Review of The Defiant Heir by Melissa Caruso
The Tethered Mage, Melissa Caruso’s Venetian-inspired fantasy debut novel, was one of my favorite books read during 2017. The worldbuilding is thoughtfully done, and it also features wonderful characters and relationships, mystery and political intrigue, and a little romantic development. It’s so compulsively readable that I ended up staying up until 2:00 one morning finishing it, and I could hardly wait to continue the story in The Defiant Heir—and now that I’ve also read the sequel, I can hardly wait […]
Review of Red Sister by Mark Lawrence
International bestselling author Mark Lawrence’s latest novel, Red Sister, is the first installment in the Book of the Ancestor trilogy, which is set in a new world unrelated to his two previously published trilogies. It follows Nona, a young girl with a turbulent past, as she trains in a convent after having been found on the brink of being hanged for murder. It’s both very familiar and yet a little different, particularly in its approach to conventional tropes, and I was […]
Review of The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso
The Tethered Mage, the first book in the Swords and Fire trilogy, is Melissa Caruso’s debut novel—and what a wonderful debut it is! It’s Venetian-inspired fantasy featuring great characters (including a variety of women), magic, political intrigue and mystery, friendship, and a dash of romantic entanglement, but what truly sets it apart is the solid worldbuilding. I found it so exciting and compulsively readable that I could hardly put it down, and I ended up staying up until 2:00 AM […]
Women in SF&F Month: Gail Carriger
Today I am thrilled to welcome New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger! Her immensely entertaining Parasol Protectorate series, a comedy of manners set during an alternate Victorian era populated by werewolves, vampires, and other supernatural beings, follows the adventures of Alexia Tarabotti—who literally has no soul. Though this series is now complete, she’s expanded the world through other books, including those in Custard Protocol, an ongoing series set after the Parasol Protectorate; Supernatural Society, stand alone LGBTQ romance novellas; Finishing School, a young adult quartet; […]
