Summary: What is the purpose of a map? Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field, and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an […]
Fantasy Books
Review: The Look of a King (Pillars of Peace #1) by Tom Dumbrell
Synopsis Two young men.One with a dark past, the other with a bright future. Cyrus is a storyteller frustrated by the mundane trappings of village life, while Prince Augustus struggles to meet high expectations after an upbringing of royal privilege in the bustling capital. As both try to forge their own paths, a royal assassination […]
Review: Dark Theory (Dark Law #1) by Wick Welker
Synopsis A robot yearns to remember. A thief struggles to forget. A galaxy on the verge of chaos. On the fringe of a broken civilisation, a robot awakens with no memories and only one directive: find his creator. But in the village of Korthe, Beetro finds only radioactive pestilence, famine, and Miree — a tormented […]
Review: Daughter of Redwinter (The Redwinter Chronicles #1) by Ed McDonald
Synopsis Raine can see—and speak—to the dead, a gift that comes with a death sentence. All her life she has hidden, lied, and run to save her skin, and she’s made some spectacularly bad choices along the way. But it is a rare act of kindness—rescuing an injured woman in the snow—that becomes the most […]
Review: Jade Legacy (Green Bone Saga #3) by Fonda Lee
Endings are a tricky thing. A good ending can reframe an entire story or bring home the points that an author was making. A bad ending can sour the experience of a whole series or story. Thankfully, Jade Legacy, the third and final book in the Green Bone Saga, is a smashingly good ending.
Review: The Justice of Kings (Empire of the Wolf #1) by Richard Swan
Synopsis As an Emperor’s Justice, Sir Konrad Vonvalt always has the last word. His duty is to uphold the law of the empire using whatever tools he has at his disposal: whether it’s his blade, the arcane secrets passed down from Justice to Justice, or his wealth of knowledge of the laws of the empire. […]
Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Synopsis The House is the World. Countless halls line up, staircase to staircase, vestibule to vestibule. While on the lower floor the tides roar and on the upper floor the rooms are impenetrable by cloud fog, it is reasonably safe on the middle floor. Only birds and fish populate the World, along with fifteen people: […]
Review: The Last Mortal Bond (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne #3) by Brian Staveley
Synopsis Emperor Sanlitun is dead and his empire lies in ruins: The powerful Csestriim, since time immemorial the deadliest enemies of humans, have returned to Annur. Mages, hitherto living only in secret, are coming out into the open to practise their dark arts, and the Old Gods, capricious and treacherous, walk the earth once more. […]
Review: The Providence of Fire (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne #2) by Brian Staveley
Synopsis Ever since she found out who murdered her father, Adare – the daughter of the Annurian emperor Sanlitun – has been on the run, the Unhewn Throne having fallen into the hands of her enemies. At the same time, Adare’s brothers, Valyn and Kaden, are pursuing their own plans: Valyn is forming an alliance […]
Review: The Emperor’s Blades (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne #1) by Brian Staveley
Synopsis Great intrigues take place in secret in the kingdom and the reigning emperor is treacherously murdered. All the responsibility now rests on the shoulders of his two sons, Kaden and Valyn, and on the shoulders of his daughter Adare. The siblings have not seen each other for some years, as each child receives a […]
Review: The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn (Kingdom of Grit #1) by Tyler Whitesides
Synopsis Ardor Benn is no ordinary thief – a master of wildly complex heists, he styles himself a Ruse Artist Extraordinaire. When he gets hired for his most daring ruse yet, Ardor knows he’ll need more than quick wit and sleight of hand. Assembling a dream team of forgers, disguisers, schemers and thieves, he sets […]
We Break Immortals (The Advent Lumina Cycle #1) by Thomas Howard Riley
Synopsis A drug addict who hunts sorcerers down by tracking their magick, the most renowned swordsman no one has ever heard of, and a thieving magick-wielding woman hellbent on revenge collide during a last ditch effort to stop an insane superhuman serial killer from making himself a god. The Render Tracers always say magick users […]