“Nillness, thought Strike, for a second distracted. He had slept badly. Nillness, that was where Lula Landry had gone, and where all of them, he and Rochelle included, were headed. Sometimes illness turned slowly to nillness, as was happening to Bristow’s mother… sometimes nillness rose to meet you out of nowhere, like a concrete road slamming your skull apart.”

– The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith (Cormoran Strike #1)

I bought Cuckoo’s Calling as my first audio book. I have a lengthy walk to university, and I was intrigued by the prospect of filling it somehow, of being productive whilst speed walking. With so much to do, and feeling as distracted as I have lately, I’ve been finding it difficult to read books paper or digital. With Audible’s current deal with one book a month for £3.99 I was sold. I tried this for my first book – I’ve been wanting to check it out, because yes, of course the Big Reveal.

At first this book captivated me and I am not sure if it was from the thrill of experiencing listening to a book like this for the first time or the book itself. I’m leaning more towards the former. The writing in this book is lovely – a little stiff at times, but evocative and personal. The characters are engaging and sympathetic. But. I found the book…typical. Although competently written with a streak of dark humour throughout, and a raw portrayal of the struggles of the characters, I found myself eventually drifting away from it all, getting bored.

Strike is your typical unattractive gruff but with a good heart detective, with a Dark Past and a slight tendency to over drink, of course. Robin was slightly more original – wonderfully creative and competent at her job. But then we have the Disapproving Fiancé of hers. And then there is Charlotte, beautiful Charlotte who I feel is treated unfairly in this book – and who never feels more like a touch of melodrama rather than a person. Beautiful and crazy and manipulative, is Charlotte. There is no sympathy for whatever she suffers from. She is just a “nutcase”. That word bothered me, majorly. I do not like that word. And that, that was one thing that really bothered me about this book – this view of mental health as something that only affects the very young, the very beautiful, the very twisted. It is not something that touches the ordinary. I disliked that. I hate when mental illness is treated with that kind of glamour. I think where the book really lost me though was the sex scene. OK, its only talked about as having happened, never in detail and yet somehow it felt gratuitous, and unnecessary, just another thing to think typical about, and/or a cheap way to get Robin to think about Strike that way to create some sexual tension between them (I could see the author playing games trying to set up a will/they won’t they with Strike and Robin, when it never actually felt tense in that way between them – they never came across as more than working partners to me.)

I also wish it was set outside London. Having it set in London only adds another layer of unoriginality, only takes that much more from it. A new city could have added something special and unique to it.

As it is, its a somewhat entertaining, well written book, wonderfully read by Robert Glenister and worth checking out, but not the sort of book to savour, or to fall for. Honestly, I was completely disinterested by the last few chapters and had to force myself to the finish.

(As to how I’m enjoying audiobooks – very. Its nice to be able to ‘read’ whilst getting on with things. Although I do think audio books are very…intangible. It is unlikely I will go and listen to this again, I cannot highlight or take quotes… and I miss major events every time a truck drives past. :/ )

“This has the potential to end badly. But if there’s one thing I know in this situation, it’s James. Talk to a guy long enough, go through enough shit with him, be there for enough significant moments in his life, and there are stories he will tell you, things he will confide that he wouldn’t tell a stranger. He’ll tell you about the first time he saw the bruises, really saw them, and knew he had to leave. He’ll tell you about living under someone’s control, helpless, hopeless, and then finding real freedom, and how he’d rather die than live through that again.
This isn’t covered in the sidekick handbook. You don’t expect this when you sign on. […] A Coyote doesn’t expect to be anyone’s confidante, not anyone we’re not working an angle on.”

– Community Service, Vaughn R. Demont (Broken Mirrors #3) 

It’s hard to articulate my feelings about this book. I loved Coyote’s Creed and a good chunk of its successor, Lightning Rod. Then something happened towards the end of Lightning Rod that made me want to scream and haul the book across the room. It was the author pulling the rug from under the reader in the worst way. It made me cry like a little child, and I was not happy to find myself doing that when it seemed the book was heading to a beautiful, romantic, compelling HEA. I was also annoyed with how Spencer was depicted in that book, though I cannot remember why.

I debated whether I even wanted to read the third book in the series, and hesitantly picked it up as it was on sale. I finished this book in about two days, so I cannot say I did not enjoy it. Except I don’t think I did. I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened, even as I wasn’t enjoying what was happening. I really don’t like the direction the story(/series) is taking. The character of Ozzie and his relationship with James felt shallow and happened too quickly, too conveniently. I hated how Rourke wasn’t in Lightning Rod and was just kicked to the curb in this book. And after how quickly Spencer and Rourke’s relationship started I was hoping that  things would slow down- but the brief scenes between them felt rushed and showed nothing new. I was really hoping that Spencer would have matured and their relationship would have grown, and yeah, I am really disappointed it did not. But Spencer is maturing into a character I love even more than I already did in this book, and so I’ll keep reading to see what happens to him. See if he ends up with Rourke (as he should cos yeah, I’ll go down with my ship) And I still really love this authors writing style. There were a few annoying moments here but damn, those moments where it becomes so beautiful and magical still get me. I especially loved the way that James’ memories were written, in such a dreamlike, innocent way, as if from a child, but with a hidden sense of danger. There was almost a story book quality to them. I almost found myself reading through them again in search of the hidden message.

“He opens his mouth to say something. You are nervous, but that is only because of the impending doom. Because of people who are more than just regular people, and the battle of good versus evil that approaches them, and, since you have been among them, in your own way, you are more than regular people. In this way, he can never understand you. Can never hurt you.”

– You Are an Object/Fredrick James, Strange

(Well, this turned into a very long rant.)

I used to follow the website “You Are an Object” religiously but I eventually could not keep up with it. There was one story however that kept me coming back periodically just to see if the author would update it and to my surprise, when I checked back the other day I found the author had published a book based on that story. I bought is immediately. And I was very disappointed. What reviews exist for this book are so good that it leaves me conflicted when I say: I really did not like this book.

The book is told from the point of view of Sebastian, a shy, self deprecating 20 something hopelessly in love with his neighbour. Sebastian’s room mate comes to him one day and tells him she has psychic powers and in that way, Sebastian becomes involved with her and a group of others like her as they try to figure out what is behind the high death rate at a local hospital, soon finding themselves up against an ancient cult led by a monstrous otherworldly creature. That was a difficult summary to write, and perhaps it does not make much sense and seems a little all over a place, but to be fair to me, this book does not make much sense and is quite a lot all over the place. OK, I admit, initially I enjoyed this. Its written in second person which is a little unusual, but James has a real knack for description and he made it work. Initially, its beautiful, really, and often heart breaking. I loved Sebastian, and I loved all the subtle ways James alluded to his longing, and to his loneliness.  But the pacing of the book is haphazard and the next thing we are sitting in a church basement with a bunch of strangers, being told that we know them, having to act like we understand what they are talking about when they discuss what is going on. I think that was when the book began to lose me, and it never managed to draw me back in.

The book continued on its erratic course, jumping time lines, or just skipping huge chunks of time, as the plot becomes messier and messier sorry, develops. To make it even more confusing- it flicks around the point of view of several characters and honestly, several is too much. I struggled to connect with these characters, as I was too busy trying to figure out who was supposed to be the one telling the story. Although it would become apparent the viewpoint had again switched, most of the characters read the same. I wish the book had really focused on Sebastian- had kept the book from his point of his view. It is, shockingly, possible to develop other characters without switching to their point of view. Also I admit, what I really wanted was to see Sebastian to grow and for his life to change in ways that may hurt but would ultimately mean he had more confidence and he had his love, through this strange new world he had found himself in. Be the hero, you know?  It seemed so much that it would be that book but that was not what I got. The book compromises of three sections and there were dramatic shifts in tone from section to section. The first section was the strongest, the middle less so, and by the end section I was not enjoying the book at all.

This is a reasonably long book, but it came across like a lot was missing, the beginning was rushed,  actually it was all rushed, the author was trying to do so much. Too much. It was messy and confusing. The writing style did not help this. It was quite chatty and conversational, which initially was OK, but soon got old. Soon it was like listening to someone rambling on  and on when you just asked a simple question. And they don’t even bother to answer your question, in the end. The writing style almost becomes irritating, its so obviously trying to be cool, to be deep and emotional and clever. There are also repeated lines and phrases- you could make a drinking game for every time a character said “like” or “amen.I know I had to resist throwing the book against a wall with every  amen. It just.. there’s something so fucking pretentious about the writing. It worked in those snippets, and for the first bit of the book but eventually I just wanted to be like FOCUS. This book needs editing. Or better editing, whatever. I’m fairly sure there were spelling and grammar errors, too.

The random violence in the book was also jarring, not in a good way. There was a bunch of gore and violence thrown in there without abandon. The author got seriously trigger happy, such that it was probably a good thing I gave up caring about these characters early on, with said characters being killed off left and right for reasons I don’t understand. Certainly, none of the characters left seemed to care. Perhaps the author had also become tired of having so many viewpoints.

but seriously, violence and ‘daring’ to kill a character or two off does not necessarily make a book dark or edgy or anything at all.. There’s a little thing called impact, which this book lacks.

I dunno. Maybe I just don’t get it. But for me, this book has a bunch of reasonably interesting ideas that never quite come together. It just seemed that James had a bunch of separate plots and tried to cram them into one book and it did not work at all. This book tries, tries very hard and quite obviously, but ultimately fails.  I honestly cannot believe those beautiful short stories came together to form this.

“He came around the bulging thigh of the mountain and a vista opened up below: ships and cranes, wide blue water, city buildings and freeways, and the coastline curving gracefully away to Blouberg. He wanted to turn to Pakamile and say: ‘Look at that, that is the most beautiful city in the world,’ and see his son gaze in wonder at all this.”

– Deon Meyer, Devil’s Peak

This is a thriller set in Cape Town/Southern Africa. I don’t usually read books set in places I know and it was an interesting experience. The author definitely did a good job in capturing the beauty of SA, as well as all the way corruption mars that beauty, leaves scars. The book is told from the point of view of three people. There is- Benny Griessel, an alcoholic detective who has been thrown out by his wife and told not to come back until clean, Thobela Mpayipheli, a man with a dark past who has quite happily settled down for a quiet life raising his son, until his son is killed in a random act of violence and Christine, a young prostitute with a story to tell. Christine sits down to tell her story to a priest, Thobela sets off to Cape Town to hunt down his child’s killer after justice fails him, and Griessel balances his detective work with an attempt at sorting his life out, desperate to see his wife and children again. Although at first all three stories seem separate, their paths eventually tangle together leading to an abrupt, twisted end, hinting at nothing particularly happy.

There are things about this book that worked for me and things that did not. I did not like Griessel. He was a pathetic loser, quite frankly. A messed up, selfish man. And a tired character, at that. Although, admittedly, I was on the edge of my seat when Griessel bought the bottle of brandy, it was nearly as tense as the murder mystery itself-the will he give it up? won’t he? – of reading this man trying to do the right thing and face himself, instead of drowning everything out with alcohol. Still, although I was interested to see what the author did with such a pathetic character, I did not like him.  In contrary the criminals are the ones who came across as the most sympathetic. I was drawn to Thobela, who is so dangerous but so driven by love. He came across as a kind and honourable man, despite the terrible things he did. Its actually a little uncomfortable, that. Christine is mysterious and I don’t know what to make of her.  And her story does not seem the center of it all, until it is. Which is why a few lines at the end shocked me, that implied she could have been lying the whole time. What is the point of those chapters spent reading her story, if it is a lie? Nonetheless, I thought this book brilliantly plotted. Initially its quite difficult to get into because of how separate the three stories feel, but then they start coming together, and in such a clever and unpredictable way, and I could not put it down. Yes, its a long book, that takes its time to tell its story, but it is never boring and the writing, although suffering at points from not-written-in-english-first awkwardness, is lovely. As for the ending, I cannot decide if I liked the way things wrapped up or not. Although I can accept it.

So, this was an engaging thriller. I’ll likely be reading more from this author, and I have a few other books set in Southern Africa I want to read. It’s really quite fun reading books set in a familiar place.

“Sometimes I think that ghosts are people who were unhappy in life,” I said. It wasn’t very scientific or very accurate, but it was an idea I’ve always had in the back of my head. I’d never really voiced it, since I couldn’t help but think of what it would mean for me once my time was up.

– Jordan Castillo Price, Criss Cross (PsyCop 2)

Instead of doing work this weekend I have been devouring books. Most of my time has gone towards the PsyCop series by this author- in the space of two days I read every single novella, short story and novel bar one. my bank balance cries, my work is neglected and I cannot say I regret it entirely. m/m fantasy is rare and I thought I’d never find it this well written and with such a great cast of characters. Vic is a wonderful protagonist- funny, insecure, bearing the weight of his past with quiet strength. Jacob feels a little distant as a character, although I am hopeful his secrets will be revealed in Camp Hell. The romance is a little sudden/rushed but sweet, and  thankfully it doesn’t take over from the main plot. And there is plot. And amazing world building. And although the books don’t shy away from darker subjects, it never gets over the top or ridiculously angsty, as I’m discovering m/m books can do.  I just enjoyed reading these so much and its taking me a lot to stop myself from snapping up the last book – camp hell – immediately. Highly recommended.

I’ve also been lucky enough to stumble upon another m/m fantasy series- the broken mirrors series by Vaughn R Demont. Thus far they aren’t quite as well written, but the world the author has created seems interesting, and thus far the books are funny. Very funny, without being fluffy. Am looking forward to getting through them.