Genre: Fantasy

Review – A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, vol 4

Posted April 3, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

by Misaki, Momochi, Sando

Genres: Fantasy, Manga
Pages: 200
Series: A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation #4
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
When Lizel mysteriously finds himself in a city that bears odd similarities to his own but clearly isn't, he quickly comes to terms with the unlikely truth: this is an entirely different world. Even so, laid-back Lizel isn't the type to panic. He immediately sets out to learn more about this strange place, and to help him do so, hires a seasoned adventurer named Gil as his tour guide and protector.

Until he's able to find a way home, Lizel figures this is a perfect opportunity to explore a new way of life adventuring as part of a guild. After all, he's sure he'll go home eventually... might as well enjoy the otherworldly vacation for now!

In the fourth volume of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, the bandit plot continues, and the red-haired adventurer who has been interested in joining them before gets a bit more serious, introducing himself as Eleven. His antics give us a more serious side of Lizel — seriously, don’t get on his bad side — which is intriguing. It’s my understanding that the light novel makes it clear that Lizel’s actively manipulating people around him, which is implied several times in the manga, but perhaps less explicit: this time makes it pretty clear.

The Gil/Lizel vibes take slightly more of a back seat to Lizel/Eleven vibes, but there’s still a sense that Gil is the only one Lizel considers an equal, the only one he allows to see all sides of him.

It’s more and more obvious that there are barely any women in the series, which is a bit eyebrow-raising, but I still love the art and the dynamic between Gil and Lizel.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, manga, Misaki, Momochi, Sando, SF/F

Review – Seams Like Murder

Posted March 30, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Seams Like Murder

by Tilly Wallace

Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 234
Series: Grace Designs Mysteries #1
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
There are two things that can’t talk—moving pictures and dead showgirls…

1920, Wellington, New Zealand. Grace Devine is poised to build her thriving dress design business as the twenties begin to soar. But when a fashionable client is murdered, suspicion falls on Grace as the last person to see Agatha alive.

As wary clients cancel and business begins to fail, Grace decides there’s only one way to prove her innocence and save her career…this seamstress will turn sleuth to find who really murdered the showgirl.

The more she learns, the more she uncovers of the darker side of the dead woman’s personality. Agatha liked to collect secrets and use them against people. But what target snapped that fatal night? Can Grace stitch together the clues before her life is torn apart…

These heart-warming historical mysteries will send you on a unique New Zealand adventure.

Tilly Wallace’s Seams Like Murder is a short, quick read, set in New Zealand post-WWI. Grace is trying to set up her own fashion house, starting small, and hampered by being a single mother with a “husband” who died in the war (and, the subtext suggests, because she wasn’t actually married to him at all, though I don’t think that’s confirmed in so many words in this book). She has a strong support network, though, with a mentor, a close friend who lives nearby, her father, a cousin, and her husband’s brother — and this was an aspect of the story I rather enjoyed, since they each supported her in their own way.

The mystery itself is relatively obvious, and works out in a relatively obvious way. There’s a hint that there’s potentially to be a romance with the “dishy” detective, which leaves me pretty cold: there’s some genuine chemistry between Grace and her husband’s brother, in a complicated way, and that’s what we actually see any build-up for at all. There are other books in the series, so I guess any further development with the detective happens there, but I’m not super inclined at this moment to follow.

I should note as well that there’s a fantasy element to the story, totally not discussed in the cover copy: Grace has the ability to touch someone and pick up memories that they’re thinking about at the time. The constraints of the gift are fairly undefined in this book, and I find it a bit odd that this element is played down so much in the copy. Seems like a good way to annoy one audience (the historical mystery fans) and miss another completely (the fantasy mystery fans).

In any case, as I mentioned, I’m not really inclined to read more of this series. This book was entertaining enough that I didn’t think about stopping it, and I did enjoy Grace’s family and support network, which felt genuine and warm. There’s nothing that makes me feel it’s going to go in a direction I’m particularly interested in, but I might read a second book if I run across it in a subscription service I use like Kobo Plus or something (I see the first book is available in Kobo Plus in the US at least, after all), and I want something light. It’s not that I disliked it or anything, it just didn’t click with me in the way I hoped.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, historical fiction, mystery, SF/F, Tilly Wallace

Review – The Bloodless Princes

Posted March 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Bloodless Princes

by Charlotte Bond

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 151
Series: The Fireborne Blade #2
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
A tale of death, honor and true love's embrace. Come for the journey through the underworld. Stay for the minacious dragon-cat.

It seemed the afterlife was bustling.

Cursed by the previous High Mage, and following an...incident...with a supremely powerful dragon, newly-promoted High Mage Saralene visits the afterlife with a boon to beg of the Bloodless Princes who run the underworld.

But Saralene and her most trusted advisor/champion/companion, Sir Maddileh, will soon discover that there’s only so much research to be done by studying the old tales, though perhaps there’s enough truth in them to make a start.

Saralene will need more than just her wits to leave the underworld, alive. And Maddileh will need more than just her Fireborne Blade.

A story of love and respect that endures beyond death. And of dragons, because we all love a dragon!

Charlotte Bond’s The Bloodless Princes is a pretty immediate follow-up to The Fireborne Blade, so definitely start by reading that. It took me a little bit to get myself back into the world and characters, especially as I experienced the end of the first book as being rather dark and ambiguous, and all signs point here to Bond not… having intended that, and thinking of Maddileh and Saralene as unambiguously “good guys”, totally justified in what they did, without any hint of darkness about it. But… sorry, no matter how awful someone has been, using weird dragon/blood magic to take over their body and thus kill them isn’t morally neutral.

Once I got past that dissonance, it was still a fun enough read, but I wasn’t expecting as much from it, since it kind of retroactively edited The Fireborne Blade to be more straightforwardly heroic than I’d originally thought it. Maddileh and Saralene become a romance plot with more than a hint of Orpheus and Eurydice, and it’s kind of predictable. There’s some fun lore, and it’s nice to understand more about the dragons and how they view their relationship with humans.

It ticks along at a good pace, and I enjoyed it for what it was, but depending on how you felt about The Fireborne Blade other than “ooh, female knight! girl power!”, it might be rather disappointing.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Charlotte Bond, SF/F

Review – A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, vol 3

Posted March 17, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

by Misaki, Momochi, Sando

Genres: Fantasy, Manga
Pages: 208
Series: A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation #3
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
After defeating the underground dragon and finishing up their business in the mercantile city of Marcade, Lizel and Gil resume their journey, having promised Judge's grandfather to protect Judge along the way. But danger soon catches up to them when a strange group of bandits called the Forky Gang attacks in the middle of the night! It quickly becomes clear that someone is targeting Lizel... but who could it be, and for what reason?

As always, former noble and current adventurer Lizel takes all new developments in stride in his usual, laid-back fashion. He's celebrating his promotion from a simple E-rank to a D-rank adventurer — and setting his sights on ranking up again soon!

In the third volume of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, we get to see a brief glimpse of the world Lizel came from, which is pretty exciting. Aaaand the character interactions throughout the volume really make it seem like people doth protest too much about this not being M/M romance: even if Gil and Lizel aren’t meant to be together, Judge and Studd clearly have a crush on Lizel — that’s pretty much text, as they both bicker about being allowed to sleep beside him and the fact that Judge was allowed to hold his hand as he slept (after being scared by a bandit attack).

Plus Gil and Lizel’s bond is pretty close too, with Gil basically saying that nothing matters as long as he stays with Lizel. C’mon, folks.

I still wonder if it would help to read the original light novel, to help smooth out and clarify the plot — I do suspect at times that this being an adaptation means that things aren’t always as obvious to me as I could wish. Still, I continue excited to see where this is going, and if anything will finally rattle Lizel’s calm.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, manga, Misaki, Momochi, Sando, SF/F

Review – Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame

Posted March 10, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame

by Neon Yang

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 178
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Yeva was thirteen when she killed her first dragon.

With her gift revealed, she was shipped away to the imperial capital to train in the rare art of dragon slaying. Now a legendary guildknight, she has never truly felt at home ever since that fateful day all those years ago. But she doesn’t need a home when she has her sacred duty. She has devoted herself wholly to the cause—she never even removes her armor in public. Few remember the girl she once was. She rarely remembers herself.

Yeva must now go to Quanbao, a fiercely independent and reclusive kingdom. It is rumored that there, dragons are not feared as is right and proper—but instead loved and worshipped. It is rumored that there, they harbor a dragon behind their borders.

While Yeva searches for the dreaded beast, she is welcomed into the palace by Quanbao’s monarch, Lady Sookhee. Though wary of each other, Yeva is shocked to find herself slowly opening up to the beautiful, mysterious queen.

Will Yeva forsake her sacred duty and let Lady Sookhee see the person behind the armor, or will she cling to the ideals that she has called home for so long?

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.

Neon Yang’s Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame is a book I’m definitely getting for my sister once it’s out — which, to those who know me/my sister tells you something right up front, but I’ll elaborate for the rest of the world! There are dragons, a female protagonist, and a lesbian relationship, which also meets her criteria that the lesbians don’t come to a tragic end.

It’s also a story of belonging, of dislocation from culture and finding your way back into it, which I’m sure will resonate for a lot of readers, even if the stakes aren’t as high as these for most people. Yeva is initially very divorced from her body and her “foreign” appearance, hiding it all to make her own place among the guildknights, but rest assured: that isn’t allowed to stand unchallenged (while at the same time she maintains some bond to her adopted home, in the form of her one friendship).

It’s a novella, so we don’t get large-scale worldbuilding or a very slow build relationship, but what we do get works well for me: Yeva’s fumbling attempts to fit into her new place, her confused loyalties, and her growing feelings for Lady Sookhee.

I predicted the twist of the story fairly swiftly, but it was still satisfying to see it play out. I’d have loved a little more play with the strangeness of… well, a certain character (not Yeva), but maybe that would’ve given the game away too much.

Overall, I really liked it.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Neon Yang, queer fiction, SF/F

Review – A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, vol 2

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

A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

by Misaki, Momochi, Sando

Genres: Fantasy, Manga
Pages: 176
Series: A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation #2
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
When Lizel mysteriously finds himself in a city that bears odd similarities to his own but clearly isn't, he quickly comes to terms with the unlikely truth: this is an entirely different world. Even so, laid-back Lizel isn't the type to panic. He immediately sets out to learn more about this strange place, and to help him do so, hires a seasoned adventurer named Gil as his tour guide and protector.

Until he's able to find a way home, Lizel figures this is a perfect opportunity to explore a new way of life adventuring as part of a guild. After all, he's sure he'll go home eventually... might as well enjoy the otherworldly vacation for now!

I really enjoyed volume two of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation (story by Misaki, manga adaptation by Momochi). I am wondering where it’s all going exactly, and wondering if things would be clearer if the light novel had been translated, because I’d definitely grab that right now if I could. It feels like there are currents I don’t understand, and I don’t know whether that’s because we’re just not being told yet, or because there’s something lost in translation… or whether the writing’s just unclear.

It’s funny how vehement some reviewers are that this isn’t M/M romance. Honestly, it’s starting to feel like every male character is in love with Lizel! I’m fine with it not being romance, to be clear, but it does heavily lean that way. (The ads for M/M manga in the back also suggest that’s deliberate, let’s be real.)

I’m definitely eager to see both more of the world and more of Lizel’s actual character; his unflappability is fascinating, as is the brief crack in it which Gil sees. I enjoy their friendship a lot. And I still love the art and character designs.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, manga, Misaki, Momochi, Sando, SF/F

Review – The Spellshop

Posted March 3, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

The Spellshop

by Sarah Beth Durst

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 376
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Every home needs a little magic...

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people, and as librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she hasn’t had to.

She and her assistant, Caz, a sentient spider plant, have spent most of the last eleven years sequestered among the empire’s precious spellbooks, protecting the magic for the city’s elite. But a revolution is brewing and when the library goes up in flames, Kiela and Caz steal whatever books they can and flee to the faraway island where she grew up. But to her dismay, in addition to a nosy – and very handsome – neighbour, she finds the town in disarray.

The empire has slowly been draining power from the island, and now Kiela is determined to make things right. But opening up her own spellshop comes with its own risks – the consequence of sharing magic with commoners is death. And as Kiela starts to make a place for herself among the townspeople, she realizes she must break down the walls she has kept so high . . .

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’d been looking forward to Sarah Beth Durst’s The Spellshop for quite a while, because I do love my cosy reads, and I especially loved the idea of a sentient spider plant being a major character. And Caz certainly didn’t disappoint, and is an excellent sidekick. I also liked what we see of the world, the magic, and of course, the love of books.

In the end, I think I felt a bit dissatisfied because it felt like a world created just for the story. Which of course it is, that’s normal, but I mean that I didn’t have a good sense of what lay beyond the story’s edges, and I don’t just mean in terms of a map. I was also a bit meh about the romance, because it felt rushed. It tries to add depth to that with some history between the characters, but it didn’t ultimately ring true to me. Adding the depth didn’t work because, OK, Larran remembers Kiela, but she doesn’t remember him. So things should, at least, have taken more time on her side.

I do love Caz, though, and then the addition of Meep. It was a fun read as long as I didn’t think too deeply into it, ultimately. And it is pretty cosy, despite the opening being a flight from a burning capital city during a revolution, and despite some peril for Kiela and another character.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, romance, Sarah Beth Durst, SF/F

Review – The City in Glass

Posted February 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The City in Glass

by Nghi Vo

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 215
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
The demon Vitrine—immortal, powerful, and capricious—loves the dazzling city of Azril. She has mothered, married, and maddened the city and its people for generations, and built it into a place of joy and desire, revelry and riot.

And then the angels come, and the city falls.

Vitrine is left with nothing but memories and a book containing the names of those she has lost—and an angel, now bound by her mad, grief-stricken curse to haunt the city he burned.

She mourns her dead and rages against the angel she longs to destroy. Made to be each other’s devastation, angel and demon are destined for eternal battle. Instead, they find themselves locked in a devouring fascination that will change them both forever.

Together, they unearth the past of the lost city and begin to shape its future. But when war threatens Azril and everything they have built, Vitrine and her angel must decide whether they will let the city fall again.

The City in Glass is both a brilliantly constructed history and an epic love story, of death and resurrection, memory and transformation, redemption and desire strong enough to reduce a world to ashes and remake it anew.

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 really liked Nghi Vo’s The City in Glass, but I can imagine that some people loathed it, for exactly the same reason: it’s more of a mood than a story. There’s a story, yes: angels destroy the city the demon Vitrine loves, and she curses one of them in retaliation. Cast out from his people, he watches her try to rebuild, and she slowly heals — and draws him closer to her, eventually — and learns to love the new shape of her city, of herself, and of him.

As you see, it’s possible to summarise a plot arc here, but most of it feels like a dream, glimpses of Vitrine’s life, a few moments of something that could go on forever without real beginning or end. If you’re looking for a beginning, an ending, and a journey in the middle… you’ll probably not be satisfied. It’s beautifully written and atmospheric, and there are moments of fraught emotion and of joy, but very little actually happens. It’s Vitrine’s daily meddling, Vitrine’s anger, Vitrine’s grief.

To be clear: I really, really enjoyed it, and read it really fast. But if you’re looking for a solid plot, for character development, in other words for a traditional story, it’s probably not entirely for you.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Nghi Vo, SF/F

Review – Immortal Red Sonja, vol 1

Posted February 21, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Immortal Red Sonja

by Dan Abnett, Alessandro Miracolo, Emiliana Pinna, Luca Colandrea

Genres: Arthuriana, Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Pages: 136
Series: Immortal Red Sonja #1
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Sonja...as you have never witnessed!

It is a time of British legend! A young Red Sonja, cursed by mysterious chainmail, seeks counsel with the mysterious MERLIN. She seeks to be rid of her curse, in order to forge a future of fantasy and adventure! She will be pursued by the loathsome GREEN KNIGHT, and if she survives and arrives at the Castle Of Merlin, what she finds would be infinitely more than she bargained for.

Dan Abnett’s Immortal Red Sonja grabbed my attention because it draws Red Sonja into Arthurian myth — might as well wave a red flag in front of a bull!

I try to approach this kind of thing with an open mind: the Arthurian legends have been embroidered and adapted and changed and cut to a new size so many times, that’s part of how they work. There’s no one source to be faithful to. I do have certain feelings about the long-ago and highly successful appropriation of Arthur stories from the Welsh, rewriting him to be a rather English king… but that’s not Abnett’s fault.

So I’m not going to complain that it was “inaccurate” about Arthurian myth, though I did find the choices interesting in light of the general trend of how people perceive and portray Arthur. I’m also not going to complain about the fact that Sonja spent the whole volume rather more clothed than usual, thanks to the cursed mail shirt which harbours the spirit of Arthur. I thought it adapted some of the stories and tropes of Arthurian myth interestingly, and I’m very curious how the thing with Bertilak plays out for Red Sonja.

I can’t seem to easily get my hands on the rest of the story, but I’d read it if it came my way.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: Alessandro Miracolo, Arthuriana, book reviews, books, Dan Abnett, Emiliana Pinna, graphic novels, Luca Colandrea, SF/F

Review – The Orb of Cairado

Posted February 16, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Orb of Cairado

by Katherine Addison

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 85
Series: The Goblin Emperor
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Set in the world of Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award nominee The Goblin Emperor, The Orb of Cairado offers an unlikely hero in historian Ulcetha Zhorvena.

Five years ago, Ulcetha was studying at the University of Cairado, working his way toward becoming a scholar first-class in the Department of History. Then a prize artifact disappeared and Ulcetha, deftly framed, was kicked out. Now he works for a crooked importer, using his knowledge of elven history to write provenances for the fake artifacts Salathgarad sells.

When the airship Wisdom of Choharo explodes, killing the emperor and three of his four sons, it takes with it Ulcetha’s best friend, Mara Lilana. But Mara leaves behind a puzzle—the one thing Ulcetha can’t resist. And the puzzle leads Ulcetha back to the Department of History…and maybe the chance to clear his name.

The Orb of Cairado is another addition to the world Katherine Addison began in The Goblin Emperor, set at around the same time as that book, though the events overlap very little — a character dies “off-screen” in the same accident that kills Maia’s father, which precipitates the events of this book… but mostly it’s about Ulcetha, his disgrace, and this work to solve the mystery and finally dig himself back out of the disgrace.

Like the books focusing on Thara Celehar, this novella gives us another different angle of the world, this one a scholar’s angle. We see a bit of that in Celehar’s interactions with scholars in The Grief of Stones, but it’s not his world. It’s always fascinating to see more of this world because there’s clearly so much of it to explore, and Addison’s been careful to mind that people like Ulcetha don’t speak like the Emperor must, that different classes have their own troubles, preoccupations, etc.

The storyline itself is also fun, since it involves exploration of ancient ruins, a formerly respectable scholar sneaking around like a thief (for the greater good), and of course, treasure. In the space of the novella I didn’t get terribly attached to Ulcetha per se; I wouldn’t object to reading more about him, but I was more interested in the expansion of the world.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Katherine Addison, SF/F