Review
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The Goblin Emperor
Elves like a sit down dinner and Goblins like a buffet.
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Review: Shattered Minds by Laura Lam
Shattered Minds by Laura Lam is the second of her Pacifica novels. It isn’t a sequel to False Hearts but it does have links between the two. Shattered minds is a tense thriller with a cast of flawed characters. Lam conjures a tense yet vibrant world and creates characters the reader can empathise with even when they are dark. Carina is an ex neuroscientist with a dark secret. A zeal addict on the slippery slope to oblivion when one of her ex-colleagues, Mark hacks her zealscape to give her information about her old company Sudice. She knows he must already be dead. This is fast paced and feels quite cyberpunk.…
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Review: 13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough
13 Minutes is an incredible novel. Sarah Pinborough’s writing really got under my skin in a way that very few authors really manage to do. It is about the shifting allegiances that make up teenaged girls friendships and frankly it is terrifying.
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Review: The Silver Tide by Jen Williams
Trilogies are tricky things to work properly they should do more than simply be one long story there should be themes that ebb and flow. Narratives which build and peak and then build again. I usually count myself lucky if the trilogy I read is three decent books which hold together well. And then there’s Jen William’s Copper Cat trilogy which I am so deeply in love with right now it is a little bit obscene.
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Review The Silver Witch by Paula Brackston
The Silver Witch is a lovely story. Set in Brecon Beacons it features two women a millennium apart with a story that is told between them. I really liked this premise, Tilda is the modern lead a young woman with albinism, widowed dealing with the stress and trauma of losing her husband in a road traffic accident. Her historical counterpart is Seren, witch and seer for the Prince Brynach and his followers on the crannog. This novel really is about Tilda’s recovery, at the beginning she is raw from her loss and embarking upon this new life, the one that she should have been starting with Mat. She is incredibly…
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The Winter Crown by Elizabeth Chadwick – Review
This is the second part to the trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine. I have not read first part The Summer Crown and unusually for starting a series mid-way I don’t feel punished for not reading it. Ailenor (Eleanor) is already married to Henry at the beginning of the novel and whilst she is very fond of him she finds his lack of respect to her ideas galling. She is constantly reminding him that she is more than his brood mare to which he basically says yes dear. In that respect Ailenor feels very modern, she is very clever and there is a real sense that she knows her worth. Henry…
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Review: Planetfall by Emma Newman
Planetfall is a breath-taking sci-fi debut from Emma Newman. It is a claustrophobic look at life in a human colony on a far flung planet with utopian ideals. The colony itself is self-sustaining with all waste being recycled. At the centre of it all is Ren the colony’s most accomplished 3-D printing engineer. Along with Mack, the closest thing the colony has to a leader they harbour a secret about its founding, one that has the power to destroy all they have achieved in the last twenty years. The arrival of Sung-Soo the grandson of Lee Suh-Mi the pathfinder, mission founder and ex-lover of Ren sparks change in this fragile ecosystem, one…
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Jane's Great Re-Read: Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett – a review
Carpe Jugulum is the last of the first wave of witches novels. This time GRanny and the rest of the Lancre coven are faced with invading vampires from Uberwald. There are now four witches in Lancre, Granny, Nanny Magrat and Agnes but covens work best with three, you know: the maiden, the mother and the other one. A lot of this novel is about how roles change over time and what its like to feel out of place in the world. Magrat has given birth to a daughter and is keeping the name secret until the naming ceremony. King Verence has summoned an Omnian Priest and sent invitations out to…
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Jane's Great Re-read: Maskerade by Terry Pratchett – a review
This is possibly my favourite Witches novel so I have to warn you I am biased on this one. I shall declare my interests here. 1. Agnes Nitt was the first time I saw myself represented so completely in a novel. I will explain more fully later but at 15 I was Agnes Nitt. 2. If you know me at all you know I take part in a lot of amateur musical theatre. The jokes and references in this one come thick and fast 3. Greebo gets his human on again. Aw yeah! Reading Maskerade was the first time that Agnes takes centre stage in a story and it was…
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Jane's Great Re-Read: Lords and Ladies By Terry Pratchett a Review
Lords and Ladies is the fourth Granny Weatherwax and the witches book. If Wyrd Sisters is Macbeth, Lords and Ladies is a Midsummer’s Night Dream. This picks up post Witches Abroad just when the trio have arrived back from Genua and sprints off into the distance. This book is about belief; it is about susperstition; it is about quantum and iron.
