I read Spear by Nicola Griffith recently (end of 2023) and had no idea what to expect from it going in (paid links). Like a couple of my other recent reads, this was technically a novella, essentially a short novel. This was the first book by this author that I had read. I listened to the audiobook edition, which was narrated by the author.
I listened to the audiobook of this.
Here is the blurb:
The girl knows she has a destiny before she even knows her name. She grows up in the wild, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake come to her on the spring breeze, and when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she knows that her future lies at his court.
And so, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and, with a broken hunting spear and mended armour, rides on a bony gelding to Caer Leon. On her adventures she will meet great knights and steal the hearts of beautiful women. She will fight warriors and sorcerers. And she will find her love, and the lake, and her fate.
I enjoyed this book a lot. It featured a girl without a name who finds her place in the world when she dares to leave the familiarity of home for adventure in the world. She comes upon the body of a slain knight and takes up his spear, gaining inspiration from the weapon to give herself a name.
Once she comes upon the slain knight’s companions, it was clear that this book was a retelling of Arthurian legend. While I’m far from an expert, I have read a fair number of these types of stories and am always interested to read a new take on classic tales. Even knowing those legends, this book was able to tell a compelling story that still surprised me.
It is clear from the early part of this book that the protagonist is a lesbian. While there is a love story within the novella, it isn’t the main focus of the plot. Other themes include the meaning of family and becoming accepted by others.
Have you read any books by Nicola Griffith? Which ones would you recommend? Let me know in the comments (above)
This is technically a novella, so it was a shorter read. This book won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards in 2016/2017 and the series won the Hugo Award for best series in 2022.
I read the e-book edition.
Here is the blurb:
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Quests
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.
But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.
But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.
No matter the cost.
I think that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first fantasy book that I read, and definitely the Narnia series was one of my most beloved stories growing up. I absolutely love the premise of Every Heart a Doorway, which looked at what happens to children who have traveled to another world and then returned to their mundane lives.
I had to wonder what type of story this would be though, now that their adventures are over. It turns out that when you gather many such children at a special school to learn to deal with the aftermath of their fantastical adventures, things don’t always go well. This book featured a murder mystery, as students start dying with parts of their bodies missing.
The characters in this book were diverse and well-drawn for the short length of the novella. I had my suspicions about the identity of the murderer, but it didn’t become clear until later in the story. I have heard that the following books in the series alternate between continuing the greater story and going back to tell about the children’s backstories. I’m not sure I’ve seen a series structured quite like that before. I intend to keep reading more of this series soon.
Have you read any of the Wayward Children series? Let me know in the comments (above).
I finished reading Hell Bent, the second book in the Alex Stern series by Leigh Bardugo, last year, as part of my read-through of all of the author’s current work (paid links). Like I did with most of her other books, I listened to this in audiobook format, narrated by Lauren Fortgang and Michael David Axtell.
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.
Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.
I jumped right into this book after finishing Ninth House, so the conclusion of that first volume was fresh in my mind. This sequel is structured differently since Darlington is still missing. The secondary characters play a bigger role as Alex tries to find her missing mentor. Dawes would rather continue her quiet research and work on her thesis, but her dedication to Lethe House makes it impossible for her to stay away. Detective Turner also cannot escape his role in helping Lethe House, and his past plays an important role in this book.
One part of the plot was somewhat repetitive, but it all kept me engaged and invested in the characters. Alex manages to ignore the rules of the societies as she tries to recover Darlington and investigate who is responsible. We continue to learn more of the truth of her past as well.
I loved how Alex has learned to trust her roommate and has gathered a larger circle of friend to help her in this second book.
I still don’t know how this series will end for all involved, but I’m excited for the third book. So far there is no title or release date for it.
Have you read Ninth House and Hell Bent? Where do you think the story is going? Let me know in the comments (above).
I have had Alix E. Harrow on my radar as an author since I read The Ten Thousand Doors of January and called it one of the best books I read in 2021. You can find my review of it here. I did not enjoy her next novel, The Once and Future Witches, quite as much but felt like it was still a good read (paid links).
This new book, Starling House, is another stand-alone novel with a more gothic feel. Read on to see what I thought of it.
I read the e-book edition.
Here is the blurb:
Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland–and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.
Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.
As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.
If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.
I loved this book, although perhaps not quite as much as The Ten Thousand Doors of January. This was a surprise to me, because the description make me expect this to be more of a gothic horror story (not my thing), when it was actually more like fantasy with some creepiness mixed in. Opal is a gritty and brave heroine, fighting to survive after her mother’s tragic death, so I was automatically rooting for her.
The description of the creator/builder of Starling House and her book reminded me of Edward Gorey’s work. While I’m not a fan of general horror, I guess I do enjoy weird monsters. Starling House also features a sword, so that drew me in as well.
The book is written mainly from Opal’s perspective, but with an occasional chapter shown from Arthur’s point-of-view. The way that the story is structured creates a mystery wherein Opal wants to understand her strange dreams and learn about Starling House, while Arthur shows us the sinister threat that he has been facing.
I didn’t expect this story to have romance, but that is also part of the tale. It isn’t the main plot, but it gives more strength to the reasons why Opal keeps returning to Starling House. The pacing of the story was also very good. I read this entire novel in about three days, and I wish I had slowed down at the ending to make it last longer. I’ll be sure to look out for more books by this author in the future.
Have you read any of Alix E. Harrow’s books? Let me know in the comments (above).
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo is the first book in a new series by the author of the Shadow and Bone series. Unlike those books, this one is set in our world, but with occult magic rather than grisha powers. This is book #1 (of a planned 3) in the Alex Stern series (paid links). I read this book last year in an audiobook format, narrated by Lauren Fortgang and Michael David Axtell. Read on below to see what I thought.
I have read and written reviews of several the author’s other books which you can find here:
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
This book was billed as a more adult novel, compared to the author’s previous YA books, and it does feature more mature scenarios, violence, language, and drug use than her earlier novels. It is also told through two different points of view: one being the protagonist, Alex Stern, and the other is her mentor, Darlington, teaching her the ways of Lethe House. His part of the story is set earlier in the time frame of the novel because he has gone missing in Alex’s later viewpoint chapters. This creates an engaging mystery where the reader doesn’t know what happened to him, but Alex does, slowly revealing it as the story proceeds.
The way that the author weaves her sinister version of Yale’s secret societies into our world is seamless. It turns out that she went to Yale and was a member of one of these societies (they’re real, just not the magic). The character of Alex is an outsider to her newfound college life as well as the societies, and her toughness and real-world experience helps her to survive.
There is a hint of romance between Alex and Darlington, but since he has gone missing, any further development in that arena will have to wait. Like the author’s other novels, I expect this to be a very slow burn.
The audiobook edition was great as well. Lauren Fortgang has narrated the author’s other books, but gives an individual voice to Alex in this new series. Look for the review of book 2, Hell Bent, next week (paid link).
Have you read any of Leigh Bardugo’s books? Which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments (above).
A couple of years ago, I had decided to read all six of the books in the Dune series that were written by the original author, Frank Herbert. The first three tell the story of Paul Atreides, and you can find links to those books and my reviews of them here (paid links):
Dune (#1) – sorry, I lied. I didn’t actually review the first book.
The next book (#4), God Emperor of Dune is set about 3000 years after the events of the first three books (paid link). Read on below to see what I thought of this one.
I read the e-book edition.
Here is the blurb:
Millennia have passed on Arrakis, and the once-desert planet is green with life. Leto Atreides, the son of the world’s savior, the Emperor Paul Muad’Dib, is still alive but far from human. To preserve humanity’s future, he sacrificed his own by merging with a sandworm, granting him near immortality as God Emperor of Dune for the past thirty-five hundred years.
Leto’s rule is not a benevolent one. His transformation has made not only his appearance but his morality inhuman. A rebellion, led by Siona, a member of the Atreides family, has risen to oppose the despot’s rule. But Siona is unaware that Leto’s vision of a Golden Path for humanity requires her to fulfill a destiny she never wanted—or could possibly conceive….
This book was rather strange. Leto Atreides, son of Paul from the original book, has been transformed into a part-human, part-sandworm creature. He has the memories of all his ancestors, like Paul also had acquired. The planet of Arrakis has been transformed and very little desert remains. The surface is covered with forests and rivers, with remaining “museum” fremen present as a tourist attraction.
The other characters in this story are Moneo and Siona, both Atreides descendants, as well as Duncan Idaho, reborn yet again as a ghola. From the outset, Siona is a rebel, pledged to bring down Leto the God Emperor. I enjoyed her tale, but then the narrative drifted away from her for most of the book. The author is making a commentary on absolute power and leading through religious fervor and fear, but I’m not sure that I understood everything he intended to say.
Leto also has an odd fixation on arranging the breeding of his descendants. This has always been a factor in the series, but it felt more artificial and out of place in this book. The relationships that occurred felt sudden and awkward. In the end, I’m still not sure what The Golden Path is, but I’m going to keep reading the next two books.
Have you read any of the later Dune books? What did you think? Let me know in the comments (above).
While everyone else was working from home and social distancing during COVID, fantasy author Brandon Sanderson was writing at a superhuman pace. In fact, he was so cut off from his regular appearances and activities, that he wrote four new stand-alone novels, announcing them in this Kickstarter that broke records for the platform.
Even though I’m only a sometimes fan of Sanderson, it was hard not to take notice of this feat. Of course I contributed to the Kickstarter. This review is for the first of those books, Tress of the Emerald Sea (paid link).
I read the Kickstarter e-book edition.
Here is the blurb:
The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?
This book had a promising start with a sympathetic protagonist who is forbidden to leave her homeland. When Tress’s friend, Charlie, doesn’t return from his voyage, she dares to break the rules and go in search of him. The set up was wonderful and I was instantly engaged with the story.
Once Tress leaves home, we learn more about the unique worldbuilding (a noted feature of Sanderson’s work). The Emerald Sea of the title isn’t green water, but a vast expanse of spores that react when they contact moisture. The world has several different seas, each with different species of spores and different effects. The book treats these effects partly as magic since the results of adding moisture to spores are often dangerous, unpredictable, and feared by laypersons. At the same time, it is actually a science that follows rules and those who understand it can use the spores to create weapons, engineering feats, and spy tools.
The Kickstarter e-book edition contained some illustrations which fit perfectly with the vision of the scenes that I had in my head.
I wish that the ending has been more satisfying. It felt too much like a deus ex machina and also seemed rushed to me. I don’t want to say more to avoid spoilers. Overall I did enjoy this book and I’d love to read more stories set in this corner of Sanderson’s Cosmere.
Did you contribute to the Kickstarter? Have you read any of the books? Which one should I read next? Let me know in the comments (above).
The Terraformers is a stand-alone science fiction novel by Annalee Newitz. This is a book that I read last year. I have previously read and enjoyed one of this author’s other books, The Future of Another Timeline, but did not review it here (paid links). Read on below to see what I thought.
I read the e-book edition of this book.
Here is the blurb:
Destry is a top network analyst with the Environmental Rescue Team, an ancient organization devoted to preventing ecosystem collapse. On the planet Sask-E, her mission is to terraform an Earthlike world, with the help of her taciturn moose, Whistle. But then she discovers a city that isn’t supposed to exist, hidden inside a massive volcano. Torn between loyalty to the ERT and the truth of the planet’s history, Destry makes a decision that echoes down the generations.
Centuries later, Destry’s protege, Misha, is building a planetwide transit system when his worldview is turned upside-down by Sulfur, a brilliant engineer from the volcano city. Together, they uncover a dark secret about the real estate company that’s buying up huge swaths of the planet―a secret that could destroy the lives of everyone who isn’t Homo sapiens. Working with a team of robots, naked mole rats, and a very angry cyborg cow, they quietly sow seeds of subversion. But when they’re threatened with violent diaspora, Misha and Sulfur’s very unusual child faces a stark choice: deploy a planet-altering weapon, or watch their people lose everything they’ve built on Sask-E.
This book was structured as several interconnected stories, each one set further into the future on the planet of Sask-E. I definitely gravitated toward certain characters more than others and found that Destry in the opening section was my favorite.
The terraforming technology was used to make the planet hospitable and it was designed to mimic a paleolithic Earth. The main character at the beginning, Destry, is part of the Environmental Rescue Team, ironically tasked with protecting this artificial environment that humans have painstakingly created. She discovers a hidden society of the original terraformers, thought long dead as a result of the changes to the planet and deals with the crisis that arises as a result. However, when the book cuts to the next section, I was disappointed that I didn’t get to keep reading about Destry.
The novel looks at some interesting ideas – about what makes an organism sentient, how humans change the environment, and who gets to make the decisions about the world they live in. I also loved the idea of the sentient train in the later portion of this book. Overall though, this book was a bit of a let down and didn’t quite come together to me. I enjoyed The Future of Another Timeline more.
Have you read any of the author’s books? Let me know in the comments (above).
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros is a book that I had not heard of until a few months ago. Thanks to TikTok, it was propelled to prominence and became a best-seller as part of the newly coined “romantasy” genre. It had a pretty cover and also featured dragons, so I had to check it out. Fourth Wing is the first book in the Empyrean series (paid links). Read on below to see what I thought.
I read the hardcover edition of this.
Here is the blurb:
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
As someone with a disability that results in frequent injury, Violet was a sympathetic character. I’ve heard that she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, although her condition isn’t specifically named in the book. No one expects her to be able to survive the harsh training or the assessment of the dragons in Basgiath War College. However, one of her advantages is that she is used to dealing with pain.
This is also a romance and Fourth Wing features an initial rivalry between Violet’s best friend from home and the bad boy who might want to kill her or kiss her. When the relationship heats up, it gets quite spicy.
I enjoyed the twists in the plot and the sense that more was going on behind the scenes than the people and even the dragonriders have been told. I guessed one aspect of the ending a few pages before it was revealed, and I have some other guesses about where the story is going. I’m planning to start book 2, Iron Flame soon (paid link).
Have you read Fourth Wing yet? What did you think about the ending? Let me know in the comments (above).
I have been meaning to read the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon for many years, but it is daunting to start such a long series and I kept putting it off. My mother has read the whole thing (more than once) and I think she’s going to disown me if I don’t read it, so that was the final impetus for starting it. The first book is simply titled Outlander (paid links). I listened to the audiobook edition, narrated by Davina Porter.
The series has also inspired a show, and I’ve actually watched part of the first season. So going into this first book, I already had an idea of how the opening would go. Read on to see what I thought of the whole book.
I listened to the audiobook edition.
Here is the blurb:
The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
I was surprised at how closely the beginning of the book followed what I already knew from the show. Of course, there are more details in the book, and this is certainly not a short novel. My own knowledge of English and Scottish history isn’t great at all, but I felt like I could follow along with the politics and intrigues. The author gives just enough historical knowledge to provide context for the story without becoming overwhelming.
The interplay between Jaime and Claire was interesting–the cultural differences between their two times cause a good amount of conflict. Claire is opinionated and headstrong while Jaime is a product of his time and tries to treat Claire accordingly. Their romance was well done though, moving from an arranged marriage to a place of mutual respect and then love. I’m curious to see how the author will keep their relationship fresh with at least nine more books left to go.
The narrator for the audiobook does a great job–both with the accents and with giving each character a distinctive voice.
My only criticism is that I felt that the ending of their time in Scotland was unsatisfying. Without giving too many specifics away, I wish that the final events of Jaime’s escape didn’t happen off-screen, only to have Claire hear about what happened later, particularly because I thought that it was weird for cows to be used in such a way.
I’m going to continue on with the series and am hoping to get through one book per month. Look for my review of book 2, Dragonfly in Amber, in March (paid link)!
Are you a fan of the Outlander books or the show? How far along in the books should I be before I start the show again? Let me know in the comments (above).
Salvage – a flash fiction science fiction story with a winter holiday theme