Genre: Fantasy

Shadow Frost by Coco Ma

The first word that pops into my mind to describe Shadow Frost is “indulgent”. This isn’t, strictly speaking, a bad book. It’s relatively entertaining, but it’s extreme and predictable. It has that Disney-esque quality of good triumphing over evil. The characters are highly powered with limited training and few consequences. There were some pretty cool ideas in the skeleton of this novel, but I just didn’t believe it. At all. And, yeah, okay, this is a fantasy and requires suspension of disbelief. I get that, I really do. But I also have a problem with characters who achieve the highest levels of […]

Posted September 16, 2019 in Reviews // 0 Comments //

Steel Crow Saga by Paul Kreuger

The first major takeaway I have about Steel Crow Saga is that it’s unnecessarily long. To steal a phrasing from one of the characters, it was a long walk to a very anime battle scene. The way this book is written falls into very detailed descriptions. There’s not a lot of room for the reader’s imagination in way characters think, feel, or how the world works. Steel Crow Saga is written from four perspectives and by the time you reach the end of the book, you know pretty well how each of them thinks, multiple stories from their past, how they feel […]

Posted September 12, 2019 in Reviews // 2 Comments //

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

I needed The Wrath and the Dawn because we need more unconventional retellings, guys! While I haven’t read The Arabian Nights, I am well aware of its framework. Scheherazade’s stories that run from one night to another, preserving her life on the basis of basic human curiosity, is a fantastic foundation for a retelling. Going into The Wrath and the Dawn, I expected a book full of tales and a lot of tension about will-she-or-won’t-she die. While The Arabian Nights definitely served as the launching pad for this novel, the theme did not continue through the story. We hear the tales of Agib […]

Posted September 8, 2019 in Reviews // 0 Comments //

The Girl the Sea Gave Back by Adrienne Young

Adrienne Young weaves beautiful worlds. Sky in the Deep came as a delightful surprise last year, and ever since, I’ve been looking forward to The Girl the Sea Gave Back. The cover is exquisite and I was excited to delve back into this world. There’s something mythical about the mixture for historical fiction and an edge of fantasy in this chilled, foggy landscape. As with her debut, the world spills on to the page in stunning splashes of color and it’s very easy to be mesmerized. That said, I didn’t feel as though this book was as successful as her debut, and […]

Posted August 22, 2019 in Reviews // 2 Comments //

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

Hag-Seed has a few different things I like, right off the bat. It’s a retelling. It’s an uncommon retelling – Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It’s a theatre book. It’s a revenge book. It’s a Margaret Atwood book. So without even going into the book itself, this was bound to be a winner for me. None of these aspects promise a pure five-star review, but they do promise I won’t be bored. And honestly? I enjoyed Hag-Seed, as a whole. I think that Margaret Atwood captured the feel of The Tempest so well. There are roundabouts and trickery and malevolent revenge. For those familiar with the […]

Posted August 19, 2019 in Reviews // 0 Comments //

Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

There’s a lot of revelling and a lot of chaos going on in Lords and Ladies. The fourteenth book in the Discworld series and the fourth in the Witches storyline. I’l pass on the warning that Terry Pratchett left on the first pages of this book – while most of the Discworld novels can be read independently, it’s highly recommended to read Witches Abroad before reading Lords and Ladies. I will say that the only witches book I’ve read is Carpe Jugulum, and I never felt lost reading this one? But the author recommends maybe not picking this up independently so I thought I’d pass […]

Posted August 17, 2019 in Reviews // 0 Comments //