Search

Search only in certain items:

A Tyranny of petticoats is an all female written anthology about badass females. The 15 stories consist of Pirates, Assassins, Ghosts and Robbers whilst covering relevant American history such as Gold mining, the slave trade and war.

The stories are written in historical order, starting from 1710-1968. These are my ratings for each story:

Mother Carey's table by J.Anderson Coats ⭐.5 stars

The Journey by Marie Lu ⭐⭐⭐stars

Madeleine's choice by Jessica Spotswood ⭐⭐⭐.5 stars

El Destinos by Leslye Walton ⭐⭐⭐stars

High Stakes by Andrea Cremer ⭐⭐⭐ stars

The Red Ravenue Ball by Caroline Tung Richmond ⭐⭐stars

Pearls by Beth Revis ⭐⭐⭐.5 stars

Gold in the roots of grass by Marissa Meyer ⭐⭐⭐⭐stars

The Legendary Garnet Girls by Y.S.Lee ⭐⭐⭐stars

The colour of the sky by Elizabeth Wein ⭐⭐⭐ stars

Bonnie and Clydebank by Sundra Mitchell ⭐⭐⭐stars

Hard times by Catherine Longshore ⭐⭐⭐stars

City of Angels by Lindsay Smith ⭐⭐⭐.5 stars

Pulse of the Panthers by Kekla Magoon ⭐⭐⭐ stars

The whole world is watching by Robin Talley ⭐⭐stars

I wanted to read this collection of short stories as I had heard great things about it. This book should have been ideal for me, it's feminist historical fiction. Sadly this didn't deliver, none of the stories blew me away. In actual fact I have a hard time remembering what the stories were about. Some of the stories felt like they were an excerpt from a novel, some felt rushed and others under developed.

However,I am glad I got to read this as I get to explore authors that I have not read before and got to sample their work and see if I get on with their writing styles.

The book also has a short note from the author as to why they picked the era, why they contributed to the anthology and so on. I definitely want to explore more novels with American history such as the gold mining and slavery thanks to these authors.

Overall I rated this 3 out of 5 stars
  
I'm extremely surprised by how much I enjoyed this anthology! I picked it up intending to just read the stories by authors I know I like—Kelley Armstrong, Ilona Andrews, Carrie Vaughn, Holly Lisle, Jeaniene Frost, Maria V. Snyder. I had never heard of some of the other authors. A few names I remembered seeing in other anthologies and not enjoying their work.

I did, however, deliberately put myself in a tolerant mindset: this is a book of romance stories. It wouldn't be fair to judge them as anything else.

That worked rather better than it has in the past. I still got a little annoyed at having so much of each story dedicated to couples (and all het/mono couples, at that!) rather than some intriguing world ideas, but managed to stay on track.

In the end, I only skipped one story—I just don't like the Weather Wardens stuff at all. I found a couple of others substandard, but all in all, Telep chose very well. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys paranormal romance (maybe even those who usually stick to just romance), and most urban fantasy fans.
  
MM
Mirror, Mirror (includes In Death, #37.5)
J.D. Robb | 2013
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The J.D. Robb story, "Taken In Death," was enjoyable - a nice thing, since it's the reason I bought the anthology. In it, Dallas takes on a kidnapper in a rebelling of Hansel and Gretel. I skipped the stupid coin story by Mary Blayney. I read one of her coin stories once and it was just too clichéd and predictable for me to ever put myself through that again. I do wonder, though, if she ever writes anything else? I went ahead and read "Beauty, Sleeping" by Elaine Fox, to see if the rest if the book would be worth reading.. While Fox's piece was okay, it was more romance than anything else. It had a supernatural twist, and it was a reworking of Sleeping Beauty, but in the end it was a romance. And to be honest, I just didn't trust the editors any more at that point. They chose Blayney and then the Fox piece, and one Robb story didn't outweigh them. I suppose if I'm ever truly hard up for something to read, I might try the other two stories in the book - but I would probably read one of the many free novels available before then.
  
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Stephen King | 1993 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror, Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.5 (18 Ratings)
Book Rating
A varied mix of stories
It's no secret that Stephen King is my all time favourite author, and I'm especially fond of his anthology books filled with a variety of short stories.

I'd read Nightmares & Dreamscapes manybyeats ago, and decided it was about time to read it again. This really is a varied bunch of stories, all well written as you'd always expect from King, but with plots ranging from an alright 6/10 to an exception 10/10. None of the stories are bad at all, but I did struggle getting through this book at times, especially as it's a rather hefty tome with some seriously small writing. But there are some noteworthy excellent stories in here, such as Dolan's Cadillac, The Ten O'clock People, The Night Flier and Umney's Last Case. There's even a surprise appearance from Holmes and Watson, which whilst it seems oddly out of place in a book of King short stories, it's a very welcome and pretty good story to mix things up a little.

Overall this isn't my King book of short stories (that accolade goes to Night Shift), but it's still a very good offering.