Genre: Fantasy

  • Sweet Reads: Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire
    Book Cover for Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire

    Sweet Reads: Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire

    I may be a little biased when it comes to reviewing Seanan McGuire. I’m a little bit of a fangirl. Getting approved to review Calculated Risks sent me into spasms of joy, my brain doing mental snoopy dances all over the place.

  • Sweet Reads: Thor: Daughter of Asgard
    Cover of Thor: Daughter of Asgard

    Sweet Reads: Thor: Daughter of Asgard

    Thor: Daughter of Asgard should have been an easy like for me. I like cute dorky lesbians. I like Norse mythology. I love urban fantasy. But, try as I might, I couldn’t find much to like.

  • Sweet Reads: Cinderella Is Dead
    Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

    Sweet Reads: Cinderella Is Dead

    Now and then I get an ARC that I love so much I want to sing its praises everywhere I can, and Kalynn Bayron’s Cinderella is Dead is one of those that I think I’ll be yelling at people to buy.

  • Sweet Reads: Furyborn by Claire Legrand
    Cover for Furyborn by Claire Legrand

    Sweet Reads: Furyborn by Claire Legrand

    Furyborn, by Claire Legrand, should be right up my alley. After all, I love a good fantasy novel, I love courtly intrigue, and I love strong women. I didn’t, however, love this book. I didn’t hate it, either.

  • Book Review: Dread Nation

    Book Review: Dread Nation

    [amazon_link asins=’0062570609′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’meadhbh-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’83adf95f-2858-11e8-8c00-e1e45afbcd80′] When I received the review copy of Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland, I was immediately excited. It pushed all the right buttons for me: alt-history fantasy with powerful women fighting zombies. It was written partially in response to [amazon_textlink asin=’1594745021′ text=’Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’meadhbh-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’7aefbf0a-285a-11e8-8e37-c1a2a941cf46′], a book I had found humorous and lightly diverting but not, well, particularly inspired. This, though, promised to be something much, much better. And boy did it live up to that promise. Dread Nation is set in the Civil War era United States, but the Civil War was interrupted by the zombie apocalypse. The newly “freed” slaves were retasked to fight the zombies while the remaining white folks cloistered themselves safely in walled cities where the dead could not reach them. The main character, Jane, is a student living in a school set up to educate the new zombie fighting force when those few families still living outside the safe walls of Baltimore start to go missing, drawing Jane into the mystery even as she makes plans to escape the school and return to her home in Kentucky. The examination of race relations in the Civil War Era – many issues of which we still deal with today – is stark and exposing without being didactic. The same people who argued for freedom of slaves are, when faced with a terror such as this, not remotely hesitant to force those same people they were trying to save Read more