APOPHENY

⭐

The Gateway Trilogy and the Gateway Trackers 1-2 – EE Holmes
(Spirit Legacy, Spirit Prophecy, Spirit Ascendancy | Whispers of the Walkers, Plague of the Shattered)
This was part of my effort this year to make a dent in my TBR pile. Holmes is good at structuring a narrative in a way that keeps me interested and reading. I was less impressed by her characterisation and ideas, neither of which seemed to have much depth or originality. I kept reading, even when frequently cross at her (for instance for her weird presentation of the UK/British people), but once I’d finished I started wondering why I wasted my time reading all those pages…

⭐⭐

Legends and Latte – Travis Baldree
I feel guilty giving this only two stars as, at the time, it was exactly what I needed. (I had Covid and wasn’t up to anything challenging.) However, fun though it was, it was surprisingly short, and like all in the cosy genre that I’ve read so far, somewhat throwaway. Nonetheless, a good if quick comfort read. Is it worth the high acclaim it’s held in? No, not for me. This was the book that taught me that the cosy genre isn’t what I’m looking for.

Autonomous – Annalee Newitz
I found it slow to get through this story about the pharmaceutical industry in a Cyberpunkish world. By the end, it didn’t really seem to have gone anywhere, but it has definitely left a few evocative images/concepts in my head.

Clovenhoof – Heide Goody & Iain Grant
An amusing story about the Devil being exiled to Earth that is clearly influenced by Good Omens. The humour is very Pratchett-esque, but with more farce and less depth. It did manage to make me chuckle aloud a few times, grin even more so. I’m not sure I can be bothered to read the other eight books in the series, but I’m happy enough to have read this one.

The Lighthouse Keeper – Liv Rancourt
Unoriginal but nonetheless enjoyable M/M historical urban fantasy with a gothic twist. Well written for a first novel, and I’ll keep an eye out for the author in the future.

Legend of the White Snake – Sher Lee
A xianxia M/M novel that read as if written by a westerner even though it wasn’t. Pleasant enough, nonetheless.

Crocodile Tears – Xanthe Walter
I really wish I’d liked this dystopian, post partial apocalypse story more than I did as it’s always refreshing to find an m/m romance that puts plot (and an original one at that) first. Unfortunately the novel just stops mid-plot, and when it came down to it, I just couldn’t be bothered to buy the next one. (Edit: I wrote this review close to the start of 2025, and with hindsight, I feel I was unnecessarily harsh. The story has stayed with me, and I’ve just bought the next book in the series to continue it.)

Myrtlewood Crones series – Iris Beaglehole
(The Crone of Midnight Embers, The Crone of Solstice Flames, The Crone of Elders Blaze, The Crone of Mystic Sparks, The Crone of Arcane Cinders)
I thought this series to be very like Cornell’s Lychford Witches, but not as coherent. Nonetheless, I enjoyed them to start with, but as the series progressed, I found myself more and more irritated as the author seemed to increasingly do that thing where the character’s actions are shaped by the need to propel the plot rather than the plot being shaped by the character’s natural actions in the circumstances.

Not Until Noah – Lisa Henry
I thought I’d try the author’s mundane m/m romances as I rated her SciFi highly, but while it was a perfectly acceptable story, it didn’t enthral me the way her SciFi did.

Amberlough – Lara Elena Donnelly
Set in a fantasy (only in the sense it’s not real) version of Weimar Berlin, this is the first of three books. The author was clearly very influenced by either Cabaret or the original Isherwood novels, but seems to have wanted the freedom to ignore history in favour of her (at times) Kafka-esque world. I didn’t enjoy it enough to make me want to read the sequels, mainly because I didn’t trust the author to make it all right at the end, and I didn’t find it compelling enough to make me want to endure the dark to find out.