Aug 31 2023
The first volume of The Queen’s Favorite Witch turned out to be an unexpected surprise, combining historical fact with an empowering tale of believing in yourself, and ending with a shocking twist. I’m genuinely impressed with how Benjamin Dickson and Rachael Smith have continued this series with a book that, while not as big on …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/31/the-queens-favourite-witch-2-the-lost-king-by-benjamin-dickson-rachael-smith/
Aug 29 2023
Long-time readers here will know that I’m a huge mythology aficionado, so when I say that this book taught me so much that I didn’t already know about the history and myth of Britain, that is no mean feat! The book started out pretty roughly, for me, as I tried to settle into the somewhat …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/29/storyland-a-new-mythology-of-britain-by-amy-jeffs/
Jul 29 2023
One of the ways that the Folly — the secret unit of London’s Metropolitan Police Service that deals with the supernatural — is integrated into regular police work is that they receive reports concerning missing children. Apparently in previous eras, rogue practitioners used to use children for some very rogue practices. And so Nightingale dispatches Peter …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/29/foxglove-summer-by-ben-aaronovitch-2/
Jul 23 2023
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes is something of a second-hand autobiography. Wilkins was Pratchett’s personal assistant from 2000 until Pratchett’s death in 2015 of a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. He was also in possession of the notes toward an autobiography that Pratchett made but never turned into a full manuscript. As time went …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/23/terry-pratchett-a-life-with-footnotes-by-rob-wilkins/
Jul 16 2023
This review inevitably has spoilers for Silver in the Wood. Emily Tesh returns to Victorian England to show readers what has happened since the end of Silver in the Wood, and it starts out with a right mess. Henry Silver, fastidious when last seen, has allowed Greenhallow Hall to fall into disrepair, nearly into ruin. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/16/drowned-country-by-emily-tesh/
May 05 2023
I wrote about Whispers Under Ground that I found the Rivers of London comfort reading, despite the uncanny events, the grisly murders, and the hints about horrible history in British magic. Broken Homes shows that I can still count on a narrator I enjoy spending time with, that there will be adventures and scrapes, and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/05/05/broken-homes-by-ben-aaronovitch-2/
Apr 23 2023
An unconsidered moment of kindness sets Silver in the Wood in motion. Tobias Finch had been in his cottage during an autumn downpour when he spied “a young man in a well-fitted grey coat stumbling along the track with wet leaves blowing into his face and his hat a crumpled ruin in his hands.” (p. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/04/23/silver-in-the-wood-by-emily-tesh/
Sep 04 2022
I’m only three books into the Rivers of London series, and already they feel like comfort reading. I can feel confident that with each new Peter Grant book I pick up, I will encounter characters I enjoy spending time with — the narrator first and foremost — that they will have adventures and scrapes, that Aaronovitch will …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/09/04/whispers-under-ground-by-ben-aaronovitch/
May 08 2022
Butler to the World begins with an American academic paying a visit to Oliver Bullough. Leading up to the publication of Moneyland, and even more since, Bullough has been writing about financial corruption, and particularly the ways that advanced, rule-of-law democracies have been helping corrupt rich people around the world keep and protect their ill-gotten …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/08/butler-to-the-world-by-oliver-bullough/
Feb 20 2022
Jazzmen dropping dead in circumstances that are unusual even by their standards. Incontrovertible, if circumstantial, evidence of a real-life vagina dentata. These two sets of mysteries set the stage for the events of Moon Over Soho, events that will show readers more about Constable Peter Grant, much more about his mentor in magical policing Detective …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/02/20/moon-over-soho-by-ben-aaronovitch-2/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire