User Profile

Clare Hooley

clare_hooley@ramblingreaders.org

Joined 9 months, 2 weeks ago

Former biologist; now working in science publishing. I ❤️ #PaperPlanners #stickers #running #baking #blogging Currently enjoying summer reading; thinking about getting back to running after a post-marathon break.🏃‍♀️ Mastodon mastodon.me.uk/@clare_hooley Fediverse social for personal blog mastodon.me.uk/@coffeenow Mostly read fantasy, romance… oh and cookbooks. Lots of cookbooks.

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Clare Hooley's books

Cookbooks (View all 58)

Fantasy fiction (View all 11)

reviewed The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik (The Scholomance, #2)

Naomi Novik: The Last Graduate (2022, Penguin Books, Limited) 4 stars

More delicious malevolence

4 stars

#BookReview This book, second in Naomi Novik’s young-adult dark academia fantasy series ‘The Scholomance’, starts exactly where we left off in the first book (ramblingreaders.org/user/clare_hooley/review/558898) with our two main protagonists, our narrator El and and her perhaps boyfriend Orion, now seniors in the deadly school. The end of the senior year is when both of them will face ‘graduation’ - a literal gauntlet run through a room filled with wicked hungry magical monsters (always deliciously well-described by Novik’s writing) that, in a standard year, only about half those entering survive. Of course with El and Orion both being so exceptional, we know this isn’t going to be a standard year. El has mellowed out (grown up) from being quite so whiny and angsty, although her sarcastic streak remains undimmed, and now even has friends. Owing to events at the end of book one, she also can’t be invisible …

reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (The Scholomance, #1)

Naomi Novik: A Deadly Education (Paperback, RANDOM HOUSE UK) 4 stars

A delicious coming of age magic school fantasy

4 stars

Young-adult fantasy told in first person through the eyes of El, a 3rd year (~16 years old) female student in the ‘Scholomance’, the magic school of the series title. We as reader are thrown directly into her life at the school, which is completely cut off from the outside world of the adult wizards (there are no teachers here). In this first book of the series, we are then taken a-pace through a series of the school’s non-stop horrors as we learn most of the students die in increasingly gruesome ways; there’s magical monsters at every turn, work assignments that turn deadly, contaminated food, bullies and cliques, and a good dose of adolescent angst. In fact, it’s all quite a good deal of macabre fun, and told with much delightful malice. One of the main themes is how much easier life is if you come from a position of privilege, …

R. Scott Bakker: The Warrior Prophet (The Prince of Nothing, Book 2) (Paperback, 2005, Overlook TP) 4 stars

Struggling on in the war march

2 stars

After setting up such an amazing world, I struggled with this sequel. The book this time focuses on the development of Kellhus, the warrior-prophet of the title, as he continues to exert his manipulative control on the Holy War. I mostly enjoyed his sections, and found the theology and philosophy interesting. Sadly, everyone else is just far too superficial, even more so when we lose much of the mage Achamian as a countering character. As we march across the continent lurching from battle to battle, anything which is fresh and pithy, and properly grim (there’s an excellent section on finding water), becomes ploughing on through a repetition of the same again and again, so there’s little that really advances the plot or keeps us immersed in the horror, it’s just the killing off another 30% of one or another army. I just seemed to be skimming a lot of text …

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reviewed Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett (Emily Wilde, #1)

Heather Fawcett: Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (EBook, 2023, Little Brown Book Group) 4 stars

Fae and frolics - a slow-pace romance fantasy

4 stars

Emily Wilde is a scholar from a 19th century Cambridge (UK), but in a world where the Fae are elusive but very much accepted as real. While continuing her work to complete the Encyclopedia of Faeries of the title, she travels to investigate the Fae of Scandinavia, and we follow her tale through her journal entries. What’s clever is an unusual and sensitive portray of Emily, who we see finally able to overcome some social ineptitude and start a slow-burning romance with her dashing academic rival and Cambridge colleague, Wendell, who of course has a mysterious background. My favourite parts were the Fae stories themselves (including the interludes outside the plot - literal stories within the story presented as journal footnotes); there’s nothing particularly new there, everything is very traditional folklore - it’s just very well done. What does jar is that the author clearly has no idea of Cambridge …

Devon Monk: Death and Relaxation (Paperback, 2016, OddHouse Press, Odd House Press) 3 stars

Death is on holiday, but implausibility everywhere else

3 stars

A light quick read set in the small American coastal town of Ordinary, a town that acts as the residence of vacationing gods. Because they are on vacation, the gods we meet cannot use their powers and they, although not their powers, can die. Among the few human mortals that are in on the town’s secrets, are the three sisters of the Reed family who form the real-life police department, with the chief, Delany Reed, being our main character. Delany’s duties include transferring the power of any gods who die while on vacation to a new person. Thus, when one of gods does die, we have a murder mystery (a little too mundane as we really don’t have much stake in the outcome) and a search for a new host for the god power (which irks because it’s supposedly urgent but is not treated as so by Delany until it’s …

Stephanie Burgis: Scales and Sensibility (2022, Bryant Street Publishing) 4 stars

Delightful little rom-com

4 stars

A regency romp of a story as our heroine tries to save herself from the actions of horrid relatives she’s beholden to, with the help (or hindrance) of a magical dragon she befriends. I’d like to see where the series goes and for it to get a little more unexpected, as long as we still have a happily ever after ending. But for now a perfect thing for a lighter read with a coffee and some cake on a Sunday afternoon - especially one where I’m exhausted after more marathon training ☺️. Was well worth me buying. Author is on the fediverse as @stephanieburgis@wandering.shop.

Matthew Ward: Legacy of Light (Paperback, 2021, Orbit) 3 stars

Too many last-minute rescues for me

3 stars

Last in this epic fantasy trilogy here, but somehow I ended up not quite feeling it, struggling through chapter by chapter, and I’m not quite sure why. The world is quite fascinating, and I liked the writing, with the main plot being driven by a struggle against someone who is slowly being corrupted by power. I think the issue is there always a twist to every battle, and it is very battle heavy, as the last-minute rescuers (including gods and the previously dead) ride in, and it gets messy with too many characters and points of view. It might feel better on a re-read when you don’t have to focus on remembering the complexity.

reviewed The Green Man's Quarry by Juliet E. McKenna (Green Man, #6)

Juliet E. McKenna: The Green Man's Quarry (EBook, Wizard's Tower Press) 5 stars

Another absorbing visit to a folklore-inspired Britain

5 stars

It went on sale, I bought it, and then I stayed up late reading it, once again caught up in the author’s excellent storycraft. Some of what appeals to a British reader is the evocations of the UK countryside and travel that ring true - even to the point of visits to service stations - but what takes these books to excellent is the complexity of the main character, Dan. Once again, here we have him called in by the Green Man to solve a problem that requires his ‘foot in both worlds’ abilities as a human son of a dryad, abilities that mean he can see and interact with the naiads, slyphs, selkies, hobs etc. that appear throughout. Sometimes we get a great helping of his naivety (of course the big cat isn’t really literally a big cat), other times we him have try to hold his own against …

reviewed The Sword Defiant by Gareth Hanrahan (Lands of the Firstborn, #1)

Gareth Hanrahan: The Sword Defiant (EBook, 2023, Orbit) 3 stars

The sword cares not who it cuts.

Many years ago, Sir Aelfric and his nine …

When a malicious sword is the best character

3 stars

A past hero sets out on quest to investigate a warning of doom and finds judging who and what’s the evil to fight isn’t as easy as it was 20 years ago. The trouble is, not the writing exactly, but that the whole thing doesn’t get going, as we flit around visiting another DnD-inspired character in another location but never with enough time/detail to get any answers. The only exception is rather boring interludes as the main character’s sister seeks to rescue her son from danger. Only just finished the book, and all I really remember enjoying is the malevolent talking sword, with even that not injecting the humour or drama it could because it’s too often just told to ‘shut up’. The world does have potential as we learn of hints of more-interesting political ramifications near the end, but it just didn’t do it here. It is possible the …