After fifteen years of posting positive book reviews and recommending around 250 books by other authors, I hope I may be forgiven for mentioning one of my own books. My novel Invisible Frogs, which is mainly set in the world of Ancient Egyptian Myth, is now out in paperback. An eBook version will be available… Continue reading
This December I’m recommending an enchanting Classic Fantasy novel for children by American author, Edward Eager (1911-1964). Half Magic was published in 1954 and is the first in a series of seven interlinked novels now known as Edward Eager’s Tales of Magic. These are available in all the usual formats in America but are harder… Continue reading
This November I’m recommending a dark book for a dark month – Lady Macbeth by American author Ava Reid. Her novel was first published in 2024 and is easily available in paperback or as an ebook. The single-viewpoint narrative also works particularly well as an audiobook. This story is set in a version of 11th… Continue reading
Welcome to Ghost Month on Fantasy Reads. This October I’m recommending From Out of the Silence: Seven Stange Stories (1920). This is the only published collection of stories by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor (1869?-1922), a rather mysterious British author whom I find as haunting as her fiction. It has been republished in paperback and ebook formats by… Continue reading
This month time spent musing about my favourite Fantasy heroes has made me want to return to Lois McMaster Bujold’s World of the Five Gods. In April 2014 I wrote about her novel The Curse of Chalion, praising its complex plot, sympathetic characters and, most of all, the fascinating religion she had created. Now I’m… Continue reading
This month I’m keeping a promise by recommending a Cozy Fantasy novel set in a fortune-telling tearoom in 19th century Chicago. The Crescent Moon Tearoom by American author Stacy Sivinski was published in 2024 and is readily available in all the usual formats. It was the first volume in a series to be known as… Continue reading
This month I’m recommending a challenging novel by Mark Lawrence, an author who was born in America but now lives in England. The Book That Wouldn’t Burn was published in 2023 as the first volume in The Library Trilogy. It is readily available in paperback, ebook or audio formats and was followed by The Book… Continue reading
This month I am recommending a distinctive novel by British author Hannah Mathewson set in a magical version of London known as the Witherward. The early chapters of Wayward (2022) may resemble a Harry Potter story but this book ends in a very different place. Witherward (2021), another novel set in the same world, was… Continue reading
This month I’m recommending an unusual Epic Fantasy series by much missed American author Carole Nelson Douglas (1944-2021). This five-book series is sometimes known as Kendric and Irissa or Irissa and Kendric (take your choice). The first two volumes, Six of Swords (1982) and Exiles of the Rynth (1984), were not given an over-arching title… Continue reading
While I wait for spring to arrive in my part of the world, I’m recommending a novel full of wintery delights. The Winter Garden by British author Alexandra Bell has a plot which genuinely surprised me. When you read as much Fantasy as I do, that doesn’t often happen. The Winter Garden was published in… Continue reading