Sci fi. Centuries ago, humanity fled Earth on generation ships. The ship at the centre of this book has survived because it came upon a herd of massive, vacuum-living space beasts. Originally, the beasts were just a source of resources, killed and harvested, but for many generations now the humans on this ship invade a …
Literary fiction. Two interspersed narratives set in London, England, one in the Victorian era and one in the present day, each following an employee of the same encyclopedic dictionary. In the older time period, it is a bustling concern, with dozens of lexicographers filling a massive building, working slowly towards the hoped-for publication. That blessed …
An unfortunate photo that seems to show more than it actually does starts rumours about a Hollywood powerhouse and her assistant, leading to gossip, paparazzi…and maybe something more. Sweet, fluffy, heart-warming, and fun. Felt reasonably plausible in terms of the character journeys, which is not always true of this sort of book. One smaller plot …
Short stories, most with some element of the science fictional or fantastical or speculative. A very quick read. Protagonists are mostly Black women, in fact mostly queer Black women. A worker employed to do the nightly retrieval of scooters for a bike share-style company encounters scooters that have achieved sentience. A pregnant woman in the …
Science fiction. Future earth, a couple of generations post apocalypse. There are the walled cities where the privileged live in carefully controlled environments of plenty and ease, their security ensured by jealously guarded gates and the invisible violence of citizenship, and there are the settlements beyond the cities where everything has a Mad Max-like vibe. …
Listed by some as young adult…but it doesn’t really read like it, for all that it’s about teens coming of age. Listed by others as historical fiction…but I refuse the idea that a book set when I would’ve been in Grade 10 belongs in such a category. Fantastical, certainly, and of a witchy bent, but …
Novella. Noir detective story mixed with eldritch horror. The book opens with a young boy trying to hire a PI who is more than he seems to kill his (the boy’s) stepdad. A very quick read. The kind of punchy, compelling writing you would want from both of its source genres and that you would …
Wuxia fantasy. Novella. Found family. A devoted nun of the order named in the book’s title, who is (for reasons revealed later) waiting tables in a village cafe, falls in with a gang of bandits, in the context of a country quietly seething in the grip of rebellion and civil war. Really, really good. Despite …
Literary fiction. Australian. The novel takes place over one evening – a woman getting ready for a party, at the party, and then back home afterwards with a man she met at the party. The main character is autistic (as is the author). The book is a detailed portrayal of her incredibly rich inner life …
YA historical fiction. I don’t read much historical fiction, but I’ve been a fan of this author since her first novel, the Cinderella retelling *Ash*, and I’ve followed her as she has worked her way across a range of genres. This book traces the story of a teen Chinese-American girl in 1950s San Francisco as …