Welcome to the wrap up of my 2025 Book Bingo Challenge. I will try to keep the preamble short, because I have a lot of books to review here. First, let’s see what my card looks like now that the year is done.

I did really well this year, with the only two tiles missing being the “Written in your Year of Birth”, and “Australian, Canadian or New Zealander Author”. I did have Discoveries by T.N. Baldwin ready for the latter challenge, but I just ran out of 2025. Time goes so fast these days. As for “Written in your Year of Birth”, whilst I had books in mind for it, I realised that for a public card, I didn’t want to reveal my year of birth. Not just because I’m old, but also for cyber security reasons. So, I will be taking that challenge out of the bingo generator.

This card is full of really good books, some of which I might not have read or would have put of reading if it wasn’t for this challenge. Most notable example; I’d never read anything by Terry Pratchett before picking up Hogfather for this card. I cannot believe I managed to go so long without knowing any Discworld. I’ve been so deprived. Dreadnaught by April Daniels and What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher are other books that have been on my To Read list for a long time, and both were absolutely amazing. There were a couple of stinkers there, but I’m happy with how this card shaped my reading habits in 2025.

With that, let’s get onto the reviews.

_______________________________________________________________

Challenge: Written by Terry Pratchett

Book: Hogfather – Terry Pratchett

Rating: 5/5

This is the 20th Discworld book, and my first time reading anything by Terry Pratchett. It turned out to be the perfect place to jump into this world. I went out and got a lot more of his books immediately after finishing Hogfather.

This is just such a fun, funny, and sweet book. Its about Death pretending to be the Hogfather (Discworld Santa Claus) because some assassins found a way to kill the Hogfather, but the belief from the kids is still needed. We switch between a whole cast of characters, a lot of whom I now know are from other Discworld stories, but I wasn’t lost at all by not knowing more about these call backs, and there were no chapters where I felt bored. Death himself is a returning character, and even without the background from previous books I loved him so much here. Whether he’s trying to be Hogfather around kids or going off and fixing certain Christmas tropes, Death stole the show here.

I love this book so much. I like the humor, I like the heartwarming messages it has, I like the worldbuilding and magic/belief system, and I like how clever the mystery behind the Hogfather’s murder and its consequences is. Highly recommended to ever

Challenge: Locas Award for Best Horror Winner

Book: What Moves the Dead – T. Kingfisher

Rating: 5/5

I was lucky enough to pick up an autographed copy of this book last year. I had never heard anything about this story, had not read the Poe story it was based off of (The Fall of the House of Usher), and wasn’t particularly looking for a new story. But I have so far loved everything by T. Kingfisher (who you may know by her irl name, Ursula Vernon) so there was no way I wasn’t going to buy an autographed book by her. Anyway, I have finally gotten around to reading What Moves the Dead, and all I can say is hell yes, I am so glad I picked up this book.

his is a retelling of a Poe short story, and also an expansion, though it is still a quick read. The unnamed protagonist has become Alex Easton, a non-binary war veteran, and Mrs Potter, an amateur mycologist, has been introduced. Having the extra time to invest in the characters and the build up makes what was one of Poe’s creepiest tales even more terrifying.

I’m more familiar with Kingfisher’s fantasy rather than her horror, but was so happy to see that she excels here too. he descriptions of the hares and Maddy were creepy and haunting. Despite that, Kingfisher’s humor also shines through.

After reading What Moves the Dead, I had to go check out The Fall of the House of Usher. I’m glad I went into What Moves the Dead completely blind, but I don’t think having read House of Usher would ruin the experience. Kingfisher adds so much to the original work that there’s not really much that gets spoilt by reading House of Usher first. I am so impressed with What Moves the Dead both as a story, and as a retelling.

Challenge: Breaking a Curse

Book: Someone You Can Build a Nest In – John Wiswell

Rating: 5/5

First of all, I love shapeshifters. Second, I’ve loved John Wiswell’s short fiction ever since I read Open House on Haunted Hill, so I had a feeling I was going to love this book. And I was absolutely right, I loved Someone You Can Build a Nest In.

This is a fantasy, and a lesbian romance (but not a romantasy) told from the POV of a shapeshifting, people-eating monster. But no, the monster, Shesheshen, is not the villain of this story. She just wants to live in peace, eat the occasional sheep or bandit, chill with her pet bear and hibernate through the winter. But knights keep coming into her crumbling lair trying to kill her. At the start of the book, one of these warriors is accusing her of putting a curse on his family. After Shesheshen disposes of him, she has a run-in with some townspeople whilst disguised as a human that leaves her injured, but is saved by Homily, a woman on a mission of her own to break a curse a monster has put on her family.

As you can imagine, Shesheshen’s life gets a lot more complicated once she starts falling for Homily.

this is a very strange book, but in a very good way. Plays with the idea of what makes a monster and what it means to be seen as monstrous, which isn’t the most original trope but Wiswell makes it feel fresh. here is a gory humor running through the book, and the way the worldbuilding/monster lore and the characterization work together is great. Highly recommend this one, especially if you’re looking for something a bit out there.

Challenge: Translated From Russian

Book: Monday Starts of Saturday – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Rating: 5/5

I did a full review of this book along with the Strugatsky’s more famous Roadside Picnic earlier this year. You can read the full review of both books HERE.

Not going to go into too much detail again. This book is about a computer engineer in Soviet Russia being recruited to an institution that researches magic, and it is absolutely bonkers. Even though I wasn’t familiar with all the Russian fairytales being referenced and a lot of the Soviet Union satire went over my head, I still got a lot out of this story. There were talking cats and fish, Merlin working in a Soviet research institution, some cool time travel stuff, and of course workaholics with annoying co-workers and a strange boss.

Again, I don’t want to repeat myself, so go check out my Reviewing the Strugatsky’s post for more details. I just want you all to know that this forgotten little book is a lot of fun.

Challenge: Written in your Year of Birth

Book: N/A

Rating: I Failed This Challenge

So, I didn’t have time to do this one. Even if I had found the time, I realised that posting my year of birth online and encouraging others to do the same probably isn’t the smartest thing to do from a cyber-security standpoint. I’m retiring this challenge from the generator. I did consider re-reading A True Story by Lucian of Samosata, as a joke about how old I am. However as fascinating as that ancient story is, I found the translation extremely dry and didn’t get very far through the re-read.

Challenge: Set on a Spaceship

Book: Murder by Memory – Olivia Waite

Rating: 4.5/5

I went into this book expecting a novel from the description, and was surprised to find it was a fairly short novella. It’s a shame, because this book has so much wonderful worldbuilding and a great mystery, but I feel it doesn’t have enough time to fully tell the mystery story. Of course, since my only complaint about this book is that I wish it was longer, you know it’s something I really loved.

Murder by Memory is set on a spaceship on a centuries long trip to another planet. Instead of doing the usual generation ship though, the passengers of this ship are instead immortal for the duration of the trip thanks to memory books where they keep their minds uploaded. Because of this the job of ship’s detective is a bit different than back on Earth, since death isn’t permeant and murder victims can be questioned. But for ship’s detective Dorothy Gentleman, her current case is very unusual. It involves someone going after the memory books, and she’s ended up in the body of a suspect.

I love how the worldbuilding in this creates such a unique twist on the murder mystery story. Being that it is a very short mystery story, I’m reluctant to say much more. Just know that this novella has amazing worldbuilding, amazing characters, lots of queer couples, and best yet, it’s the start of a series. A sequel, Nobody’s Baby is being released next year and I am really looking forward to it.

Challenge: Told by a Villain POV

Book: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins

Rating: 4/5

This was my first time interacting with the Hunger Games franchise in years, and this book, despite possibly being the weakest in the series, is still a very good welcome back. I’m going to assume most readers are somewhat familiar with the series, but if not the TL;DR is that a dystopian society controls the population by making kids fight in a death game, and it is amazing.

I feel Ballad was more raw and brutal than the original trilogy. It is set 64 years before the start of The Hunger Games, and focuses on the 10th Hunger Games, and things are very different this early on. The tributes aren’t treated like celebrities. They are locked in the monkey enclosure at the zoo, starved, and those that lash out are killed and have their bodies dragged around the city. The Capital is also not as decadent as it is by the time of the 74th Hunger Games, with damage from the war still visible, and the citizens still having fresh memories of the bombings, starvation, and other horrors they went through during the war. This book does a great job of showing us how Panam and the Hunger Games became what we saw in the original trilogy.

We also see how the series villain President Snow comes to be. This story is told from his POV, and we see all his struggles, watch him chase his goals, and also see how much he has bought into the lie that he is superior and deserves better. Snow gets so many opportunities to grow, adjust his beliefs, and learn to value other people. But those just aren’t the choices he ends up making. For most of the book, Snow’s success is tied up with District 12 tribute Lucy Gray’s fate, so even though he is a piece of shit, you root for him because you want Lucy Gray to win. (Shoutout to Youtuber Ian Gubeli for summing up so well how Collins makes us so invested in Snow’s journey because of Lucy Gray. I’d been struggling to understand how I felt about well, the way I connected with Snow, but watching his video made it click.)

This book and the movie get slammed a bit for the second part of the story that takes place in District 12 after the games end. I didn’t hate that end part; it did a good job of expanding the world, of showing Snow’s decent into villain territory, and it had some iconic scenes. But it feels off pacing wise, and with Snow going from what Lucy Gray needs to survive to her biggest threat, it gets harder to connect with him. That last bit is okay though, because this is a story about how going along with the dehumanization efforts of an oppressive regime does in fact strip away your own humanity. I think it’s right that such a story is uncomfortable, and that it leaves readers not getting everything they want.

Challenge: World Fantasy Award Winner

Book: The Tainted Cup – Robert Jackson Bennett

Rating: 5/5

Okay, this was absolutely amazing. I can see why it won the World Fantasy Award, and won the Hugo Award in a landslide. Everyone who old me to read this was right, and I shouldn’t have put it off for so long. So glad I got to this one, it was one of my favourite books of the year.

So, what is The Tainted Cup? Well, it it is a fantasy murder mystery, with Kaiju monsters threatening to come destroy the world if the killer isn’t caught. It’s set in a world that reminds me a little of Attack on Titan, with the ring walls and leviathans, but overall it feels super original. The magic system is based on making grafts and potions from the leviathans that give people superhuman abilities, like super strength or perfect memory. It takes place in an empire that exists to keep out these giant rampaging monsters, but is full of corruption, both in the military and the nobility.

As well as amazing worldbuilding, the characterization is perfect. Our protagonist is Din, an assistant investigator altered to have perfect memory. He works with an eccentric but brilliant investigator called Ana, who reads as autistic, though what alterations she’s gone through is a revelation of it’s own. Din not only thinks differently due to his alterations, but he also has dyslexia. This turns into a major obstacle during the story, since it means he cannot memorize writing, and has to keep that flaw hidden. Their relationship was wonderful to read, and they are surrounded by a great cast of fellow investigators and suspects.

I really enjoyed the murder mystery part of the book too. The clues were all laid out well, and the plot was large enough that I managed o solve a few details whilst still being shocked at the big ‘how’ reveal. Yet even then, everything made perfect sense.

This is a superbly crafted mystery, with characters you really want to spend time with, in a fascinating world. The story has a lot to say about about justice, and what is needed to hold society together. I loved this and am eager to get to the next Shadow of the Leviathan book, Titled A Drop of Corruption.

Challenge: Been Adapted Into a Movie

Book: Redwall – Brian Jacques

Rating: 5/5

I listened to the audiobook of Redwall while on a roadtrip with my husband, so the fact I got to enjoy it with someone close to me while on an adventure will up my enjoyment of the story, but it still earns it’s 5 star rating. This book is aimed at younger readers, so in some places it feels a bit simplistic, but it is still engaging and entertaining for adults too.

This story follows the peaceful mice of Redwall Abbey as a force of pure, unreasonable evil in the form of Cluny the Scourge and his rat army threatens them. They work together with other woodland creatures to defend their home, whilst Cluny rules as a tyrant, killing his own soldiers. Even though the creatures of Redwall Abbey are undeniably the ‘good buys’ in this book, they are not immune from questionable actions that are called out, even if they were necessary. I would have liked to see the characters talk a bit more about the price of defending their home, but this is overall a book that promotes the value of a peaceful life.

I found the protagonist Matthias a bit of a Mary Sue (Marty Stu? Mouse Stu?) but for the inended age and the tone of the book that was fine. He got so many cool moments, and he prevails not just by finding an awesome weapon, but by befriending a range of other creatures. I loved the supporting cast of this story. Especially Constance the Badger and Jess Squirrel. Which brings up the fact that female characters are handled very well here. Jess is a mother with a young baby and a husband, but it is her, not her husband that gets to be brave and join the fight. Even when you get a more typically feminine character like Cornflower, who is Matthias’s love interest and spends her time providing food and morale support to the other characters, that contribution is still treated as essential.

Redwall is a classic for a reason, and well worth reading no matter how old you are.

And yes, there was a Redwall movie. It was made by abridging the animated TV series. It still counts.

Challenge: Been Sitting on the Shelf for Over a Year

Book: Runaways Vol.2: Teenage Wasteland by Brian K. Vaughn and Adrian Alphona

Rating: 3.5/5

This is the second volume of Marvel’s Runaways. The first three volumes are part of the same arc, and I did read all three of them together, but I picked Teenage Wasteland because it was the first new entry in the series I’d read. Though, it is a bit unfair, as it is the weakest of the three.

First off, this whole story arch is really good. It’s about a group of teens discovering that they’re parents are super villains and that some of them have super powers. They decide to go on the run and try to bring down their parents. Really fun story, and it picks up a lot in Vol 3 when the backstory of the evil parents gets revealed.

his Vol is the weakest of the three, but it isn’t bad. In this story the group gets used o living together, learn more about their powers, and start thinking that being superheroes is a good way o make up for all the evil their parents are doing. But since they are still learning what they can do with their powers, so their attempts to do this have mixed results. Still, it’s cool seeing a superhero story where for now, the stakes are a little lower, and both the heroes and the villains aren’t that powerful. It’s refreshing.

My biggest complaint with this story is the ‘teenage drama’. By which I mean it feels like an adult exaggerating what teenage relationships are like. Everyone just seemed to fall for each other way too fast. Or maybe I’m just too old to remember what it was like to be that age now. Either way, I found it annoying, but it didn’t ruin the story for me. I’d recommend Runaways to anyone looking for a bit of a different superhero comic.

Challenge: Title Starts with ‘O’

Book: One Step From Earth – Harry Harrison

Rating: 4/5

This is a collection of short stories by Harry Harrison, a renowned old-school SF writer most well known for his novel Make Room! Make Room! which went on to inspire the movie Soylent Green. This collection features nine stories all about teleporters. Or rather, Matter Transmitters/MTs, Transmats or Doors as Harrison calls them throughout these stories. I’m going to use MT from here on out. Harrison opens the collection with a short essay on how transportation shapes history and how an MT would have an unimaginable impact on human society. He then gets to the stories, which are seemingly in chronological order.

As a collection, these stories fit the theme wonderfully, and despite all being about MTs, have a lot of variety between them. Individually, I liked most of these stories, and even he ones I wasn’t that keen on (Wife to the Lord and From Fanaticism, or for Reward) still had ideas that I found really interesting, and the latter of which had a super cool opening with an assassin using an MT to escape. This isn’t a collection of typical Star Trek teleporter accident stories, with the focus instead being on how the MTs change society. We get everything from stories about exploration, warfare, debt slavery, and potential medical challenges. The first two stories are the most personal I feel, and after that characterization falls away in favour of the social exploration, but even then the focus of these stories is always on how MTs affect humans, never the MTs themselves.

My favourite stories are Pressure, which despite dedicating a lot of words to setting up the MT technology, presents a very human dilemma. The Life Preservers, which has a medical team treating the sick on a planet that has been isolated for thousands of years. And also investigating for signs of mutated viruses/diseases that could threaten the rest of the galaxy if its inhabitants’ ever step through an MT. Cool bonus, it has futuristic miliary vehicles sieging a medieval-level castle. Speaking of battles, No War, or Battle’s Sound has a really good depiction of a space battle with MT influencing the tactics. And finally, A Tale of the Ending is just *chef’s kiss* yes, it’s an easy-to-see twist with a common trope, but Harrison did it well here.

A collection of good individual stories that explore the theme of teleporters very well. Has a lot of excellent ideas.

Challenge: Has Dragons

Book: Onyx Storm – Rebecca Yarros

Rating: 1/5

I know there are some issues with this series, but despite that, I loved Fourth Wing. It was a page turner with cool dragon magic, an underdog protagonist, and some good smut. Iron Flame had some weird pacing, and the smut was starting to feel samey, but it was still a page turner that expanded the world. Now though, we get to book three, Onyx Storm, and the wheels have fallen completely off. If I didn’t want to do a book bingo review of this story, there is no way I would have finished this 500 page slog.

This series is the ‘Enemies to Lovers’ trope between the two leads, Violet and Xaden. The problem is, they became lovers at the end of the first book, so that aspect of the story is resolved. Or at least, it should be, but this book is working on taking them back to enemies to start again. They don’t really experiment too much in the bedroom, but Yarros is trying to spice it up with new twists, like making Xaden Violet’s teacher, and making it so that there’s a possibility that he might hurt her during intercourse, which does not help things. So the relationship is stagnant, and so is the plot. Iron Flame ends with a cliffhanger that threatens to change everything about Violet and Xaden’s relationship and the plot. By the end of Onyx Flame, the only thing that has changed is that what happened at the end of Iron Flame is now public knowledge. And also a change with Violet’s dragons. So basically Onyx Storm is 500 pages of ABSOLUTE NOTHING.

I’ve read somewhere this series was originally intended as a trilogy but got expanded because it made so much money. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but it sure does feel that way. It is now expected to be a five book series, and I think the problem is that nothing about this series has the stamina to go for five books. The lovers got together at the end of book one, and attempts to drag out the romantic tension for four more books are going badly. Violet mastered her magical powers in book two, so further attempts to power her up just seem forced, and take away from the struggles she had as a small disabled woman in book one. Yarros also lacks the fantasy writing skills to keep this type of plot and world engaging for five books.

One example of bad writing that sums up most of my problems with this book occurs at the end of one chapter, which ends with one of Violet’s friends getting stabbed – apparently fatally – by a cook. I just remember thinking “ain’t no way a dragonrider and main character goes down to a random cook” and then the next chapter starts, we get Violet’s dramatic reaction to her friend’s death… but then he pulls he knife out from his hidden armor and takes out the cook. It was such a contrived, unrealistic attempt to make a cliffhanger, and the book is full of such cheap attempts to generate suspense because there is just nothing in this plot that is able to generate organic cliffhangers. The book has no natural suspense, so Yarros has to force it, and it falls flat.

I’m going to pretend that Fourth Wing was just a standalone and not bother with this series anymore.

Challenge: Afrofuturism

Book: After the Flare – Deji Bryce Olukotun

Rating: 3.5/5

This is the kind of book I wouldn’t have heard about if I wasn’t looking for Afrofuturist books for this challenge, but I’m glad I found it. I has a lot of fun worldbuilding elements, and does the ‘ancient civilization had contact with aliens and we forgot about it’ trope really well.

This is a story that explores a world where a solar flare has knocked out a lot of digital and electrical infrastructure around the world, with the exception of places near the equator such as Nigeria. The flare also stranded an astronaut on the International Space Station, so the Nigerians, with help from India, build a space program almost from scratch to come to the rescue.

I liked this book, and I liked the vibe and the aesthetic a lot. This future, post-destruction Kano Nigeria went all in on biotech. There are cool gecko phones and spider spy-drones along with African markets and Nollywood, and also an honest look at some of the corruption and poverty that impacts Nigeria. Also, the terrorist group Boko Haram is on the move, and has made threats to the space program. Unfortunately, whilst this book does a lot of things I liked, I just waned more from the ‘save the astronaut whilst the terrorists are closing in’ plot of this book. The mystery about the ancient aliens was cool – and the tribeswoman we explored this with was probably my favourite character – but it felt like a side-story that had taken over.

All in all, this is a good book that feels like classic SF in a modern African setting. Despite my issues with it, I enjoyed it.

Challenge: Written Between 1930 – 1950

Book: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward – H.P. Lovecraft

Rating: 4/5

A classic Lovecraft story, and the only one of his stories to be marketed as a novel. Now, just a reminder that Lovecraft was a huge racist. He’s super dead so reading his work isn’t supporting him, but make sure you’re prepared for those views to crop up before trying his work. Fortunately if this all sounds interesting but you don’t want to read Lovecraft, there are a lot of amazing retellings/reimagining/inspired by works out there by POC authors. To be honest, the best Lovecraft isn’t written by Lovecraft, but it is cool checking out the original source. And as far as I know, there isn’t a retelling of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

This is one of my new favourite Lovecraft stories. It’s about a young rich man who discovers one of his ancestors was up to some occult shenanigans and the people of his time tried to erase him from history due to how bad the shit he was doing was. It’s just really horrifying watching the story in the past fall into place, and then even though he second story, with young Charles Dexter Ward uncovering all these dark secrets was a bit predictable, it was still really good. This story has some of the best descriptions I’ve come across in a Lovecraft story, and it just keeps building up so well.

A hundred years after it was written though, there is something unintentionally hilarious about young Charles’s story. This man, gets obsessed with a genealogy project, tells his parents he will not go to university because his own personal research projects are going to lead to world changing discoveries, and converts their attic to a lab. Then he does disruptive experiments that subject the household o terrible smells and sounds, and make servants quit. It all becomes too much when terrible screams cause Charles’s mother to faint, so his father… gives him a stern talking to and asks him to one things down. Also Charles never gets a job, but he has enough allowance money I guess to go travelling all over Europe for years. All the bad stuff that went down in the story’s present could have been avoided if a rich kids parents told him to stop fucking around in their attic and get a job, and I found that so funny. Affluenza is the real Lovecraftian horror.

This story was a lot of fun, and a no-brainer recommendation for anyone who likes Lovecraftian horror. I do know that it is somewhat of a cheat to include it on this card, since it was written in 1929 and simply published in the 1940s. However I decided to count it because I base most dates for books on the publication date anyway, it seemed close enough, and I’d already downloaded the audiobook by the time I found out.

Challenge: Set During the Cold War

Book: Three Miles Down – Harry Turtledove

Rating: 2.5/5

I really wanted to like this book now. I love Harry Turtledove’s stories, I loved the idea behind this one, and the way Turtledove explored a lot of the frustrations with the Trump impeachments through the Watergate scandal was great. Unfortunately, this book was an absolute slog to get through and despite all the good things about it, I struggled to get through it.

This is a story about a young marine biologist called Jerry who thinks he’s going on a ‘deep sea mining’ voyage to the Pacific to help hide the fact that the ship is actually going to raise a USSR sub from the ocean floor. When the voyage gets underway, he finds out that the real secret objective is to raise the alien spaceship that sunk the submarine. It’s a cool concept, and the fact that our protagonist is surrounded by older, more conservative men who he doesn’t trust to do the right thing with this discovery helps build a sense of dread. The reactions to a lot of the crew to the Nixon scandal shows how unreasonable people can be, and how scary it can be when such people are in such important roles.

There were some very interesting parts to this story. Exploring the spaceship was done really well, and the ending was interesting. Unfortunately, no matter how many good things are in this story, the plot just moved so slowly, and very little of it was driven by Jerry. When he did get to do stuff things got really interesting, but the story spends too much time on him waiting around being angry and afraid.

I think if this story was shorter, it would have been a lot better. Also, I know pretty much nothing about this part of US history, so maybe that would have made me enjoy it more. I don’t think I missed much though. Overall, this was a story with a lot of good parts, but it didn’t come together, making it my least favourite Harry Turtledove story so far.

Challenge: King Arthur (Retelling, Inspired, or Original)

Book: Spear – Nicola Griffith

Rating: 3.5/5

This is a genderflipped re-imagining of the story of Sir Percival, a knight of the round table who in some myths, is a sort of demi-god. I don’t actually have much experience with King Arthur lore, and I knew basically nothing about Percival going into this story. Because of that, I’ll have to take the word of others who say this is a good take on the legend, and review it as it’s own story.

The first thing that struck me about this story, is it feels like I am being told an ancient legend. The tone and narration style is just perfect for this type of story. I listened to this as an audiobook, so maybe that made everything even better, but I can see this story reading like an epic in any medium. Griffith nails the legend style so well that I didn’t mind things that would otherwise be a turn off for me, such as Peretur being overpowered. Of course, it helps that her uncanny strength does become a source of concern as she learns more about magic and the god-like creatures of this world.

This ends up being a beautiful, atmospheric story with a strong female lead, queer romance, and that sense of wonder that comes from old Celtic/European myths retold well. I didn’t find it to be an addictive page turner, but it was a very nice story, paced well for a novella.

Challenge: Has Witches

Book: The Summer War – Naomi Novik

Rating: 4/5

This is an original fairy tale by Naomi Novik, and I really loved it. It’s short, it’s atmospheric, it’s very queer, and it’s a family drama with a clever tangle of vows and curses. Just being a fairy tale that isn’t a retelling makes this interesting.

This story is set after a 100 year war between humans and fae, that our protagonist Celia’s father helped end. Celia’s story begins when she discovers she is a witch by accidently cursing her beloved oldest brother to never find love after he leaves home due to their father’s homophobia. She and her other brother spend years plotting how to find their cursed brother in the fae Summerlands and reverse the curse, whilst running their father’s estate and mending the rift between them.

Trying to find their brother means dealing with the Summerling King, who still isn’t over the insult that started the war. Celia also has to deal with complications stemming from her own betrothal. Both these things are impossible to talk about without spoilers. In fact, this is a story that is better when you go in with less information, so I’ll keep this review brief.

This feels like a classic fair tale, butt it has very modern sensibilities. It also has great characters, and a riveting family drama. The ending did feel a little cheesy, butt overall I loved this little story and would highly recommend it.

Challenge: Has Immortality

Book: A Court of Mist and Fury – Sarah J. Maas

Rating: 4.5

One of the romantasy staples that I always turned my nose up at until a friend convinced me to read them. This is the second book in the very popular Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Mass. I’ve enjoyed both books in the series so far. They’re exciting stories with steamy sex scenes. The first book was a good balance between the high stakes fae trials and the romance, but I felt it missed out on some chances to flesh out the world. In A Court of Mist and Fury, we get to finally see more of the world, and the lack of seeing the wider world in the first book becomes a plot point and a source of character development.

As well as expanding the world, Mist and Fury takes the series in a new way by dropping a really big bomb early on in the book that I feel is a bit much to drop on someone who hasn’t read the first book. It’s something that changes up the romance elements of the story, examining some of the issues with the romance from book 1 and allowing Maas to play with new romance tropes. I must admit though, I think that the fact that I took a long break between the two books makes the twist work a lot better for me, as forgetting some details makes it easier to accept it.

Last time I talked about this book, I mentioned that I wanted to continue the series. Since then though I have heard that the main relationship goes somewhere that may be a bit much for me. I’ll do a bit more research before deciding if I want to go on.

Challenge: Australian, Canadian, or New Zealander Author

Book: N/A

Rating: I Failed This Challenge

Another one I missed. As an Australian, it is a bit sad I didn’t get this one. I had a book ready to go; Discoveries by T.N. Baldwin. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll be able to read it for a different challenge next year.

Challenge: Translated From Japanese

Book: The Liminal Zone – Junji Ito

Rating:

This is a collection of four short comic stories. I’ve never encountered short stories in a visual novel/comic/manga format before, so this was an interesting experience, despite not always gelling with horror shorts. The stories included in this volume are; Weeping Woman Way, Madonna, The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara and Slumber.

Ito’s art style is simple, but really effective. All the visuals look so creepy, especially some of the haunted faces we see. Slumber had some particularly horrific looks. Despite this, nothing is gory or disgusting. Doing art that is creepy without being gross is a balance that Junji Ito does it well.

Reading the afterward, Ito describes these four stories as “ideas that I’d left unused in an old notebook of possible topics.” Once I read this, I went “Oh, that makes sense”, because whilst I enjoyed these stories, they felt like trunk stories. They were simple and short not necessarily because they were conceived as short stories, but because that’s all Ito could get out of the idea. My favourite two were Weeping Woman Way and Slumber. The other two felt more like ideas than full stories.

Challenge: Non Marvel or DC Superheroes

Book: Dreadnaught – April Daniels

Rating: 5/5

This is a YA own-voices story about Danny, a young transgender girl who receives the powers of the world’s greatest superhero, Dreadnaught. These powers also give her her ‘idealized body’, which in this case means she is instantly physically transitioned. Reading about her being forced to come out, whilst discovering her powers and looking for the big bad who killed Dreadnaught was amazing.

his book was almost impossible to put down. The combination of the hero learning plotline and Danny’s personal struggles with coming out and dealing with her transphobic parents and asshole friend was so compelling. Seeing Danny struggle with all her self-doubt despite having super-powers felt so relatable too.

This book is part of the Nemesis Trilogy, though so far only two books have been released. If I wasn’t so eager to go fill out more bingo squares, I would have dived straight into the sequel, Sovereign. Dreadnaught wraps up it’s story nicely, whilst setting up the next antagonist and making us want to see more of Danny’s personal journey.

Challenge: Has Ghosts

Book: Haunt Sweet Home – Sarah Pinsker

Rating: 3.5/5

This is the first book I read this year, and I’m reviewing it in October. I’m having trouble remembering much about this novella, which is strange because Sarah Pinsker stories are usually super memorable to me. (shout out to Pinsker’s And Then There Were (N-One) which is one of my favourite novellas.) So, yeah, I docked a bit of my score just from that, but I do remember enjoying this story when I read it.

This novella is about a young woman, Mara, who is struggling to find her place in the adult world. She takes a job on her cousin’s ghost themed reality TV show, where she helps trick the homeowners of the week into thinking that their house is haunted. Eventually though she meets another production assistant who no-one else has mentioned, and things start getting spooky.

The horror elements weren’t very scary to me, and the twist was so obvious that I’m not convinced it’s meant to be a twist for the reader. However I loved Mara’s story, and the characterization in general was great. The whole ‘backstage during fake hanutings’ part of the book was a lot of fun. This was a fun story, and the novella was just the right length to tell it in. Not one of Pinsker’s best, but still worth reading.

Challenge: Title Starts With ‘P’

Book: Penric and the Bandit – Lois McMaster Bujold

Rating: 5/5

This is the 13th book chronologically in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric and Desdemona series. I think this is one of the easier ones to read as a standalone, since it doesn’t directly connect to any other plotlines and has Penric and Desdemona away from their family and normal work. Still, reading this novella would be more enjoyable with the background provided by the previous books.

In this story, Sorcerer Penric is travelling to an abandoned temple of some sort in the hope of finding rare books. Along the way he meets a bandit who takes him as a week, gullible man and hatches a scheme to swindle him and leave him for dead. Of course, being a sorcerer means Penric has a powerful demon called Desdemona in his head, providing him with powerful magic and extra perception. They are onto the Bandit’s schemes rather quickly, and eventually our bandit comes to realise that his intended patsy is actually one of the most dangerous people in the world.

This is just a really fun fantasy adventure, with characters that you easily connect with and an excellent magic system. Penric and the Bandit has everything I love about this series, and proves to be one of the most action-packed entries in the series. I wouldn’t recommend it as the best entry point to the series, but it is possible to read on it’s own, and the Penric and Desdemona series is a must read.

Challenge: Short Fiction Magazine

Book: Dirty Magick Magazine Jan 2025 – C.D. Brown

Rating: 3.5/5

Dirty Magick Magazine is a new, I guess a semi-prozine, created by C.D. Brown. It publishes urban fantasy, swords and sorcery, and gothic horror with a somewhat ‘hardboiled’ flavour. This particular issue focuses more on the horror, with Mark Mitchell’s story “Another Roll, Mr…?” and Laura J. Campbell’s Skeleton Flowers both being on the creepier side of urban fantasy. The other story, June 2020 Human World Orientation Meeting on the other hand is a humorous piece about Loki hosting a zoom meeting to tell supernatural creatures how to live in the human world.

This is probably one of the weaker issues of Dirty Magick I’ve read. I liked the May issue more, and not just because my story was in there. The other two stories, Emmylou Kotzé’s A Tale of Two Killers and Vanessa MacLellan’s Malcolm’s Dirty Jobs were both really enjoyable fantasy adventures.

But I’m not talking about the May 2025 issue, or even Dirty Magick as a whole. Taken in isolation, the best I can say about Dirty Magick Jan 2025 is that it is alright, and good value for money. The three stories were good, but they haven’t ended up being very memorable. To be fair though, horror/darker short stories don’t tend to click with me a lot of the time, so the fact that I did like Campbell and Mitchell’s stories is fairly high praise from me. If you like stories that lean more towards horror, or want a more gritty, hard-boiled, noirish fantasy experience, definitely check out Dirty Magick.

_______________________________________________________________

And that is 2025 all done. Keep an eye out for my 2026 card. This year, I’m determined to finish an entire card.

~ Jayde