JaNoReadMo 2020

Gooood Morning 2020!

Welcome all you wonderful folks back to JaNoReadMo.  No reading goal this month, since I took a hiatus last year i kinda want to start fresh.  Just read at my own pace, see where i end up, and make beating whatever i get through this year my goal for JaNoReadMo 2021.

I do have an overall reading goal this year however.  I have a mountain of books in my room that has had some inhabitants in it for almost 10 years!  It is my goal to read through this 80ish book monstrosity by December 31st.  I’ll probably read some for JaNoReadMo this year but I’m not going to truly focus on that until February.

With that, lets begin with Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dragonswan, first up for 2020!

JaNoReadMo 2019 Has Been Cancelled

Yeah.  No JaNoReadMo this year.  Not much reading at all honestly, I’ve lost the mojo for it.  I’m taking time to focus on other crafty things and various health issues that have popped up between me and my partner.  I will be reading but not as voraciously, and hopefully we’ll be back for JaNoReadMo 2020.

Thank you all and enjoy your year!

Alta, before the Vista

Second in the Dragon Jouster trilogy, in Alta we are reintroduced to Vetch, who is a little bit more grown up now, and so is his dragon.  But Vetch is not happy under Tian rule, and he carefully comes up with a plan to escape and head back to his own country of Alta.

Things are not as they seem in his old country.  Of course at first he is seen with suspicion as he is flying in on an Tian dragon wearing with Tian gear, but then he is grudgingly accepted into the home of a wealthy Altan and introduced to his daughter.  He lives with the family for a bit, trying to teach is people his new ways of training dragons in an attempt to get the Altans to build a stronger dragon army than the Tians.

But behind the scenes are priest kings, ruling with iron fists and not willing to give up any iota of power.  So Vetch flees Alta with a small band of followers, looking for find a place free from politics and vying for power.

As Joust showed the strong Egyptian influence of the Tian culture, so does Alta show the Atlantian influence in the culture and country of Alta.  This I found especially fascinating as there aren’t many books out there with Atlantian mythology or culture featured and I feel it was very well done.

But onwards and upwards my friends! Sanctuary is next.

In the third novel of the best-selling Dragon Jousters series, The Altan serf Vetch has escaped the enemy kingdom of Tia, only to find his homeland, Alta, enslaved by the evil Priest-Kings. With a small band of followers, Vetch must gather a secret army of dragon riders to rid their world of war and magical domination once and for all.

JOUST!

I LOVED. THIS. BOOK.  Methinks I found a new fav author.

Joust is set in a prehistoric world based loosely off Egyptian (Tia) and Atlantian (Alta) mythology.  Vetch is an Altan boy who was enslaved to Tia and sent to the jouster’s compound to serve them, the very compound where the jousters train and learn how to ride dragons.  Now Alta has their own dragons, their own jousters, but the forces of Tia are stronger, allowing them to take over more Altan lands and enslaving most of their people.

All Vetch wants to do is become a jouster, despite the fact that it is forbidden because of his status as a slave.  But that does not stop him from finding an egg, hatching it and raising it in secret, and in time turning everything the jouster’s know about raising and training dragons upside down.

Now it could be that I’m a bit biased cuz I love Egyptian anything so much but yeah.  This book just KILLED it for me which is why we’re going straight off to the next one: Alta.

In the second novel in Mercedes Lackey’s richly-conceived Dragon Jousters series, the dragonrider Vetch escapes to Alta, the subjugated land of his birth. There, he hopes to teach his people to raise and train dragons-and build an army that will liberate his homeland.

It Takes a Thief

Number 16 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, The Thief is all about Assail’s decent into narctotic withdrawal psychosis and the attempts of all and sundry to bring him back.  Of course though only one thing will work: Marisol.  Only problem is, she’s absconded with her grandmother to parts unknown and needs a hefty dose of convincing to bring her back, grandmother in tow.  In the end though Marisol does come back and is able to save Assail, and is brought into the vampire’s world as well.

Now on the other side of the coin, you have V and Doc Jane going through a rough patch, like Vicious cheating on her rough patch.  The whole time it was going down I was just all ‘ohhhh no baby what you doin…”  THAT was a bit harder to work through, turns out with babies n kiddies poppin everywhere V wrongfully assumed his mate was rethinking the whole going childless thing and instead of…you know…talking to her, he mopes about and goes off to do his thing with someone else.

I legit thought for a hot minute that was the end of them.

And to top it all off, apparently the Brotherhood has a warlock to contend with now?  Throe got his hot little hands on an ancient, evil, sentient book a la Necornomican from Ash Vs the Evil Dead and now he’s summoning shadow demons or something to take out the BDB?  Only he’s playing the long game here.  Targeting civilians so they’ll turn on wrath cuz they don’t feel safe under him anymore so he can just waltz on in and take the crown.   It will be interesting to see where that goes in the next few books.

But for now that’s all she wrote.  A reunion, an almost break up, and a newly pacted warlock with delusions of grandeur is what you can expect to find here in The Thief.  Looking forward as always to the next BDB book but now we’re trying out someone new.

First real book on my Kobo!  We have Joust by Mercedes Lackey next.

A vivid, dynamic fusion of the cultures of ancient Egypt and legendary Atlantis with the most exciting and believable portrayal of dragons ever imagined.  The first book in this thrilling new series introduces us to a young slave who dreams of becoming a jouster—one of the few warriors who can actually ride a flying dragon.  And so, in secret, he begins to raise his own dragon…