Bella Donna

I would probably give this a 4-5 out of 10. The concept was good,and the characters were fairly decently drawn, especially as I believe this was Janny Wurt's first novel. A woman gets time swept to another land to become the wife of a Prince. He is infertile (thanks to a curse) and will be executed soon if he cant produce a child, she is very recently widowed, and very newly pregnant - so newly pregnant that it cant yet be detected. Of course there are those at court that don't want the Prince to claim the throne, and they use all sorts of nasty magic to prevent this. There's a pretty grim scene where after the baby is born, it's brutally killed by a young girl under the spell of the evil magician - she then suicides to break the curse on the Prince, and all is well that ends well. I found the magic system confusing, the time hopping in the beginning was also a bit odd and it took a while for me to get into the flow of the story. All in all, I don't feel that I r...

These are all written from the perspective of the women of the Wars of the Roses. While Philippa Gregory claims to be entirely factual in her writings, this is in fact NOT true at all. She makes up an awful lot of stuff and treats it as fact, but most of the time it does make for an entertaining read. She suffers from telling, not showing, and much of the exciting events occur offstage - this being a problem writing in the first person. If the character didn't physically witness the events, it's hard to retell them in an exciting fashion. She also suffers from what another reader has dubben 'as-you-know-Bob' syndrome, wherein every character is described using their full name, titles and affiliations. I realise that names were vey limited during this period, but other authors have managed to get around this in a more effective manner. Despite these niggles, she is entertaining, and is a decent jumping off point to learn more about the Wars of the Roses - just take her w...

The updated Nancy Drew series, these are written in the first person and show Nancy as a fairly average girl - albeit with some pretty good sleuthing abilities, Bess Marvin is still blonde and pretty and charms all the boys, and George is still tombyish, a tech wizard, and constantly thinking about food. George is portrayed as almost gender neutral (especially in the later books) and I do find it amusing that she is not as athletic as in the Classic Mysteries, and that she has taken on Bess' role of foodie. After hundreds of books of George fat-shaming Bess, she is now the one whose appetite needs monitoring!! 19) THE STOLEN SHOW Nancy, Bess and George are in Quebec to help a friend at an international dog show when they stumble onto an international jewellery smuggling ring. In fairness, Nancy would never have found out about it if the baddies hadn't kidnapped Bess to start with, but hey, where would we be if her enemies were smart? The ending is pretty fun where nancy gathe...

This series was based on the RPG series A Bard's Tale, and the books very much follow a fairly typical RPG style in that a rather mismatched party is collected to fulfil a quest. The books were written in collaboration with Mercedes Lackey and several other authors, and tend to revolve around the character of the Dark Elf Naitachal - ex necromancer and now Bard. He doesn't however, feature in the last book Escape from Roksamur. They are light, fun filled and very fast paced, and while the characters aren't very well developed, they are at least good thumbnail sketches and everyone has a distinct voice. Spoilers and synopses ahead... 1) CASTLE OF DECEPTION (Mercedes Lackey, Josepha Sherman) Good fun old-school swords and sorcery read. Kevin the bardling is looking for excitement, and gets more than he bargains for when the niece of a nearby Lord is seemingly kidnapped. Teaming up with a Dark Elf, a Light Elf, and Amazon and a Fairy, Kevin and co must get to the bottom ...

So every so often, I reread Mercedes Lackey. Just because she is like a cozy cuppa in front of a fire. No cast amount of concetration needed, just ann enjoyable escape into a fantasy world. The Diana Tregarde series is a forerunner of modern day Urban Fantasy, and while a little dated now (they were written in late 80's-early 90's) they are still pretty decent, though some may find the casula racism and misogyny a little offputting. Take it from whence it came though, Misty is very liberal for the times comparitively speaking. Sadly, the third book ended in a slightly open-ended fashion which implied that the series would continue, but after Mercedes was stalked by a looney-toon who believed that the magic in the series was real, she felt obliged to end it. I believe the guy ended up jailed for life on other charges (paedophilia I think) but the series died a death. The books chronologically are 1) Children of the Night 2)Burning Water 3)Jinx High - They were published out ...

Enjoyable, Michael Jecks' research is remarkable and his descriptions work very well for me. Sir Baldwin and Simon Puttock are two characters who I thoroughly enjoy. Ive read the series a couple of times, and feel that the series starts well, gets brilliant, and then gets a little too embroiled in politics and takes us away from the beloved Devon countryside... I digress, here we are first introduced to the characters, Bailiff Simon Puttock, his lovely wife Margaret and his dour servant Hugh. We also meet the enigmatic ex-Templat Sir Baldwin, recently come to claim his inheritance with his laconic sidekick Edgar. As bailiff, Simon is charged with finding the culprit in several death, one of which includes an Abbot being tortured to death over an open fire. The plot circles around and the denoument IS a very surprising one. A great introduction to the series, though not one of my personal favourites