Magic Binds is the ninth—and penultimate—novel in the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. It’s been one of my favorite ongoing series since reading the phenomenal third and fourth volumes, and I was particularly impressed by how the author(s) balanced plot and action with character development and relationships. The world mythology and the mystery and revelations surrounding Kate’s power and family were also quite well done. However, I’ve been disappointed in the series since book seven, and this trend continues […]

Charlie Jane Anders has written several science fiction and fantasy short stories plus a Lamda Literary Award-winning novel (The Choir Boy), but All the Birds in the Sky is her first speculative fiction novel. It’s a quirky, thoroughly absorbing story, and although I thought the first part was stronger than the second, I found it quite readable throughout—in fact, when I looked through it again to prepare for writing this review, I found myself rereading much of it because it drew me […]

Andre Norton’s Forerunner, first published in 1981, is not her first book set in this universe, but it is the first of two books following the character Simsa. Although Forerunner was re-released a few years ago, Forerunner: The Second Venture was not, but both of Simsa’s stories can be found together in the omnibus The Forerunner Factor. The old city Kuxortal contained a variety of peoples, but Simsa never met another like herself. She does not know where she came from, and for as long […]

It’s astonishing to recall that N. K. Jemisin’s impressive debut novel The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was released a mere six years ago since it’s difficult to imagine a time when she wasn’t one of my favorite authors. In the last few years, she’s published six more novels—the rest of the Inheritance trilogy, the Dreamblood duology, and now, the first two books in The Broken Earth trilogy—and has proven to be one of the more consistently excellent writers I’ve read. Three of her novels (The Hundred Thousand […]

Book Description: Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you’re only seventeen? Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of death and destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the […]

Book Description: A magical tale from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Iron Kissed. Riding into a war that’s heating up on the border, Ward, the new lord of Hurog, is sure he’s on the fast track to glory. But soon his mission takes a deadly turn. For he has seen a pile of magical dragon bones hidden deep beneath Hurog Keep. The bones could prove to be dangerous in the wrong hands, and Ward is certain his […]