I’m a fan of Cate Gardner’s writing so when her latest anthology was recently released, I figured it was high time that I dipped my toes back into the waters of short fiction. These Foolish and Harmful Delights features eight tales that explore the darker side of the human condition. Here are a few thoughts about some of the book’s many highlights. This Foolish & Harmful Delights – Imagine Punch and Judy are real. Now imagine that they have been sent to Hell because, it turns out, both of them are more than a little unhinged. The opportunity finally arrives for them to escape their endless torment and wreak some havoc of their own. In this first story, Gardner has morphed the already creepy traditional puppets into a pair of sadomasochistic grotesques who delight in making each other and everyone else suffer. It’s delightful alright, in a deliciously nasty way. A Bleeding of Ink – A dark exploration of mental health seen through the eyes of Alice. I think this is my favourite story in the entire collection. I loved how the boundaries between fantasy and reality smudge and overlap. There is a sense of ambiguity to Alice’s predicament that…

He’s a trickster, a player, a jester. His handshake’s like a pact with the devil, his smile like a crack in the clouds; he’s watching you now and he’s gone when you turn. Tyll Ulenspiegel is here! In a village like every other village in Germany, a scrawny boy balances on a rope between two trees. He’s practising. He practises by the mill, by the blacksmiths; he practises in the forest at night, where the Cold Woman whispers and goblins roam. When he comes out, he will never be the same. Tyll will escape the ordinary villages. In the mines he will defy death. On the battlefield he will run faster than cannonballs. In the courts he will trick the heads of state. As a travelling entertainer, his journey will take him across the land and into the heart of a never-ending war. A prince’s doomed acceptance of the Bohemian throne has European armies lurching brutally for dominion and now the Winter King casts a sunless pall. Between the quests of fat counts, witch-hunters and scheming queens, Tyll dances his mocking fugue; exposing the folly of kings and the wisdom of fools. As a book reviewer, I’m an incredibly lucky…

I’m Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are three things you should know before you hire me: Sobriety costs extra. My services are confidential. I don’t work for humans. It’s nothing personal – I’m human myself. But after what happened, it’s not the humans who need my help. I just want one real case. One chance to do something good. Because it’s my fault the magic is never coming back. The inhabitants of Sunder City have fallen on hard times. An event known as The Coda has stripped all the magic from their world. Everyone is suffering and each day things only seem to be getting worse. In the shadow of this terrible event, a much-loved teacher has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Fetch Phillips, a down at heel human gumshoe, is tasked with tracing the rogue educator. It shouldn’t be a difficult case. I mean, how far can an ageing ex-vampire who has problems climbing stairs get? Like all the best literary investigators, Fetch is an absolute shambles as a human being. It’s hardly a surprise really. He sees himself as responsible, at least in part, for the biggest catastrophe to befall the world he lives…

For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can’t quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob — a young lawyer with a normal house, a normal fiancee, and an utterly normal life — hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his life’s duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world… and for once, it isn’t Charley’s doing. There’s someone else who shares his powers. It’s up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them, before these characters tear apart the fabric of reality. I’ll begin this review with a couple of apologies. Firstly, I didn’t manage to complete a review to tie in with the publication date of the novel last week. Sometimes, when I find myself entirely engrossed in a book that I adore, I like to revel in it and take my time. Secondly, when I write a review about a book I adore, I have something of a tendency to wax a bit more lyrical…

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters. Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine. Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unravelling clues from ancient legends, trading favours with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology. As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive. Welcome to the Sixth World. November has been Native American Heritage Month, so I thought I would mark the occasion by seeking out some appropriate genre fiction. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse is the first book in a post-apocalyptic series that uses Native culture, myths and legends as its basis. Maggie Hoskie makes for an engaging protagonist. Many of the Diné…

South Africa in the 1880s. A young and naive English doctor by the name of William Abbey witnesses the lynching of a local boy by the white colonists. As the child dies, his mother curses William. William begins to understand what the curse means when the shadow of the dead boy starts following him across the world. It never stops, never rests. It can cross oceans and mountains. And if it catches him, the person he loves most in the world will die. I’ll admit that over the last few years I have become a huge fan of Claire North’s writing, so a new novel is always cause for excitement here at The Eloquent Page. When The Pursuit of William Abbey arrived, my carefully maintained review schedule was immediately thrown out the window. I was powerless to resist the call. The premise is simple, Doctor William Abbey stood back and let a horrific event occur, making himself complicit by his inaction. His penance? To be forever followed by a ghost who will kill someone Abbey loves if it catches up with him. There is more, however. Abbey is also cursed to know the truth of people’s hearts. Not that sanitized…

Two nations at war. A prize beyond compare. For generations, the Hundred Isles have built their ships from the bones of ancient dragons to fight an endless war. The dragons disappeared, but the battles for supremacy persisted. Now the first dragon in centuries has been spotted in far-off waters, and both sides see a chance to shift the balance of power in their favour. Because whoever catches it will win not only glory, but the war. I’m a sucker for stories about pirates, I can’t help it. I still remember the first time I saw The Crimson Pirate with Burt Lancaster when I was a small child, I was immediately in awe. Novels about pirates are just as much fun. The only thing better than a novel about pirates is a fantasy novel about pirates. R J Barker’s latest, The Bone Ships, is the tale of a desperate crew setting course on a desperate mission. Joron Twiner is down on his luck. Duelling with the wrong person’s son has resulted in exile to a black ship. Only the lowliest of criminals, the lowest of the low, are condemned to such a pitiful existence. Joron is the shipwife (captain) of The…

I’ll preface this review with a warning for the more delicate amongst you. If you choose to read any further please note there will be some swearing. I normally try to keep things PG13, but I’m reviewing a Joe Abercrombie novel and if ever there was an appropriate time for a little mature content this would be it. The chimneys of industry rise over Adua and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep as ever. On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal’s son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specializes in disappointments. Savine dan Glokta – socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union – plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control. The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles…

It’s been a mostly quiet life since Robin Hood put aside his pregnant wife Marian, turned his back on his Merry Men and his former life and retreated to a monastery to repent his sins . . . although no one knows what was so heinous he would leave behind Sherwood Forest and those he loved most. But when friends from their outlaw days start dying, Father Tuck, now the Abbott of St Mary’s, suspects a curse and begs Marian to use her magic to break it. A grieving Marian must bargain for protection for her children before she sets out with a soldier who’s lost his faith, a trickster Fey lord, and a sullen Robin Hood, angry at being drawn back into the real world. It’s not long before Marian finds herself enmeshed in a maze of secrets and betrayals, tangled relationships and a vicious struggle for the Fey throne. And if she can’t find and stop the spell-caster, no protection in Sherwood Forest will be enough to save her children. Based on the continued nonsense of the last couple of weeks; putting it bluntly, the world feels a bit broken at the moment. I live in a country…

A word of warning, Lost Acre is the third book in a trilogy. If you’ve not read books one and book two then I suggest you proceed with caution. It is entirely possible that minor spoilers may lie within.  APOCALYPSE NOW? Geryon Wynter, the brilliant Elizabethan mystic, has achieved resurrection and returned to present-day Rotherweird. But after the chaos of Election Day, how can a stranger from another time wrest control? And for what fell purpose is Wynter back? His dark conspiracy reaches its climax in this unique corner of England, where the study of history is forbidden and neither friend nor foe are quite what they seem. The stakes could not be higher, for at the endgame, not only Rotherweird is under threat. The future of mankind itself hangs in the balance. Lost Acre’s predecessors, Rotherweird and Wyntertide, were an absolute delight from beginning to end, and this final book in the series is the icing on a perfect cake. This series has been such a delight, I’m going to miss it. I will reign in my heartbreak, power through the grief, and endeavour to convey some semblance of professionalism. Please note however, that what follows is written by a…

Please note, Jade War is the second book in The Green Bone Saga. If you have not read Jade City then it is likely what follows will contain some minor spoilers. Consider yourself duly warned! On the island of Kekon, the Kaul family is locked in a violent feud for control of the capital city and the supply of magical jade that endows trained Green Bone warriors with supernatural powers they alone have possessed for hundreds of years. Beyond Kekon’s borders, war is brewing. Powerful foreign governments and mercenary criminal kingpins alike turn their eyes on the island nation. Jade, Kekon’s most prized resource, could make them rich – or give them the edge they’d need to topple their rivals. Faced with threats on all sides, the Kaul family is forced to form new and dangerous alliances, confront enemies in the darkest streets and the tallest office towers, and put honor aside in order to do whatever it takes to ensure their own survival – and that of all the Green Bones of Kekon. Back in 2017, I had the distinct pleasure of reading Jade City by Fonda Lee. It was one of my favourite books that year. The second book…

Sæmundur the Mad, addict and sorcerer, has been expelled from the magical university, Svartiskóli, and can no longer study galdur, an esoteric source of magic. Obsessed with proving his peers wrong, he will stop at nothing to gain absolute power and knowledge, especially of that which is long forbidden. Garún is an outcast: half-human, half-huldufólk, her very existence is a violation of dimensional boundaries, the ultimate taboo. A militant revolutionary and graffiti artist, recklessly dismissive of the status quo, she will do anything to achieve a just society, including spark a revolution. Even if she has to do it alone. This is a tale of revolution set in a twisted version of Reykjavik fuelled by industrialised magic and populated by humans, interdimensional exiles, otherworldly creatures, psychoactive graffiti and demonic familiars.  Something a bit different this week, some Icelandic fiction. Shadows of the Short Days, by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson, is an urban fantasy novel with a distinctly political air. The huldufólk (hidden people) of Icelandic folklore walk among us. These magical beings that live in and around Reykjavik are subjugated for being different and otherworldly. Decades of near slavery has pushed the huldufólk to their limit. Change is in the air,…

Please note, Priest of Lies is the second book in an on-going series. If you haven’t read the first book in the War for the Rose Throne, Priest of Bones, then what follows will likely contain some minor spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I don’t want to have to send the Pious Men round to sort you out! People are weak, and the poorer and more oppressed they are, the weaker they become–until they can’t take it anymore. And when they rise up…may the gods help their oppressors. When Tomas Piety returned from the war, he just wanted to rebuild his empire of crime with his gang of Pious Men. But his past as a spy for the Queen’s Men drew him back in and brought him more power than he ever imagined. Now, with half of his city in ashes and the Queen’s Men at his back, the webs of political intrigue stretch out from the capital to pull Tomas in. Dannsburg is calling. In Dannsburg the nobility fight with words, not blades, but the results are every bit as bloody. In this pit of beasts, Tomas must decide once and for all whether he is truly…