Paul James Bygrave

A ballroom dance instructor and a werewolf (called lycanths in this world) computer scientist fall in love after she's pushed into taking dancing lessons to improve her work-life balance.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved both main characters. Alex is very socially confident but struggling with debts and a desire to change careers when it comes to work, and Cynthia has basically made it as far as her career goes but has no social life. The contrast gives them excellent chemistry. There's also an antagonist who's very effective even if he isn't especially complex - I guarantee that you have met angry dumbasses of exactly his sort in real life - and his actions in the latter parts of the book genuinely made me feel tense.

The five-star rating probably already gives away that I don't have much to complain about, and that's true. The only thing I can really think of is that there's a certain subplot which is wrapped up a bit too fast for me right at the end. I won't say anything more than that 'cause it would be spoiler-heavy, but it felt like just a bit more time spent on that point would have gone a long way.

In short, if you're looking for a sweet size-difference romance with a bit of spice to it where the man is the shorter of the two and the woman is a very muscular monster girl, then I can wholeheartedly say this won't be a waste of your time.

The fact that I watched the show before reading this is probably the main reason that my opinion is lower than most expect. That's not to say that the book is bad, it's just that after seeing the show do it better, I was a little bit underwhelmed by this novel.

I can appreciate Jeff Lindsay's prowess as a writer, and I can see the amount of thought that would have had to go into its plot, but with the characters in the show being so well-developed the book's characters can't help looking inferior in comparison.

But as I said, I did enjoy this book and I'm sure I'd have said more positive things about it if I hadn't seen the show first. But 3 Stars is good in my books so that's what I'll give it.

Storm Front follows wizard PI Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden as he investigates a double murder performed with magic.

The concept of a wizard private detective is a lot of fun in and of itself. Harry Dresden is a (mostly) fun character to follow, compellingly carrying us through the story whilst also displaying a snarky sense of humour. The magic system seems solid and the displays of magic are all great. The mystery is compelling and the stakes continuously rise throughout, making for a very tense experience.

Now, my few problems ... Yeah, they're with Harry. He's not totally awful—like I said, he's a fun narrator—but he's also a self-confessed chauvinist who thinks of women largely in terms of needing to protect them. When one of the lead characters is a badass female police lieutenant, you can see how this is a problem. Harry also takes this protective instinct to downright stupid levels and keeps a lot of vital information to himself for no good reason.

I'd recommend this book to fans of both fantasy and detective stories. Despite my problems with the protagonist, I love this book and think it's a ton of fun.

If you're looking for a yandere, look elsewhere. The worst this vampire did for the solid 51% of book before I DNF'd out of boredom was break a mug. Breaking a piece of kitchenware out of impulsive anger because a woman is texting your man does not make you a yandere - it makes you a mildly toxic but still completely mundane (outside of the whole vampire thing) love interest. She mentions at one point, via narration, that she killed whole families for trying to separate them in the distant past, but to that I simply quote the golden rule of storytelling: “Show, don't tell.”

And the plot was not driven forward by the characters at all. IT drove THEM forward. The story just kind of happened with no ceremony. Event 1 happens, then Event 2 happens, then Event 3 happens, etc., with basically no prompting from the main characters whatsoever. And outside of initial confusion, the MMC has a complete non-reaction to realising he's a reincarnated soul with an ancient vampire girlfriend. It was just too dull to keep going.

I didn't hate it, but neither did it hold my interest. Honestly, it's a miracle I read past the halfway mark before stopping. The fact that it's not an especially long book but it still took me a solid two weeks to get that far speaks volumes. 2/5

Not really much I can think to say about it. It was a cute little Christmas story featuring a goblin. I enjoyed the way the two communicate without directly interacting for a lot of the book, but I do wish they'd had more time to actually interact before the relationship kicked off. Still, if you're looking for a cute, cozy little love story, it should serve.

This book is a delightfully chaotic ride. As yandere love stories go, it's pretty tongue-in-cheek and doesn't take itself too seriously whilst still indulging in a lot of black comedy when it comes to Lily's own perspective of her behaviour. The tension and silliness is balanced quite well, although if you're looking for something lighthearted, you probably want to look elsewhere - played for comedy though she is, Lily is not a good person by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm pretty neutral toward LitRPG as a genre - I don't hate it or anything, but I've never intentionally sought it out and I doubt I ever will - but the worldbuilding in this one is a lot of fun and leaves me curious as to how the world will develop going forward.

On a more spoilery note, SpoilerI went into this expecting a mono romance but ended up with a yandere harem to read about. And I don't hate that, but it was jarring and slightly disappointing to learn I came in with the wrong impression, and maybe that's on me, but since the introduction of the second love interest, Gloomy, was a plot twist, I'm not sure it is. Though as two of the yanderes are technically the same person, I am very curious to see what'll keep them from killing the third that got added to the mix at the end.

If there's one thing I found slightly disappointing, it's the climax. I think fast-paced is what the author was going for, but honestly, it just felt a bit rushed to me.

The few complaints I have are purely nitpicks, though. I am very much looking forward to the sequel.

Okay, it's been a WHILE since I've DNF'd a horror book, but bloody hell, I needed to.

So, the setup is pretty classic: creepy child drawing creepy things, indicating that there's a ghost present. The main character is a former drug addict, barely 18 months sober, so she's not going to be believed if anything does happen. Pretty basic stuff.

I'm not usually one to complain about politics being brought up in a story. Everyone has political opinions, and it's only realistic that fictional characters do. But good GOD, from the literal first time the mother of this family came on-page, I was cringing at how obvious the anti-left message of the book was. The parents are atheists who don't allow their child any screen time, don't allow discussion of religion in their household, and don't even celebrate Christmas. Now, as an atheist myself, I can tell you that I genuinely don't give a damn if people discuss their religion around me. As long as they're not outright trying to convert me, it's their right to talk about whatever. But the Christmas one was the big one—Christmas, as much as it may pain you to hear, did not originate as a Christian holiday. It was hijacked by Christians when they went around trying to convert people centuries ago. There is no reason atheists wouldn't celebrate it because it doesn't really have anything to do with Christianity.

I'm a Brit, so my understanding of racial issues in the United States is admittedly not great, but even from my limited perspective, making the Mexican family landscapers doing the neighbourhood's gardening for them and having the psychic character openly act like a racist POS toward them was a big “yikes” moment.

I made it about halfway through before stopping, and I've dug up what I can on the ending and I can't say I'm sorry I stopped. Spoiler The openly racist lady I mentioned apparently gets no karma, which makes me just assume this author is fine with that kind of behaviour and nothing was ever meant to be wrong with her. But the big “twist” that the kid, Teddy, is actually a girl whose mother was murdered by the mother of the family he's now with and is being forced to adopt the gender role his parent prefers REEKS of blatant transphobia. It seems to me that the author was implying that transgender children/people in general are only trans because of toxic parents. I hate that. I hate it so, so bloody much.

So, yeah, the people we're supposed to hate are so cartoonishly, stereotypically liberal that it almost reads as a parody rather than a serious book, we're supposed to like the racist neighbour for some reason, and by the end it reeks of transphobia.

The fact that this thing won the Choice Award for horror makes me question the sense of people.

A Fun and Bloody Werewolf Story

This review will assume you've read the previous book in the series.

Six months after the events of Storm Front, a grizzly murder points toward a werewolf as the culprit, wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden is brought in to help track down the beast.

One of my favourite parts of this book is the different types of werewolf. The worldbuilding implied in the different ways one can take on the qualities of a wolf is superb. Harry is a lot better than in the first book—I didn't have anywhere near as many moments of frustration over him being an idiot or sexist. Butcher has a talent for making me feel the stress of the situation—things just get worse and worse as time goes on, and I can really feel Harry's pain and fatigue.

Harry's stupid choices from the first book actually have consequences in this one, which is nice. He doesn't just get away with keeping things from Murphy or getting involved with Marcone—these things matter and come back to bite him in the ass. And then there's the sheer carnage of this book—a body count that makes Victor Sells' killing spree look like a minor misdemeanour, and I love it!

There are only a couple of things I didn't care for. Harry's chauvinism has been somewhat downplayed, as I mentioned, but it's very much still there. And then there's this new character we're introduced to, apparently very important to Harry, whose only real role is to be his “woman in the fridge,” so to speak. Not a fan of that kind of writing.

Overall, however, those problems are minor and didn't take away from my overall enjoyment. In my opinion, this is a fun, blood-soaked werewolf romp and an excellent second entry in this series.

Suspenseful and Atmospheric

The setup of Mr. Nightmare brings to mind Are You Afraid of the Dark? if the framing device also had a story to it, but with a more adult edge. While the Nightmare Club's stories aren't the main focus and we only got a few of them, I enjoyed the ones we did get—without spoiling anything, I will say that the one about the ship was my favourite and I could have easily seen it as part of an anthology of short stories.

As for the actual main content of this book, its biggest strength, in my opinion, is the building of tension, suspense, and atmosphere. I really felt Mr Nightmare's presence while reading this. And when the build-up was complete and the situation escalated, Scipione wasted no time in escalating it in the biggest way possible. Without spoiling the details, I will also say that I'm a big fan of how he handled character death. It felt like he paid proper service to the victim rather than only focusing on the survivors.

Now, for the few negatives. There were a few typos, though they were mostly early on and the quality of the story and characters had me not minding very much. But then there's Mr Nightmare himself, who I couldn't help noticing really liked his villainous monologues. Again, I won't spoil details, but I swear he did the dumb “you can't stop me, so I might as well tell you” thing at one point. It kind of sucked the fear out of me.

Having said that, this is still a quality book that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who likes teenage horror. You won't be disappointed. A very good read.

I greatly enjoyed this book. The concept alone–mutant tapeworms eating you from the inside–is terrifying, and the execution matches up. The descriptions of what the characters' bodies go through–both because of the worms and each other–are vivid and disturbing.

The narrative wastes no time in getting things started, yet Cutter still manages to establish and develop the characters. My favourite is Ephraim and my least favourite is Kent, who isn't badly written at all; I just dislike people with that much arrogance. I also liked Shelley because I find those sorts of characters interesting–that's all I'll say on him.

If I had one problem, it would be that the climax, despite a lot of well-done build-up, ends rather quickly and in an unsatisfying manner, in my opinion. I enjoyed the rest of the book so much that I consider this a minor gripe at worst, however.

This review will assume you've read the previous books in the series.

Tavi, now publicly known as Gaius Octavian, Princeps of Alera, embarks on his quest to aid the Canim in taking back their home from the Vord. Little does anybody know that the Vord have already made their way back to Alera.

The Vord are my favourite part of this, much like they were in Academ's Fury. It turns into a horror story whenever they're on the page. Tavi is really coming into his new role and plays politics with the Canim but never loses his compassion. Isana's side of the story in this one was the most interesting to me since she's been the least proactive of the main characters before now, but in this one she really steps up and makes a big difference.

There really isn't anything I dislike about this book, at least not off the top of my head.

A fantastic read that sets up all the pieces for the final book in the series. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all ends.

This review will assume you've read the previous books in the series.

The civil war has been raging for the last two years, and Tavi is still acting undercover as Rufus Scipio, Captain of the First Aleran Legion. The Canim have begun working with freed human slaves and it looks like they want to leave as much as the Alerans want them gone. But any hope for a peaceful resolution is hindered by Senator Arnos, who wants the good captain gone, by any means necessary.

This series has never been free of internal conflict for our protagonist, but Tavi has a lot going on in this one more than any that came before. I like how his trying to take in and adapt to learning of his true lineage is a big part of the story. I also like how thoroughly hateable the villains are in this one. The only bad guy who's made me hate him this much before was Kord from the first book. The fight scenes are once again on-point, though special mention goes to Tavi's final fight of the book. The status quo the series set up previously was also thoroughly annihilated by the end of this one, and that's the kind of shake-up I really appreciate.

There's nothing in this particular book that I didn't like. Can't say it's flawless because it's subjective, but I, personally, am a big fan of everything in this one.

This book was a great end to the civil war/Canim invasion storyline started in Cursor's Fury and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next with all these changes to the status quo.

This review will assume you've read the previous books in the series.

Tavi has finished his Academy education and is now a Cursor. He's shipped off for six months to study under Magnus, a “madman” studying the Romans (yes, those Romans) and how they did things without furycraft ... and then those six months are skipped over entirely and Tavi goes undercover as an officer with a new Legion just as a civil war breaks out.

I enjoyed seeing Tavi actually go undercover. He was training to be a Cursor (spy) during the previous book, so seeing him actually work as one is nice. The characters are still likeable, and we got some expansion on one or two, particularly Max. The action sequences in this series have always been good up to now, but this one took them to a new level of badass and satisfying. Jim Butcher also stopped even remotely trying to hide the secret of Tavi's parentage, which I appreciate since it wasn't exactly hidden very well in the first place. I can appreciate a story not dragging out a reveal once it becomes super obvious.

I did not like the way the narrative totally skipped over Tavi's time with Magnus. There's already a time skip of two years between books (which I don't mind), but then there's a solid six months skipped over between the prologue and the rest of the story, and based on what we see of the work Tavi and Magnus have done, that would have been really interesting to see more of. Max's insensitivity regarding Tavi and Kitai's relationship also rubbed me up the wrong way a bit for someone who is close friends with both of them.

Which leads me to something I've noticed along the series so far: Jim Butcher is not good at writing love stories in this series. Tavi and Kitai knew each other for less than a day before they were close enough that Doroga noticed in The Furies of Calderon (which admittedly probably ties in with the magical bond the two share, but still), Bernard and Amara only knew each other for a few days in the same book before Bernard basically got over the death of his last wife and fell for Amara, and in this one ... well, I won't spoil who, but two characters are revealed to have been in love for the whole series so far, and I just don't buy it because there was never any indication that I saw.

Still a 5-star book in my opinion, though. The characters are still likeable, the humour still funny, the battles still awesome. I'm just glad that Jim Butcher has had more practice writing romance since these books came out, haha. A brilliant read.

This review will assume you've read the first book in the series, The Furies of Calderon.

Two years after the Marat invasion of the Calderon Valley, Tavi is a trainee Cursor at the Academy. He has to put up with some bullying because of his lack of furycrafting, but otherwise, things are going well for him. Then, suddenly, he finds that the political stability of the entire country is suddenly in his hands, and on top of that, the unknown creature he awakened in the Wax Forest during the previous book's events rears its ugly head and presents a threat the likes of which Alera has never seen.

I once again liked the characters a lot. Tavi continues to be charmingly determined to overcome his disadvantage, and his new friends, Max, Ehren, and Gaelle, are all likeable in their own right. Max is the most likeable of the bunch, I think. The political intrigue is far more centred in this one where it was only occasionally a factor in the first book - it was important to why the Marat invasion was happening, but the invasion itself took over the book fairly quickly. Here, it's the other way around; the new threat mostly takes a backseat to the politics because nobody in the capital city knows there even is a threat for most of the book. Speaking of the new threat, it's genuinely terrifying. There were a couple of points, particularly early on, where it almost felt like I was reading a horror story rather than a high fantasy. It was downright chilling at points.

I only really have one complaint here, and it's similar to the same issue I had in the first book. We learn something about one of the characters at the end that I feel would have been far more impactful if this character had been developed more within the narrative beforehand. It was still a surprising twist, but I wasn't emotionally invested in the character enough to have the reaction I think Jim Butcher was going for.

Definitely better than the first book, which is saying a lot since I also liked that one. Big parts of this one spoke to the horror fan in me. The author just should've paid a bit more attention to a character who turned out more important than you'd have thought. Still a fantastic read.

In a world where humans can control the elements, the one human boy in the world who cannot access these powers finds himself one of the only people with knowledge of a coming invasion and must dodge multiple attempts on his life and save his home.

I'm a sucker for a good underdog story. Someone with a huge disadvantage overcoming the odds and saving the day is a super satisfying story for me to read as someone with disabilities myself. All of the main characters are super likeable, and the villains are also very enjoyable to read. It's written well, which is no surprise from Jim Butcher, and it contains his usual mix of darkness, excitement, and humour to high degrees. It's also a very creative fantasy world - the Wax Forest sequence, in particular, was full of creativity in concept.

I don't really have any complaints save one. The leader of the invading horde, Atsurak, only makes a couple of appearances and could do with some fleshing out. What we do see of him sets him up as an intimidating, sadistic threat well enough, but he isn't as compelling as the other villains of the story despite his very important role.

So, yeah, it's a creative, well-written fantasy story with good characters, but a villain who could've done with a bit more attention. Fantastic and totally recommended.

The sole survivor of a plane crash, who also happens to have been the co-pilot, seeks to solve the mystery of the plane crash before the angry spirits of the 300+ dead do too much damage as they begin to torment the townspeople of the place where the plane went down.

I liked the mysteries of this book rather a lot. The initial mystery of how the plane crashed and who (I do not consider the fact that it was intentional to be a spoiler, as the mystery of how it crashed would be somewhat anticlimactic in a horror story about vengeful spirits if it turned out to be an accident - I gathered that it was intentional right from the start) was behind said crash are the most mundane part, but why the spirits of the dead are behaving so violently towards totally unrelated individuals is very interesting, as well. The protagonist, David Keller, is a sympathetic but flawed fellow who I thought to be a rather compelling protagonist. The scenes where the ghosts torment people are rather chilling, and Herbert's expertly horrifying writing really shines during these moments.

The conclusion to the mystery of who was behind the plane crash was incredibly unsatisfying, however. I will not spoil the exact details, but I will say that the one responsible was so totally absent from the story until right at the end that I felt next to nothing during the whole reveal. And while I would normally allow some leeway for elements that haven't aged particularly well in a book written when this was, in both The Rats and The Fog, Herbert portrayed very sympathetic homosexual characters whose misfortunes were caused entirely by the prejudices of others and whose deaths are treated as tragedies. There is a homosexual man in this book who is such a ludicrously offensive stereotype in comparison to past portayals by the same author that I feel perfectly justified in my dislike of the element on this occasion - Herbert has shown that he knew better, so his resorting to harmful stereotypes now is disappointing to me.

In conclusion, this is a very well-written and suspensful horror story with some compelling mysteries at its core and a sympathetic protagonist to hold the whole thing together, but the disappointing conclusion to one of the mysteries and highly homophobic nature of a particular chapter soured the experience for me somewhat. It's still far from awful, but my enjoyment of it was ruined somewhat by these two elements.

So, here we have a story about the women of a village being forced to act as host mothers for alien babies ... unfortunately very topical at the moment, isn't it? Especially for the Americans.

I like this book in concept. The idea of human women being implanted with alien babies which become more and more inhuman and different as they get older could make a really good horror story, a decent social commentary, or even both. The prose is also very good.

Unfortunately, a lot of the story's potential is lost under a lot of people just kind of talking about the situation. I allow a certain amount of leeway because this was written in the 50s, but the fact that the women actually being forced to give birth to and care for the Children are barely even a consideration when compared to the amount of time the men of the story spend waxing philosophical about the situation (which also robs it of any kind of value as a horror story - most of the book is just long, philosophical conversations occasionally interrupted by something actually happening) still rubs me the wrong way. There's also a lot of “I'm sorry about my casually racist grandad, he's from a different time” levels of racism. The Children are repeatedly referred to as a minority group that presents a threat to our way of life, and that comparison makes me extremely uncomfortable.

So, in conclusion, I like the concept quite a lot and when something actually happens, it can even be an exciting story, but unfortunately, it's too bogged down by long talks about the philosophical questions the characters ask about the situation to live up to its potential.

A delightfully disturbing take on the concept of a Hate Plague. It didn't go quite as dark as a scene involving a class of schoolboys early-ish in the book would imply, but it still went to some rather grim places. I won't spoil any details, but there's a genuinely surprising moment later on involving the back seat of a car that was both very dark, well-written, and even darkly funny. I can appreciate a good bit of black comedy, and there's a couple of instances of that in this book. I very much enjoyed the experience.

Nuclear war isn't where I thought this series was going, but it was certainly a good setting for one of these stories. The rats becoming London's dominant species as the few remaining humans try to recover from the bombings made for a rather tense story. Dealey, a character I detested initially, surprised me by being my favourite character by the end. He had quite a good arc. Domain is by far the bleakest of the trilogy, and I loved it.

I admire that Herbert managed to do a sequel to The Rats without it being a rehash. With these sorts of infestation stories, you expect escalation, so I was expecting another city-based story, but this one is set in the countryside and is smaller in scale. Yet it maintains the fear factor spectacularly. The slow build-up at the start is also very effective, more so, in my opinion, than the first book's jump directly into the mass rat attacks. A worthy sequel.

Despite some light homophobia and misogyny (I'm not going to make a big deal of this because of when the book was written, but I thought it worth mentioning as a warning if nothing else), I greatly enjoyed this book. The premise is like something from a cheesy “when animals attack”-style film, but it's genuinely scary at points here.

If I had one big complaint, it would be a moment early on that kinda ruined the main character's likeability for me. There's a moment early on where he ogles two 14-year-old girls. Regardless of the time period, that's never going to be something I can excuse.

Despite its simplicity of story, this is probably my favourite entry in Anne Rice's universe since The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Armand is a good contender, though). I suppose I just like these kinds of stories. The revenge plot was well-done, and unlike in Memnoch the Devil, I wasn't bored by the more religious angle being taken. Quite a good read.

Somebody really ought to show this to whoever Disney gets to make their “villain origin stories.” Y'know, the ones where they try to make out that the bad guy was really good all along. The Evil Queen here is certainly sympathetic, but when she goes bad, she actually GOES bad. It may not be particularly complex, largely because of the age range they're naturally aiming these books at, but it's still a suitably tragic tale of a good woman falling into darkness. What's not to love?

A good read even with the issue of over-explaining in the narration that carries over from the first two. We got some genuine human emotion from Tanya at points, which was good for her character and interesting even if a big part of it was because her agenda of self-preservation by any means was being threatened. And while I won't spoil details, I was glad to see that the Empire's military superiority and Tanya's ruthlessness weren't the automatic war-winners they were often treated as.

So yeah, while the prose exhausts me a bit, I am still very invested in the main story.

A definite improvement on volume one. The main issue I had with that one - that the story is sometimes shoved aside for the sake of explaining military stuff to the point that it felt like reading a textbook at times - is still an occasional problem, but there's a far better balance between that and the story/characters this time around. Speaking of whom, I really liked how we got the POVs of some of Tanya's unit. They're good, likeable characters, and seeing her subordinates' thoughts on her actions was nice and interesting.

Oh, and that side-story at the end was highly amusing.