May has been the month of relatives visiting from overseas, rapid increases in workload and – thankfully – some lovely sunny days. I got a lot of reading and reviewing done early in the month, but I’m on the slow train through summer from here (that’s so untrue: I’ve got loads of long flights in June, so hopefully I can catch up on recent reviews and fall behind on a fresh batch!)
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, in which we talk about a bookish topic and have fun making lists. This week, we’re getting excited about what’s coming out later this year.
When inexperienced Jonah Oblong is hired to teach history at Rotherweird School, the laws are clearly laid down: nothing before 1800 and no digging into local history. But Sir Veronal Slickstone, new owner of Rotherweird Manor, intends to turn all the town’s regulations upside down – and God help those who get in his way.
Continue reading “Rotherweird: quirky, light-hearted portal fantasy”
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, in which we talk about a bookish topic and have fun making lists. This week, we’re getting ready for summer!
Kellen is 15, the astonishingly untalented son of the Jan’Tep’s greatest mage. Struggling to cast even the simplest spells, he’s the butt of jokes and school yard bullying. Worse, if he can’t pass his mage trials before he turns 16, he’ll be relegated to the Sha’Tep servant class – reliant on his obnoxious little sister’s charity if he’s lucky, sent down the mines if he’s not.
Easily distracted, PC Peter Grant is a probationary officer with a dull future of tedious admin ahead of him – until he takes a witness statement from a ghost in Covent Garden and finds himself recruited into the Met’s little-advertised supernatural division…
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, in which we talk about a bookish topic and have fun making lists. It was recently Mother’s Day in other parts of the world (we do it earlier here in the UK), so today is all about Mum.
A Conjuring of Light is the finale of the Shades of Magic trilogy, picking up right where A Gathering of Shadows left off: Red London under threat, Kell captured, Rhy dying, Lila desperate and ready to find out whether she is what we’ve all come to suspect she may be. So, err, spoilers, right? Right.
Continue reading “A Conjuring of Light: the consequence of delay”
Of Sight, Of Mind, Of Heart is one of those short stories that should come with a warning: don’t read in public; guaranteed to make you cry. Guaranteed to make me cry, anyway, and it’s a pretty solid rule that I do love a story that grabs my heart strings and embarrasses me in public.
Continue reading “Bite-size Books: Of Sight, Of Mind, Of Heart”
When the High Priestess dies, the lesser priestesses leave the Tombs of Atuan and go in search of the newborn she has become. If she grows healthy and unblemished, she is fed to the Nameless Ones, keeper of their rituals, heir to their secrets. Could such a child ever turn her back on the Dark?
When Allah created man out of clay, he created djinn out of fire. Ephemeral spirits that tempt us, trick us, and sometimes grant our wishes, these creatures of folklore take centre stage in excellent Mahvesh Murad & Jared Shurin’s anthology, The Djinn Falls in Love.
April started with what felt like a readathon as I raced to catch up with read-alongs and review obligations. It promised to be a month of series finales, but life got in the way before I could grapple with The Hydrogen Sonata, delaying the end of my Culture reread and interrupting my usual blogging schedule. As life remains overpowering, blogging will likely be sporadic through May and June.
