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Tag Archives: fantasy

To Ride a Rising Storm: A Review

The much-awaited sequel to To Shape a Dragon’s Breath is here at last! When Moniquill Blackgoose’s queer indigenous dragon rider novel was released in May of 2023, I was thrilled at the idea of getting a follow-up book. How could I not want to spend more time in that world?

Anequs and her dragon, Kasaqua, have made it through their first year of school at Kuiper Academy. Due to Anequs’s successes and skill, she has been allowed to take Kasaqua back home from the city of Vastergot to the small island of Masquapaug. They are accompanied by Theod, the only other indigenous student at Kuiper, and his dragon, Copper. However, neither of them is free from Anglish oversight now that an outpost has been formally installed on Masquapaug.

Anequs is torn. She knows that Theod has feelings for her, and she reciprocates most of them. She is also attracted to Liberty, a servant at Kuiper academy, and Anglish society would frown on their relationship for both class and gender reasons. Anequs would love to be able to marry both of them, as is relatively common on Masquapaug, but utterly unheard of in Anglish culture. Pressure is being placed on her and Theod as the dragoneers to help the people of Masquapaug and the other nearby islands to push back against Anglish overreach.

The world around Anequs is changing, though, in part due to her presence in it. People are more afraid of her and Kasaqua than ever before. Her opposition to white supremacists has resulted in many students withdrawing from Kuiper Academy in protest, but at the same time, there are now more female students enrolled at one time than ever before. She’s forced to be apart from Kasaqua more often, as the dragon has grown too large to be able to stroll along at her heels through the halls of the school (although she should soon be large enough for Anequs to ride comfortably).

Monequil Blackgoose’s world remains just as fascinating as it was on the first go around. I love the way an alternate history has been woven to reflect how the world would have developed had dragons actually existed. Characters insert the stories they are telling to one another throughout the book, adding a great level of depth to the mythology of the world. Anequs remains steadfast in her determination to live life the way she intends to do, and she has quickly become one of my favorite protagonists in fantasy fiction.

To Ride a Rising Storm hit store shelves last month, 1/27/26. I’m sorry for the delay in getting this review out to y’all, but life has been *a lot* these last few weeks. My utmost thanks, though, as always, to NetGalley and Del Rey for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

Through Gates of Garnet and Gold: A Review

Every January, I look forward to the release of the newest title in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. 2026 was no exception. I’ve loved this series since Every Heart a Doorway, and I’m happy to say that the most recent entry is just as fantastic.

When Nancy first arrived at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, she had recently returned to our world from a land known as the Halls of the Dead. There, Nancy had been favored by the Lord and the Lady as one of their most beautiful and elegant living statues, holding so still for hours on end that she could barely be perceived as living. At Eleanor’s school, she learned that she was hardly alone, as one of dozens of children who had journeyed to distant, incredible worlds and then reluctantly returned home. After an adventure with her new classmates, Nancy soon rediscovered the Door that would lead her back to the Halls of the Dead, and she departed without saying farewell. Later, a group of students on another quest made their way to the Halls in order to retrieve the soul of a student who had been murdered (she got better). There, they encountered Nancy again and enlisted her aid in convincing the Lord and the Lady to let that murdered soul go with them to be placed in a freshly baked body (I promise it makes sense in context).

Now, Nancy has returned to Eleanor’s school in order to seek out the aid of the classmates she once left behind. Something is stalking the Halls of the Dead and attacking the statues there. Something hungry. Something violent. Something that made Nancy uncertain enough in her place there that she was able to find and open the Door to take her back to the school.

The students who remember Nancy are now fewer in number, as many of them have found their own Doors back home. There are still familiar faces, though, and Kade and Christopher and Sumi are willing to break Eleanor’s “No Quests” rule one more time, along with a newcomer, Talia. With Nancy’s guidance, they return to the Halls of the Dead to discover the true identity of the threat and save the remaining peaceful souls that linger there.

Through Gates of Garnet and Gold is an absolutely spectacular return to world of the Wayward Children. McGuire’s blend of humor and horror is ever-present, as is expected of any team-up involving Christopher and Sumi. Callbacks to the earlier entries in the series are found throughout, and we get the wonderful experience of following Nancy as she examines what it really means to “Be Sure.” Nancy’s leading role aside, there are a couple of unexpected reunions in this one, but I’ll let you experience those for yourself.

My utmost thanks, as always, to NetGalley and Tor for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Through Gates of Garnet and Gold came out on Tuesday, January 6th, 2026. Go check it out.

Brigands & Breadknives: A Review

Travis Baldree may not have set out to turn the fantasy world upside down with his first novel, Legends & Lattes, but he definitely managed to shake things up by introducing us to Viv the orc. Viv was a retired adventurer who had given up her rough and tumble daily life to open the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune with the aid of Tandri, a local succubus. While this turned out to be a drastically different sort of adventure, she found herself falling in love with big city life. Baldree’s follow-up, Bookshops & Bonedust, gave us an earlier portion of Viv’s life when she was recovering from an injury in the small seaside town of Murk. It was there that she met Fern, a rattkin bookseller who traded Viv books in exchange for help in revitalizing her store. We got to see Viv as she was before her first cup of coffee sent her life down a completely different path.

Brigands & Breadknives picks up after the events of the first book. Years have passed now, and Viv’s coffee business is booming. She and Tandri (now Viv’s wife), are excited to welcome Fern to Thune, where they have all planned for the rattkin’s new bookstore to be located next door to the coffee shop. It doesn’t take long for Fern to begin to feel unsatisfied with the change in her life, though, questioning whether she should have ever left Murk. After a drunken night trying to build up the courage to confess these feelings to Viv, Fern finds herself waking up in a wagon with the legendary elf adventurer, Astryx One-Ear and her equally legendary Elder Blade, Nigel (don’t get him started). Astryx is on a mission to deliver a bounty, the goblin Zyll, and she reluctantly allows Fern to travel with them. Swept away from everything the bookseller has ever known, Fern is remarkably out of place in the company of someone of Astryx’s stature. Initially, she’s only wanting to send a letter of apology to Viv and get back to Thune as quickly as possible. Throughout the course of the journey, though, she begins to find her own courage. It may be late in life for a hero’s journey, but adventure rarely strikes when we’re ready.

Astryx isn’t the only one looking to cash in on the bounty on Zyll’s head. This, naturally, complicates things, as does Astryx’s own penchant to be the folk hero she’s spent most of the last thousand years being. Fern’s journey ends up taking her much farther from home than she ever anticipated.

Baldree mixes up his cozy fantasy formula quite a bit with this title, but to no great loss. While we don’t spend as much time with Viv and Tandri as many readers might have hoped, we’re still treated to phenomenal moments of calm amidst the storms. It’s an absolute pleasure to return to this world again, seeing new cities and the lands in between them and meeting a whole new cast of characters.

My utmost thanks to NetGalley and Tor for providing an eARC of this title in exchange for a fair review. I’m sorry it’s late. Brigands & Breadknives has been out in the world since November 11th. I loved it, and I hope you do to.

Lies Weeping: A Review

When I first encountered Glen Cook’s The Chronicles of the Black Company, I was fresh out of college and working at Borders (it was 2010, and the economy was garbage, and it was the only work I could get, despite a degree in technical writing). I found the original ten of Cook’s fantasy novels (published between 1984 and 2000) in large paperback omnibus editions, and I was immediately entranced by the cover art and the premise of a mercenary band roaming across a fantasy empire and struggling to survive against all odds. It would be over a decade before I managed to sit down with them, and at the time I was unaware that Glen Cook was not only still alive but also still writing, continuing the adventures of Croaker, Goblin, One-Eye, Lady, and all the others. I recently had the opportunity to go through the audiobook versions of the entire series in anticipation of the release of Lies Weeping, a new volume set after the events of Soldiers Live.

The Black Company as it was is no more. Soulcatcher and her forces were finally defeated, and Taglios was freed from her rule. The heroes who were trapped beneath the Plain of Glittering Stone were freed to participate in the final battle, and many were lost in the struggle. Now the Company is lead by Suvrin, who had once served as Sleepy’s lieutenant. They have returned from Taglios, through the Shadowgate into Hsien, to the outpost known as An Abode of Ravens. Taking over as co-annalists are Arkana and Shukrat, two young women from the world known to the company as Khatovar who were taken in by Croaker and Lady. Lady herself remains with the company, but with the defeat of the goddess Kina, her magic is greatly diminished once again. Shukrat and Arkana may bicker over how best to maintain Croaker’s legacy with the Company’s annals, but they’re still working together. Croaker himself is no longer with the Company, having taken the role once held by the demon Shivetya as the guardian of the Plain of Glittering Stone. Now with his burgeoning omniscience, he can monitor all the comings and goings of his loved ones back and forth through time, even when his physical form is still bound to the throne beneath the Plain.

Things are not quite what they all seem at An Abode. Packs of roving monkeys are threatening the Company’s food supply as winter approaches. Strange spirits appear to be haunting Tobo, the Company’s primary mage and friend of the Unknown Shadows. Arkana and Shukrat have spotted an old man wandering about near the outpost, and of all the impossible things, he looks like Croaker. Lady, meanwhile, is crafting a plan to try to restore her daughter, Booboo, to a level of health and sanity she had never in her short life possessed. The only hints anyone has received have been in the form of mysterious notes posted about An Abode, and the whispered phrase “Lies Weeping.”

Glen Cook is launching a new continuation of The Chronicles of the Black Company, with Lies Weeping being the first novel in a A Pitiless Rain. He’s deftly weaving together his original novels with his more recent work like Port of Shadows. Arkana and Shukrat serve as our primary narrators in this book, with amendments by a young man named Dikken in interstitial chapters. This book strikes me as a fine addition to the series that I’ve come to love so much in recent months. My utmost thanks to Tor Books and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Lies Weeping came out last Tuesday, 11/4/25. If you’re a Black Company fan, you should snag this one ASAP. If you’re not yet a fan, now’s as good a time to start as any.

Queen Demon: A Review

The sequel to Martha Wells’ phenomenal Witch King is here!

In the distant past, the Hierarchs entered the world and seized power. They killed indiscriminately, razing city-states, exerting control over everything, and turning families against themselves. Many tried to stand against them and failed, and for a time, they were believed to be unstoppable. That changed with the arrival of Kaiisteron, Prince of the Fourth House of the Underearth, the one who would come to be known as the Witch King. Kai was a demon inhabiting a human body, and when his host’s people were overrun by the Hierarchs, he was captured. Soon, however, he was taken in by a local nobleman named Bashasa. Bashasa had been preparing to launch a revolution, and befriending Kai forces him to accelerate the plans, as together they manage to kill a pair of Hierarchs.

Decades later, Kai and his allies were split up and imprisoned, left for dead by a group of conspirators who sought to seize control of the Rising World and establish a new empire. They underestimated him. During the events of Witch King, Kai took a new host body, rescued his best friend Ziede, and set off to find out who had betrayed them and why. Classic revenge quest.

Now, reunited with his friends and found family, Kai has a new goal: investigate the origins of the Hierarchs and ensure that they can return to threaten the Rising World again. At the end of Witch King, Dahin, Ziede’s brother-in-law, was hot on the trail of the origin of the Hierarchs. Now he may have proof that those origins are not what everyone believed, and that the Hierarchs are not as fully gone as everyone would like.

Kai must still grapple with the past in Queen Demon, with chapters alternating the early days of the rebellion against the Hierarchs and the modern day struggle for the mysterious Well that powered their abilities. Both timelines see the Fourth Prince navigating the complexities of human relationships, war, and politics. Kai’s growth as a character is evident, largely due to the death of his rescuer, Bashasa, at some point in the past. The legacy he left behind is clearly still serving as Kai’s guiding star as he navigates through his relationships with humans, witches, and other demons.

Martha Wells has been a favorite author for years, since I first picked up a copy of All Systems Red. I love the setting of the Rising World novels, and I will happily return any time we get the opportunity.

Queen Demon is out in the world as of Tuesday, 10/7/25. Go get it.

My utmost thanks, as always, to Netgalley and Tor for an advance copy in exchange for a fair review.

A Fate Forged in Fire: A Review

Aemyra lives a seemingly mundane life working as a blacksmith’s assistant, alongside her twin brother Adarian at their stepfather’s forge. Her gift of manipulating fire, courtesy of the goddess Brigid, is second to none who are not Bonded to a companion creature, and she dreams of Bonding to a dragon. One problem—the only remaining dragons in Tir Teine are in the hands of the royal family, and a Bond can only be broken by death.

That’s where Aemyra’s real secret comes in. She’s a member of an exiled branch of the royal family, and the first daughter born into the royal line in hundreds of years. After her father’s first failed rebellion, he was banished, but his children have been living in hiding in Tir Teine, right under the king’s nose (even providing blacksmithing services to the court). When the old king dies, it’s time for her to step up and return the power of the matriarchy that had previously ruled the land. All she has to do is find the king’s mourning dragon and bond with him before his son manages to do so… Then, no one in Tir Teine will be able to deny her claim to the throne. No big deal, right? Except that the king’s other son, Prince Fiorean, will do whatever it takes to stop her from taking his brother’s place. With his bonded dragon, Fiorean’s fire magic is second to none, and Aemyra

A Fate Forged in Fire is a decently clever twist on a lot of the expected tropes of a modern romantic fantasy, and while it was definitely a slower start for me than some similar titles, I’m glad I stuck with it. It was published on 5/27/25, and is worth checking out if you like the genre, as well as Celtic-inspired fantasy. Hazel McBride has a promising beginning here. My utmost thanks for NetGalley and Random House for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me: A Review

BEWARE! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS FOR BOOK ONE!

SERIOUSLY. GO READ BOOK ONE.

Did you do it? Okay.

Cool. Here we go.

Hail Dark Lord Davi!

Last time we checked in with Davi, she’d successfully manipulated the time loops that she’d been experiencing since she first woke up in The Kingdom, roughly 1,000 years ago (by her own personal reckoning). Since that day, when the wizard Tserigern first told her that she was the Chosen One, fated to save The Kingdom from the Dark Lord, she’s lived and died thousands of times. Each time, beginning a new time loop has allowed Davi to take advantage of her own memories and predict the actions of others around her. Each time, she’s failed to save The Kingdom. So, back at the beginning of Django Wexler’s absolutely brilliant How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, she started a new tactic—killing Tserigern and setting off on a path to become the Dark Lord (surprise! Bet you didn’t see that coming).

Finally arriving on the far side of the continent and triumphing over her rivals, Davi now stood at the head of a massive horde of wilders with her second in command, the orc woman, Tsav, at her side (as well as frequently in her bed). With Artaxes, the arbiter of the challenges, having officially crowned her as Dark Lord Davi, all that remained was… wait… what happens now?

See, during the challenges, Davi died. Again. Only this time, she didn’t reset back to the beginning with Tserigern. She only went back one day. The rules changed, and suddenly consequences meant something again. Now, Davi faces a new problem. If she doesn’t want to lose all of the progress that she’s finally made in her march to power (and her relationship with Tsav), she’s going to have to stop treating the other people around her as tools and stepping stones. So, new list of tasks: 1.) Convince the wilders that they don’t have to kill all the humans. 2.) Convince the humans that they don’t have to kill the wilders. 3.) Not die.

No big deal, right? Davi sets off from the wilderness back to The Kingdom to uncover the mysteries of how humans ended up in this world in the first place, what changed about the time loops, and, if she’s The Chosen One, who did The Choosing.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me is another brilliant, darkly hilarious fantasy adventure from Django Wexler, and is a perfect ending to Davi’s long, long, long life. The footnotes throughout continue to annotate Davi’s incredibly ADHD approach to things (supplementing many of her thoughts with her own intrusive thoughts based on her fading memories of our world). Wexler’s humor ensures that Davi’s journey isn’t too fraught, but there’s definitely more consequences for her actions this time around.

It’s out in the world today, May 27th. Get yourself a copy, and dive in!

My utmost thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. I’m pretty glad I didn’t need a time loop to get it.

OR DID I?!

Advocate: A Review

Aelis is back again! Daniel M. Ford returns to the world we first explored in The Warden and Necrobane, and damn if Advocate isn’t another stellar entry in the series. At the end of Necrobane, Warden Aelis de Lenti had been notified that Bardun Jacques, her mentor from her warden training days, was arrested for murder. Word came to the frontier town of Lone Pine that the Archmagister has requested Aelis return to the city of Lascenise to serve as his Advocate, a role supplemental to his lawyer, and a position that can only be filled by another Warden. She must help to search for information that can prove his innocence, or he will most likely be put to death.

Aelis is loathe to leave her post behind, even if she only intends for it to be temporary. There are many things in Lone Pine that require her near-constant attention, and the people there have finally come to fully trust in her presence and skill. She’s almost starting to think of her sheep-shit-scented tower as home. Decent progress for a rich socialite trained as a Necromancer, really. But Bardun Jacques is the man who is most responsible for Aelis’s success as a student at the Lyceum, so she begins to pack her things for the long journey. She reassures the people that she has come to love that she’ll be back as soon as she can, hopefully with more answers for one particular person, and a particularly difficult problem that’s been plaguing her since Necrobane.

Aelis’s trip with back south to Lascenise with fellow Warden Amadin is interrupted when their carriage is attacked. This attempt on her life helps Aelis to realize that there are far bigger things at stake than just the career of one old wizard. She’s going to have to choose her allies carefully if she’s going to succeed and survive. Being back on familiar ground can only serve as so much of an advantage when there’s a full-blown conspiracy of theft and assassination coming to light. Still, she’s grown a lot during her time at her station in Lone Pine, and a Warden with three schools of magic at her disposal is nothing to mess with, unless you have a great deal of power and influence to wield yourself.

Daniel M. Ford continues to be a powerhouse of a fantasy writer. As he delves into more of Aelis’s history (academic and otherwise), he showcases more of a spectacular magic school and its surrounds. The Lyceum is every bit as wondrous as you would want a magical college to be, complete with a library that rivals those found in The Name of the Wind and Shadow of the Torturer. His combat scenes are tight, well-choreographed, and intense, and his worldbuilding remains top-notch. I loved every page of Advocate, and I hope that you do as well.

Advocate hits store and library shelves on April 22nd. Get ready. And hope, like I do, that there’s more to come.

My utmost thanks as always to Netgalley and Tor for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

His Mortal Demise: A Review

It’s The Last Bloodcarver sequel time! Vanessa Le’s duology comes to a spectacular end.

Beware, as unmarked spoilers for book #1 will follow!

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Okay, y’all. At the end of The Last Bloodcarver, Nhika died. Using the last of her strength, she healed Kochin and saved his life, passing along the bone ring that had belonged to her heartsooth ancestors in the process. Now, Nhika has woken up in one of the Congmi family’s other manors on the other side of the country. Kochin is nowhere to be found, and Theumas is now at war. Her entire world has turned upside down, and she’s desperate to find answers, but Mimi and Andao are hesitant to tell her the truth.

Six months ago, Ven Kochin almost died, but he was rescued by Nhika. Using technology developed by Dr. Sando during Sando’s attempt to resurrect his dead son, Kochin keeps Nhika in a comatose but stable state. With Theumas on the brink of war, he ventures home to see his estranged family and make amends before setting off on a fool’s quest to find a way to revive her. His own resources dwindling, he knows that he must make his way to the island of Yarong, from whence the heartsooths originally came. Who can he trust to keep Nhika safe while he searches for answers?

Vanessa Le’s writing is just as solid in His Mortal Demise as it was in The Last Bloodcarver. Nhika and Kochin’s split narrative is clever and well-managed, keeping the tension tight as his timeline ticks down and hers continues on into wartime. I’m thrilled to have gotten a chance to read this one. My utmost thanks as always to MacMillan and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. His Mortal Demise dropped on Tuesday, 3/18/25. Go check it out!

Swordheart: A Review

New T. Kingfisher? New T. Kingfisher!

Okay, new-ish. Swordheart was first published back in 2018, but it’s getting a shiny new reprint courtesy of Tor’s Bramble imprint. So, new!

Halla doesn’t have a lot in her life. Her husband died years ago, and she’s been living in her great-uncle Silas’s home, caring for him and the household in his old age. She describes herself as a respectable widow, and while she is infinitely curious, she’s also relatively content to live has she has been.

Silas’s death changes everything. Due to Halla’s having cared for him, he left her (and her alone) all of his possessions in his will, and his other relatives are livid at the perceived slight. Her great-aunt Malva and cousin Alver vow to lock Halla up in her room until she agrees to marry Alver, so that Silas’s house and things will remain in their possession. In her desperation, Halla decides to kill herself, drawing a sword that was in Silas’s collection. Her attempt to stab herself is cut short when a man appears in the room with her. His name is Sarkis, and he is bound to the sword that she just drew. Remove the sword from the scabbard, and you can command him, a la a genie in a lamp. With a duty to protect Halla, as she is the rightful owner of the sword now that Silas has died, Sarkis sets about freeing her from her imprisonment.

After breaking out of what is, by all rights, Halla’s own house now, she and Sarkis flee the small town of Rutger’s Howe (and I can’t help thinking that T. Kingfisher is a Blade Runner fan). They set off on a journey to secure Halla’s inheritance so that she has something to bequeath to her own nieces, having no children of her own, but there are many obstacles in their path. Soon, they have to face off against brigands, lawyers, priests, and unspeakable horrors. With the assistance of Zale (a representative of the Church of the White Rat) and a gnole named Brindle, the adventurers journey from Rutger’s Howe to Archen’s Glory. They need not only to prove that Halla is the rightful heir to Silas’s house and the sword that contains Sarkis, but also solve the mystery of Sarkis’s entrapment in the sword almost 500 years prior.

And what’s an adventure in a medieval-inspired fantasy world without a little romance? This is a Bramble title, after all. Halla is a respectable widow, and Sarkis is an ancient soul bound to an iron blade. That’s not about to stop either of them from developing feelings toward each other. They might be able to eventually tell each other the truth, but truth is often more complicated than it should be. Is Halla attracted to Sarkis only because he saved her life? Is Sarkis only attracted to Halla because he’s been barely able to live as a man over the last few centuries of sword-dwelling? Is it right for a widow to fall in love with her bodyguard and vice versa?

Set in the same world as Kingfisher’s Saints of Steel series, Swordheart will delight fans who will recognize elements of Halla’s journey (and maybe several of the characters she meets along the way). For me, it was my first foray into the world of the White Rat, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Halla is delightfully disarming and has much to learn about the world outside of her small home town, while Sarkis is brusque and harsh but slowly comes to understand the people of the “decadent south” as time passes with her. The influence each has on the other is slow-building, but masterfully written. The reprinted version of Swordheart hits shelves Tuesday, February 25th. Check it out.

My utmost thanks to Tor/Reactor/Bramble and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.