Book #68 of 2019: The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie Here is a story I have heard. It’s a loose retelling of Hamlet, from the perspective of a god bound to the area, addressed to the transgender soldier serving the role of Horatio to his deposed prince. It’s a striking use of first- and second-person …
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Book #66 of 2019: The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee (Montague Siblings #2) Another rip-roaring historical comedy about young people who don’t fit neatly into 18th-century European society’s expectations for them. This book is less overtly romantic than the previous novel that centers on bisexual teenager Henry Montague — which fits, …
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Book #64 of 2019: Evermore by Sara Holland (Everless #2) Another YA fantasy duology with a promising first volume followed by a more conventional and generic sequel. The best thing about the opening Everless novel was its system of time as currency, in which the rich magically extend their existence by literally taxing the life …
Book #63 of 2019: King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo (Nikolai Duology #1) After five novels — and some short stories that I haven’t yet read — author Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse setting feels wonderfully lived-in. This latest volume is the start of a new duology in that Russian-flavored fantasy world, but it essentially reads as …
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Book #60 of 2019: The High King by Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of Prydain #5) This children’s fantasy series hasn’t always had the most even storytelling, but the last volume is a proper finale that escalates the conflict, delivers some stirring emotional resolutions, and brings back many familiar characters along the way — including the …
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Book #58 of 2019: The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner This tale of two Jewish girls discovering their magical heritage in early 20th-century Moldova is a messy debut novel, and I wish it had better integration of its various parts. It’s both a retelling of the Christina Rossetti poem “Goblin Market” (far …
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Book #57 of 2019: The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth Another postmodern portal fantasy focused less on magical adventuring and more on what happens after a return home from fairyland. It’s most similar to Seanan McGuire’s excellent Wayward Children series in that respect, although there are also shades of Neil Gaiman’s short story …
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Book #54 of 2019: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (The Dark Star Trilogy #1) This is a dense and somewhat oblique fantasy tome, richly steeped in mythic history from across Africa. It’s sprawling and recursive, nesting stories within stories within stories, resulting in an epic closer to the original oral tradition of that …
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Book #53 of 2019: In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #4) I’ve generally enjoyed this series of novellas about children longing to escape back to other realms, but this latest installment doesn’t quite carry the same magic for me. I feel as though author Seanan McGuire never really makes the case for …
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Book #49 of 2019: The Book of M by Peng Shepherd This post-apocalyptic novel takes a little while to click into place for me, in part because its inciting plot doesn’t exactly endear me to the characters and in part because the rules of its world feel hazy in a magical realist way that I …
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