For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Fantasy worlds with magical power systems often include the idea of inherited magical ability, with magic handed down from one generation to the next or manifesting in a particular “chosen one” invested with special importance. But is that a good way to hand down power? What if those inheriting the power don’t want it? … Read more
[ad_1] Releasing a debut novel is always a fraught endeavor, and in a pandemic, it’s even more so. But the luckiest debut novelists see buzz building for their books well in advance of publication. Right now, that buzz belongs to Sarah Penner and her inventive, compelling historical novel, The Lost Apothecary. It’s been named among … Read more
[ad_1] I’m tempted to say the modern idea of genre is a joke, except that it’s not funny. A sincerely curious, skilled, and committed writer can basically write whatever she wants, genre be damned. Yet certain genres are still elevated and others dismissed; the New York Times “By the Book” feature still regularly asks writers … Read more
[ad_1] With starred reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus, a TV deal with Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories already inked, and places on a half-dozen lists of the year’s most anticipated books, Christina Baker Kline’s new novel The Exiles is poised to make a splash. It is in some ways a quiet book, focusing on … Read more
[ad_1] Writers don’t need to have supernatural abilities to foretell the future; we just need vivid imaginations, intense curiosity, and the ability to logically extrapolate what comes next and next and next. The world we’re writing in always has some differences from the world our books are released into, resembling the current world more or … Read more
[ad_1] Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novel Mexican Gothic deserves to be heralded as a new classic of the genre. It’s tempting to say that Moreno-Garcia brings a breath of fresh air to the Gothic novel, but as fans know, Gothics leave no room for fresh air. They’re claustrophobic and dread-filled; the walls of their crumbling, oppressive mansions … Read more
[ad_1] While there’s no shortage of historical novels set in Paris, no other recent novel both embraces and transcends its Parisian setting like Alex George’s new book, The Paris Hours. Set over the course of a single day, with plenty of detours into the fascinating backstories of its four main characters, The Paris Hours brims … Read more
[ad_1] There are many different kinds of magic. Any novelist gets to choose what kind or kinds to incorporate in the stories we tell. In the new historical fantasy novel The Glass Magician, Caroline Stevermer incorporates stage magic from the golden age of vaudeville with a more mystical, inventive system of transformative magic, and the … Read more
[ad_1] Fantasy writer N. K. Jemisin has a well-deserved reputation for blowing readers’ minds with her beautifully detailed, fully breathing worlds, and her new novel The City We Became is no exception. It’s also different from her recent work in substantial and important ways. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy began in a wrecked, post-apocalyptic world. The … Read more
[ad_1] While some books of historical fiction use a historical event or person only as a jumping-off point, others are more biographical in nature, building on the factual details of a real person’s life with imagined thought, conflict and emotion. Allison Pataki’s new novel The Queen’s Fortune belongs mostly in the second category, but it … Read more