Deathless Divide has women killing zombies while building complicated friendships, and that was delightful enough to make me (almost) happy. If I could excise the parts of the books that frustrated me, I would be even happier. The first book in this series, Dread Nation, was a near-perfect book, so my hopes for Deathless Divide were high. This series is set in an alternate-history 19th century United States, where Civil War ends after the walking … Continue reading Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland →
The Fated Sky is the second book in the Lady Astronaut duology, an alternate history book in which America’s space program is drastically sped up and expanded due to an extinction level event that will make Earth uninhabitable in approximately fifty years. In the first book, The Calculating Stars, pilot and computer Elma York became an astronaut and flew to the moon. In this book, she heads to Mars, where scientists hope to establish a long … Continue reading The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal →
The main thing you need to know about The Calculating Stars is that it has a slow pace. The other thing you need to know is that it is feminist and nerdy. This alternate-history novel by Mary Robinette Kowal tells a story of women who worked as computers for the US Space Program and who fight to become astronauts. Much of what happens in the book happened in real life (see: Hidden Figures and The Mercury 13). … Continue reading The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal →
So I’ve been digging into the PILE of recommendations y’all gave me in the Rec League for books set in York and Edinburgh. THANK YOU SO MUCH! I’ll be in York for a few days in October and in Edinburgh for nearly a week in October, and I am doing my research. (Watch this space for meetup information.) This book was billed as “What if the Wars of the Roses never really ended?” The attempt … Continue reading A Queen From the North by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese →
Worlds of Ink and Shadow is a YA fantasy about the Brontë siblings (Branwell, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily). As children, Branwell and Charlotte created the kingdom of Angria, and Anne and Emily created Gondal. Worlds of Ink and Shadow imagines that the siblings had the ability to step into one of their fictional worlds and interact with the characters as though they were real people. In doing so, the book answers many questions about the … Continue reading Worlds of Ink and Shadow by Lena Coakley →
Amberlough is an intense fantasy spy novel that ends on a cliffhanger. It’s not a romance novel, but there is romance in it. It’s a novel in which none of the main characters seem especially tender or affectionate and yet everyone is motivated by love. Amberlough is technically a fantasy novel in the sense that it takes place in an alternate world, but there are no magic spells or dragons (alas). The city of Amberlough … Continue reading Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly →
It’s no secret that I’m a huge Mary Robinette Kowal fan. She’s gracious in person and challenging, inspiring, and funny in print, and she does puppetry and hand sews Regency dresses, so I’d be disposed to follow her around like a puppy even if she never wrote a word of fiction. As it happens, she also writes great fiction, and her Regency fantasy series Glamourist Histories is delightful (you can read my reviews for that … Continue reading Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal →
