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