178 reviews found
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Sometimes it’s nice to be late to a new series. I enjoyed Legendborn so much that I was very happy I borrowed its sequel, Bloodmarked, at the same time. Tracy Deonn bottles lightning again in this novel: it’s everything you might want a sequel to be. If Legendborn scratched my itch for nostalgic YA fiction but with better diversity and racial awareness, then Bloodmarked doubled down on the itch-scratching while truly establishing the Legendborn…
I guess I review Buffy novels now … this is an unexpected perk of starting a Buffy rewatch podcast two years ago. Not only did we give away copies of In Every Generation to our listeners, but we actually interviewed Kendare Blake on our podcast. I received an ARC of One Girl in All the World. I’m happy to report that this sequel avoids the dreaded second-book syndrome. It builds on the success of…
There was definitely a span of adolescent years during which I was obsessed with Arthuriana. I remember borrowing Malory’s Morte d'Arthur from my library multiple times despite being way too young to pick my way through the Middle English prose. I devoured all sorts of retellings and reimaginings, like Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord series. So when this series crossed my Twitter feed one day, I couldn’t not windmill-slam the “place hold” button on both Legendborn and…
I received an eARC from NetGalley and a hardcover from Disney Hyperion in return for a review! We also interviewed Lily Anderson for my Buffy rewatch podcast, Prophecy Girls, and I will update this review with a link to the episode when it’s out!
It’s 1999. In an alternative version of Sunnydale, the Mayor doesn’t ascend but rather blots out the sun and renames the town Demondale to attract, shall we say, a new…
Sometimes, you just want to get out and fight monsters. But bureaucracy! That’s the situation Zoey Prescott faces in Memories, Lies, and Other Binds by Katy Foraker. This urban fantasy twist on vampire-hunting and immortality mashes up time-worn tropes with a dose of family drama and unexamined angst. It’s a fun ride!
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review.
Zoey Prescott stopped aging in her twenties. That was in…
What if you could take your feelings of sorrow, hurt, grief, loss, etc., and surrender them up? And if, in turn, the person to whom you surrendered these feelings could use them to nourish a beautiful, if capricious, garden? That’s what In the Shadow Garden explores. Liz Parker’s dark romance thriller, set in a small town in Kentucky, is about what we do with our worst memories. But it’s also about friendship, family, and who…
Stakes that are neither too high nor too low. Facing discrimination and prejudice as a refugee who belongs to an ethnic minority in their new city. Dealing with the complicated history of one’s culture, one’s past. Pushing back against for-profit healthcare. These are all powerful elements in The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia. Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC!
Although novella-length, this book brims with plot. Firuz, a Sassanian refugee, joins…
Claire Hansen returns in this sequel to Summon the Keeper. It’s rare that I manage to read the next book in a series in such close succession, but here we go! The Second Summoning embraces and builds upon certain elements of absurdity present in the first book. I admire how Tanya Huff can write urban fantasy that is simultaneously tense and intriguing yet also funny and lighthearted. However, the plot of this book didn’t…
On my most recent trip to our town’s used bookstore, I got a hefty dose of Tanya Huff books. Having finished the Gale Women series (though that didn’t stop me from accidentally buying another copy of The Future Falls by mistake, oops), I was happy to discover several books in two different series from Huff. I decided to start her Keeper Chronicles first with Summon the Keeper. It was a great change of pace…
Hey, it’s your girl Kara, reading the sequel to a book four years after I read the first book, and the real tragedy is that this is not unusual for me! So when you hear me say that I struggled to get into Shadowhouse Fall, it’s not because of the book itself. Rather, I literally forgot everything about the plot of the first book and had to lean on my review and some…
It’s always satisfying when a trilogy comes to a full-stop close, loose ends wrapped up and most questions answered. In Son of a Trickster, Eden Robinson introduced us to Jared Martin, a Haisla/Heiltsuk boy on the cusp of manhood and also learning about his magical heritage. Robinson could have stopped there—nearly did, by her account, not being much of a series writer—yet she didn’t. Trickster Drift followed Jared’s move to Vancouver, his attempts to…
Earlier this year I panned Ruins & Revenge, a Raine Benares spin-off novel featuring Tam as the main character. In my review, I expressed my disappointment over Lisa Shearin’s plotting, but I reassured myself that I would continue reading her novels (specifically her SPI Files series).
I might need to revise that prediction. I might need to take a long hiatus from Shearin’s novels for a while.
The Phoenix Illusion begins with a building…
Much like my situation nearly a year ago when I read The Rhesus Chart, I was in a bit of a reading slump when I decided to tackle The Annihilation Score. I’ve been in this slump for all of 2021, mostly because it is harder for me to get books (especially fiction) right now—consequently, my ratio of fiction to non-fiction is much lower than it used to be, and as much as I…
You should read my review of Peace Talks before you read this review. Also, I don’t know how to talk about this book without spoilers. So if you want a spoiler-free review: Battle Ground is a flawed attempt to give fans of the Dresden Files the climax Butcher thinks they want, but it falls short. There are definitely crowning moments of awesome, low moments, and the thoughtful moments we have come to expect.
Spoilers from…
Rebecca Roanhorse bottled lightning once, and now she is back to do it again
Storm of Locusts picks up not too long after Trail of Lightning. Maggie agrees to help the Thirsty Boys apprehend the White Locust, a strange cult leader buying up explosives. The mission goes sideways in a big way, and Maggie picks up the pieces and finds herself responsible for a young woman, Ben, with some clan powers, a chip on…
Time travel. Like Captain Janeway, I hate it. I mean, I love stories about it (hello, I watch Doctor Who every Sunday with one of my besties). But the kinds of paradoxes in The Future Falls are not exactly my cup of tea. If you can look past that, this is another fun fantasy novel that benefits from being mostly set in Calgary, and you don’t see enough of those! If you liked the first…
A podcast I listen to, Read It and Weep, has developed a metaphor for the films it’s watching during its current season. Movies that are mostly pleasant diversions are soda (or pop as I would call it); movies that require a lot more effort to understand and enjoy are coffee (some are in fact very strong coffee). Like all metaphors this one has its limits, yet my mind kept coming back to it…
What's better than a magical mystery? A magical mystery featuring baked goods, you say? Sign me up! Baker Thief is a conventions-busting, inclusive, fun alternate world urban fantasy novel with mysteries and thrills and no small amount of underdogs taking on the corrupt underbelly of corporations.
It is, in short, a good read.
Adèle is a detective recently relocated and transferred to a new unit. Shortly after moving in, a masked, purple-haired thief named Claire…
Last year I read The Rook, and I liked it enough that when I noticed this sequel at the library, I gave it a shot. Did not regret! This is a great example of a sequel that doesn’t disappoint—although, it doesn’t quite deliver exactly what I wanted either. Namely, I was expecting another book that follows Myfanwy Thomas. She’s here in Stiletto, but she isn’t really the central protagonist. For that we have…
It seems like every time I review a short story anthology I always start with a disclaimer about how short stories, and by extension, their anthologies, are not really “for me.” In this case I need to say it because How Long ’Til Black Future Month? is one of those rare exceptions where I … I actually liked pretty much every story in here. Not equally, of course. But there were only one or two…
Showing 1 to 20 of 178 results