CBR18 Book 45: "Witch Season" by Julia Bianco

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR18 Bingo: Refuge (The Aestas coven works hard to be a safe haven and refuge for young witches who have snapped and would normally be ostracised by other witches) 

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. This book is on sale now. 

There are two types of witches (in this world, all magic users are called witches, regardless of gender). The ones who are born from families with established magic, who grew up as part of a coven, and who are therefore guided and helped through the process of manifesting their magic, and then there are "unsettled" witches, who manifest their magic in their late adolescence or early teens in an explosive "snap", usually in a stressful situation or when they lose their temper about something. These snaps can cause immense injury and even death, and tend to be very traumatic for the young witch in question. 

Katherine Barnes, who is now the enforcer for the Aestas coven in Los Angeles, was one such witch, and when she snapped as a teenager, she collapsed an entire wing of her high school, leading to three deaths and countless injuries. Katherine ran from her home, abandoning her family, and ended up helpless and desperate in Los Angeles, where Sylvia, the leader of Aestas, found her and helped her through the very turbulent first years until Katherine's magic settled. Now she has a new name, a magically altered appearance and lives in constant fear and guilt about her past catching up to her. 

Katherine is trying to figure out who is manufacturing and selling magical drugs to regular humans. She's also trying to help a newly unsettled teenage girl named Lily come to terms with her recent snap. On top of everything, Aestas is expecting its annual "audit" from Noctis, the most powerful coven of the United States. Sylvia, Katherine's boss and mentor, is on edge and stressed. She's noticed her own powers fading and is having trouble keeping up with her responsibilities as coven leader. She fears that Silas Khatri, heir to the Noctis coven, is there to replace her (she's not entirely wrong - his parents have sent him to find faults with Sylvia's leadership so he can replace her, but he really doesn't want to take over the coven) and becomes desperate to find a solution that will allow her to retain control.

It's been quite a while since I read any new paranormal/urban fantasy, but this was a very promising start to what seems to be a new series. Katherine, our protagonist, lost her biological family when she snapped and has managed to find a new family among the Aestas coven. She takes her job enforcing the coven's rules very seriously, but her loyalty and sense of gratitude towards Sylvia also make her willing to overlook a lot of very questionable behaviour, which she would clearly not have tolerated from anyone else. 

On the surface of things, Silas Khatri might seem like the antagonist. He's rich, handsome, comes from what basically amounts to witch royalty, and there is clearly bad blood between his parents and Sylvia because of things that went down when Sylvia first discovered her own magic powers (she never snapped, despite coming from a non-magical family). However, Silas has no wish to be the heir to the Noctis coven; he just wants to live a quiet life and teach magically adept teenagers. He has no desire to snoop into the daily workings of the Aestas coven and replace Sylvia as leader. He is immediately attracted to Katherine, but also understands why she is so distrustful of him. She doesn't realise that he is a much harsher critic of himself than she can ever be. 

After there is a massive explosion in a shopping centre in Los Angeles, Katherine and Silas have to work together to figure out whether it was caused by rogue magic or something else. This proves to be a dangerous job, since someone is trying to murder Silas, and Katherine is caught in the crossfire. 

This first book establishes some of the world-building of the series, and the plot developments leave both of our central characters, Katherine and Silas, in new and difficult positions by the end of the book. I'm excited to see how Ms. Bianco further develops the series. 

CBR18 Book 41: "The Antiquarian's Object of Desire" by India Holton

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Amelia Tarrant and Caleb Stirling are both history professors at Oxford with a speciality in magical antiques. They have been best friends since childhood, but any hint of affection between them could be ruinous to Amelia's reputation and the careers of both. As a result, they have to appear to be enemies and stage elaborate public fights every so often to make sure all their colleagues believe them to be bitter rivals.

One such fight, involving a volatile magical teaspoon, causes a big enough explosion that their careers may still be on shaky grounds. The head of the history faculty sends them to a manor house in Cumbria to assist a local nobleman in cataloguing his extensive collection of magical artefacts. 

If maintaining their ruse of being enemies is tiresome and occasionally tricky in Oxford, having to do it while secluded in a haunted country manor proves even more frustrating to them. Amelia and Caleb both feel, unbeknownst to the other, rather more than friendly towards the other, but wouldn't dare to presume that the other returns such lustful feelings. 

All the books in India Holton's Love's Academic have been delightful, cosy reads, but this one is probably my favourite. Caleb is another very Howl from Howl's Moving Castle-coded hero (although he is more like the Howl of the original book than the Miyazaki version). He's vain and a bit self-centred, but clearly just worships the ground Amelia walks on. She doesn't seem to realise that all his life choices have been determined by what keeps him close to her. She's the one who actually cares about a career in history; he's just muddling through because it makes it easier for him to spend as much time with her as possible. 

Amelia is a capable woman in a male-dominated field, and she constantly has to deal with her overbearing and sexist colleagues and superiors. Caleb really is her only friend, and it annoys her to have to pretend to loathe him just so she won't be dismissed as an emotional and love-struck female, who must marry and go tend house. Over the course of the book, Amelia and Caleb realise that their long friendship has mutually developed into something deeper, but they are unable to act on their feelings since it's impossible for them to get some time alone.

Throughout the book, there is a subplot about a magical teaspoon that reacts to strong emotions and tends to cause sudden explosions if tensions are too high. Amelia comes to the conclusion that she mustn't just reevaluate her feelings for and potential future with Caleb, but come to a decision about whether or not she can keep being underestimated and mansplained to by most of her very sexist colleagues, or whether she should quit the history department and do something else. 

The "cosy" label is found all over the speculative fiction genres nowadays, and a lot of the time, it's not entirely earned, or the author tries too hard with quirky characters and tiresome hijinks. However, Holton really does write lovely, low-stakes cosy romances, and as this was one of my more anticipated releases of the first part of 2026, I am happy that it was worth the wait. 

Judging a book by its cover: All the books in this trilogy have had lovely covers, but this is by far my favourite. The midnight blue and the golden yellow, with the lovely, ethereal night sky in the background, with the stars seemingly dancing - it's just so pretty.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 33: "A Marvellous Light" by Freya Marske

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Monthly Keyword 26: Light

Nowhere Book Bingo 26: LGBTQIA+ rep

Buzzwords Challenge 26: Parts of a house

Buzzwords Cover Challenge 26: Featuring a silhouette

Sir Robert "Robin" Blyth ends up in a civil service position he is vastly unprepared for, as it turns out, he is supposed to be a liaison between the secret magical world and the more mundane regular world. Usually, the post is held by an individual from a magical family just unlucky enough not to have any magic of their own (seems like there are quite a few such "duds" in the magic-wielding families of society). Robin, on the other hand, is both shocked and rather intrigued when his co-liasion, Edwin Courcey, has to reveal the existence of magic to him. 

Edwin Courcey is both annoyed and worried at the disappearance of Robin's predecessor, especially when it becomes clear very quickly that something sinister is probably to blame. When Robin is attacked and a curse is placed upon him, a side-effect also appears to be that he can now receive visions of the future. Unfortunately, they are vague and usually seem to involve strangers. The curse is visible as a strange tattoo on one of Robin's arms, and with each new excruciatingly painful attack, the tattoo climbs higher up his arm, and the pain increases. Edwin can't leave an innocent man who didn't even know magic existed, least of all, where some magical artefact that the villains are searching for is located, suffer and potentially die. Unfortunately, most of the reference books he requires are at his family home, and Edwin doesn't exactly love returning to the bosom of his family.

Edwin may have magical powers, but he is seen as a huge disappointment in the Courcey family. He reluctantly goes back home, bringing Robin with him, to try to find a way to lift the curse. Edwin's plan is basically to get rid of Robin's pesky curse and then magically make him forget he ever even heard of magic (which seems to be the standard way magicians deal with regular humans). There is also the mystery of where Robin's predecessor disappeared to, the identity of the shadowy individuals who cursed Robin, and exactly what the artefact they are looking for is. 

This has been on my TBR list for a long time. I was initially waiting for the trilogy, of which this is the first part, to be completed, but by the time that happened, I sort of forgot about the whole series. This year, it fit into several of my reading challenges, however. As so many online friends whose opinions in books I trust have rated it highly on Goodreads, it felt like it was time to pull it off my shelf (I keep all of my unread dead tree books in a bookshelf in my bedroom, in the hopes that it might make me read them faster. Once I finish one, it gets moved up to the living room, where the majority of our fiction books are located.) Since I read this in mid-April and have since completed 22 other books, some of the finer details of the plot are now rather hazy to me. The book starts a bit slow, but once Robin is attacked and cursed, and Edwin realises that he has no choice but to help this handsome golden retriever of a man, I was pretty hooked. 

The book is set in Edwardian times, in an alternate history England where magic obviously exists. Robin and Edwin are pretty much opposites, with Robin being, as I previously mentioned, much like a golden retriever, while Edwin is a skittish black cat. Because Edwin has always been made to feel like a failure in his own family and generally lacking among his magical peers, he's got quite a big chip on his shoulder, and Robin's charming himbo ways are both attractive and frustrating to him. 

This is a slow-burn romance, but once the men actually admit their feelings for one another (and Edwin gets over a lot of his trust issues), the relationship between them is so beautiful. I also very much liked several of the supporting female characters, including Robin's younger sister (who I think is one of the protagonists of the second novel) and Robin's extremely overqualified and underestimated secretary in the civil service. They were both great.

There's clearly an overarching plot to the series, and some sort of mysterious cult of bad guys who will need to be stopped. However, this book also has a self-contained ending, and I didn't feel the need to rearrange my entire TBR list to read the two sequels right away (I will try to get to them before the end of the year, though). 

Judging a book by its cover:

I think the cover of this book is my least favourite thing about it. I have never liked the colour orange, and the orange silhouettes, accompanied by the most hideously busy wallpaper pattern covering the rest of the book, it gives me a headache if I look too closely at it. I would never ever have picked up this book if I hadn't been assured by several people that I trust that it was excellent. I find this cover very ugly. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 20: "Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter" by Heather Fawcett

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 26: A book involving animals

Monthly Keyword Challenge 26: Cat

Official plot summary, because I finished this back in February, and my perimenopausal brain isn't exactly helping here:

Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organized life, and she likes it that way. As the proudly type-A manager of a cat rescue charity, she has devoted her life to finding forever homes for stray cats.

Now it’s the shelter that needs a new home. And the only landlord who will rent a space to a cat rescue is a mysterious man called Havelock—who also happens to be the world’s most infamous magician, running an illegal magic shop out of his basement. Havelock is cantankerous and eccentric, but not not handsome, and no, Agnes absolutely does not feel anything but disdain for him. After all, rumors swirl about his shadowy past—including whispers that his dark magic once almost brought about the apocalypse.

Then one day a glamorous magician comes looking for Havelock, putting the magic shop—and the cat shelter—in jeopardy. To save the shelter, Agnes will have to team up with the magician who nearly ended the world . . . and may now be trying to steal her heart.

Havelock is everything Agnes thinks she doesn’t need in her chaos, mischief, and a little too much adventure. But as she gets to know him, she discovers that he’s more than the dark magician of legend, and that she may be ready for a little intrigue—and romance—in her life. After all, second chances aren’t just for rescue cats. . . .

This book takes some of the central elements of the Miyazaki adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle (the opinionated young woman determined to tidy up everything and everyone, especially the utter chaos that is the handsome, eccentric and possibly a bit socially awkward magician she shares a living space with) and adds cats! What's not to like? 

I would say that the official plot summary may mislead readers into thinking that romance is going to play more of a role in proceedings than it actually does. There is absolutely an attraction between Agnes and Havelock, but it is so slow-burning that it never really has time to become much of a blaze before the book is over. If Fawcett intends to write a sequel (which I sort of hope she doesn't, because the book works on its own, and standalones are so rare these days), I suspect the romance will be much more central. 

In my book club, we have a running joke that far too many books have exciting covers (and occasionally plot summaries) that promise the presence of cats, only for us to discover that it is all lies. Sometimes, the cover has a cat, and there isn't a single cat to be found anywhere in the story (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, to name one). Sometimes, the book summary promises us cats, and they literally only feature in two scenes in the entire book (Chilling Effect, I'm looking at you). This book, on the other hand, has so many cats. Tiny cats, shy cats, cuddly cats, eerie cats and absolutely dastardly tyrant cats. Several of them play important roles in the story, more so than some of the supporting human characters, frankly.

Agnes is wonderful. I would love to be her friend, especially because I suspect she'd come to my house and, after being gently disappointed in the absolute chaos that surrounds me and my family at any given time, she would roll up her sleeves and tidy and organise this place with military precision. I would bake her things to show my gratitude. 

Havelock (I am dying to find out if this is a clever Pratchett reference) is so incredibly Howl-coded. He is handsome, scatter-brained, antisocial, and lives for his magical experiments. He's basically a mad scientist, but with magic, who seems to have learned how to people from reading books (so not always that successfully). Both his living space and his personality are complete messes, and this is obviously irresistible to Agnes. She cannot rest until she has tidied and organised his multiple sub-levels of hoarded magical artefacts. 

There are some great supporting characters in this, as well. Both Agnes' and Havelock's sisters come to mind, and there is Yannick, Havelock's harried apprentice, and Mina, the hard-working volunteer helping Agnes get the cats relocated to good homes. This was one of my most anticipated books to come out this winter, and it didn't disappoint for a second. It is cosy and entertaining, and I highly recommend it. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover is an utter delight. Look at all the different kitties, lounging and prowling and playing and generally being adorable and whimsical. I love that the artist has included so many of the cat characters from the book, very recognisably, on the cover. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR 18 Book 8: "Beast Business" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 205 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Augustine Montgomery is the head of a very successful investigative agency and a deeply private man. He is an illusion Prime, who can alter his appearance at will, and there are very few people alive who know what he actually looks like. Augustine presents himself to the world as calculated, efficient, ruthless and detached. He is never swayed by emotion and has very few friends as a result. 

Diana Harrison is the Head of House Harrison and a very powerful animal mage. Like Augustine, she is seen as cold, detached and seems to care more for animals than people. Her brothers and niece are the only exceptions. She comes to Augustine because she needs help with an urgent personal matter, and she can't hire anyone from the Baylor Agency, since then her niece Matilda might discover what House Harrison has lost. 

Diana and Augustine are both deeply private and secretive, but when working together, it will be impossible for them to keep their abilities hidden. Nevertheless, a helpless baby animal has been stolen and needs to be reunited with its mother soon, or the unique tiger cub might die, and its loss would hurt both its supernatural mother and Diana, who is bonded to the mother tiger. 

Even when busy writing the second book in their new traditionally published fantasy series, Ilona Andrews (the husband and wife writing team) are generous to their devoted fans and wrote this bonus novella, set in their Hidden Legacy paranormal fantasy universe. Augustine and Diana have both appeared as supporting characters in the previous books, with some speculating that there was a romantic connection between the two. This novella confirms that the speculation was right, but it also ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, which I know left some readers frustrated and feeling cheated that they didn't get more of Augustine and Diana as an actual couple. (Yes, Des, I'm talking about you, among others). 

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me comes out at the end of March, and for those of us not lucky enough to have been granted an ARC, it's very good to have something to distract us from the long wait. As I have said many times before, I would pay for anything Ilona Andrews publishes (frequently in more than one format) and more from the Hidden Legacy universe, especially since this also contains a bonus short story about Arabella Baylor making a new friend, which was very entertaining. 

Judging a book by its cover: Once again, proof that Ilona Andrews only gets good covers when they commission the art themselves. While I think Diana is looking a bit too much like a helpless damsel here, rather than a deadly force to be reckoned with, I really like the cover, and who doesn't love a blue baby tiger?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read 

CBR16 Book 52: "Sanctuary" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 152 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Nowhere Bingo: Takes place during a holiday/holiday season (this is set around Christmas/a bunch of pagan midwinter rites)

362 days of the year, Roman, Black Volhv of Atlanta, dutifully serves Chernobog, the god of Destruction, Darkness, and Death. He just wants a few days of peace, to enjoy his stew, eggnog, and cookies, but it is not to be. One of the infernal paranormal critters that loves him has cleaned out both his eggnog and cookie stash and to make matters worse, there's an injured teenager on his property, begging him for sanctuary. The youth, protectively clutching a puppy, promises his sister will come for him soon, and though he really doesn't want any trouble, Roman isn't about to let the defenseless young man and his pup be harmed. 

It doesn't take long before Roman has to deal with elite mercenaries, combat mages, and mysterious priests, all very determined to stop at nothing to get their hands on the kid. Roman rolls out his unwelcome mat and shows his visitors that while it may be the holidays, he's not some helpless recluse in the woods. The Black Volhv possesses a lot of power, and he's going to need it to keep the trespassers from his door.

Roman, dark priest of Chernobog was first introduced to fans of Ilona Andrews in Magic Slays, but only appeared briefly. He was a much more prominent character in Gunmetal Magic,  a spin-off book from the Kate Daniels series. Popular from the start, he ended up appearing in a number of the later books in the series, along with his large and opinionated family. While appearing rather gloomy at times, Roman often acted as a comic relief character and seemed to never take anything too seriously. Here, the authors (Ilona Andrews is the pen name of a husband and wife duo) show us that Roman is in fact a very serious and depressed individual, whose life is not especially easy, since Chernobog is a demanding god to serve, and despite his mother's nagging, maintaining any sort of romantic relationship when you're often taken away to the pagan underworld to serve a dark deity is unlikely to work out long-term. 

One of the things I really like about Ilona Andrews' books in the Kate Daniels universe is just how much folklore and mythology they explore and occasionally reinterpret. When it comes to Roman and his sprawling magical family, Slavic mythology is the main one that is explored. As with many religions and mythologies, light and dark isn't necessarily synonymous with good and evil. Balance is the name of the game, and you cannot have one without the other. In the Slavic pantheon, Belobog is the god of Light and Creation, and his twin brother Chernobog is the god of Destruction, Darkness, and Death. Chernobog is married to Morena, the goddess of Winter and Death. Neither of these deities is evil, as everything that lives needs to eventually die and decay, or there will be chaos. In Slavic paganism, the world is separated into three (a lot like in Norse mythology). There is Prav, where the light gods (like Belobog) reside, Yav (the world of humans) and Nav (the world of the dark gods, where Chernobog and Morena reside - and keep the Chaos which is outside Nav from invading and destroying all of creation). 

In his previous appearances, it has become clear that while he's not exactly thrilled about his vocation, Roman serves his dark god because he takes his duties seriously. In this novella, we find out more about how exactly he came to be the Dark Volvh and some of what that actually entails. Humour helps him cope with his calling. Roman is not evil, nor is his god, and he's not about to let an innocent young man be taken against his will by bloodthirsty mercenaries. However, he's been a soldier, and he is willing to take lives if that is the only way to keep his property and those he protects safe. As with a lot of other Ilona Andrews stories, there is adventure, humour, action and some impressive violence in this story.

This novella started in weekly instalments on Ilona Andrews' blog. Once they decided to publish it, they took down the story and it has gone through edits, and the finished story includes an epilogue, where it becomes clear why this is part 1 of The Roman Chronicles (note the plural). It looks like the authors, gracious as they are, are considering expanding the Kate Daniels universe with more stories about one of our favourite supporting characters. Roman's adventures clearly aren't over, and there are new characters (including a likely love interest) introduced over the course of this story. There are quite a lot of other stories that the authors have stated they need to write before we are likely to get more Roman, but since I love everything they have published so far, it's not like the wait is too onerous. 

Judging a book by its cover: Here is yet another example that Ilona Andrews only ever has good cover art when they self-publish. This cover is simple, yet really cool and very atmospheric. Absolutely perfect for the story it illustrates. Why do traditional publishers keep getting it so wrong?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR Book 20: "The Prisoner's Throne" by Holly Black

Page count: 496 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR16 Sweet Books: Excited (this is one of my most anticipated releases in the first half of the year)

This book really doesn't stand alone. It is the second half of a duology that started with The Stolen Heir, which came out last year. If you haven't read that one, it's probably best to skip this review and return once you've caught up. 

Prince Oak, heir to the throne of Elfhame, finds himself a prisoner in the dungeons of Queen Suren (or Wren, as he prefers to call her), and knows that if he doesn't get himself out quickly, his temperamental sister Jude and her husband Cardan, the High Queen and King of Elfhame will react very badly indeed, and probably obliterate anyone standing in the way of their army on the way to retrieve Oak. 

There's also the pesky complication that Oak truly loves Suren/Wren and understands entirely why she feels betrayed by him, and like she can't trust him. Nevertheless, he wants to prove himself to her, and make sure she's not being taken advantage of by the wicked hag who has appointed herself Suren's chief advisor and clearly has some sort of very devious revenge plot against the royal family of Elfhame brewing. 

Can Oak escape Suren/Wren's dungeons, prevent a war, convince his beloved that he truly would like to spend the rest of his days with her (but he'd rather not have to be king of anything, please, how are they going to square that with her now being Queen of her own realm?) and prevent wicked forces from using Suren/Wren for their own ends, possibly destroying her in the process?

I love Holly Black. She has yet to write a book that I didn't at least enjoy. Are Suren/Wren and Oak's courtship and journey towards their eventual happy ending as twisted and at times exhausting as Jude and Cardan's in The Folk of the Air trilogy. Thankfully no, those two psychos are their own special brand of crazy (and I love them so), but that doesn't mean that their relationship doesn't face formidable challenges. 

The storytelling in this book was a bit messy, it's a rather convoluted plot, and I'm not sure it was a great idea to have this be single POV. I get that it's all about secrets and deceptions, and plot twists throughout, but I think both this and The Stolen Heir might have been better with dual POVs, this one in particular. 

Black's world-building is excellent and it's always a joy to see how her fertile imagination depicts the intricacies of the various Faerie kingdoms. Suren/Wren's wintery northern kingdom is a very different place to where Oak has grown up, and as someone from a Nordic country, it's fun to see references to more of the Norse fae. 

While we got a small cameo from Madoc in the previous book, but only mentions of Jude and Cardan, so it was great to get more of Oak's family this time around, to see Jude, Cardan, Taryn and even Oriana and Madoc in a different setting and situation than in the previous books. They deeply care for one another, but have such trouble expressing those feelings. There's rich potention for some really juicy group therapy sessions in the Greenbriar line, and among Madoc's three daughters. 

This book seems to end on a fairly closed note, but if Black wants to revisit her characters further, a novella from Jude and Cardan's possibly expedition to the Undersea realm could be a lot of fun. 

Judging a book by its cover: Like the cover for the previous book in the duology, this cover is dominated by white. There's a lot of icicles, considering Wren's wintery home, and the ring plays a prominent role in the story. I'm generally not as big a fan of these as the ones for the Folk of the Air trilogy about Cardan and Jude. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 80: "Her Majesty's Royal Coven" by Juno Dawson

Page count: 452 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

From the official plot description:

At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls--Helena, Leonie, Niamh, and Elle--took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is now the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. With conflicting beliefs over the best course of action, the four friends must decide where their loyalties lie: with preserving tradition, or doing what is right.

I really wanted to like this book, but due to some of the characterisation and plotting, and certainly the way the book ended, I merely think it's OK. The book tells the story from the POVs of all the main witches. Niamh is a country vet, Elle is a housewife trying to get used to the idea that her eldest daughter is manifesting powers. Helena runs HMRC and has to deal with politics and power struggles, while Leonie is trying to run her smaller, intersectional coven, whilst panicking slightly because her girlfriend seems to want to start a family. 

Both Niamh and Helena lost their romantic partners during the magical civil war and are still mourning them in their ways. Niamh's twin sister has been in a coma since the war and is kept under constant supervision. Elle mostly wants to forget about her magical nature. Now there is a terrifying prophecy looming, and a young troubled teen seems to be at the centre of it. Helena and her coven are convinced this person may bring forth the apocalypse, Niamh, who no longer wants to work with the coven, thinks they just need some stability and understanding, having clearly suffered a lot in their young life. As the plot develops, their diametrical views on young Theo will create a lot of conflict between them. 

Intersectional feminism is clearly important. TERFs are horrible. Juno Dawson is obviously allowed to feel and write whatever she wants regarding these things, but I didn't particularly enjoy some of the twists and turns this story took as a result of her needing to work through some things. I've heard that the second book is better, though, so I will give her one more chance. 

Judging a book by its cover: I don't think I'm particularly fond of this cover, or the alternative cover which is black, white, and red, with a turquoise font. The neon pink is certainly eye-catching, but I certainly didn't get this book because of the cover. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 64: "Gods of Jade and Shadows" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Caseopea Tun is basically treated as a servant by her grandfather, cousin, and extended family because her mother ran away and made an ill-advised marriage. Caseopea suffers the indignities mainly because her tyrannical grandfather has promised to leave her some money once he dies. However, during another turbulent row with her spoiled cousin Martín, he reveals that their grandfather has no intention of leaving anything to Caseopea. She feels furious and rebellious, which leads to her opening the forbidden chest at the bottom of her grandfather's bed, hoping to possibly find some treasures she can steal. 

Instead, Caseopea finds a lot of old bones and having pricked her finger on one of them, they reassemble into a man, the embodiment of the Mayan death god Hun-Kamé. Apparently, Caseopea's grandfather aided the god's brother, Vucub-Kamé in imprisoning him, and he now needs to go on a quest to reclaim certain stolen body parts to regain his full power and battle his brother for dominance of the Mayan underworld. Caseopea has no choice but to accompany him, as a tiny bone shard is lodged inside her and she and Hun-Kamé are linked, and the god is siphoning life force from her. If they don't succeed within a reasonable time frame, Hun-Kamé will become fully human, and Caseopea will die.

This is set during the Jazz Age in Mexico, but apart from the occasional mentions of short skirts and flapper haircuts, it doesn't really come into the action all that much. Caseopea eventually gets a short haircut, but it's to clean up the remains of her hacked-off hair after Hun-Kamé required her hair to burn in a magic ritual to summon ghosts. Because of the historical setting, our protagonists travel by ship and train, rather than airplane, and obviously, this means they get to spend more time together in small quarters. 

Caseopea is an engaging heroine. She is clever and resourceful, and dreams of a life in the city away from her controlling relatives. Nonetheless, she's also pragmatic and while upset about the dangers her quest with Hun-Kamé exposes her to, possibly even ending in her own death, she accepts it as a consequence of her rather impulsive rebellion. Luxury and beautiful clothing are things that Caseopea has only been able to dream about. Hun-Kamé is a god and travels in style, and Caseopea, who has been a poor relation her whole life, enjoys the change in circumstances, knowing it might not last very long.

Hun-Kamé starts out as very imperious and distant, with little care for his companion, but as their quest progresses and he remains connected to Caseopea, he takes on more and more human aspects and even gains the ability to dream, something he claims no gods can do. His brother is convinced that this added humanity is the thing that will ensure his downfall, but in the end, he comes to love Caseopea and be loved in return, and that is one of the elements that eventually defeats Vucub-Kamé. 

The book has multiple POVs, and I understand why the author chose to tell the story like this, but also admit that I felt my interest waning every time the perspective changed to that of Martín, who is tasked by Vucub-Kamé to track down his cousin and try to persuade her to abandon Hun-Kamé, or the chapters where we follow Vucub-Kamé (although it gave some interesting insight into Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. 

This is the first novel I've read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and while I didn't love it, I found it an entertaining read, where I learned more about mythology from another culture. I have many more of Moreno-Garcia's books on my TBR shelf and look forward to reading more of her stories in the future.

Judging a book by its cover: I think this is a lovely cover, and Ms. Moreno-Garcia always seems to luck out with her cover designers, because I'm hard-pressed to remember seeing a single bad cover for one of her books. This cover is absolutely one of the things that drew me to the book in the first place. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 60: "Half a Soul" by Olivia Atwater

Page count: 260 pages

Rating: 4 stars

This book is marketed as Howl's Moving Castle meets Bridgerton. I suspect anything by a slightly less known author writing in the Regency era is now sold as X meets Bridgerton. Before the Netflix success of Julia Quinn's novels, I'm guessing it would be X meets Jane Austen. Obviously, just because it's set in the Regency era, it isn't necessarily anything at all like Bridgerton, and that's absolutely fine, and might, in fact, make more people interested in it. I do see the Howl's Moving Castle comparisons. This does have an absent-minded master wizard with poor social skills (because he really doesn't care what anyone thinks of him) and a pragmatic, young woman who seems entirely unfazed by his rudeness. Mostly, what this reminded me of was Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell but with a central romance plot and a happy ending. But I guess not comparing a book to a thousand-page tome emulating hefty Victorian literature, complete with tons of footnotes to an audience who often wants light-hearted escapism might not be the best sales pitch. 

I have had this book on my TBR list for years but was to move it to the top of my reading list by my friend Desdemona, who can be very insistent when she decides to be. She also made me see that it fits into at least three of my current reading challenges and provided me with free therapy via Messenger conversation, so it felt like the least I could do was read this. For some reason, I'd convinced myself that this was a fairy tale retelling of some sort. It is not. The series name Regency Faerie Tales comes from the fact that these books are set in the Regency era, and feature faeries rather prominently. 

Miss Theodora "Dora" Ettings had half her soul stolen from her by a sinister faerie gentleman wearing an abundance of fancy coats when she was a child. She was saved from having her entire soul stolen because her cousin Vanessa stabs the faerie in his leg with sewing scissors. Hence the adult Dora keeps the scissors under her pillow at night and carries them around in a leather sheath during her waking hours. The loss of half her soul has made Dora rather distanced from strong emotion (she describes it as only having the feelings with the long tail), so she doesn't seem to feel fear, embarrassment, or anger, but neither passionate joy nor love. Vanessa is the person closest to her, and she describes the feeling of being near her as being warmed by a lantern. Because of Dora's peculiarities, and the fact that her parents are both dead, no one really expects Dora to make a good match, and she'll probably end up living with Vanessa as a spinster aunt to her children once Vanessa finds a husband.

Vanessa insists that the only way she will find a suitable husband is if they go to London, and her mother (Dora's aunt) reluctantly agrees, deeply disgruntled about the fact that they have to drag Dora along. Vanessa is determined to get herself and Dora to London to meet the famous court sourcerer, Lord Elias Wilder, popularly known as the Lord Sorcier. While he apparently has atrocious social skills and seems to disdain the entire ton, he was instrumental in helping the British fight the French and has been given his title by the Prince Regent himself. If Britain's foremost magician can't help Dora restore her missing half a soul, then surely no one can.

Left mostly to her own devices in London, while her cousin is swept away to dress fittings and the like, Dora runs into the magician and his best friend, Albert Lowe, in a bookstore, and said best friend just happens to be the son of an influential society matron, landing Dora and Vanessa personalised invites to the big ball she's hosting. Dora's aunt is forced to let Dora come along and at the ball, she has further interactions with the surly sorcerer, as well as his jovial nobleman bestie. When in the bookstore, Dora glanced into a mirror and saw herself with the Lord Sorcier at the ball, her dress stained horribly with red. After this scene comes to pass exactly so (the red turns out to be punch, not blood, thankfully), and Wilder finds Dora outside in the garden, trying to wash her dress in a fountain, he reluctantly agrees that Dora's case is rather a serious one. She is entirely heedless of the potential scandal of being found mostly naked in the garden during a society event and doesn't seem even vaguely embarrassed by the incident. He's also intrigued by how easy Dora can scry, and see both the past and future in mirrored surfaces. 

Vanessa's mother and her high society friends have decided that the ideal match for Vanessa would be Lady Carroway's eldest son, while Dora can probably be foisted off on Albert, Lord Wilder's best friend. They full-on lie about how helpful and charitable Dora is, forcing her to accompany him on his rounds to tend to the city's poor, which means she sees firsthand both the dreadful conditions that much of society lives in (letting her understand Elias' anger and disdain with the wealthy). She also becomes involved in investigating the strange plague that seems to be affecting some workhouse children, making them suddenly fall asleep and never wake again. Elias is wracking his brains trying to find the cause and save the children, so far to no success. 

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that the mystical sickness plaguing children and Dora's predicament with her missing soul end up being connected, and only by venturing into Faerie itself with our grouchy hero and Dora be able to save the day. 

When you pick up a Regency romance with a fantasy twist, you're not really expecting to deal with rather scathing social commentary as a central part of the plot. While some of the story takes place in grand houses and impressive ballrooms, Atwater's novel also shows the reader the deplorable conditions of workhouses, the unfairness of the class divide and touches briefly on just how frightful the Napoleonic wars actually were and why the surviving soldiers might not be able to just forget about the horrors they had experienced. 

Dora is a wonderful heroine, and while they give it a magical explanation, her total lack of strong emotion and social graces reads as her being neuro-atypical. She discovers that even missing half her soul, she is perfectly capable of experiencing love and happiness, it just takes a bit more for her to recognise the emotions. Elias is a brilliant man, completely unimpressed by riches and society trappings, who feels deeply angry about all the unfairness he witnesses and how incapable he is of helping all the poor souls whom he wants to save. He's clearly barely tolerated in high society, with the exception of at Lord and Lady Carroway, since he saved their son's life in the war and even fashioned him a silver hand to replace the one he lost in battle. 

This was a fun read, and the author has written two more books in the series. I'm not sure I immediately want to pick those up, however, as this story doesn't feel like it needs sequels. All the major storylines are finished off neatly, and I'm not sure reading a story or two that feels only loosely connected to this is necessary. So the writer might have wanted to connect the stories a bit more

Judging a book by its cover: I like the simplicity of the cover, with the green and gold and the scissors that play such an important part of the story front and centre. 

CBR15 Book 39: "Magic Claims" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 240 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: In the Wild (partly set in a big, spooky wood AND featuring shifters)

This short novel, which originally was planned as a novella (but the authors just couldn't fit all of the story into such a short format, for which their fans are grateful) is the second of the Wilmington Years stories, which could clearly also be called Kate and Curran spectacularly fail at a quiet and uneventful retirement.

In the previous story, Magic Tides, Kate has to rescue a bunch of people from a magical threat (so nothing new there), and despite her wish for anonymity becomes more noticeable in her newly adopted neighbourhood. 

In this follow-up (popularly known among fans as Magic Clams, because of frequent mis-typings of the title) Kate and Curran are approached by Edward Calloway, the great-uncle of one of the people Kate recently saved. He explains that much of their family still lives in the village of Penderton, which seems to have been more or less swallowed up by the surrounding forest. The residents there can no longer leave even if they want to, without risking death. Sinister magic users come once a year to demand a human sacrifice, and this year, they've decided to demand a rather large number of people to allow the rest of the residents to stay safe. The residents of Penderton desperately need help and are willing to pay a lot for assistance from stronger, more powerful forces than the evil in the woods (those forces being Kate and Curran). Remaining quiet and unobtrusive would mean sending a lot of people to their deaths. Our heroic couple doesn't need a lot more motivation than that. 

In addition to this new threat nearby, Kate is also faced with the arrival of two powerful individuals who used to follow Roland, her father. Now that he is locked away in a separate realm, the men want to swear fealty to Kate, his powerful daughter, and very reluctant heir. To aid them, Kate and Curran also have a group of local shapeshifters, and of course their were-lion son, Conlan. 

I never fail to be amazed at how well Ilona Andrews manages to balance action, fairly serious violence, super creepy magical threats, humour, and more quiet character moments so excellently. Having now been married for several years, it's nice to see some of Kate and Curran's domestic life and how completely comfortable they are with one another (and how proud and entirely non-threatened Curran is of his wife, an absolute powerhouse of magical talent). Kate and Curran have both been trying to do what they feel is the right thing, laying low, staying unobtrusive, and hiding their powers. When danger really threatens and they are the only ones who can help, it's quite clear that they thrive a lot more when they get to flex their unparalleled magic abilities or incredible shapeshifter fighting skills. 

Since finishing all their existing publishing contracts, the husband and wife team who make up Ilona Andrews are now free to write whatever they want and publish it at their own leisure. They don't announce what they have been working on until they're getting close to publication. It's quite clear that after some years away from the world of Kate Daniels, they now have new ideas and find it creatively interesting to play in this figurative sandbox again. In various promo interviews they did via YouTube, the couple have made it clear that for the foreseeable future, they will be working on sequels or spin-offs in the Kate Daniels universe. There's going to be at least one more story about Kate and Curran and their family in the Wilmington Years, there will finally be a new book about Hugh D'Ambray (the first book, Iron and Magic, came out in 2018) and they will be writing a follow-up to Blood Heir (or the continuing adventures of Julie and Derek, as I like to think of it). They've dropped some serious hints of what will be coming, and I am very excited to see what they come up with next. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover is perfectly fine. Sassy-looking lady with a sword, a big ghostly lion in the background. Misty, spooky-looking woods. It fits with the themes of the previous books and is not a complete eye-sore. I'll take it. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR15 Book 31: "Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries" by Heather Fawcett

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: History (set in an alternate history, in the Victorian era)

15-word review: Introverted lady scholar goes to fictional Iceland to research faeries, followed by her handsome colleague.

Official book description (because I finished this at the start of May):

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party--or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones--the most elusive of all faeries--lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all--her own heart.

Ok, first of all, anyone who picked this up because they thought it was going to be a romance was probably very disappointed. Yes, Bambleby is interested in Emily, but she's so busy trying to do her academic research and figure out what all the f*ckery that keeps happening to the local populace is caused by (well, obviously local faeries - but which ones, and why?) so she hardly notices him, except to be exasperated by his presence.

Early reviews I read for this suggested that it's set in a fictional historical Norway. While in this alternate history, the area that Emily visits may count as part of fictional Norway, it's clearly a fictional historical Iceland. Since the vast majority of readers who pick up this book probably have no idea what differentiates Norway and Iceland, or any of the Nordic countries really, it's a very silly thing to get annoyed by, but nevertheless, I want it clearly stated that the various character and place names described to us by Emily (the entire book is written as her journal, or letters to or from her) are Icelandic, because, to someone from my part of the world, it is very obvious.

With some books, I reduce my rating by the time I get around to reviewing them, but in this case, I've actually added half a star to my original rating, because this is one of those books I keep thinking about, even months after finishing it. Emily and Bambleby are both excellent characters and I loved reading about them, their banter, and their adventures in a strange culture from their own. Emily is a bit of a curmudgeon, prefers solitude and while it is never stated, is probably autistic (this is set in an alternate Victorian era so that diagnosis would not be known yet), she is a very devoted scholar and has been working on her encyclopedia for years. Bambleby is pretty much her exact opposite. He's outgoing, charming, gregarious, and makes friends easily (all of these qualities are among the things Emily seems to find extremely annoying about him. Of course, Bambleby is also Emily's only friend and just seems amused by her anti-social behaviour. 

As a consequence of being so different, the two scholars very much complement each other and make an excellent team, especially once Emily admits to herself that Bambleby's assistance may in fact be beneficial to her stay in Hrafnsvik. As I mentioned earlier, there are hints of romance here, so slow burn as to nearly be treacle in the cold, but I suspect the next book (which isn't out until January 24, boo!) will do more to develop the romantic relationship that is gently introduced in the last third or so of this book. As a huge fan of Bambleby and romance, I would have liked there to be quite a bit more of this subplot, but it would also not be in Emily's character to fall head over heels either. 

I found this whole book delightful and especially liked the various touches of folklore explored (I'm a sucker for folklore, be it actual or fictional). I can't wait to read the sequel and see where Emily and Bambleby's adventures take them next. 

Judging a book by its cover: With some books, the UK and US versions aren't too dissimilar and it's clear that the publishers have gone for a similar feel. With this book, they almost couldn't be more different. The UK cover is creamy off-white with delicate illustrations of flowers and mushrooms, looking very inviting. The US cover is black and full of spooky details like bones and creepy vines. Both strangely capture some of the vibes of the book, but I wonder at the publishers choosing such different approaches to represent the book. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR15 Book 14: "Legendborn" by Tracy Deonn

Page count: 544 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Bree Matthews applied to an early admissions residential program at the same college that her mother attended, only to discover that her mother strongly objected to her going there. They had a blistering argument, and Bree's mother died in a car accident before they had a chance to settle things. Bree blames herself for her mother driving when angry. Her grief and guilt are overwhelming, so Bree hopes that being away from home is the best way forward. She has barely arrived at the college before witnessing a magical attack at a party. An imperious young man calling himself 'Merlin' attempts to wipe her memory, but fails to do so.

The incident instead makes Bree remember something strange from the night her mother died when she and her father were told the news in the hospital. Bree is certain that there was a Merlin (it's a title that all powerful wizards sworn to protect the Legendborn share) there as well, manipulating her and her father's memories. She becomes determined to find out what really happened to her mother, and if that means infiltrating the secret society calling themselves the Legendborn, then she'll do so. She discovers that Nick, her college-appointed tutor, has connections to the society and persuades him to help her get selected as an initiate. 

After being accepted as an initiate of the Legendborn, in part because of Nick's sponsorship of her (he's the son of the current leader, and his rejection of the group has long upset a lot of people) Bree discovers that magic is very much a real thing, most of the members of the Legendborn are descendants of the knights of King Arthur (Nick and his dad are apparently directly descended from King Arthur himself), and they are fighting a war to prevent demons from escaping from another realm to overwhelm the world and humanity. She also discovers that the reason she seems able to withstand the Merlin's mindwiping is that she comes from a long line of witches herself, and the root magic she has access to is very different from that of the Legendborn. Of course, the Merlin is convinced that she is possibly a demon herself and refuses to trust her. 

Having finished this back in February, there are quite a few elements of the story that are now a bit hazy to me. So I'm going to list what I liked and what didn't work so well for me.

I liked:

- This took a lot of the tropes of YA fantasy and in part subverted them, and in part just did something new and interesting with them. Yes, Bree is a lot more powerful than she initially seems and she has access to two different kinds of magic. She's also a very conflicted young woman who struggles with rage and grief and figuring out how to move forward after her mother's death. 

- The way the casual racism Bree has to deal with a lot of the time isn't brushed over or ignored. Also how the history of chattel slavery is explicitly tied into the various powers that Bree is discovering within herself. The flashbacks to her various descendants were very interesting, if rather harrowing.

- The whole 'descendants of King Arthur' have their own secret society and are protecting humankind from demons and evil was pretty well done.

- The reveal towards the end of the story absolutely makes me interested in reading more of the series. 

- This book gets rather violent in places and the danger the characters faced felt very real. Always good to see that not everyone is protected by plot armour.

What I didn't like:

- The insta-love between Nick and Bree. Come on, children, you've barely met. Even with the proximity to danger, you shouldn't head over heels that quickly.

- The inevitable love triangle. I like everyone involved outside of the forced romantic situation, but I don't really care who ends up with whom (although it would be very progressive and surprise the heck out of me if the other two parties decided to hook up and leave Bree as the forgotten party altogether). 

Having waited until book two was out, I now have to decide if I want to read book two and have to wait for heaven knows how long for book three to come out, or whether I'm going to wait patiently until the trilogy is completed. It worked out well for me with The Scholomance, so we'll see how it goes. 

Judging a book by its cover: I think this cover is stunning. Even if this book hadn't gotten very good reviews all over the place, this very spooky and cool cover (which captures Bree perfectly) would have made me pick up the book. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR15 Book 12: "Cemetery Boys" by Aiden Thomas

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4 stars

#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Different genres (paranormal fantasy)

Being a queer teen can be difficult enough, even if you don't come from a long line of magic users with very traditional gender roles. In Yadriel's family, the brujos can summon the spirits of the dead and help them find peace in the afterlife. The brujas have tremendous healing powers. However, Yadriel's family won't let him go through the traditional rite for brujos, because of the gender he was born with. The only ones who seem to fully support him are his uncle, who never really seemed able to tap into the family's magic in the first place, and his cousin Maritza, who is vegan and refuses to use blood of any kind (chicken blood is traditional) to perform her healing spells. 

Yadriel and Maritza sneak into their church and perform the ritual themselves. Yadriel appeals to Lady Death, their family's patron saint to grant him the abilities of a brujo, and is both a bit shocked and elated when his chosen gender is accepted and he gains the powers to raise the dead. Of course, the first spirit he raises refuses to be sent off to his final rest - he wants to know both how he died so suddenly and unexpectedly and make sure that his friends are safe. So Yadriel is forced to hide the ghost boy from his family, who can all see the spirits of the dead, and help Julian (the ghost) try to figure out how his little gang/found family of outcasts is doing.

It helps that most of Yadriel and Maritza's family members are busy both preparing for the upcoming annual holiday that they all celebrate and trying to figure out what has happened to Yadriel's cousin Miguel, who seems to have disappeared without a trace. Of course, because this is a young adult novel, there is also the rather impractical and rather impossible attraction that Yadriel feels for Julian (who may not be gay, who may have an issue with Yadriel being trans, and most importantly, who is already dead and supposed to be sent on to his final resting place). Without spoiling too much, the first two issues don't turn out to be problems, the third is rather insurmountable. 

This was the February pick for my local fantasy/sci-fi book club, but I was unable to go to the meeting to discuss it, as my mother very suddenly passed away on the very day that I was going to help chair the meeting. So no book club for me that month. From what I gathered from the other members, however, the book was fairly well received, although some felt it was not exactly aimed at them. Trine, the lovely lady who founded the book club in the first place, said that she very quickly needed to find out more about the author and the author's background, as there is so much in this book about being Latinx, and also about being trans, and it set her mind at ease that this was very much an #ownvoices story based in part by the author's own experiences (pretty sure the raising the dead part is creative licence, though). 

I liked the central characters, Yadriel, Julian, Maritza (so great), Maritza's "boys", the little group of queer kids who Julian has been the leader of. It may be just that I've read a lot, but the overarching mystery of what happened to Julian, or what was up with Miguel's disappearance, and who was behind it all was not very difficult to figure out. It didn't really ruin the book for me that I had both the guilty party and the circumstances surrounding the crimes all figured out but to some readers, it might be annoying. I'm assuming some of it may come down to the fact that this is the author's debut novel. 

It should come as no surprise to anyone that a young adult novel about a gay, trans Latinx kid falling in love with a ghost boy has appeared on a bunch of Banned Books lists in the USA, especially in Texas. I hope it means that a lot more teenagers get tempted to read it because it was a very worthwhile read (even with the partially predictable ending).

Judging a book by its cover: I really like the cover, and the characters look very much like they are described in the novel. I think my favourite part is the rather macabre depiction of Lady Death in the background. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR15 Book 10: "The Golden Enclaves" by Naomi Novik

Page count: 416 pages

Audio book length: 14 hrs 49 mins

Rating: 5 stars

This is the concluding volume in a trilogy. It won't really work for you unless you've read the previous two books. Start with A Deadly Education. Also, this review will contain spoilers for the previous book in the series, so proceed at your own risk if you're not caught up. 

Galadriel "El" Higgins has done the impossible. She has not only made it out of the Scholomance with her entire graduating senior class, but with every other student in the school as well. Everyone is alive and safe, except for one important exception. Orion Lake, who El had only really allowed herself to accept that she loved towards the end of the school year, when it seemed like maybe their insanely ambitious plan might work after all, and who literally threw her out of the gates of the school to face an enormous mawmouth by himself. El tries to spend incredible amounts of mana to get back into the school, only to find herself cut off entirely and can't do anything but grieve.

Her mother, Gwen, is beyond happy to have her daughter back, but she's also terrified when El tells her about Orion and her improbable book of Golden Sutras. The price both Gwen and El paid for El to be able to bring the book with her out of the Scholomance has been staggering, and now they are both left to grieve their loved ones. Not that El gets a lot of time in the yurt in Wales to nurse her grief. The indomitable Liesl, the senior class valedictorian shows up and demands that El come help the London enclave fight and kill a mawmouth. El is the only one on record who has been able to ever kill one singlehandedly, and now the London enclave will be lost unless El comes and helps.

Once she's performed the disgusting and gruelling task, the London wizards are shocked to realise that not only does El not want to become a member of their enclave, she wants nothing in return for her actions than for the enclave grounds to be opened up to all the magically inclined in London, so not only the privileged enclavers get to see the glories of the grounds. Having killed the relatively small mawmouth in London and finally putting all the poor people it had consumed over the years to rest, El realises that she has to go back inside the Scholomance, to kill Patience, the gigantic mawmouth that will inevitably have consumed Orion because she can't bear the thought of him suffering inside it for all eternity. The only place she is likely to get enough mana to attempt such a feat is in Orion's home enclave, New York. Which will mean meeting and facing Orion's parents - something El's not sure she's ready for. 

Because I waited until the final book was published before reading book two, I thankfully didn't have to wait a whole year for the cliffhanger at the end of that one to be resolved. I also waited long enough to finish the series that I read multiple reviews from others that reassured me that this volume wasn't going to be a letdown. What Naomi Novik has achieved with these books is impressive. They are classed as Young Adult because the characters are still teenagers, but so many of the familiar tropes and expectations of the subgenre are cleverly subverted and some really serious themes and moral quandaries are explored over the course of the series.

As I mentioned in my review of The Last Graduate, part of what really works for me about these books is the cast of characters. I don't just like reading about El and Orion, but all of their friends and compatriots too. With each book, Novik reveals more of how her magical universe functions, and in this last book, we are finally given more insight into the enclaves and how they are formed, not to mention where the horrible (and very creatively imagined) monsters originate and why they're so drawn to wizard adolescents. 

Based on the previous two books, I wasn't really worried that Naomi Novik was going to mess up the ending of this trilogy. I'm nevertheless greatly relieved that I can now wholeheartedly recommend this whole completed series to anyone who likes clever and dark fantasy. 

Judging a book by its cover: The covers are really my least favourite part of the series, but it seems appropriate that this final volume has a pale golden colour, like the golden sutras that El treasures so much. I still wish there was a bit more to the covers than a uniform colour and some mystical symbols, though. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR15 Book 9: "Hell Bent" by Leigh Bardugo

Page count: 484 pages

Rating: 4 stars

This is the second book in the Alex Stern series. This review will contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Ninth House because I'm not sure how to review it without referencing things that happened in the last book. So if you're new to this series, start there. 

Darlington is still missing, "in Spain" to those not in the know, and in Hell, possibly dead to those initiated in the secrets of Lethe House. Galaxy "Alex" Stern doesn't have a lot of friends, and she's not going to let anything or anyone stop her from finding a way to rescue Darlington. Thankfully, her fellow Lethe member, Pamela Dawes is firmly on board with the plan, even when the higher-ups in Lethe forbid them from trying. Of course, finding a portal into hell isn't going to be easy and they have no guarantee that they're going to succeed in bringing Darlington back. 

In addition, a blast from Alex' past is making things complicated for her. Her dead boyfriend's former drug dealer boss has figured out what Alex did before she ended up in hospital and later at Yale, and unless Alex agrees to do some work for him, he's going to kill her mother. There's also a series of mysterious murders on campus, which may or may not be magical in nature. Alex and Turner try to figure out the cause and the culprit, but begin to fear that the murders are connected to the dark presence at Black Elm, Darlington's family home, and the bigger challenge of retrieving him from Hell.

I re-read Ninth House in preparation for this and am very glad that I did. Otherwise,  I would never have remembered all the intricacies of the magical houses of Yale and all the bad stuff that Alex suffered before becoming a student there. After the dramatic finale of the previous book, Alex is aware that she can do much more than see ghosts. She can hear them, almost constantly, and she can pull them into herself to gain almost superhuman strength for a while. That makes her more confident, but she nevertheless faces some pretty steep challenges in this book, the least of which is passing her classes at Yale. 

Alex has clearly been a loner for much of her life, and the only true friend she's had so far died in horrific and tragic circumstances. So learning to depend on others and finding people she can trust is very unfamiliar to her, and it was great to see that over the course of this book, she finds some true friends and allies, and is much better prepared for whatever challenges the next book is going to throw at her. After all the danger in the previous book, Alex and Dawes are now firm friends and completely united in the rather mad and dangerous quest of rescuing Darlington from Hell. Once they discover that to open the portal to Hell that is hidden on the Yale campus, they need to recruit some extra help, and the cranky Turner and happy-go-lucky Tripp Helmuth also join their band of unlikely allies. The final member of their little band is Mercy, Alex' roommate, who in many ways seems a lot more suitable to be Virgil of Lethe than Alex ever was. She is fascinated and intrigued to discover that magic exists. 

This book doesn't just have a creepy cover, it has certain scenes that were almost too close for comfort for me. I really don't like horror, and certain sections of this book were uncomfortably over the edge in that genre. Still, I made it through and am glad I persevered, because this book was a thrill ride. The previous book took me longer to get into, and I wasn't really sure about Alex and Darlington as characters. With all the world-building setup and major characterisation sorted out in the first volume, this could just pick up and get right into the action. It was a much quicker read than Ninth House, but got so intense in places that I had to put it down and read some other stuff in between just to not be overwhelmed. 

As with the previous book, this one ends on a cliffhanger. I found the one at the end of this one slightly less frustrating, however, and will happily wait the extra year or so to find out how Alex' supernatural adventures continue. 

Judging a book by its cover: This is a book cover with a sinister aura. The poor bunny can't help being albino, but there's something about the big, seemingly naked ears, the red eyes, and the very pink paws that just screams creepy. Well done, publishers, I'm immediately on my guard. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 7: "The Last Graduate" by Naomi Novik

Page count: 388 pages

Audio book length: 13hrs 27 mins

Rating: 5 stars

CBR Passport Challenge: Books Recommended by Friends

This is the second book in a trilogy. It doesn't really make sense if you've not read the series from the beginning. So if you're not caught up, go read A Deadly Education. It's great, I'll wait.

El and Orion are now seniors in the Scholomance, and they have absolutely no way of knowing if their very dangerous mission just before graduation to fix the furnaces worked. Did they manage to clear the graduation hall of the majority of maleficaria ahead of the former senior class' exit, or did all the graduates get horribly eaten? Is the machinery going to fail before their own graduation in a year's time, or will this be a problem for one of the classes at some point in the future?

El, who has spent her entire life as a loner, is surprised to find that she has actual friends and allies in the school and that despite having criticised Orion for a year for risking his life to save others, she is now almost daily expending a ton of magic trying to keep the freshmen students she shares a classroom with from being killed by mals. Orion, on the other hand, is getting more and more frustrated. Despite trying to hunt down mals in his spare time, there don't appear to really be any, except for all the ones coming to try to kill El, and those directly around her. 

El spends the first six months of her senior year trying to pass her exams, keep Orion from getting killed because he keeps neglecting his own studies and fend off all the vicious threats that the school seems intent on sending her way. She also can't forget that while the cleaning furnaces hopefully killed off a lot of mals pre-graduation last year, there's still a whole year for the graduation hall to fill up again, and she and her fellow seniors need to train incessantly to make sure they're in good shape to fight the monsters and make it out alive. The graduating class is much bigger than it has ever been, thanks to Orion's tireless efforts for the past three years of killing mals and rescuing people. Normally, only about half of any given year's graduates get out. Will the added numbers of seniors mean more likely survivors or just an even higher death toll come graduation day since there is no way for everyone to make it to the doors unharmed? Or is there?

I am so very glad that I waited until this trilogy was completed to read The Last Graduate. If I had been forced to wait a whole year after finishing this book to find out what happened next, I would not have handled it well. A Deadly Education was really good. A wonderfully acerbic and hostile protagonist, a great cast of supporting characters, very creative world-building, and an interesting magic system. As dangerous supernatural boarding schools go, the Scholomance is about as fiendish as I can remember reading about, and El's journey from an angry and distrustful outcast to someone with a solid set of friends and a vague hope of a better future was a delight to read. Then came this and surpassed all of my expectations, leaving me emotionally wrung out once I finished the last page. The final act of book 1 was impressive, but the final act of book 2 was on a whole other level. 

This series would not be as enjoyable and addictive if El was the only one worth reading about. Thankfully, there are so many other characters to also obsess over. Orion, who sucks at social interactions and only wants to kill monsters (he has a serious Sam Winchester energy, which does not lessen as this book goes on - you have been warned). Aadhya and Liu, who by the end of this book are pretty much ride or die for our El, and rightly so. Even Chloe, who seemed rather clueless in the last book becomes a valuable friend to our group of misfits. In this book, we are also introduced to Liesl, the valedictorian, who isn't exactly likable, but funny and kind of awesome with her extreme efficiency and abilities to problem solve that none of our other band of doomed graduates can rival. I just wanted to hug them all and keep them safe from the horrors they kept having to face and worry about.

It's really hard to review this book and attempt to remain spoiler-free. There are so many awesome things I want to gush about, but I went into this book knowing pretty much nothing except that it ended on a very unsatisfying cliffhanger, and it was such a great ride. Even though I own the book in paperback, I ended up listening to most of the book in audio, as with A Deadly Education. Anisha Dadia does an excellent job of narrating, and making the various characters feel distinct and separate for me. This time, however, once I got about 80% in, I didn't have the patience to listen any longer (even listening at x1.5, I read way faster than the narrator) and I needed to get to the end fast. 

I'm so grateful to Naomi Novik for writing these books. I really liked Uprooted and Spinning Silver, but I adore the two Scholomance books. Now that the series is completed, I can wholeheartedly recommend the series to anyone who likes clever paranormal fantasy.

Judging a book by its cover: I like the simplicity of these covers, with a plain background and some mystical sigils and stuff in gold. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read