Review: Thorn, by Anna Burke

On a cold day deep in the heart of winter, Rowan’s father returns from an ill-fated hunting trip bearing a single, white rose. The rose is followed by the Huntress, a figure out of legend. Tall, cruel, and achingly beautiful, she brings Rowan back with her to a mountain fastness populated solely by the creatures of the hunt. Rowan, who once scorned the villagers for their superstitions, now finds herself at the heart of a curse with roots as deep as the mountains, ruled by an old magic that is as insidious as the touch of the winter rose.
Torn between her family loyalties, her guilty relief at escaping her betrothal to the charming but arrogant Avery Lockland, and her complicated feelings for the Huntress, Rowan must find a way to break the curse before it destroys everything she loves. There is only one problem―if she can find a way to lift the curse, she will have to return to the life she left behind. And the only thing more unbearable than endless winter is facing a lifetime of springs without the Huntress.

"All flesh, all blood, all teeth and bone and grace". Anna Burke's Thorn is a sapphic Beauty and the Beast retelling with a very evocative and graceful atmosphere. The prose is simple but beautiful, immersive. One can almost feel the biting cold of the land trapped in eternal winter by a curse; in a way, the atmosphere can be reminiscent of the Snow Queen, with the Huntress' castle surrounded by ice, and the wolves and big bear that she hunts with. The element of the rose, from the Beauty and the Beast, is well-incorporated.

The story follows almost all the beats of the tale, giving it its own spin. The Huntress is a fascinating character, enigmatic and inesorable, trapped by her own interpretation of the curse. Her POV is in third person, granting her a measure of mystery. Rowan on the other hand narrates in first person, giving the reader a glimpse into her life and desires. The rest of the characters are given some depth by the narration, especially Rowan's sisters. The resolution gives Rowan more agency, as she has learnt to hunt in her time with the Huntress, and she uses well what she knows. The witch who cursed the Huntress is a character in her own right, appearing more than one would think.

Thorn is a lovely retelling with a unique atmosphere.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: The Bookshop and the Barbarian, by Morgan Stang

Running from strife in her homeland, Maribella Waters becomes the new owner of the fabled Cozy Quill. After finding squatters on her property, she employs Asteria Helsdottir, a giant, barbarian warrior woman more accustomed to swinging an axe than opening a book. Together, the odd couple must make a success out of the bookshop—and survive a dizzying procession of seasonal festivals.
But the local evil noblewoman has other plans in mind. Threatened with being run off the land, Maribella and Asteria must use their wits to outsmart Lady Malicent and keep their business open. Along the way, the whole town lends a hand, friendships are forged, and mysteries are revealed.

This was such a delightful read! Morgan Stang's The Bookshop and the Barbarian is a low-stakes cozy novella about the importance of reading and finding new friends. It's also frankly hilarious, to the point where I laughed out loud more than a couple of times. The author gently makes fun of the conventions of the genre, while following them to a T. It even references another famous cozy fantasy novella almost directly, to much hilarity.

This is an incredibly sweet, fun little adventure that I'm really glad to have read. The soft blooming romance between the young businesswoman and the barbarian warrior is the icing on the cake. The dialogue is so incredibly witty, and the funny parts are balanced well with more profound moments. The fourth wall is constantly broken and it's fantastic; the way the haunted books were handled, particularly, had me in stitches.

The Bookshop and the Barbarian is perfect to cleanse your palate in-between heavier reads.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: Dragonfall, by L.R. Lam

Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the gods remember, and they do not forgive. Thief Arcady scrapes a living on the streets of Vatra. Desperate, Arcady steals a powerful artifact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history. Only Arcady knows the artifact's magic holds the key to a new life among the nobles at court and a chance for revenge.
The spell connects to Everen, the last male dragon foretold to save his kind, dragging him through the Veil. Disguised as a human, Everen soon learns that to regain his true power and form and fulfil his destiny, he only needs to convince one little thief to trust him enough to bond completely--body, mind, and soul--and then kill them. Yet the closer the two become, the greater the risk both their worlds will shatter.

"Truth was a wound that could bite". L.R. Lam's Dragonfall is many things: a queer enemies-to-lovers romance, a heist book, a high-stakes epic. None of these things take center stage, instead striking a perfect balance and creating a novel that works well, where not all is as it seems and you keep questioning who's right. Who betrayed whom? The dragons, or the humans? The bond between the two certainly seems to work a certain way. Can we even trust the dragons' chronicles, since so few survived the fire that destroyed their library?

The world-building is on point, the magic system well-developed, even if some things are still a mystery or maybe don't work as we're told. The dragons, banished generations before to a dying world, are only bent on revenge. The humans, having forgotten everything, now worship them as gods: this creates a truly interesting dynamic when the two perspectives collide. There's a black market for dragon relics, a secret sect of assassins bent on punishing those who desecrate these relics, and hints of a larger world and an existential threat.

The POVs are phenomenal. Two of the POVs feature the two halves of the romance: Everen, the dragon prophet with a terrible mission, and Arcady, the nonbinary thief with a big secret. It's delicious to watch these two wallow in angst and slowly peel away the layers that protect them, learning to trust each other until disaster strikes. While Arcady's POV is a simple first person narrative, Everen's POV is much more interesting, with its first person that almost morphs into a second person, as he's addressing his whole narration to Arcady.

The other POV character is one of the assassins tasked with punishing heretics: the young woman is reluctant to do her job and has a terrible relationship with her father figure, who molded her to his purposes and has her wrapped around his little finger. The latter, a high priest, seems to know more than he lets on about the conflict brewing. The rest of the cast pulls its weight, especially Everen's sister and Arcady's father figure, to create a vibrant narrative.

Dragonfall is an incredible tale about love and sacrifice.

✨ 4.5 stars

Review: The Godbreaker, by Mike Brooks

 

As the Black Keep Council prepares for war, journeying far to protect their lands and friend, The God-King and his sister try to keep Narida together in the face of betrayal while the Splinter King remains at large.
The Golden and his hordes of raiders press their advantage and sweep across the land with unholy powers. Sacrifices will be made, and not everyone will make it back to Black Keep alive.

I raced through the series and now I'm directly reviewing the third and not-so-final book. Mike Brooks' The Godbreaker is not, unfortunately, a good conclusion for a trilogy that started so strong and with such unique storytelling, with its nuanced focus on diplomacy. It's a shame, because the story is still so interesting, and the queer characters are a delight to explore.

There's an established mlm couple whose back-and-forth is frankly amazing, a really cute mlm relationship taking its first steps, and a whiff of an unexpected wlw relationship. The world-building is incredibly interesting, and the big surprise event at the beginning of the third book was adequately forewarned, in retrospect.

But one can't help feeling cheated by the cop-outs, the fake ending, and all the time focused on a sub-plot that should definitely have been a separate novella, given it doesn't seem to affect the main plot at all. This book feels chaotic, and not in a good way. It feels as if Brooks had the material for a quadrilogy but decided to make it a trilogy and create a new series after this one, but there are huge gaps and events that feel forced, just to create a sort of adequate conclusion.

The God-King Chronicles is an intriguing series, but The Godkiller doesn't stick the landing.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: The Black Coast, by Mike Brooks

 

When the citizens of Black Keep see ships on the horizon, terror takes them, for they know who is coming: for generations, Black Keep has been raided by the fearsome clanspeople of Iwernia. Saddling their war dragons, the Naridans rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own homeland by the rise of a daemonic despot who prophesies the end of the world, they have come in search of a new home. Meanwhile the wider continent of Narida is lurching toward war. Black Keep is about to be caught in the cross-fire of the coming war for the world – if only its new mismatched society can survive.

"Meet the wave head-on, and trust in your ship". Mike Brooks' The Black Coast is the first book in a trilogy dealing with a larger threat to the world, but this first volume sets the stage for a grander conflict, focusing instead on the battle for integration between two people that have only ever been enemies but now need to find a common ground. The clash of cultures and customs feels believable, with one culture pretty rooted in mysoginy and the other teeming with homophobia; but perhaps they can take the best of each other and make something greater. Daimon and Saana, on opposite sides, work hard to make this alliance work.

This is a multi-POV epic that doesn't only deal with this conflict, but also jumps to other two realms to prepare the stage. Here we have a myopic warrior hailing from the same culture as the raiders, the princess of Narida dealing with a dinastic threat against her brother the God-King, and a street-rat stumbling onto a plot far greater than she could possibly imagine. All POVs are well-handled, but since their stories don't seem to come to a resolution, one certainly hurries to return to Daimon and Saana and their fight for the survival of their people.

The world-building is phenomenal. The author does some really interesting things with language, creating a culture where the six genders are represented by different diacritics on the pronouns, and another culture where speakers define themselves by their relationship to the person they're talking to (thus "this servant thinks", "this brother thinks", "this son thinks", and so forth). Also, the dragons are very much dinosaurs. They're called dragons, but the way they're described makes it pretty clear that they're our dinosaurs or something very similar.

One of the cultures is very queernormative: queer people can marry and adopt children. While the two main romances of this book are straight, there are a few queer POV characters and it certainly seems like there will be more of that in the other books of the series.

The Black Coast is a solid introduction to a fantastic epic story.

✨ 4 stars

Review: Tarnished are the Stars, by Rosie Thor

 

A secret beats inside Anna Thatcher's chest: an illegal clockwork heart. Anna works cog by cog -- donning the moniker Technician -- to supply black market medical technology to the sick and injured, against the Commissioner's tyrannical laws. Nathaniel Fremont, the Commissioner's son, has never had to fear the law. Determined to earn his father's respect, Nathaniel sets out to capture the Technician. But the more he learns about the outlaw, the more he questions whether his father's elusive affection is worth chasing at all. Their game of cat and mouse takes an abrupt turn when Eliza, a skilled assassin and spy, arrives. Her mission is to learn the Commissioner's secrets at any cost -- even if it means betraying her own heart.

"We do not have to use the same words or share the same definitions to understand one another". Rosie Thor's Tarnished are the Stars is a YA scifi book with big ideas and a big heart. Set in a distant future, it follows the descendants of the people of Earth as they settled in a space station and, later, on a terraformed planet after Earth's destruction. The majority of the population still lives on the station as the terraforming didn't have the desired effect, and people are dying of a heart disease. The main characters will have to try and find out the truth.

The plot is pretty straightforward and there are no big surprises; even the few big shocking moments were a bit predictable. The timing of certain events also felt a bit convenient. But this book sticks the landing with its heartfelt exploration of abuse and self-discovery. Two of the characters are brought up in a hellish manner, abused by their caretaker. While one understands that the other is being abused, they seem blind to their own abuse, until finally the veil is lifted from their eyes too. I found that very believable. Then we have the precious moment of self-discovery of another character, who's asexual and aromantic and finds the words to describe their nature thanks to another character. Both terms are explicitly used, and it was lovely to find them in the text.

There's also a little bit of wlw romance, with a quick enemies-to-lovers that despite its startling speed packs quite a punch when a moment of betrayal eventually comes. The relationships between various female characters - including the supporting cast - are certainly quite varied and interesting, ranging from an old love, to a friendship marred by loss, to a mistress/pupil relationship turned sour. The villains' motivations turned out to be a bit confusing, but the Commissioner got a backstory that was more complex than I thought.

The world-building was simple but clear enough, and the idea of clock-hearts sounded interesting enough that I would have liked it to be explored more.

Tarnished are the Stars is a good read for a questioning teen who likes the genre.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: A Restless Truth, by Freya Marske

 

The most interesting things in Maud Blyth's life have happened to her brother Robin, but she's ready to join any cause, especially if it involves magical secrets that may threaten the whole of the British Isles. Bound for New York on the R.M.S. Lyric, she's ready for an adventure.
What she actually finds is a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and a beautiful stranger in Violet Debenham, who is everything—a magician, an actress, a scandal—Maud has been trained to fear and has learned to desire. Surrounded by the open sea and a ship full of loathsome, aristocratic suspects, they must solve a murder and untangle a conspiracy that began generations before them.

"A person is a theatre". Freya Marske's A Restless Truth is the delightful sequel to 2021's exhilarating A Marvellous Light. The author makes the daring decision to change the beloved protagonists from the previous novel, and write about the sister of one of them. The plot follows some time after what happened in the first novel, as the mystery gradually unfolds and our heroes try to find out the truth.

Maud is different than her brother; she'd headstrong and very stubborn, but she's been sheltered all her life. She finds her match in the older performer Violet, whose walls are high and impenetrable. Their short game of seduction - the book takes place over the course of a week - is thrilling, as the more experienced Violet shows Maud that women can be with other women and Maud is allowed to explore her own attraction. Like the previous book, this one is definitely on the spicy side, with a few descriptive sex scenes that range from tender to intense. Maud and Violet grow to have a complex and nuanced relationship as they navigate their respective boundaries and their places in life.

The action unfolds in a single setting, the ship crossing the Atlantic. This allows for a sharper focus and a smidge of claustrophobia, which works well for the unfolding of a mystery, but also doesn't help relate to the characters as we have so little time to watch them interact. In contrast, the previous book excelled in showing the slow dismantling of the characters' walls together with the unfurling of the central mystery. The first book also had more worldbuilding, whereas here we don't discover much more of the bigger world, although we see some tantalising details of how other countries' magic works. English magicians use a complex series of hand gestures that remind me of Lev Grossman's The Magicians novels.

The supporting cast steals the scene sometimes. We meet again Lord Hawthorn, who had an unfortunate introduction in the first novel, and a delightful new character, Ross. The other passengers of the ship are a wild variety of characters, and it's fun to slip into the whudunit game together with the protagonists. There's daring action and investigations and misunderstandings aplenty, making this a solid sequel and a much-needed middle-book as it sets the stage for the final book of the trilogy, which will feature other two characters.

A Restless Truth is an incredibly fun read with a lavish prose that feels like an embrace.

✨ 4 stars

Review: The Impossible Contract, by K.A. Doore

 

Thana has a huge reputation to live up to as daughter of the Serpent, who rules over Ghadid’s secret clan of assassins. Opportunity to prove herself arrives when Thana accepts her first contract on Heru, a dangerous foreign diplomat with the ability to bind a person’s soul under his control. She may be in over her head, especially when Heru is targeted by a rival sorcerer who sends hordes of the undead to attack them both. When Heru flees, Thana has no choice than to pursue him across the sands to the Empire that intends to capture Ghadid inside its iron grip.
A stranger in a strange city, Thana’s only ally is Mo, a healer who may be too noble for her own good. Meanwhile, otherworldly and political dangers lurk around every corner, and even more sinister plans are uncovered which could lead to worldwide devastation. Can Thana rise to the challenge—even if it means facing off against an ancient evil?

"She was more than just the Serpent's daughter". K.A. Doore's The Impossible Contract is the second book in a trilogy of standalones set in a wondrous city standing high from the sands. Ghadid is the true protagonist, its setting rich and interesting, the book showing us even more of the city, but also what lies beyond the sands. Ghadid houses a family of elite assassins, and each novel follows a different one.

This second volume is focused on the journey of Thana, with her heavy heritage of being the daughter of a legend. The book explores her struggles well, but also her forging of her own path as she stumbles upon a plot that could destroy the world as she knows it. She also finds a delightful romance in the meanwhile, a sort of meet-cute with a kind healer, a woman with a big heart and clear morals. The love interest's profession sparks an interesting and compelling conflict with Thana, whose own profession after all, means she has to end lives.

The world-building is truly phenomenal, with an interesting water-based magic system and its more sinister possible use. This is a land were necromacy is real, while deemed blasphemous, and where souls can be swallowed or possessed; where zombies can be created. But things aren't black and white, and when we spend some time with Thana's mark, the en-marabi Heru, we may find him too compelling and wickedly funny to want him dead. We also meet again the previous book's protagonist, and it was definitely interesting to see how he was faring.

The pacing was a little weird towards the last third, but the book made up for it with its fast-paced, exhilarating conclusion.

The Impossible Contract is a fun adventure with a fascinating setting.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older

 

On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university—and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems.
Pleiti has dedicated her research and her career to aiding the larger effort towards a possible return to Earth. When Mossa unexpectedly arrives and requests Pleiti’s assistance in her latest investigation, the two of them embark on a twisting path in which the future of life on Earth is at stake—and, perhaps, their futures, together.

There is life on Jupiter. Malka Older's The Mimicking of Known Successes is a cozy holmesian mystery set on a colony on the giant planet. Humanity has depleted Earth's resources and moved to Jupiter to live on floating platforms; but there's who wants to fix Earth's ecosystem in order to return there. Our Watson, Pleiti, is a scholar at university, working on that very same problem, and when a university man disappears, the investigator Mossa rekindles her old flame with Pleiti and lets the woman help her in the investigation.

What follows is a delightful mystery novella, perfectly self-contained, filled with interesting details about the world-building. The colonies on Jupiter are vividly described, and the situation on Earth clearly explained. Alongside the investigation, Pleiti reflects on her old relationship with Mossa, and it was lovely to see their romantic tension reignite into a satisfying conclusion.

The Mimicking of Known Successes is a lovely mystery for readers wanting to branch into scifi.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill

 

Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of.
Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden.

“What is grief, but love that’s lost its object?”. Kelly Barnhill's When Women Were Dragons is a powerful exploration of sisterhood, grief, motherhood, and mysogyny, a timeless feminist tale. In this alternate world, all throughout history women have been becoming dragons, and each time their so-called "dragoning" was erased from history. Dragoning is seen as inherently female and wrong and almost impure, not a subject for polite company. The protagonist, Alex, struggles at first with this obligation to silence, uncomprehending of the reasons behind such a prohibition.

There is a long string of injustices in this novel that make one want to dragon oneself. As a young girl in the Fifties, Alex faces the discrimination of her gender and, too, of her orientation, when she's separated from her childhood friend who's obviously becoming so much more. She cultivates with her little cousin a relationship that becomes stronger as time passes and, too, almost obsessive, marred by fear of additional loss. Bea is a firecracker, a vivacious kid that dreams of the sky and doesn't seem to understand the dangers of showing it.

But there's not only injustice. Alex has allies, people in her life that see her struggle and try to help. There's the librarian, Mrs. Gyzinska, set on truth and liberation - and this book is also a powerful story about the importance of libraries; there's the ever elusive Dr. Gantz, popping up at first in pamphlets and in sparse chapters recounting the long history of dragoning in the world. There's dragons, so many dragons freeing themselves from the shackles of their lives. And there's joy, at the end, joy and understanding but also loss.

The relationships between mothers and sisters and daughters and nieces is so beautifully explored, it made me want to cry. We don't really know our parents, we think we know everything, but we don't know their inner lives. When Alex consumes herself with grief over what-ifs, she is all of us. When she rages at seemingly becoming her own mother, she is all of us. When she reflects over loss, over making your peace with things, she is all of us.

When Women Were Dragons is a stunning story about overcoming oppression.

✨ 5 stars