BookOwl

[Updated May 2024] Full disclosure: Science fiction is one of my favorite genres! It was extremely difficult to limit my picks to just six  books or series. However, I recognize that if I gave all of my favorites here, the amount of text would stretch from here to the moon and back.  Science fiction is one of those genres that really makes its readers think of the futures that they would want to live in. (For example, I wouldn't mind living in the semi-utopian future depicted in  Star Trek .) It is a big umbrella, covering everything from speculative fiction to space opera (think,  Star Wars ). Some blur the lines enough between science fiction and fantasy, but I prefer to have some separation between the two, with the former being one about realistic possible realities and the latter primarily uses realities that do not follow the laws of reality as we know it.  Not to diss fantasy, which is another one of my favorite genres. Imagination is equally compelling i...

  4/5 stars   *Spoiler a lert!*     “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.”     While Iron Flame took a bit of time to really get going, once it did, it absolutely went ! Took off like a dragon in the heat of battle. I feared that this book would be the last in the series until an announcement from Rebecca Yarros that it will be a five-book series, which is good, because this second book left me shaking and absolutely dreading the wait for book three, which looks to be released in January 2025.     “Violence, remember it's only the body that's fragile. You are unbreakable.”   Anyways, now back to the second book, Iron Flame .      In the second entry of the “Empyrean” series, Cadet Violet Sorrengail has joined the rebellion, whether she wants to or not, along with her bonded dragons, Tairn and Andarna . Andarna spends significant portions of the book ...

   4/5 stars    *Spoiler alert!*   Beach Read wasn’t what I was expecting it to be and yet, that was fine. After all, the author did say the book was more for her than the readers, but again, that’s okay. I felt that the story about a writer moving back into her father’s Michigan lakeside beach house to write another novel on a tight deadline was definitely autobiographical in places.   “ I did what any reasonable adult woman would do when confronted with her college rival turned next-door neighbor. I dove behind the nearest bookshelf.”   Oh yeah , her other big problem is writing that novel while dealing with the awkwardness of her neighbor being her old college flame, Gus Everrett, a fellow author that traffics in dark, broody novels rather than romance ones. January Andrews is a romance writer who finds herself unable to channel her usual romantic storyline creativity, as the beach house she lives in was a formerly secret home her late father...