Review – Altar

Posted March 13, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Altar

by Desree

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 72
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
The debut poetry collection from award-winning writer and spoken word artist, Desree, Altar explores multifaceted dimensions of sacrifice, challenging its heroism and examining its ties to servility. The poems in Altar urge their protagonists to play neither lion nor lamb, but to live and flourish on their own terms. Each page glimmers with vivid, often devastating vignettes: we witness the resilience of youth, the strength of the Black female body, the complexity of chosen and unchosen family, the sweeping effects of gentrification.Through reflections on Black British identity, queer joy, place and belonging, faith and consent, Desree invites the reader on a journey of reclamation, while her wry wit and disarming tenderness hold us through the necessary storms that mark the way.

I wasn’t sure what I’d think of Desree’s Altar; I’ve not been very interested in spoken word poetry, historically, and I read that Desree’s a spoken word artist, so I wasn’t sure how well her work lends itself to print. The answer in this volume is ‘just fine’, though the ebook version didn’t do the formatting any favours.

I didn’t entirely click with it all, but there were some poems and images that did grab me, like the recurring theme of the rose in her mouth, and this stanza:

“i knew bodies
built in the image of a fireplace
were only useful if there
was something burning
inside them. i learnt
safety means between flames“

Not entirely for me, this collection, but I did enjoy giving it a shot. And I do wonder still if some of the poems might not after all be better aloud, even if they did work fine in print.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Desree, poetry

Reading Firsts in 2026

Posted March 13, 2026 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Tammy posted this book tag over on Books, Bones & Buffy and I couldn’t resist joining in… what are your “firsts” for 2026?

First book read in 2026: vol 4 of Solo Leveling (Chugong)

It’s definitely the first book finished anyway — I suppose in theory I might’ve read a bit of something else before that, because I tend to dual-wield… or triple-wield… or — well, ahem, you get the picture.

First review of 2026: Fabulous Frocks (Jane Eastoe & Sarah Gristwood)

This wasn’t the first review I wrote in 2026, since that almost certainly hasn’t been published on my blog yet — I have somewhere around 60 reviews written and not yet posted, since I read more than a book a day on average, and try to space out reviews to give a variety (while frontloading reviews of ARCs). This was the first review posted, though, and you can find it here.

The first review I wrote for the year is hard to guess, since I read a lot of books at the end of 2025 and wrote reviews for them at the start of 2026. At a guess, though, it might’ve been for volume one of Mone Sorai’s Our Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide, a romance manga.

First debut read in 2026: The Iron Bridge (Rebecca Hurst)

It took me a bit to figure this out, because I don’t pay a lot of attention to stuff like debuts (and publication history for non-fiction writers can be weird), but I remembered I picked up this poetry collection because it in one of the prize categories at my library… and as far as I recall now, it was a prize for being an outstanding first poetry collection. My review is up already here!

The first book I was conscious of being a debut was Amy Coombe’s Stay for a Spell, which I received to review and is a fun and cosy romantasy. My review is coming up soon!

First “new-to-me” author of 2026: Adam Aleksic

This may well also have been a debut, but I deliberately skipped the non-fiction writers in the last question because it’s often harder to find out. I had caveats, but found it interesting all the same. My review is here!

First book of 2026 that slayed me: Guardian vol 1 (Priest)

The yearning, my goodness. My review isn’t up yet, but here’s an excerpt:

Shen Wei had been restraining himself for too long. In the perfect silence, he couldn’t help letting go for once. Lying there with Zhao Yunlan so tantalisingly near, his thoughts spun out of control. He imagined gathering that warm body close, pressing kisses to those eyes, that hair, those lips… tasting and partaking of every part.
He imagined possessing Zhao Yunlan utterly.
The fantasy alone was enough to make Shen Wei’s breathing unsteady. He yearned with the desperate fervour of someone dreaming of hot soup as they froze to death.
But he didn’t move a muscle. Just looking at Zhao Yunlan and thinking about him was seemingly enough.

I have my complaints about Guardian, but whatever’s going on between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan has me hooked.

First book of 2026 that I wish I could get back the time I spent reading it: Longer (Michael Blumlein)

It was a book I’d received ages ago as an ARC and bounced off, so I gave it another shot. I did skim to the end because I don’t like reviewing ARCs without at least a solid feel for the whole book, but I regret every moment. My review is here.

I did rate a book as 1-star before that, but while I didn’t think it was very good (and I think it wasted the reader’s time a fair bit), I still thought it had some worthwhile bits. Still, it’s a runner-up: Megan C. Reynolds’ Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (And Misunderstood) Word. My review is here!

First 5-star book of 2026: A History of England in 25 Poems (Catherine Clarke)

I had no 5-star reads in January, but February was a bit stronger. This was the first, though, and is in the running to be one of my favourite reads of the year. Obviously the year is young, though! I’ll be posting my review sometime in the next couple of weeks, probably, but the gist is that I found the selection of poems to discuss really interesting, and it engaged better with England’s colonialism than I’d feared, including understanding that Wales, Scotland and Ireland were also subject to England’s bad behaviour.

(It’ll be quick, I said. I’ll just knock it out and post it right away, I said. And then I got wordy. Oh well!)

What were your firsts of the year? Feel free to steal this tag just as I did, and drop the link in the comments so I can take a look. You don’t need to be as chatty as me, ahaha.

Tags: books, reading memes

Review – The Double Turn

Posted March 12, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Double Turn

by E.C.R. Lorac, Carol Carnac

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 220
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
At Firenze, the reclusive artist Adrian Delafield’s Florentine enclave in St John’s Wood, the whispers of an impending tragedy are growing louder. The tension between the fanatical zealot of a housekeeper Miss Trimming and Delafield’s sister Virgilia is just shy of fever pitch, when a cold morning at the house finds Trimming and Adrian sprawled at either end of the staircase – upstairs, an injury; downstairs, death.

The windows and doors were all locked from the inside, and yet Inspector Julian Rivers, trained to see the malice behind deadly accident, suspects that a murderer had a hand in the fell deed. But if this is true, Rivers is faced with both the inexplicable puzzle of motive, and the task of untangling an impossible crime in Carnac’s compelling and twisting 1956 mystery exploring the demands of kinship, art-world secrets and religious mania.

Carol Carnac, AKA E.C.R. Lorac, is one of my favourite finds through the British Library Crime Classics series. I reliably enjoy her sense of place and ability to create characters I really root for, though I generally prefer her work under the name E.C.R. Lorac — I think because all of those I’ve read have starred Macdonald, and he’s such a humane sort of detective that it makes everything just a little comfier. I’m less fond of the detectives in The Double Turn, Lancing and Rivers: I’ve no reason to believe they’re meant to be any less decent than Macdonald, but they just don’t get the same fondness from me. I didn’t quite understand their frustration with one of the (innocent) characters, for example.

I still enjoyed The Double Turn as a mystery, though; I’m not sure if it was fair play, as the solution eventually partly hinged on a small detail that I can’t remember being mentioned previously (though there were other clues that could lead you in the right sort of direction, and there was a major one I didn’t pay enough attention to). I did realise that it was likely to end up being a character I didn’t want to be implicated, because Lorac’s so good at that, at creating people with massive flaws who nonetheless also have admirable qualities… but that’s more of a meta-clue.

In the end, it left me feeling a bit sad, to be honest. The way it ends doesn’t feel entirely like justice or everything being set to rights, because you can’t undo the harm done, and the victim wasn’t likeable but was in some ways admirable, and either way obviously didn’t deserve to be murdered in that way — and there was collateral damage too. It’s just… ugh.

All in all, not a favourite of Lorac’s; plenty of worthy aspects, but not my personal cup of tea.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, Carol Carnac, crime, E.C.R. Lorac, mystery

Review – The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, vol 4

Posted March 11, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish

by Xue Shan Fei Hu

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novels, Romance
Pages: 443
Series: The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish #4
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
STILL WATERS RUN DEEP

With their union blessed by the emperor and four baby heirs in tow, Prince Jing is well on his way to clinching the position of crown prince. But Li Yu can’t pat himself on the back for a job well done just yet! Prince Jing’s crafty brother still lurks in the shadows plotting against him.

As Li Yu dives deeper into the sixth prince’s schemes, he uncovers a dastardly conspiracy that ripples from Prince Jing’s childhood, forming a tsunami poised to plunge the imperial palace (and its allies) into total chaos! Li Yu will have to use all the fishy tricks at his disposal if he wants to keep his new family safe!

The fourth volume of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish brings the whole thing to an end and wraps it up neatly with a bow, but dang, there’s a lot that happens in this volume still. After all, Prince Jing isn’t the crown prince yet, Li Yu still wants to have another baby, and there are those mysterious secrets that the fish-scamming system keeps showing him.

In general, I loved it. The babies are adorable, Li Yu and Mu Tianchi’s bond has become really strong (if sometimes in need of a tad more communication), and the political plot all works out and some of the secrets start to make sense.

I did want to address one thing, though: in this volume, the disabled tyrant is cured, in fact. Mu Tianchi’s mutism isn’t genetic, but has been caused by a low-dose poison he was given at birth. Once the poison is discovered and cured, he begins to be able to speak. You could argue that this is plot-necessary because otherwise he couldn’t become the emperor (at least not without becoming a tyrant), and also that Chinese culture isn’t in quite the same place about stuff like disability — but it’s still worth knowing, and worth knowing as well that there’s a brief mention of Li Yu telling the children that Mu Tianchi isn’t “different”, he’s “just sick”, implying it would be bad if he was disabled.

In the series as a whole, Li Yu never looks down on Mu Tianchi for being mute, and Mu Tianchi is always very capable — it’s just that it’s unacceptable for the emperor’s heir to be unable to speak. That said, that scene where Li Yu tries to explain away disability so as not to make the children think their dad is “different” suggests the author might treat permanent disability quite differently. So tread with care: there are some not-great attitudes toward disability swimming around the edges of the story and occasionally casting some shadows.

There are a few things that don’t entirely add up, plot-wise — e.g. the babies’ paternity was already confirmed on birth: Mu Tianchi offered his own blood for it rather than disturb Li Yu for his, I remember that scene clearly. Was that never communicated to the emperor? Not that he ever seems to genuinely doubt the children’s paternity anyway, but that whole bit is never mentioned as a reason why.

…But mostly I just loved it, really. It’s very sweet.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, danmei, light novels, romance, SF/F, Xue Shan Fei Hu

WWW Wednesday

Posted March 11, 2026 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Gryffin Murphy’s Twig’s Traveling Tomes, which I got as an ARC via Netgalley. The romance didn’t really work for me, since it felt a bit too much like insta-love and I didn’t feel the chemistry, but the book magic was pretty fun. I’d love to have magic that can tell me the perfect book for someone I don’t even know; that sounds pretty darn cool.

What are you currently reading?

As ever, I have a couple of books on the go. My current non-fiction read is a chonker by Steve Roud, Folk Song in England. I’ve been a fan of folk music since I was a teen, though Roud is using a stricter definition that excludes singers like Seth Lakeman or bands like Bellowhead (who have done modern interpretations of traditional folk songs, often with a decidedly non-traditional sound). He draws a line at the 1950s and declines to discuss modern stuff for the purposes of his work. Still interesting to me, since many of these traditional songs are sources for the modern folk singers I’ve enjoyed.

I also settled into a classic mystery yesterday while feeling sorry for myself about my dentist visit: Michael Gilbert’s Sky High, which enjoyably features a comfortably middle-aged lady who rides a motorbike, manages the choir, and has some clever ideas about amateur detection. After the last book of Gilbert’s I read (Death in Captivity) I was kind of putting this off in case it was similarly grim, but though it’s haunted by war, it doesn’t have the same feel. I’m enjoying it well enough so far!

What will you be reading next?

If I told you, I’d have to kill you…

Nope, as so often, I have no real idea. I’m trying to clear the decks a bit since I’m going to have a few days in London at the end of the month, and undoubtedly that will mean getting some new books. I have a challenge for 2026 (that worked well in 2025) not to have more than 20 books bought in 2026 that I haven’t started yet, plus a goal of generally reading more books than I buy to slowly chip away at the backlog, so I want to create some space there. That means I’ll probably read the rest of the MDZS manhua volumes I have, and maybe start on a couple more ARCs.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (light novel), vol 1

Posted March 10, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

by singNsong

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novels
Pages: 250
Series: Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (light novel) #1
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU WILL SURVIVE.

Kill each other within the time limit or die. It’s just another evening commute on the train, until the passengers are given an order they can’t disobey. Utter chaos ensues, but ordinary office worker Dokja Kim only feels an unsettling calm. He knows exactly how this will play out! The subway car, the passengers’ reactions, even the bizarre creature that suddenly appears to oversee this sadistic scenario...everything is straight out of his favorite story, an online novel so obscure he is its sole reader. And as the only one who knows where the plot is headed, Dokja must use his knowledge to survive the oncoming apocalypse!

I didn’t know very much about singNsong’s Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint before picking it up — I’d seen friends be enthusiastic, been recommended it if I liked Solo Leveling (which I did) and it’s mentioned in Tiny Bookshop (though that might be the manhwa adaptation). I ended up burning right through it and really wanting the next volume — there’s something very compulsive about it.

Dokja Kim has spent his whole life reading this one webnovel, reading hundreds of chapters from when he’s being bullied in school to a temp job in his thirties, and then the novel starts coming true and he’s the only one who knows exactly what’s going on: that’s definitely compelling! He’s not always the most sympathetic character (he’s got his eye on survival rather than kindness), but the net result is that he ends up minimising slaughter and saving people. Reminds me indeed of Solo Leveling and the way Jinwoo decides to only rely on himself, and then ends up taking care of the people around him and saving the world. You expect it to take a darker turn.

There’s some interesting game-like mechanics in the world, and I’m very curious where it goes — and how Dokja and the people he’s saved, people who weren’t meant to survive, will change the story.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, light novels, SF/F, singNsong

Top Ten Tuesday: Ordinal Numbers

Posted March 10, 2026 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is books with ordinal numbers in the title, which took me some doing! But I got there in the end, by spelunking through past books read.

The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff.
This was the first to jump to mind, as it’s a book I’ve loved for a long time. Sutcliff was great at writing historical fiction that was perfect for kids without being patronising and without skimping on detail. The germ of the story for this one is a Roman eagle that was found during an archaeological dig, along with the alleged disappearance of the Ninth Legion (though the status of the Hispana and how it ended are questioned more now, if I understand correctly). Despite that, it’s not meant as a history lesson, and I love Marcus, Esca and Cub, and the story of the Ninth Legion that Sutcliff imagined.
The Fourth Island, by Sarah Tolmie.
Turns out I never posted my review of this book here, so I’ve added that to my list! I’ve loved several of Tolmie’s novellas, and remember enjoying this a lot — though it’s not a story that comes to many conclusions, but rather one that leaves you with all kinds of questions and things to ponder. As I recall, it’s beautifully written, too!
The Ninth Rain, by Jen Williams.
This one’s stuck in my head for ages! I’ve been contemplating a reread of this as well, because this trilogy just felt so chewy. I don’t know if that makes sense to say, but there was a lot of worldbuilding, a lot of stuff going on, and I got really attached to some of the characters.
The Seventh Bride, by T. Kingfisher.
And another one I’d really like to reread! It’s been quite a long time, but I remember finding this a really fun retelling, and there’s a hedgehog! I definitely remember the hedgehog.
The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin.
I imagine this one is on a lot of fantasy and SF lovers’ lists, because there’s so much going on in this one. It’s hard not to spoiler, honestly, because so much of it should probably just be experienced without knowing, leaving you picking up the pieces… I need to finish the trilogy someday.
The First Ghosts, by Irving Finkel.
This was a complete impulse read back when I picked it up, and I found it really fascinating. Finkel discusses the ancient sources that tell us what people in ancient Sumeria, Babylon and Assyria believed about ghosts, and digs into what he thinks that means. I felt somewhat differently about that part (which dinged the rating a touch), but I still found it really interesting.
The First Fossil Hunters, by Adrienne Mayor.
I really enjoyed this one: Mayor digs into what the ancient Greeks and Romans thought about fossils, because obviously they did see fossils in the world and wonder about them and have stories about them. I think at times it goes beyond the evidence a bit, but it’s still really interesting.
The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert.
The sixth extinction is, of course, the one that’s happening now, with massive losses in biodiversity in pretty much every biome. Kolbert’s book is partly a discussion of that, and partly a celebration of biodiversity in hopes that people can be convinced to protect it. Definitely a worthy read.
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, by Camilla Townsend.
This book attempts to look past the Spanish sources that are frequently used to understand the Aztec world, looking for sources written by indigenous people wherever possible and trying to dispell certain myths (like the idea that Moctezuma believed Hernán Cortés was a god). And it finally taught me to pronounce certain Nahautl words, as well; the pronunciation guides were really good.
Third Time Lucky, by Tanya Huff.
Confession: I don’t really remember this collection, but I thought highly of it at the time, and Huff is a fun writer in general. So I’d probably stand by past-me’s recommendation!

See? I did it in the end!

Very curious to see others’ choices, and whether everyone struggled as much as I did!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Tied to You, vol 1

Posted March 9, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Tied to You

by WHAT, Chelliace

Genres: Fantasy, Manga, Romance
Pages: 334
Series: Tied to You #1
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Wooseo Shin was never one to believe in fate...until a ring of red thread appears around his finger, that is! This ring marks a person's meeting of their soulmate, and with it, neither can fall asleep if the other is absent. This development is not a welcome one for Wooseo, who decides to keep it from his close friend and crush Jiseok Kang at all costs. Because as fate would have it, the person with Wooseo's matching set is Jigeon Kang — Jiseok's older brother! When Jigeon proposes that they start sharing a bed, if only to combat their joint insomnia, Wooseo reluctantly accepts... but as the two spend more and more time together, feelings start to get messy. Will Wooseo be able to survive his new life tangled up in between these two brothers?!

The main character of WHAT’s Tied to You (adapted from a story by Chelliace) is Wooseo, who is in love with his best friend Jiseok. In this world, after the age of twenty, if you touch your fated partner, you fall sick for 24 hours, and then a red ring forms — like the red thread of fate — for both you and your partner. After that point, you can’t sleep apart, and when you sleep side by side and touching, you get the best sleep you’ve ever had in your life.

Wooseo’s partner isn’t Jiseok, though… it’s Jiseok’s older brother, Jigeon, who had been close to the pair but pulled back for some reason a while ago. Wooseo’s afraid that Jigeon hates him, but it turns out more complex than that (of course). At first, they treat it as a transaction: I’ll pay you to come and sleep beside me so we can both get some sleep. Then Jigeon pushes for more, getting Wooseo to move in with him — all while the two of them hide the whole thing from Jiseok, who seems to be getting jealous, despite repeatedly saying he’s totally straight and not interested in Wooseo.

It’s all a bit of a tangled mess, and it’s not entirely clear how to take some of Jigeon’s behaviour; is he being creepy? Is it Jiseok being weird? Are the two of them just gonna ride rough-shod over Wooseo and what he needs…?

The art and colours are lovely (though some character designs are very similar, partly on purpose), and I’m curious enough about the plot/relationship to read more — especially since it’s a manhwa, so it doesn’t take that long to read a volume. I’m not quite sure how it’ll land with me, but I guess we’ll find out!

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, manga, romance, SF/F

Fantasy with Friends: Adaptations of Classics

Posted March 9, 2026 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

This week’s Fantasy with Friends discussion (hosted by Pages Unbound) is about adaptations:

What are your thoughts on fantasy adaptations of classic literature that originally had no fantasy elements? (Ex. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, A Far Better Thing, Kindred Dragons)

I’m fairly ambivalent, I guess? The only one of those examples I knew about is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I thought was a funny concept at the time, but there were a few copycats of that stretched the joke too far (basically just trying to cash in). I think in general I’d judge each book on its own merits, rather than the idea of adapting a classic alone… but I probably wouldn’t actively seek out such books.

One example I can think of that I did enjoy is Jo Walton’s Tooth & Claw, which was spawned (according to her story) when she was reading Trollope and Le Guin at the same time. I haven’t read any Trollope, so I read it as a standalone fantasy novel on its own merits, and had a great time. It’s been quite a while since I last read it, but I view it pretty fondly.

So overall, not something that calls to me greatly, but I wouldn’t say no to trying it either in the right circumstances — mostly, I think, when it adds something genuinely transformative, rather than just using a popular novel as a shortcut for getting people truly invested.

Tags: books, discussions, Fantasy With Friends

Review – Strange Buildings

Posted March 8, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Strange Buildings

by Uketsu

Genres: Horror, Mystery
Pages: 384
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Eleven strange buildings. One terrible secret.

A lonely hut in the woods.
A murder house.
A hidden chamber.
A mysterious shrine.
A home in flames.
A nightmarish prison…

Each of the buildings in this book tells a chilling story. Each one is part of a puzzle.

Look closely… and you’ll see that everything is connected.

All leading to a revelation so horrifying you won’t want to believe it.

Millions of readers have become addicted to solving Uketsu’s dark mysteries.

Strange Buildings is the strangest, and darkest, of them all.

Uketsu’s Strange Buildings is a follow-up to Strange Houses: I don’t think you need to start with the former, but there are several references to it, and since the mysteries are similar in principle, it can help put together the whys and wherefores of the cases presented in this one. I liked Strange Houses quite a bit; I think Strange Buildings is a bit looser, with a higher page count used to detail eleven cases and then extensively unpack how they relate to each other.

While the mystery in Strange Houses wasn’t exactly sunshine and daisies (houses built in order to facilitate murder and child abuse), it’s worth noting that things are a bit darker again in this one, with themes like child prostitution, children being coerced into murdering family members, cults and brainwashing, infidelity, and other child abuse into the bargain.

So… a light romp this isn’t, though it’s a little disconnected from the horrors by the narration, which is a bit journalistic in angle. It follows the same format as Strange Houses, mostly, presenting floorplans for you to figure out what’s strange… though I found them a bit less obscure, maybe? I kind of figured out how things were lining up and the links between the mysteries, so that helped — after a few, it becomes obvious what the key factors to consider are.

It’s not really about characterisation or anything, so beware of that going into the story: there are two characters which recur from the previous book, but they’re mostly an excuse to gather the stories and a way to dissect them for the reader and finally reveal the truths behind the weird floorplans.

It was still a pretty quick read, though probably about double the length of time I took to read Strange Houses. I’m still enjoying the format very much, and looking forward to what’s next — Strange Maps, apparently!

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, mystery, Uketsu