Ilona Andrews' Sweep in Peace
The second book in this series finds our innkeeper hosting an intergalactic peace summit, sure, why not. There are a couple of little mysteries and some humorous scenes. I am meh on the romance. This one was also mildly diverting. B.
Ilona Andrews' Clean Sweep
I’m still on the lookout for gentle fantasy series to read, and this one about a magical innkeeper seemed like it might suit. But it’s weird? It’s like a paranormal romance, but there isn’t really a romance in this book (a couple of possible love interests but nothing really develops, which I was fine with, they were both alpha male jerks). And it’s not really urban fantasy, because it’s set in a small town in Texas. Also, werewolves and vampires are aliens??? I did like the magic innkeeper and her magical bed and breakfast and her small magical dog, and would in general rate this as mildly diverting. The protagonist has some mysteries in her past so I might read the next one and see how things develop. B.
Kristen Britain’s Firebrand
The sixth book in this series has a lot of great characters and interesting plots, but also a lot of rape references and extensive torture scenes. A mixed bag, really. Still, there is an awesome new character, a young serving girl, and the Captain remains a standout (I like seeing a middle aged woman be large and in charge and even get to make out occasionally). I am still uninterested in the central romance but am invested in the love life of the protagonist’s musician pal. Sadly, the next book in this series isn’t out till fall, so I’ll have to wait to see how that progresses. B+.
Kristen Britain's Mirror Sight
So after the events of the previous book, our heroine has somehow ended up two hundred years in the FUTURE, where her city is now a bunch of archaeological digs, and while the society is more technologically advanced, it's also now an empire full of slavery, patriarchy, and capitalism (ie BAD). Can she get herself back where she's supposed to be? And how did THAT GUY end up an immortal emperor?? (Yeah, how? It’s like the author forgot to keep this plot thread going.) Meanwhile, her friends back in the past are dealing with voice-stealing spells, changing political situations, and an impending war (though those are all pretty minor plots—this book is almost all set in the future and I think is the stronger for a narrower focus). Anyway, lots of adventure and political rebellion ensue, with the usual content warning for mentions of rape (sigh). B+.
Kristen Britain’s Blackveil
The fourth book in this series is a lot, there is just so much going on, with quests into evil forests and magical walls and politics back at court and various villains (a new villain is particularly gross and rapey). I definitely could have done without the gentleman thief from the last book being led on a journey by a magical ring. But I am still invested in many of the characters (the protagonist, her Captain, Estora, and a couple others), even if I’m not sure the plot is really heading in a particular direction. And these long-ass books are engrossing and diverting, if nothing else. B+.
Jasmine Guillory’s Party of Two
Rereading this for book club and I liked it just as much the second time! Great characters—a (black) lawyer trying to get her business off the ground meet-cutes with a hot young (white) senator over a discussion of dessert, VERY relatable. I like this a lot because it’s not one of those romances where people are unwilling to discuss their feelings; the conflict here is a legit one and one that needs to be worked through. I also appreciate the focus on criminal justice reform and community kitchens! Plus lots of CAKE.
Kristen Britain's The High King's Tomb
The third book in the Green Rider series brings a few new characters into the mix—primarily a gentleman thief and a powerful old woman who is now leading the evil imperial secret society—and brings back a few from the first book as well. Lots more gods and monsters and magic too. I especially liked all the goofy projections of mages, and of course was pleased at the addition of a cat to things as well. I am kind of eh on the main romance but I still like all of the characters and especially all of the interesting women. B+.
Kristen Britain's First Rider's Call
Oh my god, there is so much going on in this book, which makes for an exciting read (except for the depressing parts), but then when you want to summarize it you’re just like . . . I mean, this has ghosts, and accidental time travel, and the rise of various evils, and mental and physical battles, and politics, and a little bit of romance, and grief and pain and injury and illusions magic going awry and I don’t even know what all. And that is interspersed with a diary from long ago, chronicling the rise of the first great evil (the evil is IMPERIALISM, and also a mad dude obsessed with magic). I do like these characters though and I guess will keep reading this series? Content warning for mentions of rape and child abuse. B/B+.
Kristen Britain's Green Rider
Back to reading epic fantasy series I’ve never read before! This is a solid start to a series, focusing on a young girl who runs away from school after being suspended, only to encounter one of the king's mysterious messengers dying on the road. He begs her to complete his mission (I feel like I’ve read another book with this premise?) and soon she's sucked into a whole new world of magic and intrigue and politics. I will say the first half of this book is one of those endless journeys (though she does meet some awesome characters along the way), but eventually she makes it where she's going and things pick up. Occasionally there is a bit of awkward writing and there is an attempted rape, but otherwise I enjoyed this a lot. It sets the scene with some interesting worldbuilding and makes me psyched to check out the next one. A-.
Kristin Cashore's Winterkeep
This is set five years after the events of Bitterblue, and finds our young queen dealing with some heretofore unknown nations that have some magic of their own. There are some returning characters, as well as several new POV characters, including the teenage daughter of a pair of politicians, a giant sea creature, and a psychic fox. I was here for all of that. (I was even more here for the friendly psychic purple seals.) I even thought the romance was cute! A satisfying and diverting read! (Be warned there is some cruelty/abuse of children in this book.) A/A-.
Kristin Cashore's Bitterblue
A fourth book in Cashore's Graceling series is coming out, but since it seems mainly focused on Bitterblue, and since I remembered the first two as being a little more violent, I skipped those and just reread this one so things would be fresh in my mind. Of course, while this one doesn't have a ton of overt violence (aside from some assassination attempts), it does deal heavily with people processing (or not processing) trauma from being physically and mentally tortured by their former king, and so there are a lot of /references/ to terrible things. The main thrust of the story is the titular Bitterblue, a young queen who starts sneaking out at night to see what's really going on in her kingdom, befriends some thieves/rebels, and forces everyone to confront their issues. There is also an awesome crotchety librarian. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is pretty dark for a YA fantasy, but it’s also sort of optimistic? Anyway, I am psyched to get to read more in this world.
Penelope Farmer's Goodnight Ophelia
So when I was rereading Charlotte Sometimes the other day, I discovered an ebook by Farmer I’d never heard of, a book written for adults, about a woman reflecting on her life while in the hospital dying of cancer, and decided to read it. And the very first page mentioned Wikipedia and I was like whaaaaaaat. She wrote this book five years ago! She’s been writing books ALL THESE YEARS (Charlotte Sometimes came out in 1969 and wasn’t even her first book)! I am definitely going to be looking for the others. Anyway, as mentioned, this book is the reflections of a dying woman, on her childhood in post-war England with her adoptive father, on her mother who left her, on her own parenthood and career and love life, on the mysteries of her identity, all trucking toward a frankly cringeworthy reveal (there are a lot of hints and the reader will figure it out, but hope they’re wrong). But I mostly loved this anyway? Or anyway, I really liked the narrative voice (hard for me not to love a narrator who loves Nancy Mitford). A-.
Aliette de Bodard's Fireheart Tiger
I wanted to read this because I’ve heard a lot of good things about the author, and the blurb compares this to Howl's Moving Castle, which is the sort of story I’m always in the mood for! But the only similarity is a fire spirit; this book doesn't have any sort of humor at all. This is also the sort of novella that needs more room to breathe and more space for character development; a few scenes had me interested in the main romance, but it jumped back and forth with another love interest, and then the conclusion was very quick. Maybe I should take a break from novellas, since they so often aren’t quite enough for me? B.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 9th.
Penelope Farmer's Charlotte Sometimes
This is one of those books I read over and over as a kid, but it’s probably more meaningful to read as an adult? (Yes, it is the inspiration for the song by The Cure.) Anyway, it’s about a girl named Charlotte, who, on her first night at boarding school, begins changing places with another little girl at boarding school...forty years earlier, during WWI. But it is also about loss, identity, family, and bravery. Classic.
Stephanie Burgis' Thornbound
The second book in the Harwood Spellbook series worked much better for me, primarily because there was less exposition so things moved much more quickly, and the story in general was just more satisfying. Here, the protagonist is starting a magical school for girls, but the disapproving government is sending inspectors to watch, and a fairy bargain may cause trouble as well. Can she (and her adorable supportive family) save the school, and maybe their lives? Will she and her new husband ever get to make out? I mean, obviously yes, but the journey to get there is very enjoyable. A-.
Stephanie Burgis' Snowspelled
This is one of those novellas that I wish was just a full-length novel, because there are so many exposition dumps! It’s set in a world that is like regency England, except women are politicians and men and magicians, except our protagonist is a woman magician, but she lost her ability to do magic before the events of the story. Anyway, the actual story finds the young woman and her family going to a house party where her ex-fiancé will also be, and there’s an unnatural snowstorm, and a meddling elf lord, and a subplot with a pair of cute young lesbians. I will say I liked the romance here a lot, and loved the family relationships, but the whole elf lord thing is resolved too quickly. Again, this would have been improved if it was longer! Still a super cute and diverting read. B+.
Patricia McKillip’s Ombria in Shadow
This is a little bit darker and weirder than some of McKillip’s other works, but I still liked it a lot. It focuses on a small kingdom, and what happens to the ruling prince's mistress, bastard nephew, and little son after he dies, and his ancient and powerful great aunt becomes regent. There's also a whole thing with a shadow city, a mysterious sorceress, and her equally mysterious apprentice. The characters are all great but the plot is kind of convoluted. I loved the ending though. B+?
Erika Johansen's Beneath the Keep
I had hoped Johansen would revisit her Tearling world; she ended her trilogy in such an interesting place! But this is a prequel, about the protagonist's mother and Mace and their compatriots. It just feels . . . unnecessary? Like we had gotten pretty much all the relevant backstory already, did we need a whole novel of gory details? Did we need to see how the villains of the trilogy gained power? The only new thread is a plotline about a teen girl leading a rebellion of tenant farmers. This book almost wallows in the misery of the poor and downtrodden (and it is also VERY rapey, like there are not enough content warnings in the world). I mean, it’s trying to deliver a timely political message, which I appreciate, but it is also mainly a giant bummer. An author’s note at the end does hint at more stories in the world—maybe in the better world, in which case I will read them happily. Johansen has great characters, I just am not in an emotional place to enjoy a book this dark. B.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 2nd.
Anna North's Outlawed
So this book is set in a version of the Old West similar to ours, except when a women can’t have a child, she’s assumed to be a witch. And when this happens to our protagonist, a teenager training to be a midwife, she ends up with a gang of (non-binary and lesbian) outlaws! This is a great concept and it starts off really strong, but I needed just a little bit MORE, especially from the ending. Still, really interesting stuff going on here. B+.
L.X. Beckett's Dealbreaker
The sequel to Gamechanger is set twenty years later, and primarily focuses on Frankie (the little girl from the first book), now an experimental space pilot, along with one of her spouses. This one felt like it moved a little faster, and I liked Frankie and her cohort and all the AIs, but the villains here are waaaaay over the top. They’re like the cartoonish zombies in the games the characters play. Just gross stuff. That made the book a lot less effective and fun for me. B/B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 26th.
Melina Marchetta’s The Place on Dalhousie
And here comes the latest book in this occasional series, picking up with the gang in their mid-twenties, as Jimmy finds out he's a father, and the mother of said child is battling over a house with her stepmother (both women are very sympathetic characters). I kind of hope Marchetta keeps revisiting these characters, though I also want to just keep imagining happy endings with little struggle for all of them.
Melina Marchetta’s The Piper's Son
Well, once I reread Saving Francesca, obviously I had to also reread its companion novel, which takes place a few years later, as the teens are now young semi-adults. This one focuses on Tom, one of the secondary characters from the first book, whose family is torn apart due to a recent tragedy. (His forty-something aunt, pregnant by an ex, is also a POV character.) I just really love these characters and love books about people struggling through hard times but coming out the other side. Lots of cathartic crying for me with this one.
Melina Marchetta’s Saving Francesca
Today there was an attempted coup, where an armed mob busted into the Capitol building in an effort to stop Biden from being certified as our next president. Obviously this was stressful for those of us who prefer a democracy to a white supremacist dictatorship, so I had to bust out the big guns of comfort reading. I don’t know why I find this book—about a teen girl dealing with a new school and a mother suffering severe depression—so comforting, except that it deals with problems in a realistic way and has a lot of really loving relationships, and a sense of coming out of the darkness? Which is a sense I really needed today.
Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit
My accidental streak of reading queer genre fiction continues with this very fun book, where a scamp of a prince is informed by his grandmother the Emperor that he has to marry his recently deceased cousin's ex-husband for Intergalactic Reasons. They are totally into each other but each thinks the other isn’t, and they take way too long to have an honest conversation, also for Intergalactic Reasons (and for trauma reasons, it’s pretty clear to the reader that the deceased spouse was abusive, though this is not confirmed for a while, but anyway, content warning there). So much ANGST, it’s like I was reading fic! Make out already! But anyway I was totally into these two dudes and their relationship, as well as the intergalactic politics stuff, the little bit of a mystery they’re trying to solve, and the cast of badass lady secondary characters (including an eccentric professor). I mean this is not all fluffy, I don’t want to give that impression, see the parenthetical above, but it has a fluffy core for sure. A/A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 2nd.
Nino Cipri's Finna
I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, and since that last book I read was sooo looong, I was looking for something shorter and lighter. This was a ton of fun, centering on a pair of recent exes who work at an ikea-like store, who have to go in search of a missing customer. Except said customer has accidentally wandered through a wormhole! Adventures—and maybe friendship?—ensue. I think I wanted a little more from the end, but it looks like a sequel is imminent. A-.
L.X. Beckett's Gamechanger
I am not sure where to even START with this book, because there is SO MUCH going on! OK, it's set in the near-ish future, when the world has gotten its act together and started fixing all the crap that's currently wrong (ie climate change), and also lots of things are digital or whatever (I find a lot of this very plausible even if "McDiznazon" makes me die a little inside). And there is a large cast of characters: a young woman, who's famous for gaming and also is training to be a lawyer; her famous father, a mentally ill musician with a sideline in conspiracy theories; her gaming archnemesis-cum-crush, who is having family issues (and their nine year old daughter, who works for the government); her legal client, who interpol thinks is a sentient AI--or something else??; several actual sentient AIs (which is MY JAM); an interpol agent who fancies himself a hero, etc etc you get it. It's pretty busy but it all works somehow! Super compelling plots, layers of stuff being revealed, a cute lil romance unfolding, and most of all a really fascinating possible future. Very enjoyable. A-.
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Content warning for mention of rape.
CSE Cooney's Desdemona and the Deep
Ooh, I liked this a lot. It centers on the rich, frivolous daughter of a businessman and a crusader type, and what happens when she overhears her father bargaining away tons of lives to the goblin king in exchange for oil. Soon she's on a quest to reclaim those lives, but of course quests through fairy lands are never simple. I especially loved how this wrapped up. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever Cooney has coming up. A/A-.
Helen S. Wright's A Matter of Oaths
Always weird to be back at the beginning of my yearly book count, but this was a solid read to start things off! Originally published in 1988, this was reissued a couple years ago (with an introduction by Becky Chambers), and honestly doesn't feel dated at all. It’s about the crew of a spaceship, where some people are sort of connected to the ship to control it and communicate with one another, and the larger political situation between the Guild that controls them and two squabbling Emperors. The ship's commander is a surly woman nearing the end of her career who takes on a new senior hire with a mysterious past. All of the characters were compelling and I really liked how the plot unfolded, though I did want a teensy bit more from the end. But if you want an interesting sci-fi book to read, this one is a winner. A-.