I enjoy comics and graphic novels, but I have always found the big DC and Marvel comics to be very unapproachable. Their comic universes are so complicated and sprawling at this point that I have never seen what felt like a good jumping-in point, despite liking many characters from both universes. So, when I saw…
While reading and writing for The Quill is one of my passions, I also have two young daughters who are the joy of my life. Each week, we go to the library and pick out 5-10 new picture books from their incredible selection and make our way through them (purchasing those that we find outstanding).…
Continue reading ➞ QTL – Picture Book Recommendations Vol. 1
The Belladonna series by Adalyn Grace is quickly becoming one of my favorite YA stories. In the second book, Foxglove, Grace crafts a compelling romance and keeps the stakes rising with a new mystery that makes this story even stronger than the first. Foxglove picks back up on a scene in progress: a duke has…
As we leave all the wonder books of 2025 behind us, the Quill to Live team has one more thing we actually want to talk about: novellas. Due to the extremely high number of novels that we tried to review in 2025, we didn’t have a lot of space to review some of the amazing…
Ten years! Welcome to the tenth anniversary of The Quill to Live's best books of the year list! 2025 has been a banger year for science fiction, fantasy, and horror. One of the strongest years of the decade, 2025 was filled with standout books in multiple genres. There were actually so many interesting releases, sequels,…
Come one, come all to the Cosmere! That’s right folks, after years of Brandon Sanderson reviews and discussions, we’re finally laying down the law. Today, one and a half Brandon Sanderson experts (Andrew and Cole, respectively) shoulder the Herculean task of telling YOU the ideal Brandon Sanderson reading order. A few clean-up notes before we…
Continue reading ➞ Welcome To The Cosmere: A Brandon Sanderson Reading Order Guide
There is a collection of authors that we here at the Quill To Live would consider our ride or dies. These are the authors that we keep tabs on because we don’t consider if we will read their latest book, it’s only a matter of when. In our continued celebration of QTL’s 10th anniversary, here…
You know what. After reflecting on 10 years here writing about all of the fantasy and science fiction we have, I think it’s time to pivot. We know as much as we can about farm boys, space cowboys, elegant yet evil temptresses, biologically tailored pathogens and all the various ways one can speedrun the kessel…
Ten years is a long time! We’ve spent most of it reviewing books, making lists, and shouting our recommendations from the rooftops. Today, we’re taking a little break from the world of SFF books. I (Cole) asked each QTL writer to drop three new recommendations with two rules—first, no SFF. Second, no books! Otherwise, nothing…
Continue reading ➞ Off The Shelf: Our Top Non SFF, Non-Book Recommendations
Today we have the QTL's favorite books to recommend! As people who run a book review site, we unsurprisingly get a number of requests for book recommendations. Oftentimes, when people are just getting started in Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror, we like to give them huge genre staples that everyone already knows. But, as the people around us have…
