Dying in Style (Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper, Book 1)
by Elaine Viets

I’m not sure how I missed this series during my summer mystery spree but I ran across the book recently and thought it sounded right up my alley. And I’m not sure why it wasn’t. The lead character is a woman who, while not without her problems, isn’t afraid to stand up for what she thinks is right and is spunky while doing it. What’s not to like, right?

Yet it just didn’t do anything for me. I didn’t hate it. I read the whole thing and I even went ahead and checked out the next few books in the series. In fact, it wasn’t until I picked up the second book in the series, High Heels are Murder, that I realized just how little I cared about what Josie Marcus was up to now.

The characters just didn’t interest me. And with these mystery stories, in which the mysteries don’t have much depth to them, that’s kinda key. Plus it lacked the sense of humor I was expecting. I can’t remember one laugh out loud moment and I think that’s partly why I put the second book down after only a few chapters.

To be fair, I will note the majority of reviews at Amazon don’t agree with me and there were plenty of folks on GoodReads who enjoyed it. So maybe it was just something about these characters that failed to click with me and you’d enjoy them?

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1)
by Patrick Rothfuss

I’m pretty sure it was Felicia Day’s five stars on GoodReads that lead me to this book. But, as I started to read it the other day, I realized it sounded just like something P-C talked about recently. Only then, following his links, did I realize Seanan had reviewed it many moons ago. Just goes to show ya, I should pay attention when my friends are recommending books.

Because they were all right. This book is fantastic. I urge you to check it out. Even if, like Seanan and P-C, you’re not a fan of epic fantasy.

Everyone warned that I wouldn’t be able to put the book down once I started. I don’t quite agree with that. I’d didn’t get to that point until page 114 where even our main character, Kvothe, says, “In some ways, this is where the story begins.” What happens at this point in the story changes everything and suddenly I cared in a way I hadn’t during those previous 100 pages. What comes before is important and I certainly wasn’t struggling to get through it but I didn’t have a hard time putting the book down when I got to the end of chapter. Two nights in a row, I read several chapters and went to bed at a decent time. Then on the third night… well, let’s just say when 4 AM rolled around and my eyes refused to stay open for more than a few sentences at a time, I finally forced myself to put the book down. That’s how drastically the story changed for me.

So what makes it so great? I’m not even sure I can answer that. Perhaps I should start by telling you what the story is about. Or who, as the case may be. Kvothe is a legend. A hero. A man both feared and revered but still a man. And a storyteller. In this case, our storyteller. We’re hearing the story of Kvothe as told by Kvothe himself. This is just the first of three books so I’m not sure where it will end but, as of now, the story we are getting is not of what’s to come but of what was. Interesting in that the Kvothe as we know him in the present time is not what you’d expect… no, I’d say hope. How we presume his story to end (in the time in which he’s telling his story) is not how we hope it ends as the story unfolds and we get to know him. But, like I said, this is just the first third of the story.

My point there was that it’s rare that we get to hear a heroes tale from his point of view. Which does seem to be the point of our story. Even within the book, we see over and over again that tales change as they get retold and the truth of something is not always what it seems. There’s a value in hearing the story as close to firsthand as possible. There’s nothing closer to firsthand from the man himself.

Another thing that I really love about the book is how it’s not just one story. Well, very few epic fantasies are really, but here we get story woven into story. Kvothe may be our main storyteller but we begin to see why he’s so good at it as we meet from of the storytellers from his past. The wonderful thing about this is that sometimes we’re given information that we won’t realize is important until Kvothe realizes it’s important and sometimes we know more than the younger Kvothe himself. Enough that we can see the connections even before he does. In this way, Rothfuss is constantly changing how we interact with the story and it’s one of the reasons the book is so hard to set down once you’ve been drawn into it.

Of course, Rothfuss also uses a simple trick to keep you reading chapter after chapter. He teases what’s to come. Easy to do, I suppose, when the narrator is the ultimate authority on the story being told. But just when you’ve reached what you think will be natural break in the story, Rothfuss (via Kvothe) will hint at something to come, perhaps a way his own assumptions at that point in the story were wrong. A simple enough trick that worked every single time. It never failed to leave me wanting to know more. Kind of like young Kvothe himself in fact.

Ok, this has made its way out of the “mini” review state already so I’ll stop before it goes even further. But not before saying this, I read both P-C and Seanan’s reviews when they posted them but I didn’t truly understand them until after I read the book. I suspect mine will be the same for you but, if nothing else, I hope my enjoyment for book comes through. It’s probably not a book for everyone but, if you enjoy fantasy or anything I’ve had to say here sounds intriguing, you owe it to yourself to read The Name of the Wind.

PS: If you want to know where book two stands, check out Patrick’s blog.