A Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop

A Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop

This is the second book to the "Novel of the Others" series, which starts with Written in Red. If you haven't read my review of that, the link is here:

A Murder of Crows answers the questions the first book did not, mainly about the cassandra sangue (blood prophets for those new to the series) and the prostitution-like institution they've been forced into.

Meg and other blood prophets across the country have been having the same horrific visions involving burning cities and the terra indigine (shape-shifters) of Lakeside Courtyard become the only beings able to find out why and stop it from happening.

I am still in love with the series. With this second book, it delves so much deeper into the world outside of Lakeside, and the politics. With this second book comes the introduction of the Humans First and Last movement, which I am beginning to think will become more terrorist like by the third book. We finally see how radical the Lakeside Courtyard is by cooperating with the human police. Anne Bishop does some amazing world building here and it is one of my favorite reasons for loving the series.

She also does a good job adding depths to character's relationships specifically, Meg and Simon, and Simon with the other humans working at the courtyard. Meg and Simon, though not together have the awkward situation of friend-zoning each other. It makes for a funny sub-plot and delves a little bit deeper into their personalities. Whereas with Simon and the other humans, the work relationship between them seems to grow as Simon learns how to be more human and the girls that work in the Courtyard learn to toughen up and actually begin to get accepted into the Courtyard as a 'human pack'.

Overall I am very impressed and cannot what for a third book.

The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith

The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith

I had tried to read this last year, but since me and my sister were talking about it recently I thought I'd write and review (or rather warning).

In short:





Steph says no.

To elaborate: the book was a crazy cluster**** before the main character even got to see this other world!

It starts out with him at a party. With booze. You say ok, yeah whatever. But he walks in on his best friend having sex with his girlfriend (the best friend's girlfriend) and the best friend offers to let him have some too. Just, what?

When the best friend eaves the party, still a virgin mind you, he not only gets kidnapped and sexually assaulted, but after telling his best friend, they find the guy get into a rage and BEAT HIM TO DEATH. This is all before he goes to London and finds the Marbury Lens, the entire point for why I read this book.

If I wanted such mind scarring material, I'd be searching for it. I went tried to read this book because it was supposed to be this super cool fantasy/steampunk series, and who knows? Maybe if I continued reading I would have liked it. But the beginning was way too much way too soon, and I had not prepared for the slightly erotic, violent things it did show me. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I'd at least like a warning on the label before reading, because it does influence how I liked the book (which I didn't).

I do not plan on picking it up again. If you do, tell me what you think about it. But don't say I didn't warn you.