Book Description from Goodreads: In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king’s long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner’s motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword’s point—he must be chosen to play […]

First published in 2011, Rachel Neumeier’s young adult fantasy novel The Floating Islands was received with acclaim: it was a Junior Library Guild selection and a Kirkus Best Children’s Book of the Year, chosen for the ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book list, and recommended on the ALA Amelia Bloomer list of feminist literature. Though currently a standalone that completes the two main protagonists’ story arcs, it does leave much of the setting open for further exploration and the author does […]

A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston is a loose retelling of the framing story from One Thousand and One Nights. Although it stands alone, a short sequel titled “The Garden of Three Hundred Flowers” is available as a free ebook on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and a novel taking place generations later named Spindle was released toward the end of 2016. Regardless of A Thousand Nights seeming complete on its own, I do want to read both of these other […]

Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows is the first half of a young adult fantasy duology set in the same world as her Grisha Trilogy (Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising), although I did not find it at all difficult to follow without having read any of the other books. The second half of this story focusing on a ragtag team of rogues, Crooked Kingdom, was recently released, and I have already purchased it—Six of Crows wasn’t quite as wonderful as […]

Book Description: Set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Seven Realms series, a generation later, this is a breathtaking story of dark magic, chilling threats, and two unforgettable characters walking a knife-sharp line between life and death. This dazzling beginning to a new series is indispensable for fans of Cinda Williams Chima and a perfect starting point for readers who are new to her work. Adrian sul’Han, known as Ash, is a trained healer with a powerful […]

I only discovered Patricia McKillip about three years ago. Of course, I’d heard of her long before then—she has won the World Fantasy Award and been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards, after all!—but I hadn’t actually read anything by her even though she’d been on my mental list of “authors to read someday” for quite awhile at that point. She might still be on that list had I not leafed through an ARC of Wonders of the Invisible […]