The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco
The Heart Forger‘s (2018) prequel ended with the young bone witch, Tea, about to march upon the kingdom with an army of corpses and a bevy of monsters to boot. We pick up the story precisely where it was left off with Tea’s shock lover (for those of you who remember the twist ending of The Bone Witch) in tow.
Sticking to the same formula used in The Bone Witch,
April 30th, 2018. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Rin Chupeco | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory
The Lady of the Rivers (2011) begins with the capture of a young French maiden. She wears a man’s cap and breeches, and tells her captors that she is following the voices of angels. When our narrator, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, calls her Joan, it quickly becomes apparent that Gregory has opened her novel with the capture of the legendary Joan of Arc. Moments in history don’t come much more momentous than this one, and it marks the first trial Jacquetta must overcome,
April 26th, 2018. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 2.5 | Philippa Gregory | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
All the Light We Cannot See (2014) opens in the basement of a hotel in the port city of Saint-Malo in occupied France, 1944. The city is being bombed. Eighteen-year-old Nazi soldier Werner Pfennig is trapped below tonnes of rubble, his chances of survival increasingly slim, whilst across town, a blind French girl Marie-Laure is hiding in her attic. The pair is bound by a curiosity in natural science, years of surreptitious radio broadcasts, and a diamond that may bestow immortality upon its holder.
March 12th, 2018. Ray McKenzie and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 5 | Anthony Doerr | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In the world of Gilded Cage (2017), there are those who are called Equals ― but there’s a deep divide between Equals, who have magical Skills, and the commoners, the Skilless, and they are decisively not equal. In England the Equals are both the aristocrats and the sole parliament, and they hold all the power, with the magical ability to enforce it.
One of the ways the Equals use their power is to require all commoners to spend ten years of their lives as slaves,
February 7th, 2018. Tadiana Jones, Ray McKenzie and Jana Nyman´s rating: 3, 4.5 | Vic James | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
Most people imagine the enchanting, scantily-clad beauties of fairytale when they think of mermaids, but Imogen Hermes Gowar offers an entirely different creature in her debut, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock. Readers will find no glittering scales or flowing hair here. Tipped as one of the most hotly anticipated books of 2018, the story promises to be one curiosity and obsession.
It is a cold September evening in 1785 when Mr Hancock finally gets the long-awaited knock on the door of his London home;
February 5th, 2018. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 3.5 | Imogen Hermes Gowar | Edge | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
The Hazel Wood (2018) is one of those novels whose reputation precedes it. Authors and critics alike are singing the book’s praises, dubbing it mesmerising, creepy, captivating. It promises to be a dark and twisting fairytale in the vein of Caraval and The Bear and the Nightingale, but can Melissa Albert‘s debut live up to its own hype?
Alice and her mother have moved from place to place for as long as she can remember.
January 30th, 2018. Ray McKenzie, Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 2.5 | Melissa Albert | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Stranger Things 2 created by the Duffer Brothers
After its unexpected success last year, Stranger Things became an instant classic and fans have been clamouring for the release of the second series ever since. With its perfect combination of nostalgia, comedy and suspense, the show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, gave themselves a hell of a first series to follow up. So, did they manage to live up to the hype?
Sequels always present a conundrum: you want to give the fans more of what they want (and know), whilst simultaneously trying to create something new.
November 16th, 2017. Ray McKenzie and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Stranger Things created by the Duffer Brothers
Like The Hunger Games and Star Wars before it, Stranger Things is that rare breed of entertainment which becomes a franchise almost instantly upon release. What’s more, it firmly established Netflix’s media strategy: The Binge. With the days of having to wait a week between episodes firmly over — and at a modest eight episodes long — some people managed to finish the first series in a day. So what winning formula managed to establish such a die-hard legion of fans?
November 15th, 2017. Ray McKenzie and Jana Nyman´s rating: 5 | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | no comments |
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
The hype surrounding An Ember in the Ashes (2015) around its release was impressive, to say the least. Classed as Epic Fantasy, the book quickly became a bestseller on multiple lists and rights have been sold across thirty countries. Film rights were sold in a seven-figure deal (seven!) well before the book’s publication. A sequel was bought almost immediately thereafter. With these kinds of stats, is a book ever going to be able to live up to itself?
Laia is a slave under the Martial Empire.
October 19th, 2017. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 2 | Sabaa Tahir | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
At seven minutes past midnight, Conor O’Malley is visited by a monster. But it’s not the monster he’s expecting. This monster is wild and ancient. This monster comes in the form of a yew tree that usually stands atop the hill Conor can see from his bedroom window, in the middle of the graveyard. Except that now it is here, outside his bedroom window, and it wants something from Conor.
Conor O’Malley started getting nightmares after his mother got sick. In them he has terrible visions,
October 18th, 2017. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 5 | Patrick Ness | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…