DNF @ 35%
actual rating: 2.5

I really enjoyed the first book in this series but just cannot get into this one for whatever reason. I am finding that a lot of times lately I will read the first book in a series and really enjoy it but once I go to read the next one I just don't really have a desire to read more. I guess it's kind of a good thing in some ways that many books in a series can stand well on their own, but still a bit annoying. Anyway I'm sure this will be completely enjoyable to many people who loved the first one, I think I have just been reading too much urban fantasy lately.

actual rating: 3.5

A really good end to the series. I think it might have moved a little bit fast for me, but honestly that is much more preferable to many series these days that draw out plot points over 13 books when it's entirely unnecessary. Still, I think there maybe could have been one more book in this series. I'm not sure how I feel about the reveal about Marcus' background either, as I thought it kind of cheapened his overall arc**, but it definitely was interesting. Overall I really liked this series and thought it had some very interesting world building that combined traditional mythological creatures and modern day women's rights issues. Definitely a fun short series that I would recommend to anyone looking for an urban fantasy series that is more than just vampires and werewolves.

SPOILERS BELOW

**I mean it would have been nice if there were Hunters who took the Wild Women's side just because they realized it was the right thing to do and not because they had Wild Women blood themselves or were gay or were just concerned about the human women only

actual rating: 3.5

I probably could have done without the relationship drama aspect of this book, but the rest of it was pretty good. The relationship drama wasn't awful by any means but I feel like they were so slow to figure out something so obvious and it's kind of frustrating that now that Alice and Sean are good with each other then we have to dive into other people having a problem with Alice. Still, I continue to enjoy this series overall and think it has very interesting world building and a good magic system. Also I love how it's like 4 books in and she just casually throws in that Alice is bi and Malcolm is gay [or possibly bi as well?]. Excited to see more of !!!SPOILER AHEAD!!! Malcolm's new ghost boyfriend in the next book ;)

As with the second book my main complaint here is just that it is so short! I think that even adding another 50 pages or so would have made this feel much less rushed and help me connect to Cassandra more as a person. As it was I just felt like I was being hurried along from place to place and never getting a really good feel for any of the characters. It was a good ending to the series overall and I do in general like the way this author handles time travel and manages to avoid any huge paradoxes. One thing in this book that I wasn't really buying was how quickly Cassandra went along with the whole thing and how she seemed to adjust to the past so quickly. I mean I don't think I would be able to go back to the early 1900s and not get locked up for knocking some sexist dude's teeth in. I wish the culture shock aspect had been dealt with in more detail but the book was so short there was really barely any time for it.

As with the first book, it took me a little while to get into this one. I felt like this one moved a bit slower, but it picked up by about halfway through and it also introduces new species of Wild Women from other areas of the world and I thought that was very cool. The mythologies from the first book were very European in origin and this book introduces other species of snake cryptids from areas like South American, China, and India.

As I said before, I would recommend this book to people who like Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series, although that one focuses more on human/cryptid relations at large while this one is more focused on the gendered side of things, but I think they have definite similarities. I really like what the author is doing here by combining the supernatural/cryptid storyline with real world gender issues that women face. Can't wait to read the next one!

actual rating: 2.5

Apparently I'm in the minority here, but I just felt like this book wasn't developed enough. It was a really interesting idea and there were definitely parts of it that were intriguing, but overall I just felt like it was a rough draft of what should have been a much more involved book. I think part of the problem was the length. This book comes in at just under 200 pages, and I personally expect pseudo-religious historical-thrillers to be at least double that length. If you are just looking for something short and fun then this will probably be a good read for you, but if you're looking for something more like a young adult version of The DaVinci Code then this is not it.

"I had so many people around me wondering if you were strong enough to be my partner that I didn’t think to ask if I was strong enough to be yours. It’s me who needs to be stronger, not you. I’ve always told myself that I wanted a partner and a mate who would stand beside me and who would fight with and for my pack, but I don’t think I ever really understood what that meant until now. [...] You are exactly what I’d wished and waited for, and I almost blew it because I didn’t know how to deal with your power, your courage, and your need to protect others. You face your enemies as though you were the alpha of a pack. You are fierce and you’ll fight until you have nothing left. [...] The minute I figured out that I had to stop trying to force you to be someone else, the answers fell into place."

Ok I know that quote is kind of long but I was just blown away at the end of this book, and I would like to congratulate Lisa Edmonds for being literally the only author that I can think of to write an urban fantasy with a werewolf love interest that I actually like! I'll admit it was a little bit rocky in the first few books, but I think Sean and Alice have both grown a lot since then [this book was GREAT for their individual character development and the development of their relationship] and it's great to see them in a place where they respect each other. Seriously, A+ for having your ~dominant alpha male~ character examine his behavior and admit that a lot of it is show more unreasonable and he's working on it [and also that Alice has a few things to work on as well, it's nice to see them meet in the middle].

The rest of the book was great as well. Definitely a lot happened here regarding Alice's backstory and I'm excited to see where that is going to go next. Also I just really love the focus on like ...free will and consent in this particular story line. It's sad how refreshing that is in the urban fantasy market today but it is unfortunately true. Overall just a really fun series with a very interesting magic system and three-dimensional characters and relationships. Can't wait to see what happens next! show less

First of all I would definitely recommend reading the short story The Running of the Tyrannosaurs [free when you join the author's mailing list] before this book. I think you would probably get the gist of the world from this alone, but I feel like I definitely got a little bit more background information on both the world and the Tyrannosaur races in particular from reading the short story first.

This story focuses on Nyota, a Tyrannosaur rider who has been accidentally left behind on the training asteroid where the Tyrannosaurs are kept. In her journey to survive she finds and hatches a Tyrannosaur egg and the two form a strong bond with each other. I am impressed that the author managed to both pack so much story into a relatively small number of pages and also entirely keep my interest despite Nyota being the only human present for about 90% of the story.

This story is both a political commentary on the dystopian world in which Nyota lives and also a commentary on body image and how young women often feel like their bodies are not their own or just for public consumption that it is easy to relate to our world today. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who likes sci-fi with engaging female characters.

This was a fun blend of steampunk, scifi, and historical fiction, even if it did take me a little while to really get into it. I liked the idea of using people's bodies as the vehicle for time travel rather than any of the more 'traditional methods' [and I liked that they didn't necessarily always get bodies that they were well suited for because that would have been a bit too convenient every single time]. It was interesting to see where they ended up each time and what they learned from each place [although the rinse and repeat aspect was getting a bit old by the end]. Honestly my biggest problem is that the parts of the book taking place in the future seemed largely superfluous up until the very end, but that might be more of a personal preference because I always become very angry when they force you out of the animus in Assassin's Creed as well ;)

So this is the third book in this series [even if it isn't marked as such on here] but the description explicitly said all books could be read as a standalone and like an idiot I believed them so here I am. If I had read the first two books in the series I could see this being a very enjoyable book but as it was I just had NO idea what was going on. I was just thrown into a random scene with characters that I was given no background information on and apparently I was just supposed to know what was going on. Because I had no idea who anyone was I found it very difficult to become attached to the story in general and ended up heavily skimming the whole thing after awhile. If you are going to call your book a standalone then it needs to introduce and recap all the characters at the beginning of every book because you need to assume that new readers are not going to know what is going on so this was a complete miss for me.

I think I liked the first book a little bit better, but this is still a pretty compelling sequel. It picks up shortly after Continuum and gives us a better look at Dr. Wells and Agent Chandler as well as introducing Elise's grandmother, who is definitely a fun character. I think it would have been better if it was a bit longer because the whole thing felt kind of rushed, but overall it was a fun story and I'm definitely interested to see where it goes from here because they kind of backed themselves into a corner with that ending. Still, a well done time travel story is hard to pull off and I can find no major flaws here.

This started out a little shaky for me - I was worried that I had been introduced to another heroine who was just going to run around obsessing over hot guys for the whole book - but it picked up and took a definite turn fairly quickly and I ended up loving it by the end [even the romance subplot, which is high praise coming from me]. I think it was a really cool idea to take all the mythological creatures that are generally only female and tie them together to have common origins like this, definitely not something I have seen before.

In the end it was a really fun book about a group of magical women fighting back against the sexism and religion that has been keeping them down for centuries and I think that's something we can all relate to. I'm definitely looking forward to the next book. I would recommend this book to people who like Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series, although that one focuses more on human/cryptid relations at large while this one is more focused on the gendered side of things, but I think they have definite similarities.

So I made an effort to read the first few stories in this anthology, but after that I pretty much did a lot of skimming because I just could not get into it at all. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this book. I mean it's well written and there are no obvious glaring grammatical errors that I noticed, but I just could not pay attention when I was trying to read it. I think it's because I want to know what a story is about before I read it, like I want a summary or if there's no summary then I want a pretty good idea of what the story is going to be from the first few paragraphs. But these stories are just ...I mean I don't want to say they're purposely confusing, but they're definitely something that you have to go into realizing that you are not going to know what is going on until the very end of the story [and maybe not even then]. That's not really my cup of tea, especially with so many of them in a row, but I know a lot of people will find more enjoyment in this than I did.

This was a quick, fun time-travel sci-fi read. I'm usually very picky about time-travel because in my opinion it's very hard to do 'right' i.e. make it make sense, but this novella has a pretty solid plot, even if it is pretty standard. I mean you've got time travel and government agencies and the Titantic, so it's definitely hitting all of the standard tropes, but I really liked Elise and I liked how the author used the Titanic as a parallel to what was happening when she traveled to the future rather than just 'here I've randomly picked a famous date in history'. The ending was a bit meh for me because it was just SUCH a cliche, but I understand why the author would want to throw it in to create a kind of 'closed loop' as it were. Also it's literally just the last few pages of the novel so I'm going to choose to ignore it ...unless she writes a sequel in which I will probably read it because like I said she does have a really fun and fast paced writing style.

This book was a really great mix of genres that made it very unique. It's primarily a Sci-Fi story set on a planet where a solar flare forces our characters to take shelter in an old underground bunker for 4 days. This turns the entire thing into a great 'bottle episode' type structure which a murder-mystery style plot as members of the group are murdered one by one and the survivors try to figure out what is going on. It's got a really great and diverse all-female cast as well, featuring a few 'aliens', a lesbian couple, and a woman in the space version of a wheelchair. It's also got two adorable dogs and a cat. It was a really fun read and definitely not what I was expecting.

I actually ended up reading the third book in this series before this one, but since they both focus on totally different characters I think you can read them out of order - as long as you've read the first book already because they both continue directly from the events in that.

This book was a little bit lighter on the action than the other two but it was still a fun story and I'm loving the world building in this series. It's a really interesting place and I like that the author has decided to do several short stories to focus on different people and places. Although as always, I really want to know what is up with these mysterious creatures that live underground everywhere, but I'm sure we're building up to that eventually ;)

I was stuck between 3 and 4 stars on this but ultimately I decided to go with 3. I think what was throwing me off was the formatting of the story. From what I can tell this was originally published as a serial and then put together into this book as what is essentially two novellas, but it's not really presented that was so when the story abruptly changed halfway through it took me a minute to get my bearings again. I was wondering what happened to the girl from the first story for quite awhile before I finally figured it out.

Other than that these are some pretty fun stories. I love urban fantasy worlds that combine a lot of different types of mythologies, and I also love things set in buildings with rooms that change themselves around so this was a lot of fun for me overall. One thing I am kind of uncertain about at this point is Nick's sexuality - to me it's being implied that he's bisexual but there are also a few things that make me think it's more a case of queerbaiting. BUT I'm not sure so I'm going to hope for the best in that area and plan to continue with the next book.

The things I liked about this book were mostly the plot and the setting. I've never read a book set in New Zealand before so that was cool, although I wish the glossary of terms in the back was linked to the text because I was generally too lazy to flip back and figure it out so I just took a lot of things on context clues. Still it was definitely an interesting blend of mystery-thriller, sci-fi, and horror set in a place I don't have much experience with. Although I would personally have liked a little bit more horror and a little less police-procedure, and I also definitely wasn't happy with the cliffhanger ending.

The things I couldn't stand about this book were the characters. I would say I hated both the main characters but it's more like I hated Matiu and that made me hate Penny by extension. Matiu is just a straight-up jerk and while I can generally get behind the 'trouble mysterious sarcastic loner' bit to a certain extent, I just couldn't stand how much of an asshole he was to Penny. Let him be a dick to everyone else but if they're going to be working together the entire time he could at least be nice to one person - her. And while I liked Penny at first, after awhile I couldn't stand her either because she just lets everyone walk all over her constantly and ended up trailing after Matiu the entire book doing what he wanted even though it was supposed to be HER investigation.

This book basically reminds me of a quote by the creator of Gravity Falls when he was show more asked why he made Mabel the wild out of control twin while Dipper was the uptight one and he said because when it's the other way around it's exactly like every other tired cliched show out there. And that is basically what this is - cool wildcard Matiu being followed around by his horrible naive nagging sister. The setting and general idea were enough for me to give it three stars and that fact that it flowed well as I was reading it, but I don't think I'll be continuing with this series. show less

I really liked the artwork in this. It's clean and simple but still bright and fun and was, to me, the best part of this book. The storyline was okay but [minor spoiler, although it's something that's revealed fairly early one] I thought it was going to be like an actual post-apocalyptic story and it was actually just in her head the whole time. It was still well written, but that's a trope I generally try to stay away from and I'm not much for contemporary stuff either so this was okay but not really for me.

As always with stories of this length I do wish it had been a little bit longer, but it was really funny and did actually manage to fit a satisfying beginning, middle, and end into only 20 or so pages. Very tongue-in-cheek and definitely an diferent take on the generally stale vampire mythology. Would recommend for someone looking for something quick and unique!

This had to be one of the most mind-numbingly boring books I've ever read. I gave it two stars instead of one based solely on the excellent world building. I love the structure of the city and the way magic works there, although I'm confused if the characters are faeries or just some nondescript magical beings. But the plot ...the plot was just entirely non-existent.

Literally 95% of this book is just reading about spoiled rich people doing drugs. And occasionally having sex. And I guess sometimes sitting around talking about how they'd like to be doing drugs and having sex. Oh sure it all seems really classy at first because they're all wearing fancy clothes and the book is actually beautifully written, but underneath there is literally nothing happening. Maybe that's supposed to be a metaphor for the realm as a whole, but it still makes for an incredibly boring read and that's not good for anyone.

In literally the last 5% of the book we find out some information about who is behind the bad dust in the city [the major 'mystery' of the book] but so many other things are left unanswered that I genuinely don't even care at this point. Like why on earth is Vaun so special? He did basically nothing for the entire book while all the women in his life tried desperately to get him on their side because ....reasons??? I honestly don't know.

Also I hate that it's like heavily implied that everyone is bisexual because oh how exciting and avant garde, but every time there is a sexual show more scene that is even mildly explicit it is ALWAYS been a man and a woman. Don't use bisexuality for like ...debauchery points or whatever but then sideline it in the main narrative like that. show less

I received a free copy of this book from the Member Giveaway section of LibraryThing.

I was just very unimpressed with this. I feel like it falls into a trap that a lot of short story authors get stuck in AKA they think if a story is short it has to have some "clever" twist at the end. However I put the word clever in quotations because really it's the same predictable "twists" every time. The writing was rushed, the characters were two-dimensional, and the plots were unoriginal. The last story could have been good if it was expanded on a bit but other than that I was unimpressed. Also I kind of thought before I read it that ALL the stories were going to be fairy tale retellings so that definitely threw me off, but I guess that could have been my mistake. There is one fairy tale retelling, one crime story, one kind of sci-fi / technology something, and then what I guess you would call urban fantasy.

I received a free copy of this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review

Before I start this review properly I'd like to give a possible trigger warning re: eating disorders and food in general. There is a lot of focus especially in the early part of this book about the main character Raisa not wanting to eat and having problems with food. At first this is because she thinks if she doesn't eat she won't 'fill out' and no one will want to marry her, since she is trying to escape an impending arranged marriage. However even after she runs away this continues because the Avians have a very strictly enforced diet since they also want to remain very small and thin so they can carry more weight in their gliders. I mean they still eat three meals a day and I'm sure this is a kind of diet some types of real life athletes use to stay small for various reasons but for me I was looking at what they were eating vs. the amount of exercise they are doing every day and there is just no way they are getting enough calories. Also at one point Raisa isn't able to work out for several days and she literally says she doesn't feel like she 'deserves' to eat because she hasn't been exercising. This all gets better as the novel progresses but it made me uncomfortable several times and I feel that people who have / have had eating disorders might have some problems with it. I wish more focus had been spent on Raisa recovering from her eating disorder or that it show more wasn't so prominent in the first place.

However I did very much enjoy the book overall. The world was incredibly fascinating although I do wish we had gotten more answers. The story takes place on a world colonized by people from Earth but they don't really have any advanced technology because metal is so scarce on the planet and apparently Earth doesn't have enough to spare so there are only a few things like radios that use metal components on-planet. However there are larger ships that never actually land and give the people trade goods from off-world and they have tons of metal but they have to keep it a secret I guess because people will mob them if they knew about it. I don't know if there is a sequel in the works but there is plenty of room for one. The whole thing had a vaguely sinister dystopian feel to me but that was never really explored, instead choosing to focus on a more coming-of-age type story where Raisa learns to trust and work with other people. I personally don't think she SHOULD have learned to trust some of them because they obviously didn't and still don't trust her, but it was an interesting journey nonetheless and a good message under most circumstances.

I think what really made this story shine, despite me having some problems with the plot and execution, were the characters. They all felt real and believable and they all had their own distinct personalities. This book reminded me in a way of Red Sister by Mark Lawrence just because there is a large group of girls as the main cast in a kind of school / training setting. Also because I am always just genuinely impressed when a male author writes such a varied and believable cast of female characters. Definitely a very interesting book with an original concept. show less

I received a free copy of this book from the author and LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

I had previously read the first book in this series and didn't realize this was the third until I finished it. The second book apparently focuses on a different character though so I don't think I actually missed anything important to this book by accidentally skipping it. This book was a little bit longer than the first which I think helped give the author more time to flesh things out a bit. The first book felt rushed to me but this one had a really nice pace and I felt like the characters were better developed as well. Also I just love the world building in this series. It's so cool that they build their cities on mountains because everyone uses air ships to travel. Also this book gave us a little bit more information on the Count, which is in my opinion the most interesting and mysterious part of this series. Also I loved how Jiaire asked if he was going to save him again and the Count just said "it would be repetitive" because I was reading and thinking 'oh please don't do the exact same plot again' but it wasn't the same as last time and they made a joke out of it too.

3 out of 5 stars

This book was pretty good but it just wasn't what I was expecting overall. It's set up as Satan narrating his life to a scribe named Wag [presumably some kind of low level demon] and there are chapters with little interludes in between where Satan and Wag have little asides about the material that was just covered in the chapter. It's a nice way to break up the book.

As for the actual content, it reads much more like a kind of informal research paper for the most part than a 'story'. There's nothing wrong with this it just wasn't what I was expecting. It's less an 'Autobiography of Satan' and more a 'History of Religion' really. Although Satan does make appearance throughout, he is mostly watching from the sidelines. There were a lot of really good points to made re: religion not encouraging people to think outside of the box and also that many different religions have very similar mythology that they clearly borrowed from each other.

For me, this is pretty much all stuff that I have read before in academic settings so while I enjoyed the book for the most part and agreed with its points, there wasn't much new information in it for me.