Writing and reviews with an environmental, science fiction, and fantasy touch
Appointed is today’s #writephoto prompt, courtesy of Sue Vincent. This crow sitting on top of a tree reminded me of something I wrote several years ago to the title Crow of Nine-World, but that is no longer on the blog,
Interesting Times was on the library shelf when I took Thief of Time back. I wasn’t going to read any more this quickly but… and it was due back on Wednesday this week, so I had to finish it, since
Three first in series books take up my review spot today. One way of catching up with the titles read before the year ends. These have all been on my TBR list for a while, and mostly from the excellent
The Mostly Invisible Boy was a Great Middle Grade Reads book of the month – for June! I managed to read it before the end of July, which is a vast improvement on my recent performances. This was the Group’s
Swashbuckling Cats… is a new anthology from Rhonda Parrish. I hate to say latest, as she’s so prolific, but since it is out this coming week, surely it must be! Already the calls for the next are out, tantalising me
The Storyteller and her Sisters has been on my list for a long time – October 2014, in fact. I know I got this and its sequel(s) for my kindle a fair while ago, too. At last I’ve brought it
The Conspiracy of Magic is the second Harriet Whitehorn book I’ve read. I think the publisher offered me the book via Net-galley, but too close to the publication date for me to fit it in. It’s a shame, as I
My Book of the Year for 2019 is… one of the following. Book of the Year 2019 long list I long list nearly all of those I’ve given five stars on Goodreads during the year. So those are (links to
Datura is a weird book. I mean that in a good way – it fits into the subgenre of Fantasy/scifi of ‘weird’. Leena Krohn is an award-winning Finnish author, but much of the time this story could be set in
Two anthologies for you today, to help me catch up on my reviews. I like reading anthologies when I’m busy, because of the easy put-down, pick-up nature of the book. The downside is I find it almost impossible to remember
Pan’s Labyrinth came out on July 2nd. Wait a minute, I hear you say, surely that’s been out for ages? Well, not the book, apparently. Guillermo del Toro directed the film and Cornelia Funke has helped him get it into
Rebel of the Sands first caught my attention because of its gorgeous cover. I think I added it to my list pretty quickly. Then it was nominated in the Goodreads Book of the Year 2016, and I voted for it
Daemon has been hanging around near the top of my TBR for years. Poor Doug Dandridge has had to wait over 5 years for me to review his book, and I bet I got it in an offer of some
The Company of Eight was a book I requested on Net-Galley, so I thank them and the publishers for allowing me a review copy. As usual, my review is my honest opinion of the book. The Company of Eight Harriet
Equus was a book I received from LibraryThing, as part of their first reads initiative. It is nothing to do with Equus the play. But it is Latin for ‘horse’. Equus Ed. by Rhonda Parrish There’s always something magical about
MG or not MG – a question that came up recently for two books intended for tweens and young teens. Okay, the older end of MG, but still. We often discuss what makes a book suitable for ‘middle grade’ readers
The Camelot Kids is Ben Zackheim’s second series, or at least I think so. He started publishing it after the Shirley Link series, and I’ve already reviewed a few of those. I read Part 1 of the Camelot Kids without realising
Oy Yew is a book I got as a result of the Read 4 Review programme on Goodreads groups. Ana is a member of the Good Middle Grade Reads Group; I took up the offer of a free ebook March last
Sea by Sarah Driver, is the first in a new series, to be published on April 7th. Apart from the magnificent cover, I also liked the blurb, and jumped at the chance of an ARC from Net-Galley. In retrospect, I think
The Time Travellers Resort and Museum was an early reviewers book that I got via Library Thing, and as such I believe it to be a published version, not an ARC. If I’m wrong, I apologise to the author and the
Pair Alleles is book 4 in the wonderfully mind-bending Derivatives of Displacement series by Jennifer Ellis. We follow twins Abbey and Caleb, who are both ‘gifted’ – Abbey starts the series at around age 12 studying with the 16-18 year old
I raced through a few books at the end of the year (well, I didn’t race through all of them) that I didn’t get time to review, and which for various reasons I don’t feel like giving a full review
This went on my TBR list as soon as I heard of it, and I picked up a library copy the same day I picked up the Screaming Staircase (which I’m reviewing first Saturday in January). I wasn’t disappointed! The
This is the second in the Zoe & Zak series, which I have as a box set of the first three books, having read the third one first Zoe and Zak and the Tiger Temple, and the first one a
The Blurb Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can “read” fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service. Characters from books literally