Book #47 of 2025: Ring of Solomon by Aden Polydoros (Ring of Solomon #1) [Disclaimer: I am Twitter mutuals with this author.] Overall a solid entry in the Percy Jackson genre of middle-grade fiction, where tweens battle fantastical monsters drawn from some culture’s traditional mythology (increasingly #ownvoices for the writer’s particular background, as here). In …
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Book #46 of 2025: Traditional Culture Days at Uni by Victoria Goddard This Discord-exclusive story is a lightweight snippet, depicting Kip Mdang from The Hands of the Emperor as a young person at university. It’s fun to glimpse him at that age with friends and family we’ve previously seen when they’re substantially older — namely …
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Book #41 of 2025: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow An atmospheric modern gothic / romantasy, in which a feisty heroine from the wrong side of the tracks is drawn to the creepy haunted house in her community and its reclusive and volatile caretaker. My favorite part of this story is its rural Kentucky setting, …
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Book #40 of 2025: Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura This is an odd little story. It’s a translated version of a Japanese bestseller, and I’m sure there are some cultural nuances that I’m missing, as I’ve had a particularly hard time swallowing the basic premise here. Not the mirror that magically transports …
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Book #38 of 2025: Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #26) Circling back to one of the Discworld novels I’d never read before. I’ve been away from the series for a while, but this one strikes me as even more of a random mishmash than usual, with characters wandering in from other titles and …
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Book #37 of 2025: Hawk by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #14) Way back in the fifth volume of this fantasy series, the hitman / mob boss Vladimir Taltos turned on the criminal organization that had previously employed him, resulting in them putting a bounty on his head and forcing him to flee his familiar home …
Book #35 of 2025: Terec and the Wall by Victoria Goddard (Terec of Lund #2) To recap: the imperial valet Conju, a minor character in author Victoria Goddard’s best-known work The Hands of the Emperor, recounts in that novel the unknown fate of his lost love Terec, who fled civilization as a young man with …
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Book #32 of 2025: Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang This standalone fantasy novel is a total delight, and also probably represents the biggest improvement I’ve ever seen an author display from their debut, which for M. L. Wang was the somewhat forgettable YA title Theonite: Planet Adyn. Her talents have grown considerably …
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Book #29 of 2025: Amari and the Despicable Wonders by B. B. Alston (Supernatural Investigations #3) A significant step down for a previously-charming middle-grade fantasy series. I gave the first two novels four stars apiece for their freshness and overall fun, but this one feels like a generic and less entertaining Percy Jackson ripoff. You …
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Book #28 of 2025: Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland A raunchy yet oddly sexless pirate fantasy comedy. Which is to say that the characters in this story are all obsessed with sex and talk about it incessantly in the vulgarest of terms, but nothing more graphic than makeouts or a naked arm …
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