Tag: books

Review – Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales

Posted May 4, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

by Heather Fawcett

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 354
Series: Emily Wilde #3
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project yet: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm-as its queen.

Along with her former academic rival-now fiancé-the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell's long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare, filled with scholarly treasures.

Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world-how could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in-Wendell's murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell's magic-and Emily's knowledge of stories-to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.

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’m not sure if Heather Fawcett is planning to end the Emily Wilde series with Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales, but it wouldn’t be a bad spot to do so, with Emily and Wendell retaking his kingdom and trying to settle down to rule it. As you’d expect in a fairy tale, it doesn’t go quite so easily (and also that wouldn’t make half such a good story).

I did get a bit stalled on this one, but it was due to life events, rather than being about the book — when I was in the mood to read it, I ate it up in big gulps, om nom nom. I love Emily and her determined, matter-of-fact nature, and I love Wendell and his fairy-strangeness (tempered perhaps by his time among humans).

I also loved getting to see more of Taran, and the fairy court in general, and the appearance of some old friends into the bargain. And for those who might worry about Shadow (Emily’s dog/eldritch beast), he’s doing just fine by the end.

I continue to love the format of a female scholar getting entangled in big events through pursuing her curiosity, though Emily charges into it a bit more directly than my other favourite (Isabella, from Marie Brennan’s Lady Trent books).

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Heather Fawcett, romance, SF/F

Review – I Feel Awful, Thanks

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

I Feel Awful, Thanks

by Lara Pickle

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Pages: 216
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Joana has dragons inside her. Can she tame them before they burn her life down?

Joana is a young witch who secured her dream job with a coven in London, her favorite city, where she can dedicate herself to creating potions, her favorite activity! However, she will soon discover the reality of city life is not so idyllic. Finding a flat is an ordeal, her “dream job” is stressful, and she’s totally alone. Little by little, she makes her place, but fatigue, sadness, and doubts threaten to topple her hard-earned success... until she starts talking to a professional who helps her realize in order to take care of herself, she must know herself.

Lara Pickle’s I Feel Awful, Thanks comes out to being a depiction of anxiety and therapy in a fantasy world where emotions manifest near-physically, and turn into dragons if shut in a box and ignored. It’s, ah, not subtle. At all.

The fantasy world is one where magic is basically taken for granted: everyone can do a little, and some can do a lot more than most. Otherwise, it’s very much like our world, and the main character Joana goes from Spain to the UK for a first job helping to create new potions. Her work is stolen by her team leader, she makes some friends but falls into terrible patterns of bad communication with her boyfriend, and slams all her feelings into a box with predictable consequences.

As a discussion of how anxiety (and other feelings) can get bottled up and how you can treat yourself poorly in the process, it’s not bad. It’s a bit overly simplistic, of course, and it feels like Joana’s journey is vastly exaggerated as far as speed of recovery goes — but it does mention genuine techniques that you can try, and Joana and her friends are relatable and likeable enough to spend the time with.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, graphic novels, SF/F

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted May 3, 2025 by Nicky in General / 9 Comments

Yay, weekend! My week hasn’t been that busy, but it’s been a lot of time spent not reading, when I’m decidedly in the mood to read.

Hope everyone else has had a good week!

Books acquired this week

This week it’s “just” ARCs — two eARCs, and one book that arrived in the mail a little unexpectedly. Thank you Tor and Hachette.

I was especially excited to see the new Nghi Vo (thank goodness for my autoapproval!), but the highlight was A Letter from the Lonesome Shore, which I hadn’t been expecting though I had tentatively reached out asking for it.

Posts from this week

As usual, here’s a roundup of reviews to start with…

Fantasy: The Unmaking of June Farrow, by Adrienne Young (2/5 stars)
Classic mystery: Scarhaven Keep, by J.S. Fletcher (3/5 stars)
Non-fiction: Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs, by David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu (4/5 stars)
Non-fiction: Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, by Liz Pelly (4/5 stars)

And a couple of non-review posts this week:

What I’m reading

Let’s close as usual with what I’ve recently finished and what I’m planning to read this weekend. First a sneak peek at books I intend to review soon that I finished this week:

I’ve been deep in some chonky books like The Magic Books: A History of Enchantment in 20 Medieval Manuscripts (Anne Lawrence-Mathers) and A Short History of British Architecture (Simon Jenkins), so I’ll read a bit more of those this weekend, but I’m also planning to delve into more classic mystery with Fiona Sinclair’s Scandalize My Name and a short story collection edited by Martin Edwards, Metropolitan Mysteries. Other than that, I’ve also started on T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Grace… so I have plenty to keep me busy.

Hope everyone’s having a good weekend!

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

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Mood Machine

Posted May 1, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

by Liz Pelly

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike.

Drawing on over one hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.

Building on her years of wide-ranging reporting on streaming, music journalist Liz Pelly details the consequences of the Spotify model by examining both sides of what the company calls its two-sided marketplace: the listeners who pay with their dollars and data, and the musicians who provide the material powering it all. The music business is notoriously opaque, but here Pelly lifts the veil on major stories like streaming services filling popular playlists with low-cost stock music and the rise of new payola-like practices.

For all of the inequities exacerbated by streaming, Pelly also finds hope in chronicling the artist-led fight for better models, pointing toward what must be done collectively to revalue music and create sustainable systems. A timely exploration of a company that has become synonymous with music, Mood Machine will change the way you think about and listen to music.

Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist is quite the antidote to the optimism of Glenn McDonald’s You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song. Of the two, McDonald’s is based on personal experience but necessarily also very close association with Spotify (and most likely some NDAs). Liz Pelly’s book is based on a lot of varied sources, both official and unofficial, and from artists affected by Spotify as well (something which McDonald doesn’t touch on at all).

In the end, because it’s thorough, Mood Machine is also repetitive. The problems with Spotify at each turn are essentially the same: it was never about music, only about something that could be used to deliver ads packaged acceptably; privacy concerns; issues about artist remuneration; the seeding of playlists with throwaway tracks commissioned by Spotify (something which Glenn McDonald specifically denies, by the way) in order to pay fewer royalties… etc, etc. You can get the gist by reading any good reporting on Spotify.

All in all, it mostly solidifies my intent to continue doing what I already do: supporting artists directly wherever possible, even if I discover their music via sources like Spotify or YouTube where I can listen free/supported by ads/for a small subscription. Which is to say, despite the dramatic blurb, it didn’t change the way I think about and listen to music; it isn’t that revelatory, if you’ve had your eyes and ears open.

…Now if anyone can tell where to buy Rabbitology’s “Bog Bodies (dorm demo)” track without paying for it on Amazon, that’d be great.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Liz Pelly, non-fiction

WWW Wednesday

Posted April 30, 2025 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Yay, time to talk about books! As if I ever stop, ahaha.

What have you recently finished reading?

Robert Jackson Bennett’s A Drop of Corruption, which I adored. I originally had an ARC, but then life happened (my wife broke an ankle and my grandmother died), so I didn’t get round to it until I bought the finished copy last week — but believe me, I was eager for it, because I really liked the first book. It’s such a rich and inventive world, and does much more than “Sherlock Holmes in a fantasy setting” might make you think.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve actually been finishing books quite quickly, so there’s nothing lingering around that hasn’t been lingering around for a while already. This morning I started on Anne Lawrence-Mathers’ The Magic Books: A History of Enchantment in 20 Medieval Manuscripts, which I expect will take a while (the Bookly app says four more hours, which is a lot for me). So far it’s mostly about works relating to astrology, which isn’t quite what I think of when I think of magic/enchantment, but I’m curious to read more anyway.

What will you read next?

I just got an ARC of A Letter from the Lonesome Shore, by Sylvie Cathrall. I adored the first book and could barely put it down, so this is high on my list. I’m also very tempted by T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Grace, though, and The Baby Dragon Café (A.T. Qureshi). I feel like I could do with something lighter before I plunge into A Letter from the Lonesome Shore — I have quite the “book hangover” from A Drop of Corruption. Daniel M. Ford’s Advocate is another ARC I’m late to read, and I just finished the previous book Necrobane, so that’s somewhere on my “next up” list too.

In sum… who knows? I’ll read something, that’s for sure: I’m very much in a reading mood!

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Who Owns This Sentence?

Posted April 29, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs

by David Bellos, Alexandre Montagu

Genres: Non-fiction, History
Pages: 384
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Who Owns This Sentence? looks at how throughout history, principled arguments, greed, and opportunism have ensured copyright's ascendency, and unveils those who are behind a phenomenon that has faced little public debate.

David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu’s Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs is surprisingly readable, for a book on a subject that could be incredibly dry. It helps that they split things down into plenty of chapters, and take one or two examples at a time — they’re quite thorough in discussing the development of each successive law and expansion to law, but the chunks are pretty bitesize for the most part, and the tone is fairly casual.

If you are pro copyright without limit including for corporations, then you probably won’t enjoy the general tone they take, pointing out multiple times (and in multiple ways) that the argument that copyright gives people a livelihood and fosters creativity isn’t a universal truth (people will often create without financial incentives) and that the laws anyway aren’t focused on providing that (you wouldn’t need lifetime + 70 years just for that).

Their argument is that far too much stuff is tied up in copyright in a way that hampers creativity and the sharing of knowledge, and they make a fair case for it, especially when it’s clear that a bare handful of companies own almost all of it anyway, and the net result is that the rich keep on getting richer and richer — based on the hard work of others who are often dead.

That said, it is a fairly opinionated account, so if you want a dispassionate rundown of what copyright is, you don’t want this book.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Alexandre Montagu, book reviews, books, David Bellos, history, non-fiction

Review – Scarhaven Keep

Posted April 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Scarhaven Keep

by J.S. Fletcher

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 243
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
When the great actor, Bassett Oliver, who was a martinet for punctuality, failed to turn up to a rehearsal which he himself had called, his business manager guessed that something had happened. It had. But it took more than one set of brains to discover the truth, and another set of very curious circumstances was mixed up in it. Copplestone, the young dramatist, helping to solve the mystery, found himself suddenly in love; and the solution and his happiness were discovered together.

J.S. Fletcher’s Scarhaven Keep is a fairly standard classic mystery, with the expected sort of elements: a mysterious disappearance, a picturesque site for a mystery, issues of inheritance, mistaken identity/impersonation, amateur detectives, and even a damsel in distress and a touch of romance.

It does all of those things perfectly competently for the period, without really standing out. I did appreciate that the female character who ends up in distress is actually not super distressed about it, probably more level-headed than the guys, and certainly there was no swooning. I appreciated that quite a bit.

Overall, it’s not one that stands out for me, but it was enjoyable in the way I find many classic mysteries: it did mostly what was expected of it, and there’s a happy ending for the “goodies” (except, of course, in that someone has been killed). I wouldn’t turn down reading something else by Fletcher.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, J.S. Fletcher, mystery

Review – The Unmaking of June Farrow

Posted April 27, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Unmaking of June Farrow

by Adrienne Young

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

Adrienne Young’s The Unmaking of June Farrow took a while to get going for me, and I ended it not entirely sure how I’d felt about it. I enjoyed it well enough, but I think the first third felt too introductory and I wanted it to get somewhere, and it didn’t ever feel like it quite took off. I could’ve done with much more tension between certain characters, for instance, and maybe more crossings of timelines.

It’s worked out quite cleverly, and I think it mostly hung together (which is always a risk with time travel type plots), but I did have a bit of trouble figuring out the logistics of some of it worked, and how June didn’t realise some things sooner.

Overall, an interesting one, and I think I enjoyed the experience, but it doesn’t seem to be sticking with me particularly well — I’m reviewing this a little later than I’d usually like, and finding that… well, I seem to have a fistful of dry leaves instead of fairy gold.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: Adrienne Young, book reviews, books, SF/F

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted April 26, 2025 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Greetings! Saturday again, huh? I’ve been trying to have a restorative week, and have been getting back to my reading somewhat — which is a relief to all, since it does wonders for my mood.

As mentioned last week, I had a bit of a spree to celebrate finishing my assignments (the last ones of this degree!) so I’m going to spotlight those now, without any further ado.

Books acquired this week

First up, there are some lovely new editions of T. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel series. I haven’t read these, but I’ve been meaning to forever. Since they were “buy one, get one half-price” at Waterstones, and Waterstones was having a double stamps event… well. It seemed like the perfect time to splash out.

But that wasn’t all, of course. I picked up a couple of fiction books too: I’d borrowed Greenteeth from the library, but had to return it, and I just loved the idea of a dragon café and thought that one sounded cute. I already owned a copy of Clockwork Boys, but I liked the new UK issue, so I grabbed that too.

Aaand finally, a few non-fiction (you knew it was coming).

A pretty good haul, I’d say… Technically I have a review copy to share as well, but it isn’t in my hands yet (since I’m not staying at the flat while we do moving stuff), so I’ll share that next week!

Posts from this week

As usual, let’s have a quick roundup of reviews:

Fantasy manga: A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, by Misaki et al (4/5 stars)
Fantasy: The Tomb of Dragons, by Katherine Addison (2/5 stars)
Mystery/horror: Strange Pictures, by Uketsu (4/5 stars)
History: Sheeplands: How Sheep Shaped Wales and the World, by Alan Marshall (3/5 stars)
Non-fiction: You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song: How Streaming Changes Music, by Glenn McDonald (2/5 stars)
Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 11, by Akane Tamura (4/5 stars)

What I’m reading

With my assignments finally done, I’ve been finding a bit more time for reading… though partly that means I’ve got stuck into some longer/heavier reads, so I don’t have many new reviews added to the upcoming pile. But here’s what I have read!

As for this weekend, I’ll be reading Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Price of the Perfect Playlist, and… not sure what else. We’ll see!

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

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 11

Posted April 25, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Side Character's Love Story

by Akane Tamura

Genres: Manga, Romance
Pages: 161
Series: A Side Character's Love Story #11
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
The last year of Nobuko and Hiroki's time together as college students is upon them.

It's springtime, and job hunting is in full swing for college seniors. Hiroki does his best to support Nobuko, who is caught between studying for the civil service exam and searching for a private sector job. Facing her first real barrier of entry into society, Nobuko worries for the future. What can Hiroki say to help when she begins losing sight of herself?

Volume eleven of Akane Tamura’s A Side Character’s Love Story keeps up on the theme of the last volume: Nobuko and Hiroki are growing up, having different sorts of trouble, and sometimes being kept apart by circumstance.

It’s really quite a bit of development for Nobuko as a character, with Hiroki somewhat in the background, as Nobuko tries to navigate interviewing for jobs and figuring out what she wants to do, and how to show her interest and passion for it. As ever, Hiroki is willing to support her no matter what, and shows his support even when the outcome isn’t what he might prefer.

Really, they’re #relationshipgoals.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Akane Tamura, book reviews, books, manga, romance