We have arrived in June already and I have finished 44 books so far. I find it hard to believe how fast this year is passing by.

Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence

This week I read two very different books and am almost halfway through a third. The first was Mark Lawrence’s Holy Sister, #03 in his Book of the Ancestor trilogy. This is the blurb:

They came against her as a child. Now they face the woman.

The ice is advancing, the Corridor narrowing, and the empire is under siege from the Scithrowl in the east and the Durns in the west. Everywhere, the emperor’s armies are in retreat.

Nona faces the final challenges that must be overcome if she is to become a full sister in the order of her choice. But it seems unlikely that Nona and her friends will have time to earn a nun’s habit before war is on their doorstep.

Even a warrior like Nona cannot hope to turn the tide of war.

The shiphearts offer strength that she might use to protect those she loves, but it’s a power that corrupts. A final battle is coming in which she will be torn between friends, unable to save them all. A battle in which her own demons will try to unmake her.

A battle in which hearts will be broken, lovers lost, thrones burned.

I really enjoyed this series and all three books were excellent to the point that it would be difficult to choose one to be my favourite! So I awarded this one the full five stars and added it to my “favourites. Once again, I struggled to write a review without giving too much away…

What an excellent trilogy this has been. I have enjoyed all three books so much and this one gave a fantastic ending to the tale. It is so rare for a male author to write such great female characters and even rarer for one to create a series where females dominate (and not by being sex-symbols). Mark Lawrence has done this brilliantly. Nina was a fantastic character and I do hope that Lawrence returns to her story one day. The other main protagonists were also very well-written with enough variety between them. The whole story was well-paced and exciting, but I still want to know more about the Corridor, how the moon works and what really happened to Nona’s father on the ice!

I love how Lawrence blends fantasy with a pinch of science fiction and look forward to reading more books by him in the future.

At this point I really must give a recommendation that you read some of the reviews about this book (and the rest of Mark Lawrence’s work) on Goodreads. There are so many excellent ones that are much more thoughtful and better written than mine.

Wolf Pack by CJ Box

In last week’s roundup I wrote about The Disappeared by CJ Box, #18 in his Joe Pickett series. This week, #19 Wolf Pack appeared in my library ebook account as I had reserved it some weeks ago. This is the blurb:

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett encounters bad behavior on his own turf–only to have the FBI and the DOJ ask him to stand down.

The good news is that Joe Pickett has his job back, after his last adventure in The Disappeared. The bad news is that he’s come to learn that a drone is killing wildlife–and the drone belongs to a mysterious and wealthy man whose grandson is dating Joe’s own daughter, Lucy.

When Joe tries to lay down the rules for the drone operator, he is asked by the FBI and the DOJ to stand down, which only makes him more suspicious. Joe discovers that the man is in the witness relocation program, as he is in possession of knowledge about dangerous people. Soon, Joe comes across a pack of four killers working on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel to find the man in the WITSEC program–and Joe realizes his actions might expose the man.

Teaming up with a female game warden (based on a real person, one of the few female game wardens at work in Wyoming today) to confront these assassins, Joe finds himself their prey–along with Lucy and her boyfriend.

Although I mostly enjoyed The Disappeared, I did have some strong reservations about the book and only gave it three stars. This one was a lot better, so four stars it is!

This was much better than the previous book in the series, The Disappeared. The whole book was much more tightly plotted with real excitement and a sense of danger. Yes, a lot of the story was rather OTT, but that added to rather than subtracted from the tale. I love the descriptions of the scenery and animal life in these books which give this urban Brit such a feel for the Great Outdoors in this region of the USA. Joe and his family, and Nate, are great characters and Box continues to develop them in interesting directions!

Malice by John Gwynne

I am now halfway through a book which looks as if it will be leading me into another fantasy series. Malice by John Gwynne, #01 of The Faithful and the Fallen, has been very enjoyable so far and I am going to return to it as soon as I have finished writing this post!

Until next week’s Reading Roundup…

…Happy Reading to you all!

Best wishes,

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