K.J. Charles is one of my favorite authors, and I love basically every single one of her books– and this one is no exception. It’s very difficult to write a coherent review for a favorite author because all my positive feelings overwhelm my analytical thoughts until my brain is just a big ball of “yay,
Spectered Isle by K.J. Charles
Let’s speed past the fact that I’ve been on a 1.5 year hiatus from blogging and have fallen out of writing for fun or even reading[1. books, that is, I’ve read plenty of fanfic over the hiatus. Some of it even novel-length!] and let’s get right to the review: This is the first in KJ
Bellingham Mysteries by Nicole Kimberling
This is a mystery-romance series about a newspaper reporter and his artist boyfriend, and the constant shenanigans they get into while trying to solve crimes! The first book is very mystery-centric, which makes sense because the protag’s love interest is also technically a suspect. Sidenote: I super loved having a newspaper journalist as the detective,
Think of England by K.J. Charles
Easing back into reviewing with a book that has been on my TBR since June of last year! At first I wasn’t sure of Archie’s hero-ness, as he has some historically-accurate feelings about Jewish people, effeminate men, and “queers” that didn’t mesh well with the romantic element and furthermore made me very uncomfortable. It also
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
This was unexpected! And not in a good way. It felt like a very different book from Ancillary Justice, though the overall morality of the worldbuilding is the same. Unlike the first book, this one is set (mostly) all in one place, during one time period, with negligible character growth and no redemption arc/quest. It
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
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Things I like: scifi stories starring women characters; robots; self-aware spaceships; visions of the future which don’t focus on straight white males; societies which aren’t just a copy-paste of current American/European society; space aliens; people enacting long, drawn-out plans of revenge. Things Ancillary Justice has: all those and more! This is one of those books
Sand and Ruin and Gold by Alexis Hall
This is a very short novella or a long short story about a space prince who really likes mermaids (and one particular merman). It feels experimental, and not just because it’s set on a scifi world where mermaids are treated like trained whales in an aquarium. The writing is luxurious and dreamy, quite different from
Jackdaw by K.J. Charles
This is set in the same world as The Magpie Lord, but stars two different characters! And it’s so great, because Jonah and Ben could not be further from Stephen and Crane, both personality and relationship-wise. Which is great! It’s nice seeing the different kinds of people who populate a favorite series. Plus, I really