Tag: Fantasy

“The Battle Drum” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Battle Drum” (The Ending Fire Trilogy No. 2) by Saara El-Arifi

Anoor is the first blue-blooded ruler of the Wardens’ Empire. But when she is accused of a murder she didn’t commit, her reign is thrown into turmoil. She must solve the mystery and clear her name without the support of her beloved, Sylah.

Hassa’s web of secrets grows ever thicker as she finds herself on a trail of crimes in the city. Her searching uncovers the extent of the atrocities of the empire’s past and present. Now, she must guard both her heart and her land.

Sylah braves new lands to find a solution for the hurricane that threatens to destroy her home. But in finding answers, she must make a decision, does she sacrifice her old life in order to raise up her sword once more?

The three women find their answers, but they’re not the answers they wanted. The drumbeat of change thrums throughout the world.

Review

I thought this was a good sequel to the first book. I enjoyed learning more about the characters and seeing how they were working to find their answers. Naturally being the middle book of a trilogy it was mostly information gathering and building on prior knowledge before the conclusion. Some things were more frustrating than others but I enjoyed it.

Book Details

The cover is taken up by a white with blue tinge tial pattern that has a blue strip through the bottom half and a blue design at the top The tile is written in the center the authors name at the bottom

Author’s Website
Saara El-Arifi
Publisher / Date
Del Ray, May 2023
Genre
Fantasy
Page Count
544
Completion Date
August 21

“Magica Riot” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Magica Riot (Maidensong Magica No. 1)” by Kara Buchanan

Claire always wanted to be a girl. She never dreamed she’d be a magical girl.

The last night of Claire Ryland’s old life was pretty normal, aside from the alley fight with interdimensional monsters. Fortunately, the drummer of her favorite local band transformed into a magical girl and saved her.

Then Claire became a magical girl as well. Things got a little complicated after that.

Now Claire is juggling two new lives: living as a girl and as a member of Portland’s super-secret supernatural defense squad, the hard-rocking magical girls known as Magica Riot!

Review

Much more light hearted than my usual read but also a lot of fun to read. I really enjoyed all the characters, especially Claire and her coming out stories (as Trans and as a Superhero). It’s a very whimsical and joyful story with influences from Anime and Cartoon media though it also reminded me a lot of the original Power Rangers show which I used to watch. It would be interesting to see this book done as an Anime show. There are a couple plot points that might seem a bit overly light hearted with regard to events in the story but it made sense for the type of book that it was. Overall, I felt like it did exactly what it set to do – tell a light hearted fun story about being able to be who you are while saving the world. There’s a sequel in the works and I’m looking forward to it!

Additional reviews and warnings can be found on the StoryGraph Page for “Magica Riot”

Book Details

The Magica Riot cover is a purple sky with purple and pink clouds and a bridge in the background. In the center of the cover is a cartoon image of a girl in mid jump to attack. She has purple hair and a dark purple shirt over a white shirt and a dark purple skirt with dark purple boots.

Series Website
Magica Riot
Publisher / Date
Storm Maiden, November 2024
Genre
Fantasy
Page Count
227
Completion Date
August 2, 2025

“The House of Frank” Review

Posted on by Jen

“House of Frank” by Kay Synclaire

Powerless witch Saika is ready to enact her sister’s final request: to plant her remains at the famed Ash Gardens. When Saika arrives at the always-stormy sanctuary, she is welcomed by its owner, an enormous, knit-cardiganed mythical beast named Frank, who offers her a role as one of the estate’s caretakers.

Overcome with grief, Saika accepts, desperate to put off her final farewell to her sister. But the work requires a witch with intrinsic power, and Saika’s been disconnected from her magic since her sister’s death two years prior. Saika gets by at the sanctuary using a fragment of a fallen star to cast enchantments – while hiding the embarrassing truth about herself.

As Saika works harder in avoidance of her pain, she learns more about Frank, the decaying house at Ash Gardens, and the lives of the motley staff, including bickering twin cherubs, a mute ghost, a cantankerous elf, and an irritating half witch, among others. Over time, she rediscovers what it means to love and be wholly loved and how to allow her joy and grief to coexist. Warm and inventive, House of Frank is a stirring portrait of the ache of loss and the healing embrace of love.

Review

This was a really good book about grief and found family. I really enjoyed reading it. The world building and the characters were all interesting. There admittedly were a couple places where I got annoyed with the main character for taking so long to tell the full story but it made sense why she didn’t. I thought the ending was great and I liked the way things were resolved. All of the characters are carrying their one grief and needed to work through it. Without spoiling too much it felt like things had to play out the way it did in order for everyone, not just Saika, to move on and grow as individuals and together as a family.

Warnings and additional reviews can be found on the StoryGraph page for “House of Frank”.

Book Details

The cover of the house of Frank depicts a skinny multi-story house with a red front door in the middle of a field with a glass arboretum in the back of it under a night sky with a shooting star over it. The title of the book looks like it is on the ground in front of the house with the author's name in front of it.

Author’s Website
Kay Synclaire (Instagram)
Publisher / Date
Ezeekat Press, Bindery Books, October 2024
Genre
Fantasy
Page Count
352
Completion Date
July 18, 2025

“The Deep” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Deep” by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes

Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago. Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode “We Are In The Future,” The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.

Review

I really enjoyed this story. Despite being short there is a lot going on and takes some careful reading. I really liked the way everything was described and the way Yetu figures out what she needs to do. I enjoyed reading the different parts of the story that were in the past and how they related to the present time. Especially how it involved the person Yetu meets during the course of the story. The resolution of all the various problems Yetu had handling the memories worked out well and I’m glad she was able to be happy with everything. The history is terrible and tragic but the future is hopeful.

Warnings and additional reviews can be found on the StoryGraph page for “The Deep”.

Book Details

The Deep book cover depicts a dark skinned mermaid faced away floating in the water vertically with her long hair flowing around her head. There are several whales in the water around her as well. The title is at the top of the cover and the authors names at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Rivers Solomon
Publisher / Date
Gallery/Saga Press, November 2019
Genre
Science Fiction, Alternate History
Page Count
176
Completion Date
July 15, 2025

“The Maid and the Crocodile” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Maid and the Crocodile” (A Raybearer Story) by Jordan Ifueko

In the magic-soaked capital city of Oluwan, Small Sade needs a job—preferably as a maid, with employers who don’t mind her unique appearance and unlucky foot. But before she can be hired, she accidentally binds herself to a powerful being known only as the Crocodile, a god rumored to devour pretty girls. Small Sade entrances the Crocodile with her secret: she is a Curse Eater, gifted with the ability to alter people’s fates by cleaning their houses.

The handsome god warns that their fates are bound, but Small Sade evades him, launching herself into a new career as the Curse Eater of a swanky inn. She is determined to impress the wealthy inhabitants and earn her place in Oluwan City . . . assuming her secret-filled past—and the revolutionary ambitions of the Crocodile God—don’t catch up with her.

But maybe there is more to Small Sade. And maybe everyone in Oluwan City deserves more, too, from the maids all the way to the Anointed Ones.

Review

I wasn’t entirely sure if this book was going to be my cup of tea because of the romance, but I wanted to give it a chance because it’s set in the same universe as the author’s Raybearer duology which I enjoyed. As it turns out the romance was actually very in the background. Both Small Shade and Crocodile had a lot of things to work through before anything could happen and I loved the story all the more for that. I also really liked the way the author flipped the focus so that we see the commoner point of view of the results of the work done in the original books. While many things were solved by the new rulers in those books, there were a lot of gaps and unintended consequences that Small Shade encountered.

Both characters ended up learning a lot from each other – coming from different worlds and everything that that entails. Small Shade is someone who has long lived under the idea that she must “know her place” and never cause problems because it will only make things worse for her. But there comes a time when making noise and protesting what is happening is just as vital to survival. Crocodile, meanwhile needs to learn what it’s like to not have anything and what not having choices actually means.

I also really liked the disability elements in this story – Small Sade is physically disabled from an accident that crushed her foot, and also dyslexic (though it’s not a diagnosis that exist in this universe). In both cases her disabilities end up adding more to the plot and more ideas for changes.

Additional reviews and warnings can be found on the StoryGraph page for “The Maid and the Crocodile”

Book Details

The background of the cover has various colors and depicts a young Black woman on the right side turned to the left with har hand up in the air. She is wearing a head band of green plants and a pale yellow wrapper around her body. On the left side of the cover is a black image of a crocodile. The title of the book is written out in the center of the cover one word on each line with the author's name at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Jordan Ifueko
Publisher / Date
Amulet Books, August 2024
Genre
Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count
289
Completion Date
May 7, 2025

“The Way of Thorn & Thunder” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Way of Thorn & Thunder Trilogy: The Kynship Chronicles” by Daniel Heath Justice

Originally Published by Kegedonce Press between 2005 and 2007 as three books “Kynship”, “Wyrwood”, and “Dreyd”. The revised and expanded 2011 reissue from the University of New Mexico Press is an omnibus volume: one novel now divided into seven cycles.

The Everland-home of the tree-born Kyn since time immemorial, a deep green world of ancient mystery and danger. The wyr-powers of the Kyn and the other Eld Folk have preserved this wild region from the ravenous hunger of Humanity for over a thousand years, but those powers are fast fading away. As the eyes of Men turn once more to the Everland and its rich bounty, the leaders of the Folk gather in Sheynadwiin, the Kyn capital, hoping to find a way to survive the growing storm.

She is Tarsadeshae the Spearbreaker a fearless Kyn warrior trained in the Redthorn ways of battle and blood. She knows her place in the Everland’s cycle of life and death, and that knowledge gives her strength and purpose. Yet Tarsa’s ordered world is shattered when an act of courage goes horribly awry, and her spirit awakens to the wild wyr of her ancestors powers long persecuted by the assimilationist Shields and their allies. As she struggles to reconcile her former life with the call of the rising bloodsong, Tarsa joins the summons of the Sevenfold Council, where she is swept into the struggle between those Folk who would embrace the promises of Men, and those who would hold fast to the rooted understandings of the Eld Green. For all who call the Everland home, there can be no middle path.

Review

This is a really interesting and complex book. I read the original three novels years ago and have always wanted to read it again. The story itself is an alternate version of Europeans colonizing the “new world”. Only in this case a fantasy version of humans with magical powers caused a catastrophic merging of two worlds a thousand years ago – the world of Men and the world of Eld Folk. And of course Men want to have everything and don’t care what the Eld Folk want.

There is a lot going in this novel and while it does take some time to get through, I feel like it’s ultimately worth it. The writing is very detailed and mostly narration, while also having many different characters and points of views with individual stories happening around the central story. If you’ve read “Lord of the Rings” you’ll get a sense of what the writing is like. I really enjoyed getting to know all of the different characters and learning their stories. I did like the ending of the book and the hopeful feel of it despite everything that had happened.

You may be interested in reading Bogi Takács’s reviews of the novel (in three parts):
The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice (Part 1)
The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice (Part 2)
The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice (Part 3)

Additional reviews and warnings can be found on the StoryGraph page for “The Way of Thorn & Thunder”

Book Details

The book cover is fulled with orange and red and yellow flames covering the vague image of ground and a tree with one or two faces in the center of the image - two eyes are visible but it looks like there might be two faces half on top of each other in the middle of it. The title of the book is on the top with a white transparent background over the tree and the authors name is at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Daniel Heath Justice
Publisher / Date
University of New Mexico Press, 2011
Genre
Fantasy
Page Count
616
Completion Date
April 5, 2025