Books. Cats. Nonsense.
I'll be honest, "gender-swapped Alexander the Great retelling set in space" was all I needed to know about Unconquerable Sun when it originally crossed my path -- it immediately got added to the "most anticipated books of the year" list. Having only read, but absolutely adored, one book by Kate Elliott before, I knew she'd be able to pull of a book with such an epic scope.
Having read Lee's Ninefox Gambit, I knew that I should expect a few things from Phoenix Extravagant: an incredibly immersive and original world, great characters, and a compelling read. While I enjoyed Ninefox Gambit, his latest novel absolutely blows it out of the water for me.
I've been doing a lot of reading, but not a lot of blogging, while in lockdown. In an effort to catch up on my outstanding reviews, I'm introducing Quarantine Reads! Check out mini reviews of three books I read during lockdown that I never got to share my thoughts on.
A new book from Adrian Tchaikovsky, one of my favourite authors, is always an exciting event. The Doors of Eden was a book that immediately caught my attention with its stunning cover and intriguing concept. I had sky-high expectations for this book, and I am so pleased to say thatthey were absolutely met! The Doors of Eden is an incredibly accessible, fun, and thought-provoking science fiction story with Tchaikovsky's signature twist.
What an absolutely delightful book! Despite the fact that I am not much of a contemporary YA reader, I knew that I would enjoy Bookish and the Beast. I adore Poston's Once Upon a Con series -- and you can see my reviews for Geekerella and The Princess and the Fangirl here -- and my high expectations for this story were absolutely met.
Good morning, friends! Today is the day that Devin Madson's We Ride the Storm publishes in the UK, and I cannot wait for you all to read it! I'm currently reading it myself and am absolutely loving it. You want assassins? You got it. Clever princesses? Yep. Respectful beheadings? Check!
While hunting through my shiny new Scribd account, I stumbled upon P. Djèlí Clark’s Cairo novellas and was intrigued. I queued up the audiobooks and ended up absolutely loving these gorgeous fantasy tales! As these were quite short, today I’m bringing you mini reviews of these two books.
Oh, Murderbot -- everyone’s favourite anti-social, anxiety-riddled killing machine. I recently completed the entire Murderbot Diaries novellas in anticipation of the release of the first full-length novel, Network Effect, in June. Today I’m offering you mini reviews of each novella, as well as some thoughts on the series overall.
I’ve been wanting to read Ted Chiang’s short science fiction works ever since his much acclaimed Stories of Your Life and Others. His work gets loads of praise from literary types who don’t usually look twice at genre fiction, so I was definitely curious and picked up a copy. When two of the works in the book were nominated for Hugo awards, I finally picked up Exhalation and read it. I was absolutely blown away by his incredible writing and thought-provoking plots.
Harrow Lake first burst onto my radar when the publishers were sending out the coolest looking proofs (seriously, check it out!) in the winter. I was immediately interested in the book as soon as I read the summary -- I’ve never been much of a horror reader but have been trying to dip my toe into the genre lately. Harrow Lake turned out to be a great stepping stone into horror for me with its creepy, atmospheric setting and things that go bump in the night.
