All posts tagged Amanda Foody

King of Fools… On April Fool’s Day!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
King of Fools cover

Happy April Fool’s Day! It’s entirely a coincidence that I’m reviewing Amanda Foody’s King of Fools on April 1st; the book just happens to be coming out within a month and this was the next book on my list to review. I was provided with an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

After beating the Shadow Game, Enne and Levi’s lives are about to change. Enne has earned a notorious reputation as her alter ego, Séance, and Levi’s gang is in ruins, but he wants to rebuild it. Levi sees a potential opportunity when Harrison, Vianca’s son, contacts him and wants to 1) win the upcoming election, and 2) see Vianca dead. The difficult part is going against Vianca when she has an omerta against him (and Enne).

While Levi is trying to rebuild his gang, Enne (Séance) is forming hers. Enne’s girl gang is a lot different than your typical gang. Instead of your typical guy clothes, these girls wear fancy gloves and skirts. And they have cats (so does that make them crazy cat ladies?).

King of Fools excels in many areas. First, the relationships are great. Levi and Jac’s friendship is tested in several ways, as is Levi and Enne’s budding relationship. There are several characters, not just Levi and Enne, that have lives and make independent decisions that drive this story. They also have to deal with their consciences and past demons. It’s well-done.

Another place where this book is great is in how it deals with power. Power (both among the gangsters on the lower rungs and among the powerful politicians) is a huge theme of this story. The way the politicians’ decisions affect the people’s lives and the way they fight back is great.

While this book kept me interested the whole time, it did seem to lag a little bit towards the middle, but then picked up and I stayed up a little too late so I could finish it.

The ending of King of Fools! I definitely plan on reading the next book because I want to find out what happens.  I don’t want to say what happens because – spoilers – but the next book will definitely see some changes.

I definitely recommend King of Fools if you like power manipulation and exciting books with gangsters and a little magic. You’ll want to read Ace of Shades first though, if you haven’t, otherwise you might be lost.

I Loved Ace of Shades

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments

I recently finished reading Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody.  It’s not a cookbook.  When I was in the Navy I worked with a person named Army; our last names don’t always match our job title.  At any rate, it was a very enjoyable book, and I look forward to the sequel whenever it comes out.  I got this when it was on sale for $1.99 the other day.  I figured I couldn’t pass it up.

Our story takes place in a place called New Reynes, which is also known as the City of Sin.  Our first protagonist, Enne, is supposed to be a debutante in about a year, and she knows how to behave like a proper lady.  Her (adoptive) mother, however, is missing, and she is entering this den of iniquity in an attempt to find her.  Almost immediately after stepping off the boat, she loses her luggage, is chased by the cops, and ends up running into a gang lord (which is the person her adoptive mother wants her to seek out).

Levi, our other protagonist, is the gang lord.  He is in desperate need of getting his hands on 10,000 volts (volts are their form of currency).  Enne just happens to promise him that amount of money if he will help her find her mother.  Our story follows the two protagonists as they get themselves into trouble and change the city forever.  Along the way, Enne finds out some dangerous family secrets, and discovers that she might not be cut out to be a proper lady after all: she might be much more instead.

The Characters

Ace of Shades is told in the third person point of view from the perspective of our two main protagonists.  I enjoyed the characters.  Levi was a gang lord, but he was still fairly young.  He’s also, for the most part, not an evil guy.  He might cheat at cards, but he’s not a murderer, for example.  Enne begins her journey to New Reynes as a very naïve lady, but she is quickly changed by the city.  While I do like the characters, the rapid transformation of Enne stretches reality a little.  It doesn’t keep me from enjoying the book, but it may bother some people.  The same holds true for Levi and Enne’s relationship.  They start to develop an attraction to each other almost immediately (although they don’t act on it).  Levi and Enne are so completely different that it’s difficult at first to see themselves falling for each other.

The World

The World of Ace of Shades seems to be pretty unique.  It seems to have a basis in Las Vegas, but there is a magic system in place that obviously doesn’t exist in the real world.  Everybody has talents that they are born with; your two last names tell other people what your talents are.  People bind themselves to each other with oaths.  There are more magical forces in this world as well, but I won’t mention them in order to not give out spoilers.

The city is also a city of dirty politics.  It has faced war in the past.  It is crawling with street gangs, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t associate with one another.  Some of the police are also corrupt.  The world is well done and enjoyable.

Overall, Ace of Shades was enjoyable and well worth the time I spent reading it.  It may not be the best book I read this year, but I liked it nonetheless.