Atropos was a well written dive into a fascinating world. The story sprawls across a more than 300 year time span and shows the progression of humanity after a world altering event. It blends sci-fi with mystery and creates an engaging narrative despite the extended timeline. This story is heavily premise focused rather than being character or plot focused.

This novella was good! It started out slow, but by the end I was enjoying the story! The writing was fantastic.

This is the second book in the A Kingdom of Aves Mystery series. After reading the first, I had to read more in this incredible and unique world. I think this book could be read without having read the first book in the series. It's hard to judge since I did read both in order. I believe you'll only be missing out on some world building that is not necessary for this book's plot.

This book was an exciting, fast paced ride that was gripping and fun to read.

This is book four in the Shards of Sevia series. I have not read the prior three books, and I was not lost reading this book on its own. I don’t read this genre often, but I enjoyed this story!

I recently read Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. I enjoyed the book, although I had some complaints while reading. Broadly, this story is a multi-PoV fantasy epic clocking in at 800 pages. I'm always interested in how these books manage to hold reader attention for that long and how they juggle the jumps between PoV. The following are three of the main takeaways I got from reading this book. No direct spoilers, although some vague spoilers as a trope used in the book is discussed.

Overall, this book is an excellent read for plot focused readers, especially those who love quest fantasy.

This book was an exciting story set in an enthralling world. The settings and descriptions in this book are where it shines. Each new setting comes to life and sucks the reader in. There is also a great diversity in settings as the characters travel to vastly different locations. The world is well built. Despite one group clearly being the 'bad guys' no culture was portrayed as universally good or evil. There were two magic systems and both had particularly brutal characteristics to them.

his book is a fantasy who-dunnit. Although the plot centers on a murder mystery, the book's real strength is the fascinating world it's set in. The author does an incredible job of crafting a world in fine detail, from the currency to the turn of phrase used by characters. The reader is removed entirely from our own world and placed into a unique world to explore. Perfect for fantasy readers who are looking for a really different world, less perfect for big fans of the murder mystery genre.

This is the first book I've read this year that I ordered the next book in the series!

I love reading novellas. For me, the novella format perfectly splits the difference between short story and novel. I love to read a novella to get a taste of a new author, experience a complete story when I don’t have a lot of free time, or when I’m looking for a tight focused story. When reading I like to alternate between novellas and novels, so I read quite a few novellas in a year. Today I’d like to talk about some of the things I’ve learned for my own writing from reading these books.

I loved this book! It was incredible! The pacing was perfect. Just when I was lulled into a false sense of security, everything changed and I was on the edge of my seat again. The main character is delightful and feels real and grounded. For a book set in the past, it was fun to have such a relatable modern character to follow.

Overall this book was a fun campy sci-fi adventure. You really have to suspend a lot of disbelief on the science front to enjoy this book, but if you can do that, it's a good read. This gave me huge Star Trek the Original Series meets Doctor Who vibes. The main character is earnest, and easy to love. The morality is a bit more black and white than what I usually enjoy, but grounding my expectations in the realm of campy sci-fi, I was able to let that slide. The world building is interesting if you ignore science. I really enjoyed the blending of common sci-fi tropes with modern tech. The main character flies through space for his day job, but his mom still has a landline phone. The settings were well thought out and I was able to easily visualize them.

I really enjoyed this book! I am a sucker for a good political sci-fi story and I love the exploration of different cultures and this book really hit that spot. It's an interesting blend of sci-fi and fantasy. The setting and most of the alien races in the book are firmly sci-fi, but the main characters and their culture feel plucked from a fantasy world. So you have this interesting dynamic of a fantasy race trying to get by in a sci-fi world.

The pace of this book is very slow. In 450 pages, we barely get through three days of story time. This means that we get a lot of different perspectives from a variety of characters providing a rich, fleshed out view of the cultures and character dynamics, but if you're looking for a quick, punchy sci-fi adventure, look somewhere else!

When I stepped away from this book, I found my mind drifting back to the characters and the story while doing other chores. For me, a book that I can't get out of my head is a good book!

My goal when writing reviews is to provide honest guidance for readers while supporting authors.