City of Bones is a slowly accelerating adventure story with a hefty chunk of archaeological puzzle, a big dash of political intrigue, a few bits of theft and murder, and some complicated personal feelings to taste. Khat, a second (or maybe third) class member of Charisat society, is an expert in identifying and acquiring relics …
Do you like violence? Alexander Darwin’s The Combat Codes is about a world where society has traded war for hand-to-hand combat bouts. Where the Grievar are trained, given performance-enhancing stimulants, and all sorts of experiments by the Daimyo in order to win their newfound way of waging war. Murray, who used to be a knight …
The Traitor, the last installment of Anthony Ryan’s The Covenant of Steel, staked me through the heart. The ending of the previous book, The Martyr, left little doubt that the events of Alwyn Scribe’s life would be entering the heartbreak section of the trilogy when it ended with not only Alwyn sleeping with Evadine covered …
Based purely on growing up in the Disney era of fairy tales, at one point I would have said that Sleeping Beauty is the lamest of heroines. Problematic, of course, but also just boring. Clearly just a tale invented by a parent who really, really wanted to go to bed! But I’m so glad that …
Can the deliberate, repeated, and visceral slaughter of intimate partners be charming? I don’t think I’m allowed to say that, but after reading Walking Practice, I can’t help it. Perhaps better to say I’m charmed, safely in the past tense, by the wacky, brutal, and ultimately highly relatable tale of an alien trying to survive …
There were some pandemic novels about the pandemic itself, produced with a startling alacrity and provided by an industry eager to contend with the trauma if only so it could get back to business as normal. And so we got The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, Joan is Okay by Weike Wang, Companion Piece by Ali …
If you only take one thing from my review, it’s this: I love this book so much. So much. It is so good. It’s going to have a permanent place on my top shelf, only I’m sure it will actually live in a small pile of beloved books much closer to hand, getting its pages …
Nine heroes came together and defeated the dark lord of Necrad twenty-two years ago, losing one of their own in the process, and now have been doing their best without him trying to lead the city to mixed results. On the surface, The Sword Defiant is a story of one warrior realizing the good old …
Martha Wells has been a lowkey legend for more than a decade now, and she just keeps pumping out the hits. Witch King is another solid entry to her canon, a standalone with sequel potential that quietly incorporates current discourse into her classic high fantasy style. This book reminded me of reading 90’s fantasy in …
Vanja, you magnificent devil, you’re at it again. Anyone who’s read Little Thieves (which should be everyone) will know that Vanja is incorrigible, so it’s no surprise that within the first ten pages of Painted Devils she’s started a cult. By accident! She swears! And sure, it’s very convenient to be the prophet of a …