Tag: SF/F

Review – Wooing the Witch Queen

Posted August 24, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Wooing the Witch Queen

by Stephanie Burgis

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 294
Series: Queens of Villainy #1
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress everyone fears. After successfully wrestling the throne from her evil uncle, she only wants one thing: to keep her people safe from the empire next door. For that, she needs to spend more time in her laboratory experimenting with her spells. She definitely doesn’t have time to bring order to her chaotic library of magic.

When a mysterious dark wizard arrives at her castle, Saskia hires him as her new librarian on the spot. “Fabian” is sweet and a little nerdy, and his requests seem a little strange – what in the name of Divine Elva is a fountain pen? – but he’s getting the job done. And if he writes her flirtatious poetry and his innocent touch makes her skin singe, well…

Little does Saskia know that the "wizard" she’s falling for is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise, with no magical training whatsoever. On the run, with perilous secrets on his trail and a fast growing yearning for the wicked sorceress, he's in danger from her enemies and her newfound allies, too. When his identity is finally revealed, will their love save or doom each other?

I’ve been meaning to try Stephanie Burgis’ Wooing the Witch Queen since forever, seeing other people’s enthusiasm about the series — and there is indeed a lot to love! The introduction is a little heavy, with Felix fleeing his kingdom due to being essentially a puppet ruler, manipulated and outright abused by the man who actually controls the kingdom… and Saskia’s back story is also a tragic one, with betrayal and the murder of her parents by her uncle behind her before she managed to take her own throne. Despite all that setup, the story has a relatively light touch.

The misunderstanding/mistaken identity thing at the beginning didn’t entirely work for me in that I just wanted Felix to come clean already and avoid the horrible third act breakup I could see coming from a mile off… but ultimately, Burgis subverted my expectations there somewhat. She does have to have Saskia wilfully insist on ignorance on more than one occasion in order to play things out the way she wants to, but it mostly works, and I was relieved that the relationship didn’t have the breakup I’d expected.

I did find the insta-attraction a little bit much, but over time the connection between the two did grow on me, as well, particularly when Felix time after time just supported Saskia and her needs, her right to make decisions and make a different world than her First Minister thinks she should, her right to be a queen.

The warmth felt by Saskia for her staff and they for her is lovely, too. The way that the “evil queen”‘s castle is essentially a big family (or at least a well-run and employee-friendly company) is pretty sweet; I do feel that the fact that they insist on Felix eating and sleeping and having company, things a person needs, isn’t played for as much as it’s worth (though that decision does avoid things getting too heavy). Given his trauma, it’s a hell of a gift to be somewhere that his needs are met in that way.

I’m definitely interested enough to read more, even if I didn’t love Lorelei from what I’ve seen so far; I expect she’ll grow on me when we get to understand her backstory more.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, romance, SF/F, Stephanie Burgis

Fantasy with Friends: Dark Academia

Posted August 24, 2026 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Monday’s back again, but look, here’s one I made earlier! I’m on a trip right now to celebrate my birthday (today is indie bookshop spree day!) so comments might be slow, but I’ve got a Fantasy with Friends post anyway. All the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is on dark academia in fantasy:

Do you enjoy dark academia fantasy novels? What are some themes you enjoy seeing discussed in dark academia (ex. ethics in academia, corruption, classism, etc?) Do you think the genre does a good job exploring such themes in general, or are many books focused mainly on the aesthetics?

I don’t think I’ve read a lot of dark academia, not enough to really form an opinion on it as a genre. I’m not opposed to the idea, it’s just not the way my interests have taken me. I think the best of it grows out of and reflects the real dark sides of academia, where people are pitted against each other for limited funding or limited numbers of places, and privilege can get you a long way. Thinking about e.g. R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis, which I’m in the middle of, it feels like a lot of it is a response to those pressures and the sometimes unfair situation gifted people are placed in, struggling against each other for limited opportunities when the opportunities are a bit of a poisoned chalice anyway.

It is not my experience of academia, to be clear; I’m an enthusiastic and serial student, with a BA, MA, BSc and MSc now… but having to get into departmental politics is definitely one reason why I haven’t done a higher degree (the other major one being that I prefer to synthesise over doing something new, and synthesis is not rewarded in academia — despite being essential to scientific and medical consensus).

Another aspect of dark academia is the importance of acknowledgement that academia has done some very dark things indeed. I studied at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a school founded in order to train doctors for colonial service. The whole point was to keep white enslavers healthy for the sake of Empire. It was engaged in “decolonisation” initiatives by the time I enrolled, and continues to be, but that fundamental attitude ripples through the whole course of study. We were taught (in 2020-2025) about the importance of keeping African people healthy so they can study and later earn more… and yes, that is going to benefit them in the sense of helping them get jobs and make informed choices around drug treatments, but there’s also a high degree of “capitalism is the one and only answer, and we must help them do it properly because they won’t if we don’t intervene”.

This blog isn’t a good place to delve into the ethics and complications of all that, but the point is that LSHTM isn’t alone, and many academic institutions are mired in that kind of history, and a history of extracting knowledge without credit and without benefit to the peoples and areas studied. I don’t think I’ve read anything yet that really engages with that, though I think one or two of the books on my TBR do (like Kuang’s Babel).

Anyway, I think what I’m interested in when I do read dark academia is a bit of awareness of the tensions there and how they can particularly impact minorities, and/or of the dark history of many academic institutions. I prefer the “darkness” to mean something rather than rely on vibes to provide a background to an “enemies-to-lovers” story or something. Not that I’m against an enemies-to-lovers story, but I’d like the “dark” part of the academia to make sense and drive the plot, rather than just be an aesthetic.

Tags: books, discussion, Fantasy with Friends, SF/F

Review – Moon-Flash

Posted August 21, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Moon-Flash

by Patricia A. McKillip

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction
Pages: 150
Series: Kyreol Duology #1
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Kyreol's small world begins at the Face, a high rock cliff, and ends at Fourteen Falls, a series of rapids. Each year, her people celebrate Moon-Flash-a spark of light that seems to come from and go into the moon, a symbol of life and joy. When a mysterious stranger arrives, Kyreol wants to know more about him, as well as the Moon-Flash, and soon she and her childhood friend Terje leave their home to look for answers. Those answers will pluck Kyreol from Riverworld and transform her life forever-by fast-forwarding her into a future she can barely comprehend.

Patricia McKillip’s Moon-Flash begins feeling like a fantasy novel, and it’s difficult to talk about how the story actually goes without spoilers. The initial chapters follow Kyreol, a girl who doesn’t quite seem to fit within the small world of her very much pre-industrial society, shaped by ritual and custom… a girl who asks questions and tells stories about the world around her, and ultimately notices too much, finding herself driven to understand what’s really going on.

Into her quest she draws her best friend, a young man that she wishes she could have married (though she has been betrothed since very young to someone else): I rather liked Terje and his practical responses to everything that’s going on, while at the same time he enjoys Kyreol’s curious mind and the stories she comes up with about things.

The reveal, when it comes, is pretty much as I’d expected in many respects, but it works out quite neatly, I’d say. The only thing for me is that sometimes I find McKillip’s prose rather opaque — beautifully written, but I realise that I don’t really feel like I understand Kyreol, even when I’m told what she’s thinking (and you definitely don’t get to understand Terje’s thoughts well). Sometimes she makes a leap, and I’m like… what? How’d you get there? Why are you feeling that way?

But that might be me; it’s a problem I’ve often had with McKillip’s prose, and I do think her writing is lovely anyway, in general, though this isn’t one of my favourites.

I did also discover that I had read this book before, just now, from the fact that I have apparently previously posted a review of it. I have no memory of the previous occasion at all, though I can excuse myself somewhat due to that being a decade ago.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Patricia A. McKillip, SF/F

Review – Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (light novel), vol 3

Posted August 20, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

by singNsong

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Light Novels
Pages: 259
Series: Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (light novel) #3
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Dokja has been able to step one step ahead in the apocalypse thanks to his knowledge of TWSA, but what if he were to lose that advantage? In the next scenario, he must contend with others like himself—readers! The so-called “Oracles” pose a greater threat than anything Dokja has faced so far, and the most dangerous of all is their leader, a shadowy mastermind pulling the strings behind the scenes, who seems to know too much to be an ordinary reader…

Volume three of singNsong’s Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint takes us through some of my favourite stuff (which we’re already past in the manhwa translation), which especially includes the point we end this volume on — which I won’t spoil, but just — ahh. It’s such a cinematic, epic moment, and I love it.

The whole volume shows us Dokja having to improvise more, now, with other people and his own actions starting to ripple out and disturb the plot as he knows it. He’s always going to have an advantage because he knows more of the world than anyone, but some of the events are now unfamiliar, and there are other people with a high degree of foreknowledge.

I do find the historical constellations part a bit… mm. It’s hard to follow because I don’t know the history very well, and I don’t know if it maybe makes perfect absolute sense if you do — I assume so, but I don’t have a good sense for it. It is such a great moment, though, as is Sangah’s quick thinking when it looks like Dokja might be forced to hurt her.

All in all, I race through each volume and have a great time, and then mourn and pine for the next one! Which is in July, right? Right?!

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, SF/F, singNsong

Review – Mistakenly Saving the Villain, vol 2

Posted August 18, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Mistakenly Saving the Villain

by Feng Yu Nie

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novels
Pages: 271
Series: Mistakenly Saving the Villain #2
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
DOES TIME REALLY HEAL ALL WOUNDS?

After a near-fatal catastrophe, Song Qingshi awakens to find his home, the Medicine King’s Valley, almost unrecognizable. But not to fear. His devoted companion, Yue Wuhuan, remains by his side, ready to guide him through the changes.

Yue Wuhuan seems transformed as well. There are rumors that he’s become a ruined beauty and a madman, but he insists it’s all an act. To Song Qingshi, he seems more stable than ever before. Yet when the volatile and injured An Long storms into the valley, Yue Wuhuan’s carefully spun narrative begins to unravel. Soon, the two are at each other’s throats again.

In a desperate bid to restore peace, Song Qingshi proposes a vacation together. But beneath the surface of this idyllic escape, Yue Wuhuan is still scheming—determined to eliminate anyone who dares sully his beloved “Zunzhu.” And if An Long thinks he can stop him, he’s about to learn just how far Yue Wuhuan will go for love.

Feng Yu Nie’s Mistakenly Saving the Villain ended volume one with the critical injury of Song Qingshi, so volume two opens after years of healing, during which An Long and Yue Wuhuan have been fighting each other on the regular, with Yue Wuhuan concealing Song Qingshi’s condition and An Long knowing something must be the matter.

We get a lot more insight into An Long’s behaviour in this volume, and into his former disagreements with Song Qingshi. I actually have a lot of sympathy for him in this volume, given what we discover about him — he’s a brute, but he’s also genuinely struggling, fighting deep feelings and a sense of not having a place in the world. I kind of hoped that the interlude with Song Qingshi, An Long and Yue Wuhuan going on holiday together would end better, but… the way it did end makes a lot of sense.

As for Yue Wuhuan, it is fascinating to note the ways he’s got stronger, and the deep instability he’s still struggling with. I’m not sure if I hope that he gets fully better or not, because he’d have a long way to go for that and it feels… not entirely plausible, and not like the story’s driving in that direction at all. And given that it’s fiction, there’s something appealing about how unhinged he and Song Qingshi can be about each other: at times Song Qingshi really does match him on that.

(To be really clear, it’s not shaping up to be a super healthy relationship since there’s a lot of stuff going unsaid and I think Yue Wuhuan would happily lock Song Qingshi in a room and just bring him anything he needs, in order to keep him safe from real and perceived threats. One can enjoy this in fiction while knowing that one would have to try to get Song Qingshi to see the truth and act in self-preservation in reality.)

I’m very curious where this is going to go and how issues like Song Qingshi’s cultivation are going to kick in… and where the system is in all this, given that it’s been quite a while without any mention of it. I don’t think it came up at all in this volume!

So yeah, still having a lot of fun, but Yue Wuhuan is a whole bundle of red flags in the shape of a man, and Song Qingshi isn’t actually a whole lot better in some ways. Read with caution if that might trouble you.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, danmei, Feng Yu Nie, light novels, SF/F

Fantasy with Friends: Anachronisms

Posted August 17, 2026 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Monday, Monday, Monday… so, as usual, I’ve got a Fantasy with Friends post for you! All the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is on anachronisms in fantasy:

Do anachronisms in fantasy bother you? Should fantasy be “similiar” to the time period it’s based on, either in terms of language used or things like invention, fashion, customs, etc.?

I think the question implies an assumption that all fantasy is necessarily copying a historical period and should do so in its entirety, rather than coming up with an aesthetic and historical background of its own, which is interesting! I don’t see fantasy that way: obviously, historical fantasy needs to believably fit into the period it’s set in to work, but otherwise, I don’t see why a fantasy story needs to be copying a given time period with all of its assumptions. If it’s making its own thing, why should things be the same as in our world’s past?

When it comes to something like language, unless the dialogue is written in Anglo-Saxon, a book set in a fantasy setting that’s kind of like Britain in 999AD is just as “anachronistic” whether the protagonist is speaking modern English or weird faux Ye Olde Englishe. Most of the dialogue people think is “appropriate” in a pseudo-medieval setting is far more modern than that (and also super fake and contrived), but people are so lacking in education about how language has developed that they somehow think that a) that’s “Old English” and b) it actually suits the period.

Just gonna say it straight, unless the dialogue of a given “medieval” fantasy novel set in Britain sounds something like this, it’s already anachronistic: “Haþel, by heuen, þyn askyng is nys, and as þou foly hatz frayst, fynde þe behoues. I know no gome þat is gast of þy grete wordes; gif me now þy geserne, vpon Godez halue, and I schal bayþen þy bone þat þou boden habbes.”

(That’s Middle English, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.)

Pretty much nothing about the way fantasy novels are written actually sounds anything like “authentic”, and few modern readers can parse sentences like the above, so I don’t personally care when authors choose to avoid faux Ye Olde Englishe in favour of something more familiar. I definitely prefer that over badly done faux archaic phrasing.

(That said, there are also authors who do it well, usually those who’ve considered exactly what they’re doing and are building congruent, sense-making worlds of which that language is a part.)

Moving on from language, often there are assumptions that come with certain levels of technology (“if you’ve got peasants with carts you must have knights and homophobia as well”) that lead to accusations of anachronism as well. Mostly, I think that kind of thing is often used as an excuse for unexamined assumptions (like sexism and racism), and again… if you’ve got a fresh new world where you control all the rules, why should you feel constrained by what “actually happened”?

Sometimes, when writers don’t include sexism and racism in their world, it’s used as a stick to beat them with because it’s not “historical”. Well of course not — it’s fantasy!

I would also gently note that a lot of what we think “actually happened” and things which we think are “true” are not. When it comes to sexuality and gender alone, there are so many assumptions about what the past was like which don’t hold true… and the same is true on almost every topic. I’ve seen readers claim things are “anachronistic” when they’d existed for hundreds of years by the time a given story was set. Your average fantasy reader is a terrible judge of what’s “realistic” for a given “period”, even assuming you grant that fantasy is set in any specific “period” at all.

Overall, I’m personally less worried about anachronism and more about what feels congruent: does your social structure make sense with the other moving parts like, I don’t know, levels of literacy and provision of education? I don’t need it to look exactly like a specific period of history: mixing and matching if you need inspiration is fine, or just coming up with something out of whole cloth, just… try to have it make sense. Don’t, for example, have “Christmas” in a world that doesn’t have Christ, and consider carefully whether the social mores you’re importing make sense without factors like religion and colonialism that have affected our history.

Overall, my grasp on what is historical is not always amazing anyway: I’m terrible with keeping historical periods straight, especially when you add different countries into the mix. So I’m fairly easy to please on that front, even in historical fiction! For me, it just has to make a certain amount of sense, and we’re good.

Tags: discussion, Fantasy with Friends, SF/F

Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing (manhua), vol 1

Posted August 16, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Heaven Official's Blessing

by STARember

Genres: Fantasy, Manga, Romance
Pages: 244
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing (manhua) #1
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
A fallen god unravels supernatural mysteries and comes face-to-face with ghosts from his past in this manhua (comic) adaptation of the New York Times bestselling danmei novel by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. Featuring stunning art by STARember, the official manhua produced by BILIBILI COMICS is now available in English in print for the first time.

Xie Lian, once the darling of the heavens, is a twice-banished god infamous for his fall from grace. Eight hundred years have passed since his mortal life as the Crown Prince of Xianle, and he’s now the laughingstock of the three realms. So when he ascends to godhood for a third time, it causes an uproar among his divine peers. Ascension may be nothing new to Xie Lian, but this time he has no followers, little power, and less luck. To repay his heavenly debts, Xie Lian must descend to the Mortal Realm to hunt ghosts that prey upon the living. There, he encounters a mysterious stranger – but is this newcomer friend or foe . . . or something else entirely?

Volume 1 includes the prologue and episodes 1–14 of the original webcomic based on the webnovel Tian Guan Ci Fu published on JJWXC.

I’ve read some of the Heaven Official’s Blessing manhua before, but not the official translation, so it was nice to dig in and get to read something a bit more official and organised (though the work of fan translators can be of amazing quality!). It’s a lovely volume as a physical object, with pretty sprayed edges etc — that part doesn’t matter enormously to me, but it’s still a nice touch.

STARember’s art is beautiful, and I think it’s a pretty strong adaptation overall, introducing Xie Lian and some of the other important characters without including every single possible detail (which would be overwhelming in this format). The character designs are pretty consistent with the other formats, though I’d forgotten some of the cuter/funnier bits with Xie Lian — it’s easy to just remember the beautiful version from some of the more serious scenes, and forget the cute/flustered silly faces he pulls as well. All of that is part of Xie Lian, but easy to forget against the seriousness of his story, so this was a nice reminder.

I do find some of the character designs harder to tell apart in the manga (like Fu Yao and Nan Feng), but that’s rarely critical to understanding a scene so it’s not a huge problem.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, manga, SF/F, STARember

Review – The Book Eaters

Posted August 15, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Book Eaters

by Sunyi Dean

Genres: Fantasy, Horror
Pages: 298
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
A gorgeous new fantasy horror – a book about stories and fairy tales with family and love at its dark heart…

Hidden across England and Scotland live six old Book Eater families.

The last of their lines, they exist on the fringes of society and subsist on a diet of stories and legends.

Children are rare and their numbers have dwindled, so when Devon Fairweather’s second child is born a dreaded Mind Eater – a perversion of her own kind, who consumes not stories but the minds and souls of humans – she flees before he can be turned into a weapon for the family… or worse.

Living among humans and finding prey for her son, Devon seeks a cure for his hunger. But time is running out – for her family want her back, and with every soul her son consumes he loses a little more of himself…

This is a story of escape, a mother’s savage devotion and a queer love that will electrify readers looking for something beguiling, thrilling, strange and new.

I had a bit of a mixed time with Sunyi Dean’s The Book Eaters: there were parts of the core concept that didn’t feel well done to me, because it refused to just call it magic and instead had various biological explanations/solutions to things, while making absolutely no sense from a biological point of view. You can’t chew printed paper and swallow it to know and understand the words on it. I’m happy to go along with it if you want to call it magic, but don’t try to kid me there’s any biological way that’s going to work.

I think a lot of other readers are happy to put that kind of thing aside, and I would be, apart from the part where one of the characters explicitly refuses to call it magic, and technological solutions to the characters’ problems (like medications and IVF) are a key part of the story. Just! Call it! Magic! Even if you’re still going to reference IVF, I can manage that suspension of disbelief much better than if you are trying to tell me that there’s a biological way to consume and digest conventional printed books in a way that provides both energy for physical processes and instantly-acquired knowledge. There simply isn’t. It was just goofy.

On the other hand, the emotional side of things is really well done. I absolutely believe in Devon’s love for her kids, in the twisted monstrousness of both her and Cai, in the fraught kinship between Devon and Ramsey, Hester and Killock. There were some horrific and powerful scenes, and that aspect is what kept me reading even when the worldbuilding was completely crumbling. These aren’t good people, but they’re desperate people seeking freedom, and you can feel for them despite the horrors.

The blurb highlighted the queer love story and I have to say that was an afterthought, unfortunately. There are queer characters and the tentative beginnings of a relationship, but “a queer love” definitely overstates it. That’s probably the fault of whoever wrote the blurb, to be clear, but it sets the wrong expectations.

Overall, a very mixed bag for me, and difficult to rate. I can see what others love in it, and it’s fine to take my complaints about the biology with a grain of salt — if you can just ignore the suggestions that it’s biological and not magical, then you can probably enjoy this a lot more.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, horror, SF/F, Sunyi Dean

Review – An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating

Posted August 12, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

An Ancient Witch's Guide to Modern Dating

by Cecilia Edward

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 311
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
An ancient witch explores the thrills--and perils--of online dating with hilarity and heart in a charming rom-com perfect for fans of cozy fantasy and witchy romance.

Meet Thorn Scarhart, a thirty-nine-year-old witch who's having trouble finding love in the 17th century. Despite the local matchmaker's efforts and Thorn's arsenal of powerful love potions, she has yet to fall in love. After the disappearance of her sister and the loss of her mother, Thorn was too caught up in...well, life, to focus on dating. Now, she fears she may have missed her chance.

But, when one of her potion brews backfires spectacularly, Thorn is hurled 350 years into the future, landing in a bustling city where her once-isolated cottage is now a historical museum. While this unexpected leap through time may seem daunting, modern life does have its perks: indoor plumbing, electric kettles, and the world of online dating. At thirty-nine, the odds may not be perfect, but at least they're not impossible.

With the help of the museum's new curator--and her charming veterinarian brother--Thorn dives headfirst into the 21st-century dating scene. And as she searches for romance, she might also find herself along the way.

I didn’t get on very well with Cecilia Edward’s An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating, and that’s partly just on me and what I like in fiction: it leans quite far to the “romcom” side rather than the fantasy side (there’s a potion for everything, without much cost and without explanation of the mechanics) and the comedy is often rather slapstick and/or about the main character (Thorn) not understanding the modern world. For me, that kind of humour palled quickly.

I really didn’t enjoy her continual insistence on a) needing a man to complete her and make her happy, and b) using love potions to try and achieve that. I didn’t feel like it was getting called out enough a lot of the time, it just felt like it was kinda taken for granted, so I was having difficulty really sympathising with Thorn. To be fair to the story, that aspect does get addressed to some degree, and there are clues it’s going to be — I just got cranky with it because of the other aspects I wasn’t enjoying, I think.

I thought the parts about Thorn’s mother and sister were pretty interesting, though I didn’t really catch on that it was going to be a thing at first (again, I think this is partly because I wasn’t reading with a lot of sympathy). The way it works out is… well, a bit neat, tidy and feel-good, as you’d expect from the genre.

The love interest is a sweet guy: that part (and the mystery about the cats) I did like, including the joke about him being an evil warlock in the cats’ eyes because of the catch-and-release program he participates in to help with stray cats, though I felt it was wrapped up kinda quickly, and like Lily was kinda shortchanged in terms of screen time!

Overall, not for me, though I can see the elements that other people enjoyed.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Cecilia Edward, romance, SF/F

Fantasy with Friends: Fantasy Plants

Posted August 10, 2026 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

Happy Monday, once more! And that means it’s time for Fantasy with Friends: all the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is about fantastical plants:

What fantasy plants have stuck in your imagination? A plant with magical properties or a plant a character uses in a potion? What memorable ways does nature feature in fantasy?

My immediate answer is Caz and Meep, from Sarah Beth Durst’s The Spellshop! I loved the idea of a sentient spider plant right from the start, and honestly for most of the story I was just wanting more of Caz, because it’s such a cool idea. I wasn’t as big a fan of The Spellshop in general as some are, but that part stuck with me!

Casting back a bit further, the other thing that weirdly popped into my head is the toffee tree in The Magician’s Nephew — the way it grew from Polly and Diggory’s remaining toffees, with magic all new in the land and so much potential that even a lamp post could grow… We don’t see the toffee plant in the books later in the chronology, and I always wondered what C.S. Lewis thought happened to it. If it were a story by Tolkien, I’d feel sure he knew (even if it never fitted into a story he actually got chance to tell), but less so with Lewis. Maybe he never thought about it again!

I’ve no real green thumb of my own, so I must admit that not a lot else sticks out in my memory! I’ll have to see what everyone else talks about to jog my memory on what I inevitably missed…

Tags: books, discussion, Fantasy with Friends, SF/F