I’m always kind of hesitant to read a book that the entire speculative world has already read and raved about. I get nervous because, what if the book just doesn’t live up to the hype? What if I read it and end up being the only person alive who hated it? So I avoided Nights of…
Continue ReadingAbout the Book Nicodemus Weal has trained at the stronghold of Starhaven since he was a boy. His mentor, the famous wizard Magister Shannon, taught him how to cast spells made from luminescent magical runes, how to peel written words off a page and make them physically real. Initially, Nicodemus showed great promise. Able to…
Continue ReadingAbout the Book She is starlight made immortal flesh, and her soul lives inside her sword of light. She is Muire, the last of the Valkyrie, and she walks among the morals of Valdyrgard alone, save for the Valraven– one of the many-formed steeds who carried some of the Valkarie to war–who claimed her for…
Continue ReadingFrom Publishers Weekly: Starred Review. Religion and political intrigue turn an adolescent werewolf into a killing machine in this compelling novel of 13th-century Northern Europe. Eighteen-year-old Lilly is superhumanly strong, vulnerable only to silver and trained to help Christians subdue unrepentant pagans. When she slaughters a dozen Christian soldiers and flees into the wilderness, Uldolf,…
Continue ReadingFrom Publishers Weekly: Tchaikovsky returns to the caste-haunted insect-themed world of 2010’s Empire in Black and Gold, as the inapt kinden realize that their natural gifts and old knowledge are no longer sufficient to allow them to dominate their apt cousins, who can use technology. The Wasp kinden have been slowly conquering the land for three…
Continue ReadingCover Blurb: When struggling riverboat captain Abner Marsh receives an offer of partnership from a wealthy aristocrat, he suspects something’s amiss. But when he meets the hauntingly pale, steely-eyed Joshua York, he is certain. For York doesn’t care that the icy winter of 1857 has wiped out all but one of Marsh’s dilapidated fleet. Nor…
Continue ReadingPublishers Weekly: Parker (the Scavenger trilogy) raises the bar for realistic fantasy war craft with this series opener. When the engineering guild sentences Ziani Vaatzes to death for improving on its supposedly perfect specifications for mechanical toys, he manages to escape Mezentia and throws in his lot with its recently defeated enemy, city-state Eremia. In exile,…
Continue ReadingBack Cover Blurb: Basso the Magnificent. Basso the Great. Basso the Wise. The First Citizen of the Vesani Republic is an extraordinary man. He is ruthless, cunning, and above all, lucky. He brings wealth, power and prestige to his people. But with power comes unwanted attention, and Basso must defend his nation and himself from…
Continue ReadingFrom Publishers Weekly: In this delightful first novel, the opening salvo of a trilogy, Novik seamlessly blends fantasy into the history of the Napoleonic wars. Here be dragons, beasts that can speak and reason, bred for strength and speed and used for aerial support in battle. Each nation has its own breeds, but none are so…
Continue ReadingPublisher’s Weekly: In this stand-alone novel set in the same monster-haunted universe as last year’s much-praised Perdido Street Station, British author Mieville, one of the most talented new writers in the field, takes us on a gripping hunt to capture a magical sea-creature so large that it could snack on Moby Dick, and that’s just…
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