

The fourth and final story was, of course, my favorite. "Flame" features Senneth and the world of Gillengaria and its Twelve Houses. This one takes place in the days leading up to the start of book 1 of the series, Mystic and Rider. Senneth burns down three plague-ridden cottages as a favor for a village and later saves a small child from the flames of a hearth fire. In the process, she's exposed as a mystic and faces prejudice from both strangers and acquaintances when mysterious fires start erupting all over town.

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Fortune and Fate

Fortune and Fate by Sharon Shinn

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars


Actually, I'd give this book 4 1/2 stars.

Fortune and Fate is part of Sharon Shinn's "Twelve Houses" series, set in Gillengaria. This novel takes place two years after the end of Reader and Raelynx and tells the story of Wen, a former King's Rider who exiled herself after being unable to save the king's life. She's tortured by guilt and believes she must travel the country helping strangers to atone for her failure. She thinks she is unworthy of friendship and cannot be trusted with anyone's life, so she keeps moving from place to place in order to avoid building relationships. Fate intervenes, of course, or this would have been a terribly boring novel. :)

Shinn does such a fabulous job of blending character development and plot into a seamless story. I admit I did guess the villain before Wen figured it out, but that in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the book. I especially loved the way Jasper Paladar teaches Wen to appreciate books and reading--that warmed my librarian's soul. And I was glad that parts of the book also focused on the ongoing story of Senneth and Tayse, Cammon, Justin, Kirra, and Donnal--the series' original leading women and men. I wasn't ready to let these characters go after the end of Reader and Raelynx, so it's a relief that the story continues.


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