Reviews by Vanessa

Here we are, at the end of our journey in The Glamourist Histories by Mary Robinette Kowal, with book five, OF NOBLE FAMILY (Amazon). Jane has come a long way from SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY (EBR Review). Her and Vincent have been married three years and overcome many trials together, surviving with their relationship intact. But now we discover that Vincent’s abusive father is dead, along with the eldest brother, and the inheritance falls to brother number two. Richard is unable to travel to Antigua to put to rights the family property there, and enlists Vincent to take care of loose ends. Jane, of course, insists on traveling with her husband for what promises to be a long round-trip, but a quick last family obligation to fulfill.

Unfortunately nothing goes as planned. What they find when they arrive in Antigua is a mismanaged estate and the children and mistress of Vincent’s late father–but that isn’t even the biggest shocker of all.
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Nels can’t remember a time when he didn’t want to be a knight. Unfortunately, despite his aptitude for combat and a desire to help others, Nels’ mother won’t let him apply to become a squire. So far he’s listened to his mother. But this year she’ll be gone during the festival and decides to sneak out of the house while she’s gone.

By the end of the night he wishes he’d listened to his mother. Everything goes wrong. He gets in a fight with a real knight. Offends the princess. And is found by the very man who wants to see him dead.

Princess Tyra is in love with Knight Arek. Sure he’s a little pompous, but the idea of governing the kingdom scares her, and she’d rather hand it over to a capable husband. She just needs to convince her father that Arek is the best choice. Things were going well until Arek gets in a fight with peasant boy at the festival. When the boy wins he demands his prize–a kiss from the princess–and she refuses, she’d been expecting to kiss Arek as the winner. But later that same boy comes to haunt her–as a ghost.
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Luci Jenifer Inacio das Neves–Lucifer, for short–isn’t the kind of teenage girl you’d find at any given high school. Beyond the mundane such as her unusual name, living on her own in a dump of an apartment, thieving for a living, and avoiding the authorizes, there’s the fact that she knows about magic while the rest of the human population lives unawares. She makes it clear from the beginning that she doesn’t have magic, but she can use magical items. That’s where the thief part comes in: she steals these magical items from bad people.

It turns out that even though she’s not technically an adult yet, she has insider knowledge of a world few know about. So when a policeman’s daughter, Gina, is kidnapped by a witch in a mirror, only Lucifer knows how to navigate the strange and mystical in order to bring the girl home.
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Rutejìmo is labeled among his clan as a useless teenager, and is considered lazy, temperamental, and cowardly. He’s jealous of the much-admired Chimípu, who seems to be able to do anything–she’s more athletic, clever, and better liked. And he wants to be like his brother, Desòchu, who is a warrior and protects the clan; no one believes Rutejìmo is capable of such a thing.

But Rutejìmo gets his chance to prove the naysayers wrong when he, Chimípu, and three other boys are taken into the desert as part of their rite of passage into adulthood. He knows that when he becomes a true member of the Shimusògo clan he will inherit the clan magic that allows him to run faster than a horse and use sunlight as a weapon. The adults, including Desòchu, take the youth into the desert to begin their rite… and leave them to fend for themselves by disappearing during the first night. Rutejìmo can’t believe Desòchu would abandon him. While Chimípu tries to find help, Rutejìmo is left with the three other boys, one is Pidòhu who is even weaker than he is, and the other two who are well-known bullies. And everything goes wrong.

So begins Rutejìmo’s rite of passage.
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More than a decade after the events of COPPERHEAD (EBR Review), Jane and Edward’s daughter Dorie has graduated from school and is ready to strike out on her own and find work. She figures her experience studying mythical beasts in the field coupled with her college degree will make her the perfect candidate to work for the Queen’s Lab.

Unfortunately, all her interviewers see is a beautiful young woman.
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Evon is a recent graduate of magic school, and his high marks earned him a prestigious job at a big-name magic cooperative where he creates new spells that earn the business money. Despite the prestige, he can’t help but feel like his life isn’t headed in the direction that would truly make him happy. Until one day his friend Piercy, who works for the government, brings him a riddle that begs to be solved: a mysterious pattern of burned-out houses around the country Dalanine.

They go off in search of what they believe is a new, powerful fire spell that could change the course of the war that threatens the border of their country–also knowing the consequences if they don’t find it.
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Devi’s life as a mercenary hasn’t led where she thought it would. In FORTUNE’S PAWN (EBR Review), she had recently struck out on her own for a job that would make or break her career. Working for Caldswell on his ship Glorious Fool could potentially land her a dream job as a Devastator for the king himself.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned on Caldswell’s ship, and in HONOR’S KNIGHT (EBR Review) Devi finds herself on the run, as a carrier for the cure–or destruction–of the universe raging as a plague in her body.

But now, in HEAVEN’S QUEEN (Amazon), Devi is tired of running, and with Rupert at her side, she has a chance to see her plan through. However small.
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In 2013’s THE CROSSING (EBR Review), Maryam discovered she’d been lied to her entire life. That the Apostles weren’t who they said they were and that the native women taken to the ship were being treated like slaves. Determined to escape the injustices, Maryam makes a plan, and with the help of her newfound friend Joseph they do–with two unexpected companions in tow.

Now, in INTO THE WILDERNESS (Amazon), Maryam and Joseph cross the sea in search of a new home, but nothing goes according to plan.
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McKayla’s aunt Avril has always been a little odd. She travels the world as a psychic for the FBI, to the chagrin of McKayla’s mother, who doesn’t like it when she talks magic with her daughters. Now, Avril is visiting Sun Valley in small-town Idaho where McKayla and her family live in order to investigate a serial killer who – it appears – possesses her victims. McKayla goes with her aunt during a case to interview the widow of a murder victim. There she discovers that maybe Aunt Avril’s psychic abilities are magic and run in the family because McKayla can feel the window’s emotions–she’s empathic.

But that’s not even the strangest thing, because despite outward tears the widow’s inside emotions are not what McKayla expects a widow to be experiencing: she’s not sad, she’s angry.
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Jacob’s grandfather was kind of an odd guy. When Jacob was a kid, his grandfather would tell him all sorts of stories about the kids in the Welsh children’s home he lived in after escaping pre-war Europe. Then he would show Jacob all sorts of strange photographs (see cover picture of levitating girl) of the other peculiar children he lived with. As Jacob grew older he began to realize that these stories couldn’t have been memories, but were tall tales to entertain an imaginative grandson.

Or were they?

After witnessing his grandfather’s death, Jacob’s parents are convinced that it was so traumatic that he hallucinated the monster-like creature Jacob saw. Jacob is able follow the clues of his grandfather’s last words, and convinces his father to take him to the island where Miss Peregrine’s home for children resides. Instead of answers, Jacob instead finds an abandoned relic from 60 years before. While there he meets someone from his grandfather’s past, and Jacob begins to realize that maybe his grandfather wasn’t completely bonkers after all.
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