Review: House of Dusk, by Deva Fagan

Ten years ago, Sephre left behind her life as a war hero and took holy vows to seek redemption for her crimes, wielding the flames of the Phoenix to purify the dead. But as corpses rise, a long-dead god stirs, and shadowy serpents creep from the underworld to hunt her, she has no choice but to draw on the very past she's been trying so hard to forget.
Orphaned by the same war Sephre helped win, Yeneris has trained half her life to be the perfect spy, a blade slipped deep into the palace of her enemies. Undercover as bodyguard to Sinoe, a princess whose tears unleash prophecy, Yeneris strives to complete her true mission to recover the stolen bones of a saint. Sinoe's prophecies may hold answers, but allying with the fiercely compassionate princess is perilous. Yeneris must find a way to balance her growing attraction for Sinoe with her duty to her people as they conduct a dangerous search for the source of the king's power.

"We have to choose one path, and give up another."

Deva Fagan's House of Dusk is a compact standalone fantasy, packed full of worldbuilding and wonder. Dealing with complex themes of grief and identity, it follows the journey to self-acceptance of a tortured veteran and a young guard, as they and those around them grapple with the return of an ancient evil and with a long-lost past that is not as it seems.

Sephre, fire-wielding nun with a terrible past that she still mourns and needs to accept, is a great main character, complex and capable. Her relationship with those who welcomed her is heartwarming, and the conflict coming from lies and misunderstandings is handled deftly. The other PoV features a young sapphic guard tasked with an Oracle/Princess's wellbeing, and she's just as complex, torn by different loyalties as she comes face to face with hard truths. The two PoVs run parallel for most of the book, and they come together organically in an explosive ending that ties up all loose ends but leaves the door open for a possible sequel.

The worldbuilding isn't especially complex, but it's rich and vividly detailed, a world where god-beasts control certain facets of living and each ordained an order of humans bestowed with certain powers. The hidden truth of this war-torn realm shows the power of stories and perspective, surprising and delighting the reader.

House of Dusk is a solid standalone.

✨ 4 stars

 

Snippet: The Dragon Keeper, by Robin Hobb

 

Too much time has passed since the powerful dragon Tintaglia helped the people of the Trader cities stave off an invasion of their enemies. The Traders have forgotten their promises, weary of the labor and expense of tending earthbound dragons who were hatched weak and deformed by a river turned toxic. If neglected, the creatures will rampage--or die--so it is decreed that they must move farther upriver toward Kelsingra, the mythical homeland whose location is locked deep within the dragons' uncertain ancestral memories.
Thymara, an unschooled forest girl, and Alise, wife of an unloving and wealthy Trader, are among the disparate group entrusted with escorting the dragons to their new home. And on an extraordinary odyssey with no promise of return, many lessons will be learned--as dragons and tenders alike experience hardships, betrayals . . . and joys beyond their wildest imaginings.

“Reality is often unkind to legends.”

Robin Hobb's The Dragon Keeper is the first book in a quadrilogy from a mistress of fantasy novels and certainly not the best entry point to her renowned Elderlings series, but The Rain Wild Chronicles quadrilogy is the one where she writes a happy gay couple and does it well. Now, if you want pain and heartbreak in your achillean couple, and you don't mind a tragic ending, I can't recommend her Farseer trilogy, the following Tawny Man trilogy, and the final Fitz and the Fool trilogy enough, but this one is definitely safer. This multi-PoV quadrilogy follows some characters - amongst which is Sedric, a pampered secretary who is trapped in a violent relationship with his employer - as they are chosen to bond with and guide weak newborn dragons in a world where dragons were thought to be exctinct. It's not strictly necessary to have read the rest of the Elderlings series to enjoy this quadrilogy.

✨ 4 stars

Review: The Last Soul Among Wolves, by Melissa Caruso

 

All Kembral Thorne wants is to finish her maternity leave in peace. But when her best friend asks for help, she can’t say no, even if it means a visit to a run-down mansion on an isolated island for a will reading. She arrives to find an unexpected reunion of her childhood friends—plus her once-rival, now-girlfriend Rika Nonesuch, there on a mysterious job. Then the will is read, and everything goes sideways.
Eight potential heirs, half of them Kem’s oldest friends. Three cursed relics. The rules: one by one, the heirs will die. The prize for the lone survivor: A wish. And wishes are always bad business. To save their friends, Kem and Rika must race against the clock and descend into other realities once more. But the mansion is full of old secrets and new schemes, and soon the game becomes far more dangerous—and more personal—than they could have imagined.

"It's my human life that has shaped me."

Melissa Caruso's The Last Soul Among Wolves does suffer from the middle book syndrome, taking the excellent premise and characters and concocting a fun adventure that doesn't develop much of either. The sole narrator, Kembral, is settling into her relationship with Rika when a new problem arises and it's another race to a solution over the course of a few days. The formula is the same, but while the first book had a fresh new take on timeloops, this magical whoddunit with a taste of Agatha Christie is a bit all over the place.

The actual case is appropriately eerie, especially when we once again get to explore the levels and its rules and to see the Empyreans in action. One in particular is delightfully creepy, and her actions and goals make sense given the inner rules. In this, the worldbuilding doesn't disappoint.

The character work however loses some of its brilliance. The huge supporting cast was well-balanced in the first book, but here the game is given away way too early. The main problem however is the main couple. Rika and Kembral have a sweet relationship, still learning how to balance their work and being together, but a huge moment of broken trust is treated like a plot beat and, in my opinion, not really resolved or rather a bit thrown under the carpet.

The Last Soul Among Wolves is an entertaining book.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: Costumes for Time Travelers, by A.R. Capetta

 

Anyone who has hiked through time knows the town of Pocket. It’s the place travelers first reach after they stumble away from their hometime, passing through on their way to any other when. To Calisto, Pocket is home. They love their grandmother’s shop, which is filled with clothes from every era that are used to make costumes for time travelers. Calisto has no intention of traveling—it’s too dangerous. For Fawkes, traveling is life. He put on time boots when he was young and has been stumbling through eras ever since. When he floats into Pocket, Calisto meets him for the first time, though Fawkes has seen Calisto—in glimpses of what hasn’t happened yet. He’s also seen the villains chasing them both. Now Calisto and Fawkes must rush—from Shakespeare’s London to ancient Crete to California on the eve of a millennium—to save Pocket, and travelers, from being erased. From the Lambda Literary Award–winning author of The Heartbreak Bakery comes a fairy-tale romance that weaves in and out of time, from kiss to kiss and costume to costume.

"Destiny is a temporal disorder."

A.R. Capetta's Costumes for Time Travelers is a delightfully cozy time travel adventure. It pays homage to a few staples of the genre while giving its own spin, with a fun focus on tailoring not only as an art but also as a kind of time travel. The nonbinary main character Calisto is a young and enthusiastic tailor apprentice who has never time traveled, and the contrast with time savant Fawkes makes for a fun dynamic.

Theirs is a love story out of order, sweet and gentle. In fact, given the premises I expected far more angst than what I got, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The book ambles gently, setting up a threat to reality, but it never feels like the stakes are too high. Perhaps the narration lacks some urgency in that regard.

The points of view are also all over the place, with an open third person narration that jumps too suddenly from one perspective to the next. It's a lovely book, but it may have benefitted from some rewriting.

Costumes for Time Travelers is a sweet summer read.

✨ 3.5 stars

 

📚🥾 So you want to read about out-of-order time-travelers?

Here's my review of Ian McDonald's Time Was  

 

Review: Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame, by Neon Yang

 

The fiercely independent nation of Quanbao is isolated, reclusive, and something of a mystery to the rest of the world. It is rumored that there, dragons are not feared as is right and proper but instead loved and worshiped. Yeva is perhaps a strange emissary to these people. Not only because their face has never been seen in public, but because they are a hero born to a birthright that makes them suited for their task—hunting dragons.
And so the dragon hunter must woo Quanbao's queen—the Lady Sookhee—to understand what secrets she is hiding. A woman reasonably suspicious of Yeva's intentions, and the imperial might of the throne she represents, Sookhee bears the burden of the safety of her entire people. How can she trust this stranger newly arrived to her court, a weapon forged in blood and fire, to understand what her people need and how best to safeguard their future?

"It feels like part of her has cracked, but in the way frost cracks in the spring."

Neon Yang's Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame is a sapphic novella about dragons and about what it means to hide all you are in order to fit in. The worldbuilding is easily the best part, painted with a few deft strokes that enchant the reader, also thanks to the beautiful prose.

The story might fall a little short in the timing, as it condenses a long amount of time in short passages, for instance recounting with stunning speed the main character's formative years, or glossing over her stay in the palace of the girl-king, so that the sapphic development and even the resolution feel a bit unearned.

It's still a stunning novella with gorgeous prose, with the distinct feel of a tale from long ago, almost forgotten.

Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame is ideal for a cozy evening read.

✨ 4 stars

 

🐲👸🏻 So you want to read about dragons and sapphic knights?

Here's my review of Charlotte Bond's The Fireborne Blade 

Review: The Sun Blessed Prince, by Lindsey Byrd

 

Prince Elician is a Giver – a closely-guarded secret. He can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life. He also can’t be killed, so is cursed to watch his country wage an endless war. Reapers can kill with a single touch. And when one attacks Prince Elician near a hotly contested battlefield, the Reaper expects a terrible punishment. Instead, Elician offers him a new life on enemy territory.
Cat, as Elician calls him, hadn’t realized he could ever find someone who would make life worth living. Yet Elician’s enemies plan to turn his kindness against him. As the pieces of a deadly plot come together, tensions escalate at court and on the battlefield. The fires of conflict burst into new flame – but can those who wield the powers of life and death find peace?

"To heal a wound, you need to start small."

Lindsey Byrd's The Sun Blessed Prince is an excellent epic fantasy with a slow-burn achillean romance subplot. First in a duology, this book sets the stage for what promises to be an explosive conclusion by introducing a varied cast of characters, two realms at constant war, and two very different sets of beliefs based on the gods of Life and Death. Blessed by their respective gods, Cat and Elician are going to do their best to change things for the people in their realms.

Their relationship develops slowly. It's not too much of a spoiler to say that they're separated for most of the book, but their brief time together made an impression on both, and when they reunite they pick up from where they've left, changed forever by what occurred in the meantime. The final chapter is a very moving piece of writing, and almost brought me to tears.

Romance is decidedly not the focus. This is a great political fantasy with lots of moving pieces, twists (I spoiled myself on a big one by looking for the second book while still reading, but there's still so much more going on), and social commentary on slavery especially. There's a great focus on science, unexpected but fairly contained, and it worked well within the narrative. It's a big book with big themes and a list of trigger warnings one may want to check out before reading.

The trio of POVs is completed by Elician's young sister, a girl who’s grappling with her powers and with her place in the world. Her narration might feel out of place, but it provides much context, and her journey is one to pay attention too. The rest of the cast has its moments to shine, starting from Elician's devoted best friend.

My only gripe with this book and the only reason why I'm not giving it five stars is that the passage of a time in a certain portion of the book was unclear, and the same portion would have benefitted from a few more chapters with Elician's POV.

The Sun Blessed Prince is an incredible debut.

✨ 4.5 stars

 

🤴🏻☀ So you want to read about duty-bound princes?

Here's my review of Laura R. Samotin's The Sins on their Bones 

 

Snippet: The Gilda Stories, by Jewelle Gomez

 

This remarkable novel charts the unending life of Gilda, a young woman who - after escaping slavery in Louisiana in 1850 - is made into a vampire. After being initiated into eternal life as one who 'shares the blood', Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a way to exist in the world.

“Pledge yourself to pursue only life, never bitterness or cruelty.”

Jewelle Gomez' The Gilda Stories is a lesbian classic and an extraordinary exploration of the horror of slavery and racism, combined with all the trappings of a vampire novel. This literary classic doesn't have a plot per se, but it's more of a sequence of moments over the course of two hundred years, and the reader follows happily along as Gilda meets people and makes fundamental changes. At its core, it's a novel about being Black and queer in America, and about giving back what you're given. It's a healing experience, a beautiful read.

✨ 4 stars

Review: Confounding Oaths, by Alexis Hall

The year is 1815, and Mr. John Caesar is determined to orchestrate a successful coming-out for his younger sister, Mary. Despite his best efforts, he is thwarted by the various interventions of a ragtag regiment of soldiers, a mysterious military cult, and a malicious fairy godmother.
When Mary is cursed by the fair folk, the dandyish Mr. Caesar is forced to work with the stolidly working-class—yet inescapably heroic—Captain James to rescue her. While Mr. Caesar is no stranger to dallying with soldiers, until now he's never expected one to stay. Or wanted one to. But even if the captain felt the same, there'd be no chance of anything lasting between them. After all, he and Mr. Caesar come from different worlds.

"The world is chaos. We try to understand it and to shape it, but we cannot unsee it."

Alexis Hall's Confounding Oaths is a sequel, but as the spirited narrator tells us, we don't need to have read the first installment Mortal Follies (HERE you can read my review) to enjoy it, although the reading experience might be dampened if you haven't. Puck returns here to tell another story about the same family, as the helpful cousin from the first book is brought to the fore, and his immediate family faces the dangers this time. This tale delivers just as the first, with the right mix of humor (coming from Puck's witty comments), gravitas, and swoon-worthy romance.

As with the first book, the threat comes from both the supernatural world and the mundane, and we see more of the fairy court and its workings, more fairy characters, and gods again. We also see issues of class and racism, which didn't appear in the first book, adding some much needed edge; and the exploration of sexism and homophobia from the first book of course make a return, with a focus on what society deems beautiful. As Puck warns in the beginning, there is cruelty in these novels, but also a relatively happy resolution.

The romance goes fast, going from a strong initial physical attraction, which is immediately acted upon, to the slow and tender lowering of the walls the duo had to build around their hearts. The focus is mostly on Mr. Caesar and his struggles as the first and only male child, but Captain James has his say in more ways than one.

There are a lot more characters in this one, but they are all treated with care. Maelys and Georgiana return, of course, allowing us to see what became of them, and so does Miss Bickle, who I imagine will be the main character of a possible new novel.

Confounding Oaths is a delightful romp.

✨ 4 stars

 

🦋🕷 So you want to read about conniving fae in an alternate England?

Here's my review of Trip Galey's A Market of Dreams and Destiny  

 

Review: The Incandescent, by Emily Tesh

 

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.
Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.

"What matters is how you meet failure, and how you face up to it."

Emily Tesh's The Incandescent is a scintillating standalone novel following a competent professor in her thirties as she faces the greatest battle of all: grading. This book really delves into the minutiae of working as a teacher, with a focus on the dynamics of a classrom, the relationships with colleagues, and the administrative part, with the added twist of it being a magical academy of course. It's fresh and interesting and it really breathes to life in a captivating way. At the same time, it handles the challenges of acadamia from an intersectional point of view while also showing that adults don't have everything perfectly together and it's a challenge of its own. It's very hopeful in its discussion of depression, trauma, and bad coping mechanisms. 

The magical plot slowly unveils itself as powerful demons living in the shadow of the school make themselves known and it falls to Saffy to face them. The book can be roughly divided in two parts, with two different threats to face, while Saffy, a true disaster bisexual, is also torn between the hot magical guard in charge of school security, a competent butch with a sword, and the new security advisor, an asshole who feels very sure of himself. The resolution of this particular plot point is worth the wait and frustration.

The star of the book, though, is the phoenix, a powerful demon who learns to navigate the human world and human concepts while being so utterly alien. Their PoV gave me chills and moved me to tears.

The Incandescent is an intriguing concept done perfectly right.

✨ 4.5 stars

 

📖🦚 So you want to read about queer magical professors?

Here's my reviews of Madeleine Nakamura's duology  

Review: Emberclaw, by L.R. Lam

Arcady faces their greatest heist yet: posing as a noble student at the arcane University of Vatra. When the University announces the reinstatement of archaic trials of magic, the ever-penniless Arcady seizes the chance. If they win, they not only prove their worth, but the scholarship will give them more time to unlock secrets and reveal, once and for all, that their grandsire was not the Plaguebringer. Yet grief still leaves Arcady broken, and when they close their eyes, they dream of a certain dragon.
Everen, once the hope of dragons, is now hated by his kind. When he is eventually released from his prison, the Queen is clear: while he may help protect the island from wraith attacks, he is no longer a prince of the realm. As he struggles to find his place in Vere Celene, visions of the past, the future, and tantalizing glimpses of Arcady still haunt him. If he steers the wrong path through fate’s storm, he may never be able to create a future where both humans and dragons live in harmony.
Arcady soon realizes that to survive the rising threats from both their old life and their new one, they must use every trick at their disposal—even magic stolen from a dragon they thought dead. And as time runs out before an ancient danger awakens, Everen must fight his way back to Arcady, earn their forgiveness, and learn what it truly means to be an Emberclaw.

"Humans always attack what they fear."

L.R. Lam's Emberclaw concludes the duology that started with the excellent Dragonfall (click here to read my review), but unfortunately it doesn't quite stick the landing, losing everything that made the first installment so unique in favor of a generic magical academia/trials plot. This is to the absolute detriment of the series, which started off so strong, with a packed heist plot and interesting things to say about gender and the weight of expectations.

The core duo spends half of the book apart, each of them dealing with issues that seem to just be there in order to make the book long. The academia/trials part is the most meandering, with no clear sense of direction and new characters we feel no connection to, but Evemer's slow plot doesn't do him any favors either. Things start picking up speed and some semblance of form once the book hits the halfway point, but by that point it's too late and the existential threat feels more like an afterthought. The relationship between Evemer and Arkady, too, feels shallow and unearned after the fireworks of the first novel.

One good narrative thread that gets explored more, and has an interesting development, is Sorin. She takes center stage as she develops doubts and more agency and is, in general, a more well-rounded character.

Emberclaw is not a strong finish.

✨ 3.5 stars

 

🐲📚 So you want to read about dragons and academia?

Here's my review of Moniquill Blackgoose's To Shape a Dragon's Breath