Aug 27 2020
I’m really starting to question whether I should accept Netgalley invites for YA Fantasy from now on. The murder mysteries they’ve invited me to read have all been solid but too much of the YA has been middling to terrible. And yes, that includes Alex London’s Black Wings Beating, which at least has the advantages …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/27/black-wings-beating-skybound-1-by-alex-london/
Aug 21 2020
I feel kinda bad about shitting on this book, in large part because so many people seemed to lurve it while I spent most of my time going “for real?” while I was reading it. Because, while the concept was interesting and I know Sabaa Tahir means well — ngl, I was genuinely moved to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/21/an-ember-in-the-ashes-an-ember-in-the-ashes-1-by-sabaa-tahir/
Aug 02 2020
What if Arthur, like Uther, was an ambitious thug and the knights of the Round Table were a collection of weirdos and ruffians who say “fuck” a lot? That’s more or less the premise of Lavie Tidhar’s By Force Alone, and although I finished the book relatively quickly during my recent vacation in the Eifel, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/02/by-force-alone-by-lavie-tidhar/
Jul 15 2020
This book reads far differently for me as a mom now than if I’d read it before my kids were born, but I’d like to think that my younger self would still have appreciated how terrific, how finely crafted this tale of a young wizard on a quest to save his village is. Oliver is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/15/minor-mage-by-t-kingfisher/
Jul 14 2020
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did Threading The Labyrinth evolve? A. Way back in 2009, it started as a research proposal for a PhD in Creative Writing. I wanted to study the history of English gardens and write a novel …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/14/an-interview-with-tiffani-angus-author-of-threading-the-labyrinth/
Jul 13 2020
Oh how my heart hurt for the Prine sisters, 7th grader Eleanor and her younger sister Mike! Growing up with an abusive father, Simon, and a mother, Moira, who would prefer to blame them rather than defend them, the girls resort to telling each other stories about magic in order to explain the horrifying circumstances …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/13/riverland-by-fran-wilde/
Jul 10 2020
This may be the most original fantasy novel I’ve read so far this year! I genuinely can’t believe this is billed as a children’s book when it’s so rich and layered and honestly deeply interrogative of personal and political relationships and choices. It’s so much more thoughtful and nuanced than at least 75% of the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/10/deeplight-by-frances-hardinge/
Jul 06 2020
Look at that gorgeous cover. I want to do up a room of my house with that sort of wallpaper. And yes, I’m digressing because I want to say something nice about this book before I say something(s) that will likely sound churlish. This is not, by any means, a bad book, but it is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/06/the-ten-thousand-doors-of-january-by-alix-e-harrow/
Jun 23 2020
Oh, that was a hot mess. One reason that the rest of the books in the Wayward Children series have worked for me, despite my misgivings regarding certain of Seanan McGuire’s narrative choices (e.g. the blanket disdain for parents in Every Heart A Doorway, the idolization of The Baker in Beneath The Sugar Sky, the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/23/in-an-absent-dream-wayward-children-4-by-seanan-mcguire/
Jun 22 2020
Would I have liked this more were we not at a point in time where the news is so saturated in Black pain that reading entertainment that centers that just feels like too much? It’s not that I want to turn my back on the Black experience, but I am definitely at the point where …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/22/the-deep-by-rivers-solomon-daveed-diggs-william-hutson-jonathan-snipes/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire