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Book Review: Women of Kern by Maris McKay

Posted on October 25, 2018March 10, 2021 by R.M. Archer

Ever since starting to develop Kersir (a desert-based fantasy world that my Dark War Trilogy characters kept referencing in character interviews) I’ve kept an eye out for other desert-based fantasy. The first I was able to get my hands on was Rebel of the Sands (review link), which was rather underwhelming, but I recently won Maris McKay’s Women of Kern in a giveaway and it was fabulous.

Women of Kern is a collection of novellas and short stories set in the deeply thought-out world of Kern. Each story Continue reading “Book Review: Women of Kern by Maris McKay” →

Book Review: The Clocks Have Stopped by J.L. Oakman

Posted on September 6, 2018March 10, 2021 by R.M. Archer

This book is rather difficult to review, because it’s an anthology containing numerous short stories and poems, and obviously I’ve enjoyed some of them more than others. All of the pieces in this collection are poetic and thought-provoking, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with the philosophy presented in all of them. The writing style, though it varies from story to story, is extremely engaging and otherworldly, like the stories themselves, and many of the stories take unexpected twists that leave you mildly bewildered (which, in the case of this book, was a good thing). I particularly enjoyed Deux Ex Experia; that twist was wonderfully executed.

I don’t tend to be a huge fan of poetry, but the majority of those contained in The Clocks Have Stopped were engaging and read more like stories than poems (though, as I said, the whole collection had a poetic tone to it).

While there were a few pieces I found myself not enjoying, they were only a few, and in a collection like this you can stand to read a few less enjoyable pieces among a lot of more engaging pieces.

I would warn that there is language used, and there are a few instances of other more mature details (nothing too glaring for me personally), so you may want to read with caution.

Overall, it earns four stars from me.

Add on Goodreads | Add on StoryGraph | Buy on Amazon*

*This is an affiliate link, which means if you place an order through it I earn a commission at no extra cost to you

Book Review: Azalei’s Riders

Posted on June 14, 2018March 10, 2021 by R.M. Archer

Azalei’s Riders is a book I’d read before perhaps one and a half times when I had it on Kindle (I have a terrible memory when it comes to remembering to read Kindle books, hence the half), but it recently came out on paperback and since I ordered her book box I got all three books in the Fire Rain Chronicles on paperback, along with various other goodies (including a candle that smells amazing). So of course I had to read it again, both because it’s amazing and because I’d totally forgotten what happened and needed to read it again before reading Azalei’s Strategy and Azalei’s Fall. *dun dun dunnnnnnn*

I think the different aspects in this book didn’t stand out to me as much since this was a reread, so this review might be kind of short, but I’ll preface by saying that this is an awesome book.

My absolute favorite thing about this book is Continue reading “Book Review: Azalei’s Riders” →

Book Review: The Stealthmaster’s Shadow by Hope Ann

Posted on May 31, 2018March 10, 2021 by R.M. Archer

The Stealthmaster’s Shadow is finally here! Hope Ann’s latest novella will be available for Kindle tomorrow for $2.99. The links are down below. She’d love to sell 50 copies tomorrow, so let’s see if we can help her out with that. :) Continue reading “Book Review: The Stealthmaster’s Shadow by Hope Ann” →

Book Review: Iron Core by Rebekah DeVall

Posted on May 10, 2018February 13, 2025 by R.M. Archer

Everything will be okay.
Deep in Brancaleone, a prison carved from the mountainside, eighteen-year-old Lunetta plans her escape. Raised behind iron bars, all she wants is freedom – and to take her mother with her.

Iron Core is the first book in a series about Lunetta, and it’s more of a prequel if I understand correctly. It’s somewhere between a short story and a novella – only five chapters – and it does what it’s intended to do in introducing Lunetta and the key people in her life.

My first comment is that it gets a bit tell-y in places, where the author told something that would have been more effectively shown, particularly in regard to Lunetta’s history with Erec.

The dialogue also didn’t feel particularly natural to me in a lot of places, like it was too on-the-nose or didn’t quite fit the relationships between the characters in some spots.

I also felt like it was clipped in a few places, like there could have been more time spent describing places or there could have been more action amidst the dialogue sometimes, and the ending transition felt awkward to me, more like there is no transition. I feel like we needed more lead-up specifically to the transition than there was.

However, I did enjoy this book (I’m just better at pinpointing what I thought was wrong with a book than at pinpointing what was right with it. It’s annoying.) and I’m interested to see more of Lunetta and the world she lives in. I think the characters could probably gain more depth in a longer work, so I’m interested to read the longer stories in Lunetta’s series.

About the author:

Rebekah DeVall prides herself on being the girl who wrote 200,000 words in 21 days. She’s a Christian author with a penchant for killing characters and a love for writing real female protagonists described as “the example of a Christian hero that young readers need to see.”