The nitty-gritty: Fantasy, comedy and sparkling Regency romance blend together seamlessly in Stephanie Burgis’ latest. Stephanie Burgis never fails to delight, and her new fantasy Scales and Sensibility has all the makings of an intriguing series opener featuring—you guessed it—dragons and Jane Austen! Elinor Tregarth and her sisters Rose and Harry were split up a […]
The nitty-gritty: Unsettling, creepy and emotionally devastating, Human Tenderloin is an excellent and varied collection of stories that will haunt you long after they’ve ended. Based on the rather creepy and disturbing cover of Human Tenderloin, I was happy to discover that the stories inside are equally as creepy and disturbing. I’m so glad I […]
The nitty-gritty: Cyberpunk noir and baseball collide in this fast-paced, thoroughly entertaining sci-fi mystery. Is science fiction kicking ass this year, or am I just choosing the right books to read? Either way, I keep discovering amazing new SF authors, and I’ve just added Lincoln Michel to that list. The Body Scout was so much […]
The nitty-gritty: A galaxy-spanning mystery and an unexpected love story, Light Chaser is one of my favorite novellas of the year. I did not expect to love this book as much as I did, and this little novella definitely stands out as a happy surprise of 2021. The cover is pretty generic, and in fact […]
The nitty-gritty: Non stop action and larger-than-life characters make Andrew Mayne’s latest a thrilling, hard to put down series opener. Well, this was a lot of fun! I’ve read and reviewed all four books in Mayne’s The Naturalist series, which focuses on super smart Dr. Theo Cray, a compu-biologist who is really good at catching […]
The nitty-gritty: A bloody homage to the slasher film, My Heart is a Chainsaw is a slow build tale with an over-the-top ending that ultimately won me over. This is my fourth Stephen Graham Jones book, and I can now say without a doubt that even when he writes a book that doesn’t completely work […]
The nitty-gritty: The Offset presents a grim future, but gives readers plenty of food for thought. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I picked up this book, but it ended up surprising me in many ways. This is a dark, gritty look at a future where things are so bad that extreme measures […]
The nitty-gritty: Unsettling and bizarre, Eric LaRocca’s stories cut to the heart of relationships and buried human emotions. It seems Eric LaRocca is all over social media these days, or at least the social media accounts that I follow. So it was inevitable that I would eventually grab one of his books to read. I […]
“Gotta get used to making choices. It’s your will or someone else’s. Get mad and stay that way. It’s a lot safer. You got a gun? It’s not always whimsy and bullshit out here.” I love when a book surprises me, and that’s exactly what happened with Twenty-Five to Life. At first glance, it seems […]
The nitty-gritty: Short and powerful, In the River is a tiny, horrific masterpiece. I can’t believe I haven’t read anything by Jeremy Robert Johnson before now, but In the River might be the perfect place to start. This is a fairly short novella and can be read in a matter of hours, but it packs […]