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hyrule_librarian's reviews
179 reviews
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
3.5
This book oscillates between wanting to be cozy fantasy and wanting to be an eerie fairytale retelling. It spends most of its time hovering in the realm of cozy fantasy, so I bounced off of probably 70% of this book. When it became eerie and chilling in the back half of the book is when I felt like it really began to shine. Unfortunately it was just too little too late for me. In the end, it’s simply a fine book.
Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio
fast-paced
4.5
This is an eerie mystery combined with a little light fungal horror that follows a group of insomniacs that stumble upon an open grave in their defunct graveyard. They all have their own unique reasons to be invested in the mystery and the author does an excellent job weaving their narratives together. That being said, this novella could easily have been twice its length. I found the end to be quite unsatisfying, but I wonder if that is the point, like the handful of hours that an insomniatic is able to glean between waking hours.
Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid
5.0
For Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind nearly all of her husband’s ambition. For Reid, she remains the impetus for all the action to come, but rather than longing to be “unsexed,” she schemes to protect herself from the cruelty of the men around her. From the moment she asks her husband for a necklace and he launches his attack on Cawdor, all of their fates are sealed. This version of Lady Macbeth is not innocent, her hands are not clean, and she still has visions of blood dripping from her fingers.
The majority of the main story beats remain intact, however the journey to get there is often quite different. The story will be a surprise, even for those who are intimately familiar with the source material.
Overall, an adaptation that honors the original, while still managing to be distinct.