Forgive me for both the lateness and the sparseness of this update. Though one of these books was enormous so I think that should count for something.
Spring 2021 reading: saviours and boyfriends
My reading picked up again this spring, including the Red Rising trilogy by Pierce Brown and nonfiction from Jason Schreier and Mia Violet.
Winter 2020-21 reading: urchins, lovers, death and revolution
It’s spring at last, and it feels like emerging after a winter of hibernation, especially for me—job stress and home stress on top of pandemic stress all piled up to make getting through this winter feel like a slog at the absolute best.
Autumn 2020 reading: swords, spaceships, spies, and sapphics
After a summer of careful distancing and doing not much beyond drinking cocktails in other people’s gardens, the weather turned, and then we plunged back into lockdown. Keeping up with UK politics is like watching a clown car crash. And just to add a little variety, I got made redundant from my day job. My […]
Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie
Gal Veres is Ettian Nassun’s best friend and longtime crush. But Gal Veres is secretly the heir to the bloodthirsty Umber Empire that years ago conquered Ettian’s homeworld and destroyed his life. When Gal’s life comes under threat by intra-empire manoeuvering, Ettian rescues him and they both go on the run outside the borders of […]
Summer 2020 reading: queens, bandits, goblins, and a galaxy far, far away
I got my reading bug back halfway through lockdown, just in time for summer. So instead of going out with my friends, I’ve been reading some standalone fantasy, a little bit of science fiction, and a whole lot of Star Wars.
Asperfell by Jamie Thomas
Briony is the youngest daughter of an old and noble family, House Tenebrae, in the kingdom of Tiralaen. When she’s just a little girl, the old king dies, apparently murdered using magic by his oldest son and heir, Prince Elyan. Because Elyan is a mage, he’s exiled from Tiralaen in an execution-style ceremony to another […]
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
Tobias Finch has always lived in Greenhollow Wood. He’s known to the locals as the Wild Man, tall, broad, bearded and with long, wild hair; potentially dangerous, definitely scary. Henry Silver is the new owner of the estate on which Greenhollow Wood sits. Young, handsome, an incorrigible flirt and a folklore enthusiast (to say the […]
The Bone Ships by RJ Barker
Arakeesians—sea dragons—haven’t been seen in the Hundred Islands for generations. The Hundred Islands fleet—at war with the Gaunt Islanders—must make do, building their ships from the dwindling supply of dragonbone that remains. Joron Twiner is the young, drunkard shipwife, or captain, of a black ship: a ship of exiled criminals. Following the death of his […]
Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer
In Jaime Lee Moyer’s new novel Brightfall, the woman previously known as Maid Marian is a hedgewitch. What’s more, she’s a hedgewitch of rare talent and training. And all her skill will be needed when word reaches her that Robin Hood’s gang of Merry Men—now more than ten years disbanded—are dying in mysterious circumstances. What’s […]