Following the story as told/written by Tomas Piety in first person, the reader is met with a matter of fact recounting of events that reveals a character who is choosing to share his story, while also keeping some of the details to himself. This is all done while commenting on it all in a manner that, I don’t want to say is bleak, cause it’s not really that, more like with very few fucks left to give and heavily influenced by the protagonist’s principles. This sort of unreliable narrator is the kind that fascinates me the most, especially because when done well, and I’d argue that McLean did it brilliantly, it reveals more about the characters themselves than what they’re actually telling the reader. At the same time, this makes for a fast moving story that doesn’t waste time on world building through long expositional paragraphs, but rather only focuses on the relevant details and events.
Fiction
Review – Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons (A Miss Percy Guide #1) by Quenby Olson
Synopsis Miss Mildred Percy inherits a dragon. Ah, but we’ve already got ahead of ourselves… Miss Mildred Percy is a spinster. She does not dance, she has long stopped dreaming, and she certainly does not have adventures. That is, until her great uncle has the audacity to leave her an inheritance, one that includes a […]
Review: Sistersong by Lucy Holland
Sistersong by Lucy Holland is heartbreakingly beautiful. I had never heard of ‘The Twa Sisters’ murder folk ballad but looked it up after I finished reading. Sistersong proved to be as evocative as the ballad is.
Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham
Synopsis Everyone has wanted their favorite book to be real, if only for a moment. Everyone has wished to meet their favorite characters, if only for a day. But be careful in that wish, for even a history laid in ink can be repaid in flesh and blood, and reality is far deadlier than fiction […]
Review: The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
The Cat Who Saved Books is a truly enchanting tale of a boy who loses his Grandfather and his journey with a talking cat to save books. Translated from the original Japanese by Louse Heal Kawai it flows wonderfully as it draws you through the story.
Review: The Bone Ships (The Tide Child #1) by RJ Barker
Synopsis TWO NATIONS AT WAR. A PRIZE BEYOND COMPARE. For generations, the Hundred Isles have built their ships from the bones of ancient dragons to fight an endless war.The dragons disappeared, but the battles for supremacy persisted.Now the first dragon in centuries has been spotted in far-off waters, and both sides see a chance to […]
Blog Tour and Review: The Offset by Calder Szewczak
Angry Robot always introduces me to the most unique novels, and The Offset is not the exception. No joke, this novel is brilliant, dark, and frightening.
Review: The World Maker Parable (Adjacent Monsters #1) by Luke Tarzian
Rhona is a faithful servant of the country Jémoon and a woman in love. Everything changes when her beloved sets the ravenous Vulture goddess loose upon the land. Forced to execute the woman she loves for committing treason, Rhona discovers a profound correlation between morality and truth. A connection that might save her people or annihilate them all…
Review: The Winter of Winters (The Histories of Sphax #2) by Robert M. Kidd
218 BC. Hannibal’s exhausted army staggers down from the last Alpine pass like a rabble of half-starved savages, the remnants of a once magnificent army that had set out from the Rhodanus with such hope. Now there is no way back. With the legions of Consul Publius Scipio closing fast, Carthage needs its Gaulish allies like never before. But where are the Insubres? Where are the Boii? Where are the thousands of warriors pledged by solemn oath? In the maelstrom of battle, Sphax, nephew of Hannibal, forges a reputation as the scourge of Rome. But will his ingrained recklessness and quest for honour set him at odds with the forbidding genius of his uncle? Only one thing is certain in this winter of winters, a great battle is coming that will decide the fates of Rome and Carthage.
Review: The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
Turton paints a colourful canvas on the page with deft, short strokes of the pen. The beginning introduces us to a bleak scene, coloured in intrigue, mystery and horror. The flames that licked the leper’s rags only a taste of horror to come … and a scene that gripped me hard with a startling, eerie sense of place. From every cleverly chosen word that pulls you into the depths, further out to sea, Turton’s writing is a true marvel.
Review: Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine
Alison Stine’s Road Out of Winter is one of those rare books that hits the serendipitous sweet spot of right time, right place, right mood—right everything. Almost. It’s a fairly short read, so I fired up my Kindle and went for it, pulled the trigger, ‘cause why not? A couple of days blurred past, and Stine pulled me through a story of rural landscapes full of climate-wrought confusion and dread, human nature’s ugliest sides, heartfelt friendships, physical and mental adversity, and, to my pleasant surprise, genuine hope.
Review: When the Sparrow Falls by Neil Sharpson
When the Sparrow falls is a literary scifi spy thriller in the vein of Altered Carbon meets the Iron Curtain – set in a future where people can have their consciousness digitized. The Triumvirate are, George, Athena and Confucius, three Super AI who rule the world apart from Caspian, a state that rejects all the Machine would offer and places strict law and harsh judgement on anyone using said tech from within their territory; it’s a place which finds comfort in state executions, and the only real escape is a bullet through the head or a needle in the back of the neck … if you can find Yoshik.