Book #27 of 2025: An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson The opening sequence to this horror-fantasy novel is appropriately chilling: our protagonist, standing between two mirrors in the bathroom, notices a distant figure in the receding reflections that isn’t behaving like the others. In fact, it’s slowly walking towards her, weaving through all the …
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Book #26 of 2025: Tiassa by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #13) I don’t know that I would call this volume a novel like the others in its series have been. Instead it’s more like a triptych of loosely-connected smaller stories, none of which are developed at enough length to really satisfy. Part of the issue …
Book #25 of 2025: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke I first read this fantasy novel soon after its initial 2004 publication, and have found myself drawn back to its wonders at least once a decade since. It is a dense and intricate creation: 782 pages in my hardcover edition, detailing an alternate …
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Book #24 of 2025: The Weaver of the Middle Desert by Victoria Goddard (The Sisters Avramapul #3) Another delightful Arabian-tinged fairy tale involving the three young heroines, who by now are seasoned adventurers (though Sardeet and Pali have still yet to join up with the notorious Red Company that will someday spread their fame across …
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Book #23 of 2025: The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon (The Hurricane Wars #1) This romantasy debut improves as it goes along, to the point that I’ll grudgingly round my rating up to a mid-grade three stars for the book at large. That beginning is pretty rough, though! I don’t mind a nice enemies-to-lovers arc, …
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Book #22 of 2025: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera One of the more distinctive fantasy novels I’ve ever read, and apparently loosely based on the life / legend of the Buddha’s son Rāhula (literally Fetter, the name of the protagonist here, so named because he represented a worldly connection the mystic knew …
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Book #15 of 2025: Iorich by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #12) In many ways, this Vlad Taltos installment feels like a rehash of #10 Dzur, with the reformed hitman protagonist again lured back against his better judgment to the hometown where his enemies still have a price on his head, in order to sort out …
Book #14 of 2025: Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent by Scott Lynch What a delight it is to reenter the world of Camorr, that medieval Venice-inspired city-state with its elaborate criminal underworld staking out rival gang territories along the canals. Author Scott Lynch has published a variety of shorter fiction in the years since …
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Book #13 of 2025: Balancing Stone by Victoria Goddard Another interstitial novella in author Victoria Goddard’s Greenwing & Dart cozy fantasy series, this time focusing on Jemis Greenwing’s schoolmate Hope after the events of the sixth / latest novel Plum Duff. As introduced in the book before that one, she’s in love with his best …
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Book #12 of 2025: Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean #3) I flitted between three and four stars for this latest Fourth Wing sequel, but was ultimately swayed by how wildly off-base the lower-starred reviews on Goodreads seemed to be. So congrats to those users, I guess, who convinced me to push my own …
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