Author's posts
From the very first pages, I was completely blown away by how lovely the prose of this novel is! In all honesty, pretty phrasing isn’t high on my list when it comes to what makes a novel entertaining, but Shveta Thakrar’s beautiful descriptive writing, coupled with her gift for presenting absolutely natural dialog and emotion, …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/19/star-daughter-by-shveta-thakrar/
So there are some really good bits in Chloe Gong’s retelling of Romeo And Juliet, set in 1920s Shanghai and featuring the scions of two rival gang families needing to team up to defeat a supernatural threat to the city. First and foremost is the lived-in character of Juliette Cai, heir to the Scarlet Gang, …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/17/these-violent-delights-these-violent-delights-1-by-chloe-gong/
Somehow, I overlooked this book in all the shuffle of recent months, but was so very pleased to finally be able to crack it open and discover that it was written by a Malaysian team! Reading the book made me feel like a kid again, sneaking my comics away from my mother’s disapproving eye, much …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/16/x-venture-xplorers-the-kingdom-of-animals-1-rage-of-the-kings-by-slaium-meng-the-black-ink-team/
I’m still thinking about this cleverly constructed fable set fifteen or so years in the future. Thirty year-old Malachi is hired to essentially be the groom for a stable of murderers whose bodies are being used as part of a top-secret organ-growing project run by Raizier Pharmaceuticals. The nutrients fed to the prisoners cause their …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/13/the-book-of-malachi-by-t-c-farren/
I am very grouchy about this book, even though I was very excited at first to finally get my hands on this YA novel featuring feminist Muslim heroines. Samira Ahmed’s Mad, Bad & Dangerous To Know marries an intriguing high concept with a narrative that prefers to tell instead of show and relentlessly strikes dramatic …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/12/mad-bad-dangerous-to-know-by-samira-ahmed/
Y’aaaaall. I’ve read plenty of books with unsympathetic narrators but this is one of the perishing few where I could sympathize with our protagonist even as I lacked any empathy for her. Grace Wright is, in temperament, my exact opposite. She has a fixed idea of how things should be, and reacts poorly when things …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/10/she-lies-close-by-sharon-doering/
In short: neurotic weirdo falls in love with a big ball of red flags. One of the main reasons it took me years to come back to reading contemporary romance novels is that it infuriates me when the central premise of the book is based on a woman lapping up clearly abusive behavior from some …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/06/the-hating-game-by-sally-thorne/
I was so chuffed to learn about this Arabian-inspired fantasy YA novel by an American niqabi, which had been getting so many rave reviews! I had to keep putting off reading it for one reason or another, but was so pleased to finally have time to settle in with it over the weekend. I was …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/04/we-hunt-the-flame-sands-of-arawiya-1-by-hafsah-faizal/
My 9 year-old pressed this book on me immediately after he finished reading it last night, because he really wanted to discuss it with me. I read it over dinner, and was honestly relieved to find that the narrative voice was quite different from in its parent series, The Diary Of A Wimpy Kid. Granted, …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/30/rowley-jeffersons-awesome-friendly-adventure-diary-of-an-awesome-friendly-kid-2-by-jeff-kinney/
One of my greatest joys as a book critic is finding little known indie/self-published debut novels and championing them for the world to read (see: James Roberts‘ Pardon Me, or anything by Unsung Stories but particularly Rym Kechacha’s Dark River.) As such, I’m always open to queries and will rarely turn anything down, schedule permitting. …
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/28/the-tech-by-mark-ravine/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire