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Links with a circumflex (^) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Fantasy by Jewish Authors

At the beginning of the year, I started thinking about the #RamamdanReadathon; whether it will be happening this year and what I would want to read if it does. And it occurred to me that, because of the readathon, books by Muslim authors were the only books by authors of a specific faith that I sought out. That, comparatively, I read very few by authors of faith. I decided that this year I would try to change that, by seeking out books by Jewish authors. As I'm currently in the mood for fantasy, I've focused on fantasy books by Jewish authors^.

Below is the list I put together; adult and YA, some new titles, some older titles, and some yet to be released. They range from general fantasy, to fantasy specifically about Jewish people.

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Review: Medusa by Jessie Burton

I was sent this proof for free by Bloomsbury for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Links with an asterisk (*) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Medusa by Jessie Burton

Published: 28th October 2021 | Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's Books | Source: Publisher
Jessie Burton's Website

A dazzling, feminist retelling of Greek myth from the internationally bestselling author of The Miniaturist, stunningly illustrated by Olivia Lomenech Gill.

Exiled to a far-flung island by the whims of the gods, Medusa has little company except the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair. But when a charmed, beautiful boy called Perseus arrives on the island, her lonely existence is disrupted with the force of a supernova, unleashing desire, love, betrayal, and destiny itself.

Filled with glorious full-colour illustrations by award-winning Olivia Lomenech Gill, this astonishing retelling of Greek myth is perfect for readers of Circe and The Silence of the Girls. Illuminating the girl behind the legend, it brings alive Medusa for a new generation. From Goodreads.

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The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features rape and rape culture.

Continue reading Review: Medusa by Jessie Burton

Review: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Published: 6th August 2020 | Publisher: Vintage | Source: Bought
Erin Morgenstern's Website

When Zachary Rawlins stumbles across a strange book hidden in his university library, it leads him on a quest unlike any other. Its pages entrance him with their tales of lovelorn prisoners, lost cities and nameless acolytes, but they also contain something impossible: a recollection from his own childhood.

Determined to solve the puzzle of the book, Zachary follows the clues he finds on the cover - a bee, a key and a sword. They guide him to a masquerade ball, to a dangerous secret club, and finally through a magical doorway created by the fierce and mysterious Mirabel. This door leads to a subterranean labyrinth filled with stories, hidden far beneath the surface of the earth.

When the labyrinth is threatened, Zachary must race with Mirabel, and Dorian, a handsome barefoot man with shifting alliances, through its twisting tunnels and crowded ballrooms, searching for the end of his story. The StoryGraph

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book mentions hands being cut off, eyes being plucked out, and bodies pulled apart, but there is very little description.

Continue reading Review: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Review: Mythos by Stephen Fry

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Mythos by Stephen Fry

Published: 26th July 2018 | Publisher: Penguin | Source: Bought
Stephen Fry's Website

No one loves and quarrels, desires and deceives as boldly or brilliantly as Greek gods and goddesses.

In Stephen Fry's vivid retelling we gaze in wonder as wise Athena is born from the cracking open of the great head of Zeus and follow doomed Persephone into the dark and lonely realm of the Underworld. We shiver when Pandora opens her jar of evil torments and watch with joy as the legendary love affair between Eros and Psyche unfolds.

Mythos captures these extraodinary myths for our modern age - in all their dazzling and deeply human relevance. From Goodreads.

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Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features abduction, rape, sacrifice, and murder.

Having had my interest in the Greek myths reignited by Great Goddesses by Nikita Gill, I dived right into Mythos by Stephen Fry straight after. However, while it was interesting, it wasn't what I expected, and I felt quite disappointed.

Continue reading Review: Mythos by Stephen Fry

Review: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey (#Ad)

I was sent this review copy for free by Tor for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Published: 4th June 2019 | Publisher: Tor | Cover Designer: Will Staehle | Source: Publisher
Sarah Gailey's Website

Sharp, mainstream fantasy meets compelling thrills of investigative noir in this fantasy debut by rising star Sarah Gailey.

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magic. She is perfectly happy with her life—she has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It's a great life and she doesn't wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.

But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach. From Goodreads.

Rep: A lot of side characters are gay, lesbian, or bi/pan, but no labels are given.

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features death, cancer, abortion, discussion of a teacher/ex-student relationship, possible alcoholism, an attempted mugging, a knife attack, a stab wound, graphic descriptions of a dead body cut in two, and magical surguries, where internal body parts float in mid-air.

Continue reading Review: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey (#Ad)

Review: The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees

The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees

Published: 12th March 2019 | Publisher: Delacorte | Cover Designer: Leo Nicholls | Source: Bought
Alyssa Wees' Website

The waking forest has secrets. To Rhea, it appears like a mirage, dark and dense, at the very edge of her backyard. But when she reaches out to touch it, the forest vanishes. She’s desperate to know more—until she finds a peculiar boy who offers to reveal its secrets. If she plays a game.

To the Witch, the forest is her home, where she sits on her throne of carved bone, waiting for dreaming children to beg her to grant their wishes. One night, a mysterious visitor arrives and asks her what she wishes for, but the Witch sends him away. And then the uninvited guest returns.

The strangers are just the beginning. Something is stirring in the forest, and when Rhea’s and the Witch’s paths collide, a truth more treacherous and deadly than either could ever imagine surfaces. But how much are they willing to risk to survive? From Goodreads.

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features creepy hallucinations, anxiety, death, grief, visceral descriptions - of a dead body, and, separately, of the chest cavity.

Continue reading Review: The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees

Books I Want to Reread - Fantasy Edition

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Titles marked with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Rereads. I absolutely love them. But being a book blogger, with an ever growing TBR, I don't reread as much as I would like. Most years, I manage to fit in a reread of one series, but I don't get to reread everything. Plus there's the guilt of not read the books I already have, and worrying about what to post on my blog, as most of the time, the books have already been reviewed.

Continue reading Books I Want to Reread - Fantasy Edition

Multiple Points of View in Fantasy

Ad: Titles with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Books with multiple points of view (POV). They can be pretty awesome, getting to see a story for someone else's perspective, see what they see, what they're thinking. It sheds a whole new light on a story. But in some books - and I must say, I've only seen this in a fantasy books - we get multiple POVs where the characters aren't actually together. They're in different parts of the world, or even if different time periods. Where you seem to be getting more than one story in a book, but that you know that they will, at some point, intersect, or make a difference to other characters' stories. These stories can be really interesting, but of course, there are cons as well as pros to having multiple POV stories where the charcters don't meet, or only do so briefly.

Continue reading Multiple Points of View in Fantasy

My Most Anticipated 2019 YA SFF Releases by Authors of Colour

Ad: Titles marked with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher for the purpose of providing an honest review.

Today I'm sharing with you ten of my most anticipated YA SFF releases of 2019 by authors of colour! A lot of these - though not all - are #OwnVoices stories based on the authors' own cultures, which really excites me! I've been loving non-Western inspired fantasies recently! And most feature protagonists of colour, too!

Continue reading My Most Anticipated 2019 YA SFF Releases by Authors of Colour

Review: The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan (review copy) - A flooded world.
A floating circus.
Two women in search of a home.

North lives on a circus boat with her beloved bear, keeping a secret that could capsize her life.

Callanish lives alone in her house in the middle of the ocean, tending the graves of those who die at sea. As penance for a terrible mistake, she has become a gracekeeper.

A chance meeting between the two draws them magnetically to one another - and to the promise of a new life.

But the waters are treacherous, and the tide is against them. From Goodreads.

I was sent this ARC for freeby Vintage Books for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Trigger Warning: This book features an attempted forced marriage (though not a cultural one), and sexual assault.

Continue reading Review: The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

Mini Review: A Girl Called Owl by Amy Wilson

A Girl Called Owl by Amy Wilson (eProof) - It's bad enough having a mum dippy enough to name you Owl, but when you've got a dad you've never met, a best friend who needs you more than ever, and a new boy at school giving you weird looks, there's not a lot of room for much else.

So when Owl starts seeing strange frost patterns on her skin, she's tempted to just burrow down under the duvet and forget all about it. Could her strange new powers be linked to her mysterious father? And what will happen when she enters the magical world of winter for the first time? From Goodreads.

Continue reading Mini Review: A Girl Called Owl by Amy Wilson

Review: Nevermore: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

Nevermore: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (eProof) - Enter the Wundrous world of Morrigan Crow and Nevermoor - the most fantastical children's release of the year.

Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any child to be born, she's blamed for all local misfortunes, from hailstorms to heart attacks - and, worst of all, the curse means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday. But as Morrigan awaits her fate, a strange and remarkable man named Jupiter North appears. Chased by black-smoke hounds and shadowy hunters on horseback, he whisks her away into the safety of a secret, magical city called Nevermoor.

It's then that Morrigan discovers Jupiter has chosen her to contend for a place in the city's most prestigious organisation: the Wundrous Society. In order to join, she must compete in four difficult and dangerous trials against hundreds of other children, each boasting an extraordinary talent that sets them apart - an extraordinary talent that Morrigan insists she does not have. To stay in the safety of Nevermoor for good, Morrigan will need to find a way to pass the tests - or she'll have to leave the city and confront her deadly fate once and for all.

Perfect for fans of the Harry Potter series and His Dark Materials, this series takes readers into an extraordinary world, setting hope and imagination alive. From Goodreads.

Continue reading Review: Nevermore: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

Review: Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi

Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi (Bought) - Colour and magic combine in this enchanting new middle grade fantasy from the bestselling author of the Shatter Me series.

Born as blank as canvas in a world brimming with colour and magic, Alice's pale skin and milk-white hair mark her as an outcast. Because, for the people of Ferenwood, colour and magic are one and the same. And since the disappearance of her beloved father, Alice is more determined than ever to prove herself and her own magical abilities.

To do so she'll have to travel into the mythical, dangerous land of Furthermore, with the help of a fiercely annoying boy named Oliver. But nothing in Furthermore is as it seems, and it will take all of Alice's wits to find her father and return him safely home. From Goodreads.

Continue reading Review: Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi

Review: The Seafarer's Kiss by Julia Ember

The Seafarer's Kiss by Julia Ember (review copy) - Having long-wondered what lives beyond the ice shelf, nineteen-year-old mermaid Ersel learns of the life she wants when she rescues and befriends Ragna, a shield-maiden stranded on the mermen’s glacier. But when Ersel’s childhood friend and suitor catches them together, he gives Ersel a choice: say goodbye to Ragna or face justice at the hands of the glacier’s brutal king.

Determined to forge a different fate, Ersel seeks help from Loki. But such deals are never as one expects, and the outcome sees her exiled from the only home and protection she’s known. To save herself from perishing in the barren, underwater wasteland and be reunited with the human she’s come to love, Ersel must try to outsmart the God of Lies. From Goodreads.

Continue reading Review: The Seafarer's Kiss by Julia Ember

Mini-Review: The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste

The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste (bought) - Corinne La Mer claims she isn’t afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They’re just tricksters made up by parents to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest, and shining yellow eyes follow her to the edge of the trees. They couldn’t belong to a jumbie. Or could they?

When Corinne spots a beautiful stranger at the market the very next day, she knows something extraordinary is about to happen. When this same beauty, called Severine, turns up at Corinne’s house, danger is in the air. Severine plans to claim the entire island for the jumbies. Corinne must call on her courage and her friends and learn to use ancient magic she didn’t know she possessed to stop Severine and to save her island home. From Goodreads.

Continue reading Mini-Review: The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste

Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova (proof) - Nothing says Happy Birthday like summoning the spirits of your dead relatives.

Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation...and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can't trust. A boy whose intentions are as dark as the strange marks on his skin.

The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland... From Goodreads.

Continue reading Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

Review: Lips Touch by Laini Taylor

Lips Touch by Laini Taylor, illustrated by Jim Di Bartolo (bought) - Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers' souls:

Goblin Fruit
In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today's savvy girls?

Spicy Little Curses Such as These
A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

Hatchling
Six days before Esme's fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons? From Goodreads.

Continue reading Review: Lips Touch by Laini Taylor

Review: As I Descended by Robin Talley

As I Descended by Robin Talley (Review Copy) - Maria Lyon and Lily Boiten are their school’s ultimate power couple—even if no one knows it but them.

Only one thing stands between them and their perfect future: campus superstar Delilah Dufrey.

Golden child Delilah is a legend at the exclusive Acheron Academy, and the presumptive winner of the distinguished Cawdor Kingsley Prize. She runs the school, and if she chose, she could blow up Maria and Lily’s whole world with a pointed look, or a carefully placed word.

But what Delilah doesn’t know is that Lily and Maria are willing to do anything—absolutely anything—to make their dreams come true. And the first step is unseating Delilah for the Kingsley Prize. The full scholarship, awarded to Maria, will lock in her attendance at Stanford―and four more years in a shared dorm room with Lily.

Maria and Lily will stop at nothing to ensure their victory—including harnessing the dark power long rumored to be present on the former plantation that houses their school.

But when feuds turn to fatalities, and madness begins to blur the distinction between what’s real and what is imagined, the girls must decide where they draw the line.

From acclaimed author Robin Talley comes a Shakespeare-inspired story of revenge and redemption, where fair is foul, and foul is fair. From Goodreads.

Continue reading Review: As I Descended by Robin Talley

Review: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton (Proof) - "Tell me that and we'll go. Right now. Save ourselves and leave this place to burn. Tell me that's how you want your story to go and we'll write it straight across the sand."

Dustwalk is an unforgiving, dead-end town. It's not the place to be poor or orphaned or female. And yet Amani Al'Hiza must call it 'home'.

Amani wants to escape and see the world she's heard about in campfire stories.

Then a foreigner with no name turns up, and with him she has the chance to run.

But the desert plains are full of dangerous magic. The Sultan's army is on the rise and Amani is soon caught at the heart of a fearless rebellion...

An epic story of swirling desert sands, love, magic and revolution. From Goodreads.

ETA: Since reading this it has been pointed out to me that Rebel of the Sands is problematic due to cultural appropriation, stereotypes of Middle Eastern people, and misrepresenting the Islamic faith. Because of this - although I haven't changed my review for the purposes of transparency - I can no longer recommend this book in any way.

Read more here:
Problematic Books and Where to Find Them on C. T. Callahan's website.
Problematic Books: What are They and How to Approach Them? on Word Wonders.
Top Ten+ Problematic Books on The Avid Reader.

Continue reading Review: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Review: The Rose & the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh

The Rose & the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh (Bought) - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

I am surrounded on all sides by a desert. A guest, in a prison of sand and sun. My family is here. And I do not know whom I can trust.

In a land on the brink of war, Shahrzad has been torn from the love of her husband Khalid, the Caliph of Khorasan. She once believed him a monster, but his secrets revealed a man tormented by guilt and a powerful curse—one that might keep them apart forever. Reunited with her family, who have taken refuge in the desert, and Tariq, her childhood sweetheart, she should be happy. But Tariq now commands forces set on destroying Khalid's empire. Shahrzad is almost a prisoner caught between loyalties to people she loves. But she refuses to be a pawn and devises a plan.

While her father, Jahandar, continues to play with magical forces he doesn't yet understand, Shahrzad tries to uncover powers that may lie dormant within her. With the help of a tattered old carpet and a tempestuous but sage young man, Shahrzad will attempt to break the curse and reunite with her one true love. From Goodreads (slightly edited due to spoilers).

Continue reading Review: The Rose & the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh