Category: Reviews

Review – Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz

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

Review – Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz

by Garth Nix

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories
Pages: 304
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Sir Hereward: the only male child of an ancient society of witches. Knight, artillerist, swordsman. Mercenary for hire. Ill-starred lover.

Mister Fitz: puppet, sorcerer, loremaster. Practitioner of arcane arts and wielder of sorcerous needles.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: godslayers. Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, charged with the location and removal of listed extra-dimensional entities, more commonly known as gods. Together, they are relentless travelers in a treacherous world of magic, gunpowder, and adventure.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz is a collection of short stories in the same world, by Garth Nix, and I think it suffers for being a bunch of stories written in the same world but not necessarily for the same exact audience. The stories have similar themes and structures, and each is meant to stand somewhat alone, meaning it feels a bit… repetitive.

There are certainly concepts which I found interesting, and I might have enjoyed the stories quite a bit if I’d read them separately, one at a time, in separate magazines or anthologies. There’s some really fun worldbuilding!

But… as a sit-down-and-read-straight-through experience, it didn’t really work well for me. It’s perfectly readable, and there’s a “Nix”ness about it that I enjoy — it’s why I picked up this based on seeing his name on it, after all — but overall, no, not in this format.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Chef’s Kiss

Posted June 17, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Chef’s Kiss

Chef's Kiss

by Jarrett Melendez, Danica Brine, Hank Jones, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Genres: Graphic Novels, Romance
Pages: 153
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Now that college is over, English graduate Ben Cook is on the job hunt looking for something...anything...related to his passion for reading and writing. According to the hiring committees, he doesn't have enough experience. But when he stumbles upon a "Now Hiring—No Experience Necessary" sign outside a restaurant, Ben jumps at the chance to land his first job. He's actually not so bad in the kitchen, plus, he can keep looking for a writing job in the meantime. But when he begins developing a crush on Liam, one of the super dreamy chefs at the restaurant, he'll start to feel torn between wanting to stay and cook and following his original post-college plan to be a writer. Watch things start to really heat up in the kitchen in this queer YA debut graphic novel!

Somehow, this review never got posted when I read the book in 2022, so here’s one from the backlog I guess!

Chef’s Kiss is really, really cute. I like the art style, and found it very easy to follow what was going on, both due to the clarity of the art and a good layout. That’s not always something you can take for granted (and depends strongly on your taste and visual comprehension skills), though it might sound like faint praise! I enjoy graphic novels, but being strongly non-visual, I’m not always the best at following them.

The cast of characters is fun: the main character is Ben, of course, who starts out looking for a writing job and then finally finds himself at the end of his tether, right in front of a restaurant that’s hiring. He meets one of the chefs, Liam, who happens to be really cute, and then… then the weirdness starts. The owner of the restaurant seems reluctant to handle hiring, and to almost want to deter Ben, insisting he pass a series of challenges in order to work for them, judged by the restaurant’s official taste tester.

The taste tester is a pig, Watson.

There are lots of silly bits surrounding Watson, but there’s a serious core to the story. Ben has to struggle with what he really wants to do, with what he wants to be, and with what his parents want for him. Fresh out of college, he and the friends he lives with have their whole lives to figure out, including interpersonal issues. And, of course, he has a massive crush on Liam.

The whole thing is pretty light, all the same, with lots of cute moments between Liam and Ben, and between Ben and his friends. There’s even a great scene with the owner of the restaurant that hits a strong emotional note — though that’s all I’ll say about that. I found the story a bit ridiculous, at times, but fun.

If you’ve worked in or adjacent to the industry, I can almost guarantee it will annoy you, though. Even I can tell it’s a whimsical and inaccurate imagining of it.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Animals Among Us

Posted June 16, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Animals Among Us

The Animals Among Us: The New Science of Anthrozoology

by John Bradshaw

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 371
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

The bestselling author of Dog Sense and Cat Sense explains why living with animals has always been a fundamental aspect of being human

Pets have never been more popular. Over half of American households share their home with either a cat or a dog, and many contain both. This is a huge change from only a century ago, when the majority of domestic cats and dogs were working animals, keeping rodents at bay, guarding property, herding sheep. Nowadays, most are valued solely for the companionship they provide. As mankind becomes progressively more urban and detached from nature, we seem to be clinging to the animals that served us well in the past.

In The Animals Among Us, anthrozoologist John Bradshaw argues that pet-keeping is nothing less than an intrinsic part of human nature. An affinity for animals drove our evolution and now, without animals around us, we risk losing an essential part of ourselves.

I found John Bradshaw’s The Animals Among Us initially quite interesting, but ultimately there were a couple of problems: it’s very repetitive, it’s very gender essentialist, and he keeps saying things “cannot be a coincidence” when they can, anything can be a coincidence. Just saying something cannot be a coincidence does not constitute any kind of proof whatsoever that it is not, in fact, coincidence.

He’s also got a pretty cavalier attitude to a number of things, typified by the one I picked up on: he claims that it’s — and I quote — a “fable” that there’s a link between schizophrenia and toxoplasmosis. Not only is it not a fable, but there are also links between Toxoplasma gondii infection and suicide risk, bipolar disease, anxiety, ADHD and OCD. And more! Now I’m not saying all of those are well evidenced, mostly I see stuff like odds ratios and hazard ratios that are suggestive without being conclusive, and we could use more clear-cut explanations of how that’s supposed to be caused and elucidations of stuff like whether it’s infection at any time in your life or infection at a critical period or only if you have both a toxoplasmosis infection and another risk factor… But the point is, it should not be lightly dismissed as a fable.

And sure, it’s a relatively minor point, except he refers to it multiple times and he’s wrong every time. What’s going on here? Has he just decided it’s not a risk and declared that to be the case in spite of the evidence we have? Is he referring to a paper to rule all papers that has disproven all the ones before and after it? Why is he saying this?

This kind of thing always makes me a bit suspicious, and of course, I know my parasitology pretty well (I have an MSc in Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, one of the top universities for the study of infectious disease in the world — or I will after it’s been officially conferred upon me — and I studied parasitology in the course of that degree) and this jumped out at me. What was there that wasn’t jumping out at me, but is nonetheless equally wrong, dismissive, misguided, etc?

So… read with care, I suppose.

Rating: 2/5 

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Review – Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife

Posted June 15, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women

by Hetta Howes

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 298
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives? And how can we hear their stories?

Few women had the luxury of writing down their thoughts and feelings during medieval times. But remarkably, there are at least four extraordinary women who did. Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a "no-good wife". In their own ways these four very different writers pushed back against the misogyny of the period. Each broke new ground in women's writing and left us incredible insights into the world of medieval life and politics.

Hetta Howes has spent her working life uncovering these women's stories to give us a valuable and unique historical biography of their lives that challenges what we think we know about medieval women in Europe. Women did earn money, they could live independent lives, and they thought, loved, fought and suffered just as we do today.

This mesmerizing book is an unforgettably lively and immersive journey into the everyday lives of medieval women through the stories of these four iconic women writers, some of which are retold here for general readers for the first time.

Hetta Howes’ Poet Mystic Widow Wife does a pretty good job at discussing the lives of medieval women in general, while reflecting specifically on Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. If considered as intending to shed light on those lives specifically, it feels pretty disorganised and lacks detail on Marie de France and Julian of Norwich — which is in part due to lack of sources and in part due to choosing poorly (though there may not be many good choices).

Overall, it didn’t quite work for me. I think it was the general feeling of it not being super organised, for a start; each section would jump around slightly in time and place, trying to touch on the four women regularly, but not always managing to link them in to the chapter’s themes very well.

Perhaps it’s partly a matter of style; while Howes’ style is readable, I didn’t love it. Her sources are pretty sparse, and overall this might all be explained by the fact that she’s qualified in medieval literature (which probably informed her choice of sources) rather than history. Literature was my first field of study as well and one in which she’s more qualified than I am, and medieval literature in particular has an overlap with understanding medieval history… but it’s not the same. I know a lot about the role of medieval women through that same literary lense, and maybe I was hoping for something a bit more rooted in named sources. I was also hoping for more about Marie de France, whose works I studied (in translation).

In any case, if you’re looking for an accessible, chatty sort of popular history, with reimaginings about what Margery Kemp and Christine de Pizan thought and felt, this might be more up your street. If you’re here for Marie de France or Julian of Norwich, perhaps not.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Poetry Prescription: Words for Love

Posted June 13, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Poetry Prescription: Words for Love

Poetry Prescription: Words for Love

by Deborah Alma (editor)

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 70
Series: Poetry Prescriptions
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

This beautiful pocket-sized hardback gift book contains carefully curated prescriptions in verse compiled by Deborah Alma, the founder of the Poetry Pharmacy. Life is lived with feeling - these poems look at all the many manifestations of love.

For All Matters of the Heart -Stimulants for Romantic Love, Panaceas for the Broken-Hearted; for the Appreciation of Fellowship, Family and for the Promotion of Tenderness.

Includes poems by W. B. Yeats, Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare, Edna St Vincent Millay, D. H. Lawrence and many more.

• No bitter pills
• No adverse reactions

The Poetry Prescription series compiled by Deborah Alma is the perfect antidote for life’s ailments. Inspired by the achingly cool Poetry Pharmacy shops in London and Shropshire - social media favourites with a clear focus on promoting wellbeing through the written and spoken word. Each of the eight themed titles offers an array of poems to inspire, heal and comfort. Whether you are looking to find solace for times of ill-health, loss and grief, cope with matters of the heart, need poetic inspiration for courage and confidence, or want to find peace and tranquillity in wild spaces, there is a collection for everyone.

Perfect for reading aloud or for quiet contemplation, these books are a much needed balm for our busy lives.

I love the idea of the “Poetry Prescription” books, selections of poems for given moods and needs which promise no bitter pills, nothing hard to swallow, just poetry suitable for the moment. I don’t know if all of them have the same editor, but Words for Love was edited by Deborah Alma, and it’s an interesting selection.

Many of them are, to me at least, expected inclusions: your Keats, Rosetti and Shakespeare. There are also poets I didn’t know, or poems I didn’t know by poets I did know, and I’d kind of hoped for more of those — but it makes for an accessible volume if you’re not a big poetry reader. I wouldn’t have picked that Duffy poem, of all her options, but at least it was from Rapture, which is my favourite of her collections.

The collection offers a small section for new love, one for grief, one for familial love, that kind of division. It’s all quite nice as a concept, and I might pick up others in the series for the introductions to different poets I might not have known.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – A Case of Mice and Murder

Posted June 12, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – A Case of Mice and Murder

A Case of Mice and Murder

by Sally Smith

Genres: Crime, Historical Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 352
Series: The Trials of Gabriel Ward #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

The first in a delightful new mystery series set in the hidden heart of London's legal world, introducing a wonderfully unwilling sleuth, perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Nita Prose.

When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms at exactly two minutes to seven on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case-the disputed authorship of bestselling children's book Millie the Temple Church Mouse-that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep.

But even he cannot fail to notice the judge's dusty bare feet, in shocking contrast to his flawless evening dress, nor the silver carving knife sticking out of his chest. In the shaded courtyards and ancient buildings of the Inner Temple, the hidden heart of London's legal world, murder has spent centuries confined firmly to the casebooks. Until now.

The police can enter the Temple only by consent, so who better to investigate this tragic breach of law and order than a man who prizes both above all things? But murder doesn't answer to logic or reasoned argument, and Gabriel soon discovers that the Temple's heavy oak doors are hiding more surprising secrets than he'd ever imagined...

When I started Sally Smith’s A Case of Mice and Murder, I was not really expecting to like Gabriel Ward. He seems at first blush like he’s going to be a persnickety old guy. But he quickly won me over with his love of routine, his little rituals, his love of books, and most especially, his kind and gentlemanly manner to everyone, of all classes, no matter his opinion of them.

The book is set in 1901, and steeped in the traditions of the Inner Temple (which is, to be clear, one of the four “Inns of Court” in London). Gabriel lives almost entirely within the Inner Temple, works there, and is deeply content and happy — until he’s confronted one day by a dead body lying on the steps of his chambers.

I guessed the resolution of both the murder and the other case Gabriel works on, but in a good way where it all made sense and hung together. There was no “oh it’ll be the most unlikely person, so the murder is XXX”; it all makes a good amount of sense. I missed a couple of minor details along the way, but figured out the main thrust of it. I don’t require a fair play mystery, but I can very much appreciate one, and this was fun.

I felt like knowing a bit about law from the Secret Barrister’s writing, and being primed for a legal mystery by Sarah Caudwell’s work, helped quite a bit with settling into the context of the mystery… But mostly it was a surprisingly warm story, and that captured my interest and my heart. There’s a deep affection for the setting and for the traditions of the Inner Temple, the rituals of lawyers, and for the justice lawyers can stand for. I can’t wait to spend more time with Gabriel, and will be getting the second book posthaste, once it’s out!

[Edited to add: And I’ve been approved for the ARC, in fact, and will be plunging straight in!]

Rating: 4/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted June 11, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was a reread of Carol Ann Duffy’s Standing Female Nude collection of poetry, which was… okay. There are some standouts in it, like “War Photographer”, but there are also some poems that I find impenetrable or just silly.

I wasn’t too surprised, since it wasn’t my favourite of her collections when I originally read it, but it was a nice revisit all the same for the ones I did enjoy.

Cover of The Animals Among Us by John BradshawWhat are you currently reading?

Oh, way, way too many things at once. I interpreted the impending end of my exams (combined with the stress of the exam period) as licence to dive into a gazillion books at the same time, apparently. So I’ll keep it to my main read, the one I have actually picked up in the last 24 hours: I’m a good chunk of the way into John Bradshaw’s The Animals Among Us, which is a few years old now and discusses the science of human interactions with pets. You know the assertions that having a dog makes you healthier, pets are good co-therapists, and even that having pets as a kid helps guard against allergies? Allll of that stuff.

It’s not really my field except where he discusses microbes, of course, and sometimes there’s no citation where I really want there to be one. Sometimes it doesn’t “obviously follow that”, unless that’s what you already believe. Still, it’s a fun change from my usual topics, and adjacent enough to give me some chance at evaluating some of what he says.

Cover of The Incandescent by Emily TeshWhat will you be reading next?

The sky’s the limit, really! But I did join the StoryGraph mirror of Goodreads’ “seasonal challenge”, just for fun, so… probably one of the books I picked for that! Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent, probably, but maybe Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Spare Man.

And of course some danmei, soon, soon: I still have volume one of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish ready and waiting, a reread of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System in progress, and a copy of the first volume of Guardian on the way…

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Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 13

Posted June 10, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 13

A Side Character's Love Story

by Akane Tamura

Genres: Manga, Romance
Pages: 161
Series: A Side Character's Love Story #13
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Nobuko and Hiroki venture to Kanazawa to celebrate their graduation, and are enjoying every minute of their trip. But as night draws closer, Nobuko struggles with nerves over the possibility that they may do more than just kiss. On top of that, it seems as though Hiroki has something he wants to tell her...

In volume 13 of Akane Tamura’s A Side Character’s Love Story, Hiroki and Nobuko finally go on their graduation trip! That’s the bulk of the volume, and it’s a delight: they spend their usual amount of effort on clear communication and sharing their feelings, and they also follow up on the previous volume’s dilemma by finally deciding that they feel comfortable enough to do more than kissing.

(It’s not explicit, by the way — we see them holding hands and kissing, and we’re told that Hiroki was very gentle, but that’s as much as we know.)

Hiroki does also tell Nobuko that he wants to marry her, and that feels surprisingly-for-them undercommunicated: he kind of springs the idea on her, and later affirms he will propose to her properly when he graduates. I guess they do swing back to it, and it’s clear it makes Nobuko happy, but she was so surprised… I don’t think they talk about it again, either.

Strange to think they’re at least two years into their relationship — the volumes have flown by!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Planting Clues

Posted June 9, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Planting Clues

Planting Clues: How Plants Solve Crimes

by David J. Gibson

Genres: Crime, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 240
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

This fascinating book takes the reader on a journey through the role of plants (including algae and fungi) in legal cases. These legal cases range from forensic applications where botanical evidence can link a suspect to a crime scene or a victim to a suspect to cases when plants themselves can be the subject of crime or misadventure. In the latter cases, plants may be poached, illegally traded and trafficked, used as poisons, or illicitly used (i.e., drugs such as cocaine). Botanical evidence has been important in bringing a number of high-profile murderers such as Ted Bundy, Ian Huntley (the 2002 Shoham Murders), and Bruno Hauptman (1932 Baby Lindbergh kidnapping) to trial. These applications of forensic botany capture the public interest; consider, for example, the fascination with Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries involving real plant poisons such as digitalis from foxgloves. The variety and value of botanical evidence including leaf fragments, woody anatomy, pollen and spores, plant toxins, and DNA, is summarized through 8 chapters. This book appeals to general readers interested in the botany underlying true crime.

At times, David J. Gibson’s Planting Clues felt just a bit too random — a string of anecdotes around forensics and botany, loosely connected at best, organised into chapters that do at least fit into coherent themes. There are some fascinating details on both botany and how botanical experts can be involved in legal cases, which at times got a bit too into the weeds for me.

The cases it discusses illustrate the points well and include some fascinating precedents, as well as discussing some big cases (like the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, though now I’m unsure whether the author actually named them or their murderer, which in retrospect feels a bit weird), it just… I don’t know, I found it difficult to keep my attention on it.

If you’re interested in the topic, though, it’s a good pick!

Rating: 3/5

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Review – A Mudlarking Year

Posted June 9, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – A Mudlarking Year

A Mudlarking Year: Finding Treasure In Every Season

by Lara Maiklem

Genres: History, Memoir, Non-fiction
Pages: 358
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

For over two decades, Lara Maiklem has been scouring the banks of the tidal Thames looking for objects - lost or discarded - that tell forgotten stories. In this charming sequel to the bestselling Mudlarking, Lara widens her search beyond the river and reflects on life lived post-pandemic, reminding us that it's possible to draw meaning in the most unlikely of places.

As she searches the foreshore through the changing seasons, she is at times aided by the gentle illumination of the falling winter sun or hindered by bright summer skies and lashing rain. Yet, by working in harmony with the unpredictable terrain, she finds solace in aligning with the elements and uncovering the treasures that are bestowed by the tide. From medieval pilgrim badges and Tudor love tokens, to Georgian wig curlers and Victorian pottery, each passing day unearths ordinary and extraordinary objects that tell the rich story of London's past and its inhabitants.

I liked Lara Maiklem’s Mudlarking quite a bit, as I recall, and I was fascinated by the bits and pieces of historical information, the unfiltered nature of it all. Those same aspects felt more irritating here in this book, though — there’s no organisation to it, just the turning of the seasons, so there’s a lot of repetition.

In the end, I think the problem is that it comes out more as autobiography than history or even a discussion of mudlarking, and thus is just generally not my thing. There are still the same fascinating snippets, albeit with some info that I’m certain is repeated from Mudlarking, but… it doesn’t feel like anything new, and I don’t like Maiklem enough as a person (on this level of acquaintance, anyway) to be spending this much time with her. I especially don’t care enough about her kids, their process of going up, and how often she’ll leave them and her wife and just go down to the foreshore because she feels like it.

She’s mostly responsible, as mudlarks go, in relation to protection of the environment and archaeology — at the very least, she’s smarter than to say in print that she breaks the rules — and critical of other mudlarks who are less responsible, but she’s also kinda… exclusive? She seems to feel that parts of the river belong to her, and she won’t tell others where she found something, and that attitude hits wrong.

So… all in all, just not for me.

Rating: 2/5

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