Tangled Mind

We have stolen secrets from the bloods of the titans and taught all of nature to grow and warp and shift at our pleasing. [loc. 545]

Cat-herders! Unexpected siblings! More of Ana's background! Another ill-judged liaison! Blue grass! And a very knotty murder mystery... This was an excellent read, and very much not the culmination of a trilogy: this series could run and run, and I for one will be grateful for each new volume.

Full review nearer publication date, but I note that the 'Shadow of the Leviathan' series is rooted firmly in the mundane world, the place where we're reading. The first novel, The Tainted Cup, explored civil servants and builders, and regulatory frameworks: the second, A Drop of Corruption, tackled autocracy, with a side order of shady banking practises. This time...

Farms are not sites of hallowed tradition. They are, if anything, laboratories for profound biological change. [Author's Note]

Read because: I enjoyed the first two books so much, and leapt at the chance to get an ARC. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for the full honest review I'll write closer to UK publication date -- 4th August 2026.

Every classic old horse story I’ve ever chanced upon in this brave new unlibraried world deals with the bloodiness of humanity to other creatures as well as each other and more often than not ends in dutiful sadness as if the story, not totally broken, is at least broken in. [loc. 992]

Rose and Bri come home from a visit to their mother (who's taken on her sister's job). Their mother's boyfriend, Leif, is driving the campervan, but he abandons them after they find a red line painted around the outside of their house -- and later, of their campervan. He leaves them with enough canned food to last them a while...

In an act of balance, the universe conferred power on those who had the least, and that was why magical girls existed.

The nameless protagonist of this short novel is 29 years old, unemployed and burdened with credit-card debt. She's also still mourning her dead grandfather, a watchmaker, whose trade she once dreamt of following. One night she decides to kill herself by jumping from a bridge. But she's interrupted by a stranger( Read more... )

"I am the korrigez who founded Ys, both above and below the waves... and now I am here to take back what's mine and lay waste to what never should have been built!" [loc. 4508]

Nolwenn and her family are lighthouse keepers, defending the city of Ys. They use lenses to focus the moon's rays, to kill teuthes -- great monsters from the deep -- that threaten the sea-defences. ( Read more... )

Alma’s world and the moss world had been knitted together this whole time, lying on top of each other, crawling over each other. But one of these worlds was loud and large and fast, where the other was quiet and tiny and slow—and only one of these worlds seemed immeasurable. [p. 162]

Alma Whittaker, the focus of this novel, is born in 1800 and grows up in a wealthy household on the White Acre estate just outside Philadelphia. Her father Henry grew up in poverty, impressed Sir Joseph Banks with his initiative and his horticultural gifts, and made his money cultivating cinchona, a remedy for malaria. 

Alma is brought up to be fascinated with the natural world and to think for herself. ( Read more... )

Mensah just looked at me and said, “SecUnit.” In that voice. The voice that’s the only reason I’m still here and alive and surrounded by … friends. (Emotion check: Good, actually. Really good.) (Emotion check: It is still hard to say the friends part.) [loc. 2474]

Murderbot is asked by Dr Mensah to help some family members escape from a space station run by evil corporation Barish-Estranza. Turns out the family members (including children, ugh) are being more or less held hostage and may be forced to work for B-E. ( Read more... )

It was a deep, dark shock, a fist clenched around the heart, for Everett to realise that every decision he had made, every action he had taken, had caused someone to pay a high and terrible price. It was never like that in the action movies. There were never any consequences. [loc. 3205]

On a rainy December night in London, thirteen-year-old Everett is walking along the Mall to meet his father Dr Tajendra Singh: they're going to a lecture on nanotechnology at the ICA. Then Tajendra is abducted, leaving Everett with a few photos of the car in which he was taken away -- and, soon, an email that plunges Everett (named after Hugh Everett, who developed the Many Worlds theory) into a complex and perilous quest ( Read more... )

Media featuring extra-terrestrial intelligence (‘subversions of the supremacy of man’) had been banned Empire-wide for several generations. Even the word ‘alien’ made Uwade flinch with taboo. [p. 37]

It's the 29th century. Humanity has spread across the galaxy. The Empire -- and its 500-year-old Emperor -- governs many planets, quite a few of which are gutted for their resources before being abandoned, their populace sent to mine the next resource-rich world. 

But there is still luxury: the Grand Abeona Hotel (really more of an interstellar cruise liner) travels its leisurely circuit, offering an 'analogue paradise' that is screen-free, along with the luxuries and services of a lost golden age. ( Read more... )

She stared at him, her gaze a kind of cage, throwing down bars to the lawn to keep him trapped. One moment of inattention, and he would be free. [p. 7]

Mary, who lives in East London, has recently split up with her abusive fiancé Mark: she's kept the house, and has a comfortable life with little excitement or social contact. Her next-door neighbours, Michelle and Eric, have a new baby named Flora, to whom Mary is drawn. But she's also fascinated by the dog fox who frequents her garden. 

“Ulysses?”
When he looked back, Eli said, carefully, “It’s pull the lever, not throw yourself in front of the trolley to save everyone.”
Ulysses exhaled. “It’s a thought experiment, Doc...” [loc. 3320]

Fifth in the 'Wisconsin Gothic' series which began with Dionysus in Wisconsin: in this instalment, Sam and Ulysses are planning a quiet summer, until ( Read more... )