All the New Fantasy Books I Read in Quarter Two ️ Plus My Favorites So Far

[00:00:00]Hello friends. For today's video, I wanted to go through my favorite new fantasy releases that I picked up in quarter two. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to first run through all of the new fantasy releases I picked up this quarter. To clarify, these are ones that I picked up, not necessarily that were released in quarter two, but they were released within this year. But I'm going to run through all the ones I picked up, and then within the description bar, I'll have a directory for you so that if you are interested in hearing more in-depth thoughts about any of the ones that aren't among my top three, you can check out those in-depth thoughts in either individual reviews or wrap-ups that I've done for these books.

[00:00:33]And then the majority of the time, I'm just going to spend highlighting the ones that were my favorite. So, jumping into all the ones I picked up, I am including a fantasy romance in this list just because I know some of you are interested in that. None of the fantasy romance books were my top three because my taste tend to gravitate more toward traditional fantasy works, but I still wanted to mention them so that you if you are a fantasy romance fan, you can make sure to find those links in the description bar and hear more about them there. But the books that I picked up, getting to those, we have Half City and The Dragon and The Sun Lotus. Those were both two that were fantasy romance. We had Nine Goblins. This one I hesitated to put on this list just because I believe this was technically a re-release. Previously, I believe it was self-published, and as is the case for a decent amount of T. Kingfisher's works, they are now getting traditionally published. Because a lot of people had this book come to their attention as a result of the re-release, I wanted to mention it here. So, we have Nine Goblins, Heart of the Naga. Technically, read this one in the first quarter.

[00:01:39]Technically, I read it before the first quarter, but I talked about it in the first quarter of this year. And it wasn't out yet, so I couldn't have it be qualified under my own rules as a favorite of the quarter just cuz other people wouldn't have had the chance to read it just yet. But I'm including it here today because officially it has been released and so it's a contender for a favorite of the quarter. Her Hidden Fire to Ride a Rising Storm will form another T. Kingfisher, Mystical Cat Shelter, and An Arc I Picked Up would be An Edge Sharp Enough. So, the same thing that happened with The Heart of the Naga where it wasn't a contender for the top three, the same thing is going to be true for An Edge Sharp Enough. I just wanted to mention that I have picked this one up and I have talked about it bit in a wrap-up, but it's not going to be considered among the favorites until next quarter or I believe it comes out in the third quarter. I'll have to double-check the release date, but isn't eligible. Still wanted to mention it though in case you are interested in hearing other thoughts. So, I am going to start with the honorable mention for this list and the honorable mention is Nine Goblins. I find myself almost every single time I bring up T. Kingfisher saying, "Oh, this book has T.

[00:02:54]Kingfisher's signature humor." I don't think there has been pretty much a book that doesn't. Maybe Thorn Hedge is one of the only ones that wasn't quite as cheeky or silly, but I find that typically her humor is present. It's just to what degree do we have her humor and then what lane are we really going down with the humor? Because sometimes the humor can be a repetition type of humor, sometimes it can be purposely juvenile. So, there's different things that she utilizes. Nine Goblins was cheeky and I described it in a recent wrap-up as really stupid. I compare it to the movie Pom Poko. So, if you've seen that movie and you like that movie, I would say check this out. It's actually a novella, so it's also extremely short, but you pretty much follow the kind of archetype of the lovable idiots. The idea being that you have some goblins that are not maybe the brightest or the most conventional, but that doesn't mean that they don't deserve to be treated with respect and that they aren't lovable in their own ways. And I found it to be very silly, very fun, and also touching on a lot of things that I actually really enjoyed.

[00:04:11]So, for example, because they're different, the humans have just consistently been encroaching on their land and they've been pushing and pushing and pushing and finally the goblins are trying to push back, but the humans have just decided that a result of them trying to protect themselves and their land is seen as worthy of violence. And so, that in and of itself is kind of speaking to some broader themes, also kind of a connection to Pom Poko, as well. But, I appreciated all of that. The reason though that it is an honorable mention and not a favorite one, the favorites were just I thought quite exceptional, but also it did sometimes kind of lean into the silly maybe a few too many times or sometimes certain types of jokes that would be repeated a little bit. Also, the ending was I felt like it just sort of happened, um and it wasn't that it wasn't alluded to or that there wasn't a possibility of this, but I thought how it wrapped up, it almost felt like we should have had more. And some of the commentary around the ending and how certain groups of people are kind of they they slip through the cracks in society or society forgets about them or that we don't focus on sometimes people's well-being and their mental health and that can result in some unfortunate situations.

[00:05:31]I felt like maybe we could have hit that a little harder over the course of the story because then it became so prevalent at the end. Um it was, like I said, an honorable mention, so maybe if it'd been expanded just a little bit, that would have been remedied. Still greatly enjoyed it, hence why it is an honorable mention. Now for though, our top three. I'm going to stick to T.

[00:05:50]Kingfisher and say that Wolf Worm ended up making one of my top three.

[00:05:55]I also, besides just saying things have her signature humor, have a tendency to compliment T. Kingfisher's ability to blur the lines between genres. I think the more that she writes and the further in her career she gets, the more seamless she is with this. And also, the more that I think she is sort of not that she's leading the charge when it comes to breaking down the boundaries of what even we have imposed onto genres. I'm I wouldn't say she's leading the charge because other authors are doing this really well also, but she is an example of somebody who does this extremely well and I think can be someone that people are inspired by.

[00:06:30]So, in this particular book's case, I actually was wondering if I couldn't include it as a new fantasy release because for a lot of people it might be considered horror. And if I saw it sold in horror instead of in fantasy, I would completely understand. I'd be on board with that. But, I thought similar to something like A Sorcerer's Comes to Call, which was kind of like a grim fairy tale retelling that had horror components. Something similar to that. This one it was like it's more I think horror that has fantasy components to it. You could argue a lot of horror books do, but regardless, she just blends genres really extremely well and I thought this was a great example of this. Also, I really loved our protagonist in this one. The setup is that after her father passes away, our main character, who this is set in our own world, so it's a historical fantasy.

[00:07:16]It's set in our own world and at the time, if you are a woman, especially if you are unmarried or unattached to a man in some fashion, you don't have a lot of opportunities available to you. She has a good skill set. She's incredibly great at drawing. And specifically, she's very good at drawing things that are helpful to scientists. So, she gets a job for this man who's grouchy and has a temper, but she is basically homeless and destitute if she does not accept this job. So, she accepts this job that is a a live-in job, and she'll accompany him as he does things, and she'll draw for him. And he also has his bug collection that he needs her to draw and categorize because he is working on a book. And the intention is to have illustrations for this book. And then things transpire from there. There's some very strange things occurring in this area. She's unfamiliar with this area. It's creepy. Also, I think T.

[00:08:15]Kingfisher does quite a good job of establishing settings also, and I thought this book was no exception to that. So, I thought it was very atmospheric. It was creepy. I liked the main character. I liked the blurring of the genres, and I just found myself fully, fully engrossed. And also, there was some pretty funny moments in this as well. Next up, we have The Unicorn Hunters. I have praised this one ever since I picked it up. I did a whole review basically just gushing about how I thought it was fantastic. The setup is you follow Anne of Brittany, who is a real figure in history. This is a fictional account of her. And it's pretty much asking the question of if Anne of Brittany had been a little bit older when she was trying to maintain independence, and she was trying to push away the prospect of marriage to the King of France, what might that have looked like? And I thought that that question was interrogated beautifully within this. I loved our protagonist. I thought she was very quietly capable and formidable. And it was very politically heavy. If you're not a political fantasy fan, if you're not historical fantasy fan, this one might not work for you, but those things were both done exceptionally. The writing was fantastic, the way the characters spoke.

[00:09:26]And also, clearly, such an immense amount of research went into this book and the portrayal of this character. And then the way that the lore is incorporated into it, I thought was wonderful. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Really, truly, if you like any kind of historical fantasy or any kind of politically heavy fantasy, then I I would be surprised if you didn't end up liking this one. I thought it was very well done. And the last for today, I can officially put Heart of the Naga on the list. I so thoroughly enjoyed this. It is epic fantasy. It's epic fantasy like nothing else I've ever read. I'm so glad that we are having the opportunity to read this because it was originally written in Korean and it is being translated. And thank goodness that we are gifted this opportunity to check this out for those of us who don't read Korean because it is fantastic. It's funny, also so funny in some pretty unexpected ways. I'm actually reading an arc now of the second one and there was a part that I was I wasn't even that funny, but I don't know what it was. It just really tickled me and I started almost like crying laughing at this one part. Anyway, it's not actually funny throughout. I don't want to give the wrong impression. It's epic fantasy, it's mysterious, it's intriguing, the world building is fascinating, it's unlike basically anything I've ever read. So, the idea is that you have this kind of classic band of misfits going on this quest. You have one who is from this group known as the Naga, which are these reptilian-like beings and a lot of them have attained what is essentially like immortality through heart extraction and something is going on with them and you don't quite know what and there's a lot of intrigue. Also, their culture is really fascinating and if not for the fact that they can't handle the cold, they'd probably would dominate the entire world. So, there is something known as the line of limit that prevents them from expanding even further out, only thing keeping everyone else safe from them. So, you have one character from this place who seems like he's not totally in the know to something that you also are not totally in the know about, but seems significant. And then you have three other characters who are part of different races. So, you have one who is a human, he's your Pathfinder. You have a Tokebi or Dokkaebi, depending on the spelling cuz it sometimes is spelled differently, but this is essentially like a Korean goblin. They're kind of like tricksters and he's sort of like the sorcerer of the group. And then you have the warrior of the group who is, again, depends on the spelling. I've seen it with an R, I've seen it with an L. Um but he's a Raikon, which is basically a giant humanoid chicken warrior. And they're all so different and I personally think that Tokebi and the Raikon are so lovable. The human is one of the most intriguing, mysterious figures. He's also just Something about him is very iconic. And when you pick it up, you'll understand why.

[00:12:30]He is so mysterious and you're constantly like, "What?

[00:12:33]Why is he doing some of the things he's doing?" I don't want to say what he does because you're like, "Whoa!" when you find out. And you're like, "Well, that's not what I expected." And also you're like, "Are you human? I feel like there's something going on with you. I don't know." So, you've got all these questions. And they all pretty much have to go on a quest together and you're like, "What is this quest? Why are they going on this quest?" And you don't really know that either.

[00:12:56]You just kind of follow them. And the setting is really fantastic. The lore is really deep. I loved getting to see the different cultures of the different groups and them trying to get to understand each other. Feels like classic fantasy. Really loved it. And I'm looking forward to reading the other entries in the series. That's it though for my favorite new fantasy releases that I picked up within quarter two with a little asterisk cuz obviously, as noted, Heart of the Naga I technically read earlier, but finally came out. If you are interested in hearing about any of these more in-depth, I'll have other videos I've done linked. If you'd like to, let me know what your new favorite fantasy books are, please let me know.

[00:13:35]And also, if you have any recommendations, always you're welcome to leave those as well. But anyway, thanks so much for watching. I hope you have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you later.

[00:13:43]Bye.