Spinning Silver is a lush, richly imagined, gloriously magical fantasy novel that takes its inspiration from Russian and Jewish folklore. A story full of adventure, wit, dangerous fey and clever queens, it is everything, EVERYTHING that a fairy tale for adults should be. Irina is the plain daughter of the first wife of an upstart…
Oh, what a letdown, when a series starts off so strongly (I nominated Bouchet for debut author of the year in 2016) but can’t stick the landing. Cat Fisa, married to the warlord Griffin, has made progress overthrowing the corrupt Alphas ruling her land, but the biggest challenge of all remains: Alpha Fisa, Cat’s powerful…
His Wicked Love, the début fantasy title from Mila Benson, is not my usual fare. I read very little fantasy and have never played Dungeons and Dragons (let’s be honest, I’ve never played any role-play video game), so I worried His Wicked Love , with its cast of warlocks, paladins and archmages was a bit…
The City of Brass, book one in S. A. Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy, has received quite a bit of buzz over the past few months. It’s been compared to such books as The Golem and the Jinni and The Grace of Kings, and since I’m always on the lookout for new fantasy novels, I jumped at…
The Glass Spare will probably go down as my most unexpected DIK of 2017. Picking it up, I was prepared for a light read that I could enjoy but forget about once I was finished. I didn’t plan to get emotionally invested in the characters, and I certainly didn’t expect to be so impatient for…
Ilona Andrews has written several of my favorite books, from her Innkeeper Chronicles to her current romantic fantasy series, Hidden Legacy. Wildfire, book three in the latter series, brings the trilogy to a nice close with the romance between leads Nevada Baylor and Connor “Mad” Rogan finally reaching its HEA. Each book builds off of…
A marvelous stand-alone Beauty-and-the-Beast fantasy (or maybe Beast-and-the-Beauty, or perhaps just Beast-and-Beast?) by an author who really knows her way around the supernatural? Yes, yes, yes! Twenty years ago, the kingdom of Elden fell to the vile Blood Sorcerer. Before dying, the queen cast a spell to transport her four children out the palace in…
Every time I read a new book by Nalini Singh, I think she’s reached her peak. Few authors who have a backlist as long as hers would get such unequivocal praise from me, but after years of enjoying Ms. Singh’s world building and character building (across two series, no less!) I expect nothing less than…
“She kept count of her kills. God I fucking loved her.” – Dutch Mathew on Juma Landry, Juma. This second volume in Madhuri Pavamani’s The Keeper series is a beautifully-written yet rather hard to grasp story that continues to follow Juma and Dutch’s star-crossed relationship as the two lovers deal with the ramifications of the…
Holley Trent takes us to a world of magical, winged beings in The Angel’s Hunger, which combines elfin magic and angelic passion to create a novel that’s….sadly lackluster. Centuries ago, the fallen angel Tamatsu made the mistake of betraying the elf Fionnuala, his lover and soulmate, with several women. All at once. Elves tether themselves…