Character - 9
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 9
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 8
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 8.71 / 4 stars

Character - 7
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 6
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 7

Rating: 6.57 / 3 stars

Character - 7
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 8
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 8.00 / 4 stars

Character - 9
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 8
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 7
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8

Rating: 7.86 / 4 stars

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 9
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 8.43 / 4 stars

Full review available on 26/04/2021: https://inkandplasma.com/2021/04/26/the-gilded-ones/
CAWPILE rated June 2022:
Character - 8
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 9
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 8.14 / 4 stars

Thanks to Usborne Publishing for the eARC of this book. It has not affected my honest review.

Content Warnings: death, murder, bloodletting, violence, mutilation, torture, starvation, disownment, parent loss, grief, rape, paedophilia

This book made it impossible to believe this was Namina Forna’s debut novel. The writing is gorgeous and evocative and once I’d started, I just couldn’t put it down. I read the whole thing in one go while I was feeling ill, and totally forgot about feeling bad as I was swept away into this beautiful world. This intense, feminist fantasy is a violent and gory experience and I am absolutely addicted to it. I’ve recommended it to a dozen people already and I know that I’m going to reread it once I have a physical copy in my hands.

Deka is an amazing protagonist. At the start, she’s very much a victim of the patriarchal society that she’s been raised in. She’s quiet and submissive and deeply vulnerable because that’s the way these women have been raised to be, and we get to see her develop into someone more confident and brave throughout the course of the book. It made me absolutely fall in love with her and I can’t wait to see how much more she develops throughout the rest of the series.

This book truly is violent, a complicated mess of death and gore. The alaki are almost immortal, each has a final death and anything less than that will put them into a healing sleep, and their ability to not die is tested to its full extent throughout the novel. I was blown away by how brutal it got early in the book and it had me totally invested from the first few chapters. I didn’t love the romance, but it was weighed really well against the rest of the book so wasn’t overwhelming in the way that some YA romance subplots can be. Instead a lot of the book was focused on the relationships between Deka and the other alaki, her sisters in arms, and the unusual power she has to control their frightening enemies: the deathshrieks. The whole world is so interesting and Namina Forna has a knack for creating a world that unfolds and makes the reader hungry for more information.

Full review on my blog, 24th June 2022: https://inkandplasma.com/2022/06/24/star-wars-brotherhood/

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 9
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 8
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 8.29 / 4 stars

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Thanks to Del Rey for the finished copy of this book and the blog tour invite. It has not affected my honest review.

I really enjoyed this prequel-era novel. Mike Chen’s love for the series and for these characters shines through every page, and I can’t wait to see what else he writes for Star Wars canon. The most important part of BROTHERHOOD is, obviously, Obi Wan, Anakin and Padme and Mike Chen did them justice in this novel. They were well written and convincingly characterised and I liked the way that Mike Chen managed to expand the characters without straying too far from the prequels. This felt like a continuation of the story I already knew rather than a divergence from it.

I loved getting to see Anakin and Padme’s newlywed relationship, and there was a moment where they went on an utterly ordinary date that I adored. It felt so real, and each of their stolen moments fleshed out their relationship and made them feel more connected to me than the movies had achieved. Obi Wan and Anakin are finding their feet now that they don’t have their padawan and master relationship, with moments of uncertainty as they try to adjust to the new and more balanced power dynamic. Becoming a Jedi knight also meant that Anakin got the questionable joy of working with younglings and I couldn’t help but laugh at his awkward suffering.

We got to see Anakin adjusting to his mechanical hand, struggling with his complicated feelings for the Force and his attachments. He’s diverging from the Jedi path and I liked seeing the depth of his feelings for these changes, it made him feel more developed to me. We also got more information about his mother, his relationship with her and her death. That hurt my feelings so much, in the best way. Anakin was absolutely Padme-focused, and I could see the newlywed energy leeching off of him. I liked that Obi Wan noticed this change in him, and the complex feelings of uncertainty about how to approach the conversation. Again this worked well for the setting of the book, set between two fixed events like the movies. I absolutely love-hated the relationship between Anakin and Palpatine. I know logically that half the point of the prequels is that Palpatine is entirely trusted and fooled our Jedi. That didn’t stop me looking into the middle distance like Jim Halpert every time that Anakin insisted that Palpatine was good and just and noble. Unbearable, and very, very funny.

Full review available on my blog, 22/04/2022: https://inkandplasma.com/2022/04/22/nettle-and-bone/

Character - 10
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 10
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 8
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 9.29 / 5 stars

I’ve been obsessed with T. Kingfisher’s horror since I read The Hollow Places, and I requested this one thinking it was a horror – it isn’t but it is a great introduction to T. Kingfisher’s fantasy and I’m already adding more to my wishlist for my birthday. This dark fairytale was a lot more heart-warming than I expected and I’m utterly in love with these characters.

Thanks to Titan Books for the eARC of this book. It has not affected my honest review.

I was looking forward to this one, but I’ll be honest, it wasn’t top of my anticipated reads list. Which made me love it even more when it surprised me by being incredible. I read this on the last day of March and it snuck in as my favourite book of the month – beating out 76 other books for the title which is no small feat. I highlighted so many lines in the eARC for this one, and nearly broke my own pre-birthday book ban immediately to buy a copy.

T. Kingfisher’s writing is as funny and easy to read as ever, with gorgeous description melded in with charming dialogue. This felt exactly like reading a fairytale, and I was suckered in from the first line, reading the majority of it in one day. The start of the book had split timelines, cutting in scenes from the past with Marra’s attempts at her impossible quests, and it worked really well. It had me invested very quickly in Marra’s story while showing me how she reached the point of wanting to kill a prince. I was also absolutely dreading what I knew must be coming as the prince’s actions were revealed.

This is hard to review because I loved so many aspects of it. The characters gave me huge found family vibes (and for clearursht participants, Agnes and Lady Fox have huuuge Narrator and Ariadne energy) and I was absolutely in love with them all by the end. Marra’s relationship with her family, distant but loving, warmed my heart and her friendships with the dust-witch, Agnes and Fenris (god bless Fenris) were so sweet that I just want to read epics about them all living their lives peacefully.

The plot was interesting and mysterious enough that I didn’t want to put the book down for a minute, and I loved the way it felt like a classic quest – impossible tasks, expanding the party, finding unexpected allies – the whole thing just gave me this desire to read more and more fantasy like this. Which is a little annoying, because I don’t know any other fantasy quite like this. I’m going to be making everyone I know read this book when it releases, and I’m not remotely embarrassed about that. It’s just that good.

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 8
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 8
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 8.43 / 4 stars

Characters - 8
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 9
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 6
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 7.86 / 4 stars.