Tag: magical realism
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Susan Dennard’s The Whispering Night – The Conclusion to a YA Dark Naturalism Fantasy Wonder
The conclusion to this wonderful YA dark naturalism fantasy has arrived. The Whispering Night by Susan Dennard, third and final of the Luminaries trilogy, brings all the threads together and delivers in an intense, action-packed, quick-paced gut punch of a novel. The magic of The Luminaries and the tensions of The Hunting Party collide in…
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Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross – The Finale I Devoured (But Was I Satisfied?)
I wasn’t sure if I would pick up Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross, not because I thought it would be bad, but because I wasn’t sure if the magical realism and historical fiction aspects of the novel would gel with me. I loved elements of Divine Rivals, but I felt something was hiding from view…
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The Dark Academia Read of the 2020s is R.F. Kuang’s Babel
Dark academia is a popular genre among young readers, and it has made a resurgence over the last decade or so. Babel, R.F. Kuang’s powerhouse of a novel published in 2022, is the dark academia book of the 2020s, sitting next to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and M.L Rio’s If We Were Villains of…
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The Bone Season – Sci-Fi Paranormal Supernatural Dystopian? I am Intrigued, Samantha Shannon
I have seen Samantha Shannon’s name all over bookish social media for her duology The Priory of the Orange Tree and A Day of Fallen Night. I knew that there was a series she wrote before these books though, and with a little digging, I found The Bone Season. Upon picking it up, it had…
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Stunning Dark Fantasy Prose in Emily Lloyd-Jones’s The Bone Houses
The Bone Houses was a reread of mine for two main reasons. One, I originally read it before I started my blog, so my written review for it is a mere five or six lines in an old diary. Two, I knew I needed to read it again to fully express how wonderful this book…
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A Discovery of Witches is Peak Dark Academia Fantasy
When I say that I fell in love with A Discovery of Witches upon reading it’s first few chapters, I’m not exaggerating in any way. Deborah Harkness has a truly mesmerising and compelling narrative style and is able to bring her settings to life, creating this supernatural-dipped Oxford where witches, vampires and daemons roam the…
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Divine Rivals is a Dream of a Read
I know, given how popular this book is on social media platforms, that you’ve heard all about it. You probably have had this on your TBR since the first week it popped up. I won’t take up too much of your time, but perhaps I can give you a dose of realism to take onboard…