Book Review – The Great Hunt

10 Feb 2022 1 Comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

With the recent television adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, I’ve decided to finally read/re-read the entire series. Many years ago, I had read up through book 7 or 8, but then found myself forgetting key details of the story while waiting for the next book to be published. I told myself that someday I’d go back and read the entire 14-book series. I started this last year with the first book – The Eye of the World. I didn’t have time to write a review of that one (and I still may go back to do it), but here are my thoughts on book 2 – The Great Hunt.

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Here is the blurb:

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

For centuries, gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. So many tales about each of the Hunters, and so many Hunters to tell of…Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages. And it is stolen.

So this blurb doesn’t really describe much of what this second book is about. Readers of the series will recognized that first paragraph as the repeating intro that starts each book, a reminder of the theme of a cycle to the events of the world that is integral to this story.

The Great Hunt follows our main character, Rand Al’Thor as he follows (and at times leads) a group of Shienaran soldiers in pursuit of the Horn of Valere after it is stolen by Darkfriends. His internal conflict about his newfound powers continues and ostracizes him from his friends who don’t know his secret.

The characters are introduced to several new enemies (Selene/Lanfear and the Seanchan), threatened by old ones (Padan Fain, the Children of Light), and betrayed by those once thought to be friends. This book splits up some of our characters as well, with Egwene and Nynaeve starting their training at Tar Valon. But this division doesn’t last and by the end, the story threads all converge, bringing the tale to another semi-conclusion.

I’ve already started the third book, The Dragon Reborn, and I’m hoping to get through one a month. Look for my next review soon!

Have you read the series? How far did you get? Are you watching the show? Let me know in the comments above.

Find more of my reviews here.

Reading Goals for 2022

05 Jan 2022 Leave a comment

by Clare in Books Tags: , , , , , , ,

Looking ahead every year, it’s nice to set goals, right? I feel like I always want to be reading more, but it’s so hard to keep that to-be-read list under control.

For 2022, I have decided to let all self-control go in creating my books-to-be-read list. First I took all those books I had intended to read for 2021 but failed to get to and rolled them over to 2022. Then I added more books! I have a few series that I’m trying to finish so the list keeps growing. That leaves me with 89 books for 2022.

Can I actually read 89 books in a year? I don’t think I ever have. But why not try?

Here is the current list for 2022:

And here are the books I’m starting out the year with (already included in the list above):

How do you plan out your reading? What books are you most excited for in 2022? Let me know in the comments!

Books Read in 2021

04 Jan 2022 1 Comment

by Clare in Books Tags: , , , , , , ,

I had set myself a goal to read 50 books for 2021. And while I didn’t quite make that, ending up with 43 books read, I feel like I still accomplished a lot of my reading goals. As this graphic format always seems popular, here are the books I read in 2021:

Have you read any of these? What did you think?

For my favorites for the year, click over to this other post of mine.

Next up, I’ll take a look at what I’m planning to read for 2022.

My Best Books of 2021

21 Dec 2021 1 Comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

While I haven’t been posting book reviews regularly, I have been continuing to read a lot of books this year. My Goodreads goal was to read 50 books for 2021 and although I’ll fall short of that, I expect to reach 43 books read by the end of the year. So what did I think of what I read? If you want to see my favorites from the year, keep reading below!

And my required notice: Links in this post are for Amazon’s affiliate program and purchases help to support this blog.

First, the stand-alone novels:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow was the first novel I had read by this author. This was a wonderful portal fantasy and you can read my full review here.

I read another book by Alix E. Harrow and also loved this one. The Once and Future Witches follows three sisters as they rediscover witchcraft in a slightly alternate history tale.

I had never read anything by Octavia E. Butler but listened to Kindred as an audiobook this year. This was a disturbing tale of time travel, racism, and slavery. Now I need to read more books by Octavia Butler.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir is a fun science fiction tale with an emphasis on science. While I did question one aspect of the biology, it was quite entertaining.

I fit two re-reads in: these books were past favorites and remain so:

I can’t remember how many times I have read Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey over the years, but it had been at least 20 years since my last read. I’m always nervous to re-read something I remember so fondly, wondering if it will still stand up to my memories of it. But this book is still a solid winner in McCaffrey’s introduction to her Dragonriders of Pern series. I even wrote a review of this one here.

Then of course with the recent movie release, I had to go back to Dune by Frank Herbert. I had only read this once before and I found that I enjoyed it a lot more this time around. I never read beyond the first book though so I will likely put more of this series on my growing to-be-read list for 2022.

Best series:

I have a bad habit of starting series and not finishing them. So for 2021, I managed to read two complete series and start another that made this list.

I started to read The Shadow and Bone Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo when the recent television adaptation was released. This was a spur of the moment read and these books hadn’t been on my radar prior to the series. But if you’re looking for a YA fantasy series with some romance and fun magic, then these are great.

The first book in The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty had been on my to-be-read list for a while and I’m sooooo glad I finally started this series. This story is set in a world of magical djinn and follows two main characters through struggles for power over the magical city of Daevabad. This series was nominated for a 2021 Hugo Award and has some wonderful political machinations, bad guys who really justify their actions, and a slow-burn romance. I’m actually still reading the last book of this one and I’m dying to know how it ends.

I picked up the first book in Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series (The Calculating Stars) last month and didn’t have time to get to more in the series, but I loved it. This is an alternate history where the space program is accelerated in the 50’s and women are chosen to be astronauts sooner than our real history allowed.

While A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine could be read as a stand-alone novel, there is also a sequel. I liked this first book more than the follow-up though. This is science fiction set in a far future empire with a focus on political machination and intrigue in a uniquely built culture. I also wrote a review for this one here.

Non-fiction:

Lastly, I do try to read some non-fiction every year and did fit a few in. The most thought-provoking one of these for 2021 was Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. This book examines our social structures and racial disparities in a disturbing assessment of American culture. I learned a lot reading this one and would highly recommend it, even if you don’t think you need to do any reading on this subject.

So those are my top picks from the year! Did you read any of these? Do you have any other recommendations? Let me know in the comments (above, near the date). Coming soon – the entire list of books read in 2021, then my planned reads for 2022.

Book Review – Kingdom of Exiles

11 Aug 2021 3 Comments

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , ,

This is a another review for a book that I read a while ago, but I decided to go back to write down my thoughts because there’s a sequel out (The Frozen Prince) that I’d like to read. Kingdom of Exiles by Maxym M. Martineau is book #1 in The Beast Charmer series and is a fantasy romance combined with fun summoning magic that works a lot like Pokemon.

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Here is the blurb:

Exiled beast charmer Leena Edenfrell is in deep trouble. Empty pockets forced her to sell her beloved magical beasts on the black market—an offense punishable by death—and now there’s a price on her head. With the realm’s most talented murderer-for-hire nipping at her heels, Leena makes him an offer he can’t refuse: powerful mythical creatures in exchange for her life.

If only it were that simple. Unbeknownst to Leena, the undying ones are bound by magic to complete their contracts, and Noc cannot risk his brotherhood of assassins…not even to save the woman he can no longer live without.

I enjoyed this book and it was a fast read. We get to see both Leena and Noc’s point-of-view in alternating scenes, so their secrets are obvious to the reader, but not known to each other, adding to the tension. This book was also very much a romance, and it looks like there are two versions available (adult and YA) which I didn’t know at the time I read it. I must have read the adult version, but if you want less explicit romance, then maybe look at the YA one?

While some of the plot was wrapped up in the ending, there was one large aspect still left open. I wouldn’t really call it a cliffhanger, but I do need to read the next book. It looks like there is also a third book (The Shattered Crown) coming out at the end of this year.

Do you read much fantasy romance? Are there other books you’d recommend? Let me know in the comments above.

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – The City & The City

03 Jun 2021 Leave a comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I had wanted to read something by China Miéville for some time and this novel came up in one of my book clubs. So I finally had my chance. The City & The City is a stand-alone novel that tied for a Hugo Award for best novel, won the Locus Award, World Fantasy Award, and Arthur C. Clarke Award, and was nominated for a Nebula Award.

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Here is the blurb:

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives.

What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.

Overall, this book just wasn’t for me. I found the author’s writing style hard to follow and I can’t pinpoint exactly why. Something about the sentence structure and the way he writes dialogue made this a hard book to get into.

The story started off intriguing enough with a murder investigation in a strange mish-mash of coexisting cities, their separation enforced by the mysterious power of Breach. I felt like the plot dragged and it wasn’t until about two-thirds of the way through the story that it became more suspenseful.

This next part is a little spoilery:

What bothered me the most about this book is that the most fascinating aspect – the nature of the two cities and rumor of a secret third city – was not the point of the book. The murder is solved and has a mundane explanation, while the third city is just a red herring. Meh.

Have you read anything by China Miéville? Would you recommend a different book of his based on my problems with this one? Let me know in the comments.

Find more of my reviews here.

Reading Goals 2020

08 Jan 2020 Leave a comment

by Clare in Books Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

As I look back at 2019 and ahead to 2020, I decided to think through my reading goals. What did I accomplish in 2019? How will I plan my reading in 2020? Here are my conclusions.

2019 Reading Achievements

Goals for 2020 Reading

I plan to read even more for 2020. I love this graphic that you can make over on Goodreads from one of your shelves. This is just part of my 2020 to-be-read shelf. I know that I won’t get to all of these, but having this list all in one place helps to keep me organized and on track.

Just a few of the books I’d love to read in 2020.

Here are my specific 2020 goals:

  • Read 50 books. For this, I count all types of books and formats.
  • Continue to finish, catch up with, and keep up with series I have already started. Upcoming reads include: Otherland by Tad Williams, The Song of the Shattered Sands by Bradley Beaulieu, The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski, Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda, The Gentleman Bastards by Scott Lynch, The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, The Seven Kennings by Kevin Hearne, The Throne of Amenkor by Joshua Palmatier, The Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett, The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Cliff Rathburn, Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, and The Founders by Robert Jackson Bennett.
  • Wow, that’s a lot of series!
  • I would still like to aim for at least 2 classics and 2 non-fiction books. For classics, I’d love to read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
  • I would like to read more graphic novels, but I have some of that covered in the series I need to read (above).
  • I need to catch up on my book reviews. I didn’t do very well with these in the second half of 2019.

Well, that’s it for now! What books do *you* plan to read in 2020? Are there other classics you think I should read? Do you have any favorite non-fiction books to recommend? Let’s chat in the comments (click by the date at the top of the post), and remember to follow my Amazon affiliate links to help support this blog.

Book Review – Spinning Silver

17 Aug 2019 1 Comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , , ,

After reading Uprooted, I had to pick this one up next, and I’m glad I did. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is another sort of fantasy and fairy tale blend, but this one feels like it is based slightly more in our world than Uprooted. The two books are stand-alone novels and are not related, so you don’t have to worry about reading in a particular order. You can read my review of Uprooted here.

This story follows three women and their intertwined stories. The book starts out from the perspective of Miryem, the Jewish daughter of a small village moneylender. Her father doesn’t do a very good job at moneylending, so Miryem helps out, saving their family from poverty.

Her actions draw the attention of the Staryk, an elf-like people who travel a magical road through their lands and are tied to the winter and snows. The Staryk king hears of Miryem’s ability to figuratively turn silver into gold and tasks her to do the same with his Staryk silver. She takes up his challenge and uses her creativity to solve problems.

Wanda is the eldest child in a poor farming family. Together with her two younger brothers, she struggles to keep food on the table while their abusive father drinks away what little coin they have. Miryem calls upon Wanda’s father to repay their debt, and since he lacks coin, he sends Wanda to work for the moneylender’s family. While their relationship starts out simple, eventually Wanda’s story is wrapped up in Miryem’s fate and the fantasy realm of the Staryk.

Irina is the third main character and is the daughter of the Duke in the larger city near Miryem’s village. Irina comes into the tale when Miryem’s Staryk silver catches the eye of the Duke. The tsar enters the story at this point, and turns out to be one of the antagonists of the tale when we learn that he is possessed by a demon.

The three women’s stories are woven together into a masterful plot that brings together several conflicts while each woman challenges her traditional role in this culture. The dual nature of this world resonates throughout the book, with human versus Staryk, human versus demon, and winter versus spring, all important themes. The enemies that the women face are not as simple as they originally seem, and the outcomes of events are unpredictable and fascinating.

I truly enjoyed this book as much as Uprooted, but it is a different kind of story, focused more on the human characters and their own struggles. This is one of my favorite books this year.

Find more of my book reviews here.

Book Review – The True Queen

17 May 2019 Leave a comment

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , ,

The True Queen is the second novel by author Zen Cho, and is a sequel to Sorcerer to the Crown, which I previously reviewed here. I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Set in Regency England, this book features the protagonist from the first book, Prunella, now Sorcerer Royal of the nation, but in a secondary role. The main story follows Muna, a young lady from distant Janda Baik who was taken in by Mak Genggang, a powerful sorceress that also makes a reappearance from the Sorcerer to the Crown.


Muna and her sister Sakti awaken on a beach with no memories of their past. They soon find their way to the household of Mak Genggang, where Sakti becomes a student of sorcery. However, both of the sisters appear to have been cursed, and when their plans to fix their ailment themselves go wrong, Mak Genggang is forced to send them away to England for their own protection.

During their journey, the sisters travel through Faerie, and Sakti disappears. Muna emerges into England alone and swears to find her sister, but also doesn’t trust the English sorcerers enough to tell them exactly what happened. Muna still manages to discover Sakti’s location and launches a daring plan to save her, taking Prunella’s friend Henrietta Stapleton along in her adventures.

Muna is a charming and tenacious heroine, but her ignorance of the customs in England add to her challenges. Despite this, I found that I liked the earlier Sorcerer to the Crown better than The True Queen. The ending wrapped up the story, but I felt a little confused with how it turned out in regards to Muna. I’ll still look out for any more books in this series though.

Read more of my reviews here.

Book Review – Uprooted

12 May 2019 3 Comments

by Clare in Books, Reviews Tags: , , , , , ,

I had first read one of Naomi Novik’s books when I started the Temeraire series several years ago. I struggled to finish Tongues of Serpents and put that series down for some time. Then I kept hearing things about Novik’s two newer books (Uprooted, Spinning Silver) and I thought I’d give one a try.

Uprooted is a unique fairy tale story and I found it to be an enthralling read. I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by Julia Emelin. At first I had a hard time adjusting to the narrator’s accent, but once I became more involved in the story, it became easier to follow and fit the main character well.

Uprooted follows Agnieszka, a young woman in a small village near to the dread forest, where evil things live and sometimes emerge to bring magical blights and steal away the unwary. The Dragon, a mysterious wizard, protects the valley’s villages from the depredations of the wood, but every ten years, he takes a young woman away to his tower. While she is returned at the end of her service, seemingly unharmed, these women never stay in their former homes and leave for pursuits in distant lands.

This time, everyone knows that the Dragon will choose Agnieszka’s best friend, Kasia. She is beautiful, kind, and talented, and he always chooses the “best” the village has to offer. Despite this knowledge, Agnieszka cannot come to terms with Kasia’s fate, so she grasps her friend’s hand as the Dragon examines the girls on offer. The Dragon’s attention turns back to Agnieszka, and for reasons known only to the mage, he chooses her instead of Kasia.

Seemingly imprisoned at the top of the Dragon’s tower, Agnieszka tries to adjust to her new fate. Her days are filled with strange lessons and the Dragon is hardly hospitable. Yet her journey in this book is mesmerizing as she learns of her own powers. Kasia remains an important character through the book, and Agnieszka plays a careful game with the Dragon, princes, other wizards, and the dangers of the wood.

The entire novel felt like a fairy tale, but moved from a smaller story of a girl and a wizard to one that involved a greater struggle between good and evil and the entire kingdom. The character of Agnieszka makes a wonderfully stubborn and willful protagonist who values her friend Kasia and her village over rules and proper behavior. At the same time, the evil in this book was terrifying, but also with an undercurrent of melancholy.

Uprooted was one of the best books I’ve read this year, and so far is my favorite of Novik’s work.

Find more of my book reviews here.

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