Book Review: His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

 Book title: His Majesty’s Dragon
Author: Naomi Novik
Genre: Historical fantasy
Published: January 3, 2006
356 pages
My rating: 5/5

“I am afraid I am not rich enough a partner for you; I will not be able to give you a heap of gold to sleep on.”

“I should rather have you than a heap of gold, even if it were very comfortable to sleep on,” Temeraire said.

During the Napoleonic Wars, British sea captain Will Laurence captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched Chinese dragon egg. When the dragon Temeraire hatches, he chooses Laurence as his handler, and Laurence must leave his ship behind. He and Temeraire join the Aerial Corps, taking a crash course in aerial battle tactics before Napoleon’s forces threaten to invade Britain.

His Majesty’s Dragon in the first book in Naomi Novik historical fantasy series Temeraire. This was another audio book read for me, and although I wasn’t a huge fan of the audio book narrator, the story eventually won me over.

Book Review: The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso

The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso

 Book title: The Book of Lost Hours
Author: Hayley Gelfuso
Genre: Historical fantasy
Published: August 26, 2025
391 pages
My rating: 5/5

“A memory, once it’s over, is never exactly what it was when it was happening. Whatever comes later changes the meaning of it.”

Eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy finds herself trapped in a vast library where memories are stored in books. As she grows up among the memories, she discovers that government agents are destroying memories to maintain their preferred version of history. She attempts to salvage as many memories as she can, but when an American agent Ernest Duquesne is sent to stop her, she must risk everything to change history itself.

The Book of Lost Hours is Hayley Gelfuso’s adult historical fantasy and an instant five star read for me. I can already tell that this will be one of my favorite books this year. I listened to it as an audio book, but I wish I had this as a physical book so I could have savored it longer! That being said, the audio book narrator did a great job, and I enjoyed the listening experience.

Book Review: The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks

The Cautious Traveller's Guide
to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks

Book title: The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands
Author: Sarah Brooks
Genre: Steampunk fantasy
Published: June 18, 2024
372 pages
My rating: 3/5

“There is a woman on the platform with a borrowed name. With steam in her eyes and the taste of oil on her lips. The shrill, desperate whistle of the train turns into the sobbing of a young girl nearby and the cries of the trinket vendors, hawking their flimsy amulets as protection against Wastelands sickness.”

1899, a train runs from Beijing to Moscow across the Siberian Wastelands where strange phenomena are taking place. Marya Petrovna, a young woman with a borrowed name, boards the train to find out what happened to her father on the previous crossing. Weiwei, a girl born on the train, defies the rules of the train company and protects a stowaway girl. Henry Grey, a disgraced naturalist, is determined to restore his reputation. Together, they must survive the journey even as the uncontrollable Wastelands seem to break into the train.

The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands is Sarah Brooks’s debut novel. The premise sounded fascinating, and I was excited to read this steampunk fantasy, but unfortunately, the book left me a little disappointed.

Book Review: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
by Heather Fawcett

Book title: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
Author: Heather Fawcett
Genre: Historical fantasy
Published: January 10, 2023
317 pages
My rating: 4/5

“There was something about the stories bound between those covers, and the myriad species of Folk weaving in and out of them, each one a mystery begging to be solved. I suppose most children fall in love with faeries at some point, but my fascination was never about magic or the granting of wishes. The Folk were of another world, with its own rules and customs – and to a child who always felt ill-suited to her own world, the lure was irresistible.”

Young Cambridge professor Emily Wilde travels to the distant northern village of Hrafnsvik to prepare the final chapter of her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. She has no intention of befriending any of the local townsfolk, nor does she wish to spend any time with her insufferable rival, Wendell Bambleby, who suddenly arrives at the village. But as Emily begins to uncover the secrets of the Hidden Ones, the most elusive of the faeries, she must learn to accept the villagers’ friendship and help if she wants to escape the faeries’ enchantments.

Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries is a cozy light academia fantasy full of magic and faeries. I loved the main character, and her social awkwardness reminded me of myself. Her growing friendships with the rest of the cast of characters were adorable. I also enjoyed reading the book’s first person diary-style description of Emily’s experiences and the footnotes on fairy lore. This book formed a nice contrast to the dark academia vibes of my previous read, R.F. Kuang’s Babel, and I must say I prefer light academia myself. This book made a perfect cozy fall read.

Book Review: Babel by R.F. Kuang

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Book title: Babel
Author: R.F. Kuang
Genre: Historical fantasy
Published: August 23, 2022
544 pages
My rating: 4.5/5

“That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”

Robin Swift, an orphaned Chinese boy, is brought to London by his new mysterious ward Professor Lovell. After training years in Latin, ancient Greek, and Chinese, he enrolls in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel. Besides being the world’s center for translation, it is also the center for silver-working, a magical way of manifesting the meanings lost in translation. This makes Babel the principal assistant in the British Empire’s quest for colonization. As a Chinese man raised in Britain, Robin soon realizes that serving Babel means betraying his motherland. But can a student stand against an empire?

Babel is a dark academia historical fantasy about colonialism, oppression, and colonial resistance. The themes this book tackles are hugely important, and Kuang does a great job exploring the complex intersecting identities of her main characters. Unfortunately, this is one of those books where I feel the literary merit of the book was higher than my enjoyment of it.

Book Review: The Winter Goddess by Megan Barnard

The Winter Goddess by Megan Barnard

Book title: The Winter Goddess
Author: Megan Barnard
Genre: Mythological retelling, historical fantasy
Published: March 11, 2025
304 pages
My rating: 3.5/5

“I don’t know how old I was, but a child still, and Danu and I had been walking through the deep parts of the forest, heading back to Tara. I was holding her hand and she was talking of this and that – Danu was always talking – when we crested the slope of a small hill, entering a clearing ringed with huge fir trees. I tilted my face up to see where they seemed to graze the sky and watched as something brushed the very tops of the branches – something white and gentle and mesmerizing. Snow, I somehow understood, though I had never seen it before.”

Cailleach, the goddess of winter, despises selfish and destructive humans. When her sacred grove is destroyed, she unleashes a brutal winter, killing hundreds of people. As a punishment, her mother Danu, the queen of the gods, sends her to live on earth among the people she disdains until she understands what it’s like to be a mortal.

The Winter Goddess is Megan Barnard’s historical fantasy inspired by Gaelic mythology. The concept was fascinating, and I wanted to like this book, but it let me down. For the longest time, I could not figure out what the book was trying to say. It felt that it either had the wrong main character or was telling the story in the wrong way.

Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller

Book title: Circe
Author: Madeline Miller
Genre: Ancient retelling, historical fantasy
Published: April 10, 2018
333 pages
My rating: 5/5

“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities.”

Circe is not like her parents, the terrifying sun god Helios or the alluring nymph Perse. Slighted by other Titans, including her own family, she seeks the companionship of mortals instead and discovers she has a dark power of her own. When she turns her witchcraft against her own kind, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her craft and tames wild beasts. But even banishment doesn’t stop her from crossing paths with many famous figures, including the beastly Minotaur, the sorceress Medea, and wily Odysseus.

Circe is a retelling of the ancient Greek myth of the powerful witch Circe who transformed men into swine until she was bested by Odysseus in Homer’s The Odyssey. I loved Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles when I read it a few years ago, and I was excited to read her second novel. It wasn’t quite the emotional ride The Song of Achilles offered, but I still loved this book.

Book Review: Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood

Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood

Book title: Lies We Sing to the Sea
Author: Sarah Underwood
Genre: Historical fantasy
Published: March 7, 2023
432 pages
My rating: 2/5

"There were twelve bodies in the water. They always found their way to the island of Pandou eventually, though the seas that stretched for miles around it were invariably still and silent. Melantho would have been foolish to think that it was the natural currents that had brought them; she had been there long enough to know that nothing found its way to Pandou unless it was meant to."

When Odysseus came back from the Trojan War, he hanged the twelve maids of Penelope and cast their bodies in the sea. This atrocity angered the sea god Poseidon, and for three hundred years he has ravaged the island of Ithaca and demanded the yearly hanging of twelve girls marked with a necklace of scales. But when this fate comes to Leto, she doesn’t die. Instead, she meets an immortal being, Melantho, who gives her a mission: to kill the Prince of Ithaca, Mathias, and end the curse of Poseidon for good.

Lies We Sing to the Sea is a debut Greek mythology retelling of (or rather, a sequel to) The Odyssey. As I love ancient Greek mythology, I was super excited to read it. Unfortunately, this book was a massive disappointment.

Book Review: WildWood Revisited by Cinasee Pollett

WildWood Revisited by Cinasee Pollett

Book Title: WildWood Revisited (*Amazon affiliate link)
Author: Cinasee Pollett
Genre: Historical fantasy
Published: May 22, 2023
252 pages
My rating: 5/5

“Angela scowled. If she’d heard the Laws of Literature once, she’d heard them a thousand times from her uncle—only first editions were Travellable, books had to remain open whilst Travelling, and plots must not be changed. She would remember them if she lived to be a thousand.”

Angela Graham is a Tome Traveler. She can enter any book she wants – as long as it’s a first edition. Her favorite novel, WildWood, would be the perfect escape from the harsh reality of life after World War I, if only its ending wasn’t so dismal. When she learns that someone has tampered with the book’s plot, she seeks help from the book’s reluctant author Aspen DeBryn to save her beloved woodland and its goblin residents.

Book Review: Ithaca by Claire North

Book Title: Ithaca (*Amazon affiliate link)
Author: Claire North
Genre: Historical fantasy, ancient retelling
Published: September 6, 2022 by Orbit
400 pages
My rating: 4/5

The Trojan War has been over for a decade, but the king of Ithaca, Odysseus, is yet to return home and is presumed dead. In his absence, his wife Penelope juggles to fill the power vacuum and protect her son, Telemachus, a sulky teenager who doesn’t know how to be a man. A hall full of suitors are vying for her hand and the throne, eating and drinking all of Penelope’s and Ithaca’s wealth, while pirates attack the island every full moon. Ithaca is at the mercy of other Greek city-states, and Penelope is drawn into a difficult balancing act where she has to choose between saving her cousin Clytemnestra, or helping the future king of Mycenae, Orestes.