A heartwarming story of friendship, loss, and finding your way home from debut author/illustrator Mai K. Nguyen!

Willow loves the woods near her house. They’re calm and quiet, so different from her own turbulent emotions, which she keeps locked away. When her emotions get the better of her one day, she decides to run away into the woods.

There, she meets Pilu, a lost tree spirit who can’t find her way back home—which turns out to be the magnolia grove Willow’s mom used to take her to. Willow offers to help Pilu, and the two quickly become friends.

But the journey is long, and Pilu isn’t sure she’s ready to return home yet—which infuriates Willow, who’s determined to make up for her own mistakes by getting Pilu back safely. As a storm rages and Willow’s emotions bubble to the surface, they suddenly take on a physical form, putting both girls in danger… and forcing Willow to confront her inner feelings once and for all.

I received a free copy of the ebook from the publisher on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

There’s nothing I don’t love about Pilu of the Woods. First, Mai K Nguyen’s art is completely adorable and a joy to look at. I took my time reading this book because I wanted to appreciate the artistry that went into it and if you consider yourself a lover of visual arts, this one’s for you.

Willow, our main character, often keeps her emotions bottled up. When she gets into an argument with her sister one day, Willow runs away from home and into the forest where she meets Pilu, a young, distraught tree spirit. Willow and the tree spirit have quite a few things in common: they both ran away from home after fighting with their family. Hearing Pilu’s story helps Willow reflect on her personal situation. As she comforts Pilu, Willow simultaneously sees her own struggles and actions in a new light.

“…but are you gonna just hide here until the bad things go away… all alone?”

Watching Willow and Pilu’s friendship develop in a short amount of time was so precious to me. I love how they connected with each other, and encouraged one another, all while having fun as kids exploring the forest.

I recommend Pilu of the Woods to readers of all ages. It’s a great reminder that it’s okay not to be okay, that just because we can’t see something, it doesn’t mean it’s not important. Willow struggled with what she called ‘angry little monsters’ in her head, and how she sometimes lets them take over and cause her to lash out at those she loves.

“They keep growing and growing while you’re not looking… they can make your mind all hot and foggy. And then… before you know it… the little monsters aren’t so little anymore.”

This wonderful story reminded me that everything leaves a mark: our words, our actions, our memories, and how we have to be careful not to let them hurt those around us. With Pilu’s help, Willow starts to realize that ignoring those ‘monsters’ isn’t the best way to deal with them and she has to face them head on… and listen.

We all need friends who help us be a bit braver and who’ll tell us it’s okay to cry sometimes, while holding our hand as we find our way back home. Pilu of the Woods is one of the most heartfelt and vulnerable stories I’ve ever read, and one I’m bound to read over and over again.

I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

Imagine the earth in 1000 AD and what it must have been like when the Inuit first encounter the Vikings. Two clashing cultures with different gods fighting to survive in the hostile environment of the frozen tundra.

Above all else, Jordanna Max Brodsky is a master storyteller. I was immediately transported to this time and place in history within the first pages of her book and the amount of research she’s done to honour the Inuit past is eminent. Brodsky weaved an atmospheric tale with magic, culture, heart, and grit and I’m in awe of it. Her worldbuilding was incredible and I felt, heard, and saw life and death in the arctic.

There are few sounds at night on the frozen sea besides the roar of the wind. No plants to rustle, no waves to crash upon the shore, no birds to caw. The white owl flies on hushed wings. The white fox walks with silent tread. Even Inuit move as softly as spirits, the snow too hard to yield and crunch beneath our boots. We hear little, but what we do hear is vital: the exploding breath of a surfacing seal, the shift and crack of drifting ice. But in the forest there is always sound. The trees, even in their shrouds of snow, are alive, and their voices—groans, creaks, screams—never cease.

This story begins with Omat, a young angakkuq (shaman) born with the spirit of her father. Omat is raised as a man to follow her grandfather’s footsteps in working with the spirits of the land, sea, and sky to guide and protect her people. As an Inuk with a man’s soul and a woman’s body, Omat deals with her own struggles of gender, sexuality, and identity. She’s neither fully man or fully woman and must learn to navigate her world as the ‘third gender’ of the Inuit. I absolutely loved reading about this part of Omat’s journey and see her not only deal with her own doubts/questions, but also fight through traditional male and female roles among her family and strangers unaware of her peoples’ customs.

I am no longer scared of being a woman — it doesn’t make me any less a man. I am both. I am neither. I am only myself.

When Omat meets Brandr, a Viking warrior, chaos breaks out. With him comes a group of Vikings eager to conquer and battle for glory. While Brandr comes from a society that finds joy in war and destruction, he wants to get away from it. As fate would have it, Omat and Brandr must work together despite their differences and I enjoyed seeing the changes each of their characters brought to the other.

All of us had been loosely stitched together from mismatched parts. An Inuk with a man’s spirit and a woman’s body. Three animals caught between dog and wolf. A stranger with a giant’s frame and a man’s heart. Yet somehow, we were becoming a seamless whole.

One of my favourite things about this book was how rich it was in Inuit and Norse mythology. There were Inuit spirits like Malina (Sun), Taqqiq (Moon), Singarti (Wolf), and Uqsuralik (Bear) and there were Norse gods like Odin, Thor, and Loki. I never thought I’d see all of them in one story and it did not disappoint!

The Wolf in the Whale is a beautiful yet melancholic book. Its magic comes with events that are painful to read and hard to swallow. There is rape, physical violence (human, animal), death and gore. But with it also comes hope, family, and friendship. It’s not a story to be rushed (it personally took me a while to read), but the journey is worth it. The Wolf in the Whale is one of the best standalone fantasy novels I’ve read in some time. Steeped in mythology, history, and heart, it’s bound to captivate many readers to come.

Have I talked about how much I love heist stories? Because I do. Both in books (think Six of Crows) and movies (Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, etc). Earlier this year I read Patrick S. Tomlinson’s novel Gate Crashers and loved it, so when I saw he had a new novel coming out that was more heists in space, how could I resist?

Starship Repo actually takes places in the same universe as Gate Crashers, but rest assured you don’t need to read that one first at all. There are some small callbacks for those who did, but you could read them completely separately. It follows a human teenager named, hilariously, Firstname Lastname (she goes by First). Ridiculous, right? But also amazing. There was a clerical error somewhere along the line, and since she’s a runaway she just stuck with it. At first she makes her living as a small time pickpocket, aircar thief, and con lady. She eventually gets kinda forcibly recruited into a crew of “repo men”, who repossess ships from rich beings who haven’t kept up their payments, and return them to the banks/owners for a fee. Basically, legal space pirates. What’s not to like??

If that didn’t convince you to read it, here is the cast of characters (aside from First) in the author’s own words: “There’s a transgender crab alien, a brain in a jar, a communal organism, and a hentai tentacle monster living in the sewers with strong opinions about music piracy.” Seriously though, the characters make the book. Each one is so unique, and has an amazing personality. I’m majorly impressed with Tomlinson’s creativity, since all of the characters is a different species of being, and all the different species are so COOL. I’m also a sucker for found family stories, and this is definitely one. First is like their semi-rebellious child that they adopt along the way and I loved seeing the bonds develop between her and the rest of the characters.

There’s plenty of action and lots of heists in the novel, which keeps it going at a great pace. The only thing that brings it down to 4.5 from 5 stars is that I wanted a tad more of a larger plot. There is a background overarching plot through the whole novel, but it was pretty light. The plot focuses on a handful of different heists, which was awesome! I just wanted a bit more cohesiveness. But on the plus side one of the heists involves a high speed space race, so that’s pretty awesome.

The writing is also really fun to read, and the science part of the science fiction is never overwhelming. I noted this in Gate Crashers and I’m pleased to see it here as well – Tomlinson has clearly done his homework with space/physics/science/etc. The reference to Lagrange points killed me!! My astrodynamics loving heart.

There is also so much humor! Not the laugh out loud kind, but the kind that keeps you smiling and brings out the occasional snort. More so than Gate Crashers in my opinion, or maybe it just flows better in this one. There are also funny little pop culture references that are amazing and well done. For example:

“Yippee ki-yay, motherfu—”

“Language, young lady,” Hashin said from his own seat as he applied some sort of medicated patch to his upper arm.

“But how did you even know . . .”

“We’ve all seen Die Hard. We have Christmas out here, too, you know. It’s mostly a retail-driven holiday, but then, what holiday isn’t?”

Patrick S. Tomlinson, Starship Repo (quote taken from eARC, subject to change)

Anyway, I truly enjoyed this and highly recommend it to everyone!! Especially if you’re a scifi fan, or a found families fan, or a heist fan.

Thank you SO MUCH to Tor Books for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley for review!

Well apparently I’m not very good at doing this more than once a month haha. The past few books that I’ve read have been amazing and fun and it feels good to be on this streak of great books. I’m gonna include a selection from the past month or so. Maybe you’ll find something to add to your list!

I loooove heist stories, so I went into this book with pretty high expectations. It turned out to be not exactly what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it very much nonetheless. The actual heist is kind of a backdrop to the political machinations going on – which were well done in my opinion. I can get very overwhelmed with political elements in books, I usually find them hard to follow. That was not the case in this book, happily!

The best thing here was the relationships – between Romy and Neri (brother/sister), and between both of them and Placidio and Dumond (and later his wife). I wish there had been more female characters! It was a bit of a guys club. It was nice that the romance was basically non-existent in the book. I feel that there were hints of it coming back in later novels, but I hope it just goes away tbh haha I thought it was pretty boring.

I also thought the characters were mostly well fleshed out, and in particular I loved how Romy and Neri’s characters grew, and how their relationship grew as a result (or maybe it’s the other way around). The other characters were interesting and have enough secrets to warrant more interest in them, and makes me want to read future novels to find out more about them. With the exception of the Shadow Lord though. I thought he was pretty dull, and as I said earlier, I really didn’t enjoy his relationship with Romy. He seemed really flat and it never actually felt like they had chemistry.

The different magical skills the characters had was really fun to read about. I only wish there had been more magical characters, so we could dive in deeper to the magic. Hopefully in later books!

The pace was mostly good. It was a bit slow in the beginning, and honestly did slow down even more in the middle but the end picked up and I never felt like it dragged too much.

All in all, a very fun and good read! Recommended for fans of fantasy, political drama, and fans of sibling relationships.