Difference between revisions of "Newest Fantasy Reviews"

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|author=Kathlaine C Gill and D Clark Gill
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|title=Madness Between Light and Dark
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Fantasy
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|summary=It's 1912, and at New Hope Sanatorium, Christine Agnes Tupper is fast growing up. Abandoned there by parents who were ashamed of her hunchback, she's nevertheless grown up to an intelligent girl with a good heart. Her encounters with the inhabitants of the asylum swiftly take her on a fascinating, thrilling and sometimes terrifying journey of self discovery, allowing Agnes to prove that, even with a twisted spine, her heart is in the right place!
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|author= Alexandra Christo
 
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We never know the man's name but let's call him ''Boyo''.  It's what his mother used to call him, not least because he found it annoying.  When we first meet Boyo his mother is alive, if not ''living'' as most people would understand it.  She spends her days watching daytime television and drinking.  Housework is a foreign country.  When she dies she's not missed, firstly because she'd spent a couple of years in a mental hospital, but mainly because her ghost continues to haunt Boyo.  She wants him to achieve something in his life: what she has in mind is that he could be a famous arsonist. [[Nothing Lasting by Laura Solomon|Full Review]]
 
We never know the man's name but let's call him ''Boyo''.  It's what his mother used to call him, not least because he found it annoying.  When we first meet Boyo his mother is alive, if not ''living'' as most people would understand it.  She spends her days watching daytime television and drinking.  Housework is a foreign country.  When she dies she's not missed, firstly because she'd spent a couple of years in a mental hospital, but mainly because her ghost continues to haunt Boyo.  She wants him to achieve something in his life: what she has in mind is that he could be a famous arsonist. [[Nothing Lasting by Laura Solomon|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri]]===
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
 
 
Mehr is a girl trapped between two cultures. Her father comes from the ruling classes of the empire but her mother's people were outcasts, Amrithi nomads who worshipped the spirits of the sands. Caught one night performing these forbidden rites, Mehr is brought to the attention of the Emperor's most feared mystics, who force her into their service by way of an arranged marriage. [[Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri|Full Review]]
 
  
 
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Revision as of 10:27, 5 October 2019


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Review of

Madness Between Light and Dark by Kathlaine C Gill and D Clark Gill

3.5star.jpg Fantasy

It's 1912, and at New Hope Sanatorium, Christine Agnes Tupper is fast growing up. Abandoned there by parents who were ashamed of her hunchback, she's nevertheless grown up to an intelligent girl with a good heart. Her encounters with the inhabitants of the asylum swiftly take her on a fascinating, thrilling and sometimes terrifying journey of self discovery, allowing Agnes to prove that, even with a twisted spine, her heart is in the right place! Full Review

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Review of

Into the Crooked Place by Alexandra Christo

4star.jpg Teens

In a world thriving with black magic, four young crooks embark on a quest to take down their criminal leader after they discover the plot behind his dangerous new magic. Full Review

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A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy

The chimneys of industry rise over Adua and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep as ever. On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specialises in disappointments. Savine dan Glokta - socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union - plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control. The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye. Glimpsing the future is one thing, but with the guiding hand of the First of the Magi still pulling the strings, changing it will be quite another . . .Full Review

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Lighthouse of the Netherworlds by Maxwell N Andrews

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Teens, Fantasy, Confident Readers

The phrase about never trusting a book by its cover is something I put on a par with comments about Marmite. You're supposed to love it or hate it and I'm halfway between, and likewise the old adage is halfway true. From the cover of this I had a child-friendly fantasy, what with that name and that attractive artwork of an attractive girl reaching for an attractive water plant. That was only built on by the initial fictionalised quotes, with their non-standard spelling, as if texts of scripture in this book's world predated our standardised literacy. But why was I two chapters in and just finding more and more characters, both human and animal, and more and more flashbacks, and no proof that this was what I'd bought in for? Full Review

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The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews General Fiction, Paranormal, Fantasy

When William Abbey fails to prevent the lynching of a young boy in 1880's South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the grieving mother. A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the weight of the curse upon him, as the shadow of the dead boy begins to follow him across the world. Never stopping, always growing – it crosses oceans and mountains in pursuit of William. As he finds himself unable to resist speaking the truths that he hears in others, he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – and seeks to kill the one he loves the most… Full Review

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The Years of Fading Magic by Kenelm Averill

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy

What if you could subtly change the lives of ordinary people around you?

Jessica Turner was one of the more radical teens to come out of Eastfield. A youth spent hanging out with a close crowd of friends was characterised by Jessica's role as trendsetter, as influencer, as leader. Strangely charismatic, Jessica invited fascination and obsession. Nobody who met her, forgot her. Or the days they spent in the Enclosure, a clearing in Eastfield woods that Jessica felt gave her power. But the group went its separate ways, as adolescent groups do, and her influence faded...Full Review

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The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy, Literary Fiction

The Nightjar is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation and particularly, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? Full Review

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We Are The Dead by Mike Shackle

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy

Mike Shackle has written a really interesting and unusual story in We Are The Dead; the tag line for the novel is 'No More Heroes' and that is what makes this story so different. There are villains galore but no specific heroes; rather the story is scattered with characters doing their own small part to survive, to fight back, and to find vengeance, in a world that has been utterly torn apart. The plot does not hang on any one character, no one is important, anyone can die and many do, but, like ants working together, each small character achieves their own part of a much larger plot that is rich and complex and keeps the reader glued to the story. Full Review

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Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy

People will not forget. Or forgive. An ugly girl is too great an offense...the world is made for men. An ugly girl can never be forgiven.

Stepsister tells the gripping story of Cinderella's 'ugly' stepsister, Isabelle. We've been told this fairy-tale over and over again throughout our lives and know the characters well. But have you ever wondered what happened to the sisters after Cinderella married the Prince? Or why the sisters disliked her so much? Full Review

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The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy

Every so often, as a reader, a book comes along that is utter and complete perfection. This book is one of those. Utter and complete perfection. Winter has created an absolute masterpiece of a novel, set in the fantasy land of Uhmlaba the reader is instantly thrown into war, a battle for survival for the Omehi people. Fleeing their homeland, they have to fight to remain on the only scrap of land they can reach. The culture of the Omehi people is rich and deep but not perfect, not sanctimonious. They have villains, they have faults, they are the invaders after all, but Winter creates a realistic and honest portrayal of a people desperate to survive, to save themselves and their culture for future generations. Full Review

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Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy, Historical Fiction

Robin Hood is gone – denouncing both his former life and his love Marian, and retreating to a monastery – although no-one knows quite what led him to abandon all that he had built. Marion's life since has been relatively quiet - but when her friends start dying, Marion is tasked by Father Tuck to break the curse surrounding them and to save their lives. Setting off with a soldier, a Fey Lord and a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in a maze of betrayals, complicated relationships, and a vicious struggle for the throne…Full Review

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The Tunnels Below by Nadine Wild-Palmer

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Confident Readers, Teens, Fantasy

Meet Cecilia. It's her twelfth birthday, and after a scene that shows her parents to be wacky, witty and wonderful as if fresh from an American sit-com, the whole family is set to go out for a grand day of celebration. Cecilia is toting a large, silvered ball that her younger sister found as a present, but ends up dropping it, and watching it as it rolls right back from her grip into the very Underground carriage they had just left. Mind the gap. Back in the train with it she finds she is alone – and the train promptly hares off to leave her abandoned in pitch darkness at a stop no other train has ever taken her to… It's the outskirts, Cecilia will find, of a strange society of English-speaking humanised animals, and her first acquaintance, a fox-man, will tell her that all talk of a world above, with suns and fields and fresh air, is pooh-poohed as the nonsense gibberish of people who have wandered in darkness too much and forgotten their origins. Can she survive all this wondrous civilisation can throw at her and find her way back to the family she left behind – or will the dark leaders from the resident crow family subject her to their evil reign? Full Review

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Nocturna by Maya Motayne

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy, Teens

A thief without a face, a prince who was never meant to be king, Finn and Alfie collide, as if thrown together by fate, to bring about a series of catastrophes and set in motion the release of a darkness that seeks to consume all the goodness and magic in the world. These two unlikely allies must try to put their own personal battles behind them and join forces to stop the evil from destroying everything they hold dear. Full Review

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Fish Seeking Bicycle by Kate Cooch

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy

This novel is set about a hundred years into the future. The world has been decimated by nuclear conflict and what's left of the old United States is run from Center City. Women run this world and it is very proud of having defeated the old patriarchy. Men must behave appropriately and deferentially at all times and, if they don't, are medicalised to keep their baser instincts under control. And if that doesn't work, they're sent to work camps, away from open society, or even worse: expelled to the wilderness beyond the Central Authority's borders. Full Review

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Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy, Horror

Two days after I was born … the dead rose up and started to walk on a battlefield in a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg

Dread Nation narrates the unconventional life of Jane McKeene who was born days before the dead began to walk the streets. An event which in interrupting the civil war between the states altered American history forever. In the changed world, minorities are forced into conscription and under the new Native and Negro Re-education Act children are placed in combat schools where they are trained extensively to destroy the dead once and for all. For Jane and other girls like her, there is however the opportunity for a better life by being employed as an attendant. With deadly capabilities and perfect etiquette, attendants protect those higher in society and are valued above all else. Full Review

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The Twisted Tree by Rachel Burge

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy, Paranormal, Horror

Martha's world has changed. Blind in one eye after falling from a tree, she wakes with a disturbing gift. She can read people through their clothes, secrets tumble from the weave, revealing insights she doesn't really want, and knowledge she doesn't understand. She flees to her grandmother, Mormor's cabin, seeking answers no one is prepared to give, and stumbles into world of menace. Full Review

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The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Hanrahan

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy

Enter a world where Gods are real and violent, the Godswar rages far away, Gods lead huge armies of men and Saints, mortals given the power of the Gods, and thousands die as their capricious Gods battle for supremacy. Guerdon lies across the sea, and has kept the Godswar at bay so far. Geurdon's Gods are the Kept Gods, kept weakened and under the thumb of democracy but something is happening, something is stirring, how will the City defend against the coming evil? Full Review

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The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy

The Winter of the Witch is the conclusion of the story following Vasya, Vasilisa Petronova, as she negotiates her way towards her destiny through the world of medieval males and the Catholic Church's perception of witchcraft. The story picks up directly from the action in the second novel, The Girl in the Tower, and as a reader too much is lost if you haven't read this at the very least. My advice would be to read all three. The first two novels are beautiful and lyrical with extraordinary characters and a wonderful balance of magic and action. This final novel, however, is an absolute triumph. Full Review

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Two Dark Reigns by Kendare Blake

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Teens, Fantasy

You cannot put on a costume and become something else. You are a queen of Fennbirn island.

Following on from Three Dark Crowns and its sequel One Dark Throne, in Two Dark Reigns each of the Goddess' daughters have their own battles to fight. All her life, Katharine has dreamed of being the great Queen the island of Fennbirn deserves. Having won the crown though, she is facing trial after difficult trial and murmurs of dissent and revolution grow louder on the streets each and every day. And without evidence of her sisters' death does anyone but herself and the old queens buried under her skin, believe she is the one true Queen? Full Review

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Nothing Lasting by Laura Solomon

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Horror, Fantasy

We never know the man's name but let's call him Boyo. It's what his mother used to call him, not least because he found it annoying. When we first meet Boyo his mother is alive, if not living as most people would understand it. She spends her days watching daytime television and drinking. Housework is a foreign country. When she dies she's not missed, firstly because she'd spent a couple of years in a mental hospital, but mainly because her ghost continues to haunt Boyo. She wants him to achieve something in his life: what she has in mind is that he could be a famous arsonist. Full Review