Smorgasbord Fantasia

 This week on our Waiting on Wednesday meme, where we focus on some of the most awaited titles releasing in the SFF Genre for this year, we are featuring Cameron Johnston's The Maleficent Seven, from Angry Robot Books. This book sounds like SO.MUCH.FUN! ( snagged an early ARC and will get down to this one in July!)  When you are all out of heroes, all that's left are the villains. Black Herran was a dread demonologist, and the most ruthless general in all Essoran. She assembled the six most fearsome warriors to captain her armies: a necromancer, a vampire lord, a demigod, an orcish warleader, a pirate queen, and a twisted alchemist. Together they brought the whole continent to its knees... Until the day she abandoned her army, on the eve of total victory. 40 years later, she must bring her former captains back together for one final stand, in the small town of Tarnbrooke - the last bastion against a fanatical new enemy tearing through the land, intent on finishing the job Blac...

 Part of a new series called Ediburgh Nights, I just finished The Library of the Dead by T L Huchu (Audio book version from Harper Audio) - a refreshingly different YA-urban fantasy featuring a precocious sassy fourteen-year old up against malicious spirits, and evil ghosts.  I enjoyed this one, a breezy fast ghost-story, mystery set in the titular city of Edinburgh, focused on 14-year old Ropa Moya. A gifted teenager who is a "ghostalker" and who uses this talent to actually make some money on the sides - by being that clairvoyant, a messenger between the living and their beloved dead ones. But one of these sessions, Ropa gets contacted by a persistent mother Nichola who claims her son has been missing for a few days now and wants Ropa's help to find him. Ropa unwittingly gets drawn into something far more sinister plot that involves children missing off the streets, and ones who survive and come back from whatever ordeal they are plunged into, are too far "gone...

I had bought The Wall by John Lanchester a few months back, before the lockdown frenzy hit us. I finally picked it up last week, dusted it off my bookshelf and started reading it. Only to be sucked into this disquieting fable that kept me wondering and puzzling out a lot of the allegories and metaphorical references, not quite sure if I was even right.  Despite the lacklustre writing about one of the most 'uninteresting' protagonists ever (An entitled, misguided new adult conscripted into national duty to protect the boundaries of a island nation, UK from refugees and immigrants trying to climb up and over to get citizenship within this nation) I realised the novel could be about anything. Climactic changes? Human resilience ? Heroism? undaunted sense of patriotic duty? xenophobia? right-wing nationalism?  Despite all this, I actually enjoyed the book. A LOT.  I cannot exactly pinpoint the reasons for my enjoyment. Because this novel definitely stops a mile off the "lit...

 A new thriller/suspense book drops next week and from the initial responses, this one seems pretty lit! A debut by Melissa Larsen, The Shutter seems like the addictive, immersive suspense story that goes straight for your jugular and doesn't let up. I cannot wait to dive in!  Meanwhile, here's the details of the book, author and an excerpt to get you hooked on!  Blurb. A young woman agrees to star in a filmmaker's latest project, but soon realizes the movie is not what she expected in this chilling debut novel. In the wake of her father's death, Betty Roux doesn't allow herself to mourn. Instead, she pushes away her mother, breaks up with her boyfriend, and leaves everything behind to move to New York City. She doesn't know what she wants, except to run. When she's offered the chance to play the leading role in mysterious indie filmmaker Anthony Marino's new project, she jumps at the opportunity. For a month Betty will live in a cabin on a private islan...

 This week on our recurring meme for Waiting on Wednesday - where we feature some of the most anticipated gems of the genre to be released this year - we feature the resurgence of one of the best ever series written in Epic Fantasy, the very definition of E-P-I-C, by Steven Erikson , the Malazan Empire of the Fallen. Originally intended to feature Karsa Orlong from the original books, this new trilogy starting with God is not Willing kicks off yet another chapter of this mammoth massive world. Expect it to be dense, full of hard-crunching action and vast vast worldbuilding like never before. Welcome back to the world of Malazan!  Many years have passed since three Teblor warriors brought carnage and chaos to the small lakeside settlement of Silver Lake. While the town has recovered, the legacy of that past horror remains, even if the Teblor tribes of the north no longer venture into the southlands. One of those three, Karsa Orlong, is now deemed to be a god, albeit an indiffer...

 Hi Everybody!  Hope all your summer reading lists are in and you are chipping away at the Mount TBR - one book at a time. So, this week we are super excited to be taking part in the Online Tour for The Coward by Stephen Aryan  from Angry Robot Books , that is releasing on June 9th with a joint launch planned at the Forbidden Planet along with Edward Cox's Wood Bee Queen at 7pm BST.  The blurb for The Coward: Who will slay the evil in the Frozen North, saving all from death and destruction? Not Kell Kressia, he's done his part...   Kell Kressia is a legend, a celebrity, a hero. Aged just seventeen, he set out on an epic quest with a band of wizened fighters to slay the Ice Lich and save the world. He returned victorious, but alone. Ten years have passed and Kell lives a quiet life, while stories of his heroism are told in taverns all across the land. But now a new terror has arisen in the north – something has taken up residence in the Lich’s abandoned castle b...