Well, I didn’t get any books this week but my husband bought one and received a bunch he pre-ordered so I figured I’d talk about those in case anyone else was interested in them. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick by Chris van Allsburg (and a lot of other people) Chris van Allsburg has written and illustrated a lot of well known children’s books, including Jumanji, The Polar Express, and Zathura. Another one of these books is The Mysteries of Harris […]

The Magician King is the sequel to Lev Grossman’s New York Times bestselling novel The Magicians, which was recently optioned by Fox as a television series. Lev Grossman also won this year’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, so it seems to be a pretty good year for him. Since this is a direct sequel, there will be spoilers for The Magicians in this review. If you do not want to be spoiled, do not read the rest […]

All Men of Genius is a debut novel by Lev AC Rosen. It’s a steampunk story set in England that draws inspiration from William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Violet Adams is a mechanical genius of extraordinary talent. Unfortunately, she’s also not allowed into Illyria, the world’s best college for the sciences, which only admits men as students. When Violet’s father is away for a year to go to a series of conferences in […]

This week brought a book I purchased because I must read it and an ebook for review consideration. Cold Fire by Kate Elliott This is the second book in the Spiritwalker trilogy following Cold Magic. I really enjoyed Cold Magic (review), so when Cold Fire was recently released I had to make sure to get a copy. I’m not sure when I’ll get to read it since I have my next few books to read lined up, but I knew […]

The Dread Hammer is the first fantasy book by Trey Sheils, who has written more books as science fiction writer Linda Nagata. Linda Nagata has won the Locus Award for Best Science First Novel for The Bohr Maker and the Nebula Award for Best Novella for Goddesses. When Ketty’s father decides she is to marry an old man who has been married twice already, she runs away and desperately prays to the Dread Hammer for help when these two men […]

This is one of the posts where I just want to talk about a book that looks interesting that I recently came across (I have a long mental list of next year’s books I’m saving for later this year). Night Shade Books linked to the starred Publisher’s Weekly review for The Emperor’s Knife on their Facebook page, and I was intrigued enough to look it up since they used the magic phrase “compelling characterizations.” This debut novel will be available […]