This week I just got one book I bought myself (which was a serious exercise in self restraint since I actually went to the bookstore and looked around and saw many that I wanted to take home with me). I went to look for the February Women of Science Fiction Book Club selection, but they didn’t have it so I picked up another book in a series I’ve been wanting to continue that they did have. They did have the March selection but I decided to just order it online when I get the February book. You’ll see why when I get it and post the cover here (it’s a Baen cover, need I say more?).
This is the second book in the Lee and Taro series. I read the first one toward the end of last year and really enjoyed it (review of Resenting the Hero). Every time I’ve been to the bookstore since then I’ve looked for the next book, but they always have had most of the books in the series except for that one. This time they had the second book so I snatched it up. There have been a few times I wished I had it around since I’ve been in the mood for a short, entertaining fantasy book like the first one. I read the first paragraph and was immediately hooked so I’m definitely going to have to read it the next time I just want to read a fun book.
In a realm beset by natural disasters, only the magical abilities of the bonded Pairs—Source and Shield—make the land habitable and keep the citizenry safe. The ties that bind them are far beyond the relationships between lovers or kin—and last their entire lives…
Whether they like it or not.
The weather in the city of High Scape is off the charts. It’s snowing in the middle of summer, and the townsfolk are desperate for Shield Lee Mallorough and Source Shintaro Karish to fix it—which they can’t do. But try explaining that to an angry mob…
Meanwhile, there’s a crazed killer targeting aristocrats. Karish has forfeited the Dukedom of Westsea to continue working as a Source, but Lee fears that technicality won’t matter to the murderer. It certainly doesn’t matter to Karish’s mother, who’s bound and determined that he take the title.
Only by working together will Lee and Karish be able to figure out the weather, catch the killer before it’s too late, and most importantly…get rid of Karish’s mother.
