This is the second book in The Chronicles of Saint Mary’s and like the first book; I listened to this one in audio form. I’m still not 100% sold on audio format, but I like the narrator for this series and I had a long, brainless task at work that needed to get done so an audio book was called for. So once again, I dived into the chaotic world of Saint Mary’s. I suppose the basic plot of A Symphony of Echoes is that […]
Summer, Baba Yaga, and a were-house
I love portal fantasies. I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember, from Narnia to Oz to Wonderland to Amber and even for a brief moment Xanth, I have loved stories of someone from this mundane world transported to a world full of magic and wonder. Summer in Orcus is an offering in this category from T. Kingfisher, aka Ursula Vernon, and it is marvelous. The best I can describe it is a middlegrade fantasy for adults, and much like Catherynne Valente’s The […]
Pawns in the Game
Stiletto is the follow up to David O’Malley’s The Rook. I quite enjoyed The Rook; I’m less fond of the follow up. I think it’s still very good urban fantasy, but some of the issues I had with The Rook became more prominent here and a few new issues were introduced. The plot follows two new women as the Checquy and the Grafters try to form an alliance. Felicity, of the Checquy and Odette of the Grafters, form an odd friendship as the forces opposing […]
The World Needs More Fiction about Questing Old Ladies
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is a fantasy novella standalone and I don’t understand why I didn’t like it more than I did. All of the elements were there for a story to really speak to my soul, but for some reason this one just didn’t. It’s a good story, and I enjoyed it but my expectations going into reading it were a lot higher. Vellitt Boe is a professor at a University when one of her students, Clarie Jurat runs off to go live […]