Ricky Pine's Blog, page 3

Review: The Coffee Shop of Untold Stories: Tsubasa’s Café

The Coffee Shop of Untold Stories: Tsubasa’s Café by Firdaus Ahmed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once again, Firdaus Ahmed gifts us a story about a singular cat…but as much as Tsubasa would have you believe it’s all his story, there’s more to it when you consider the humans he’s known in his many years. Especially Jo, the young woman come to York to write a book, and Ryu, the elegant owner of the café bearing Tsubasa’s name. The intertwined legacies of these characters makes ...

Review: The Art of Legend

The Art of Legend by Wesley Chu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s been a while since we left off on The Art of Destiny, and Wesley Chu now returns with the conclusion to the trilogy, where we see exactly how this epic journey will end when the prophecy’s terms have already been broken. Except they may just un-break in time to be fulfilled, and while the series doesn’t end quite as strongly as I was hoping for, it doesn’t lose Chu’s signature sense of action or humor - the la...

Review: Katabasis

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

R.F. Kuang continues her dark academia era with a new standalone fantasy novel about two embattled, embittered grad students reading Magick at Cambridge, forced to follow their eminent (and eminently unlikable) advisor into the underworld because without him, their careers will never get started. And boy howdy is Professor Jacob Grimes one of the most disgusting characters Kuang has ever created - and considering her prope...

Review: The Raven Scholar

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As the beginning of a new epic fantasy trilogy, this book couldn’t decide if it wanted to be dark academia or magical competition, so why not both? Well, more accurately, it’s a magical competition mystery with a touch of dark academia at the core, helped by the word “scholar” in the title. After all, it requires reading a lot of in universe legends in order to understand what is happening as the gods’ chosen ...

Review: The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands

The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Take Murder on the Orient Express by way of Chloe Gong, who as I remember set one of her novellas on another version of the Trans-Siberian Express, but with a bit more mystery and a bit less magic. Add in the cosmic creepery of Annihilation, but this time with a storyline that can actually be followed, and a strong, if on the nose, railway metaphor for capitalism and unchecked deve...

Review: The Jasad Crown

The Jasad Crown by Sara Hashem
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can see now why it took Sara Hashem so long to bring us the sequel to The Jasad Heir, because she caught the duology train like so many other writers and concluded her series with a great big doorstopper, almost 700 pages long. This one book could’ve easily been two for a total of a trilogy, but the duology trend, it really does have its own gravity. But for one of my favorite romantasy series (though Thea Guanzo...

Review: Bones at the Crossroads

Bones at the Crossroads by LaDarrion Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Back we go to Caiman U for more magic, mayhem, and murder…and thankfully this, unlike way too many second books in YA fantasy, is NOT a duology conclusion, because that ending demands resolution expeditiously. This book picks up in the new fall semester at Caiman, with Malik reeling from a metric ton of betrayals, quickly figuring out that those in authority don’t have his best interests at heart (or ...

Review: JanIus: Enter the King

JanIus: Enter the King by D L Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

D.L. Hannah continues the JanIus trilogy with a second book that ramps up the medical, family, and political drama to new and truly diabolical levels. As much as Justin, Fawn, and all the doctors at the clinic which Fawn now runs are all on a mission for much needed equity in these worlds, malevolent forces have their way of sneaking in when people’s guards are down, and that evil is taking on its most manipul...

Review: Fateless

Fateless by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Julie Kagawa returns with an action-packed start to her latest original YA fantasy series, set in a desert world perpetually baking under two suns, where a young thief must team up with a mysterious elfin assassin (iylvahn, his race is called) to stop a zealot or two from raising the very evil that doomed the world in centuries past. In that respect, this book is syncretic of the likes of Six of Crows, Nevernight, Dune, a...

Review: The Lion Women of Tehran

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’d been meaning to read this one for a while, but it somehow slipped my notice until I happened to find it on a library shelf in Portland. If I’d read it in 2024 when it was first published, it would’ve absolutely topped my list of best books of the year. This beautiful and powerful historical novel spans decades in Iran and America, first in the time of the Shah, then the Ayatollah. I’ve long been fasci...