Books shelved under “Fantasy”

Slightly less than a year ago, I read the first book in this two-book omnibus edition: Sing the Four Quarters. It was a great little fantasy novel that only made Tanya Huff rise in my estimations as a reader. Though I didn’t love Fifth Quarter quite as much, I still enjoyed it.

The two stories are set in the same universe but not directly related, so no spoilers per se for the first book!

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Here we go! This is the first of the new-to-me Laundry Files books I ordered last year so I could catch up. Having finished my rereads of the earlier books, I eagerly picked up The Nightmare Stacks when I next wanted a reset. Charles Stross has shared how he needed to change up the viewpoint protagonist of the series for a few reasons. Alex Schwartz is an interesting successor to Bob and Mo, and he’s…

You know your girl loves a time loop. So when I realized one of my favourite contemporary authors wrote a time-travel secondary world fantasy, my jaw dropped. Has Christmas come early?? The Everlasting, Alix E. Harrow’s latest, might be my favourite novel from her thus far (I would have to reread The Once and Future Witches to be sure). Despite being in no uncertain terms a romance, its time-travel mechanics are timey wimey in…

Sometimes you can’t shake the idea that you’ve forgotten something. In Ruined History, the sixth book of The Chronicles of Nerezia, this feeling haunts Aliyah quite literally. As they navigate the expectations placed upon them by friends and foe, they learn a lot about themselves—but there is still so much missing. Claudie Arseneault’s storytelling continues to be a fun combination of thoughtful, creative, and fulfilling. I received an eARC in exchange for a (long…

Memory has always fascinated me. I consider myself someone of below-average recall: my memories feel hazy, disordered, disappointing. The chance to revisit some of my memories with perfect fidelity on a big screen? Wow. The Second Chance Cinema is that rare novel with a perfect premise for me. Thea Weiss sets it up so neatly: a couple, engaged, stumbling on a mysterious movie theatre. Alas, the secrets they’ve kept are more banal than bombastic, and…

Every so often I read a book I had convinced myself I was excited to read only to discover I wasn’t. Not “I was excited but this book let me down” but rather “I thought I was excited, and now I realize that excitement was something else all along!” That, unfortunately, is the fate of Queen Demon by Martha Wells. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Tor in exchange for a review, and I…

I requested the eARC for Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World purely on the basis of its title, and Mark Waddell did not disappoint. This is a book that delivers exactly what I expected—which is to say, I knew going in that this book would not be groundbreaking in any way, and that’s fine. It was exactly the kind of absurdist fantasy I was hoping for.

Colin is a low-level employee of Dark Enterprises,…

Um, OK. Wow. Rude. Seriously, it’s so inconsiderate of C.L. Clark to just go and write a gut-punch of a concluding volume to this incredible trilogy. This is one of my favourite modern epic fantasy series, and if you haven’t picked up The Unbroken or The Faithless yet, then run, don’t walk to your nearest indie bookshop or library because wow. I’m giving this book five stars and actually retroactively want to go back…

After reading Renegades and Archenemies back to back last year, I slept on borrowing the final book in Marissa Meyer’s superhero trilogy. But no more! Supernova is an explosive conclusion to this story, and while it is far from surprising, it is definitely satisfying.

Spoilers for the first two books but not this one.

The Renegades are recovering from an attack on their headquarters. Max Everhart, the young adopted son of Captain Chromium and the…

The renaissance of fantasy continues in The Faithless, the second book of C.L. Clark’s explosive Magic of the Lost series. When I read The Unbroken last year, I was stunned. Finally, I was sinking my teeth into some proper postcolonial secondary world fantasy. The Faithless continues this trend. If anything, Clark seems even more at home in this story—no second-book syndrome here—pushing plots and characters forward while never failing to leave our protagonists…

Alix E. Harrow is fast becoming an instant buy for me. First, I love that her books are standalone novels. Second, I love that each one feels fresh and different yet retain her signature style. Third … her books are just really good! While she has yet to garner a five-star rating from me, there’s a consistency to my enjoyment of her work that I appreciate. Starling House is no exception: it is a solid,…

Unexpectedly healing and wholesome, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is queer, witchy, and compassionate in just the right amounts. Anders manages to acknowledge the effects of intergenerational trauma while at the same time holding characters to account for their individual bullshit. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Tor in exchange for a review.

Jamie is a graduate student writing her thesis on a fictional novel (Emily) by a real eighteenth-century novelist (Sarah…

If I claimed to remember anything of Baker Thief, Claudie Arseneault’s aspec mystery romp involving a genderfluid baker, I would be lying. Five years is too long for this reader to remember details of books. Nevertheless, when Arseneault announced a sequel to this story, I jumped at the chance to read a review copy. Painted Flock is just as enjoyable and fun as my review of Baker Thief tells me I found that book.…

Sometimes I couldn’t tell you what drew me to a book if you asked. When I saw A Magic Deep and Drowning on NetGalley, where I received review copy, I was intrigued, but I’m not sure why. It might be the setting—the Netherlands in the early seventeenth century—or that it’s a very loose reimagining of The Little Mermaid. Whatever the reason, as I started reading, I deflated: I wasn’t enjoying it. Then … suddenly…

I wasn’t sure what to make of this book when I first started, and I love when books surprise me. A Legionnaire’s Guide to Love and Peace, while not without its rough edges, is a very cozy fantasy novel about life at the tail-end of a war and figuring out to do when you’ve survived against the odds. Emily Skrutskie writes with humour, depth, and compassion. I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Kat is…

As I started reading A Far Better Thing, I feared I might have to DNF it. That would be a shame, as I hate doing so with eARCs from NetGalley. Fortunately, after a few chapters, something shifted. H.G. Parry hooked me, and I was extremely invested in this tale of faerie changelings during the Reign of Terror.

Sydney Carton was switched at birth with a changeling, and now he exists as a mortal servant…

Get in, loser, we’re writing an encomium. When I read Some Desperate Glory, I became an instant Emily Tesh fangirl. That book rocked my world, and if you want thoughtful science fiction, you must read it; I am so thrilled it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. But this review is about Tesh’s latest, The Incandescent. I was vibrating with excitement to read this one and preordered it from my local indie…

Although I was charmed by Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger, I was also wary. I want to challenge myself when it comes to the subgenres I read, yet I recognize I often have good reason for not reading those subgenres—and there is nothing wrong with having preferences! That might be the case here. On the other hand, I also think this is a novel that could be much, much stronger. I received an eARC of…

What would you do to belong? And what would you do if you thought you didn’t belong, in fact that your attempts to belong had harmed the very people you love the most? The second Chronicles of Nerezia novella this year and the fifth overall in the series, Motes of Inspiration struck a chord in me unlike any of the entries since Awakenings. After several competent, entertaining, yet fairly straightforward entries in a row,…

Two years ago I read an interesting little novelette by Ai Jiang and was intrigued. Now I’ve got a review copy of A Palace Near the Wind courtesy NetGalley, and I remain intrigued. Jiang once again harnesses her incredible talent for descriptive prose and layers atop that an impressive, tender style of characterization. I wanted to like this more than I did—and will explain why I didn’t—but I did like it quite a bit.

Liu…