Reviews and Comments

James

Jmbmkn@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 4 months ago

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finished reading Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson (Her Majesty's Royal Coven, #1)

Juno Dawson: Her Majesty's Royal Coven (Hardcover, 2022, Harper Voyager) 4 stars

Hidden among us is a secret coven of witches. They are Her Majesty’s Royal Coven. …

Content warning Plot point mentioned

Susanna Clarke: Piranesi (Paperback, 2020, Bloomsbury Publishing) 4 stars

From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an …

Reality plus a little magic

4 stars

I really enjoyed the book, the smaller world that the protagonist lives in is very simple and is intriguing, but not somewhere I feel I need to return to. The larger universe though is interesting, with its reality plus a little magic vibe. I enjoyed the unravelling mystery and it compelled me to read it much faster than I've read books of similar size. The first few chapters describing the House reminded me of the descriptions of The Sleeper Service in Iain M Banks' book Excession. To the point where I thought the book was going to go in a sci-fi direction.

Gregory Baines: Nail House (2019, Fairlight Books) No rating

Not really what I expected, not bad, but a little cheesy in its central love story. I thought it would tell me about the complexities of modern China, but the feeling I got was just 'new China is corrupt, old China was better'. If this was written by someone who had experienced both it might feel more genuine. Maybe I just need some of the subtle analogies pointed out to me. I could not move away from the thought that this was a white mans escapist romance.