The Bottom Line: A buzzworthy sci-fi epic that sprawls cinematically across timelines and solar systems. Highly recommended. Tobin Marks’ Ark of the Apocalypse begins on 1930s-era Earth as a metallurgist braves genocide and impending war to acquire red amber from the Baltic Sea and green amber from Norway. He smuggles the material into Russia, where […]
The Bottom Line: The breathless, spellbinding saga of Cara Wynter continues to the delight of her growing fan base. Blood and Shadows, JP Roth’s second series book, is a seamless continuation of the story that began with Ancient Dreams. That first series book told the tale of Cara Wynter, a daughter of witches who struggles […]
The Bottom Line: A heady potion of pure magic awaits readers of this modern-day witch tale. What do you do when you’re the daughter of witches, but all you want is to be normal? Literature student Cara Wynter has inherited the gift of psychometry, a form of extra sensory perception which allows her to touch […]
The Bottom Line: A vivid, gut-wrenching and charming historical thriller that captures a man’s coming of age in early 19th century Ireland. Set in the years surrounding the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the novel’s early chapters follow the plight of the Neal family as they attempt to survive an armed uprising against British rule and […]
The Bottom Line: A funny, surreal fantasy that is unlike any other book you’ll read this year. Susanna Clark, who is perhaps best known for her novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, has created a one-of-a-kind tale that readers won’t soon forget. Told in the first person from Piranesi’s point of view, the first few […]
The Bottom Line: A hugely entertaining psychic thriller that fans of Black Mirror will relish. Gary Miller is deeply unhappy. The minister and junior college professor is having a crisis of faith, is tormented by repressed bisexual tendendies, and worst of all, is insanely jealous of his friend, retired professor Bob Harris. Despite having made […]
The Bottom Line: Buzzworthy. The Ninth House is a truly magical take on the secret society thriller. Yale’s freshman class may look homogenous, but there’s at least one outlier within: Galaxy “Alex” Stern. Alex has survived attempted murder, loser boyfriends and a hippie upbringing. Lightning strikes when she receives a full ride to Yale. But nothing […]
The Bottom Line: Harry Potter meets The Hunger Games. Sadly, there’s no audiobook version, so fans will have to devour this book the old fashioned way. We’re not in Texas anymore, Bluebell. In the opening chapter of Shadowspell Academy, the compelling farm girl known as Wild says, “My family got kicked more often than most.” […]
The Bottom Line: A lush gaslamp thriller that seems destined for a second life on television. Blackwell is the story of a rivalry that descends into a battle for the ages. In 1886, wealthy Harvard student Magnus Blackwell befriends fellow freshman Jacob O’ Connor. Unlike Magnus, whose family is as close to royalty as they […]
The Bottom Line: For Game of Thrones completionists only. Game of Thrones fans come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the literary to TV-only crowd. There are no reliable stats as to how many readers the TV-show has generated, but more than a few TV-to-book converts have complained that the epic is about as […]
