My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel is a story of interconnecting lives, and a ponzi scheme.  The story moves around in time, and from different points of view.

This sounds complicated, but it’s written well, with clear call backs, and distinct and interesting chacters!  I enjoyed the story, and the way the story unfolds.  This is a very light fantasy book, so if you’re not a fantasy fan, please don’t be put off this book!

The Glass Hotel was published on 6th August 2020, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Emily St. John Mandel on Twitter and her website.  You might recognise her name from Station Eleven, which was a book, and has been made into a tv series!

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Pan Macmillan.

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

Bad Gods by Gaie Sebold is about Babylon Steel, the madame of the Red Lantern in Scalentine, the city of portals, where you can find anything.  Babylon has been a mercenary, and a priestess, and some of the things that she did in the past are starting to catch up to her.

This is a fun fantasy book, which made me think of Robert Asprin’s series Myth Adventures , with Babylon investigating some crimes, and a variety of characters, creatures and religions.  I found the portals a fun idea, and one that was used well.

Bad Gods was published on 4th January 2022, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Gaie Sebold on twitter, and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Rebellion publishing.

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Curse That Binds Us by Katie Hayoz tells the story of Redd, who has a mysterious box that appears every year on her birthday, which her mother refuses to allow her to open!  But this year, she’s going to open it, and starts a chain of events!

John lives in a village that is both lovely and has a dark secret.  He’s sent to find Redd.

Eleanor leaves England in 1587, pregnant, and ready to become a settler, but there are a number of horrible decisions that she has to make along the way.

These three stories go along together, with flashbacks to Eleanor making the current events make more sense.

This was the first in a series, and so sets up a number of questions that I’m sure will be answered in later books.  It was entertaining, with darkness that becomes more apparent the further on in the book you go.

The Curse That Binds Us was published on 15th December 2021, and is available from Amazon and Waterstones.

You can follow Katie Hayoz on Facebook, Instagram and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to BooksGoSocial.

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman (The Invisible Library 8) is the end of the series, and does tie things all up.  I really enjoyed the story, and have enjoyed all of the books.  

Irene, Kai, Vale and other characters that we’ve met along the way appear in this book.  This series is about librarians who can travel into different worlds in search of books.  I think you can see why I enjoyed it!

This series has been really consistently good, and a wonderful exploration of different worlds.

The Untold Story was published December 2021, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Genevieve Cogman on Twitter, Facebook and her website.

My reviews for the other books in the series are below:

The Invisible Library (book 1)

The Masked City (book 2)

The Burning Page (book 3)

The Lost Plot (book 4)

The Mortal World (book 5)

The Secret Chapter (book 6)

The Dark Archive (book 7)

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan.

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

The High Lord by Trudi Canavan (The Black Magician Trilogy 3) continues to follow Sonea, for whom life is very different!  Mid way through the last book, the High Lord took over being her mentor, and she became his favorite, and moved into his home.  This is because Sonea saw Akkarin kill a man, whom he said was a spy.  She’s not meant to talk to Rothen, and is held hostage with the High Lord to guarantee Rothen’s good behaviour.

Sonea beat Regin in the last book during a duel, and so her place at the Guild is a little more secure than it was.  Ceryni, Sonea’s friend from before, has been working hard for the underworld.

This is the end of this story, although there is a prequel which I’ll be reading soon!  Again, there were surprises in this book, and I enjoyed learning more about magic

The High Lord was published on 18th December 2002, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Trudi Canavan on Facebook, Instagram and her website.

You can read my reviews for other books in the Black Magician series:

The Magicians’ Guild (book 1)

The Novice (book 2)

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Monstrous Heart by Claire McKenna (The Monstrous Heart Trilogy 1) is a fantasy, set in a world where some people’s blood holds special powers. Arden Beacon’s blood can be set fire to, and so she is a Lightmistress, a lighthouse keeper. 

Arden has just moved to a new lighthouse, in an area that is altogether more of a backwater than the city she is used to, but the people still try to manipulate each other.  She’s told horrible stories about her closest neighbour, Jonah Riven, that he can summon kraken, that he murdered his family when young, that he murdered his wife recently.

This is a fantastic story, with a setting and background that I’ve not encountered before.  It’s a gripping story, that I just wanted to keep reading.

The second book came out this year, and so I will be reading that at some point!

Monstrous Heart was published on 31st March 2020, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Claire McKenna on Twitter, Instagram and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to HarperCollins UK.

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

Beyond by Mercedes Lackey is the latest book in the Valdemar series.  It’s chronologically book 4, but is actually book 52 (!!!) set in the world.  Which means there’s a little bit of background that you (and I!) might have missed.  For context, I have read the Heralds of Valdemar series, which were some of the earliest books written, and are 9 out of 13 in the series (this latest book is going to be the the second series out of 13).

So, when I realised what was going on, it made sense that there are some things that you are expected to know about – the Emperor being someone that the Duke of Valdemar is working against, being one of them.  If you can get over that, then this is an enjoyable fantasy, with wizards, people being underestimated, and secrets that change what you knew a moment ago.

For context on the book series, have a look at this Fandom page.

Beyond was published on 2nd November 2021, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Mercedes Lackey on Twitter, Facebook and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, and so my thanks to NetGalley and to Titan Books.

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman (The Invisible Library 7) has Irene with a new apprentice, Catherine, niece of Lord Silver, and a fae.  Irene needs to work out how to get Catherine into the Library, and as fae can’t go in there because of their levels of chaos, it’s going to be a challenge!

At the same time, someone is trying to assassinate Vale and Kai, their world also has higher chaos levels than normal, and Lord Silver has gone on holiday.

This is a great book, exactly what you would expect in this series, where there are twists and turns that you don’t see coming!  I have been really enjoying these books, and the eighth one (The Untold Story) is due out in December, so I can’t wait for the conclusion to this story!

The Dark Archive was published on 26th November 2020, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Genevieve Cogman on Twitter, Facebook and her website.

My reviews for the other books in the series are below:

The Invisible Library (book 1)

The Masked City (book 2)

The Burning Page (book 3)

The Lost Plot (book 4)

The Mortal World (book 5)

The Secret Chapter (book 6)