Book #135 of 2023: A Power Unbound by Freya Marske (The Last Binding #3) Romantasy is the buzzy new publishing genre these days, but for me personally, the fantasy elements always take priority over the romance ones in such a blended work. For that reason, I’ve grown less enamored of this particular trilogy as it’s …
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Book #129 of 2023: I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea This debut novel and its heroine should have been right up my alley: an #ownvoices queer Black teen, striving to prove herself in the cutthroat and frequently racist world of French ballet, who makes a pact with …
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Book #126 of 2023: The Narrow Road Between Desires by Patrick Rothfuss An interesting novella focused on the minor character Bast from author Patrick Rothfuss’s ongoing / long-dormant trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicle. I have a few outside complaints about this title — it’s the second such side release for the series, all while readers have …
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Book #120 of 2023: Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean #2) A surprisingly-quick sequel to May’s runaway ‘romantasy’ bestseller Fourth Wing, but I suppose the publisher wanted to strike while the iron was hot — no pun intended. This one is just as great, although truth be told, it probably could have been half …
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Book #109 of 2023: The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] This is the fourth and final ‘Secret Project’ release from author Brandon Sanderson, representing the novels he wrote in his spare time during the early COVID-19 pandemic and later dramatically unveiled via a record-setting Kickstarter for their …
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Book #106 of 2023: Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #4) At its best, this fantasy series offers powerful meditations on stories: why we share and find meaning in them, how they don’t necessarily match an objective historical record even when purporting to, the reasons they might shift over time …
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Book #103 of 2023: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean #1) The majority of this fantasy novel is pretty terrific, a fine addition to that thriving sub-genre of speculative fiction about specialized academies that blatantly allow/encourage/require their enterprising cadets to murder one another to get ahead (Ender’s Game, Battle Royale, The Scholomance, Red Rising, …
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Book #95 of 2023: The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman (Blacktongue #1) This 2021 fantasy debut has all the gore of the grimdark subgenre, but it skillfully avoids the cynical nihilism that I’d consider typical of such properties. Instead, the tone here is more akin to The Lies of Locke Lamora — archly comic and …
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Book #91 of 2023: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] The latest Kickstarter novel from author Brandon Sanderson falls somewhere between the last two in quality for me. I don’t think it’s as strong a story as Tress of the Emerald Sea — nor that …
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Book #90 of 2023: Goldenhand by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #5) My original review of this novel from shortly after its publication in 2016: “A triumphant return to the Old Kingdom, finally resolving the fate of the lost Abhorsen, Clariel. (Note: Clariel’s early life is described in the prequel novel which bears her name, …
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