Diane Setterfield follows up The Thirteenth Tale with Once Upon a River, a story of mysticism and religion colliding during the time when Darwinian theory was first taking hold. On the bank of the Thames at Redcot, there once sat a magical inn called the Swan at Radcot, which becomes known for being the place…
Do you like pirates? Not sophisticated swashbucklers or gorgeous heroes on the high seas, but people who are both murderers and visionaries, daring and repulsive, fiercely individual outlaws banding together in a complex patchwork society? That’s China Miéville for you. The Scar, the second novel in his Bas-Lag Cycle, is – for the most part…
Every thousand years, the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers can be used to summon the great dragon, who will grant a single wish. To keep the scroll safe from evil doing, it was split into three parts and scattered across the land. Now, as the deadline looms, multiple forces are in play for the scroll…
I have fond memories of watching the Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid as a child, and so I was over the moon when I saw that Sea Witch, Sarah Henning’s retelling of this classic tale, was coming out at the end of July. It was billed as dark young adult fantasy with a bit…
Spinning Silver is a lush, richly imagined, gloriously magical fantasy novel that takes its inspiration from Russian and Jewish folklore. A story full of adventure, wit, dangerous fey and clever queens, it is everything, EVERYTHING that a fairy tale for adults should be. Irina is the plain daughter of the first wife of an upstart…
Jeffe Kennedy offers an exciting new look at the world she created in her Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms series with Prisoner of the Crown. The opening tale in the trilogy about the lost princess of Dasnaria, this is one of the best books in this fantasy saga. It is a standalone novel, so you…
Note: This review may contain spoilers for previous books in series. It’s finally here, the final book in Sarah Beth Durst’s Renthia trilogy, and I have mixed feelings. On one hand, The Queen of Sorrow beautifully wraps up most of the threads from the previous books, leaving just one or two for the author to…
Megan Bannen’s début novel The Bird and the Blade is a surprising mix of fantasy and historical fiction that takes place in a fantastical version of 13th century Mongolia. It also happens to be a retelling of Puccini’s opera Turandot. Fortunately, you don’t have to be familiar with that in order to enjoy this book,…
The first time I read China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, I was not only confused, I was repelled. Too much was happening in a rank, unpleasant world where everything seemed to end badly for everyone. I kept the book only because I’d paid good money for it. A few years later, I read it again….
I was utterly thrilled to get a copy of Julia Whicker’s Wonderblood for review, as it seemed like it would be right up my alley. I’m a huge fan of dystopian fiction, rival queens, and anything having to do with carnivals, and this book contained all of those elements. Unfortunately though, I was unable to…
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