Book #268 of 2021: The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison (The Goblin Emperor #2) I’ve enjoyed this spinoff sequel to 2014’s The Goblin Emperor, but I don’t love it nearly as much as the original novel. Leaving the imperial palace and its lonely ruler behind, we’re instead presented with a low-stakes, street-level plot …
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Book #258 of 2021: The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron (The Legend of Eli Monpress #1) Eli Monpress is a very silly character — a thief pulling audacious heists and kidnappings in country after country apparently just to amass history’s largest total bounty on his head — which is not necessarily a problem, except for …
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Book #257 of 2021: The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black This standalone YA fantasy novel hasn’t completely won me over, but I like it a lot more than author Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince, which has a somewhat similar premise of fairyland intrigue. (The central romance here, for instance, strikes me as …
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Book #251 of 2021: The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker (The Golem and the Jinni #2) This long-awaited sequel to 2013’s The Golem and the Jinni is another lovely piece of historical fantasy, following those two beings from Jewish and Arabian folklore as they navigate the next stages of their life in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New York …
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Book #234 of 2021: Wayward Witch by Zoraida Córdova (Brooklyn Brujas #3) Although I appreciate that this third heroine in author Zoraida Córdova’s Brooklyn Brujas trilogy is less foolhardy than her older sisters — as shown by how she’s the only one whose adventure doesn’t begin with her own selfish spell gone wrong — the …
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Book #226 of 2021: The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo Overall I find this retelling of The Great Gatsby to be an improvement on the original, to which it has added some light touches of sorcery and demons. The biggest change is its queer reading of most of the cast, with Daisy, Jay, …
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Book #220 of 2021: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #40) Author Terry Pratchett is pretty reliably funny, and if you approach his individual books as scaffolding devices for his specific brand of clever humor, outrageous puns, and insightful commentary on our own society by means of its satirical fantasy version, this one is another …
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Book #219 of 2021: Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal Given the title of this YA novel, I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to mention that there’s a literal werewolf in it, even though that fact isn’t confirmed until almost a third of the way through. But both before and …
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Book #218 of 2021: When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey Author Sarah Gailey always has great casual representation of gender and sexuality in their characters, and this YA novel is no exception with its tale of six queer best friends, including the bisexual heroine with two dads. I dig the gutsy premise too, which …
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Book #213 of 2021: The Atlas of the Land by Karen Wynn Fonstad This reference book is a true labor of love for the first six volumes in Stephen R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant fantasy series. (It was published in 1985, well before the final quartet arrived. And it’s been out of print ever …
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