Books shelved under “Netgalley”

Every so often I read a story that reminds me why I love stories and why I love reading in particular. Film and television are great—I watch a lot of both—yet there’s something about the collaboration of imagination between writer and reader that makes a book absolutely magical for its ability to transport the reader elsewhere. I read the eARC of The River Has Roots curled up on my couch on a Sunday afternoon, curled…

When I found Gareth L. Powell a few years ago, I was excited. More space opera, just as I was starting to bend back towards the subgenre! Yet the two books I read by him, while they have become fonder memories in my mind, didn’t stay with me the way I thought they might. Future’s Edge seems doomed to repeat this fate, for it has all the makings of an excellent space opera without…

One of the unwritten fantasy novels in rattling around in my brain involves a society where people without magic face discrimination and fear. It’s not an original idea, definitely been done before, and it will be done again. So to see Annabel Campbell use this trope in The Outcast Mage is both reassuring and enjoyable! Part bildungsroman, part political thriller, Campbell’s debut isn’t pitch perfect—but it’s got some good moves. Thanks to publisher Orbit and…

A few years ago, probably during lockdown, I watched the excellent Netflix documentary Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know about the Event Horizon Telescope and the effort to photograph the supermassive black hole at the centre of galaxy M87. Black holes have always captivated me ever since, as a wee lass, science and science fiction came on my radar. How could they not? So even though Marcus Chown is a new-to-me science writer,…

Ever since I discovered Martha Wells also writes fantasy, I’ve been dying to read more of her back catalogue. Well, clearly Tor Books is reading my reviews and my reviews only because this year they are reissuing Wheel of the Infinite, first published in 2000. Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the eARC.

Maskelle is (was?) the Voice of the Adversary, but when we meet her, she’s essentially a mendicant nun. Rian is…

Three years ago I read The Jasmine Throne, gave it three stars, and said I might read the sequel. Then that sequel, The Oleander Sword, got a four-star rating and an even better review. Now the conclusion, The Lotus Empire is out, and … y’all, this is top-shelf fantasy. Like, we’re talking one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read this year, and a stunning conclusion to The Burning Kingdoms trilogy. Tasha…

Last year I reviewed the internet’s favourite ace dad’s book I Am Ace: Advice on Living Your Best Asexual Life. Now, Cody Daigle-Orians is back with The Ace and Aro Relationship Guide: Making It Work in Friendship, Love, and Sex. While both books are aimed at aspec readers, this latter is a more focused and broader exploration of the nature of relationships—of all kinds—as an acespec or arospec person. Jessica Kingsley Publishers has…

Gods and monsters and nightmares, oh my! The Lost Portal, a sequel to The Last Huntress, promises to be an epic quest. Lenore Borja returns us to the quartet of fierce huntresses: Alice, Soxie, Olivia, and Hadley. Amid affirmations of female friendship and explorations of family ties, these four women are all that stands between the Greek pantheon’s attempt to return to the world—or remake it in the process. The stakes are high—however,…

What’s better than a book about vampires? How about a book about a book series about vampires—that might turn out to be real? Kate Stayman-London combines fanfic with spicy vampire sex and no small amount of peril in Fang Fiction. I received an eARC via NetGalley thanks to being a host of Prophecy Girls podcast.

Tess drops out of grad school after someone else in her program sexually assaults her. She takes solace in…

Nicole Maines as Nia Nal/Dreamer in Supergirl was a revelation in more ways than one, and I have loved following her on Twitter even as that site slides deeper into the abyss. So when I heard she had a memoir, It Gets Better … Except When It Gets Worse, coming out, of course I needed to read it. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Dial Press for the eARC.

As the introduction establishes, this is…

Last year I took a chance on reading Devil’s Gun, the sequel to You Sexy Thing, even though I hadn’t read the first book. This was a big chance, for Cat Rambo’s fiction up to that point hadn’t worked for me. Fortunately, I loved Devil’s Gun enough to accept the offer of an eARC of the first book as well, and now I’ve read it too. With the amount of time that has…

Years and years ago, I said that my love for space opera was dimming. Space opera has always been one step away from science fantasy, of course, but I was getting bored with how same same all the nanotech-fuelled, AI-high stories seemed to feel. In the last couple of years, something has changed. I don’t know if it is me or the field or both, but I have been loving space opera again! When I…

Sometimes love is not forever. Sometimes relationships end. Sometimes you transform your lover into an unholy monster bent on world domination. That’s the gist of The Sins on Their Bones, by Laura R. Samotin. Heavy on tragedy and pathos, this is a book steeped in magic and mysticism yet not always satisfying in terms of pacing or plot. I received a copy in exchange for a review.

Dimitri Alexeyev used to be the Tzar…

Not bad, John M. Ford. Not bad. That’s about all I’ve got for opening thoughts. I received an eARC of this reprint edition of classic Web of Angels from Tor and NetGalley in exchange for a review.

This edition has a foreword from Cory Doctorow, who delivers an encomium of Ford while waxing poetically about Web of Angels as a kind of evolutionary cousin of what became cyberpunk. It makes a lot of sense. As…

There’s a now-classic sketch from comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb called “Are We the Baddies?”. It’s worth a watch if you haven’t seen it, but to spoil the bit, it’s about two SS officers having a conversation on the front line in which it gradually dawns on them that they might be the bad guys in this war. Involving Nazis in your comedy is always a dicey proposition, but Mitchell and Webb pull…

What’s better than a romcom? A story about friendship in the style of a romcom. Dear Wendy checks off so many boxes that it’s actually eerie: aro/ace protagonists, supportive secondary cast, plenty of humour, and a compassionate story to its core. This was one of my most-anticipated books of 2024, and that does not surprise me. I received an eARC from NetGalley and publisher Feiwel & Friends in exchange for a review.

Sophie and Jo…

The phrase “burn it all down” is a popular one, but how many people really mean it? What would that look like? A.D. Sui explores this in The Dragonfly Gambit, a revenge novella featuring a former fighter pilot with nothing to lose, an empire staving off a rebellion, and a small cast of supporting characters caught in the middle. I received a review copy.

Inez Kato was a hot-shot pilot for the Rule—until an…

With most memoirs, I already have a good sense of who the author is, like in the case of Making It So, and I’ve picked up the memoir because I’m interested in hearing their story in their own words. In the case of But Everyone Feels This Way, I hadn’t heard of Paige Layle before. Instagram recommended a Reel by her. I don’t remember the Reel or what she said in it, but…

The description of Floating Hotel overtly likens it to The Grand Budapest Hotel, and this comparison is both correct and compelling. Recreating the same tragicomic balance with her wandering space hotel, Grace Curtis takes this story places I didn’t expect it to go. Simultaneously heartwarming and heartwrenching, this is a book about doing what you love—and then saying goodbye to what you love. I received a copy in exchange for a review.

Carl is…

Amid the calumnious pushback in the United States against so-called “critical race theory” (it’s not) in schools remains the single truth: you don’t learn the true history of the US in school. The same goes for Canada, where we learn about the enslavement of African people in the US, but we don’t learn about slavery in Canada or our own history of anti-Black racism following abolition. So I do my best to read and learn,…