Spellbook of the Lost and Found – Moïra Fowley-Doyle’s debut, The Accident Season, was a quiet roar of a book that used suspenseful magic to get at some extremely heavy issues, and her second book is no different, except that it’s even better. It follows three groups of teenagers who collide after a party where …
How do you top Nevernight, a book that’s basically Harry Potter for assassins, complete with magical, stairway-shifting school accessible only by diving through something that really shouldn’t be dived though? Well, actually the second installment does involve a diary and a giant snake, but that’s where the similarities end. Mia Corvere murders people to further her …
Before I begin reviewing the book, I must first review the title. At least enough to say: it sucks. It sucks! It sucks, it sucks, it sucks. Rather than intriguing me, it actively put me off picking this book up. I am sick to death of books with “the girl” or “the woman” or “the …
(Look, if Cindy Pon can reference Jay Chou, I can reference Jay Chou, okay?) Taiwan of the future is a great place to be–if you’re rich. In fact, the world is a pretty great place in general if you have the cash–but if you don’t, the world is even worse than it is today, with …
The minute I saw the name for this book, I exclaimed—ostensibly to my husband, but my cat or the open air would have sufficed—”of course this needs to be a book. Why has no one thought of this before? The Refrigerator Monologues—it’s so obvious.” But like many of the most interesting things, it’s only very …
Aurora has a big secret. She’s not special. Oh, she’s a princess. She’s heir to a city-state and has never known physical hardship. She’s lovely, adept in languages, a gifted horsewoman, and a practiced fighter. But Aurora has no magic, and in Caelira, that’s the only skill that really matters for a monarch. After all, …
Well! Waking Gods certainly doesn’t waste any time, I’ll tell you that much. Despite taking place about ten years after the first book (Sleeping Giants), everything is as urgent and immediate as ever. Global cooperation is tenuous; scientific advancement is not as far along as anyone would like; and another giant robot shows up in …
I was astonished when I picked up The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon, the third installment in the Bone Season septet. It’s only 350 pages, shorter than both previous volumes by more than a hundred pages. Most series this long (I believe this one is planned for seven volumes, a la GRRM) succumb to bloat …
The Signalman is waiting. The cultists are waiting. Time divides them, and a short, terrible burst of violence, but that’s not very much, in the scheme of this universe. They all want to know what happened–what is happening–in the desert, but only the Signalman knows enough to be afraid. Something the cultists will only learn …
Scarlett and her sister Tella live on a conquered and colonized isle under the iron fist of its governor, their father Marcello Dragna. The governor is a brutal man, but Scarlett has a glimmer of hope. She—and by extension her sister—will soon escape, thanks to a marriage her father has arranged for her. And yes, …