Tag: fiction

The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty

The Kingdom of Copper

The City of Brass (reviewed here) was the best book I read last year, and I loved slipping back into this world inspired by Arabian mythology in The Kingdom of Copper.

Set five years after the first book, Nahri has been forced to marry King Ghassan’s eldest son, Muntadhir, while Prince Ali has been exiled, and Dara has been freed from Ifrit enthrallment by Nahri’s mother, Manizheh.

Generations and tribes clash in a conflict that pits husbands against wives, parents against children, and siblings against each other. Ali is caught between his scheming relatives, as much as Nahri is caught between the rival factions of daeva and djinn. Nahri and Ali try to ease tensions between their rival tribes and improve conditions for the persecuted half-human shafit, while their parents’ generation seek vengeance, power and control over the city of Daevabad.

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Despite the fantasy setting, this story explores universal themes of love, loyalty, family, idealism and fanaticism, prejudice and revenge, and I’m so looking forward to finding out how the story resolves in the final part of this trilogy. Have a lovely week. X

The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman

The Lost Plot is the fourth book in the Invisible Library series following the librarian Irene Winters in the battle between the forces of chaos and order.

Shortly after The Lost Plot begins, Irene is approached by a dragon with a request to acquire a specific version of a text, a request that threatens the Library’s neutrality between the dragons and the fae, and Irene finds herself caught between two rival factions of feuding dragons.

One of the aspects I love most about this series are the locations and this one was set in an alternate 1920’s New York complete with speakeasy’s, prohibition and gangs.

The pace of The Lost Plot trots along and there were enough shady deals, betrayals, shoot-outs and librarian duels to keep me hooked until the end. As an added bonus the slow burn romance between Irene and her assistant Kai finally starts to heat up.

I’m generally reluctant to commit to long-running series, but the Invisible Library books are so original, fun and easy to read with such endearing characters that I’m always happy to find out what Irene and her allies are up to. Have a lovely week. X

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows

Although I read a lot of fantasy, I’ve outgrown most of the stories about dragons, dwarves and elves, but one aspect that continues to draw me in is ordinary characters who find themselves caught up in epic events and I have a particular soft-spot for rogues and underdogs. Six of Crows kept getting recommended to me based on other books I’ve enjoyed and I regret waiting so long to read it because it was exactly the type of character driven fantasy adventure that I love.

Six of Crows follows a group of teenage thieves, misfits, orphans and runaways lead by the criminal prodigy, Kaz Brekker. Kaz and his handpicked team are hired by the merchant Jan Van Eck for a high risk, high reward heist: break into an impenetrable military stronghold to rescue a hostage – preventing chaos and war in the process.

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For a young adult novel, this was a little darker than I expected containing descriptions of torture and references to sexual exploitation, but it also ticks all the boxes for diversity with a cast made of different races as well as LGBTQ and disabled characters.

Six of Crows contains plenty of unexpected twists, action and suspense, romantic pining and humour, it’s a thrilling roller-coaster ride of a story that ends on a cliffhanger, and I can’t wait to find out how the final part of this duology resolves itself. Have a lovely week. X

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Set in an old-fashioned cafe off the beaten path in Tokyo, Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a quirky, Japanese novel about time travel. In the Funiculi Funicula Cafe, there is a particular chair that allows the person sitting in it the once in a lifetime chance to travel back or forward in time to speak to someone they know who has visited the cafe. There are several rules regarding time-travel, the most important of which is that the traveller must return to the present before their cup of coffee gets cold.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is split into four parts, each following a different relationship from a broken-hearted woman whose lover moved to the U.S.A., a nurse whose husband has forgotten her due to Alzheimer’s Disease, a grieving sister who ran away from her family to escape her obligations and responsibilities, and a mother and daughter who never had the chance to know each other. There’s also a ghostly woman who haunts the cafe and failed to return to the present in time, but regrettably her story isn’t elaborated on. Visiting the past and future helps the time travelers to make sense of events and find a way forward in the present.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a short but thought-provoking and poignant story of regret and hope. Have a lovely week. X

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Sorcerer to the Crown

Sorcerer to the Crown follows Zacharias Wythe, who has recently been appointed Sorcerer Royal after the sudden death of his foster father who previously held the position, and Prunella Gentleman, a mysterious servant girl with great magical potential whom he agrees to take on as his apprentice. Along the way, they become mired in political turmoil and have to fend off several assassination attempts.

Magic is waning in England, but much to the displeasure of the highly stratified English society, magic does not discriminate and is as likely to manifest in the working classes and women as it is well-educated, English gentlemen from the aristocracy. Racism and sexism are at the forefront of this story as Zacharias is a freed African slave, while Prunella is mixed-race.

It took me a while to get into this as there’s a lot of exposition, it’s written in the style of Regency-era novels, and the plot didn’t really get going until about halfway through. This had some interesting ideas, likable characters and good dose of humour but it wasn’t what I expected and overall I found it disappointing.

Have a lovely week. X

The Whitby Witches by Robin Jarvis

The Whitby Witches

Jennet and Ben are orphaned siblings who have been shunted from one foster home to another since their parents died because of Ben’s ability to see ghosts, until they’re taken in by an eccentric, old lady, Alice Boston, who lives in the Yorkshire town of Whitby. Not long after the children arrive, the mysterious Rowena Cooper moves into a dilapidated old house nearby and strange, sinister events start to occur.

Whitby is a wonderful setting with descriptions of the ruined abbey overlooking the town and the infamous 199 steps featuring prominently in the story, and I really appreciated how well Robin Jarvis foreshadowed events and cleverly interspersed local history and folklore from the Barguest from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and St Hilda to the collapse of the central tower of the abbey in 1830 into the story.

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The Whitby Witches is full of supernatural elements from witches and ghosts to demonic hounds and other fantastic creatures, and this was a lot more thrilling, atmospheric and scary than I expected a children’s book to be – it managed to give me goosebumps and it’s a perfect tale for a dark and stormy night. My only criticism is that the story never fully explained who Rowena Cooper (or her husband) was or where she came from.

The story works well as a standalone but The Whitby Witches is actually the first in a trilogy following Miss Boston, Jennet and Ben, though only the first book seems to have been re-issued so I’ll have to track down second hand copies of the sequels because I enjoyed this so much. Have a lovely week. X

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

It’s always slightly intimidating to review a well-known and well-loved story but Anne of Green Gables is one of those books I’ve been meaning to read for ages, having somehow skipped over it as a child, and I recently borrowed a copy from the library.

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables is the story of a young orphan who goes to live on a farm with the aging siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, after a mix-up at the orphanage. Written as a series of chronological vignettes, the story follows Anne settling into life at Green Gables, through her school days, all her adventures, hijinks and (many, many) mishaps, making friends and finding “kindred spirits” along the way.

Anne is imaginative, absent-minded, fiery-tempered, relentlessly optimistic and prone to fits of melodrama, but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for her when her background of loneliness and domestic drudgery is revealed, with only her daydreams to keep her company until she moved to Green Gables. One aspect of Anne’s character that resonated with me was her reverence for nature, and how she always noticed the beauty of the changing seasons that so many of us take for granted. I also have a soft-spot for sensible, dry-humoured, calm and collected Marilla, and I loved the exchanges between Anne and Marilla, who seem like such opposites most of the time but are fiercely devoted to each other.

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This is such a gentle, comfort-read and reminded me of other childhood favourites like Heidi, The Secret Garden and Little Women that transport the reader to simpler times and capture all the trials, tribulations and triumphs of childhood and growing up. Have a lovely week. X

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

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The story begins in Cairo where a young woman called Nahri is working as a thief and con-artist, though she dreams of becoming a physician. During a ceremony to exorcise a demon possessing a young girl, she accidentally summons a warrior Djinn (or rather a Daeva) called Dara, and is pulled into a world of flying carpets, mythical beasts and simmering tensions between the different races of Ifrit, Djinn, Daeva and half-human Shafit. One of the things I loved most about The City of Brass was that it drew from Arabian folklore and mythology which was such a refreshing contrast to the countless medieval European inspired fantasy stories that dominate the genre.

The narrative switches between two perspectives, Nahri, and Ali, a Djinn Prince in the city of Daevabad. The three main characters, Nahri, Dara and Ali are all flawed and victims of circumstance in their own way: Independent and used to fending for herself, Nahri finds herself caught between feuding factions all plotting her future with little consideration for what she wants; Dara was enslaved by the Ifrit to serve human masters and is weighed down by the guilt and shame of all the lives he’s taken and the things he did while enthralled; while Ali – as the second son of King Ghassan – has been trained as a warrior, when he longs to become a scholar and end the injustice and hypocrisy he witnesses.

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The City of Brass is probably the best book I’ve read this year, though it’s not perfect as there are some pacing issues and a few slightly predictable twists, but I was still captivated by this tense, political and character-driven drama as Nahri and Ali discover just how ruthless King Ghassan is and how far he has gone to hold on to his throne and maintain order in the city of Daevabad. This is the first book in The Daevabad Trilogy and I’m looking forward to finding what happens next. Have a lovely week. X

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab

AGathering OfShadows

Set four months after A Darker Shade of Magic (reviewed here), Kell and Lila have parted ways, as Kell tries to return to his duties as Prince of Red London while the delightfully rogueish Lila has chosen to make a fresh start in Kell’s world and has almost fulfilled her dreams of becoming a pirate (technically a privateer) on board the Night Spire under the charming Captain Alucard Emery. Meanwhile a new King rules White London, waiting and plotting revenge against our heroes.

Kell, who was never completely comfortable with his notoriety and privileges as both Prince and one of the last of the magical race of Antari, is now also struggling with the distrust and suspicion of his family and subjects alike in the aftermath of the night black magic ran through Red London consuming and killing those who came into contact with it.

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A Gathering of Shadows follows Kell, Lila and Alucard as they compete in the Element Games against magicians from across the world to find out who is the greatest, though the tournament at times feels entirely secondary to the slow-burn romance as Kell and Lila try to resist their attraction to one another, yet their eventual reunion is worth the wait and I just love the chemistry between them, like a pair of magnets constantly attracting and repelling each other.

The middle book in a trilogy often has a hard time defining itself but A Gathering of Shadows finds a balance between giving us greater insight into the characters and developing their relationships while setting the scene for the final book, and when the White King finally makes their move, this ends on a cliffhanger that left me desperate to know what happens next. Have a lovely week! X

The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman

TheBurningPage

The Burning Page is the third book in The Invisible Library series and picks up shortly after the events of The Masked City (reviewed here); Irene is still on probation for leaving her post as Librarian-in-Residence to rescue her apprentice Kai (preventing a war between the Fae and Dragons in the process), and they’re still recovering from their traumatic experiences in Venice.

The arch-villain of the series, Alberich, is back and openly threatening the Library; Librarians are being hunted and killed, and portals to the Library are being destroyed trapping Librarians in alternative versions of reality.

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Though these stories are delightfully fun, there is a moral dilemma at the heart of The Burning Page as Irene is forced to contemplate just how far she’s willing to go to save the Library – all the while being haunted by the seeds of doubt Alberich sowed that the Invisible Library might not be the force for good she believes but a self-serving organisation that does little to help the alternate worlds it meddles in.

Irene is as self-deprecating, harassed and resourceful as ever, and it’s genuinely entertaining to see how she uses the Language (a refreshing alternative to magic) and her other skills to get herself out of traps, ambushes and face Alberich in a thrilling duel. Have a lovely week! X