K Orion Fray's Blog

 Another book from my current wave of catching up with NetGalley, it has the usual added charm of “I don’t remember why I picked this up, but let’s find out!”

And as I mentioned to the author on Twitter when I’d finished, I’m so upset with myself for not reading this sooner.

THE SAFE PLACE is a brilliant little book, with a charming everywoman heroine named Emily, whose life is a disaster. Loses her job, loses her agent, relationship with parents strained, the works. Until she is swept...

So to present me with a book proclaiming itself to be a queer fairy tale and expect me not to read it is pretty ridiculous. I haven’t spent much time (yet) seeking out queer fiction, though the pieces I’ve found (or the books I’ve founds pieces in) have all been pretty good so far, and I came into this one with tempered high hopes. Tempered because I did note that this is marked as a debut, though it appears the author has done short fiction before and this is more of a debut of longer work.

A return author to my shelves! This is a long overdue review (my apologies to the author!) but I felt like every time I sat down to write something about it, I couldn’t quite find the words. I was first introduced to Campbell as an author through Story Plant, the publisher she’s worked with. A few years ago, I got books from them to review and hers came up on my list, and I enjoyed CROSSING THE STREET a great deal.

When I saw her name again on NetGalley and saw what the book was about, I knew...

As I was sorting through my e-books and making sure they were downloaded onto the Kindle (so that I can just take them out when I’m done finally reading them, and be able to just sort through the 500+ books by the “downloaded” tab) this one decided to open whether I liked it or not.

That being said, I decided that was my sign to start with this one. And…well…it’s not overwhelming.

First off, I can clearly tell when the book was written, or at least when it was conceived, just by reading the...

Another NetGalley book, reviewed later than intended. I picked it up as a library book recently–ran out of time–got it again…

At that point, all you can do is hope that the book is going to be worth it. I’d already been disappointed by one I’d done this with; I wasn’t ready for a second.

Luckily, it didn’t come to that. This is definitely an enjoyable little thriller.

Told in alternating viewpoints, we follow a young woman beginning her career in a very high-class, hard-working, cutthroat...

Oh hi there. Long time no see.

I’ll keep this short and sweet, and not full of optimistic promises I only may or may not keep. But short story is that I’m eager to get reading again, which means that my reviews are (hopefully) going to ramp up again as well. I’ve got a lot on my plate for 2020 in terms of self-improvement, and getting myself in the habit of reading and writing more regularly is definitely part of it.

Though I know I don’t have many dedicated readers, I’m interested in your...

I would have received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review if I’d been better at downloading things. As it is, I got it from my library.

I’ll have to admit, the description of “Assassin’s Creed meets Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is definitely enough to pique my interest. Not two stories I would have put together on my own–but Martineau makes it work fantastically. (No pun intended.) We have an exiled magic-creatures-wielder and an assassin-for-hire g...

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Yet again, I prove myself incapable to keep my own time frames, and ran out of time on this book before it was archived. I swear, every time I get a book on NetGalley, life immediately decides that I don’t need to have free time or drive to read. Anyway. I’d gone on my usual hunt through the libraries to see which books I could borrow and read, so that I could get them the reviews they’d been promised,...

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I’m always up for a YA story of differing worlds – especially when it sounds like something from the Breakfast Club. This is the princess and the basket case, finding an unlikely friendship and figuring out where to go from there. And yes, there is a lot of this that is classic and predictable–but there is a surprisingly large amount of original stuff that keeps you on your toes.

I have to start off by saying this: I relate to...

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review. 

Well, this review is about two months too late (I’m so sorry, Nick; I keep doing this to you) but better late than never is usually a good motto to stand by.

Anyone who’s seen some of my past reviews knows that I’m a big fan of the reimagination of superheroes. HERO STATUS by Kristen Brand utterly charmed me, VERBOSITY’S VENGEANCE by Tony Noland was hysterical, and I’m no different from the rest of my generation...