Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Melani Sie GENRE: Graphic Novel Comic SERIES: Milk & Mocha, #2 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A comics collection featuring the adorable duo Milk and Mocha. Cute and light, but also repetitive and somewhat bland. The second book featuring Milk and Mocha. While this isn't bad, it also isn't memorable. I liked the first one better. Milk and Mocha are the creations of Indonesian comic artist Melani Sie. This duo is quite popular on social media and are recognisable faces in several memes. However, reading a single comic is one thing and reading an entire comic collection is another. The first book of the Milk & Mocha collection had the tagline “Our Little Happiness”. As such, it had a happier vibe, highlighting how little joys enhance our life. This book focusses on “Our Little Moments”. While the introductory note about the significance of little moments is amazing, the change in focus also means that the comics in this book are a little unde...

AUTHOR: Aubrey Hartman GENRE: Middle-grade Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: February 25, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy with an undead fox guiding souls towards the next phase of their “lives”. Good anthropomorphic animal characters, interesting concept, atmospheric writing. Dark in themes and tone. Somewhat ableist in a few scenes. Has some life lessons, though these might be more relevant to adults. I am not sure about its appeal to kids. Plot Preview: Clare the fox is the only resident of Deadwood Forest. That is to say, the only *undead* resident. The forest, which is in a perpetual state of autumn, is where souls come to be guided to their final resting place in one of the four realms of the afterlife. Clare is their guide, making sure they reach the realm most suited to them. He has been doing this ever since his own death, and has almost always sent the souls to the right realm. But when a new badger soul named Gingersnipes comes to his door, Clare’s day...

AUTHOR: Erin Forget GENRE: Urban Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: May 2, 2026 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: An urban fantasy about souls stuck in limbo in a funeral home. Excellent character study with flawed characters at the helm. Unlike what the title and cover indicate, the story is somewhat tense and even tragic, but this is balanced by many moments of humour and bonding. The writing style didn’t work for me but the plot mostly did, though I could have done without the blasphemous elements. Recommended, as long as you aren’t fussy about writing. Some triggering content mainly related to cults. Plot Preview: Ontario, Canada. Official rules require that the dead, even if unclaimed, always be given a proper burial. But in the implementation of this lies a grey area, because of which a few souls find themselves stuck in limbo at the Marigold Horizons funeral parlour. We have an artist desperate for fame even after death, a wrestler no longer in her prime, a sex worker who also was a ser...

AUTHOR: Samantha Downing NARRATOR: Elizabeth Wiley GENRE: Crime Thriller. PUBLICATION DATE: August 12, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A crime thriller about a retired serial killer forced back into action. Unlikeable but compelling lead. Interesting at the start, slightly repetitive in the second half. Somewhat lopsided in its character development, though there are some interesting side characters. A decent one-time read for me, which is a slightly outlier opinion. Plot Preview: Seventy-five-year-old Lottie Jones lives a calm retired life, talking regularly with her son Archie, rolling her eyes at his upcoming wedding to a girl half his age, and enjoying bingo and gossiping with her friends from church. No one knows that Lottie had a past life as a serial killer. So when a young and ambitious documentary producer named Plum Dixon turns up at Lottie's doorstep wanting to tell her life story, Lottie knows it's time to say goodbye to her retirement from murder, even if P...

AUTHOR: Laura Huie NARRATOR: Ethan Fifield GENRE: High Fantasy Novella PUBLICATION DATE: September 25, 2023 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: The story of a dragon and his connection with the people who want him dead. Unlike what the tagline suggests, the writing approach is more like a descriptive biography with flashbacks than like a memoir. Character-oriented, with only two complex main characters. Thought-provoking plot. High fantasy but will work even for non-fantasy readers. A nice read, as long as you don't expect a "memoir". Plot Preview: The dragon Vakandi has watched the people of Vakfored for centuries, seeing them grow from refugees to self-sufficient citizens with an affinity for magic. The people have long forgotten how they first came to settle in the place they call Vakfored. But the dragon remembers. So when an assassin named Sisal comes to kill the “threat”, Vakandi convinces her to listen to his life story. The story comes to us in the alternating thir...

AUTHOR: Sofi Stambo GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: June 9, 2026 RATING: 3.15 stars. In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices short story collection focusing on Bulgarian immigrant narratives. Too many stories for a single collection, but each is quite short. The immigrant vibe varies in quantity and quality, with some stories barely containing the theme. Minimal plot. Slice of life in style, which rarely works for me. This debut collection contains thirty-four stories. The number sounds quite high, but each story lasts barely 5-8 pages. Thus the page count of the book isn't that high at 312 pages. Some stories have minor linking elements in terms of place or characters but they still work as standalone narratives. There is no foreword introducing the collection or theme. Even the blurb is fairly vague in this regard. But on reading the stories, certain elements seem to come at regular intervals, the most common being the immigrant experience. However, the immigrant theme is qui...

AUTHOR: T.I. Avens ILLUSTRATOR: Adrian DKC GENRE: Middle-grade Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: May 11, 2026 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy about two friends caught in big trouble. Interesting fantastical characters, but too many of them to remember easily. Nice plot, but develops slow. Creative world-building, though the sizes of the inhabitants were tough to judge. Not as comic as the title and cover seem to suggest. Slightly dark storyline that includes curses and zombies. Recommended but go in with the right expectations to enjoy this better. Plot Preview: (I have gone far beyond the initial 10-15% in my preview this time because the story is quite slow-moving at the start.) Oleander is a young slayer who feels the pressure of upholding his family legacy of killing monstrous beasts while protecting his guild. Once, he makes an error in judgement and opts for a shortcut solution by using a potion to kill a beast. This mistake turns out to be deadly [pun intended...

AUTHOR: Valeria Angela Pisi ILLUSTRATOR: Francesc Rovira GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: May 12, 2026 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A picture book about a princess who doesn’t want to be rescued. Great concept, good execution, cute illustrations. A decent story that upturns gender stereotypes but has some problematic elements as well. Recommended to be read with discussion. Plot Preview: When the princess is in the dragon’s lair, the king calls all the knights in the land and makes a grand declaration: anyone who saves the princess will be rewarded with all the treasures of the kingdom. Several knights try their luck. But when they reach the dragon’s castle, the princess makes it clear that she doesn’t want to be rescued. Now what? The cover first caught my attention, and the blurb ensured that I would definitely read this book. It’s always nice to see stories where princesses don’t want to be or need to be rescued. Plus, this book is the winner of the ninth ...

AUTHOR: Sangu Mandanna SERIES: Vanya #1 GENRE: Middle-Grade Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: March 11, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy with a neurodivergent lead and plenty of magic. Too many characters, not enough character development. Diverse mythical beings from global folklore, though they could have been used better. Great incorporation of the setting. Chosen One trope, which gets a bit annoying. First of a planned series. Cliffhanger ending. I liked it, but not as much as I had hoped. Plot Preview: Eleven-year-old Vanya, a British-Indian girl with ADHD, stays with her bookseller parents in a mostly-white part of England. She doesn’t know much about their past, nor does she know why some books in the alcove talk to her. When her family is attacked by a strange monster, Vanya discovers a couple of her parents’ secrets. For safety and protection, Vanya is whisked off to a magical school based in the Nilgiri mountains of South India. Named ‘Auramere’, this sc...

AUTHOR: Katie Cotugno ILLUSTRATOR: Amy Jindra Hodgson SERIES: Penelope Positano GENRE: Children's Chapter Book. PUBLICATION DATE: April 14, 2026 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A chapter book about a girl looking for the right dog to get as a pet. The cover is a bit misleading. The title is more indicative of the story. Good characters. Nice depiction of family closeness. Not as much canine content as expected. A decent option for early readers just transitioning to chapter books, as long as they want a story about a little girl and not one about a dog. Plot Preview: Ever since Penelope Positano turned seven, she has wanted a dog. Now after six long months, her parents have finally agreed to get her one from the shelter. Penelope’s best friend Gus also got a shelter dog some months ago, and he tells Penelope that she will know which dog is meant for her as soon as she sees it. But even after a couple of visits to the shelter, Penelope cannot find *her* dog. Now what? The story i...

AUTHOR: Oyinkan Braithwaite NARRATORS: Diana Yekinni, Nnei Opia Clark, and Weruche Opia. GENRE: African Contemporary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: November 4, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A multi-timeline multi-perspective family saga. Impressive yet flawed female characters, somewhat flat male characters. Decent plot, good writing, good ending. Character-oriented. Unlike what the blurb says, this is not “wickedly funny”. (In fact, it’s not funny at all.) Don’t expect a clever satire like the author’s first novel; this one is more typical in its storyline. Recommended, though not as strongly as I had hoped to. Plot Preview: 2024. Lagos, Nigeria. Twenty-three-year-old Eniiyi has lived her entire life being told that she resembles Monife, her aunt who killed herself just before Eniiyi was born. She even tried moving out from her hometown, but the shadow of Monife was always there. Now she's back after eleven years, returning to the home where she grew up, and to the women who ...

AUTHOR: Elyssa S. Schwendy GENRE: Short story Collection, Retellings. PUBLICATION DATE: February 25, 2026 RATING: 3.2 stars. In a Nutshell: A fantasy story collection with known fairy tales in a different presentation. The stories ranged from decent to great, but the structuring of the individual tales and of the overall book didn't work for me, though this might be more a ME problem. This story collection contains eight main stories, each of which is supposed to be a modified version of a popular fairytale or folklore. I could recognise some of the source material, but wasn’t familiar with a couple of the titles. What I thought would make this collection stand out was the presentation framework - using a storyteller to tell us stories. The titular peddler, whose name is Verre, is the narrator of the tales. During a storm, she enters a tavern, feels that it's a "good night for telling stories", and sets up some exotic objects on a table. When curious customers walk to...

AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke GENRE: Middle-Grade Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: April 1, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade adventure mystery about some botanical wonders and some enigmatic old letters. Decent characters, excellent plant-related information, epistolary interludes, fun riddles, clunky plotting, too much of attraction/crush talk. I mistakenly assumed this to be a fantasy. Recommended to the target age group. Plot Preview: Twelve-year-old Caspia isn't happy when her parents tell her that they'll be spending the three months of summer in New York City. Caspia is not fond of big busy cities, and it's even worse to experience the New York heat after the cool Maine days. Things change when Caspia finds an old bundle of letters in their tiny new rental apartment. Probably belonging to the sisters who lived there long ago, each letter, written in the 1950s, contains a 'green' riddle with many clues and the answer always being from the plant kingdom....