Ricky Pine's Blog

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this one more. I’ve been reading and enjoying Charlie Jane Anders for years, and normally I really love her work, but this one was just a bit too messy for me. Though, to be fair, Jamie, her protagonist, does confess to being quite a messy person, but those around her are often just as messed up if not more so. And I’m not just talking about the post truth trolls feeding...

Among the Burning Flowers by Samantha Shannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Samantha Shannon’s having a very prosperous year in 2025, with both this book and The Dark Mirror on tap. A new standalone story in the world of Roots of Chaos, this book is more of a deep dive into the Spanish- and Italian-inspired land of Yscalin, a lovely but volcanic place where Draconic threats are always lurking, and feeling a bit too close to home these days. I expect Shannon’s Italian research...

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s Robert Langdon.

I’m in.

Dan Brown hasn’t published a thriller since before Covid, but it’s clear, reading this book, that he’ll never change as a writer. And yet, that doesn’t make him any less compulsively readable than ever. Dipping into all his greatest hits from 20 or so years ago - oddly esoteric science, a killer with a warped personality (to the point of cultural appropriation, passing off as the G...

The Coffee Shop of Untold Stories: Tsubasa’s Café by Firdaus Ahmed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once again, Firdaus Ahmed gifts us a story about a singular cat…but as much as Tsubasa would have you believe it’s all his story, there’s more to it when you consider the humans he’s known in his many years. Especially Jo, the young woman come to York to write a book, and Ryu, the elegant owner of the café bearing Tsubasa’s name. The intertwined legacies of these characters makes ...

The Art of Legend by Wesley Chu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s been a while since we left off on The Art of Destiny, and Wesley Chu now returns with the conclusion to the trilogy, where we see exactly how this epic journey will end when the prophecy’s terms have already been broken. Except they may just un-break in time to be fulfilled, and while the series doesn’t end quite as strongly as I was hoping for, it doesn’t lose Chu’s signature sense of action or humor - the la...

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

R.F. Kuang continues her dark academia era with a new standalone fantasy novel about two embattled, embittered grad students reading Magick at Cambridge, forced to follow their eminent (and eminently unlikable) advisor into the underworld because without him, their careers will never get started. And boy howdy is Professor Jacob Grimes one of the most disgusting characters Kuang has ever created - and considering her prope...

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As the beginning of a new epic fantasy trilogy, this book couldn’t decide if it wanted to be dark academia or magical competition, so why not both? Well, more accurately, it’s a magical competition mystery with a touch of dark academia at the core, helped by the word “scholar” in the title. After all, it requires reading a lot of in universe legends in order to understand what is happening as the gods’ chosen ...

The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Take Murder on the Orient Express by way of Chloe Gong, who as I remember set one of her novellas on another version of the Trans-Siberian Express, but with a bit more mystery and a bit less magic. Add in the cosmic creepery of Annihilation, but this time with a storyline that can actually be followed, and a strong, if on the nose, railway metaphor for capitalism and unchecked deve...

The Jasad Crown by Sara Hashem
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can see now why it took Sara Hashem so long to bring us the sequel to The Jasad Heir, because she caught the duology train like so many other writers and concluded her series with a great big doorstopper, almost 700 pages long. This one book could’ve easily been two for a total of a trilogy, but the duology trend, it really does have its own gravity. But for one of my favorite romantasy series (though Thea Guanzo...

Bones at the Crossroads by LaDarrion Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Back we go to Caiman U for more magic, mayhem, and murder…and thankfully this, unlike way too many second books in YA fantasy, is NOT a duology conclusion, because that ending demands resolution expeditiously. This book picks up in the new fall semester at Caiman, with Malik reeling from a metric ton of betrayals, quickly figuring out that those in authority don’t have his best interests at heart (or ...