Book reviews on adult fantasy and high fantasy.
Alif the Unseen is an interesting novel that combines Arab myth and modern technology. The premise is alluring: a young hacker protecting free speech finds himself running from authorities and winds up in the hands of a magical jinn. Through this work of fantasy fiction, the reader catches a glimpse of real Arab culture from the…
And so, the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness comes to a close with The Book of Life, the last tome in her hearty volume set of paranormal intrigue, going from urban fantasy to historical fiction and back to urban fantasy again. Witches, vampires, and daemons take their bow in her final sendoff of the…
The second book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness was a bestselling hit just as A Discovery of Witches, the first in the series. Shadow of Night went on to win the GoodReads Choice Award for Best Paranormal Fantasy in 2012. While the first book was urban fantasy, this second book takes a…
Wickedly popular, the All Souls Trilogy has been bewitching readers since 2011. Penned by Deborah Harkness, a professor of history at the University of Southern California, this paranormal/urban fantasy series begins with A Discovery of Witches. It won the SCIBA award for fiction and was a GoodReads Choice Award nominee for Best Paranormal Fantasy in 2011….
This book has been added to my list of absolute favorite books of all time. I cannot remember the last book I read that immersed me so deeply into a story. The characters felt like people I knew from my past, circa early 1900s. Wecker blends historical fact, captivating fantasy, and myths from ancient…
When my husband and I fight over the last book in a series (who gets to read it first), you know it’s a good series. He got dibs on The Magician’s Land and I lost my Kindle for a week. Every time I heard him yell or sigh or saw him bolt upright while reading, I…
The Magician King is the second installment in The Magicians, a New York Times bestselling series by Lev Grossman. Equally as impressive as its precursor, The Magician King continues the journey of the young but now white-haired magician Quentin, a recent graduate of Brakebills – an exclusive and secret college for the most brilliant minds who also exhibit a proclivity for sorcery….
The Magicians is the first in an adult fantasy trilogy by Lev Grossman that has been making some serious waves. Again, I’m late to the game but I prefer to wait until I can read all three in a series back to back. Are you an adult who secretly (or openly) loves Harry Potter? Did…
The old axiom ‘never judge a book by its cover’ is one I’ve admittedly always taken with a grain of salt; were it not for intriguing cover art catching my eye when sleuthing through the fiction section, many of my accidental favorites would have gone undiscovered. Sea Change is delightfully no exception to that lucky streak….
Forget Me Not Garden is a story about sacrifice for those you love. A boy named Edward loves his long-time girlfriend Emily. At a carnival, a bizarre man comes up to Edward and asks him if he wants to play a game of cards. The man proposes that if Edward is to win against him, he…