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kateesreads

backlist fantasy advocate, constant iliadposter (same username on tiktok!)

3613 points

0% overlap
Greek Myth Retellings
Universe Quest: Discworld
Level 6
My Taste
Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Goblin Emperor (The Goblin Emperor, #1)
The Iliad
Emma
Reading...
The Incandescent
32%

kateesreads made progress on...

2h
The Incandescent

The Incandescent

Emily Tesh

32%
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Post from the The Incandescent forum

1d
  • The Incandescent
    Thoughts from 15%

    I was thinking this was weirdly nailed in on what being a teacher in the UK is like only to realise that Tesh IS one lmao. That would explain things. Looks like she teaches private though, it says she teaches Classics in Hertfordshire and neither 'classics' nor 'Hertfordshire' imply 'state school' lol. Write what you know eh! (Though being the daughter of a state school teacher I have to tut a bit)

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  • Post from the The Incandescent forum

    2d
  • The Incandescent
    Thoughts from 3%

    Just remembering rn that Emily Tesh is a Diana Wynne Jones fan... You can tell. This is Witch Week as hell

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  • kateesreads wrote a review...

    2d
  • The Red Winter
    kateesreads
    Jun 06, 2026
    3.0
    Enjoyment: 2.5Quality: 3.0Characters: 3.0Plot: 2.5
    🐺
    🩸
    🌲

    View spoiler

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  • kateesreads finished a book

    3d
    The Red Winter

    The Red Winter

    Cameron Sullivan

    2
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    kateesreads made progress on...

    4d
    The Red Winter

    The Red Winter

    Cameron Sullivan

    58%
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    kateesreads made progress on...

    5d
    The Red Winter

    The Red Winter

    Cameron Sullivan

    49%
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    Post from the The Red Winter forum

    1w
  • The Red Winter
    Thoughts from 39% (page 205)

    I don't really know how I'm going to rate this; it's quite witty and competent and so on, I am enjoying it, but I'm finding it a bit mannish in its approaches to power (and, frankly, women) in a way that I don't think is entirely necessary even given the historical setting, and the split timelines makes the pacing feel lopsided. Might resolve itself?

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  • kateesreads made progress on...

    1w
    The Red Winter

    The Red Winter

    Cameron Sullivan

    38%
    1
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    kateesreads made progress on...

    1w
    The Red Winter

    The Red Winter

    Cameron Sullivan

    23%
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    kateesreads commented on a post

    1w
  • The Red Winter
    Thoughts from 1% (page 3)

    now I'm quite cheap and don't often buy new hardbacks of sff books, but the font and spacing in this are both MASSIVE??? the font is huge. is this normal now??? or is this (as I suspect it might be) a production tactic to make it clock in at 500+ pages in hardback, so it seems more like a big Weighty Academic [edit: ok not academic but like. Serious Business] Tome. is that cynical

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  • Post from the The Red Winter forum

    1w
  • The Red Winter
    Thoughts from 1% (page 3)

    now I'm quite cheap and don't often buy new hardbacks of sff books, but the font and spacing in this are both MASSIVE??? the font is huge. is this normal now??? or is this (as I suspect it might be) a production tactic to make it clock in at 500+ pages in hardback, so it seems more like a big Weighty Academic [edit: ok not academic but like. Serious Business] Tome. is that cynical

    2
    comments 2
    Reply
  • kateesreads started reading...

    1w
    The Red Winter

    The Red Winter

    Cameron Sullivan

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    kateesreads wrote a review...

    1w
  • The Wood Beyond the World
    kateesreads
    May 30, 2026
    3.0
    Enjoyment: 3.0Quality: 3.0Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.0
    🌹
    👑

    extremely conventional, for the most part, although that's largely because it's the predecessor of so much modern fantasy literature that it now feels conventional because we recognise so much of it in later works. replete with the extremely enthusiastic and slightly fumbling medievalism of the victorians and morris himself, and with the odd bit of the typical victorian orientalism/racism/ableism as well (evil dwarf... in a christian-leaning fantasy novel? groundbreaking). I enjoyed the archaic language and thought it was relatively convincing (though I don't necessarily agree with the claim that it completely successfully replicates malory's style; malory was a whole other beast and this definitely reads more like someone mimicking malory than actual malory). it was charming enough, and it's very interesting to trace the origins of the genre, and valuable as a foundational fantasy text... but not mind blowing, and less interesting to me than the slightly later writers like tolkien/mirrlees/mitchison.

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