Book Reviews
Black Cranes
*** I received a free copy in return for an honest review **** Publisher’s Description Almond-eyed celestial, the filial daughter, the perfect wife. Quiet, submissive, demure. In Black Cranes, Southeast Asian writers of horror both embrace and reject these traditional roles in a unique collection of stories which dissect their experiences of ‘otherness,’ be it…
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Nona the Ninth
Publisher’s Description Her city is under siege. The zombies are coming back. And all Nona wants is a birthday party. In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona’s not like other…
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Foxglove Summer
Publisher’s Description When two young girls go missing in rural Herefordshire, police constable and wizard-in-training Peter Grant is sent out of London to check that nothing supernatural is involved. It’s purely routine—Nightingale, Peter’s superior, thinks he’ll be done in less than a day. But Peter’s never been one to walk away from someone in trouble,…
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Braid
Publisher’s Description Decades after escaping the tower, Zel makes her living as a healer and wise-woman, travelling the lands with her family and the sentient, serpentine braid that still carries a touch of the witch’s magic. Short-haired and happy, Zel prepares for the birth of her first great-grandchild, only to find herself shaken by unexpected…
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Into the Forest
Publisher’s Description Deep in the dark forest, in a cottage that spins on birds’ legs behind a fence topped with human skulls, lives the Baba Yaga. A guardian of the water of life, she lives with her sisters and takes to the skies in a giant mortar and pestle, creating tempests as she goes. Those…
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Sallow Bend
Publisher’s Description Something old and deadly has awoken. When two teenagers go missing from the small, rural town of Sallow Bend, the residents come together to search for them. Little do they suspect that finding the wayward girls will be the start of their problems. An old evil is rising, and only one man seems…
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Revival
Publisher’s Description In a small New England town, in the early 60s, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister, Charles Jacobs. Soon they forge a deep bond, based on their fascination with simple experiments in electricity. Decades later,…
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Curse of Bronze
Publisher’s Description Bella Hathaway comes from a family of daredevil adventurers — but she’s a a quiet scholar of magical languages who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. When her curse-breaker aunt is murdered in the Eldritch Library, Bella inherits a house full of dangerous artefacts & talking furniture. As she investigates her aunt’s death,…
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Damnation Games
*** I received an ARC in return for an honest review *** Publisher’s Description Alan Baxter, editor of Damnation Games, believes horror is the genre of honesty. ‘With horror, there’s no shying away from brutal reality to supply a happy ending. Even when the evil is overcome, it seldom happens without cost. Survivors are rarely…
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The Bloody Chamber
Publisher’s Description From familiar fairy tales and legends – Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves – Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories. Review I read the classic The Bloody Chamber and Other Tales by UK author Angela Carter as part of…
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The Haunting of Hill House
Publisher’s Description Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House- Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely assistant; Luke, the future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with…
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Sabella
Publisher’s Description On the rosy sands of a distant Earth colony, Sabella lives a quiet life in her isolated home—carefully hiding her vampirism from society. Sabella may not be undead, but she is painfully allergic to sunlight, possesses supernatural strength and speed, and feeds on fresh blood. In her youth, Sabella seduced a number of…
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Engines of Empathy
Publisher’s Description Charlotte Pudding, computer psychologist and recent orphan, is not precisely thrilled with her lot in life (and not just because of the ‘orphan’ bit). Nevertheless, having her routine disrupted by a shadowy corporation, a man who claims to be a retired god, and the secrets of her own family history isn’t a walk…
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Briar Rose
Publisher’s Description Robert Coover’s many acclaimed works of fiction have established him as a powerhouse among America’s postmodernist writers. With Briar Rose, he casts his own unmistakable style on an ageless tale. A brilliant recreation of the timeless Sleeping Beauty story, Briar Rose tells of a prince trapped in the briars; a sleeping beauty who…
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Cut to Care
Publisher’s Description An agency that sends social workers into the homes of grieving families to impersonate dead loved ones… The kind old woman who saved a teenager’s life but now finds herself haunted by the weight of a cheated suicide… And the daughter of a candlestick maker as she tries to survive a painful existence…
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Priest of Bones
Publishers Description ‘Sixty-five thousand battle-shocked, trained killers came home to no jobs, no food and the plague. What did Her Majesty think was going to happen?’ Tomas Piety takes his duties seriously: as a soldier, as a priest of Our Lady of Eternal Sorrows and as a leader of men. He has come home from…
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Bishop
Publisher’s Description “Caught between an ancient evil and a man with nothing to lose, a young girl’s fate hangs in the balance.”Erin Rogers and her daughter Casey have been missing in the Alaskan wilderness for five days. Troy Spencer is determined to find his sister and niece at any cost. Once there, a local tells…
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The Babysitter Lives
Publisher’s Description A mother carries her six-year-old daughter into the tiled bathroom where the bathtub is already running, is still running, is overflowing, and for a moment the girl calms, seeing her little brother floating facedown in the water, his hair a golden halo around him, but then this mother is guiding her face-first down…
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Written in Red
Publisher’s Description As a cassandra sangue, or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut—a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg’s Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the…
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They Were Here Before Us
*** I received an ARC in return for an honest review *** Publisher’s Description The less you know going in, the better off you’ll be. If you know, you know.The only thing more brutal than nature is love. Review My most recent read was They Were Here Before Us by Bram Stoker Finalist Eric LaRocca.…
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The Twisted Ones
Publisher’s Description: When Mouse’s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother’s house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be? Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first…
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Burnt Sugar
Publisher’s Description Decades after the incident in the woods, Gretel has forged a good life in a small village, running a bakery and taking care of her brother and the stray, bedraggled women who find work as her apprentices. Business is good, and when it’s not, Gretel took more from the witch than a knack…
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Malice
Publisher’s Description Once upon a time, there was a wicked fairy who, in an act of vengeance, cursed a line of princesses to die. A curse that could only be broken by true love’s kiss. You’ve heard this before, haven’t you? The handsome prince. The happily ever after. Utter nonsense. Let me tell you, no…
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You’ve Lost A Lot Of Blood
Publisher’s Description “Each precious thing I show you in this book is a holy relic from the night we both perished-the night when I combed you from my hair and watered the moon with your blood. You’ve lost a lot of blood . . .” Review I recently read Eric LaRocca’s second independently published novella…
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Drowned Country
Publisher’s Description Even the Wild Man of Greenhollow can’t ignore a summons from his mother, when that mother is the indomitable Adela Silver, practical folklorist. Henry Silver does not relish what he’ll find in the grimy seaside town of Rothport, where once the ancient wood extended before it was drowned beneath the sea—a missing girl,…
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Night of the Mannequins
Publisher’s Description We thought we’d play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead. One last laugh for the summer as it winds down. One last prank just to scare a friend. Bringing a mannequin into a theater is just some harmless fun, right? Until it wakes up. Until it starts…
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The Dark Matter of Natasha
Publisher’s Description Natasha stalks the quiet streets of dead-end Lunar Bay like doom in a denim jacket. She’s a grim reminder that some teenagers can never escape the ever-tightening noose of their lives. Burned out and benumbed by a traumatic past, dogged by scurrilous small-town gossip, she finds solace in drugs, sex and Slayer. When…
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A Dead Djinn in Cairo
Publisher’s Description Egypt, 1912. In Cairo, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine.What starts off as an odd suicide case for Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi leads her through the city’s underbelly as she encounters rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, clockwork angels, and a plot that could…
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The Old Dragon’s Head
Publisher’s Description Constructed of stone and packed earth, the Great Wall of 10,000 li protects China’s northern borders from the threat of Mongol incursion. The wall is also home to a supernatural beast: the Old Dragon. The Old Dragon’s Head is the most easterly point of the wall, where it finally meets the sea. In…
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Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
Publisher’s Description Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death. A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s – a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. What have you done today to…
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The Path of Thorns
Publisher’s Description Asher Todd comes to live with the mysterious Morwood family as a governess to their children. Asher knows little about being a governess but she is skilled in botany and herbcraft, and perhaps more than that. And she has secrets of her own, dark and terrible – and Morwood is a house that…
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For the Wolf
Publisher’s Description THE FIRST DAUGHTER IS FOR THE THRONE.THE SECOND DAUGHTER IS FOR THE WOLF. As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose – to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in order to save her kingdom. Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she…
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Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales
Publisher’s Description Baba Yaga is an ambiguous and fascinating figure. She appears in traditional Russian folktales as a monstrous and hungry cannibal, or as a canny inquisitor of the adolescent hero or heroine of the tale. In new translations and with an introduction by Sibelan Forrester, Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in…
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The Rarkyn’s Familar
Publisher’s Description An orphan bent on revenge. A monster searching for freedom. A forbidden pact that binds their fates together. Lyss has heard her father’s screams; smelled the iron-tang of his blood. She witnessed his execution. And plotted her revenge. Then a violent encounter traps Lyss in a blood-pact with a rarkyn from the Otherworld…
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Horseman
Publisher’s Description Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows about the Horseman, but no one really believes in him. Not even Ben Van Brunt’s grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. Brom says that’s just legend, the village gossips talking. More than thirty years after…
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South of the Sun
Publisher’s Description *** I received a review or ARC in exchange for an honest review *** This is an enchanting illustrated book of fairy tales – but not the kind you read to children at bedtime. They are strictly for the grown-ups. Often dark, the stories visit places where things don’t end happily ever after,…
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Empire of the Vampire
Publisher’s Description “It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness. Gabriel de León, half man, half monster and…
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The Girl in the Corn
Publisher’s Description “Beware of what lurks in the corn.Fairies don’t exist. At least that’s what Thomas Cavanaugh’s parents say. But the events of that one night, when he follows a fairy into the cornfield on his parents’ farm, prove them wrong. What seems like a destructive explosion was, Thomas knows, an encounter with Dauðr, a…
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The Eternal Machine
Publisher’s Description A woman with the strength to rebel. A shapeshifter who wears the souls of the dead. Together, they face a lethal enemy… Em helped create it. Now she must craft its defeat. In a city owned by industrialists, Em sells her magic to make ends meet. The extraction procedure is brutal and potentially…
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American Indian Trickster Tales
Publisher’s Description Of all the characters in myths and legends told around the world, it’s the wily trickster who provides the real spark in the action, causing trouble wherever he goes. This figure shows up time and again in Native American folklore, where he takes many forms, from the irascible Coyote of the Southwest, to…
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Melmoth
Publisher’s Description Oh friend, take my hand – I’ve been so lonely! One winter night in Prague, Helen Franklin encounters her friend Karel, half-mad with fear. He has come into possession of a mysterious old manuscript, filled with testimonies that speak to Helen from 17th-century England, wartime Czechoslovakia, the sweat-soaked streets of Manila and 1920’s…
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Cold as Hell
Publisher’s Description: The town of OpenFields is cold as hell… Magic exists in OpenFields, and everyone but Adie plays their part. So what happens when murder and strangers visit the secret town? Adie’s normal isn’t “normal.” Cameras watch her sleep, the eyes of the townsfolk narrow at her sight, and when she discovers her bosses’…
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The Heart is a Mirror for Sinners
Publisher’s Description Welcome to The Heart is a Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories. Slatter’s work has been described by the legendary Ramsey Campbell as “enviably original, and told in prose as stylish as it’s precise. Not just disturbing but often touching, her work enriches and revives the tale of terror.” From the fierce changeling…
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Dark Nature
*** I received an ARC/Review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review *** Publisher’s Description Generation after generation, humans have ripped apart the world, leaving garbage and desolation in our wake.Burning, destroying, and stealing from the earth. We see it happening day by day and do nothing about it. Our air is…
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A Song of Flight
Publisher’s Description After a violent encounter with masked men and the sinister Crow Folk, Prince Aolu of Dalriada disappears without a trace, and his companion Galen is seriously injured. Liobhan and the Swan Island warriors seek answers to the prince’s abduction. For Liobhan this mission is personal, as Galen is her beloved brother. While she…
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Certain Dark Things
Publisher’s Description Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires. Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, is just trying to survive its heavily policed streets when a jaded vampire on the run swoops into his life. Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, is smart, beautiful, and dangerous. Domingo is mesmerized. Atl…
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Dreaming of Djinn
Publisher’s Description: To open Dreaming Of Djinn is to open a jewel encrusted box full of exquisite and mouthwatering delicacies. This sensuous and truly mouthwatering collection melding the modern and the ancient with the strangeness of speculative fiction, is a treasure trove of originality and exotic magic. It will ravish your senses as it transports…
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No Good Deed
Publisher’s Description : Isobel assumed her wedding would be the grandest day of her life, but when she wakes in a ghost-filled tomb still wearing her bridal veil, it’s clear events have taken an unexpected turn. With the assistance of a vengeful spirit Isobel escapes her imprisonment, but her new husband Adolphus will not be…
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A Local Habitation
Publisher’s Description: October “Toby” Daye is a changeling, the daughter of Amandine of the fae and a mortal man. Like her mother, she is gifted in blood magic, able to read what has happened to a person through a mere taste of blood. Toby is the only changeling who has earned knighthood, and she re-earns…
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The Once and Future Witches
Publisher’s Description: In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the three…
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King of Assassins
Publisher’s Description Many years of peace have passed in Maniyadoc, years of relative calm for the assassin Girton Club-Foot. Even the Forgetting Plague, which ravaged the rest of the kingdoms, seemed to pass them by. But now Rufra ap Vthyr eyes the vacant High-King’s throne and will take his court to the capital, a rat’s…
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My Heart is a Chainsaw
*** I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley *** Publisher’s Description: “Some girls just don’t know how to die…” Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in…
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Starve Acre
Publisher’s Description The worst thing possible has happened. Richard and Juliette Willoughby’s son, Ewan, has died suddenly at the age of five. Starve Acre, their house by the moors, was to be full of life, but is now a haunted place. Juliette, convinced Ewan still lives there in some form, seeks the help of the…
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Stark Naked
Publisher’s Description Stark Naked is Silvia Cantón Rondoni’s intense personal journey. These reflections reveal her transition from childhood through grief and trauma, to the woman of resilience she is today. Illustrated by Silvia Nieto in close collaboration with the poet, her artwork adds visual soul and compliments a collection filled with raw emotion and brutal…
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A Dance with Fate
Publisher’s Description Liobhan, the young warrior and bard, has lost her brother to the Otherworld. Even more determined to gain a place as an elite fighter, she returns to Swan Island to continue her training. But Liobhan is devastated when her comrade Dau is injured and loses his sight in their final display bout. Blamed…
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Blood Kissed
Publisher’s Description In a world where magic and science sit side by side, and powerful witches are considered necessary aides for all governments, Lizzie Grace is something of an outlier. Though born into one the most powerful blue blood witch families, she wants nothing to do with either her past or her magic. But when…
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The Ghost Tree
Publisher’s Description When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in the town of Smiths Hollow, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won’t find the killer. After all, the year before her father’s body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her…
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The Dark Chorus
Publisher’s Description The Boy can see lost souls. He has never questioned the fact that he can see them. He thinks of them as the Dark Chorus. When he sets out to restore the soul of his dead mother it becomes clear that his ability comes from within him. It is a force that he…
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Bleak Precision
Publisher’s Description Eight stories, an essay and artwork by two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, Greg Chapman.Table of contents:KakophonyHorror Fiction: A Bleak and Depressing Look at TruthThe Pest Controller’s WifeFascinationScar TissueUnrequitedMongrelHard BargainFeast of Feasts Review Bleak Precision, a collection of horror and dark fiction tales by Australian-based author and artist Greg Chapman. There are many good…
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Cursed: An Anthology
Publisher’s Description: “It’s a prick of blood, the bite of an apple, the evil eye, a wedding ring or a pair of red shoes. Curses come in all shapes and sizes, and they can happen to anyone, not just those of us with unpopular stepparents… Here you’ll find unique twists on curses, from fairy tale…
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Shadow and Bone
Publisher’s Description: “Soldier. Summoner. Saint. Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold—a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed. Now Alina will enter a lavish…
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Mongrels
Publisher’s Description: “He was born an outsider, like the rest of his family. Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixed blood, neither this nor that. The boy…
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Blood of Assassins
From the Publisher: “In a desperate bid to escape the bounty on his head, assassin Girton Club-Foot has returned to Maniyadoc, but the kingdom he knew no longer exists. Three kings battle for supremacy in a land ravaged by war-and one of them is his old friend Rufra. With threats inside and outside the war…
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In Solitude’s Shadow
Publisher’s Description “An army is at the gates of Haltveldt, a nation built on war, and nothing is as it seems. Calene Alpenwood, a powerful warrior-mage gifted with the Spark, makes a shocking discovery that sets into motion events that put her at odds with the very masters she serves. Reuniting with her mother Zanna,…
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Wait for Night
Publisher’s Description A day laborer hired to clean up a flooded creek outside of Boulder, Colorado uncovers what could be a valuable find—if it doesn’t kill him first. Review Wait for Night is a novelette by US author Stephen Graham Jones. The story follows a day-labourer Chessup and a work crew cleaning up a flooded…
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Whispers in the Dark
Publisher’s Description “Two decades into an eternal sentence in the impenetrable Void for daring to rebel against the might of the Empire, and Agent Ivory is ready to give up on life entirely, even if the unseen Warden of the prison won’t ever let him die. But when a mysterious voice in the darkness visits…
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All the Murmuring Bones
Publisher’s Description “Long ago Miren O’Malley’s family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer: safety for their ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and have fallen into decline. Miren’s grandmother is determined to restore…
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The Witch’s Heart
Publisher’s Description: Angrboda’s story begins where most witches’ tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself…
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Son of a Trickster
Publisher’s Description: Meet Jared Martin: sixteen-year-old pot cookie dealer, smoker, drinker and son with the scariest mom ever. But Jared’s the pot dealer with a heart of gold–really. Compassionate, caring, and nurturing by nature, Jared’s determined to help hold his family together–whether that means supporting his dad’s new family with the proceeds from his baking…
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Rosemary and Rue
Publisher’s Description: The world of Faerie never disappeared; it merely went into hiding, continuing to exist parallel to our own. Secrecy is the key to Faerie’s survival—but no secret can be kept forever, and when the fae and mortal worlds collide, changelings are born. Outsiders from birth, these half-human, half-fae children spend their lives fighting…
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Age of Assassins
Publisher’s Description: TO CATCH AN ASSASSIN, USE AN ASSASSIN… Girton Club-Foot, apprentice to the land’s best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But his latest mission tasks Girton and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone, or many someones, is trying to kill…
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Borderlanders
Publisher Description: “Some keys open doors to strange worlds… Melissa has a happy marriage but her everyday life is a constant battle against pain. She discovers that her artwork can produce magic, prompting her to apply for an artist’s retreat to a mysterious country house. Her old schoolfriends Bettina and Zelda are also at the…
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Silver in the Wood
Publishers Description: “There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads. When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely…
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Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
From the Blurb: “ The year is 1806. centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation’s past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell, whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and…
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The Crossing Places
From the Blurb: “Dr Ruth Galloway is called in when a child’s bones are discovered near the site of a prehistoric henge on the north Norfolk salt marshes. Are they the remains of a local girl who disappeared ten years earlier – or are the bones much older? DCI Harry Nelson refuses to give up…
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Ivory’s Story
From the Blurb: “Long ago, a good man transgressed and was brutally punished, his physical form killed and his soul split asunder. Now, one half of his ancient soul seeks to reunite with its lost twin, a search that leaves murder in its wake…In the streets of modern day Sydney a killer stalks the night,…
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Time of Contempt
From the Blurb: “To protect his ward, Ciri, Geralt of Rivia sends her away from the home of the Witchers to train with the sorceress Yennefer. But all is not well within the Wizard’s Guild. Geralt is a Witcher: guardian of the innocent; protector of those in need; a defender, in dark times, against some…
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Blood of Elves
From the Blurb: “For over a century, humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves have lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, the uneasy peace is over, and now the races are fighting once again. The only good elf, it seems, is a dead elf. Geralt of Rivia, the cunning assassin known as the Witcher,…
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Black Sun
From the Blurb: “A god will returnWhen the earth and sky convergeUnder the black sun. In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the…
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Mexican Gothic
From the Blurb: “After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about…
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Storm of Locusts
From the Blurb: “It’s been four weeks since the bloody showdown at Black Mesa, and Maggie Hoskie, Diné monster hunter, is trying to make the best of things. Only her latest bounty hunt has gone sideways, she’s lost her only friend, Kai Arviso, and she’s somehow found herself responsible for a girl with a strange…
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Flyaway
From the Blurb: “Strange what chooses to flourish here. Which plants. Which stories. Bettina Scott lives a tidy, quiet life in Runagate, tending to her delicate mother and their well-kept garden after her father and brothers disappear – until a note arrives that sends Bettina into the scrublands beyond, searching for answers about what really…
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Corpselight
From the Blurb: Life in Brisbane is never simple for those who walk between the worlds. Verity’s all about protecting her city, but right now that’s mostly running surveillance and handling the less exciting cases for the Weyrd Council – after all, it’s hard to chase the bad guys through the streets of Brisbane when…
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The Only Good Indians
From the Blurb: “Ten years ago, four young men shot some elk then went on with their lives. It happens every year; it’s been happening forever; it’s the way it’s always been. But this time it’s different. Ten years after that fateful hunt, these men are being stalked themselves. Soaked with a powerful gothic atmosphere,…
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Harrow the Ninth
From the Blurb: “She answered the Emperor’s call. She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend. In victory, her world has turned to ash. After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery,…
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The Harp of Kings
From the Blurb: “BARD. WARRIOR. REBEL.Eighteen-year-old Liobhan is a powerful singer and an expert whistle player. Her brother has a voice to melt the hardest heart, and is a rare talent on the harp. But Liobhan’s burning ambition is to join the elite warrior band on Swan Island. She and her brother train there to…
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Gods of Jade and Shadow
From the blurb: “The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty, small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own. Yet this new…
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Uprooted
Uprooted by US author Naomi Novik explores the author’s polish heritage through vibrant folklore in this Fantasy novel. Although Uprooted began like many fairytale retellings with a naive village girl from a rural village, who is taken by the Dragon and trapped in a tower. This is the basic synopsis of Uprooted but the story…
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Metamorphosis: Short Stories
I recently read Metamorphosis: A Collection of Short Stories by Australian author Claire Fitzpatrick. I do not commonly read Horror fiction, so I am probably a bit unfamiliar with the development of themes in “body horror” fiction. However, I was really intrigued by the different stories in this collection, appreciating the originality and scope. I…
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Dark Currents
Dark Currents is the first instalment in a new urban fantasy series Agent of Hel by American author Jacqueline Carey. Set in the picturesque Midwestern tourist town of Pemkowet, protagonist Daisy Johanssen is a hell-spawn, daughter of a demon and mortal mother and the chosen representative and enforcer for the Norse goddess Hel, ruler of…
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Darkdawn
I recently read Darkdawn, the third and final instalment in the Nevernight Chronicle by Australian author Jay Kristoff. Darkdawn follows from the preceding volume Godsgrave where protagonist, the assassin Mia Corvere has succeeded in her plans on the arena sands of the grand gladiatorial games in Godsgrave. But Mia’s plans were not as unforeseen as…
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The Way of Kings
The Way of Kings by US author Brandon Sanderson was a recent recommendation. This first instalment in The Stormlight Archive series is definitely an epic fantasy not just in the scope of the novel itself but the incredible detail paid to the world-building and the unique characters. The Way of Kings follows a handful of…
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Vigil
One of my recent reads was the paranormal urban fantasy, Vigil by Australian author Angela Slatter. The first book in the Verity Fassbinder Series follows the paranormal private detective Verity Fassbinder set in an alternate version of Brisbane city, Australia where Verity acts as a mediator between the mortals (Normals) and the paranormal community (Weyrd).…
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Orphan Warriors
I recently read Orphan Warriors, the first installment in the Children of the Otori duology by British-born Australian author Lian Hearn. In the events following the aftermath of the Tales of the Otori series, Orphan Warriors follows a young protagonist, one of the orphan sons of Arai Zenko, former friend and betrayer to Lord Takeo Otori.…
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Gideon the Ninth
I read Gideon the Ninth by New Zealand author Tamsyn Muir after hearing many great reviews for this magic-induced, science-fiction adventure. Gideon the Ninth focuses on the central character of Gideon from the Ninth House, an orphan raised alongside the ruling heir, the extraordinary necromancer, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House. Harrowhark is…
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City of Lies
I was seven years old the first time my uncle poisoned me . . .”- City of Lies, Sam Hawke One of my belated book reviews is the debut Fantasy novel City of Lies by Australian author Sam Hawke. The opening line is the best hook for a novel of political intrigue, murder, mystery and…
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Circe
I recently read Circe, a historical fantasy by Madeline Miller, a retelling and exploration of the maligned figure in Ancient Greek mythology, the witch Circe. Circe follows the unusual female figure of Ancient Greek literature, the witch daughter of the Titan god Helios, exiled to Aiaia by Olyimpium Zeus. The details of Circe’s strangely mortal-like…
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The Institute
I read The Institute by US author Stephen King after many reviews discussed the social issues within the novel and the similarities with the psychologically challenging novels Firestarter and Carrie, both sharing with The Institute, children with powers of telekinesis and telepathy. The Institute focuses on twelve year old Luke Ellis, a boy of exceptional…
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The Bee and the Orange Tree
I read The Bee and the Orange Tree by Australian author Melissa Ashley. A wonderful historical fiction set during the early stages of the French Revolution but focused on the female literary circles surrounding Baroness Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy established as an author in her own right after successful publication career of several novels and fairytale…
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A Darker Shade of Magic
I had read many reviews of A Darker Shade of Magic by US author Victoria Schwab and in October 2019, I decided to delve into this popular series. I thoroughly enjoyed the world-building and unique characters of the first book in this trilogy. A Darker Shade of Magic follows Kell, one of two last magicians…
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