Happy Sunday Funday and welcome to my third weekly update for Wyrd & Wonder! Wyrd & Wonder 2025 is a month long celebration of all things fantasy co-hosted by Lisa @ Dear Geek Place, imyril @ There’s Always Room For One More, Ariana @ The Book Nook, Annemieke @ A Dance With Books, and Jorie @ Jorie Loves A Story (artwork by Yuri Arcurs Photography). Now, since I've got a full week to work with we're back to a regular schedule here. I can't believe we're getting close to the end of the month already - it doesn't seem right! Keep reading to see what I've gotten up to since this monthly since my last update:
My Wyrd & Wonder Posts So Far:
Books From The Backlog: Dust City by Robert Paul Weston
The Friday 56 (With Book Beginnings): The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
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I can tell you right now that I would absolutely have given DragonHeart (1996) five stars if I'd seen this much closer to when it was new. It took me a bit to get into this now, but by the end I was pretty invested and was actually a bit choked up. Anyway, I knew going in that David Thewlis and Jason Isaacs were both in this but I was still surprised to see them.
What I've Read So Far:
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Hero's Song (The Songs of Eirren #1) by Edith Pattou is a fine YA fantasy series opener. A little while ago, I picked up book two from a thrift shop so I'm glad I waited and borrowed book one from the library and read it first. It wasn't the most memorable, but I liked reading it at the time.
My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.
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Sword Catcher (The Chronicles of Castellane #1) by Cassandra Clare is a new epic fantasy series from an author I've really enjoyed from the past. It's quite a bit different from the The Shadowhunter Chronicles, but the characters are the real strength of the story. Of Conor, Kel, and Lin, I'd say Lin was my favorite of the group. I also liked the world building as well. I liked the detail that's gone into the city of Castellane which really adds color. My two main issues with this are that there are a lot of characters to keep track of and that it's much too long. It took longer than it should have for me to get hooked by the story. That said by the ending, I was extremely invested in the whole thing and I can't wait to read the sequel, The Ragpicker King. If you're a fan of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, and A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, you might want to give this a try as well.
My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.
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The idea of Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London is a fun one, but the final product just wasn't quite for me. I'm not quite sure what this wanted to be honestly - on one hand it's a campy romcom with a ton of pop culture references with a bit of a cringy sense of humor, but on the other there's a major sexual assault plot device/ subplot going on that gets pretty dark (or more than I was expecting given the summary and author's note). Some stories could pull that off, but definitely not so much in this case. I also wasn't really a fan of any of the characters and none of them felt fleshed out enough to get invested in. Finally, 361 pages is much too long for it this standalone vampire fantasy.
My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.
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Saint City Sinners (Dante Valentine #4) by Lilith Saintcrow got off to an interesting start, but it definitely wasn't a favorite of the series. I liked the action of the series when it got started, but this focused a little too much on the relationships more than it should have to balance everything else out. It made the pacing feel off and like the book could have withstood being a little shorter in length.
My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.
Too bad about Fang Fiction, I was hoping it would be a good one.
ReplyDeleteI had high hopes, but it just didn't live up to them for me.
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