Maya Kaathryn BohnhoffCritiques

Received from the LibraryThing's Early Reviewer January 2013 batch.

Book 1 of The Meri cycle finds the 15 year old Meredydd as the only female "prentice" in a male dominated religious Academy, learning to become a priest. Objections at her existence, which is starting to disrupt and distract the other students and teachers, forces the decision to make her pilgrimage to find The Meri earlier than many believe she's ready.

There are definite allusions to both state religion and the fear of witches (Wicke) and the belief that whilst people can worship a female incarnation of Godhead, a woman cannot be a disciple/priest of the same.

Much of the book is dedicated to the pilgrimage, and how Meredydd faces the three challenges put to her in her dreams. Mere seems to "let go" of some things really easily - her friend Leal and the Wisdom crystal are released with nary a second thought which is a shame.

The result of the pilgrimage is almost predictable, but no worse for that, and ties in nicely with the overall philosophy of the story

Meridedd walked into the sea at the end of the last book, replacing Taminy in the spirit union with the Meri.

Taminy walks out of the sea in return, and returns with Bevol and Gwen to the Osread. Meanwhile Wyth and Leal also return, having been "kissed" by the Meri, and each with doctrine changes to be made: that girls are to join the ranks of the prentices and that something is wrong in the court of the Cyne (who hasnt held court meetings in two years).

Taminy is unwilling to become a prentice, already having control of much of "the gift" - whilst she tries to gather her self confidence, one of the traditional Osraeds takes offence at her and tries to expose her as a Wicke.

The rest of the book is pretty fast paced, starting with Taminy's trial in front of the Osraeds, through being effectively being kidnapped by the Cyne, to being manipulated and tried again in the Cyne's court. The Cyne is trying to have her found innocent of being a Wicke, in order that he can become a king divine by sitting at her side. However, things dont go according to plan for him, and Taminy escapes again, with her followers, including the Queen and Prince.

This is a much faster paced book than the previous one, and I felt it flowed a little better (I struggled to read the previous one, I admit). The world is better formed in this one, the author has to spend less time explaining who, what and where.

This collection, Shadow Conspiracy II, is all about steampunk and while I enjoyed it, I had to read it in sessions or I found the stories repetitive.

PI Gina "Tinkerbell" Miyoko is alarmed when her best friend Rose, an undercover agent, reveals she has a stalker. Together they decided to catch Rose's stalker, but it turns out not everything is as it seems. However, this is just the start and they soon realize that someone is out to scare Rose from testifying in an upcoming case about looted Anasazi artifacts. Who better to protect Rose than Gina?

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW OVER AT FRESH FICTION!

Meh. Lost all the charm of the earlier series. Instead it's dark egotistical men, a couple of kids, and the magic mermaid doesn't do anything. I'm really not sure what the point of this was it's seemed to lose it's way compared to the earlier stories. I think it's just the trite, evil always contains the seeds of it's own destruction, but it was particularly far-fetched this time.

A few people we don't care about do get killed off which darkens the tone a bit more. Nothing was further elucidated regarding the relationship between the mermaid and god which remains a bizzare choice. Taminey is all we get and she suffers from doubts too. The good side spends all it's time holed up in the mountains and while this saves and tedious journeying it's not very interesting. Instead of which we head-hop into our bad guys none of whom are nice places to be.

Disappointed

Group of people go in search of "Source" of change of reality from science to magic to liberate "flares"

It was my favorite kind of book being slow to start to allow the reader time to understand the backstory then sped up as the book went along at just the right times. The characters were well developed as were the concepts presented. I could not put this down. It was a great book, just wish I knew more about polish history to enjoy it even more. Did some research on my own and then read it a second time and enjoyed it even more! A must read!

Plot:
Kassia is a shai, a woman born with the mark of the goddess. And she is the first woman to be allowed to study magic under Master Lukusha. In fact, she is the first woman in ages to be allowed to study and practice magic at all, which means that most of the shai magic has been forgotten. Despite the people like Lukusha's assistant Zakarij doubting her, Kassia throws herself into her studies - as much as being a single mother allows her to.

The Spirit Gate was an enjoyable read with a good protagonist that wasn't absolutely great, but it definitely wasn't bad at all.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2018/10/11/the-spirit-gate-maya-kaathryn-bohnhoff/½

Not a winner. The story is all politics - even the arguments between the young folk is politics. History plays a major part...but we're seldom told what the history is. There were easily half a dozen references to "what happened to the Wicke last Cusp" before we actually got told what happened...and I think that was the only bit of history that's really explained. And then there's the language - Celtic names and I-presume-Celtic words, which means unpronounceable and, for me, unmemorable names. I finally translated "cailin" to "colleen" - young woman - but I can't pronounce it that way, which means every (b***y) time I read it I had to stop for a split second, recognize the word, remember the meaning, and...try to get back into the story, since I'd been thrown out. Cyne is even worse - I cannot make that sound like King, so every time I read it I would try another half-dozen pronunciations, fail, and again try to get back in. And at least partly because of that, none of the characters feel solid; Taminy is never allowed to be Taminy, she's the struggling cailin and then the accused Wicke (witch) and then the embodiment of a god (sort of)...and even when we're in her head, there isn't any person there, only whatever role she's playing at the moment. Author's puppets, all of them. I didn't think much of The Meri, but this book is worse. And it's apparently the second of a trilogy (or more) - there's no conclusion, only a stopping place. I haven't read the third one, and I have no interest in doing so.½

Not bad, but somewhat pointless - what, every female is going to be taken? None of them allowed to go out and teach others? Also - this is personal to me - with the very Celtic names, I was expecting it to be a retelling of Celtic myth - and so few of those end well for the characters. So I was kind of wincing every time she made a choice (is this the one that will make everything go bad?) and since the whole story is about her making choices, it made it rather hard to read. I suppose I will read Taminy - I might as well get the fuller story - but the world and the characters don't particularly excite me.

This conclusion to the series started off great, building tension, some wonderful force fulled fights between jedi, a wild force user, and dark side wielding inquisitors. There were even some great plot twists tossed in. But then we get to the climatic showdown between Darth Vader & Jax Pavan (main character) and the author pulls a "saved by the gods. (The Force in this case)" type plot twist which frankly left the story feeling a bit flat / anti-climatic...at least to me.

When this book came out, I had just finished [b:Shadow Games|9993620|Shadow Games (Star Wars)|Michael Reaves|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320464709s/9993620.jpg|14888432] and wasn't really impressed. So I asked on the book page why I should read this book.
One of the authors, [a:Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff|247692|Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1226025599p2/247692.jpg], responded very nicely and encouraged me to read the book. I thought that was great.

So I read the book. It was ok. On par with the other Coruscant Night books. If you enjoyed the other Jax Pavan books, you'll like this. I certainly enjoyed I5 the most, just like the other books.

This barely deserves the 3stars I gave it, but I am a sucker for all things Star Wars, even the bad stuff.

This was technically written well,nothing awkward structure-wise and the plot moved at a reasonable rate.

But Dash, well, Dash is an idiot and I didn't care for him in [b:Shadows of the Empire|9549|Shadows of the Empire (Star Wars)|Steve Perry|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320513836s/9549.jpg|858558] and this rendering didn't endear him to me any more. Leebo was still a wise-ass robot and Han was, well, Han.

Glad I didn't buy this, only borrowed from the library...

The conclusion.
A young force adept, very powerful is found and hunted. Hooks up with the Pavan group.
There is a confrontation with Vader and bota [from the Medstar books] is used. Vader has a bad trip on bota"[it was ridiculous] and the good parts of the group escape.
Jax learns his father loved him and I5, the sentient robot, ends up getting a "soul", or something that can be sensed in the Force anyway.

This series almost seems to make light of how the hunt for the remaining Jedi went. This was a mediocre series that wasn't interesting. Not anything like the MedStar duology, sadly."

This is honestly such a beautifully written story, with gorgeous descriptions and realistic characters. I'm in love with the author's use of language, and impressed that she got me so invested in a novel infused with politics and religion, which I don't tend to prefer.

There were times when I knew what was going to happen next, and other times in which I was completely surprised. I appreciate this in a story, because while I enjoy finding out I'm right, I also enjoy discovering I was wrong and thinking of things in completely the wrong way.

I will admit there were a couple of things that moved a little quickly for me to find realistic, that I won't name to preserve the story, but one of them could be accounted for with the time period, and the other helps the story have a happy ending, so I don't really dislike it.

It appears to be a standalone novel at this point, and while I loved it, I'm not sure it needs a sequel. (But if the author happens to read this, I definitely wouldn't be upset if there was one!)

In conclusion, I found this to be a unique, well-written, magic-infused novel that has the potential to grab the attention of many different kinds of people. I highly recommend it for the beautiful writing alone, with the story itself being a delightful plus.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via Early Reviewers in exchange for my honest review. Everything I've written above is completely sincere.

I could have sworn I'd reviewed this, but I did have some technical issues with LT a while back, so maybe it got eaten.

I broadly enjoyed this novel. It's less medieval western europe than a lot of fantasy, but doesn't always exploit this to its full extent. The heroine's personal journey comes in fits and starts, and the extent to which other characters deferred to her as her powers developed annoyed me occasionally (especially as her real talents for research were more worthy of their praise), though generally she was likeable enough, and having a single mother heroine in fantasy is unusual. The love interest was bland, and the plot with the king was awkward.

The most awkward plot was her teacher being slowly seduced by power. I kept expecting him to develop into a full on villain, but instead there was a strong "ends justify the means" overtone to the plot that made me feel like we were meant to condone his actions. It felt a little halfbaked, like a plot that had been rewritten at some point.

There was enough about this novel and its worldbuilding that was new to me that I kept reading, but in other respects it felt quite dated.½

Tinkerbell on Walkabout is a mystery novelette, by an author better known for her fantasy titles. Gina Miyoko is an unlikely sleuth. Although she wanted to follow her father’s footsteps as a police officer, at 5’2” and disliking to follow orders, she washes out of the police academy. She decides to visit her old home town and her best friends while she considers what she wants to do with her life. While she is there she stumbles across a mystery at an obsessively neat junk yard perhaps finds a clue to her own future.
This short novelette is an introduction to the feisty, motorcycle driving “Tinkerbell”. We are also introduced to her eccentric mother, and her quirky friends. Gina is an interesting character: half rational Japanese and half mystical Russian. She has to fight chauvinism and stereotypes due to her tiny “china doll” looks. Although not a long book, the author takes the time to include humour and some interesting elements of racial relations in America. I enjoyed this start to what is hopefully a long mystery series.

Fun novella about a gal who wants to be a police officer but has problems with authority and rules. She and her CHP friend July foil a group bend on hate crimes and solve a murder in this fast paced story.

This is an Early Reviewer Book. I had to add it manually since it doesn't come up automatically. This short story has potential. The main character is interesting and the premise is good. The "book" is too short. It works as a short story but should not be considered a book. Like the plot, characters and setting but it is simply too short.

A short story featuring Gina Miyoko. Coming from a family of police, that is her ambition until she is washed out of the police academy. Visiting a friend, they come across a mystery and solve it together. I enjoyed the characters and the story, and I would be interested to read more about Gina, especially something longer.

This little novelette is a far cry from the things I normally read. Part of the excitement of the Early Reviewers Program, right? I haven't read much mystery other than Poirot and the Dresden Files and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. For me, mysteries are nothing if I don't care about the main character and this one is the strongest aspect of this story. I greatly enjoyed both her personality and antics, and by the end I did care what happened. The story started out really strong and (mainly) held my attention and emotions all the way through to the end. Writing style was a little stilted for my tastes, conversations particularly so. I was a little surprised and perhaps disappointed where the ending went, but I would pick up another one if not just to see what our star was up to next time.

Taminy continues the 'Mer Cycle' that began in The Meri, and will continue in The Crystal Rose. In many respects the second book suffers from the same issues as book 1, in that, particularly in the first half of the book, Bohnoff's text is self conscious and overly long - slow to come to the point. However this becomes less of an issue later in the book, where the story moves on at a more balanced pace.

While the spiritual message remains a strong one, and I particularly enjoyed the struggles enjoyed by a being struggling to find a peace with returned mortality from a state of divinity, the reader can sometimes struggle with unfamiliar words, used to build and maintain the otherworldly feel of the novel, (as in book 1), which can jar them from the story.

If you have the patience to sift through the issues that this and the previous book have, you might be rewarded by enjoyment of what is essentially an interesting premise for a story in which politics and magic collide with male dominated (goddess) spirituality - which is in itself an interesting dichotomy.½

The Meri is a book that follows the unlikely pilgrimage and spiritual awakening of Mereddyd, a orphan girl in a world where spirituality is a man's demesne. It's one of those books that you'll either love or not with little middle ground in between. For me, unfortunately the latter was the case, as I very much wanted to like this book.

The novel is at time overly self conscious, and in places runs long where Bohnoff waxes lyrical on spiritual matters which can become confusing, and distract the reader from the story. The premise is a very good one, and the spiritual messages and lessons are strong. However, the become lost amid rambling passage and language adopted seemingly for effect to give the novel an 'otherworldly' or 'older' feel, but which has the effect of taking the reader out of the story while they work out what said unfamiliar words mean. All in all I wish the story could have been more consise to give greater impact to what could have been an excellent and unique tale.

Didn't really grab me. Trying to bridge the gap between romance and SF and it doesn't really work. Somehow none of the characters are that engaging. Also they sometimes get referred to by title, sometimes by full name and sometimes by pet name. Yes this is probably realistic but with any size of cast at all it just makes it ridiculous to try and remember who was who.

The set up is a pair of close planets. Long ago one was colonised by a company as part of it's mining operations. These miners have now been there so many generations that they've become native and want their independence. The company is reluctant to just hand it over, but at the same times wants to be seen as responsible and adhering to the morals of it's parent world.

TBC½

It took me forever to figure out how to download the ebook, and when I finally did, I could only read it on my phone, so it took some time. I was happy I enjoyed it as much as I did! It captures the imagination and keeps you engrossed for hours. And although you get minimal detail of the past that is constantly referred to, you don't need too much information to understand what is going on, but you wished there was another book-a prequel if you will, to tell that story as well.