You all know I love a good retelling right? So obviously when TorDotCom asked me to review Spear by Nicola Griffith, I couldn’t say no. I hadn’t read anything by this author before, but now I will definitely be looking forward to more from her. And picking up her backlist works! Her prose is beautiful, and I love how she took Arthurian legend and made it genderbent and queer.

I’ve been in a weird place so book reviews have been hard for me BUT!! I’m back with a review of The Circus Infinite. Because it’s my stop on the book tour! I’ve also got a post up on Instagram about it today. Thank you Angry Robot Books for the review copy and for including me on this book tour!

Thank you so much to TorDotCom Publishing for sending me an ARC to review! This does not affect my review in any way.

It’s no secret that I love Seanan McGuire. I mean, she and Tamora Pierce are my top two favorite authors, easily. I saw Heron (a friend from Bookstagram) mention in their review that for them it’s now more of a question of how much they’ll like these books, rather than a question of if they’ll like them. That is definitely how it is for me. I have loved the previous six books of this series, to varying degrees, so I went into this one pretty confident I would like it. Little did I know it would actually become on of my favs of the series!!

Spooky season may be “technically” over but it’s never over in our hearts. If you want to continue the spooky season with your reading, this is the perfect book for it. It’s a slightly creepy fantasy novel that just released today! It’s got witches and fae and creepy monsters! And the author is one of my friends on Instagram, Claudia Cain (find her here: @cainbooks). She asked if people would like to review her book, and I said yes! My friendship with her doesn’t affect my review in any way.

Trigger and content warnings:

• self-harm (gouging, eye horror; non-graphic)
• child abuse (physical, verbal, emotional manipulation/gaslighting)
• parent death (implied, off-page)
• character deaths
• mentions and descriptions of fantasy/magical violence (blood, war, political violence)
• mentions and descriptions of physical symptoms that might be triggering to those with emetophobia
• alcohol consumption

Welcome to my stop on the Caffeine Books Tours blog tour for Jade Fire Gold! Thank you so much for having me! I received an advance copy of the book from the publisher and CBT for my participation in this tour. You can find the tour launch post here! You can find all of the other tour stops there!

It began with a girl and a sword, and it will end with a girl and her sword.

Jade Fire Gold was such a pleasure to read! I was already sucked in before I knew anything about the synopsis because I had seen it marketed as similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA). Which is one of the best tv shows ever!! I think that comparison is accurate in a handful of ways – obviously no comparison will encompass a new thing completely! But in Jade Fire Gold we have elemental magic, martial artists, wise mentors, corrupt royals, and so much more. If you’re someone who loved ATLA, I really do think this book will be up your alley. And on the other hand if you haven’t watched the show, I think you’ll still love it!