Sonya Clark (3)

I found this completely by accident and was intrigued by the idea of a small town romance that featured a realistic southern small town, a genuine working class heroine, and good writing. The first two chapters are available at Clark's website so you can see if it appeals to you.

The hero is a has-been country singer who knows he's fucking up but can't quite find his way back. Circumstances land him back in his home town in Tennessee, playing weekend sets in the bar that gave him his start. Daisy is a waitress there who basically runs the place. She is going to college part-time, as she can afford it, doing her damnedest to avoid following the same path as her mother and sister (and pot-dealing brother).

Reading this reminded me of classics like In the Midnight Rain. The setting is so well portrayed, and the characters are genuine and nuanced. No one is saving anyone else, the obvious and not so obvious stereotypes are all avoided, and while you know where it's going, the journey is really satisfying. When I finished, I wanted to go back to the beginning and start again.

Highly recommended.… (altro)

I'm not usually a UF/PNR reader so I didn't pay much attention to this book when it came out. But I liked Clark's contemporary romance so much I wanted to read more by her.

This is a true crossover book; it has elements of SF, PNR, UF, and mystery. It's clearly a romance, because the romantic relationship shapes the storyline, but the mystery kicks off the plot and the book ends with its solution. The worldbuilding is very good. The setting is a dystopian US in the mid-late 21stC, where the Magic Born citizens are segregated and confined to zones away from Normals. The heroine, Calla, is a Magic Born with supernatural powers, while the hero. Nate Perez, is a cop assigned to solve the murder of a prominent scientist.

The way the Magic Born are identified is interesting: Normal parents can give birth to a child who has Magic Born DNA, in which case the baby is taken from the parents and confined within the Zone, either in an orphanage or with foster/adoptive parents. The Normal parents have no choice, no matter how rich or influential they might be. Obviously this creates a lot of trauma around the decision to have children.

The oppression experienced by the Magic Born has elements from a variety of real-life situations in US history and contemporary society, but it blends them in a way that makes them feel individual and distinct. I found the different aspects thought-provoking and I appreciated that there was no sugar-coating of the difficult future Nate and Calla would face. We see enough about each character to feel some confidence that they know what they're getting into, and that they truly love each other by the end, but it's not going to be easy.

Both characters are strong, smart, and competent. Calla has the powers to do things Nate can't (and to protect him at times), but Nate has the privileges of being both male and a Normal. Nate also has some of the cluelessness that comes with privilege, and the way he deals with it made me like him all the more.

The story drags a bit in places, and the ending is a bit too much in too short a space, but overall the novel works well. Recommended.… (altro)

This is a stand-alone novellette/novella (about 80 pages) which Clark has rereleased after getting her rights back; it was originally published in 2010.

I enjoyed this quite a bit; it felt like a throwback to the old vampires & werewolves era in paranormal/urban fantasy. It's not a romance, it's a straightforward suspense/mystery involving rogue vampires who seemed to have allied with werewolves and are killing humans at a rate that is raising considerable alarm. The King of the Vampires asks Jessie to investigate because he's afraid that if the carnage continues vampires will be at risk again.

Jessie goes off to a small town where the murders are occurring. There she joins forces with a reporter and an ex-Marine turned minister to uncover the mystery. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but it definitely has a Buffy vibe. Jessie isn't like Buffy (she's closer to Angel, I guess, but not nearly as moody and angst-ridden), and while she's kickass, she's not feisty. She's just a vampire who knows how to use all her various strengths and skills. I liked the role reversal with her and the reporter, Brandon, where she's the stronger and more knowledgeable one and he comes into his own while battling with the bad guys. There's a bit of a romantic possibility between them but it doesn't go anywhere.

The parts that reminded me most of Buffy were the fight sequences and the discussions between the vampires and the other villains. Oh, and the roles the human occupy in this world. But it's also its own world, and the world building, while necessarily slight in a story of this length, is good. Clark has definitely become one of my favorite authors. I don't get the impression she's going to write any sequels to this, but if she did I'd definitely read them.

Qualified recommendation. It won't work for every reader, and it's short, but if my writeup makes it sound like something you'd enjoy, you probably will.

ETA: I forgot to mention that there are some homonym errors, e.g., principal/principle, affect/effect, discrete/discreet. Other than that the text was pretty clean.… (altro)

This is the first installment of Sonya Clark's Bradbury Institute series, which apparently began as a web serial. It's classic Timepass reading in that it has a good story and moves along briskly, with relatively interesting characters. There's nothing that really stands out but everything is competently executed. The main character, Eve Kane, has a bit of a Buffy vibe. She's a personal assistant with psychic abilities who winds up involved with a mysterious organization that protects, studies, and is on the lookout for various types of occult objects and phenomena. There is a slight romance brewing between Eve and one of the security people at the Institute, but it's nascent here. I enjoyed it while I was reading it but it isn't as complicated a world as the Magic Born series, and it doesn't have the compelling voice of Good Time Bad Boy. I'll keep reading, though. I have the second installment in the TBR.… (altro)