The Leaning Pile of Books
Aug
24
2025

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included, along with series information and the publisher’s book description.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org, and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Over the last week, I couldn’t resist getting the latest book by one of my favorite authors and a Humble Bundle with a lot of books by a great author!

Cover of A Covenant of Ice by Karin Lowachee

A Covenant of Ice (The Crowns of Ishia #3) by Karin Lowachee

The final novella in this trilogy set in a secondary fantasy world with dragons was just released toward the end of July (paperback, ebook, audiobook).

I’m a huge fan of Karin Lowachee’s science fiction novels set in the Warchild universe, and I’ve also been enjoying her new series of novellas, so of course I had to get the last book! The Mountain Crown, the first book in this trilogy, was one of my favorite books of 2024: one that felt like going on a journey with the characters, and one that obviously had a lot of thought and care put into it.

For more on the series from the author herself, you can read Karin Lowachee’s essay from this year’s Women in SF&F Month, “Character and Worldbuilding in The Crowns of Ishia.” She shared about the web of ideas related to character, culture, dragons, and magic that went into this fantasy trilogy, including some inspirations like the philosophy of wu wei and North American frontier literature.

 

The exciting conclusion to the gunslinging dragonrider trilogy!

After years of separation, Havinger Lilley has finally reunited with his lover, Janan. He now hopes to heal from the experience that changed his life forever: being bonded to the soul of a king dragon and to the man Raka who died to save it. But this bond is consuming him, making his thoughts and feelings not his own.

Compelled by this to return to the frozen north that was once Raka’s home, Lilley and his companions Janan and Meka make the arduous journey toward a confrontation with the power-hungry Kattakans that could result in another devastating war.

In this final chapter of The Crowns of Ishia series, the survival of the Ba’Suon people, their dragons, and the land itself rests on the decisions of Lilley, Janan and Meka.

Cover of All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The Murderbot & More Humble Book Bundle by Martha Wells

This Humble Bundle collection supporting World Central Kitchen contains ebook editions of all seven novellas and novels in the Murderbot Diaries series, plus two related short stories:

It also includes five (technically, seven) additional ebooks by Martha Wells:

The last three on the above list are updated and revised editions of earlier works. Witch King is Martha Wells’s most recently published new novel, and she discussed it in her essay “Deconstructing Epics” for Women in SF&F Month 2024, writing that she thought she was “writing a story set in the aftermath of a multi-volume epic fantasy” and then realized “the past and the present storylines were intertwined and equally important, to tell a story about found family and betrayal and fighting to preserve the world you fought so hard for.”

I’ve been thinking about getting back to The Murderbot Diaries series after enjoying the first season of the TV series, and this was the perfect opportunity to do that. All of these can be obtained for at least $18 and part of the profits go toward an organization dedicated to addressing food insecurity.

The description for All Systems Red, the first book in the Murderbot Diaries, is below.

 

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award for Best Novella
Winner of the Alex Award
A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller

Now an Apple Original series from Academy Award nominees Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz and starring Emmy Award winner Alexander Skarsgård.

A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.

“As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.”

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

August 2025 Virtual Book Recommendations Event Video
Aug
22
2025

If you missed the second quarterly Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Recommendations event with the Ashland Public Library last night, you can catch the video on Youtube here. This included discussion of the following books:

  • Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor; illustrated by Jim di Bartolo
  • The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
  • The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
  • Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang
  • The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
  • Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
  • Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

We also enthused a bit about My Soul to Keep, the first book in Tananarive Due’s African Immortals series.

These are quarterly half-hour long discussions taking place on Zoom on the third Thursday of the month, and the next book chat will be from 6:30 to 7:00 ET on November 20. I’ll mention it again closer to the date, but if you want to sign up early, you can register for November’s event here!

The Leaning Pile of Books
Aug
17
2025

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included, along with series information and the publisher’s book description.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org, and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

It’s been a while since the last one of these since April’s schedule was full and all of the books I’ve gotten since then were covered in my anticipated books of 2025 post. But it’s back this week with a book coming out next year that I’m very excited about!

Cover of To Ride a Rising Storm by Moniquill Blackgoose

To Ride a Rising Storm (The Second Book of Nampeshiweisit) by Moniquill Blackgoose

The sequel to To Shape a Dragon’s Breath will be released on January 27, 2026 (paperback, ebook, audiobook).

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, which is set in an alternate version of our world that followed a different path in history and has dragons, won the Lodestar Award and the Andre Norton Nebula Award. Just last night, Moniquill Blackgoose became the latest recipient of the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

I’m excited for To Ride a Rising Storm since the previous book was one of my favorite books of 2023. Although I usually prefer protagonists to have more internal conflict than Anequs has, I enjoyed reading about someone so secure in who she is and her willingness to call out harmful social rules was a delight.

Moniquill Blackgoose also wrote an article for Women in SF&F Month 2023 in which she discussed media representation (particularly indigenous North American representation) and creativity.

 

A young indigenous woman and her dragon fight for the independence of their homeland in this epic sequel to the bestselling and multi-award-winning To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, “a remarkable novel that is bound to be a staple of fantasy shelves for years to come” (BuzzFeed).

Anequs has not only survived her first year at Kuiper’s Academy but exceeded her professors’ admittedly low expectations—and passed all her courses with honors. Now she and her dragon, Kasaqua, are headed home for the summer, along with Theod, the only other native student at the Academy.

But what should have been a relaxing break takes a darker turn. Thanks to Anequs’s notoriety, there is an Anglish presence on Masquapaug for the first time ever: a presence that Anequs hates. Anequs will always fight for what she believes in, however, and what she believes in is her people’s right to self-govern and live as they have for generations, without the restrictive yoke of Anglish rules and social customs. And fight she will—even if it means lighting a spark that may flare into civil war.

August Virtual Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Recommendations Event
Aug
14
2025

One week from today, I’ll be doing a second quarterly virtual book recommendation event with the Ashland Public Library in Massachusetts. I’ll be sharing some fantasy and science fiction book recommendations on Zoom on from 6:30 to 7:00 PM EDT on Thursday, August 21, and if you want to join us next week, you can register here.

If you missed the first one, you can watch it on Youtube here. The books highlighted were as follows:

August Virtual Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Recs with Kristen of Fantasy Cafe Graphic
Review of The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
May
27
2025
The Knight and the Moth
by Rachel Gillig
400pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 4/10
LibraryThing Rating: 4.75/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.53/5
 

As a Bookshop affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

The Knight and the Moth is the first book in The Stonewater Kingdom, a new gothic/romantic fantasy series by New York Times bestselling author Rachel Gillig. This was one of my most anticipated books of 2025 because One Dark Window, the author’s debut novel and the first book in The Shepherd King duology, was a fun, difficult-to-put-down story—and, as such, was one of my favorite books of 2022. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in The Knight and the Moth, which kept me just curious enough to finish it but did not make me curious enough to continue the series.

In the world of The Stonewater Kingdom, there are gods known as Omens and a cathedral with magical spring waters where Divinations are performed. A woman known as Six is one of these Diviners, and like the others, she was brought to the cathedral as a foundling. Since then, her life has been confined to a small world mainly consisting of the abbess, her five sisters in Divination, and the gargoyles who serve at the cathedral. For nearly ten years, Six has been routinely drowned in the springs to enable her to dream of the Omens, sharing her visions and interpretations with those visitors who pay to learn of what she sees.

When the new king unexpectedly visits to ask whether the Omens favor him, Six takes an immediate dislike to one of his knights, who does not seem to have much respect for Diviners and their calling. But when the other Diviners start disappearing in the middle of the night, Six ends up seeking help from the new king—who sends the knight who infuriates her to her aid. Six, accompanied by the cathedral’s strangest gargoyle, is then drawn into the king and his two closest knights’ own quest involving the Omens as she seeks to keep her promise to find her sisters.

Though The Stonewater Kingdom and The Shepherd King are two different series, I couldn’t help but compare the first book in each since they had some broad similarities, and I ended up feeling like The Knight and the Moth strayed from the strengths of One Dark Window while leaning into its weaknesses. It didn’t have the same sort of atmosphere, tension, and entertaining dynamics between characters that made the first novel compelling—but it did have the same sort of questionable worldbuilding, just without the interesting lore and sense of mystery that made the first book engaging enough that it didn’t bother me overly much. While the author’s first novel hooked me immediately with its promising secrets, this one felt rote as it introduced the basics of the world through a lengthy speech given before the king’s Divination.

Unfortunately, I did not think The Knight and the Moth improved later. The plot became repetitive as the quest took characters to different areas of the kingdom to follow the same basic formula, and these parts seemed rushed as they resolved too quickly and easily. By the time I reached the end, I felt like the worldbuilding and characterization had potential but were a bit of a mess as executed, and though there were aspects I liked, there wasn’t anything I felt was strong enough to completely make up for these shortcomings.

In general, the worldbuilding seemed underdone. There were some intriguing ideas related to Diviners and Divinations, but a lot of information was conveyed through infodumps, plus these elements would have benefited from more fleshing out to make its concepts work better. The attitudes of the Diviners themselves felt especially muddled to me since they seemed to consider themselves holy and worthy of awe one moment and then not so different from anyone else the next. Of course, things like this can be complex and can change depending on the current situation, but this was not handled in a way that made this seem like a possibility—especially since the people the Diviners met often started out treating them with reverence and then quickly turned to being rude and demanding, making others’ views of them feel muddled as well.

In many ways, it felt too much like there was someone clearly trying to get things from point A to point B without necessarily going through the setup and development required to make it work. It didn’t especially bother me that many of the Diviners regularly broke the rules to have fun over the years, but I did find it odd that they all had spent nearly 10 years following the one rule the author obviously wanted to use to build suspense. And Six’s journey, which had the pieces for a compelling personal arc, also felt like it glossed over too much in getting her from her starting point to her ending point.

In addition to the romance and quest, Six’s story is that of someone who has been isolated and taught a specific worldview throughout her life only to finally have the veil lifted from her eyes once she sees more of the world. I often love these types of arcs, but I felt like this one rushed through too much to be impactful. We didn’t really see Six’s life before the king’s visit that changed everything in the first chapter, and I didn’t think it showed us enough about who Six was before she left the cathedral. She’s said to be close to the other five Diviners, and that makes perfect sense since they’ve spent nearly 10 years serving together at the cathedral, but I didn’t find the scenes we got with them effective at making them seem more than superficially close since none of the relationships felt especially vibrant. Considering her love for her sisters and desire to find them is her whole motivation for leaving the cathedral, I would have liked to have seen more of the bonds they supposedly shared instead of feeling like just enough was added to try to get across that they were close. That was a pattern with her character development: just giving a little bit of reasoning for it without making it feel real.

The romance also developed too suddenly without making it clear why these two characters were a good fit for each other, beyond being in the same vicinity and finding each other attractive. Though I enjoyed where their relationship ended up with the two supporting each other (and that the knight admired this woman’s strength and muscles, something I haven’t often come across in my reading), their initial animosity and turn to romance felt forced and rushed. Six was supposed to be the abbess’s favorite Diviner since she was most concerned with doing her duties and following the rules, but she almost immediately decided to rebel in the beginning because some random knight she just met told her she didn’t know how to have fun and she wanted to prove him wrong. This sudden enmity prompting her to behave differently than usual seemed very orchestrated, and I felt like these two came together because it was following the vibes of a romance plot rather than because it worked naturally: though it had the beats for a good hatred-to-love arc, it was missing the heart.

For all my problems with it, I did think that The Knight and the Moth had potential and could have been a good novel with some tightening. As I wrote at the beginning, it kept me interested enough in where it was going to finish reading it. (This was mostly because of a theory I had about the loyal gargoyle, who was easily the best character with the best lines even if I felt his shtick with mixing up words in common phrases could be a bit overdone at times.) But in the end, I didn’t care enough about the characters or learning more about their world to want to read the next book in the series.

My Rating: 4/10

Where I got my reading copy: ARC from the publisher.

Read an Excerpt from The Knight and the Moth

Review of The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
May
19
2025
The River Has Roots
by Amal El-Mohtar
144pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 8/10
LibraryThing Rating: 4.04/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.17/5
 

As a Bookshop affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

When I first heard about The River Has Roots, I was simultaneously intrigued by it and hesitant to read it. The idea of a story about Faerie and sisters based on a murder ballad appealed to me, but my only previous experience with Amal El-Mohtar’s work was a sample from the novella she co-authored, This Is How You Lose the Time War—a book that for all its awards and accolades has now failed to draw me in and demand I read more of it on at least two occasions. However, I had the opposite reaction when I read an excerpt from the beginning of The River Has Roots, with its lovely prose and enchanting description of a river filled with grammatical magic. Between this and the short story at the end (“John Hollowback and the Witch,” which was included as a peek at her upcoming short story collection, Seasons of Glass & Iron), I’ve concluded that Amal El-Mohtar’s other work might actually be more compatible with my personal taste.

On the shorter end of novella-length at approximately 20,000 words, The River Has Roots is a fairy-tale-like story where magic is mysterious but also feels alive and real. There is a romance and a villain, but at its heart, this is a book about sisterhood: a retelling of a seventeenth-century murder ballad, “The Two Sisters,” and some of its variants, that remakes the story into one showing the unbreakable bond between the two eponymous characters instead of tearing them apart.

There was a time when grammar was wild—when it shifted shapes and unleashed new forms out of old. Grammar, like gramarye, like grimoire. What is magic but a change in the world? What is conjugation but a transformation, one thing into another? She runs; she ran; she will run again.
— page 1

These two sisters, Esther and Ysabel Hawthorn, live near the border to Faerie, where a river flows with grammar. For generations, the Hawthorn family has tended and harvested the willow trees that absorb this magical water, making them ideal for creating objects like grammarians’ wands and enchanted furniture. However, the Hawthorns’ most important responsibility has always been singing to the trees in thanks for the gifts they provide. Though they are only required to do this once per season, Esther and Ysabel are especially dedicated to this task, going out to the trees and uniting their beautiful voices in song each sunrise and sunset.

A man in possession of land alongside that belonging to the Hawthorn family has been pursuing Esther’s hand in marriage, believing it would be profitable to join their estates. There are two problems with his attempts at courting Esther: she hates him, and she has fallen in love with someone from Faerie. But no matter how clear Esther makes her disdain for this man, he is relentless in his pursuit of her, and his affections and desires put both sisters in danger.

The River Has Roots is a difficult story to describe since it’s short and hard to summarize without giving too much away, and I think part of my initial hesitancy about reading it was due to not really getting a good feel of what it was about from its description. This book’s appeal is largely the magic of its prose and the way the story is told. It incorporates songs and riddles, and like its inspirations, it’s lyrical and poetic (though I did find that the narration was stronger than the dialogue, and earlier passages were more striking and memorable than the rest). It’s about love (both romantic and sisterly), transformation, and a difficult choice, but ultimately, language and wordplay are what made this story work for me given it didn’t have much character depth or a deep, nuanced dive into themes.

However, I do love a good fairy tale, and I liked this one more than most stories around the same length, enjoying its overall plot and ending. This also has some lovely scenes along the way, such as the story of Esther and Ysabel wandering into Faerie as children and how Esther first met her beloved Rin, who appeared to her in three different forms before revealing themself to her. (Their first few meetings made them very interesting to Esther, who had a special fondness for riddle ballads.) I also thought the conflation of grammar and magic was wonderfully done and beautifully written.

The River Has Roots is a fairly short, self-contained story with some lovely prose, a bit of fairy tale whimsy and romance, and an unshakable bond between sisters. The hardcover edition I read contains linocut art by Kathleen Neeley, and the audiobook version (narrated by Gem Carmella) contains music performed by the author and her own sister, Dounya El-Mohtar.

My Rating: 8/10

Where I got my reading copy: Finished copy from the publisher.

Read an Excerpt from The River Has Roots