The Bride Stone, Sally Gardner

Book Title: The Bride Stone

Author: Sally Gardner

Date Started: December 22nd  2025

Date Completed: December 29th 2025

Genres: Historical, Romance, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆ 

I read Sally Gardner books when I was a kid and loved her writing. I've been meaning to pick up another of her books for a long, long time. While The Bride Stone's contents definitely mark it for mature readers, it still has that spark of adventure I remember from all those years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Gardner's historical settings are always so immersive; the accuracy of speech and society is always enough to feel real and like you're in the hands of someone who knows what they're talking about, but without giving you a history lesson and impeding on the story at its core.

I was pleasantly surprised when the story switched from period romance drama to murder mystery in the second half, throwing the characters and events we had grown to love into peril in a way we were just as anxious as Duval for the truth to be discovered. Ultimately, there was a bit more period romancing than I was expecting, but the way the story unfolded throughout left plenty of plot and intrigue to balance it out.

Owl King, Bex Hogan

Book Title: Owl King

Author: Bex Hogan

Series: Faery Realm #2

Date Started: December 17th  2025

Date Completed: December 21st 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance

Quality Rating: Two Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Two Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Around this time last year, I read two books next to each other with Nettle in the title. One was great (Nettle and Bone, turns out), the other was meh. I mistakenly thought this was the sequel to the first, but it was the latter. Oops.

I think overall, I found it unsatisfying as it felt like a children's book (but with a more mature world?). There is charm in the 1001 Nights structure (though it misses the opportunity to truly expand the worldbuilding within it), but the pacing is all over the place. I read Owl King in four sittings, and while the adventure isn't that expansive, an awful lot is going on that I had to remind myself of between readings. There's also a significant role by the first book's protagonist, Nettle, but frankly all of it was lost on me because I have no memory of the actual events of the first one.

My primary resistance to this book itself (rather than just being confused) was the romance and portrayal of abuse, especially as it's a novel intended for younger readers. The titular Owl King is the well-trodden tyrant who takes multiple wives after the last one mysteriously perishes - but worry not, our protagonist's sister will be forced to marry him and, wait for it, fix him of course! I'm being hyperbolic, but 'the magic was too strong' is an awfully convenient excuse for a supposedly reformed serial killer of women to revert to their old ways. However much the plotline may be 'tied up' by the end doesn't relieve the uncomfortable feeling that sat with me through most of the book.

I'm not sure when it happened but the 'save my sister' storyline needs to go into the YA cliche canon. It has very little room for anything other than repetition and seems to just excuse any life-threatening or impossible tasks completely out of its own stakes. I do appreciate the genre's evolution beyond true love's devotion, but I think we've hit another rut - or maybe we just need to be more creative with the concept? Either way, it's another one for the cliche list.

A Small Matter of Impending Catastrophe, Derek Landy

Book Title: A Small Matter of Impending Catastrophe

Author: Derek Landy

Series: Skulduggery Pleasant

Date Started: December 5ht 2025

Date Completed: December 17th 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

These audiobook/podcasts are great and I'm really pleased they're clearly doing well enough to make more of them - but they don't really translate into novels. While taking the full advantage of a sound-based medium, using music to solve puzzles and showcasing a low-vision character in strokes of genius, the charm of its performance is mostly lost in translation.

Without space for Derek's token action sequences and environmental storytelling, you end up with a lot of new information shared very quickly in these novella-style stories. I've found it harder to connect with the characters as most of their personality exists in long conversations (minus the voice acting) on the page, and the pure and simple mystery genre misses out on some of the cross-boundary flairs of the main series.

Despite my lower-than-usual rating of the book, I really do enjoy the audio productions and think the episodic podcast style works really nicely. The sound designers, directors and actors all do a fantastic job of bringing Derek's unique humour to life and I'm excited to see what new stories they'll do with it - I would love them to develop into multi-part stories with proper character arcs, as that seems to be the missing ingredient holding it back.