Review: Holy Terrors by Margaret Owen

And…book three. And man is this one of the most dysfunctional couples in the history of fantasy.

I want to lock them in a room together until they sort things out.

Doesn’t help that the not Holy Roman Empire is falling apart…somebody’s murdering electors, then the Empress herself (this is a gender equal world, after all).

Oh, and also trying to hurt Gods, and hurt the world, and…frame one of Vanja’s friends.

Poor Vanja has to deal with all of this and ridiculous levels of jealousy – girl, yes, he’s sleeping with somebody else. After you did the fantasy equivalent of dumping him by text message. And you’ve dated like six guys since!

Did I mention, “most dysfunctional couples in the history of fantasy.”

But this is absolutely a satisfying conclusion to this very long YA trilogy. The author is spreading her wings more, getting more experimental.

This trilogy is my introduction to Owen’s work and so far I’m pretty impressed, and I’m glad she was generous even if that was half my reading time this week. (Yes, they’re long).

No animal deaths in this one, but pretty much every character is pretty seriously tormented in some way, shape, and form. It’s not grimdark, there are some very good people here. But the bad guys aren’t pulling any punches.

I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.

Review: Bloodtide by Sophie Burnham

Warning: This review contains spoilers for Sargassa.

I really can’t review this without explaining a bit of what went before…and that kind of ruins the twist of Sargassa. It’s a variant of the Earth All Along trope, except that we’re led to believe we are not on a foreign planet but in an alternate history where Rome never fell. In fact, we’re in the far future.

No doubt the author is thinking of the peculiar obsession with the Roman Empire some people have.

Bloodtide starts where Sargassa leads off, and engages in some serious breaking of the world. It’s not just the rebels breaking the dystopia, a very pissed off Mother Nature has a few things to say about it.

But we discover there’s a layer of super rich behind the super rich. That nobody is free.

And that what may have started as a way to save the planet has become something else.

As climate dystopia goes, Burnham’s work is unusual and interesting. She plays with the old “Rome never fell” trope, but she also plays with dysfunctional characters (everyone in this book needs some serious therapy), confused loyalties, and a lot of people who should be working together…

And it leaves us in a not pretty place. She’d better be working on the next book!

I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.