Cat’s hacking skills weren’t enough to keep her from losing everything—her identity, her past, and now her freedom. She’s trapped and alone, but she’s survived this long, and she’s not giving up without a fight.
Though the outbreak has been contained, a new threat has emerged—one that’s taken the world to the brink of a devastating war. With genetic technology that promises not just a cure for the plague, but a way to prevent death itself, both sides will stop at nothing to seize control of humanity’s future.
Facing her smartest, most devastating enemy yet, Cat must race against the clock to protect her friends and save the lives of millions on the planet’s surface. No matter the outcome, humanity will never be the same.
And this time, Cat can’t afford to let anything, or anyone, stand in her way.

Wow, I’ve just finished This Vicious Cure and I have to say that it was one huge ride from start to finish and I loved it. Perhaps at the current time a dystopian about a mutated virus may have been an unusual choice and honestly I picked this as a March read before the lockdown began. I’m glad I decided to run with it.

Whilst This Cruel Design dropped back on the heart pounding pace of This Mortal Coil, it’s back with full force this time round, I honestly couldn’t stop turning the pages as set piece rolled into set piece, there truly is no let up for any of our characters, as we’ve lost the cat and mouse of earlier books and its an all out race to the finish. After the cliffhanger of book 2, it’s unsurprising that we follow this story as a dual POV between Catarina and Jun Bei, the VR world that Cat finds herself in offers up a large amount of freedom with the writing and gives us an overview of what’s happening across the board. It actually worked out that it had a bit of an added angle for me in that it had been over a year since I read book 2 so I found myself also as disorientated as the characters did with their wiped 6 months – I loved the added layer of not remembering which characters could be fully trusted.

What this book has in spades is information, information about everyone and everything – honestly I had no idea that there could be so much left for readers to discover but it’s a constant stream of reveals and plot twists, but I did have to pay attention (not so easy when you’re on lockdown with a 5 and 9 year old) as the science again plays a huge part and it did need me to go back over some pages to really get into my head what was happening especially with so many programmes and potential cures flying around between the factions. I also found that quite large plot points were wrapped up in a couple of sentences within large battles, I did blink and miss some which again led me going back – however, this is not something I can lay as a fault as I was surrounded by distraction for the most part.

I can’t go much further with the story or the characters though as it’s near impossible not to spoil something, but I found it an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the trilogy that encompassed everything I had loved about what had come before and racked it up 10 points. I was utterly blown away by it and am sad to see the series end.

5*

It is seven years since readers left Lyra and the love of her young life, Will Parry, on a park bench in Oxford’s Botanic Gardens at the end of the ground-breaking, bestselling His Dark Materials sequence.
Now, in The Secret Commonwealth, we meet Lyra Silvertongue. And she is no longer a child . . .
The second volume of Sir Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust sees Lyra, now twenty years old, and her daemon Pantalaimon, forced to navigate their relationship in a way they could never have imagined, and drawn into the complex and dangerous factions of a world that they had no idea existed.
Pulled along on his own journey too is Malcolm; once a boy with a boat and a mission to save a baby from the flood, now a man with a strong sense of duty and a desire to do what is right.
Theirs is a world at once familiar and extraordinary, and they must travel far beyond the edges of Oxford, across Europe and into Asia, in search for what is lost – a city haunted by daemons, a secret at the heart of a desert, and the mystery of the elusive Dust.

I can’t believe that it’s the second time this year that I have started to fall out of love with a series that started as a beloved trilogy. Yes, the author is at pains to tell us at the start that we are dealing with characters that are now grown up, but I felt that many of the situations were unnecessarily so. I fully accept going into this review that there will be people who will tell me I can’t compare this to HDM but, The Belle Sauvage didn’t leave me feeling this way. That being said, there were still plenty of parts which I enjoyed, but they were sadly overshadowed by the many I didn’t.

Firstly it was a largely enjoyable book, we have characters that we have been on quite the journey with and it’s interesting to see them now all grown up. Pullman does a great job as always of creating a vibrant world that is well crafted and easy to visualise. The opening pages have a real thriller/mystery feel and the descriptive writing style really does feed the senses. Being a believer in mystical creatures, fair folk and the like I immediately adored the sections involving the Secret Commonwealth, mentioned only briefly in La Belle Sauvage, these creatures of superstition and myth have a vital part to play this time. Their interlude going hand in hand with Lyra’s brief passage with the Gyptians and at a time when we revisit some much loved old friends. There were plenty of little nods back to earlier books with some like Iorek, as sadly no more of an honorary mention, but nonetheless I liked that the time was taken to tie everything in. i was especially delighted by the revelation of Mrs Lonsdale.

Lyra’s travels take her far and wide and as we are following more characters than just Lyra there really is so much to take in, many of their travels took them to places I have never visited but again the descriptive style made these places so easy to picture. Unsurprisingly the magisterium are still up to no good and play a large part in many of the darker moments, surprisingly as does Malcolm. I’m not sure how I feel about his characters progression, on the one hand he has succeeded in life but there is still clearly a part of him firmly entrenched on that bank outside the mausoleum and I can’t help but feel that Oakley Street groomed him from then on to become the man that he is within these pages.

Unfortunately I found that the book felt unnecessarily sexualised. It’s wrong to think that Lyra should still by chastely pining for Will, however, Philip Pullman seemed to be overly enthusiastic with the repeated mention of breasts and every male character (90% old men) seemed to have a fascination with younger partners, it felt almost predatory, pretty cringey and honestly a later chapter involving an incident on a train was just utterly unnecessary and felt added in just for shock value. I struggled greatly with the new dynamic between Lyra and Pan, finding it pretty much impossible to reconcile their changes and unbelievable that they would hold such a grudge.

I’m not sure what to make of the story line either and honestly I felt there was little clarity in that regard – everybody was doing lots of things but I’m still a bit lost as to what end. Everyone looks to be searching for each other for different reasons and I understood that and it was well done with a good sense of a thriller pace at times but the Rose oil and it’s link to Dust felt poorly articulated and I know it will all become clear in the final book, hopefully, as we finally understand the significance of the Blue Hotel and it’s link to the Roses that everyone seems to desperate for. Ultimately though, the story felt pulled in too many directions with little coheasion at times (the fire boy and water deamon ???) and character arc’s which filtered off into nothingness.

Whilst I now have reservations about the final book in the trilogy, I will continue on because I have come too far now with these characters not to.

3*

Out on a salvage mission with a skeleton crew, Carter Langston is murdered by animated corpses left behind on this ship. Yet in this future, everyone’s consciousness backup can be safely downloaded into a brand-new body, and all you’d lose are the memories of what happened between your last backup and your death. But when Langston wakes up in his new body, he is immediately attacked in the medbay and has to fight once again for his life—and his immortality. Because this assassin aims to destroy his core forever.
Determined to find his shipmates and solve this evolving mystery, Langston locates their tech whiz Shay Chan, but two members are missing and perhaps permanently killed. Langston and Chan are soon running for their lives with the assassin and the corporation behind him in hot pursuit.
What Langston and Chan ultimately find would signal the end of humanity. What started as a salvage mission just might end up saving the world.

Well what can I say about Re-Coil other than it completely blew me away. I read this over two days as it drew me in so much I didn’t want to put it down, a huge thank you therefore to Titan Books for providing me with a copy of this cyber punk, sci-fi thriller for review. The cover quotes suggest that this is a story perfect for fans of Altered Carbon and I have to admit at the start I felt that there were perhaps a few parallels, however, I quickly moved away from that notion as it became clear that Re-Coil is very much it’s own entity.  Langston is the perfect morally grey protagonist (which is always my favourite kind) a fringe personality having lived many lifetimes but seemingly content with his current lot, which makes his accidental fall into corporate crossfire feel more than a little unfair. Shay Chan is wonderfully complex and I often found myself feeling that she was the bigger narrative focus despite the two working together for much of the story.  They fall back into old working rhythms easily, although somewhat awkwardly for reasons that will become clear when you read it.

By re-coiling, homophobia and xenophobia have all but been eradicated as the person you love can end up in a body of  different gender or heritage and society has become entirely accepting of that. Coils are in such short supply you kind of have to get what your’re given. This also though brings about a heartbreaking introspective about learning to live with being in a body that you don’t identify with in regard to gender and race, even knowing that it can change again at any given time. The story looks starkly at how people treat immortality as either a means to self destruct on a regular basis with little consequence or just to keep on going until you simply find yourself bored with life. The depth of the social construct is just staggering looking back at it now, but the story deftly avoids being chin strokey or drenched in exposition, what you have are ideas and thoughts added into a commentary which make you stop and think without being hand held through it. This is all without touching upon the morality of the big twist which propels the story forward, but there is no way I can spoil that one for you!

Whilst the first two thirds of the book is a wonderful cat and mouse thriller, it’s the final act that just totally tops this, it’s full throttle, all out, space battle goodness. What makes this so great (and I’m saying this loosely in the terms of knowing it’s quite clearly science fiction) is that so much is done to make this read as realistically as possible, ammo runs out, countdown’s take time, people get tired and mistakes get made – leading to a “pain in the ass” joke which I just know a certain scene was written around! It all gives a sense of being in the moment with the characters as they finale plays out in real time.

J.T. Nicholas has an easy writing style and cleverly traverses super science and tech speak throughout in a way that doesn’t bog the story down, as a reader you’re made to feel okay with perhaps not fully getting it as actually neither does Langston but if you do you know that Chan has your back there too. The epilogue was nicely done with a heavy dose of the maybe’s that is right up my street and was the perfect way to end the book for me.

Re-coil is a fast paced, intelligent, and thought provoking read that left me with much to consider along with a racing heart, I thought it was fantastic and well deserving of 5 stars.

Here in this book you’ll find unique twists on the fairy tale conceit of the curse, from the more traditional to the modern – giving us brand new mythologies as well as new approaches to well-loved fables. Some might shock you, some might make you laugh, but they will all impress you with their originality.

This is a really difficult review to write because Cursed really was a book of 2 halves for me, I was both enraptured and non plussed at times. The first part of the book was definitely stronger insofar as the types of story I found enjoyable and that’s the balance I have to make, because with 20 short stories and poems its going to be impossible to please every reader with every story. This was actually a strength though as no matter what your reading preference there will be something here for you. I’m a traditional fantasy girl at heart so some of the more contemporary tales dragged a little with maybe a DNF or two, but some of the high fantasy tales were instant re-reads. Each author really did fulfil the brief though and I very much enjoyed how diverse the ideas were, be it taken from existing mythology or through an entirely fresh approach.

I have to say that the start was so strong with Christina Henry’s “As Red as Blood, As White as Snow” it remains I think my favourite of the collection, it felt like a completely rounded story with all the boxes ticked and is actually a tale I feel I would love to read as a full length novel, I have to also give kudos to Henry for not making the Step mother evil, which is such an outdated viewpoint. “Henry and the Snakewood Box” was another stand out and I enjoyed how it flipped with ingenuity, I’ve not read any M.R. Carey before but I think I might off the back of this. I also loved how Jen Williams was able to weave such weariness and resignation into her storytelling, giving the reader a true sense of the toll of the curse in “Listen.”  I found myself unexpectedly liking “New Wine” when I started I felt that it was too contemporary with a heavy dose of angst, but actually it really pulled me in with a sense of foreboding.

There are a lot of tough topics covered most of which you would expect to find in an anthology of this type, by which I mean darker malevolent twists but there are some truly dark stories which some readers may find troubling. I always struggle with depictions of child loss, so I found “Wendy Darling” a tough read, and those that are triggered by self harm may want to give “Little Red” a miss as it’s depiction is pretty graphic. I also struggled with the depiction of what can be deemed as a controlling relationship in “Skin” that even after being treated abysmally by her ex partner the protagonist still felt that she was the one that needed to atone for the curse she placed upon him, maybe there was a point there, if there was it didn’t translate well.

I’ve also tried the website mentioned repeatedly in Charlie Jane Anders’s “Fairy Werewolf Vs Vampire Zombie” and i’m kind of gutted there isn’t a comedy page set up!

I’m not going to call out the stories that weren’t for me, the writing and ideas are sound in their execution, and for the most part I found lots to enjoy in many of the tales. Editing this type of collection must be much like a band preparing an album playlist, keeping the rhythm and pulse steady in order to keep people listening to the end, and for the most part this was achieved. The diversity across the stories must have made this quite tough to put together so on that basis a good job was done.

Because there were so many stand out stories I feel that it’s fair to give this collection 4*