Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

The Blurb On The Back:

A lone ship. A murdered crew. And a clone who must find her own killer – before they strike again.

In the depths of space, it’s pretty normal to wake up in a cloning vat. The streaks of blood, however? Not so normal.

Maria Arena has been cloned before. Usually when she awakens as a new clone, her first memory is of how she died. This time, she has no idea. Her memories are incomplete.

And Maria isn’t the only one to have died yesterday …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Mur Lafferty’s intelligent and thought-provoking SF novel uses the device of a murder to investigate the ethical, legal and practical considerations of living as a clone and although some of the dialogue is a little stilted, Katarina and Paul are underdeveloped and the ending too pat, I really enjoyed how she weaves in the backstory for each of the characters and the way they slowly overlap and would definitely check out Lafferty’s other work.

Flame In The Mist by Renée Ahdieh

The Blurb On The Back:

She’s barely seventeen, but Hattori Mariko knows her place in life.

She’s been raised for one purpose: to marry the son of the Emperor’s favourite concubine.

But en route to the wedding her litter is ambushed by the Black Clan. Now Mariko has two choices: she can wait to be rescued … or face her enemies.

She’s done waiting.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Renée Ahdieh’s young adult fantasy novel (the first in a duology) uses feudal Japan as the basis for some interesting world building but the prose was too purple for my tastes and there’s a lot of set-up here and not a huge amount of actual plot plus although the romance between Mariko and Ōkami is at least earned, I wasn’t that invested in seeing how it turns out, which means I’m not sure whether I’d read the sequel.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

IQ by Joe Ide

The Blurb On The Back:

East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, OAPs are getting hoodwinked, children are missing. But word has spread: if you’ve got a case the police can’t or won’t touch, Isaiah Quintabe will help you out.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Joe Ide’s debut crime novel (the first in a series) is a slickly written story with whip snapping dialogue, interesting main characters who are more frenemies than allies and a tremendous sense of location and although it was too easy to guess the culprit and their motive there’s a lot of potential here – especially because of Isaiah’s back story – and as such I will definitely check out the sequel.

IQ was released in the United Kingdom on 10th August 2017. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.