Last year, I was taken quite off guard when Ink and Bone (which was not on my radar until I received a copy form the publisher) blew me away and earned a 5 star review. This was a book that I had zero preconceived notions or expectations of. I had not read Rachel Caine previously and had no idea what her world or characters would be like. In other words, everything was brand new for me in Ink and Bone. I had hoped that Paper and Fire could carry that momentum but unfortunately found that it faltered for me a bit more than its predecessor. I have to warn you, this review was difficult to write in that I felt I had more complaints mainly because I have a 3.5 star review for a book following a 5 star review. So, please keep in mind that the book is still good. I just explain many reasons that prevented this from being another 5 star book for me. I do feel that some of my loss of excitement came from already being familiar with the world. Yes, the Library is evil. They hoard and control all of the books and information. I…

  One of the perks I’ve found with working with several bloggers is that we can cover more books than we have time to read on our own. So, when it came time to make our Best of 2015 list, I decided to ask each of the contributors to submit a ranked list of their favorite books (yep, I’m mean like that. Choosing favorites can be hard, ranking is even harder). I then used a scaled points system to calculate an over all list. So, the end result features a variety of books that either several of us agreed belong in the top 10, or books that perhaps just one reviewer read, but placed in their high on their ranked choices of the year. With so many great choices we had to expand our collaborative list past just 10 books to 25. Since our blog started late in the year, many of these books do not currently have reviews here. But we do plan on adding them, so keep your eye out. So here it is, Speculative Herald’s list of our absolute favorite books from 2015! And because I like to get straight to the good stuff, I am listing them in order starting with…

Ink and Bone is an addictive, intense read that shares a love for books with the reader.  In the world of Ink and Bone, knowledge can sometimes be viewed as a virus, if left to spread, it can cause corruption. So, what do you do with something infectious? You try to contain and control it. That is what The Great Library does. All physical books are possessed and controlled by the Great Library (does that sound “great” to you??). Owning books is illegal. Like, very illegal. There are automatons that will seek out and destroy not just people caught in possession of a book, but any poor bystanders that may inadvertently get between the automaton and their target. The Library does allow people to read and learn. It just must be from selected/approved works that are downloadable onto what they call blanks. They don’t use the word download, there’s some magic involved here, but ultimately, it is the same concept of downloading. It’s censoring to an extreme. I loved this book, I loved how the importance of books is stressed, I loved how you could see the longing for both physical books and the ability to access what ever they might…