A few piles of dirty snow still line my driveway. The yellowed grass is showing signs of turning green. Now that spring is here, there’s not as much time for reading.
In spite of the lure of the warmth and sunshine, I found a few books that kept me engaged. There are a few spoilers here, so you’ve been warned.
Year One
Nora Roberts has turned to fantasy, so I thought I’d give her novel a try. Year One has an interesting premise in that most of the human race has been wiped out by a virus and the survivors have to rebuild. The fantasy twist is that people with powers, like elves, fairies and witches, all seem to have survived.
It was an entertaining read, with a few twists I didn’t see coming.
SPOILER ALERT
The weakest part of the book was that after the main character lost her husband and was forced to flee, she wanders around and stumbles into a man who can protect her and becomes her new love interest. This is something I’d expect from a romance novel, not a well-plotted fantasy.
The Sundered
If you’re looking for something really different, The Sundered by Ruthanne Reid is for you. This fantasy does a great job getting away from some of the usual conventions and creates a different kind of world. The ending leaves you with a lot of questions, but the lush and gorgeous writing made it a pleasure to read.
Glass Series
I absolutely loved Poison Study, also written by Maria V. Snyder, so when I heard about the Glass Series, I knew I had to give it a try.
Poison Study introduced us to the world of Sitia and Ixia, two realms with an uneasy peace. Poison Study and the two novels after it in the Study series follow the adventures of Yelena, a magician.
The Glass Series concentrates on Opal, a minor character in the Study series. At first, I enjoyed these three novels. Not as much as Poison Study, which is by far the best of them, but as much as the others in the Study series. There was lots of action, fun characters, and interesting danger and problems for Opal.
Then I got to the end of the third book.
SPOILER ALERT
Throughout the series, Opal had not two but three love interests. Who does she pick?
She chooses the man who kidnapped, tortured and raped her in the Study series. She says, “he’s changed” and he did all that nasty stuff when he was obsessed with magic. This decision was just a bit too much to swallow. Repeatedly, she comments that she makes a lot of bad decisions. Clearly, she hasn’t learned anything.
If you enjoyed the Study series, you’ll probably enjoy the Glass series, if the heroine deciding to spend the rest of her life with her former rapist doesn’t bother you.