Liu, Marjorie M. - Soul Song

Kitala Bell, famous violinist, has always been able to foresee deaths -- but only violent murders. Also, her music is magic. M'Cal is a Krackeni (merman) who has been enslaved to a witch; she forces him to use his music to sing out people's souls for her consumption. He's eventually sent out to steal Kit's soul, but they end up falling in love instead.

First, yay multiracial heroine and her black grandma! I don't know enough about Voodoo to know if the depictions are accurate or not, but for what it's worth, I didn't get the feeling of "Look at this primitive religion! They use bird parts!" or other such nonsense. Er, I don't think using bird parts equates primitive, but that tends to be the feeling I get from other people writing about it. I am still liking the number of powerful older women in this series, good, evil, and in between.

I was a little less into the romance this time around, which made me sad, because I'd been looking forward to Kit's story. I think Kit and M'Cal ended up falling in love too quickly for me to fully believe, particularly given Liu's set up of Kit's deliberate isolation and M'Cal's trust issues. I do like that they trust and like each other, but it just went too quickly for me.

On the other hand, the plot was immensely entertaining and insane!

( Spoilers )

Possibly I am too easily entertained and/or amused, but hey, I need light fluffy reading right now.

Wells, Martha - The Element of Fire

The country of Ile-Rien is largely run by Dowager Queen Ravenna, as her son Roland hasn't been particularly good at the whole exercise of power thing. Thomas, captain of the Queen's guard, soon finds himself (more) entangled in court politics after the rescue of an imprisoned wizard, and when Roland's half-Fayre half sister Kade shows up, things get even more complicated.

I wanted to like this more than I did, particularly since it has court intrigue, which I love, and a dowager queen, which I also love. Ravenna is awesome, but I found myself somewhat bored by Kade, who feels like a fairly standard heroine. She's introduced as this great threat to the throne and as a trickster, but what we see of her tends to be some verbal trickery and very little surprise. She feels a lot like a McKinley heroine, albeit with less insecurity about her looks.

I'm also sick of the Fayre/Fay/Faerie/Fairy/Sidhe/Seelie/etc. I didn't feel like there was much new about them in the book, and that plus the faux Europe environment really didn't do it for me. I don't think it's the book's fault, but after reading books specifically not set in Europe, a return to faux Europe felt like a step backwards. Also, the intrigue stops near the middle of the book, and a lot of explosions start happening, which I find much less interesting.