Sara
A neurodivergent Holmes and Watson duo solving a murder mystery in a fantasy world where technology is all biological, where plants and humans and parasites are engineered to serve different purposes in this Empire to deal with everything from small but deadly contagions to large Leviathans outside their sea wall.
Wow, this lady had a ROUGH childhood. Rural Idaho is known for its extremist far-right religious bent, and the trauma and familial abuse she went through and seeing how one could grow up in an environment like that and come out so different was very interesting to read about.
This scarred me a little bit. The main character dealing with the disillusionment of being a mundane and never being a part of the magical world, leading to a strained relationship with her sister and a drinking problem hit pretty good. The setup was really nice, and I liked the ambiguous and bittersweet ending, but the investigation fell apart (heh) in the middle to ending area, got a bit confused as to what was going on. I also did not like the chosen one trope being real and having such a big part in this story, felt a bit off. Overall, it left quite an impression so I still recommend it.
A political fantasy about a feral girl and her wolf companion being thrust into a battle over inheriting the throne when the elderly king dies. Pretty good if you like really in-depth royal lineage maneuverings and a sprinkle of magic.
What's not to love about a spaceship AI trying to get revenge on whoever blew her ship up? This trilogy is good.
Dudes, this book is so good. A private school girl has to take up the mantle of the Abhorsen - a reverse necromancer that puts the dead back to rest with seven strange bells - to find her missing father. There's also a cat sidekick and a naked dude. What more can a girl ask for?