The Fever King  (Feverwake Book 1)

by Victoria Lee

Amazon Prices:

Paperback: $9.99

Hardcover: $16.99

Kindle: $4.99 (Available on Kindle Unlimited)

Audible: $13.12 (Not Available on Kindle Unlimited) 

Before Reading Facts:

The Fever King by Victoria Lee was published in 2019 by Skyscape.

Page Count: 384 pages (paperback) 374 (hardcover) 376 (Kindle)

Audiobook length: 13 hrs 31 mins

Chapters: 24

Languages: English

Summary of Book:

“In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son—cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful—and the way forward becomes less clear.

Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.” -Skyscape

Author Biography:

“Victoria Lee grew up in Durham, North Carolina, where she spent twelve ascetic years as a vegetarian before discovering that spicy chicken wings are, in fact, a delicacy. She’s been a state finalist competitive pianist, a hitch-hiker, a pizza connoisseur, an EMT, an expat in China and Sweden, and a science doctoral student. She’s also a bit of a snob about fancy whisky. Lee writes early in the morning and then spends the rest of the day trying to impress her border collie puppy and make her experiments work. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her partner.” -Skyscape

Book Review:

Overall Book Rating: ★★★★★ / ★★★★★

I selected this title as a part of my Kindle First book. I would like to offer a disclaimer to those who are looking for books for their teenagers. This book has profanity and some sexual reference that I didn’t find appropriate for the audience. I have not read many books for this age group that maintained profanity or sexual references, so I would not know if they should have been censored some more or if those who read this type of book find it appropriate. I generally do not enjoy books with much profanity, so that was a no for me in this book. There are not as many sexual references, but the one I took note of was enough to question whether it is appropriate for the audience: “Probably went home with someone. Probably suffocating himself on dick as we speak.” For parents who are wondering if their children should read this book, I recommend having a read through themselves first to properly judge whether or not they want their teens reading this book. It is not one that I, myself, will be recommending at all to anyone.

The narrator in the story did not draw me in. The voice just did not captivate me. I found myself wondering what is the main struggle going on here, what the author’s intent was in creating such complex conflicts. I understood the character’s struggle with his technopathic ability. I had no problem with that and actually was very interested in that part of the story. That is was drew me in. However, the author seems to create more conflicts with the character’s attraction to the minister’s son. That love interesting was believable enough. The love interest was created to cause tension, and I got that.

What I did not understand was the whole undocumented and deportation part of the novel. I did not understand what the purpose of that part of the novel was about. It appeared as if the author wanted to tackle many different issues in one novel, and it just came out very confusing to me. That whole part of the story confused the hell out of me when I read it. The story takes place in Durham, North Carolina, so I was confused as to what was really going on. I just don’t think I ever got a good grasp on this world Lee created. I just never really understood this whole dystopian United States. I found myself asking, “where are they being deported to?” If all of this information was provided, then I completely missed it. Again, I was not drawn into this story, so it is possible I missed that explanation when it was explained.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but there were more cons that pros for me. I am a voice-driven reader. If the voice does not draw my attention, I give the plot a chance. If both the plot and the voice fail to draw me in, then I will not enjoy a book. If this is a book that I did not have the audiobook for, I would have stopped reading and added it to my DNF shelf on Goodreads. The only reason I got through this book was because of the audiobook, and even then, I only listened while working on other things.

Audible Review:

Narration Rating: ★★★★★ / ★★★★★

Narration by Michael Crouch

Crouch’s narration was well done. The narration was not overenthusiastic, and I am not quit sure it really captured the character’s personality that well, but it was not bad in a way where I couldn’t listen. I did not enjoy listening at 1.0 speed; the narration is not enthusiastic, and listening at a 1.0 speed was frustrating. The narration at 1.25 speed is a bit more tolerable but still not quite good enough for me. I had to speed the narration up to 1.50 speed; that was the slowest speed I would listen to. For those of us who like to multitask and listen on the go, I recommend listening at a 1.75 or 2.0 speed, so one does not miss anything. For those who are listening while reading the book, I found  2.5 speed to be the best. 3.0 and 3.5 speeds were too fast for me, and I was missing a lot of what the narrator was saying and had to eventually slow down the narrator’s reading speed.  

Other works by this Author:

The Fever King Series

• The Fever King
• The Electric Heir

Tabula Rasa (The Amber group Book 1)

by Filip Forsberg

Amazon Prices:

Paperback: $14.00

Hardcover: N/A

Kindle: $2.99 (Available on Kindle Unlimited)

Audible: N/A

Before Reading Facts:

Tabula Rasa by Filip Forsberg was published in 2018 by Filip Forsberg.

Page Count: 424 pages (paperback) 426 (Kindle)

Audiobook length: N/A

Chapters: N/A (Book is not divided into numbered chapters)

Languages: English and Swedish

Summary of Book:

“In a dystopian future, earth is under strain due to natural disasters and accelerating pollution of the environment. On the coast of Madagascar, a ruthless corporate leader creates his own vision of the future in the shape of Tabula Rasa, a mega complex inhabited by over a million people. Jonathan Jarl, a rookie agent for the Amber group, is on his first assignment and is assigned to retrieve the famous Nebra Sky disc that has been stolen. During the mission, he is faced with some of Tabula Rasas darkest secrets. Meanwhile, in orbit around the moon, a discovery is made that has potential implications for the entire human race but Tabula Rasa is doing everything in its powers to keep the discovery secret. In a lab within Tabula Rasa, an idealistic scientist decides to share the discovery with the world. She takes a fateful decision that puts her life on the line. Jonathan is thrown into a breakneck race for time and Tabula Rasa is the first thrilling installment about Jonathan Jarl and the Amber group.” -Amazon

Author Biography:

“Filip Forsberg is the author of the science-fiction thriller series about Jonathan Jarl and Amber Group.” –Author Website

Book Review:

Overall Book Rating: ★★★★★ / ★★★★★

I won a Kindle copy of Tabular Rasa in a Goodreads giveaway. I was excited to read something new that was not already on my TBR list. I wanted to explore what else was out there and allowed the Goodreads gods to select my new discovery. That lead me to Filip Forsberg’s Tabula Rasa (The Amber group Book 1). I was very interested in reading this book as its cover was very interesting, and it made me wonder what kind of journey this book would take me on.

Now, I know I gave this book a low rating, but I do not intend it to be hurtful or negative. On the contrary, I want to encourage the author to keep it up! I really wanted to enjoy this book, and I am not entirely sure, but I think he translated this book from Swedish to English himself. Like I said, I am not sure. If he did, I am amazed! Some of us cannot even write a book in our native language, much less translate it to a different one. If that is that case, I commend the author for his work. Writing a book is hard enough; I cannot imaging how hard it must be to translate it. Again, I am not fully sure on how factual the translation comment is, but I did visit the author’s website on Goodreads, and it is in a language unfamiliar to me. It appears to be Swedish according to the Google translate I did on the website.

With that being said, I did find a good number of grammar-related mistakes. I would like to remain optimistic and say that this is due to English possibly not being the author’s first language. The mistakes did add up, but they did not keep me from reading more. The phrasing was also a bit confusing at times, so I found myself having to re-read. Taht made me stop more than the simpler grammar mistakes. Most of the grammar mistakes I found were missing commas, so they could easily be overlooked. Nonetheless, continual grammar mistakes cause me to shift from reading mode to editing mode, and I found myself editing the manuscript instead of simply sitting down an enjoy reading it.

The story progresses in an interesting way. There is promise in the story and its characters; they just need to be flushed out more. I found myself confused at some point. Perhaps, that is a result of not having read similar stories as this one. I also found that there is a lot of “telling” throughout and would have loved if the author allowed the reader to “show” more of the world he created. I got through about sixteen percent of the book before having asked, “where is this going?” I wanted more of the plot to move quicker. It seemed that, at times, characters would linger in a scene too long. I also found myself asking which characters I should care about. I wanted to connect with someone in the story but did not find that connection. The lack of connection to the character inevitably led me to giving up on the story and adding this title to my DNF list.

I do hope that in a future time, I find the time to give this story another go and perhaps even get through the whole thing. However, at the moment, other TBR books were calling to me and eventually drew me away from this title. I with the author luck in his future projects and would advise him to find someone who will provide a thorough and excellent proofreading and editing of his future projects.

Audible Review:

Narration Rating: N/A

No Audible Available.

Other works by this Author:

Novels:

• Seek allt som behvs (Swedish Edition)

Amber group Series

• Tabula Rasa
• Genesis