What is SPFBO 9?  This is  a competition where authors of self-published fantasy can enter their work. The objective to find a winner out of the 300 entries submitted.  Ten judges (or judging teams) each receive 30 entrants.  Each judge/team will eventually submit one finalist to the second round where a winner will eventually be decided upon. Check out Mark Lawrence’s post here to look at this year’s entrants, judges and allocations list.

My introduction post can be found here and also the Critiquing Chemist recently posted their first elimination post.  I posted my first ‘cuts’ last week.   My second elimination post can be found here.

This week I will be aiming to post a review a day (7 in total) followed by an announcement of my Semi-Finalists.

These reviews are in no particular order and have been randomly selected.

My sixth review is for Twicetime by Carol Carman

A witty and charming story, with a mediaeval setting, a sterling cast and a fairytale style retelling of a monster story.

We begin with a certain character (Rudolf) sneaking into his wife’s (Rosa) laboratory to concoct a portion which results in a large explosion, the destruction of aforementioned laboratory and the expulsion of the previously mentioned character through the now exposed wall into the moat below.

Then onto a witch, her magical familiar is a lion that can transform into a cat (or pretty much anything else as and when required). She’s moving out of her cottage (because of course witches are expected to live in cottages) and, in accordance with the Last Will and Returning Wishes, is leaving things in the order expected and also holding a garden sale to get rid of the brikabrak and earn some coins before returning home.

From there we flip back and forth between  the two storylines, Rosa ridding herself of a bothersome husband in a very inventive fashion and the witch returning home before the two storylines converge.  From there the story becomes a battle of wills between Rosa and her estranged husband who is determined to reclaim the castle (and if his wife should die in the process, well, you know, some losses are expected in these sorts of endeavours.)

Both parties are assisted in their mission. Rudolf is frequently accompanied by his aristocratic friends Yedder and Guildman – one a bit of a bungling, bluffing and blustering, but essentially harmless Lord who does as he’s told and the other, also a Lord, who has a secret and a strong desire to keep an eye on Rudolf and prevent him causing further harm.  Rudolf of course is determined to show his two companions how ‘proper lording’ should be carried out.

Meanwhile, Rosa is assisted by a selection of trusty and loyal servants, Beaton the butler, Mrs B the cook, a former bar wench turned laboratory assistant, a witch, a mason and a magical cat.  Plus a member of the recently dead, resurrected in order to serve as a bodyguard, although he doesn’t really have the stomach for the task.

This is a loose Frankenstein retelling – loose because the only monster here is Rosa’s husband.  It’s full of humour, charm, light, background romance and twisty turny plotlines.  I must say that I had a thoroughly good time with this one, humour isn’t always my preferred choice and so I might not have voluntarily picked this one up if it hadn’t fallen into my batch of books and that would have been a real shame.

The characters are easy to like.  Although I must give a shout out for Fran and Sooty.  The writing really makes great use of anything and everything to do with stereotypes and tropes that feed incredibly well into the humour.  There are moments of pure genius in terms of the fantasy elements and overall I thought the plot came together in a really satisfactory and pleasing way. The author weaves little side notes into the story which help to support the setting and I had moments reading where I couldn’t comprehend how the author would ever manage to resolve things but here we are with a conclusion that simply works.

This has a great deal of imagination, a merry old pace, witching, death, resurrection, dwarves, mercenaries and plenty of shenanigans.  It does pull at your heart strings and there are elements of sadness in amongst the madness.  A book with heart and soul, family, found family and love all told in a delightfully funny style with lashings of tea.

I received a copy courtesy of the author for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

Here’s my first review for Of Thieves and Shadows (The Heart of Quinaria #1) by BSH Garcia.

Here’s my second review for Dark Innocence by PJ Alexander

Here’s my third review for The Bone Spear by Alexander Layne.

My fourth review is for The First and Last Demon by Hiyodori.

My fifth review is for The Heron Kings Rampant by Eric Lewis