Review: The Iron Queen by Kaitlin Bevis

* These reviews may contain spoilers for the previous two books in the series, Persephone and Daughter of the Earth and Sky. *

The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus #3)
By Kaitlin Bevis
Publisher: Musa Publishing

* A copy was provided by the author for review.

To Sum It Up:

Persephone has been captured by Zeus, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get her to swear fealty to him. As Persephone puts up a fierce fight, Hades frantically searches for her, as well as for a way to defeat Zeus. Other gods and goddesses are called in to assist, some of whom don’t believe that saving one young woman is worth risking the world for. There’s also the matter of whether or not Aphrodite can be trusted, especially considering her connection to Zeus. Persephone doesn’t have much time, though, and the deities need to band together if they’re to stop Zeus from seizing control of every realm.

Ally's Review:

I cannot even begin to describe The Iron Queen. After finishing the book, I was at a loss for words. The striking brilliance of this adaptation of Greek mythology is easily a favorite.

The new introduction of the shifting point of views had me initially worried. I feared that my ideal image of Hades would be tainted with the ability to see events unfold from his perspective. My fear was misplaced—it was thrilling and fresh to catch a glimpse inside the mind of Hades. It was even more enjoyable to read from Aphrodite's point of view. Aphrodite easily moved up in the ranks of my favorite characters with her witty humor. Her little side missions with Melissa provided a much needed breather from the neverending chaos that follows Persephone and Hades.

Another worry of mine concerning the shifting point of views was Persephone. For the two previous books, Persephone was the only window into the book. I wondered how my perception of her would change after seeing her through another person. If anything, my respect for Persephone grew. Not only did she hold her own against Zeus under the most abominable of circumstances, but she also gained the respect and admiration of the other gods and goddesses. In this book, Persephone is no longer seen as a child but as a force to be reckoned with.

Ever since I read the first book in the Daughters of Zeus series, I have been moaning and groaning about meeting other Greek deities. With this book, I got my wish. The whole entourage of gods and goddesses that are introduced left me giddy with excitement. The interpretation of each and every deity in the modern world was nothing less than brilliant. The new characters that eased their way onto my favorites list include Ares and Hephaestus. It was beyond fun meeting the new cast of characters, and it was even more fun watching Demeter and Hades trying to control them all.

The Iron Queen provides a constant stream of action and tension. The conflict with Zeus becomes paramount. I found it interesting to read about Persephone in the hands of the monster and then read about Hades trying to find his lost wife. It was interesting because as the reader you know where Persephone is but the characters in the book do not. No matter how much you want to help Hades and the other gods and goddesses, the most you can do is sit in the tension and continue reading. I was propelled by my own curiosity to read the book in a matter of hours.

With the new cast of characters and action at every turn, The Iron Queen is an exhilarating read. The previous books in the series left me stunned and wanting more, and this one was no exception.

All in All:

Daughters of Zeus is hands down my favorite mythological young adult series. It's very hard not to love these books.

Lee's Review:

Kaitlin Bevis’s Daughters of Zeus series has quickly become my favorite mythology retelling, and after reading The Iron Queen, I love it more than ever. This is the most intense, action-packed installment yet. I hated having to put the book down because I was so into it, and any time I had a free moment, even if it was five minutes, I pulled this up on my phone so I could continue reading.

I might have squealed just a little when Chapter 1 opened with Hades’s point of view. Okay, it might be more accurate to say I had a full-on freak-out. But it’s Hades—the badass god of the Underworld whom I’ve been in love with since the first book. With Zeus holding Persephone prisoner, we have access to the storm of Hades’s thoughts: fear for his wife, determination to save her no matter what the cost, and pure hatred of Zeus. Even though the tone of this book stays fairly serious throughout, there are still a few glimpses of Hades’s sense of humor (yes, he has one!). I cracked up at his memory of Cassandra telling a recently arrived soul to the Underworld about how he went through a “dark phase” after meeting Dante, he of The Divine Comedy fame.

Hades isn’t the only new POV addition to the series. Aphrodite also narrates some chapters, and at first I had mixed feelings about this. I really didn’t like her in the previous novel, Daughter of the Earth and Sky. I thought she was a bad influence on Persephone, and I found her annoying in general. But after reading from Aphrodite’s perspective, I really had to eat my negative opinion of her. Zeus took away her free will, and she’s stuck being bossed around by any member of the family who outranks her. It’s not a fun life. I actually wound up liking Aphrodite and her pert attitude. She and Melissa, Persephone’s friend/priestess, have some hilariously snippy exchanges that further provide some comic relief.

Poor Persephone spends the majority of the novel getting tortured by a merciless, power-hungry Zeus. To her credit, she fights back as much as she can against Zeus’s endless lightning zaps and the fake nightmares he’s planting in her head. Persephone actively searches for even the tiniest opportunity to get away, which is a lot more than I can say for some other YA heroines I’ve read about. I can’t stand it when a female protagonist spends more time talking about escaping than making actual plans to do so.

My absolute favorite part of The Iron Queen was the gathering of other figures from Greek mythology to unite against Zeus. It was like something out of The Avengers, and I LOVE The Avengers! Ares, Apollo, Artemis, and Athena all make appearances, and the assembly of awesomeness was just amazing. Apollo was too, too funny, with his cult of hippie worshippers and tongue-in-cheek alias, Mr. Sunshine. Even Hades snickered at that. As content as I’d been with the cast of deities in the first two books, the roster expansion in this one was both perfectly time and perfectly executed.

It’s always gratifying to see a series move forward with each installment, and this series truly hits the sweet spot with The Iron Queen. The story doesn’t appear to be finished yet, either, which makes me all the happier because I only just became acquainted with a host of fascinating new characters. I really hope their presence continues in future books.

All in All:

I loved this from start to finish. If you’ve read Persephone and Daughter of the Earth and Sky, you should be extremely happy with The Iron Queen.

Review: The Year of the Great Seventh by Teresa Orts

The Year of the Great Seventh (The Tropic of Cancer #1)
By Teresa Orts
Publisher: Drayton Press

* A copy was provided by the author for review.

To Sum It Up:

Despite living in Los Angeles, having a casting director mother, and being surrounded by friends with budding acting careers, Sophie Bennett doesn’t aspire to be part of the glamorous crowd. Instead she hopes to follow her dream of studying history at New York University. In the meantime, Sophie still has two years of high school to get through, and her crush on one of the most popular students, Nate Werner, isn’t making it easy. Even when Nate suddenly begins behaving erratically, Sophie continues to be drawn to him. It turns out that she may be the only person who can save him and prevent an ominous ancient Egyptian prophecy from being fulfilled.

Review:

Ancient Egyptian history is a subject that I’ve always found interesting, and so the premise of The Year of the Great Seventh intrigued me. I’d expected this to be a quest-oriented type of novel, and to some degree, it was. But a sizable portion of it was also devoted to detailing the everyday life among the young, rich, and beautiful of L. A. The book often seemed like two separate books to me, one a contemporary about Hollywood glitz and the other the quest-centered novel I’d assumed it was. Unfortunately, the two didn’t quite find a melding point, and I felt like the novel was competing to be both books at once.

At first I didn’t mind the heavy focus on the L. A. acting scene, but when I reached the 40% mark or so and not much related to the ancient Egyptian prophecy had happened, my patience started to wane. It seemed as though every minor character needed to have his/her life story explained; after a while, it really didn’t matter to me who was playing what role in whatever production. I kept waiting for the prophecy-related action to kick in, but it only made brief appearances here and there. By the end of the novel, I thought that an entire book could have been written solely about the struggles of the protagonist, Sophie, to fit in among her circle of acting friends.

I had a couple of issues with Sophie’s character. She’s very insecure and constantly fretting over how she’s not the social equal of her friends. To me, though, they didn’t appear to see her differently because she wasn’t involved in the acting scene. They definitely don’t treat her like an outcast. Sophie’s “I’m not worthy” outlook extends to her crush on Nate Werner, one of the most popular boys in school. He steps in to defend her at a party after another of the school’s social elite, Ethan Dulwich, gets overly friendly with Sophie at a party. But Nate loses complete control of his temper and makes himself look like the bad guy. Sophie tries to talk to Nate about what happened, but he warns her that it’s in her best interest to stay away from him. He eventually reveals his deep, dark secret to her, which only makes her obsess over him even more. Sophie expends so much effort thinking about Nate that her grades begin to suffer. That is a big NO in my book. I’m sorry, but no guy is worth failing classes over. I had a problem with her whole attitude toward Nate; she centers her existence around him and talks about him in such a melodramatic way. I didn’t actually dislike Sophie; I just wanted her to realize that she was perfectly capable of standing on her two feet by herself.

The book’s prose utilizes more telling than showing, resulting in a rather stilted narrative voice for Sophie. I also had a hard time believing that her dad was fine with allowing his sixteen-year-old daughter to go to New York, ostensibly for a college tour, on her own. Both parents object to the idea initially, but then her dad has a change of heart. He doesn’t even know that Nate is secretly going, too, so he and Sophie can look at some obelisks that once belonged to Cleopatra (finally—something relevant to the prophecy). Sophie uses the New York University tour as a cover story, but she does actually visit the campus. I had to wrestle with my disbelief again during her time there, and I think even more so because I’m an alum of the College of Arts and Science, the very same school of the university that Sophie is interested in applying to. I’m sure many things have changed since my days as a student there, but I don’t believe a visit to the basement of a dormitory to see a secret smoking/drinking lair is a standard part of the tour for a prospective student. I know this is a fictitious use of a real place, but this place happened to be one that’s very close to my heart. What really bothered me, though, was how totally cool Sophie thought her tour guide, Paul, was for showing her this room and for basically asking her out. To me, this was all kind of . . . creepy.

The story did gain some momentum when Sophie and Nate went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library to further investigate the prophecy, and with any luck, to find a way to help Nate. I wish that events like these had taken place a lot sooner and a lot more frequently. The characters were occupied with something other than discussing someone’s latest acting gig, and there was a palpable sense of tension to the story. I definitely would have enjoyed this book more if the historical/mythological element had played a much larger role because when it had the spotlight, it was absorbing.

All in All:

Unfortunately, there wasn’t quite enough adventure here to draw me in. The look into L. A. life, while interesting in the beginning, wasn’t the kind of story line that was going to hold my attention for a whole book.

Stacking the Shelves (39)

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. It's an opportunity for everyone to share the new books that we've acquired.

I really need to stop browsing the books at the library whenever I return some, because lately I've been leaving there with at least as many as I've dropped off. I also had two holds come in—Hex Hall, which I'm reading for Witches and Wizards month for the Paranormal Reading Challenge, and Eve, which I'm reading as part of a dystopian swap with my cousin Ally, who'll be reading Lauren DeStefano's Wither.

Borrowed:

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry
Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Hex Hall by Sophie Hawkins
Eve by Anna Carey

Won:

On Every Street by Karina Halle
Sins and Needles by Karina Halle
The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen
The Forever of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen

A very, very big THANK YOU to Debbie of Talk Supe for all four of these awesome eBooks!

What did you add to your shelves this week? Please link me up!

Summer Lovin' Read-a-thon: Book Spine Poetry

The Summer Lovin’ Readathon is a week-long readathon event hosted by seven independent bloggers! (Oh, Chrys!, Tumbling Books, Effortlessly Reading, Love Life Read, Shelf Addiction, Read Sleep Repeat, and Reviewing Wonderland)

Originally I wasn't planning to participate in this challenge because I'm not very creative with book spine poetry, but I got inspired by the book I was currently reading the other day, Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass. George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones then popped into my head, and from there, a few other royal-themed book titles came to mind. I ended up having a lot of fun with this, and here's the final result:

Game of thrones, throne of glass
Queen by right, the kingmaker's daughter.
Daughter of smoke and bone, runaway.
Where she went?
Jellicoe Road.

Review: The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

The Replacement
By Brenna Yovanoff
Publisher: Razorbill

To Sum It Up:

Malcolm “Mackie” Doyle knows that he’s not like everyone else in the town of Gentry. Blood, stainless steel, and consecrated ground all make him sick, lately even more so than they have in the past. Mackie isn’t human, and the world where he really comes from is stranger than anything he could have imagined. It’s a world in which two supernatural sisters rule rival houses, and blood sacrifices are required to keep Gentry thriving. The sisters urge Mackie to return to his real home if he wants to survive, but it’s not a place he sees himself belonging to, either.

Review:

It’s official: Brenna Yovanoff is one of my favorite paranormal authors. Her worlds have this assuredness to them that makes them seem 100% possible. No matter what the premise of the book is, she makes it work completely.

I read Yovanoff’s novels in reverse order of publication, and of the three, I thought The Replacement had the oddest story. The protagonist, Mackie Doyle, learns that he’s a changeling and was left in the place of the real, and human, Malcolm Doyle as a baby. The more Mackie found out about the paranormal world he really came from, the more bizarre the story became. And I loved how creepy it was. There’s a whole population of strange, supernatural beings living underneath the town of Gentry, and they’re strange beings, indeed. I was a little freaked out by both the Morrigan and the Lady, sisters who head up rival factions called the House of Mayhem and the House of Misery, respectively. I was completely freaked out by the Cutter, a gentleman in the employ of the House of Misery who delights in using his lethal claws (hence his name). Imagine what must have gone through Mackie’s mind upon discovering that these are the types of folks he should feel at home amongst. Yeah—awkward, to say the least.

Two things that I really love about Yovanoff’s books, besides her brilliant prose, are how complex her main characters are and her portrayal of strong sibling bonds. Mackie has never truly fit in with the humans of Gentry, but he’s attached enough to them to be appalled by what his “kind” do with the human babies they take. Mackie is an oddity even among changelings because it’s the sickly ones who are swapped with the humans, and Mackie has survived longer than most. But then, he’s grown up loved by his human sister, Emma, who’s always known what he is and has loved him anyway. Mackie loves Emma, too, and their relationship reminded me a lot of Daphne and Obie from Yovanoff’s The Space Between, as well as Hannah and Ariel from Paper Valentine.

This is one of the weirdest books I’ve read, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. The Replacement is unique, imaginative, and, like Yovanoff’s other two novels, a standalone. Finding YA paranormal titles that aren’t rehashes of the same old subjects can sometimes pose a challenge, so if you’re seeking a read that’s quite different, I highly recommend trying The Replacement. Or The Space Between. Or Paper Valentine. Oh, just read all of them.

All in All:

Although there are elements of faerie lore here, like changelings, The Replacement is more its own special type of book, which made it all the more interesting to read. There’s no simple categorization for characters like the Cutter, whom I’m still severely creeped out by.