A new record for DNFs! Eek. Um. I feel the urge to defend myself, but why?
Some of these were objectively terrible, but many just didn’t click with me – and a few I’d like to try again later!
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Protagonist Age: 17
Published on: 2nd January 2025
ISBN: 0063353822
Goodreads
EVERY ACT OF TRANSLATION REQUIRES SACRIFICE
Welcome to Bletchley Park… with dragons.
London, 1923. Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivian Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get an internship studying dragon languages, and make sure her little sister never has to risk growing up Third Class. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.
With her parents arrested and her sister missing, all the safety Viv has worked for is collapsing around her. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort – if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.
At first Viv believes that her challenge, of discovering the secrets of a hidden dragon language, is doable. But the more she learns, the more she realises that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must What war is she really fighting?
An epic, sweeping fantasy with an incredible Dark Academia setting, a clandestine, slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, and an unputdownable story, filled with twists and turns, betrayals and secret identities, A Language of Dragons is the unmissable debut of 2025, from an extraordinary new voice.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Petition for authors/publishers to stop releasing books that treat their YA audiences like idiots!
Language of Dragons is heavily reminiscent of the deeply crappy dystopias that were all the rage after the success of Hunger Games – I won’t name names, but if you were reading YA at the time you know exactly what I’m talking about. (Not that all of them were terrible, but let’s face it, a lot of them were.) The 2010 vibes are strong with this one.
Don’t believe me? Society in fantasy-Britain is divided up into three Classes: Class One, Class Two, Class Three. Class One has the most rights, Class Three almost none. You’re born into your Class, but if you fail your big exam at 16, you drop one.
This is, immediately, an unbearably stupid set-up that makes no sense and doesn’t try to. (Why do you wear your all-important Class Pass on a velvet ribbon, Vivien??? Ribbons fray, they BREAK. Why isn’t it the norm to wear them on sturdy chains or something? Why aren’t you just straight-up tattooed after your exam, so you can’t falsify or lose your Pass?) The trend continues throughout the worldbuilding: dragons exist and are sentient, but they’re typically referred to as ‘it’, even once the relevant human knows the gender of said dragon individual. Although things are different in other countries, in our setting, dragons and humans live apart – as in, separate parts of the country, not different districts inside a city – and generally seem to be second-class; why the dragons put up with this as massive fire-breathing creatures of incredible intelligence, is neither explained nor questioned, despite dragons being treated much better in other places, even ruling over humans in some countries. All of this is told to us through clunky telling-not-showing, with bonus exposition-through-bad-dialogue.
And let’s make one thing very clear: this is not a dragon book. The title and cover are a flat-out lie. One dragon appears briefly at two points in the book; we see no others. It’s pathetic, and more than a little outrageous, for a story to be marketed this falsely.
Vivien Featherswallow, our protagonist, has drunk the kool-aid: she is convinced that the Class System and the Travel Ban and everything else are for everyone’s benefit. MCs in dystopias often start out this way; that’s not inherently a bad thing. What makes it very bad writing in this case is that it is immediately obvious to the reader that Things Are Fucked-Up Here.
Hi: this doesn’t work. Naive characters gradually realising how screwed up things are works well only when the book is taking the reader on the same journey of discovery/realisation. When the reader is already well-aware that this is a dystopia, there’s zero impact to the Le Gasp moment when your character works things out. It’s just eye-rollingly stupid – of your character, and of anyone who makes that writing decision. Why would you do this.
This is far from the only issue with Vivien. When her parents are arrested, she does a complete 180: despite previously being a believer, she turns around, makes a bargain with a dragon criminal, breaks the dragon free, and has the prime minister’s house burned down. And, sorry, but you have not come close to making that abrupt about-face believable. It’s absolutely nonsensical for Vivien to do what she does, that fast, that soon after the arrest; that she’s desperate simply isn’t enough explanation. Williamson hasn’t crafted a character who would believably do this; instead, we have a character doing things because if she doesn’t there will be no plot.
That is BAD WRITING.
(As is a criminal dragon being locked up IN A PUBLIC LIBRARY. Why the everloving FUCK would you place a criminal dragon in a library?! ‘Oh, she’s lived so long she can help answer research questions’ WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT? YOU’VE IMPRISONED HER: WHAT ON EARTH MADE ANYONE THINK SHE WOULDN’T FLAME ANY IDIOT DUMB ENOUGH TO ASK FOR HELP WITH THEIR HOMEWORK? WTF?
Let’s not forget, she’s locked up with a SWORD in reach! Which is fine because ‘no human would help a dragon’ in a society that kind of reveres them??? When the government KNOWS there are rebel networks out there, who would absolutely free a dragon??? But no, there has to be a sword so Vivien can use it to free the dragon. OKAY.)
Then we really get into the circa 2010 vibes, because there is a Top Secret group of teenagers who are responsible for saving the newly-broken-out civil war. Because that’s definitely something a real government would do, depend on kids for that. And also let the girl who just burned down the prime minister’s house be part of that group. SURE. THAT’S A THING THAT COULD HAPPEN.
This is complete crap; it’s not even trying. The Babel-comparison is so unjust it’s offensive: this is not a book about linguistics, and I’m not sure Williamson knows much about linguistics either, because the Shocking Secret is that dragon languages have dialects, which. Is such a normal thing for languages to have that I don’t understand how I’m supposed to take this seriously.
(Don’t get me started on ‘we don’t let just ANYBODY study dragon languages, because most of the rebels we’ve found have contact with dragons. Our dragon languages students have no dragon teachers or classmates and never test their skills on dragons BUT STILL, THE TOUGHEST OF BACKGROUND-CHECKS FOR YOU MISS FEATHERSWALLOW.’)
I am so mad at this book, at everyone who picked the title and made the cover(s) and just straight-up lied about what this book is and is about. As for what it actually is: Language of Dragons is an insult to the intelligence of YA readers. It is trash. If I’d been given a paper arc, it would be defenestrated into the snow. Don’t waste your time with it.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
ISBN: 1837863350
Goodreads
Pride and Prejudice and Witches
After a mysterious fire at their home in Regency London displaces Gentlewitch Edith Rookwood and her now much-reduced family to their ancestral seat of Netherford Hall in Kent, she faces a new threat in the form of her tenant—the chaotic and lovely Poppy Brightwell.
The repairs on the old pile are prohibitive, Edith’s standing is uncertain, and her inheritance has been challenged by a forgotten American branch of the family. It is clear she needs to marry, soon and wisely—but the lively girl from Harrow House gradually comes to occupy all of her thoughts.
As tenants, rivals, suitors and enemies start to circle Netherford, and dark secrets about both women’s pasts come to light, Edith and Poppy must confront what it means to fight for love and family, and to be their authentic selves.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Confession time: I have never actually read Pride and Prejudice, and have no intention of ever doing so. Blame a childhood spend in the British school system; I’m amazed anyone comes through that with any appreciation for the classics. (Well done if you’re one of those who managed it!)
Obviously, I’ve picked up vague details here and there, one of which is that the love interest is not an especially pleasant man. Netherford Hall is a faithful homage in that respect, because our ‘gentlewitch’ is deeply unlikeable, and not in any way that I find interesting. She’s just cold and rude and unappreciative – although I’ll give her points for respecting the countryside’s traditions and loyalty.
So I don’t think this is bad, but it’s not for me: the worldbuilding is simpler than I prefer, and while I’m happy to overlook that if the romantic element is engaging, I’m not interested in romances that start off with one person being horrible to another. (Outright villains can be great; nasty people are pathetic.)
It’s very readable, though, so I do recommend it if unpleasant love interests are something you don’t mind. While the tone is mostly quite light, a bit of a warning for heavy themes at least in the beginning, where the gentlewitch has just lost all her family in a house fire.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown bi/pansexual MC, bisexual love interest, secondary nonbinary character, queernorm world
Published on: 28th January 2025
ISBN: 1250258774
Goodreads
The Teeth of Dawn concludes the riveting and mind-ripping epic fantasy trilogy from acclaimed author Marina Lostetter, where a rebellion struggles to tear the mask off the illusions and enchantments of a society shrouded in layers of mystery.
After barely surviving their encounter with the Savior, who has shaped the rules and realities of Arkensyre for generations, Krona and the other members of the growing rebellion see only one chance of overcoming his free and enlist the ancient gods he caged to augment his own power.
But it’s one thing to believe in gods. It is quite another to meet them.
And it’s not only the Savior who wants to hold fast to the illusions that govern all the lives in the valley, the Grand Maquis, his agencies and the elites of Arkensyre will do anything they can to snuff out change.
To remake the world, first you must break it.
The Five Penalties
The Helm of Midnight
The Cage of Dark Hours
The Teeth of Dawn
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I tried three separate times to read this, and each time it made me so sleepy that my eyes were burning. Actually stinging with the need to take a nap.
I don’t know what’s gone wrong. Is it me? Maybe? I loved the previous two books… although maybe it should have been a red flag that I really didn’t want to reread them before diving into this one (and I ALWAYS reread a series before a new installment, it’s part of the fun for me!)
Though I’m struggling to identify why this is a massive nope for me, I can point to two writerly choices that deeply displeased me. So let’s start there, I guess.
The book opens with whiplash: instead of characters we know, instead of the world we know, we are dropped into a terrible night in the lives of Hailwic and Zoshim, two teenagers…living in an industrialised science-fantasy world, where there is magic but also helicopters.
…what.
After reading the first fifth of the book, I’m pretty confident I know how these two are connected to the main story, but I can’t say I was enjoying their chapters. Zoshim possesses the magic of transformation, which is demonised in his setting, and Hailwic is frantic to help him escape the cops hunting him. It becomes clear very quickly than this is a totalitarian dystopia, which is not what I signed up for and which I have no interest in reading about.
The PoVs alternate: the first chapter is Hailwic’s, but then we do return to characters we know – and my heart sank. Because there has been a three year timeskip between the end of Cage of Dark Hours and the events of Teeth of Dawn.
I hate timeskips, and I hate them in direct proportion to their length. Not everyone does; I’m sure plenty of readers won’t mind at all, but to me it’s lazy and rushed and breaks the characters. (Because why haven’t they changed in three years? After everything they’ve gone through, why are Krona et al the same people they were at the end of Cage? It makes no sense!) (Except of course it does; readers wouldn’t like it if we opened the next book and found drastically different characters than the ones we left, so you have to keep them the same, even if it makes no sense.) It requires a lot of summarising of what we’ve missed, which grates like the info-dumping it basically is, and many rapid introductions to new people the cast has gathered around them, which makes everything feel cramped.
And somehow, the Valley is still at war. After three years. HOW? What are they even fighting about? I couldn’t tell you.
So those are the two main things: the timeskip, and Hailwic-and-Zoshim.
But also, even in just the first 20% of the book, everything is so damn convenient. With the exception of finding the lost gods, everything falls into the characters’ hands almost as soon as it’s mentioned – and don’t even get me started on the magic, which is overpowered and hand-wavey to a ridiculous degree, and wildly inconsistent in what it can and can’t do. One character can literally pluck knowledge from the air… but he can’t, whenever it makes the plot more interesting that he can’t. ???
I’d like to give this another go eventually (just in case the problem is me rather than the book) but right now I have no interest in where this is going, and the thought of continuing with it is exhausting.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Brown bisexual MC, F/F
PoV: First-person, past-tense
ISBN: 1837860548
Goodreads
Ruth Johnson and her sister Jules have been small-time hustlers on the interstellar cruise lines for years. But then Jules fell in love with one of their targets, Esteban Mendez-Yuki, sole heir to the family insurance fortune. Esteban seemed to love her too, until she told him who she really was, at which point he fled without a word.
Now Ruth is set on disguised as provincial debutante Evelyn Ojukwu and set for the swanky satellite New Monte, she’s going to make Esteban fall in love with her, then break his heart and take half his fortune. At least, that's the plan. But Ruth hadn't accounted for his younger sister, Sol, a brilliant mind in a dashing suit... and much harder to fool.
Sol is hot on Ruth's tail, and as the two women learn each other’s tricks, Ruth must decide between going after the money and going after her heart.
This is a perfectly lovely book and if you love cons I’m sure you will enjoy it. The characters are fabulous, the worldbuilding is detailed enough to be immersive and believable, I even like the first-person voice! Lady Eve’s Last Con is objectively great.
It’s just that I don’t care about cons, and this is apparently not the book that’s going to change my mind (alas). If I had the spoons, I might keep reading anyway, because it IS fun, but the spoons, they are at a premium at the moment. I’ll gleefully pounce on anything Fraimow writes in the future, though!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Secondary sapphic character
Goodreads
In this lush and lyrical fantasy, Ryan Graudin transports readers to the hidden magic pockets of early 1900s Paris, a place of enchanted salons, fortune tellers who can change your stars, and doorways that can take you to the most unexpected places—and introduces readers to the delightful Céleste Artois, a con artist who will make a deal with the devil in exchange for her life...and change the fate of the world. Once, Céleste Artois had dreams of being an artist. But when the creative elite of Paris dashed those plans, she turned her talents to forgery and cons. She and the Enchantresses—her two fellow thieves and best friends—see Paris as a rich hunting ground for marks. Yet even though their hideout in Peré Lachaise cemetery is bursting with francs, Céleste cannot rest. There is always more to take. And the blood she has begun to cough into her handkerchief means her time is running out. But everything changes when she encounters Rafe, a mysterious and beautiful stranger who leads her to an enchanted salon—a place where artists can bring wondrous imaginations to life. Céleste is captivated by this establishment, and learns of the existence of magical Paris, hidden in the pockets and alleys of the ordinary world, if one only knows where to look. Rafe offers Céleste an irresistible the gift of time in exchange for lending him and his benefactor her forging talents. But one must be careful making deals with devils, and there's more to this hidden world than meets the eye. Shadows have begun to circle Paris. And soon, the Enchantresses will find that true magic is far more powerful, and deadly, than they ever imagined.
MAGIC THAT ACTUALLY FEELS MAGICAL, OMG! I hope I can come back to this one eventually, because it has quite lovely dreamy prose (kind of reminiscent of Daughter of Smoke and Bone) and, I really can’t emphasise this enough, magic that feels magical (why is that so rare a thing??? It shouldn’t be so hard to find!) The problem is me, not the book; I got distracted and set this one aside for MONTHS, and when I tried to pick it up I couldn’t remember what was going on, and obviously that is MY fault, not Graudin’s! So let’s call this a soft DNF: I enjoyed it, if not for my terrible memory I would almost certainly finish it, and I want to start over and read it properly when I get the chance!
Genres: Adult
Representation: Central American cast and setting
Published on: 11th March 2025
ISBN: 166800903X
Goodreads
An imaginative retelling of the triumphs and sorrows of one of the most controversial and misunderstood women in Mexico’s history and mythology, perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow and Zoraida Córdova’s The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina.
A real-life historical figure, the woman known as Malinalli, Malintzin, La Malinche, Doña Marina, and Malinalxochitl was the Nahua interpreter who helped Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés communicate with the native people of Mexico. When indigenous leaders observed her marching into their cities, they believed she was a goddess—blessed with the divine power to interpret the Spaniards’ intentions for their land. Later, historians and pop culture would deem her a traitor—the “Indian” girl who helped sell Mexico’s future to an invader.
In this riveting, fantastical retelling, Malinalli is all of those things and more, but at heart, she’s a young girl, kidnapped into slavery by age twelve, and fighting to survive the devastation wrought by both the Spanish and Moctezuma’s greed and cruelty. Blessed with magical powers, and supported by a close-knit circle of priestesses, Mali vows to help defend her people’s legacy. In vivid, compelling prose, debut author Veronica Chapa spins an epic tale of magic, sisterhood, survival, and Mexican resilience. This is the first novel to reimagine and reinterpret Malinalli’s story with the empathy, humanity, and awe she’s always deserved.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Two reasons this didn’t work for me: number one, it’s written in the same sort of style as Circe, The Witch and the Tsar, Nikki Marmery’s Lilith, and so on – the trend of ‘feminist’ myth retellings that I really wish would stop already. (I say ‘feminist’ in quote marks because it’s the laziest, most superficial type of GirlBossTM nonsense we were supposed to be done with in the 90s, not anything thoughtful or gods forbid intersectional.)
The second reason this isn’t for me is that it’s… How do I put this? You know how sometimes lit fic authors put magic in their books, but they won’t call it SFF? When you get an author who wants to play with SFF’s shiny toys but doesn’t want to engage with the genre? That’s what Malinalli reminds me of. It’s as if it’s not actually a fantasy novel because if it was, the magic would be more than an aesthetic, than set dressing. We wouldn’t gloss over it, handwave it. Out of nowhere Mali and her twin start being able to send each other visions? Don’t worry about it. Mali goes from barely being able to sew to embroidering masterpieces overnight? Shrug. One day she starts being able to bring her embroideries to life? Eh, whatever. I mean, Mali barely reacts, and the narrative just tells us about these magical happenings, summarises them for us, instead of showing them to us and letting us experience them!
Because the magic doesn’t actually matter. Making it, as best I can tell, not a fantasy novel.
So fans of historical fiction should enjoy this fine; I just wouldn’t give it to any SFF readers. (It was listed under SFF on Netgalley, hence my confusion.) But what that means is that the main reason I didn’t get on with this one is that it’s not for me: I’m not the intended audience, and that’s absolutely fine.
I do think an objective flaw with this is that the pacing is terrible. Chapa speeds through events that lack any impact because the reader gets no time to process them, sit with them; we’re just immediately rushed on to the next thing. I think this would have been a much better book if it had been allowed to be much longer, so the story could slow down. So many gut-punches just didn’t land because I didn’t have time to have feelings about the events, or didn’t know the characters well enough yet to care about what happened to them.
Can’t speak to the accuracy of any of the historical aspects, but it did strike me as strange that Mali is very anti human-sacrifice when it was so normal for her culture. Felt like the author was trying to compromise between the culture and the morals/views of the reader, and the result was a bit wonky.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary drag queen MC
Published on: 14th January 2025
ISBN: 0593816722
Goodreads
A poisoned chocolate. A stolen dress. An elusive catburglar. Drag’s not just dramatic, it’s deadly.
By day, Joe is a hotel accountant, invisibly sitting behind their desk and playing by the rules. By night, donned in sequins, they take to the stage as Misty Divine, a star of the London drag scene.
But when Misty’s drag mother, Lady Lady, is found dead in her dressing room beside a poisoned box of chocolates, Misty and her fellow performers become the prime suspects.
Heartbroken by the loss, and frustrated by the clear biases of the police, Misty must solve the crime before the culprit strikes again. Among the drop-dead gorgeous lurks a cutthroat killer, and Misty Divine won't rest until she finds out who it is.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Dull, flat, uninspired prose that doesn’t come CLOSE to conveying the glamour/presence/vivaciousness of a court of drag queens! The dialogue is awful and there are clumsy infodumps everywhere, and I can’t believe the description is so plain and minimal when the glorious outfits are at LEAST half the appeal.
Great idea, but the execution is seriously lacking. This doesn’t even have the fun, punchy readability of a beach read, and for all that Misty/Joe’s world revolves around drag, I couldn’t feel ANY of that passion, just kept being told it was there, instead of experiencing it.
But what it comes down to is: this author doesn’t have the skill to convey what they’re trying to, and so Murder in the Dressing Room fizzles instead of sizzles. Seriously disappointing!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: 25th February 2025
Goodreads
From an outstanding new voice in cozy fantasy comes Greenteeth, a tale of fae, folklore, and found family, narrated by a charismatic lake-dwelling monster with a voice unlike any other, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher.
Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce.
Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she's worth saving. Temperance doesn't know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor.
Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny's lake and Temperance's family, as well as the very soul of Britain.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
This review covers my problems with this book, and convinces me that it’s not going to get better.
The beginning was great; Jenny is kind of adorable at first, and I really liked her voice (I despise first-person unless your POV character has something unique about their voice or perspective, and the non-human Jenny does, so woo!) But the moment Temperance appeared, things went downhill. The dialogue is awful, very clunky (who gives their life story to a stranger when introducing themselves?) and I found Temperance an incredibly boring character, whose personality is weirdly inconsistent. (One minute she’s running away, then she’s fighting back; she summons fireballs to defend herself then declares she doesn’t know any magic for defending herself: okay!!!)
The Big Bad was incredibly disappointing, and irked me in a few different ways – human pastors killed plenty of people for witchcraft in the real world, so making this one a not-human monster…he’s evil because look, he’s not human! Implying, what, that humans wouldn’t do this? Except plenty did (and do)? Having him be a monster is too simple (completely aside from him being cartoonish levels of over-the-top-no-really-this-is-embarassing evil) and that – things being too simple – was a running problem. Temperance needs incredibly rare, powerful ingredients for a spell, and she and Jenny have them all a couple of pages later – everything’s too convenient, too easy, and the lore is so simple and basic that it’s boring. (Not the stuff about the Greenteeths, which was simple but in a great way; the lore about other fae, the villain, etc.)
I can see this being a fun, light read for someone who wants an easy, straightforward story. But I don’t think it’s very good objectively, and it definitely doesn’t live up to its premise. Jenny deserved better!
Trigger warning for non-graphic discussion of humans drowning kittens in the opening pages.
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Probably-sapphic MC
PoV: First-person, past-tense
ISBN: 1728281563
Goodreads
In a world where the dead can wake and walk among us, what is truly real?
Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the only good thing in Roos’ life, which is filled with sordid backroom séances organized by her mother. That is, until wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop attends one of these séances and asks Roos to come live with her at the crumbling estate she inherited upon the death of her husband. The manor is unsettling, but the attraction between Roos and Agnes is palpable. So how does someone end up dead?
Roos is caught red-handed, but she claims a spirit is the culprit. Doctor Montague, a psychologist tasked with finding out whether Roos can be considered mentally fit to stand trial, suspects she’s created an elaborate fantasy to protect her from what really happened. But Roos knows spirits are real; she's loved one of them. She'll have to prove her innocence and her sanity, or lose everything.
I just lost interest.
The lore behind the existence of ghosts was simple but excellent and original (to me, anyway, no idea if it’s a common idea in horror), the prose is great, and Veen writes potentially-probably-dangerous obsession really well. But this slow, creeping kind of story just wasn’t working for me; nor was the – how do I put this? How small and intimate the story was, zoomed in on just these two characters. Not when I found both characters pretty dull, and when neither of them were really doing anything.
There was no incentive for me to keep reading – the book tries to be all BUT DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW THEY DIED??? and, like. No. No, I’m afraid I don’t care. Because all these characters felt limp, even if objectively, technically, they weren’t. I wasn’t interested in any of them.
I can see readers who enjoy drawn-out horror having fun with this, though? I think? As I said, the prose is great, and I think this is more an issue of a book and reader not vibing with each other, than a book being actually bad.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
PoV: Third-person, past-tense
Published on: 15th April 2025
ISBN: 1668070944
Goodreads
Set in Regency England, The Gentleman and His Vowsmith by Rebecca Ide is a queer historical fantasy of magic, murder, high heat and humour.
Lord Nicholas Monterris, the last remaining heir of a crumbling ducal house, must marry to save his family from complete decline. His father chooses Lady Leaf Serral, eldest daughter of his greatest rival, at which point Nic is sure it can’t get any worse. Until he learns the head negotiator is to be Dashiell sa Vare, an old flame he has neither forgiven nor forgotten, a man their rigid class structure forbids him to love.
Locked in the mouldering grandeur of Monterris Court (a house more haunting manifestation of dynastic ambition and ancestral guilt than home), the first dead body is troubling. The second, a warning that someone doesn’t want the contract to go ahead. But while Nic and his wife-to-be team up to banter their way through a secret murder investigation, it’s Dashiell he can’t stop thinking about. What would be worse? To love and have to let go, or to wholly deny the yearning of one’s heart forever?
Perfect for fans of Freya Marske and Alexis Hall, The Gentleman and His Vowsmith by Rebecca Ide is the perfect blend of gothic and romantic – including a locked room murder mystery, forbidden love and otherworldly automatons.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
This is perfectly pleasant, but pretty bland – not at all engaging for me personally. (Although it’s possible I’m biased against it since learning the author’s other penname, whose writing I can’t stand.) Vowsmith feels like it’s trying for the same tone and style as the Last Binding trilogy, but the characters don’t have any depth – they all fit into very recognisable types/roles we’ve seen thousands of times, without anything to make them unique, or even interesting. They feel very flat, to me, very predictable, and that makes them very dull.
I think plenty of readers will enjoy this, but it’s lacking some magic X factor for me; a pretty 2D image instead of a live 3D one. It’s too…straightforward, I think; the worldbuilding, plot and characters all seem too simple to be interesting, and the prose isn’t anything special, so it can’t compensate for the rest. But those qualities are going to be why some people love it.
Perfectly pleasant! Definitely not objectively bad. Just. Meh. Not to my taste, is all.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown queer character from fictional oppressed minority, brown bisexual character, nonbinary love interest
PoV: First-person, past-tense
Published on: 26th November 2024
ISBN: 1645660915
Goodreads
The Daughters of Izdihar meets The Foxglove King: An ex-soothsayer and stranded scholar of curses upend a Utopian community that has no love for refugees.
Radiant Basket of Rainbow Shells, scholar of curses and magical history, has spent several years on a research expedition abroad in Quruscan, one of the four kingdoms of theTetrarchia. When Tetrarchia and Radiant’s home country of Loasht suddenly revoke their tenuous peace, Quruscan is no longer the safe haven for Radiant that it once was. He needs someone to help him a bodyguard, perhaps, or someone with the sheer cunning to escort him to safety. The perfect candidate is Kalyna a crafty, mysterious mercenary with an uncanny reputation.
But the political situation in Loasht is far more volatile and dangerous than Radiant left it; it soon becomes clear that he may never be able to return home to his family. With a little of Kalyna’s signature guile, she finds Radiant asylum in a utopian community on the border between Loasht and the Tetrarchia, and, for a moment, it seems like they might finally have a safe place to stay. But when the group’s charismatic leader grows wary of the refugees flocking to his community—and suspicious of Kalyna in particular—that sense of safety begins to unravel once more.
Kalyna the Cutthroat deftly imagines how the pressures of heroism can warp even the most unshakeable of survivors, asking what responsibilities human beings have to one another, and whether one good deed—of any magnitude—can absolve you of your past for the sake of a future.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
There’s nothing wrong with this book at all – the writing is excellent, and I think the story is more interesting than the one in the first book. It’s just not the kind of story I’m interested in (and not what I expected from the blurb it had when I requested it on Netgalley). It’s a very timely story – about persecution and alienation and abusive governments and so on – but it’s not what I signed up for.
Potential readers should know that from what I read, this stands alone perfectly, so you don’t need to have read the first book (although you’ll appreciate Kalyna’s character much more, more quickly, if you have). If it sounds interesting to you, go for it! Seems like a good book – this is entirely an issue of incompatible book and reader, not the book having objective flaws.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC, nonbinary secondary character, bisexual MC, F/F, M/M
PoV: Third-person, past-tense; multiple PoVs
ISBN: 0356518728
Goodreads
From one of the most exciting new voices in fantasy comes the satisfying conclusion to Davinia Evans's wickedly entertaining debut trilogy full of monsters, mayhem, dangerous society ladies, and a dragon who holds the fate of the most famous alchemist of all in her claws.
Siyon Velo has given magic back to the Mundane. But with it, monsters of myth have awoken to cause chaos in Bezim and--of course--everyone's blaming him. Hunted high and low, Siyon struggles against the rising tide of mystery, magic and mayhem threatening the city that's turned its back on him.In the Flower District, Lady Sable has unleashed chaos. But in the Avenues, Anahid is desperate to keep her slippery secrets just a little longer, until Zagiri can join the forth and frippery of high society. With scandal stalking the sisters and revolution rumbling anew, the best--and the worst--they can do may not be enough to save their city...
The Alchemist must rise, or Bezim will burn.
The Burnished City
Notorious Sorcerer
Shadow Baron
Rebel Blade
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I’ve been struggling with this one for ages – I found myself reluctant to start it, and when I eventually did, every page felt like a slog. Every time I set it down, I had no interest in picking it up again, even as the specific stakes and plotlines of the book started to make themselves known. While I intellectually appreciate Zagiri’s plotline, I have no emotional investment in it; her entire arc of Changing Bezim For the Better has always felt kind of wishy-washy to me, as though Evans wasn’t confident in her approach to Societal Progress, or maybe was trying to compromise between different approaches so as not to alienate readers? Zagiri’s refusal to use violence, for example, is very believable, but seems incredibly naive – and even though in book two she had the idea of being violent towards industry and factories to get the law she wanted passed, she just…let that drain away to nothing, and is apparently not going to try it again. She doesn’t build up a collection of allies, she doesn’t arrange strikes or protests, she thinks she can do it all on her own. I think this makes sense – she’s super privileged, her whole life has taught her that she should just be able to wave a hand and make it happen – but it’s not fun to read.
Anahid is clearly going to end up a Baron. Siyon – I have no clue where his arc is going, and I don’t care. I just wasn’t getting any kind of urgency from his story – or anyone else’s – and no passion, either. None of it was making me feel anything; and there’s the plodding, slogging sense of everything taking two or three times as long as it needs to. Maybe this series would have been better off as a duology instead? I don’t know.
I’m very sad that a trilogy that started off so strongly has fizzled out like this. But I don’t want to pick Rebel Blade up again, so I’m not going to.
:edited to add: my book bestie, who DID finish, was kind enough to give me a rundown of the rest of the book, and friends…wow, I’m so happy I didn’t waste precious hours of my mortal life reading that! I’m extremely good with DNFing this one. Wow.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC, queer MC, NB/M
PoV: Third-person, past-tense; dual PoVs
ISBN: 0356518620
Goodreads
In this new wide-screen space opera, humanity has met its match. An alien race of enormous robotic AI have destroyed most of humanity's outposts. But, on the eve of the Earth's destruction, a musician made one last desperate attempt to reach out and convince one of humanity's enemies to switch sides. Now, earth just might have a chance to survive...
A ragtag band of misfits is all that stands in the way between an army of giant mechas and humanity's total destruction in the second book of this big-hearted, technicolor space opera trilogy by one of the most exciting voices in science fiction, Alex White.
Ultra-glam enby pop star Ardent Violet thought they could catch a break and enjoy some time with their new boyfriend August Kitko after defeating the giant mechas hellbent on humanity's destruction. However, Ardent didn't count on their mecha allies summoning a host of extraterrestrials to defend Earth.
Between the diplomatic entanglements of the newly-arrived alien Coalition, and a mysterious all-powerful AI establishing a base within their solar system, there's no rest for the wicked.
When August makes a discovery that could turn the tide of the war, Ardent Violet finds they are back in the spotlight for an encore!
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Nope.
I didn’t love the first book, so it’s entirely on me for picking up the sequel – I clearly shouldn’t have. This takes itself too seriously for the premise – musicians merging with sentient mechas through music! – and we’re smacked in the face with Very Grim stuff right away here, and…no. No thank you.
This really shouldn’t be taken as a measure of the book’s quality: like I said, it’s on me. (Which is why I’m not giving this one a rating.) If you adored book one, I see no reason you won’t enjoy this one too. No judgement: this series just isn’t for me, clearly! But I look forward to what White writes next; I loved his Salvagers trilogy, and I’m not giving up on him! Just, gently bowing out of this specific series.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy
Representation: Brown MCs, minor nonbinary character
PoV: Third-person, past-tense; multiple PoVs
Goodreads
Amid the chaos of a dying city ruled by colonizers, three rivals—a thief, a slumlord, and an heiress—race to find a hidden cache of magic that will decide the city’s fate.
In the occupied city of Tejomaya, calor—a magical fossil fuel—is found only in the blood rains that fall from the sky. While a six-month drought has brought Tejomaya to a desperate standstill, rumors of a secret stash of magic propel three unlikely treasure seekers to risk everything.
Tenacious and street-smart Zain Jatav has been forced to steal calor for her slumlord bosses for years. Finding the magic reserve might be her only key to freedom. But she’ll have to contend with Iravan Khotar, a slumlord himself and an ambitious revolutionary hoping to use the same magic to save his people from the mysterious illness devastating the slums—and to bolster a fight against their oppressors. Meanwhile, heiress Anastasia Drakos leads the ruling council of Tejomaya from the safety of a nearby island. With the hidden magic, she could finally take full control of the city and crush the slums beneath her unyielding fist.
As Zain, Iravan, and Anastasia draw closer to finding the treasure, their paths tangle, and not for the first time—they met before, a decade ago, in a fire that destroyed each of their lives in different ways. Their reunion might bring the already-weakened city to its knees.
Exploring the devastating mechanisms of power, this searing climate fantasy breathes life into a crumbling world hovering on the brink of total destruction.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
This is so close to being seriously excellent: the premise is epic, the worldbuilding is great, and the prose is, mostly, pretty readable.
Another pass from a good editor, and I think this could have been stellar.
What stops it being perfect is the writing, which is, mostly, pretty readable – but it’s also often overwrought. The wording is often ‘fancified’, with rarer synonyms replacing common verbs just often enough to be jarring and grating; ‘strode’ does mean ‘walked’, but there’s a good, albeit difficult to articulate, reason we don’t say ‘she strode over there’. There’s unfortunately a lot of this in this book, along with occasional instances of awkward or odd sentence structure.
The characters are also underdeveloped. All of them are defined by one or two traits and have no personality beyond that; they’re extremely two-dimensional. Two of them, the 23yo and the middle aged man, behave as if they’re much younger, and Anastasia is cartoonish in her overt villainy.
This is all super fixable; it would not have taken much effort to polish away. Which makes it extra grating, to be honest. This isn’t the first time I’ve been frustrated with a book from Bindery Books – I’ve DNFed every book of theirs that I’ve tried – and it’s not convincing me that their ‘unique’ publishing process works. Or at least, I wish they’d get some better editors on board – Sky Bled has real potential, Bindery was right about that. But it reads like an early draft, not a fully-developed novel ready to be published. Alas.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Brown gay MC, brown MLM love interest
PoV: First-person, present-tense; third-person, past-tense
ISBN: 1803364319
Goodreads
A sweeping, psychedelic romance of two men caught in a looping world of artificial realities, edited memories, secretive cabals and conspiracies to push humanity to the next step in its evolution.
For fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Ubik, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Evangelion.
Fox is a memory editor – one of the best – gifted with the skill to create real life in the digital world. When he wakes up in Field of Reeds Center for Memory Reconstruction with no idea how he got there, the therapists tell him he was a victim in a terrorist bombing by Khadija Banks, the pioneer of memory editing technology turned revolutionary. A bombing which shredded the memory archives of all its victims, including his husband Gabe.
Thrust into reconstructions of his memories exploded from the fragments that survived the blast, Fox tries to rebuild his life, his marriage and himself. But he quickly realises his world is changing, unreliable, and echoing around itself over and over.
As he unearths endless cycles of meeting Gabe, falling in love and breaking up, Fox digs deep into his past, his time in the refugee nation of Aaru, and the exact nature of his relationship with Khadija. Because, in a world tearing itself apart to forget all its sadness, saving the man he loves might be the key to saving us all.
I adored Tavares’ debut, Fractured Infinity, but this is very different, and not in a way that worked for me. Partly, I think, because I have already decided how I feel about some of the big issues Welcome to Forever is looking at: the most immediate one being, it’s not immortality if the ‘you’ is a copy of the original. Or another: no, you’re not you without your memories. Welcome might have more impact for readers who aren’t sure what they think about those topics, rather than readers who already have Solid Opinions on them.
Another problem is that I didn’t find Fox at all interesting. From reading some other reviews, it sounds like he grew on some readers eventually, but by the 35% mark (where I called it quits) he hadn’t grown on me, and I thought he wasn’t likely to; he’s both insecure AND arrogant, cynical AND naive, impulsive AND an over-thinker. The combinations are impressive, but don’t make for an interesting character – and I couldn’t give less of a fuck about Gabe, or Fox’s relationship with him. It was clear I was meant to be invested in their love story, was meant to be rooting for them – but from the first third of the novel, Gabe seems like a major asshole! And past!Fox was not a pleasant person either when he was with Gabe, so like??? No, I don’t ship it, why would I? And that’s a genuine issue when reuniting with Gabe is your MC’s primary motivation!
This might appeal to readers who love puzzle box style conspiracies? Fox is stuck inside a Russian resting doll set of conspiracies, simulations of reality, and…personality? History? Most of what appears to be true is very much NOT true, and the rest isn’t what it looks like. I feel like I’ve been wowed by that kind of thing before, but it’s falling flat for me here – possibly I’m not really into digital reality sci fi? Digital copies of people, digital memories… I find it pretty boring, actually. Wouldn’t be in real life, but it’s not something I have a huge interest in in fiction.
If you do, you’ll probably have a better time with this than I did?
Hopefully January – and 2025 as a whole! – will offer up fewer DNFs!
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