Book #11 of 2025: A Language of Dragons by S. F. Williamson As a fantasy-lover with an academic background in linguistics, I expected to adore this YA historical fiction title from debut author S. F. Williamson, which reimagines Britain’s WWII codebreakers at Bletchley Park as working to decipher the secret communications of dragons, rather than …
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Book #10 of 2025: The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #5) I’ll admit I was a little impatient during the first half of this latest novella in the Singing Hills fantasy series, which seemed to be setting up a fairly transparent Bluebeard plot. Our returning protagonist Cleric Chih is …
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Book #8 of 2025: The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart (The Hollow Covenant #1) I appreciate the distinctive premise of this epic fantasy novel, which is set in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by two different magical afflictions: the initial curse that made everything a wasteland and another that followed later and is now gradually spreading, …
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Book #6 of 2025: Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs The nicest thing I can say about this 2023 contemporary fantasy novel is that it is a vastly superior execution of certain similar ideas from Gareth Brown’s The Book of Doors, which was published the following year. I’m sure the resemblances are coincidental, but …
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Book #5 of 2025: From Dust, a Flame by Rebecca Podos Three-and-a-half stars, rounded up. This novel is pretty YA, in a way that I think I’m finally starting to outgrow as I approach my late-thirties. There are lots of flowery poetic descriptions of how the teenage protagonist feels about her newly-discovered love interest, for …
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Book #4 of 2025: Jhegaala by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #11) There’s always been a noir element in the DNA of this fantasy sequence, but it’s rarely as overt as it is in this installment, which finds the ex-assassin Vladimir Taltos traveling in the East, far from the familiar Draegaran Empire. (For those reading his …
Book #2 of 2025: The Saint of the Bookstore by Victoria Goddard A lovely midwinter interlude in the Greenwing & Dart series, taking place soon after #6 Plum Duff and following up on a certain momentous development from #4 Blackcurrant Fool. The protagonist is a new character, a sister from a religious order, who’s been …
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Book #182 of 2024: Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #9) Broadly speaking — although this is as inaccurate in the details as Eleanor West’s flawed Logic / Nonsense dichotomy that she tries to fit all the student experiences into — there are two types of stories that the Wayward Children novellas …
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Book #181 of 2024: Dzur by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #10) In this story, the former assassin Vladimir Taltos returns home to sort out some trouble with his ex-wife and the criminal organization they both used to work for, which still has a bounty on his head. That’s pretty standard plot fare this deep into …
Book #179 of 2024: Traveller’s Joy by Victoria Goddard A short but sweet prequel / interlude in the madcap lives of Jemis and Hal from author Victoria Goddard’s Greenwing & Dart series, and one that I think would stand fairly well on its own for newcomers — although as ever, recognizing the web of sprawling …
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