Skip to content

Tag: intrigue and deception

Review: In Great Waters, Kit Whitfield

Here is the premise of In Great Waters. It’s a hell of a premise so be prepared. In an alternate version of our world, mermaids and humans live side by side, connected by alliances like regular nations and by the existence of hybrids (bastards) who are half-mermaid and half-human. Such creatures have bifurcated tails and human reproductive organs; they can walk on land and hold their breath for as long as fifteen minutes. They are also, by tradition, the rulers of Europe. In the sixteenth (I think) century, a hybrid child called Henry, cast up on land by his mother,…

19 Comments

Review: River in the Sky, Elizabeth Peters

I have a girl-crush on Elizabeth Peters.  She set a murder mystery at a romance novel writers’ convention; she spoofs H. Rider Haggard and Gothic novels; she made one of her characters lament “the first sour grape in the fruit salad of togetherness”.  The woman cracks me up.  However, I thought that Children of the Storm should have been the last in the Amelia Peabody series (it gave me the pleasing feeling that the series had come full circle), and I have not cared much about the books that came after that. But I liked River in the Sky.  It…

15 Comments

The Death Collector, Justin Richards

Recommended by Darla D from Books and Other Thoughts – I knew I had to read this when she said “dinosaurs” and “Victorian”, and then she carried right on and said “street urchin” and “vicar’s daughter” and “clock-maker”, which is not totally unlike Ella saying “Warning, it’s very Gothic” about Blackbriar.  I am leaving for a fantastic and glorious vacation in London (don’t go anywhere, London, I am coming back to you soon!), so I had collected all my books together to return to the library before I left (I know, right?).  And still I could not return them until…

2 Comments

The Meaning of Night, Michael Cox

I started reading this in Bongs & Noodles one time, a while ago, and I got bored.  I am more easily bored when I’m reading at Bongs & Noodles than I am in real life – maybe because Bongs & Noodles is all full of loads of brilliant books, and my time there is finite.  Anyway, then I read about it over at Superfastreader’s blog, and it sounded so good I decided to reconsider.  As often happens, I was very pleased that I did. The Meaning of Night is all about a Victorian gentleman called Edward Glyver who conceives a…

3 Comments

The Laughter of Dead Kings, Elizabeth Peters

I would say – not her best work.  People are never as interesting once they’re all kissy-face.  Vicky and John have much I&D, as usual, and it was charming how Elizabeth Peters put herself in the book.  I want to be Elizabeth Peters’s friend because she has read all the same trashy novels that I have read (like The Sheik! and she knows the bravest-by-far-in-the-ranks-of-the-Shah-damn-the-girl-she’d-been-laughing-at-him-all-the-time song!).  And Schmidt is the greatest swordsman in Europe.  And that’s about all I have to say about that.

Leave a Comment