What a charming, imaginative book! The League of Gentlewoman Witches continues the Dangerous Damsels series with fun and aplomb. Want a romance about a witch and a pirate? Then look no further. Miss Charlotte Pettifer is the future leader of the titular league, and prophesized heiress of Black Beryl, and thus she has the awesome…
Narrated by Greg Boudreaux The Demon’s in the Details is a riff on Rumpelstiltskin that hits the basic beats of the original without being an exact reproduction of it, transforming the passive main character into a brave, fiercely protective individual who can look out for himself, the king – who is, let’s face it, a pretty nasty piece…
Elisabeth Hobbes dips her toes into the historical fiction side of the writing pool with Daughter of the Sea, the tale of a foundling and the woman who takes her in. This pretty, lyrical tale is honest and lovely, with some perfect prose imagery. Effie Cropton has a sailor husband and an infant son named…
I have been blown away. Chloe Gong set a high bar with These Violent Delights, a 1920s fantasy version of Romeo and Juliet which transports the story’s action to Shanghai. Our Violent Ends is the first book’s equal. Gong’s talent remains unstinting. You need to read this book. It’s now 1927, and Juliette Cai is…
Persephone and Hades are the O.G.s of the Beauty and the Beast archetype, which is one of my favorites, so I’m always game for a retelling. But if this particular Persephone story disappeared to the Underworld, I wouldn’t really miss it. Olympus, in this version, appears to be an East Coast city-state in an alternate…
I’ve always been a fan of fantasy romances, and so Neon Gods easily caught my eye as a mix of fantasy, Greek mythology, and erotica. While it took me a little while to orient myself in the author’s world, overall this book proved to be a promising start to this new series by Katee Robert….
At 848 pages, Samatha Shannon’s fantasy epic The Priory of the Orange Tree is a beast of a book, and a beast of an achievement. The first half borders on perfection, and while the second half isn’t as strong, on the whole it’s a gripping read. Ead, a member of the religious order called the…
Jessica S. Olson’s well-written and impassioned Sing Me Forgotten will definitely amuse musical theater fans – if only because the book definitely reads like a gender-swapped, fantasy-tinged take on The Phantom of the Opera. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book – quite the contrary – but it’s a delightful twist. Isda has spent her…
Stunning prose, a pulse-pounding romance, and unexpected twists upon Shakespeare’s familiar tale of youthful but doomed love make These Violent Delights a high-quality read for anyone who likes a good gangster tale with a heavy skosh of romance thrown in. It’s Shanghai in 1926, and a war between two families – alike in dignity, but…
Narrated by Elizabeth Evans Anyone who listens to or reads Fantasy novels on a regular basis is probably familiar with the work of Sarah J. Maas, but if you’re not, I’ve got the perfect introduction to her writing for you. With House of Earth and Blood, the first book in a brand-new series intended for…