Spoiler warning! This is book two in a duology and it will be absolutely impossible for me to review this book without giving away some spoilers for book one, Of Metal and Wishes. Neither book stands well on its own, and they are clearly meant to be read as a whole. If you like going into books completely unspoiled, skip this review until you’ve finished book one. It’s been a year since the dramatic events that brought down the entire slaughterhouse where Wen and her […]
The Phantom of the Slaughterhouse doesn’t sing, but he does build creepy mechanical spiders
3.5 stars Wen, a young woman, whose family were clearly of a higher social status before her mother got sick and died, now works as a doctor’s apprentice for her father. Wen and her father are Itanyai. They both live in a large factory complex, Gochan One, treating to the workers of a large slaughterhouse. In the same larger compound, there is a factory producing textiles and one making advanced war machines, to further the military might of their country. Most of the workers at […]
Makes me want to go to the South of France
Malorie Monsard returns to the south of France, where she grew up, having left on a hike after finishing high school and made enough money in Paris to put herself through business school. Having felt like an outcast while growing up, due to the legacy of her great-grandfather who betrayed resistance members to the Gestapo, and a narcissistic father who would manipulate her, her mother, her sisters and her grandmother, and charm, lie and steal his way until he finally met an unglamourous end in […]
More like “Shrug”
Psychology student Elizabeth “Liz” Rollins is the younger sister of Anne, heroine of Play, who ended up with the drummer of Portland-based mega rock band Stage Dive after a whirlwind romance. Liz was a supporting character in that book, as well as in the sequel, Lead, and she’s been nursing a crush on the band’s massive, strong and silent lumbersexual bassist, Ben. Due to a nine year age difference and the fact that Ben is quite obviously not the settling down type (or even the […]













