Book Review: The Wandering Inn: Fae and Fare by Pirateaba

 

Goodreads Summary: Winter has come to the world, and still, Erin Solstice has no idea how she came to be an [Innkeeper].
Erin is running an inn outside the city of Liscor, but she's no longer alone. Ryoka Griffin, the City Runner, has business in the south of Izril; she's out on a dangerous delivery of her own. Yet, while both young women have finally found their calling, more and more people are beginning to realize that these visitors from Earth don't belong here.
Erin must find new and old guests for her inn while expanding her tentative business. Staying safe would also be nice. At the same time, some pesky creatures have arrived to herald winter, bringing mischief and danger unlike anything she's ever seen. But as more and more children of Earth begin appearing, the cold of winter is the least of Erin's worries.

Goodreads Rating: 4.53 stars with over 4,200 ratings

Genre Listing: Fantasy, Fiction, Magic, Adventure, High Fantasy, Dragons, Fae, LITRPG

Goodreads Challenge: 1/60

2024 Reading Challenge: #49 Read a book with a Unicorn in it (Find the entire challenge here)

Book Review: 

Hello, Readers! Welcome to 2024. I hope the first few days have treated everyone well. I finished the first book of the year and am trying to get back into the habit of doing reviews after every book. Let's jump right in.

Fae and Fare is the second book in the Wandering Inn series by Pirateaba. The series started out as a web novel. I've been listening to the series on Audible, however. The series is narrated by Andrea Parsneau, and she does a fantastic job. The premise of the Wandering Inn is that Erin winds up in a different world in the city of Liscor. She doesn't know how she got there, but she hides in an abandoned Inn to escape monsters trying to kill her. However, she finds that the entire world is based on leveling up and getting skills like in a video game. Adventure and chaos ensue from there. 

Before the Wandering Inn series, I hadn't read anything that would fall into the LITRPG genre. With the Wandering Inn, I was instantly drawn in. Fae and Fare were the same. The characters' levels, classes, and skills made for an interesting addition to the story. Without it, both The Wandering Inn and Fae and Fare would be good adventures, but the system becomes a predominant part of Fae and Fare's story towards the end of the book. 

With the first book, I tried to predict where the story was going. I gave that up somewhere in the second book and just tried to enjoy the story. The book took so many twists and turns that there was no good way to predict it. I thought I knew where something was leading, and then it would travel down a different path. It made the story exciting. The ending of Fae and Fare leaves a lot of interesting loose ends that I'm eager to pull at and see where they go. I'll likely start book 3 tonight or tomorrow. 

I typically end up with a favorite character or two in a book; however, I have a love/hate relationship with many of the characters introduced. I feel like both Ryoka and Erin made many dumb decisions that annoyed the absolute hell out of me. But simultaneously, they were likable, and I was cheering for them. Their various groups of friends all have an interesting dynamic. I am definitely getting the impression that not all of them will stay friends, but as I said before, I'm done speculating where this story will go. There are a lot of them to list, and I'm probably going to spell their names wrong, but there are a few arcs I'm very curious about. 

Overall, I'm absolutely loving this series. I already grabbed the 3rd audiobook. I recommend it to anyone who likes Epic/High Fantasy and video games. I don't think the latter is necessary to enjoy it, however. As far as why I stuck it in the unicorn category, there is a very brief mention of a unicorn. It is all of one sentence in this massive book. However, I caught it, and I'm using it for this prompt. I'm trying to work through as many books as I already have and not buy any more, but also because I'm too lazy to dig for another book with a Unicorn.

Book Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

 

Goodreads Summary: A world divided.A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction--but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragon rider but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

Goodreads Ratings: 4.23 stars with over 156,110 

Genre Listing: Fantasy, LGBT Fiction, Queer Fiction, Romance, Adult, Dragons, High Fantasy, Magic

Goodreads Challenge: 33/30 

2023 Reading Challenge: #4 Read a book by an author whose name is Samantha, Sam, or a variant (Find the whole challenge here)

Book Review: 

Hello, Readers. I hope everyone is doing well on this July afternoon. I just finished up The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. Honestly, I'm glad to be done with this one. It's really long, and even though I knew that going in, I wasn't mentally prepared for it. The book follows four main characters and their stories - Ead, Tane, Loth, and Niclays as they try to defeat The Nameless One. 

I liked Ead and Tane's stories the best. They were the most interesting of the characters. With Niclays and Loth, I don't know if their stories were interesting enough to warrant parts being told from their point of view. Especially considering that all four characters read the same way. I didn't get much of a different tone between the characters; they all felt flat in personality. 

The world-building was interesting, and I liked how the world's main faiths in The Priory of the Orange Tree were shown in a different light. Each area had its own version of the lore and what happened. The idea of having Patron Saints of Virtues was creative, and I liked how all the different versions of the myths came together in the end. I liked how there were also other variants of dragons in this world, and they were more elemental-based. A prequel has been recently released. I may give it a shot to see if it gets more into the dragon lore.

Overall, I thought the story was interesting, and I think from a representation perspective, it's excellent that LGBT couples were at the forefront of the romance portion of the story. There are both W/W and M/M couples represented. They were also all main characters, not just a random secondary character. Wheel of Time Fans would really like this book. It has a similar theme regarding events from previous ages rehappening. It lost me because of how long it was and the multiple perspectives written in similar tones. I enjoyed it but also was ready for it to end.

 

Book Review of Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston

Goodreads Summary: From New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston comes this remarkable first book in a spellbinding new series about the dawn of a new kind of magic.

Welcome to New Vegas, a city once covered in bling, now blanketed in ice. Like much of the destroyed planet, the place knows only one temperature—freezing. But some things never change. The diamond in the ice desert is still a 24-hour hedonistic playground, and nothing keeps the crowds away from the casino floors, never mind the rumors about sinister sorcery in its shadows.

At the heart of this city is Natasha Kestal, a young blackjack dealer looking for a way out. Like many, she's heard of a mythical land simply called “the Blue.” They say it’s a paradise, where the sun still shines, and the waters are turquoise. More importantly, it’s a place where Nat won’t be persecuted, even if her darkest secret comes to light.

But passage to the Blue is treacherous, if not impossible, and her only shot is to bet on a ragtag crew of mercenaries led by a cocky runner named Ryan Wesson to take her there. Danger and deceit await on every corner, even as Nat and Wes find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. But can true love survive the lies? Fiery hearts collide in this fantastic tale of the evil men do and the awesome power within us all.
Goodreads Rating: 3.65 with 3,868 ratings
Genre listing: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopian, Romance, Magic, Post Apocalyptic, Dragons, Adventure
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository 

Edited 11/25/2016

Before I start this review, I received an e-book copy of Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston for free through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. 

Frozen was an interesting dystopian story. I feel like it combined a lot of interesting parts of different stories. There's a little bit of something for everyone in the first installment of the Heart of Dread series. 

I found a good majority of this story to be slowly paced. There's a lot of background story as to why things are frozen in this post-apocalyptic world, and getting to know Wes, Nat, and even some of the side characters. We find Nat trying to run to a mythical paradise to escape her inevitable fate. The world's pretty bleak everything is gray, weak, and overly militarized.

Even though it's slowly paced, there is still enough action to keep a reader's attention, or at least, there was for me. When you get to the end, there is an information bomb in the last 20-30 pages. Once you get to that point, everything starts to click into place and moves a little faster. I didn't feel like anything that happened was a surprise, though. The story goes along as expected, with no big plot twists. 

I think this is going to be one of those types of series where the second book is way better than the first. I liked the book; I just wasn't super drawn in and attached to it like I wanted to be. I think the second book comes out in a few weeks, so maybe I'll be more drawn into that one. I will say I was kind of disappointed with the lack of magic. It's there, but it's not as big of the story as one would think. I'm hoping that's just because Nat doesn't know what she is and that there will be a lot more magic in the second book. 

One thing that I found incredibly annoying was that the authors got cutesy and wrote it in "Textlish" which is supposedly the language used in this world. It made it hard to read, and I was constantly annoyed by it. I hAtE wHeN ThInGs R wRotE oUt lIkE tHis is a good chunk of how the book is written. It gives me headaches. I would have preferred it if there were one or two examples of it, but then everything else was normal. I think it took away from the story. 

Overall, I liked the story. I'm not in love with it, but I'll probably read the second book to see if it gets better, maybe, if I can suffer through more Textlish. 

Three out of five moons