Susan MacGregor (1) (1953–)

3.75 stars

Miriam’s father is a doctor. They are in a room with important priests (as a 17-year old woman, she shouldn’t be there) and the young handsome priest is dying. Miriam’s father is trying to help when the Grand Inquisitor comes in, insists the young priest needs his last rites and forces him to drink wine – wine with extra powder in it. The young priest convulses and dies. As Miriam and her father try to leave, the Grand Inquisitor accuses them of murder and locks them up. Miriam has to find a way out and she won’t leave her father behind.

That is pretty much the first chapter. I don’t want to go into too much more, as I don’t want to give anything away, but part-way through we meet another character, Joachin, who lost both parents when he was 9- and 11-years old. Joachin is looking for a priest with a scar – a scar Joachin gave him when that priest murdered Joachin’s mother. Joachin plans to kill the priest with the scar.

When Joachin was introduced, initially I wasn’t as interested in his storyline (nor the storyline of another group of people introduced a bit later), until things (and characters) started to come together. The book really picked up in the last ¼ of the book, and though I didn’t increase my rating up to 4 stars (that’s what I’d rate the last bit of the book), I pulled up my rating just that extra bit above 3.5 stars (good). This is a trilogy, so not everything was tied up at the end, as it will continue, and I will continue with the next book, as well.… (mehr)

ALCHEMY AND ARTIFACTS (Tesseracts Twenty-Two) edited by Lorina Stephens and Susan MacGregor is an anthology of twenty-three stories based on historical artifacts combined with fantastic historical fiction. I have not read them all yet, but based on the first two, it promises to be excellent.

"Cleaning House in Ithaca" by Leslie Brown is a wonderful tale about what has happened to Odysseus and his family some years after his return. 5 stars.

"Caligula's Eagle" by Tony Pi Another fine tale. 4 stars.

I received an ARC from the LibraryThings Early Reviewers Program for the purposes of writing an unbiased review.… (mehr)