Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
I am a sucker for a good fantasy book in a school setting. I am sure a lot of that is due to Harry Potter, but I think an academic setting provides a good skeleton for a story. They almost always start shortly before a school year, and run all the way until a final exam. I am sure Fourth Wing will invite many comparisons to Harry Potter and the Hunger Games, but it reminded me quite a bit more of The Poppy War by […]
A Study In Drowning by Ava Reid
CW: Stalking Effy Sayre has always found escape in the works of Emrys Myrddin. It’s been one of the few things that’s kept the architecture student going. So when the family of the recently deceased Myrddin announces a contest to redesign the author’s family estate, Effy can’t help but enter. And when her design is picked it seems like fate. Once she arrives at Hiraeth Manor, she finds a crumbling disaster as well as an unwelcome companion in a literature student invited there by Myrddin’s […]
Tonight, I Burn by Katherine J Adams
Every night a Thorn witch burns in order to walk in Death, and in the morning she returns. Penny, the youngest grandchild of the Thorn queen, is about to burn for the first time when one of her sisters doesn’t return. So Penny breaks one of the rules of walking in Death by burning alone and soon finds herself caught up in dangerous currents. All Penny wants to do is keep her sisters safe, but that’s easier said than done when you live under a […]
The League of Gentlewomen Witches by India Holton
4.5 stars Everyone knows there’s no such thing as witches, but if there were, they probably wouldn’t use magic in flashy and extravagant ways to fly houses around and try to rob and assassinate one another. If there were witches, they would probably use their magic in tidier ways, ensuring polite society was functioning properly. Possibly liberate those who have excessive financial resources of some of it to the betterment of those with less of it (like say, themselves). If there were witches, Charlotte Pettifer […]
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
All the creepy existential dread your gothic little heart could desire. Opal is scratching out a meager existence in Eden, Kentucky- a small town plagued by more than its fair share of bad luck. With no remorse she will lie, cheat, and steal in service of a better life for her younger brother out of this miserable place. Opal is offered a surprisingly well paid job as housekeeper at Starling House. She knows she shouldn’t take the job, she knows there’s something wrong with the […]
The Liar's Knot by M. A. Carrick
I read The Mask of Mirrors, the first book in the Rook & Rose trilogy, last October, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I was excited to read the sequel, The Liar’s Knot. The books are written by M. A. Carrick, who is actually two people—authors Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms. This book continues the story of Ren, a con artist who has adopted the persona of a foreign noblewoman named Renata Viraudax, who, in The Mask of Mirrors, arrived in the city of Nadežra claiming […]
