First published in 2011, Rachel Neumeier’s young adult fantasy novel The Floating Islands was received with acclaim: it was a Junior Library Guild selection and a Kirkus Best Children’s Book of the Year, chosen for the ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book list, and recommended on the ALA Amelia Bloomer list of feminist literature. Though currently a standalone that completes the two main protagonists’ story arcs, it does leave much of the setting open for further exploration and the author does […]

Tooth and Claw, one of Jo Walton’s earlier novels, won the 2004 World Fantasy Award. Though it is often compared to Jane Austen’s work, the author cites Victorian novels in general and Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage in particular as inspirations in her Dedication, Thanks, and Notes, adding “this novel is the result of wondering what a world would be like…if the axioms of the sentimental Victorian novel were inescapable laws of biology.” She imagined this by populating Tooth and Claw with dragons […]

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan is the first in a series of five books chronicling the past adventures of the famous dragon naturalist Isabella, Lady Trent. This book begins with her early life—a little about her childhood, her early interest in dragons, and eventually her marriage—and then proceeds to focus on her first important adventure involving the study of dragons. The second Memoir by Lady Trent, The Tropic of Serpents, was released in the US earlier this year […]

Today’s guest is Khanh from The Book Nookery! She prolifically reads and discusses books from a wide variety of genres, including speculative fiction, and I enjoy reading her thoughts and insights so much that I frequently read what she writes about books in genres I never read. Her analysis is both thorough and entertaining, and she articulates her points clearly and with a sense of humor. Khanh is one of my favorite reviewers, and I’m thrilled she’s here this month […]

As often happens after the holidays at the end of the year, I’ve gotten behind on reviews. I want to mention the books I’ve read, but I also want to get caught up since I’m trying to set some reading/review schedules for myself and that’s hard to do when I’m so far behind. So… I’m going to attempt some mini-reviews! I’m not necessarily going to review everything currently in my to-review stack this way, but I am going to review […]

Today I have a guest post by C.J. Hill, the author of the new book Slayers. Since her book is about dragon slayers, this post is all about dragons – dragons in different cultures, favorite dragons, and why she featured them in her book. Hope you enjoy it! For a creature that never existed, dragons certainly get a lot of publicity (I would have said air-time, but it seemed a bit much to put a pun in the blog’s first […]