This book has taken me by surprise, and in a good way. All I had known about it before picking it up was that it was a well-written historical fantasy, blending Irish history and mythology, so I had a sort of general idea what to expect. I thought I would find it interesting, but didn’t …
Gosh, I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged here in two years! All I seem to be able to find time for lately are quick Instagram or Facebook updates. But I really wanted to say that I finished reading the Of Blood and Bone trilogy by John Gwynne and enjoyed it! Everything in this world …
So first of all, apart from a few notable exceptions, I’m not a huge fan of traditional epic fantasy. I much more prefer character-focused stories with epic prose, and for that reason it took me a while to get around to this book. Even at the beginning I struggled to make myself focus, to …
“By the third day the rumour can no longer be contained. It is whispered in the black tents, shared like smokes among the men on patrol, murmured in the drill yard before the bellowed morning prayer. It is weird and horrific and yet a curse no one can fail to understand. Someone’s mind has been …
I very much enjoyed this book and found both the setting and the characters greatly compelling. Yet it’s so much more than just an exciting steampunk adventure done well. Josiah Bancroft depicts characters helplessly struggling amidst mysterious, invisible forces, their fight and efforts drawing us into the cold, muddy waters of alienation, isolation, uncertainty …
Writing, when done well, is like playing a song on a remarkably complex instrument that would capture any reader’s heart. Sebastien de Castell is playing this instrument in Knight’s Shadow as if it was second nature to him. He has a way of storytelling, that doesn’t just have an emotional complexity to it, but a …
Time still heals all wounds, for now. But the world grows thin around this tome as the letters light up on the pages, their magic burning bright, casting long shadows toward the black void of Osheim. As the sun is setting on the Broken Empire, shading dreams into reality, there is still a little …
Lately I find I’ve been reading fewer and fewer books by fewer and fewer authors. I’m getting more and more fussy with the quality of the writing and more and more impatient with stories that prove to be too slow in capturing my interest. In all honestly I fear I’m turning into a bit of …
I recently read Half the World by Joe Abercrombie, which is the second book of his Young Adult series, Shattered Sea – out now! I felt this book deserved a few words from me for a number of reasons. For one, it doesn’t happen to me every day that I’m unexpectedly presented with an advanced …
“I have learnt to spin words like dervishes, to bewitch and blur reality.” The Salt Road by Jane Johnson I still remember that moment a few weeks back, my train approaching London King’s Cross Station, me closing the book around a hundred pages in and exiting the train carriage onto the platform. That was …
Mitriel Faywood 