Book Giveaway: Dragon Coast by Greg van Eekhout
Oct
01
2015

Courtesy of Tor Books, I have one ARC of Dragon Coast by Greg van Eekhout to give away! This conclusion to the Daniel Blackland trilogy, which follows California Bones and Pacific Fire, was just released a couple of weeks ago. For more information on the series, check out these character sketches and this video of Greg van Eekhout and John Scalzi discussing bones and magic at Tor.com!

Dragon Coast by Greg van Eekhout

ABOUT DRAGON COAST (read an excerpt):

Dragon Coast: the sequel to Greg Van Eekhout’s California Bones and Pacific Fire, in which Daniel Blackland must pull off the most improbable theft of all.

Daniel’s adopted son Sam, made from the magical essence of the tyrannical Hierarch of Southern California whom Daniel overthrew and killed, is lost-consumed by the great Pacific firedrake secretly assembled by Daniel’s half-brother, Paul.

But Sam is still alive and aware, in magical form, trapped inside the dragon as it rampages around Los Angeles, periodically torching a neighborhood or two.

Daniel has a plan to rescue Sam. It will involve the rarest of substances, axis mundi, pieces of the bones of the great dragon at the center of the Earth. Daniel will have to go to the kingdom of Northern California, boldly posing as his half-brother, come to claim his place in the competition to be appointed Lord High Osteomancer of the Northern Kingdom. Only when the Northern Hierarch, in her throne room at Golden Gate Park, raises her scepter to confirm Daniel in his position will he have an opportunity to steal the axis mundi-under the gaze of the Hierarch herself.

And that’s just the first obstacle.

Courtesy of Tor Books, I have one ARC of Dragon Coast to give away! This giveaway is open to residents of the US or Canada only.

Giveaway Rules: To be entered in the giveaway, fill out the form below OR send an email to kristen AT fantasybookcafe DOT com with the subject “Dragon Coast Giveaway.” One entry per household and one winner will be randomly selected. Those from the US or Canada are eligible to win this giveaway. The giveaway will be open until the end of the day on Thursday, October 8. The winner has 24 hours to respond once contacted via email, and if I don’t hear from them by then a new winner will be chosen (who will also have 24 hours to respond until someone gets back to me with a place to send the book).

Please note email addresses will only be used for the purpose of contacting the winner. Once the giveaway is over all the emails will be deleted.

Good luck!

Update: Now that the giveaway has ended, the form has been removed.

Guest Post: Ilana C. Myer on Last Song Before Night Cover Art
Sep
29
2015

I’m delighted to welcome Ilana C. Myer to the site today! Her fantasy debut novel, Last Song Before Night, was just released today, and she’s sharing some thoughts on cover art—both regarding fantasy cover art in general and the beautiful cover of her new book. If you want to check out a sample, you can also read an excerpt from Last Song Before Night at Tor.com.

Last Song Before Night Cover
Deconstructing the Cover Art of Last Song Before Night

When the time came to talk about cover art for my first novel, Last Song Before Night, there was an uneasy feeling about the topic verging on post-traumatic stress. This for a simple reason: I am a longtime fantasy fan. And as a fan of books coming out in the 80s and 90s, fantasy covers had tended to become synonomous with one word: embarrassing.

There were exceptions, of course. Covers by Michael Whelan were never embarrassing. I especially loved his work for Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, and a close runner-up would be the cover of Melanie Rawn’s The Ruins of Ambrai. And if I’m going to gush about covers I loved, props also to one of my favorite covers ever, the original art for The Harp of Imach Thyssel by Patricia C. Wrede, which did not inspire my book consciously but—who knows?

But most of the time, the covers of the fantasy novels I loved so much were a cause of embarrassment at school, on the bus, and at home when I was trying to convince my parents that the novels I was reading weren’t junk. This last was hard to do when the cover featured a He-Man lookalike being vamped at by a woman in a gauzy gown-bikini. No one would ever believe me that these were great books with great characters. I’m not sure I blame them.

So even though fantasy covers have improved in leaps and bounds in recent years, I still approached cover art for my book with trepidation. As is obvious from the result, I need not have worried. My editor had the superb concept for a cityscape, which perfectly sets the tone for the book, set to a great extent in the capital city of Tamryllin. While I was not involved in the process to a large extent—most authors are not—I was encouraged to send a description of Tamryllin to the cover artist, the amazing Stephan Martiniere.

What I told him was to be more influential than I would have guessed. I said that the Tamryllin in my imagination was a cross between Paris and Jerusalem. This had evolved naturally in the telling: I wrote the first draft of Last Song Before Night in the serene Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon. The golden light, the pale stone, and the ever-present honeysuckle and jasmine infiltrated my senses and engulfed my conception of an invented world.

At the same time, the story is partly inspired by the troubadours, and my first visit to Paris—the culmination of a long-held dream—was also that same year. I fell in love with Paris, as of course one must, and that found its way into the writing too, into the shaping of Tamryllin as a place of grandeur and sophistication.

What I would not have predicted—and what I am so grateful for now—is how much of his own passion the artist brought to the project. There is a fire of inspiration in the art that is stunning to see. A framed print hangs on our wall now. And while I can’t predict what future covers will hold (two more books in this series are forthcoming!), this first, for me, is magic.

Ilana Myer

Ilana C. Myer has written about books for the Globe and Mail, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, and the Huffington Post. Her first novel, Last Song Before Night, is forthcoming from Tor/Macmillan in September 2015.

The Leaning Pile of Books
Sep
27
2015

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review consideration (usually unsolicited). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included.

This past week brought a few books, and I somehow hadn’t even heard that the first of these was coming out soon before I found it in the mail!

In case you missed it, my review of The Best of Nancy Kress was posted last week. It’s an impressive collection of short stories, novelettes, and novellas that will be released in limited edition hardcover and ebook next week.

On to the books!

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R. R. Martin

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (The Tales of Dunk and Egg #1-3) by George R. R. Martin and illustrated by Gary Gianni

This volume contains the three Dunk and Egg novellas set about a hundred years before the beginning of A Game of Thrones: “The Hedge Knight,” “The Sworn Sword,” and “The Mystery Knight.” It will be available in hardcover and ebook on October 6.

These stories have been published in anthologies, but this is the first time they’ve been collected in the same volume.

 

Taking place nearly a century before the events of A Game of Thrones, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms compiles the first three official prequel novellas to George R. R. Martin’s ongoing masterwork, A Song of Ice and Fire. These never-before-collected adventures recount an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living consciousness.

Before Tyrion Lannister and Podrick Payne, there was Dunk and Egg. A young, naïve but ultimately courageous hedge knight, Ser Duncan the Tall towers above his rivals—in stature if not experience. Tagging along is his diminutive squire, a boy called Egg—whose true name (hidden from all he and Dunk encounter) is Aegon Targaryen. Though more improbable heroes may not be found in all of Westeros, great destinies lay ahead for these two . . . as do powerful foes, royal intrigue, and outrageous exploits.

Featuring more than 160 all-new illustrations by Gary Gianni, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a must-have collection that proves chivalry isn’t dead—yet.

Cover Not Yet Available

Judgment Day: The Science of Discworld IV by Terry Pratchett with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen

The fourth and final Science of Discworld book will be released in the US in December. It will be available in trade paperback and audiobook (and I’d imagine ebook as well since the previous Science of Discworld books are available in that format, but that format isn’t listed on the publisher’s website or Amazon at the moment).

The description below is from a different edition since this particular one doesn’t yet have a cover or description.

 

The fourth book in the Science of Discworld series, and this time around dealing with THE REALLY BIG QUESTIONS, Terry Pratchett’s brilliant new Discworld story Judgement Day is annotated with very big footnotes (the interleaving chapters) by mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen, to bring you a mind-mangling combination of fiction, cutting-edge science and philosophy.

Marjorie Dawe is a librarian, and takes her job — and indeed the truth of words — very seriously. She doesn’t know it, but her world and ours — Roundworld — is in big trouble. On Discworld, a colossal row is brewing. The Wizards of the Unseen University feel responsible for Roundworld (as one would for a pet gerbil). After all, they brought it into existence by bungling an experiment in Quantum ThaumoDynamics. But legal action is being brought against them by Omnians, who say that the Wizards’ god-like actions make a mockery of their noble religion. As the finest legal brains in Discworld (a zombie and a priest) gird their loins to do battle — and when the Great Big Thing in the High Energy Magic Laboratory is switched on — Marjorie Dawe finds herself thrown across the multiverse and right in the middle of the whole explosive affair.

As God, the Universe and, frankly, Everything Else is investigated by the trio, you can expect world-bearing elephants, quantum gravity in the Escher-verse, evolutionary design, eternal inflation, dark matter, disbelief systems — and an in-depth study of how to invent a better mousetrap.

Other Books:

Review of The Best of Nancy Kress
Sep
24
2015
The Best of Nancy Kress
by Nancy Kress
560pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 8/10
Amazon Rating: --/5
LibraryThing Rating: --/5
Goodreads Rating: 4/5
 

The Best of Nancy Kress, comprised of 21 short stories, novelettes, and novellas, will be released by Subterranean Press next week. This collection, which will be available as both a signed limited edition hardcover and an ebook, also contains an introduction and afterwords after each story, all written by the author. The stories within this volume are the author’s own personal favorites, other than a couple of novellas that were too long to include, and most of them are science fiction. The complete table of contents from The Best of Nancy Kress can be seen on the publisher’s website.

Before reading this collection, I had only read three stories shorter than novel length written by Nancy Kress, and I’d been especially impressed by a couple of her recent novellas, Yesterday’s Kin and After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall. Even though I only enjoyed about one fourth of these stories to the same degree as those two excellent books, I am now even more in awe of her ability to pack more intriguing ideas and characterization into her shorter fiction than I would have thought possible. It’s often difficult for me to read short stories, and this is easily the longest book containing them I’ve ever read—and yet, I found all but one of them compelling in some way. While the stories were not in publication order, I also thought it showed the progression of her writing skill over time. The end of the book listed each story with the year it was published, and I noticed that almost all of the ones I felt were weaker were the oldest stories in the book.

Although I love the way she tackles thoughtful questions and incorporates hard science into her stories without dry infodumps, I think much of what makes her stories so appealing is that they’re all very much about characters—and often, flawed ones. Some are decent people facing difficult circumstances, but most of them have a mixture of strong and weak personality traits with a few more terrible than others. One of my favorite stories was about a woman who got her vengeance with science in a most diabolical manner, and neither major character in that tale seemed like a good person! Even if they did some awful things, they were well-characterized with clear motivations.

Each character seems quite real, whether human, alien, or even a dog. When I first realized one of the two narrators in “Dancing on Air” was a doberman, I wasn’t sure it would work, but it actually did. Angel, a bioengineered dog, was not very intelligent, but this made him the perfect narrator for the part of the story viewed from his perspective. He was able to observe without having the analytical ability to piece together what was actually happening, allowing that part to begin as a mystery, and he also had a voice that fit. This was a great story about ballet and genetic engineering that showed parallels between two mothers of ballerinas and their daughters.

Perhaps the best example of Nancy Kress’ skill with combining examination of ideas with complex characters and relationships is her phenomenal Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novella, “Beggars in Spain,” my favorite in this volume. It is the longest story in this collection, but the amount contained within its pages is still incredible for this length: everything from examination of future developments in genetic engineering to the societal changes and philosophies resulting from both this and other technological advances to the more personal story of a family. The beginning is immediately gripping: a man and his wife are meeting with a doctor to determine the genetic engineering of their child. They end up with one daughter engineered to be exactly the way her father wanted—intelligent and joyful with no need for sleep—and an unexpected “twin” with no genetic engineering whatsoever, exactly what their mother had wanted. Neither parent even attempts to hide that they have a favored child, and Leisha and Alice have a complicated relationship, to say the least! It also shows the world’s reaction to Leisha and other “sleepless” like her, brilliant people who have more hours in their day than other people to devote to studies, professions, or athletic training. The ending also had unexpected emotional impact considering that I didn’t feel like the characters themselves were as compelling as their relationships and lives.

While I liked the longest story best, one of my other favorites was one of the shortest stories in the collection, “Margin of Error.” I don’t want to give away too much about what happened in those six pages, but they contained an excellent science fiction story that was mostly a conversation between two sisters. It gave a clear picture of their past, their relationship, and their characters, and the final lines they spoke to each other toward the end were perfect.

Besides having a variety of story lengths, this volume also contains a remarkable assortment of concepts. One is a reversal of the common time travel story—instead of characters going to the past to change it, they bring people from the past to their present, which is forever changed because of this. Another is a tale of people and their mission in the far future while another another tells what really happened in the Garden of Eden. Each story is unique, and even the two stories that both deal with a similar scenario (meeting an alien for the first time) are about very different situations and characters.

The Best of Nancy Kress is a superb collection by an outstanding writer who excels at telling a large story without a large word count. Although I did enjoy some stories more than others, I found nearly every story engaging on some level whether it was due to the strength of the ideas, characterization, or storytelling—or, in several cases, all of these!

My Rating: 8/10

Where I got my reading copy: ARC from the publisher.

The Leaning Pile of Books
Sep
20
2015

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review consideration (usually unsolicited). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included.

Some books that sound excellent showed up in the mail this past week, plus I bought a couple I’ve been wanting to read on a gelato and bookstore trip this weekend.

In case you missed it, I posted my review of Defiant (Towers Trilogy #2) by Karina Sumner-Smith last week. If you missed the first book and would rather start with a review of that, I also reviewed Radiant awhile ago. This is a really interesting series, and it will be completed in November.

On to the new books!

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Sorcerer to the Crown (Sorcerer Royal #1) by Zen Cho

This debut novel, the first book in a trilogy, was released earlier this month (hardcover, ebook, audiobook). An excerpt from Sorcerer to the Crown can be read on Tor.com.

This was a purchase from my trip to the bookstore this weekend. I’ve heard this is good, it sounds really good, and while I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, I have to admit the beautiful cover just made me want to read it even more!

 

In this sparkling debut, magic and mayhem clash with the British elite…

The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, one of the most respected organizations throughout all of England, has long been tasked with maintaining magic within His Majesty’s lands. But lately, the once proper institute has fallen into disgrace, naming an altogether unsuitable gentleman—a freed slave who doesn’t even have a familiar—as their Sorcerer Royal, and allowing England’s once profuse stores of magic to slowly bleed dry. At least they haven’t stooped so low as to allow women to practice what is obviously a man’s profession…

At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers and eminently proficient magician, ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up. But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain—and the world at large…

Last Song Before Night by Ilana C. Myer

Last Song Before Night by Ilana C. Myer

This epic fantasy, a debut novel, will be released on September 29 (hardcover, ebook). An excerpt from Last Song Before Night is available on Tor.com. Ilana Myer, Fran Wilde (Updraft), and Seth Dickinson (The Traitor Baru Cormorant) will be doing events in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont as part of The Fall Flights of Fantasy Tour.

I’ve heard that this debut is wonderful, and after taking a look at it, I’m quite interested in reading it!

 

A high fantasy following a young woman’s defiance of her culture as she undertakes a dangerous quest to restore her world’s lost magic in Ilana C. Myer’s Last Song Before Night.

Her name was Kimbralin Amaristoth: sister to a cruel brother, daughter of a hateful family. But that name she has forsworn, and now she is simply Lin, a musician and lyricist of uncommon ability in a land where women are forbidden to answer such callings-a fugitive who must conceal her identity or risk imprisonment and even death.

On the eve of a great festival, Lin learns that an ancient scourge has returned to the land of Eivar, a pandemic both deadly and unnatural. Its resurgence brings with it the memory of an apocalypse that transformed half a continent. Long ago, magic was everywhere, rising from artistic expression-from song, from verse, from stories. But in Eivar, where poets once wove enchantments from their words and harps, the power was lost. Forbidden experiments in blood divination unleashed the plague that is remembered as the Red Death, killing thousands before it was stopped, and Eivar’s connection to the Otherworld from which all enchantment flowed, broken.

The Red Death’s return can mean only one thing: someone is spilling innocent blood in order to master dark magic. Now poets who thought only to gain fame for their songs face a challenge much greater: galvanized by Valanir Ocune, greatest Seer of the age, Lin and several others set out to reclaim their legacy and reopen the way to the Otherworld-a quest that will test their deepest desires, imperil their lives, and decide the future.

Black Wolves by Kate Elliott

Black Wolves (Black Wolves Trilogy #1) by Kate Elliott

Black Wolves, the first book in an epic fantasy trilogy set in the same world as the Crossroads Trilogy, will be released on November 3 (trade paperback, ebook).

As mentioned recently when I featured Kate Elliott’s recent young adult book, Court of Fives, I loved her Spiritwalker trilogy (Cold Magic, Cold Fire, and Cold Steel). I now want to read everything she has written!

 

An exiled captain returns to help the son of the king who died under his protection in this rich and multi-layered first book in an action-packed new series.

Twenty two years have passed since Kellas, once Captain of the legendary Black Wolves, lost his King and with him his honor. With the King murdered and the Black Wolves disbanded, Kellas lives as an exile far from the palace he once guarded with his life.

Until Marshal Dannarah, sister to the dead King, comes to him with a plea-rejoin the palace guard and save her nephew, King Jehosh, before he meets his father’s fate.

Combining the best of Shogun and Netflix’s Marco Polo, Black Wolves is an unmissable treat for epic fantasy lovers everywhere.

The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard

The House of Shattered Wings (Dominion of the Fallen #1) by Aliette de Bodard

This new book from Nebula, Locus, and BSFA Award-winning author Aliette de Bodard was released in August (hardcover, ebook, audiobook). The first chapter of The House of Shattered Wings can be read on the author’s website.

This was the other book I got at the bookstore. I’ve heard good things about it, and I also enjoyed reading Aliette de Bodard’s Hugo-, Nebula-, and Locus-nominated novella On a Red Station, Drifting, as well as her Hugo-nominated, Nebula and Locus Award-winning short story “Immersion” (which can be read for free online).

 

Multi-award winning author Aliette de Bodard, brings her story of the War in Heaven to Paris, igniting the City of Light in a fantasy of divine power and deep conspiracy…

In the late twentieth century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins, the aftermath of a Great War between arcane powers. The Grand Magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France’s once grand capital.

Once the most powerful and formidable, House Silverspires now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen angel; an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction; and a resentful young man wielding spells of unknown origin. They may be Silverspires’ salvation—or the architects of its last, irreversible fall. And if Silverspires falls, so may the city itself.

Dreamseeker by C.S. Friedman

Dreamseeker (Dreamwalker #2) by C. S. Friedman

Dreamseeker will be released on November 3 (hardcover, ebook).

I haven’t read Dreamwalker, the first book in the series, but it is a book I’m curious about so I might have to pick up a copy at some point! C. S. Friedman is a great author, and I very much enjoyed both of her books I have read (the space opera In Conquest Born and the dark epic fantasy Feast of Souls).

 

Dreamseeker is the gripping sequel to C.S. Friedman’s Dreamwalker.

Other Books:

Review of Defiant by Karina Sumner-Smith
Sep
17
2015
Defiant
by Karina Sumner-Smith
400pp (Trade Paperback)
My Rating: 7.5/10
Amazon Rating: 4.5/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.06/5
 

Defiant by Karina Sumner-Smith is the second book in the Towers Trilogy—which will be completed in November with the release of Towers Fall! The series, beginning with the author’s debut novel Radiant, is set in the same world as her Nebula-nominated short story “An End to All Things.” I was particularly impressed with the world, writing, and overall uniqueness of Radiant, and Defiant continues to build on that world while keeping the focus on Xhea and Shai, both as friends and individuals.

More than two months after the end of Radiant, Xhea remains at Edren and has still not healed from the knee injury resulting from saving Shai. The great amount of magic generated by her ghost friend’s presence more than pays for Xhea’s room and board, but Xhea remains unaware of just how much impact bringing a Radiant to Edren has had—until the day she and Shai are summoned by Lorn Edren’s wife, Emara, shortly after Xhea followed a strange ghost underground and witnessed the crumbling of Edren’s barricade.

While the people of Edren have attempted to hide Shai and Xhea’s presence as much as possible, the other towers have noticed—it would be difficult for them not to, as there has never been magic as strong as hers in the Lower City. Edren fears that the attack on their barricade may be the beginning of a war, and they would have never known about it if not for Xhea. With her rare ability to tolerate going underground, they may be able to learn more about what happened, including whether or not any of the other skyscrapers’ barricades have similar problems. Xhea agrees to investigate but what she discovers is that it’s not just Shai’s power others seek to use—they also covet her own dark magic that she herself does not understand.

While I didn’t love Radiant, I thought it was a strong debut novel—original and thoughtfully composed with some lovely, picturesque prose—and these impressive qualities ensured that I would be reading more by Karina Sumner-Smith! Conveniently, there was not a long wait between the first and second books in this trilogy, and I did not have to wait long to read Defiant, which I found shared many strengths and weaknesses with the first book. Like Radiant, it had an opening chapter that made me eager to find out what happened next and a phenomenal ending, but also like the previous book, it had some pacing problems and an overabundance of narrative. I enjoyed that the relationship given the most focus remained Xhea and Shai’s friendship, but they spent a lot of time apart which led to a lot of internal thoughts and description, especially considering most people other than Xhea cannot see or hear Shai. As with the first book, there is some lovely writing, although it didn’t strike me as having quite as much beauty as Radiant. In the end, my experience with Defiant was very much like that with the first book—except that I thought this book was more readable than the first without being quite as memorable.

It’s been difficult to pinpoint why I had that reaction to it since I did find it to be more of a page-turner than the first book, especially the chapters from Xhea’s perspective in which she learned more about her mysterious power. This book both answered questions and set up more questions to be explored in the next book, and while I’m definitely interested in learning more in the conclusion, the ending didn’t pique my curiosity quite as much as the end of Radiant. I think that’s primarily because I’m most interested in reading about characters, and most of what I’m left wondering about after reading Defiant is related to the world and magic rather than characters’ pasts or motivations. Although I enjoy reading about both Xhea and Shai, neither has a personality that makes spending time inside her head particularly compelling so I did not become more invested in either after reading more about them. While Xhea’s perspective occasionally strikes me as a little humorous, both of them are mostly serious. This makes perfect sense given all that they’ve been through and continue to go through, but I tend to prefer that narrators have more of a sense of humor or other distinct traits that come through in books as narrative-heavy as this one.

The world-building continues to be the highlight of this series. In Radiant, I usually felt like I was one step behind Xhea and her knowledge, and I rather liked that since what she conveyed and held back fit with her situation and thoughts. However, I think a lot of what made this book more readable than the first was that I was closer to equal footing with Xhea because a lot of the important parts in this book were also new to her as she learned more about her magic and her past. Like the previous book, there is a focus on the cost of power. In my review of Radiant, I discussed how Xhea’s story showed the cost of too little power in a world in which magic was necessary for life itself and Shai’s the cost of too much. In Defiant, both girls’ stories are more parallel as both are sought for completely different types of magic—and both are treated as sources of useful magic rather than people.

Overall, I enjoyed Defiant about as much as the first book in the Towers Trilogy. Both books have strong world-building, openings, and endings but also falter a bit with pacing and too much narrative. While I felt that Radiant seemed a little more carefully crafted and written, I loved that Defiant delved further into the fantastic world that Karina Sumner-Smith has created—and introduced some intriguing developments that set the stage for Towers Fall.

My Rating: 7.5/10

Where I got my reading copy: Review copy from the publisher.

Other Reviews of Defiant:

Reviews of Other Book(s) in the Towers Trilogy:

  1. Radiant