Dale Ivan Smith

I'm currently starting to gring down my TBR list and putting a bit more emphasis on the really short stories. I got an ARC copy from the author some time ago and started the book with fully open expectations without knowing the plot.

The novelette instantly makes you realize this is a prison story. But not just any imnate tale, Mathilda has a superpower to control and sense the health of plants but her abilities have been nullified with a pair of bracelets that are fastened to her wrists.

Reaching two years into her 5 year sentence with no news from the outside world, she is deperately struggling to save her tomato plants that were a priviledge due to good behavior. The catch is that they only supply her with a pitiful amount of water. It agravates her to no end.

Her shovel then feels something hard in the soil. An illegal message in a roll of paper. Without knowing who sent it, the veracity of the message that her grandmother is apparently infirm and with what purpose, she visits a friendly lifer convict named Lenore for advice at once. The exercise obsessed woman tries to brush the message off as something of little relevance and that she should just ignore it. She'll discover how her family is doing in just another three months.

But Mathilda is an angsty 17 year old with little patience and against Lenore's well-wrranted warning, she confesses the message to the warden at once in the hopes of getting a chance to know the truth. Instead, she is pressured to become a snitch and punished with another 6 weeks of now knowing the whereabouts of her family.

Determined to try to pass her sentence without stirring unwanted attention, an inmate that has always given her a hard time called Tricksie wishes to make her a staggering offer...

The novelette is cruelly short and with only 20 pages it has already revealed a rather interesting fantastical world where certain humans have a superpower. What little that we know about this world is that having these abilities aren't illegal per se, but you will get harsh sentences if you use them to commit a crime.

The characters seem rather interesting although I do think Mathilda has too many anger issues for my taste. While Paranormal isn't my preferred genre, I enjoyed this story and will consider reading the full-fledged novel sometime.… (plus d'informations)

Yaay! I have completed yet another SPFBO book!

I first read the Empowered Prequel around a year ago and wanted to read the full-fledged series. I am glad I had the chance to at least read the first book.

It continues off the story where Mathilda Brandt, an imprisoned rare empowered convict is currently on parole from using her plant mastery power against normals. She is struggling feuding with her ungrateful younger sisters who are too busy oggling with gangsters, and her steadfast grandmother Ruth whose health is deteriorating due to an incurable disease.

Her visits with her PO officer Winterfeld are more of a nonstop annoying rant that if she continues to fail getting a new job soon as an excon in a struggling economy where people like her are unwanted, she will return to prison forever.

That is, until she is offered a difficult choice: Join the support forces as a snitch to an underground Empowered terrorist organization and hopefully be promoted to the inner circle, or life in prison.

Mat doesn't like the options she is granted, but if it means saving her family, she is willing to risk herself.

The story might have been done many times before in Urban Fantasy, but Mathilda's mixture between bitterness, high morals and street smarts make her an interesting character. Things would have been so much easier if lesser empowered could use their abilities in the open without fear of arrest as long as they didn't harm others. The world is in disarray and I think things would be far better if people like her could use their rare abilities to find cures for diseases and other useful things instead of being forced to live as shadows of themselves always fearful of getting caught using their powers for even the most menial of mundane things, or join the military, a prospect that might not be too enticing for a teenage girl with anger issues and an ability that the militia don't find to be useful at first sight.

The story is a bit slow to develop, but it reaches a nice conclusion which will entice the reader to continue reading. It is indeed a very fun series.… (plus d'informations)

Mat has worked on the wrong side of the law before, and she'll have to do it again.
But this time she's not doing it by choice, she's being a spy.
While I was never really pulled into the thrall of the story fully, I still enjoyed it.
The book is paced well with action packed scenes and an interesting magic system, however the world building was quite small and at times, non existent. Mat was an average character, she's very flawed and sometimes I was very annoyed which sucked me out of the story.
The whole going undercover thing was really cool.
However, we all flawed so I guess Mat was a very realistic character.… (plus d'informations)

Messy

It seems to be written on the ‘baffle them with bull$h!t’ concept, a way to create world-building without actually developing a solid world. Peoria to Brooklyn to Portland quickly without depicting anything that makes the location unique. Spells being cast and artifacts being identified, but no system underlying the whole. It’s all ‘magic is magic because magic’.

A few grammatical and spelling errors. A fresh proofreading pass would not go amiss.
… (plus d'informations)