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Booklog 63/2025:
Oct. 5th, 2025 10:36 pm
DNF
Narrated by Steven Brand
It’s no good, I tried to like this – and some bits I did like. The character of the ranger Asher was fascinating, as were the two Greycoats he teamed up with, but the story kept sidestepping into various factions of Greycoats, elves (good and bad), students of magecraft, and royalty. I found it confusing, the story spread across too many participants and, sad to say, I didn’t really care about most of them. The narration was okay – not sparkling, but OK, though after a while it started to feel a little ponderous. I tried to stick it out and reached close to 45% of the way through, but in the end I simply wasn’t enjoying it enough to carry on, even though I wanted to find out what happened to Asher.
Audiobook narrated by David Morley Hale.
I had this as an ARC from Netgalley.
Nial Sarnin is a twenty-one year old widow with a small talent to manipulate the ever-blowing wind. On the first anniversary of her husband's death, she is preparing to fly his spirit kite to carry his spirit to the stars when something changes in her own affinity with the wind. Her power grows and she becomes a kite-master. Shortly thereafter she's commandeered by the kiteship midnight Rain, whose captain has befriended the runaway Prince Vikaan, fleeing from his mother, Queen Kavaya who plans to use the power of dragons to destroy her enemy cities, and thus rule the world. Nial must learn to use her powers quickly in order to thwart Kavaya's plans and save the Captain and crew of the Midnight Rain and her own family, held as hostages for her good behaviour. Jim Hines always tells a good story. This is very readable, with good major characters and some excellent set pieces. And no, Nial doesn't find a second love. She remains a widow, true to the memory of her late husband.
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.
What happens to slayers or Chosen Ones, when they start to age and want to retire? In this case, a former Hunter of Artemis (Jenny), a very elderly wizard (Temple), and a half-succubus former PI (Annette) settle down together to run Second Life Books in Salem, MA, in a sentient house. Annette's grandkids come to visit and all is cosy in this peaceful town until some of the locals start to summon things better left in the demon realms. Our three retired heroes have to try to save the world one more time, and while doing do save some misguided kids who've been turned to the demon side. Expect a haunted van, a cat with tentacles and a looming apocalypse. 
Arcady and Everen. Everen and Arcady. 
Narrated by Elizabeth Bower and Tim Bruce
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. 
I listened to this via audiobook, some three years after the first reading. It's narrated by Amara Jasper. It's a love story on many levels, and I think that was more obvious on the second 'reading.' Amara Jasper manages the different character voices very well. Once again I loved it.
Audiobook narrated by Nigel Planer
Narrated by Zara Ramm
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
Another Grimdark winner for Joe Abercrombie, well read by Stephen Pacey.
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
Audiobook narrated by Humphrey Bower.
This is the BBC audio adaptation in four short parts. It’s much truncated from the full novel, but it works. Eric, an aspiring teenage demonologist conjures a demon, but instead of a regular demon he gets wizard Rincewind who’d been previously trapped in the demon dimensions. Rincewind suddenly has the ability to grant Eric’s three wishes, but as most ‘three-wishes’ stories, things don’t go as expected.
Narrated by Humphrey Bower.
Narrated by Humphrey Bower
Narrated by Nicola Barber
Narrated by Catherine Ho
Narrated by Rupert Degas
Audiobook narrated by Zachary Quinto
Audiobook read by Kate Reading & Michael Kramer
Murphy Lawless, pseudonym for C.E. Murphy, has written a whole series of shapeshifter romances. This is the first. Anna is a conservationist who spends her time on expeditions observing and protecting rare animal species. She's mostly funded by the Gladiator Foundation owned by the reclusive Garius Beren, who just happens to be a bear shapeshifter tied into the tradition of Roman gladiators. Within hours of meeting (at a gala for the foundation) Garius and Anna fall instantly in love and are kidnapped together by Remus, a wolf-shifter and Garius' enemy, who runs illicit arena games on a secret island off the Italian coast. Anna proves up to the task of outwitting Remus and releasing Garius (in bear form) from the arena. But that's just the start. It seems that Anna and Garius are fated mates (that's a thing in the shifter world) but Garius is overprotective and it nearly causes disaster. This is a fun read, tightly written and a real page-turner. Lawless is an assured writer and not a word is wasted. I read it on kindle which meant I could ignore the tacky half-naked male torso on the cover. I hate those kind of covers, but I guess the reader knows exactly what they're getting.
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.
Narrated by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer
I had this book as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) from the publisher via NetGalley and was very pleased to be able to take a peek before publication. I've read all the other Elizabeth Cage book (and every Jodi Taylor book I can get my hands on) so I was really looking forward to this - and it did not disappoint. Note for new readers, this in NOT the place to start. Go back and read White Silence, Dark Light and Long Shadows before tackling this one. Elizabeth Cage can read people's auras. She sees them as colours and can tell their mood and whether they are lying or not. No one can keep a secret from her. In White Silence, this led to a great deal of trouble via Doctor Sorensen in the wake of the sudden death of Elizabeth's husband, Ted. Incarcerated in Sorensen's clinic, Elizabeth met Michael Jones, a somewhat shady character with dark governmental connections. In the previous three books they saved each other (a lot), and as this fourth book opens Elizabeth is living a quiet life, which is exactly how she likes it - or does she? Things are changing. Something happened last Christmas that she can't quite remember, and on top of that she might have accepted a freeelance job from an unnamed government department that Jones seems very familiar with. And then she finds blood on her doorstep. Iblis and his mangy dog, Nigel turn up. Iblis speaks in eighteenth century cadences and likes to eat fish and chips, drink Elizabeth's beer and watch her TV. His partner, Melek, is something of an enigma and might or might not have powers, but certainly knows a lot more about Elizabeth than she's telling. Then Elizabeth gets a note, apparently in her own handwriting: 'I always send the serpent...' Elizabeth doesn't know what's going on which, apparently, is for her own good. Yeah, right. During the course of this book she finds out. Written in Jodi Taylor's quirky style this is a supernatural thriller. Expect danger, magic, revisiting the scenes of former adventures and - oh yes - a serpent. Something is trying to rise from the darkness under a bad moon. Highly recommended.
Audiobook narrated by Emma Newman.
Narrated by Harrie Dobby
Audiobook read by Steven Crossley
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.
Calvin Cutter, film maker extraordinaire, returns to St Mary’s to make a new series of Tempora the Time Travelling Tourist, and Max is tasked with babysitting Astrid Gustafssen, the series star. What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters Adrian, one of the teapot time travelling siblings, takes Astrid to Troy, and loses her. Unfortunately most of St Mary’s staff were in Troy at that time, so since you can’t go back to a time you’ve already visited, only Max, Markham, Adrian and Evans can form a search party and both Max and Markham will die at midnight if they don’t get out of Troy before their younger selves arrive. No pressure then. And while they’re at it they encounter Odysseus and Diomedes on a secret mission to steal the Palladium which ultimately leads to the fall of Troy. Once again, history hangs in the balance. I love Jodi Taylor's St Mary's books.
Read by Bianca Amato
Audiobook read by Sally Darling.
Aimed at the upper end of the YA age range, this is a story in two parts with two focus figures, Lena and Constance. Lena is a cryptling, one of the hidden people who service the revered Ancestors, condembed to that life because of a facial birthmark. When she is accused of being a mage and sentenced to death she bolts from the walled city of Duke's Forest and into the woods where she encounters Constance, who is a mage, and desperately trying to re-enter the city of her birth, a city to which she is heir. Constace is also a mage and her stated purpose is to destroy the spell which hangs over Duke's Forest ,a spell of cloud-darkness and corruption which will eventually cause the dead to rise. Constance directs Lena towards Emris, a hunter-mage, who takes her under his wing and initiates her into magical education. (She does seem to pick it up a bit too easily, but that's probably necessary to move the story forward and keep pace with Constance's narrative.) When it transpites that Lena has the key to the spell to which Constance is trying to find the key, and that Constance is in trouble, she heads back to Duke's Landing. There are some twists in this, two strong female leads presenting alternating storylines, and an interesting magic system. There's also an unreliable narrator element which is difficult for any author to pull off, but Ms Lupo manages it successfully.
Dan Mackmain, the son of a dryad and a mortal man, is given another job by the Green Man, but he has to figure out exactly what the job is before he can do it. We’re about halfway through the book before Dan discovers the real (urgent and dangerous) problem, but not to worry there’s plenty of action right from the start including a bunch of pickaxe wielding kelpies in search of lost property. The stakes get higher as the book progresses, and Dan brings in help from a lot of the characters we’ve met in earlier Green Man books, ones who have a foot in the human world and the magical one. Besides kelpies, expect swan maidens (and men) dryads, wise women and cunning men, not to mention dangerous hags and a main antagonist who might be impossible to overcome… but Dan has a plan. As usual Ms McKenna keeps up the pace, the interest and the danger while showing a vast understanding of British folklore and traditions. I had this as an advance reading copy from the publisher. It’s due out on 15th November, and well worth reading – though if you haven’t read the other Green Man books (starting with Green Man’s Heir) I recommend you treat yourself and start from the beginning.
Narrated by Will Watt.
Narrated by Will Watt.
Set in thirteenth century Bohemia, this is a book of two parts. It doesn't go where you expect it to go, which makes the ending a little disjointed. It feels as though the author changed her mind part-way through and instead of a happy-ever after, turned and charged in another direction completely. Mouse is a healer, trained at and sheltered by Father Lucas at the Abbey. She has powers of compulsion and necromancy, which she (mostly) conceals and tries not to use. When young king Ottakar shows up, wounded, Mouse saves his life and agrees to accompany him back to Prague as his personal healer and ward. They fall in love, but Ottakar must marry for dynastic reasons, and now to someone who doesn't know her own parentage. Mouse is shuffled off, but it doesn't end well, especially when she discovers who her father really is. I really enjoyed the forst part, but the second part lost my sympathy. The book is read by Justine Eyre, and I've said before that I don't particularly like her English accent (she's Canadian) because it's too 'royal family' with words like 'here' turning into 'heeyah.' She sounds as though she's specialised in trying to sound like Queen Elizabeth II circa 1955. A little too clipped. A little too posh. If you want a book read in an English accent, why not pick an English actress to do the job? There are two more books in this sequence, set in the present day, but I won't be picking them up.
Perhaps I should have started with the first Thorn book, but having read a couple of other Maradaine books I thought I’d be OK with this one, however it’s probably not a great entry point for the Thorn books. There were a lot of secondary characters that I didn’t know as well as the author expected me to.
Narrated by Justine Eyre
Narrated by Moira Quirk
Narrated by Zoe Mills.
Bandit, Roz, spots what looks like an easy mark, a soft young man with a treasure map, in a country inn. He easily attaches himself with the intent to wait until the young man has found the treasure and then rob him. Unfortunately for Roz, the soft young man is Penric, who is neither as young nor as soft as he looks, and is posessed of a very clever demon, Desdemona. Pen is one step ahead of Roz all the time, well, maybe until a whole outlaw band turns up, anyway. Penric's treasure is not at all what Roz expects it to be - though those of us who have read earlier Penric stories, could have guessed what it was likely to be - and Penric is less concerned with being robbed than with giving the young bandit a chance for redemption. Another satisfying entry in the saga of Penric and Desdemona.
