Epic fantasy heist. Those three words in the subject line of an email were all it took for me to windmill slam “yes” on getting an eARC of The Queen of Days from NetGalley and publisher HarperVoyager. Some marketing person knew the magic words that would pique my interest instantly. I was excited to dive in, and thankfully, the book lived up to the hype! This is a delightful, powerful adventure that left me wanting more in all the right ways.

Balthazar, aka Bal, is a scion of a noble family that has fallen on hard times. He now makes a living as a thief in the city that his family once ruled, and his latest heist sees him reluctantly partnering up with the mythical and mysterious Queen of Days. The heist, as heists often do, goes pear-shaped. On the run and outgunned, Bal and his crew and the Queen of Days find themselves as unlikely allies on a quest to kill a god, save their city (and possibly the world), and keep their skins intact.

The book opens with Bal meeting the Queen of Days, whose name we soon learn is Tassiel, or Tass. From there, we quickly move into meeting the supporting cast and the heist itself. I appreciate this pacing—I don’t mind when a heist book builds up to the heist-as-climax, but I also like when they do what Kelly does here. The heist, you see, is actually an appetizer before the real plot takes off. After a brief diversion into a mysterious Archive for some exposition and raising of stakes, Bal and Tass and the crew are back out into the city, on the run, trying to figure out what to do next.

The found family vibes are strong here. Kelly alternates chapters between Bal and Tass’s perspectives. Something I really liked is how the chapter titles for Tass evolve. At the start of the book, they provide her full name and title; as the story continues, they shorten to “Tassiel” and then eventually “Tass,” signifying her acceptance of this identity and her connection to Bal and his crew.

The mystery of Tass’s identity—who she is, where her magic comes from, where she herself comes from—is one of the earliest and most central mysteries in this book, and it’s fun. The way that Kelly teases out the mystery, not giving us everything at once yet also never lingering too long before dropping another clue, is tantalizing and kept me reading. I needed to know more about Tass, more about the magic in this world—and the others. Kelly artfully combines several standard tropes in a way that breathes new life into them.

Similarly, Bal’s own character arc, though less dramatic, is no less important in this story. At the beginning, he is fixated on revenge and protecting his kid sister. That second desire never changes, of course. Yet Bal must confront what “revenge” means against the backdrop of bigger, more existential threats, and it’s in this crucible that he demonstrates his ability to be heroic. I really like how his friendship with Tass develops. There is a kindness to the core of his character that often feels lacking in male protagonists of his mould. He isn’t quite a lovable rogue, and he also isn’t a blustering blowhard of a fighter. Kelly has carved out an unique and interesting man who, despite numerous flaws, brings people together in a way that is its own kind of magic.

Though I praised the pacing earlier, if I were to critique anything about this book, it would actually be how too much happens. This is a book with a lot of side quests. Not all of them held my interest. I’m thinking of one in particular, a foray finally into Tass’s home—I can see why Kelly includes this, but at the same time, I kept thinking, “I just want us to get back to the main conflict here.” This is the problem when you try to write an epic fantasy story that also wants to be a cozy, family-centric heist story: the two genres are difficult to mash together since they have diametrically opposed atmospheres. That Kelly manages to make them work as well as she does is, in and of itself, quite impressive.

If one of those two genres wins out, it’s the latter. The Queen of Days is indeed epic on paper; there is no denying that. There are gods. An entire city trembles. The stakes are real. Yet we don’t really care about that. The readers are here for Bal and Tass and the lovable crew that surrounds them.

The Queen of Days raised me from a reading slump. It elevated my resting, reading heart rate. If you could hook me up to a faucet of hot-and-cold running fantasy in this style, I would be a happy woman. As it is, I am left wanting more—in a good way—and I can’t recommend this book enough to people who want epic fantasy with cozy characters.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

The summer(?) of witches continues with The Witches at the End of the World, by Chelsea Iversen. From contemporary romance we travel to historical fiction with this small tale of sisterhood nestled in the woods of Norway centuries ago. I’m impressed with how Iversen won me over despite my qualms about the book’s pacing and plot! I received an eARC from NetGalley and publisher Sourcebooks in exchange for my review.

Kaija and Minna are witches. For most of their lives, they have lived in seclusion in the birchwoods with their adoptive mother, who spirited them away from the village of their birth after their mother was burned at the stake for witchcraft. Now grown, their adoptive mother dead, Kaija and Minna are at a crossroads. Kaija is determined to return to the village and establish an “ordinary” life for herself. Minna, far darker of temperament, sees no need to suppress her magic or fit in with ordinary people. The sisters part ways, each trying to find success at the life they want to lead. Of course, it can’t be that simple….

I was intrigued by the promise of sister drama. Minna’s bitterness towards the world as a result of her and her mother’s persecution is a dark seed that she willingly nurtures. When Kaija abandons her—as she sees it—she is rightly furious. As Kaija works to establish a new life for herself, Minna seeks her out and plots something that is, if not revenge, then revenge-adjacent. The tragedy of Minna’s descent into antagonist and eventual blackhearted villain was so tantalizing for me. However, lest I misrepresent the book and at risk of spoilers—it is not quite meant to be.

Now, the book is still about the bond of sisterhood. That much remains intact, and it’s this theme that kept me going. Watching Minna pull herself back from the brink of darkness proves compelling even as Kaija must grapple with her own setbacks. I admit that Iversen likely made the right call by ensuring that the worst of Kaija’s misfortunes are not directly wrought by Minna. Not only does it offer a pathway to redemption for Minna in the eyes of Kaija and the reader alike, but it’s a potent reminder that often our worst moments in life are not anyone’s fault. Circumstances just suck sometimes.

I liked this book. I also struggled with this book. It’s just slow. It’s a lot of narration from each sister, and it takes forever to get going. Yet at the same time, it feels like we never get to know anyone other than Kaija and Minna. They hold every other character at arm’s length in their narration. Fifteen years in and I still don’t have a great term to describe how I feel about this style of writing. The closest I can get is that I can’t connect with the characters. It’s possibly related to my inability to visualize as I read: authors who rely primarily on descriptive language tend to fall flatter for me than authors who use more dialogue and action.

So, as is usually the case, your mileage may vary. This is a sweet story of sisterhood and dreams denied. It’s a tragedy wrapped around family ties, and it’s an interesting exploration of the ways in which internalized misogyny can fuck you up. But it’s a little slow, and it never quite lives up to the promises I feel like it establishes at the start of the story.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Asexuality is everywhere, yet because it is classically the absence of something, its presence can be difficult to see. Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection is an attempt to foreground asexuality within a variety of environments. Madeline Dyer has assembled an ace team (oh, you know the puns are just starting) of authors to contribute stories and even a poem that get you thinking. Cody Daigle-Orians, who wrote I Am Ace, offers a heartfelt introduction to the collection. I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and Page Street.

Some of these authors are familiar to me, either from other books of theirs I have read or simply from following them on social media. Although I’ve pretty much always known I am asexual, it wasn’t until around university that I started to learn more about that label, and it wasn’t until later than that—2012 or thereabouts—that I started to find online community and realize that my sexuality falls under the umbrella of queerness. Following acespec authors and finding acespec stories was very important to me. The same goes for arospec authors and stories (as I am in fact aroace). Indeed, Being Ace serves as a comfortable companion text to Common Bonds: An Aromantic Speculative Fiction Anthology (and the two anthologies share contributors).

The stories take place everywhere and everywhen, from fairytale-inspired fantasy worlds to science-fictional settings on asteroids to vaguely contemporary tales in the here and now. Aces are witches; aces are asteroid miners taking on moon goddesses; aces are patients in eating disorder clinics; aces are monster hunters. The potpourri of settings seems to emphasize the anthology’s message: aces are everywhere, deal with it.

Stand-out stories in this collection for me include “Across the Stars,” by Akemi Dawn Bowman; “Give Up the Ghost,” by Linsey Miller; “Smells Like Teen Virgin,” by S.E. Anderson; and “The Mermaid’s Sister,” by Moniza Hossain. However, I would like to emphasize that this is a remarkably consistent collection, in my opinion, as far as enjoyment of its stories goes. The hit ratio is high with this one.

“Across the Stars” is really just an adorable story about finding friendship while trying to preserve one’s connection to family. I like that it is less about the protagonist needing to navigate coming out or finding acceptance and more simply about them existing as asexual in this universe. (I would also read more set in this universe.)

“Give Up the Ghost” is poignant in a really kind of sad, devastating way, as ghost stories and murder mysteries often are.

“Smells Like Teen Virgin” is a fun send-up of purity culture as well as monster-hunting schlock. The family and sibling dynamics are very compelling.

“The Mermaid’s Sister” is a quaint reimagining of The Little Mermaid told from the perspective of Ariel’s ace sister; I like that the prince was not a dick in this one.

I do think allosexual people should read this anthology and will find a lot in it that helps them better understand ace experiences. That being said, I can only review this book from my perspective as a fellow ace gal … and I didn’t expect this book to make me feel so sad at times. So emotional. I am largely having a very happy life as a single ace person, especially now in my thirties—but compulsory sexuality is a trip, and sometimes our society is not kind to single people or people who live alone. Being Ace certainly offers hope and compassion, but there are moments when it really does hold up a mirror to that toughness. Which is, I suppose, a testament to how powerful its stories are.

I’m not surprised I enjoyed this anthology, and I highly recommend it. But more than that, I hope that it encourages readers to check out other work by authors in this collection. The more ace voices we hear and read, the better we are able to question what we think of as normal or the default when it comes to our experiences of sex, love, desire, companionship, and belonging in our society.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

What would you do if a relative died and left you her creepy house, and fortune, on the condition that you relocate your life to live on the property? Oh, and everyone around you keeps acting super sketch? That’s Cordelia Bone’s problem in The Witches of Bone Hill. Part romance, part thriller, all fantasy, this book uses a lot of classic tropes, often to good effect. Ava Morgyn’s writing took me a while to warm up to, yet by the end of the book, I found myself sad to say goodbye to the Bone sisters. Thanks to St. Martin’s Griffin and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for a review.

Cordelia and Eustace Bone are estranged sisters of a mother estranged from her family. Cordelia is going through a messy divorce with a cheating husband when she hears from her sister for the first time in years: their great aunt Augusta is dead. Time to return to the family property in Connecticut, where a stodgy lawyer named Todgers (I kid you not) informs them that they can only inherit if they stick around. Sounds strange but OK. Then the weird shit gets weirder, for Cordelia and Eustace’s relatives weren’t just eccentric, reclusive, and rich—they were witches. And so are these two sisters.

I did not like the opening of this book at all. Cordelia comes across as a well-off, if scorned, woman of privilege. Morgyn kind of infodumps a bunch of stuff, like her relationship (or lack thereof) with Eustace, as well as most of the John/cheating backstory. Then a mafia boss shows up and shakes her down, and it all feels … cheesy. To be honest, that feeling never really goes away for the rest of the book. I guess I kind of just … started to roll with it. I could have dealt without either John or Busy’s extended involvement in the plot—neither of them feel all that necessary, and Busy is almost completely extraneous. But these are minor complaints.

The romance, similarly, didn’t work for me—but that’s just how I am with romance, as many of you might already know. For someone coming to this book specifically looking for such a subplot, I think you’ll like it. Sparks fly, the usual misunderstandings and recriminations occur, but in the end, you know how these things go. It’s standard—though not, I should say, all that steamy.

So I won’t lie: The Witches of Bone Hill was a slog for me at first. This book is also long, relatively speaking (I read it on my Kindle, but it’s 384 pages in print), and it takes a while for Morgyn to get to the point of the story.

But once we get there, it’s really good.

See, this is a story about two sisters who have to find their way separately but together. Eustace is ecstatic with their inheritance. She wants nothing more but to accept it, settle down, and embrace her burgeoning gift. Cordelia sees her gift as sinister, and she isn’t ready to leave behind her old life. The way that Morgyn contrasts these sisters, even as we learn more about their sordid and complex family history, is delightful. This is a book about how inheriting darkness doesn’t mean embracing it.

I really liked how Eustace and Cordelia plot to turn the tables on their adversary by throwing a party. The climax of the book is well done—though the identity of the villain is predictable, and the resolution equally easy to foresee, it’s still a fun ride. It’s still powerful to see these two women come into their own, connect to their ancestors, and rise to the occasion.

The Witches of Bone Hill is not quite a book for me, but I liked it well enough. If you like romance a bit more than me and want something that feels both fresh and familiar at the same time, I think you’ll enjoy this.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

My summer of witches has extended into an autumn of auguries by dint of my reading schedule attenuating in these waning days of 2023. What Became of Magic is a book I was looking forward to reading on my deck at the end of August, but it also worked well in the cooler days of September. Paige Crutcher brings a dazzling dash of creativity to her storytelling. Alas, I didn’t enjoy her narrative style or her characterization. My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for the eARC in exchange for a review.

Aline Weir was always the loner kid. One day at a sleepover, a ghost of a girl named Dragon befriends her. Aline grows up and grows into her witchy power to help spirits cross over. An accident with a boy her age, however, reverberates across the world and will have consequences for more than Aline. Practically raised by Fates, she finds herself drawn to the magical town of Matchstick. Soon she is in a pitched battle against an ancient enemy who has designs on the personifications of magic themselves—unless Aline and her allies can find a way to restore the balance.

What Became of Magic keeps insisting that Aline is special—indeed that she is inextricably bound up with Magic, who is both a force and a man. But I don’t see it. Aline is boring, at least from the distance at which we get to know her. Crutcher’s narrative choices don’t work for me. There is a veritable montage of Aline’s childhood at the beginning of the book. Instead, bits and bobs of flashbacks spread out through the narrative might have kept me more interested. As it is, I never felt myself connecting to Aline. Like, Crutcher makes it very clear that her parents were always distant and never thought Aline would amount to much of anything—but we never really see Aline feel it, you know?

Then, after Aline leaves the bookstore for the town of Matchstick, the plot spins wildly out of control. Suddenly Crutcher throws us into a quest-like structure. Again, she puts a lot of work into establishing both allies and enemies, as well as laying out the stakes. It should all come together to create a great story. Yet it’s messy, convoluted—the rules are constantly shifting. And none of the characters are three-dimensional enough for me to care about them. Not even Aline.

I also can’t stand romantic subplots premised on destiny, for it veers uncomfortably close to removing agency (or even consent). To be clear, that’s a personal preference of mine; I’m not trying to say that is what Crutcher implies happens here. Indeed, if anyone is going to enjoy this chaotic book, it’s going to be romance fans who want to swoon over the idea of True Love between a witch and a magic man.

As it is, there was just nothing for me to grab onto as I read this book. I felt like I was listening to a child tell me the fantasy story they had just made up—each time they jump to a new scene, I need to stop them and ask questions because I cannot keep it straight in my head. Crutcher’s imagination is unquestionable—but the organization of this book, its editing, the plotting and pacing and protagonist—none of it works for me.

In the end, What Became of Magic felt like a missed opportunity. I say this not to be harsh. I don’t think it is a bad book. But I came really close to DNFing it.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Back in my day, the internet used to be better. I feel old saying that—I only just turned thirty-four—but it is true. When I first started using the internet in the early 2000s, the web had become functional enough to be fun, the walled gardens of nineties CompuServe and AOL had come down, and anyone (including fourteen-year-old Kara) could make a website for free on a place like Geocities.

And then it all got terrible.

Or, as fellow Canadian writer Cory Doctorow puts it, “enshittified.” But unlike yours truly, Doctorow doesn’t just want to complain about this problem: he also has a plan to fix it! Enter The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, a book-length distillation of thoughts he has been putting out for, well, about as long as I have been alive at this point. Doctorow writes and speaks about enshittification and interoperability (the two main motifs of this book) quite a bit—I recommend this essay in particular if you want a sense of his writing style and ideas before diving into this book. Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

Let’s break this down in to the two parts of the book’s title. “The Internet Con” refers to that first concept I mentioned, enshittification. Basically, it means that in the current regulatory climate, Big Tech corporations have a financial incentive—indeed, one might argue they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders—to make their services worse in a way that locks users into them. (As an aside, credit to the CBC radio program Spark for pointing out to me that only tech companies and drug dealers refer to their customers as users….) There’s more to unpack here—which is what Doctorow spends the first part of the book doing—but there are plenty of simple examples. Social networks like Instagram don’t offer strictly chronological feeds anymore (though that might be changing, at least for some, thanks to new EU regulations) because those feeds don’t keep people engaged very long, which means they serve us up fewer ads. Apple has total control over what runs on an iPhone because that locks you in to their ecosystem. And so on. Doctorow attributes much enshittification to weak laws (in the United States, but exported to or emulated by other countries) around monopoly and monopsony.

Doctorow’s solution? Legislate interoperability, i.e., force companies to allow others to play on their playground, to make systems that interface with their own, etc. This ensures users’ data can be portable and also gives companies incentives to make their apps, etc., you know, actually good—because there will be competition. Big Tech is, understandably, opposed to interoperability. Doctorow spends most of the second half of the book explaining how a couple of types of interoperability work, and he gives examples of successes in history—a notable one being how the VHS tape won out over Betamax.

There’s a lot to love about The Internet Con. Doctorow effortlessly moves among the domains of history, law, economics, and more. He provides important context, stirs up resentment, and then proffers up platefuls of hope. That’s my main takeaway from this book, and it feels so necessary in our current climate of ever-increasing prices for worse and worse streaming services, not to mention the walled gardens of social networks. I really appreciate that Doctorow adamantly insists something can be done.

His utter rejection of Big Tech as it currently exists at the apotheosis of late-stage capitalism is also so refreshing. I’ve been spending too much time on LinkedIn lately (one of the hazards of starting a freelance copyediting business, lol). Too many people on that platform talk about “creating change” in tech, usually through a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. But then they turn around and embrace super problematic trends, like crypto or generative AI. It feels so rare these days to see a cis white man selling a book that says “down with Big Tech!”

The book ends kind of abruptly. There isn’t really a conclusion; the last chapter is called “What about Blockchain?” and focuses on debunking that as a potential solution (following a series of chapters where Doctorow addresses a single objection or alternative to mandating interoperability). Then there’s a further reading list and an index, and that’s it. I found that peculiar—it must be deliberate, perhaps to send the message that this fight is far from over. Or maybe Doctorow just thought he had made his point clear and didn’t want to overstay his welcome—the book is under 200 pages, and I respect that.

Though some of Doctorow’s digressions into history or economics might require people to reread them a couple of times to fully grasp what he’s saying, his writing overall is super accessible. This is actually the first nonfiction book by Doctorow that I’m reviewing here—but I’m starting to get the impression that I enjoy his nonfiction writing far more than I do his fiction projects. His voice and style in his novels just doesn’t do it for me—it’s far too polemical, too bare, which I don’t want in my stories but love in my nonfiction.

The Internet Con is a book about what is wrong with the internet and Big Tech and, more importantly, provides a roadmap to fix it. Doctorow has been around long enough to understand these problems and advocate for workable solutions. Now he’s explaining it in a way that all us laypeople can understand, so that we can do the work of organizing and, as he puts it, seizing the means of computation. It’s time to get interoperable, baby.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

This is one of those rare books that is exactly what the cover copy promises: “A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a locked-room thriller.” The Death I Gave Him lives up to this hype, and I can easily see how some people would adore this book. I loved Em X. Liu’s obvious love for Shakespeare, and as far as Shakespearean retellings go, this one is pretty good. As far as thrillers go—well, we all know I’m not the biggest fan of thrillers to begin with. As far as murder mysteries go—well, it’s not much of a mystery, now is it? Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Solaris for the eARC.

Look, I won’t summarize Hamlet for you. Elsinore is a lab rather than a castle; Hayden and his murdered dad are scientists working on life-prolonging serums; Felicia (Ophelia) is an intern, and her dad, Paul (Polonius) is the head of Elsinore’s security. Liu casts Horatio as the lab’s disembodied artificial intelligence. The book opens on Horatio “regaining consciousness” and seeing Hayden next to his father’s body. From there, things quickly spiral out of control. It’s tense; it’s queer; it’s hot and heavy at points (not my thing).

I’m mostly interested in looking at this book and how it represents an evolution of Shakespeare. What I mean by this is that Shakespeare has been reinterpreted from the moment his plays started to be performed. Each era, each society, projects its own ideas on to Shakespeare’s stories and reifies them in different ways. Liu has taken Hamlet and reimagined it as a locked-room murder mystery set in the 2050s—yet it is still definitely Shakespeare. However, I also really like how Liu took liberties with the characters and plot—this is more reimagining than retelling, and that is for the better.

If Shakespeare were alive today, I have no doubt he would write science fiction (and also historical fiction, and let’s face it, he would probably make his living writing erotica or porn or something). The inclusion of an AI main character—Horatio, no less—and the subplot around developing a life-prolonging serum both feel true to ideas that show up time and again Shakespeare’s work. So much of what he talks about, in Hamlet but also in The Tempest and other plays, comes down to ruminating on how well we can really know others (or even ourselves). Horatio and Hayden’s relationship here, the use of a neural-mapping interface to allow them to communicate with each other and know each other far more intimately than would otherwise be possible, is an intriguing reading of Horatio and Hayden’s relationship in the original play. That Horatio is an AI and thus an “other” speaks to the ambivalence with which the play treats Horatio, the way that he always seems to be present yet seldom gets much acknowledgement from everyone else.

I don’t want to go into spoiler territory, but let’s just say that I think what happens with Horatio and Hayden in the end is a great change to the original story. The same goes for the fates of Felicia and even the way that Liu characterizes Hayden’s mother—I feel like Liu spent a lot of time thinking about the role of women in the original play. Felicia certainly receives much more depth and time than Ophelia does, and her fate is likewise both more hopeful and more palatable. She is arguably as much of a protagonist in this book as Hayden is, and the story is better for it.

The “lyrical” nature of the book is where The Death I Gave Him loses me. While I really liked Liu’s plot and character choices, I didn’t like their writing style as much. Both the description and the dialogue would occasionally grate on me, and the conceit that the book is a manuscript by a researcher looking back on the entire incident felt unnecessary. There’s a lot of layers here that I’m not sure the story needed.

The Death I Gave Him is creative and original (despite being based on Hamlet). It didn’t land all the way for me, but it came close enough that I know there’s an audience out there just waiting to fall in love with this tragedy. I can’t wait for that audience to find it, for I would like to see more of what Liu has to offer in the future.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Another story about stories, this time a metafictional romp through a Scientologyesque religion and the end of the universe. Lavie Tidhar’s The Circumference of the World is imaginative and, dare I say, quite a bit wacky; however, it never coalesced into something I would call enjoyable. Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC.

Delia is a mathematician from Vanuatu, though now she lives in London. Her boyfriend’s disappearance causes her to start looking for a book so rare some think it doesn’t exist. This pulp science-fiction novel is at the centre of a cult-like church that believes reading the book conveys protection against the “Eaters,” mysterious creatures connected to black holes (I am keeping the details vague to avoid spoilers here). Delia enlists the help of a book detective, essentially, who then falls in with a gangster, who then … you know what, it’s turtles all the way down.

The best and perhaps also worst aspect of The Circumference of the World for me was the structure of the narrative. We leave Delia in the first part of the book to follow Daniel, and then leave him to follow Oskar, and there is also an interstitial moment where we are in the Lode Stars story itself, which may or may not be real or even more real than the rest of this story. The way that Tidhar plays with the flexible nature of reality and fiction is skillful and thought-provoking. The scenes set within Lode Stars, in a far, posthuman future, demonstrate some really neat thinking about the nature of humanity and the cosmos. The wider novel as a whole dances around notions of the simulation hypothesis, albeit coming at it from a very different angle than we might be used to.

This is all to the good. Where the book failed to work for me was the characters themselves. The narration often felt stilted, and I had trouble connecting to most of the main characters. Although I like the segmented structure of the book, I wish we had come back to Delia and spent more time with her than we did. Overall, the book itself felt both too long and too short—with characters and plots being picked up and then dropped without resolution.

File this under “some amazing science fiction happening here but in a way that never comes together as a single coherent story.”

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Just a cheeky little apparently standalone novel to close out my summer of witches (though, glancing at my to-read shelf, summer might become an autumn of witches too)—and how fitting that it should be a book where the seasons are connected to one’s witchcraft. The Nature of Witches is a delightfully straightforward tale of magic, love, fear, and growth from Rachel Griffin. As long as you don’t expect too much from it, you will be entertained.

Clara is an Everwitch, so rare that the last one lived over a century ago. Most witches find their magic tied to and characterized by the season of their birth; Clara, on the other hand, is equally strong during any season—at least in theory. In practice, Clara isn’t living up to her potential, or so it seems her teachers feel. In this world, witches live openly among nonmagical humans (“shaders”) and use their magic to control the weather. Climate change is making that more and more difficult, however, and the higher-ups among witches see Clara’s Everwitch abilities as crucial to changing that. But Clara is afraid: the stronger her power gets, the more likely it is to lash out and kill those she feels close to. It happened when she was younger, and she is determined not to let it happen again.

I really like Clara. Griffin makes it easy to relate to her fears and desires. She feels isolated by what she is, and she isolates herself even further in turn, compounding the problem. When the inevitable love interest shows up, she tries to push him away for his own good—classic. As someone who typically doesn’t enjoy romance, that subplot was probably the hardest for me to enjoy—at one point, I thought he was going to betray her, lol, but that’s just me craving more drama.

And therein lies my critique: honestly, this book drags in the conflict department. The conflict is there—both Clara’s internal agonizing over what to do about the upcoming total eclipse, as well as how she butts heads with her teachers, etc. But it never feels like it fully ignites, if you know what I mean? I kept waiting for something more intense to happen. Instead, the book just keeps plodding on towards the next summer.

To be clear, I don’t need high stakes! This was a great book to read on my end-of-summer vacation at my neighbour’s cabin on a lake. I don’t mind that we don’t see Clara saving the world or that there isn’t a nefarious plot by shaders or anything else another author might dream up to inject more tension into this story. That isn’t the point. Griffin is going for lower-stake, slow-burn character drama, and I am here for that—I just wish she had developed it differently.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the characterization. I loved how Clara, despite her understandable dislike of Mr. Burrows and Ms. Suntile, also empathizes with their goals. Rather than turn these two authority figures into one-dimensional antagonists, Griffin makes sure they are relatable humans, just trying to do their best with the resources they have—and that includes Clara. I also enjoyed Clara’s method of communicating with Sang.

I do wish the resolution hadn’t been quite so neat and tidy. Don’t get me wrong—I like a happy ending, and I don’t know if it was foreshadowing or just predictability that let me see this one coming. In an echo of my earlier critique, I would have liked to see Clara do a little more of her own sleuthing to figure out the solution she hits upon.

One final note of praise: I read this book as my summer was coming to an end, and I am writing this review well into September, with each day colder and darker than the last. This book reminded me that the passing of the seasons is beautiful, something to celebrate rather than to dread. Each season has its time in the sun; each has its purpose. Each will come around again. Ours is to appreciate it while it is here.

The Nature of Witches is a smooth, easy read. If you like romance and witchcraft and appreciation for nature, you’ll like this book. While I won’t be giving it any awards any time soon, I am truly glad I gave it my time, and it was a perfect read for the time in which I read it.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

You would think that as I age and have more disposable income (at least in theory) and more control over my free time (at least in theory) that I would get better, not worse, at reading series … but no. So here I am, partaking in Devil’s Gun, having not read You Sexy Thing first. I don’t know if the first book in this series from Cat Rambo just passed me by or if I passed on it because the title made it sound like not my kind of thing. If it was the latter, that was a mistake, for this series delivers delightful and surprisingly cozy space opera. I’m sure I won’t be alone in comparing this to Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series (though I have also managed to somehow not read all of those as well). I received an eARC from NetGalley and Tor in exchange for a review.

Picking up on the events of the book I didn’t read, Devil’s Gun follows the now-legitimized crew of the You Sexy Thing, a sentient bioship. It’s a ragtag crew very much giving Farscape vibes, and I am here for it. They spend this book processing trauma from the first while trying to figure out their next move, which eventually comes down to finding the eponymous MacGuffin in the hopes that it will help them deal with the space pirate who is hunting them all. Oh, and there’s clones and con artists and all manner of discussion of food.

I took a chance that it was OK I hadn’t read the first book, and that gamble paid off big. Firstly, Rambo has written the book in such a way that despite definitely not being standalone you can slide into this world and still understand the characters and their current struggles. Secondly, this book provides a synopsis of You Sexy Thing at the start—thank you! I really do wish more series did this; it improved my experience of this book immensely. Thus, while I recommend you read the first book, you don’t need to.

The cast is delightfully diverse and varied in how they deal with situations. I think I am (re)learning how much I enjoy space opera involving heterogeneous crews rather than the military SF or adjacent setups of more rigid, hierarchal structures. Niko is captain, sure, but she has far from the last word about You Sexy Thing—and Thing itself has a startling level of “ask for forgiveness” attitude about it. This all makes for a great deal of drama and conflict, though it is often very low stakes. Through a hopping, limited third-person narrator, we get to know some of the characters more than others. Overall, I love how Rambo develops each of them. Atlanta is probably my favourite in that respect.

Similarly, I loved following along as Rambo fleshed out the larger universe. They draw easily on established tropes (like an extinct civilization literally called the Forerunners) to create their own unique take on a cosmopolitan, intergalactic society. I especially love how they set up what appears to be a great and dramatic mystery surrounding the Gates, arguably the most important Forerunner tech around, only to provide an anticlimactic solution near the end of the book in what is almost a throwaway line. This firmly establishes Devil’s Gun as “cozy” science fiction. Yes, there are hardships and existential conflict; on the other hand, the conflict is extremely interpersonal.

If you’re looking for space battles and military strategy or high-stakes, boots-on-the-ground combat, you won’t get it here. But if you want arguments, people sneaking around behind each other’s backs, a sarcastic sentient spaceship, and more such shenanigans—then, yeah, Devil’s Gun and the previous book in this series are going to be just your thing.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.