I truly never thought I’d be into “why choose” romance, but here we are, and Rebecca Quinn converted me. What I love about this book is that despite having five (yes, five!) main male characters, each one is so distinct and fully formed that it never feels confusing or repetitive to hop between their perspectives.

The relationship between Eden and the Brutes, as well as the relationships between the Brutes themselves, are complex, layered, and often messy in a way that feels authentic and real. Quinn’s prose is lovely, and the spice…let’s just say several of those scenes live in my head rent-free. The sequel is just as memorable and may be even better than the first book (how often does that happen?!).

This book isn’t about the war itself; the core focus here is the military technology and its consequences.

As a big fan of the Alien series, I understood the risk of any human-alien encounter... and here I was confronted with the idea of weaponising the aliens. I knew from the very beginning that everything will go wrong, so my fundamental question was, “How exactly would it go wrong?”

If aliens weren’t enough, some members of the space station crew had pretty unfriendly intentions too. That was my favourite aspect of this book – yes, you should fear aliens, but you can’t be sure that your co-worker isn’t planning something sinister.

From the outset the book provides a vividly horrible, dark, and atmospheric setting. I was all for following a zombie POV in the beginnings of an undead revolution on a city-sized ship designated to hunt giant sea monsters on another planet. The best moments are when the story really engages with the pulpy nightmare of the undead experience, or of the thalassophobia inherent to the setting.

Despite the setting, this isn't a depressing or sombre work - there's a sense of humour and irreverence throughout here, lightening the tone. It's full of fascinating and creative and fucked-up worldbuilding - the worldbuilding is where this whole book shines. It's not surprising to me that the author went on to write (very good) Warhammer 40k stories. It's full of strangeness and mystery and adventure and dread and total weirdness (e.g. sharks and manta rays with hydraulic legs, kept on leashes like attack… show more.

The prequel to this book had a big influence on me when writing my own book, as I wanted to explore how something so awful, like my trials and Terry’s slating process, could be introduced and the reasoning behind that. What I really love about Terry’s book is the science included. Slated explores wiping someone’s brain completely and giving them a blank slate. Her other books explore things like dark matter, think tanks (literally, the brains are in tanks), and global warming. Slated is where I started and is a series I read every year. While the subject matter is dark, it has become a comfort series, and Kyla a comfort character, for me. 

This author has just started on his writing journey and has produced two parts to his trilogy. This debut story takes on high adventure within a Fantasy/Steampunk-esk world. This tale has marvellous characters and exciting settings and takes the reader on a journey through hidden pasts, unknown evils, and surprising twists of fate.

A wonderful, beautiful book, written in Bradbury’s inimitable style. Not only is The Halloween Tree (first published in 1972) entertaining and superbly written, it also provides a crash course in Halloween history. It also served as the basis for a charming 1993 animated television movie. There are editions available from different illustrators, including Gris Grimly and Bradbury's longtime collaborator Joseph Mugnaini, but the gorgeous story will always be what's front and center here.

I loved the Nevernight books because the main character is not necessarily always a hero. Mia is an assassin and cares only about killing. This means it can be uncomfortable to support her decisions and actions when they involve so much death and bloodshed.

She kills for reasons that she thinks are justified, but that isn’t always right, and it is great to see her grow and become something more than just a killing machine. She has a great personality and endures many hardships through the series but I loved reading along and seeing how she overcame everything she faced.

This zany story about a gamer is packed full of laughs. Pete is looking forward to the release of a new game, but when he sells his dad’s old gaming console to afford the new game, things go really wrong, really fast. Let’s just say that was no gaming console he sold and now his dad is trapped in a video game. Pete has to save his dad, (and the world) by entering the game and winning! 

While I usually don’t like the whole getting-sucked-into-the-game trope, it totally works for this silly style of humor. Illustrations along the way don’t just break up the text, they add to the laughs.

This blend of horror, mystery, and coming-of-age novel is a perfect summer read. I actually read this book while laying on a hammock in my backyard. The characters are likable, the mystery is intriguing, and the love story weave in the middle is endearing. You won’t have heart palpitations reading this book, but I can assure you that weird dreams will be part of the experience. 

I like this novel very much (I read it 3 times), and I think it is the best novel about Mars exploration I ever read. It mixes good scientific accuracy, with well-described and realistic characters, with adventure and mystery. It is as compelling as a thriller, and I found it very difficult to stop reading to go to sleep.

The main character at the beginning seems to be a loser, but as the story unfolds, he develops into a hero without losing his humanity. In the end, I read the sequel to meet him again and to understand some points which were left unsolved at the end of the first novel.

I know people who are not science fiction fans but liked this novel very much.