The second annual Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championships (SFINCS) is well underway and almost into its second round, and it’s an exciting time for all of this year’s entrants. It’s well worth keeping an eye on for some incredible novellas to add to your burgeoning TBRs. So I decided that it was high time I actually read some of the books from my fellow entrants from last year’s...

Here we are at last. It’s been a long time coming—years in the trying—but I have finally finished a full read-through of The Lord of the Rings. After the surprising ease of reading The Two Towers, The Return of the King was a step into totally uncharted waters. And what a remarkable ending this was for the trilogy. I’ve stopped my read at the end of the narrative chapters, short of the...

I mentioned in my review of The Fellowship of the Ring that when I tried to read The Lord of the Rings as a teenager, I only ever managed to get about halfway through before dropping it. In truth I don’t recall how many times I tried, but it was certainly more than once, and certainly at least once at university. The sticking point was always The Two Towers. Specifically the Entmoot, which is...

It’s been a very long time since I last attempted to read The Lord of the Rings. I was a young teenager when I first picked up a ratty old combined edition paperback that was the size of a brick, and this was naturally off the back of the Peter Jackson movie trilogy. Back then I got as far as about halfway through The Two Towers when I crashed out, finding the Entmoot mind-numbingly boring...

It’s been a long time coming, but with the reading of The Other Wind, this brings all the main books of Earthsea to an end. I also followed up the book with the short story, Firelight, which wraps everything up, and reader, I am bereft. Journeying through Earthsea has been an absolute joy, and this combined illustrated edition, by which I read the last three books and the short stories...

Earthsea is one of my favourite series. As I’ve spent the years gradually going through all the books, each one has been utterly remarkable and special. Nobody writes like Ursula K. Le Guin. Tales From Earthsea is no different. It’s a bit of an oddity amongst the rest of the books, being a collection of shorter tales rather than one long narrative, but it’s no less impactful...

I very much enjoyed J. Dianne Dotson’s space opera quadrilogy, The Questrison Saga, and so I’m at the point now where anything from this author is bound to pique my interest. The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern is a whimsical young adult lunarpunk adventure—a genre I have never read before, but I really dig the vibes. Think a civilisation that lives in dark forests or at night with plenty of...

By now you all know how much I enjoyed Witch in the Lighthouse, and so I jumped at the chance when author Azalea Forrest put out a call for ARC readers for its sequel, A Witch in Isenshire, a book which I had the privilege of helping to reveal the cover for recently. I’ve really come to enjoy cosy fantasy as a genre, and if you had told me this would be the case a few years ago...

Howl’s Moving Castle is one of my favourite Studio Ghibli movies (that’s not really saying a lot, because most of the movies in Studio Ghibli’s catalogue are my favourite movies lol!) But I was intrigued to read the original children’s fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones, and I was surprised to learn it’s only the first book in a whole trilogy. Let me just take a moment to praise the cover art…

Back in March, I had the privilege to share the updated cover for Witch in the Lighthouse, and now I have a similar honour to help Azalea share the cover for the upcoming sequel to that book! I’m really looking forward to A Witch in Isenshire, because I very much enjoyed the first book in the series. So I signed up as an ARC reader, and on the sign-up form...

The cover for the new partial omnibus by Armanis Ar-Feinial. I’m thrilled to be bringing you a new cover reveal today on the blog. The Hedgehog Dilemma is an urban fantasy partial omnibus by indie fantasy author Armanis Ar-Feinial, containing two full-length novels: The Hedgehog and The Nihilistic Neverending Nightmare. I honestly love the vibe of this cover, showing a good mix of the real and magical that is right on point for the genre and I’m delighted to be able to help share it.

This coming weekend, 13—15 April, From the Grave of the Gods will once again be discounted for the mega sale hosted by Tessa Hastjarjanto of Narratess. Even though there will just be the one of my books on the sale page, rest assured that you’ll be able to get all three of my currently published works, including my SFINCS finalist novella, The Re-Emergence, for 0.99 in both the UK and US as part of a Kindle Countdown Deal.

I loved Witch in the Lighthouse when I read it last year. For me it really captured the cosy vibes and whimsy of a classic Studio Ghibli movie (you can read the full review here). So I jumped at the chance when Azalea asked for book bloggers to help share a couple of new announcements for this lovely book! First and foremost we have this really nice-looking cover refresh for the book!

When I picked up Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I wasn’t expecting the tale to remind me of the Shadeward Saga. But with its high fantasy setting amid a hard sci-fi backdrop, I was pleasantly surprised. This was a pretty quick read for me and I’m finding that novellas give me a rather satisfying feeling of progress for a normally slow reader such as I am. The cover art for Elder Race is absolutely gorgeous and depicts the Tower featured within beautifully.

A Necromancer Called Gam Gam is a semi-finalist in the first annual Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS), and it’s been on my TBR for a little while. But, as a fellow SFINCTER (lol), I couldn’t help but be curious about some of the other books in the contest. So I moved this one up, and I have to say, as someone who lost a parent at a young age, it made me cry.

I didn’t expect to blast through Wishhobbler in a single day, but from the first page I was hooked. It’s weird, darkly funny and a little sinister. It certainly put me in mind of some of the books my eldest has been bringing home from school, and it has some really fantastic stylised illustrations throughout to match!

I thoroughly enjoyed my previous read by Azalea Forrest, Witch in the Lighthouse, but after reading A Bitter Drink, I think this one is my new favourite of the two. Less Ghibli, and dialing back on the coziness a little, to instead bring us great character work and higher stakes in an imaginative fantasy world. So, let’s have a deeper look.

This isn’t a first for me. I have fond memories of my dad reading The Hobbit to me as a bedtime story when I was a child, and it’s remarkable how much the book stuck with me over the years. Now I’m older and I have children of my own, it has given me a wonderful opportunity to read the book to them as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t own a copy of the book!

An excellent eclectic short story collection from J. Dianne Dotson. After finishing the Questrison Saga, I knew I’d be forever picking up J. Dianne Dotson’s books, because they’re a great lot of fun. I think there’s only one more book out that’s under the J. Dianne Dotson pen name: The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern, and from there on, her works will be published under the pseudonym Jendia Gammon.

Similarly to The Lords of Midnight, Doomdark’s Revenge is a videogame I have no personal experience with. At least with the first game, I’d played a little of the Android remake by Chris Wild. Not so with its sequel. Mike Singleton’s Doomdark’s Revenge was originally released the same year as its predecessor, again for the ZX Spectrum system, and significantly expanded the first game’s scope. There were now hundreds of characters, and a brand new realm to explore. The Icemark also had a much larger map than that of the land of Midnight in the previous game, and many more routes to success. Understandably, making such a novelisation sounds like a monumental challenge.