The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

The Blurb On The Back:

I am the perfect weapon.

I kill with a single touch.

Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has its price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla’s fatal touch.

Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla’s chilling role to the girl she truly is.

Yet in a court as dangerous as the queen’s, some truths should not be told …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Melinda Salisbury’s debut YA fantasy novel is an intelligently constructed story about first love and betrayal that subverts many of the genre’s clichés. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Salisbury makes women important in her society – the Queen holds political power in the kingdom (with the king reduced to consort) and the Sin Eater holds religious power (if she refuses to eat the dead’s sins then they are doomed to roam for eternity). Twylla’s story arc involves learning lessons from both of these women but at the same time forging her own path. Although the inevitable love triangle element between Twylla, Lief and Merek is skewered in one direction, Salisbury throws enough curve balls so that it doesn’t go as you’d imagine. That said, I did find Twylla an infuriatingly passive character who spends much of the book accepting and doing what she’s told (although this is acknowledged in the story) and the Queen suffers from being two-dimensional as a villain and loses all credibility in the final scenes. I also felt that the on-going significance of the myth of the Sleeping Prince didn’t properly integrate within the wider storyline and as a result, for me, felt rather underdeveloped. That said, the book held my attention from beginning to age and on the strength of this I would definitely check out Salisbury’s next novel.

Under Ground by S. L. Grey

The Blurb On The Back:

They’re trapped fifty feet down …
And someone wants them six feet under.

The Sanctum is a luxurious, self-sustaining survival condominium situated underground in rural Maine. It’s a plush bolt-hole for the rich and paranoid – a place where they can wait out the apocalypse in style. When a devastating super-flu virus hits the States, several families race to reach it. All have their own motivation for entering The Sanctum. All are hiding secrets.

But when the doors lock and a death occurs, they realise that the greatest threat to their survival may not be above ground – it may already be inside …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

I picked this up because of the premise but S. L. Grey (the pseudonym of Sarah Lotz and Louis Greenberg) has delivered a real disappointment. The “characters” are actually caricatures painted in the broadest of token terms – there’s the rich bitch couple, the half-Korean tech genius kid, the red neck/white trash family (complete with gun toting males and a bible quoting mother), the industrialist with a dark secret and the tragic widowed father unable to bond with his daughter or South African nanny. None of them are believable and with the possible exception of the nanny, Cait, they generally behave in ways that defy credibility given their situation (particularly Leo and Caroline – the privileged couple who pop champagne in between taking pops at each other). The set up that sees them stuck in the bunker is incredibly contrived, as is the development that sees their situation get worse (and which, even on a re-read, makes absolutely no sense at all) and there are predictable scenes (including a sign-posted attempted rape) that made me yawn. It’s almost impossible to care about the victims and the survivors (notably teens Jae and Bonnie) have no chemistry with each other. The plot unfolds with minimal tension precisely because you can’t care about the characters or their predicament and the revelation of whodunnit (when it comes) is clichéd in the extreme. Ultimately, I thought this book was a wasted opportunity and will not rush to check out Grey’s next collaborative effort.

UNDER GROUND was released in the United Kingdom on 16th July 2015. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.