REVIEWED BY ANON
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Genre: YA sci fi (super hero, post apocalyptic)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, trans*

Warnings: none

Rating: four stars

Review

Jess is an ordinary child of superhero parents. Powerless herself and searching for something meaningful to do with her life, Jess takes an after school job in a tech lab and (accidentally) ends up working for the ‘villains’, aside the Very Hot Love Interest (and former volleyball star). When villains across the country start going missing, it’s up to Jess and her friends to solve the mystery.

From a diversity standpoint, this book was amazing. From a pacing standpoint, it was…slow. I’m not generally a YA reader so this could just be my lack of familiarity with the genre, but nothing happened in the book until about one hundred pages in. Once things got going, they kept a steady pace, but I almost DNF. The first half of the book is spent with very high school issues – love interests, family, fitting in, clubs, and after school jobs. For a high schooler or junior higher, this is probably welcome ground and the pacing appropriate. For an adult reader, I had a hard time connecting, but I realize I’m not the target audience.

The middle of the book was strong, and I enjoyed the reveals and the romance. The setting as well, with the world, the insights into immigrant Chinese and Vietnamese culture, gave the town a refreshing face lift from the ‘standard’ near-future narrative. High school scenarios were well done and felt very real.

The end action was ‘surprising yet inevitable,’ which is exactly what you want in these types of books. My only real quibble with the book was the very cliche’ villain info plot dump at the end, but that’s in keeping with the genre and feel of the book, so it’s a minor quibble at best.
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Overall, this book is a much needed diverse addition to the near-future sci fi genre, and it’s nice to see a super hero who isn’t just some rando white kid. Younger readers will no doubt find the book captivating.

​NOTE: This book has also been reviewed by Rebecca for this blog. At times, we will review the same novel more than once if different members of the review team read the novel. We are more likely to spotlight debut authors in this manner, or books where different reviewers had quite different opinions.
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Genre: sci fi (light, semi-historical, spy)
Pairings: f/f, m/f, m/m
Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis gay, cis bisexual
Warnings: gore
Rating:  three stars
Review

Ridiculously attractive secret agent Diana (CIA), along with a host of male colleagues, is kidnapped by the KGB, turned superhuman, and stranded in the woods of North Carolina. Another Very Hot Woman, Nikola, a secret agent for the KGB, is tasked with tracking them down. Diana and Nikola are former lovers, both very deadly, and both out for blood.

On the scifi

This was very, very light scifi, and I think that worked for the piece. Our spies have various mutations (the mechanisms by which they get them is a bit of handwavium) that, more than anything else, renders them fundamentally immune to death. One has a third eye (literally) that allows him to see the future. One is part lizard. One has blue skin (checkbox: blue skinned alien trope in scifi. Love it). All (most?) appear to be able to regenerate after extensive injury. An appropriate level of gory language was spent exploring this, which I appreciated. What good is self-regeneration if we can’t hear the bones snapping?

On the characters

The strongest part of this book was the characters, but it was the weakest part as well. When we were given the backstory snippets, the characters came alive and the story was this beautifully woven tapestry of POV and history. When we were in the ‘now’, the characters were clunky, the POV too hoppy, and none of them really seemed to connect with one another. There were too many different names (Agent A, for instance, might have two or three names used in the book, because agent names change) and too many characters in places for me to keep them straight. The lesbian couple discussed on the back blurb didn’t end up playing as central a role as I had hoped, given the book description, but what was there was very well done. They had good chemistry, I just wish there’d been more time to explore it.

In fact, the only time I really connected with the characters was during their backstory flashbacks. Ruby, the sort of unwilling heroine, was a good focal point for the ‘in the now’ parts, but she didn’t get a lot of screen time. Again, I think my connection with the flashbacks came from the lack of head hopping and fewer characters, and the… the feels the characters had in those scenes. In the forest scenes it was mostly omg we’ve got to get out of here but we can’t die so this really sucks! Yes, it does suck, Super Secret Agent Hotness, but I want to know more about your Super Secret Agent Girlfriend and why you now want to shoot her in the face.

In fact, I would pay cash money, right now, for a spinoff short that was just Diana and Nikola’s adventures in spy school.

Nikola: How do you use this watch thingie again?
Diana: Sweetheart, we’ve been through this. Turn the dial like so. *leans in*
Nikola: *punches Diana in the stomach* HAH! Gotcha! Bet you didn’t see that coming!
Diana: *sweeps Nikola’s legs and the two fall to the ground, punching and laughing* You call that a punch? Upstart! I made you!
*The duo fall to kissing*
 
Plot

The book lacked a through line, and it took me over half the book to figure out what the actual goal was for the characters other than ‘survive’. This made it really hard to connect with anyone, and is probably responsible for my character confusion, as stated above. I didn’t mind the flashbacks at all, and the head hopping was frustrating but manageable, but the lack of a distinct goal and focus for the characters, especially at the beginning, was hard for me. I think this potentially could have been circumvented by spending a bit more time on the relationships between the characters upfront, which would have driven the tension of the final showdown up quite a bit.

Cover art

The cover is gorgeous. Natasha Snow really hit it out of the park with this one. Swoonworthy.

Overall
If you’re into mod-scifi, or spy thrillers (especially heavily character-driven ones), this book is likely up your alley. You can buy Seven-Sided Spy in ebook here and paperback here.

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In the midst of the cold war, the CIA’s finest and most fatal female agent, Diana Riley, vanishes. Kidnapped by the KGB and taken to the backcountry of North Carolina, she and her team of unsavory partners are forced to undergo illegal experimentation.

But, when the experiments leave them horribly deformed and unable to reenter society without someone crying monster, the previously glamorous and high-maintenance spies must escape KGB captivity and avoid recapture at the hands of Nikola, a ruthless KGB agent with an intense and well-justified grudge against her former flame.

Reviewed by Rebecca
​RATING: 3.5 Stars

​Seven-Sided Spy is an action-packed story of hunters and prey. Though the question begs: who is truly the prey? This novel doesn't deal in absolutes or black-and-white good guys and bad guys as is often the case in CIA vs KGB stories (I think...). Everyone's just doing what they can to survive. 

This is not my usual genre, and so I must admit that I may not be the best person to provide a fair review of a historical spy novel, but I'll do my best.

The story engages with several different narratives through both a forward-moving plot and an array of flashbacks. A key cast of about seven characters is not an easy juggling act for any author, but Carmack pulls it off fairly well. 

If you're interested in books that are not particularly male or female dominated, but provide close to equal time to both, then this novel is one for you.  I personally think it's a good thing to see more books out there that aren't confined by the sometimes rigid expectations of "lesfic" or "M/M". 

That said, for me the blurb and the cover image combined set me up with a somewhat unrealistic expectation, as Diana is not explored in any more depth than the other characters in the story. Her F/F relationship also has probably the least amount of time-on-the-page of any of the diverse relationships, both sexual and otherwise.  I don't see that as much of a problem as the blurb gives a really accurate feel for the thriller elements, but readers should realise that the book is not *only* about Diana and her ex-flame, but she is one equal part of a varied cast of characters that are male, female, gay, straight, and - though not explicitly labelled - an array of identities in between. I think this is a strength, and we need more books like this out there, but I also know that some people prefer a more traditional style of romance thriller, and this is not the type of book that you'll find in Seven-Sided Spy.

One of the other real strengths of this book is its action scenes, of which there are plenty. I'm terrible at following such sequences in most books, I usually just kind of bluff my way to the end of a fight scene and hope I can guess who's won from whatever happens after, but I didn't need to do that here. I could imagine the fighting play out in my head quite clearly. 

Be prepared to be a little confused at times because of the large cast of characters, all of whom have two names (a real name and a code name), but stick with it because I had a pretty good grasp of who everyone was by the end. As someone who doesn't have much love for thrillers, and I am one of those few people out there who really doesn't like James Bond, this book did a surprisingly good job of holding my interest. A really solid debut novel from Hannah Carmack. 

***I received an ARC of this novel***