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Brigands and Breadknives Book Review
coffeestarsbooks November 21, 2025 12:00 pm Brigands and Breadknives Release date: 11th Nov 2025 Publisher: Tor Genres: Fantasy ⊹ ⋆ Cosy Fantasy ⊹ ⋆ High Fantasy ⊹ ⋆ LGBTQ+ ⊹ ⋆ Add to Storygraph Add to Goodreads Join the conversation: Bluesky Instagram Twitch Discord “A life truly lived is a glorious tangle. One is never lost. And if one is lucky, one is never found either.” ― Travis Baldree, Brigands and Breadknives ☕✨ CONTENT WARNINGS: (click to reveal) Violence, alcohol, injury, death, blood, mild religious bigotry (towards fictional religion) Synopsis: Fern has weathered the stillness and storms of a bookseller’s life for decades, but now, in the face of crippling…
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The Raven Scholar Book Review
coffeestarsbooks September 29, 2025 8:49 am The Raven Scholar Release date: 24th April 2025 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Genres: Fantasy ⊹ ⋆ High Fantasy ⊹ ⋆ Mystery ⊹ ⋆ Add to Storygraph Add to Goodreads Join the conversation: Bluesky Instagram Twitch Discord “We are here, exactly where we should be, at exactly the right moment, because we are the Raven, and we are magnificent.” ― Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar ☕✨ CONTENT WARNINGS: (click to reveal) Violence, death, murder, body horror, confinement, suicide, vomit, fire/fire injury Synopsis: She might win the throne. She might destroy an empire. Either way, it begins with murder. After twenty-four years on the throne, it…
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Blood Over Bright Haven Book Review
dark academia⊹ ⋆fantasy⊹ ⋆high fantasy coffeestarsbooks May 27, 2025 4:11 pm Blood Over Bright Haven Release date: 25th July 2023 Publisher: Del Rey Genres: Dark Academia ⊹ ⋆ Fantasy ⊹ ⋆ High Fantasy ⊹ ⋆ Pair with: A cup of English breakfast tea and blueberry scones Add to Storygraph Add to Goodreads Join the conversation: Bluesky Instagram Twitch Discord “Having spent a few months in the High Magistry, she had let herself forget that, outside the ranks of Tiran’s top innovators, a man could get to a very high level of magic without ever having an original thought.” – M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven ☕✨ CONTENT WARNINGS: (click to reveal) Racism, colonialism,…
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An Education in Malice Book Review
dark academia⊹ ⋆fantasy⊹ ⋆gothic fantasy⊹ ⋆lgbtq+⊹ ⋆retelling coffeestarsbooks February 27, 2025 12:02 pm An Education in Malice Release date: 13th Feb 2024 Publisher: Orbit Genres: Dark Academia ⊹ ⋆ Gothic ⊹ ⋆ Fantasy ⊹ ⋆ LGBTQ+ ⊹ ⋆ Pair it with: A bitter black coffee and raspberry jam on toast Add to Storygraph Add to Goodreads Join the conversation: Bluesky Instagram Twitch Discord “I learned how to survive the cutthroat world of girlhood, where all strangeness was unrooted as ruthlessly as weeds from a garden.” ― S.T. Gibson, An Education in Malice ☕✨ CONTENT WARNINGS: (click to reveal) Homophobia, Blood, Alcohol, Toxic Relationship, Death of a parent, Teacher/Student relationship, Death, Murder, Abandonment, Sexual…
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The Jasmine Throne Book Review
From Goodreads: Author of Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri’s The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess’s traitor brother. Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin. Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the…
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One For My Enemy Book Review
From Goodreads: In New York City where we lay our scene, two rival witch families fight to maintain control of their respective criminal ventures. On one side of the conflict are the Antonova sisters, each one beautiful, cunning, and ruthless, and their mother, the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants known only as Baba Yaga. On the other side, the influential Fedorov brothers serve their father, the crime boss known as Koschei the Deathless, whose community extortion ventures dominate the shadows of magical Manhattan. After twelve years of tenuous coexistence, a change in one family’s interests causes a rift in the existing stalemate. When bad blood brings both families to the…
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Babel Book Review
From Goodreads: Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of…
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Legends and Lattes Book Review
From Goodreads: After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won’t be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient…
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The Mask Falling Book Review
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE OTHER BOOKS IN THE BONE SEASON SERIES. HOWEVER, IT WILL NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE MASK FALLING. If you haven’t read the series up to this book yet, you may want to return to this page at a later date! ALSO CW for graphic violence, torture and mentions of drug addiction From Goodreads: Dreamwalker Paige Mahoney has eluded death again. Snatched from the jaws of captivity and consigned to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris, she finds herself caught between those factions that seek Scion’s downfall and those who would kill to protect the Rephaim’s puppet empire.…
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Book Review
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab From Goodreads: A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and…
