Author: Nicky

Review – The House of Drought

Posted January 17, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

House of Drought

by Dennis Mombauer

Genres: Fantasy, Horror
Pages: 117
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
On the island of Sri Lanka, at a colonial mansion between the forest and the paddy fields, a caretaker arrives with four children in tow after pledging to keep them safe. When violent thugs storm the house demanding that Ushu repay his debt, young Jasmit and the other children hide in an upstairs bathroom where a running tap opens a gateway to escape. But the Dry House is not the only force at work in the place where the forest and the estate meet—something else stirs in the trees, something ancient, something that demands retribution.

The Sap Mother bides her time, watching and learning from the house’s inhabitants. She burrows beneath the foundations of the Dry House, hungry for atonement. Pulled between these warring powers, Jasmit must choose between saving those trapped in the mansion’s bulging stomachs and preparing the house for when the Mother emerges again.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This horror novella didn’t entirely work for me, though I appreciated a number of things about it (the setting, the tension, the fact that it didn’t give the reader too many answers too quickly). The structure kind of annoyed me, with the order of events jerking around. It’s hard to describe, but first you get the frame story, the “present day” if you will. Then you jump back in time to the crisis point of other characters’ story… then forward just a little to how those characters got into that situation. Then forward back to the present day, and then a new set of characters.

It feels like the story tried very hard to come full circle, bring things together and find a way to end the story — but it felt like it missed a step. How did a certain character figure things out? Why is she so eager to save people she doesn’t know?

It’s an interesting novella but I didn’t find it wholly successful.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Dennis Mombauer, horror, SF/F

WWW Wednesday

Posted January 17, 2024 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

It’s Wednesday again, somehow, so time to answer the threes Ws:

What are you currently reading?
What have you recently finished reading?
What are you reading next?

And linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

What are you currently reading?

Most actively, it’s Cat Sebastian’s We Could Be So Good. I picked it up and read 100 pages at once almost by accident, quickly fascinated by Nick and Andy and their relationship, or what their relationship could be like if they were having one. (Which, at page 100, they are not.)

I’d love to curl up with it and finish it today.

What have you recently finished reading?

Yesterday I finished up with Digging Up Britain, by Mike Pitts, which I’d been stalled with for a while — not for any reason on the book’s part, just it was a little slower than my brain was looking for at the time. It discusses some fascinating sites in British archaeology; nothing came as too great a surprise to me, having grown up watching Time Team and thus always hooked into this kind of thing in the news etc, but there were a couple of surprises.

I also finished volume two of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù), which was fun. SQQ is so clueless, though. Very curious how things are gonna get rounded out in volume three (since if I understand correctly, volume four is short stories rather than a continuation of the plot).

What are you reading next?

I’m planning to pick up Rebecca Fraimow’s The Iron Children, which looks like a short read. I’m also very tempted to go right ahead and pick up volume three of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, too!

What are you currently reading?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Encyclopaedia Eorzea Volume II

Posted January 16, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Encyclopaedia Eorzea volume II

by Square Enix

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 303
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Dedicated to those for whom the pursuit of knowledge is a never-ending journey.

In the mere two years since the release of our first official lore book, the world of FINAL FANTASY XIV has grown to encompass not only the untraversed corners of Eorzea, but the far-reaching lands of an entire new continent to the east. With new horizons come new discoveries, and so it is with great pleasure that we bring you the second volume of Square Enix’s best-selling Encyclopædia Eorzea, containing 300 pages of newly compiled information on the realms we proudly call our second home.

The Encyclopaedia Eorzea books are amazing companions to the game, showing off some of the depth of the background lore, sneaking in some images showing how the designs were developed, showing off the weapons from a given expansion, etc.

Volume II covers up to the end of Stormblood, the third expansion, and includes a plot summary for all of those events — which was pretty handy when I realised I had no idea what had become of a particular character amongst all of that. There are recaps on specific characters linked to various regions, background on the history of the regions, details on the tribes (such as the Namazu), etc. Pretty good resource if you’re really into the lore of the game!

As ever with this kind of thing, it’s probably not of much interest if you don’t play the game, though if you’re curious about it, then you might take a peek to get an idea of the depth of lore and world-building out there to explore.

It also comes with an item code, providing you with a chance to own Matoya’s Hat for your character to wear. NB: it isn’t dyeable; it can be kept in your armoire and doesn’t need to go into your glamour chest. Yes, my code’s been claimed.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Final Fantasy XIV

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2024

Posted January 16, 2024 by Nicky in General / 26 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is about goals for 2024. I always think a lot about goals, given I work for two goal-tracking apps (and it used to be three!), so I’ve already given this some thought. Here we go!

I’d like to push myself to read plenty this year. If it doesn’t work out, that’s fine — it’s the effort that matters. So provisionally I’m aiming to read 400 books this year, with fallbacks to 365, 300, and “anything you can” if things go wrong.
I’d like to slowly decrease my TBR pile this year. It’s huge, and I like it that way, but it’s perhaps a bit much. I’m just trying to steadily read more than I acquire, and I have a Beeminder goal for the purpose! (Short version: that means I pay a little fine if I overindulge and buy more books than I actually read. It’s not for everyone, I know, but it works for me!)
I’d like to read longer books this year. There are loads of really great short books, but sometimes I find myself turning to them because I know I’ll be done with them sooner. That’s the dark side of goals to read as many books as possible in a year, so I’ve paired my goals with the aim of averaging a few more pages per book. Just 230 pages per book, so it’s not a big increase, but many books I love (like the British Library Crime Classics) fall around that length. I can mix in shorter novellas, longer fantasy doorstoppers, non-fiction, etc… all that matters is stretching myself a little bit and not falling too prey to “I should finish books as quickly as possible, so I should choose short books”.
I’d like to read some of those books that I’ve been waiting to read “someday”. Maybe even [that book you personally want me to read], Mum/Lisa/Adam/etc. Maybe! Things like Gideon the Ninth and Republic of Thieves.
I want to thoughtfully review most of the books I read. I already do, but it can be tempting with short books or manga not to take the time to reflect too much. I want to keep those one-line reviews that I only post to StoryGraph or Litsy to a minimum. Sometimes it’s the right thing to do, of course, so I’m not going to say I’ll never do it.
I want to finish the series I start. Because I tend to wait until later books are out in a series, catching up sometimes feels really daunting. Plus, I worry that people will get bored if my blog just churns out the reviews of each book in a series (see how widely I split up the Shady Hollow reviews, even though I read the books practically all in the same weekend).
I want to spend more time talking about books! I want to participate a bit more on Litsy and especially on other people’s blogs. I had difficulty keeping up with everything in 2022-2023, but it feels like a good time to start fresh, meet new people, and spend more time on it.
I want to keep up with the books I receive to review via Netgalley. Once upon a time I’d reviewed 80% of the books I received, but I’ve slipped down to 67%. It’s time to get back to it!
I want to keep reading plenty of non-fiction. This one probably isn’t hard, since I’ve stocked up on a lot of exciting new non-fiction recently, but I don’t see a lot of reviews out there for non-fiction, so it’s not always easy to know about what’s coming up. Regular trips to the bookshop are what keeps me in the loop for non-fiction.
Follow more blogs. That’s related to the last one! I’d love to follow more people reviewing non-fiction. I know you must be out there, I’ve seen the non-fiction readers challenge etc. So it’s time to explore! I’d also love to find more classic crime aficionados and… well, everybody!

So that’s me and my somewhat disorganised, no-priority-order list. How about everyone else?

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes

Posted January 15, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes

by Kate Strasdin

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 320
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments - some her own, others donated by family and friends - she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of their lives. Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes.

Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curator. Using her expertise, Strasdin spent the next six years unravelling the secrets contained within the album's pages.

Her findings are remarkable. Piece by piece, she charts Anne's journey from the mills of Lancashire to the port of Singapore before tracing her return to England in later years. Fragments of cloth become windows into Victorian life: Pirates in Borneo, the complicated etiquette of mourning, poisonous dyes, the British Empire in full swing, rioting over working conditions and the terrible human cost of Britain's cotton industry.

This is life writing that celebrates ordinary people: not the grandees of traditional written histories, but the hidden figures, the participants in everyday life. Through the evidence of waistcoats, ball gowns and mourning outfits, Strasdin lays bare the whole of human experience in the most intimate of mediums: the clothes we choose to wear.

Kate Strasdin’s The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes takes a real object as her starting point in order to unravel the life of the original owner of the object, and through that, a picture of the world she lived in, the experiences she was likely to have had, and the things that shaped the lives of the average woman in her position. Strasdin came into the possession of a rare item: a journal in which the owner pasted scraps of cloth, representing the clothes of various of her loved ones and acquaintances, men and women alike (though mostly women).

She did a lot of research to find out who the owner of this book might be, pinning it down to a Mrs Anne Sykes, and discovering her origins and who her family were. Each chapter discusses the clothes both in the context of Anne Sykes’ life, but also the lives of other people at the time — even servants, as one rare item included is a scrap from Anne’s cook’s Sunday best.

I find this kind of thing fascinating, and Anne luckily had a quite interesting life, travelling with her merchant husband and seeing more of the world than many of her period. She lived in Singapore and Shanghai, as well as in the UK, and the scraps of her clothes show us how little she assimilated, though there is the intriguing inclusion of a scrap of a pirate flag.

It’s a little slow at times, but I think worthwhile; there are some full colour plates to give you a better idea of the scraps included, and of Anne’s careful labelling. It works well to give a picture of the life of a young woman married in 1838, whose apparently adoring husband gave her this journal to begin to memorialise their lives together in.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, history, Kate Strasdin, non-fiction

Review – Blood Moon

Posted January 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Blood Moon

by M.J. O'Shea

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 184
Rating:

Synopsis:
"The summer we turned eighteen, I kissed Noah Harper -- by the light of the moon, sitting on the dock, I kissed him. And he kissed me back. I swear.

But the next morning, he ended our friendship and walked away. I haven't seen him since. Not for three long years.

At least not until last night. Last night he was sitting on our dock like nothing had changed. He was sweet and apologetic and more gorgeous than ever. I wanted to believe everything could go back to how it always was. But something's different about Noah. Something isn't quite right.

I have to know... what secret is Noah Harper hiding?"

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I always (eventually) read my Netgalley ARCs, so here we are: finally, I’m reviewing M.J. O’Shea’s Blood Moon. It’s a fairly young-feeling book, focusing on two teenage main characters and their romance, and the supernatural weirdness that eclipsed it and threatened to break the two of them apart. Obviously, ultimately it doesn’t, and Love Will Prevail, given the genre.

It’s all a bit too easy, though. There are few consequences for anything, and the main characters make choices that seem at odds with initial choices (for instance, Zack’s family seems to be important to him — but then he quickly decides he’ll run away with Noah and hardly ever seems to think of them again). There’s something very immature about the narration, which may be intentional (given the age of the protagonist), but which makes everything feel a little shallow.

The romance in and of itself is cute, but I wasn’t sold on any of it for those reasons.

Rating: 1/5

Tags: book reviews, books, M.J. O'Shea, romance, SF/F

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted January 13, 2024 by Nicky in General / 48 Comments

Greetings! It’s been a rough week for me that featured an urgent trip to the eye casualty unit. I’m recovering pretty well given the givens, and escaped with just a corneal abrasion and multiple antibiotics to apply every couple of hours, but I’m a tad limited on how long I can use screens without eye strain right now.

Biscuit Bun is really very sorry for causing all this…

As ever, linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Books acquired this week:

I may have had a book-buying spree to help make me feel better, even though it’s only just been Christmas and there’s already plenty on my TBR heap…

Bit of a mix, as usual! I’m excited about The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which Waterstones had on sale a biiit before the release date. I was lucky: I walked in just as one of the booksellers put this on the shelf.

I also received a few of books to review:

If you saw my Top Ten Tuesday post, you’ll have noticed this means I actually got several of the books I’m most looking forward to in the first half of 2024, which is really nice!

Posts from this week:

I didn’t post as many reviews this week due to it being a really bad week, but there were plenty of posts to recap, all the same!

Dragons’ Teeth and Thunderstones, by Ken McNamara (2/5 stars)
Tickets for the Ark, by Rebecca Nesbit (3/5 stars)
Twilight Falls, by Juneau Black (4/5 stars)
Clean Room vol 3 – Waiting for the Stars to Fall, by Gail Simone et al (3/5 stars)
The Governess Affair, by Courtney Milan (5/5 stars)
The Impossible Impostor, by Deanna Raybourn (2/5 stars)

And other posts:

What I’m reading:

It’s been mostly graphic novels so far this week, which were short and easy while I was stressed, but I did also finish (and love) A City on Mars, by Zach and Kelly Weinersmith. Over the weekend I hope to get stuck into some of my new non-fic reading, and polish off a novel or two.

Assuming my eye holds up, anyway… I’ll skip the preview of reviews to come because I’m not on my usual computer and I need to take a break from my screen now.

How’s everyone else doing? A better week than mine, I hope!

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – An Impossible Impostor

Posted January 12, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Impossible Impostor

by Deanna Raybourn

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Romance
Pages: 336
Series: Veronica Speedwell #7
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
London, 1889. Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian beau Stoker are summoned by Sir Hugo Montgomerie, head of Special Branch. He has a personal request on behalf of his goddaughter, Euphemia Hathaway. After years of traveling the world, her eldest brother, Jonathan, heir to Hathaway Hall, was believed to have been killed in the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa a few years before.

But now a man matching Jonathan's description and carrying his possessions has arrived at Hathaway Hall with no memory of his identity or where he has been. Could this man truly be Jonathan, back from the dead? Or is he a devious impostor, determined to gain ownership over the family's most valuable possessions--a legendary parure of priceless Rajasthani jewels? It's a delicate situation, and Veronica is Sir Hugo's only hope.

Veronica and Stoker agree to go to Hathaway Hall to covertly investigate the mysterious amnesiac. Veronica is soon shocked to find herself face-to-face with a ghost from her past. To help Sir Hugo discover the truth, she must open doors to her own history that she long believed to be shut for good.

I normally race through Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell books, but The Impossible Impostor threw me for a loop. It makes sense that a means was needed to keep Stoker and Veronica’s relationship off-balance, rather than have them settle into anything too blissful… but I wish it wasn’t done via lack of communication and, well, all of this.

It’s not that it’s too surprising that Veronica’s past includes a guy like Spenlove, or that she might even have ended up in that particular sort of relationship with him (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here). But the total lack of communication with Stoker — knowing the cost if the details come out — just… argh. And I didn’t feel that Stoker’s responses to it were entirely consistent.

Anyway, I ended up half-skimming this one, so I would be aware of plot points and important conversations, without being too invested in it. That way, I can give the next book (which someone else has assured me they like better) a try.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Deanna Raybourn, historical fiction, mystery, romance

Review – The Governess Affair

Posted January 11, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Governess Affair

by Courtney Milan

Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance
Pages: 101
Series: Brothers Sinister #0.5
Rating: five-stars

Synopsis:
She will not give up.

Three months ago, governess Serena Barton was let go from her position. Unable to find new work, she’s demanding compensation from the man who got her sacked: a petty, selfish, swinish duke. But it’s not the duke she fears. It’s his merciless man of business—the man known as the Wolf of Clermont. The formidable former pugilist has a black reputation for handling all the duke’s dirty business, and when the duke turns her case over to him, she doesn’t stand a chance. But she can’t stop trying—not with her entire future at stake.

He cannot give in.

Hugo Marshall is a man of ruthless ambition—a characteristic that has served him well, elevating the coal miner’s son to the right hand man of a duke. When his employer orders him to get rid of the pestering governess by fair means or foul, it’s just another day at the office. Unfortunately, fair means don’t work on Serena, and as he comes to know her, he discovers that he can’t bear to use foul ones. But everything he has worked for depends upon seeing her gone. He’ll have to choose between the life that he needs, and the woman he is coming to love…

The Governess Affair is a novella prequel to Courtney Milan’s Brothers Sinister novels, which I haven’t yet read, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. We quickly learn that the main character, Serena, has been gravely wronged by the Duke of Clermont, and his right hand man, Hugo Marshall, is told to do something about her and get her out of the way — before his duchess comes home and realises that he has once again been sleeping around.

What really matters in this novella, though, is Hugo’s interactions with Serena, and the tenderness he feels for her almost against his will. This is one of those times where a sex scene is absolutely necessary to the plot and characters, and reveals so much about them: it shouldn’t be skipped, because it’s a scene of healing and caretaking. I worry that it verges a little on the trope of (pardon the vulgarity) “magical healing cock”, but I think it’s less that Serena’s problems and fears are all gone than that she has found one person to trust, as a handhold to move toward fuller healing.

The interactions between Serena and her sister, Frederica, are also worthy of note — I’d have loved a little more depth there, a little more understanding of why they’ve ended up in this particular kind of dynamic, and what happens now that Serena has moved away again and started a life of her own, doing her best to fulfil her dreams.

Either way, I’m definitely eager to try the full novels of the series now, which focus on the next generation, by the look of it.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Courtney Milan, historical fiction, romance

WWW Wednesday

Posted January 10, 2024 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

It’s Wedneday again, so here I go answering the threes Ws:

What are you currently reading?
What have you recently finished reading?
What are you reading next?

And linking up with Taking on a World of Words. I don’t know if I’ll keep participating, though, since both times so far I only got one comment back, even though I visited quite a few blogs and left a comment — I guess no one’s much interested in mine. Which is fine, but I have limited time and energy, and stuff that doesn’t catch anyone’s interest needs to be the first to go.

What are you currently reading?

I’m actually between books, sort of. I mean, I have a lot of books on the go at once, but they’re mostly a little bit stalled, or only just started — I often have a few of those around and one book that I’m really focusing on, and I haven’t picked that latter yet. I guess I’m most interested in finally finishing up Sailor’s Delight, by Rose Lerner: I really like the characters and the setting, it’s just that the yearning by a particular character was a little intense, and I was looking for something lighter at the time.

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished A City on Mars by Zach and Kelly Weinersmith last night, and I loooved it. It’s unfortunately quite pessimistic about the prospects for space settlements, but in a way that’s realistic rather than just trying to naysay or something. They have good reasons, relating to all the things we don’t know about human biology, the technology we don’t have yet, and the legal frameworks that don’t really yet have good safeguards. It’s a fun read, since it doesn’t get too bogged down in detail (it’s definitely for laypeople).

What are you reading next?

I’m not sure! I know that Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire is my #DoubleSpin book for the Litsy #BookSpin challenge, so maybe I’ll read that now and make sure I don’t leave it to the last minute. The new book in the series appears to have dinosaurs in it, so I’d love to catch up with the ones I haven’t read before and get to that!

What about you? What are you reading?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday