Fishbone Cinderella, Elizabeth Lim

Book Title: Fishbone Cinderella

Author: Elizabeth Lim

Date Started: May 30th  2026

Date Completed: June 23rd 2026

Genres: Historical, Fantasy

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I've been a big fan of Lim since I first read Six Crimson Cranes, and I'm so excited to see her getting to do different things. Fishbone Cinderella wasn't my favourite, but ultimately just because it didn't feel particularly new or creative. I'm still very much eager to see this author's style and bibliography continue to develop.

The magical realist element of a matriarchal curse could've elevated this book beyond the familiar story (and was, I think, the intention), but its inclusion was a bit peculiar; you'd go through huge chunks forgetting it even exists, and then it would reappear and be working very hard to hold the story together. While magical realism allows flexibility in how present the fantasy elements are in the story until they can provide poetic license, I felt it never comfortably fit in the book, and so didn't give the narrative satisfaction at the end.

Similarly, the perspectives from different generations of women ends up being vital to the resolution, but inconsistent while reading. I almost wish the timeline had jumped about more so that by the end I was attached to all of them, rather than being slightly underwhelmed that what felt like a secondary character completed the narrative.

That being said, I adore the way the book pulls together its plot strings and the timelines, with a good dash of a Chinese fairy tale in there for good measure - it just felt like what came before was just setting that up rather than existing fully realised on its own.

The Fox Wife, Yangsze Choo

 Book Title: The Fox Wife

Author: Yangsze Choo

Date Started: February 8th  2026

Date Completed: February 15th 2026

Genres: Magical Realism, Contemporary

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I thoroughly enjoyed this book once I got into it. Both accompanying narrators, a detective and a woman who is also a fox, are compelling in their own ways, spinning closer and closer to one another as the serendipitous threads of fate pull the stitching of the story taut. The mystery and overlapping lives were so satisfying the whole way through, small details gathering meaning long before their meaning is unearthed.

I loved Choo's ability to balance her tones of sincerity, comedy and lightheartedness with gut-wrenching tragedy; anger with joy, wistfulness with ferocity. These characters are fascinatingly flawed, spiteful, curious, overconfident, daring; their mythos all the more enthralling as these whispered creatures become real and, despite the stories, mostly causing mayhem unintentionally. The one stumble was when our protagonist found her goal achieved, but we just sort of rushed on - understandably, knowing the full pilot, but it did feel unfinished and easily let go by Snow.

I want ten prequels about Snow, Kuro and Shiro's adventures - or, having read the closing notes, for Choo to indeed fill an entire novel with footnotes of anecdotes, mythology and side stories in the tradition of Chinese marginalia. I want more time with these characters, more roadtrips across ancient and historical Asia, more mysteries uncovered, chaos wreaked and ridiculous hijinks.

Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon, Mizuki Tsujimura

 Book Title: Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon

 Author: Mizuki Tsujimura

Series: Lost Soul #1

Date Started: January 28th  2026

Date Completed: February 8th 2026

Genres: Magical Realism, Contemporary

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

What a unique idea for magical realism; an elusive contact who, if you manage to track them down or happen to be passed their details by a family member, can give you one night under a full moon to meet someone dead. You don't have to know them, you don't have to pay anything, but you and they only get one chance to see it through. My favourite part is that it was brought to life in such a believable way, with no greater purpose, no magic system supporting it. It doesn't try to be epic or universal, but just something a handful of people try to do for others.

I was really hoping this novel would move from each short story into an exploration of the common element: the teenage go-between who fulfils the living's request. And I'm so happy it did. I do wish it had framed both the start as well as the end to make the final revelation land a bit more. If I'd been thinking about it throughout the book, it would've been such a pay-off at the end.

I'm often not a fan of the episodic nature of these types of novels, but each character's story was special and different enough to avoid feeling repetitive or disjointed, and ultimately everything came together at the end to create a satisfying completion to a central character's arc. It's hard to distinguish a lot of these books that fall in the thoughtful magical realism category, but Mizuki Tsujimura has impressed twice for me so far.

A Court of Frost and Starlight, Sarah J. Maas

Book Title: A Court of Frost and Starlight

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses #3.5

Date Started: January 18th  2026

Date Completed: January 28th 2026

Genres: Fantasy, Romance

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

A Court of Frost and Starlight is a very novella-esque bridge between novels without a real story, which is a bit sad given Maas has crafted some fantastic short stories with ARCs and consequence for Throne of Glass. It's not a bad idea to set up where the cast find themselves after the first trilogy, getting ready to move into the next, but this book felt mainly motivated to prove one thing: that Feyre and Rhys are the most perfect people to ever exist, apparently.

Yes, okay, we get it. Feyre and Rhys are the most considerate, charitable millionaires ever. Yes, they went through war and now they can only see those families who lost loved ones, how lucky they are (yes, how lucky). Ah, shopping, a luxury they hate but do frequently, as long as we know how guilty they are about it. I exaggerate and there's nothing wrong in principle with these character elements, it's just laid on so thick so many times in this short book, which you probably could see coming when you realise it's a Christmas-themed short story where the most conflict comes from what to get each other as presents.

ACOTAR honestly has never hit me like TOG does. I think it tries to be darker and sexier, but roots that in very surface-level motivations and emotions, which (yes) definitely leads to the steamier scenes sooner, but also feels like it doesn't build up such a complex system of relationships. The war felt much smaller than TOG, even though I'm pretty sure we spend a lot more time on the battlefield. For me, I crave that other sense of epic, mythic sagas where characters both champion and impede each other with their own quests above intimate friendship groups leading the way into battle. There's nothing wrong with the latter, it's just not as moving for me.

I am, however, excited at the prospect of Nesta and some of the other side characters coming to prominence for the next book. Ultimately, they began as foil and conflicts for Feyre and Rhys, but have grown with the series, so to me feel more fleshed out as characters with all the bad as well as the good and charitable. I suppose, following on from why I think I connect with TOG more than this series, I find the way Maas writes messy and defensive compelling.

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.

Katabasis, R.F. Kuang

Book Title: Katabasis

Author: R.F. Kuang

Date Started: September 13th 2025

Date Completed: October 20th 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

I found the start of Katabasis hard to get into; supposedly straight into the action, but there is so much it wants to tell us it takes 100 pages for the story to gain its footing. Once it does, though it meanders at times, it's undoubtedly Kuang's most innovative fantasy yet. I was getting strong Boy and the Heron and His Dark Materials and vibes - but Kuang is distinctive in where she takes it for the ending.

I'd be curious to see what someone with 0 Classics/Philosophy knowledge finds it; I know a handful of the references via my interest in mythical folklore and Ancient Greece, but I was mostly just nodding along in acceptance of my confusion. It led to an interesting conversation with my mum (who has a PhD in Political Science), but I came out of it ultimately none the wiser. Perhaps if you know none of it you can buy into the fantastical side a bit more.

And boy is the magic system and world-building creative - insanely so. I know to expect scales of epic proportion when it comes to the universes Kuang wills into being for us, but almost every time she builds on her wealth of knowledge, curiosity, intelligence and pure joy for creating these imaginary plains of existence. Katabasis especially made me appreciate the philosophical way she approaches storytelling: it's not really about creating a world to tell her story in, it's about repositioning your way of thinking so that you're open to the story she's ready to tell. It's ultimately why her novels are so universal, despite their authentic roots in Kuang's own studies, heritage and temperament: what she asks of the reader is to join her in looking at something from a different perspective, and discovering what it leads to together.

While the book is ultimately a character story (though Alice's agency for what happens to her is unreliable), I really enjoyed the exploration of corruption, discrimination and toxicity of gatekeeping education and imbalanced mentor-student relationships. It rang so universally true for imbalanced power structures, even though it focuses very specifically on academia, and made such an impact on the development of the characters without having to be the main plot. Alice is the person who toils, fails, suffers and grows - and the book doesn't flinch from that anchor - but it has an awful lot to say about the hypocrisy of what people expect her to grow into. And a final act that is satisfyingly resolute in its answer.

No Friend To This House, Natalie Haynes

Book Title: No Friend To This House

Author: Natalie Haynes

Date Started: June 29th  2025

Date Completed: August 22nd 2025

Genres: Historical, Adventure

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆ 

I loved the way this novel told all the little stories that weave together myth, all the crossed paths of epic heroes and the creation of mythical beasts, the legacy of these cities and temples - in the first third, we really got to delve into that and it kept the momentum up enough to stay interested. And, then, I enjoyed the last part of the book, where of course the creative license of retelling has the most to play with. The biggest chunk in the middle, I honestly really struggled to stay focused throughout.

Medea's chapters - yes, the supposed protagonist of the story, basically repeated the same prose over and over again. I've never been a fan of first-person narration, but in this context it makes the female perspectives feel defensive rather than diverse and included. Part of why the figure of Medea has captivated us for hundreds and hundreds of years is really that, even as a sympathetic character, there is space to imagine what could make someone act in the way she does. Writing it out into black and white (which may not have been the intention but was the result) loses that.

No Friend To This House is a retelling that tells everything and shows almost nothing at all. It feels like a stage play in that sense, which, sure, is a nod to the original versions of the myth - but why not just go and read those, which will always be incomparable masterpieces. We're just retelling the same events through new eyes - but we don't seem to be expanding these characters' perspectives, their backstory. Sure, they're given grounded motives, but it's like theatre where we're just expected to accept it to serve the performance. Rather than a story exploring who these characters are out of the plot, so that when they finally take to the stage, we understand them.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin

Book Title: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Author: Gabrielle Zevin

Date Started: April 5th  2025

Date Completed: April 18th 2025

Genres: Contemporary, Adventure

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

Sometimes when you finish a book you feel like there's this space in your heart that suddenly so full, and desperate for the pages to keep being there to turn. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was like that for me. It filled up something within me. Some call it pretentious, and honestly I understand that - but it was more nuanced for me. Arrogance with soul and vulnerability is just being a human in a room you're scared of sometimes. I just fell for this book, entirely.

I have never ever read a representation of a creative partnership like this; the good, the bad and the very ugly. It was so resonant for me, and it made me realise that I often forget that most people will never experience it. I adored that all the characters were genuinely impeded in their lives by their flaws - and by the end, they're not solved. They've just learned to live with them and that in itself was really their growth.

Zevin clearly loves video games truly, and I loved that their inclusion in the book wasn't inaccessible and full of self-gratuitous references, but rather explorative of that medium of storytelling. I knew some of the titles, didn't recognise others, and had played only a few of them - but the story was so celebratory of the craft in general the experience was enriched just from learning about them within the context of the characters' own ambitions on the field. I spent most of this book feeling like I was reading my own life - despite the many strong differences to my own experiences. But that's escapism at its most magical and transformative - just like a video game is.

He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan

Book Title: He Who Drowned the World

Author: Shelley Parker-Chan

Series: The Radiant Emperor #2

Date Started: March 2nd  2025

Date Completed: March 16th 2025

Genres: Historical, Adventure, Fantasy

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Full disclosure, I didn't love She Who Became the Sun but was fascinated by the way it was telling its story and its LGBTQ+ representation - but despite that still being great in this novel I, somewhat unsurprisingly, didn't love this sequel either.

These books are full of military escapades, deadly politics and domestic strife, and I have no doubt their interpretation of history (that I'm not familiar with) is creative. But I've just found both books too dense for me to really enjoy them. I've struggled keeping track of nicknames and titles on top of the characters' actual names, and the relation of locations to each other on the map - admittedly, made more difficult by reading on kindle rather than a paperback you can flip back to the start for reference.

But I think the fantasy elements are quite a good example of why there's just a bit too much going on for me; they're so light-touch that it almost feels like magical realism and only show themselves in relation to ghosts. I love this idea - and the way it's used in the finale even more so - but you go a hundred pages between instances of it appearing at all in the world. We flip between intense periods of military strategy and war, to extended bouts of martial conflict and back again. I can see where creative license has filled in gaps in a pre-realised timeline, but I found it hard to really immerse myself in.

Credit where it's due, the fluidity and organic openness to gender and sexuality in this duology is groundbreaking and liberating, and I strongly hope Parker-Chan goes on to write more of it - but maybe a little lighter on the strict militaristic records. I'd love to be able to spend time with the characters, but these books so faithfully follow a historical timeline that I find it difficult to spend time with them over their conquests.

The Dark Mirror, Samantha Shannon

Book Title: The Dark Mirror

Author: Samantha Shannon

Series: The Bone Season #5

Date Started: February 26th  2025

Date Completed: March 2nd 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Adventure, Action, Dystopian

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Stars

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here. I was so ready to dive back into Paige's adventures that it took mere pages for me to be addicted again. I devoured chapters at a time and read the whole thing in 4 days despite its length. My inner mythology and archaeology nerd was spurred on even faster, and I lapped up the references and inspiration from Rome, Venice and beyond.

I appreciated the reminders of previous events threaded into the text. I would often criticise info-dumping, but it's constructive here; it's been a staggering five years since I read The Mask Falling. And for those who haven't reread the stories in the 'author's preferred texts,' don't worry. Shannon does direct readers to her website for a very short list of amendments, but it's been so long that I honestly wouldn't have batted an eye at the changes regardless.

There is a lot of talking in this book which, while enjoyable, made it feel less high stakes than what I remember of the previous books. An awful lot happens, but an awful lot of it happens off the page and outside of our protagonist's presence. That's just how it works when you have a first-person narrator, and I continue to be impressed at how the complex political and magical worlds are mostly kept accessible to the reader via the prose and Paige's inner circle's view.

I couldn't write this review without acknowledging something that I think went over my head when I was younger and reading the first books: Shannon's sense of place. She recreates real cities I've never been to as if they're outside my window and paints the places I know well with so much vibrancy it's like discovering them again for the first time. Her storytelling hinges so much on this staggering sense of reality and an instinctive desire to explore it - which Shannon allows us to in Paige's wanderings, her curiosity to seek out hidden sides of the city, and her evergrowing talent of inadvertently destroying any building she walks past. The heavy use of dialogue mentioned above almost doesn't matter; you can taste the air Paige is walking in, and that's powerful.

I'm hoping that the last two books in the series come out in closer succession to this one, as The Bone Seasion series thrives on momentum. The escalating conflict is reaching a crescendo in real time with these characters, and to throw us in in something close to real time too will make the fever pitch of whatever finale we're approaching unforgettable.

The Listeners, Maggie Stiefvater

Book Title: The Listeners

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Date Started: February 13th  2025

Date Completed: February 26th 2025

Genres: Magical Realism, Historical, Thriller

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook for review ◆

Of course, The Listeners has fascinating subject matter, well played with; a luxury hotel in the mountains turned indulgent prison (and at some times, a stage) for the opposition's diplomats during the early Second World War. But that's all really just the backdrop to a story about how people pretend, present and project themselves onto those around them, and what those people do in response.

Plot-wise, the start has a lot of exciting paths being shown to us, then there's slow-going progress through the middle before the satisfying and rousing finale in the last 15%. The final twist could've used a bit more buildup, but overall I was hooked almost the whole way through. Stiefvater also presents a fantastic use of magical realism to make the story feel full, to materialise these feelings of utter loss and dread and listlessness and steadfastness in a world falling apart, and a cast of characters screaming into the void as it happens.

I am utterly in love with the neurodivergent representation, so seamlessly in place. It's never called that, or really given a name at all, but it resounded so true and personally with me, and clearly what Stiefvater was intending. The power and respect June has, and the 'unusual' parts of how she thinks that make it possible, fills my heart. As a protagonist, she is idealistic and insightful and unmoving, but also not infallible and scared and stubborn. What an adaptation this would make if done well.

I was dithering between 4 or 5 stars for this book while reading - it's a great concept, creatively told, but dawdles in the middle and almost falls into the listlessness of literary fiction. But, actually, I haven't felt this moved in a way I can't articulate in a long time; so 5 stars it is.

Sunbringer, Hannah Kaner

Book Title: Sunbringer

Author: Hannah Kaner

Series: Fallen Gods #2

Date Started: February 1st  2025

Date Completed: February 13th 2025

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Action

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

I fell in love with Godkiller last year, and had to reason with myself to pace out this second book so I wasn't waiting too long for the third to come out, and I think that actually deepens the connection to the story. This world gets bigger with every page, the street corners become clearer, the details bloom with each word. To binge this series would be a disservice to its weight that follows you around for days after you finish it.

I love that Kaner is confident enough to have a whole novel where the characters are separated, and still keep their arcs at the heart of the ever-growing world. The conflict and the politics, no matter where you stand, clash in a startlingly realistic power struggle, and Kissen, Elo and Inara (and Skedi of course) are our anchors. Everything is a grey area, everyone's choices have consequences; you can only do right by yourself and trust others to make their own choices wisely.

The twists aren't satisfying because you see them coming, but more because you're so busy enjoying yourself you aren't racing to catch it before its time. There's a magic to welcoming in your reader so gently that they're at the mercy of whatever story you want to tell them. Suppose you step back and look at things academically. In that case, this novel isn't too far away from falling into the classic 'middle book' trench of filler to get characters to a place to begin the final stand - but the difference is the pieces being moved on the board have purpose, motivation and high-strung emotions. Pushing them towards the end has just as much substance as any battle scene.

Even with the high tension standard, Kaner can turn it up more notches than you could ever see coming. Be it through action so cinematic it gets your pulse racing, or deus ex machina so ethereal you can almost feel the wind on your skin, events pitch up and up towards a well-resolved end but promise far more to come.

Only Human, Sylvain Neuvel

Book Title: Only Human

Author: Sylvain Neuvel

Series: Themis Files #3

Date Started: January 27th  2025

Date Completed: February 1st 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Adventure

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Two Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook for review ◆

I’ve never been able to settle into science fiction literature, and while the first book in this series had a mythic/fairytale quality that I liked, the trilogy has progressed into pure sci fi (which is absolutely fine, I’ve just found my attention waning unfortunately).

That being said, there were three things that kept sticking out to me reading this; the transcript style often doesn’t lend itself to the drama the story seems to need, the characters can often very flippant with their generation of countries (I get some of them are supposed to be bad people but even the main cast do it), and - most importantly - I don’t buy the melodramatic father/daughter drama for a second, it’s far too shallow and performative on both sides.

I miss Rose being the main character, and I miss Kara all around. I think that, for me, was why almost all the beats in Only Humans just didn’t hit; there didn’t seem to be an emotional anchor in the way the other books had. I’ve read a lot of books about governments turning into facist world-ending adrenaline junkies and having a field day being corrupt politicians, whether it’s against aliens or the lower classes or each other. I want to pay more attention to the people standing against them.

The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon

Book Title: The Priory of the Orange Tree

Author: Samantha Shannon

Series: The Roots of Chaos #1

Date Started: December 15th  2024

Date Completed: January 5th 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Action

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

King Arthur, Theseus and Gilgamesh eat your heart out, this is a great epic of women in par with Le Guin and Zimmer Bradley. There is no explanation why women stand at the prow of so many intrinsic roles, they simply do - how liberating it is to experience a story like that.

Unsurprisingly, the worldbuilding is marvellous. Drawing inspiration from our world and mixing it with a generous helping of fantasy creates an entirely absorbing universe brimming with politics and magic, culture and conflict. The build-up to the final battle is what makes the ending truly impressive - I haven't been transfixed by a climax like that for ages.

Did it need to be that long? No, of course it didn't. But I have to admit, I enjoyed almost every page. You've got to give credit to Shannon for fully realising such a complex story in only one novel rather than cashing in on a trilogy (as this could easily have been). While you definitely feel the 800+ pages, the momentum is so consistent that you're more than satisfied letting it take its time.

The Priory of the Orange Tree is a complex story, but thoughtful too. It never passes omnipotent judgment on its characters or their part in its events. So much of the narrative explores the diametrically opposed beliefs and motivations of the different regions and nations, all tangled up in each other's lives and trying to make peace with what they want within it. Shannon lets the reader learn and fall in love as they wish, victories and defeats washing over them like real life. If you weren't sure of Samantha Shannon's storytelling prowess before this book, there's no denying it now.