Jen Greyson

At the end of Shadow Boxer, Tiana, Evy's little sister and new lightening rider has come under the influence of Penya. Evy is quick to blame herself and is desperate to get her sister back no matter the cost. Constantine, the ancient Roman fighter who loves Evy desperately and refuses to see her at risk, volunteers to travel with Evy to find Tiana. The only problem is that they don't know where in time Tiana is. When Constantine and Evy learn from Ilif, that Penya plans to alter the life of Augusta Ada Byron - a mathematician and scientist, whose work went unrecognized due to her gender, they become determined to end Penya's so-called evil plot. However, even if they find the right Augusta, London is a pretty large place to have to search without any real clues. Can they get to Tiana before she completely becomes Penya's pawn?

Penya is the antagonist in this series and yet I find it striking that she constantly seeks out women who because of sexism never reached their full potential in life. Instead of seeing her as evil, it made me wonder how much further humanity might have advanced if it were not for patriarchy. For so long, women were barred from education and the little they did get were largely arts and language focused and certainly not much math and science. Whatever women managed to produce was largely ignored, unless they managed to get it published under a pen name and work had to be done with little funding and certainly for many in secrecy. It's hard to see Penya as evil for wanting to change this.
“Ada is far more genius than the men working on the first computers. This opportunity will allow her the freedom to express herself scientifically, to show off her mathematical genius , and to prove that women should never have to hide behind their initials.”
Tiana blinked and frowned. She didn’t know much about Penya other than what Evy had told her— which wasn’t a lot— but Penya sounded like her friend Sasha’s mom after the divorce. She’d turned all wounded-bird about her soon-to-be ex, went all women’s lib weird and she was always telling Tiana and Sasha that they needed to embrace their womanhood and not take orders from men. It made Tiana feel uncomfortable and strange. Penya was as manic as Sasha’s mom on a tirade right now.
“That’s really great.” Thankfully, Sasha had figured out the best way to deal with her mom and Tiana used it now. “It sounds like you want to make things better for her and for all girls.” Tiana pressed her clasped hands to her chest like she’d seen Sasha do.
“Thank you.” Penya preened. “You’ll do just fine, Tiana. Just fine."
Night Storm is confusing. From the very beginning of this series, it is strongly suggested that Ilif is not to be liked or tolerated, largely based on his rampant sexism. Ilif is dismissive of Evy instantly and is quick to point out that before her, there had never been another female lightening rider. Then when we have Penya, who actively works through history to improve the lives of women and it is heavily implied that her passion is weird and manic. Every gain women have made throughout history has had to be fought for and therefore I don't see her passion as out of place at all. For her trouble, she is murdered by Constantine and slut shamed by Iliaf. Thanks for that Greyson.

Then there is our protagonist Evy, who is just one mass confusion. In Lightening Rider, the first book in this series, Evy is tough and jaded from having to constantly negotiate sexism but she has changed so much that I barely recognize her. On one hand she tells Constantine not to fight her battles for her after her argument with Ilif but just moments later is swearing to obey Constantine.

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Evy Rivera is trying to embrace her fate as a lightening rider. Evy knows that there is so much that she has to figure out about her power and even more importantly, Evy must figure out the motives behind the two guides who are sending her conflicting messages because the fate of the world is depending on it. Tesla is a figure that history has chosen to largely ignore, though much of what we use on an every day basis is based on his designs. As brilliant as Tesla was, there is so much we don't know about what he created. Evy is tasked to find Tesla and protect his free energy designs. Imagine how the world would change is free energy was available to everyone. Even when power is free though, it just might come at a terrible cost.

Evy is still very new to the time travel business. After saving Aurelia, so that her line can produce a very important scientist, it's time for Evy to move on but she finds herself continually drawn back to ancient Rome to visit with Constantine. This is the ultimate in long distance relationships because not only are they separated by an ocean but centuries in time. Evy cannot put this ancient warrior behind her, yet chafes at his suggestion that she needs to be protected. Can their love affair manage the impossible?

Shadow Boxer at times felt very rush and confused. Evy didn't so much really investigate, as fall into situation after situation. In Lightning Rider, Evy chose to trust Penya over Illya based on his obvious sexism without really learning anything about either of them. In Shadow Boxer, Evy is even more lost and though she knows Penya is withholding information, she chooses to trust her. Evy essentially goes along without questioning, even when it becomes patently obvious that she should and I don't understand that at all. Evy spends much of her time trying to outwit Illya and truth be told, though this was meant to make her seem calculating, it was completely undermined by her absolute trust of Penya.

Even though it is essential that Evy travel through time, this element of the book helped to make it feel as though it had no real cohesion. Evy was absolutely directionless for much of Shadow Boxer and this made it hard to invest in the story. As a reader, I was very well aware of the historical characters in this novel but Evy was largely in ignorance because she didn't take the time to research. This is ridiculous when she had the internet at her fingertips. Why wouldn't she spend more than a few cursory moments on google researching Tesla and his contemporaries? This is especially troubling after Evy realises exactly what is at stake.

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Lightning Rider
Jen Greyson
Romance/Paranormal
May, 2013/The Writer's Coffee shop
Smith Publicity

Evy Rivera is not your typical woman. She owns a business of welding art, rides a motorbike and strongly defends herself in life. But when her current boyfriend takes Evy for everything, furniture included, Evy moves home to live again with her father.

Just before moving home again, Evy has begun to notice that lightning affects her - sparks fly from her fingers when a storm moves in. Furthermore, she discovers an old book that her grandfather owned, that helps explain. Evy's family are lightning riders - and can travel thru time, changing events in history.

Playing with her newly discovered talent, Evy finds herself suddenly back in ancient Spain. While there Evy meets Constantine, and feels an instant attraction. A woman, Penya, whom Evy meets in past time, informs Evy that a woman will change the world.

Travelling back and forth thru time, Evy discovers the complications of time travel, and learns that she is the first and only female lightning rider.

Trying to protect her father, help Constantine change history and deal with her unexpected romantic feelings, Evy works to develop her new talent, and change the world.

Lightning Rider is a fabulous read!!! Filled with adventure, action and love, Jen Greyson's new book is a delight to read and share with friends.… (mehr)

Evy Rivera just came out of a very bad relationship which has left her apartment and her bank account empty. Though Evy feels very upset about this, she doesn't realize that her life is about to get a lot more complicated. When her father discovers a box containing a book which once belonged to his father, Evy has no inkling that her curiosity about her family history is going to force her to embrace her birthright as the only female lightening rider to ever live.

As you might well imagine traveling back through time and changing what happened is not an easy thing to do. This is why each rider is given a guide but how does Evy know that just trust them. They know more about what Evy is than she does and they are not always willing to answer questions. Evy knows that Ilif Rotiart's feelings about women means that he is not interested in her.

I was surprised to see that Lightning Rider was placed under the category of paranormal romance. Don't get me wrong, there is a romance in the book but the story itself is not dependent upon the romance to exist. We did however get the whole star crossed lovers deal because Evy's love interest Constantine is an ancient roman.

One of the things I liked about this story is that Evy the protagonist is a Latina and unlike many novels in this genre, she is not Latina in name only. Greyson includes some dialogue in Spanish and we get a strong sense of culture for her. While Evy comes from a family of Lightning Riders, Evy's culture is not to blame for her magic, which again is rare. We do once again get the chosen one meme as Evy's birth and skill is foretold in legend but rarely do we see in this genre this trope applied to a WOC.


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