Bathtime Books

 ⭐☆☆☆☆ I picked this up after hearing about the author and hearing good things about the novel. I mean, she won the Hugo award for this novel so I figured it must be very good, right? Wrong, not amazing. Pretty standard story-line, an orphaned child, in this case a young woman, is called into a political situation where she must learn secrets about her past in order to survive. Along the way, she falls in love with a god, which honestly makes me tired, and there's some constant foreshadowing throughout. I felt that this novel had a lot going for it. I appreciated the thoughtful discussions of slavery and class. It didn't feel like I was being preached to but allowed me to consider those issues separated from the fraught emotions that might come up if a novel was set in a historical fantasy or urban fantasy setting. It was also nice to have a lead character who was a strong young woman. That's where it all fell apart, however. The character, who was somehow a tribal leader b...

 ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ This novel was okay. The writing left a little to be desired and there were a plethora of typos. I found it hard to believe that the main character (Soleil Burns) a very young Nephilim (compared to her father and other archangels) was able to figure out a couple of the main dilemmas of the novel. How is it that she manages to solve the case when three archangels and an entire squad of police detectives were not? It was a bit lazy.  There wasn't really anything to like or dislike about Soleil. She seemed fine. Fine does not get me to keep reading. I want to be laughing or crying or care at all. It seemed that she breezed through all of the terrible events and then people were falling over themselves to love her. I didn't buy it.

 ⭐☆☆☆☆ I didn't realize this novel was a YA urban fantasy until I started reading it. I got about 8% in and couldn't keep going. The characters are incredibly flat and I can already tell that I will hate the forced romance. The writing is something I might have done myself in highschool. That isn't something I want to be reminded of. I didn't finish this one. The plus is that the front cover looked really good. So props to the cover artist for an amazing job. It's why I picked up the book.

 ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ This novel was just okay to me. I found the concept to be one that I generally enjoy, a witch who is also a PI. The urban-fantasy style. A quirky side-kick. I well thought out world. However... Despite being the successful apprentice of a very famous witch (the Baba Yaga) Shade Renard was not a very good witch and an even worse PI. I couldn't get past the number of times the main character displayed the same type of mistake. She was continually overwhelmed by the same under-handed issue (her foes were using coercive magics on her). Fool me once and all that... She was duped by this at least five times in the first half of the novel and it didn't stop there. I was also annoyed that the main character had gone through years, maybe even decades of training, and still didn't manage to use her wits more than she displayed in the novel.  The author did an okay job laying the foundation for future character development and foreshadowing some interesting past for Shade, but ...

  ⭑⭑☆☆☆ Review: Honestly, I forced myself to finish this book. The author has another set of books that she wrote that has carry-over characters in this one. I haven't read it, and am annoyed that I think in order to understand some of the plot points in this novel I needed to have read those books too. The main character is supposedly a book-nerd, this fact is beaten over your head many times. I thought that it would be a fun extra, but instead of showing, there was a lot of 'telling' me how much of a book nerd she was. I didn't enjoy that.  I just wasn't pulled into this novel. I can't recommend it. Plot Summary: Gemma is an Essex witch, which means she has access to the Ley-Lines. She also is the leader of an MI5 paranormal team. They investigate paranormal crimes. Apparently, she is very good at this. She has closed herself off from her team, and yet throughout the book, she makes tiny little in-roads with each of her team members and in the end, they are al...

  ★★★★ ☆ This was a thought-provoking and very interesting novel. The story follows the trials of a woman whose ex-husband has illegally and without her knowledge created a clone of her.  While the story is set in a science-fiction parallel world, I found that most aspects of the novel don't deal with the science-fiction. Instead, it is a story of betrayal, heartbreak, growth, and the human spirit. Despite not liking the protagonist, I still ripped through this novel. It was an interesting introspection on the relationships that create us, and the many facets through which we build our visions of ourselves.  The author subtly weaves a narrative that allows the reader to consider how our upbringings shape us and whether we are defined by our natures or nurture. The end of the novel left me filled with foreboding as I felt the main character began to display traits that she had previously despised in her father. I found myself returning to the storyline and the characters m...

★☆ ☆ ☆ ☆  - Don't waste your time 😕 I read this book hoping for some clear pointers on how to improve my leadership skills for my currently middle-management position. I walked away from this book with one page of pretty weak suggestions and the feeling that I wasted a good amount of time. The book which touts how to inspire deep trust and commitment spends about 3/5 of its time failing to give an adequate description of the biological underpinning to what creates great leaders. About 1/5 of the book deals with leading millennials which is probably an unfair amount of time. There were two chapters that held advice that could be followed. The rest of the book was reiterating on four points that I believe are a shallow misunderstanding of the biology behind how we form attachments. If you are looking for clear advice on what you might do to up your team leadership, how you can be a positive leader, how you can manage up, anything concrete  skip this book. It is a total waste of...