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Audiobook. Sadly, did not finish, possibly because of the reader Taylor Meskimen who seemed OK at first, but gradually began to get on my nerves with a soft, even voice. I’ll probably give it another go later because generally I’m a big fan of Charles de Lint’s urban/faerie fantasies.
Jul. 4th, 2024
Read by Stephen Bel Davies
Tiger is a Sword Dancer, raised a slave in the parched southern deserts and now a skilled warrior for hire, who wears a sand-tiger’s claws around his neck as a symbol of his prowess. Del is a woman from the icy north in search of her long lost brother, taken by slavers five years earlier. She carries a blood-quenched rune-sword, though it takes Tiger some time to realise she’s his equal in the sword dance, though she needs his help to navigate the deadly Punja, the unforgiving crystalline desert. There's a lot of misogyny in Tiger's culture, something which he persobally has to get over. The reader is good, the story sufficiently exciting to keep me listening.
The Scarlet Pimpernel with Vampires, told from the viewpoint of servant girl, Eleanor, who just happens to look enough like Marie Antoinette to be invited to take part in a daring rescue in revolutionary France with the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Along the way she faces a crazed vampire, is captured by revolutionaries, and begins to wonder who the real villains are. I confess I never read the original (though I’ve seen several movie and TV versions) but this is intriguing enough.
This was sweet enough. An arranged marriage. A misunderstanding that could have been resolved if the two protagonists had talked to each other. Grace is the eldest daughter of the Rev. Shackleford, whose good sense, if he ever had any, has evaporated. He sells Grace to a duke in need of a wife for a dowry to get himself out of a financial squeeze. Sadly the author doesn’t seem to know that a dowry is the opposite of a bride-price and usually comes with the bride from the bride’s father.