Category: book-review
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Review: Sprinkles and Sea Serpents by Danielle Garrett
Once upon a time, a mystery author woke up and said “You know what would work really well? Writing a cozy mystery about someone who bakes cookies and cakes and stuff. Women would totally get into the baking food porn-aspect while they watch the heroine solve the mystery.” At a different time (but not that…
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Review: The Unicorn
I should warn you in advance, there are no actual unicorns in this book. Disappointing, I know, but the title was what originally caught my attention. I could tell from the back cover copy that there wouldn’t be any real unicorns but I was curious just what about it was “unicornesque” enough to qualify for…
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Review: The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker
It’s probably just random luck, but I keep running into books where the main character happens to be a disillusioned academic who’s struggling with his or her dissertation. I find it amusing to think that this is the new normal for fiction. Maybe if I go back to school for my PhD, I too can…
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Review: Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison (The Hollows #17)
I said last year when I reviewed Trouble With the Cursed that I was locked into this series for the long haul, warts and all. Even so, this book was frustrating to get through. Now, I am aware that the level of scrutiny I’m about to submit this book to is high, and I doubt…
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Review: The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
This is probably the most random thing I have ever reviewed here. I went to the library looking for some books by some urban fantasy authors that I haven’t tried yet, only to find nothing by them on the shelves; this is unusual for my library, which is usually pretty well-stocked. I still wasn’t going…
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Review: Penguin Highway
(Originally posted on June 6, 2019 at Otakusphere.com) Let’s get the most important thing out of the way: the back-of-the-book blurb for Penguin Highway confidently proclaims “Everything made sense…until the penguins showed up!”, which may just be my favorite book summary of all time. In fact, I’m thinking of adopting that phrase as my personal motto. Now…
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Review: A Wizard of EarthSea
I realize the incredible chutzpah of deciding to “review” a seminal work that is foundational to its genre, many, many decades after it first made a name for itself. However, Review sounds better than “Karen prattles on about Earthsea for a few paragraphs,” so that’s what I’m going with. I’ve had a problem with the…
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Review: Game of Crones
Way back when I reviewed Any Witch Way You Can, I mused that I don’t really understand the rules for “cozy” mysteries. Years later I am still confused, because this book has an army of zombies walking around, which is about the most un-cozy thing I can think of, but apparently it’s still a cozy…
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Review: Trouble With the Cursed (The Hollows #16)
WARNING: This review has spoilers. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this series for over a decade now. I think the extreme reaction happens because I like the world Harrison has created so much, little inconsistencies or things that don’t make sense REALLY bother me, whereas I don’t care so much in most other series.…
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Review: Dark Stranger: The Dream
If you put an ad for a book on my Kindle lockscreen, I will download it like a trained seal. This must be the case, because this isn’t the sort of thing I usually check out. I tend to keep paranormal romance at arm’s length– and I say this as someone whose books have strong…
Karen L. Mead 