Review: Soundless by Richelle Mead

Publication Date: November 10^th 2015
Publisher: Razorbill
Length: 272 pages

From Richelle Mead, the #1 internationally bestselling author of Vampire Academy and Bloodlines, comes a breathtaking new fantasy steeped in Chinese folklore. 
For as long as Fei can remember, there has been no sound in her village, where rocky terrain and frequent avalanches prevent residents from self-sustaining. Fei and her people are at the mercy of a zipline that carries food up the treacherous cliffs from Beiguo, a mysterious faraway kingdom. 
When villagers begin to lose their sight, deliveries from the zipline shrink and many go hungry. Fei’s home, the people she loves, and her entire existence is plunged into crisis, under threat of darkness and starvation.
But soon Fei is awoken in the night by a searing noise, and sound becomes her weapon.
Richelle Mead takes readers on a triumphant journey from the peak of Fei’s jagged mountain village to the valley of Beiugo, where a startling truth and an unlikely romance will change her life forever...

That blurb has had me all kinds of excited since the start of the year, and this has been one of my most eagerly anticipated reads, so you can imagine my disappointment when the blurb turned out to be filled with over exagerations.
Steeped in Chinese folklore? I’m sorry, where is this? If you change the names of the characters there is literally nothing that makes this stand out as being particularly Chinese. I was so excited about having a diverse and interesting new read for the autumn, filled with folklore that I couldn’t wait to learn more about. What I got was a poorly constructed story that had very little drive to it and lacked any real links to China or its folklore except in the names.

It’s a short book to begin with so I really shouldn’t have found my interest lagging at any point, but that’s precisely what happens. The story meanders along at its own pace with a very basic plot that never really explores its full potential. There are a couple of interesting darker aspects but I never really felt  though they were given enough weight or depth of exploration, and as a result the parts that intrigued me the most were mostly swept under the rug. Then the final climax takes on a thoroughly different approach and feel to the rest of the book, suddenly throwing in bizarre fantasy elements that have been absent up to that point. It’s a really strange and surprisingly unsatisfying ending.

With a slow and basic story you really need an interesting and engaging central character to drive the story and keep the reader focussed, but again ‘Soundless’ came up short. Fei was nice enough and very brave, but I never connected with her. I think that may be in part due to the narrative style, but it meant that I never really fell in love with her, never rooted for her or feared for her. I felt merely mild interest in her plight and didn’t feel any emotional connection to her relationships. The relationship between her and her sister was particularly puzzling as it never felt fully formed, and Fei never comes across as the younger sibling, more like an older sibling desperately playing the care taker.

The narrative style keeps you emotionally distant and whilst on the whole it’s quite formal and stilted, presumably to try and keep the traditional storytelling/fable feel, there are quite a few instances where bizarrely modern language and phrases creep in which are quite jarring.

All in all this was not the book I was hoping to read, and it didn’t even remotely live up to my expectations. It was a decent enough story, competently told, but lacking any of the diversity and excitement that had been promised in the blurb. Thrown in the frustrating narrative style that keeps you at arms length from the characters and the slow moving plot and I was left feeling more than a little grumpy on finishing this one.

Review: A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn

Publication Date: September 1^st 2015
Publisher: Penguin Group
Length: 352 pages

Huge thanks to Edelweiss and Penguin Group for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

London, 1887. As the city prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee, Veronica Speedwell is marking a milestone of her own. After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry—and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a sharpened hatpin with equal aplomb, and with her last connection to England now gone, she intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.
But fate has other plans, as Veronica discovers when she thwarts her own abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron with ties to her mysterious past. Promising to reveal in time what he knows of the plot against her, the baron offers her temporary sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker—a reclusive natural historian as intriguing as he is bad-tempered. But before the baron can deliver on his tantalizing vow to reveal the secrets he has concealed for decades, he is found murdered. Suddenly Veronica and Stoker are forced to go on the run from an elusive assailant, wary partners in search of the villainous truth.

I think it’s safe to say that Deanna just gets better with every book she writes (and considering how much I love her earlier novels this is saying something.) and the first Veronica Speedwell adventure is truly fantastic.
Whilst I loved the three book foray into the 1920s, ‘A Curious Beginning’ takes us back firmly to familiar Victorian territory.

Comparisons will obviously be made between this and Deanna’s previous books set in Victorian England, but the truth is they couldn’t be more different. ‘A Curious Beginning’ takes all the best bits of Lady Julia and adds to them to create a very different beast of a novel.

Veronica herself is much less of a quiet late bloomer. Strong, feisty, determined, this is a woman who has not been coddled and instead has grown up knowing exactly what she wants and how to get it. She’s independent and spirited and travels around the world catching butterflies (and gentlemen) – in short Veronica doesn’t need anyone to look after and protect her thank you very much. Plus she has the art of travelling light down, I want tips.
But she still ends up stuck with Stoker, a dark, brooding and decidedly grumpy gentleman with quite the past. Although she finds his attempts at kidnapping endearing rather than terrifying, an unlikely friendship is born.

UK Cover

Whilst there is a whodunit element to the story, there is so much more going on between the covers. There’s the mystery of Veronica herself and why people keep trying to kill her, the mystery of Stoker and his troubled and dark past, the whodunit of the murder, plus a stay in a travelling circus all thrown into the mix to make a truly enthralling story. It’s a mixture of so many things blended together seamlessly to create a truly satisfying whole.

Deanna’s writing is at its best, full of the evocative prose that really draws you into the story. Her characters are truly fascinating, with just enough intrigue and questions that herald a truly intriguing series to come.

This is a fantastic start to what is sure to be a glorious new series. Julia has competition in my heart for most awesome Victorian lady sleuther… Suffice to say I loved it. Once I started reading I could not stop. I loved this thrilling new world of Veronica and Stokers – an unlikely and truly fabulous pair, and I cannot wait to see what adventures the two of them get up to next.