APOPHENY

I should no doubt start with an introductory post, but I’d rather jump straight in, so instead here is the first of seven posts discussing the books I’ve read this year.

In total, I read 89 novels in 2025*. However, in the fashion of a countdown, I’m starting with the books I didn’t read, or rather, didn’t finish.

Tooth and Claw – KT Davies
This is the second part of the Chronicles of Breed, but I started reading it thinking that I’d grabbed the Jo Walton book (see below). I was ill with Covid at the time and not thinking clearly. It took me quite a few pages of growing confusion before I realised what I’d done. (I should perhaps explain that I have a gargantuan TBR Kindle pile due to a tendency to grab genre 99p deals whenever I see them – hence why I have several Chronicles of Breed books without having read any.) Anyway, it seemed well written but really not my thing at all, being apparently the grimdark story of a demon-like creature of war.

Tooth and Claw – Jo Walton
I’ve really loved previous Jo Walton books I’ve read, such as Among Others and the Small Change Trilogy, but I very quickly realised that this one wasn’t going to join the list. Dragon families depicted as Victorian style aristocrats made for a cast of deliberately unlikeable characters who indulged in ritualised cannibalism, imperialistic and personal greed and narcissistic selfishness. Plenty of the usual human misogyny from the time was somehow made even worse by being draconic. Powerfully allegorical, definitely, but fun to read? Not for me.

Too Like the Lightning – Ada Palmer
A highly thought of novel that I just couldn’t get along with. Fourth wall breaking is rarely my cuppa, even when it’s the nature of the conversational narrative chosen for this book, but the camel-back breaking straw for me was the way the author introduced every new character, of which there were many, at least in the early sections of the book. Each character’s appearance was described at great length, often over a few pages, with particular concentration on their gender characteristics – apparent and actual – their racial ancestry as shown in their physical features, and their tailoring. It quickly started to feel prurient. As it was all in first-person POV, maybe the POV character was intended to be just that prurient, but I felt icky reading it and so stopped reading. Maybe I’ll come back to it one day.

The Teller of Small Fortunes – Julie Leong
Sweet and gentle, but not enough there in the first few chapters to keep my interest. I’m sure cosy fic fans will adore it, however as it was nicely written.

The Silence Factory – Bridget Collins
A well written gothic-ish novel about a fabric woven from magical spider silk that has strange effects on nearby sound. Strong ideas, but not for me, at least for now. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for eerie historicals at the time. I’ll consider coming back to it when I am.

Of Mountains and Seas – Emily Renk Hawthorne
I was put off by the word ‘shifter’ being used from the start, which made me feel like I’d inadvertently selected paranormal romance from my kindle TBR list, which definitely wasn’t what I was in the mood for at the time. The gorgeous cover had suggested a quite different type of novel to me. As I prepared to move my review to this WP post, I thought I’d check out the Amazon blurb for the book. It really doesn’t seem to be a romance at all, but rather quite a complex fantasy. I’m going to move it back to my TBR pile and try again.

You’re the Problem, It’s You – Emma R Alban
An M/M regency romance. I didn’t even get through the first chapter, which felt very modern YA in its perkiness and humour. Not a bad thing per se, just not my preference.

_{*Edited at the start of the new year to be accurate. I didn’t quite make it to the end of my 90th book.}