2026 Book Reviews, Part 2
Hello again!
Here are more books that I’ve read or re-read since March this year.
Novik, Naomi: Scholomance trilogy, which begins with A Deadly Education. Novik is a simply brilliant author. Her first book series is Temeraire; a tale of the Napoleonic wars with dragons, which starts off with the extremely honourable Laurence accidentally getting chosen as the pilot for a baby dragon. Which I mention because the whole series is great but her later books are better and better. The Scholomance trilogy is about Galadriel (yeah, she hates her name), who is gifted and destined to be a terrifying dark sorceress. She’s trying REALLY HARD not to turn evil but it’s extremely difficult, especially since everyone she meets instinctively dislikes her. AND she’s in the Scholomance, which is a magical school that is better than the outside world but is still absolutely awful, with a VERY high mortality rate. Be warned that the first and second books both end on cliffhangers. The books are full of dark humour and the main character accidentally makes friends and is very disturbed by the whole experience. Watching her develop into a healthier person (kicking and screaming) is an absolute treat. There’s no sexual violence but one of the monsters is very squicky in a rapey way.
Taylor, Laini: Strange the Dreamer and the second book in the series, Muse of Nightmares. Her writing is incredibly rich and her world-building is amazing. Her romances are central to the plot and they’re SO special and magical and unique and epic and…. I get really sick of them. Strange ends on a cliffhanger but Nightmares ends quite well, so I always stop at book two. This series is simply packed with rape, child slaves, murdered babies, and more. The rape is never explicitly described on-screen (the closest is the line about, “When he heard his wife screaming…”) but the trauma is very clear and ongoing.
Stradling, Kate: Heir and the Spare, beside which I’ve written “Really good! Buy more by Stradling.” The main character is the second child of a royal couple. Her older sister, who will become queen, is very powerful and very abusive. Her parents sent the heroine very far away to school for that reason, and the heroine kept her identity a secret there even though she was bullied relentlessly by other very wealthy, often royal kids. Now her worst bully’s country is barely recovering from a civil war and her bully is here to marry her sister, forging a much-needed alliance between the two countries. Great! …right? I LOVE a story with character growth, and this one is excellent.
Blair, Katharyn Unchosen. I’ve enjoyed this book at least once. In a post-apocalyptic world we once again have a heroine with an impressive older sister (who is the military leader of the survivors). She also has an impressive younger sister, who they believe is the person spoken about in a prophecy of how to save the world. The heroine is also in love with her older sister’s partner (and always has been), who is her best friend. Post-apocalyptic stuff happens. I disliked the book this time because of the adolescent (and thus obsessive) romantic elements. I’ve experienced adolescent hormones once and I didn’t enjoy it much.
Kingfisher, T: Nettle & Bone, Swordheart and Daggerbound, Clockwork Boys 1and 2, The Raven and the Reindeer, Hemlock and Silver, Minor Mage, A Sorceress Comes to Call. I LOVE this writer. She has strong horror tendencies but there is also an incredible warmth to her stories. Some people are incredibly awful or just incredibly inhumane (like the village that sends a child on a quest because he knows a few spells and they don’t know what else to do), but the characters we spend time with are often incredibly kind, intelligent, and brave. Despite the horrors, these books feel good. And the magic is always fun too. Or gory. Or both. And there’s lots of middle-aged and/or LGBTIQA+ romance.
Gailey, Sarah: Upright Women Wanted. In a horribly puritanical post-apocalyptic world, the heroine stows away on a travelling library. This has a real “Western” feel to it, and is good except I dislike the adolescent-style romance (again).
Hardy, Janice: The Shifter. The heroine has an unusual magic ability (that she needs to keep hidden even/especially because it can be weaponised). Her country is at war, her family is on the brink of starvation, and then things get worse because the powers that be find out about her existence (while they’re also secretly experimenting on other people) and various factions try to catch the heroine and/or get her to join them. Again, there’s a lot of adolescent drama that is super realistic but not for me. Is it possible I don’t like young adult books any more? That’d be a shame because they’re great.
Okay! That’s enough for this entry. I’m not reading nearly as much nowadays as my life has gotten extremely, mostly joyfully, full.
