Difference between revisions of "Newest Fantasy Reviews"

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[[Category:Fantasy|*]]
 
[[Category:Fantasy|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Fantasy]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Fantasy]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Fantasy==
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{{Frontpage
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|author=A G Slatter
 
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|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
{{newreview
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|rating=5
|author=Kevin J Anderson
 
|title=The Map Of All Things (Terra Incognita)
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=After years of religious war between the Aidenists and the Urecari, with multiple atrocities on both sides, the known world has been divided. For each loss there is a retaliation, an upscale of the damage until the war becomes a crusade. In the centre of all this is Ishalem, a city that bridges the divide. Captured by the Urecari, who are now building a wall to defend it, the Aidenists want it back, no matter what the cost.
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|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496596</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.
|author=Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
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|isbn=1803364548
|title=Wicked: Resurrection
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The eagerly-awaited conclusion to Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié's ''Wicked'' series is finally here. After over three years of wondering and waiting to find out how this enthralling supernatural series will end, readers can finally dive straight into the war between good and evil with Resurrection and discover the answers to the secrets that have been kept from them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387373</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Chris Wooding
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Black Lung Captain: Tales of the Ketty Jay
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Things on board the Ketty Jay have never been as low.  Darian Frey and his crew are even having trouble thieving from defenceless orphanages.  So when the next token job-they-can't-refuse comes along, they fall under it's spell.  An explorer has returned with tales of untold riches, courtesy of the most mysterious artefacts and treasures of an unknown civilization.  The fact that the remains are those of an aircraft crashed in the most Arctic of rainforests, inhabited by the most evil beast-men monsters, is neither here nor there.  The problems start with what they find there, which is worse than anyone could have expected - or indeed years ago, with a mysterious connection between the remains and the more unusual crewmember...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575085177</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mia James
 
|title=By Midnight
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=April Dunne doesn't really consider herself to be a genius, and her family certainly aren't rich - so how did she get accepted by the ultra-prestigious Ravenwood school when her family moved from Scotland to Highgate? She can't work it out but has other problems to worry about, in any case, such as the two local murders and the way people at her school get angry when she tries to take their photograph. On the plus side, there's a seriously stunning boy she's drawn to straight away, Gabriel Swift, and she thinks he likes her, although his behaviour is weird at times.
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|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575095520</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jim Butcher
 
|title=First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=In ''First Lord's Fury'', the concluding part in Jim Butcher's six-part ''Codex Alera'' series, the land of Alera is struggling under the weight of an invasion by the Vord. The First Lord of Alera has been killed in battle and with his son already dead and his grandson away fighting in Canea, there looks likely to be a power struggle within the Alerans themselves.  Many Alerans have switched their allegiance to the Vord, sensing that victory over them is impossible and believing that may be the only way to escape death. This gives the Vord access to Aleran furies, a powerful force that is the Alerans main weapon.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498513</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
|author=Rachel Neumeier
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=The Lord of the Changing Winds (Griffin Mage)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=When a delegation of diplomat, mage and soldiers enter the mountainous, rural areas to the east of the country to investigate - and remove the cause of - rumours of a host of griffins laying waste, the last thing they expect to meet is one of their own kin, a shy teenager at that, helping the beasts out and magically healing them. But then Kes, the young woman in question, never expected to be there herself.  She would never have assumed she had any powers, but when a mysterious man enters her village to whisk her away and teach her to tend the battle-wounded fabulous creatures, she finds herself entering an unspeakably strange world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498734</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=T Kingfisher
|author=K J Parker
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|title=Thornhedge
|title=The Folding Knife
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Bassianus Arcadius Severus – call him Basso – is a man of many talents. All but guaranteed a life of ease as his birthright, he instead finds himself driven to excel, first as an executive trustee in his father’s bank, and then in the realm of politics. His rise to the zenith of public life is meteoric, fuelled by ambition, ruthlessness, and above all his ability to turn any defeat into a resounding victory. But with the Republic – and Basso’s own position and even life – under threat from enemies old and new, will his fall prove equally thunderous? Welcome to ''The Folding Knife'', the latest fantasy epic from K.J. Parker.
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|summary=''You had a right to retake your place.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495123</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sherrilyn Kenyon
 
|title=Infinity
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Nick Gautier, scholarship kid teased for his poverty and his mother's job as a stripper, finds life hard enough even before three of his friends try to kill him when he stops them from mugging an elderly couple. But when the man who rescues him turns out to mix in seriously weird circles, things get really bizarre. If anything, really bizarre is a massive understatement. Nick goes on to meet demons, zombies, shape changers, and a host of other mysterious beings, many of whom he already knew in human form as his schoolmates. He ends up on the frontline of a battle against zombies who are running riot in his home of New Orleans.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190741021X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Marjorie M Liu
 
|title=The Iron Hunt (Hunter Kiss)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Maxine is the last in the line of the Wardens, who wear demons as tattoos in the day, making them invulnerable. At night, 'the boys' peel away and leave her open to attack – and there are an awful lot of people out to attack her. While she's spent her life, since inheriting the tattoos from her mother, tackling zombies (who are humans possessed by demons in this world, rather than 'traditional' zombies), she quickly finds there are far worse things out there in the prison dimension they call home. The death of an investigator trying to find her leads to strange alliances being formed, questions about her past being raised, and the end of the world approaching… unless she can stop it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498009</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Seth Grahame-Smith
 
|title=Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary='Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.'  That quote, on the Statue of Liberty, was probably not designed with the inclusion of vampires in mind.  But by some means or another North America is rife with the things – hiding in plain sight, as the older ones can bear sunlight, with the help of darkened glasses.  It might just come down to one eager young man to rid his new country of such things, on his way to something he’s a bit more known for.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849014086</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Chloe Neill
 
|title=Firespell: The Dark Elite
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Lily Parker is sent to boarding school in Chicago when her parents get the opportunity to do some prestigious research work in Germany. She was expecting bitchy classmates, and she gets them – but she wasn’t prepared for her suitemate, Scout, who stays out late at night and reappears covered in bruises, a school full of secret hiding places, a principal who knows her parents and seems to have an entirely wrong idea about their work – or a mysterious group of supernatural teens called the Dark Elite.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575095393</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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T Kingfisher's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale that is well known and well beloved. But whilst there is a princess trapped in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantment, Thornhedge is not her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby and secreted away to the land of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how to draw magic from her veins and cast spells.
|author=Celine Kiernan
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|isbn=1803364238
|title=The Poison Throne: Moorehawke Trilogy
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=After years away from her childhood home at the court, Wynter Moorhawke – now an apprentice carpenter to her seriously ill father Lorcan – returns, desperate to see her childhood friends Prince Alberon and his half-brother Razi. But Alberon is in exile, and his father King Jonathon, far from being the kind ruler Wynter remembers, reigns with an iron fist. As Razi, Jonathon’s illegitimate son, is appointed the unwilling heir to the throne, Wynter must help him and his friend Christopher survive in increasingly dangerous times.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498211</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nicole Jarvis
|author=Richard Denning
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|title=A Portrait in Shadow
|title=The Last Seal
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=In 1380 the warlock Stephen Blake released the demon Dantalion from the Abyss, only for his nemesis Cornelius Silver to banish him straight away. Dantalion has nursed his wounds for nearly 300 years – and in 1666, descendants of the original pair clash as he
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|summary=''I want all of Florence to know my name''
aims to return to the world, and burn down London by starting the Great Fire. While the fire rages around London, and Dantalion’s followers try to break the seals which hold him in the Abyss, four unlikely heroes join forces to stop them from being destroyed – and to save the world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956483550</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.
|author=China Mieville
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|isbn=1803362340
|title=Kraken
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Meet Billy Harrow, curator of molluscs and other pickled creatures.  Imagine if you will Billy's thoughts on entering the chamber that houses the highlight of his museum's tour - an immense squid, housed in a glass crate - only to find the entire thing - animal and tank - impossibly removed. Imagine, too, the more esoteric kind of policeman and -woman needed to arrive, to tell him that his exhibit was the keystone of a mysterious cult with the end of times on their mind, and that they might just like Billy to infiltrate it and see what was precisely what. Just consider - is Billy, the man who bottled the giant squid, a John the Baptist to this cult, or a Judas?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0333989503</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Thomas D Lee
 +
|title=Perilous Times
 +
|rating=3
 +
|genre= Fantasy
 +
|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
  
{{newreview
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Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.
|author=Jim Butcher
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|isbn=0356518523
|title=Changes: The Dresden Files
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=It's always wonderful to see a series going from strength to strength and getting better as it goes along.  However, when this happens, there inevitably comes a point where it gets so good, you can't help but think that the next one can't possibly be any better as it feels like the series has peaked.  ''Changes'', the twelfth in Jim Butcher's ''Dresden Files'' series, is such a book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497134</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Phoebe Reeves Murray
 
|title=Ghost: Blood and Fire
 
|rating=1.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Young Jennifer Rhys has been orphaned by the evil
 
Dark Angels. They can possess people and bite off their hands, and
 
there's something about living tattoos which you can take out of boxes
 
and paste into your skin. After growing up in an adolescent
 
psychiatric ward, she will grow up to go on and confront them and
 
fulfil her destiny. Or something like that. Between the huge amount of
 
poorly drawn characters, the leaden prose, and the disappointing
 
pictures of computerized 3-D models, I got lost a few times and
 
couldn't summon the interest to work out what was going on.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808863</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Amelia Estelle Dellos
|author=Martin Millar
+
|title=Delilah Recovered
|title=Lonely Werewolf Girl
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=The plot is simple - the werewolf of the title is 17 year old Kalix, exiled from her family due to her involvement in the head of the clan’s death. Her elder brother has set a price on her head, and is pursuing her with all sources he can muster. It sounds horrific? It is indeed, and there are some truly gruesome scenes, as werewolves battle amongst themselves, or with the humans who come into their orbit. However, these scenes do serve a purpose (to remind us perhaps, that they are werewolves, and not humans?!), and by and large do not occupy too large a part in the narrative.
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|summary= We meet Dee at a point when her life isn't going as planned but things might, just might, be about to look up. Out of work, about to lose her flat, Dee is up for an accountant's job. But it's not to be. Dee is attacked by two men calling themselves witch hunters. She survives the attack but not unscathed. Witch hunters? What on earth has that to do with Dee? She's just an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life. Slivers of memory of things that are not ordinary at all return to her and things will never be the same....
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749942835</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B0BKYFDLLV
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jaye Wells
 
|title=The Mage in Black (Sabina Kane)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=After betraying the Dominae and siding with a Mage over the Vampires, Sabina Kane finds herself on the run. Leaving behind everything she knows, she travels with Mage, Adam, to meet the other half of her family – her twin sister, Maisie. Though the Mages welcome her with open arms, Sabina, used to the cold, displeasure of her Dominae Grandmother, can't quite accept their open affection, or their conviction that she has a destiny. Her only focus is on revenge, developing her Mage powers so she can defeat her Grandmother.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497576</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Hadeer Elsbai
|author=Patricia Briggs
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|title=The Daughters of Izdihar
|title=Silver Borne
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Mercy's life is just not getting any easier.  The werewolf she lives with is looking like going rogue – not snapping out of wolf form, which might have dangerous repercussions – for himself and those around him. Someone within the pack she's joined with seems to be playing psychic warfare on her, and leading her astray with errant mental suggestions. Worse still, she's opened the door of her (ill-fated) trailer and found death threats on the step before, but not a fae assassin looking over things from the middle distance. Could any of this have anything to do with a mysterious fae book of fairy lore she's been asked to look after?
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|summary= Drawing inspiration from Egypt, ''The Daughters of Izdihar'' explores the lives of two women who could not be more different, yet find themselves fighting for the rights of women and weavers – those with magical abilities - in a society pitted against them. Nehal, born into the upper class, wishes to attend the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities and then join the military, but instead she is forced into an arranged marriage with Nico. Giorgina on the other hand did not have a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure to provide for her family and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning for women's rights. Giorgina also happens to be in love with Nico. What follows is a story of an unjust society, filled with hypocrisy and cruelty, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstacles.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497991</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356520471
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Heather Fawcett
|author=Brian Ruckley
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|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|title=Fall of Thanes
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Godless world is descending into a kind of insanityAll order is breaking down and members of both the True Bloods and the Black Road are fighting amongst themselvesThere is rioting in the streets and the armies of both sides have taken to mindless slaughter rather than organised conquestUnder Aeglyss' command, the Black Road armies are strengthening and his power is increasing as his body weakens. His control of the Shadow Chancellor is a step towards ending the rule of the Thanes by murdering the greatest among them.
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|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeriesWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people.  So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right trackEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustrationBut why is he here?  What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841494410</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356519120
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Golden
|author=Kresley Cole
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|title=Road of Bones
|title=Pleasure of a Dark Prince
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
|genre=Fantasy
+
|genre=Horror
|summary=Sexy half dressed hunk on cover?  CheckEnticing title?  CheckSometimes there's nothing nicer than curling up with a glass of wine (or two!), some cheese and crackers and lovely hunky man – even if he is the main character in a book! I've never read Kresley Cole before but I love fantasy, especially with a romantic element and so I was looking forward to trying a new author.
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|summary=The Kolyma Highway… the 'Road of Bones'… the R504Stretching for over a thousand miles across Siberia, it's one of the world's most notorious routesFor months of the year it's a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding it, while its 'spring' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalyptic-level mud, which dries into rutted, puddly dust.  I don't think google streetview updates it very often.  Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian minerals, and because he wanted to give too many people a lesson, it legendarily cost a life every metre it covers.  You can easily find documentaries about it online, but that's a bit rich, for one of our main characters, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, is a film-maker, doing a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there to encourage the project to fruition to claw back some of the funds he'd invested in the pair's prior TV projects. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain the company of a local beauty, and fetch up at the guide's childhood village.  And that's where things start to go awry…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849830363</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1803361476
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Andrew Givler
|author=Kate Griffin
+
|title=Soul Fraud (The Debt Collection Book 1)
|title=The Midnight Mayor: A Matthew Swift Novel
+
|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='A telephone rang.
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|summary=''Matt has a terrible life. Seriously—it's awful. It is so bad that Dan the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years of a blissful life in exchange for his soul.''
 
 
I answered.
 
 
 
After that…
 
 
 
…it's complicated.'  
 
  
Sorcerer Matthew Swift does not especially like danger. In fact, after the events that led to him destroying the Tower and his former teacher, Robert Bakker, he'd prefer it greatly if danger would leave him to mind his own business, thank you very much.
+
Poor Dan! I know, I know, we shouldn't feel sorry for soul-catching demons. But he really is a terrible salesman. He never hits his targets and, when he fails to get even Matt to sign on the dotted line, he's so desperate that he simply forges Matt's signature.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497347</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1958204021
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Olivie Blake
|author=Glenda Larke
+
|title=The Atlas Six
|title=The Last Stormlord (Stormlord Trilogy)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=The Last Stormlord is a unique story which explores a civilization on the brink of disaster.  The world survives through the powers of a Stormmlord who brings water to the parched lands of the Quartern from the distant seas. As the story opens the last Stormlord is weak and dying.  Choices are being made about who will receive water, who will not and the Quartern hovers on the brink of returning to a time of Random Rain: water that does not fall where or when it is needed.  Without a new Stormlord the land will die.
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|summary= Dark, sharp, and highly inquisitive, ''The Atlas Six'' makes its publishing debut after becoming a Tik-Tok sensation.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498114</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529095239
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Daniel Abraham
|author=N K Jemisin
+
|title=Age of Ash
|title=The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy)
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=A month after her mother's death, outcast Yeine Darr is summoned by her grandfather, king of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, to come to the palace of Sky. There named one of his three heirs, along with her feuding cousins, she quickly realizes that without allies she will surely lose the contest for the throne. Thus begins an epic quest to find her mother's murderer, save her own life, and fulfil a destiny she never knew she had.
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|summary= We meet Alys under the most northerly of Oldgate's four bridges, she has a knife in her hand and a meeting that she dreads.  Meanwhile the City of Kithamar is at a point in the turning of years when the worlds are at their thinnest and all things are possible.  It is the night between the funeral of a Prince and the coronation of his successor. For a night the Kithamar is un-ruled.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498173</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356515427
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=P C Cast
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|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Divine by Choice (Goddess of Partholon)
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|rating= 5
|rating=3
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Fantasy
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|summary= Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her…
|summary=A few months after the Formorian war, Shannon Parker is living the high life. Hailed as Goddess Incarnate, married to a man (well, centaur) who was born to love her, carrying her first child, the next daughter of Epona and royally spoiled with amazing jewels and clothes, life really can't get much better.
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|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303586</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B09Q3P283Y
|author=Laura Powell
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|title=Shadebringer
|title=The Master of Misrule
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|author=Grayson W Hooper
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In the Arcanum, fortunes could be won and lost.  The bizarre otherworld, just the slightest shift away from our own, had been home to a life-altering game of chance, power and intelligence, based on the tarot.  Four teenaged Londoners had been witness to this, then players.  But they'd found it wanting, and to level the playing field, had thrown out the rulebook.  With that, however, the referee is no more, and the Lord of Misrule is in charge.  Free, too, to smother all of Britain with his unique brand of scratch-card lottery.  Soon all humanity might be out of luck.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408302373</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=James A Owen
 
|title=Shadow Dragons (Imaginarium Geographica)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=If you want to know where Tolkein, C S Lewis and their ilk got their ideas from, you might consider their jobs.  No - not their work in Oxbridge universities.  In this book, at least, John, Charles and Jack are guardians of a very important book, the Imaginarium Geographica, within which lives a lot of secret, vital information, and almost the soul of the land.  They might not get a surname so we know immediately who is whom.  They might be from a different world - there is certainly enough talk of those in these pages.  But we'll see them meet a vanishing Cheshire cat, a certain Spanish knight we might have thought fictional, and more, en route to a quest of Arthurian proportions.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386512</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=P C Cast
 
|title=Divine by Mistake (Goddess of Partholon)
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Shannon Parker, broke Oklahoma English teacher, likes a good bargain hunt at an auction. But she gets more than her money's worth when she buys a vase with her likeness painted on it. Somehow transported to the magical world of Partholon, Shannon finds herself in the shoes of Rhiannon, her mirror double. Along with Rhiannon's station as Goddess Incarnate, Shannon finds herself landed with her double's less than enviable reputation and a Centaur husband.
+
|summary=Clyde Robbins signs up for the US Army during the Vietnam War. He's not really that invested in the fight against Communism, nor is he particularly interested in a career in the military. If he's honest - which Clyde usually is, with himself at least - he hasn't got many choices and this one, at least, gets him out of the rut he's in. He's good in training and is quickly put onto a non commissioned officer training course. He's chuffed with himself.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303578</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jon Mayhew
 
|title=Mortlock
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Abyssinia, 1820. Three Englishment search for the Amarant, a mythical flower with the power over life and death, in a strange desert oasis. On finding the flower surrounded by decaying faces, they realize that it is cursed, and take a blood oath never to remove it.
 
 
 
London, 1854. 13 year old knife thrower Josie performs with her guardian the Great Cardamom, an especially gifted magician who we quickly learn is Chrimes, the coward of the original three Englishmen. Their relatively peaceful existence is shattered when three macabre Aunts (note the capital letter, never a good sign…) descend on them, and Cardamom instructs Josie, with his dying breath, to find the twin brother he'd never told her about and destroy the Amarant.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803925</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jennifer Saint
|author=Celine Kiernan
+
|title=Elektra
|title=The Poison Throne (Moorehawke Trilogy)
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In ''The Poison Throne'' what had been a benevolent kingdom has become characterised by repression and torture (which the book graphically describes). The magical aspects of the kingdom, its talking cats and ghosts, have been suppressed, while Alberon, the heir to the throne, has vanished.  Wynter, along with Alberon's half brother Razi and his friend Christopher are increasingly at risk as they attempt to deal with this situation.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498211</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Russell Kirkpatrick
 
|title=Beyond the Wall of Time (Broken Man)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A couple of aspects have summed up Russell Kirkpatrick's ''Broken Man'' trilogy for me so far.  There has been a fascinating story with some wonderful character building that has made it highly enjoyable.  There have also been some of the most detailed maps I have ever seen in a fantasy series, offering more variation than I've seen in maps before and actually adding detail to some parts of the story, not merely acting as a guide.  I was expecting more of the same from the final part, ''Beyond the Wall of Time'' and very much looking forward to it.
+
|summary='Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the most extreme furies.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496715</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1472273915
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Dean Koontz
|author=Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
+
|title=Quicksilver
|title=Beautiful Creatures
+
|rating=2.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=Thrillers
|genre=Teens
+
|summary=Meet Quinn Quicksilver. He's not had the chance to get to be a mercurial character yet, for he's lived in a nun-run orphanage since he was a three-day old foundling, and now is starting a career on a needless magazine's staff. But when this book starts he IS now ''subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind'', for something – call it unearthly intuition, call it mind-control, call it a supernatural urge – has demanded of him that he go to a derelict diner, find a gold coin worth a fortune, cash the value of it out of his bank and prepare for going on the lam. And all this is just in time for two of those typical Men in Black types to turn up and suggest he's of interest to them. Helped to escape, he finds his flight is interrupted by other instances of him acting without being in control, the discovery that he is not unique in having some kind of burgeoning power – and a whole lot more besides.
|summary=Teenage boy meets mysterious new stranger in a small town. They fall in love, he finds out she's harbouring a dark secret, the pair of them try to find out if their relationship can work while she tries to keep him safe from her world. This kind of book appears to be released every few weeks since [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]] became so successful – but rarely in the past few years has it been done as well as it has in Beautiful Creatures.
+
|isbn=1542019885
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141326085</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tasha Suri
|author=Jasper Fforde
+
|title=The Jasmine Throne
|title=Shades of Grey
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Sometimes with authors you just don't know what you've been missing.  Other times you do.  Jasper Fforde has long been on my catch-up list.  Snippets of Thursday Next and reviews and interviews were enough to convince me I had to get to know this work.
 
 
 
My chance finally came with the first in a completely new series:  Shades of Grey.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340963034</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Pamela Freeman
 
|title=Full Circle (Castings Trilogy)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Pamela Freeman's ''Castings'' trilogy is written in an unusual way for a fantasy novel.  It tells the story from the characters' points of view, in a style more common to the chick-lit novels of Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees. This interrupted the flow of the story quite noticeably in ''Blood Ties'', the first of the trilogy, but didn't seem quite so much of a distraction in the second part, ''Deep Water''. Unfortunately, this time around it works against the story.
+
|summary= On the night of her sacred burning, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses to step on to the pyre. She is immediately sent to be imprisoned on the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once filled with a community of people who got powers from the mysterious deathless waters. But now the temple is nothing more than an overgrown, decaying ruin. One day, Malini witnesses a girl kill someone with magic. Instead of reporting her for such a gruesome crime, Malini claims that the girl saved her from an attacker and begs for the girl to become her own personal maidservant.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497037</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356515648
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alan Skinner
 
|title=Furnaces of Forge
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In this [[Blue Fire and Ice (The Land) by Alan Skinner|sequel]], it's almost as you were, except here the mysterious powers of the blue flame are not being used by some outlander arsonist, but have been usurped by two inept young scientists from the Myrmidots, to fuel their industry.  We can predict this will prove a bad thing, but the breadth of the journey to capture the flame, and the efforts of all our returning characters to put things right might still be a surprise.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955726859</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Genevieve Gornichec
|author=Malcolm Walker
+
|title=The Witch's Heart
|title=The Stone Crown
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Neither Emlyn nor Maxine feel completely at home in Yeaveburgh - yet they both have roots there. Emlyn's come back to the town in which he was born because his mother and sister, archaeologists, are working on a dig nearby. His father is in a care home, having suffered a nervous breakdown. Maxine returned to the town to live with her grandmother after her mother died of a heroin overdose. Emlyn is quiet and shy, a bit geeky, and lonely. Maxine is lonely too, but she'd never admit it. She's too spiky and defensive. They both feel like outsiders, and yet they both have a nagging sense that they are where they were meant to be.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321516</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Celia Friedman
 
|title=The Wings of Wrath (The Magister Trilogy)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=The first part of Celia Friedman's ''Magister'' trilogy was a wonderfully dark piece of fantasy. It contained some beasts you wouldn't be surprised to come across in a horror novel and stretched the idea of magic being a draining power to an interesting place psychologically.  The second part, ''Wings of Wrath'' is more of a straight fantasy novel, lacking some of the horror elements that made the first part such a draw for me, but it's still a very good read.
+
|summary= A modern and approachable reimagining of the Norse myths that centres around a witch named Angrboda. She hides in a forest at the edge of the nine worlds, remembering nothing of her past life but that fact that she was survived burnt at the stake three times because of Odin's wrath. Her attempts to live in peace, however, are quickly thwarted when Loki shows up with her literal heart—the one that was cut from her chest before she was tied to the stake—and refuses to leave her alone. After an initial period of mistrust, Angrboda begins to fall for Loki's charms, and the two start an unusual family made of up a half-dead daughter, a son that's a wolf, and another son that's a snake.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495336</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789097061
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Whitten
|author=Wayne J Harris
+
|title=For the Wolf
|title=Sins of the Angel
+
|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Dr Gideon Matthews, a shouty hellfire and damnation preacher, has just delivered a sermon all about the evils of women being allowed into the church hierarchy and, on his way home afterwards, he is murdered.  The following day however he wakes up in hospital or, actually, an angel called Gabriel finds himself inside Dr Matthews' body, able to recall Dr Matthews' memories and thoughts and feelings but acting now as himself. Gabriel goes a little bit wild, finding himself overwhelmed by the new feelings and desires he experiences in this body, sinning left, right and centre and causing scandal at his every move.  He is also wondering for what purpose he has been brought into this body and finds that he is dreaming about a demon, someone who is persuading an unknown monk to commit murders in God's name and who seems to be getting closer and closer to Dr Matthews in order to kill him too...
+
|summary=In Red's family, the first daughter becomes queen, and the second daughter becomes a sacrifice. To Red's misfortune, she is the second daughter. Sent alone into the woods with nothing but the cape on her back, Red knows what to expect: within the woods is a wolf, and he is the one who will decide the fate of their kingdom. If she is not a worthy sacrifice, the monsters he keeps contained to the woods will be released, and the fabled kings he keeps hostage will never be returned—or so the stories go. But when Red enters the woods, expecting nothing more than to be killed within the hour, she finds that the legends are lies. The wolf is not a monster—he's a man.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1438994699</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356516369
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=John Gwynne
|author=The Harvard Lampoon
+
|title=The Shadow Of The Gods
|title=Nightlight: A Parody of Twilight
+
|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Most people will have heard of the worldwide phenomenon that is [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]. The books by Stephenie Meyer and the film have made a legend of the romance between vampire Edward Mullen (Robert Pattinson plays the movie role) and teenage schoolgirl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013330</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kate Elliott
 
|title=Traitors' Gate (Crossroads)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Kate Elliott's ''Crossroads'' series has so far come in large, slightly off-putting chunks.  They've been decent reads, by and large, with a huge cast of wonderfully drawn characters, but the sheer size and slow pace of the action has meant I didn't enjoy them as much as I may otherwise have done.  ''Traitors' Gate'', the third in the sequence is different in only one aspect; the character development is still there, the huge page count is still there, but the pacing is a lot better.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498351</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Amanda Downum
 
|title=The Drowning City
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=In a nutshell, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. You've probably glanced at the rating and guessed the latter.  I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelings.  I started off convinced that I was going to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguing, the characters laden with potential for greatness and the backdrop is certainly evocative.
+
|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Saga, set in the era of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarok, when the Gods have battled and their bones lie scattered for all to see. This story is the ultimate in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genre, with mythical creatures, archaic language and battles galore. This is a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battle.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356514218
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest For Sharing Reviews]]
|author=Lisa McMann
 
|title=Wake
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in the way of resources. College is Janie's only chance at a life better than the one she's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lauren Kate
 
|title=Fallen
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boy, who she's immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her, until he saves her life, and the two of them end up drawn together. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similarities.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Beth Durst
 
|title=Ice
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice and the wilderness of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she can't help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very young.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jeanette Winterson
 
|title=The Battle of the Sun
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 09:13, 18 February 2024

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Review of

The Briar Book of the Dead by A G Slatter

5star.jpg Fantasy

There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.

Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat. Full Review

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Review of

Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

3.5star.jpg Teens

I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.

Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear. Full Review

1803364238.jpg

Review of

Thornhedge by T Kingfisher

5star.jpg Fantasy

You had a right to retake your place.

T Kingfisher's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale that is well known and well beloved. But whilst there is a princess trapped in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantment, Thornhedge is not her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby and secreted away to the land of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how to draw magic from her veins and cast spells. Full Review

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Review of

A Portrait in Shadow by Nicole Jarvis

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

I want all of Florence to know my name

Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society. Full Review

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Review of

Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee

3star.jpg Fantasy

Hate is the path of least resistance

Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call. Full Review

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Review of

Delilah Recovered by Amelia Estelle Dellos

4star.jpg Fantasy

We meet Dee at a point when her life isn't going as planned but things might, just might, be about to look up. Out of work, about to lose her flat, Dee is up for an accountant's job. But it's not to be. Dee is attacked by two men calling themselves witch hunters. She survives the attack but not unscathed. Witch hunters? What on earth has that to do with Dee? She's just an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life. Slivers of memory of things that are not ordinary at all return to her and things will never be the same.... Full Review

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Review of

The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai

4star.jpg Fantasy

Drawing inspiration from Egypt, The Daughters of Izdihar explores the lives of two women who could not be more different, yet find themselves fighting for the rights of women and weavers – those with magical abilities - in a society pitted against them. Nehal, born into the upper class, wishes to attend the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities and then join the military, but instead she is forced into an arranged marriage with Nico. Giorgina on the other hand did not have a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure to provide for her family and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning for women's rights. Giorgina also happens to be in love with Nico. What follows is a story of an unjust society, filled with hypocrisy and cruelty, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstacles. Full Review

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Review of

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

4star.jpg General Fiction

Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik? Full Review

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Review of

Road of Bones by Christopher Golden

3.5star.jpg Horror

The Kolyma Highway… the 'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for over a thousand miles across Siberia, it's one of the world's most notorious routes. For months of the year it's a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding it, while its 'spring' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalyptic-level mud, which dries into rutted, puddly dust. I don't think google streetview updates it very often. Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian minerals, and because he wanted to give too many people a lesson, it legendarily cost a life every metre it covers. You can easily find documentaries about it online, but that's a bit rich, for one of our main characters, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, is a film-maker, doing a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there to encourage the project to fruition to claw back some of the funds he'd invested in the pair's prior TV projects. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain the company of a local beauty, and fetch up at the guide's childhood village. And that's where things start to go awry… Full Review

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Review of

Soul Fraud (The Debt Collection Book 1) by Andrew Givler

4star.jpg Fantasy

Matt has a terrible life. Seriously—it's awful. It is so bad that Dan the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years of a blissful life in exchange for his soul.

Poor Dan! I know, I know, we shouldn't feel sorry for soul-catching demons. But he really is a terrible salesman. He never hits his targets and, when he fails to get even Matt to sign on the dotted line, he's so desperate that he simply forges Matt's signature. Full Review

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Review of

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

4star.jpg Fantasy

Dark, sharp, and highly inquisitive, The Atlas Six makes its publishing debut after becoming a Tik-Tok sensation. Full Review

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Review of

Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham

4.5star.jpg Fantasy

We meet Alys under the most northerly of Oldgate's four bridges, she has a knife in her hand and a meeting that she dreads. Meanwhile the City of Kithamar is at a point in the turning of years when the worlds are at their thinnest and all things are possible. It is the night between the funeral of a Prince and the coronation of his successor. For a night the Kithamar is un-ruled. Full Review

1406399590.jpg

Review of

Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin

5star.jpg Teens

Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her… Full Review

B09Q3P283Y.jpg

Review of

Shadebringer by Grayson W Hooper

4star.jpg Fantasy

Clyde Robbins signs up for the US Army during the Vietnam War. He's not really that invested in the fight against Communism, nor is he particularly interested in a career in the military. If he's honest - which Clyde usually is, with himself at least - he hasn't got many choices and this one, at least, gets him out of the rut he's in. He's good in training and is quickly put onto a non commissioned officer training course. He's chuffed with himself. Full Review

1472273915.jpg

Review of

Elektra by Jennifer Saint

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the most extreme furies. Full Review

1542019885.jpg

Review of

Quicksilver by Dean Koontz

2.5star.jpg Thrillers

Meet Quinn Quicksilver. He's not had the chance to get to be a mercurial character yet, for he's lived in a nun-run orphanage since he was a three-day old foundling, and now is starting a career on a needless magazine's staff. But when this book starts he IS now subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind, for something – call it unearthly intuition, call it mind-control, call it a supernatural urge – has demanded of him that he go to a derelict diner, find a gold coin worth a fortune, cash the value of it out of his bank and prepare for going on the lam. And all this is just in time for two of those typical Men in Black types to turn up and suggest he's of interest to them. Helped to escape, he finds his flight is interrupted by other instances of him acting without being in control, the discovery that he is not unique in having some kind of burgeoning power – and a whole lot more besides. Full Review

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Review of

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

4star.jpg Fantasy

On the night of her sacred burning, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses to step on to the pyre. She is immediately sent to be imprisoned on the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once filled with a community of people who got powers from the mysterious deathless waters. But now the temple is nothing more than an overgrown, decaying ruin. One day, Malini witnesses a girl kill someone with magic. Instead of reporting her for such a gruesome crime, Malini claims that the girl saved her from an attacker and begs for the girl to become her own personal maidservant. Full Review

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Review of

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

4star.jpg Fantasy

A modern and approachable reimagining of the Norse myths that centres around a witch named Angrboda. She hides in a forest at the edge of the nine worlds, remembering nothing of her past life but that fact that she was survived burnt at the stake three times because of Odin's wrath. Her attempts to live in peace, however, are quickly thwarted when Loki shows up with her literal heart—the one that was cut from her chest before she was tied to the stake—and refuses to leave her alone. After an initial period of mistrust, Angrboda begins to fall for Loki's charms, and the two start an unusual family made of up a half-dead daughter, a son that's a wolf, and another son that's a snake. Full Review

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Review of

For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten

5star.jpg Fantasy

In Red's family, the first daughter becomes queen, and the second daughter becomes a sacrifice. To Red's misfortune, she is the second daughter. Sent alone into the woods with nothing but the cape on her back, Red knows what to expect: within the woods is a wolf, and he is the one who will decide the fate of their kingdom. If she is not a worthy sacrifice, the monsters he keeps contained to the woods will be released, and the fabled kings he keeps hostage will never be returned—or so the stories go. But when Red enters the woods, expecting nothing more than to be killed within the hour, she finds that the legends are lies. The wolf is not a monster—he's a man. Full Review

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Review of

The Shadow Of The Gods by John Gwynne

5star.jpg Fantasy

The Shadow Of The Gods is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Saga, set in the era of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarok, when the Gods have battled and their bones lie scattered for all to see. This story is the ultimate in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genre, with mythical creatures, archaic language and battles galore. This is a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battle. Full Review

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