As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Note: Since I hope that this series will be discovered by more readers who will also appreciate it, I did my best to keep this review spoiler-free for all three books in the series. The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng concludes K. S. Villoso’s Chronicles of the Bitch Queen trilogy (sometimes called Chronicles of the Wolf Queen). It’s a stunning finale, simultaneously gripping with its many twists and turns and thoughtful in continuing […]

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Although the bulk of my reading is speculative fiction because of its myriad worlds and endless possibilities, I primarily read for characters. In particular, I appreciate stories with characters so vividly multifaceted that I have complicated, difficult-to-articulate feelings about them—when I don’t simply love or hate them, when the way I think about them changes from moment to moment, when I’m left uncertain precisely what to think of them because they […]

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound like they may be interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration (the latter of which are mainly unsolicited books from publishers). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, […]

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. “They called me the Bitch Queen, the she-wolf, because I murdered a man and exiled my king the night before they crowned me.” Thus opens The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, the first installment in K. S. Villoso’s Chronicles of the Bitch Queen trilogy. Both this and the second book in this series, set in an epic fantasy world whose “worldbuilding is a love letter to the Philippines,” were originally self published, and […]

Today’s guest is K.S. Villoso, author of The Agartes Epilogues series and Blackwood Marauders. The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, the first novel in her epic fantasy trilogy Chronicles of the Bitch Queen, was recently republished by Orbit Books with the next two books in the series following soon—The Ikessar Falcon in September and the new conclusion next year. I’m excited for the rest of this series since The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is exactly the type of book I love to read: a character-driven story with a […]

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I discuss books I got over the last week—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration (most of which are unsolicited books from publishers). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the […]