Chapel Orahamm

The Fire In My Blood fills a gap I didn’t know I had in my reading, and I’m still not 100% on how to describe it. There’s a strong romantic throughline in there, but I’m not sure I can call it a romance because it’s also a dystopian urban fantasy, there’s occasionally an action sequence that feels as if it could have come out of some of the best anime, and a lot of time is also spent on the importance of familial (and adopted familial) love as well as romantic. It does many things, but all well – none of these elements feels like an afterthought, and it’s all woven together into a cohesive whole.

There’s a very cool magic system somewhere between soft and hard: it’s got a couple of inviolable rules, but beyond that the power just sort of depends on the individual. All powers are fire-based (which I happened to think was pretty awesome, and also in keeping with the setting, a future in which a petroleum company has had a pretty big impact on the world) and manifest in some really cool ways, after which the user is compelled to carry out a ‘Repercussion’, a sort of payment for using all that energy.

It can take a little while to feel up to speed with who everyone is; there are a lot of names, several of them sounding quite similar or belonging to characters you might not initially have distinct from one another in your mind, but by the end I felt I got to know everyone who was of emotional importance, so that all worked out for me.

There’s also a lot of really good LGBTQ+ representation, but it doesn’t feel shoehorned in. Characters are who they are, and the story makes sense with that and follows those lines but doesn’t ever feel as if it’s being hamfisted – not that it’s possible to be too willing to have good representation, but hopefully you know what I mean when I say there are examples of it done badly, just sort of forced in where it doesn’t fit as a kind of token. Not the case here.

I don’t know whether Orahamm might tell more stories in this world; it feels as if there’s potential for more to unfold within this setting, but the story of these characters seems pretty well wrapped-up for now. Still, I’d definitely read more by them. If I had one note for the future, it would probably be to extol the virtues of a good editor; there are a few typos scattered throughout, but never to the extent that I couldn’t continue to enjoy it. (I’ve seen much worse, and The Fire In My Blood is a good enough tale that I’d have been willing to suffer through more typos than it actually has to keep going with the story.)

In short, if you’ve got a hankering for action, badasses having sweet family lives, romance, dystopia, the occasional gory battle, this book can scratch all of those itches.

— Chris Durston: Goodreads

The Fire in My Blood

Chapel Orahamm gives us a very different kind of romance. It’s nothing like you expect. In a post apocalyptic world this romance is filled with unique situations that bring you closer to every character. You will open your heart to all of them.

— Judy Ferrell: Goodreads

Welcome to Simmins, Detective Spencer
This was a fun read that brings together a collection of stories in a unique and interesting way, whilst also capturing the creepy, small-town vibe they were after.
I loved how the stories interlinked and how we got to see from lots of different perspectives (though, at times I struggled a little bit to keep track of who was who and what had happened to them.) I also enjoyed getting lots of different takes on various horror tropes (and also a horror version on A Christmas Carol – because every festive anthology needs a take on A Christmas Carol and that is just a fact…) and of course an evil version of Santa Claus (is it even a horror festive anthology if there isn’t a evil Santa Claus?)
I also liked the fact that other winter holidays such as Hanukkah was mentioned (both Hanukkah stories were amongst my favourites!)
I was going to mention some more particular favourite stories but then the list got too long 😅
Overall, a great read if you’re looking for a slightly different read this festive period!
– Sarah Bell: Goodreads

Welcome to Simmins, Detective Spencer

A fun and well executed concept. It could have lent itself to feeling staccato and disconnected with this many collaborators; but it doesn’t and flows nicely.
Here be a hungry lake, a starving xmas tree, fairy, elf, Krampus, st. Nick, Hanukah cat, the missing and maimed.. Vampires, a survivor (of sorts) of Roanoke, a snow snake disguised as a snowman and much, much more.
Definitely worth picking up a copy of this if you want something a bit different to read this Yule.
– Sheena Forsberg: Goodreads

The Fire in My Blood

This is a new author for me . The character development was so complete I felt like I was a part of their world. The Latin was hard to keep up with but all in all a fun read.

— Sheila Thornton: Good Reads

Welcome to Simmins, Detective Spencer
Very interesting and original take on the short story anthology format. Simmins, North Carolina seems like your average small mining town when Detective Spencer moves there with his wife to take a new job, but he quickly realizes there are some very mysterious horrors lurking just below the surface. Entries from the policeman’s diaries are interspersed with short stories from a variety of authors detailing sinister happenings during the month of December, a particularly deadly time to be visiting this unusual town. Readers should beware of getting overly fond of any of the town’s inhabitants as a rather large percentage meet unfortunate fates in these tales that mix traditional horror, cryptid lore, and winter holiday traditions into a wickedly dangerous stew. I particularly enjoyed the twisted version of the character of good old Saint Nick that weaves throughout the book.
This was certainly a very entertaining read although I found the organization of tales slightly confusing. A couple of the stories are longer and split up into chapters which themselves are interspersed with other stories. This helps maintain some time continuity as far as the events of the town are concerned but can make it a little challenging to keep track of what is going on. There are also a few minor editing/formatting issues with the ebook version I read, but the stories themselves are all well-written and engrossing. This is an anthology with lofty ambitions which it mostly meets and will be an intriguing and rewarding read for fans of horror if it is approached as a series of creepy tales shared around the campfire on a cold winter’s night.
– Helen Whistberry: Goodreads

Fyskar
How to describe this book… Is it fantasy? Historical? A romance? A mystery? Maybe a bit of each?
Fyskar turned out to be a really intriguing, deep tale, the story of a mysterious plague doctor arriving on the Isle of Skye with a ton of money, medical supplies and enigmatic mission, for which he employs a local veteran and his wife to aid him.
To say any more would ruin a real rollercoaster of a story, suffice to say that it kept me gripped from beginning to end
Give this a read, you won’t be disappointed!

— Craig Rathbone: Goodreads

The Legend of the Bai

Phew. OK.

Where the heck to start?

The Legend of the Bai is not like anything I’ve ever read, and I’d hazard that it’s probably not too much like anything you’ve ever read either. Its four books are completely different from each other, but combine to create a startlingly ambitious totality that spans hundreds of years and many people’s stories.

It’s not until Subgalaxia, the fourth book, that it starts to become clear how it all comes together, and then suddenly it really does all come together. You feel like you’ve been waiting for so long, sniffing for any little hint of how it might all join up, and then it just whacks you in the face – it’s a massively satisfying release of tension made all the more whwhhhoaoaoaaaa because of the wait.

Just to quickly cover the four books in order:

Fyskar is (I’m not amazing at genre-coding, so I could be totally off with all of these, but this is what they feel like to me) a historical low fantasy with notes of, like, the homecoming of The Odyssey and a little bit of the kind of ancient Just and Righteous Vengeance you might come across in classic legends or… John Wick, I dunno.

Subject 15 feels sort of like a frenemies-to-lovers love story wrapped up in the trappings of an action thriller and a bit of military wotsit. I was going to write at first that it was the other way around: a thriller with romantic or erotic elements – but on reflection I think the love story is at the heart of it.

Polaris Skies is a tricky one to categorise, but I think you could call it something like a dystopian journey story (in the sense of travelling, making a physical journey) with a focus on strong group dynamics and some supernatural/paranormal elements that sometimes point in a slightly horror-ish direction but don’t quite go that far. (Urban fantasy, maybe, to an extent?)
Oh, and there’s a poem at the end of it that’s really very good, and I say that as someone who generally just doesn’t get along with poetry at all.

Finally Subgalaxia. This is where it all whacks together, so it has elements of all the previous three. It holds them within a frame that’s perhaps the simplest in terms of genre, though, as a sort of apocalyptic sci-fi superhero time-travel kaiju… OK, I take the ‘simple’ back.

Really, though, that’s all kind of unimportant. Those are the trappings within which the stories happen, but I think it feels… not inaccurate, but kind of not super relevant to be talking about them in that way. That’s how they’re presented, not what they are: the Mona Lisa is made, in the most literal sense, of paint and canvas, but to say that that’s all it is would be missing the point.

What all four books have in common is a huge focus on characters and relationships. There are erotic scenes in all of them, but I wouldn’t call any of them erotica – that feels too reductive, as might be apparent from my attempts to put them into genres. They’re about dynamics and interactions between people, and the erotic parts explore those relationships, providing both context and payoff to individual personalities and the way they fit together.

I can’t say which one is my favourite because at points during all four I went ‘OK, this one’s my favourite’. I think it is a case of the whole being greater – or qualitatively different, at least – than the sum of its parts, because if I had to pick a favourite it’d be the whole thing when assembled. It’s funny: they do all feel like distinct stories, sometimes as if they might not even be related at all, and yet when Subgalaxia comes along and brings them together it feels as if this is the way they’re meant to be experienced: not separately, but as one work.

So what actually is the Legend of the Bai, overall?

I kind of don’t know, but I think it’d be way less interesting if I did.

What I can say about it is that it’s a heck of an achievement, delivering both in terms of having a Big Scale Mythology and in the much more intimate scope of making characters feel real, their interactions with each other feel meaningful. The one feeds into the other, too: the world, setting, and magic (it’s never called that, but I don’t have a better word) informs who the characters are, and the characters and their relationships have a real impact on the world as a whole.

If you’re looking for something different, something that makes you feel things for people more than it makes you just try to keep up with events, you should give The Legend of the Bai a go. It doesn’t feel conventional, whatever that means, and so it probably won’t be for everyone, but I think those who do find it speaks to them will find it well worth their time.

— Chris Durston: Goodreads

Heads & Tales

Heads and Tales is an amazing anthology comprised of 24 authors, retelling 14 classic tales, and edited by Chapel Orahamm. Some of the stories I was already familiar with, whereas others were new to me (such as the Wild Hunt — I’ve only heard of it through The Witcher!). Even the ones I didn’t recognise were incredibly enjoyable, and I whizzed through this book!
Here are just some of my favourite tales:
Goose Bastardly by Darius Bearguard & Mara Lynn Johnstone — I enjoyed reading the retelling of the Golden Goose, but the story told from the goose’s point of view had me laughing out loud from the very first line: “It had started as a normal day for The Almighty Honk — Ruler of Sky and Surf, He Who Outwitted the Fairy Queen, Legendary Troublemaker, Cleverest of Birds, Slayer of the First Goblin King, As Golden as the Sun and Twice as Bright, First of His Name.”
The Giant Battle of The Little Mermaid by Perseus Greenman & Nikki Mitchell — This tale began with a flash forward to the future, a history where The Little Mermaid is courageous, smart and commands the crew of a battleship using a drum beat to give orders.
Hansel and Gretel by C. Rathbone & A. R. K. Horton — at first, this seems like a modern version of the traditional tale. But it’s only when I read the second story that I learned the truth, and it made this retelling even darker!
Little Red Riding Hood by Craig Vachon & A. Poland — this set of stories gave a modern twist to the Little Red Riding Hood tale, filled with gangs, danger and romance. It was really well written and I enjoyed the tender romance, as well as the ending.
Stardust by Anna Klapdor & Danai Christopoulou — this story was different in style to the other tales, with both perspectives told in the same story over alternating chapters. It’s a sci-fi take on the myth of Perseus and Medusa, set in a future where the Gorgon and Pegasus are the names of spaceships. This story was so original and unexpected, and I loved the relationship between the two main characters.
All of the stories are so creative and so much fun to read. Stardust was probably my favourite of the collection, but each one is very original with great depth and well-written characters, despite being short stories. Heads and Tales is an absolute must-read for fans of retellings of fairy stories and myths (like myself!).

– Claire: Goodreads