James Nicoll Reviews

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (April 2025)

The eccentric detective Ana Dolabra matches wits with a seemingly omniscient adversary in this brilliant fantasy-mystery from the author of The Tainted Cup.

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, a Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air — vanishing from a room within a heavily guarded tower, its door and windows locked from the inside. 

To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial detective, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.

Ana soon discovers that they are investigating not a disappearance but a murder — and one of surpassing cunning, carried out by an opponent who can pass through warded doors like a ghost. 

Worse still, the killer may be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud, where the Empire harvests fallen titans for the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn. 

Din has seen his superior solve impossible cases before. But as the death toll grows and their quarry predicts each of Ana’s moves with uncanny foresight, he fears that she has at last met an enemy she can’t defeat. 

When The Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy (April 2025)

One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy’s father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.

As they attempt to evade the boy’s increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first Jess thinks she understands what they’re up against, but she’s about to learn there’s more to these surreal and grisly events than she could’ve ever imagined.

And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared. 

Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold by P. Djèlí Clark (April 2025)

After rescuing the Children of Night, Abeni and her friends are in search of the elder spirits. 

Before reaching their destination, the companions are captured and imprisoned by the Kingdom of Gold Weavers, whose gold-bending magics can achieve wonders. To secure their freedom, they must retrieve the mystical Golden Throne, guarded by a city lost beneath the sands and a terrible dragon. Yet the quest comes with a warning:

Bring the Throne or face your given fate—

turning into a gilded statue, forever.

But there are more dangers. The Witch Priest’s adopted daughter, Fulan, is hunting Asha. With a pack of frightening bat riders, the coldhearted Huntsman and his three monstrous hounds, and other minions, Fulan sets out after Abeni and her friends — driven by a determination to prove her strength and worth, to both her unforgiving ​“father” and herself.

Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold brings new challenges for Abeni as she tries to survive and retrieve the Golden Throne, never forgetting her own quest to find the people who disappeared from her village. 

The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi (March 2025)

Rule One: Travel can only occur to a point within your lifetime.

Rule Two: You can only travel for ninety seconds.

Rule Three: You can only observe.

The rules cannot be broken.

In this riveting science fiction novel from acclaimed author Philip Fracassi, a scientist has unlocked the mysteries of time travel. This is not the story you think you know. And the rules are only the beginning.

Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She’s built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time — to any point in the traveler’s lifetime — and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it’s not perfect: the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.

After Beth’s husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella — their only daughter — and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.

Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp.

As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future. 

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (April 2025)

From an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy comes The Raven Scholar, a masterfully woven and playfully inventive tale of imperial intrigue, cutthroat competition, and one scholar’s quest to uncover the truth.

Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists — the best of the best.

Then one of them is murdered. 

It falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer before the trials end. To do so, she must untangle a web of deadly secrets that stretches back generations, all while competing against six warriors with their own dark histories and fierce ambitions. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.

If she succeeds, she will win the throne. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.

We are the Raven, and we are magnificent. 

Interstellar Megachef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan (November 2024)

Looking for your one shot to rise to the ​“top of the pots” in the cutthroat world of interstellar cuisine? Look no further — you might have what it takes to be an Interstellar MegaChef!Stepping off a long-haul star freighter from Earth, Saras Kaveri has one bag of clothes, her little flying robot Kili… and an invitation to compete in the galaxy’s most watched, most prestigious cooking show. Interstellar MegaChef is the showcase of the planet Primus’s austere, carefully synthesised cuisine. Until now, no-one from Earth — where they’re so incredibly primitive they still cook with fire — has ever graced its flowmetal cookstations before, or smiled awkwardly for its buzzing drone-cams. 

Corporate prodigy Serenity Ko, inventor of the smash-hit sim SoundSpace, has just got messily drunk at a floating bar, narrowly escaped an angry mob and been put on two weeks’ mandatory leave to rest and get her work-life balance back. Perfect time to start a new project! And she’s got just the idea: a sim for food. Now she just needs someone to teach her how to cook. 

A chance meeting in the back of a flying cab has Saras and Serenity Ko working together on a new technology that could change the future of food — and both their lives — forever… 

Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam (May 2025)

An unlikely assassin struggles to escape a legendary bounty hunter in this breakneck fantasy debut that will grab you by the throat — perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie, R.F. Kuang, and Christopher Buehlman.

She killed for a cause. Will she die for it too?

Anji works as a castle servant, cleaning laundry for a king she hates. So when a rare opportunity presents itself, she seizes the chance to cut his throat. Then she runs for her life. In her wake, the kingdom is thrown into disarray, while a bounty bigger than anyone could imagine lands on her head.

On her heels are the fabled mercenaries of the Menagerie, whose animal-shaped masks are magical relics rumored to give them superhuman powers. It’s the Hawk who finds Anji first: a surly, aging swordswoman who has her own reasons for keeping Anji alive and out of the hands of her fellow bounty hunters, if only long enough to collect the reward herself.

With the rest of the Menagerie on their trail, so begins an alliance as tenuous as it is temporary — and a race against death that will decide Anji’s fate, and may change the course of a kingdom. 

To Steal from Thieves by M.K. Lobb (November 2025)

In this high-stakes heist novel, an alchemologist and a con man team up to steal a rare necklace — but complicated feelings of attraction and deception threaten to destroy everything and everyone they love — for fans of Alexandra Bracken and Judy I. Lin.

Within the dazzling halls of London’s Crystal Palace, the event of the season has arrived: The Great Exhibition. An opportunity for the greatest minds of the century to come together under one roof in an unprecedented display of art and invention. And for two unlikely partners in crime, it’s about to become the score of a lifetime.

Charming con man Kane Durante works alone — or on occasion with his best friend, Fletcher. But when his boss, the infamous Kingpin of London’s magical dark market, gives him the impossible task of stealing a priceless artifact from the Great Exhibition, he knows it’s a job he can’t pull off alone. Enter Zaria Mendoza, daughter of one of London’s greatest alchemologists. Ever since her father’s death, Zaria’s been struggling to keep her underground business afloat, and impatient clients are becoming violent. When the infuriatingly handsome Kane offers her the promise of enough money to get out of debt and leave London entirely, she knows she can’t walk away from this dangerous partnership.

But robbing one of the most public, heavily-guarded buildings in London isn’t going to be easy, especially when love and betrayal threaten to ruin everything they’ve worked so hard for. 

The Hatter’s Daughter by W.A. Simpson (April 2025)

In a wonderland where the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat rule, The Rot threatens the sanity and lives of all…

There is more to the Vine than mortals and immortals know. It reaches its branches and tendrils into realms beyond the Riven Isles. On the night Faith was born, her mother perished, but not before sending Faith to safety, in Underneath. Discovered by The Mad Hatter, he takes Faith home to raise as his own. When the Rot invades, Faith determines to fight. She won’t do it alone. Her childhood friend, Prince Rowan accompanies her. Faith must return to her birthplace to find a Legendary Heroine. But Overland is dangerous, and the minions of the Rot are in pursuit. If she doesn’t succeed, the minions of the Rot will destroy everything they know.

For comparisons, think The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, or After Alice by Gregory Maguire. And, of course, Lewis Carroll’s, Alice in Wonderland.

Tales from the Riven Isles is a dark fantasy series where diverse heroes face ancient magic, personal struggles, and the spreading threat of The Rot to save their magical world. 

The Gaia Chime by Johnny Worthen (March 2025)

A public murder televised live and across the world prompts filmmakers Seth and Charlotte to trace the threads of blood to the rich and powerful, and the horror of global destruction. Can they stop the Gaia Chime?

Charlotte, seeking to make a documentary for her graduate thesis enlists the older Seth, a burned-out film teacher with a history of scandal, to film the daily life of a rising tennis star, Bobby Weller. It’s a glimpse into the world of the rich and dedicated that turns horrifying when Bobby murders both his parents on live TV. It’s patricide, an echo of Zeus rising up against Cronos, the young gods replacing the titans. Now, the very public slaughter prompts the filmmakers to trace the threads of blood to the rich and powerful and the horror of global destruction. Can they stop the Gaia Chime? First, they need to find out what it is…