I’ve been reading more Terry Pratchetts as the days have gotten colder and darker (Denmark is so, SO dark.) They always make me chuckle; his wit is brilliant. The little puns (“gastro-gnome”) and subversions of expectation are perfect, and I really adore the way no character is above being made fun of. To my mind, the Watch books exemplify these brilliant talents best. That might be because I’ve read most of them, but I also think it’s that the combination of characters is just done […]
My favourite book this year
Before this week, if you had told me that one of my favourite fantasy books I’ve ever read would be a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin of all things, I would have laughed in your face. But that is one way to describe Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver, her follow-up to Uprooted (which was far and away one of my favourite books from a few years ago). Tonally, Spinning Silver is similar to Uprooted. Both feature a non-traditional European fantasy world, in that the Polish grounding for Uprooted and the Slavic folklore for Spinning Silver […]
Review roundup! Female-centric thillers
I badly need to catch up with writing reviews, but don’t really have the inclination to write long and individual reviews for books that were mostly ‘meh’. I sometimes pick up thrillers when I need a break from fantasy, and this review covers several that I’ve read since the early summer, in order that I read them. In some cases I have to cast my mind back rather a long way–and some definitely made an impression more than others. Most of these I read pretty […]
Compelling mystery with a supernatural twist
Now that Bingo is over, I’m getting around to reviewing all the books I read this summer and autumn that didn’t fit into Bingo Squares. One of my favourites–an unexpected favourite–was The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (or, as I believe it is called in the US, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle). When I found the link on Amazon, it was rated #1 for science fiction. I don’t think that’s an apt comparison, however, because part of the charm of this book is that it […]