Fantasy – Page 11 – Marked for Plot

The Brides of High Hill

I’ve got a great love for The Singing Hills Cycle, and picking up the newest release was a relatively easy decision for me. The series of novellas focuses on a historian cleric on various adventures, collecting the stories of the people and creatures of their world, which has clear Chinese and Mongolian influences. Storytelling, perspectives, and the meaning of truth are running motifs throughout the series, and they can be read in any order.

Read If Looking For: gothic horror, haunted houses, light mystery elements, quality prose

Avoid if Looking For: deeply thematic works, traditional fantasy storytelling

A Deadly Education

I grew up in the era of Harry Potter. I dragged my parents to bookstores, standing in line for midnight releases. I went to Harry Potter themed summer camps. I asked for my mom to knit me scarves with the colors of each Harry Potter house. And while I’ve soured on Harry Potter for a variety of reasons – Rowling’s raging transphobia being only one of many – A Deadly Education plucked at the joy of magic school stories, which is something that’s never going to entirely vanish from my fantasy reading habits.

Read If Looking For: brutally fast pacing, snarky narrators, magic dystopias

Avoid if Looking For: characters growing in power, grey morality

Siren Queen

Nghi Vo won me over with her novellas in the Singing Hills Cycle, and I was curious what her writing was like outside the quiet reflective stories of those novellas. And so I turned to Siren Queen, put in a loan for an audiobook, and spent hours putting together a puzzle so that I wouldn’t have to stop listening.

Read If Looking For: magical realism, entrancing prose, character studies

Avoid if Looking For: happy queer stories, plot points that all resolve neatly

Empress of Salt and Fortune

I credit my relatively newfound love of Novellas to Empress of Salt and Fortune. I used to be the type of reader who loved doorstopper books – and I still do! – but had a ‘more is always better’ approach to books. Now, I think that the length of a novella gives space for writers to do really interesting, focused stories. I tend to find them more cohesive on the whole, and Empress of Salt and Fortune is a great example of Novellas at their finest.

Read If Looking For: framing narratives, the human impact of rebellions, emotional stories, character studies

Avoid if Looking For: traditional action and politics to happen on screen

A Conspiracy of Truths

My love for framing narratives will likely become a running theme on this blog. When executed well, I find they make stories come to life, and they inherently channel the oral storytelling traditions that the fantasy genre calls home. A Conspiracy of Truths is one of the best of them. This book was an impulse purchase from Half Priced Books, and it gave me not only one of my favorite books of all time, but an author whose catalog blows me away.

Read If Looking For: unique protagonists, political manipulation, the power of storytelling

Avoid if Looking For: stories where the main character can leave a prison cell to actually take part in what’s traditionally the ‘plot’ of a book

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Avoid if Looking For: something innovative in the genre