Reviews – Page 25 – Marked for Plot

The Scarlet Throne

Fantasy and Science Fiction with unique inspiration points are always interesting to me. So when I heard about a debut novel based on the Living Gods of Nepal, it was easy to make space in my reading life to check it out. It was pretty easily my favorite debut of 2024, and didn’t show any of the shakiness that often plague debut novels.

The Premise:
The Scarlet Throne follows Binsa, a teenager who holds the goddess of wisdom inside her. Only she isn’t actually. Instead, she’s got a demon who gives her enough power to fake it while the actual goddess is … well actually she has no idea where the goddess is, or if the goddess is even real. And with her tenure as host of the ‘goddess’ rapidly coming to a close, Binsa is grasping for any way to avoid being thrown out of the temple to scrape by for the rest of her life. And the demon she hosts whispers in her ear. The future is hers, but grasping it will require sacrifice.

Read If Looking For: villain stories with actual villains, fire breathing goats, toxic family dynamics

Avoid if Looking For: flashy stories, books where villains are simply misunderstood

Jade City

When I heard about Jade City, the things people told me about were great fight scenes and cool magic systems. I picked it up because I love these things. Instead what I got was an intensely character focused family drama with organized crime (kind of) as a backdrop. Plus some cool fight scenes, of course.

The Premise:
Janloon is a city that, after a long war for sovereignty, owes its freedom to two clans: Mountain and No Peak. This book follows the newest generation of the Kaul family, who rule No Peak Clan. Lan is in the process of taking over leadership from his grandfather, the war hero who is overly involved. Hilo is a firebrand whos penchant to start fights must be reigned in now that he’s in a position of authority. And Shae is back in Janloon hoping to live a life free of the influence of her family. And then there’s Anden, adopted and still a student, but a prodigy of great proportions. A gang war with Mountain Clan is brewing, and No Peak may not be situated win the fight.

Read If Looking For: morally grey leads, deep themes, character focused writing

Avoid if Looking For: lots of fight scenes

The Bone Harp

Victoria Goddard has been vaguely on my radar since I read The Hands of the Emperor, which I highly enjoyed but found entirely too long and repetitive. I’ve heard good things about her other books, and The Bone Harp’s premise piqued my interest. I have a soft spot for storyteller characters. And in the end I’m incredibly glad I read it. The book is very much a love letter to fantasy, with a twist on classic stories.

The Premise:
Tamsin is a bard. He sung in the first dawn, went to war with The Old Enemy, and became the Voice of Death itself. He was thrice cursed, his voice stolen, his hands ruined for harp-work. And then he died, and returned tho his homeland a millennia later. He faces the scars of his past life, a strange new world that moved on without him, and the lingering fears of what happened to his siblings and to Klara: his rival, his lover, his love

Read If Looking For: the trauma of violence, heroes after the dark lord is dead, poetic language, introspective reads

Avoid if Looking For: a plot where things happen

The Navigating Fox

Foxes have been a thread through my reading for around a year now. Fox characters, humans named Fox, and shapeshifting foxes. All over the place. So, when I saw some intriguing reviews for The Navigating Fox, it felt like fate that I pick it up. What I found inside was an intriguing, but perhaps underdeveloped novella with a fresh feeling that I haven’t seen in fantasy before.

The Premise:
In a world where some animals have sapience through alchemical processes, Quintus is the only fox to have the privilege. He is a navigator, back from a particularly disastrous expedition and facing calls for consequences by the sister of one of his companions who died on that journey. Backed into a corner by these circumstances and a priest with information he desperately needs, he promises to lead another expedition to the gates of hell itself.

Read If Looking For: Arrogant priests, fable vibes, talking animals

Avoid if Looking For: stories that answer questions they pose, action

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn

Mark Lawrence is an author that gets name dropped a lot in places where I get recommendations. Yet I never seem to find time to pick him up. His newest series features libraries. I love libraries! So I picked up an audiobook copy and gave it a listen. In the end, I don’t know that this was entirely for me, which is sort of the vibe I’ve been getting from Mark Lawrence books in general.

The Premise:
Livira, once a poor duster orphaned by the encroaching Sapper (dog-people) armies and finds herself an apprenticeship at The Library. Evar is trapped in The Library. Has been his whole life. Their stories and explorations of the library end up uncovering some of it’s secrets. After all, The Library exists in all times and in all worlds, and is bound to have more than a few surprises in store for those who choose to wander its shelves.

Read If Looking For: books about books, breaking time and space

Avoid if Looking For: something innovative in the genre

Dungeon Crawler Carl

This book is stupid. It shouldn’t work. It’s premise is insane. And yet it has captured me fully and utterly. I have listened to all the books in the series multiple times, read the paper copies, and eagerly await each new installment. I’m thrilled it’s hitting a wider audience now that it’s made the jump to traditional publishing, and am excited to return to it when I need a comfortable audiobook.

The Premise:
Carl and his Donut (his ex-girlfriend’s show-cat) get caught up in a nightmare after aliens turn earth into a reality tv show deathtrap. He’s in a fantasy themed dungeon, complete with goblins and stat blocks and an audience of aliens hungry for him to kill in the most dramatic way possible. Make it through 18 floors and earn your freedom … probably. Thankfully, Carl likes dynamite, and Donut likes to monologue. They just have to convince the AI running the whole thing that they’re more entertaining alive than dead.

Read If Looking For: books that make you think ‘what the fuck?’, horror meets comedy, action packed fun

Avoid if Looking For: character focused stories, quality prose, books without gore, subtle humor

The Traitor Baru Cormorant

Sometimes a book comes along that utterly redefines how you view books, reading, or genres. The Traitor Baru Cormorant was like that for me, a book that shook me to my core, and forced me to realize just how powerful Queer Fantasy could be. It remains one of my all time favorites. It isn’t for everyone though, and has a pretty clear style that is different from how most fantasy nowadays is written.

The Premise:
Baru is a genius. A savant at math and numbers, she’s been trained since a young age by the Empire to be of use. She’s also grown up seeing her beloved island home colonized by the soldiers of the Empire: trade, coin, and plumbing. She also happens to be Lesbian, a crime that forces her to repress her desires and live a life of shame. And she wants to rip the Empire to pieces. But to do that, she must first gain power in the Empire. And so she accepts a job to run the Economy of one of the Empire’s many colonies – not her own of course – and suppress their own rebellion so she may grow her own.

Read If Looking For: a book that will rip your heart out, economist lead character, anti-colonial stories

Avoid if Looking For: queer characters living happy lives, quick and/or breezy reads, twists that are complete surprises

The Bone Swans of Amandale

Fairy Tale stories have been all the rage for the past few years. In fact, now that 2025 has hit, I’m starting to grow weary of the deluge of fairy tale and mythology retellings. There are plenty of great ones out there of course, but I’ve just seen so many that they get lost in the shuffle. The Bone Swans of Amandale isn’t a retelling, though it does reference a few fairy tales, but instead is a story that evokes the dark fairy tale style in a way I haven’t seen any other book do.

The Premise:
This dark fairy tale adjacent story is told by Maurice, a rat-folk who can shift between rat and human. He’s got an unrequited love for a swan-folk lass named Dora Rose who can’t stand him, and whose sister (and whole extended family really) has been killed by the mayor of the nearby town, a descendent of ogres and giants who uses magic to keep the town spellbound. To help his childhood crush, he ropes in the Pied Piper and a few kids who’d gotten on the mayor’s bad side, and lets hell loose in the process.

Read If Looking For: charismatic and immoral lead characters, dark aesthetics, unique narrative voice, exquisite prose

Avoid if Looking For: straightforward thematic messages, ‘good’ characters

As a note, you can read Bone Swans from the collection Bone Swans: Stories, or you can read it for free here.

The Fox Wife

Historical Fantasy isn’t my go-to subgenre, but The Fox Wife grabbed my attention from the cover art and a plot summary that had me intrigued. Foxes have been a running theme of my reading for around a year, with them popping up in expected and unexpected places, so it felt apt from a motif standpoint as well.

Elevator Pitch:
The Fox Wife shifts between two lead characters in 1908 East-Asia (mostly various parts China). Snow is a Fox, one of the shapeshifting tricksters who has lived centuries and goes by many names. Bao is an investigator with a supernatural gift for discerning truth from lies. Snow seeks revenge for her dead child and finds herself attached as a servant to a family living under a curse. Bao has been hired to investigate a the identity of a dead courtesan. Their journeys bring them into contact with their pasts and with other foxes who have agendas of their own.

Read If Looking For: atmospheric books, Chinese and Japanese historical settings, few fantastic elements, charismatic characters, feminist themes

Avoid if Looking For: tightly-written mysteries, political intrigue, or action scenes

The Mask of Mirrors

Tarot Readings and Psychics have never really been my thing. I like the idea of them, the layers of meaning in the cards over time and how they represent core aspects of the human experience. However, I don’t particularly subscribe to the more supernatural aspects of them in real life. In Fantasy however, I find them a delight. And my favorite thing about The Mask of Mirrors (and its sequels) is that the in-universe Tarot analogue, aside from being wonderfully designed, was used by the authors as part of the writing process. Every card reading in the story – with one notable exception – was done in real time in our physical world, and the results were the ones used in-universe, helping to drive narrative beats and character arcs. It shouldn’t work, but M.A. Carrick show their writing chops by turning what could be a disaster, into a really excellently crafted trilogy.

The Premise:
Ren has returned to her home city of Nadežra years after fleeing the criminal gang that raised her. With the help of her sister, she hopes to get herself adopted into a noble household by masquerading as a long-lost niece and make off with their fortunes. Unfortunately, the family turns out to be nearly destitute after a perhaps supernatural string of bad luck, the city’s cultural tensions are about to boil over, and Ren’s past debts to the underworld come knocking.

Read If Looking For: deeply realized cultures and characters, con artists, lavish descriptions of clothing, queernorm worlds

Avoid if Looking For: a fast paced story, or one that prioritizes action scenes