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Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett
I didn’t think there could be a more romantically-frustrating book than Luck in the Shadows, but surprise! There is, and it’s called Point of Hopes. Okay, sure, it’s not REALLY a romance. It’s a fantasy-mystery set in an alternative medieval Italy, a sort of police procedural with fascinating world-building and wonderful characters! I just really wanted there to be more kissing. My misunderstanding might have come from some Goodreads tags, which put it in m/m romance. I mean…it technically IS, but it took 200 pages for somebody to even THINK that somebody else was cute. That’s nearly half a book gone before there’s even any sly flirtation, and that definitely…
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There Will Be Phlogston, vN, The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
Desperately trying to play catch-up, as always! Here’s three tiny reviews of books I’ve read several months ago. There Will Be Phlogston – Alexis Hall I hated Byron Kae’s sister in previous books because she made her sibling’s life very unhappy, but it turns out she’s more complex than just “horrible bully.” She wants to escape her terrible parents! She feels stifled by society and its expectations! She wants to find love! And she finds it, alongside a super repressed gay guy and their boyfriend. Surprise! It’s a threesome! And way more complicated than that, of course, because Alexis Hall does nothing simple in his books. Anyway, I loved it.…
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Bound by Megan Derr
Scribd popped this up in my recommended reads (pre-romance purge) and I added it to my TBR mostly because a) the cover is pretty and b) stories about princes and intrigue and soldiers and whatnot are fun! And yeah, Bound turned out to be a pretty fun book. Its best feature is its characters, who are full of emotional depth and heartbreak, aka my siren song. They’re also fun because they have such great personalities, though there’s also plenty of plot to keep things interesting. There are disguises! Spies and courtly knightly people! Wartime camp stuff! Castles and myths and yearning! Slowly falling in love despite starting off on a…
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Necropolis by Jordan L. Hawk
This was a VERY exciting book! Not only because of the body horror human-animal hybrid situation, but because Whyborne and the gang get out of the country and head over to Egypt! Where it turns out Dr. Christine has a Secret Boyfriend! And there are, like, curses or something! It’s a little predictable in that I guessed at least two important plot points before they happened, but it was also super fun to read. Honestly, it reminded me of all the best parts of The Mummy, only with more than one female protagonist. Dr. Christine is there, of course, and she is forever my favorite of the series. She’s dealing…
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Glitterland and Aftermath by Alexis Hall
I’d previously read and fallen in love with Alexis Hall’s various fantasy series, but hadn’t tried any of his contemporary books. Glitterland is about a super grumpy[1. in his own words: “The truth was, I’d rather be a dick than a lunatic. I’d rather be hated than pitied.”] writer who has BPD/anxiety problems, many trust issues, and an inability to NOT cause trouble for himself or others. Somehow he stumbles across the sweetest (and somewhat ditzy) Essex model to ever walk the face of the earth, and they fall in love. Gradually, and with ASh denying everything along the way. There is dialect! SO MUCH dialect. It takes a heap…
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Mystic, Remnant, Some Kind of Magic
I read this because of Memory! Also G. Willow Wilson is writing Ms. Marvel now (which I very much enjoyed) and I wanted to try another of her books. This one’s about two friends: one destined to be a great magician and one who, well, isn’t. It is super short– maybe too short, as the story moves along at a breakneck pace and character development suffers as a result. With only 96 pages there isn’t a whole heap of room for anything but the main plot. The beginning was so strong that I had high expectation for the rest of the book. Unfortunately, the pacing was way too fast and…
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Adrien English Mystery series by Josh Lanyon
I binge-read almost the entire series two weekends ago, and I enjoyed it immensely. Mystery! Romance! Other stuff! This is a massive review and there are spoilers throughout, though I’ve hidden the biggest ones as best I could. Tbh, not the best in the series nor is it my favorite. It’s rough, with lots of bumps. But it’s a decent intro to the characters and the world they live in. Basically, Adrien gets sucked into trouble, his friends mostly all die, he’s totally alone and there’s a weird cop[1. who, it turns out, is a self-hating in-the-closet gay s&m dude who is attracted to Adrien but also can’t stand being…
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The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton
The Philosopher Kings gets off to a bad start, tbh. The Just City has separated into multiple cities, all with differing ideas about what Plato Really Meant, Aristotle-the-fly disappeared, Pallas Athene never came back, and worst of all Simmea, my favorite character from The Just City, dies. She’s murdered during an art raid. She’s dead! And that really hurt. Apollo didn’t much like it either, and he spends the majority of the book trying to come back from his overwhelming grief. Maia is also dealing with things, including her rapist from The Just City wanting to apologize and be friends again. Everybody’s depressed from the raids and people dying and…