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The Shadowy Horses
RECOMMENDED: The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley is $1.99! This is a Kindle Daily Deal and it’s being price-matched! Kearsley is a wonderfully evocative writer, blending historical, paranormal, mystery and romance into rich and absorbing books. However, others felt this isn’t one of Kearsley’s strongest works. Have you read this one?
THE INVINCIBLE NINTH ROMAN LEGION MARCHES FROM YORK TO FIGHT THE NORTHERN TRIBES. AND THEN VANISHES FROM THE PAGES OF HISTORY.
Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea.
Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he’s finally found it—not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has “seen” a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.
Here on the windswept shores, Verity may find the answer to one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Or she may uncover secrets someone buried for a reason.
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Throne of Glass
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas is $2.99! This is the first book in the very popular YA fantasy series, Throne of Glass. I haven’t read this because YA tends to have more misses than hits for me, but I’ve always been insanely curious about this book. Readers seem to be split on the heroine – some found her pretty kickass, while others thought she was pretty full of herself. Anyone who has read this, please share your thoughts in the comments!
After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.
Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king’s council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.
Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her… but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.
Then one of the other contestants turns up dead… quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.
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Ransomed Jewels
Ransomed Jewels by Laura Landon is $1.99 on Amazon! This historical romance is the first in the Ransomed Jewels series and features a hero and heroine who are at odds with each other initially. In an interesting twist, some readers felt the hero was a bit TSTL (too stupid to live), while others like the added mystery to the romance.
With her husband’s dying words, “My marchioness has it,” the Marchioness of Huntingdon is thrown into a nightmare of intrigue and danger. But even those who are holding her brother ransom can’t force her to do the impossible—hand over a necklace she doesn’t have.
Major Samuel Bennett believes the newly widowed Lady Claire Huntingdon is a traitor. He intends to get the necklace he’s convinced she has, before sending her to the gallows. But when he meets the captivating widow, he discovers that nothing is as it seems.
Claire knows she can’t trust anyone, but she isn’t given a choice when Major Bennett arrives, demanding she give him the necklace. And it isn’t until she’s forced to put her life in his hands that she realizes it isn’t only her life she’s in danger of losing—but her heart as well.
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I Spy a Duke
I Spy a Duke by Erica Monroe is $2.99! This is the first book in the Covert Heiresses series and features spies and a marriage of convenience. Some readers mentioned there’s a hint of insta-lust, while others loved the spy trope in this book. It has a 3.7-star rating on Goodreads.
In the first in an adventurous new series, USA Today Bestselling Author Erica Monroe introduces the Covert Heiresses: four women who by day are the talk of the ton, and by night England’s top spies.
She wants revenge…
When bluestocking Vivienne Loren becomes governess for the wealthy Spencer family, she’s hunting for clues about the murder of her brother, not romance. But Vivienne didn’t count on one thing: James Spencer, the autocratic and infuriatingly handsome Duke of Abermont.He needs a wife…
As head of Britain’s elite intelligence agency, James has no time to woo a wife. After discovering Vivienne’s thirst for revenge has made her a pawn in the treacherous plot of one of Napoleon’s most deadly spies, James realizes they can help each other. She’ll become his duchess, and he’ll keep her safe.What begins as a marriage of convenience quickly becomes anything but as secrets surface. Love may be the most dangerous mission of all.
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I haven’t read this Kearsley. I like her books but they are so expensive that they blow my budget for the whole month. (Still pissed about Mariana…tw: murder of a child) For 1.99 I’ll try this one though.
I recommend The Shadowy Horses. Though it’s been a few years since I read it, I do remember I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It’s worth the risk at 1.99 imo.
Absolutely, Positively by Jayne Ann Krentz is 1.99 at Amazon (down from 4.99).
Originally published in 1996, this book reminds us that certain dramatic situations were easier to write before mobile phones became ubiquitous.
Adorkable by Cookie O’Gorman is 99c at Amazon (flash sale for the next 3 days, down from 2.99, also available via Kindle Unlimited).
A YA romance of the geek girl whose super-hot soccer-playing best friend agrees to be her fake boyfriend variety. But really, you just want to buy it because the author’s name is Cookie O’Gorman.
I think that The Shadowy Horses is probably my favorite Kearsley. I both love and fear ghost stories, and I guess it kinda hit my sweet spot.
I have a ginormous soft spot for The Shadowy Horses – it was the first Kearsley I read and still in some ways my favorite. It feels a little bit like a classic Mary Stewart novel, and I mean that in a good way. It’s not as historically intense as some of her later work (and don’t get me wrong, I truly love most of her books), but it’s just lovely. One of my ultimate comfort reads.
I wanted to like The Shadowy Horses more than I actually did. The historical setting was perfectly up my alley, and I’d heard so many good things about it, that I bit the bullet and paid full price for it. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I thought it was an OK, but not exceptional, book. I’d recommend it at the sale price and with adjusted expectations. The Firebird is sort of a sequel to this book and I liked it much more. But I’ve definitely learned to only buy Kearsley on sale since they’re so hit-or-miss with me.
Throne of Glass was enjoyable, but I sure don’t get the massive Maas hype. Again, another book worth a try at the sale price.
Absolutely, Positively is one of my favorite JAK books. It’s a bit dated and has some problem areas for me (including a psychiatrist who should be professionally reprimanded), but it’s still a keeper shelf book for me.
I enjoyed Throne of Glass, but Celaena is definitely both incredibly kickass and extremely full of herself. This isn’t very much like most modern YA, and gets less like it as the series goes on (the writing also dramatically improves midway through the third book, right about where the author ran out of material she had originally written in her teens), and while there is a love triangle, it’s almost more like the threat of one. It also doesn’t resolve at all the way I expected. The whole thing is much more a fantasy quest with side romance than a romance with side plot, which I appreciate. The romantic elements don’t ever overwhelm the plot. And there have been a couple plot twists that make sense but that I still didn’t manage to see coming (in addition to a few that were lampshaded from a mile away.)
Some things I really like about the series:
Celaena is completely full of herself and vain and fully aware of both things. She doesn’t feel any need to change, and these aren’t treated as the kind of character flaws she needs to fix, since they don’t get in the way of her work or her ability to be a decent person.
Celaena has multiple sexual partners and romantic, isn’t a virgin at the start of the book, and makes no bones about falling in love multiple times. It’s refreshing, since I’m used to a YA paradigm where the heroine is theoretically torn between two love interests, you can usually tell which one will win out, and she never, ever sleeps with more than one.
The author’s influences include Lord of the Rings, Sabriel, Velma Kelly from Chicago, The Hero and the Crown, and (really, really strongly after about book three) Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series. She’s not as good a writer as most of these just on technical points — although about on par with Bishop overall — but the influences mean she overwhelmingly loves things I also love, and so she writes a kind of fantasy I really like, and I recommend them if you like the same stuff.
If you liked Black Jewels: Celaena feels kind of like Maas wished the heroine was actually Surreal and not Jaenelle. It’s fun.
The side characters are some of my favorites, and the character development they get is wonderful. Most of my favorites are introduced in book 3 or later, but there are fun characters right from the beginning.
Celaena has difficulty making friends with other women, but that doesn’t mean that Maas has problems with female characters. It’s one of her character flaws, and treated as such. There are lots of them as the series goes on, and Celaena does eventually manage to make some friends and allies as she grows up some.
I’ve read half of The Shadowy Horses.
That’s not a judgement on the book, it just suffered from being my second Kindle purchase. I did like what I read and keep meaning to get back to it. (And so many other books. *sigh*)
I enjoyed the Shadowy Horses and recommend it to others. I like Kearsley, but usually wait to buy her books on sale because the 9.99 price is too high for my taste.
Speaking of good sale prices, Jenny Colgan’s The Bookshop on the Corner is on sale for 1.99 on amazon. Her books are usually 9.99.
I also just bought Madeleine Albright’s memoir, Read My Pins, which is .99 on amazon.
Riptide Publishing (mm / LGBTQIA) has sale for Labor Day – 50% off books with a blue collar worker
http://riptidepublishing.com/labor-day-sale-2017
My recs, just after scrolling through – For Real by Alexis Hall, Lead Me Not by Ann Gallagher (aka LA Witt) and Dirty Laundry by Heidi Cullinan.
I really enjoyed the Throne of Glass series and can attest to both Celeana’s kick-ass yet smug and always-full-of-herself personality, which you definitely need to appreciate to enjoy the series. The first two books are almost one series, strongly YA in themes and style, with a considerable ramp up in books 3-5 to take the series to a whole other level. The writing, characters, and plot deepen considerably once you get to book 3 and by book 5 you’re dealing with more mature, sexual relationships and conflicts, which honestly puts it out of the YA category IMO. I like Celeana’s evolution and I think the series shines in both the complexity of the plot, the fantastic world building, and the integration of secondary characters and their story arcs, culminating on one big EPIC adventure which I anxiously await for resolution in the final book coming out in 2018. If you want more mature, and less YA themes, then check out Maas’s Court of Thorn and Roses series.
The Shadowy Horses has a connection to The Firebird, which also connects back to The Winter Sea. It wasn’t quite as good as either of those (or The Rose Garden which is my favorite and a comfort read), but well worth 1.99.
I’ve noticed that Kearsley’s titles are systematically showing up as Daily Deals and crossing my fingers that Mariana comes up soon- it’s one of the few I haven’t read because it is never on sale. I’m also hoping the Daily Deals are possibly a teaser for a new release?
I really disliked Throne of Glass. I thought the main character was an incredibly shallow special snowflake, and you hear more about what a badass she is than see it. The romance felt really abrupt and out of place given her history. The whole thing had me rolling my eyes constantly. I listened to it on on audiobook so I also did a lot of yelling at my phone.
But…other people whose opinions I respect liked it? YMMV
I found Throne of Glass to be virtually unreadable. They should use Caelena to illustrate the concept of a Mary Sue. It was like rereading the fantasy stories I wrote in spiral notebooks as a 13 year old.
Which was a bummer, because I love Maas’s other work.
OK, I’ve decided to make “The Shadowy Horses” my first Kearsley. We’ll see how this goes!!
@cbackson –
If you can make it to the third book, payoff is big. Writing in the first two books is considerably weaker than the rest of the series.