Visit The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities by Iris Lake for a fantasy romance that follows a curious magical shop owner and a heartless man on a mission. It’s bursting with dialogue as the characters lash out at each other, and it’s full of magic and mystery. While I merely window-shopped at this particular establishment,…
Continue reading ➞ The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities – I’ll See Myself Out
Right around this time last year, I reviewed indie author Eric Linke’s debut novel, Dreams of the Witches Three. It was a promising outing from an equally promising author, and he has begun to deliver on all that promise with an intriguing sequel: Blood of the Pale Light. The city of Wulfgeld reels following a…
Continue reading ➞ Blood of the Pale Light – A Warrior’s Sequel
In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan, is a conundrum of a book. It is a standalone fantasy with a number of traditional tropes and elements I can’t usually stand. It’s a portal fantasy, YA, a coming-of-age story with a love triangle, and has an unlikable protagonist, among other things. In the dedication, Brennan seems…
Continue reading ➞ In Other Lands – Young, Dumb, And Full Of Adventure
King-a-ding-ding! Hear that bell? It’s the sound of a brand-new Stephen King review from The Quill To Live’s only resident King reader—me! One of my goals this year was to listen to five Stephen King audiobooks. The Tommyknockers was my first of the year, and it was decidedly okay. The town of Haven, Maine is…
I am ashamed to admit how long Descendant of the Crane by Joan He has been sitting on my shelf. It’s been so long, in fact, that I forgot I had the book, and it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago I scanned my shelves and saw it there. However, I do believe books…
Continue reading ➞ Descendant Of The Crane – Can You Keep Up
I picked up We Lived on the Horizon, by Erika Swyler, because it tries to imagine a place designed to survive cataclysm. The book is an examination of utopia that falls short in many ways while offering an incredible look at an artificial consciousness inhabiting a human-shaped body. The city of Bulwark seems to stand…
Continue reading ➞ We Lived on The Horizon – Build It and We Will Leave
I have two novellas I want to talk about today, so instead of making a choice between them like a responsible adult, I have decided to cram both reviews into a single piece. My two victims are The Orb Of Cairado by Katherine Addison and Space Station by K.R. Gadeken. Orb is a spin-off novella…
Continue reading ➞ The Orb Of Cairado + Space Station – Spheres On Spheres
You may not know this, but The Quill To Live reviewers all play in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign together. Andrew is the DM (and a very good one, I might add). The rest of us (plus a few other friends) are subject to his dastardly ideas, attending a school that teaches students how to…
During my yearly visit to see my friends and fellow QTL reviewers, we ventured to New York City and escaped the cold, windy day in the OG Barnes & Noble bookstore. I couldn’t help but pick up the eye-catching pink cover of The Cabinet by Un-Su Kim while I was browsing. I discovered that the…
Water Moon, by Samantha Sotto Yambao, is not the kind of book I would normally pick up. I’m all for plots that revolve around choices and people having to reflect on whether they made the correct ones. But a story that centered on the romantic journey of two strangers as they wade through a world…
