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Recent Reviews
Sunyi Dean
Rave GrimDark ... written beautifully ... combines the imagined physicality of books as flavours with the spice of plot elements, and that makes my story-loving heart sing and my imagination go wild with excitement. The Book Eaters is one of those books that doesn’t come by very often, magical and mundane at the same time, hitting all the right spots ... The story is told with an abundance of dry wit, which draws the reader in. It is a fairly slow-paced book, but one rife with character exploration. Due to its focus on characters and immersive world-building, it doesn’t matter that the plot is slower, as it gives the story room to breathe, to capture the reader’s full attention. This is one of those books that you don’t devour, but savour slowly. It is also a book for book lovers, having each chapter introduced by a different quote from literature, and making you think about how it relates to the events at hand. I adored this book, and I hope you will too. An easy five stars from me.
Sue Lynn Tan
Rave GrimDark Magazine Especially early on, many of the events felt a bit too convenient, which meant I found myself rolling my eyes at the book. But as the story went on, I found myself more and more immersed, and ended up falling for it. By the end, I was in love. I’m very happy to say that my first impression of this one was wrong and that it really comes into its own after the setup is done and Xingyin can start establishing herself as a person rather than trying to carve her place apart from her mother. Daughter of the Moon Goddess is well-written, poetic, and lyrical. It is also an action-packed story with a very slow-burn romance. I loved to see the relationship between Xingyin and her prince develop and steer away from the instalove that it seemed to pivot towards in the beginning. Oh, and I should mention the dragons. There are some pretty epic dragons in this story and to be honest, dragons always make books better in my opinion ... And it doesn’t hurt that both the UK and the US editions of Daughter of the Moon Goddess are among the most stunning books to be released in early 2022, either.
Freya Marske
Rave Grimdark Magazine ... features amazing writing – this may be Freya’s debut novel, but I fell in love with the way she writes in her short story published in the Silk and Steel anthology in 2020. Her prose is stunning, flowery without seeming overly descriptive. And the dry wit is amazing. I honestly could not get enough of the words in this book ... And the characters. Edwin and Robin are marvellous. They are plastic, multi-dimensional people, grappling with their realities and relations, and especially, each other. heir enemies (or, at the very least, bickering dislike) to lovers arc is a delight and a model to other authors writing the trope. But the secondary characters are no less well-written. They too become real to the reader and soon take shape. My one gripe with A Marvellous Light was that it occasionally fell very hard into romance for my tastes – this absolutely does not cut to black at any point, so you might be in the middle of reading a delightful interaction between Edwin and Robin only to find yourself in a full on sex scene only lines later. Now, this is not something that everyone will take issue with, and I expect will be a selling point for many – so don’t take this as discouragement, but rather as a warning in case this is something you do mind ... This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021 and it did not disappoint. Edwin and Robin in their magical bureaucracy setting charm the reader within just a few pages, and the mystery at the heart of the book is compelling...The combination of romance elements, mystery and magic is delightful.
V. E. Schwab
Positive Grimdark Magazine This is a character-driven story, focused on Addie and her life through the centuries ... Through these two characters, V.E. Schwab manages to explore nuances of loneliness in human society in a poignant way, re-evaluating what it means to be seen and remembered, and how it affects the way we perceive ourselves and move through life. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a slow story, taking its time to explore the repercussions of events and the impact of small moments on the characters more than most books we tend to review on here. But that doesn’t mean it is any less compelling and dark – you have your looming antagonist, your morally grey characters and your world working against the heroes.