Finally picked up the pace with reading. It helped to read a novella too. I also caught up with my Goodreads Challenge, so now just to finish the rest of the month on a high note!

The Liar’s Knot by M.A. Carrick: This book (and series) is so good. There is scheming, cool magic, and fantastic characters. Even a secret society. The characters really shine in this. Most even have a couple different personas! We follow Ren, Grey and Vargo as they navigate their different places within society. But they can all see there is something wrong with their city and they need to figure out how to fix it, especially since they might have been part of the issue. I definitely recommend this series.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
c/o Netgalley

Servant Mage by Kate Elliott: I usually don’t read novellas, but I’ll make an exemption for anything that Elliott writes. Set in a world where mages are indentured servants, Fellion is a lamplighter mage and just tries to survive while holding on to some freedoms like teaching others to read. But when a group of rebel Monarchists sweep her into their scheme, she sees more of the world and there might be more choices than just Monarchists or Liberationists. Since it is relatively short, the worldbuilding and plot is pretty shallow. This easily could of been a full length novel, and been better for it. Fellion is an interesting character, but she wasn’t as well rounded as she could of been. The other characters are pretty flat. This is still enjoyable, but I was hoping for a bit more.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
c/o Netgalley

Race the Sands by Sarah Beth Durst: Do you ever get sad when you finish a book because you just enjoyed it so much? That was this book for me. Set in a world where the purest souls are trained to be augurs, who are able to read auras and can tell a person how they will be reborn, maybe something like a bird, or the worst souls are reborn as kehoks, with not chance of redemption. Unless, of course the kehok wins the Races. We follow 3 main characters, Tamra, a professional trainer that is on her last leg because of a scandal the season before. Raia is running from her crazy family and will do anything to get away, including become a kehok rider. And then Dar, the emperor to be, but he can only become emperor if he can find his brother’s soul, which has been reborn somewhere. This book doesn’t just have action in terms of kehok racing. There is political intrigue, wonderful relationships between characters, and great worldbuilding. I couldn’t recommend this enough!
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The Unfamiliar Garden by Benjamin Percy: This is the second book of a series, but it isn’t an extension of the first book, it’s more of of an extension of the world. Set in the near future (around 5 years), the meteors fell in northern Minnesota during the first book and that changed the world. In the Pacific Northwest, it changed the weather patterns and there has been a drought since then. For Nora and Jack, their marriage was broken when their daughter went missing in the forest the day the meteors fell. But now they are pulled back together again when the rains start again in Seattle, but it brings a parasitic fungus and a slew of murders. Nora is an investigator and Jack researches fungus, so they have to work together to figure out what is going on. But how does their daughter fit into all of this? This is an interesting book that explores relationships, not only human but also how fungus is such a part of the earth. I’d recommend this if you like to explore symbiotic relationships in nature, plus solid characters. You probably don’t have to read book 1 on the series, but it would certainly help.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
c/o Netgalley