TBR Challenge: Grace Draven - Eidolon

In a bid for more power, the Shadow Queen of Haradis has unleashed a malignant force into the world. Her son Brishen, younger prince of the Kai royal house, suddenly finds himself ruler of a kingdom blighted by a diseased darkness and on the brink of war. His human wife Ildiko must decide if she will give up the man she loves in order to secure his throne.
Three enemy kingdoms must unite to save each other, and a one-eyed, reluctant king must raise an army of the dead to defeat an army of the damned.
A tale of alliance and sacrifice.

Comment: Here we are for another TBR Challenge read. This month the theme is Backlist Glom, which means any author who has more than one book in our TBR. 

I chose Grace Draven, not only because I do have more than one book by her to read but also because I wanted to finally read the sequel to Radiance, a book many readers enjoyed in past years and that when I read, expected perfection but it was one or two steps away from it in my perspective. I wanted to see if this Eidolon would measure up and be a good sequel. It was but again there's something missing for me to consider it the best ever.

In this book we have the sequel of what happened at the end of Radiance, now showing us Brishen and Ildiko as a happily married couple living away from the Court and the influence of his evil mother, the queen. However, this villain has unleashed a terrible plague od demons that won't stop until every living creature in their path is dead. The Kai have some magic which means there are rituals they can do to stop the demons from reaching the living too quickly along with the physical barriers of water.

The responsibility of defending all the kingdoms obviously is now Brishen's, as he is the only surviving element of the royal family and who can magically fight the demons. But there's a price for this power and maybe this is too high a task for him and his wife, to bear...

As expected, this book s filled with amazing scenes of magic and fantasy situations that  can be both too far fetched but incredibly alluring to read about. It always fascinates me how authors can invent things in their heads - even with influences - and create a whole world to present. Grace Draven has a certainly creative mind and the "rules" and processes in which things happen are very imaginative and probably the best feature of this book.

This fantasy obviously has a huge conflict to be overridden and there are personal details that make it a difficult task to be done, namely how people are affected by the plague and how survivors might feel guilty they didn't help in time or that they are alive and others don't. The reasons and ways of dealing with this part of the plot seem logical to me, meaning, the steps taken from one situation to the other feel well done and even in a way that makes everything related to the plot feel right.

The story also has romance, which is a huge part of the plot because it focuses a lot on the main couple and the differences between them (mostly physical). Of course the purpose is for us to see that different beings can find happiness together and common ground even in the face of adversity. I also like the details about their individual personalities and their expectations about their marriage and in this particular story how they think about the future and what it means for them to be together when it would be more advisable for Brishen specifically, to marry a Kai woman and not a have a human wife. 

All the situations surrounding this are interesting but... I keep feeling the relationship is too easy between them. What I mean is, I like they are in sync with one another and that they are in love but I'd love to see more about their feelings and hopes and challenges. I feel what we have seen here wasn't enough to convince me their marriage is as strong as intended. But perhaps this only me.

As a whole, this story has all the elements to be a good one, the romance is good and the relationship not easily broken but I kind of expected more, I wanted all the elements to be so well mixed that I wouldn't be able to not think about this. In the end, I liked it a lot but there's still something missing.

Grade: 8/10

TBR Challenge: Viola Grace - One Part Human

Forced into a one-week ride along with agents of the XIA, Benny tries to hide the fact that she isn’t quite human.
Benny has lived her life in the shadows, avoiding the public eye. Her life as a recipe blogger pays the bills and lets her socialise, but she is about to get the assignment of a lifetime.
Her boss orders her into a one-week ride-along with agents of the XIA, the eXtranormal Investigation Agency. It is the anniversary of the agency, and they need to improve their exposure with the general public.
Against her objections, she is paired with a standard set of agents—a vampire, a shifter and a fey. They are willing to work with her, and it is only when she signs the waivers that she learns why. They all read her column.
A week doesn’t seem like much time to learn about an organisation that deals with things most folk don’t enjoy thinking about, but it whips past when the assignments go from casual crime to murders that have one pivot point. Benny. 

Comment: And here we are, for another TBR Challenge, again hosted by Wendy, the SuperLibrarian. 

As always, January means short reads. Yes, the themes are optional, but my favorite part of this challenge is to try to match a book to the theme. 

For this month I picked a new author for me, I confess I had no expectations, I didn't read any reviews prior to start it, I only read the blurb when I decided to download it from Smashwords in an event where it was possible to download some free ebooks in a certain timeline. I got some books this way but I haven't gone through them all yet.

This book is the first of a trilogy that apparently will continue to a second trilogy but featuring characters not the ones in this first one. 

In this book we meet Benny, a young woman who has a successful recipe blog and in this paranormal world created by the author, there are several supernatural characters, species, beings and somehow, Benny is charged by her boss to follow a team of agents for a while so she can write about their routines and preferred foods and such.

Benny meets her three agents and is immediately drawn to them, they seem to be interesting people. During her first day, she sees the agents in action, going through the most routine issues to a case where it gets complicated and Benny herself gives a hand. The fact is, Benny is only part human and her knowledge of magic does come as a help when necessary. When things get too difficult, Benny asks her parents for help, she trusts the agents and realizes someone or something is after her...

Although this seems complicated, too confusing because it's about a new world, the plot is quite easy to follow. I really liked to immerse myself in all kinds of details about the several species addressed in this world, from shifters to fey, from vampires to demons and many types of beings one would "insert" in the major species.

In fact, this was probably my favorite aspect of the whole book, I really loved how structured some hierarchies were and how populated the world was with paranormal beings.

One could divide the plot into two main subjects:

Benny's interactions with others and the mystery they are trying to solve.

When it comes to the investigation, the mystery, I don't have much to say because my main interest wasn't there. I guess that, for such a short story - around 112 pages - things did make sense and were presented in a way I could consider satisfactory. This is no incredible psychological thriller but it fits the bill, especially  since it offers more details about the people and beings who inhabit the world.

What I really liked to read about were Benny's interactions with others. Things were subtle enough but it becomes apparent Benny can't romantically pick one of the agents and all are getting bonded in the sense they are a team and worry and care about each other. No sex happens which is something I didn't expect and does make me eager to read the next one.

I liked Benny, I liked the agents, I liked their "adventures".

What I probably didn't get - or perhaps I wasn't paying attention - was why Benny had to be with them considering she is a blogger. Yes, a successful one, a person whose work many readers follow but...oh well. Just weird.

This book isn't perfect of course and I've seen many readers complain about the writing, the story, everything. I also would say that the way things are presented to us seem so sudden. There is no preparation or a sort of introduction to this world and the information given is very quick and it's done almost as if we are supposed to know things previously. This made the beginning a bit odd and not as easy to understand but with time, things improved.

While this won't be up for any narrative prizes or the best book ever, I think it had enough elements to keep me interested and I'll definitely read the next one one day.

It was different enough for what I usually read these days and that was a positive surprise for sure.

Grade: 7/10