Suzanne Lazear
Author of Innocent Darkness
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Works by Suzanne Lazear
Associated Works
Two and Twenty Dark Tales: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes (2012) — Contributor — 92 copies, 18 reviews
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I went back and forth on this book. I had a hard time getting started on it but once I did, I couldn't put it down. I just wanted to keep reading. For some reason, I had totally missed that this book was a fae story. Talk about an unexpected combination - fae steampunk. Totally unique. And I liked it. I also liked the way that the author wasn't afraid to be unique in her writing and didn't feel the necessity to stick to one genre. I did think at times that the book was a little more young or show more juvenile than what I would normally read but the characters were kind of young. Hopefully, Noli will grow up in the second book. I am looking forward to it. show less
I would like to thank NetGalley & Flux for giving me a copy of this e-ARC to read in exchange for an honest review. Though I received this e-book for free that in no way impacts my review.
WARNING: If you haven't read the first two books in this series yet, read no further as this review contains spoilers for both books. Plus, the first two books are very entertaining reads.
OK, first off, this is not the final book in the series. Or at least I don't think it's meant to be. . . The ongoing saga of Noli, V, James, and crew picks up essentially were it left off at the end of Charmed Vengeance. This installation may have a bit less on the hardcore action side of things, but it makes up for it with some heavy emotional gambits, as well as some surprises I certainly didn't see coming. Come to think of it, there may be about the same amount of action as in the other books, simply distributed a bit differently.
As usual, Noli gets the bad reputation of being too impulsive, when she's just trying to do the right thing, which usually doesn't turn out as planned. But this time it's a big one, enough that it threatens to split Noli and V apart. They're both going to have to do some pretty fast talking, to each other and many, many others if they both want to see the other side of their current situation.
Luckily they have a voice of reason in James, and he basically tells V to man up, and pull his act together before he loses the best thing that's ever happened to him. James' advice to Noli is more along the lines of, have patience with V and that the two of them need to do some serious work on their communication skills if they plan to marry and build a life together. But the couple struggle with strong emotions that don't really feel like their own. Is High Queen Tiana trying to find a way to break them up without breaking her prior vow? Or is someone, or something, trying to manipulate them into a specific response? And to what end?
Where so many others did a bunch of maturing in Charming Vengeance, Kevigh really didn't have much chance. Or more precisely he wasn't ready to take advantage of the chances he had. Luckily, those waiting for his return were willing to wait a bit longer. However, has he reached the point where he can let go of the past and move forward? Is he ready to clean up his act?
Elise, younger sister to V and James, and the only potential threat to High Queen Tiana's throne, plays a large role in this book. Of course at this age she's not much of a threat to the High Queen, and pretty much everyone wants to ensure that the High Queen continues to feel that way about her. Elise finally gets to the Otherworld, and begins having her own adventures with her new friend. Her new friend who just happens to be from the dark court, long considered one of the earth court's enemies. Her brothers are frantic to find her and when they learn where she is they're even more frantic to get her back. For they don't trust the dark court, and they certainly don't trust the dark court king, Ciarán. Especially as he is also trying to gather all the pieces of the Staff of Eris, which they assume he plans to assemble so that he can wield it himself. Yet Noli doesn't get the same bad vibe from Ciarán that the guys do. It could be because she's not originally from the Otherworld, or maybe she just senses something they don't, or won't. Either way, they're all going to have to work together sooner or later, and from the sound of things it will probably be sooner.
Back in Boston there are any number of big surprises for all. The return of someone from the past shocks and excites many, as do a pair of weddings held at the same time, and possibly even news of a baby on the way. But there is still so much that is yet to be resolved. It feels as if the story is beginning to wrap up, but it could easily be done over two books if Ms. Lazear wanted to draw things out. However with just the information the readers have now, I would anticipate the conclusion to the current storyline in the next book. Of course that's not to say that the Otherworld won't yield more stories to those who believe.
P.S. Don't forget - whenever you're visiting the Otherworld, never eat anything, and always remember your manners by saying things like "I appreciate it," or "How kind of you," but for all that you hold dear, never, ever say "Thank you." show less
Noli and her true love V fear the worst if the Staff of Eris—a potent Otherworld relic—falls into the wrong hands. Broken into pieces and hidden in the mortal realm long ago, the staff bestows vast powers on whoever possesses it. Ciarán, the dark king, is trying to rebuild the staff, intending to useshow more
it to install a new queen.
In a desperate effort to keep the Otherworld from falling into darkness, Noli and V plot the daring theft of a jewel Ciarán needs to complete the staff. But Ciarán is not so easily defeated. Through his devious machinations, he has set a plan in motion for a final showdown that will decide who rules the Otherworld once and for all.
WARNING: If you haven't read the first two books in this series yet, read no further as this review contains spoilers for both books. Plus, the first two books are very entertaining reads.
OK, first off, this is not the final book in the series. Or at least I don't think it's meant to be. . . The ongoing saga of Noli, V, James, and crew picks up essentially were it left off at the end of Charmed Vengeance. This installation may have a bit less on the hardcore action side of things, but it makes up for it with some heavy emotional gambits, as well as some surprises I certainly didn't see coming. Come to think of it, there may be about the same amount of action as in the other books, simply distributed a bit differently.
As usual, Noli gets the bad reputation of being too impulsive, when she's just trying to do the right thing, which usually doesn't turn out as planned. But this time it's a big one, enough that it threatens to split Noli and V apart. They're both going to have to do some pretty fast talking, to each other and many, many others if they both want to see the other side of their current situation.
Luckily they have a voice of reason in James, and he basically tells V to man up, and pull his act together before he loses the best thing that's ever happened to him. James' advice to Noli is more along the lines of, have patience with V and that the two of them need to do some serious work on their communication skills if they plan to marry and build a life together. But the couple struggle with strong emotions that don't really feel like their own. Is High Queen Tiana trying to find a way to break them up without breaking her prior vow? Or is someone, or something, trying to manipulate them into a specific response? And to what end?
Where so many others did a bunch of maturing in Charming Vengeance, Kevigh really didn't have much chance. Or more precisely he wasn't ready to take advantage of the chances he had. Luckily, those waiting for his return were willing to wait a bit longer. However, has he reached the point where he can let go of the past and move forward? Is he ready to clean up his act?
Elise, younger sister to V and James, and the only potential threat to High Queen Tiana's throne, plays a large role in this book. Of course at this age she's not much of a threat to the High Queen, and pretty much everyone wants to ensure that the High Queen continues to feel that way about her. Elise finally gets to the Otherworld, and begins having her own adventures with her new friend. Her new friend who just happens to be from the dark court, long considered one of the earth court's enemies. Her brothers are frantic to find her and when they learn where she is they're even more frantic to get her back. For they don't trust the dark court, and they certainly don't trust the dark court king, Ciarán. Especially as he is also trying to gather all the pieces of the Staff of Eris, which they assume he plans to assemble so that he can wield it himself. Yet Noli doesn't get the same bad vibe from Ciarán that the guys do. It could be because she's not originally from the Otherworld, or maybe she just senses something they don't, or won't. Either way, they're all going to have to work together sooner or later, and from the sound of things it will probably be sooner.
Back in Boston there are any number of big surprises for all. The return of someone from the past shocks and excites many, as do a pair of weddings held at the same time, and possibly even news of a baby on the way. But there is still so much that is yet to be resolved. It feels as if the story is beginning to wrap up, but it could easily be done over two books if Ms. Lazear wanted to draw things out. However with just the information the readers have now, I would anticipate the conclusion to the current storyline in the next book. Of course that's not to say that the Otherworld won't yield more stories to those who believe.
P.S. Don't forget - whenever you're visiting the Otherworld, never eat anything, and always remember your manners by saying things like "I appreciate it," or "How kind of you," but for all that you hold dear, never, ever say "Thank you." show less
Arrrgh. So much potential. So very, very much. And I felt like most of it was wasted.
OK, there were certainly good points. The opening of the book is VERY strong--Noli is brilliant, adventurous, and fluctuates between confidence and teenage awkwardness in a way that really resonated with me. V looks to be a completely different kind of male lead--sort of Noli's sidekick, coming across as maybe a little shy, but practical and brilliant in his own right, as well as one of the few people show more willing to believe in a stircrazy teenage girl. They take a repaired hovercar for an illegal spin--crash spectacularly--and Noli gets hauled off to the police station.
I was, at this point, hooked. I was expecting Cinder-esque levels of extraordinarily beloved characters. Why, why, whyyyyy did it go downhill from there?
Granted, it is psuedo-historical fiction--the story is told in an alternate reality, but still one at such a time that girls are considered a bit second-class and a lot useless. Fine. I can work with that. But Noli keeps alternating between railing against this system (without actually fighting against it after the one thrilling disaster with the hovercar) and then acting like it's all perfectly normal and waltzing along to the beat of everyone else's drums. I admit that this aspect bothered me a lot. I wanted Noli to either stop whining, put on her big girl panties and DO something about it, or I wanted her to treat the subordination of women as a natural thing to be suffered, instead of constantly drawing attention to it like she plans to do something incredible. Which she didn't. She sat back and let the menfolk save her. And cried a lot.
For the rest of the story, Noli apologizes for being interesting in the beginning because it makes her a 'bad daughter' and a hoyden. I can only assume that Ms. Lazear meant for us to be discomfitted by this and how the world tries to fit Noli in a box... But Noli just LETS them. There's no fight at all. It's very hard to stomach.
V fares little better; by the end of the story he comes across as a sort of sexist prince charming, determined to protect Noli from everything from his world to his parents to herself and not ever stopping to ask how she feels about this. Not that she does anything to indicate she wants to be asked; she's content enough to be led around by the hand by one person after another. The biggest decision she makes in the course of the story is whether or not to guard her chastity. Oh hooray Noli. You're in fairy land, where you could be looking for your father, where you could be trying to learn about technology and aether and sparks, where you could try to culture faery plants to take back to earth--and you manage not to sleep with the beautiful young men literally throwing themselves at you. Inspiring.
If you want a consistently interesting character, that's Keveighn. He's this collection of bad habits and entirely contemptible in the beginning of the story, but you end up liking him by the end, if only because he's the only one in the story who refuses to do as he's expected. Keveighn proved full of all sorts of interesting opinions and inexplicable goodness and inopportune moments. He likes Noli for reasons that feel believable--she treats him like family, and he's been alone for a long time. The time they're together is actually a little heartwarming (until the queen shows up and basically orders Keveighn to rape her--then it gets creepy), but we know nothing will come of it because Noli's fussing about having feelings for Keveighn still makes it abundantly clear that she's only going to end up with V. Which is annoying because between the two love interests, Keveighn is the one who treats Noli like a person, instead of a doll to be guarded (ironic, considering why he brought her to the Otherworld). He's interested in her opinions, appreciates what she can do... In one of my favorite scenes, he notices that V hit Noli and gets really pissed off, demanding that she come with him. And it's not in a particularly Grr Me Must Protect Weak Female way--he lets her choose whether to come with him and backs off when she doesn't want to--he genuinely seems to hate the idea of Noli letting herself get slapped around. Noli's interactions with V tend to leave her crying and clinging to him, making him come across as stifling and her as a toddler. She was Keveighn's prisoner almost the entire time they were together and she still seemed more free than she does when she's with V.
The plot is pretty standard. Not bad, but very predictable. Doubly so in that the protagonist guiding us through all of this makes virtually no decisions of her own.
In conclusion: lots of potential; fell flat. If you're going to read it, read it for the walking contradiction of Keveighn, opening scenes with illegal skymobiles, and reasons to hate boarding schools. show less
OK, there were certainly good points. The opening of the book is VERY strong--Noli is brilliant, adventurous, and fluctuates between confidence and teenage awkwardness in a way that really resonated with me. V looks to be a completely different kind of male lead--sort of Noli's sidekick, coming across as maybe a little shy, but practical and brilliant in his own right, as well as one of the few people show more willing to believe in a stircrazy teenage girl. They take a repaired hovercar for an illegal spin--crash spectacularly--and Noli gets hauled off to the police station.
I was, at this point, hooked. I was expecting Cinder-esque levels of extraordinarily beloved characters. Why, why, whyyyyy did it go downhill from there?
Granted, it is psuedo-historical fiction--the story is told in an alternate reality, but still one at such a time that girls are considered a bit second-class and a lot useless. Fine. I can work with that. But Noli keeps alternating between railing against this system (without actually fighting against it after the one thrilling disaster with the hovercar) and then acting like it's all perfectly normal and waltzing along to the beat of everyone else's drums. I admit that this aspect bothered me a lot. I wanted Noli to either stop whining, put on her big girl panties and DO something about it, or I wanted her to treat the subordination of women as a natural thing to be suffered, instead of constantly drawing attention to it like she plans to do something incredible. Which she didn't. She sat back and let the menfolk save her. And cried a lot.
For the rest of the story, Noli apologizes for being interesting in the beginning because it makes her a 'bad daughter' and a hoyden. I can only assume that Ms. Lazear meant for us to be discomfitted by this and how the world tries to fit Noli in a box... But Noli just LETS them. There's no fight at all. It's very hard to stomach.
V fares little better; by the end of the story he comes across as a sort of sexist prince charming, determined to protect Noli from everything from his world to his parents to herself and not ever stopping to ask how she feels about this. Not that she does anything to indicate she wants to be asked; she's content enough to be led around by the hand by one person after another. The biggest decision she makes in the course of the story is whether or not to guard her chastity. Oh hooray Noli. You're in fairy land, where you could be looking for your father, where you could be trying to learn about technology and aether and sparks, where you could try to culture faery plants to take back to earth--and you manage not to sleep with the beautiful young men literally throwing themselves at you. Inspiring.
If you want a consistently interesting character, that's Keveighn. He's this collection of bad habits and entirely contemptible in the beginning of the story, but you end up liking him by the end, if only because he's the only one in the story who refuses to do as he's expected. Keveighn proved full of all sorts of interesting opinions and inexplicable goodness and inopportune moments. He likes Noli for reasons that feel believable--she treats him like family, and he's been alone for a long time. The time they're together is actually a little heartwarming (until the queen shows up and basically orders Keveighn to rape her--then it gets creepy), but we know nothing will come of it because Noli's fussing about having feelings for Keveighn still makes it abundantly clear that she's only going to end up with V. Which is annoying because between the two love interests, Keveighn is the one who treats Noli like a person, instead of a doll to be guarded (ironic, considering why he brought her to the Otherworld). He's interested in her opinions, appreciates what she can do... In one of my favorite scenes, he notices that V hit Noli and gets really pissed off, demanding that she come with him. And it's not in a particularly Grr Me Must Protect Weak Female way--he lets her choose whether to come with him and backs off when she doesn't want to--he genuinely seems to hate the idea of Noli letting herself get slapped around. Noli's interactions with V tend to leave her crying and clinging to him, making him come across as stifling and her as a toddler. She was Keveighn's prisoner almost the entire time they were together and she still seemed more free than she does when she's with V.
The plot is pretty standard. Not bad, but very predictable. Doubly so in that the protagonist guiding us through all of this makes virtually no decisions of her own.
In conclusion: lots of potential; fell flat. If you're going to read it, read it for the walking contradiction of Keveighn, opening scenes with illegal skymobiles, and reasons to hate boarding schools. show less
A hoverboard appeared in her rearview mirror. "This is the Los Angeles Air Patrol," a voice boomed. "I command you to land your vehicle in the name of the law."show more
Noli Braddock and her best friend V's incident with a flying auto have landed them in a heap of trouble. And when Noli is sent to a spirit-squelching reform school in San Francisco, she's sure that her rebellious adventures are over.
Meanwhile, Kevighn Silver has been ordered by the Faerie Queen to bring a mortal girl back to the
Otherworld. The magic requires a blood sacrifice every seven years, and only a mortal girl who shines with the Spark--a girl like Noli--will keep the Otherworld from complete destruction.
When an ill-timed wish sends Noli tumbling into the Otherworld, she's more homesick than ever . . . until V arrives to save her from an untimely demise. But who exactly is V? And if he helps Noli escape, who will save the realm of Faerie from utter annihilation?
An exhilarating romp with an intriguing cast, set in an era crafted from a jumbled collection of various periods of time, combined with a dash fantasy, and all blended together to create an exceptionally unique era, this book is clearly the beginning of an fantastic journey through an uninhibited world of wild imagination. The year is 1901, but it certainly doesn't match the 1901 of our history. Women are still subjugated, with proper ladies working on their cross stitching, serving tea, and never read anything more mentally stimulating than Harpers or Godey's. Much of their time is spent discussing the latest fashions and other inane prattle, especially those in the upper class. Classism still runs rampant, women still wear corsets, and yet they also have technology such as hoverboards and flying cars. Though of course women aren't allowed to pilot them.
In this social mess, where vapid women are prized, young Miss Magnolia Braddock is considered to be something of a hoyden. Magnolia's upperclass family has fallen upon hard times since her father and his entire structural engineering team disappeared following the great quake in San Francisco. Known as Noli to her mother, older brother Jeff, and best friend/next door neighbor V, she is a young lady who refuses to follow societal conventions. Her Spark that makes her so unique is also what helps get her into her current troubles, unbeknownst to her.
Noli is the opposite of what a young woman should be, as she thinks for herself, is as educated as she can get away with, and is more than willing to roll up her sleeves and get dirty doing what she loves best. Her dream is to someday go to university and study botany, but in the meantime she also tinkers with machines. One such project is to restore the Pixy, an old flying automobile her father had planned to fix up, prior to his disappearance. A project that taught her a lot about how mechanical things worked. Had she never restored the Pixy she and V most likely would never have landed in the mess they were currently in.
The two friends she has are also unconventional. V is her next door neighbor and partner in crime, always taking the blame for whatever scrapes they got into, as well as admiring her from afar. For though he may spend as much time as possible with her he never confesses to his true feelings for her. Charlotte is Noli's lifeline, another labeled young woman who is unashamedly a triangle in a society full of square pegs. She refuses to submit and be remade to fit everyone's expectations of a proper young lady.
When Noli ends up in Faery, or the Otherworld as they call it, her guide just happens to be Kevighn Silver. The very Fae whose job it is to locate a mortal young woman not only on the cusp of full-blown womanhood, but more importantly one who possesses the Spark. The Spark, that undefinable something which will appease the land for the next seven years. Something went awry at the last offering and now all of Faery is suffering, and even the mundane humans are suffering, though they've yet to notice the changes yet.
But things in the Otherworld are not always as they seem. Even the people, or Fae, are not always as they seem. Each character has their own troubles to attend to, and there are many, many surprises along the way. Will V and Noli be able to escape, or is she fated to become the next sacrifice? Noli struggles with the idea that she could yield her life to save hundreds, if not thousands of lives, or she could be selfish and want to escape regardless of the cost to all those depending upon the magic for their very lives. Several of those lives that hang in the balance have become her friends, even in the relatively short amount of time she's been there. Can V figure out a way to rescue Noli? Can Kevighn get to Noli in time? So many questions that demand answers, both internal and external. Thankfully this is part of a series, given all the cliffhangers at the end! show less
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