Book Reviews – Page 36 – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: The Invitation, by Katie Webster

·        Publisher : The Conrad Press (31 July 2020)
·        Language: : English
·        Paperback : 272 pages
·        ISBN-10 : 1913567273
·        ISBN-13 : 978-1913567279

**Amazon:**
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invitation-Lucys-Crypt-Katie-Webster/dp/19135672731

BLURB

On the island kingdom of Meta Emery, a young queen, Abigail, wakes in the middle of the night to a terrifying realisation; hostile wizards from the rival kingdom of Archmond have finally done what they’ve been threatening to do: bring a girl, Lucy, into this world to destroy the queen and all she has worked for.

Hundreds of miles west, in Archmond itself, a great feast unfolds in the castle to celebrate Lucy’s arrival. Soleman, one of the wizards and a co-ruler of Archmond, has spread the news to his people that Lucy is the heroine an ancient prophecy predicted; he promises that the discord throughout their world will soon be over. But his fellow ruler Ronald remains dubious that this apparently meek and troubled girl could really overthrow Abigail, or whether she is ever likely to want to.

This highly imaginative and original novel is the first in an exciting new fantasy series, ‘Lucy’s Crypt’.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie Webster is an Australian lawyer, born in Queensland’s Daintree Rainforest. She has worked in both criminal and international law. She has published academically, but this is her debut novel.

Review: Circles of Deceit, by Paul CW Beatty

Circles of Deceit

Murder, conspiracy, radicalism, poverty, riot, violence, capitalism, technology: everything is up for grabs in the early part of Victoria’s reign.

Radical politicians, constitutional activists and trade unionists are being professionally assassinated. When Josiah Ainscough of the Stockport Police thwarts an attempt on the life of the Chartist leader, Feargus O’Connor, he receives public praise, but earns the enmity of the assassin, who vows to kill him.

‘Circles of Deceit’, the second of Paul CW Beatty’s Constable Josiah Ainscough’s historical murder mysteries, gives a superb and electric picture of what it was to live in 1840s England. The novel is set in one of the most turbulent political periods in British history, 1842-1843, when liberties and constitutional change were at the top of the political agenda, pursued using methods fair or foul.

Purchase Links

Review: Networking For Writers, by Lizzie Chantree

Networking for Writers

Are you swamped with book marketing and looking for a way to find new sales? Learn simple and effective networking techniques, to grow your readership and connect with other authors and book lovers, today!

Whether you are a new or experienced writer, self-published or traditionally published, this book will show you how to grow your readership and author network, through some of the most powerful of all marketing tools – word of mouth and recommendation.

This book will show you:

How networking can help you sell more books.

Why author branding is important.

How networking hours work.

Specific Facebook groups for writers

How to utilise social media to grow your readership.

How not to waste valuable writing time.

How to make our marketing more effective.

Throughout Networking for Writers, we will explore running or attending book signings, hosting seminars, finding a writing buddy or mentor, author networking groups, social media planning and so much more.

Purchase Link – viewbook.at/NetworkingForWriters

TBR Pile Review: The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo

49882356. sy475 — Paperback, 128 pages
Published March 24th 2020 by Tor.com
ISBN:125075030X (ISBN13: 9781250750303)
Series: The Singing Hills Cycle #1

With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama, Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women.

A young royal from the far north, is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor’s lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She’s a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

TBR Review: A Fatal Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum: Murder In Ancient Rome, by Emma Southon

51630983. sy475 — Hardcover, 320 pages
Published September 17th 2020 by
Oneworld Publications
ISBN:1786078376 (ISBN13: 9781786078377)

In Ancient Rome all the best stories have one thing in common – murder. Romulus killed Remus to found the city; Caesar was assassinated to save the Republic. Caligula was butchered in the theatre, Claudius was poisoned at dinner and Galba was beheaded in the forum. In one fifty-year period, twenty-six emperors were murdered.

But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? Emma Southon examines real-life homicides from Roman history to explore how perpetrator, victim and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside Ancient Rome’s unique culture of crime and punishment, we see how the Romans viewed life, death, and what it means to be human.

Audiobook Review: The Lost Sentinel, by Suzanne Rogerson

The Lost Sentinel Book 1 – Silent Sea Chronicles

The magical island of Kalaya is dying, along with its Sentinel.

The Assembly controls Kalaya. Originally set up to govern, they now persecute those with magic and exile them to the Turrak Mountains.

Tei, a tailor’s daughter, has always hidden her magic, but when her father’s old friend visits and warns them to flee to the mountains, she must leave her old life behind. On the journey, an attack leaves her father mortally wounded. He entrusts her into the care of the exiles and on his deathbed makes a shocking confession.

Struggling with self-doubt, Tei joins the exiles search for their new Sentinel who is the only person capable of restoring the fading magic. But mysterious Masked Riders are hunting the Sentinel too, and time, as well as hope, is running out.

Against mounting odds it will take friendship, heartache, and sacrifice for the exiles to succeed, but is Tei willing to risk everything to save the island magic?

If you like character-based fantasy, then you’ll love The Lost Sentinel – book one in the Silent Sea Chronicles trilogy.

Purchase Links

Audible

Amazon Audiobook

TBR Pile Review: The Story of Silence, by Alex Myers

51051711 — Hardcover, 400 pages
Published July 9th 2020 by Harper Voyager
ISBN:0008352682 (ISBN13: 9780008352684)

I have this edition, gifted by Harper Voyager in a Twitter giveaway to Queer people. It’s very pink,

A knightly fairy tale of royalty and dragons, of midwives with secrets and dashing strangers in dark inns. Taking the original French legend as his starting point, The Story of Silence is a rich, multilayered new story for today’s world – sure to delight fans of Uprooted and The Bear and the Nightingale.

There was once, long ago, a foolish king who decreed that women should not, and would not, inherit. Thus when a girl-child was born to Lord Cador – Merlin-enchanted fighter of dragons and Earl of Cornwall – he secreted her away: to be raised a boy so that the family land and honour would remain intact.

That child’s name was Silence.

Silence must find their own place in a medieval world that is determined to place the many restrictions of gender and class upon them. With dreams of knighthood and a lonely heart to answer, Silence sets out to define themselves.

Soon their silence will be ended.

What follows is a tale of knights and dragons, of bards, legends and dashing strangers with hidden secrets. Taking the original French legend as his starting point, The Story of Silence is a rich, multilayered new story for today’s world – sure to delight fans of Uprooted and The Bear and the Nightingale.

54661725 — I also have this edition! I completely forgot that it was a Goldsboro Books SFF Fellowship book until both arrived!

Review: Winterkill, by Ragnar Jonasson

Pub date: 21 January 2021
ISBN 13: 978-1-913193-44-7
EPUB: 978-1-913193-45-4
Price: £8.99

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjörður, the northernmost town in Iceland, as crowds of tourists arrive to visit the majestic ski slopes.
Ari Thór Arason is now a police inspector, but he’s separated from his
girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air.
Three days before Easter, a nineteen-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident, and when an old man in a local nursing home writes ‘She was murdered’ again and again on the wall of his room, there is every suggestion that something more sinister lies at the heart of her death…
As the extreme weather closes in, cutting the power and access to Siglufjörður, Ari Thór must piece together the puzzle to reveal a horrible
truth … one that will leave no one unscathed.

Chilling, claustrophobic and disturbing, Winterkill marks the startling conclusion to the million-copy bestselling Dark Iceland series and cements Ragnar Jónasson as one of the most exciting authors in crime fiction.

First Review of 2021: Queer: A Graphic History, by Meg-John Barker, Illustrated by Julia Sheele

28957268 — Paperback, 176 pages
Published November 15th 2016 by Icon Books
ISBN:1785780719 (ISBN13: 9781785780714)

Blurb

Activist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Julia Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel.

From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged.

Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of what’s ‘normal’ – Alfred Kinsey’s view of sexuality as a spectrum, Judith Butler’s view of gendered behaviour as a performance, the play Wicked, or moments in Casino Royale when we’re invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media.

Presented in a brilliantly engaging and witty style, this is a unique portrait of the universe of queer thinking.

My Review

Happy New Year. Let’s hope 2021 is better than 2020.

I treat myself to this book because I had the spare cash and it has been on my wish list for a while. It arrived this morning and I’ve spent a few hours today reading it. I rather enjoyed it. This book is an illustrated introduction to Queer Theory and its history from about the early twentieth century. Introduction is the key word here, if you know something of the subject already it would probably seem simplistic, but for those of us with a bit of amorphous knowledge but nothing specific, things we’ve seen online but haven’t entirely understood, this book is excellent. The emphasis on questioning binaries (man/woman, homosexual/heterosexual), the fixed nature of gender, sex and sexuality, the cultural context of same, was fascinating, and ties in with thoughts I’d already had.

I must recommend this book to people interested in the subject but without the formal academic background usually needed to understand this sort of thing.

TBR Pile: The Book of Dragons, ed. by Jonathan Strahan

52583994. sx318 sy475 — Hardcover, First UK Edition, 558 pages
Published June 25th 2020 by HarperVoyager UK
ISBN: 0008331472 (ISBN13: 9780008331474) https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008331474/the-book-of-dragons/

A unique collection of stories by the greatest fantasy writers working today.

Sparking myths and legends from Asia to Europe, Africa to North America, dragons are the most universal and awe-inspiring of magical creatures.

Whether they are fearsome, rampaging monsters or benevolent sages with much to teach humanity, dragons bring creation, destruction, and adventure in stories told all around the globe.

In this landmark collection, award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan combines nearly thirty never-before-seen short stories and poems, written by modern masters of science fiction and fantasy, and illustrations by acclaimed artist Rovina Cai.

Featuring stories from Scott Lynch, R.F. Kuang, Garth Nix, Ken Liu, Kate Elliott, and many more, The Book of Dragons breathes fresh life and fire into the greatest magical beasts of all.

Content:
– Introduction by Jonathan Strahan
– What Heroism Tells Us poem by Jane Yolen
– Matriculation by Elle Katharine White
– Hikaya Sri Bujang, or The Tale of the Naga Sage by Zen Cho
– Yuli by Daniel Abraham
– A Whisper of Blue by Ken Liu
– Nidhog poem by Jo Walton
– Where the River Turns to Concrete by Brooke Bolander
– Habitat by K.J. Parker
– Pox by Ellen Klages
– The Nine Curves River by R.F. Kuang
– Lucky’s Dragon by Kelly Barnhill
– I Make Myself a Dragon poem by Beth Cato
– The Exile by JY Yang
– Except on Saturdays by Peter S. Beagle
– La Vitesse by Kelly Robson
– A Final Knight to her Love and Foe poem by Amal El-Mohtar
– The Long Walk by Kate Elliott
– Cut Me Another Quill, Mister Fitz by Garth Nix
– Hoard by Seanan McGuire
– The Worm of Lirr poem by C. S. E. Cooney
– The Last Hunt by Aliette de Bodard
– We Continue by Ann Leckie and Rachel Swirsky
– Small Bird’s Plea by Todd McCaffrey
– The Dragons poem by Theodora Goss
– Dragon Slayer by Michael Swanwick
– Camouflage by Patricia A. McKillip
– We Don’t Talk About the Dragon by Sarah Gailey
– Maybe Just Go Up There and Talk to It by Scott Lynch
– A Nice Cuppa poem by Jane Yolen