The Cage Of Dark Hours – Taking Off The Shackles

The Helm of Midnight by Marina J. Lostetter was one of the most complicated and confusing books that I read in 2021. It was a strange murder mystery in a dystopian bubble world where people could summon the skills of the dead to empower them through masks. The book was so complicated that reading the…

Primeval Fire – Getting Back Up Again

The Scarlett Odyssey, by C.T. Rwizi, has been my ace-in-the-hole recommendation recently. I stumbled onto the first two books last year and as you can tell from my review and the extremely high ranking of Requiem Moon on the Best Of List - I was impressed. I have been using the trilogy as my pocket recommendation…

Locklands – The End Of The World As We Know It

Locklands, the final piece of the Founders trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett, is a story both worthy of discussion and hard to talk about. It is the last step in an increasingly complicated dance that Bennett has been leading and it ends with a beautiful flourish. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about the plot of this…

The Bone Orchard – Ghosts, Ghouls, And Whores

I am going to try and avoid the endless skeleton puns that are rattling my bo-... as I review The Bone Orchard, by Sara A. Mueller. This stand-alone science-fantasy necromantic who-dun-it has a great premise, compelling writing, and a fantastic world. The only thing that kept it from being one of my top picks of…

The Starless Crown – Beautiful Zirconia

Sometimes a book comes along with such a powerful blurb that you can’t help but be drawn to it. The Starless Crown, by James Rollins, is one such novel. A kind editor at Tor sent me the elevator pitch for this book back in the middle of last year and I was immediately entranced. A…

Scarlet Odyssey/Requiem Moon – Once In A Red Moon

Every so often I stumble across a fantastically wonderful new series that is flying under the radar. These are always my favorite moments as a reviewer because it means I get to stand on my little pedestal and become a town crier for a new series worth your time. Today I will be talking about…

In The Watchful City – Seeing Is Believing

In The Watchful City, by S. Qiouyi Lu, calls itself a ‘mosaic novella,’ which is a fitting description. The book is organized into two parts. One follows Anima, an augmented human - one of several who oversees the city of Ora. She acts like a foundation for the second part of the story; a series…