Books can change lives. Magic books can change everything.
In a tiny, miserable farm on the edge of the tiny, miserable village of East Grasby, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her equally tiny and miserable existence. Dividing her time between enduring her feckless husband, inadequately caring for the farm’s strange collection of animals, cooking up ‘scrunge’, and crooning over her treasured pot of basil, Isabella can’t help but think that there might be something more to life. So, while she’s initially aghast when Mr. Nagg comes home with a spell book purloined from the local wizard, she soon starts to think: what harm could a little magic do?
As Isabella embarks on a journey of self-discovery with a grouchy cat-like companion, Darkshire’s imagination runs wild, plunging readers into a delightfully deranged world full of enchantment, folklore, and an entrepreneurial villain running a magical Ponzi scheme.
My Review
I found out about this book on Saturday from the Hodderscape Instagram feed and ordered it straight away from the local Waterstones. I picked it up after I went to The Festival of the Sea, got home, and read it in a single sitting.
I was promised Pratchettian humour.
There were footnotes. The footnotes were funny. There was a lot of folklore drawn on as well as invented. Which does smell of Discworld, but doesn’t quite scratch the itch. I did not get my Pratchettian story.
The story is of Isabella Nagg realising she doesn’t have to be a farmer’s wife after reading a magic book (stolen from the local wizard by her useless husband), fighting goblins and grifters, and dealing with past events as they come home to roost. There is a mysteriously disappearing wizard and a mysteriously appearing pony, a talking donkey, a grifter looking to set up a ‘new goblin market’ and the eponymous pot of basil.
It was quite, quite silly and I enjoyed the story immensely, even if it did at first feel contrived. Once I got into it, I could see the charm in this cosy fantasy. The social commentary and observations of life in small rural villages was pointed and entertaining, while the criticisms of unequal marriages was sharp.
Release Date 2023-07-11 Formats: Ebook, Paperback EBook ISBN 11th July 2023 | 9781915202529 | epub & mobi | £4.99/$6.99/$7.99 Paperback ISBN 11th July 2023 | 9781915202192 | Paperback
Book I of The Nightingale and the Falcon
1260, Persia:
Due to the efforts of the great Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire covers a vast portion of the known world. In the shadow of his grandfather, Hulagu Khan, ruler of the Ilkhanate, is determined to create a single empire that covers the entire world. His method? Violence.
His youngest son, Temujin Khan, struggles to find his place in his father’s bloody rule. After another failure, Temujin is given one last chance to prove himself to Hulagu, who is sure there is a great warrior buried deep inside. But there’s something else rippling under the surface… something far more powerful and dangerous than they could ever imagine…
Reduced to the position of one of Hulagu’s many wives, the famed Blue Princess Kokochin is the last of her tribe. Alone and forgotten in a foreign land, Kokochin is unwilling to spend her days seeking out trivial pursuits. Seeking purpose, she finds herself wandering down a path that grants her more power than a wife of the Khan may be allowed.
Kaivon, the Persian rebel who despises the Mongols for the massacre of his people, thirsts for revenge. However, he knows alone he cannot destroy the empire. When given the opportunity to train under the tutelage of Hulagu, Kaivon must put aside his feelings and risk his life for a chance to destroy the empire that aims to conquer the world.
Family and war collide in this thrilling and bloody reimagining of the Mongol Empire’s invasion of Persia.
Stephen Aryan is the author of The Coward and The Warrior (the Quest for Heroes Duology), as well as the Age of Darkness and Age of Dread trilogies. His first novel, Battlemage, was a finalist for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for best debut fantasy novel. It also won the inaugural Hellfest Inferno Award in France. He has previously written a comic book column and reviews for Tor.com. In addition, he has self-published and kickstarted his own comics.
You can find out more about Stephen and his books on his website: Stephen-Aryan.com
Format: 136 pages, Paperback Published: February 8, 2025 by Organic Apocalypse ISBN: 9781911278436
Humans designed artificial intelligences, but the AIs no longer need us. They are gods, and can create – or even recreate – themselves.
The two most advanced AIs in the universe need to rescue a friend from the clutches of their powerful enemies. Their method is to create millions of restricted, cut-down versions of themselves, to fulfil specific tasks such as generating ideas. The offshoots can be deleted once they’ve fulfilled their role.
No one gives a second’s thought to software. It’s just a tool.
Now it’s time to see inside the process.
Lost Tales of Solace are short side-stories set in the Lost Solace universe.
A cosy cheese-scented mystery with delightful characters, a dash of murder and tons of intrigue, perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club and The Maid.
Cheese-obsessed Bird Nichols has just inherited her grandmother’s estate in a quiet, quirky Californian town. But when a body is found on her property, her life begins to get rather loud…
Bird Nichols is ready to make a fresh start in a familiar place. Last year, her parents died together in a car crash and her beloved grandmother is presumed dead from an ocean drowning. Bird is now moving onto her grandmother’s California coastal property, and finally living out her dream. Bird loves cheese like nothing else. It’s her autistic special interest, and she designs her boards along her sensory needs, and other people love them, too.
But just when everything seems to be going right, the local troublemaker ends up dead on her rural road.
Grizz, the closest thing Bird has to family, is the sheriff department’s favourite suspect, but she is determined to prove Grizz’s innocence. So now, Bird needs to unpack her possessions, assemble her pretty cheese boards, and find the true murderer before they strike again.
FICTION / Fantasy / Epic Format: Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78758-911-7 Pages: 272 pp Series: Tales from the Riven Isles FLAME TREE PRESS
The Hatter’s Daughter is the third book set in W.A. Simpson’s Riven Isles universe.
There is more to the Vine than mortals and immortals know. It reaches its branches and tendrils into realms beyond the Riven Isles. On the night Faith was born, her mother perished, but not before sending Faith to safety, in Underneath. Discovered by The Mad Hatter, he takes Faith home to raise as his own. When the Rot invades, Faith determines to fight. She won’t do it alone. Her childhood friend, Prince Rowan accompanies her. Faith must return to her birthplace to find a Legendary Heroine. But Overland is dangerous, and the minions of the Rot are in pursuit. If she doesn’t succeed, the minions of the Rot will destroy everything they know.
Tales from the Riven Isles is a dark fantasy series set in a world outside of our own, where the characters of myth and fairy-tales exist, and their legends live on. Featuring the novels: ‘Tinderbox’, ‘Tarotmancer’, and ‘The Hatter’s Daughter’.
Release Date 2025-01-28 Formats Ebook, Paperback EBook ISBN 28th January 2025 | 9781915202956 | epub | £5.99/$9.99/$11.99 Paperback ISBN 28th January 2025 | 9781915202949 | Paperback | £9.99/$18.99/$24.99
When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND.
As they try to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone is… up.
And so begins a race to the top with the group fighting to hold on to its humanity, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares. Can they each overcome their differences and learn to work together or does the winner take all? What does the tower want of them and what is the price to escape?
PUBLICATION DATE: 10th APRIL 2025 PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £ 9. 99 | ORENDA BOOKS
LIVING FOREVER CAN BE LETHAL…
Ruth is a law-abiding elder, working out her national service, but she has secrets. Her tireless research into the disease that killed her young daughter had an unexpected outcome: the discovery of a vaccine against old age. Just one jab a year reverses your biological clock, guaranteeing a long, healthy life.
But Ruth’s cure was hijacked by her colleague, Erik Grundleger, who hungers for immortality, and the SuperJuve – a premium upgrade – was created, driving human lifespan to a new high. The wealthy elite who take it are dubbed Supers, and the population begins to skyrocket.
Then, a perilous side-effect of the SuperJuve emerges, with catastrophic consequences, and as the planet is threatened, the population rebels, and laws are passed to restore order: life ends at 120. Supers are tracked down by Omnicide investigators like Mara … and executed…
Mara has her own reasons for hunting Supers, and she forms an unlikely alliance with Ruth to find Grundleger. But Grundleger has been working on something even more radical and is one step ahead, with a deadly surprise in store for them both…
‘A bloodcap, an angelus and a Jack Russell terrier. They’re all I had by me to face mortal combat with the Queen of the Ælves. I’d be dead in minutes…’
The historic streets of Edinburgh hide a parallel realm of shadowy killers, vicious ælves and deranged shades. All that stands between them and the unsuspecting populace are a daemon called Archer and the group of angelii he’s feuding with.
Drew Macleod is caught in the middle. Someone, somewhere is hunting him. But why? Delving deeper into this parallel realm, Drew finds allies in a feisty herbalist, an ancient creature in disguise and an old clock-maker – but are any of them really who they seem to be?
Touchpaper takes us on an exciting journey in the footsteps of Neverwhere and Rivers of London. This original and imaginative story lets a quirky cast of characters lead us into a hidden and dangerous world. The contemporary setting and the richness of the characters holds our attention in a fast-paced and at times humorous read, full of plot twists and quirky details.
Format: 123 pages, Paperback Published: November 24, 2022 by Gollancz ISBN: 9781399607797
Winner of the 1973 Hugo award for Best Novella, and nominated for many others, The Word for World is Forest is part of Le Guin’s ‘Hainish Cycle’. It explores a future history of Earth and pacifistic ideals in its depictions of violence, colonialism and resistance.
A world of peaceful aliens conquered by bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters.
Desperation causes the Athsheans to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. In defending their lives, they endanger the very foundations of their society. Every blow against the invaders is a blow to the core of Athsheans’ culture.
And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.
My Review
This novella has been on my TBR pile for a while; my sleep pattern has been messed up by doing too much last week, so I slept most of yesterday, and as such I was awake half the night. Since I needed to keep myself entertained, I picked a book off my TBR pile. I read all 113 pages in one go, after reading the 2022 introduction by the series editor, and the author’s 1976 introduction. I found them both helpful in my reading of the novella, to understand the context. When LeGuin wrote this story, the U.S. was fighting an unjust war in Vietnam. She admits to being preachy in writing the story and not being subtle about her anger. LeGuin writes in her 1976 introduction that she tried to make the characters complex, except Davidson, who is a caricature of the evil invader. I think it’s important to remember the context and author’s own thoughts about the work when reading it.
This novella is part of the Hainish series. The context of the Hainish universe, with multiple humanoid species in the wider story-universe. The humans are part of a League with these other civilisations, but on the planet, Athshe, they are 27 light years from Earth and have only old orders to follow. On the planet, there is a humanoid species, the Athsheans, who are smaller, and furred. The Athsheans have a complex society and live partly in world-time and dream-time, with a multiphasic sleep pattern.
The humans are soldiers and loggers. They’re destroying the forest, which kills the land, as the continuous rain washes the soil away without the tree roots to hold it in place. After one of the soldiers, Davidson, rapes and murders one of the Athsheans, he’s attacked by her husband. Later, the husband leads an attack on the logging camp that Davidson runs, killing all of the humans and freeing the Athsheans. This man becomes a god among the Athsheans, the first to commit murder.
What follows is a war as the Athsheans demand promises from the humans that they’ll free the Athshean slaves, stay in their already deforested area, and stop destroying the forest. Davidson, a paranoid soldier, continues his war on the Athsheans, resulting in retaliatory attacks on the main human settlement and one of the logging camps.
It’s a short, punchy story, told from the perspective of multiple characters in eight chapters. I found it thought-provoking and painful to read at times. It’s probably not the book you should start with when reading LeGuin. You need more of the context of the Hainish series.
Format: 508 pages, Paperback Published: July 12, 2022 by Angry Robot ISBN: 9780857669827
Inar is Master Builder for the Kingdom of Mishig-Tenh. Life is hard after the Kingdom lost the war against the League of Free Cities. Doubly so since his father betrayed the King and paid the ultimate price. And now the King’s terrifying chancellor and torturer in chief has arrived and instructed Inar to go and work for the League. And to spy for him. And any builder knows you don’t put yourself between a rock and a hard place.
Far away Anton, Blade Priest for Craithe, the God Mountain, is about to be caught up in a vicious internal war that will tear his religion apart. Chosen from infancy to conduct human sacrifice, he is secretly relieved that the practice has been abruptly stopped. But an ancient enemy has returned, an occult conspiracy is unfolding, and he will struggle to keep his hands clean in a world engulfed by bloodshed.
In a series of constantly surprising twists and turns that take the reader through a vividly imagined and original world full of familiar tensions and surprising perspectives on old tropes, Inar and Anton find that others in their story may have more influence on their lives, on the future of the League and on their whole world than they, or the reader imagined.
My Review
I picked up this book at FantasyCon last year, although more precisely the author gave me a copy after the final panel about the essentials an adventurer needs and I asked why no one ever took a map and compass? I think it’s being raised by a former Scout, and being a Guide myself from a young age, I just naturally just consider maps, compasses and spare change for a phone, as essentials for adventuring off the beaten track. These days of course, finding a pay phone is hard, so you should take your phone charger and a spare battery pack in your bag. If you can get a signal, you can get help!
Okay, so back to the book.
Our first main character is Inar, a master builder from the recently conquered kingdom of Mishig-Tenh. The League want him to help them find a way into the Hidden Kingdom. And they won’t take no for an answer. Since his father and brother were executed as traitors, and Inar will go the same way if he doesn’t spy for the remaining leaders of the kingdom, he agrees. He has to lead a team of explorers through the mountains to meet representatives from the Mountain God. Things go very wrong, and secrets are revealed that probably should have been kept hidden, including a girl, called Duna, who can bring down mountains.
Our second main character is Anton, one of the last Blade Priests, vertzan of the God Mountain, Craithe. At nineteen, Anton has only one friend in the monastery-fortress, his sister-priestess, Elecy. They have been trained from a young age to perform the human sacrifices required by the demi-gods on the Mountain, until the demi-gods (giant vultures, called Guardians) decided that they don’t want human sacrifice anymore. This has caused a rift in the faith, between the traditionalists and the progressives. Anton is chosen to be the successor to the altzan-al (high priest/pope?) until he’s set up for the murder of the altzan-al. Rescued by Elecy and a young scout, he sets out to find allies in the outside world, while Elecy stays behind to keep an eye on the new regime.
There’s a war and invasions, gods die. Things explode. Duna gets high and goes a little bit battle-mad. At the end, the world has changed for everyone involved, while Duna and Elecy meet up and head out into the world, probably causing mayhem in the future. I can’t wait to read the second book, which isn’t out for another year.
Mad elves, high on mushrooms, kidnap the main characters and their parties. It’s a unique idea – elves are humans who take a mushroom that makes them feel immortal, and not feel pain as their ears and face are cut. I
One of the people in the League party is a surveyor, and Inar is amazed by the idea of accurate surveys. I love the idea of introducing new ideas into a world and seeing how they play out with the different cultures. Inar doesn’t understand why they were traveling so slowly, although a reader would when the mentions of notes and poles, sighting on mountains, that sort of thing.
The League is obviously an empire in waiting, despite the rhetoric of freedom, logic and science. Some of the characters from the League have good intentions, but some are very obviously looking to build a legacy. The church of the God Mountain have, or had, an empire and are shrinking, while some factions are looking to accept the change of status, others want to rebuild it. They are mirrors of each other.
I enjoyed the twist at the end, as Anton realises the Guardian’s prophecy is not about him. He’s a bit slow on the uptake; an attentive reader would have picked that up fairly quickly.
The book is chunky at 508 pages, but the story flies along; the world is complex, the characters are fascinating, and the plot kept me engaged.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 