fantasy

May 2021 19

Taking Charge of the Store Fundamentally Changed my Relationship with Books

2021 Articles, Fantasy & Fangs, Mysteryrat's Maze

by Penny Grubb

For the past seven years, once a year, I stop being a crime writer and become a bookstore manager, selling every genre under the sun. From the initial experience which I thought of as ‘helping out,’ things have evolved and the job has required a more fundamental change in me than anything I’d envisaged when I took it on. I shouldn’t be surprised. Running a bookstore is a wholly different role from writing novels. I simply hadn’t thought it through.

May 2021 15

Magic Misled By Keri Arthur: Review/Giveaway

2021 Articles, Fantasy & Fangs, Lorie Lewis Ham, Mysteryrat's Maze

by Lorie Lewis Ham

Magic Misled is the seventh book in the Lizzie Grace fantasy series by Keri Arthur. Lizzie is a witch and a psychic who has been on the run for a long time from her powerful magical family. Her family blames Lizzie for her sister’s death, and they trapped her in an unwanted marriage. However, she is not alone she has her best friend and familiar Belle. The pair now runs a tea and psychic consulting business on a werewolf reservation in Australia.

May 2021 8

The Queen’s Weapons By Anne Bishop: Review/Giveaway

2021 Articles, Fantasy & Fangs, Terrance V. Mc Arthur

by Terrance McArthur

Daemon has two wives. One of them, Jaenelle Angelline, is dead, but she is a Queen of Power, a Witch, so she still watches over the Realm, her husband, his brother Lucivar, and the brother’s son Daemonar in Anne Bishop’s The Queen’s Weapons, the eleventh Black Jewels novel.

Jan 2021 30

KRL’s Favorite Books of 2020

2021 Articles, Cynthia Chow, Lorie Lewis Ham, Sandra Murphy, Terrance V. Mc Arthur

by KRL Staff

Another year has ended and once again we take a look back at a few of the many books that were reviewed in KRL in 2020. 2020 was a year most of us want to forget, but one good thing that did happen is that a lot of great books were published! All but one of our main reviewers share in this post their top 5-10ish favorite books they reviewed in 2020. Katherine Costa wanted to include favorite authors and TV shows that she has reviewed, so hers went up in a separate post in this issue.

Jan 2021 27

My Inspiration: A Theft Most Fowl

2021 Articles, Fantasy & Fangs, Mysteryrat's Maze

by Nicole Givens Kurtz

Throughout the challenging and often depressing year that is 2020, I found writing anything truly discouraging. Why write when a pandemic ravaged the world, Black Americans are being shot down in the streets, and unemployment surged?

Oct 2020 24

Clockwork Gypsy By Jeri Westerson: Review/Giveaway/Halloween Guest Post

2020 Articles, Fantasy & Fangs, Sharon Tucker

by Sharon Tucker
& Jeri Westerson

I grew fond of Leopold Kazmer, The Great Enchanter, in his first adventure, The Daemon Device (2019), where he battled the encroaching demonic takeover of steampunk Victorian London and won. Of course, he had help, both natural and supernatural, and I hoped that all his cohorts and a few more would return when I learned the second in Jeri Westerson’s Enchanter Chronicles was coming.

Sep 2020 30

Battle Ground By Jim Butcher

2020 Articles, Mysteryrat's Maze

by Kim Heniadis

Forzare! While Peace Talks was tepid, Battle Ground by Jim Butcher is on fire. Literally. And the storyline in this one is excellent too.

Aug 2020 15

New Owners of the Bookstore Mysterious Galaxy

2020 Articles, Fantasy & Fangs, Mysteryrat's Maze

by Terry Ambrose

Mysterious Galaxy is an independent bookstore specializing in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, young adult, romance, and horror. Founded in 1992, the store has been an integral part of San Diego’s literary scene for readers ever since.

May 2020 9

The Queen’s Bargain By Anne Bishop: Review/Giveaway

2020 Articles, Fantasy & Fangs, Terrance V. Mc Arthur

by Terrance McArthur

I am a fan of Anne Bishop’s The Others series and The World of The Others. I enjoyed paranormal danger that could be fatal without being graphic, love with shapechangers that wasn’t sexual, and wry commentary on everything from prejudice to government. From the “Also By” lists, I knew that Bishop had other books and other worlds in her writing, but I had never read any of them. Oh, boy.

May 2020 6

Face to Face with History

2020 Articles, Fantasy & Fangs

by E.C. Ambrose

Until I started writing The King of Next Week, my historical research focused on the medieval period: surgery during the fourteenth century in Europe, clockworks in China during the Mongol invasions, references to werewolves in eleventh century Wales. But during a visit to Phippsburg, Maine, to give a talk about writing, I became intrigued by the history of the area.