Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Liar's Knot (Rook & Rose #2) by M.A. Carrick & A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

 

Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released! This meme is based off of Jill @ Breaking the Spine's Waiting on Wednesday meme.

 

This week's upcoming book spotlights are: 

The Liar's Knot (Rook & Rose #2) by M.A. Carrick
Publication: December 7th, 2021

Orbit

Paperback. 672 pages.

Pre-order: Amazon | IndieBound

From Goodreads:

"Trust is the thread that binds us . . . and the rope that hangs us. 

In Nadezra, peace is as tenuous as a single thread. The ruthless House Indestor has been destroyed, but darkness still weaves through the city’s filthy back alleys and jewel-bright gardens, seen by those who know where to look. 

Derossi Vargo has always known. He has sacrificed more than anyone imagines to carve himself a position of power and influence among the nobility, hiding a will of steel behind a velvet smile. He'll be damned if he lets anyone threaten what he's built. 

Grey Serrado knows all too well. Bent under the yoke of too many burdens, he fights to protect the city’s most vulnerable. Sooner or later, that fight will demand more than he can give. 

And Ren, daughter of no clan, knows best of all. Caught in a knot of lies, torn between her heritage and her aristocratic masquerade, she relies on her gift for reading pattern to survive. And it shows her the web of darkness that traps her city. 

But all three have yet to discover just how far that web stretches. And in the end, it will take more than knives to cut themselves free..."

I absolutely loved The Mask of Mirrors when I read it last year and have been eagerly anticipated this sequel ever since. I can't wait to finally get my hands on a copy of this! This book/series needs more love because it absolutely deserves it so far. 

and...

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

Publication: December 7th, 2021

Atria Books

Hardcover. 368 pages.

Pre-order: Amazon | IndieBound

From Goodreads:

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep weaves a richly atmospheric adult debut following three residents of a secluded, seemingly peaceful commune as they investigate the disappearances of two outsiders. 

Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend. 

Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it…he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James. 

Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease—rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms. 

Hauntingly beautiful, hypnotic, and bewitching, A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind."

I haven't read any books from Shea Ernshaw yet and I'm very intrigued by the premise of this one. I'm always down some reclusive communities with some weird characters!

What do you think about these upcoming releases? What are your anticipated upcoming releases?

Review: The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose #1) by M.A. Carrick

The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose #1) by M.A. Carrick

Orbit

Publication Date: January 19th, 2021

Paperback. 672 pages

About The Mask of Mirrors:

"Nightmares are creeping through the city of dreams...

 

Renata Viraudax is a con artist who has come to the sparkling city of Nadezra -- the city of dreams -- with one goal: to trick her way into a noble house and secure her fortune and her sister's future.

 

But as she's drawn into the elite world of House Traementis, she realizes her masquerade is just one of many surrounding her. And as corrupt magic begins to weave its way through Nadezra, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly become tangled -- with Ren at their heart."

 The Mask of Mirrors was one of the first 2021 fantasy releases that I read, and it is giving me some high hopes that this is going to be an amazing year of fantasy releases. This is the first book in a new fantasy series and it has completely captivated me with it's strong world-building, expansive and developed cast of characters, and overall compelling and richly layered plot. M.A. Carrick is the pseudonym for authors Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms, and the super-author duo is just as amazing as you might expect they would be. 

This basic synopsis for this book highlights that it features a con artist attempting to pull off a rather enormous/hefty con, and while this is indeed the heart of this particular story, it is also one small part of a much bigger and more unpredictable plot that is full of political maneuverings, scheming, and so many secrets. 

Every component of this story is important, from the setting to the world-building to the pacing, but the characters were one of the most vital to the plot, and I am so pleased to say that I think the authors did remarkable work in developing such a strong cast of characters that not only contains quite a few characters to follow, but also managed to make each character feel fully developed, fleshed out, and each have an interesting and unique personality as well as backstory and current storyline. Renata, for all intents and purposes our 'main' protagonist, was a particularly exciting character to follow as we explore both the Ren and Renata versions of her identity (aka, the 'real' and 'con' versions of herself) and I loved how the authors chose to balance this aspect in a way that really showed how difficult and slippery it can be to play with two identities. 

In addition to Renata are a variety of other diverse secondary-main characters that we get perspectives from, such as  Vargo, Tess, and and Captain Grey, among others. Vargo in particular was a character that stood out to me and is easily probably one of my favorites. He's a great example of the characters in this book in that he's been developed in such a multi-layered and nuanced grey-like manner that you never really know what he's going to do, but you also can't help but love his personality and find yourself eager to see what he's going to do next. I also appreciated the detail that went into developing characters, such as Vargo's repulsion to germs and illness, which seems to hint at a phobia of some sort and that I think really helps to develop his character even further in a variety of ways. 

The magic in this book also felt very fresh and exciting and even though we got to explore a lot of what is a part of the magic system, I am really excited for and hoping to experience and learn even more about it in future installments in this series. It's not an overwhelming sort of magic that is constantly around, it's more subtly pervasive and not always discussed, but is always a part of the story in some manner. This is also a very political fantasy, so that takes a good portion of the plot, with plenty of scheming to keep everyone (including the reader) on their toes. You can never really be entirely sure of what someone's intentions are, and everyone usually seems to have some sort of intention or motivation for any and all actions that undertake.  

As other reviews have noted, The Mask of Mirrors has a fairly slow pace to it, but I think that's somewhat to be expected in larger fantasy novels. To me, it was a good type of slow pace that allowed for the characters, world, setting, and magic system to be slowly built up and evolve in a way that didn't lend to excessive info-dumping, but instead let the reader slowly and delightfully immerse themselves into the world. It's like the person who chooses to very slowly get into a freezing cold pool by moving in slowly, letting themselves adjust tot he temperature, then continue on--slow, but a comfortable sort of slow.  Also, I didn't really notice it because I found the characters and plot so intriguing and I think Carrick moves the story along just enough in a consistent fashion, and it is consistency that is often most important to me in any novel--and there are plenty of more fast-paced moments throughout that help baance everything out. 

Overall, it was an easy five stars from me! I genuinely cannot wait to continue this series and I anxiously await its publication, even though that may not be for a while.

*I received a copy of The Mask of Mirrors courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This has no effect on my rating.*

Buy the book: Amazon | IndieBound