Book #133 of 2022: The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters A dark and powerful YA rural fantasy novel, complete with witchcraft, murders, monsters, a sapphic love story across small-town Georgia class divisions, and major southern gothic vibes. Our two teen protagonists are the sister of a wealthy missing girl and the daughter of a …
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Book #116 of 2022: The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska A fun little queer enemies-to-lovers YA fantasy, but with some tonal and worldbuilding issues that are keeping me at a slight distance. The two antiheroines are teenaged assistants to rival witches, tasked with hunting down victims and ripping their hearts out to fuel their mistresses’ …
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Book #110 of 2022: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher An exquisite dark fairy tale, about a woman seeking the services of a necromancer to save her sister from the abusive husband who’s likely to murder her as soon as she produces a male heir. There are impossible tasks met with fierce determination, hard-won and …
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Book #109 of 2022: A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft I was initially drawn to this YA novel by its #ownvoices Jewish element, having heard that although it’s a fantasy story set in a different world, the heroine’s religion is a recognizable stand-in for my own. In fact, the situation is even more clear-cut …
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Book #102 of 2022: This Rebel Heart by Katherine Locke Author Katherine Locke nails the tense and paranoid atmosphere in this fictionalized account of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (a student-led uprising against Soviet control that ultimately failed, although the novel doesn’t track the conflict all the way to its bitter end). And as ever …
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Book #92 of 2022: The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas An underwhelming cross between Rebecca and The Haunting of Hill House, in which a recently-married woman finds her new home literally haunted by the malevolent spirit of her husband’s first wife. (The publisher’s blurb compares it to Mexican Gothic too, but that similarity is basically limited …
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Book #86 of 2022: Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao (Zachary Ying #1) This is a solid and charming #ownvoices middle-grade fantasy debut. I’m rounding up my rating slightly since I’m so outside the target audience, and because I appreciate the effort author Xiran Jay Zhao has gone to in conveying …
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Book #80 of 2022: Book of Night by Holly Black This urban fantasy story is generally fine, and it closes on a stronger note than it begins (albeit in a way that seems it’s likely meant as the launch to a series, rather than the standalone work it’s been marketed as). But it all feels …
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Book #79 of 2022: Archer’s Goon by Diana Wynne Jones This 1984 sci-fi / fantasy novel, which I read and reread countless times as a child and is apparently one of Neil Gaiman’s favorites as well, opens with an irresistible premise: a hulking enforcer camps out in the thirteen-year-old hero’s kitchen, saying his mysterious employer …
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Book #73 of 2022: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross (The Laundry Files #1) This 2004 publication — which in my edition includes the novel The Atrocity Archive followed by a sequel novella “The Concrete Jungle” — introduces the Laundry, a secret British intelligence division dealing with magic and related otherworldly threats. It’s urban fantasy, …
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