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This fantasy has fairytale resonances, although it doesn’t follow a specific tale as far as I can tell. It was an easy enough read, but also easy to put down without feeling the need to continue. The story’s told in third person, past tense from Marra’s viewpoint. Sometimes, like her, I found myself wondering what I was doing there.

Given that Marra was supposed to be 30, she seemed far younger. I could accept some amount of unworldliness after half her life in a convent, but she struck me as more slow on the uptake than that. (It didn’t help that a lot of her internal thoughts stated or restated what had already explicitly obvious).

The book starts with a dark tone, then evolves into something else. It’s mainly… a road trip with a handful of contrasting characters. Mood varied and felt inconsistent. I felt the story couldn’t decide whether it was a fairytale or a buddy adventure with snark, bickering and banter. (Fair enough, I occasionally chuckled at the interactions). If it was more of a fairytale, I could probably overlook odd logic (like Marra at the age of 30 becoming replacement wife in order to provide a much-needed heir?) but as it was, the random-seeming plot drivers put me off.

I read this thinking I hadn’t previously read anything by the author. But on coming to write this review, I notice I read A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking last year and also The Seventh Bride the year before that. My thoughts for those two books were similar to here. A protagonist who acts younger than we’d expect, who follows the plot rather than moving it, and a story without many “Ah! So that’s how it all comes together!” moments. As before, this would maybe appeal to younger readers than myself.

I’ve read The Odyssey in various translations, although I’m not nearly so familiar with The Iliad. This book looked like an interesting way to explore new-to-me aspects of both poems. It lived up to its promise.

There are just under 50 chapters, each examining some theme such as the roles of certain characters, or use of epithets. The chapters are short and I found them easy to read, with an enthusiastic but not over-simplified style. During discussion of poetic form, there are occasional quotations from the “original” Greek text. These were presented as transliterated text, which took a while to get used to.

I initially dipped into a few topics that caught my eye, then settled down to read from the start. The early chapters refer to both poems while the later ones concentrate on The Odyssey. At times I found myself thinking, “Ah, she makes a good point,” or “I must keep an eye out for more examples.” And that is surely a good thing :)

I quite enjoy Holmes-inspired variations, so I was curious about this one (first of a trilogy) by a new-to-me author.

A House of Mirrors comes across as an introduction to a rather different version of “Mrs Hudson” than most. Nell is in fact young. Presenting herself as a widow serves to cover up at least one mystery from her past. Unsurprisingly, given that her husband was a policeman, her investigations intertwine with Holmes’ work. In parallel, their relationship develops.

I found the plot quite interesting, though perhaps implausibly convoluted. There’s a dual timeline between the present and a few years previously, so we learn about Nell’s previous life.

Although I’m not a big Holmes purist, the personalities/behaviour of named characters differed from canon to such an extent that I felt the book might have worked better without the Holmes connection, and simply as a “Victorian mystery”.

Perhaps because the characters were so different, I didn’t find myself especially invested in them, other than shaking my head at just how much Nell was gaslit or didn’t notice oddities - especially as she was working as a sort of police analyst. The story ends on a hopeful note, and clearly there is more to come.

Overall, an entertaining historical mystery to start off a series.

I haven’t previously read anything by this author and picked up Awakenings as part of a cosy fantasy Storybundle. It’s an introductory novella in what I see is planned as a 9-part series.

We experience the story through the perspective of Horace, who is good-hearted and trying to find eir place in the world (both metaphorically and physically/socially). Although Horace has moments of uncertainty and send-guessing emselves, I liked that e didn’t wallow in continuous angst. E did feel a bit passive in terms of decision making, being more “moved” to act by gut feeling, instinct or someone/something else rather than explicit thought. That can make me feel that the plot rather than character is making the decisions, so to say.

I liked the found family elements and the generally cosy feel. There were also curious dangers to encounter. The language was on the ornate side for my tastes which I felt slowed things down (but see most of my previous reviews for similar thoughts…) Various worldbuilding elements were introduced, which I expect will feature more in the sequels. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more indication what was going on in terms of the wider world. If there were clues presented, but Horace didn’t pick up on them, they were also too subtle for me to see.

Overall, an engaging introduction to a new fantasy series.

I haven’t previously read anything by this author. Although this is the second book in a trilogy, I didn’t have any problem starting here.

Overall, I enjoyed the read. I’m not generally a fan of first person, present tense, but it worked well. Perhaps it’s because the narrator is a goddess (Aphrodite), so she’s allowed to be distant from the immediate action as well as somewhat omniscient. She does use modern colloqualisms, which I found tolerable. The main linguistic item I got twitchy about was the frequent use of “barked”.

Be aware the story is (presumably) not intended to be true to canon. It’s best approached as a re-imagining or extra/interpolation inspired by sources such as The Iliad, The Odyssey and the Oresteia. I liked the intrigue. I especially enjoyed the awkward alliances between parties who you’d normally expect to be at odds with each other. There was a clear sense of Penelope having to make do with what she had.

The characters were distinctive, including ones who are usually overlooked in the canon texts. Through this re-imagining we got to see eg the maids and the suitors through quite a different lens from the conventional. Menelaos remains odious. Helen’s relationship with him and the other Spartans has interesting nuances. Even though the emphasis is on the women (sneaking around under the brutish, oblivious men’s noses), I found Laertes a hoot.

I read Needle and its sequel way back when I was a teenager, but haven’t read any other Hal Clement since. Mission of Gravity has an interesting premise. Since I don’t have much “physics” background, I wasn’t sure how much I’d be able to appreciate the science.

Although the book is short, it took me a couple of weeks to read, on and off, which is very unlike me for books that I don’t abandon. I think it was because the plot (exploration/journey to find a sort-of-McGuffin) was so non-compelling and meandering: really, just a background to explore the science. I wasn’t especially curious about the outcome, nor worried about any of the characters. Both humans and Mesklinites were there to discover explain things to each other. Perils were technical rather than due to clashes of personality or culture.

This novel is essentially a string of thought experiments working through what might happen on such a planet as the author envisages. If you go in with those expectations, you won’t be disappointed.