A Soul Full of Shadows, Derek Landy

 

Book Title: A Soul Full of Shadows

Author: Derek Landy

Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #18

Date Started: April 4th  2026

Date Completed: May 4th 2026

Genres: Fantasy, Action, Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Comedy

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

Regardless of where you find yourself in the Skulduggery saga, Derek has yet to disappoint in the new chapter he's added. With more than 20 full-length novels at this point, still every book is a truly original story, always with new ideas and fresh humour to make me laugh out loud (and that never happens). Nothing is redundant in a Skulduggery story, everything comes back around, and everything comes to an end. And, of course, this wasn't the real end.

I struggle these days with the sheer scale of people, places, magic systems and (now) timelines in the Skulduggery Pleasant world. It's somewhat inevitable, 18 main books and several spin-offs down the line, and luckily the hijinks and thrills don't suffer too much from it. I did find the first half of A Soul Full of Shadows a bit of a drag with predominantly talking and lots and lots of set-up, but the second half was a pure joyride and made up for it.

The sequel series/set of trilogies is not what the original 9-book/3-part trilogy series used to be; they've evolved significantly. Some parts I like, some parts I'm not as keen on - but I don't think I'll ever stop coming back for more, so I'm here for whatever road Derek wants to send a burning Bentley down. It would be nice if Tanith got to have something nice for more than 100 pages, though.

The Silence of Bones, June Hur

 Book Title: The Silence of Bones

Author: June Hur

Date Started: March 1oth 2026

Date Completed: March 14th 2026

Genres: Historical, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

What a debut. I received A Crane Among Wolves a while ago for review, having wanted to read something of Hur's for a long time. While I can feel how her writing has progressed since this book, I was so impressed by how thrilling and how well articulated, yet complex, this first novel was. So much fun and truly gripping - and it becomes even more so as you go on.

The historical Korean details are part of why I love Hur's stories, and while I did find the start of this novel a little overbearing with explaining various customs and terms, by the halfway mark the writing has settled into feeling like worldbuilding rather than explanations, leaving some things ambiguous and just part of the world. It's a joy to be able to recognise the extra details (or even look it up if I wasn't familiar), but the story is allowed to come first.

I adored how Seol's story was given time to completion even after the murder mystery closes. The strength of her character is in moments like this, where she may not be the strongest or the cleverest, but she absolutely always has agency. Overall, I loved the lack of a romantic subplot and how much tension, how much feeling there still was in each relationship.

And, finally, I have so much respect for how the audience is allowed to put the clues together and Hur doesn't feel the need to go, 'psyche, I fooled you' for her own ego. Threads start to pull together for the reader just as quickly as for Seol, and so each new piece of evidence is thrilling not because it's a shocker but because it adds understanding to the pattern being woven for the reader. The best mysteries are when everyone can feel like they're the detective.

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.

The Vilage Village, Lemony Snicket

Book Title: The Vile Village

Author: Lemony Snicket

Series: A Series of Unfortunate Events #7

Date Started: January 6th  2026

Date Completed: January 8th 2026

Genres: Adventure, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

I’m continuing my adventures of completing childhood and teen series; A Series of Unfortunate Events is truly a classic for my generation, and I’ve enjoyed their screen adaptations so I’m determined to finish the books eventually. They’re such quick and easy reads at this point they almost feel like heavily-written graphic novels.

I do admire the way the writing is always introducing reasonably big words and concepts, but does it in such an accessible way, as if the narrator is having a conversation with someone they truly respect. A key theme is the ongoing patronising of children’s intelligence and emotions, but it’s so well balanced with introducing all of this vocabulary and culture plainly and for fun.

This isn’t one of the standouts of the series, and feels quite a bit shorter in its arc, but still perfectly enjoyable to follow along the Baudelaire siblings a little further. Despite having watched the TV series, a fair part of the mystery is lost in my memory so the puzzle solving is definitely still satisfying. Halfway through the series now!

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.

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.

The Ersatz Elevator, Lemony Snicket

Book Title: The Ersatz Elevator

Author: Lemony Snicket

Series: A Series of Unfortunate Events #6

Date Started: December 12th  2024

Date Completed: December 15th 2024

Genres: Adventure, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

A Series of Unfortunate Events were such classics in my childhood - everyone read them and loved them. I only got halfway through them (despite having the box set) because they started to get repetitive, but the Netflix adaptation has given me confidence that things get shaken up. So, as I continue my mission to finish the various incomplete series from my childhood and early teens, now is the time.

I really appreciate how fun and clever these stories are as an adult, as well as how fantastic it is to see children's protagonists celebrated as clever and brave and inventive - while the adults around them are largely unwilling to commit to facing the unfortunate events that befall the Baudelaire orphans. It's reminded me that most of my most beloved childhood books similarly celebrated kids who were clever and curious, who tried hard even when no one else would, and who knew that the relationships with those around them was the most precious thing they had. There should be more children's fiction that tackles dark and scary things like that.

Plot-wise, I vaguely remember all the mysteries from the Netflix series (though I'd have to look up V.F.D. again), but it's fun to see them in original form. I definitely feel like Lemony Snicket is partially to blame for the modern idea of click-baiting though. The bizarre elements - while still truly bizarre even now - do work impressively well with the quirks of the narrator. This was a very special type of series, and I'm looking forward to finishing it.

A Dance with Fate, Juliet Marillier

Book Title: A Dance with Fate

Author: Juliet Marillier

Series: Warrior Bards #2

Date Started: November 23rd 2024

Date Completed: November 26th 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Historical, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

I was in the mood for a quick read that was fun and just the right amount of dramatic in between what's sort of a reading sprint to finish a ton of books before the end of the year - and Juliet Marillier delivered.

The Warrior Bards series didn't start off as one of my favourites of Marillier's but now that the characters are on their paths there's more time for actual plot rather than just herding people into their places. I always love Marillier's balance of mystery and adventure (and the light touch romance that's always embedded within strong friendships). Her books do tend to be pretty plot-driven but with the characters becoming a very recognisable cast, it stays rooted in something special. This series leans more into the fae sub-plots than her others, which sometimes feel unnecessarily squeezed in to keep something relevant for later down the line, but it does always weave back into the central story eventually.

I'm always impressed how somewhat similar events across all of Marillier's books always feel new and exciting. The importance of setting and place for her stories is one of my favourite things to experience each time - especially as the characters tend to move around a lot, it really delivers on the fantastical journey storytelling tradition that informs so much of the stories. Always familiar, but always with something new around the next corner.

The Haunted House on Hollow Hill, Derek Landy

Book Title: The Haunted House on Hollow Hill

Author: Derek Landy

Series: Skulduggery Pleasant

Date Started: October 7th  2024

Date Completed: October 11th 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Adventure, Action

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

I always marvel at how quickly Derek must write for the main series and these spin-offs to come out in such quick succession. I enjoyed the podcast version of this story a lot, but I find it hard to follow audio-only media so decided to read the books as well (I conveniently drifted off to sleep on the episode the killer was revealed so it made both experiences satisfying).

You can tell that the novel has been written for an audio production, the scenes dance around a little unnaturally for prose - but it's also very creative with the sound landscape and design. Of course that makes the podcast version really interesting, but it's also fun to see the way it weaves into the fabric of the narrative even when written.

These little mystery spin-offs are always fun and realised to the point they don't feel gratuitous. Derek is so good at creating new casts of characters, it feels new every time. I also really enjoyed that Valkyrie and Skulduggery are rarely the protagonists but instead feature in someone else's story. It makes the universe all the bigger and exciting.

Ultimately, The Haunted House on Hollow Hill wasn't my favourite instalment in the Skulduggery series (saga, is it big enough to call a saga yet?) but it was still fun, and actually really cool to see them trying new forms of storytelling for the series that make it all the richer.

Blue Door Venture, Pamela Brown

Book Title: Blue Door Venture

Author: Pamela Brown

Series: Blue Door #4

Date Started: June 30th  2024

Date Completed: July 25th 2024

Genres: Adventure, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

My saga of finishing off childhood book series continues, this time with a classical and beloved one: the Blue Door Theatre books. These stories, like Ballet Shoes and Malory Towers, sustained me as a child on magical dreams of the theatre and performance. It was a joy to revisit the world - and poetically at a time when I had finally been able to fund a creative passion project with a team of wonderful people; arguably the thing these stories had persuaded me to do all those years ago.

I loved the road-trip mystery plotline, it felt fresh from what I remembered of the series. Touring around all these places in the UK, many of them now familiar to me, as the characters discovered them for the first time was a lot of fun - and of course incredibly wholesome. As with a lot of old-fashioned ensembles, the characters blur a bit and end up divided into the boys and the girls. But Brown has such a respect for all kinds of hard work that the relationships and drive of the friends and siblings felt genuine and inclusive. For a book from the 40s, it holds up impressively well.

While it was a shorter story in the series, I massively enjoyed reading it. I can't believe there's only one left (she says after not reading this book for a decade) - and with Maddy, the only real protagonist, no less.

Waking Gods, Sylvain Neuvel

Book Title: Waking Gods

Author: Sylvain Neuvel

Series: Themis Files #2

Date Started: April 6th  2024

Date Completed: May 5th 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

I remember really enjoying the first novel in this series when I got it for review a few years ago. It was science fiction but with a strong current of mystery, archaeology and human-centric drama and philosophy. Waking Gods wasn't quite the same experience with me, but I expect this is because it suffers from middle-book-in-a-trilogy syndrome. That and it features the most unconvincing ten-year-old ever.

The transcript style of prose gets old pretty quickly and loses its novelty - it worked pretty well in the first book but I think it loses the story's momentum once the mystery element has gone. The problem with just dialogue is also that you lose a lot of the subtext, and writers are tempted to be far too direct with their characters' intentions. And once you have more than two characters in a scene it becomes hard to follow - not the best for a character-based novel!

The story in general felt like filler; lots of weird mysterious events are introduced but with no real progress on uncovering them. I guess it'll be revealed in the final book of the trilogy, but it's always a frustrating experience to have to read a whole book with no satisfying resolutions and just more questions. I hope the final book balances the action and talking across both the plot and the relationships a bit more, so we get satisfying answers to the alien mysteries and vaguely convincing closure to the characters' arcs.

A Mind Full of Murder, Derek Landy

Book Title: A Mind Full of Murder

Author: Dereky Landy

Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #2

Date Started: March 30th  2024

Date Completed: April 6th 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Action, Mystery, Adventure

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

The new Skulduggery Pleasant book always feels like coming home. And I think Derek's cycle-like series of varying lengths is the best way to revisit stories and characters without just rehashing sequels for the sake of it - they grow up and have something new to learn and explore and show us.

Do I remember everything from the last series? No. Did I do a double take when certain characters showed up? Maybe. Did I keep going and pretend I knew exactly what was happening? Absolutely. That being said, it's so impressive how wide and complex this world is now and that, for the most part, it isn't too difficult to fall back in and work off patchy memory of how it got there.

I've always admired Derek's ability to seed out series-long plot lines and mysteries while finishing off the individual story arc of each particular book. Every chapter is a joy rather than a necessary bit of story to get to the end. And these books, still, remain to be some of the few that have me laughing out loud. There's such perfectly placed tonal appreciation for culture, people and modern storytelling while being absolutely rooted in traditional forms of mystery, action and fantasy.

My only ongoing gripe with the new Skulduggery books is that I want and need more Tanith. It's like being a teenager constantly on the look out for your crush in the school hallways. I love that we get to see so many old favourites every now and then - as real life relationships end up being - and that there is space for new characters to step in too. But the OG four really are so beloved to me and they're still the scene stealers after all these years.

A Crane Among Wolves, June Hur

Book Title: A Crane Among Wolves

Author: June Hur

Date Started: March 1st  2024

Date Completed: March 3rd 2024

Genres: Historical, Mystery, Romance

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook for review ◆

I’ve wanted to read a June Hur book for a long time, and I absolutely devoured this one as soon as I laid hands on it. It took me three days to read this whole novel, and the hype seems to be real because I can’t wait to pick up another one.

A Crane Among Wolves feels like a historical K-Drama in novel form; keeping the best bits of the genre, pacing and politics, and taking full advantage of the literary medium to spin out the mysteries, motivations and historical detail. If you read the Author’s Note at the end you’ll also find that a lot of the history is completely true - and Hur strikes a good balance between fact and fiction to tell her story as well as represent the true events.

I also adored the places Hur chose to use Hangul (the Korean language’s alphabet) and gently elaborate on some traditional elements that perhaps readers unfamiliar with Korean culture might not be familiar with. It’s so subtle that it doesn’t turn the book into a history lesson, but even as a intermediate Korean learner I appreciated.

This book also had the perfect balance of romance versus plot for me. I often moan about the distraction of love arcs in derailing many a Young Adult novel, but Hur has a lovely satisfying sub plot that exists alongside the core narrative. I had a lot of fun with this book and I look forward to the next.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Katherine Arden

Book Title: The Warm Hands of Ghosts

Author: Katherine Arden

Date Started: January 25th 2024

Date Completed: February 8th 2024

Genres: Historical, Fantasy, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook for review ◆

War fiction isn’t generally a genre I’m interested in, but I’ve been homesick for the magic of Arden’s historical fantasy so didn’t hesitate to jump headfirst into this one. Her magical realism elevates any story and while The Warm Hands of Ghosts is far more rooted in reality than her other novels, the book balances both well to tell a story quite unique.

My one reservation about this novel was how slow it was to start. Arden takes real time to build depth in her characters beyond the typical war time portraits, but it’s more than a third of the way through before we get some actual fantasy. What becomes an almost timeless saga, seeing more sides to the war than trenches and hospitals, takes quite a lot of lead in time to grow in new directions.

The ‘some people cannot create, they can only use and destroy’ motifs are the real polish for me. While thematically it sometimes gets battered about, it is undeniably the core of a dazzling crescendo, and a very long thread tying each person and each story together. The narrative takes place over about a year or so, but far less consistently than we tend to be used to in modern novels - that thematic truth of nature is what marries it all together.

Laura herself is a great character to anchor the sweeping story, time period and ensemble cast. It could have been so easy to fall into stereotype but the brusque nurse doesn’t drown out the emotional person underneath - and likewise her logic is always there for Laura to fall back on in defence. Her identity, and her companions’, are crafted so well the story can be political without derailing the narrative for a moral high ground. Beliefs and actions are consistent because they align with the characters we are falling for.

I really do love Arden’s bittersweet style of storytelling. Everything always feels so rich and grim and exciting all at once. The Warm Hands of Ghosts harkens to so many references from folklore, to poetry, to music, to history and on and on. But her story feels uniquely original and new - and that’s hard to come by.

The Illusions

Book Title: The Illusions

Author: Liz Hyder

Date Started: November 6th 2023

Date Completed: November 23rd 2023

Genres: Historical, Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

All done with kindness. It’s a phrase that’s repeated throughout this novel but characters and is even handwritten by the author herself at the start from the lovely signed edition I found at my local independent bookshop - in fact it’s the reason I was drawn to pick it up, and it feels so utterly perfect for the novel I then got to read.

Perhaps that’s misleading, because it was also the promise of two female heroines from the worlds of theatre and filmmaking that fully convinced me. From a personal place, I fell in love with theatre from a young age and then fell even further head over heels for the moving image, partially because of a French filmmaker called Georges Méliès (and later Alice Guy-Blanche) who was one of the first to invent in camera trickery and ‘special effects’. I go into this because this book is palpable for that same adoration of performance and almost literal magic both from an audience seat and through a camera. This book was a joy to read because it was like reliving my discovery of those things all over again, and not least through two fantastically courageous and inventive heroines who were finding their own feet in those spaces all by themselves.

That’s not to say that this book relies on a personal love of these performance arts, it’s a fantastically exciting and touching book full of twists and humour, and even literal magic at some points. It’s a book that perhaps tries to tick too many boxes - it’s a shame the magic didn’t actually end up playing an integral part, some exposition ended up easily forgotten, and the romance was drawn out - but it’s one that takes you with it as it sneaks into all the nooks and crannies. You live alongside these characters (and it’s a hefty cast to keep track of) for a short while, and by the time you get to the end it’s unputdownable.

I would say it leans slightly towards the Young Adult audience though it’s marketed as adult, with that token ensemble of peers and the often lighthearted resolutions to what in other contexts could be very dark themes. But regardless it’s a genuine enjoyable read I wish I could experience all over again. A warm hug of a book, and one personally beloved to me.

Hell Breaks Loose

Book Title: Hell Breaks Loose

Author: Derek Landy

Series: Skulduggery Pleasant

Date Started: June 14th 2023

Date Completed: June 19th 2023

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Action, Historical, Mystery, Horro

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

Hell Breaks Loose is a very entertaining and cleverly placed adventure with our favourite characters from the Skulduggery Pleasant universe, while we await the last book to the sequel series to release. While I would rather the multiverse would stop infiltrating literally every form of media, it's undeniably hats off to one of the few franchises that actually puts effort into its spin-offs, embedding them so well in the main overarching universe while being entirely enjoyable on their own.

This story wasn't what I expected, while simultaneously being precisely what I should have seen coming. Once it gets into the swing of things, it's the classic action-adventure I fell in love with as a child, alongside the good old-fashioned drama and comedy that my adult self appreciates even more so.

The action is always so impressively written; it flows, the chaos is vivid, the movement articulate. You can see it playing out, startingly, in your head like a movie. And, always, Derek plays with violence and conflict and pain in an accessible way without glorifying it; action scenes leave scars, people get hurt, people are conscious of their actions. Those are all factors that so often are just left behind because they're heavy, and even more so with characters who you're supposed to root for without descending your book into discussions on moral philosophy. Derek touches on the dark, but has such an appreciation for the light (be it comedy, characterisation, motivation) that he can do both.

Hell Breaks Loose isn't my favourite in the series, but it's absolutely grounded in its universe, and fully appreciates its place and opportunity. This book is fun and easy to read in a way that a series sometimes limits; it's just what I needed for a little summer holiday action.