I hoovered this up in two sittings and enjoyed it far more than the first one, which feels introductory by comparison. While I had a number of nigglesI hoovered this up in two sittings and enjoyed it far more than the first one, which feels introductory by comparison. While I had a number of niggles (something about the way the heroine's mental health issues are handled makes the book feel quite dark and heavy at the beginning; I am not sure a Russian ambassador's son would be like that at all; I expected to see a lot more of the secret society doing secret society stuff) mostly I really, really enjoyed being able to gallop through a silly, engaging book that required very little of my overtired brain.
My favourite thing in the series so far: the heroine's prickly but slowly-developing trust with her mother's childhood sweetheart which is a bunch of my favourite tropes in a trench coat. Least favourite thing: the absolutely bonkers plot twist at the end of this book, in which the heroine (view spoiler)[turns out to be the long lost princess of this fictional monarchy (hide spoiler)]. But that's just my personal taste....more
Alas! I presumed that the back cover of this book was promising me a thoroughly bad antiheroine getting a terrific redemption arc, but that is emphatiAlas! I presumed that the back cover of this book was promising me a thoroughly bad antiheroine getting a terrific redemption arc, but that is emphatically not what happened and I am crushed. ...more
Just silly glittery fun. This book is evidently intended to bridge the gap between the original trilogy and the spinoff, so I didn't go in expecting aJust silly glittery fun. This book is evidently intended to bridge the gap between the original trilogy and the spinoff, so I didn't go in expecting a lot of payoff. There are two parallel plots that don't connect much but I enjoyed both of them. I loved how much character development we get, especially for Grayson, with family rather than romance being the motivation. And I appreciated how much simpler and less convoluted the plot of this book was than the second and third books in the original trilogy. ...more
A darker, spikier BEAUTY AND THE BEAST retelling, mashed up with THE FIREBIRD and set in a light medieval Russian setting. Having loved Spooner's SHERA darker, spikier BEAUTY AND THE BEAST retelling, mashed up with THE FIREBIRD and set in a light medieval Russian setting. Having loved Spooner's SHERWOOD, I was eager to read this one.
This is one of those early novels that authors work on for years, sprawling out and becoming richer with time. As such, it's a deeply thoughtful and heartfelt fairytale about longing and freedom. However, for me the story fell short: having evoked CS Lewis's problem of human desire for something beyond the walls of the world, it could not present its main characters with an equally transcendent satisfaction. In the end, the book's hunters must find what satisfaction they can in each other....more
This is a book for fans of cosy, cottagecore, hopeful fantasy like INTO THE HEARTLESS WOOD or WORMWOOD ABBEY. It's setWELL THIS WAS UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL
This is a book for fans of cosy, cottagecore, hopeful fantasy like INTO THE HEARTLESS WOOD or WORMWOOD ABBEY. It's set in an absolutely convincing fantasy version of medieval Wales, full of the best sort of anachronisms - the sort that makes the story world richer and more resonant, not less. And, it features bright adventures, a complicated but endearing cast of characters, and rich, unexpected themes. There's that rarest of all things, a love triangle that makes sense and isn't eyerolly. There's a coven of powerful witches who are just as capable as anyone else of exploiting the world and its people, whose shenanigans have applicability for everything from capitalism to religious hierarchies. There's our three central characters, a scrappy hedgewitch with a passionate sense of right and wrong and two princes, one of whom is hungry for power and the other of whom is anything but. There's a climactic moment as bright and bursting with life as the margins of a medieval manuscript. And it all adds up into a beautiful story with a passionate sense of justice, which never become preachy and maintains its wit and good humour throughout.
I'm back to my ONCE UPON A PRINCE retellings, and this loose retelling of Cinderella got my attention because it's a deliciously angsty, dark fae romaI'm back to my ONCE UPON A PRINCE retellings, and this loose retelling of Cinderella got my attention because it's a deliciously angsty, dark fae romance with season-inspired magic, which are all things I absolutely love! I prefer my spiciness to be in my food rather than my romantasy reads, yet I often find that sweet romance is just a bit too...well, sweet...for my tastes. As a result, I absolutely loved how this book was both sweet and dark.
I also loved the way that this book tackled the second-chance romance trope. I'll admit that I've always been a bit of a sucker for this trope. The trajectory from past hurt to future healing can be a dramatic one with lots of good potential for a redemption arc - IF it's done properly. I haven't seen a second-chance romance done in fantasy before, and it was super clever to see this one done with a magical explanation: our main characters didn't ACTUALLY horribly betray each other, but illusion magic has convinced each of them that the other person did. While our hero understandably has a lot of animosity about this perceived betrayal, I loved that it takes the characters a single mature conversation to figure out that someone has been tinkering with their memories, and I loved seeing them tentatively begin to work together to identify the culprits. And, I can't say how much I appreciated the fact that as the two of them begin to unravel the truth, including mistakes and hasty judgements made by both of them, the book allows both of them to mutually apologise and begin to rebuild. I feel like I've read too many books lately where the heroine gets blamed for not accepting her love interest's half-baked or flat-out nonexistent apologies, and I loved that that didn't happen here.
I will admit that while I did enjoy the darker elements to the story, I found the hero's point of view a bit difficult to inhabit while he was interacting with, specifically, female characters he viewed as hostile or deceptive. And some readers may want to know that the sexual tension is a little higher than normal for this series. Overall, however, there was so much to love about this novella and if I could order ten more like it I would!...more
Plotty mystery with deep themes about power, creation, humanity, and humility. I feel like Turton was trying to give an Atheist Message but jokes on hPlotty mystery with deep themes about power, creation, humanity, and humility. I feel like Turton was trying to give an Atheist Message but jokes on him I got a No King But Christ Message....more
Literary fiction meets psychological thriller in this short novel. MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER is written in gloriously spare prose, with deeply layeLiterary fiction meets psychological thriller in this short novel. MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER is written in gloriously spare prose, with deeply layered themes and a steadily ratcheting sense of threat. It's one of those darkly funny books in which a perfectly normal protagonist, with perfectly normal motivations, finds herself doing increasingly abnormal things to cope with a person whose moral compass is starkly different to anyone else's. It's a picture of living with and loving someone whose moral compass is defective, in a traditional society which puts family honour above all else.
It was brilliant and I couldn't put it down, but the ending - while completely realistic and fitting - was also not particularly satisfying. And I suppose that's the difference between realistic literary fiction and a feel-good genre read....more
Terrific fun, even better than the first book - funnier, with more memorable characters and relationships, deeper themes, and a ton of thoughts about Terrific fun, even better than the first book - funnier, with more memorable characters and relationships, deeper themes, and a ton of thoughts about being an author. There's a proposal scene that veers into comedy, then cringe, then amazingly good thematic material as the narrator is brought to confront the ways he's failed to put the other person first in his life. Plus: there are parodies of Mission: Impossible and Fifty Shades of Grey and The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle that made me shout. Really satisfying, and a VERY fun train mystery....more
I decided to go on a bit of a mystery/thriller spree, and this one was first up. What put it at the top of my list, in addition to the fun premise (muI decided to go on a bit of a mystery/thriller spree, and this one was first up. What put it at the top of my list, in addition to the fun premise (murders and black comedy at a family reunion, but what's the difference between a killer and a murderer?) was realising that this is by an Australian author, and set in Australia. It was, in fact, super difficult to figure this out. There is nothing about Australia in the blurb. The author is Australian, but a ton of Aussie authors these days are having to set their books in America before they can land a publisher. It wasn't until I tripped over a bit of Aussie slang on page three that I knew for sure. I think this is a bit of a travesty; it feels like the publisher has done everything possible to play down the setting in an attempt to make the book palatable to US audiences.
Anyway, I was right to be excited to read a fellow Aussie author: it wasn't just very fun to read a very able and exciting detective story set in the Snowy Mountains; it was also distinctly refreshing to read a book published within the past decade that wasn't trying to do a Culture War on me.
This was a gripping whodunit, in which the author successfully juggles tons of characters, backstories, and twists without ever quite dropping one of them. I really appreciated the sensitive and respectful way he wrote his female characters, and handled some potentially thorny topics quite deftly. It was fun to see lots of references to Golden Age detective stories, including significant use of Ronald Knox's Ten Commandments - or nine of them, at least (I understand why the fifth was redacted, but would also like to point out that for its time, it was a shuffle in the right direction, insofar as it forbade authors not to do something that was quite common in pulp fiction of the time: using people of colour as exoticised threats, like the Indian cultists in THE MOONSTONE).
The denouement wrapped everything up in a way that was logical, but not 100% satisfactory: (view spoiler)[ The murderer turns out to be a character who has been a bit of a nonentity throughout the whole book. One final last-page twist (the little girl was killed by her own father - but why?) left much unexplained. And while I think it was realistic that the narrator moves on from his ex-wife and starts a new relationship, I was puzzled by the choice of Juliette, with whom he has no perceptible chemistry throughout the entire book. (hide spoiler)]
These niggles aside, I did find this to be a thoroughly fun, suspenseful read. I've already slapped a hold on book 2 at the library, because: THE GHAN....more
I just finished reading this in beta, and had a blast with it! The Melbourne-Gothic vibes are perfection and precisely right for this beautiful city, I just finished reading this in beta, and had a blast with it! The Melbourne-Gothic vibes are perfection and precisely right for this beautiful city, I'm already in love with the new cast of characters, and the themes about creation and personhood are fascinating and resonant. My brain is still in beta-reading mode so I can't say much more at this point, but you're all going to love it....more
All the ONCE UPON A PRINCE retellings have been thoroughly enjoyable, and this one had me chuckling and enjoying it a whole lot - which is no mean feaAll the ONCE UPON A PRINCE retellings have been thoroughly enjoyable, and this one had me chuckling and enjoying it a whole lot - which is no mean feat for a retelling of a legend which I happen to have a lot of opinions on (as a medieval history buff). And, if you like my Vasily Nikolaevich and really want another villanous disaster drama prince to fall in love with, look no further than this book. That said, in terms of the themes and the romantic resolution, I didn't feel this one quite lived up to the high standard set by the previous books in the series - so it wasn't quite as much to my taste as the others....more
I literally can't remember why I slapped this book on hold at the library. But it came in a few days later and I have romped through it very happily sI literally can't remember why I slapped this book on hold at the library. But it came in a few days later and I have romped through it very happily since.
Things I discovered about this book once I started reading it: - it's a YA fantasy! - Polish-inspired, no less! - it's a 2024 debut! - it's kind of like if you mashed up THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE and UPROOTED for a YA audience?
I gulped this down in a few days and had a ton of fun with it; this one is a cut above most YA fantasy debuts. It also tells an extremely familiar sort of story - a girl winds up in a magician's gothic house, must untangle the secrets of his past in order to prevent the creepy forest destroying the world - all the usual tropes. For a while in the middle stretch, even as I read compulsively, I was grumbling a little because nothing about the story was surprising me and the dialogue felt a little cliched in a way that felt more 21st-C American than Renaissance Polish. On the other hand, at least the plot was whipping along at a decent pace, which is more than I can say for one of those other big hits with the girl-magician-creepy-forest-gothic-house setup. But then the final quarter hit and I came away feeling pleasantly surprised by a number of things.
This book is tightly plotted and well-paced and the prose is beautiful. It has a bittersweet ending, of the sort where the hero (view spoiler)[sacrifices his life for the heroine and then spends the ensuing few years haunting her or possibly regenerating only we never know for sure (hide spoiler)], which is funny because it's the exact same thing that happened in the cdrama TILL THE END OF THE MOON. This did not bother me at all because I am a Tragedy Enjoyer, but those who insist upon happy endings should be warned. The most pleasant surprise in the book, for me, was the one where after the third-act breakup and subsequent dark night of the soul, the heroine, who has always been the subject of traditional-type Renaissance witch hunts thanks to her misunderstood magical abilities, regains the will to go on when a fellow magic-user encourages her that God must have given her her powers for a purpose. I found it a really lovely moment.
I'll be keeping an eye on AB Poranek's future books - given the promise of her first, her subsequent books should be well worth reading....more
It's really funny that we spend so much of this book hearing Leto II Atreides shouting at people that he's not a nine-year-old boy! he's the last bestIt's really funny that we spend so much of this book hearing Leto II Atreides shouting at people that he's not a nine-year-old boy! he's the last best hope for the survival of humanity!! he will succeed where his father, Paul Muad'Dib, failed!!! and then his great apotheosis consists of putting on a super-suit, getting a power-up, and running around the desert smashing things.
Except for the final quarter, CHILDREN OF DUNE was a slog, and I'm not entirely sure that it was worth the effort: so MUCH of the book is ponderous faux-philosophising with no apparent applicability to anything outside of this imaginary future. I'm not a stupid person, and I can appreciate philosophy in fiction when it's done well. This book just pontificates endlessly, much as DUNE MESSIAH did, except that DUNE MESSIAH had the good taste to get out of the way in seventy thousand words or so. CHILDREN OF DUNE is twice the length, and by the end I was more or less in the dark about what I was supposed to take away from it. Leto II escapes the trap which his father fell into, by systematically defying all prophecies and visions until he is able to create a future of his own making. Convenient, I suppose, that his gift of prescience does not predict all possible futures, but only some of them.
Which is not to say that there isn't a decent book hidden inside this gassy, bloated monstrosity. (SPOILER WARNING) A pair of creepy nine-year-old twins chessmastering their way through political and ecological forces far beyond their control makes for quite a story. I was delighted to see the return of Lady Jessica as a POV character: she escapes Herbert's tendencies to reduce his female characters to romantic and/or sexual creatures. Ghanima also fares fairly well, although she spends the majority of the book under a voluntary hypnosis that prevents her taking any real action, purely because one of the twins had to sacrifice themselves and they decided that Leto II was the stronger one. I was additionally delighted to see the return of Paul himself as a wandering Preacher from the desert, although in typical depressing Frank Herbert fashion we learn that he has not been having a very good time; he spends much of the book in passivity and ultimately suffers an anticlimactic death. Meanwhile, Stilgar is delightful, newcomer Farad'n is surprisingly appealing, Duncan Idaho leaves me cold as usual, and Alia...whew.
I'm going to be honest, I really hated Alia's fate in this book. Perhaps I would not have been so angry if she had not been so relentlessly sexualised in the previous book. If I felt that the author respected her as a character in book 2, I might be able to take her downfall in book 3 on its own terms: as a tragedy that need not have happened to a person of great potential for good. However, we never did get the sense that Alia was more than an object - of the male gaze in book 2 as a nubile teen seductress, and therefore of male fear in book 3 as a powerful, corrupt, malicious, venal, sexually deviant woman in thrall to an evil ghost. Paul and Leto II wield power as great as Alia's, but they are allowed to be noble figures who mean well even as they are forced to approve horrendous atrocities. Alia's personality, however, is completely erased by the possession of the Baron, and the only agency she gets all book is the moment she commits suicide. Herbert throws us a crumb by assuring us that it didn't have to be that way, but of the three imperial figures in this trilogy, the difference between how he treats Alia versus how he treats Paul and Leto II is stark.
Finally, the "noble-savage" picture of the Fremen at the start of the trilogy comes to a somewhat unfortunate culmination in this book: the colonisation of Arrakis by the Atriedes is bad for the Fremen because it makes them soft and greedy. Leto II's attempts to halt the ecological transformation of Dune so that it can continue to produce spice is also supposed to be good for the Fremen: offering them a chance to remain in a state of grindingly difficult, yet noble savagery.
I'm glad I finished the trilogy, just to find out what happens after DUNE, but that one is really the only instalment that seems to function properly as a novel....more
While this felt a little messier and less polished than the original trilogy, it was also my precise brand of madly entertaining court intrigue. All tWhile this felt a little messier and less polished than the original trilogy, it was also my precise brand of madly entertaining court intrigue. All the setup of the first book pays off, and more in a supremely catatstrophic 10-car pileup. Oak, who has been crafting himself personas to please and entice and subvert everyone around him all his life, finds himself in a rapidly shrinking world where he has to juggle multiple roles and plots at once, remain alive, save all the different people he loves through sneakery and deception while convincing them all that he can be trusted, and all this despite the fact that they're all planning to kill each other. While getting poisoned and spiralling into paranoia and going a little batty with true love. Is Oak going to learn the power of speaking truth in love, or will he inevitably be crushed beneath his own multitude of deceptions?
I've loved everything I've read from Holly Black but this book in particular? An Absolute Blast and a Hoot From Beginning To End....more
Holly Black returns to the world of the Folk of the Air trilogy with another dark fairytale. As with THE CRUEL PRINCE, I feel that this book is doing Holly Black returns to the world of the Folk of the Air trilogy with another dark fairytale. As with THE CRUEL PRINCE, I feel that this book is doing a lot of setup for the later meat of the story. I also don't find quest/road books particularly satisfying. But I still gobbled this up and loved so much about it. The plot is full of twists and mysteries. Oak makes a terrific fae love interest, with a blend of devious charm and ruthless lethality that reminded me of everyone's favourite murder steward from the CITY BETWEEN/WORLDS BEHIND books. Seren is an incredibly sympathetic heroine. I also loved how neatly the duology fits with the previous trilogy in terms of theme. THE FOLK OF THE AIR was all about Jude's thirst for power; in THE STOLEN HEIR both Seren and Oak are actively fleeing power.
I am congratulating myself on postponing this book until the second published, because the cliffhanger is terrific (I'm still waiting breathlessly on the second BOOK OF NIGHT). ...more
This is one of those special first books, the sort that grow with an author for ten years in a quiet simmer and eventually come out into daylight richThis is one of those special first books, the sort that grow with an author for ten years in a quiet simmer and eventually come out into daylight rich, unique, and unexpected. There are so many books about fae realms which follow a human into the world of the fae, or which are about a girl stolen by the fae as a bride. This book upends all those tropes: our main characters are the daughters of the stolen fae bride, and their journey is out of the dark cruel world of their home into the world of humanity and sunshine and familial love. And it's the blokes who end up getting stolen by the fae, which is additionally delightful.
Apart from the way it plays with tropes, I loved so much about THE ERLKING'S DAUGHTERS. I'm really not a fan of grimdark, but I am a huge fan of how the grimdark stuff in the first half of this book is quickly followed by a second half full of comfort, healing, and hope. Truly delightful....more
Hooray for another Ormdale book! It's now been about a year since I read the first draft of this book, and I couldn't be happier with how much richer Hooray for another Ormdale book! It's now been about a year since I read the first draft of this book, and I couldn't be happier with how much richer and more resonant it's grown since! Book 3 finds Edith, our favourite red-headed dragon charmer, venturing out of Ormdale to the wilds of Wales, where she discovers that she has in fact not been invited to a dragon mating ceremony but something a good deal more sinister and harder to escape from. But there's still oodles of cosiness, sunshine, tea, and adorable dragons to investigate - so basically, if you love the Emily Wilde books but think they should have a lot more dragons and a lot more social criticism, these are the books for YOU.
Speaking of social criticism, I had to laugh when I was reading these books in their earliest drafts and an invitation to Wild Wales arrives for Edith, because I saw INSTANTLY what was going to happen in this instalment. In the fourteen years I've known Christina I have been sat down to watch THE VILLAGE and have heard a number of detailed rants on the deep unfairness inflicted upon the Alcott family (of LITTLE WOMEN fame) by their incredibly selfish father as part of his 19th century utopian commune. CASTLE OF THE WINDS presents its own take on small utopian communities, which if you were ever a homeschooled millennial, will be all too poignantly familiar to you - and unlike THE VILLAGE, presents such a story with special attention to the unique temptation such communities hold for women, and the exploitation they have all too often found there. In amidst the charm and adventure and romance, this book has the most deep and resonant themes of the entire series so far.
And then of course there are the delightful romantic tropes. We get to watch in real time as Edith realises that she's been decoyed very much against her own common sense into participating in a competition to marry a prince, then does her level best not to become the yielding heroine of a badly written villain romance - all while taking some important steps forward in her relationship with the gentle Simon Drake.
Suzannah Rowntree
>
Books:
rating-pg-13
(276)
