Author: Nicky

Review – First Light

Posted September 24, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time

by Emma Chapman

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 304
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the Universe's history, from recording the afterglow of the Big Bang to imaging thousands of galaxies, and even to visualising an actual black hole. There's a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew up we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the Universe.

This brief but far-reaching period in the Universe's history, known to astrophysicists as the 'Epoch of Reionisation', represents the start of the cosmos as we experience it today. The time when the very first stars burst into life, when darkness gave way to light. After hundreds of millions of years of dark, uneventful expansion, one by the one these stars suddenly came into being. This was the point at which the chaos of the Big Bang first began to yield to the order of galaxies, black holes and stars, kick-starting the pathway to planets, to comets, to moons, and to life itself.

Incorporating the very latest research into this branch of astrophysics, this book sheds light on this time of darkness, telling the story of these first stars, hundreds of times the size of the Sun and a million times brighter, lonely giants that lived fast and died young in powerful explosions that seeded the Universe with the heavy elements that we are made of. Emma Chapman tells us how these stars formed, why they were so unusual, and what they can teach us about the Universe today. She also offers a first-hand look at the immense telescopes about to come on line to peer into the past, searching for the echoes and footprints of these stars, to take this period in the Universe's history from the realm of theoretical physics towards the wonder of observational astronomy.

It turns out that I am still not great with astrophysics. Emma Chapman is enthusiastic and keen and tries to enthuse the reader, but my eyes just started to glaze over as First Light dug deeper into the detection methods, types of stars, etc, etc. There are important mysteries discussed here, stuff that it would be monumental for humanity to understand — but I won’t be the human understanding them, I’m pretty certain!

It could be that Chapman’s explanations aren’t great, but that’s hard to judge, when I know this isn’t my field or interest. There were bits I found interesting, mostly the less technical stuff, but whenever she started talking about wavelengths, I was a goner.

I will say that I did find some of her extended metaphors a bit annoying/random. I know she was trying to add colour and interest, but I didn’t need the metaphor of cooking Christmas dinner for a full family to understand that launching a complex telescope is difficult. I’d rather just hear about the telescope, thanks.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Emma Chapman, non-fiction, science

WWW Wednesday

Posted September 24, 2025 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

A couple of manga I picked up rather at random, both by Guri Nojiro: In Love’s Key, Reprised and A Beast’s Love is Like the Moon. I liked In Love’s Key, Reprised the better of the two, though A Beast’s Love is Like the Moon has a surprising bittersweetness at the end. Both made for good light reading, even if they weren’t exceptional.

What are you currently reading?

As ever, I’ve got a few things on the go at once, though I did clear the decks a little bit with my offline weekend earlier in the month, and then my long weekend that ended yesterday. I’m most actively reading Cat Sebastian’s You Should Be So Lucky: I’m not far into it yet, but I’m very sure I’m going to love the dynamic between Mark and Eddie.

Other than that, I’m also partway through Lucy Cooke’s Bitch, which I’m finding really slow going — despite being allegedly myth-busting about female behaviour/evolution across a range of species, I’m not finding it that surprising.

I’m also reading Sydney J. Shields’ The Honey Witch, which is… so far, just “fine”. It’s not really pulling me in, and I’m not a fan of the writing style, though I can’t quite put my finger on why yet. I’m not far into it, though!

What will you be reading next?

KJ Charles’ The Duke at Hazard, certainly, and otherwise I need to get back to some of the books I have on hold, like James Alistair Henry’s Pagans. I’ve read 38 books so far in September, and yet I still have a bunch to read for my Book Spin Bingo card.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Reignclowd Palace

Posted September 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Reignclowd Palace

by Philippa Rice

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 400
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Evnie Treedle makes magical things and for the last few years she has been selling them in magical knickknacks shop, the Magpie Nest.

But everything changes when one day Evnie's crafting abilities catch the attention of the nearby Reignclowd Palace. She is asked to become their resident spellsmith... the original spellsmith suddenly ill under mysterious circumstances.

Evnie is soon put to work making and mending magical objects. Yet, problems start to appear when she realises there's much more at stake than friendship or romance; a dragon looms over the kingdom looking for a soul to devour, and it's eyes are set on their princess.

I picked up Philippa Rice’s Reignclowd Palace on an absolute whim — more accurately, I spotted it in a bookshop, was curious about the colourful cover, and ended up putting it on my wishlist. I hadn’t seen anyone else talk about it or review it, which is pretty unusual for me at this point: a lot of my reading decisions are based on seeing other people’s thoughts about the books first.

Aaand I really enjoyed it: it kinda had Howl’s Moving Castle vibes to me in many ways (which is not to say it was a rip-off of Howl’s Moving Castle, just that something about the world and relationships felt adjacent). Evnie is a pretty good protagonist, new to the palace and thus open-eyed to its wonders and quirks, giving us a good chance to explore alongside her but making it make sense that she doesn’t know what’s going on all the time or figure out the intricacies of it.

I feel like there were maybe one or two inconsistencies that I’d have to flick through the book to check back on (why would Fantacci go and get Evnie if the Oracle is so blind to her and what she’s going to do?), and there were a couple of notes that felt off (what happens to the youngest prince in the end makes sense, but felt abrupt) or things that were just a tad weird but never came to anything much (Ren’s crush on Hadriana really seemed a bit creepy/obsessive).

I loved the way dragons work in this world, though, and the chaos of the palace, the nature of Evnie’s magic, the way that it slowly becomes clear what dragons are and what happened to Evnie’s village… And I liked that it works as a standalone: I’ve no idea if there’s other stuff planned in this world, there would certainly be space for it, but there doesn’t need to be.

Overall, a gamble that paid off. It was a nice semi-cosy book for my mood — by which I mean there’s a cosiness to the fact that Evnie’s spellwork happens through knitting and sewing at times, in the friendships growing up around the palace, the light romance, etc, but there is also peril and trauma. There’s a warmth to it that I appreciated a lot.

Rating; 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Philippa Rice, SF/F

Top Ten Tuesday: Fall TBR

Posted September 23, 2025 by Nicky in General / 36 Comments

It’s definitely beginning to feel autumnal here, with the temperatures falling and some very rainy days. I’m all for it — I love rain, especially listening to it against the windows while I’m reading, because I’m a cliché, and I’m also not super keen on very warm weather anyway (despite the problems I have with my poor circulation meaning I’m easily cold).

So it’s time too to think about my fall reading list, thanks to Top Ten Tuesday. I know there are a lot of books releasing soon that I’m interested in, so I’ve included a couple of those, but mostly I’m trying to leave those on my wishlist for Christmas, and focus on some of the neglected books of my TBR.

Mockingbird Court, by Juneau Black. I love the Shady Hollow series, and the one is due out on 7th October, so it has to earn a place on my list. It’s also set in autumn, so it’s coincidentally seasonally appropriate, too! Even though there’s murder and danger, these books are so cosy to me — I can’t wait to settle down with this one.
The Beauty’s Blade, by Feng Ren Zuo Shu. I haven’t read any baihe (f/f Chinese light novels, equivalent to the m/m danmei) yet, but I heard about this one and it sounds like a lot of fun. It’s due out in November, and I need to snag a copy right away so I can check whether my sister will be interested in it. (I mean, probably: badass ladies with swords who presumably end up kissing, it’s right up her street. But I do have to check for a happy ending.)
The Library of Ancient Wisdom, by Selena Wisnom. I’d actually sort-of started this at one point, but got busy and didn’t dig into it properly, but it looks like a fascinating history of Mesopotamia through the library of Ashurbanipal, and I enjoyed the chapter I read. It looks like a bit of a chonker, but I think it’ll be one I gladly sink into once I give it the time.
Pagans, by James Alistair Henry. I’ve technically started this as well, but it wasn’t the right moment, and now I want to get back to it. It’s a mystery set in an alternative universe where geopolitics has worked out very, very differently (e.g. no Norman invasion, Britain’s kind of a backwater, society is largely run by Anglo-Saxons with Celtcs being a heavily marginalised group, etc). Parts of it don’t seem to totally make sense, but I didn’t get that far into it, and I’m very curious how things work out, all the same.
You Should Be So Lucky, by Cat Sebastian. It’s on my TBR for this month, but I haven’t got to it yet (given that I’ve been warned it deals with an amount of grief and loss, last week didn’t seem like the right time mentally). I really want to read it, though, so it’ll probably be one of the next books I pick up! I love Cat Sebastian’s romances in general, and I feel like she’s also always improving as a writer.
The Duke at Hazard, by KJ Charles. Another one that’s on my September TBR but hasn’t been read yet. This one’s definitely a priority — I don’t know why I’ve waited so long on it. I love pretty much all of KJ Charles’ work, so I expect to enjoy it.
The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club, by Christopher de Hamel. This is a bit of a random choice, but it’s been on my shelves for a while and I’d love to dig into it. I really enjoyed Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, and this one has in-page colour illustrations as well, so it should be fascinating. It’s a bit of a chonker, so I might not schedule it for the same month as the other chunky books I’m thinking about!
Folk Song in England, by Steve Roud. I like a lot of modern British folk, and the efforts of singers and groups like Jon Boden (and Spiers & Boden), Fay Hield, Eliza Carthy, Seth Lakeman and Bellowhead have given me quite the appreciation for traditional songs and their many variations. It’s another chunky book, so it’s a little intimidating, but I’m sure I can get to it!
The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, by Xue Shan Fei Hu. This sounds absolutely nuts as a concept, and I really want to dig in. I want to finish my reread of another isekai-type danmei, The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, first… but once I have, I really want to get to this one, especially as it isn’t super-long (four volumes, I think?).
Paladin’s Hope, by T. Kingfisher. I’ve been loving Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel books, and this is the next up! It looks quite a bit shorter than the last one, but hopefully it will do justice to Piper and Galen. Galen deserves some happiness now!

Yes, yes, I know — a very varied bunch. Very curious to see what other people are hoping to read soon!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Eat the World

Posted September 22, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Eat the World

by Marina Diamandis

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 124
Rating:

Synopsis:
For the first time, platinum-certified singer-songwriter Marina shares her singular observations of the human heart through poetry; this collection is essential.

Marina’s talent for powerful, evocative song lyrics finds a new outlet in her poetry. Each poem resonates with the same creative melodies and emotional depth that have made her an artistic sensation. Hailed by The New York Times for “redefining songs about coming of age, and the aftermath, with bluntness and crafty intelligence,” Marina delves even further into trauma, youth, and the highs and lows of relationships in these profound, autobiographical poems to form a collection that transcends the boundaries of music and literature.

When I saw that Marina Diamandis (better known as the singer MARINA or Marina & the Diamonds) had put out a book of poetry, I was… uncertain. I do like Marina’s lyrics, but half of it is also in her tone, her singing, the music. Some lyrics look good written down, and some are lacking without the music, and I mostly feel hers fall into the latter group.

I do think some of the stuff here could make fun songs, but as presented, as poetry, it left me cold. She plays with the words on the page, and there’s a bunch of images added too, so it’s partly that it’s a style I’m not super keen on in general. But also I just found that her turn of phrase didn’t sparkle at all.

I think she was having fun and it was cathartic for her and that’s great! But not my thing.

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Marina Diamandis, poetry

Review – Clockwork Boys

Posted September 21, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Clockwork Boys

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 282
Series: Clocktaur War #1
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
In the first book of this touching and darkly comic duology, a paladin, a forger, an assassin and a scholar ride out of town on an espionage mission with deadly serious stakes. When forger Slate is convicted of treason, she faces a death sentence. But her unique gift for sniffing out magic (literally) earns her a reprieve-of sorts. Along with a paladin, Caliban, possessed by a demon, her murderous ex-lover, and an irritating misogynist scholar, Slate sets off on a mission to learn about the Clockwork Boys, deadly mechanical soldiers from a neighbouring kingdom who have been terrorising their lands. If they succeed, rewards and pardons await, but they must survive a long journey through enemy territory to reach Anuket City. And Slate has her own reasons to dread returning to her former home. Slate and her crew aren't the first to be sent on this mission. None of their predecessors have returned, and Slate can't help but feel they've exchanged one death sentence for another. Her increasing closeness to Caliban isn't helping matters: for the first time in a long time, Slate might actually care about surviving.

T. Kingfisher’s Clockwork Boys has been issued in a new UK print edition, which finally spurred me to get round to reading it — and now I’m glad that I have the sequel in ebook already, because the UK print edition isn’t out, but the duology is really the same story just split between two books. It doesn’t end in this volume by any means.

I found it all very enjoyable: quintessentially Kingfisher-ish, of course, from her physically nondescript female lead to her magic system to her paladin character and his particular hangups. It’s your classic fantasy journey to solve a problem, a biiiig ol’ problem, with a mismatched group consisting of one volunteer and three felons being compelled by a tattoo that’ll eat them if they betray the mission (fascinating concept). It all has her usual humour and warmth, along with truly terrifying ideas (see also: the tattoo that can eat you).

Of course I’ve read Paladin’s Grace, in the same world but (IIRC) written later, so I had some prior grounding on the world, which means I was also trying to slot it into what I know of that book.

It’s very fun and goes by pretty quickly, even if occasionally I want to whack Caliban upside the head, and I’m eager for the next book.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, T. Kingfisher

Review – I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf

Posted September 20, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf

by Grant Snider

Genres: Graphic Novels
Pages: 128
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
It's no secret, but we are judged by our bookshelves. We learn to read at an early age, and as we grow older we shed our beloved books for new ones. But some of us surround ourselves with books. We collect them, decorate with them, are inspired by them, and treat our books as sacred objects. In this lighthearted collection of one- and two-page comics, writer-artist Grant Snider explores bookishness in all its forms, and the love of writing and reading, building on the beloved literary comics featured on his website, Incidental Comics.

Grant Snider’s I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf is a fun bookish set of comics, though I wouldn’t recommend it as one to sit down and read in one go, because it gets a little repetitive. I like the style, and it did provoke a few smiles, don’t get me wrong! But when it feels so samey, the joke kind of palls, and worse, it reminded me a lot of other reader-focused humour (and personally amongst all of that, Tom Gauld’s strips are usually my favourites).

It might be a fun one to have around and dip in and out of, or read a couple of pages a day, or something like that, and I’m sure there’s something in here that every reader will recognise themselves in.

If you have Kobo Plus, it’s included in that, so you could take a peek there if you’d like to check it out rather than buy a physical copy right away!

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Grant Snider, graphic novels

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted September 20, 2025 by Nicky in General / 28 Comments

Welp, I’m back home! And taking a couple of days off to turn this into a long weekend and get some chill time, because oooof.

Books acquired this week

This week featured a quick library trip to grab my hold, and a few impulsive/random choices!

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers was the hold, the others were random choices. Of the poetry, I know I like some of Simon Armitage’s work, but Andrew Motion’s has previously left me cold and I don’t think I’ve read anything by Helen Tookey before, except maaaaybe in an anthology. So we’ll see how I get on with those — I’ve already made a start!

I did also snag a book from Netgalley because I felt like reading a novella, I have auto-approval, and… dinosaurs.

Posts from this week

I kept up posting, mostly, though I skipped Top Ten Tuesday this week due to a combo of circumstances and a prompt that didn’t call to me. So it’s mostly reviews:

Fantasy manga: The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter manga, vol. 3, by Kazuki Irodori (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Classic play: R.U.R., by Karel Čapek (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Non-fiction: It’s The End of the World, by Adam Roberts (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
Romance: Mr Collins in Love, by Lee Welch (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Short mysteries: Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries, ed. Martin Edwards (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
Non-fiction: Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages, by Jack Hartnell (3/5 stars, “liked it”)

And I did post a What Are You Reading Wednesday post!

What I’m reading

I’ve been reading a lot again this week, especially with being mostly offline from Saturday through to late night on Tuesday! Here’s the usual sneak peek at what I’ve finished and plan to review on the blog — it doesn’t look quite as impressive as last week, but some of the books were quite long/slow.

I’m not sure what I’ll focus on over the weekend, yet. Maybe I’ll finally start on KJ Charles’ The Duke at Hazard, and there’s a good chance I’ll start reading another British Library Crime Classics collection (probably Blood on the Tracks)… but to be honest, I haven’t settled to anything yet!

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

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Medieval Bodies

Posted September 19, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages

by Jack Hartnell

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 352
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different to our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule.

In this richly-illustrated and unusual history, Jack Hartnell uncovers the fascinating ways in which people thought about, explored and experienced their physical selves in the Middle Ages, from Constantinople to Cairo and Canterbury. Unfolding like a medieval pageant, and filled with saints, soldiers, caliphs, queens, monks and monstrous beasts, it throws light on the medieval body from head to toe - revealing the surprisingly sophisticated medical knowledge of the time in the process.

Bringing together medicine, art, music, politics, philosophy and social history, there is no better guide to what life was really like for the men and women who lived and died in the Middle Ages.

Jack Hartnell’s Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages is a very attractive book, with in-line colour illustrations. It’s definitely aimed at a pretty casual audience, with little by the way of referenced sources: mostly it’s a conversation with the author, in chapters arranged by theme (skin, feet, heart, etc) with various pieces of art and discussions of medicine that illuminate little pieces of how medieval people viewed the world.

I found it a bit shallow and random at times, because it tries to cover a lot of ground and cover things the author finds especially interesting, and it kind of feels like there’s no throughline that brings it all together beyond curiosity. Which is laudable, don’t get me wrong, but means there’s not so much of a solid narrative to get you through the book and link things up.

Being fair, there is a bibliography at the back if you want to try to look up sources, and it is beautifully presented! Just doesn’t quite come together, at least for me.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, history, Jack Hartnell, non-fiction, science

Review – Resorting to Murder

Posted September 18, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 317
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Holidays offer us the luxury of getting away from it all. So, in a different way, do detective stories. This collection of vintage mysteries combines both those pleasures. From a golf course at the English seaside to a pension in Paris, and from a Swiss mountain resort to the cliffs of Normandy, this new selection shows the enjoyable and unexpected ways in which crime writers have used summer holidays as a theme.

These fourteen stories range widely across the golden age of British crime fiction. Stellar names from the past are well represented - Arthur Conan Doyle and G. K. Chesterton, for instance - with classic stories that have won acclaim over the decades. The collection also uncovers a wide range of hidden gems: Anthony Berkeley - whose brilliance with plot had even Agatha Christie in raptures - is represented by a story so (undeservedly) obscure that even the British Library does not own a copy. The stories by Phyllis Bentley and Helen Simpson are almost equally rare, despite the success which both writers achieved, while those by H. C. Bailey, Leo Bruce and the little-known Gerald Findler have seldom been reprinted.

Each story is introduced by the editor, Martin Edwards, who sheds light on the authors' lives and the background to their writing.

Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries is, like all the short story collections in the British Library Crime Classics series, edited by Martin Edwards, so it’s the usual spread of stories which includes some well-known ones (Conan Doyle), some standbys for the series (H.C. Bailey) and a couple of lesser-known ones, including one where the author is virtually unknown — or was at the time of publication.

For someone interested in crime fiction in general, then, it has the usual interest of being a survey of mystery stories around this theme, etc, etc. I must admit it was far from being a favourite for me, not helped by the fact that one of the stories (the one from Anthony Berkeley, if I recall) has been used in one of the other collections before or since (not sure which one, but I know the story, and that’s the only reason I would).

There are some fun stories in this collection, don’t get me wrong (I liked the atmosphere in “Where Is Mr Manetot?” for instance), but overall it didn’t grab me.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Martin Edwards, mystery, short stories