Our Best Books of 2025

By JoshuaMacDougall on

We’re back from the Holidays. Happy New Year. We list what we think are the best books we read in 2025, which are not limited to but do include a lot published in 2025. Christina’s Books Steph’s Books Josh’s Books Your hosts are Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), and Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits). You can …

Bookling: Blood for the Undying Throne

By JoshuaMacDougall on

We discuss how much we love the 2nd book in Sung-il Kim’s The Bleeding Empire series. New locations, new characters, surprising returns, and an ambitious but nerve-wracking ending are delved into here. Your hosts are Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), and Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits). You can find us all on Bluesky. Our art is …

Blood for the Undying Throne Review: Empire of Death and Death of Empire

By Christina Ladd on

Like Sung-il Kim’s debut novel Blood of the Old Kings (translated by the incomparable Anton Hur), his follow-up Blood for the Undying Throne is a trove of badassery. It takes everything awesome about 90s fantasy, the bigness of it, the bombast, the refusal to get bogged down in grimdark or hyper-realistic details, and updates them …