Tag Archives: fantasy

Audiobook review: Godkiller by Michele Kaner

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Godkiller was not for me. I read it as part of my guild’s book club for the Orilium Magical Readathon (go House of the Arcane! 💜) and if it wasn’t for the readathon I would’ve DNFed. The book has a lot of fire and fire injuries. It came close to being too much for this burn survivor. I did love the disabled rep, but since I have an amputee parent, that aspect struck close to home, too. This could have enhanced my connection to the characters, but I felt like there wasn’t much to connect to. It was rather boring. The romance and sex scene are way out of character. My favorite character was Skediketh, the little flying jackalope god of white lies. The narrator constantly sounded like she was catching her breath, making me feel anxious when I wasn’t supposed to. She also whispered all the god voices. There were several people in my guild who agreed with me, but others loved the book, so your mileage may vary.

Audiobook review: House of Earth and Blood

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House of Earth and Blood is the first book in Sarah J. Maas‘s Crescent City series. It starts off slow with heavy world building and is so dense with characters I felt like I needed a chart to keep them all straight. Thankfully it picks up about a third of the way through the book once the major world building is out of the way. I loved that the primary focus is on a detective story with plenty of twists and turns. The romance takes a backseat and is allowed to grow naturally. In fact, there’s only one smut scene and the word “erection” only pops up once, 98% of the way through the book. There are engaging action sequences, the dog-like creature does not die, and there is plenty of snark. On the other hand, this is obviously a cisheteronormative world. This is emphasized by constant use of the terms male and female to the exclusion of more natural synonyms like man and woman. There is momentary queerbaiting between the main character, Bryce, and her best friend, Danica. (I loved Danica so much!) There’s also a very brief throwaway mention of a minor character being gay. And that’s it. As a nonbinary, pan- and greysexual person, it grated on me. So even though this book made me cry twice (LIGHT IT UP! —IYKYK), it gets only 4 stars. I will be continuing with the next book in the series.

This was a buddy read with the lovely Jadzeea . I also read it for the lore quest in the Orilium Magical Readathon.

Audiobook Review: Cursed Cocktails

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If you enjoyed Legends and Lattes but prefer a good cocktail to fancy coffee, Cursed Cocktails is for you! This cozy fantasy explores what happens when a blood mage retires to open a cocktail bar. It includes several delicious sounding drink recipes (and you can download a PDF that translates the magical ingredients to ones available in this realm) and slow burn, friends to lovers gay romance. Not exciting, but hey, that’s the point of the cozy genre. A solid three stars.

Audiobook review: The Faerie Games by Michelle Madow

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The Faerie Games by Michelle Madow is a fun romantasy romp where romance takes a backseat to the main characters’ participation in the titular games. This is a good thing as, if you’re like me, you’ll roll your eyes every time the “I’m obviously destined to love you but I’m trying to hate you” trope comes up. It’s also a really fast read. I may continue the series because the games aspect is fun. But prospective readers should be aware it looks like the games will take up the entire series.

I read this for the Orilium Magical Readathon for the Art of Illusion prompt, which was a book with the word “play” or “game” in the title.

Audiobook review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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I didn’t like the narrator for this audiobook, but Suzanne Collins’ writing pulled me through. This book is a worthy addition to the Hunger Games series and does a great job showing how Coriolanus Snow ends up the way he does in later books. It also provides plenty of food for thought. I did think the main “villain” was a bit of a cardboard cutout and there were several times I wanted to yell at the characters for being dumb. All the same, Collins’ writing is strong enough I enjoyed the ride anyway. If you’re a fan of the Hunger Games, do read this book.

This was the first book I read this month for the Orilium Magical Readathon! I read it for the Alchemy class prompt which was “has a circle on the cover”.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please check out this video by Orilium creator BookRoast:

Audiobook Review: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

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The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson is a solid middle book in the Mistborn trilogy. It manages to still have some plot twists and turns and moves faster than book one because most of the world building is out of the way. I like the way Vin and the reader are led to believe one course of action is the moral thing to do only to find out it’s the absolute worst option. I’ll be reading book 3, but not until the Orilium Magical Readathon is over!

Audiobook review: The Fire Dragon by Katharine Kerr

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One of my least favorite books in my favorite series of all time, the Deverry saga. Whenever I read this one I’m always tempted to skip the sections set in the past. Thankfully narrator #ruthurquhart made listening to those parts less of a slog. I’m looking forward to the next book!

Book review: House of Crimson Hearts by Ruby Roe

⚠️DNF⚠️

House of Crimson Hearts was a book club pick for Amivireads’ Lavenders and Daggers Book Club. Unfortunately, it was so poorly written that I had to DNF. I tried just reading for the smut and that didn’t work for me either, the writing was that badly in need of an editor. Hopefully next time the book club will select a better book that’s available on audio.

I share my DNFs with you because I would want to know if someone with similar taste DNFed a book I was considering. I would love to see DNF stats for books on Goodreads and StoryGraph. DNFs happen.