#justfinishedreading

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ If you’ve spoken to me about books in the last few years you know I think the Ana and Din mysteries are some of the most fun you can have in genre fiction. I love weird fantasy, I love an impossible crime, I love some political intrigue--these books have it all. So you can imagine my glee when I was offered the chance to review the third in the series, A Trade of Blood.

Before I pick some nits, let me be clear, I loved this book. I read it in two days. I was engrossed by the characters and the world. I will read these books as long as Robert Jackson Bennett wants to write them. Ana and Din have once again been sent out into the Empire to solve a crime that threatens to pull one of the most important agricultural regions into a blood feud. In case you, like me, can’t read between the lines, yeah, that’s right, this one’s got cowboys (and girls). As they investigate two feuding families, Ana and Din once again get pulled into the Empire’s secrets, and find themselves faced with a powerful opponent.

If you liked the first two in the series, you will find a lot to like here--Din and Ana’s relationship, additional weird biological mechanisms for murder, etc. The one thing I missed was that I found this mystery a little more predictable and a little less of a puzzle box than the previous two. To be clear, it was a good solid mystery, but it did not floor me. But with characters I love and a world that is gradually revealing its secrets, I still quite enjoyed my time.

Recommended for fans of House, MD., Knives Out, and Jeff VanderMeer.

If this review has sparked your interest, do not start by reading this book--go read The Tainted Cup and work from there.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We are living in a golden age of fantasy. Alix Harrow, Tasha Suri, and now, Hannah Kaner. I read and liked Godkiller--her debut, but A Snake Among Swans is on a different level. Godkiller was good, A Snake Among Swans is excellent. It is rich, it is propulsive. Kaner weaves an intricate web of politcal entanglements but so deftly you’re never confused about which faction is which or who is getting stabbed in the back.

When Tilde’s land is conquered, she is the last heir left. She volunteers to wed their aging, deteriorating warlord conqueror, planning to stab him in his sleep and die a martyr to the cause. Instead, she finds an old magic, and realizes that her death will only plunge her people further into the abyss of war. So she chooses to live. As she plays the delicate dance of politics in a court where her allies are few, will she become the tyrant she swore to kill?

Make no mistake, this is a dark, dark fantasy. The magic is bloody; the wars are dirty; pay attention to the trigger warnings at the beginning--Kaner is not here to play. But what a treatise on power, sacrifice, betrayal and aging. For such difficult content, this book went down remarkably easy--I was hooked and couldn’t stop reading.

Recommended for fans of The Jasmine Throne trilogy, King Lear, and all those really messed up German fairytales.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve been on the Rhiannon Grist train for a while now--ever since Queen of the High Fields. Grist writes lyrical, beautiful, and atmospheric horror inspired by folktales of the British Isles. Queen of the High Fields was a jewelbox of a novella--a whole world with huge characters and stakes somehow fit into a small package. The point is, I have eagerly awaited Grist’s next effort, and I was also excited to see what she would do with a little more space.

Home Sick begins with Tamsin moving to the countryside to escape her soul sucking job. But the cottage that she bought, sight unseen, is actually a duplex. 1a and 1b--and something is, off, about the woman who lives next door. As Tamsin struggles with her own mental health, and the usual stress of settling into a new life. She’ll have to worry about more than dry rot and bad electricity.

As someone who recently moved, Grist has perfectly captured the frisson of “this new house will change me into a better version of myself” but also “new space, same struggles.” Tamsin is not likeable, but she is easy to root for, and the supporting cast of characters are lively and bright.

Recommended for fans of Sarah Pinsker, Caitlin Starling, and Shirley Jackson.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ever since I read Susan Casey’s The Underworld, I’ve been searching for that high. A book that is full of interesting information, larger than life characters, and a high stakes true story. Lightning Beneath The Sea appeared to be a follow on in that tradition. It did have all three of those things, and I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t quite achieve the same greatness that Casey did.

Lightning Beneath the Sea tells the story of Cyrus Field, an American Businessman who, after a chance meeting, became obsessed with laying the first transatlantic submarine cable. It took him over a decade, most of his considerable fortune, and four tries.

There are a lot of bits of the story that are hang on the edge of your seat, and some of the characters (Wildman Whitehouse) are indeed larger than life, but the author devotes the same care and attention to Field’s many trips across the Atlantic, and other minutiae that are more historically relevant than narratively compelling, which makes the pacing stop and go, and prevents this book from being a truly riveting read. If you are already interested in this history, you’ll likely enjoy this book, but I’m not sure it will make a convert out of an ambivalent reader.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Warm Hands of Ghosts was one of my absolute favorite books of 2024, so I jumped for joy when Netgalley gave me the opportunity to review Katherine Arden’s latest--The Unicorn Hunters. I jumped again when I realized that all the things I loved about The Warm Hands of Ghosts were also present in The Unicorn Hunters: a rich and vibrant historical inspired setting, a wild and ferocious magic, and richly drawn characters.

Duchess Anne of Brittany is between a rock and a hard place. France is at the door, ready to bring her home under its overbearing control. Her small army will certainly fall before the might of the French forces, and she promised her father before he died that she would never marry the French king. Maximilian of Austria has promised her protection in exchange for her hand in marriage, but Anne needs time. Time she does not have. When she conjures up a unicorn hunt as a distraction and heads into an enchanted forest, she sets in motion a series of events that will change history.

What I loved the most about this book (and Warm Hands) is how wild the magic Arden builds into her world is. It’s scary and powerful, and absolutely out of control. I also love how Anne is a strong female character without being a strong female character (tm). She’s got might and spunk, but she also loves her sister, and embroidery, and pretty dresses. This book is the complete package.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ A Fortune of Sand is a literary historical fiction novel. Unfortunately I went into it thinking it was a gothic novel. Perhaps this unfairly prejudiced the review that follows, but ultimately I thought this book was extremely average. The characterization was fine. The pacing was a little spotty, but not enough so that I got hung up anywhere.

Marjorie’s family made their fortunes making glass for windshields. Marjorie is the freewheeling youngest daughter, constantly at odds with the more straightlaced members of her family. She gets accepted to an artistic residency run by a tall dark and handsome man, and something isn’t right about it.

The best thing about this novel was the sense of place and atmosphere. Detroit in the 1920s leaps off the page. Unfortunately I kept waiting for the magic, or the whodunit to really kick off, but this book is straight literary fiction. The weakest part for me was the ending. I felt like we never got the pay off for some of the character development we spent the whole book waiting for, and I think I’d feel that way even if I’d gone in knowing it was literary and not genre.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ I am a dyed in the wool Ann Leckie fan. I’ve been around since Ancillary Justice, and Raven Tower is one of my top ten books of this century so far. Radiant Star is a solid, but not transcendent entry in her larger oeuvre. Readers who are hoping Leckie has written another classic, will find merely a very solid entry in her Imperial Radch series. In some ways, Leckie has done herself a disservice by writing two modern classics, which means a book that is only solid feels like something of a let down. Many authors would be thrilled to have written a book this innovative, poignant, and solidly plotted.

We find ourselves on Ooioiaa, a city deep underneath the ice, living in a dome, on a rogue planet at the fringes of the Imperial Radch. The local religion is focused around The Temporal Location of the Radiant Star, where mummified bodies become living saints and pilgrims queue for hours. The Imperial Radch have decreed that only one more will be allowed to join their number, and as tumult sweeps across the empire, the city will be thrown into upheaval.

I found this book more cerebral than some of Leckie’s prior work, its pacing almost reminded me of Station Eleven. However, as it is significantly longer than Station Eleven, and the prose are not as elevated, there were times when it dragged a bit. However, I enjoyed the world--the underwater city was well drawn and felt fresh. And, as always, Leckie is working with important and timely themes.

This book does have spoilers for the original Ancillary trilogy, so if that’s important to you, read those first.

I will actually write a review of this book, but all you really need to know is that I am 34 years old and I stayed up an hour and a half past my bed time to finish this book. On a work night.

Some of you are already sold on this book. Here, let me try again. Corporate Samurai in Space.

Another chunk of you are probably now sold on this book. For anyone still on the fence--Fonda Lee does not disappoint. If you’re a fan of her Green Bones Saga (The Godfather but make it fantasy), you will have a great time in her new world. If you haven’t heard of Fonda Lee, welcome. Fonda Lee is one of the masters of epic fantasy working today. Not a lot of people can worldbuild like she can. Her worlds are messy, and complicated, and you can see the layers of history and culture that float just beyond the frame she’s giving you.

I also am obsessed with her character development. Lee’s characters jump off the page. They have bad days and good days and they’re flawed but also heroic. And, well, see the first paragraph. No one can plot like Fonda Lee. I thought I had this all figured out, but she still had some twists and turns up her sleeve for me. I can’t wait to see where this goes next.

Recommended for fans of Brandon Sanderson, Ghost of Yotei, and S.L. Huang.