THE HEART OF THE CIRCLE - Keren Landsman

 


The Sons of Simeon are religious extremists in Israel. Their focus is finding and persecuting sorcerers. This not exactly in line with government law, but the government tends to look the other way. When a demonstration ends with a brutal murder, the empath Reed becomes the next target for the extremist groups. Reed has sorcerer friends and 'normie' friends, all looking for ways to protect the unlikely target. But Reed is the one who will need to protect his friends from the Sons of Simeon. And it gets trickier when Reed's focus becomes distracted because he falls madly in love.

This book ... this book just didn't do anything for me.

On the surface, this should be right up my alley of interest.  Alternate reality with sorcerers and empaths?  Yeah, I like that. A familiar yet unique location (I've never been to Israel). I like that, too.

There's some romance here, which is fine - I don't read sci-fi/fantasy for the romance, but don't mind it being there. This romance happens to be a gay romance, which isn't my thing, but people and emotions ... that's pretty universal.

But there are a couple of problems here. First, it's NOT a sci-fi/fantasy with some gay romance.  Our main character, Reed, seems overwhelmed with lust and this becomes a gay romance with shades sci-fi/fantasy overtones. There's a real subculture of these kinds of books, but I never expected to read this from a major sci-fi publisher.

The book tries to be an allegorical statement on oppression - making sure that we recognize the oppression in our own history, but it's so in-your-face that's it's not allegory.

The characters never drew me into the story and the world was not built to be very interesting. All that mattered was that a main character began pining for an ex-boyfriend early in the book and it never grows much from there.

This was an all-around disappointment.

Looking for a good book? The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman may appeal to a small circle of readers but you'll have to have some very specific reading interests to find this a worthy read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

2 stars

* * * * * *

The Heart of the Circle

author: Keren Landsman

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857668110

paperback, 400 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MURDLE VOLUME 1 - G. T. Karber

Image
 I enjoy puzzles of many different varieties. I had not heard of 'Murdle' before this but essentially this is a combination of the game of Clue and a Sherlock Holmes micro story. With suspects, possible murder weapons, potential locations, and/or motives plus some very brief hints, readers are meant to combine the logic of what's know with deductive reasoning to identify the killer (or killers?) in 100 different mystery word puzzles. I will admit right off the bat that I did not do all 100.  I didn't even do half of these, but I did so some random sampling through all the categories (Elementary, Occult Medium, Hard Boiled, and Impossible). I did not get any correct in the Impossible category (of course not ... they were impossible!) and only one correct in the Hard Boiled (of five). The Elementary puzzles were, as expected, pretty easy and the Hard Boiled only a little bit more difficult. Each mini mystery comes with a grid printed in the book to help the reader-detecti
Read more

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - wherein he acq
Read more