Dear Mark Lawrence, Earlier this year I read and fell in love with your Book of the Ancestor trilogy (Red Sister, Grey Sister and Holy Sister), a marvelous mix of fantasy, science fiction, action, and coming-of-age novels. The books follow an unforgettable protagonist, Nona Grey, from age nine until early ... more >
Dear Ms. Singh, We met Alexander in Archangel’s Enigma, when he awakened after centuries of Sleeping to find that his son had been killed but he had a young grandson named after him, Xander. Zanaya is a more recent addition to the cast; though younger than Alexander, she woke from ... more >
Dear Tasha Suri, It pains me to write this review of The Oleander Sword (book two in the Burning Kingdoms series, which began with The Jasmine Throne), because while this isn’t a terrible book, The Jasmine Throne was my favorite book of 2021, as well as the most romantic and ... more >
Five hundred and thirty years ago, a young woman sat before a Grecian-nosed artist known as Leonardo da Vinci. Her name was Cecilia Gallerani, and she was the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan. Sforza was a brutal and clever man who was mindful that Leonardo’s genius would ... more >
I spent much of 2020 grateful to books and authors for giving me a way to visit other times and places while stuck at home because of Covid. Below, listed in alphabetical order by author, are my top eight favorite books of 2020. Some grades have been adjusted since my ... more >
Trigger warning: READERS PLEASE NOTE: The following review contains MASSIVE spoilers for the earlier five books in Megan Whalen Turner’s Thief series and this is one series where spoilers should be avoided at all costs. Seriously, don’t even read the blurbs for the later books. If you’d like to try ... more >