#64 Silent Blade by Ilona Andrews

This short story has interesting world building and a good showing of how people grow out of the expectations of what everyone else wants for them. Powerful families marry for more power and money not for love. When Meil is engaged to an older boy at a young age she works hard to become the best bride for him and to advance her much less powerful family’s ambitions. But when Celino manages to outwit his parents’ desires for the marriage he leaves Meli and her family ruined. Years later as Meli has worked as a secret assassin for her family after being removed from the family publicly her chance for revenge has come. A good SF romance story and one of several set in the same universe.

#65 The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross

With the aftermath of the previous book firmly in place, Mhari is the main POV and the story uses lots of flashbacks using the personal diary of Mhari instead of her professional one. The main mission in this one is to save the President of the USA. The Sleeper is taking over America and through magic has made people forget the third branch of government. The Black Pharaoh isn’t doing this for kindness but more to negate the power grab of one of his enemies. Mhari puts together a small team to go to the USA and capture him. Several members of the team are past minor characters of previous books so it was nice to see them again. Bob gets one scene in the book and Mo is just name checked. The story was good but for the most part there really isn’t a good guy you are rooting for anymore in the series.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley