J. Kathleen CheneyRecensioni

As excellent and intriguing as the first in the series. Danger and mystery in the streets and seas of Portugal.

Very nice story, but very short. Wanted more. :)

A lovely, dreamy story, based around the aftermath of a classic fairy tale. Very enjoyable.

A nice little set of stories - 2 of which are about events referenced briefly in Dreaming Death. I admit, I got a little pang from seeing *spoiler* again.

Love, love, loved this one. Fascinating characters, a great setting with multiple layers and variants, exciting plot, enough foreshadowing that things made sense when revealed, but without breaking suspense. Just...loved it!

Another year...another re-read.

Very exciting! It definitely is a different feel from Dreaming Death, a different place and ?time? within that world. I like the new glimpse at the secrets behind the fortresses, and the bigger overall picture of the world. The people of Horn were interesting, and I enjoyed getting to know them. It does end at a huge cliffhanger, but if you can't wait, the "coming soon" chapter afterwards answers the biggest concern. :)

Plots are thickening! In addition to everything from the main series starting to line up and become clear, I'm starting to see where the story from The Horn fits into everything series wide now. This was so satisfying, an absolute delight!

So happy this is finally out! So very good. I want more of this world so bad.

Time to add this one to the re-read cycle! It'll be a regular thing, just like the first.

Just as enjoyable as the first 2, and wrapped up well for the most part, although I'm curious now to know how things continued as the group split.

Slow but satisfying

Solid world building coupled with a plot that advances slowly. Real depth to all of the characters with carefully constructed backstory.

I will be buying the next novel. Best recommendation I can make.

Slow but satisfying

Solid world building coupled with a plot that advances slowly. Real depth to all of the characters with carefully constructed backstory.

I will be buying the next novel. Best recommendation I can make.

Setting aside about 60-odd pages in. I'm just not feeling it. This series has always been an interesting magical alterni-history, set in an interesting time and place, but rather slow and measured (all the better for the historical feel). This one is rather too slow and measured, not sinking its hooks into me.

This continued both the things I enjoyed and the things that annoyed me from the first book. In the former camp: a delightful world of manners and magical waterfolk; a proper grown-up romance with genuine issues to make work; a great cast of capable and foible-icious characters. In the latter camp: a predilection for detail that often swamps the big plot and emotion points.

Those details seemed particularly problematic in this second book because there was so much going on that I really begrudge the use of those words to give us all the little twiddly bits of society manners and explanations of things. Indeed, the awesome foursome of special investigators were almost entirely sidelined because there just wasn't space for them amongst Oriana and Duilio's story. Now, I love Oriana and Duilio, but I love Nadezhda, and I really wanted to see more of her arc throughout this, especially considering how important she is for the finale.

But overall, I enjoyed this and look forward to the third one bubbling to the top of my to-read list.

I enjoyed this a great deal. Set in a highly mannered alterni-Portugal of the very early twentieth century, it has all sorts of wonderful elements: mermaids (well, sirens and selkies and even a rusalka who I liked the most) and dastardly plots that need foiling (like being trapped in the library with an unmarried gentleman!) and an absolutely smashing romance between the two leads, wherein they form a solid bond of mutual respect that's just dripping with UST, but impeded by constraints that are genuinely part of who they are.

There were times when there seemed to be rather too much inconsequential detail cluttering up the page, but in general, I enjoyed the ride a lot, and I'm looking forward to more.

A really cool selkie-verse! Different with interesting characters.

This novella is a pure delight. It's based on a well-known fairy tale, but it was so subtlety incorporated that I didn't realize which tale until it became quite clear at the end. The setting of 19th century Russia is well-used and quite fascinating. Cheney is masterful at writing realistic banter and relationships, and that is especially evident here. Yes, it's a romance, and yes, you know things will likely end in a happily ever after, but the journey to that end is full of surprises.

The Sparrow in Hiding is a short novella set in a post-Napoleonic Russia where magic is real, even if society doesn't believe in it anymore. Irina believes that her mother is a tree, even if her father and brother don't. She comes to the dacha to escape society's glare every summer. One summer she discovers that her brother has hired a new worker with a mysterious past for the aviary. Just who is Evgeny and what is the story of his past. Irina can't help but try to figure it out.

A short novella with good plotting that feels like it ends a bit too suddenly for my taste. If you've liked Cheney's other work or have an interest in historical fantasy set in Russia, then you'll want to pick this one up. Otherwise, you may want to start with her Portuguese novels or Saratoga Springs-set short stories to get a feel for her good stuff first.

This short story is sweet but offers a lot of depth. It's about loving people for who they are, and along those lines, it contains some major twists. It didn't take long to read and it left me with a smile on my face.

After the War is set twenty years after the end of the The Shores of Spain and tells the story of "João" a young laborer who lost his entire memory during World War I. A chance encounter at a bar changes his life when he bumps into people who knew him in his previous existence—one of whom claims to be his wife. But somewhere in the depths of his memory lurks a secret, one which someone appears to be desperate to uncover. Can he remember himself in time, or will he and his new old friends be able to improvise their way to the bottom of things? You will have to wait for the end to find out.

A fun novella, possibly the best installment in that world since The Seat of Magic. I had hoped for more news of our old friends from the trilogy, but the novella format really didn't allow for much (except that Marina and Joaquim appear to have finally grown up sometime in the last twenty years). If you like your fantasies with a bit of history and mystery, this may be for you, but to truly understand everything, you'll want to start with The Golden City first.

The Seer's Choice is a novella featuring minor character's from Cheney's Golden City trilogy that takes place during the same time period as The Shores of Spain. While Oriana and Duilio are busy in the Sereia Islands and Marina and Joaquim are running around Spain, Genoveva is coming to terms with the discovery of her true paternity in The Seat of Magic. Her mother's husband was bad enough, but it turned out that her real father was an actual monster. So now she works for the police as a healer, trying to use her unwanted gift for the public good. But it seems that someone has decided to come after her, and he has powerful magic on his side. No one in her unit of special police has ever seen anything like it, which does not bode well for Genoveva's future. Luckily, she has friends in magically talented places, and together they may be able to get to the bottom of things after all.

This is basically the follow-up to Raphael getting all touched about Duilio and Genoveva in The Seat of Magic. It's a fun return to the mystery-based plots of the first two books of the trilogy, but darker and much more adult with discussions of things like birth control and whether or not to have children. But then again, both protagonist have legitimate reasons not to want to pass on their genes. I'm not sure I'd hand this one to a teen looking to move beyond YA the way I would the actual trilogy, but if you want more Golden City, you can certainly find it here.

Whatever Else is a short story featuring a woman who discovers her husband has been keeping secrets, only to discover that the truth is far beyond her wildest dreams. Maia married her husband five years ago as part of a treaty between neighboring groups. Luckily for her, the marriage is happy and she has two young daughters and a happy life in her new home. But when her brother shows up one day claiming her husband is an imposter and says he knows this because he murdered the "real" Arras a few days before the marriage, Maia doesn't know what to think. And then her father-in-law starts trying to break up her marriage and all of a sudden her brothers are trying to break the treaty it sealed. Just what is going on? Will this chaos bring anything but war and suffering? And will Maia stay with her husband, real Arras or not? You have to read to the end to find out.

A very nice story overall, and a successful use of first-person narrative. It's set in a kind of medieval-feeling other world, but the stage is small enough that the author is able to engineer a proper worldbuild within the constraints of the short story format. Maia herself is a compelling narrator, and her gift of being able to watch others from afar using what she describes as her "spirit-self" helps to drive the plot along without seeming contrived. Arras is any woman's dream husband (and of course there are reasons for that), and like the narrator you can just feel the secrets inside of him trying to get out while he tries to keep them in for as long as possible. A tale of love that knows no boundaries and the perils of political marriages. Highly recommended for those who enjoy interesting fantasy short stories and well-written first-person narrators.

Entertaining fantasy with a touch of mystery.

This is a world that is used to dealing with 'sensitives' - those who can pick up on others' emotions and also broadcast their own. But Mikael Lee's 'gift' exceeds what anyone is used to. He might even call it more of a curse. He has periodic dreams in which he enters the consciousness of a murder victim, following them all the way to their death. However, his tendency to broadcast these grisly sensations to those around him has not earned him an excess of goodwill.

Meanwhile, a young blind woman, Shironne, has her own special gift. Although her hyper-sensitivity has made her life difficult, she has agreed to work with the military, helping them identify murder victims: she has the ability to sense things about the deceased when she touches a body.

It's nearly immediately clear that Shironne and Mikael, although they've never met, are connected in some psychic manner. Indeed, Shironne is eager to meet the man she senses in her dreams, whom she half-jokingly refers to as the Angel of Death.

Now, it appears that murders related to sinister 'blood magic' rituals are occurring, echoing a bloody massacre that happened some years before, and which lives on in infamy. Mikael and Shironne must both work to uncover the murderers before more are killed horribly.

Recommended for those who have finished reading all about Carol Berg's or Sarah Monette's angsty yet attractive young men, and are looking for more...

I would definitely pick up the sequel to this one! (Don't worry, there's no cliffhanger here, though.)

Many thanks to NetGalley and ROC for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are solely my own.

J. Cheney first came on the scene in 2013 with her first novel, The Golden City. Since then she's written many fantasy-based books including Dreaming Death. From the first few chapters I knew this book was going to good. Cheney does an excellent job building up the plot and building the complex world around the characters. Although I enjoyed the first half of the book, it wasn't until the second half when the story pulled me in.

The story is told from two different points of view: Mikael Lee and Shironne Anjir. Both characters have magical abilities. Mikael can dream of someone's death. He's not an onlooker, but sees through the eyes of the victim. Shironne is a sensitive. She can sense other people's emotions and thoughts. Because of her gift, Shironne has gone blind. These two come from different worlds but are thrown together to help solve several murders and the mystery surrounding them.

This is my first novel by Cheney, but after reading it, it made me want to go back and read her short stories and other novels. Even though the build-up in the beginning was a little slow for me, as a whole, the story was really good. I immediately wanted to read the next book in the series. Though I have no idea when it's coming out. Until then I shall have to content myself with reading Cheney's other works.

Read more at http://www.toreadornottoread.net/2016/02/review-dreaming-death.html#wUePrIGjhE9A...

Dreaming Death is essentially a murder mystery set within a complex, nuanced fantasy world. The worldbuilding is a lot to absorb at first, but stick with it - understanding the different cultures, religions, and magic systems at play makes the story that much richer, and the pace does gradually pick up. There's also a great cast of multidimensional characters. I especially like the heroine, Shironne, because she doesn't let her limitations define her. All in all, Dreaming Death is an entertaining series opener with an impressively detailed setting. I look forward to picking up the sequel.

This was a fainting book I could put down.
Set in an alternate version of 1902 Portugal, it contains steampunk aspects, mystery, adventure, mermaids, selkies and a variety of different creatures.

I can't wait to dive into the second book!! And I want see more of Oriana & Duilo!!