Smorgasbord Fantasia

Jason Arnopp's previous book The Last Days of Jack Sparks had me hooked and didn't let me off, till the last moment. It is one of those rare "horror" books that was well researched, grounded and realistically scary. So when I came to know, Jason's new one is due out later this year - I couldn't be more excited!

So Ghoster might be a completely different ride, from his previous book. But that takes nothing away from the sheen, Jason's fierce talent in spinning up an engaging story that will have you hooked in within moments and being led down false hallways by shady untrustworthy narrators. Aww Gods, cannot wait for this one! (October 2019)


Kate Collins has been ghosted.

She was supposed to be moving in with her new boyfriend Scott, but all she finds after relocating to Brighton is an empty flat. Scott has vanished. His possessions have all disappeared.

Except for his mobile phone.

Kate knows she shouldn’t hack into Scott’s phone. She shouldn’t look at his…

By now, I have become a convert at the cult of Jay Kristoff, the masterweaver of fantasy and sci-fi tales full of lyrical beauty, wickedly cool action adventures and heart-wrenching plot-twists that will keep you yearning for more, as he continues to churn out novels by the dozen [ I mean, does this guy even sleep? 'Hell no, Sleep is for the weak!']



This is my fifth book by Jay Kristoff and yes I see the repetitive patterns - young girl protagonist with a secret history behind her birth, growing up pangs like either a finishing school or the loyal friendships or hesitant first loves along with tons of ubercool world-building elements, that ever-present humor that can either have you rolling your eyes in the head or rolling on the floor in splits, cinematic action sequences unfolding in slo-mo and an unbelievable ending as tension levels mount beyond Mount Everest to erupt in a gut-wrenching reveal that will have you gasping, in disbelief and terror.

LIFEL1K3 features ALL of th…

So I caught the latest reboot of the Fast & Furious franchise, Hobbs and Shaw - a spin-off featuring two of the loveable rogues from the same, Dwayne "Rock" Johnson playing the ex federal agent Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham playing Deckard Shaw, British soldier turned mercenary. The plot of course is rubbish, as is in every other F&F movie - But this time, instead of Lettie (Michelle Rodriguez) there is Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) - yet another Shaw, who's a federal agent infected by a deadly virus. Which just happens to be the property of a mysterious group, frontlined by Black Superman, a man named Brixton - yet another soldier/agent modified by cyber-genetics into a one-man army (Idris Elba having a total blast on screen!). With Brixton planning to extract the virus from his sister and release it out into the whole world, the fate of the world rests in Deckard's hands. Can they stop this formidable foe in time?



Remember the two faced each other off in the last …

"Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme that first originated at Breaking the Spine but has since linked up with “Can’t Wait Wednesday” at Wishful Endings now that the original creator is unable to host it anymore. Either way, this fun feature is a chance to showcase the upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
RJ Baker's Wounded Kingdom trilogy pits him as one of the finest talents in fantasy to have emerged in the recent years. [Note to myself: Finish that damn trilogy! I read the first book, Age of Assassins and was very impressed!] Now, from the dependable stables of Orbit comes his next series, Bone Ship - that seems every bit as interesting as his previous series or even better! Battleships, Dragons and a hundred-years war!! Shiver me timbers, lads. 

A crew of condemned criminals embark on a suicide mission to hunt the first sea dragon seen in centuries in the first book of this adventure fantasy trilogy.

Violent raids plague the divided isles of the Scatt…

With Crowfall, Raven's Mark series might have just risen up to be one of my all-time favorite grimdark series. Ed McDonald, take a friggin' bow! Crowfall tops off this incredible series, culminating in a delirious high with the last outing into the Misery for Captain Galharrow and his friends.



For people not familiar with the brutally bleak world that Ed has created in the Raven's Mark, I have one advice - go back and pick up the first book, Blackwing. Much of this review is going to focus on events only from the third book and it will be difficult to keep what happened in the first two books out of this narrative, so to build up the right continuity.

Crowfall starts six years after the cataclysmic events of Raven's Cry and we find that the Blackwing Captain Ryhalt Galharrow is a possessed man, given in to a mad dream that only the Misery can help him achieve. He has spent most of this time, wandering the wastelands of the Misery, getting further and further away from…

Some of you probably know that Mark Lawrence had kicked off the SPFBO [Self Published Fantasy Book Standoff ] vying to unearth some of the best self-published books that begs for a much wider audience and readership and greater acclaim.

Aching God by Mike Shel came to my attention through the SPFBO. Was one of the 2018 finalist novels and came highly praised by fellow bloggers. An epic fantasy novel styled as a classic D&D quest by way of spine-chilling horror? Definitely sounds like my cup of tea. So I picked up the audio book version, which again came highly recommended, narrated by Simon Vance. (More about this at the end of this review, he's phenomenal!)



Aching God is the first part of this series Iconoclasts set in a medieval European/ Anglo setting and mainly features a semi-retired adventurer named Auric Manteo and his band of adventurers on a quest within abandoned crypts and temples of a lost civilization. It has been termed as LitRPG by many but after having read the …