Master of Dragons, by Angela Knight

This is my entry for July’s TBR Challenge, and I’m making it fit in a very idiosyncratic way: I was aiming for any unread print book in my house, published at least 20 years ago (VINTAGE, get it?). Of course, I couldn’t find even one (watch me find a dozen as soon as the review is up). So I moved my goal to “oldest paper ARC in my possession”, and…look, I’ve had it for over fifteen years, I’m going with it (not taking bets on how many I’ve actually have had for longer, or how soon after posting I’ll find at least three).

It’s been a minute since I’ve read any of Ms Knight’s work, and this is the fifth novel (and eighth overall installment) in the Mageverse series, so please do take that into account when reading this review.

The Last Wolf, by Maria Vale

I’m trying to do SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge this year, and the theme this month is ‘fairy tales’. What could be easier, right? Genre romance is chock-full of Beauty and the Beast retellings ¹ , to say nothing of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and all the rest.

Of course, as I scrolled through my digital TBR shelves and scanned the print TBR cordillera of Doom, not one title jumped out and yelled, “me, me! I’m an obvious fairy tale retelling”. ²

Which is why I have decided that wolf shifters in the woods totally works. (Because Red Riding Hood. Work with me here, people.)

Reader beware: abusive parent, graphic violence, graphic language, sex on page, maternal death, stillbirth. Narrated in first person present tense.

Also, I go on a bit of a rant.

“Cooley’s Panther” and “Stalking Evan”, by Jody Wallace

I want to highlight these two short-short stories as an example of how to establish intriguing worldbuilding in a very tight word count.

Genre romance readers, please note that while there’s a strong romance thread in both of these, there’s no HEA per se.

A Touch of Stone and Snow, by Milla Vane

Once again, first things first: heed all the warnings. The world of A Gathering of Dragons is very, very dark.

These are romances, there is always consent between the protagonists, the world building is very progressive in its sexual politics, but the background is of violence, sexual and otherwise. There’s gore and a lot of very explicit sex on the page, and the language reflect this. Also, while considerably shorter than the first novel, this one is still almost 400 pages. Reader, beware.