-
Review: Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell
Ocean’s Echo is the second novel set in the same universe as Winter’s Orbit, but with new characters and new drama. The headline of this review is that I adored it. It is full of themes that I really got behind. Consent, mental control, neurological modifications and the ethics surrounding them. We are first introduced to Tennal. He is an extroverted disaster zone. He’s contrary, rebellious, charismatic, and the nephew of the Legislator, one of Orshan’s senior political figures. At the beginning of the novel, he is slumming it in a gambling den hiring himself out as a reader. Second generation of the orginal neuro-modded humans. He can read minds…
-
Review: Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
Kaikeyi is a beautifully written retelling of the Ramanayan from Kaikeyi’s point of view. We follow her through from childhood to adulthood. There is a feminist angle to the story. Her desire to be more than society expects her to be and also improve things for other women. It’s written in the first person so it is her voice she is telling us her story and it is one that had me from the opening chapter. I’m not overly familiar with Hindu mythology but this was a story I couldn’t get enough of and sped through ravenously. I needed to know how KaiKeyi would react and what she would do…
-
Book post squee
Today has been long train delays and fixing stuff but I came home to some delightful book post from Orbit UK. How lovely does Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies look? If I’m honest I was smitten with the title. If ever there was a book for Unicorn towers it’s this one. Review will be out in the new year but I had to share the pretty.
-
Review: Strike the Zither by Joan He
Oh my word, this was so much fun. A YA fantasy of epic proportions. Both the teenage angst with a backdrop of rebellion revolution and much double crossing. Where poetry and playing the zither are far more important than the actual fighting. That strategists are a side’s most important resource. It has everything, yearning, pining, loyalty betrayal found family. Burnt bridges. All told beautifully at a cracking pace where the reader breathlessly wishes to devour the book and see what will happen next. An array of colourful characters. Whose soubriquets are far more important that real names. Where double crossing is standard and all the more enjoyable for it.
