Category Archives: Books

Even Though I Knew the End – CL Polk

A standalone novella set in 1940s Chicago, CL Polk’s Even Though I Knew the End is a beautiful little story of magic, mystery, demons and angels, and the lengths someone will go for love – both familial and romantic. Kicked out of the Brotherhood of the Compass after selling her soul to the devil in order to save the life of her brother, Helen Brandt is now relegated to scraping a living as a magical private eye. When she takes a commission to photograph a particularly violent crime scene, Helen tells herself she won’t get involved beyond the initial job, but it’s not long before she’s on the trail of the horrifying White City Vampire. Her reward, should she complete her task, is to have her soul returned to her, allowing her the life with her girlfriend that she never thought she’d get. If she survives that long, of course.

Continue reading →

The Flower Path – Josh Reynolds

The third book in Josh Reynolds’ Daidoji Shin series of Legends of the Five Rings detective novels, The Flower Path sets its mystery within the walls of a theatre during the chaos of opening night. Coming worryingly close to a semblance of respectability, Daidoji Shin is now the proud owner of the refurbished Foxfire Theatre, and has high hopes for the first production and its new, somewhat high maintenance lead actress Noma Etsuko. A lot is resting on this opening performance for both Shin and the theatre company, but when Etsuko collapses on stage during the first act, Shin has to put his investigative skills to good use and find out who poisoned the little-liked diva, and why. Tensions among the cast, crew and even the high-ranking representatives of many of the great clans in the audience, however, don’t make his investigation any easier.

Continue reading →

The Red Scholar’s Wake – Aliette de Bodard

A standalone novel set within her expansive Xuya universe, Aliette de Bodard’s sapphic space opera The Red Scholar’s Wake is a gripping, moving tale of pirates, sentient ships, murky political waters and complex, often painful relationships. When scavenger and talented bot-controller Xich Si is captured by cruel pirates of the Red Banner, rather than an agonising death she receives an unexpected proposition – a marriage proposal, in fact. The leader of the Red Banner has been killed, and her widow – the mindship Rice Fish – is offering Xich Si a lifeline: enter into a partnership together, help find who killed the Red Scholar, and Rice Fish will protect and provide for Xich Si. Seeing no option but to accept, she finds herself entangled in a lethal piratical power struggle, and quickly comes to question what her new partnership really entails.

Continue reading →

Sea Hunters: Shonisaurus – William Meikle

The first book in a new series of seafaring creature feature novellas, William Meikle’s Sea Hunters: Shonisaurus is a briskly-paced, action-packed blast of oceanic monster-hunting fun. Ex-Royal Navy lieutenant John Seton and his motley crew are international monster hunters-for-hire, and when they’re commissioned to hunt down the beast that destroyed a handful of multi-million-dollar yachts, it seems like a simple job given their skills and expertise. This beast might not be John’s great white whale, the obsession that has driven him ever onwards since his fateful departure from the Navy, but a job’s a job and the money’s good. It’s only once they’re in the thick of the action, however, that they realise their quarry might not make this an easy hunt after all.

Continue reading →

Queen of Eventide – Matthew Ward

First released in 2015 but with a nice new cover and an audiobook edition published in 2022, Matthew Ward’s Queen of Eventide explores the history, folklore and mythology of Nottingham in a bleak and mist-shrouded tale of the fantastical bleeding over into the real world. Returning to Nottingham in search of a fresh start, Maddie Lincoln finds only painful memories and unsettling dreams. Those dreams come to terrifying life when she finds herself drawn into a strange world of fearsome hunters and mythical figures, as the hidden realm of Eventide begins to overlap with her own comfortable reality. Nothing has prepared Maddie for being caught up in a magical conflict spanning centuries, but the strange laws and terrible truths of Eventide reveal in her a strength she didn’t realise she possessed.

Continue reading →

The Twice-dead King: Ruin – Nate Crowley

Having tackled necrons once already in his phenomenal Black Library novella Severed, it felt inevitable that Nate Crowley would turn his hand to a full-length novel exploring this lesser-seen (in BL terms) 40k faction, so it’s a welcome bonus that The Twice-dead King: Ruin is in fact the first volume in a necron duology! After three hundred years of exile to a dismal outpost of a once-great dynasty, necron lord Oltyx is mired in bitterness at his reduced circumstances. When a vast ork invasion turns out to be the sign of an even greater doom to come however, Oltyx realises that his only hope – for himself, and for the dynasty itself – is to return home and break his exile. Determined to at least make the attempt, he sets out to rouse his brother and father on the dynasty’s homeworld, regardless of the personal costs he knows he will incur.

Continue reading →

Outgunned – Denny Flowers

Denny Flowers’ second Black Library novel Outgunned takes to the skies with a tale of picts, propaganda, underestimated xenos and the aerial might of the Aeronautica Imperialis. On the agri world of Bacchus – famed for its wine production – an infestation of orks has rapidly progressed from a minor irritation to all-out war, and Imperial forces are making slow progress. When Imperial Propagandist Kile Simlex arrives on Bacchus, tasked with recording a motivational pict to inspire confidence and aid recruitment, he finds little as he expected. His intended subject – Flight Commander Lucille von Shard – proves not quite the dashing hero he imagined, while the orks are far from the mindless wretches portrayed in the picts he’s seen. As he wrestles with questions of how to capture his pict and how to craft a suitable narrative, the war for Bacchus becomes increasingly desperate.

Continue reading →

The Black Locomotive – Rian Hughes

Following the bold, ambitious statement of his debut novel XX was always going to be tricky, but with The Black Locomotive Rian Hughes has shown that he can turn his hand to a shorter, more focused story while retaining the same wild invention, visual flair and knack for combining different media that he displayed before. When the construction of a top-secret Crossrail extension is halted by the discovery of a strange buried structure which hints at a new understanding of London’s distant past, project manager Austin Arnold is called in to oversee proceedings, accompanied by the unusual presence of artist Lloyd Rutherford. Commissioned to document the Crossrail project, Rutherford is obsessed by his relationship with London and its architecture, and finds himself increasingly drawn to the mystery of the subterranean anomaly. When something wakes within the anomaly though, Austin has to turn to older, more reliable technology to ensure London’s safety.

Continue reading →

The Wraithbone Phoenix – Alec Worley

After 2020’s excellent audio drama Dredge Runners, Alec Worley returns to the ratling/ogryn duo of Baggit and Clodde for a full-length Warhammer Crime novel in The Wraithbone Phoenix, a fun crime caper that’s deceptively dark beneath the surface. Baggit and Clodde are hiding out in a reclamation yard, trying to avoid the unwelcome attention caused by a hefty bounty on their heads, and the ire of their yard’s stuck-up steward. When word reaches Baggit of a wrecked Imperial starship beached in a neighbouring yard, with a legendary artefact hidden somewhere within its bones, he realises his prayers might just have been answered. If he and Clodde can retrieve it, the Wraithbone Phoenix could get them out from under the bounty and set them up for life, not to mention offer Baggit the chance of a little tasty revenge. The problem is, they’re far from the only ones hunting for the Phoenix.

Continue reading →

Planet Havoc – Tim Waggoner

The second Zombicide novel from Aconyte Books, Tim Waggoner’s Planet Havoc explores the science fiction setting of Zombicide: Invader, pitting two opposing groups of humans against an insidious, lethal alien menace in an action-packed tale of soldiers, mercenaries, monsters, artificial life and corporate greed. Recruited by the deeply dubious Leviathan Guild for a dangerous mission to a forbidden world, Luis Gonzalez and his team of mercenaries are intercepted by Coalition soldiers patrolling the off-limits system, both crews soon finding themselves stranded on the desolate PK-L10, or Penumbra. As each side waits for reinforcements they’re forced into a wary truce when the planet is revealed to be home to a ferocious breed of aliens known as Neo-Xenos, and the folly of ever venturing into this interdicted system is made abundantly clear.

Continue reading →