The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon

Title: The Mask Falling

Author: Samantha Shannon

Genre: Dystopian, Urban Fantasy

Series: The Bone Season # 4

Publication: May 14, 2024, 528 pages

Source: Personal Library, Purchase

Buy|AMAZON|BN|

Paige Mahoney has eluded death again. Snatched from the jaws of captivity and sent to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris, she finds herself caught between factions that seek Scion's downfall and those who would kill to protect the puppet empire.

The mysterious Domino Program has plans for Paige, but she has ambitions of her own in this new citadel. With Arcturus at her side, she embarks on an adventure that will lead her from the catacombs of Paris to the glittering hallways of Versailles.

As Scion widens its bounds and the free world trembles in its shadow, Paige strives to understand her bond with Arcturus, which grows stronger by the day. But there are those who know the revolution began with them--and could end with them . . .

MY THOUGHTS

Paige and Arcturus have fled London and are now across the ocean in Paris. To repay her rescuers, the Dominio Programme, Paige is sent to infiltrate and gather information on the Grand Inquisitor of the Republic of Scion France, Benoît Ménard. But as usual, Paige is never focused on just one goal, she’s also seeking an alliance with the Paris syndicate. What she discovers is just as disturbing: the Rag and Bone Man has fled London and set up the Grey Market in Paris.

While reading The Mask Falling, I kept experiencing a sense of déjà vu. At times, it felt like I was reading the same events over and over again; whether it was another Grey Market or Paige getting kidnapped yet again, even if it was intentional. Things started to feel a bit “same old, same old.” I also didn’t love the addition of a secret organization pulling the strings behind Paige, despite their shared goal of bringing down Scion. And unsurprisingly, Paige tries to play all sides, gets in over her head, and narrowly escapes with her life.

Maybe I didn’t notice it as much in the previous books, but Paige seems even more careless and reckless here. So many people depend on her, yet she constantly puts her life on the line. Her decision-making, or lack thereof was especially exhausting and frustrating to read this time around. What bothered me most, though, was how quickly and easily she gave up on Arcturus, assuming he was a traitor. I couldn't fathom how Paige couldn't see all the things Arcturus has done for her, down to the small gestures; like cooking for her, making sure she has a hot pad, to fighting alongside her every step of the way...just thrown out the window. In typical Paige fashion, she gets stuck in her own head and can’t fathom that there could be another Voyant like herself, despite it being hinted at multiple times. And by the time she realizes the truth, it’s too late.

That said, the world-building and writing are impeccable, as always. I can always count on Shannon for excellent prose, fast-paced action, and a brutal cliffhanger. While this wasn’t my favorite book in the series, I do plan on continuing, though I may wait until the sixth book is released.

Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

Title: Night Broken

Author: Patricia Briggs

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Series: Mercy Thompson # 8

320 Pages, Hardcover

Publication: March 4, 2014

Source: Libby Library

Buy|AMAZON|B&N

An unexpected phone call heralds a new challenge for Mercy. Her mate Adam’s ex-wife is in trouble, on the run from a stalker. Adam isn’t the kind of man to turn away a person in need—and Mercy knows it. But with Christy holed up in Adam’s house, Mercy can’t shake the feeling that something about the situation isn’t right.

Soon her suspicions are confirmed when she learns that Christy has the furthest thing from good intentions. She wants Adam back, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get him, including turning Adam’s pack against Mercy.

Mercy isn’t about to step down without a fight, but there’s a more dangerous threat circling. Christy’s stalker is more than a bad man—in fact, he may not be human at all. As the bodies start piling up, Mercy must put her personal troubles aside to face a creature with the power to tear her whole world apart.

MY THOUGHTS

In Night Broken, Mercy’s standing within the Pack is still fragile as everyone continues dealing with the fallout from the previous book’s events. To make matters worse, Adam’s ex-wife seeks shelter in their home while fleeing an abusive man and there’s a serial killer on the loose in the Tri-Cities.

I enjoyed Night Broken much more than I expected. I loved meeting all the new characters, especially ones we had heard about before but had never actually seen on the page, such as Christy and a Gray Lord. There were also some unexpected appearances, including more of Coyote and the introduction of a supposedly lost sibling, which was a pleasant surprise. Mercy and the Pack’s interactions with this newcomer added a fun and interesting dynamic to the story; it was probably one of my favorite parts.

The plot was great, and I loved how Briggs tied two seemingly unrelated subplots into one cohesive storyline. Clever! I also appreciated the ongoing development in Mercy and Adam’s relationship. With Adam’s ex moving in, Mercy could have reacted very differently, but her maturity really stood out. Readers also learn alongside Mercy as she discovers more about her evolving abilities. She has certainly come a long way since the first book, when we believed she was just a simple shapeshifting mechanic.

I can’t wait to continue with the next books in the series. I’ve loved the Urban Fantasy genre ever since discovering it in the early 2000s. If you enjoy books with rich world-building, strong character development, and intriguing elements of Native folklore, I highly recommend checking out the Mercy Thompson series.

Witch of the Wolves by Kaylee Archer

Title: Witch of the Wolves

Author: Kaylee Archer

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Witch of the Wolves # 1

Publication: September 30, 2025

352 pages

Source: Libby Library

Buy|AMAZON|B&N

Cordelia Levine comes from a long line of powerful witches. She's been flying under the radar in the human world, focused on strengthening her magic. She loves working at her aunt's apothecary in London, secretly serving supernaturals.

Until the truth about her family is revealed.

She always assumed her enhanced sense of smell came from her French perfumer father. But when Bishop Daniels abducts Cordelia at the request of her father, the Alpha, Cordelia learns she's a lycan--sharing both witch and werewolf traits. She's brought to Trevelyan, the pack estate, under the guise of protection from foreign threats who want to use her to continue their bloodline.

She quickly learns that to keep her from being sold off to another pack, her father intends to give Cordelia as a mate to Bishop. His second in command and the future Alpha.

Cordelia refuses to accept this as her fate. She can't rely on her magic alone to escape and when she learns Bishop plans to challenge her father's power, she reluctantly begins to trust him. The cracks within the Pack become evident and something is bound to break. And Cordelia and her growing desire for the man who shouldn't set her on fire are right at the center of it all.

MY THOUGHTS

Witch of the Wolves was one of my most anticipated reads this year. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since I first heard about it. A Victorian setting and supernatural creatures? That’s right up my alley, two of my favorite things combined! The book started off strong, and I was immediately immersed in the story. I honestly thought it would pull me out of my disappointing reading streak because it had so much potential. Unfortunately, it hit a snag halfway through and never fully recovered.

The worldbuilding and magic system were promising at first but ultimately built like a house of cards; weak at the foundation and barely held together by hope and readers' obliviousness. There’s almost no explanation of how werewolves are made or how their transformations work, aside from a vague mention that it’s painful. It feels like the author expected readers to fill in the blanks rather than creating her own lore. The witches fare no better; their spells are given the most unimaginative names possible: knockback, fireball, privacy, and fog, which sound just as lame as they read. The worldbuilding overall was poorly executed. Although the synopsis claims a Victorian setting, the only indication of the Victorian Era were Cordelia’s wardrobe and the period-typical gender dynamics, where, unsurprisingly, most women are relegated to subservient roles.

I actually liked Cordelia at first, but halfway through, right around the time she got involved with Bishop, she turned into a naive, immature child. The insta-love/lust between them was unrealistic; they barely knew each other for a week before falling all over each other. Throughout the book, Cordelia verbally fights her arranged marriage to Bishop but when the day arrives, she immediately accepts it. Then when a family member is killed, the natural reaction would be rage or grief right? What does she do? Rolls into bed with Bishop like the person wasn't killed less than an hour ago. Sure, we get one paragraph afterwards of her crying but the whole situation gets swept over like it never happened.

We’re constantly told how special Cordelia is, “the first of her kind,” a witch and a Lycan whom everyone covets for her power or bloodline. But despite being hyped up as immensely powerful, she barely uses her magic. Most of the time, it sputters out. Near the end, she kills a single person and suddenly everyone gasps, “Oh my god, she’s more powerful than we imagined!” Give me a break. It was lazy and anticlimactic. She never steps up when it truly matters. Bishop wasn’t much better. He falls into lust at first sight the moment he sees Cordelia and spends the rest of the book making promises he never actually keeps while acting all bashful about how she tests his ability to “remain a gentleman.” He’s supposed to be Alpha material, but he never once gave that impression. By the halfway point, I’d stopped caring about either of them or the outcome of their story.

The plot itself was equally disappointing. It boiled down to petty, repetitive family drama that went nowhere. You know those endless arguments where everyone insists, they’re right and nothing gets resolved? That’s this book in a nutshell. Cordelia’s father has beef with her mother and aunt, Bishop’s family has beef with Cordelia’s father, and her grandmother has beef with everyone and the pack. I didn’t pick this up to read about childish family squabbles. The only characters who held my attention were Bishop’s inner circle and a mute little girl who had minimal dialogue or page time. Nuff said.

In the end, I do not recommend Witch of the Wolves. I’m just glad I borrowed it from the library instead of buying it.

A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton

Title: A Kiss of Shadows

Author: Laurell K. Hamilton

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Series: Merry Gentry # 1

Publication: September 30, 2000, 480 pages

Source: Personal Library, Audiobook

Buy|AMAZON|B&N

My name is Meredith 'Merry' Gentry, but of course it's not my real name. I dare not even whisper my true name after dark for fear that one hushed word will travel over the night winds to the soft ear of my aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness. She wants me dead. I don't even know why...

I fled the high court of Faerie three years ago and have been in hiding ever since. As Merry Gentry, I am a private investigator for the Grey Detective Agency: Supernatural Problems, Magical Solutions. My magical skills, scorned at the courts of Faerie, are valued in the human world. Even by human standards, my magic isn't flashy, which is fine by me. Flashy attracts attention and I can't afford that.

Rumour has it that I am dead. Not quite. I am Princess Meredith NicEssus. To speak that name after dark is to call down a knock upon your door from a hand that can kill you with a touch. I have been careful, but not careful enough. The shadows have found me, and they are going to take me back home, one way or another.

So the running is over. But the fighting has just begun...

MY THOUGHTS

I’ve never read a Laurell K. Hamilton novel before, but she’s known for two popular and well-loved series, so I decided to check out her Merry Gentry books, starting with A Kiss of Shadows. The synopsis intrigued me: a faerie princess in hiding, living in Los Angeles as a private investigator at a law firm? That sounded promising. Unfortunately, the book went downhill fast and never recovered.

If you’ve read Urban Fantasy, especially from the early 2000s when this book was published, you’re probably familiar with the genre’s typical format: a central plot (usually a mystery), a personal or romantic subplot, and an overarching storyline that spans the series. A Kiss of Shadows doesn’t follow that structure at all. In the very first chapter, we meet Merry as a PI and a princess in hiding. You’d think the story would revolve around keeping her identity secret while solving a case but nope. Within a couple of chapters, her identity is revealed, and the case she was working on is quickly dropped and never mentioned again.

Once her identity is exposed, Merry is swept back into the Faerie Court and plunged into political intrigue. Naturally, not everyone is thrilled by her return, and predictably, assassination attempts follow. She’s constantly surrounded by a cadre of supposedly elite warriors who are all eager to protect her... and, of course, sleep with her.

I didn’t enjoy Merry as a character. Everything came too easily for her. She fled the court and wanted nothing to do with it, but suddenly she’s more powerful than the queen, named heir to the throne, and every man she encounters is instantly obsessed with her? Come on. Even more frustrating was the repeated reminder that she’s descended from five fertility gods, making her irresistible to every single male. Yet these so-called strong warriors all behave like lovesick teenagers whenever she’s around. It got old fast.

For a book that was absurdly long, A Kiss of Shadows had no real plot and very little actually happened. The story essentially follows Merry as she’s pursued by a parade of men from Los Angeles to the Faerie Court and back again, all of them waiting for their turn in her bed. The characters were flat and two-dimensional, the plot was nonexistent, and there wasn’t even a single memorable scene.

I don’t recommend this book; there are far better faerie novels out there.

Kingdoms of Death by Christopher Ruocchio

Title: Kingdoms of Death

Author: Christopher Ruocchio

Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy

Series: The Sun Eater #4

Hardcover, 544 pages

Publication: March 8, 2022 by DAW

Source: I received a review copy in exchange for honest review.
Buy|Amazon|B&N|

Hadrian Marlowe is trapped.

For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing.

The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen.

And the Empire stands alone.

Now the Emperor has no choice but to give Hadrian Marlowe--once his favorite knight--one more impossible task: journey across the galaxy to the Lothrian Commonwealth and convince them to join the war. But not all is as it seems, and Hadrian's journey will take him far beyond the Empire, beyond the Commonwealth, impossibly deep behind enemy lines.

 MY THOUGHTS

Kingdoms of Death is perfectly named in the fourth installment of the Sun Eater series. The book starts exactly where Demon in White ended, with Hadrian captured by the Cielcin. The title foreshadows what readers can expect, and its as morbid and dark as the title implies. The Sun Eater series is one of my all-time favorite Science Fiction Fantasy ever and each book gets outdoing its predecessor. And while I enjoyed Kingdoms of Death I found the pacing a lot slower than all the previous books, with little to no action till three-quarters of the way through.

For majority of the book, Hadrian is held prisoner as the Cielcins try to extract information about the Empire and the Emperor’s whereabouts. At this time readers are giving an in depth look behind enemy lines and learn about the Cielcin Hierarchy. And to no one’s surprise like all empire or military structure, there are always cracks and unrest amongst the people.

I normally never have an issue with length. Kingdoms of Death clocks out with over 500 pages, but of those 500+ pages, 350 pages felt very stagnant and too long of a build-up. It wasn’t until we were closer towards the end did the story pick up. As I mentioned before, the title of the book was quite fitting as we saw MASS casualty. I was in complete shock at the turn of events and the destruction of the Red Company and many other soldiers. With how it all ended, I’m not sure what to expect next. The Sun Eater Series writing, and storytelling is the crème de la crème when it comes to this genre but what made this series extra special to me are the characters. With most of the characters gone, I’m not sure I want to continue. Although, I know I shouldn’t be surprised since from the very first book, from the very beginning Hadrian did say this wasn’t a story with a happy-ending.

Kingdoms of Death was a solid installment to the series. I will probably take a break to see if I’ll continue. In my opinion this wasn’t the strongest book, but the series as a whole is without a doubt a five+ star series. If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend the first book in the series, Empire of Silence.