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Review: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (2014)
Rating: ★★★★★
Genre: Fantasy
Categories: Fairies (elves/goblins), Political Intrigue, Royalty and Nobility
Content Warnings (Highlight to read): References to past (offscreen) child abuse
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Description: Maia, the youngest son of the elven emperor, was somebody nobody thought would inherit the throne. Half-goblin and the result of a loveless political marriage, he has lived his entire life in exile. Yet, when every family member closer to the throne dies in an airship crash, along with the ruling emperor, he finds himself at age 18 taken to the capital and thrust into a role he has barely been prepared for. He has no friends, and barely knows which of his supporters he dare trust. Even so, Maia must negotiate the bewildering tangle of court political intrigue, arranged marriages, parliamentary disagreements, and, of course, investigating the deaths of his family.
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Review: Junk Mage by Elliot Cooper (2016)
“It’s a gift, not a trade.” Or it wasn’t a sly trade anymore, anyway. I couldn’t handle his haunted look, as if I’d just given him everything and he wasn’t allowed to keep it.
– Junk Mage, Elliot Cooper
Rating: ★★★½
Genre: Science fiction, fantasy, romance
Categories: M/M, cyborgs, wizards, technomancy, personhood arcContent Warnings: N/A
Description: Quill, an emotionally immature but well-intentioned technomancer, crash-lands his spaceship on a remote planet and has to figure out how to repair his ship in order to leave. There he meets Hunter, an amnesiac cyborg, whose trust (or cooperation) he has to earn in order to get off the planet and to not lose his best shot at a new life.