This month's Bookcase.club Strange Worlds box looks like it will be a 50/50 box for me, though as always, I will withhold judgment until I have read the books.
I get two Bookcase.club boxes. This review is for the Strange Worlds box, which consists of "two sci-fi/ fantasy novels delivered to your door every month."
The box is $9.99 and shipping to TN is $5.
This comes out to ~$7.50 per book, which is not bad at all. My primary purpose behind these boxes is to try to expand my reading interests, which have somewhat narrowed over the years. The way that I review these boxes is to provide information on the box, place the books in my TBR pile, and once I have read the books, I do a separate review on each one, both here and on several sites, including Good Reads and Amazon.
Onto the box!
Like always, the box is quite nice. I've not had one get damaged in shipping yet. The box actually got here before the tracking ever updated, so that's something to be aware of. The box is appropriate to the size of the books being sent out, and there's no extraneous packaging, which is nice.
As always, you get two books and a bookmark. The books this month are The Crow of Connemara by Stephen Leigh and The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. I've never heard of these books or these authors, so this is going to be interesting. I can say right off the bat that the Leigh book looks like something I might have read in middle school and the Hawkins book looks more like my type of read now.
Here's the blurbs from Google Books:
The Crow of Connemara:
"Entranced by the music and legends of the island, gifted with his grandfather’s journal and a mysterious jewel, and bespelled by dreamlike images of a woman calling to him, Colin feels his inescapable destiny lies across the waters.
On the west coast of Ireland, in the Connemara region, the music is everything he hoped it would be, and the legends seem to come to life before his eyes. In the small town of Ballemor, Colin first encounters the woman of his dreams, Maeve Gallagher.
Maeve, a raven-haired beauty with eyes of emerald green, is the leader of a small group, the Oileánach, that has taken over the island of Inishcorr just off the coast and is making their stand against government officials determined to evict them. But Maeve and her followers are more than rebellious squatters—they are the living embodiment of ancient ways, of a time before mortals ruled the lands. And Inishcorr is their last hope for survival, their portal to the place they are meant to be.
But to open that portal, Maeve needs the willing assistance of her chose bard: Colin. Yet even as Colin falls under her enchantment, Maeve too must struggle against emotions she cannot afford to recognize. For to allow herself to truly care for Colin could spell the end of her people’s hopes, dreams, and very existence."
and
The Library at Mount Char:
"A missing God.
A library with the secrets to the universe.
A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.
Carolyn's not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts.
After all, she was a normal American herself once.
That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father.
In the years since then, Carolyn hasn't had a chance to get out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient customs. They've studied the books in his Library and learned some of the secrets of his power. And sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.
Now, Father is missing—perhaps even dead—and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation.
As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own.
But Carolyn has accounted for this.
And Carolyn has a plan.
The only trouble is that in the war to make a new God, she's forgotten to protect the things that make her human.
Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters and propelled by a plot that will shock you again and again, The Library at Mount Char is at once horrifying and hilarious, mind-blowingly alien and heartbreakingly human, sweepingly visionary and nail-bitingly thrilling—and signals the arrival of a major new voice in fantasy."
Now - I don't read the blurbs before I start on these reviews. After having read the blurbs, my initial assessment seems as though it should be changed. The Hawkins book doesn't really seem like my cup of tea, but the Leigh book seems like it could be interesting. Both of the books will get me out of my current reading comfort zone, however, so I'll give them both a shot. It's interesting to me that last month, I felt more of an affiliation for the Strange Worlds box, and this month, it seems like the Thrill Seekers is going to be more my style. Even still - it's nice to change things up a bit, and this box definitely allows me to do that.
