  RATING: Four Stars
Ambitious Daily Sentinel journalist Lauren King is chafing on LA’s vapid social circuit, reporting on glamorous A-list parties while sparring with her rival—the formidable, icy Catherine Ayers. Ayers is an ex-Washington political correspondent who suffered a humiliating fall from grace, and her acerbic, vicious tongue keeps everyone at bay. Everyone, that is, except knockabout Iowa girl King, who is undaunted, unimpressed and gives as good as she gets. One night a curious story unfolds before their eyes: One business launch, 34 prostitutes and a pallet of missing pink champagne. Can the warring pair work together to unravel an incredible story? This is a lesbian fiction with more than a few mysterious twists. You can buy an e-copy here. REVIEWED BY REBECCA Lee Winter is an Australian writer and one of my goals has been to read, review, and promote more Australian women, as they often find it more difficult to get their work out there into the world than other writers. I'm glad I picked this book up -- for the most part, I quite enjoyed it. I struggled with the opening chapters of the book and, at first, wondered if I was going to be able to finish it. Lauren didn't endear herself to me as a character, and I found the early anecdotes of her time at A-list LA parties unexciting because I personally don't take to those sorts of characters or situations. The early mystery involving a large group of prostitutes at a corporate event also seemed like a bland mystery to be investigating. However, as I said, I ended up fairly engrossed as the story progressed. The 'Ice Queen' trope was well executed in the form of Catherine Ayers, the acerbic senior journalist mentoring Lauren with an awful lot of tough love. Ayers is intelligent, forthright, and apparently rather sexy. She challenges Lauren in a number of ways that are pivotal to the character development as well as the progression of the plot. The romantic subplot suited me just fine. There was enough between Lauren and Catherine to keep me cheering for them along the way, but as someone who isn't a huge fan of straight out romance novels (and I generally don't need/want explicit scenes in the books I read), it was just the right amount of flirting and connection. There are hints of the "men are bad rapists" cliche that I've established previously as something I quite dislike in lesbian books (not because these things don't happen in the real world, but because it felt, for a while there, that every lesfic I read relied on women being sexually assaulted to propel the drama). I could handle the cliche more in this book than in others I've read though, because the threat didn't become a reality for the character involved and I could see that the author was establishing the courage and concern of the person who comes to her aid and stands up to the sleazy guys. The story has been cleanly edited, I only spotted one typo/mistake, which is phenomenal in a novel-length work. Those pesky errors are very good at hiding, so the author and her editors did an amazing job producing such a crisp manuscript. The strongest element of this book was definitely the writing. Winter's skill with language kept pulling me onward in those opening chapters I wasn't enjoying, and kept me interested until the final page, long after the plot and characters had convinced me it was an excellent novel. The various elements of the investigation into corruption and politics were effectively planned and executed, gradually unfolding as one would expect from a high quality mystery. A fine book, indeed.
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 Author: Matt Doyle
Release Date: May 8, 2017 ISBN: 978-1-947139-03-9 Cover Artist: Natasha Snow Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Word Count: 56000 Sex Content: N/A Orientation: Lesbian Identity: Cisgender RATING: 4.5 stars When I was studying English Extension as a Year 12 student, we spent the year focused on a genre study of crime fiction. One of our set texts was Marele Day's The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender, a gritty urban crime fiction written in a very traditional style, but with a unique (for the time) female protagonist. The reason I bring this up, is that I couldn't help thinking about that book quite a lot whilst I was reading ADDICT. You need to ignore the GoodReads ratings of Day's book, because it's been skewed heavily by resentful teenagers who were tired of the book after studying it. It's dated now (over 30 years later), but Harry Lavender infused pre-WWII crime fiction conventions with fresh, contemporary elements of gender, as well as a real sense of place, with the city of Sydney treated as a character in its own right. Matt Doyle's ADDICT, though a rather different beast from Harry Lavender, is intelligent and fresh in much the same way Day's book was in the late 80s. A crime is committed and, of course, as time goes on, our detective is led through a series of twists and turns to finally lead her to a thrilling conclusion, where all the puzzle pieces fall into place - a satisfying conclusion is provided, as you'd expect from a detective story. Set in the near future, Addict combines the engrossing, tenebrous elements of 1930s noir crime fiction with the spectacle and possibility of science fiction. Cassie Tam is, in many ways, a traditional sleuth protagonist, right down to the glock, the dingy apartment, and the social isolation. But Cassie also has a metallic gargoyle as her security guard, and has to delve into the nefarious world of technology addiction as a means to solve the case at the heart of the story. Her client also happens to be a Tech Shifter, someone who uses specially designed machinery to transform into an animal as a form of escapism. Cool, right? The characters are engaging and memorable, slowly building relationships and inviting us into their psyches. Given this is the first story of a series, the characterisation has been handled well. There's a sweet romance developing by the end of the book, but it hasn't been explored so much as to make subsequent books almost pointless, Doyle has left space to move with the romance -- a wise move, I think! Setting and atmosphere are amongst the strongest elements of ADDICT. By the end of the novel, I felt connected to the city of New Hopeland. I understood its history, its evolution, and its almost fetishist underbelly, where even crime is driven by zealotry. I'd have no reservations recommending this book! You can buy an ecopy here, and a paperback here.   A NOTE FROM THE REVIEW TEAM: On rare occasion, one of our reviewers won't enjoy a book they've read. It happens. That said, even less-than-positive reviews can help stoke discussion about literature, and may even point out aspects of a novel that another reader thinks sound right up their alley. If you'd like to read another point-of-view about this novel, you can do so here and here. We would like to point you towards these reviews because this is one of those times when the submitted review expresses some real frustration with a novel, but we also believe in trying to be fair and provide some balance because we know how hard authors work to produce their books. Genre: low fantasy / fantasy romance (YA) Pairings: f/f Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis bisexual Warnings: extreme boredom Rating: one star Review (contains angry rants and spoilers) Princess Dennaleia, a secret User of Magic, is betrothed to a prince from a land that hates magic. She gets shipped off, falls in love with the tomboy sister of the prince instead, and… that’s really about it. Prepare to be underwhelmed. At it’s heart, this seemed like a great story. Magical princess meets tomboy princess, foils political intrigue, gets the girl and gets to maybe toast some bad guys. Awesome. Except it wasn’t. Any of it. The plot was so contrived and distorted it was impossible to suspend reality in this middling fantasy with only the faintest strokes of worldbuilding. Dennaleia has zero agency until the last twenty or so pages, even though she is by far the strongest person in the book, and has ample opportunity to do so. The tomboy princess, Mare, has just the smallest vestige of agency, yet fails to emote during the most tense situations (brother is going to kill the only thing in the world that brings you joy that you have sobbed about the whole damn book? Meh. Over it.) The main characters are two-dimensional and the tertiary characters are simply walking tropes that get dialogue. The villain is obvious from the first time he is introduced. The king is obtuse to the point of ridiculousness. The prince isn’t much better, and his half-assed apology at the end of the book, and that Mare forgives him though he fucking ordered her favorite horse culled and basically excused her violent abduction and forced marriage, made me so mad I threw the book. Across the hall. While at a convention. I almost injured someone dressed like David Bowie (from the Labyrinth, complete with tights and bobbing package). And with all the joy (and apologies to Bowie), let’s get to… Magic It’s there. Dennaleia appears to be courting a Chosen One trope, and has three elemental powers that she has to keep hidden because of course. Not one. Three. Does she actually use these powers? Just one, really, at the very end. Not while her girlfriend is being bludgeoned, or while her girlfriend’s horse is being shipped off (though she has the audacity to yell at a lord for not doing anything about the horse, either). She goes where the princes tells her, or the king, or Mare, half the time, despite the fact that she can 1) control fire, 2) control wind, and 3) melt (?) stone. Seriously. Why she didn’t melt the castle to the ground when everything started going to hell is beyond me. The magic system is also never defined, though it gets info dumped about enough that I’m not really sure why I don’t know more about it. A lot is skimmed over, such as the imprisoned minor magic users, their role in keeping the ambient magic ‘in check,’ and how exactly Dennaleia’s powers work. Dennaleia’s powers have a tendency to work when they are plot convenient, and then puff out of existence when it would end the book too early. Romance The romance between the two princesses was passable, but nothing to write home about. It was very sweet, first time, non-explicit, with a lot of hand holding and gentle caresses for the first several hundred pages. It was the only thing that felt ‘real’ in the book, and the only real aspect that made Mare and Dennaleia seem like characters. For a first time fantasy reader, or a young reader looking for some light lesbian content, this book might be of interest. Those with higher expectations of fantasy, or those with a desire for action, good pacing, and well-developed characters, will want to look elsewhere. You can buy OF FIRE AND STARS in ebook here and paper here. |
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