All posts tagged Renée Ahdieh

The Damned

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
The Damned cover

I recently read Renée Ahdieh’s The Damned on audiobook. I always try to have one audiobook going, and when I saw this was available at my library, I was surprised.

The Damned is the second book in The Beautiful duology. This review contains spoilers, but you can read my review of The Beautiful instead, if you haven’t read the first book.

Celine has no memories of Sébastien Saint Germain, but she feels like something is wrong. Everyone tells her that Michael saved her from a brutal attack, and he’s been spending a lot of time with her. He’s interested in more than friendship with Celine, but she doesn’t really feel a passion for him. Should she settle?

Meanwhile, Sébastien is learning how to be a vampire, and we learn more secrets about him and the fey creatures he hangs around.

With the way The Beautiful ended, of course Celine and Sébastien meet up again. There are surprises in store for them, however. I was surprised at some of the things that were revealed in this book. I certainly did not expect this series to take the turn that it did. But I enjoyed it nevertheless.

While I enjoyed most of this book, I thought it ended quite abruptly. There were things revealed in this book that I thought should have been explored more thoroughly. I don’t think a third book is planned for this series, but it really should have one.

Update: It IS getting a third book so the ending is fine.

Conclusion

The Damned was a good continuation of The Beautiful duology; however, there were several twists that were introduced in this book that should have had further exploration. (Edit: It IS getting a third book!) I think this series should have been a trilogy. Otherwise, I did enjoy reading this book.

The Beautiful

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
The Beautiful Cover

October has been an amazing month for new releases! I recently read Renée Ahdieh’s The Beautiful. I believe it is part of a duology. This story is set in New Orleans in 1872.

I originally didn’t have any interest in reading this book, because I wasn’t really interested in reading a “vampire book”. I don’t read a ton of paranormal type books (although I love the Shadowhunter books, they don’t really seem paranormal). At any rate, it wasn’t until I read the first couple of chapters when it was over at Bookish First that I decided that I wanted to read it. I really liked it.

Celine is escaping her past by moving from Paris to New Orleans. The local convent is putting her up for a while, which starts to cause problems when she’s invited to make a dress for Odette, who must have been quite the scandalous lady back in those days. There, she meets Sébastien Saint Germain, who is wealthy, but isn’t exactly a gentleman. They have an instant attraction, but it doesn’t look like they can be together.

People start ending up dead around the city, and a lot of them have some connection to Celine. So now the question is, what’s causing it? Can it be stopped? You’ll have to read the book to find out more.

The Beautiful was great for several reasons. First, I loved the characters. Celine is a strong girl who won’t be bullied and stands up for herself. She may have had some problems in her past, but I don’t really blame her for what happened. Bastien seems to be her perfect match, personality-wise. The other characters that surround them seem lifelike and have their own lives apart from Celine. We get to see glimpses of the villain throughout the story, but we don’t exactly find out who he is until the end. This book might need a reread at some point, just to be able to read it knowing who the villain is.

The setting is good too. I loved being immersed in New Orleans after the Civil War. There is a lot of French (and a handful of Spanish) used in this book. It’s generally easy to understand, although I’m a polyglot, so maybe I’m not the best person to ask about that. The characters discuss pop culture references of the day, including Les Misérables (which I’m currently about halfway through listening on audiobook). Reading this book feels like being transported to another time and place.

If you’re looking for a book that’s a little creepy and also has a little romance, you might like The Beautiful. Vampires aren’t a huge feature of this book, but that was okay with me. I suspect there will be more vampires in the second book of this duology, but I can’t be sure. October might be almost over, but there’s still one day left, and a little murder mystery can be read any time of year.

No Angry Morning with the Wrath and the Dawn

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée AhdiehThe Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh is a modern retelling of 1001 Arabian Nights.  After reading Flame in the Mist and absolutely adoring it, I thought that I should check out her other works.  This became available at the library the day before Smoke in the Sun showed up on my doorstep, so I had a little Renée Ahdieh reading marathon going on this week.  I enjoyed this book, and plan on reading the follow-up book soon, but I didn’t like it as much as I liked Flame in the Mist.

Like 1001 Arabian Nights, The Wrath and the Dawn is set in the Middle East during the time of sultans: if images of Aladdin and flying carpets come to your mind, that is exactly the type of world we are experiencing with this book.  The king, Khalid, has been marrying a new girl every day, and in the morning he has been killing her.  Shahrzad’s best friend, Shiva, was killed by this king, and Shahrzad volunteers to marry him (knowing the consequences), although her intention is not to die, but to take revenge on Khalid for what he did.  Shahrzad tells stories in order to get through the first couple of nights, which keeps her alive.

Shahrzad’s plan for revenge doesn’t quite go the way she intends, because she eventually develops feelings for her husband.  She starts to believe that he’s not the monster that everybody says that he is.  Threats to the kingdom develop, and we are left with something of a cliffhanger (that’s why it’s a duology).

I enjoyed this story.  I haven’t had the chance to read 1001 Arabian Nights yet, but I’m suspecting that there are many differences.  I loved how Ahdieh put together this world, which brings us a world with a little bit of magic and characters that you want to read more about.  Although the character’s problems don’t magically resolve at the end of this story, it leaves you wanting more, and doesn’t leave you frustrated, sad, or wrathful at the ending.  If I had read this book in 2015, I might be upset that I have to wait another whole year to find out what happens, but since the sequel to this book has already been written, I don’t have to wait.

The Wrath and the Dawn is not my favorite book by Renée Ahdieh, but I can say that, so far, I’ve liked everything that I’ve read that she’s written.  It’s probably a matter of personal preference, but I didn’t click with these characters quite as much as I did with the characters of Flame in the Mist, but I enjoyed this story all the same.

If you like YA stories with a little bit of magic to them or enjoy Renée Ahdieh’s books in general, you might want to check out this book.  Since this book has been out for a while, you can get a pretty good deal on this book in paperback, or your local library probably has a copy that you don’t have to wait very long to read.

The Smoke in the Sun Robbed Me of Sleep

By Brookelorren on 1 Comment

Smoke in the Sun, the sequel to Renée Ahdieh’s Flame in the Mist, robbed me of my sleep.  I was fortunate in that it arrived a day early.  Yay!  It was a great book, although perhaps not as captivating as the first one was.

This review contains spoilers for Flame in the Mist, so if you haven’t read it yet, proceed at your own peril.

What of Mariko
With wedding bells in her sight
Will she lose her love?

As we begin our story, Mariko is getting ready to marry Prince Raiden, a man that she does not love.  Her true love, Ōkami, is locked away in the dungeon, destined for death.  Mariko has to play the part of a clueless, submissive girl in order to try to save her love, even if it means that she will have to marry someone else.

Smoke in the Sun answers a lot of the questions that we are still left with at the beginning of the first book.  Will Mariko be able to save her true love from the jaws of death?  Who tried to kill her in the first place?  Will Mariko and Ōkami get to live happily ever after?  You’ll have to read this book to get the answers.

I enjoyed Smoke in the Sun a lot.  The book was full of court intrigue, introduced us to new characters, some honorable, some not, and kept us wondering what will happen to our two lovebirds up until the very end.  I love how Ahdieh wraps up the book nicely.  I also loved how some of the characters that we got to know in the first place stepped up to become more than they were in the original book.

I didn’t think that Smoke in the Sun was quite as good as Flame in the Mist, however.  One of the charming things about the first book is watching Ōkami and Mariko fall in love, share their first kisses, that sort of thing.  That’s a little hard to do when half of the couple is in the dungeon and the other half of the couple is marrying somebody else.  I suppose it’s not the story’s fault — obviously, these problems are going to have to resolve themselves before they can get back together, but it does make the first book much more fun than the second book.

If you enjoyed the first book, you’ll definitely want to read Smoke in the Sun.  It answered all of the questions that I had at the end of Flame in the Mist, and resolved itself in such a way that I’m not going to go to bed tonight (as I just finished it) crying in frustration or vowing to fix the ending with fanfiction.  Even if it’s not quite as good as the first one, I’m sure that you’ll still love it like I do.

Flame in the Mist was On Fire!

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Flame in the Mist coverFlame in the Mist is one of my new favorite books. I was recently looking through Goodreads for something good to read that I could check out of the library on my Kindle, and I came across it as a recommendation. It was available for checkout, so I decided to take a look.

I couldn’t put it down. Well, I actually had to, because I had to go to work, but I read it at lunch.  I thought about it while I was working.  I read it on my break.  When I went home, I finished it.  Then I pre-ordered the sequel, Smoke in the Sun.  Then I read it some more.  Even though I checked it out of the library, I’m considering buying a copy of my own.

This book is set in a sort of medieval-fantasy Japan.  Our heroine, Mariko, is set to marry one of the emperor’s sons, but she is very resentful of that fact.  Mariko is very clever and wants to be more than just a bargaining chip that her family can use to improve their status in the kingdom; however, in the beginning of the book, she has resigned herself to becoming just that, and nothing more.

All that changes when she is traveling to the capital city of Inako and her party is ambushed by, presumably, the Black Clan.  She manages to escape, and must make brave choices in order to survive.  One of these brave choices is to dress up like a boy and infiltrate the Black Clan itself — she wants to find out why they tried to kill her.  While with the Black Clan, she finds that she is valued for who she is, and ends up falling in love.

As I read the book, I had to know what was going to happen next.  Surely, they’re going to discover that she’s a girl.  I had to go back to work right in the middle of a scene where she is taking a bath in these hot springs with a boy, and I’m at work thinking about whether she is going to be found out or not.  Of course, she is eventually discovered, and that does cause some complications, but I won’t give away any spoilers here.  You’ll really just have to read it to find out (I’m sure that you’ll want to).

I love just about everything about this book.  I love the characters, I love the setting, I love the relationship between Mariko and her newfound love (and I’m not saying who that turns out to be either) and I find the plot twist at the end interesting as well.  There are still a few unanswered questions left as I finished the book, but I’m sure that they will be resolved on June 5th, which I will be spending reading Smoke in the Sun (hooray, I don’t work on Tuesdays and can spend the entire day reading it!).  I feel fortunate that I just discovered this book last week and only have a few weeks to count down before the sequel comes out (whereas I spent months anticipating the release of The Fates Divide).  I think that the one drawback that some people might find a little hard to deal with is all the Japanese terms that are used.  Some of them I understood, like katana, but then there are others that I didn’t.  There is a glossary in the back (which I didn’t know about until I finished reading the book for the first time), but even without the glossary, I still had the general idea of what all the terms meant.

Read this book though.  It’s great.