WE BROKE THE MOON by Masha du Toit

Rating: Loved it

Would you read more from this author? I have read other works by her and recommend them all, so definitely!

Summary: A great ship sails through space. This is the story of a few of its residents.

Note: I was lucky enough to receive an ARC for this novel due to an acquaintance with the author. I do not believe this affected my judgement on the quality of the story as I did not know her when I first read her earlier works and they were also well worth reading.

We Broke the Moon takes place on a massive ship named Tohora. The Tohora is something called a "korf ship." It took me a bit to figure out that korf ships are massive spacefaring vessels made of rock lined with artificially created skin and controlled by computers based on whale brains. This last detail is why the ship is frequently referred to as "the whale." I can't pretend to understand the science involved in the ship, but I found it intriguing. We learn more about the ships in as the novel progresses, but to say more would be a spoiler.

The crucial part of the backstory for the ship is that several decades ago the ship's AI started trying to kill people. We don't really know why at the beginning of the story, just that the result is that the shipboard government has banned all AI's and most interactions between computer systems. The local teenagers, being teenagers, have found ways to bypass the government protections for social benefit. This is to have a massive impact on the plot.

Although the story is told in third person, it is a close third that alternates its focus between two teens.

The first character we meet is a young man named Maksim. He grew up in the fleet of small ships that travel with the Tohora and moves to the new ship for an apprenticeship. He's a highly likable character made more sympathetic by a tendency towards migraines and a complicated relationship with his mother. He is assigned a host family full of children, a situation that takes some adjusting to as he grew up the only child on his home ship. He begins to train with two different sections of the ship's crew, the section that maintains and flies a small fleet of defensive and repair ships, and the cyber division that struggles to keep the ship's various programs running. Both of these departments bring in interesting side characters who help develop Maksim's journey. 

Next we meet Io, a member of Maksim's host family. She has spent her life thus far studying the culture and language of an alien group known as The Travelers in preparation for acting as an ambassador to them should the ship come across more than the three already on board.

The pair start off poorly with a lot of misunderstandings and assumptions, but develop a friendship as the novel progresses. It was nice to watch them get to know each other, but also to see their relationships with others. I hope I am not spoiling too much when I confide that they do not develop a romantic bond. Despite my inclinations towards romance, I was perfectly okay with this as the relationship they do have is satisfactory.

The surrounding cast is strong. Io has a large family, led by three mothers. In this world, "mother" is a gender-neutral job title and has no implications of genetic relationship, something that I found fascinating and appealing. She also has many well-developed siblings, some older and some younger, some male, some female, and one nonbinary. It is the nonbinary sibling who is given the book's only romantic arc and I appreciated the respectful way that their nonbinary nature was established purely through the use of they/them pronouns, implying no one considers it something to remark on.

The ship is peopled by folks who seemed very real to me, like they had lives when they weren't on the page even though I didn't know what they were up to. And the society is complicated. They are mostly what we would consider very socially progressive, but have the occasional hangup or bias that is in conflict with the general attitude of acceptance. This complexity adds vibrancy and makes the setting more believable.

Like much of my favorite scifi, it is impossible to read this without reflecting on the moral messages of the portrayed society. We are shown a world that has darkness, where bad things happen, but where optimism, tolerance, and sympathy are all highly valued. The author describes this book as hopepunk scifi. It has a lot in common with cyberpunk, but with less pessimism on human nature. I would be happy to see more in this vein.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and would be curious to see more stories set in this universe. Our main characters are left in good places, on the brink of starting new things. I would be happy to see what these things are, although I'm torn on whether I would want to see it from their points-of-view or with them as supplementary characters in someone else's story.

CINDERELLA IS DEAD by Kalynn Bayron

 

Rating: A slipper that you thought was Swarovski crystal but which turned out to be from Hot Topic. (AKA, Acceptable but a little disappointing)

Would you read more from this author? Possibly.

Summary: A sixteen-year-old battles sexism, men seeking child brides, and evil two hundred years after the death of Cinderella.

The strong point of this novel is its setting. In this world, Cinderella is an idolized though dead queen. You know her story as it's told in this land already: a hardworking and deserving young woman attends a ball with the help of a fairy grandmother and catches the eye and heart of the crown prince. In honor of this, a ball is held every year at which all the unmarried women between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, who are legally required to attend, will be leered at by any man who wants a young wife and possibly forced into wedlock. If a girl attends three Balls without being selected, she is instead forced into slavery. The importance of the Cinderella story in this world is comparable to that of the Bible in a conservative Christian society, with every family owning at least one high quality copy and young children being quizzed on it at every opportunity.

Clearly, there's a lot wrong with this government. Sophia, a young lesbian, not only questions the Ball and the appropriateness of horrid old men being able to point at a teenager and say, "Her. I want her!" but isn't even certain the historical account of Cinderella is accurate. Fairy godmothers? She's never seen any evidence of magic.

After fleeing her first Ball, Sophia meets, and is instantly attracted to, a descendant of Cinderella's beloved step-sister, who confirms that the story we've been told is a long way off the truth.

Cinderella's story is intriguing and has a lot of fascinating ideas in it. Sophia's story, I found less captivating though. The romantic arcs were lackluster, lacking depth and chemistry, and Sophia's main character trait is moralistic outrage. I honestly cared more about figuring out what happened two centuries ago than I cared about what was happening in the here-and-now.

I was sad not to connect more to this book. I found the themes too preachy and in-your-face while the characters lacked in complexity. To be fair, this is set in a fairy tale world, so maybe I should have been less annoyed at how basic the villains were, or how naive it was for the heroes to assume their society would be fixed by simply removing the monarch, or how over-the-top the bad elements of the portrayed society were. However, I found no subtlety in this book at all and felt more lectured at than entertained. Worse, I felt lectured about things I already feel are obvious truths, so it was in no way thought provoking.

The plot is reasonably paced outside of the romances and had a few interesting surprises, but without caring more about the characters involved it was hard for me to really be compelled by it. And the conclusion... Well, it ends like a fairy tale. That may actually be my favorite part of Sophia's story.

I don't regret reading this book. As I've said, I found the idea behind it to be a strong and interesting one. I just wish the execution had landed better for me.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

1% Oh! A girl in love with a girl! Yay!

2% Setting seems ominous. Yay?

10% The Cinderella story to Bible parallels are kind of fun.

15% The sexism is taken to a level that seems really preachy. I think I would have liked a little more subtlety to it.

18% It does seem like marrying the guy that would make some amount of sense for both parties since being single is apparently not an option and marrying someone of your own gender is right out.

21% They have a religion other than Cinderellaism? It doesn't seem held in much regard.

23% To be fair to the men, we were told earlier they can only enter approved unions and many parents seem like they'd want their daughter at this event before agreeing to a proposal. So being there doesn't necessarily mean they like it. And at least the younger ones are unlikely to really understand what the girls are going through. Or maybe they're trying to help someone by saving her from someone abusive. I can see a lot of motives beyond them being irredeemably awful.

23% A town that only raises heirs sounds interesting in a terrifying way. I'm also intrigued that the king chooses his successor. Do they usually not have children, then? And what's up with Price Charming not remarrying after Cinderella died young? Was he gay or really that much in love with her? (Did she even die young? No one knows where she's buried so maybe she ran away with her girlfriend? How gay is this story?)

28% An old woman in the room they took Liv to? Is the king draining people's youth or something?

29% Could the crying woman be Cinderella, kept alive by magically draining other women? Or is it someone there to be drained?

45% You go, seamstress! "I would die to give even just one person the chance to be free from you."

60% Who is the boy in the picture?

63% If the witch didn't send for Charming, one does wonder how he knew to go to her. Also, hasn't she paid back her debt enough to be willing to kill him by now? But she didn't even try. Does she not want him dead or is she less powerful than has been implied?

66% I interpret the prophecy as being that Charming will drain Sophia's energy like he did to Liv. How to get around it and recover from it, I don't know.

72% Why does Sophia think women will suddenly have rights if the king dies? Is she really that lacking in basic understanding?

82% So stabbing the guy in the chest does nothing. Decapitation seems worth a shot. Even if he's still alive, it would be easy to steal his head and assume people won't continue to be ruled by his body. Fire also sounds promising. He saved the witch from being burned alive, didn't he? So maybe now she'll die making sure he burns to death? Would be poetic.

90% I would have maybe sent the journal with the escapees so that the public can read how horrible the king is. Although Sophia did skip pages so there may still be a clue in it

93% Like Constance, I feel silly for not connecting the boy in the portrait. I guess the witch will be dying to kill the king though. And possibly still through fire.

94% So I guess Amina was helping. She knew she'd die and didn't alter course. Maybe she really was sorry and really did like Sophia for some reason.

95% Ok, Even More Undead Charming is really disturbing.

95% And there's the fire!

98% The ending is nice. Realistic? No. The transition of power would be much harder and bloodier, and the resulting government might but be all that great. (Seems like a great opportunity for women to get revenge, v didn't it?) And not all of the bad people would be punished or the good people saved. But it's a fairy tale. It's not supposed to end realistically. So although I don't believe that the new government went into power with few hiccups and ruled fairly ever after, it's not like I believed the original Cinderella ending was realistic either. Realistic isn't the goal of a fairy tale ending. Idealism is. And it's good to see that a modern girl's idealism is now about equality and rights rather than marriage.

PROMISED BY PROM by Jessica Bucher and M.F. Lorson

Rating: A cozy sweatshirt with your high school mascot on it

Summary: Nora's goal for spring her senior year is to find a serious romantic relationship by the end of the year so that she'll be less upset her friends are going to college in other places and she isn't. And to not be distracted by her friend's brother, because he's off limits.

Would you read more from these authors? Absolutely.

This is the third of the Squad Goals series, and my favorite. It ties everything up in a way that had me misty eyed, leaving me feeling like my actual friends were about to separate and go on adventures apart from each other. It's pretty amazing how much I grew to care about these kids over the course of the series.

Like the first two books, Hot by Halloween and Nerdy by New Year, Promised by Prom focuses on a group goal. In this case, Nora wants a serious boyfriend by the end of the year in hopes it will make her feel more like she has a local life when her friends leave for college. So she decides to find some guys who aren't leaving town and go on some dates.

Meanwhile. Max is the brother of one of Nora's squadmates. This puts him off limits, although he doesn't want to be and although he's a year behind them in school and planning on going to the same community college as Nora rather directly into a four-year university and thus will be in town for several years. And he doesn't like this goal at all, which he knows about because he snooped in the book they write it all down in a few novels ago when his sister had it. He's always been the amusingly goofy younger brother of her friend, but he's a friend of Nora in his own right, too. It will have been obvious for some time to readers of the series that the two belong together, and Max is aware of it from the start. But Max knows he can't force Nora's heart, so he watches her go on a series of dates and comforts her after the ones that go all wrong.

Nora likes Max. A lot. But she's never considered dating him for two reasons: 1) She thinks his sister will flip and 2) she thinks he's a bit of aplayer. She's actually right about the first one. But it's quickly apparent to the reader that the reason Max has a string of casual relationships that he cuts off the second he gets the impression the girl is getting attached to him is because he's been in love with Nora for years. He's not sure how to explain that to her without freaking her out though.

The shifting relationship between Max and Nora is incredibly sweet, extremely tender, and sometimes heartbreaking. It's one of those books where you're pretty sure the couple will end up together, but it still hurts to see them make choices that keep them apart.

The resolution is a happy one, although it was also bittersweet. There's a gathering in one of the closing scenes where Nora watches her friends and their boyfriends reflecting that this may be the last time they're all together. And she's right. No matter what, they're unlikely to ever be as close as they are in that scene again.

The book concludes with the Squad Goals notebook being handed to a younger sister who is told to form her own squad and continue the tradition. I hope she does. Maybe if we're lucky we'll even get to read about it.

This book is a great entry in the fields of friendship-to-romance and forbidden-partners-romance. It also also concludes a fantastic series about positive female friendships. I highly recommend readers start with the first in the series and read all the way through for the fullest impact.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

6% Well, yeah, Max, you could try to make the goal go away. Or you could just make sure it applies to you, you doof.

10% Now you're on the right track, Max.
Also, I'm loving the dynamic Gray and Simon have developed.

11% I know someone who likes your weird, Nora...

12% Max is coming really close to being honest with Nora already. And she clearly likes him, even though she doesn't seem to know it. What would happen if he followed Simon's advice and just talked to her?

16% Hah. Kid sister Nina knows the score.

23% But WHY haven't you considered dating Max, you silly person? .... Apparently it's 100% that Addy would freak. Well, Addy can get over that.

27% Ok, and she thinks Max is a player. Which I guess makes sense as she doesn't know why he hasn't been serious with any of these other girls.

31% He's totally not wrong that a date should be as easy as hanging out with a friend. He was also right that she didn't actually need rescue in this case. She really was free to drive home.

33% A more astute girl might wonder why Max remembers the guys she's gone out with better than she does... Ah, there we go. "I had no idea you were paying such close attention."

38% lol. Even Nora's dad knows. Daaaamn.

42% There are a lot more typos in this book than the others. Did they fire their editor?

44% He's going to confess his feelings this weekend... But we're only at 44%, so... It may not go well. If it happens. Or it does happen and go well but then Addy is a problem...

45% Sharing a tent... That... Makes things more complicated, doesn't it? There's nowhere to go if you get shot down. So, yeah, it definitely needs to wait until the end of the festival. Which could make the ride home awkward... Maybe this weekend isn't a good idea.

47% Why doesn't Nora want Max to say he loves her? She's looking for a serious relationship, so it's not that that's too much. I guess she's just scared. It is a scary place to be.

50% um... Not to stereotype, but "Mr Perfect" works in a dress shop and knows what was worn by whom to which awards show. Why are people assuming he's straight?

52% Ah. It's his mom's store. That reads slightly less gay, I guess. But, still...

53% Andrew doesn't make her feel anything. So, yeah, friend material only even if he isn't gay.

59% Yeah, Nora really didn't handle that very well. Poor Max.

60% I like the Avett Brothers a lot, but wouldn't pick them to cheer me up if my heart was breaking. I am really sad for Max.

60% I guess Andrew is straight. Go figure.

65% I'm guessing that expression was Addy realizing she's messed up trying to keep Max and Nora apart.

83% Addy called in the strawberry shake. :)

87% Oh, my gosh! That scene was so sweet!

93% Wait, I am confused. It's been 90 days since prom and graduation is next weekend? Who has prom that early???

94% I'm sad about Gray going to school in California. That's going to suck.

95% Max is friends with Andrew now. Nice. The guy really is likable.

96% Dammit, I'm crying. Talk about bittersweet.

98% And the squad goals are passed on... The End.

I'm happy for Max and Nora. I think they have a good shot at being permanent. I'm unsure about Gray and Addy. Going to school in different time zones is going to really strain their relationship, so Nora may have been right that the party was the last time all six of them would be together. But I guess most people don't marry their high school loves even if I did, and most people seem to thinking picking schools without taking your significant other into account is reasonable.

NERDY BY NEW YEAR by Jessica Bucher and M.F. Lorson

Rating: A glass of sparkling non-alcoholic cider

Summary: Years ago, Lucy betrayed her best friend Simon and they've hardly spoken since. Her goal this fall: make things up to him and regain his friendship.

Would you read more from this series? I have, in fact, already read the entire thing. :)

This is the second in the Squad Goal series. Like the first, Hot By Halloween, it features a trio of friends coming together to help one of them with a life goal. In this case, we're working on Lucy's goal to regain the trust of her once-best-friend Simon after two years of estrangement. This involves joining the service club he leads and making an effort to show that she can be nerdy. (Or geeky as I prefer to think of it.) Losing Simon has haunted her their entire separation and she's willing to do anything to get him back. Either as a friend, or as she suddenly realizes she'd like, as a boyfriend.

Having read the description of this book, I started out thinking Lucy was going to be a mean girl. She wasn't though. Not at all. In fact, she's very nice to everyone and is popular because she's likable rather than because she's worked the system and made people afraid of her. Her concern for the birds at the rescue she starts working at midway through the book is beautiful. And the betrayal of Simon from years ago wound up being something that it seems like they could have resolved back then if they hadn't had the instinct to avoid each other. It was a mistake more than a calculated action, a matter of trusting someone she shouldn't have and then not knowing how to properly resolve the problem.

Simon was also easy to cheer for. His main issue is that he hide from conflicts rather than resolving them, so when his best friend hurt him at the start of their sophomore year, his response was to not talk to her for for two years. It's an interesting contrast to the fact that he heads the school service club, working hard to solve problems that his peers too frequently ignore. But I suppose he isn't the first person to find it easier to wear yourself out cleaning up riverbanks and helping charities than it is to make yourself emotionally vulnerable with the people you care about.

Both Lucy and Simon grow over the course of the story. When it looks like the same thing that originally tore them apart is happening again, they initially react the same way, but quickly realize what doing that before cost them and work to resolve their problem without losing each other again.

Once again, the Squad is an important element with Lucy's friends and her younger brother (who isn't Squad, but is somewhat Squad-adjacent) playing strong roles. The girls really go the distance in this one, even when it means doing humiliating and embarrassing things in front of the entire school. I continue to love the degree to which they have each other's backs.

This book is a good stand-alone and can be read without the other two in the series. In fact, it was the first one I read. The entire series is worth reading though, and it would be better to read them in order. I recommend this novel for  fans of cute teenage rom-coms and the series is excellent for those wanting to see positive female friendships in action.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

1% I'm with her on goals. Everyone talks about how important they are and that having them is actually more important than meeting them, but it's depressing how often I fail to reach them.

2% Okay, so her friends are mean TO HER. They must be horrid to everyone in general. Lucy probably is to, but she has already said she feels bad about her ex, so she seems more redeemable. And possibly not so bad. She may just go along with the bitchy rather than actively contributing, which, of course, reminds me of Rina and makes me think she could be okay.

3% Now they don't seem so mean. And they like making amends as a goal. So maybe they aren't awful?

4% Yeah, I definitely relate to Lucy's mom.

17% I haven't figured out what "the incident" was, other than something so bad that best friends stopped speaking to each other for years. I like that Lucy thinks she deserves to feel weird but wishes that Simon didn't have to as well.

20% Wow. Trevor is an asshole. I'm not sure he deserved an apology.

40% Things seem to be progressing really well. They both are aware they're into the other. Is it really going to take another 60% of book for them to realize it's mutual or is something going to mess things up? Asshole Trevor maybe?

 60% Nice first kiss. Read it twice. Still wondering what is going  to provide a challenge for the rest of the book though.

67% Is the obstacle to overcome in the closing third going to be the pneumonia Lucy catches wearing something with spaghetti straps to a rooftop New Year's Eve party?

71% Yep, Trevor strikes.

80% The text says Simon pointed to start the playback, but I think it was probably Max...

85% Owl? I thought that it was a hawk.

86% It is a hawk.

THE END
Very sweet. I am happy. I'm going to read the other two. It'll be a challenge to read the first one though. I want to jump into the third.

HOT BY HALLOWEEN by Jessica Bucher and M.F. Lorson

Rating: A plastic pumpkin full of candy

Summary: Addy gets it into her head that her ex dumped for for not being hot enough, so she joins the swim team to get fit and find a new guy to make him jealous. Meanwhile, Gray needs to make a big enough splash to nab a college swim scholarship but finds himself distracted by the girl he's tutoring in swimming.

Would you read more from this series? I have, in fact, already read the entire thing. :)


If you're cringing over the premise of this book, ie that a teen girl decides she needs to be hotter to make her ex jealous, it might help to know that the response of everyone who learns of this goal is to tell her something along the lines of, "You're already hot! But swimming will make you healthier and it's good to try new things, so I'll support you."

This is the first book in the Squad Goals series, although it was the second one I read. Overall, I loved the series, although this wasn't my favorite of the three. Every school year, each girl in the squad trio makes a personal goal for the year. They then divide the year into three parts and assign each goal a time frame. Next they focus as a group on helping the current girl achieve her goal. The first book has Addy saying her goal is to be hot by Halloween. Her steps to this include joining the swim team and finding a new guy so the old one will see them together and regret what he gave up.

The plot is a classic sports romance. Girl meets boy. They help each other get better at their sport. They fall in love. There's a misunderstanding and everything comes to a head a big sports event. It worked really well for me.

There is a lot to admire about Addy. While the whole "I must get hot!" mission is questionable, what is certain is that it takes bravery for her to join the swim team for her senior year when she's never swam competitively before. And she really throws her whole heart into getting decent at the sport when it would have been very easy to give into the pressure to quit. She also does a great job of helping Gray learn that you can be serious about a sport without being uptight about it. And she shows a lot of development over the course of the story, both as a swimmer and as a human being.

Gray, who shares narration duties, is also highly likable. He's a general good guy who is trying to take care of his divorced mom while getting enough attention at swim meets that colleges will send scouts. He just moved to town and he's upset at the start of our story by how uncompetitive his new team is, especially new girl Addy, who is apparently bad enough to bring down the entire team's scores. At first, he wants to get Addy to quit, but he quickly shifts to mentoring her instead, trying to make her a strong enough swimmer that she can hold her own. His main flaw is taking everything way too seriously, but he works on it over the course of the novel.

The Squad is also an important element. They're Abby and her two best friends. Both they and their families play strong supporting roles and I really appreciated how dedicated the girls were to building each other up. And, like I said, they supported Abby's swimming while reminding her repeatedly that she didn't need to be "hotter" let alone be "hotter" to get at her ex, but that it was awesome she was going out and doing something new and challenging. Seeing them waving their signs in the stands cheering their friend on made me smile every time.

This book was a fun read that I recommend to those who enjoy a good sports romance. I also recommend the entire series as a positive example of female friendship.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

12% A senior trying a new thing doesn't have a less valid excuse to not know what they're doing than a freshman. In fact, I admire them more because it's harder to get out of your regular zone senior year

24% I wouldn't have thought Gray needed his mom to point out that tutoring is good on applications or that getting someone who could hardly swim to be competitive would be the kind of miracle ability coaches beg for. But at least he knows now.

27% The bell's ringing already? Addy's been in the cafeteria for like five minutes.

34% It's been established that Gray's mom works weird hours, but why doesn't Addy's family expect her to eat with them?

37% I really love how supportive Addy's friends are.

38% Oh, man. That was brutal. Stupid brat with the kazoo.

57% The scene on the dock was adorable.

59% But, Gray, you'd be an awesome shark!

61% So I'm guessing the conflict in the second half of the book is going to be Gray being upset about the squad goals. But I don't know what's in there that would be upsetting. That she was swimming to be hot? Isn't to get in better shape a valid motive for taking up a sport? Does it specificallysay something like "Make Mitch jealous" that Gray can stretch into including hanging out with him?

63% Oh, Addy... Honey... I just want to hug this girl.

66% That was so sweet!

69% I very much enjoyed that retelling of the previous scene.

69% Ah, yeah... I can see why Gray isn't going to be happy finding a tickmark next to "Find arm candy to make Mitch jealous."

72% Ouch.

78% way to fix things, Gray! Threatening not to swim if she doesn't when there's a scout there. Daaaang!

83% Moms are wise. Boys should listen to their moms.

88% Nice makeup scene.

89% Nice lead into the next book. Although I guess Gray didn't read the other girls' goals for the year or he would have known what was up with Lucy and Simon.

MELT MY HEART by A.R. Perry

Rating: A fuzzy robe and a room with a snowy view

Summary: Sammy spends most of her senior year spring break ski trip in the lodge, where she meets an intriguing new boy who might be enough to distract her from the fact that she's hopelessly in love with her best friend.

Would you read more from this author? Yes.


Sammy has two problems at the start of this novel: she's in love with best friend (who has no clue) and she's committed to going on a ski trip even though she doesn't like skiing. The fact that she doesn't like skiing was hard for me seeing as my family loves it to the point we're building a house at a ski area. I was also saddened by the fact that the author has obviously either never skied or did it so long ago that she doesn't remember details and thus doesn't realize things like if you're hurting your ankles you have a very serious problem with your boots and it's really hard to fall on your tailbone skiing without having a serious knee injury. (You fall on your side. Falling either backward or forward is hampered by the skis being on your feet. And your ankles are held in place because the boots are tight and hard. First day complaints are much more likely to be about being cold from the snow, being hot from overdressing, hurting your wrist because you don't fall properly, hitting your hip too often, or causing all your leg muscles to hurt because you keep tensing up. Sore ankles and a bruised tailbone sound more like first day ice skating problems to me.) And Sammy's resistance to going to her prepaid lessons had me wanting to throttle her. (PSA: Your first several days skiing should involve a professional instructor. In the States, look for someone who is PSIA certified. Also, when your parents already spent money on lessons, it's pretty bratty not to take them just because you don't feel like it.)

So... Yeah. Sammy came across as a bit of a brat at first glance. Does she think her parents have infinite money that they can throw around on buying her ski passes, lessons, and equipment rental? Even before she got hurt, she clearly didn't intend to ski. Even if she wanted to go on the trip to hang with her friends when they got off the slopes, she could have saved a LOT of money by refusing to buy any of the other stuff she wasn't going to use. (Yegads, I feel old saying all that! But seriously, kid.)

Other than the selfish wasting of money, which is pretty easy to explain by "She's a teenager" I liked Sammy alright. She's the bookish shy-type who undervalues herself and makes me think of teen-me. She'd rather read a book than party and would have bailed when the friend who she trusted to help her on the trip got banned from it if she wasn't such a sucker for Cole's pleading.

I liked Cole more than Sammy herself. He was a good guy who got along with almost everyone, almost to the point that it was a flaw. He tried to get Sammy out of her comfort zone when she needed it and let her hermit-up when she didn't. And I guess he reminded me a bit of my husband with his enthusiasm for skiing and easy distraction at parties, where he would beg Sammy to go but then wind up fluttering around talking to other people and ignoring her. (My husband does that all the time. It has nothing to do with his feelings for me and everything to do with his puppy-like enthusiasm for being around people.)

Potential Love Interest Hudson rubbed me wrong from the get-go, but that could have been because it was so obvious Sammy was going to end up with Cole. Conversely, the guy who was supposed to be an obnoxious jerk struck me as decent and having good intentions overall, but that could have been because I liked Cole from the start and figured he wouldn't hang with someone who actually was an asshole.

The plot had few, if any, real surprises for me, but I don't mind a certain amount of predictability. This is one of those books that isn't about where things are going but how they're going to get there, and as such was a fun and comfortable read that I honestly enjoyed. I recommend it for YA romance readers looking for something cozy and cute.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

2% Ski trip! Wooohoooo!

9% I'm assuming Cole doesn't date because he wants to be with our narrator and hasn't figured out she thinks of him like that yet. Also, I fully relate to whole "He ignores me when we go places" thing. My husband has always done the same thing. It has nothing to do with lack of affection.

12% Yeah, Cole wants to be alone with Sammy. And I don't thinks it's because he had a fight with Eva.

20% I'm not sure Ian is as awful as Sammy thinks he is.

29% Um.. Something is wrong if she's hurting her ankles. They shouldn't be moving much. And you don't really fall on your tailbone skiing, that's more of a snowboarding thing. You fall on your hip and you hurt your knees. ... And, yeah, she should have waited for the instructor.

29% OMG! Why aren't they wearing helmets??? How is their school allowing that?

40% There's something about this guy I don't like. I don't think it's just that he's not a skier.

45% Yeah, I was pretty sure it was Cole texting.

67% I think Ian is honestly trying to be helpful here. Here's obviously trying to get Cole and Sammy to admit to get like each other.

69% A sports car is appropriate for winter if it's a WRX. She has a point about Mustangs though.

72% I strongly suspect Hudson has a girlfriend.

78% Ok, maybe not a girlfriend. But hooking up with other people at the lodge is close.

81% Finding on the slopes when you can ski is hard enough, chica. Wait by the lifts if you must, but going up without knowing what you're doing isn't a grand gesture, it's just dumb.

81% Wait, she's taking steps in the lift line? Is this a gondola? (It isn't. The shuffling behaviour of a newbee in a lift line was just poorly described.)

82% Oooh. Didn't lift her tips. You can get really hurt that way... And they usually stop the lift when someone does that.

82% PIZZA? SHE'S SNOWPLOWING! This is painful to read.

87% Yay! We have resolution! :)

90% Yep, Ian was trying to help. And has been for years because he's not actually an asshole.

91% Yeah, I didn't think Dad would be oblivious.

94% Im glad they're still happy after a year. But I cannot stress enough how much Sammy needs an actual ski instructor.

99% THE END
That was really sweet. I like this book. But they really need to contact PSIA before Sammy really hurts herself or someone else.

The STARK SPRINGS ACADEMY series by Ali Dean

Rating: A sweet pair of new skis and your favorite snow conditions.

Summary: Ski racer Roxie starts her junior year of high school at the prestigious Stark Springs Academy, known for turning out some of the hottest winter-sports talent in the world. There she takes her skiing up several notches, makes new friends, develops a few enemies, and finds true love.

Would you read more from this author? I definitely plan on it.


I bought this series as a set and read them back-to-back, so I am going to discuss them all here. Honestly, you could read the first one and leave it at that if all you want is to learn what happens when a spunky ski racer from Vermont moves to Colorado to meet her hot but arrogant match. You'd be making what I would consider a mistake though as I found the third book in the series to be the strongest, but also the one that stands alone the least.

We start with Black Diamond. New girl Roxie is starting at Stark Springs Academy as a junior even though most of their students start in middle school. It quickly becomes obvious that the rules in the student handbook her parents signed off on aren't the real rules here. The real rules are whatever Ryker Black says they are. And Ryker has taken an obvious interest in Roxie. She's attracted to him, but doesn't want a relationship that's only on his terms. Besides, she's here to ski.

The next novel, Double Black, builds off the first but focuses more on Roxie as an athlete than Roxie as a potential love interest. By this book I was really appreciating that the author seems to understand not only sports in general, but snow sports specifically.

We conclude with Black Ice, which starts with the death of one of the characters being investigated as a murder. The entire series shifts in feel as we begin to learn more about why things that happened earlier happened and start to understand how deeply sensister some of the background world is. With a mystery full of soap opera-like twists, this was my favorite of the three books and took the series solidly into the category of things I loved.

Throughout the series, I enjoyed reading about Roxie. She's strong, but not so strong that she doesn't suffer from self-doubt and occasional reluctance to commit to a course of action. She's one of the best ski racers of her generation, but she starts the series confused as to how she qualified to attend Stark Springs, let alone got offered a scholarship there. Watching her grow more secure with her talent was as much fun for me as watching the development of her relationship with Ryker.

As for Ryker... He starts out larger-than-life and a tad bit hard to believe in. At twelve his mother died, by fourteen he'd taken over as CEO of her company. His parents had him ski racing competitively as a child, but when he was eleven he started teaching himself how to snowboard. Now eighteen, he's running an international corporation as well as competing internationally in snowboarding. Oh, and attending a school for elite athletes that his family happens to own. One character describes him as the mafia boss of winter sports. It's a bit much, honestly, but it reminded me of an anime setup, so I was willing to go with it. He's soon revealed to be vulnerable under his bravado, in true romantic hero fashion, and proved impossible for me to dislike. By the end, he seemed like someone I knew in real life.

Both Roxie and Ryker come with friends who prove interesting. Some of them are likable, some aren't supposed to be. I found the villainous mean girls a little over-the-top in the first novel, but like Ryker they seemed like actual people rather than cutouts by the end.

The main villain shifts a little across the story. In the first book, it's the mean girls. Ditto in the second book. But the third book not only reveals a new villain but explains some of why the mean girls were so mean.

Overall, I highly recommend this series for any readers of Young Adult fiction who like or are interested in snow sports, but also for those who like intrigue or sports in general.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

Black Diamond

1% I can think of a very long list of ski areas I'd name my kid after before Telluride. Mammoth is the only one I can think of that could be worse and even then I'm not sure. Telly is cute. But I really wouldn't want the word 'ride' to be in my daughter's name. (Note: my husband came up with worse places. Germany's Mount Wank is now in first, although "wank" appears to have a different meaning in German. Pennsylvania's Blue Knob would also be bad, although not if you only used the Blue part, in which case it would merely be weird. Honorable mention goes to Misery Mountain in Alberta.)

3% Yeah, I really don't understand how this guy has so much power. Over other students? Okay. But he deactivated her dorm keycard?

4% The mafia boss of winter? That sounds intriguing...

10% Okay, so he's presumptuous. But at least he's into consent.

12% I wonder what the Olga story sounds like from Ryker's POV.

14% They have snow machines? Those are rare in CO, I think, although I can see why a snow sports academy would want some.

15% It's not weird that he pretends not to know her in public. He set that condition to appease her. And, yes, he does feel his position means he has to act all tough.

15% OMG. He brought her ice cream because she looked upset. I wasn't sure about this guy before, but my heart just melted.

17% Ah. So it was the girls that framed Olga. That makes more sense than Ryker doing it.

23% Vermont girl meets 14 inches of CO powder. It's beautiful. I hope we get to see her on a several-feet day. I would like to interject here that I really appreciate that the author is actually familiar with skiing.

27% As I suspect these girls are the ones who framed Olga, I'm uneasy about the idea of hanging with them at a secret place at night.

27% Um... Yeah... Ditching her in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm could actually kill her. Presumably she lives, but it still seems like attempted murder could be on the menu. And I don't think Ryker knows they're doing it, so they're going to get blackballed hard even if they don't go to jail.

27% Yes, when lost in mountains, go downhill. This is smart. Much smarter than going out with these people without telling anyone.

28% I really think she's making an assumption about Ryker knowing they ditched her in the wilderness. I think when he says "that night" he just means their disagreement.

30% Yeah, I really don't think Ryker wants her out of his life. He could easily have had her scholarship revoked and he didn't. Surely she'll figure this out eventually. Presumably in a big blow up after she beats Petra in this race.

30% Vermont is, in fact, an excellent place to train for ski racing for exactly the reasons gotten into here. If you can conquer East Coast Ice, nothing CO can throw at you will trip you up.

 31% We've seen no evidence that Sven and Player were involved in the attempted homicide.

32% Yep, the boys were totally innocent and are now pissed off.

32% I really like how even with all his arrogance, there's only been one time Ryker kissed Roxie without asking first.

33% THE END

Nice ending. Things are going to change and we got there with a nice progression. I appreciate the accurate sports talk and the gradual changes in Ryker and Roxie. Overall, I really liked this book. I wonder if the next one is about them or one of the other guys... Sven and Ingrid perhaps? :)


DOUBLE BLACK

37% I say, do nothing to extract revenge except ostracize them and don't tell them nothing else is coming.

38% I admit to being a little confused as to why Ryker hasn't left school. He's already running a company so who really cares if he graduated high school?

40% So Brad is going on the Europe trip... I wonder if that will be the big source of conflict this book. Because so far all we have is that Roxie is a little freaked out to be realizing how serious her relationship with Ryker is 

54% That's the second time she's referred to someone snapping out of their boots in a situation where taking off ones boots doesn't make sense. I believe in both cases what the character actually did was step out of her bindings. I'm not sure what's up with that. The first time I figured was a brain fart or the result of changing wording and getting muddled. With twice I'm wondering if the author's brain frequently misfires on the word "binding" or if this a weird ski racer phrasing I'm unfamiliar with. (Post reading note: I mentioned this to my ski instructor husband. He's never heard of snapping out of your boots being a phrase. It's only occurred twice in the history of the internet prior to now and both times were about people taking their boots off. So it was a weird brain-fart I guess. I can't say much; I released a book in which people refer to a eating in a 'dinning room' in multiple spots because apparently I think 'dining' should have another 'n' in it.)

55% I'm starting to wonder if Rocco is Ryker's biological father... I'm almost certain he was sleeping with Ryker's mom.

58% I was really worried that whole race!

59% Oh! I think I knew she was going to be hurt. It was just a question of when. I wonder if Petra did something to her binding... I don't know why she would have popped out like that otherwise.

59% Well, it certainly sounds like SOMEONE did something to her bindings. Petra seems the obvious culprit. She had already proven a willingness to kill Roxie.

60% I don't like how "I don't like you talking to guys I don't trust" the dudes in this story are.

61% Yep, Petra did it. And is getting suspended from racing for at least the season. And is lucky Roxie isn't involving the police.

63% Nice entrance, Ryker!

64% Ok. Paternity test says Ted was the baby daddy. But there's more to this for it to be a big secret... Was his mom's death murder?

65% Oh, wow. His mom's death was murder. And he's never exposed that fact. I can see why he'd be worried about Roxie knowing that. (Although Rocco saying he'd seen the antifreeze documentary already seemed suspicious to me, especially combined with her being poisoned the day after she told him she wasn't leaving her husband for him.)

66% Petra's dead. Shit. That went from really happy to ominous awfully fast.


BLACK ICE

67% Petra died in a car crash? So no one is under investigation for murder or guilty they drove her to suicide or anything dramatic? Bit of a let down really.

67% Ah. Roxie does think something hinky happened the night Petra died and thinks there's an ongoing investigation. I wonder if Ryker's dad killed her thinking it would make Ryker happy. Or that Roxie would be blamed and he could get rid of her that way.

67% I'm pretty confident it wasn't Ryker who killed Petra. But suspecting him of murder is a nice tension for the book.

68% Someone cut the brakes on Petra's car. I'm surprised they kept that quiet for six months. But Ryker telling everyone that makes him seem innocent of involvement to me. (And he obviously didn't do it himself as he was in another country at the time.)

69% It was on Ryker's insistence that the police examined the car. Yeah, that definitely implies he want behind it.

71% I suspect Ryker suspects Winter and/or Aspen. The idea did occur to me that they could have wanted revenge for her idea getting them blackballed. ... Rocco might also fit the "I'm disappointed in you and capable of murder" profile if he was the one who killed Ryker's mom rather than Ted doing it.

72% Roxie clearly doesn't think Ryker's the one who left his mother's journal in her room. Who else could it have been? Rocco or his sister maybe? Why? Could Coach Hoffman have had it and be trying to leave clues that can't be traced to him? How would any of these people have gotten it?

78% The sequel to the first journal... Interesting.

79% What she is describing is gropple, not hail. Why do people call all icy things falling from the sky hail?

80% Olga sounds like trouble. I don't know why, but I'm trusting Aspen's account of her.

86% So either Olga or Winter would have been able to cut Petra's brake lines. And they both had motive.

87% Ryker got the third journal. Interesting.

88% TED was having an affair? With Nadia Hoffman? Whoa. Could she have been the one who killed Ryker's mom because Ted wouldn't leave her and then killed her own daughter for embarrassing her? This book is such a soap opera! I love it!

90% I'm increasingly thinking Ted didn't poison his wife. And I'm wondering if he's the one who gave the kids the journals.

91% Yeah, Petra seems pretty well redeemed. Although maybe she reminds me of my character Rina. (Rina was sidekick to the mean girl in OF FUR AND ICE but unlike Petra wasn't involved in the worst thing her bestie did. She was then the lead in OF SNOW AND WHISKERS, which was largely about how abusive her relationship with said bestie was.)

91% I'm not sure why they waited so long to have sex. They've been together a full year, declared themselves in love ages ago, and sleep next to each other all the time. I do like the handling of the actual sex though. No play-by-plays, just it happened and everyone is happy.

92% How does Nadia know where Petra took Roxie? Did Petra tell her mom? And this seems really obvious...

94% How does one secure a hostage to a snowmobile and still be able to drive it? Asking for a friend...

96% If Nadia had those journals at some point, she really should have burned the last one.

98% So Nadia's still messed up. It's curious that someone so deranged isn't considered insane enough to plead instantly. I agree she wouldn't be, but it does make you question the naming if the defense.

98% THE END
I like it. It leaves me optimistic about Roxie and Ryker's future. A nice happy ending.

JUST JULIET by Charlotte Reagan

Rating: A rainbow jumper that doesn't quite fit me

Summary:  A highschooler realizes she's bisexual when she meets and is dazzled by the new girl in school.

Would you read more by this author? Possibly, but I'm not rushing to.


This book has been recommended to me a lot, so I was rather disappointed that I failed to love it. It covers the entirety of Len's senior year and just never seemed to develop much urgency in my opinion. The only things keeping the girls apart at the start was that Len needed to break up with the guy it was obvious she was going to break up with and she didn't realize she liked girls, but it was quickly clear she liked Juliet and while she spent a while being preoccupied about identifying her sexuality, she never seemed to have much issue with it. She didn't realize she was bisexual, but wasn't upset to learn she was.

This book felt like a retelling of a year of someone's life more than it really felt like a novel. Things happened, but it's hard to really call them a plot. So, basically, the book was just really character driven and light on things to fight against or overcome or achieve. Some people really like that type of romance and wouldn't have spent half the book going, "That's nice, but why am I reading this?" I'm just not one of them.

And the ending? I was solidly "meh" over it.

Len and Juliet were likable enough, I guess. I say "I guess" because I never really accepted Len's sense of humor. She and her friends are constantly attacking each other, calling each other nasty names, and being generally mean. They proudly self-describe as bitches, and it just really didn't work for me. It went beyond teasing and well past the point that they seemed really toxic and like people I'd be alarmed to learn my kid was hanging out with.

The two characters I really did like were Juliet's cousin and his boyfriend. There's a companion novel about them that I actually am tempted to pick up as it sounds like they had a lot more drama to overcome in their early relationship. But, well, I'm not sure the cousin was really very likable when not seen being cute with his boyfriend, so I hesitate.

Overall, I don't exactly regret spending the time to read this book. I did manage to finish it. But if it served any purpose for me, it was to prove that I'm right in wanting to revise a stronger plot for my work-in-progress.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

6% The fact that London's plays aren't on Broadway brings Juliet's narrative into question. I'm assuming her mother isn't actually dead.

9% I wonder why Juliet is going to the new school...

12% Scott and Lakyn really are too adorable.

13% Yes! No one takes an intolerance seriously! That's exactly why I tell people in allergic to bell peppers.

37% Well, that coming out was odd. I can't figure out if I love the playful bitchiness this friends group has or hate it.

39% Apparently Juliet's mom really is dead. Go figure.

44% Ok, that was adorable. I'm not sure how the tension for the rest of the book will go. Will there be an argumentduring the date? Or will it just be trying to figure out how to come out to everyone? Lacey already knows, but the other friends and parents don't.

45% Hmm... Does Mom suspect something?

56% I'm not sure why she's so scared to tell her parents. They seem to know already. And if they had a problem with it, they'd have pressed the subject rather than waiting patiently for her to feel comfortable enough to come out.

71% I clearly was wrong to expect better of her parents. They didn't throw a fit, but they seem overly concerned.

80% I'm increasingly uncomfortable with all this "playful" hate speech the characters direct at each other.

84% This vacation is cute, but I'm not sure what the point of all this is.

92% Juliet is going to London. Bet she'll be really confused when she asks for directions to Broadway.

94% And now they're breaking up to go to different schools. Why did people tell me to read this thing?

95% At least Len's living with Lakyn and Scott.

100% Hooked up again at the boys' wedding. And hopefully are now over the "me first!" attitude that split them up.

THE END
Overall, just not my type of book I think. No conflict. No excitement. And then they decided their relationship wasn't as important as doing whatever they hell they wanted without regards to the other party, getting back together only when it was convenient for them.

THE BEHOLDER by Anna Bright

Rating: An epic score played by a world class symphony on the deck of a tall ship.

Highlight of note: A well imagined alt-Earth setting and a swashbuckling crew of sailors.

Will you read more in this series? Absolutely!

Selah is the heir to the nation of Potomac. In her world, England gave up its unprofitable North American colonies when rebels on the other side of the world forced the Empire into a war. I spent a while puzzling as to what went differently in her world and ours. Obviously, the colonies that became the US failed to rebel, or to join together after being released from English rule. There are some things I pegged as different, but overall I think the theme that small things can make big changes is the relevant thing to cite. (I never figured out why England is still England. All the other nations mentioned have alternate names in this world. That didn't dampen my enjoyment of the novel though.)

Despite her deep worry about her father's health, teenaged Selah is sent on a European tour for her after the marriage proposal she offers her local friend is refused. (Europe is still called Europe. I'm not sure why.) During this tour, Selah is tasked with finding a husband to return with. She is to go to at least four places, and this book only covers the first two. The tales at the two stops covered are a bit more like two novellas than two halves of one novel. When the open ending of the book is taken into account, I get the impression that the first (only? Is this a trilogy or a duology?) two books in this series are more accurately described as a series of four novellas. Selah and the crew of The Beholder stay the same, but each court visited comes with a new cast and plot.

I liked Selah quite a bit. She grows over the course of the book and really learns a lot, although she still has a way to mature. The love interests are all interesting as well and the crew of the ship are a lot of fun to read about.

The ending of the book is very much not an ending but a stoppage of narration. Sailing from Norge really didn't feel any more concrete than sailing from England, which happened halfway through the book. There is a solid call to action for the next installment, though, and I'm eager to get started on it.

I entered the book thinking it was a romance. I does have several strong romantic arcs, but by the end of the book, it's the political intrigue that drives my desire to see what will happen next.

Overall, I loved this book much more than I expected to. (I had actually forgotten why it was in my queue and considered not reading it so that I can focus on getting the most of the three months of Kindle Unlimited I purchased on the cheap in December.) What exactly I love so much about it is hard to pinpoint, but it had me enchanted by the time the ship landed in England. My library still lists the second installment as unpurchased, but I've requested it and will probably be right at the start of the line for it when they hopefully buy it.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

2% She calls her stepmother her "smother" I love it.

3% I love that they are deviated with wreaths for Arbor Day. I frequently feel we should do more for Arbor Day.

7% So apparently in this world, India flight back harder against the British, which cost England enough money that they abandoned Potomac as unprofitable. Clearly not the only difference in our worlds though as they abandoned Potomac rather than Maryland or Virginia... Also, the Raj was established in the mid 1800s and Potomac seems more like it came of Maryland in the 1600s, so the timeline may have been reversed? England occupied India prior to America?  Except that would have likely resulted in someone else conquerimg the Mid-Atlantic area... This says all of the empires of Europe turned inward when England went broke, but I can't imagine why that would be. So there are several differences in our worlds, but I'm not sure what they all are.

7% Hold on. There are no slaves. Without slavery most of the states south of PA wouldn't have been profitable colonies. So maybe the slaves were freed without a civil war, but maybe they were never there. Which would make the world a better place, for sure, but would also explain why the imperialism didn't work as well in our world and would mean their European North America is little like ours.

7% Where the heck is Totunkheym? Egypt? ... Tsarytsya. Russia then?

7% I wonder why England is called England and Europe is called Europe but nowhere else has the same name as it does I'm our world... ... Except New York, apparently.

8% Maybe it's the word "protocol" being in his description, but Sir Perrault reminds me of C3PO. I assume he is not the Love Interest. And the navigator is too old even if Selah does trust him on sight. I'm guessing Captain Lang is the Love Interest via process of elimination and based on an assumption that he'll be someone who is around the entire book rather than a guy she meets on stop number five of this European tour. So unless Peter comes with them, it would seem like the captain is the guy.

9% Hmm... Godmother send to the the stepmother influenced Peter to reject the proposal. That would make sense. I was wondering why he would do that and was wandering between he loves another and/or he's gay, but he was bribed or threatened would also work.

13% Captain Lang is clearly a good guy who didn't understand what he was being hired for. He is a suitable Love Interest. And one assumes someone who is a Captain at such a young age in a world like that one is a suitable match for her if Peter was good enough. Of course, this assumes he is a Captain and not secretly the last prince on the tour. After all, I noticed that he said he'd never sailed across the Atlantic, not that he'd never been to Europe.

15% These suitors sound like the sort of people who wouldn't leave their homelands... Which I would guess is part of the point.

16% And the Captain has Selah's lost shoe. I'm case the Cinderella vibe hadn't taken yet.

23% Ah. And Selah has figured out that none of these suitors would take her home to Potomac.

24% I too wonder what Anansi (friend of Homer... What's with these names?) didn't say about the state of things in England. I guess we'll find out soon. I wonder if it's related to why there's no picture or age listed for their prince in the portfolio.

25% He knows how to read a map. :: Swoon ::

27% Lang is very confident he'll manage to get her home. There hasn't been much support for the theory that he's secretly one of these suitors (either one without a picture or one who has been lied about) although I haven't seen much to counter it either. He's never said where he's from, never mentioned his family, never implied how much money he has. And he's obviously the Prince Charming to her Cinderella, so why not be a literal prince?

31% I'm not sold on Bear just being a guard. Could he be Prince Bertilak's son? He seems to have lost his mother and apparently Bertilak is a widower. And Bertilak II would lend itself to the nickname Bear ... Lang could be his brother, although they'd probably look enough for that to be mentioned unless they're only half-brothers... It occurs to me that the reason Lang isn't on this field trip could well be that he didn't trust he wouldn't be outted. If the court is in on it, he could be seen there, but they couldn't tell the whole country.

37% ok, so Selah is starting to crush on Bear. Who i continue to think is not just a guard. I wonder what Lang is up to.

41% Yes, a mere guard scooping the crown prince's intended would be treasonous. So either Bear is an idiot or more than a guard.

42% An oddly familiar look between Bertilak and Bear. Yeah, totes family.

44% Wait... Igraine isn't Bertilak's sister. She's his wife, isn't she?

50% So Lang is with the mysterious cowslip people and has presumedly been off doing cowslip things. They seem to the be the ones who want to fight the evil empire rather than hide from it. Which explains why he's willing to sail into it.

51% Yep, Igraine is Bertilak's wife. Bear's their son. ... And Selah is not talking being manipulated well.

57% The King of Asgard has an eyeoatch. He's taking the Odin connectiom pretty far, isn't he?

58% And Torden (which sounds a lot like Thor) has a dark haired adopted brother who was born to enemies and describes himself as trouble.

67% Yeah, I really can't imagine this guy moving to Potomac. Plus, we haven't actually established who inherits here. That he's the head if the running stuff implies to me Torden is the heir.

73% I have a bad feeling about these summer rites.

76% Long hours of the night? In Scandinavia just before midsummer?

77% So he's not heir. He just convinced everyone to let him be the suitor because he worried about a shy bookish girl having to live with his brother. That kind of sweet.

78% Ok... That sweet. What's the catch? That he won't go to Potomac? That he dies in the rites? Or will the Beholder crew just kidnap her for the next leg of her tour?

80% So there's a psuedoRussian plot. Maybe it will kill the older brothers and make Torden heir.

85% Poor Aleksei. It totally wasn't his fault.

86% Yeah, he won't leave. And really wouldn't thrive well in Potomac anyway.

91% Ouch. They're willing to compromise but his daddy won't allow it. And Torden probably won't accept being disowned. Also, the king is an asshole.

93% The ship is gone? I wasn't expecting that.

98% Viva la restitance!

THE END Love it! Can't wait for the next book!

PRINCESS CLAUS AND THE GREAT ESCAPE by J.L. Gillham

Rating: A snowglobe with a Christmas village inside of it

Highlight of note: Our lead is set to be the first female Santa!

Will you read more in this series? Hopefully. None have been published yet, but I am interested in what happens next.

Noelle, AKA Princess Claus, is the daughter of the current Santa. She lives at the North Pole with her family, lots of elves, some reindeer, and a pet polar bear. The tagline on the cover of the novel reads "Even Winter Wonderland can be a prison" but the story isn't nearly as dark as that makes it sound. Noelle does feel trapped. She's not allowed to leave the protective dome around her home because there's an evil elf out there who wants to kidnap her, and as she's a teenager this really chafes. But it's not like she's being tortured or anything.

Overall, the story is fun if not incredibly deep. I particularly liked seeing the growth in Noelle's relationship with her younger brother. They start off not liking each other at all, but find common ground and some degree of affection over the course of the novel.

My other favorite part was definitely the polar bear. He's timid and addicted to sugar. And he can fly when hooked up to Santa's sleigh. It almost goes without saying that I find the sleigh being pulled by polar bears to be a way cooler idea than having reindeer do it.

I never felt too invested in the romantic arc of the story. The love interest is likable, but he didn't seem very complicated and I was a bit put off by the fact that Noelle only appears to know two guys her age who aren't related to her and seems to feel they are the only romantic choices she has. The other guy we don't get to see until the end. There's some hint that the next book may have more of a love triangle conflict, but I think it's going to require this second fellow move to closer to Winter Wonderland.

I found it a bit hard to feel too sorry for Noelle, who clearly wanted me to feel sorry for her. Maybe I'm getting old, but I looked at her escape attempts and said stuff like, "You know you'll need money, right? Have you heard of ID?" and "You're just now asking where the nearest airport is? Seriously? Where did you think you were going running out into the countryside of Alaska?" Basically, I was hoping she'd fail to escape because I didn't want to watch her freeze to death or get eaten by a polar bear that hadn't been raised as a pet. And that was without taking the evil elf into consideration. All of this foolishness may be explained by her being young and very sheltered, but she felt more like a twelve-year-old than a seventeen-year-old to me.

As for the "I don't know that I want to be Santa" thing... I felt that was something that really should have been brought up in a conversation with her parents. She tries to talk to them exactly once. She says "Let's do this thing!" without explaining why she thinks it will help her, then storms out when they say "We can't do this thing!" without letting her parents fully explain their side. This is, I'll admit, somewhat accurate to how many teenagers behave. I would have liked to see more effort from her parents, though. They seem aware that something is up with her but never sit her down and try to talk to her about it, let alone force her to sit in a room until things have been discussed. Her mom says near the end that it might have been a mistake not to tell her certain things earlier and I was like, "No duh, Mom." Overall, I thought it would make a more interesting story if it was Noelle's brother who was supposed to be Santa and she was arguing that it should go to the firstborn child, not the firstborn son. (Also, if it's always been the firstborn child rather than son, how have we gone this long without a female inheriting? That seems statistically unlikely as the Santas appear to want to hand the job over by the time they're forty.)

I felt Noelle's parents were doing a bad job of passing on the Santa torch. Not only did they never actually talk to Noelle about why it was important she, and not her brother, be the new Santa, they never explained why she had to take on this mantle on her seventeenth birthday. Her father did plan on doing the Christmas Eve run with her the first few years rather than just tossing her into it like apparently happened to him despite his dad still being alive, but he never explains why it's happening now rather than after his daughter is grown. It's pretty obvious Noelle isn't mature enough to be more than an apprentice, if that, at the start of all of this, so I assume there's a reason for not saying, "You know what, we'll do the whole coronation thing when you're twenty one. Or maybe thirty," but the only clue we're given is that Dad seems tired.

As to Noelle' grandparents... Both sets live in Winter Wonderland, but we never see any of them. The closest we come is a cameo by her grandmother's dog. I'm not sure what was up with that. As indicated earlier, I don't quite get what triggers Santa handing the job down to his offspring and I never figured out what he does after he's stopped being Santa.

The villain was very shallow, although it looks like the next book in the series will flesh him out some. He doesn't have any motivation in this book other than the standard "ruin Christmas" desire villains in stories like this tend to get assigned. I'm hoping that when we see him again later we'll get more about why he's trying to take down Santa.

So, yeah, there were some problems with this book, but I did enjoy it and fully intend to read the next installment whenever it gets released. And actual teens may find it easier to relate to Noelle than I did. I recommend it as a playful Santa story for people who are looking for more fun than depth. Which, let's face is, is a lot of people in December as the holiday stress makes many of us desperate for escape.

Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

6% These elves seem more like dwarves, but okay.

8% Santa's sleigh being pulled by flying by polar bears would be way cooler than reindeer.

9% I have no idea what she thinks will happen when she runs away. Is she not aware that money is a thing she'll need? You know, in addition to there being someone who wants to kidnap her.

12% Cracked snow globe doesn't sound good

13% I'm not sure who the boy with her brother is or if his presence is related to the broken snow globe. I assumed she would have recognized Cole.

13% Yeah, so the snow globe represents the shield around their house. She should probably tell her parents it's broken.

14% I'm not sure how she managed to forget about finding a secret tunnel already. I would think finding a secret passage in your house would stand out in your memory.

16% Finn has drinkable eyes, huh?

17% A box of whale blubber? WTF? Also, how does Noelle recognize what it is? Does the Santa family routinely murder whales? If I saw some, I'd probably be like, "Something bloody and foul smelling" but wouldn't know exactly what it was.

17% So the town outside Santa's globe is in Alaska. Okay. I would have thought Greenland or Lapland, but fine. Maybe we're going with the idea that North Pole is so obvious because no one would suspect a real connection to Santa somewhere that garishly Christmas.

17% If Finn and Nicky are good friends, shouldn't Noelle have deduced he was the one following her brother in the workshop?

18% Anyone who needs warned that hot chocolate is hot has a problem that should probably be taken into consideration if you're wanting to form a romantic bond with them...

19% She's clearly going to be annoyed with Finn for sharing the secret she blabbed, but she didn't wait long enough to see what he was gossiping about. My money is on it having been the hot chocolate being yummy.

20% She doesn't even know where town is? It seems she really should have researched all this before she started making escape attempts.

30% So apparently the gossip was the she's a flirt? Weird...

43% And now she says she did hear him tell others about the actual secret. Although I don't think she actually told him not to tell people that, so being pisses a year later seems like a lot.

44% This dapper dude at the beach seems out of place. I'm betting he's the evil elf.

50% Animal stowaway, huh? So evil elf shape shifts or has a trained animal?

53% Someone rerouted her string and she isn't curious about this?

57% I'd be more curious about why the sim was cancelled. I'm assuming its safety features are turned off or something.

75% Finn says he didn't blad about the evil elf and is amused she thinks he did. I'm back to thinking he was telling the girls about the hot chocolate and the narration saying otherwise was unreliable.

76% Hmm... I don't know why the snow globe started healing. Is it because Noelle is close to fixing things with Finn? I've been thinking for a while that it will repair itself when she accepts being Santa.

78% Dapper Guy from the Beach was the evil elf! How... Not surprising. It might have been surprising if he was more stealthy, like if the hikers wound up being Evil Guy and His Evil Wife.

82% Evil Elf was pretty easy to defeat. Although I suppose not everyone would have a pet polar bear with a sweet tooth at the ready.

83% Yep, Finn was talking about the hot chocolate.

86% If it's always just the firstborn, it seems statistically unlikely there wouldn't have been another female...

91% I'm not sure I like her mom's reaction to being told she doesn't want to marry young. Makes me wonder if there's going to be a sequel along the line of the second Santa Clause, the one about the Mrs Clause.

93% Cole's into Noelle. We've hardly seen him so it's hard to care too much though.

98% Kissing Finn. He's not a bad love interest, but I kinda felt the only thing keeping them apart was the misunderstanding that I never fell for.

THE END

Overall, I'm kinda underwhelmed. Did search for the next one though in the hopes it will have more romantic tension than this one. It isn't out yet.