One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron One Good Dragon Deserves Another (2015) is the second book in Rachel Aaron’s self-published HEARTSTRIKERS series. I listened to Audible Studio’s editions of these books with my 19-year-old daughter. We love the story and the performance of Vikas Adam, the narrator. This review will have some spoilers […]
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Reposting to include new reviews by Jana and Bill. The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison The Witness for the Dead is the long-hoped-for sequel to Katherine Addison’s marvelous and unusual 2014 fantasy, The Goblin Emperor, in which we met Maia, a half-goblin, half-elf young man who unexpectedly inherited the throne of the elf […]
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Agency by William Gibson William Gibson’s latest novel, Agency (2020), is a follow-up to The Peripheral which needs to be read first. In The Peripheral we learned that in the not-too-distant future, someone will discover some software on a secret server in China which allows users to interact with people using the internet in the […]
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Hellboy in Hell (Vol. 2): The Death Card by Mike Mignola (writer and artist), Dave Stewart (colors), & Clem Robins (letters). This second and final volume of Hellboy in Hell collects issues 6-10. It opens with Baba Yaga reminding the reader what came before: “He fought and killed a dragon but the dragon was actually […]
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The Bronze Skies by Catherine Asaro The Bronze Skies (2017) is the second book in Catherine Asaro’s MAJOR BHAAJAN series. In the first book, Undercity, we met Bhaajan, a private investigator who recently retired from military service. When she is hired by the royal family to track down a runaway prince, she must descend into […]
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Naondel by Maria Turtschaninoff Naondel (2016) is the second book in Maria Turtschaninoff’s RED ABBEY CHRONICLES series, but it’s not a sequel; it’s a prequel. Set many years before the events of Maresi, Naondel tells the story of the women who, fleeing their own oppression, founded the Red Abbey as a sanctuary for themselves and […]
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The Unbound by Victoria Schwab The Unbound is the sequel to Victoria Schwab’s The Archived, which you should read before starting this book. There will be some spoilers for The Archived in this review, so beware. Summer is over for Mackenzie Bishop, the Keeper whose secret job is to escort the “Histories” of dead people […]
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Reposting to include Marion’s new review. Knight’s Shadow by Sebastien de Castell I absolutely loved Sebastien de Castell‘s Traitor’s Blade, first in his GREATCOATS series, having been immediately charmed by the utterly winning voice of its first-person narrator Falcio val Mond and its flamboyant Three Musketeers-like tone and narrative. So I was greatly looking forward […]
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The Paradox by Charlie Fletcher The Paradox (2015) is the second book in Charlie Fletcher’s OVERSIGHT trilogy. I loved the audiobook version of the first book, The Oversight, when I read it four years ago. Despite its crawling pace, I loved it for its grungy Victorian setting. The audiobook narration by Simon Prebble, an award-winning […]
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Marion and Terry discuss Head On. Marion’s words are in black and Terry’s are in blue. Head On by John Scalzi Marion: John Scalzi’s 2018 novel Head On brings back FBI team Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, this time investigating a murder that should be impossible. Hilketa is a violent game where the objective is […]
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Hidden Huntress by Danielle L. Jensen The second book in Danielle L. Jensen‘s THE MALEDICTION TRILOGY continues the complex political intrigue between the powerful trolls who live beneath the mountain and the eighteenth-century humans who dwell on the surface. In the first book, Stolen Songbird, a truce was attempted by an arranged marriage between Tristan, […]
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City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett Marion: City of Blades is the second book in Robert Jackson Bennett’s THE DIVINE CITIES series, which tells several sides of the story of a major international cultural conflict. Saypur, a civilization that has been oppressed by the Continent for centuries, rose up and subdued its oppressors by […]
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The Accelerators Vol. 2: Momentum by R.F.I. Porto, Gavin P. Smith, Tim Yates The Accelerators Vo. 2: Momentum picks up right after the end of The Accelerators Vol. 1: Time Games, which introduced readers to an intrepid group of accidental time-travelers leapfrogging toward an unknowable future. In this second volume, the group visits the same […]
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The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey M.R. Carey’s 2014 novel, The Girl with All the Gifts, was lauded by both Terry and Ray for bringing new life to tired zombie-fiction tropes. The Boy on the Bridge (2017) occupies a prequel/companion/sequel position, in that most of this novel takes place before Melanie’s story, but […]
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White Hot by Ilona Andrews Note: this review contains some spoilers for the first book in this series, Burn for Me. In White Hot (2017), the second book in Ilona Andrews’ HIDDEN LEGACY urban fantasy series, we return to a magical version of Houston, Texas, where some people (typically the rich and powerful) have inheritable […]
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The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence For better or for worse, The Liar’s Key (2015) — the second novel in Mark Lawrence’s RED QUEEN’S WAR series — is in large part just a second helping of the first book. Readers who enjoyed Prince of Fools will probably find a lot to enjoy this time around […]
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Rider of the Crown by Melissa McShane Rider of the Crown (2015), the second book in Melissa McShane’s CROWN OF TREMONTANE fantasy series, is set a generation after the events in Servant of the Crown. The story initially shifts to a neighboring country to Tremontane, where the Kirkellan live, a fierce people who live a […]
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Nightborn by Lou Anders Nightborn is the second novel in Lou Anders’ THRONES & BONES series for middle graders. I enjoyed the first novel, Frostborn, for its likeable protagonists, sense of adventure, touch of humor, and warm-heartedness. It’d be best to read it before beginning Nightborn. The beginning of Nightborn finds Karn, our young gaming […]
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Survival Game by Gary Gibson Humankind has a weird fascination with its own demise. It’s the reason apocalyptic fiction has been a staple for decades. You’ve read zombie apocalypse, imminent meteor, killer virus stories a million times, so the real challenge now is finding an interesting way to explore said demise. Gary Gibson‘s take on […]
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Wrath of Betty by Steven Erikson If you’re going to parody a TV series, as Steven Erikson did with Star Trek in Willful Child, then you can’t stop at just one book, can you? Think of all those other episodes ripe for the plucking! And so we’re back for more interstellar hijinks with the crew […]
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Ice Like Fire by Sara Raasch When I reviewed Snow Like Ashes, the first book in the SNOW LIKE ASHES series (back when I was a FanLit newcomer), I complained of a lack of depth to the world that Sara Raasch created. In some ways, its sequel Ice Like Fire (2015) gave me what I desired; […]
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The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman With The Masked City (2015), Genevieve Cogman delivers a fun, imaginative follow-up to her The Invisible Library (2014) debut. We get to spend time with our favorite characters from the first book: Irene and Kai, Holmesian-detective Vale and the fearsome Coppelia. We meet some new ones as well, including […]
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Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda Bond Gwenda Bond has a real gift for writing believable, interesting teenaged protagonists, and puts that gift to use in Girl in the Shadows (2016), the second installment in her CIRQUE AMERICAN series and a companion to the first novel, Girl on a Wire. Though not a true sequel, many […]
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The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen Warning: May contain mild spoilers for the previous book. At first glance, a mash-up between epic fantasy and futuristic dystopia just shouldn’t work. It’s as though someone has cherry-picked a bunch of best-selling ingredients and bunged them all together in a weird genre-bending cake. Even more disconcerting […]
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Supervillains Anonymous by Lexie Dunne I really wanted to like Supervillains Anonymous, by Lexie Dunne. The first book in the series, Superheroes Anonymous, was pretty fun and I was looking forward to seeing what happened after its cliffhanger ending, when Hostage Girl (aka Gail Godwin) was falsely accused of the murder of her close friend […]
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