Jacey Bedford's Journal

I had this as an ARC from Netgalley.

Aurelia Lyndham, a would-be novelist who has recently lost her beloved mother and aunt, inherits a bookshop in which the characters from the books on her recommended-reads table (all classics) come to life at midnight. She meets Marmee and Laurie from Little Women, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, two of the three sisters from Sense and Sensibility, Sgt Cuff from The Moonstone, and Count Vronsky from Anna Karenina.  All the characters appear just as their books have ended, so they know the contents of their own book, but not what happens next. She hits upon writing a sequel to Anna Karenina to give Vronsky a happy ending. At the same time as this is happening, she’s messing up and then fixing her own love life with the sometimes-stand-offish Oliver, originally a blind date and then her editor at a small publishing house. Apart from the appearance of fictional characters, there are few fantasy elements in this book. It’s really a straightforward slow-burn romance, which could have been a slightly faster burn if the two participants had actually spoken to each other about their feelings. Hmm, not sure about an editor who reads your pages and makes editorial suggestions while you’re still working on your first draft. That might be the second fantasy element in this novel. The setting is London, but there are a few little blips that show the author is American – fall instead of autumn for example – but nothing too horrendous. Altogether a little slow, but a cosy romance, even if you could see the end coming a mile off.

Due for publication 3^rd November 2025

This is a love story of a most unusual kind. Shesheshen is a monster. She’s an ill-formed, amorphous swamp-blob who can absorb the body parts of people she eats, using their bones to construct a human-like frame which helps her to shapeshift and pass for human. She doesn’t need company – and anyway she would be just as likely to eat a visitor as chat over tea and sandwiches. And then… she meets poor awkward Homily, the second daughter of the baron, Shesheshen’s enemy, the woman who killed her mother.  Homily is sweet and caring and, what’s more, despised by her toxic family. At first all Shesheshen is thinking is that Homily will make a good mother to her impending egg brood, and kindly provide the sustenance they need when they burst forth from their egg sack inside her and eat her from the inside out. But gradually Shesheshen is falling in love. There's a nice twist towards the end. Horror and whimsy combine to make this a delightful story about love and family with a dollop of dark humour as Shesheshen discovers more about being human and Homily discovers more about being a monster. This is thoroughly enjoyable.

Narrated by Nicola Walker and a full cast. An Audible Original presented as a radio play. In the near future a crew of scientists launch from Earth on a Mars mission. By the time they get there, all humans on Earth have simply vanished. Against all odds they survive, start a colony and thrive for a thousand years. But when resources are running out and the Mars colony is threatened with extinction, they decide to send two time-travelling teams to Earth for find out a) why humans vanished and b) whether the Martian humans can re-colonise the homeworld. This story flips between the stories of the two teams, which eventually come together. Expect some timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly stuff. Quite engaging, though, to be honest, I’d rather have a straight narration rather than a full-cast audio play.

Audiobook narrated by Nicole Pool and Teri Schnaubelt

Organic worldships, peopled by women, are part of the Legion, but ships/worlds are slowly dying.

Zan awakes on Katazyrna with no memory after trying to enter a world-ship called the Mokshi - again. She has survived the raid, barely, but hasn't succeeded in gaining either entry or knowledge. Her sister, Jayd is the daughter of Anat, leader of the Katazyrna, a clan that lives by raiding other worlds. They have their sights set on the Mokshi, but so does the Bhavaja clan, their sworn enemies. Zan and Jayd have a plan, unfortunately Zan can't remember it, but Jayd forges ahead - sent to the Bhavajas by her unfeeling mother to marry Rasida, the murderous Bhavaja leader. This is to seal a truce, but the Bhavaja's break the truce immediately. Katazyrna is compromised and Zan is recycled to the dark and dangerous lower levels, findng new companions and reclaiming threads of memory (most of them not very useful).

I'm sorry if this description sounds garbled. The story is complex. People are either not who they thought they were or are unreliable narrators. The world concept is strange. There's a lot of slime and gore, a high body-count, grand-scale lies and betrayal. The worldbuilding is, in part, brilliant, but let down by lack of clarity. Sure, you can just go with it, but the worldships are never explained, we have no idea of their size or shape, or how they work. Yes everyone is a lesbian - hard not to be in a world of women, and what does it matter anyway? Women get pregnant spontaneously, and give birth to things that the worldships require, not necessarily to children - in fact children are very rare and seem to be prized, however adults are largely canon-fodder, their lives discarded willy-nilly.

Yes, I know this book won a Hugo, but there were times when I almost gave up on it, however, credit where it's due, the narrators did an excellent job and I gritted my teeth an made it to the end - just.

Narrated by Louise Brealey

Set in 1648 Alinor, a wise woman crushed by poverty helps a young man to safety in the ever-shifting tidelands, not realising until it’s too late that he is a proscribed Catholic priest and possible spy. Sadly, this did not hold my interest, maybe because the narration wasn’t very gripping. I reached Chapter Five. Did not finish.

The fourteenth Mercy Thompson book takes place just after the incident with the Soul Taker, a magical artifact that damaged Mercy’s access to the magical world. Though partly fixed, she’s still suffering and on top of that, still being stalked by the evil vampire Bonarata, from a few books ago, but Mercy shoves this all aside when her half-brother, another of Coyote’s half-human children, turns up in the Tri-Cities, unable to communicate because of a spell, but obviously in deep trouble. Mercy and her make – werewolf alpha, Adam – go rushing off into the depths of a Montana winter in an unusually vicious snowstorm, to find a Frost Giant who is responsible for the brother’s condition, only to find that there’s more to it than they first thought. Expect bad weather, an unusual wedding party with fae, a vampire and a ghost, a missing magical harp and, potentially, the end of the world unless Mercy can fix all this mess. Unfortunately, she can’t even fix herself. As you might expect, Mercy goes through the mill, but, hey, the world doesn’t end.

Audiobook narrated by Nigel Planer

When Ian, a graphic novel author, inherits a country cottage from his aunt, who’s presumed dead after disappearing ten years ago. He’s slightly disconcerted to find that the overgrown garden looks different depending on which window he looks out of, or whether he walks around the house and visits it in person. And the kitchen door has been unaccountably blocked up. It turns out that the cottage is situated on a number of intersecting ley lines and that there are a number of alternate realities. Saffy, an attractive local esoteric shop keeper, confirms that he’s not actually going bonkers, and he sets out to explore the alternatives. Opening up new doors increases the possibilities and the puzzlement. Unfortunately he’s already lost his literary agent into the wrong reality, and then he’s tasked with finding a doppleganger pope. The reading is good and the story quirky.

Audiobook narrated by Victor Bevine.
After an alien invasion Earth is ruined. Even though the aliens have gone, the balance of the atmosphere has been destroyed and the seas are evaporating and the land is burning. Lucas is desperately trying to get back to his family in Portland, but when he arrives he finds nothing but a crater where the city used to be, a fellow refugee, Asha, and an alien ship which is not quite lifeless. Hardened by the last few years of suviving at all costs he doesn't trust easily, but it seems as though the only salvation lies in teaming up. This is a high body count book which combines post-apocalyptic survival with space opera. As the first book in a trilogy it doesn't quite have a cliffhanger ending, but it stops at a point which tempts you into the second book. The characters are interesting and Victor Bevine's narration is perfectly adequate.

DS Peter Grant and his extended family are trying to take a holiday in Scotland - Aberdeen to be precise. There's his partner, Beverley, a minor riber goddess, their twins, cousin Abigail (and DCI Nightingale who is training her in the arcane arts). And then there's Peter's mum and his dad, and old jazz musician, plus his band and their disreputable manager. Dad and the band have a gig at the Lemon Tree, a well known Aberdeen venue. It turns out to be a working holiday as a strange corpse (with gills) turns up, and Abigail's talking foxes spot some strange things. Expect giant seagulls, corrupt oil companies, selkies, mermaids, the local police force and some very strange goings-on culminating in danger on board an oil platform in the stormy North Sea. T(I was particularly intrigued because in my muso days, I played a gig at the Lemon Tree, and stayed  in Foot Dee (Fitty) which gets regular mentions.) The story was entertaining, but not my favourite Rivers of London book. This is from both Peter's viewpoint and Abigail's as the story diverges and comes back together. I did find Abigail's teen slang a bit wearing, and wonder how that part of the book will age, as slang changes so rapidly. It's good addition to the Rivers of London series, but not the place to start.

Did Not Finish. Can’t really say why not – a mixture of not engaging with the story and not getting along with the American accented narrator, Romy Nordlinger. It wasn't terrible, just not for me.

Narrated by Kate Rawson

Competent outlaw Scarlett McCain is a bank robber and (when she needs to be) killer in a fragmented future England dotted with fortified cities wit a whole lot of dangerous wild nothing inbetween. Running from the scene of a successful bank robbery she finds a wrecked coach, with a whole lot of dead bodies and only one survivor, gangly Albert Browne, himself on the run from implacable hunters from the Faith Houses. It turns out that Albert is way more than he seems and Scarlett is, reluctantly, stuck with him. The reluctance gradually turns to respect throughour various adventures, and this isobviously a set-up for further adventures. This moves a bit slowly at first (despite the characters being chased through inhospitable countryside full of monsters). Kate Rawson narrated Sarah Painter’s Crow Investigations books, and while her style works well for them, it works less well for this. This might be a book better read than listened to.

Audiobook narrated by Humphrey Bower.

The final book in the Chaos Walking trilogy whicfh follows Todd and Viola, sometimes together, sometimes apart, as they get sucked into the politics of New Prentisstown and a manufactured war with the Spackle. Whether he wishes it or not Todd gets semi-adopted by the mayor (now President) Prentiss, and begins to follow a dark path even though he resists as much as he can. Viola is swept up in a rebellion of sorts as the women healers go on the rampage, using terror tactics against the mayor and his army. Add to that the arrival of a new scout ship with two of Viola’s old friends, and the impending arrival of thousands of settlers with no other option but to make the planet their home. Complicate all this with the mayor’s mental powers, and the ‘noise’ that all men acquire on exposure to the planet, and this is an excellent conclusion to the trilogy. Humphrey Bower’s reading is excellent. He switches accents and voices seamlessly. There’s a bonus short story, Snowscape, tagged on to the end of this recording.

Narrated by James Macpherson

A collection of short stories featuring Edinburgh cop Rebus through all stages (and ranks) of his career. Each story features a crime and a solution, sometimes unexpected in that the victims are not always what they appear to be, and neither are the criminals. Extremely engaging, and beautifully read by James Macpherson in a gentle Scottish accent.

Narrated by Humphrey Bower

In Prentisstown there are no women, and all men leak thoughts involuntarily all the time. It’s known as noise, and is a feature of this planet with what appears to be a failing human colony. Todd, almost but not quite a man until his upcoming birthday, is in the swamp with his talking dog Manchee, when he finds a crashed scout ship and a girl whose parents have been killed. Thus starts the story of a boy’s journey to manhood. Todd has been deliberately kept innocent of some terrible facts, and misinformed about others. Why did the women die, and what happened in the war against the spackle, the planet’s indigenous beings? Answers to these questions are hard-won as Todd ends up fleeing with the girl, Viola, pursued by Mayor Prentiss. It seems as though Todd and Viola can’t catch a break as they run from danger headlong into trouble. This is well read by Humphrey Bower who differentiates between the characters with a selection of voices and accents which are pitch perfect. I’m only disappointed that it has a cliffhanger ending – and I’ve said in other reviews how much I hate those. In this case it worked because I moved straight on to the next book.

Narrated by Rupert Degas

I avoided this book for years, knowing that it was the first in a trilogy which the author is struggling to finish, however I really enjoyed this. The reading by Rupert Degas was terrific (excellent vocalisations) and the whole thing kept me hooked. This is a story within a story with the occasional smaller story inset. Kote is an inkeeper, or is he? When the Chronicler arrives in search of a hero's story, he gets Kote to open up, for Kote is really Kvothe, something of a legend. Kvothe himself says: 'I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the university at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.'  But this story is about Kvothe's early life. We don't even get as far as his expulsion from the university. We see Kvothe's early life with his parents in a group of travelling players. That part of his life ends suddenly, in a massacre and young Kvothe ends up living hand to mouth on the streets of a pitiless city, eventually gaining entrance to the university where his troubles continue, but so does his absorption of knowledge and of magic. It's a good story, full of ups and downs, and barely takes us to Kvothe aged about 16 or 17. It doesn't really come to an ending, but it stops in a reasonable place and there is a second book, which, again, I'm reluctant to read because the third seems stuck in its author's head and isn't appearing on the page any time soon, if ever, which is a great pity because this is a magnificent beginning.  There's an epilogue which teases that the story Chronicler has heard so far is barely the beginning and is set to hook the reader into the next book.

Narrated by Shaun Grindell.

Handry is severed from his village and his twin sister by an unfortunate incident and forced to wander from village to village as a starving outcast, suddenly unable to stomach most of his world’s regular food. Eventually he stumbles across a village willing to offer food in return for work, and there he meets another outcast, but one who seems to know what’s going on. The world is not what it seems. Their origins are far stranger, almost unbelievable, except there is proof. Things come to head when Hendry’s sister follows him. The story is interesting, though it’s a bit of a slow starter, revelations not coming until well into the book. When they do come, it all makes sense. However, what makes it difficult to like is the narrator, Shaun Grindell. Sorry to say I found his reading lifeless to the extent that, had it not been a short book, I might have given up, or at least found a written version instead of an audio one.

Audiobook read by Kate Reading & Michael Kramer

This is the final book in a trilogy chronicling the story of four parallel Londons (Grey, Red, White and Black) begun in A Darker Shade of Magic and continued in A Gathering of Shadows.  My review of the second book said it was plot-light, and on consideration I think the events in the second and third books could have been covered in one book. There's plenty happening in A Conjuring of Light but the narrative jumps around to various different viewpoints, many of them unnecessary characters you are neither interested in nor care about. Lila and Kell, the main protagonists, are together, and Captain Alucard's love affair with Prince Rhy is more to the fore. Holland, in White London, has been inhabited by Black London's Osaron, a powerful being, a god-like entity who wants to be a king. Osaron seems pretty much set to subsume Red London. He's taken the city, all except for the warded palace, and so Kell, Lila, Alucard and Holland (in chains) set off for the floating market to acquire a device which they hope will trap and destroy him. This is the final book in a trilogy so you can pretty much guarantee peril followed by success. Unfortunately by the time I got half-way through this book I was losing the will to live, and then I followed an advert and read the blurb for The Fragile Threads of Power, set seven years on from the trilogy - and the blurb told me who lived, who died and what the two main protagonists did afterwards. It somewhat took the shine off listening to the rest of the story, but I'm no quitter, so I upped the reading speed to 1.3 and kept going. Schwab's writing style is elegant, but by the end neither Kell nor Lila had really developed much. We never found out about their origins, so questions asked earlier in the trilogy were left unanswered. Prince Rhy, Kells adoptive brother, grew up out of necessity, but the most convincing character arc was Holland's. He is, in fact, the hidden hero of the trilogy. The first book was read by Steven Crossley. The second and third were read by Kate Reading & Michael Kramer, depending on whether we're in a male or female point of view. I actually preferred the narrator of the first book, as I always prefer a single voice telling the story.

Before I start a review I have to say that this has one of those cringeworthy covers that I hate: the half-naked, well muscled male torso with a dipping waistband and no face. It also has a title that doesn't reflect the story. I don't recall much lace at all. However, having said that, I was in the mood for something light and this fitted the bill. It's a time-travel-to-17th-century-Scotland story which owes something to Outlander and pays its debt with a plethora of pop-culture references.  Widowed Andrew McIver, head of his clan in his mid twenties, needs to remarry quickly to provide an heir before his grasping uncle steps in to take over at the upcoming clan gathering. Modern American geek Evangeline (Van for short) goes off to a SCA event and wades into a pond, nearly drowning and emerging four centuries earlier and half a world away. Andrew rescues her from drowning and from then on is stuck with her because she's having way too much fun to attempt to go home.  She manages at once to be an annoying motor-mouth and the saviour of the castle kitchen. Expect an unconventional heroine, a family feud, interference from the local Fae, and the unexpected invention of a 17th century bicycle.

Audiobook narrated by Kyle McCarley

Khat is a krisman, one of a race of engineered humanoids built to survive in the Waste. Separated from his people, by choice, he’s considered less than human by most people, except for his (human) partner, Sagai and Sagai’s family. Khat and Sagai survive by hunting and trading relics (potentially magical) of a previous civilisation. Though wary, Khat is tempted to join an expedition to the Waste organised by the Warders, mages who serve the Elector of Charisat. Khat and Elen, a minor Warder, are the only survivors of that expedition and both get caught up in a deadly game of upper-class politics. Though this is a solidly written, second-world fantasy, it’s not easily comparable with Wells’ brilliant Murderbot books. It’s complex and twisty, but the narration is a bit stodgy.

Audiobook narrated by Ric Jerrom

I really couldn't get into this. It was slow to get going and I had no sympathy for the characters. I kept hoping it would get better. I decided to speed up the narration to 1.2 and give it another go. Sadly, though it was a little better I still couldn't get on with it., so I gave up at Chapter 6. Sorry. Trying to work out why, I think it was the time taken to set up the bad guys that made me decide I simply didn't want to spend any more time with them. Cormac himself was quite interesting, but didn't seem to feature much at the beginning.

Narrated by Carolina Hoyos.

This is Elizabeth Bear's debut novel from 2004. It's 2062 and Jenny Casey, ex Canadian Special Forces,  ekes out a living at the dangerous end of Hartford Connecticut, her only friends a crimelord and a rogue cop. She's in constant pain from the artificial body parts she acquired after a heli-crash when she was twenty five. She's almost double that, now, and, despite being engineered for combat, her body is breaking down. She's hiding from the government in general and Colonel Vallance in particular, but he's tracking her to use her special skills for a new high-stakes project. The story moves from Hartford to Toronto and there are things afoot that Jenny hadn't ever dreamed of, but the people running the project have let her down before and Jenny daren't let herself trust them again - but there are a couple of people she might be able to trust, one, in particular, from her past. Carolina Hoyos's narration is decent, if not sparkling, but I was sorry to realise this book doesn't really resolve. I don't mind reading series books, but I like a reasonable resolution at the end of each book. This seems to just stop on the point of something interesting, and there are unanswered questions about characters left behind that i feel should have been addressed here instead of (hopefully) in future books. Though I enjoyed this for what it is, I'm disappointed about the loose ends.

Narrated by Christian Rodska

Falco and Helena set off for Greece to investigate two deaths, three years apart, that have occurred to travellers journeying with Seven Sights Travel, a somewhat seedy company. The current batch of customers are an odd lot, but don’t seem capable of murder – though they might be victims. Marcus thrashes around fruitlessly before finally solving the case (or cases). Christian Rodska voices Falco very well, though the storyline gets a bit lost in the middle.

Audiobook read by Steven Crossley

There are Four Londons: Grey, our own, where George III rules over a land almost devoid of magic; Red where magic is commonplace; White where danger lurks and rulers claw their way to the top with cruel magic; Black, of which the least said, the better. Kell's home city is Red London, but he is one of the rare magicians who can travel between realities. Officially he's the king's envoy, unofficially he's a smuggler of dangerously illicit goods. His smuggling catches up with him when he's set up to smuggle a magical stone across the border between Londons. It immediately puts him in danger and in Grey London he meets Delilah Bard, pickpocket and small-time criminal with a thirst for adventure. First she robs him, then she saves him, and he saves her. They end up working together to get the dangerous stone safely back to Black London where it can do no harm to the other realms, but there are others chasing the stone, and their magics might be stronger than Kell's. This is tightly written and engrossing. I thoroughly enjoyed both the story and Steven Crossley's excellent narration.

What if Prince Charming is not only devastatingly handsome and as charming as his name, but also a con-man, liar and fraud? That’s what the first book in this series explores, together with the princesses he’d duped (Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel etc.) who were hot on his trail and out for payback. In the follow-up book Charming himself is caught up in another twisted fairy tale as he ends up in the stately home of an ensorcelled beast along with two other hapless victims, Hans and Will. The beast is as much a prisoner as they are, and only solving the riddle can save her. Charming might even have feelings for her, but he has a date with Mephistopheles, and time is running out. Our princesses need to free him. They come across two potential enemies, or maybe powerful allies, in the Bear Witch and Red Cap (analogues of Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood). More delightful grown-up fairy tale nonsense from the assured pen of Jade Linwood. And though this has a satisfying ending there’s obviously another book to come. Looking forward to it.