Ahoy there mateys!  I had never read anything by this author but I heard good things.  I picked this book up because it features ghostships, pirates (Arrr!), starpaths, and is a standalone to boot.  Sadly I was very unenthusiastic about this book and abandoned it at 24%.

The majority of my problems came down to world building.  The science was (I think) supposed to be based on genetic engineering but it felt like magic.  I am not opposed to fantasy elements in my sci-fi but none of it particularly felt like it made sense.  I liked the idea of navigators slowly turning into crystal as they chart paths across space.  I found the idea of their deaths to be horrifying.  But, in general, I didn't understand the culture of these cryst-born or feel much suspense for the death of their people.  Their abilities felt very nebulous and hard to understand.  I think the navigation was supposed to be too complex for others to understand but instead it felt poorly thought out.  Also the politics and interpersonal relationships were lightly drawn.

I feel like this book was missing tension and a cohesive plot.  It felt like the novel could have used better editing and structure,  I was bored and/or confused.  I hope this is not indicative of the rest of the author's work.  I am willing  to give her another shot.  Arrrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ahoy there mateys!  The cat on the cover and the idea of a sentient basil plant is what led me to this book. I started reading it in February 2025, made it to 36%, and could not get through it no matter how much I tried.  So I officially gave up at the beginning of June.  In reading reviews of this novel, many folks describe the humor as being along the lines of Terry Pratchett or Monty Python.  Had I originally seen those comparisons, I would not have tried this book as that humor style doesn't generally work for me.  It is a bit too silly.

Other problems included that fact that I hated Mr. Nagg's misogynistic point-of-view chapters, the footnotes that were distracting, and the amount of tangents and exposition made the plot meandering and somewhat confusing.  I did not particularly enjoy the whole goblin fruit subplot or the machinations of Gwendolyn Gooch and her Ponzi scheme.  I did enjoy Isabella, the cat-creature, and even the donkey.  Lots of readers lot this book but ultimately the writing style was not for me.  Arrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ahoy there mateys!  This is an omnibus of the two YA steampunk novels about Emilie.  In the first book she stows away on a vessel that goes under the sea / into the planet to the Hollow-World.  In the second novel she goes on a rescue mission on an airship to the Sky-World.  The world building is the highlight here.  I wanted more!

Both books feel like something Jules Verne would have written.  There is science and a bit of magic.  It is very steampunk and takes place in an alternate Victorian setting.  There are steamships, telescopes, a bustling scientific community, and new horizons to be explored.  There are merpeople, plant based people, and monsters.  Younger me would have adored this.

Emilie is a great character who starts out more as an observer but gains experience and becomes crucial to survival.  She is plucky and thoughtful.  It was lovely to watch her grow and carve out a life better suited to her wishes.  The only small problem was that she feels more like 12 than 16 years old.

These books are light and fluffy.  I enjoyed them but would have like a little more of everything from characterization, to descriptions, and more complex plotting.  The old-fashioned feel worked well but I couldn't help but want writing more in line with Well's adult works.  Arrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ahoy there mateys!  This is an omnibus of the two YA steampunk novels about Emilie.  In the first book she stows away on a vessel that goes under the sea / into the planet to the Hollow-World.  In the second novel she goes on a rescue mission on an airship to the Sky-World.  The world building is the highlight here.  I wanted more!

Both books feel like something Jules Verne would have written.  There is science and a bit of magic.  It is very steampunk and takes place in an alternate Victorian setting.  There are steamships, telescopes, a bustling scientific community, and new horizons to be explored.  There are merpeople, plant based people, and monsters.  Younger me would have adored this.

Emilie is a great character who starts out more as an observer but gains experience and becomes crucial to survival.  She is plucky and thoughtful.  It was lovely to watch her grow and carve out a life better suited to her wishes.  The only small problem was that she feels more like 12 than 16 years old.

These books are light and fluffy.  I enjoyed them but would have like a little more of everything from characterization, to descriptions, and more complex plotting.  The old-fashioned feel worked well but I couldn't help but want writing more in line with Well's adult works.  Arrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ahoy there mateys.  This is "A new Queer, Asian-inspired fantasy novella about a renowned dragon slayer who never takes her armor off in public."  There is also a f/f romance element as well.  I like elements of this novella well enough.  The main character, Yeva, is a dragon hunter sent to the reclusive nation of Quanbao as a diplomat.  It is rumored that Quanbao worships dragons.  The ruler, Lady Sookhee, has secrets and Yeva is supposed to find them out, not fall in love with the queen.  I did feel that the first part of the book was much stronger than when Yeva goes to Quanbao.

The character of Yeva was my favorite.  I really enjoyed reading about Yeva's childhood and how she became a dragon hunter.  The juxtaposition of world building between Yeva's realm and the culture of Quanbao was nice.  Yeva's king seems to be an all-powerful, selfish dictator.  Lady Sookhee may be queen but rules with the help of a women's council.  The political details were rather lightly touched upon but I did enjoy what was presented.

The main issue for me was that I did not buy the romance.  I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either.  I did not get to really see the relationship start or evolve.  Instead, it just kinda skipped ahead.  I also thought that Yeva was rather dense about the queen's secret given how much time they spent together.  The ending was also fine but did not thrill me.  These issues may all stem from the novella-length.  I think I would have prefered a novel instead.

I liked the author's writing style enough that I bought the Tensorate series.  I shall see if I like those novellas better.  Arrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ahoy there mateys!  There is something about Moreno-Garcia's writing that always works for me.  This historical fiction novel was no exception.  It takes place in 1950s Hollywood where a big budget film about the life of Salome is preparing for production.  Everyone is surprised when the director casts Vera Larios, a Mexican woman with no experience as the lead.  Another American actress named Nancy is appalled and wants revenge for "her" part being stolen.  The novel focuses on how the film changes their lives forever.

The two elements I loved best about the novel were the atmosphere and the characterizations.  The Hollywood of the 1950s was not always as glamorous as the films themselves would suggest.  There was rampant racism, misogyny, and studio control over the talent.  In addition the Red Scare caused actors to be blackballed.  Studios also could influence who actors dated and, in the case of gay men, encourage them to marry to hide their sexual preferences.  Vera Larios, as a Mexican, is treated with disdain.  She is not considered white.  Getting the part of Salome is a big deal but Hollywood treats the young actress more as a possession of the studio than a real person.  I thought the undercurrent of Hollywood politics was extremely well done because the overt and subtle impacts to the talents' lives were woven throughout the novel.

I also loved the characterization.  Vera is controlled by her mother and familial obligation of the Mexican culture.  She is a bit naive but also resourceful in her own way.  She lives in the shadow of her sister being the family favorite.  I was rooting for every gain she made towards personal freedom.  I also had a lot of sympathy for how poorly Hollywood treated her.  Nancy, on the other hand, was someone I loved to dislike.  She has a lot of freedom but also has family pressure in trying to obtain her father's approval.  Nancy has truly horrible taste in men.  She is manipulative, abusive, and cunning.  Her focus on blaming Vera for all her woes was ridiculous yet realistic and the conflict this entailed was excellently done.  I felt that both women's endings were so sorrowful in their own ways.  The other interesting character in this novel was Salome herself.  We learn about her life in the palace, her uncle's desire for her, her marriage prospects, and her fascination with John the Baptist.  This storyline was my least favorite but it did add for some interesting parallels with the 1950s.

Overall, I loved this novel even if I will likely not reread it.  I love the author's work and am looking forward to The Bewitching coming out later this year.  Arrrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ahoy there mateys!  This was described as the first book in a new series "set in a version of Alexandre Dumas's world haunted by vampires..."  Excellent idea but this book does not live up to its premise at all.  In fact this book was such a letdown that it walks the plank!

The first problem is that for a book "haunted" by vampires, they do not show up until around 82% of the book and barely appear even then.  There are, however, werewolves that show up at 62% for one chapter and never appear again.  The fantasy elements could have been removed and not much would have changed in the novel.  I wanted more supernatural elements as promised in a book series called "Vampires of Dumas."

The idea that the book is set in a version of Dumas' world is laughable.  The first part of the book takes place on the sea but the rest takes place in France.  The atmosphere of French culture is practically non-existent and completely surface level.  Also when I think of Dumas, I think of swashbuckling where the main character has excellent swordsmanship, guile, and chivalrousness.  There were some sword fights but mostly the fighting was boring.

Morgane is supposed to be the fierce daughter of one of the fiercest female pirates in the Caribbean.  Instead she is extremely naïve, gullible, uneducated, and just plain silly.  She can fight at times but spends an awful lot of time running, panicking, or trusting the wrong people.  Plus she is written as though she is primitive in social graces.  Aye, she grew up onboard ship but the Caribbean was not a complete backwater.  She acts like France is an alien planet and makes no real effort to learn to adjust to life ashore.  Where be her pirate wiles?

And lastly, there were too many modern sensibilities in Morgane's opinions.  I can see that she might find slavery distasteful.  However, wanting to fight the economic and social class systems felt out of place for the historical time period.  Also being a pirate did not mean there was complete social freedom.  Morgane's lesbian relationship was a bit carefree and felt too modern.  Also Morgane let her romantic partner do all of the travel arrangements and communicate with innfolk, etc.  That felt so unrealistic even with Morgane dressed as a boy.

Basically, I feel that every area of this book was problematic including the parts set at sea.  With the bad pacing, lackluster characterization, and unfulfilled premise, I will not be reading the sequel.  Arrrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ahoy there me mateys!  Mira Grant is the pen name for Seanan McGuire's sci-fi & horror tales.  This is her newest about an alien invasion coming soon to an Earth near you.  When Anastasia "Stasia" Miller was three years old, she got lost in the woods and was enticed by a weird alien plant.  When she immerges several days later, she tells everyone that she is an alien in disguise as a human and that the armada is coming.  No one believes her.

Except Stasia is telling the truth.  The alien plant has consumed her human self and taken her place.  She has no other facts about the invasion.  No timeline.  No idea what she is supposed to do in the meantime.  And no choice but to keep repeating the truth of her nature to everyone she meets.  Needless to say, she isn't extremely popular.

Stasia has a handful of friends, a boyfriend named Graham, and a cat named Seymour who tolerate her alien quirkiness.  Then one day, an alien signal is received by Earth.  The invasion is finally coming to pick Stasia up.  Humans are beginning to believe in aliens.  The government is involved.  And Stasia finds others of her kind.  That is just the beginning of Stasia's crazy adventure and the take down of Earth.

I began reading this in e-book form and switched to the audiobook.  I absolutely loved the set-up for this novel.  Reading about Stasia's disappearance, return, and foray into human adulthood was fascinating.  There is a bit of body horror involving the plant and it was creepy and awesome.  I also loved when Stasia realized that there were other aliens like her planted (ha!) on Earth.

Unfortunately for me, I felt that this book was not as interesting once the alien signal was introduced.  And when the government gets involved around the 38% mark I was less than enthused.  I think this is because the novel went from a focus on character relationships to a more action novel flavor.  Also Stasia really spends a lot of time waffling about the same existential questions.  Because she and the other aliens don't really know anything about what the invasion will do, the reader has to spend a lot of time just waiting alongside them. 

Once invasion day starts (62%), the pace picked back up again.  I enjoyed a lot Stasia and the other aliens interactions with the invaders.  I appreciated how Earth's humans were never going to win.  But I found the overall goals of the aliens to be rather silly.  About a third of this book really floated my boat so I am glad I read it and I have been thinking about it a lot.  I just think that the majority of this book wasn't to my personal taste.  Arrrr!

Side note: what actually happened to Seymour?  Did I miss where he ended up?

Ahoy there me mateys!  I finished this book earlier this month but it has taken me some time to get my thoughts in order.  I think it's because of the unusual style of the novel.  The story is set in the 1100s in England.  Willem is a young peasant boy who lives with his parents in Cosham.  Unfortunately, he meets an untimely end.  His parents are distraught and visit a sorcerer named Cain Caradoc to do the unthinkable and ask for their son to be brought back to life.

This does not go well.  Willem has been dead for too long and is brought back in a monstrous form.  He is stuck in an in-between almost zombie-like fashion where he cannot die.  His parents and village are horrified and drive him out of the village.  Also Willem does not realize that the sorcerer has stolen a piece of his soul as the price for this resurrection.

Willem flees to the forest where he meets a variety of other monsters like water spirits and shapeshifters.  He makes a new life with this found family and has set his old life aside.  However, Caradoc plans an assault against Cosham with a focus on stealing the children.  The villagers ask Willem for help.  Willem's remaining humanity and compassion leads him to battle the sorcerer.

I found both the beginning and ending of the novel to be a lot of fun.  However, there were issues that led to this read being less than satisfying overall.  First is that the villagers are NOT nice people and I had a hard time caring about any of them given how selfish they acted.  It started to make me want them to suffer because of how nasty they were.  However, evil sorcerer should not win.  Also I don't like feeling hateful of characters that I should want to thrive.  Even the children had much better morals than their parents.

There were also massive issues with pacing and style of writing.  I was okayish up until the 73% mark when the book stalled big time.  I had to put down and pick up the book many times before I could keep going.  I did not get back into the flow of the story until the 91% mark,  Some of this was because of the non-linear timeline and side tangents that Willem went on.  Some of this was because of being tired of the archaic feel of the written and spoken language in the book.  Both of these things were very fun in the beginning but grew wearisome as the plot progressed.  It was other bloggers reviews that helped me finish as they said the ending was worth it.  I am not so sure even while I liked it.  Having, basically, that 18% of the book be hard going was substantial.  Also I think a lot of that section could have been trimmed down substantially.  Like the Hell and French parts.

I wonder if I would have liked this story a lot more had it been a longer novella for instance given that the style and story concepts were fun.  Plus I really did enjoy the characters of Willem, the water spirit, the village healer, and the girl in the stone.  It is a hard book to recommend given its unusual nature but if historical fantasy with monsters sounds good then give it a try.  Arrrrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ahoy there me mateys!  This book is the second in a trilogy.  This novella overlaps slightly and continues after the book Who Fears Death.  According to the author's foreword for this story, it should not be read without knowledge of that novel.  Unlike the first book, this middle novella is lighter on action and is much more reflective.  The main character, Najeeba, is training to be a sorcerer and is dealing with the trauma of the past.

What I really found fascinating wasn't Najeeba's training (as cool as it was) but the themes of memory and trauma.  Najeeba's daughter, Onyesonwu, had Changed the world for the better.  The problem is that people don't remember the world as it was with the exception of Najeeba and a few others.  Najeeba has the memories of the Before and the Now.  She has sorrow because Onyesonwu saved the world and no one remembers her.  She misses her deceased husband.  She misses the friends that no longer remember their prior bond.  She chooses to keep going and have a greater goal rather than give up on life.  Najeeba becomes better acquainted with her own power and who she wants to be.  She might still make mistakes based on her trauma but she is growing and maturing in how she handles those issues.

However, just because the world became better didn't mean that all evil had left the world.  Those with no memories of the Before still have residual effects from the trauma in their pasts.  A person finds themselves wanting to leave a spouse or move to a new town seemingly out of the blue.  This is because the trauma leaves a mark on the being.  I loved the juxtaposition of Najeeba dealing with her two sets of memories and the stories and consequences  of the Change on regular folk.

The other aspect that I loved was how these novellas about Najeeba wrap around and comment on Onyesonwu's story.  I don't normally need the Before and Now after the saving the world but in this case how they intertwine and cause the reader to reevaluate the original novel is just so thought-provoking and wonderful.  Najeeba gets to learn about her daughter on multiple levels.  She even shares the same teacher.  I cannot wait for the final book in the trilogy and seeing how Najeeba continues to fight evil in her past and follow Onyesonwu's legacy into the future.  Arrrr!