Book #39 of 2023: Mysteries of Thorn Manor by Margaret Rogerson A fun novella-length follow-up to Margaret Rogerson’s earlier fantasy novel Sorcery of Thorns. With minimal plot and a fairly narrow scope, it’s not a full-on sequel — she describes it on Goodreads as “author written fanfiction” — but simply a chance to spend a …
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Book #37 of 2023: The Redemption of Althalus by David and Leigh Eddings A good fantasy novel but ultimately not a great one. I still like it in parts, just not nearly as much as I did in high school, and I suspect that this will probably be the last time I ever reread the …
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Book #34 of 2023: Sabriel by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #1) A thoroughly excellent modern fantasy classic, published in 1995 but just as enjoyable now upon my umpteenth reread. (I can’t remember when I first encountered it, but I do recall thinking in amazement that it was like a written version of the Diablo …
Book #30 of 2023: The Afterward by E. K. Johnston I like the idea of following up with a band of adventurers after they’ve completed their quest to save the world, and all the more so that our focus is on a pair of young women who became romantically entwined on that adventure but are …
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Book #29 of 2023: Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard (Carter & Lovecraft #1) The vibes of this fantasy noir, in which a private investigator learns that H. P. Lovecraft actually experienced some of the cosmic horrors he wrote about and gets caught up in a plot with the writer’s descendant, are top-notch. As …
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Book #28 of 2023: The Halloween Moon by Joseph Fink Two-and-a-half stars rounded up, in recognition of the fact that I’m not in the target audience for this middle-grade horror/fantasy novel, despite how I often enjoy that genre regardless, or how much I love author Joseph Fink’s unrelated Welcome to Night Vale podcast and books. …
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Book #24 of 2023: The Dragonslayer’s Apprentice by David Calder I remember checking out this book from the library on multiple occasions as a kid, but upon belatedly getting around to an adult reread, I’m disappointed to report that it seems an utterly unremarkable story. The setting is the most generic medieval fantasy land, with …
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Book #23 of 2023: The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #6) This final Earthsea volume is fine, but it hasn’t grabbed me like the series can at its best. We again find author Ursula K. Le Guin in course-correction mode, and if books 4 and 5 were primarily intended to rectify and …
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Book #21 of 2023: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean This is certainly a distinctive fantasy novel, but it’s not one that entirely works for me in execution. Part of the problem is the split timeline, alternating between the heroine’s experiences leading up to her separation from her family and her subsequent life on the …
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Book #18 of 2023: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo (Alex Stern #2) Overall a three-star read for me, and a marked step down from its predecessor. I actually do like the middle of this book — the slowest part of many novels — when, as promised by the title, the protagonist and her companions invoke …
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