A Desolation Called Peace — A Sequel Deemed Magnificent

A Memory Called Empire is easily one of my favorite debut novels of the last several years. Not a lot of other books captivated me with the levels of palace intrigue Arkady Martine was able to stuff inside it. Not only that, but the book massaged my big brained ego with its exploration of identity…

Book Talk: Moby Dick And The Black Leviathan

We here at The Quill to Live like to have weird and frankly bizarre conversations about books, and we decided to record one of them. This time Alex and Andrew decided to compare two books that are similar to one another, but have an outrageous time gap between them. Not only that, but they take…

The Black Coast – Right Message, Wrong Words

The Black Coast, by Mike Brooks, is the hardest type of book to read and review. There are a variety of different aspects of this fantasy story that I like greatly, but many of them are hampered by noticeable problems with the writing. The book was compelling enough that I absolutely wanted to finish it,…

The Echo Wife — Echo, Echooo, Echoooooooooo

Yeah yeah, the subtitle is easy pickings, but sometimes it’s the simple things in life that are the best. It’s very hard to come up with a pun that combines the act of echoing and the myriad themes Sarah Gailey has packed into this book. There are questions about the debate of nature vs nurture,…

The Silence of the Lambs — Fantasy Villainy In A Crime Thriller Mask

“Clarice.” Two bone-chilling syllables, monotonously uttered by a verifiably insane Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The power doesn’t lie within the name itself. Rather, it’s how “Clarice” pops up throughout Thomas Harris’ seminal thriller, The Silence of the Lambs. When FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling interviews the mad doctor, the name beckons, practically begging to be pronounced. Start…

The QTL Best And Worst Romances Of Fantasy

We are not a site that is well versed in the subgenre of romantic fantasy. I am absolutely positive that there are hundreds of fantastic fantasy romance stories that we have never heard of. And yet, in our time reviewing the larger fantasy landscape, we have come across a number of beautifully heartful, and catastrophically…

Tower of Mud and Straw — Colossal in its Brevity

They say it’s never a good idea to judge a book by it’s cover. After a while, when it comes to actual books, that advice gets harder and harder to follow. It’s not easy with all these amazing artists out there, providing color and form to black and white text. Some of my favorite covers…