Hello, hello, book fans! We’re back with one last semi-finalist announcement and an update on where we’ll be going from here. We’re also announcing our last cuts. Let’s set with the cuts: Errant Gift by Rhys Price What the judges had to say: Graham: I didn’t enjoy this as much as others seemed to. It […]
Reviews
Review: The Curse of Dragon Tail Island by Jonathan Nevair
This novel blends pirates with classic fantasy, all in a Robin Hood style package.
Review: The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee
Synopsis Get ready to be blown away by this searing standalone space opera where corporate samurai fight beneath merciless stars, and death is always a mere breath away. Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend has to come to an end. When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow–to walk out into […]
The Infinite State, Decurion saga book 1 by Richard Swan
Synopsis WHO GIVES YOU LIFE?PATER AETERNUS.Katherine Fuller’s husband is dead. As an esteemed member of Pater Aeternus – governing party of the fascist, galaxy-spanning Decurion Empire – he has left behind an estate of immeasurable wealth. And Katherine is going to inherit it. WHO GIVES YOU PURPOSE?PATER AETERNUS.Life under the Eternal Father is rigidly stratified, […]
Review: The Bad Apothecary (Ninth Path Book 1) by Keon Shore
Synopsis Diwu stumbles into the capital half-dead, wounded by something no healer can cure. Nestled in her flesh is a strange pathogen carrying corruption, the antithesis of the Natural Order. Desperate, she trades freedom for survival and falls into the grip of the Hierarchy, a ruthless organization that keeps power in check by any means […]
Review: The Iron Garden Sutra (The Cosmic Wheel Book 1) by A.D. Sui
Synopsis: Klara and the Sun meets S. A. Barnes’s Dead Silence with a touch of Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built in Nebula Award-winning author A.D. Sui’s darkly philosophical murder mystery, as a death monk and a team of researchers trapped onboard a spaceship of the dead encounter something beyond human understanding… Vessel Iris has devoted himself to the […]
Review: The Other by Annie Neugebauer
Synopsis: A couple on an outdoor retreat meet their doppelgangers on a hiking trail and are soon tested on how well they truly know each other. Review: Well that was rather stressful. In her latest, the second instalment in The Outsiders Sequence, Neugebauer rolls the uncanny up tight like a sleeping bag, dehydrates dread into […]
The Eagle and the Wolf by Gordon Doherty
As Hun hordes and Germanic tribes maraud through Imperial lands, two legendary men – Attila the Hun and the “Last of the Romans” General Flavius Aetius find their fortunes entangled with the chaos. Flavius Aetius, a noble Roman son, is an outsider in a savage land. He has been banished, given as hostage to the […]
Review: The Dorians by Nick Cutter
Synopsis The all-new novel of terror from “one of the hottest horror authors on the planet” (Paste) and writer of the #HorrorBookTok sensation The Troop! On a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring […]
Review: The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances by Glenn Dixon
Synopsis: In a near future, where even the smallest of appliances are sentient, a young Roomba vacuum sets out to save the humans of her house from a rising technological power in this compelling, original novel. In a self-running, smart house, a young and sentient Roomba listens as her owner, Harold, reads aloud to his […]
Review: Priest of Gallows (War for the Rose Throne #3) by Peter McLean
Synopsis Gangster, soldier, priest. Queen’s Man. Governor.Tomas Piety has everything he ever wanted. In public he’s a wealthy, highly respected businessman, happily married to a beautiful woman and Governor of his home city of Ellinburg. In private, he’s no longer a gang lord but one of the Queen’s Men, invisible and officially non-existent, working in […]
Review: The Sunrise Dagger (Memories of Kenjir Book 2) by Abel Montero
Synopsis: The empire is splintering, and the gods’ dominion grows weaker with every passing day. Out of the chaos, old loyalties fracture, new dangers emerge, and the line between faith and betrayal blurs beyond recognition. For Andik, survival means constant flight. Pursued across the empire, he follows a trail of secrets that lead him closer to […]