ebolton
Emma (she/they). Writer and artist based in Granada, Spain. Fantasy is my first love, but I'm enjoying exploring some new genres, including Horror, y más libros en español
2466 points
September 2026
3.59 average · 11 reviews
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The Shadow of the Leviathan is quickly becoming one of my favourite fantasy series. A Drop of Corruption builds on all the elements I loved in the first book: the mix of mystery and fantasy, the detailed worldbuilding where plants create the base for technology to build on, and the acerbic Ana.
Din is sent to investigate a murder in the dangerous port town of Yarrow, which is (and yet isn't) part of the Empire. He's struggling to live his life in a way that's both consistent with his values and his material reality (in a way that's very relatable). We get some fabulous new characters, witty dialogue and deep twists.
If you loved the first book, this one's even better. And if you haven't started the series yet and enjoy mixing genres, flawed characters and fantastical elements, I think you'll love this series. I can't wait to read the next book!
Thanks to the Hugo Awards, NetGalley, Random House and Robert Jackson Bennett for an e-arc of the novel. (I ended up reading a paperback I bought though because I loved the first book in the series so much!)
What a pleasure this was to read! I love how we're introduced to a new story in each chapter through objects that Chih is cataloguing.
The prose feels gentle, except for the moments where it's cutting. And details that at first feel like throwaways are woven together in interesting ways to create a fascinating whole.
Nghi Vo is so good at sketching characters you connect to with only a few lines. I also really enjoyed the audio narration by Cindy Kay.
I'll definitely be re-reading this. Looking forward to exploring this universe more!
What if, in a fit of childish rage, you wished your brother would never find love and - unexpectedly - that wish turned into a curse? That's a question at the heart of this captivating novella.
In a world where magic often creates more problems than it solves, Celia must try to fix the damage she's done to her brother, while also navigating the power struggles in her kingdom.
I loved Novik's exploration of difficult sibling dynamics and what you're willing to give up to make things right. The characters undergo significant (and satisfying) transformations, and I really enjoyed how Novik weaves the various story threads together by the end.
If you've read any of Novik's work before, you'll love this story. And if you're new to her work, this is a great place to start!
Thank you to the Hugo Awards, NetGalley, Del Rey and Naomi Novik for an e-copy of this story. All views are my own.
![Clean Sweep [Dramatized Adaptation] (Innkeeper Chronicles, #1)](https://cdn.pagebound.co/books/6639b3f5-7587-4896-ad43-b177d51246d2/large.webp)
The Incandescent
Emily Tesh
I’m Glad My Mom Died
Jennette McCurdy
ebolton commented...
It's nice to throw out the plan sometimes and read the book you feel most excited about!
This was a reread for me and I still love this book! A Lady's Code of Misconduct is a Victorian romance between a stifled orphan heiress with political aspirations and a slippery, corrupt politician who takes a memory-losing blow to the head.
The amnesia trope is often in the second chance category, which trope I personally almost universally dislike. In this story, however, the FMC and MMC were not friends (or lovers) before the memory loss event, and now the MMC doesn't remember his descent into political villainy. The FMC finally gets her chance to think, feel, and experience the world, which comes with all of the positives and negatives of the world. Duran handled the FMC realizing the complexities of moral positions when confronted with real obstacles and challenges very well. The FMC isn't dismissed as silly and doesn't have to accept a pessimistic outlook on the world, but she does have to grapple with that complexity. The MMC tackles a redemption arc that does not necessitate him changing who he fundamentally is or his strengths, but he must decide what matters the most to him. Because we also have a marriage of convenience here, their developing friendship does not require subterfuge to allow the FMC and MMC to be alone together. Duran makes the couple such good foils of each other, it's hard not to root for them.
Duran is not afraid to write compelling (if not sometimes outlandish) premises, and this one really works. Her writing is sharp and insightful but so easy to devour. The political subplot in this book was also really interesting and paralleled the main character growth narrative. The discussions of criminal rehabilitation and prison profiteering did not feel out of place for the nineteenth century but felt very modern as well. Amnesia, marriage of convenience, political machinations, and a conspiracy mystery is a lot to pack into a 400 page book, but it's so fun and done so well.
There is some brief violence in this book. You do not need to read the previous books in this series to read this one, and the mystery undercurrent in this book is started but not satisfied until the next book in the series. If you are looking for complex characters in a historical romance with a side of political intrigue, I think you will really enjoy this one!
ebolton commented...
My situation is a little different to yours, but what you're saying makes sense to me. I'm an English speaker who now lives in Spain, and I definitely feel similarly if I read books originally written in English that have been translated into Spanish. Because you're not just translating a language, it's also all the cultural differences and idioms and shared humour, etc.
Here are a couple of books that I've enjoyed lately in Spanish:
- Planeta by Ana Oncina - a queer sci-fi / romance graphic novel with beautiful illustrations (although note it has some casual drug use and a character struggling with their mental health, in case they are triggers for you).
- El latido de las mariposas by Mar R Ayamonte - crime novel with a romance sub-plot set in and around Granada. The main character has a heart condition that's shared by the author, which creates some unique challenges.
- Dorayaki by Durian Sukegawa - translated from Japanese but I thought this translation worked really well. It's about a guy working in a dorayaki shop who's struggling with his life choices. (I didn't find this triggering but you may want to double check the content warnings on Storygraph for this one.)
The book on my TBR that I'm most excited about is Siempre Nos Quedará Seúl by Mikey Fernández. It's a queer retelling of my favourite Jane Austen novel, Persuasion, set in Korea.
And I'm currently reading Las pruebas de Unter by Mia Faraday for my book club. It's a mix between The Hunger Games and Fourth Wing - it's quite silly, but I'm having a good time.
I hope something here helps! I'm always looking for more Spanish-speaking authors to try, so if you have recommendations for books you've loved in the past, I'd love to add them to my TBR. And if you ever want to buddy read something in Spanish let me know :)
lately i’ve been thinking about something and wanted to see if anyone else relates. i’m bilingual (spanish-english), spanish is my native language, but over the past few years i feel like i’m losing vocabulary in my own language because of all the english content i consume on a daily basis. i’ve been trying to make up for this by reading more books in spanish. now here comes my dilemma. because of the type of content i consume, the books i end up getting recommended are usually originally written in another language, mostly english. and lately i feel like when i pick up a translation, i end up feeling like something is missing, like something got lost along the way, and i end up not enjoying the reading because i keep thinking about how it would have felt to read it in english, or whatever the original language actually was. this happens to me a lot with korean literature, for example. i know very well how that language can become immensely poetic, so i read the spanish translations and i’m left wondering whether i’m really getting the message the author meant to express with their book.
i know the obvious answer to my predicament would be “read more spanish speaking authors,” and you’d be completely right (though that doesn’t erase the fact that there are many authors i’d love to read who unfortunately don’t speak my language). the problem is, as i mentioned, that i don’t have many recommendations in that department (unless they’re the usual classics).
so i’m asking you all, if you’re bilingual or multilingual, has something similar happened to you? do you feel like you lose something when reading translations, even good ones? and while i’m at it, could you recommend contemporary spanish speaking authors worth exploring? right now i’m open to any genre as long as it doesn’t have trigger warnings.
The Starving Saints
Caitlin Starling
I’m have loved how few lines men have in this book. I have never imagined how refreshing this could be.
