Booklog 104/2020: Benedict Jacka: Forged – Alex Verus #11

Alex must face his dark side in his eleventh outing. It seems as though Alex, a light wizard by inclination, but long ago apprenticed to dark mage Richard Drach, has absorbed a lot of that darkness – even presuming it wasn't there all along. Throughout the series, the Light Council have been highly suspicious of him, while the Dark mages have either been trying to recruit him or trick him to their side. This time Alex takes drastic action to protect his friends. Anne has gone rogue and Alex wants to keep her safe but knows she's powerful enough to kill him on the spot if she wants to. Alex himself is more powerful now he has the Fateweaver, but he has to figure out a way to stop the Council's death squads from hunting them down. He needs a way to neutralise his old enemy Levistus without involving his previous master, Richard. It involves a lot of playing one person against the other and throwing his lot in with previous enemies. The Alex Verus books are buy on sight for me. This one did not disappoint.

Booklog 105/2020: Julia Quinn: Ten Things I Love About You – Bevelstoke #3

Annabel Winslow is from the poorest country branch of a good family, so when her grandmother invites her to London for a season, in order to find a husband who will fund her brothers' education and her sisters' dowries, Annabel has to agree. She doesn't realise she's being set up to marry the hideously lecherous old Earl of Newbury who wants nothing more than to get a male heir so that his nephew never inherits the title. The nephew in question is charmer, Sebastien Grey, rake about town, and the person most despised by Newbury. Of course Annabel and Grey fall for each other, but she still might have to marry the slobbery old earl because he's Grandfather's friend and they've done a deal. In the end it's Grandmother who comes to the rescue, but I'm not going to say any more for fear of spoilers. Yes, of course you know it's all going to work out, but the fun is in seeing how. I'm gradually reading my way through Ms Quinn's back catalogue. She strikes a good balance between romance, sex and fun, with a good line in witty dialogue.

Booklog 106/2020: Elizabeth Chadwick: The Coming of the Wolf

I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Chadwick's historical novels. This is set just three years after William, Duke of Normandy, invaded at Hastings, killed Harold and took the English crown, but the actual Conquest continues with the Harrying of the North which caused whole tracts of land to be listed as 'waste' in the Domesday Book because William's thugs had put down a potential rebellion with extreme prejudice. That's the background. The main characters are entirely fictional, but there are actual historical personages on the periphery. Lady Christen witnesses her elderly husband's murder when their manor is attacked, and barely a day later she's agreed to marry Miles Le Gallois, Lord of Milnham on Wye, because he's her best option for protecting the manor and the people in it. Miles has ambition. He marries Christen as a preemptive move to gain her lands, but in doing so angers those further up the food chain. As you might expect from a Chadwick novel, love grows, but there's also plenty of peril and action. It's a quick read with a good climax, but the final resolution happens off the page which rounds it off nicely, but is a little disappointing.