Review: Den of Wolves by Juliet Marillier
Reviews / October 31, 2016

Books that get the five star treatment from me often have an emotional component to them, which would probably explain why I have consistently given the novels in the Blackthorn & Grim series full marks. That’s because every single one of them has been a boatload of feels, and this third installment is no exception. In fact, Den of Wolves might be the most poignant and moving of them all. I’ve laughed and cried with these characters through their triumphs and tribulations, and now I finally understand that everything we’d been through had been gradually building up to this crucial novel. If you have not had the pleasure of meeting Blackthorn and Grim yet, the two of them make up one of the most extraordinary partnerships I’ve ever read, and their shared experiences in the previous books have only deepened that bond of trust and friendship. Blackthorn is a wise woman, her job to mend and heal and cure, but deep down inside she is still broken and raging with her desire for revenge on Mathuin of Laois, the man who destroyed everything she ever loved. The only thing keeping her from acting upon that anger is an oath she…

The Speculative Herald’s Best of 2015
Book List / December 5, 2015

  One of the perks I’ve found with working with several bloggers is that we can cover more books than we have time to read on our own. So, when it came time to make our Best of 2015 list, I decided to ask each of the contributors to submit a ranked list of their favorite books (yep, I’m mean like that. Choosing favorites can be hard, ranking is even harder). I then used a scaled points system to calculate an over all list. So, the end result features a variety of books that either several of us agreed belong in the top 10, or books that perhaps just one reviewer read, but placed in their high on their ranked choices of the year. With so many great choices we had to expand our collaborative list past just 10 books to 25. Since our blog started late in the year, many of these books do not currently have reviews here. But we do plan on adding them, so keep your eye out. So here it is, Speculative Herald’s list of our absolute favorite books from 2015! And because I like to get straight to the good stuff, I am listing them in order starting with…

Review: Tower of Thorns by Juliet Marillier
Reviews / October 30, 2015

I read a whopping number of books last year. Like, the final tally was probably somewhere close to 200. And out of the dozens upon dozens of books, do you know which one stood out to me the most? Juliet Marillier’s Dreamer’s Pool. It should come as no surprise then, that its sequel Tower of Thorns is hands down my most anticipated novel this fall. Heck, most anticipated novel this year. We’re talking, if there’s one book I need to read in 2015, THIS. IS. IT. So, please understand now when I say I need a moment to pull myself together. I’m still trying desperately to come up with the words to describe how I felt about this novel, without coming off as a gushing, fangirly lunatic. After all, it’s not every day that I get to read a book that I’ve been dying for, only to have that book exceed all my expectations. What can I say? Tower of Thorns, you were utter perfection. Juliet Marillier, you are truly amazing. Yeah, that whole trying-not-to-be-a-gushy-fangirl thing. Not really working out, is it? Let me start again, all proper-like this time. Tower of Thorns is the direct sequel to Dreamer’s Pool….