After reading and immensely enjoying the winners of the 2018 and 2019 editions of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, I decided to start following the competition more closely and checking out the books that looked most intriguing. The 2020 SPFBO delivered one of my favorite books of the year in the semifinals, and when The Lost… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson
I first heard about Rosemary Kirstein’s The Steerswoman on a list of excellent female-authored fantasy that had been undeservedly forgotten. The premise struck me immediately: Steerswomen are a group dedicated to the collection and free distribution of knowledge, traveling the world asking and answering questions. They will truthfully answer any question asked of them, no… Continue reading Sci-fi/Fantasy Series Review: The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein
If you’re not intrigued by the title of A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, I’m not sure what to tell you. But if you think that T. Kingfisher’s pseudo-middle-grade novel can’t live up to its title, I can tell you that you’re mistaken. Whether you want humor, depth, good characters, or an interesting magic system,… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
Andy Giesler released his debut during the summer of 2019, but it didn’t hit my radar until it made the semifinals of this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. While it was not chosen as a finalist, I found its review more intriguing than the book chosen out of that semifinal group, so I decided to give… Continue reading Science Fiction/Fantasy Novel Review: The Nothing Within by Andy Giesler
The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing is certainly not my standard fare, but I picked it up as a change of pace between heavier fantasy epics, and it served the purpose quite well. Raymond St. Elmo is heavily influenced by magical realism, which makes it a little more difficult for me to… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing by Raymond St. Elmo
Fantasy Regency novels were so far off my radar that I had to Google “Regency novel” (basically, a novel set in early 1800s England with a lot of concern about social standing), but I knew about Krista D. Ball from some excellent work on social media addressing the gender imbalance in genre publishing and fandom… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: A Magical Inheritance by Krista D. Ball
Code of the Communer only had four ratings on Goodreads when I got to it, but it was a semifinalist in this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, and a couple of the folks at The Fantasy Hive gave absolutely glowing reviews before eventually naming it the runner-up of their batch. So I gave Kai Greenwood’s debut… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Code of the Communer by Kai Greenwood
Not gonna lie, the cover and the glowing reviews from grimdark aficionados put me off trying out Chasing Graves for quite a while—bleak and shocking isn’t really my game. But I had four days left on a Kindle Unlimited subscription, and of the KU books on my radar, it had the most gripping opening, so… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Chasing Graves by Ben Galley
The Path of Flames has had solid enough reviews, but I had to give it a read to learn just what manner of book knocked Senlin Ascends out of the 2016 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the SPFBO is a really fun annual competition that shines a light on some… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Path of Flames by Phil Tucker
I usually let others do some vetting before I jump in with a new author, so a self-published debut with only 13 ratings on Goodreads was a bit out of my comfort zone. But an Own Voices fantasy epic in a Caribbean-inspired setting (and with a beautiful cover) was enough to intrigue me, and the… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Cradle of Sea and Soil by Bernie Anés Paz
