As the second volume in a historical fantasy series about Ancient Rome, The Gates of Hell can be viewed as the “next chapter” of the events following the Final War of the Roman Republic. Approximately five years have passed since Alexandria fell. Marc Antony and Cleopatra are dead. Their daughter Selene has been taken into their conqueror’s household, becoming one of Augustus Caesar’s adopted children. But for all that, she knows she is still a hostage and the longing for avenging her parents still burns inside. The book begins with Selene taking matters into her own hands, seeking her own Shard of Heaven after finding out about the godlike abilities they can grant to the people who wield them. She manages to find and obtain one disguised as a statue in the Temple of the Vestals, bringing another of one these powerful artifacts into play. Meanwhile, her arranged marriage to Juba of Numidia, an adopted son of Julius Caesar, ultimately grew into to be a relationship based on love and respect. Together with her husband, who also possesses a Shard of Heaven, they begin to experiment and practice with their artifacts, learning how to harness their power. At the same…

Books that get the five star treatment from me often have an emotional component to them, which would probably explain why I have consistently given the novels in the Blackthorn & Grim series full marks. That’s because every single one of them has been a boatload of feels, and this third installment is no exception. In fact, Den of Wolves might be the most poignant and moving of them all. I’ve laughed and cried with these characters through their triumphs and tribulations, and now I finally understand that everything we’d been through had been gradually building up to this crucial novel. If you have not had the pleasure of meeting Blackthorn and Grim yet, the two of them make up one of the most extraordinary partnerships I’ve ever read, and their shared experiences in the previous books have only deepened that bond of trust and friendship. Blackthorn is a wise woman, her job to mend and heal and cure, but deep down inside she is still broken and raging with her desire for revenge on Mathuin of Laois, the man who destroyed everything she ever loved. The only thing keeping her from acting upon that anger is an oath she…

Color me pleasantly surprised – a book that ostensibly bore many hallmarks of your average possibly-YA-but-maybe-not fantasy novel in fact turned out to be a very refreshing and unique read. I honestly didn’t expect to like this book so much, especially since my feelings for the story fluctuated so wildly for most of the first half. However, all traces of uncertainty were washed away by the time the plot ramped up to its brutal climax and staggering conclusion. The Queen of Blood introduces us to the world of Aratay, a place where humans and nature spirits coexist in a state of precarious equilibrium. Spirits see humans as invaders in their domain, and given the opportunity they would gladly see us all dead. But while the spirits are destructive forces, they are also one with the natural world, and without them there would be no rain, no fire, no life. So humans have learned to adapt. In Aratay, a Queen holds control over all the spirits in the area and protects her people from harm. To choose a Queen, girls with an affinity to sense and manipulate the spirits are identified and invited to an academy to learn how to use…

Make no mistake, Lovecraft-inspired stories are a real hot thing right now and I am gobbling it all up. This year the types of Lovecraftian fiction I’ve already read have ranged from bloody gorefests to dark comedies, and there just seems to be a style for every persuasion. And if your tastes happen to run in the direction of weird fiction and pulp noir, then Reanimatrix is sure to make you very, very happy. Unfolding through a series of diary entries and letters, this story follows the strange lives of two main characters, Robert Peaslee and Megan Halsey. It is the 1920s, and Robert was an officer in the Great War returning to his home town of Arkham to work on the police force, handling the sensitive cases that the other cops don’t want to touch. One fateful day he meets Megan, a young heiress with a troubled past, and immediately feels drawn to her. Years later, however, Robert is called to work a crime scene by the docks where a body of a woman has been discovered, and he is shocked and heartbroken to later learn that it is none other than Megan Halsey. Before the investigation can move…

Around here, we get the worst infestations of odorous ants every year especially in the late summer. We’d see them swarming in these thick nasty black trails to get at anything sugary inside the house. They’re also impossible to get rid of because they form these huge multi-nest colonies in the suburbs, and no matter what you do they just keep coming back. Even worse, when you crush them, they give off this foul smell, hence their name. Some people say it stinks like rotten coconuts, but to me it smells a little like putrid lemon cleaner. Either way, it’s gross. Sometimes at night, when I’m lying in bed in the dark, I’ll feel an itch on my arm and reach down to scratch…only to feel my hand brushing against a tiny speck on my skin. I can’t see a thing, but when I bring my fingers up to my nose, sure enough, I’ll smell that horrible scent and know that one of those buggers had gotten under my blankets. I would become so disgusted and unnerved, that I imagine ants are crawling all over my body, and that feeling would keep me up for hours… Anyway, thanks to Chuck…

As its title implies, this novel is a bit of an oddball. Even the style of it reminds me a little of a children’s storybook, complete with its own whimsical fairy tale message: Your eyes only see what your mind wants to see, so sometimes all it takes is a change of perspective. Or, if you’d like: Magic is real, if you just look for it. The book starts with an introduction to the saddest protagonist ever. Wil Morgan is literally the kind of guy who has dreams about coming in second in a World’s Biggest Failure competition. He’s crotchety, cynical and unimaginative—but that didn’t used to be the case. His childhood was filled with hopes and dreams, and his mother the brilliant jet propulsion scientist Melinda Morgan always encouraged him to reach for the stars and believe in the possibility of magic. But the year he turned ten, Melinda died in a laboratory accident, leaving young Wil in the sole care of his father who is as different from his mother as can be. Barry Morgan, who was never an outside-of-the-box kind of man to begin with, became even more paranoid and set in his ways after the death…

I wish I had enjoyed this more, but when a novel of just a smidgen over two hundred pages takes me more than a week to read, something’s definitely not working for me, and I think I know what it is. While the premise behind The Kind Folk is certainly compelling, and horror novelist Ramsey Campbell sure knows his stuff when it comes to creating dread and suspense, I nevertheless had a difficult time getting used to his writing style and technique, which ultimately affected my overall enjoyment of the story and its characters. Of course when it comes down to an author’s writing style, each individual reader’s mileage may vary, so you may still wish to give this book a try if the story sounds like something that would interest you. Imagine finding out you are not who you’ve always thought you were, and for the moment to play out on television in front of a nationwide audience. Luke is a 30-year-old standup comedian who along with his parents Maurice and Freda are called up to appear on Brittan’s Resolutions, a fictional Maury-like British daytime talk show which specializes in paternity tests. Maurice has long held suspicions that his…

A departure from his Raven’s Shadow trilogy, Anthony Ryan’s latest novel The Waking Fire is the start of a new series featuring a compelling blend of fantasy, adventure, and intrigue. And if there was one thing I learned from reading Queen of Fire, it’s that Ryan has a talent for writing amazing scenes of battle on the high seas—which are also plentiful in this new book. Then, there are the dragons. Oh, we mustn’t forget the dragons. In this fascinating new world of The Draconis Memoria, no other commodity is prized above what the people call “product”, a deceptively innocuous term for something in fact truly magical and amazing: Dragon’s blood. By itself, product is unremarkable—volatile and dangerous, even—save for the powers it bestows to a very small slice of the population known as the blood-blessed, those rare men and women who are literally one in a thousand. Their abilities that manifest are so advantageous and formidable, that entire industries have been dedicated to the harvesting of dragon blood, either from hunting the creatures or taking it from those kept in captivity. Unfortunately though, over-exploitation has depleted their numbers in the wild, and those in the Ironship Syndicate who have…

Last year I picked up Prudence, the first book of a new series starring the daughter of Alexia Tarabotti and Lord Conall Maccon from Gail Carriger’s celebrated Parasol Protectorate novels. I never did get into Alexia’s series after I dipped my toes into Soulless and realized it was not to my tastes, but the story of Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama AKA “Rue” was entirely a different matter. My first outing with her and the crew of The Spotted Custard was an adventure of courage, comedy, and discovery which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected. And so, craving more of the same from this sequel, I dove into Imprudence with enthusiasm. This book takes place in the aftermath of Rue’s return to London from India. The entire country is still reeling from knowledge she and her friends brought back from deep in the mysterious jungles, and our protagonist has even gotten a severe dressing-down from the Queen herself. Rue, however, is unperturbed, excited to finally reach her majority and to enjoy all the freedoms that will no doubt come with it. What she doesn’t realize though, is how much her life is about to change. Lord Maccon, Rue’s werewolf…

Julia Verne St. John’s fantasy steampunk alternate history novel The Transference Engine became one of my most anticipated releases of 2016 when The BiblioSanctum hosted the cover reveal for it earlier this year. The first time I glimpsed that beautiful cover was also the first time I’d heard of this book, and both the protagonist and the world sounded fascinating to me. A mystery involving necromancy, set in an alternate 1830s London that’s run on magic and machines? No way I wasn’t going to love this. In spite of my excitement though, by the time I was through the first few chapters, I realized I was probably going to have to adjust my expectations. These first few dozen pages or so introduced us to Madame Magdala, the proprietress of the Book View Café, a magical library where patrons can sit and read while enjoying a cup of coffee and freshly baked pastries. However, the café’s centerpiece is a magical book sorting contraption designed by Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, a literal search engine that can find any book you ask for in the library’s collection. Magdala and Lovelace—the woman who will one day become the world’s first computer programmer—go way…