Book #93 of 2023: The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher I only learned after finishing this 2019 horror novel that it’s a loose sequel to Arthur Machen’s 1904 story “The White People,” and I wonder if some of my frustrations might have been mitigated by that additional context. As is, this later work has a …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher”
Book #63 of 2023: A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher A fun little horror novella about a woman whose mom’s house is being haunted by the malevolent spirit of the protagonist’s abusive grandmother. It’s a quick read overall, but I think it stays a bit too long in the initial stage of the …
Continue reading “Book Review: A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher”
Book #139 of 2022: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher This creepy little novella is a retelling of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher by way of Mexican Gothic or The Girl with All the Gifts — which is to say, it posits that a rare breed of mushroom colony at the …
Continue reading “Book Review: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher”
Book #110 of 2022: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher An exquisite dark fairy tale, about a woman seeking the services of a necromancer to save her sister from the abusive husband who’s likely to murder her as soon as she produces a male heir. There are impossible tasks met with fierce determination, hard-won and …
Continue reading “Book Review: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher”
Book #351 of 2021: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher I enjoy the protagonist’s magic here, which is limited to spells about baking and eventually gets put to creative use in defending the city from an invading army. I also approve of the dark and creepily realistic portrayal of a growing extremist …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more