February 2026 Book Review - Fourth Wing

 

Fourth Wing
By Rebecca Yarros
The Empyrean Series #1

 

Warning! Spoilers!

 

IMAGINE Harry Potter without the professors. Eragon without the complex relationship with Sapphira. Any of the enemies-t0-lovers paranormal novels out there without the actual enemy part. That’s Fourth Wing.

I’ll admit, the first third of the book had me hooked. There’s nothing cooler than a badass dragon school. Violet is the daughter of a high-ranking military leader forced to undergo the dragon rider trials at her mother’s whim, rather than become a scribe like her father. She’s weak, unprepared, and hurting because her brother died while serving as a dragon rider. Xaden is introduced as the son of the enemy, forcibly conscripted into the army to make amends for his family’s betrayal. There’s also the hostile Jack Barlowe, who hates Violet’s guts for some reason. There’s peppy friends and some differentiation between dragon species, and no shortage of tribulations.

However, the strong start quickly nosedives into erotica fanfiction land. The world-building is flimsy and unmemorable. Why these age-old super powerful dragons submit to humans at all is a mystery. Violet’s determination to get into Xaden’s pants becomes the sole driving relationship, and every other character blurs into the same person—a Team Violet cheerleader, or a Violet Hater for paper thin reasons. Xaden is supposed to despise Violet. Her mother killed his family. However, despite this initial chapter stating this, there’s never any showdown between them, no real hatred. That’s saved for Jack, who despises Violet without any development or deeper understanding of why. It makes the tension between Violet and Xaden spaghetti-noodle-limp, and Jack’s vendetta a big yawn. You just don’t care.

Plus, the professors who are responsible for running this school (with its high student mortality rate) aren’t present at all. Not one of them is memorable the way Professor Snape or McGonagall was in Harry Potter. If you’re going to have a dragon rider school, at least give the professors some real personality and a stronger mentor relationship agenda with Violet. Instead, it’s the older students teaching the younger cadets everything.

The dragons were the best part by far. I did like the twist that Violet became bonded to two dragons. What if they were at odds with each other? Had different philosophies? However, we barely get any time exploring dragon society. For some reason, bonding with a dragon isn’t enough—they also give our intrepid heroes superpowers. Violet gets lightning and another super-special power, so now the stakes of her dying are at an all-time low. At least give her the taboo mind-reading power which is a death sentence in this society. Instead, there just aren’t any stakes, and by the end, I was bored. The casual modern-day dialog in a medieval setting also continued to remind that this was just soft serve with dragons thrown in.

The baddies show up the last few chapters. They are mean.

Overall, I don’t see how this plot could survive four more novels. Considering the price of books these days, there’s probably better fanfiction out there. Read for an airplane novel, but otherwise, recommend skip. 

Recommended for fans: Sarah J Maas, Stephanie Meyer, Colleen Houck 

Merry Christmas 2025!

 MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOURS

2025 has come and gone. It has been the year of unprecedented rain, begging our house not to sink, our one-year-old's first plane ride (of which she slept a whole 20 minutes!), creating new memories in California, reminiscing through old stomping grounds in Oahu, and listening to beautiful holiday music (Handel's Messiah, Celtic Christmas). It's the second Christmas without my father--the little redwood we planted for him hangs stubbornly on despite an unexpected haircut from well-intentioned community park groundskeepers. It's been watching my four-year-old wake up to a larger and more complex grasp of the world, and I'm always amazed how much she picks up on.

Writing with the littles is unbelievably hard. I cherish those fleeting moments when it's me and the page. If anything, it does force you to focus and not get distracted, because naptime is on its way out for my older one!

So I'm about midway through Part II of III in the last book of the Afterlife Chronicles - The Stars of Eden. Having kids really makes you ponder what you pen to page, knowing they will stumble across it later (for this series, much later). It's good. Makes the writing cleaner, focused. Really makes you think about what you're trying to say. It's thrilling to nearly be complete with a trilogy. Wincing at how long it takes, but that's life. 

Speaking of which, I hear stirring right now.

Happy Holidays from us and Tinsel Cat, and wishing you a wonderful 2026. Keep writing and traveling!

Gen V Season 2 Review

Gen V

Season 2 Review

Amazon Prime

 

Warning! Spoilers!

 

THEY’RE BACK. The superhero college gang who sometimes attend class but mainly are on the run from whatever evil mastermind has been appointed to run Godolkin University (aka God-U) this time.

This spin-off of the superhero sensation The Boys is a whole lotta fun, and you can tell the creators and cast are having the time of their lives making it. We’ve got the Head of Student Life who appears to be a perfectly normal girl albeit with a giant bee stinger that would bring instant death to anyone who touches it (including herself), we’ve got Modesty Monarch lecturing budding superheroes on the importance of personal brand on social media, and of course no one will forget Black Hole whose superpower is…yah, can’t go there.

The end of last season even saw the appearance of Homelander (the sublime Anthony Starr), who in no way mirrors current political events 😉, manipulating two of the gang Kate and Sam into enforcing a new terrifying status quo at God-U where Super-enabled are supreme and humans are inferior. Season 2 immediately dives headfirst into the aftermath of the uprising while navigating the extremely tragic passing of lead actor Chase Perdomo, who died in a motorcycle accident during shooting. The void left by Chase’s Andre, with his casual humor and light-heartedness hiding the pain of losing his dearest friend, not to mention a heck of a power with his ability to manipulate magnetic objects, is addressed head-on with the gang floundering without him and accusing each other for his death. It is revealed that after Homelander squashed the uprising at God-U, Marie and her friends were thrown into a horrible lab and experimented on. Marie is able to use her ability to manipulate blood to escape without her friends, but Chase endeavors to rescue them all, trying to bring down a prison wall that ultimately leads to his heart giving out.

Without Andre, Jordan steps up to center stage with Marie, the two attempting to build a relationship that keeps getting knocked down as Marie, however well-intentioned, continues to shut Jordan out, fixated on a cat-and-mouse game with the sinister new leader of God-U, Dean Cipher, who fills Marie’s head with delusions of grandeur over the god-like level of her powers. You really can’t blame Marie – Cipher is played by the brooding Hamish Linklater (Netflix’s Midnight Mass), and every line is delivered pitch-perfect with devilish gusto. The mystery builds around who is this stranger intent on staging cage matches with the students and what he wants with Marie. Kate can’t mind control him and Marie can’t detect V in his blood. The big reveal is great with all the little hints dropped along the way, but man, does it feel like we should have had two episodes at the finale to really let all the characters have their time to shine.

It's a lot. Don’t forget we’ve got Sam trying to process who he is and how much of his schizophrenia is him and how much is the V, Emma trying to learn how to control her powers without self-harm and leading a mini-revolution against the human hate group taking over God-U, and Polarity trying to find meaning with his son lost and his own heart going the same way. Kate as well undergoes a mini-redemption arc which is highly welcome, but again, it’s all an incredibly fast pace—the biggest bomb dropped is finally the appearance of Marie’s long-lost sister, estranged from Marie ever since the horrific night she accidentally killed their parents, and damn if that doesn’t need some time to unpackage.

Overall, Gen V Season 2 is a solid instant watch with all the grotesque over-the-top bodily fluids and twisted deaths shenanigans you’ve come to expect from The Boys universe, but it’s a huge cast now, especially with the official crossover. A big part of how successful the final 2026 season of The Boys will be is who it chooses to focus on to allow a satisfying emotional payoff.

As for bets on who will it finally be to take down Homelander? Can’t deny Ryan and Butcher are first in line, but it would be very poetic for Marie to purge Homelander’s blood of V and leave him a little ol’ human at the mercy of the global savagery he's amplified. Or Stinger could make the heroic sacrifice. Either way, with creator Eric Kripke fulfilling the reunion dreams of Supernatural fans everywhere with an appearance by Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins in Season 5, you can be sure this will be one helluva way to end a series.

Disclaimer: the above is depicted as fiction, not fact.

Wednesday Season 2 Review

 WEDNESDAY
Season 2 Review
Netflix

*Warning! Moderate Spoilers!*

 

SEASON 2 of the hit Netflix series Wednesday has dropped to get us in the Halloween spirit. While eager to see where the story goes next, the verdict is it all feels a bit—much?

So many villains. So many plots. The biggest and strongest arc is the evolving Addams family dynamics, in which Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) has lost her premonition gift, and she is at odds with mother Morticia (Catherine Zeta Jones) about how to get it back. Wednesday’s stubbornness and refusal to listen gets a bit frustrating, but hey, teenagers. Steve Buscemi’s smarmy and superbly odious Headmaster Dort plays a driving force in keeping Wednesday’s parents at Nevermore Academy for the deadly duel between daughter and mother to play out.

And honestly, that would have been enough right there. Focus on the classes and what the Nightshades are actually learning to advance their skills, bring in the highly talented Gwendoline Christie as Wednesday’s ghostly new spirit guide much sooner, and it would have allowed much more character development and atmospheric tension to mount. Instead we get Tyler (Hunter Doohan), the monstrous Hyde from last season galivanting about, murderous crows pecking people’s eyes out and left and right, Wednesday’s dense younger brother raising a zombie, the Sirens worrying about an offscreen cult leader, a brief stunt with a cartoonish depiction of the militarized boy scouts, and Enid's love life, to name a few.  

By the way, does Hunter Doohan not look like uncannily Millie Bobby Brown?? The entire time, I’m thinking Eleven’s having a really bad day.

credit: positivenegativity8 - Reddit

All the scattered plot lines do come together in the end, but the emotional payoff is lacking. Thing starts bonding with other “parts” of a “whole,” and trying to reconcile with its identity moving forward, but then one of the key leaders driving this group gets casually killed off in the next episode. By the time Enid calls the Nightshades together to face the Big Bad, it’s utterly underwhelming because they’ve spent the entire season apart, and their teamwork hardly amounts to much. I did like the zombie/Frankenstein monster villain but it felt like that could have been an entire season unto itself.

As much, I hope for Season 3 that things slow down. We’ve got a great set up with hopefully just ONE family insider nemesis who potentially uses ravens to do her bidding? Is the spying bird with the bloody eyes a crow or a raven? (My theory is Judi Spannegel is a red herring.) Because as Hitchcock demonstrated, you can do enough with killer birds for a whole season. Less is more.

***Oh, and the part where the Addams family blows up a stop sign and then laughs it off, even as this action promptly leads to a car accident? Yeah, couldn’t respect these characters after that.

*The above is depicted as fiction, not fact

 

Doing San Francisco, CA with Toddlers

 

A VICIOUS CATCH-22 FOR PARENTS, to go on “vacation” with little ones. Our youngest is still cruising and not impressed with trolleys, Victorian and Edwardian architecture, and island prisons. She did, however, find the sand at multiple beaches quite eatable. Our oldest is close to four and did thoroughly enjoy San Francisco. We stayed at Fisherman’s Wharf, an ultra-touristy district with ultra touristy prices. We were fortunate to have comp nights to spend at a hotel within a ten-minute easy walk to sea lions, but if you don’t have a pool of those lying around, I’d recommend searching further out and then take advantage of the excellent public transit. The BART’s public electric train system had such a good reputation that we mulled taking it all the way from the airport, but ended up reserving a pay-up-front taxi ride through http://airporttaxicabservices.com/ on account of our mountain of luggage (easy to book, driver communicated with us via text within minutes of landing). 

Yes, there were the notorious driverless Taxis every few blocks as well, predominantly Waymo, an empty one of which eerily turned its wipers on in the rain. However, not something we'd take a chance on with kids.

Ghiradelli Square Fountain

Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf

You could wander the waterfront at Fisherman’s Wharf for hours. Savor views of Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and Bay Bridge among harbors bobbing with eccentric vessels. Ripley’s Believe It or Not, a Ferris Wheel with wonderful views, Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory, and fresh hot sourdough in the shape of animals at Boudin Bakery make it a family-friendly delight, although be prepared to spend an arm and a leg for those Dungeness crab melts ($92 for 3 Lobster Rolls).

Aquatic Park by Ghirardelli Square

Chocolate Sundaes at Ghirardelli's

Boudin Factory for fresh sourdough in the shape of animals at Fisherman's Wharf

Fisherman's Wharf

Hopping aboard the easy-to-use bus system with a Clipper card gets you even more access to excitement like the Exploratorium and the Palace of the Fine Arts (the buses come frequently and prepare to be immersed in a melting pot of languages). Our one disappointment was we ran out of time to take a bus down to Chinatown for some noodles and dumplings, but Palette Tea House next to Ghirardelli’s was a mouth-watering delight.

You can see what people fall in love with San Francisco. It has a youthful, artsy energy swirling through the bones of these charming vintage houses, their detailed furnishings down to the doorknobs a treat, like you’re walking through a living museum on architecture.

Palace of the Fine Arts was a delight to walk through

A homage to Europe - even the ceilings were ornate

I highly recommend NO RENTAL CAR until you’re about to head out of the city metropolis to avoid being taken to the cleaners for parking (public transit quite easy with kids and no dealing with car seats!). We did a big circle over Bay Bridge to visit the Hayward/Pleasanton area, went up to Mendocino, and came back by way of Golden Gate Bridge.

Golden Gate Bridge in the background of Crissy Field East Beach, within walking distance from the Palace of the Fine Arts

View of Coit Tower in downtown San Francisco

Every bit worth the hype, there is tons to do surrounding Golden Gate Bridge, from the Bay Area Discovery Museum for children, to old forts and lighthouses. The Baker Beach  and Ocean Beach area on the west coast of San Francisco had astounding views and jaw-dropping mansions (and the unique historical Sutro Baths remnant). We even were able to catch a glimpse of the urban bison in Golden Gate Park near Spreckels Lake. That gorgeously verdant park alone you could explore for days. Sight we ran out of time for but looked extremely intriguing: California Academy of the Sciences (had me at living roof).  

Ferris Wheel on Fisherman's Wharf

Pit stop where you can pose with a trolley car

We stayed at the Grand Hyatt our last night adjacent to San Francisco International Airport. Heavily recommended – soundproof building, the freshly squeezed orange juice is heavenly, and there is an air train that connects directly from the hotel to the airport, making it a stress-free morning to catch our return flight with plenty of memories to savor (when the kids give us time). It felt like catching a glimpse of just one mini-nation out of a multitude of diverse neighborhoods, embraced by the crowning glory of sunset dancing across the mighty Pacific.

 

Fisherman's Wharf at Sunset

The above is depicted as fiction, not fact

2024 Seasons Greetings

 HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Just breached Part II of The Stars of Eden (Afterlife Chronicles III). Enjoy this teaser. May your 2025 be bright and the candles of memory there when you need them. I look forward to releasing more details on the last book of the Afterlife Chronicles in the new year! 

THE STARS OF EDEN

Genre: Dark Fantasy 

A story of the righting of wrongs, the wrongs of righting 

THE DOOM BELL tolls its last and Armageddon begins, leaving no place left to hide. Heaven is all that stands in the way of the dark, cannibalistic realm of Hell from devouring Earth and all planes of existence. Michael leads his battle angels against Satan, who unleashes unimaginable horror from the Well. Meanwhile, condemned everywhere brace themselves for the age-old prophecy that will cast them into a lake of fire forevermore.

As cosmic forces wreak chaos and ruin, the tribe of Ishmael Abajian attempts a final heist to capture the remaining Unholy Artifacts, a daring power play that could crown or end them.  However, Ishmael knows a secret about the relics that will be the greatest test his soul has faced.

Once a boy got on a train. Instead of Paradise, it took him to Hell. Now at the end of all things, Ishmael must decide which is home.

Eternity is waiting.

Fallout - TV Show Review

Fallout

Season 1

Streaming Service: Amazon Prime

*Warning! Spoiler Alert!*



YET ANOTHER VIDEO GAME Series adaptation. That alone should have inspired me to start Fallout early, yes, early! If we’ve learned anything from Silent Hill, Castlevania, and The Last of Us, it’s that the video game foundation brings the layered world-building, plot twists, and crazy-cool monsters to screen in all their bingeworthy glory (did I hear Netflix is working on Far Cry? Because YES).

I have zero familiarity with Fallout. I’m not much for the heavily-armored dude running around punching through walls and saving the day. Luckily in Fallout, that is just one faction of this masterful depiction of nuclear apocalyptic aftermath. We’ve got the mysterious 200-year-old Ghoul who pokes fun at said “Knights of the Brotherhood,” we’ve got a Knight who’s not really supposed to be a Knight, and we’ve Lucy whose cavalier “Okie-Dokey!” and resourcefulness in the face of so much gone wrong is instantly endearing.

The world you know is a lie. Lucy (Ella Purnell) grew up in an underground Vault, believing the surface world to be an uninhabitable wasteland destroyed by nuclear warfare. She and the other Vault residents train in the belief that one day they will return to bring order and civilization to the earth. After raiders masquerading as Vault neighbors leave their home in ruins and abscond with Lucy’s father, she balks her elders’ orders and sets off to rescue him.

Pretty standard plot of dystopian narratives, but Fallout sets itself apart with its use of perfect 50s soundtracks and replication of Cold War-era propaganda to create epic climate payoffs. It even opens with the Ghoul as a normal man back before society blew itself to smithereens, enjoying a normal birthday party with his daughter, the eerie tv broadcasts in the background and casual comments that the Ghoul has been involved with some sort of nuclear apocalyptic shelter preparation the only signs that things are about to go horribly wrong. Flash-forward to when Lucy meets the Ghoul as a skinless, mutated skeleton of a man without an eyelash to bat as he callously mows down his enemies, and you’re guessing it’s been a rough 200 years.

Walton Goggins has made an instant fan-favorite in the Ghoul. It takes a lot for an audience to root for someone willing to kill a dog. I was extremely excited to see him in this, given Goggins’ insanely good ability to create a core, driving chemistry with his costars (Remember that simmering rivalry in Justified with Timothy Olyphant!), and Fallout is no exception as he goes from mocking Lucy’s naivety (in between trying to sell her organs) to becoming a sort of dark mentor, recognizing in her the resilient, survival instinct it takes to persevere, even when your entire world is shattered.

Rounding out the trio is dutiful Maximus (Aaron Moten). He brings his own kind of naivety from being indoctrinated in the so-called chivalry of the Brotherhood, who scour the wasteland for enemies of the new world order. While the least engaging of the story arcs, Maximus brings the grounding of being just a kid who wants a bit of respect. No super-powered fighting skills without his Knight armor, no brilliant math skills or the like, but we see that despite his longing to follow a moral compass, he, too, ultimately is willing to cross lines to survive. Lucy and Maximus bring out the best in one another, a reminder of the good times when it was possible to trust strangers, while the grim vendettas of the shadowy organizations that rule their world make them wonder if such a reality is ever possible again.

This is just the core three—there’s a plethora of rich, complex side characters who enrich the world-building, and the question of who is responsible for the apocalypse actually has an immensely satisfying twist that makes me positively salivate for Season 2. This show got Emmy-nominated for a reason—it says a lot when there’s all these streaming shows at your fingertips, and you’d rather watch Fallout all over again. Amazon Prime knocked it out of the park.

*Disclaimer: The above is depicted as fiction not fact.