Books shelved under “Fantasy”

My silly “summer of witches” reading stretches into autumn and now (at least with my reviews) winter. Anyway, VenCo was published earlier this year to much acclaim. More importantly, it felt like Kara bait! Cherie Dimaline writing a contemporary fantasy book about witches? Sign me up. The result is as enjoyable as it is uneven, and while I wouldn’t call this one a masterpiece in the same vein as some of her other works, it’s…

Epic fantasy heist. Those three words in the subject line of an email were all it took for me to windmill slam “yes” on getting an eARC of The Queen of Days from NetGalley and publisher HarperVoyager. Some marketing person knew the magic words that would pique my interest instantly. I was excited to dive in, and thankfully, the book lived up to the hype! This is a delightful, powerful adventure that left me wanting…

The summer(?) of witches continues with The Witches at the End of the World, by Chelsea Iversen. From contemporary romance we travel to historical fiction with this small tale of sisterhood nestled in the woods of Norway centuries ago. I’m impressed with how Iversen won me over despite my qualms about the book’s pacing and plot! I received an eARC from NetGalley and publisher Sourcebooks in exchange for my review.

Kaija and Minna are…

Asexuality is everywhere, yet because it is classically the absence of something, its presence can be difficult to see. Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection is an attempt to foreground asexuality within a variety of environments. Madeline Dyer has assembled an ace team (oh, you know the puns are just starting) of authors to contribute stories and even a poem that get you thinking. Cody…

What would you do if a relative died and left you her creepy house, and fortune, on the condition that you relocate your life to live on the property? Oh, and everyone around you keeps acting super sketch? That’s Cordelia Bone’s problem in The Witches of Bone Hill. Part romance, part thriller, all fantasy, this book uses a lot of classic tropes, often to good effect. Ava Morgyn’s writing took me a while…

My summer of witches has extended into an autumn of auguries by dint of my reading schedule attenuating in these waning days of 2023. What Became of Magic is a book I was looking forward to reading on my deck at the end of August, but it also worked well in the cooler days of September. Paige Crutcher brings a dazzling dash of creativity to her storytelling. Alas, I didn’t enjoy her narrative style or…

Just a cheeky little apparently standalone novel to close out my summer of witches (though, glancing at my to-read shelf, summer might become an autumn of witches too)—and how fitting that it should be a book where the seasons are connected to one’s witchcraft. The Nature of Witches is a delightfully straightforward tale of magic, love, fear, and growth from Rachel Griffin. As long as you don’t expect too much from it, you will be…

Give me more books like this. Directly. Into. My eyeballs. Please. A Snake Falls to Earth satisfied so many cravings I didn’t know I was having! It’s the perfect blend of humour, compassion, tension, and more. Darcie Little Badger impressed me with Elatsoe, but this novel has truly blown me away. It’s going to be one of my favourites for this year—and this has been a good year of reading for me in general.

…

C.L. Polk is fast becoming one of my favourite fantasy authors (love that they are Canadian to boot, eh). Even Though I Knew the End is everything I want in a novella: fast pace, great worldbuilding, and a protagonist I can get behind without too much exposition.

Helena, aka Elena, was once in training to be a “mystic,” one of few women accepted to the very sexist Brotherhood. Then she made a demonic deal, sold…

What do you mean I have to wait a year for Book 3?? I guess I’ll manage, but I have spoiled myself by waiting a year to read Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, resulting in almost no wait between it and The Shadow Cabinet. Juno Dawson has created an excellent new urban fantasy series. However, I am going to be harder on this book than the first one for precisely that reason: she has…

Prophecies are tricksy, especially when the prophecies are being manipulated by the humans who run a church for their own temporal ends. The Third Daughter explores what happens when various parties try to shift prophecy in their favour. From a slighted onetime heir to the throne to a power-hungry church official to just a girl from Harborside, everyone wants to have a say in how (or even if) the New Maiden will rule over Velle.…

Revenge plots are always fun. Give me a woman scorned any day. Charmed combines a revenge plot with another one of my favourite tropes—a fairy-tale remix setting. Jade Linwood takes elements of some of the most familiar fairy tales of the Western canon, turning their protagonists into women who are out to avenge themselves, and in some cases their countries, against none other than Prince Charming. I received an eARC from NetGalley and publisher Rebellion.

…

Almost a exactly a year ago, I read the first and second books in The Keeper Chronicles. Now we conclude this trilogy with Long Hot Summoning. Tanya Huff increases the role of Claire’s younger sister, Diana, giving her a Summoning of her own and more responsibility for saving the world. It’s a fresh and fun adventure with much of the charm but also most of the flaws of the first two books. Also,…

First, some praise for the simplicity of this title. Too often novels think they need to be cleverer by half and jam entire sentences into their titles or create cute, quirky subtitles in emulation of the eighteenth century. Thrust is as prosaic a title as its contents are poetical. Lidia Yuknavitch says in the acknowledgements that she wanted to play with the novel as a form, and that is evident throughout. Now, I like me…

This is one of those books I heard so much buzz about I nearly didn’t read it just to be contrary—and what a mistake that would have been. Kate Heartfield’s fantastical take on the lives of two queens—Marie Antoinette and her sister Maria Carolina, also known as Charlotte—at the end of the Enlightenment is exactly the kind of historical fiction I love. From 1768 to 1793, The Embroidered Book charts the rise and fall of…

Bought last year but a victim of every bibliophile’s nemesis, the ever-growing to-read shelf (or pile, or teetering tower), Her Majesty’s Royal Coven sounded like something I would really enjoy—and I did! It’s going to be a summer of witches on this site, for I have many witchy books to read and review, starting with this first adult novel from Juno Dawson.

Helena, Niamh, Leonie, and Elle grew up together in Yorkshire, bonded by age…

Time and again, I keep saying it: give me the stories about stories, the metafiction, all of it. Kill Your Darlings by L.E. Harper is another spin on this idea. Along with a heavy (in many senses of the word) focus on mental health, this is a story about figuring out who you want to be when everyone is telling you who they think you are. This is a debut novel, and the rough edges…

Although I would have got around to Daughter of the Moon Goddess eventually, in all likelihood, my bestie Rebecca putting this into my hands (quite literally), got me reading this sooner rather than later. It was one of her favourite books last year—so much so that she jumped at the sequel. So, you know, no pressure to love it or anything. Fortunately, our friendship can continue. Sue Lynn Tan has written something that I dare…

More dragons, please! All kinds of dragons—sapient ones, feral ones, ones that pillage and hoard and burninate, and ones that just want to stay home and read a cozy book. When I saw L.R. Lam was coming out with a dragon-centric novel, I jumped at the eARC from NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton. Dragonfall has a lot going for it, from an original and well-constructed world to a compelling premise. In the end I wasn’t…

How is Alix E. Harrow this good a writer? Or maybe I should ask, how does Harrow know exactly what is my literary catnip? Because … wow. The Ten Thousand Doors of January continues my late 2022/2023 theme of reading stories about stories in a big way.

January Scaller grows up a ward of Mr. Cornelius Locke while her father travels the world and locates rare items for Locke’s collection. Initially imaginative and precocious, January…