The Language of Spells is a serviceable lite-fantasy story that I breezed through very quickly, but lacks staying power. The main character, Gwen Harper, is from a family that demonstrates magical abilities — hexes, spells, card reading, and certain individual talents manifest themselves in Gwen, her mother, and her great aunt Iris (notably not her sister, Ruby.) When Gwen learns that recently deceased Iris has left her a house in her name, in a small town that her family had lived in but left when […]
My every wish
Does Courtney Milan know how to bounce back or what? After the slight letdown that was Once Upon a Marquess, she gifts her adoring public with the practically-perfect-in-every-way Her Every Wish, the rare (for me) novella that tells a fully-realized story in its shorter framework and avoids the pitfalls of contrivance or half-baked narrative that really could have benefited from the full-length treatment to give it depth. Our heroine is Daisy, best friend of Judith Worth from the former novel. Daisy does okay for herself […]
And the medal for consistency goes to Ilona Andrews
4.5 stars In the UF/PNR realm, I can’t think of a more reliable author team than Ilona Andrews. They consistently tell witty, exciting, and inventive stories that also manage to keep my crabby inner feminist satisfied by their refreshing lack of misogyny and even casual sexism. They manage this with their (seemingly, through it shouldn’t be) astonishing ability to create female protagonists and side characters who are complex, compelling, and above all, distinguishable from each other. Just like real people! I am pretty sure I […]
Something different, something familiar, something magical.
With the fourth and final book in Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle coming in April, I finally gave myself permission to read the series I’ve heard so many good things about over the years. I must say, the first three books managed to exceed my expectations, and now I’m afraid I’m going to be very impatient for the remaining weeks until I get my grubby fingers on the last book. One of the less obvious advantages of waiting as long as I did to read this […]
Your brain, not your body, makes you worthy of great love.
4.5 stars In a genre built on, and sustained by, a set of established tropes that the reader instantly recognizes — and even selects for — it isn’t too often that I read a new romance where my main impression is, “Well, that was different!” Tropes work, and standards appear in every genre (though they’re disparaged much more often in romance,) and the skill of the author is revealed by his/her ability to work within their architecture and still craft a memorable, distinct, and competent […]
“If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely f*cked ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around.”
3.5 stars The Water Knife is compelling mostly in its premise: the American southwest — featuring primarily California, Arizona, Nevada, and southern Colorado — is basically bone dry. To sustain their urban populations, these states have employed muscle to go on and off the book and secure water rights, which are primarily proprietary channels drawing from the low but still flowing Colorado River. In the wake of decades of sustained drought, those cities and states that haven’t come out on top of the pile are […]
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