This is a sapphic romance where the monster falls in love with a woman in a family of monster hunters, told from the POV of the monster. It is GRISLY, full of body horror, but also rather charming and sweet. It tackles so much, including issues in regards to healthy relationships. It touches on autonomy, consent, and working through trauma; love, sexuality (and asexuality), and diverse feelings toward begetting and raising offspring. These things are masterfully woven into a story that is complete with a(n) (anti)hero, truly awful villains, romance, harrowing fights, and many things besides. This book may churn your stomach at times, but it is also guaranteed to warm the cockles of any fantasy-reader’s heart and/or egg sac (that’s a little monster humor there, you’ll have to read the book to be in on the joke.)
I can honestly say I’ve never read anything else quite like this before, and am truly impressed!
I greatly enjoyed this whodunit with a twist, that being that the murder victim left behind clues in all her research into figuring out who was going to kill her!
Annie Adams finds herself written into her Great Aunt Frances’ will without ever having met the woman, but then almost immediately Frances winds up murdered, just as a fortune teller told her she would be when she was seventeen years old. Her recently revised will stipulates that Annie and one other relative must compete to figure out who murdered her; whoever wins, gets the entire inheritance. If neither solves the crime by the end of a week’s time, then the estate goes to property developers who will likely turn it into a county club and golf course.
While investigating, Annie also reads through her great aunt’s journal from the time when her (mis)fortune was originally told. In its pages, she meets the teenage versions of many of the same villagers she is just meeting in person, a whole cast of characters in an idyllic English village.
I did have to suspend my disbelief a bit when some parts of the mystery were too far-fetched, but I was having enough fun that I didn’t mind doing that. I was kept flipping pages to find out what had happened! It keeps you guessing right up until the end. I do wish we delved a little deeper into some of these characters, but I can see how that would be a challenge with first person narration.
Overall this was a fun read. Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
“Blessed Virgin,” I whispered, even though I couldn’t even hear myself. “Why must you keep sending me innocent monsters?”
Another atmospheric, creepy, entertaining and delightful novella in the Sworn Soldier universe.
Sworn soldier Alex Easton has invited mycologist Eugenia Potter to stay at their father’s old hunting lodge in Gallacia to study the local mushrooms. They arrive to find the lodge in disarray, as it turns out the caretaker has recently died, although folk from the local village are hesitant to say what killed him – natural causes, or supernatural ones? What is superstition and folklore, and what is a very real threat? The story also touches on subjects such as war and PTSD.
Soldier’s heart doesn’t know the difference between terrible things. Fungus or cannon fire, it’s all just the war.
As always, Kingfisher’s writing made me laugh out loud at times, while also being perfectly spooky and evocative.
Miss Potter gave him a much warmer smile over her shoulder than I’d ever seen her give to anything that didn’t have spores.
This is Gothic writing at its finest, with a healthy sprinkling of Eastern European folktales, humor, and admirable messages. You love to see it!
“May we always have the choice to err on the side of mercy,” I said, lifting my wine.
This is a collection of the winning entries to a science fiction/fantasy/military novella contest, published by Cannon Publishing (J.F. Holmes), with writing from Kevin Harris, Sam Rob, Brian Gifford, SC Visel, K.M. Sykes, Tim Hanlon, Doug Goodall, J.P. Staszak, and John M. Campbell.
One of the authors is a coworker of mine, and an all around great person, and so I purchased this anthology to read his work, but the quality of writing across the board was great!
Each story here was either a 3 or 4 star read for me. If some of them were turned into longer works I might rate them even higher – the shorter form just doesn’t always work for me personally, and although these meet the word count for novellas, they just felt a bit more like short stories to me, giving readers a snapshot of life in the imagined worlds rather than a complete and fully fleshed-out story arc. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that format, I just find it’s harder to wow me with it.
There were two entries that I wound up skipping, but again it was a personal taste thing, not a quality thing. One had a very interesting premise but the entire story was the details of a single battle, and as a reader (and even while watching movies), I find nothing more boring than that. But obviously that’s me, and if you found yourself picking up this anthology because of the “military” bit in the description, then clearly there is a good chance you will feel differently!
But overall I really enjoyed these stories of monks, trolls, alien invasions, and dark magic. There is a lot of talent on display here, and these authors are worth keeping an eye on for sure. Bravo, everyone!
A new standalone historical fantasy novel by the author of The Winternight Trilogy
This an emotional and harrowing story about World War I, the physical and emotional toll it took on individuals as well as the changes it wrought on civilization itself. In some ways, this war marked the end of the world–and the start of a new one.
The chapters of this book alternate between following combat nurse Laura in 1918, and her brother Freddie beginning the year prior, before the army sent her his effects saying that he was missing and presumed dead. Laura decides to return to the field to attempt to discover what happened to her brother.
Freddie’s chapters are heart wrenching, and the bond he forms with another soldier when the two have only each other left was very touching. The nightmare these people are living is what allows the author to introduce her signature mythological/magical realism seasoning to the story. It begs the question, “Was remembered agony better than feeling nothing at all?” and allows Arden to address the idea she puts into words in the Author’s Note: “What would a devil of the old world do if he found himself in the hell of a new one?” War stole away the pleasure of shattering human hearts.
This story was full of great characters, from the indomitable Laura herself, to German soldier Hans Winter, and the genteel woman whose “bright sweet nature” may be hiding the true darkness of her own grief. (I’m not sure I found Freddie that likable, but the whole point is that after the things he’s been through, there’s not much left to like or not).
The book ends with things wrapped up a little too pat for Laura, but overall I was pleased with this historical fantasy with its heavy and moving themes.
This engaging and original story is the first in a new fantasy series by the author of The Founders trilogy.
Buckle in and prepare yourself for some hefty worldbuilding, but part of what was admirable about this book was the fresh and unique setting. The Empire of Khanum is arranged like a succession of spoked wheels, with the the wealthiest citizens living in the center, the farthest from the outer ring’s sea walls. This is because every wet season, leviathans surface from the deep and try to breach the walls, destroying everything in their path. Branches of the military are dedicated to shoring up and defending the wall from the monstrous titans.
Some people who serve the empire are given grafts or suffusions, altering their abilities in specific ways. Our main character, Din, is an engraver; he has been cerebrally altered to have a perfect eidetic memory of everything he sees and hears. He carries little vials of different scents with him to use as cues to associate with particular memories. With this ability, he acts as the eyes and ears of the exceedingly eccentric, and brilliant, Ana, the investigator to whom he is newly apprenticed apprenticed.
“He’s new,” said Ana, “and big, and I think he lost his sense of humor in some tragic accident. But he helped me solve the Blas issue quick enough.” Then, simply, “He is good.”
The bulk of this novel focuses on a murder investigation Ana and Din undertake, one that winds up with far-reaching political implications. But there’s also a lot about the uncertainties of living in a world that is routinely under threat, not only by the titans of the sea, but also contagion, worms, and a host of other worries. It addresses the nature of civilization, and the question of whether people exist to serve their Empire, or vice versa.
One of the highlights of this book is the relationship and banter between Ana and Din (and a few other characters introduced during their investigative proceedings), which are charming and often downright hilarious. Ana is irreverent, Din is sincere.
“Just wish to comment, ma’am,” I said, “that, ah, I’ve no idea at all what’s going on anymore.”
And as if all of that wasn’t enough to secure a place for this book in my esteem, is also included great representation: of disability and neurodiversity, plus the minor romance included was queer.
“…if I hadn’t been the person that I was, then the alterations would not have been a success. It was my choice. I changed and became, I self-assembled. Just as you have done.”
I highly recommend this refreshing and entertaining tale of a murder mystery that unfolds in a new and interesting fantasy world, and I can’t wait to read about what Ana and Din get mixed up in next.
“Pride has ruined me far more than disease,” he said, “and so I fear it has ruined you.”
Wow! I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this Western (not a genre I feel any particular way about) laden with magical realism (which can be hit or miss for me), but I loved this book!
The author’s great-grandfather was a bandido who escaped from a prison in Texas, survived being shot in the face by Texas Rangers (and thereby earning the nickname “The Bullet Swallower”), and made his way home to Mexico. Using this as a springboard, she has spun a stunning and emotional tale spanning more than a century, transporting readers to a lawless Texas-Mexico border as well as an affluent part of Mexico City, touching on issues of colonialism, racism, and more.
Chapters alternate between film star Jaime Sonora and his ancestor, the eponymous bandido, Antonio Sonora. The latter plans a train heist, hoping to steal enough riches to lift his little family out of poverty, but gaining only a personal vendetta against a trio of Texas Rangers instead. I was completely invested in this story line – the setting was gorgeously depicted, as we blazed trails through the chaparral beneath a luminous sky. I adored the relationship Antonio winds up forging with sharpshooter Peter Ainsley, “The Gentleman Assassin”. The link between Antonio’s story and that of his descendant, Jaime, is the shadow of retribution, a literal dark figure who is tasked with collecting souls, and the Sonoro family is deep in cosmic debt…
[He], for all of his faults, woke up every morning and tried to be better. And maybe that was all there was and all there ever would be: a daily dedication to the light.
Jaime’s chapters didn’t resonate with me quite as much (there were some A-holes in the Sonora lineage, but it hardly seems like every single one of them was evil; and what did the woman who wrote an entire history about their family have to do with them in the first place?), but were still fine, especially in how they represent the completion of Antonio’s story.
The author is without doubt a talented writer, and this story got me right in the feels. And that cover! An all around beautiful book.
This was a bleak but stimulating look at a potential dystopian future (similar to The Handmaid’s Tale, but much stranger and more disquieting).
I told myself that I’d been hypocritical and, since I had no one to lie to, I discovered that you can lie to yourself, which felt very strange
Groups of forty people (all men or all women) are caged together in bunkers all across the planet. One day an alarm sounds and all the guards run, never to be seen again. Our main character and her fellow prisoners are lucky enough to be in the cage that a guard was in the middle of unlocking when the alarm began to wail. The women don’t know where they are (is it even planet Earth?), where everyone else is, or why they were kept caged for years in the first place. They venture out into the desolate world and find ways to survive for the remainders of their lives. Since the MC is the only one who was a child when their incarceration began, she not only does not remember “normal” life before their imprisonment, she also is very aware that some day she will be the only person left alive.
I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct. Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence.
I just wish we got a little more of a hint at some answers about what actually happened to lead to things being the way they are. Beyond “it’s maybe not Earth”, the answers are completely left to the reader’s imagination.
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett is a sequel that manages to be even more charming than its predecessor!
Emily, Wendell, and Shadow are back, and this time they’re joined by Emily’s niece, as well as the Cambridge dryadology department head. Professor Wilde was granted tenure after publishing her encyclopedia, and luckily for us readers, she continues the practice of keeping a journal as it helps to organize her thoughts. The story begins on campus, and so there’s a hint of “magical school” flavor at first. Then it’s off to Austria for another adventure!
The banter is just as hilarious, the romance continues to develop, and the faeries are just as enchanting and horrifying as ever. Poe is just as endearing (yes, everyone’s favorite brownie makes an appearance!) The element of two explorers trapped in Faerie, lost and confused, occasionally popping in and out of the mortal world, and continually just missing each other like ships in the night as they search for one another was wonderfully whimsical.
This book has more of a traditional structure than the first, where things started simply with a scholar doing research. Going into the sequel, we already know that there is a goal of finding a back door into Wendell’s Faerie kingdom. Pretty much straight away here, our protagonists learn that his stepmother has ordered his assassination, moving the timeline forward in an urgent way. And I was hooked!
Emily is determined that it is her turn to save Wendell, and she has learned from her past mistakes—although of course she makes some new ones, too. And with the way this book ends, it seems she will definitely have a chance to learn from those as well! Which is well and good because the parts of the resolution here felt a bit underwhelming, but did a fine job setting up the next part of the story.
Thank you to Del Rey and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this eARC.
Jessica Crawford 