This collection of 11 stories explores the ways that people approach their personal relationships.

Ruckus, the author of Princess Rouran and the Book of the Living (2022), among other books, presents a masterful set of tales that illuminate everyday details of life and the meaning of personal connection. “Three and a Half White Roses” tells of a woman involved with a man who’s more concerned with his own intellectual superiority than her emotional well-being. “Life Is Short” ably illustrates its title when Alex, a young man, has a close friendship with co-worker Jacks that almost turns into a romance—but a social fumble threatens the fragile connection. Both stories show the vulnerability of early romantic affection with honesty, and a similar dynamic in familial relationships is reflected well in other tales. “Silent Disco,” for example, features a man navigating a strained relationship with his father after coming out as gay; “A Good Cry” effectively shows how certain people can become meaningful in one’s life through random circumstance; it tells the story of a man moving in with roommates while attending university. “A Purple Cat Got My Tongue” is a perfect title for a tale about a man who becomes voiceless after seeing a dead feline and then tries to find ways to connect with people without spoken words. “A Lady Who Parked a Whale Outside My Balcony” is possibly the collection’s best piece, as it uses speculative elements to construct an affecting story of a man’s connection with a brokenhearted spirit: “ ‘Do you wonder why London has so little sunshine?’ She sat on the railing and gave a faint smile. ‘Perhaps because all those capable of laughter died two hundred years ago.’ ” Overall, Ruckus’ sparse, minimalist writing style is succinct and to the point, employing small details to illustrate a bigger picture.

A set of skillfully written and thought-provoking tales.

Four young people face an uphill struggle in saving the world against the forces of evil in this whimsical fantasy.

In this second book of Ruckus’ Princess Rouran series, university student Edith Orozco is still recovering from her train trip to a fantastical land in the series’ first volume, Princess Rouran and the Dragon Chariot of Ten Thousand Sages. Aided by her niece Moli and young strangers James and Kiza, Edith finds herself charged with a seemingly impossible task. To save humanity, the quartet must collect nine wonders from human history in nine days. Their first target is the Book of the Living, hidden in the Tomb of King Unas in ancient Egypt. If that weren’t challenge enough, they’re opposed by daunting foes—evil, babble-spouting AI Pandorai and his two henchmen, a resurrected Adolph Hitler and Japanese scientist Shiro Ishii. Sneaky human traffickers, mutated dinosaurs, and robot soldiers also meddle with their mission. That’s a lot to take on with just pluck and ingenuity on their side. They do receive aid from a handful of exotic creatures whose clues could best be described as cryptic. Despite an apparently never-ending string of obstacles, the foursome makes some headway until one of Pandorai’s minions changes that victory into defeat. Now they find themselves in a bigger hole heading into their next challenge. Ruckus’ YA novel works well about half of the time. The adventure sections featuring Edith and her sidekicks on their quest to save the world are enjoyable. Not so much the philosophical ranting of the megalomaniacal Pandorai and his lieutenants with their equally oversized egos, which serves to derail the narrative. Other derailments include the many strange beings popping in and out of the storyline without context. The dozen or so pages of notes and references testify to the density of the prose. Ruckus has painted a colorful world with appealing main characters, but many plot details will leave readers puzzled. Interested readers should start with the first installment.

Good-hearted leads fight valiantly but wander off course in this confusing fantasy.

Ruckus presents a YA fantasy novel about a modern girl’s adventures in disparate times and places.

Moliis a young girl from Penglai, China. She travels to London for the funeral of her father, Morris, a museum curator. His last work before his death was on the Rouran period—the Rouran ruled a portion of central Asia, part of which is now modern-day Kyrgyzstan. The exhibit on the Rouran era at the British Museum is not exactly popular; nevertheless, Moli and her aunt Edith dutifully attend, and Moli is able to show off her knowledge about a mythical dragon’s nine sons. Later, things take a turn when Moli is awakened in her hotel room by a dragon called Qiuniu, one of those sons, who leads her to a place in an alternate reality called the Corridor of War. Moli’s situation is further complicated when she travels back through time to the Rouran period. The Rourans think she is a shaman and keep her in a cage. Later, the action moves back to contemporary London, where Moli and three others are tasked with an opportunity to save the world. Their main opposition: Adolf Hitler, transported to the modern era. The story is rich in incident and packed with surprises, but a few elements deflate some of the excitement; at one point, James Walker, a boy who joins Moli on her mission to save the world, has to endure a lengthy lecture about where Covid-19 might have originated (“Many epidemiologists and scientists claimed that the virus could only come from nature, and if a quarter of them still stand by their professional code of conduct, what do you make of the situation then?”). Still, the mixture of time travel, mythology, SF tropes, and a spirited youngster in the lead makes for a truly wild narrative.

A fluid and inventive journey with a few dead-end detours.

A London-based fixer investigates unrelated deaths that stir up numerous questions in Ruckus’ thriller, the second in the Mercenaries in Suits series.

Chance Yang  is a “part-time fixer” living in London. It’s been less than a year since his former job brought him to England and into a stalker case involving his now-girlfriend Catherine Roxborough. Chance’s latest gig comes courtesy of Catherine’s university professor uncle, Alexander Roxborough, whose friend, Lewis Milken, asks Chance to look into the death of his older sister, Emma. She allegedly died of tuberculosis while teaching in Barcelona, but the family has troublingly few details about her illness and passing. The fixer hops onto a plane and manages to shed some light on the case, but it’s not long before someone else needs his help back in London. Another friend of Catherine’s uncle’s, this one a detective named Nigel Weatherby, is stymied by a deceptively simple murder—a fatal stabbing, followed immediately by the assailant’s accidental death as he sped away. The crime scene teems with unexplainable details: Accessories for a digital audio recorder (power adapter, operating manual) are present, but the device itself is suspiciously missing. At the detective’s suggestion, Chance goes undercover as a private math tutor to get close to a wealthy family that may have answers. As his ex-boss, Felipe Kazama, puts it, Chance is “damn good at worming information out of people” (Felipe, the comic highlight of the previous book in the series, remains a reliable font of advice, even if he buries it in self-indulgent diatribes). Ever-patient Chance knows that if he continues working his case, he’ll eventually hit on a clue that leads to an illuminating revelation.

Like the series’ introduction, A Chinese Remedy (2021), this sophomore installment moves at a leisurely pace. The well-established characters are dynamic—emotions run high when Catherine, who once caught her fiancé cheating on her, is convinced by a rumor that Chance has been equally unfaithful. Chance’s jobs usually aren’t the narrative’s focus, which instead spotlights such story elements as his relationship with Catherine and Felipe’s monopolization of discussions with long-winded dialogue. The novel is split into two interlinked stories: The first (and shorter of the two) centers on the Barcelona case and concludes with a solid wrap-up. The considerably longer second story, which opens with the detective’s murder case, features much more of Felipe. He’s indisputably intelligent and occasionally witty, and characters often recall insightful snippets from his lectures that become de facto guidelines, such as the “art of distraction is always more important than lies.” But in other instances, Felipe takes over the plot, as when his “weekend leadership bootcamp” spins off into political rants that last for pages. Nevertheless, the story does find a resolution as the final act provides a shocking character turn and a memorable denouement.

The superb cast propels a worthwhile mystery offset by a few too many tangents.

In Ruckus’ mystery novel, mergers and acquisitions consultants investigate two unusual cases in London involving a stalker and an apparent suicide.

Chance Yang, a Chinese consultant based in Tokyo, flies to London for a couple of jobs. His boss, Felipe Kazama, tells Chance to look into a client’s half-sister’s recent suicide. He traces her whereabouts and activities in an attempt to discover what led to her death. But that’s not the only reason Chance is in England—Alexander Roxborough, an “acquaintance” of Felipe’s, has asked for help, as his goddaughter, Catherine, has a stalker who has tried to break into her house. Chance, who’s certainly not a bodyguard, undergoes Krav Maga martial arts training, just in case he needs it while keeping an eye on Catherine. Simply being in London, where Chance lived six years earlier, sparks memories of an old flame who tragically died of a drug overdose. In the course of his investigations, Chance finds himself drawn to Catherine in an unexpected way. The author enriches the novel’s cast with absorbing backstories. Chance is a likably reserved consultant/amateur detective and an ideal contrast to Felipe, who’s delightfully bizarre (evidently, one of their company’s greatest perks is a Netflix subscription) with a sense of humor to match (“Do you know what happens if a vegetarian cat meets a mouse? It says to the mouse; you are lucky that I don’t eat meat; you are unlucky that my cousin does”). Felipe does have an irritating tendency to prattle on in dialogue that sometimes feels like a stream-of-consciousness exercise. As the narrative lingers on long speeches and Chance’s potential romance and self-defense course, the ongoing mysteries stagnate. Still, Chance and Felipe make an engaging duo that readers will surely welcome in sequels.

Whimsical sleuths lead an enthralling novel that unfortunately sidelines its intriguing mysteries.