Saturday Pages: The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon!!!

Hey guys!

The weekend is here and with it a new entry of Saturday Pages! And this one is counted for my 105 Challenge because as a January release it'll be included in my 2015 release category.

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


First of all I must thank my friend Kristen from My Friends Are Fiction because she was the one that convinced me to read The Bone Season and I discovered a fantastic series that is now on its second book and we have 5 more books to look forward to!

The Mime Order starts right where The Bone Season left us and it was full of action from page one. Then we get a small breather while Paige tries to recover from the ordeal of being kept captive, trained and escaping but it's not too quiet since she's in hiding and running from Scion.

I wasn't very happy with how Paige returned to Seven Dials after how Jaxon treated her in Bone Season, but it was also understandable that she needed a safe place to hide, and returning to her position as Mollisher was the most obvious choice, even if her swallowing her pride and running back felt like a step back.

But things change quickly once Paige finds herself in a crime scene, and she decides she needs to solve the crime before she is accused of it. And we are treated to a wonderful murder mystery full of twists!

Most of the world building was done in The Bone Season, but everything gets bigger and better in this book. We see more of the Syndicate, discover more about the different leaders and the inside workings of leadership. I loved how Paige decided to work from the inside to change things and try to unite the voyants in the fight against Scion.

There's quite a bit of growth for Paige in this book, she returns as an escaped victim from the Rephaim and seems to go back to being under the care and fist of Jaxon, but she cannot ignore the threat to all the voyants or the fact that the Syndicate is a bunch of squabbling criminals that can't seem to see beyond their own petty noses. She decides she needs to change things and she takes responsability and fights for those that no one else seem to care about. I just loved how she went against what was the obvious choices or the easy ones.

The romance in this series is on the rather subtle and secondary side, but it is present and although it's not the main motivator for Paige's actions, Warden is a constant presence and reassurance, as well as someone that will always help her try and get stronger. The chemistry between Paige and Warden is pretty good but given their differences is fantastic that they acknowledge how difficult their relationship will be and how they feel very strongly but won't put it before everything else.

The final part of the book was extremely intense, trying to solve two mysteries at once and preparing for the final battle, and once all of that is done, we get an even bigger surprise and slap in the face! Now I just cannot wait for book 3!! Go Paige!! Very well deserved 5 stars for this second book that has no sequel slump in any shape or form!



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Waiting On Wednesday #73!!

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted at Breaking The Spine  that spotlights those can't-wait-to-get-my-hands-on-them books that we are eagerly awaiting!

This week the book I'm absolutely dying to read is a sequel of a book that I read because it came highly recommended by one of my canaries and bookish friends, Kristen from My Friends Are Fiction. And book might that be, you say? The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon!!

Goodreads Summary:

"Paige Mahoney has escaped the brutal penal colony of Sheol I, but her problems have only just begun: many of the fugitives are still missing and she is the most wanted person in London.

As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on Paige, the mime-lords and mime-queens of the city’s gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take center stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner.

Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. But where is Warden? Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided. Will Paige know who to trust? The hunt for the dreamwalker is on."


Why am I eagerly awaiting The Mime Order? Well, I adored The Bone Season, that was book one and I adored everything about the book, from the world building that was intricate and complex and simply fantastic, to Paige the main character to Warden, and I just cannot wait to get back into this world! I read a sampler for this book and loved it, so I cannot wait till I can read the next book!


What are you all (im)patiently awaiting this week?

Mark This Book Monday: The Mime Order (SAMPLER) by Samantha Shannon!!

Hello everyone!

This week is starting with my favourite kind of Mondays, those that I have off after working the weekend! And finally I feel like I'll manage to get my reviews and blog posts a bit more timely done... I'm starting this week with a double Mark This Book Monday, since I missed one last week!

I was super happy to be approved for this one by Bloomsbury USA on NetGalley (THANK YOU Bloomsbury!!) because even if it's only a sampler and I'm now even more impatiently waiting for the book to be released! But damn October 21st is quite a while away!!

This one is also part of my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge!

The Mime Order by Samatha Shannon
Release date: 21st October 2014

I had my doubts about requesting the sampler, cause I felt it might counterproductive, since I'd get even more excited about the book, with only a taste for it, and then once the book came out it might put me off re-reading all the first part again, but now I'm sure that won't happen!

I am of course more impatient for the book now, but given how rich the world that Samantha Shannon writes, I'm sure a re-reading will be a good idea. This sampler also helped me realize I hadn't forgotten that much from the Bone Season.

The sampler seems to be like maybe 1 third of the book? Or maybe 1 fourth? I'm not sure, but it's Part One: The Rogue Dial. It starts right where The Bone Season left us, and the action picks up right there, with plenty of tense moments while Paige and the rest of the escaped unnaturals try to find a safe place back in London. Most of the action happens at the beginning of the sampler, cause then the pace of it turns more introspective, with Paige trying to recover from her ordeal and find out what she's gonna do, because she feels she can't just go back to her previous life as if nothing had happened, and she can never see Jax as she did before everything that happened.

The book is as engrossing and full of detail as The Bone Season was and the pace is equally unrushed, I wouldn't call it slow, because the action keeps on moving and we get a sense of urgency and of constant threat, even on those scenes that don't have any action per se. Paige is a great character that is trying to balance her own survival with thinking of the bigger picture and trying to make others see it.

The sampler ends at a very taunting point, not with a horrible cliffhanger, but with a clear game changer full of unresolved questions. I'm quite looking forward to see if my very tentative theories end up being right, or I end up failing spectacularly! If all the book is quite as well balanced on the action and world building as this sampler, I'm pretty sure it'll be another 4 stars (at the least!) for me!

Friday Reads: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon!!

Hello everyone! This week's Friday Reads is a book that was pushed (nicely) on me by some of my fellow bloggers, those whose opinion I always check before picking a book, and that was also in my TBR list since last year! So thank you to Kristen from My Friends Are Fiction and Maja from The Nocturnal Library for telling me I really HAD to read this one!

This book is also part of my 2014 TBR Pile challenge, so far I'm doing fairly decently on two of my 4 challenges! I really need to get cracking on the other two!

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I arrived a bit late to the phenomenon that The Bone Season was on 2013, but after two of my trusted bloggers highly recommeneded it (it was part of their fave books of 2013 lists) I decided that I just had to get it!

And clearly, I had been missing out. The Bone Season is one fantastic first book in a very promising series. I can also understand how the pacing and the world building can seem slow for some people, but since I tend to gobble up all the information and world building than authors would throw at me, I never really minded all the explanations I got.

This world really is a different one, with a heavy focus on the paranormal because it is what defines it. There are people with gifts that are the clairvoyants and people without them, and the later are the ones in charge. Being a voyant is a danger and unless you belong with one of the syndicates of organized crime, you risk death or imprisonment. The syndicates aren't exactly a walk in the part either, but they keep the voyants safe from the government (the Scion).

Paige Mahoney is one of those voyants part of a syndicate, she's one of the Seven Dials and is called the Pale Dreamer. Her boss treats her like a comodity and a treasure both, but she feels like she belongs there. That changes the night she's captured for trying to escape detection via the Scion police and when she discovers that her gift, dreamwalking, can be used as a weapon too.

She's taken to Sheol I, previously known as Oxford, a prison city for voyants ruled by a race of non-human beings called the Rephaim. She ends up being under the care & training of Warden, the consort of the Rephaite ruler.

The details about past and present, with memories from Paige, the vivid descriptions of how London is in this new world and how Sheol I works, all makes up a fantastic world that you just can't wait to get more details about. About the Rephaim, about how the Scion came to power, about the different types of voyants... And everything with a writing that you can enjoy reading!

There's a lot of depth to the characters we encounter in this pages, not only the main ones, but also all the secondary ones. There is so much richness of detail to all the different relationships, from alliances, to mistrust, to unrequited love.

Paige is a fantastic heroine, determined and a survivor, with a headstrong tendency that gets her to never give up and never surrender even when facing unknown dangers and not-so-good odds. She is a fighter, but she also has a lot of compassion and that is what rounds her up so well.

Warden is a very enigmatic character at first, with quite unclear motives, and I felt that my attitude towards him took a very similar path to the one that Paige followed, even if I think I found myself hoping Paige trusted him earlier than she did.

Their relationship progresses in a very slow and quite realistic way. From mistrust and certain hatred, to a tentative truce and collaboration, to trust and acknowledgement of mutual attraction. I really liked how the interactions between these two started to change and progress and seeing them become allies.

This book wraps up one storyline, but leaves so many open doors and unanswered questions, and such a long fight ahead. That ending really did tug at some heartstrings, and I cannot wait to see what the next book will bring!

It was an excellent debut and first book, some of the unanswered questions that we got hinted at bothered me, cause it felt a bit like left too obviously hanging till the next book. Still, I cannot wait to read more about this world and these characters. A bit undecided between 4 and 4.5 stars, but I'd definitely recommend everyone to read this one!




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