TL;DR Review: A new approach to leveling up and gaining power. A progression fantasy hero unlike any other, and a fresh addition to the genre.

Synopsis:

Power is not given. It’s taken.

In the Tze Empire, spirits and demons rule the wilds, but Ring Warlocks control civilization. For Rimon, the son of a courtesan and lowest in society, Ring Warlocks seem like gods.

Each has their own magic drawn from Titans, and they can do whatever they please, regardless of how it affects the prefectures they rule.

But when a chance encounter places one of the ancient and powerful rings in Rimon’s hands, everything changes. For there is a trick to the rings, and Rimon sees through the test given to him.

Suddenly, he is no longer a player at the fringes of power; he is a Ring Warlock and granted his own territory.

Determined to make sure his prefecture thrives, Rimon must contend with jealous rivals, demons seeking his ring for themselves, and forces he cannot yet name, all while mastering his new abilities. He will prove even the lowest can rise to challenge gods.

Rimon will have to grow twice as strong as his rival warlocks just to survive in this new Progression Fantasy Adventure by Shami Stovall, the Dragon-Award winning author of Knightmare Arcanist!

Full Review:

Words of Power impressed me with its ability to play within genre lines while also striking out in the direction of the fresh and new!

In this story, we’re introduced to Rimon, a brothel-born slave whose job is to care for the courtesans under the brothel’s roof. But when the danger to one of those closest to him compels him to act, he finds himself with the opportunity to seize power—in the form of a magical ring that binds him to an ancient titan, granting him abilities beyond his wildest imagining.

His choice imbues him with death magic, but it’s done cleverly so things are not quite as they first appear. As we discover his abilities along with him, his path to power becomes clear.

Only he doesn’t go about things as we expect. He’s elevated to the station of ruler of the entire province in which he was born a slave, but rather than seizing power with both hands, he takes a clever, cunning approach to infiltrating the highest echelons of his realm to see how things really work behind the Ring Warlock’s back. Once he’s got the information he needs, he’ll make his move and claim his throne.

The character’s thoughtful, measured, and above all, decent approach to every situation made him a protagonist I really enjoyed. It had a really upbeat tone that made the story very enjoyable and left me feeling lighter and happier with every chapter because no matter how hard things got, I could always count on the character to at least try to do what’s right. In a world filled with grimdark and dark fantasy where everyone is some shade of moral gray, it’s always a pleasure to read a character who chooses the route of goodness and decency.

The world was fascinating, too. It’s filled with spirits, demons, titans, great beasts, powerful magical forces, and grand threats that promise great adventures the farther in we go. For now, though, it was enough to simply want to learn about the small day-to-day aspects of running the province and building his community of people he can count on to help him be a good, wise, and just ruler.

There are challenges and dangers aplenty, but as Rimon assembles his collection of hand-picked allies, he’ll grow stronger—until he can challenge powers far beyond his.

Words of Power is an excellent introduction to a new progression fantasy series, one that prioritizes intelligence and decency over the ability to punch or blast enemies. It’s a more thoughtful progression fantasy series I am very much looking forward to continuing!

TL;DR Review: Murder on the Orient Express meets Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and A Discovery of Witches.

Synopsis:

It’s Murder on the Orient Express – with witches!
A thrilling blend of fantasy and classic murder mystery, this rollicking adventure with a wide cast of suspects is ideal for those who love both Agatha Christie and V. E. Schwab, and are drawn to stories that take place in a vivid fantasy world.

The Linde siblings—Kellen, Davina, and Morel—are anxious to return to the kingdom of Halgyr before their father dies, leaving Kellen to assume the throne as king. They book tickets on a luxury express train, expecting a swift journey home—but disaster strikes when the train engine explodes, stranding the siblings atop a caldera bubbling with volcanic magic.

The crash triggers Davina’s latent witch powers, but her magic disrupts her ability to remember what she was doing when the explosion took place. While a witch would be the prime suspect for the catastrophe, the only ones who knew Davina might become one are her brothers—who never warned her. And, to add insult to injury, somebody is bumping off the surviving train crew and passengers. But it can’t be Davina, can it?

While the remaining passengers try to determine who sabotaged the engine and catch the killer, the fractured siblings attempt to stay one step ahead, concealing not only Davina’s powers but their own secrets. Luckily, they aren’t the only shifty characters on the train…

A thrilling blend of classic murder mystery and fantasy for those who love Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile every bit as much as Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses.

What a wild ride!

Death on the Caldera introduces us to a world of witches and magic, where dust can kill as easily as it can power express trains. We’re dropped right into the story with fascinating characters and given a mystery that just keeps getting bigger, more complex, and more puzzling with every chapter.

The story is centered around two primary casts of figures:

• The Linde family: eldest brother and secret Crown Prince Kellen, middle brother and protector Morel, and only daughter Davina. Davina wants nothing more than to go to college to prove her worth to herself and her family, to gain greater insight into the world, but the old ways of her people and the secretiveness of the royal family means she’s going to have to fight hard just to get her brothers to accept it.
• Rae, an adorable seven-year old who finds herself whisked away on a strange adventure with her mother, though it feels like they’re running away from something scary.

Both of these casts wind up on the same train—coincidence? I think not!—and they wind up being thrown together (quite literally) when the engine explodes, the trail derails, and the way home is cut off.

Already, odds of survival in the wild are small, and the people around them, including members of the uppity Lords’ Council, are far from useful. To make matters worse, someone has begun murdering members of their little band of survivors one by one.

It’s a murder mystery that feels like a direct descendent of Agatha Christie, something like Murder on the Orient Express but with a really fun flavor of witches and magic and fantasy. As you come to understand the truth of the witches and how they operate, it’ll put you in mind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which only adds to the mystery of “whodunit”.

While answers are given and the murderer is outed to satisfaction, it’s the emotional resolution that makes this book feel so satisfying. The romance that is so central to the plot (surprisingly) ends up being a really well-crafted and nuanced one, with all the messes and complications that make for a wonderful happily-ever-after.

With the element of “found family” and “embracing your power”, it’s a story that will satisfy and delight you as much as it did me!

Could you tell us a little about your life? Why did you start writing?

I am an epic fantasy author from southwestern Pennsylvania. I have been writing for
eleven years. I began writing books because I wanted a purpose in life. My hope is to one day write full-time.

What inspired you to write this book?

I was inspired to write my newest book by a wish to invent an ancient world. The
book is called The Ignited Moon. It follows an ice princess on a mission to rescue her brother and create a new moon before the world burns.

How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

The book is realistic in the sense of it consequences. Lying and abandonment can lead to many people not trusting you. The protagonist in my book finds that out. None of the book is inspired by events or experiences in the real world.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I haven’t discovered a quirk in my writing. I’m pretty straightforward.

What do you think is the most important part of a good story?

The most important part of a story is character growth. Flat arcs are in my opinion
boring. They can serve the story, but lack the impact required.

Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

The only secrets are the personal reminders. The reader won’t learn them because
they exist in my past.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Your upbringing doesn’t define you. You have the ability to be more. To breach the
wall raised by the conditions of your childhood. This is the message readers should
take away from The Ignited Moon.

What words of advice do you have for people that want to be authors?

My advice to authors is block out the noise. Read, write, test your limits, and build
upon your skills.

Find out more about Andrew Johnston on his website or read his books on Amazon.

TL;DR Review: Slow in pace but rich in wonder. A quirky character you’ll enjoy following as she discovers the world of magic is real—and there is a threat only she can stop.

The Palace of Illusions brings readers to a Paris breathless with excitement at the dawn of the twentieth century, where for a select few there is a second, secret Paris where the magic of the City of Light is very real in this enchanting and atmospheric fantasy from the author of The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill.
 
In the run up to the 1900s World’s Fair Paris is abuzz with creative energy and innovation. Audiences are spellbound by the Lumiere brothers’ moving pictures and Loie Fuller’s serpentine dance fusing art and technology. But for Clara Ironwood, a talented and pragmatic clockworker, nothing compares to the magic of her godfather’s mechanical creations, and she’d rather spend her days working on the Palace of Illusions, an intricate hall of mirrors that is one of the centerpieces of the world’s fair.
 
When her godfather sends Clara a hideous nutcracker for Christmas, she is puzzled until she finds a hidden compartment that unlocks a mirror-world Paris where the Seine is musical, fountains spout lemonade, and mechanical ballerinas move with human grace. The magic of her godfather’s toys was real. 
 
As Clara explores this other Paris and begins to imbue her own creations with its magic, she soon discovers a darker side to innovation. Suspicious men begin to approach her outside of work, and she could swear a shadow is following her. There’s no ignoring the danger she’s in, but Clara doesn’t know who to trust. The magic of the two Parises are colliding and Clara must find the strength within herself to save them both.

Take a stroll into a magical Paris, where the lights and glamor of the early 1900s hides a much subtler sort of magic, one brought to life by imagination and creativity.

In The Palace of Illusions, we join Clara Ironwood, genius clockmaker extraordinaire, as she discovers the afterweld, a reality that is a mirror to our own, but where anything you imagine can be brought to life. The more powerful your innate creativity, the more marvelous the things you can create from living, breathing materials. Here, fountains bubble with the best lemonade in the world, houses are made from marzipan and nougat, and clockwork ballerinas dance with a skill to rival the greatest danseusesof the time.

From the beginning, Clara’s intelligence is on full display. She is a fully analytical thinker, and there is no problem she cannot solve with sufficient time and testing. She’s a no-nonsense, work-minded young woman who has neither the time nor desire for anything beyond the clockwork puzzles she is solving to help create the cutting-edge displays of the 1900s World’s Fair Paris.

Inevitably, her world is thrown into chaos when a gift from her Godfather sends her traveling through the looking glass (quite literally) and into this magical world beneath our own. There, we begin to see a different side of her, a part that can set aside the analytical mind to find wonder in the marvels she witnesses. Though she still approaches figuring it out with her usual logic-driven, solution-oriented methods, she retains enough of her childish love of her Godfather’s fairy tales to want to allow the magic to be real, and so it is.

The story takes a lot of time exploring the whys, hows, and wherefores of this magical world, and it often gets a bit bogged down in Clara’s efforts to decode this mystery. But there’s a lovely fraught dynamic with her sister, making a new friend, finding romance, and building magic-powered marvels that make it an enjoyable read.

It’s a slow-paced yet wonder-filled story that will tap into your nostalgia for fairy tales like the works of Hans Christian Anderson or Beatrix Potter, but all dressed up in the glitz and glamor of a Paris newly discovering electricity.

TL;DR Review: Beautifully balanced between epic and cozy, it’s an adventure as action-packed as it is heartwarming.

Synopsis:

Dark Lord Davi rules the kingdom, but she must now break the time loop that binds her in this hilariously bloody conclusion to the Dark Lord Davi duology.

After countless failures (let’s not dwell on it), Davi has finally saved the kingdom from evil–by becoming the Dark Lord herself. But now, the hordes of wilders are at her command, and they still want blood. Human blood. And Davi’s not sure she can commit to the total extermination of humanity.

With restless armies at her doorstep, a treasonous duke scheming for power, and the legend of an ancient magician looming over her shoulder, Davi must find a way towards peace and uncover the truth behind her time loop if she is to bring harmony to the kingdom. Also, her girlfriend is mad at her. So, there’s that too.

Full Review:

What a delight to be back in this world!

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying was so much fun—a sarcastic, entertaining, and surprisingly heartwarming adventure that led our heroine, the titular Davi, to become the Dark Lord.

So now what? That’s the question on both our and Davi’s minds as we begin this second (and final) quest.

With all the “wilders” intent on destroying humankind, it’s up to Davi to figure out how best to keep everyone she’s come to care for alive. In the inevitable battle between the two races, casualties are guaranteed to be high. She has to try and navigate the murky waters of a future and present she is no longer familiar with (given that she can’t die and respawn to do it all over again) to avert war.

Only both humans and wilders have plenty of people intent on seeing blood spilled. The wilders are enraged that humankind has hunted them and stolen their hands. Humans want the thaumite (magic stones) the wilders consume to stay alive. There are enemies on both sides of the aisle, and only one Dark Lord can reach across the gap to try and bridge the divide.

A task that you just know will be next to impossible—but Davi’s determined to try anyways.

I had such a good time with the first book in this duology. It was a rollicking, fast-paced adventure that took so many familiar tropes and flipped them on their heads. By the end, however, the story led to some surprisingly heartwarming places—and it’s those people we want Davi to fight for as she keeps the world from deteriorating into all-out war.

The character growth is straightforward but with a really lovely depth of complexity that made Davi a unique protagonist in more ways than one. She’s smart and capable but surprisingly fragile, and the challenges she faces in this story push her to her physical, magical, and emotional limits. All we can hope is that she doesn’t break—because the world will break with her.

Don’t go into this one expecting a grand epic; it’s got plenty of adventure and action, but with a surprisingly cozy feel that makes it as much Legends and Lattes as it is Kings of the Wyld. It strikes a beautiful balance between the two tones and keeps you rolling with the punches while still giving you a heart-warming story you can fall in love with.

All in all, a really great time, and a hell of an action-adventure fantasy with a really cool take on the time loop trope!

TL;DR: Van Helsing, but as played by a Murderbot-style ship’s AI, with the delightfully cozy and heartwarming flavor of Becky Chambers The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.

Synopsis:

Spaceships aren’t programmed to seek revenge—but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception.

Demeter just wants to do her shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans.

To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team of A werewolf. An engineer built from the dead. A pharaoh with otherworldly powers. A vampire with a grudge. A fleet of cheerful spider drones. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula.

The queer love child of pulp horror and ​classic ​sci-fi, Of Monsters and ​Mainframes ​is a dazzling, heartfelt odyssey that probes what it means to be one of society’s monsters—and explores the many types of friendship that make us human.

I had no idea what to expect from Of Monsters and Mainframes, but having finished it, it’s safe to say this is currently my favorite sci-fi read of 2025!

Demeter is the AI of an older, outmoded spaceship, who wants nothing more than to do her job of delivering her passengers safely to their destination at the end of the universe-crossing voyage.

There’s just one problem: all of her passengers are dead, brutally torn apart by…she’s not sure exactly what, because there’s no way her internal sensors could actually be picking up DRACULA, right?

After a few years in storage following this bloodbath, the “ghost ship” is sent on another voyage to convey passengers back to Earth. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s more murder and mayhem—only this time, it’s a…werewolf?

With everyone aboard save two children dead, Demeter has to fight all of her programming to try and keep these innocents alive and somehow get rid of the werewolf.

And that’s just the beginning of the wild, ludicrous, and absolutely adorable story.

Of Monsters and Mainframes has the same slightly sarcastic, dry humor and self-aware machine sentience that made Murderbot such a fun read, but with the cozy and heartwarming feel of a Becky Chambers novel.

The whole cast of characters—the hyper-neurotic Demeter and her fussy onboard medical AI, Steward; Agnes and Isaac and Frank and even Steve-the-very-much-not-Steve—are a delight, with so much humanity despite many of them being absolutely not humans.

The “monster hunting spaceship” flavor of the story is absolutely absurd and beautifully creative. I loved seeing Demeter and Steward’s desperation to avert disaster and bloodshed with their limited capabilities. It was an incredibly inventive use of science fiction and space travel, and demonstrated an impressive understanding of (fictional) aerospace engineering and astrophysics while still being a light-hearted and fun read.

Fans of Project Hail Mary and The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet will delight in this book as I did. It strikes a wonderful balance between cozy and adventuresome, action-packed and heart-warming, with a whole lot of entertaining AI neuroticism on display.

A hell of a ride, and a hell of a story!

TL;DR Review: Rapunzel meets Man in the Iron Mask. A helpless, naïve prisoner becomes a cunning, revenge-driven queen.

“Vita’s rage overflowed until she was prepared to drown in it, and she knew that she would never again dam this anger to please another.”

After nine years as the people’s beloved princess in the sun-soaked Kingdom of Carca, Vita witnesses the execution of her mother by her father’s hand. Forced into exile, Vita fades into obscurity with her only friends—the crows that visit her window.

Eleven years later, Vita is given a choice: marry an enemy general, granting him legitimacy to take the throne, or die as the forgotten princess. With time running out, Vita meets Soline, an intriguing lady-in-waiting who introduces her to the powerful-but-unstable magic of alchemy.

If Vita and Soline can learn to control it—and the undeniable spark between them—they could burn the world of men to the ground.

Crueler Mercies did something quite fascinating: it took an absolutely naïve, helpless character and transformed her into a cunning and revenge-driven badass.

In the beginning, we’re introduced to a ten-year old Vita, who watches her mother’s execution at her father’s hand and is subsequently banished to live out the rest of her life locked away in a high tower (a la Rapunzel). For a decade or so, she has only birds and the occasional servant for company, with no hope of anything outside her little room.

Until the day the city to which she’s been banished comes under siege and is captured. The enemy general proclaims that he will marry her and she is to be his queen, and together, they will kill her father in revenge for her mother’s death.

Vita, naturally, has no choice but to go along with the scheme. It’s clear from the beginning that her psyche is incredibly stunted—in many ways, she’s the ten-year-old girl who first went into that room.

But as the story weaves on, we see Vita gaining a better understanding of her husband-to-be’s cruelty, the horrors of the world around her, and her own desires—chiefly, a desire for vengeance. Not only against her father, but against everyone who has mistreated her, and the general who seeks to use her with no real care for what she wants or thinks.

Thus begins Vita’s slow efforts to undermine the general, to break his iron grip on her, and, one day she hopes, remove him entirely. In the doing, she may just discover that she is stronger and cleverer than she thinks. Once she learns more about the world around her, she will come into her own and, perhaps, become the queen she was born to be.

I loved seeing the innocent, hapless Vita in the beginning. Her naivete and innocence made the story feel so much darker than I expected. However, from the first chapters, the spark of anger and defiance within her was clear. I had no doubt she could become great—and as her story went on, it was immensely gratifying to see that she did.

Crueler Mercies is a slower-paced, slow-burn story that will keep you absolutely spellbound and burning through pages as you try to figure out what obstacle Vita will next face—and overcome—in her quest for revenge. The ending was so satisfying, the perfect culmination to an incredibly well-written and clever emotional and physical journey.

This book blends Rapunzel and The Man in the Iron Mask vibes and tells a story I love and am absolutely happy to recommend to dark fantasy readers like me.

TL;DR Review: Razor-sharp dialogue, a wildly imaginative alt-history fantasy world, and wonderfully extravagant characters result in what may be Joe Abercrombie’s best work to date.

Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.

Full Review:

A hapless priest and a colorful gang of monsters and mischief-makers are tasked by the Holy Pope (who happens to be an adorable 10-year old child) to travel across Europe to set up a street thief as the Empress of one of the most powerful nations in the world. Sounds like the setup for either a really bizarre joke or a truly spectacular fantasy novel.

The Devils follows along with this nameless crew of misfits and malefactors—which includes a deathless knight, a foppish vampire, the third best necromancer in all of Europe (who will make sure you know it!), a jack-of-all-trades, an amnesiac werewolf, an invisible elf (the pointy-eared kind), and a bureaucratic monk who has no business being out of his rectory—on their journey across war-torn, magic-scarred, and immensely fascinating lands on this holy mission. But a more unholy company has never existed, and the story is all the more fun for it.

As ever, Abercrombie’s characters are truly colorful and extravagant to an extreme. Brother Diaz starts off as precisely the milksop you’d expect, but keep reading and watch him grow a spine in the most intriguing of ways. Balthazar (with too many names to list here) is a bloviating, self-aggrandizing arse who…well, he pretty much stays the same, but finds some humanity along the way. Alex the street thief is on her way to become Empress Alexia (with too many names and titles to list here), and in so doing, discovers the truth of what it truly means to be a leader and ruler. Vigga the werewolf has spent her whole life forgetting her grim past and every bad thing, and is the happiest, friendliest, horniest murderous force of nature you could hope to meet.

Go into this book expecting nothing and prepared for anything. The most unexpected twists and turns, the most shocking surprises and revelations, and you’ll still be blown away.

The balance between grimdarkness and those ever-so-precious-and-rare moments of happiness is spectacular. The characters grow by inches rather than miles, but their evolutions are such a delight to discover as you go along for this wild ride.

In addition to the amazing characters and pacing, the world is just an absolute treat. Imagine a Europe (and the rest of the world) where Carthage conquered the Roman Empire then s*** the bed and destroyed themselves in a magical cataclysm. The subtle (and not-so-subtle) alterations to history lead us to a Europe with two Popes/Patriarchs, two feuding churches, a Holy Land infested with bloodthirsty elves, and so much more. It’s a delight to marinade in this world and discover just how insane it can become when magic and monsters and mythologies are all real.

And, of course, the dialogue and narration are razor-sharp as ever. Every time you switch POVs, the voice shifts and becomes immediately identifiable as belonging to that character, vastly different from the other. You’re treated to a deep dive into each character’s heads, their struggles, hopes, fears, dreams, and particular appetites for blood or necromancy or theft.

The banter is spectacular, the repartees beyond witty, and the brief moments of introspection and growth a marvel to behold.

Abercrombie is at his absolute sharpest in this brilliant, bloody, and batshit alt-history fantasy adventure! It’s an adventure that keeps getting wilder in every possible way and I adored every minute I spent in it.

TL;DR Review: A grimdark fantasy adventure, an indefatigable character, and cleverly woven mysteries that had me spellbound until the last page.

An unlikely assassin struggles to escape a legendary bounty hunter in this breakneck fantasy debut that will grab you by the throat―perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie, R.F. Kuang, and Christopher Buehlman.

She killed for a cause. Will she die for it too?

Anji works as a castle servant, cleaning laundry for a king she hates. So when a rare opportunity presents itself, she seizes the chance to cut his throat. Then she runs for her life. In her wake, the kingdom is thrown into disarray, while a bounty bigger than anyone could imagine lands on her head.

On her heels are the fabled mercenaries of the Menagerie, whose animal-shaped masks are magical relics rumored to give them superhuman powers. It’s the Hawk who finds Anji first: a surly, aging swordswoman who has her own reasons for keeping Anji alive and out of the hands of her fellow bounty hunters, if only long enough to collect the reward herself.

With the rest of the Menagerie on their trail, so begins an alliance as tenuous as it is temporary―and a race against death that will decide Anji’s fate, and may change the course of a kingdom.

Full Review:

It’s safe to say I have never read a book quite like this! I mean, how many fantasy adventure stories can you think of where the protagonist and heroine spends quite nearly the ENTIRE time (like 95%!) shackled and held prisoner?

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Anji Kills a King follows Anji, a palace laundress who has, surprise surprise, killed a king. Really, that’s where it starts with Anji standing over the body of the tyrant king she just finished murdering. Realizing what she’s done—and what’ll be done to her when she’s discovered—she collects what few belongings she has and flees.

She gets, oh, about, three days away before she makes the sort of ridiculous mistakes most first-time fugitives would, which leads to her getting caught by The Hawk, a member of the Menagerie, one of the five most famous bounty hunters in the kingdom.

And thus begins Anji’s lengthy—most of the book, really—incarceration. She’s not only manacled, but she is tethered to The Hawk by magic (called “maxia”) which works like a long leash to keep her from getting more than a few hundred yards away from her captor.

What makes this story so interesting is that though Anji spends most of it as a prisoner, she never stops trying to fight and flee. She has balls of steel, Anji does, with a fiery spirit and sharp tongue to match, so every chance she gets, she’s going to try to take The Hawk down, break free, or find some way to escape.

She’s smart enough to play docile at the right times, and there are plenty of moments when the realization that she’s never going to escape her highly trained professional captor could cause her to crumble. But like strong steel, she always snaps back. She bends but never breaks, and that makes her a character we absolutely love to follow.

From the beginning, we’re introduced to a fascinating mystery: why is The Hawk so insistent on delivering her to justice in person, why has she been missing from the public eye for years, and, most important of all, why is she so willing to kill her own fellow Menagerie members?

Never do we get quick, easy answers to anything—about The Hawk, about Anji’s past, about the darkness flooding the world—but it’s well worth the patience, for when they come…well, it’s safe to say a few of these big reveals saved up for the end had my jaw on the floor.

The world feels wonderfully grimdark, the violence is savage, and bloodshed is always just a breath away (quite literally, at one of my favorite scenes in the entire book). It works perfectly as a standalone and wraps up all the story threads to perfection while still keeping us interested enough in the world and what’s to come that I would not at all be mad if future books were set in this same realm with the same characters (those who survived this story, at least).

All in all, a book I absolutely devoured and a hell of a debut for the author.

TL;DR Review: The cozy flavor of Beatrix Potter’s animal tales, but taken to new prosaic heights of wonder by the addition of magic and color. 

Synopsis:

In Claude Moreau’s Garden, magic blooms between dewdrops and dreams, where scholarly mice debate proper tea service in a library housed within an ancient teapot, and frost spirits dance with morning glories to ring in each dawn. Here, memories can be bottled like preserves, stories sometimes edit themselves when no one is looking, and a particularly opinionated patch of mushrooms insists on providing philosophical commentary about cheese. It’s a place where the most ordinary moments contain extraordinary wonders, and where even the spaces between heartbeats hold their own kind of magic.

In this newly discovered collection of tales, hastily penned to his friend Henri-Jules Favreau and only recently unearthed in a Marseilles safe deposit box, Moreau captures remarkable events in his grandmother’s enchanted garden. From a clockwork assistant discovering how to dream, to young mice learning to weave spider-silk into wings, to the grand autumn performance that drew an audience of dragons and dryads, these stories shine with immediacy and wonder. Together, they offer a glimpse into a world where mechanical songbirds learn to compose their own melodies, where librarians help books find their proper dreams, and where the truest magic lies not in grand gestures but in the gentle art of paying attention to small wonders.

Full Review:

I grew up reading the cozy adventures of Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, and all the other lovely characters that make Beatrix Potter one of the greatest writers of her era. There was always something so heart-warming and kind about her stories.

Now, take that flavor of story, and add in magic—magic where eyeglasses can be made with dewdrops, where clockwork creatures can come to life, and where stories are a force for change, for growth, and for life. Put that together, and you’ve got A Clockwork’s Dreaming!

Scott Oden has found a wonderful sort of magic in these stories, stories about stories and the power they hold. Every minute spent in his little magical garden is like some kind of fairytale dream, filled with talking mice and messenger bluebirds and maples that headline a grand theatrical show for all the creatures of the forest.

There is no “adventure” to these stories because there are no villains, no enemies to defeat. They are simply wonderings and wanderings through the realm of story, of growth, of humanity, and of the everyday magic found all around us. A small, cozy, yet far from simple exploration of what it means to be alive and find wonder in life.

The stories are short but so sweet, each with an excellent message that reflects on the best of humanity through the eyes and ears of the talking animals who make an appearance.

In a world of bloody action and high-stakes drama, it’s a slow, thoughtful pondering on the small things that make for such a great life. Highly worth the read!