Lady's Knight - Amie Kaufmann and Meagan Spooner

52%

17.10.26

How many authors does it take to write a mediocre novel? (Further evidence here.) This depended too much on exuberance and not enough on good writing, engaging pacing and strong worldbuilding.

Writing: among many other poor techniques, using 'the other girl' or 'the older woman' instead of the character's name or pronouns is almost as annoying as apparently every contemporary novel using the non-word 'atop' instead of 'on'. 

Pacing: it was kind of boring - too much ladying and not enough knighting.

Worldbuilding: the setting and characters were so American that the biggest twist of the story was a mention of Kent and 'Londonne' towards the end.

Vicious Creatures / Fractured Gods - Lauretta Hignett

59%

04.09.26 / 06.09.26

More dark fantasy fun, this one even more violent than usual. There was, however, just as much need for a proper proofread (e.g. using 'little' five times in one paragraph and the constant focus on a particularly 'masculine jawline') but Hignett's irrepressible heroines and wry humour mean she is one of the few authors for whom I can overlook her lack of editing.

Fire in the Flint - Eva St John

39%

30.08.26

As with the first in the series, a good idea, poorly executed. It's inexplicably well reviewed on Amazon so maybe other people don't care about the poor quality of writing and lack of editing and proofreading (so, many, comma, splices) that make it a confusing, hard-to-read mess. It reinforces all my assumptions about self-published fiction but gets points for being about Magical Norwich.

Tithe - Holly Black

53%

24.08.26

Holly Black is a good writer but this was a bit of a mess. The incidental worldbuilding was refreshing - the details (oh, so it's the '90s, oh, so these are the features of faeries) meant there wasn't the usual tedious exposition. But that also made it confusing to work out what was going on - was there even a central plot driving towards a specific goal or really any reason for the characters doing what they were doing? 

Immortal Death / Immortal Life - Lauretta Hignett

57%

18.07.26

I'm reviewing these two books together because the whole series might as well have been a single, continuous story, and there's not much to tell them apart anyway. Because it's fun, fairly feminist, vivid (if with slightly stereotyped characters) and has a not-entirely-predictable storyline, I'll overlook the lack of editing in places, and how some parts didn't really make sense.
 

Immortal World - Lauretta Hignett

58%

12.07.26

This was slightly messier than the previous book in the series and could have done with a slightly more thorough edit at times but was still good violent fun with some deeper messages in amongst the craziness.

Immortal Games - Lauretta Hignett

60%

09.07.26

Since I have free Kindle Unlimited again, I couldn't resist returning to Lauretta Hignett's urban (well, smalltown) fantasy world. I was right about the first in the series just acting as a springboard as this was much better. The humour is balanced with a fair helping of violence, darkness and angst, along with strong character development. 

Edith Holler - Edward Carey

68%

21.06.26

This was marvellous in all senses, with the added bonus of featuring my local city Norwich and its Theatre Royal. It's a strange, hypnotic, poetic fever dream that's certainly a fresh take on, well, everything. But it's let down by wandering too far into the grotesque, and the author's ugly drawings don't do it any favours either.

The Games Gods Play - Abigail Owen

 60%

12.05.26

I liked the refreshingly fun, irreverent tone and vivid worldbuilding. I didn't like the inevitable power-imbalanced, male-possessive romance, the narrative inconsistencies or the main couple being the only characters with character, and not particularly likable ones at that. But a refreshingly fun, irreverent tone and vivid worldbuilding counts for a lot.

The Moonlight Market - Joanne Harris

43%

22.04.26

I've finally managed to finish a Joanne Harris book, but it was still underwhelming. She's a poetic writer, in many genres, but, like the works of Neil Gaiman, this fantasy, though vivid, was emotionally unengaging. And the main character was such an idiot that when he seemed to die near the end I really hoped that was it.

Lady Tremaine - Rachel Hochhauser

60%

11.04.26

Promoting this as a fairytale retelling does it a disservice. There are no fairies or romance - it's in fact a dark tale of a flawed woman fighting for survival. But it's well written (if very American in tone and language) and unpredictable enough to keep one reading until midnight.

Into the Midnight Wood - Alexandra McCollum

51%

01.03.26

This read like a first attempt at writing a novel by someone who'd had some guidance but not enough editing. The best thing about it was the almost-accidental fantasy elements - they just happened to be there, in that world. But otherwise it was all a bit awkward, and the drawn-out romantic difficulties could have been resolved after a quick chat (and a development edit).

The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands - Sarah Brooks

64%

15.02.26

Strange and beautiful, the world and characters drawn with care, and the plot, such as it was, gathering speed like a train on the tracks. This  leisurely, intelligent story perhaps needed a little more steam power to really get going.

The Last Hour Between Worlds - Melissa Caruso

64%

05.02.26

Well written, vivid, exciting, clever and fun, this story throws you straight into the careful worldbuilding, with strong female characters taking charge and the men mostly just afterthoughts. But it did lack a little something emotionally - neither the romantic nor the maternal love were quite convincing enough.

The Atlas Six - Olivie Blake

41%

19.01.26

Gosh, but this was boring. Was there even a plot or was it just badly written, pretentious philosophical worldbuilding featuring eight or nine characters with an interchangeable personality? 

The Golden Age of Magic - Luanne G. Smith

43% 

29.12.25

The author tried hard with the worldbuilding but maybe should have spent more time thinking about plot, pace and clarity.

The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal - Jodi Taylor

47%

10.11.25

Perhaps it's my own fault for reading the original story of characters I didn't know from a series I haven't read but it was supposed to be standalone and, well, funny and exciting, but instead it felt like an in-joke that hadn't been explained with a very ragged plot. And it would have been much more interesting if they hadn't (spoiler) fallen in love at the end.

(This novel gets incredibly high ratings on Amazon and Goodreads but I've tried and failed to get on with Taylor's books before so clearly everyone else is wrong.)

Hot for Slayer - Ali Hazelwood

n/a

25.09.25

Fun, and sneakily clever, short story/novella, in which much symbolic use is made of penetration by stakes and steel.

Flint in the Bones - Eva St John

52%

06.08.25

I'm all for a story set in Norwich but there was too much time spent on (the admittedly intriguing) worldbuilding and not enough on plot, character development and continuity. There were, in fact, so many annoying continuity errors and unnecessary typos that I wondered if anyone, including the author, had actually read the book before (self)publishing it. 

Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

57%

31.07.25

Bardugo is a fine writer. Her worldbuilding is vivid and her characters are complex. I enjoyed the first book in this series. So why was this one so boring? I had to force my way through it, in search of a real plot, anything that wasn't adolescent heartache and confusing economics. And then, of course, at the end, nothing was as it seemed. Except for the things that were.