Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Amal Singh GENRE: Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: August 18, 2026 RATING: 2.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary fantasy set in Mumbai. More focused on the characters than on the location, much to my disappointment. Nice little glimpses of two versions of Mumbai. Decent character sketching. Underdeveloped fantasy elements. Abrupt ending. Doesn't realise its potential to the fullest. A mixed bag for me. Plot Preview: Rishi Tripathi is an aspiring actor with no success so far. But when he falls through a mirror and lands in a different version of Mumbai, he finds himself a renowned and wealthy superstar. As he reconciles himself to his new status, he realises that this successful version of himself comes with some burdens and costs. He wants to return to the Mumbai he left behind. The only way back seems to be through the mirror, but it no longer allows him to pass through. Can Rishi find the unknown mirror-maker and find his way home before things turn too drastic in his new wor...

AUTHOR: Amanda Lovelace ILLUSTRATOR: Raquel Travé GENRE: Graphic Novel PUBLICATION DATE: August 25, 2026 RATING: 2.5 stars. In a Nutshell: The debut graphic novel offering by the prolific poet. A sugary-sweet Sapphic romance with Pride rep and some important themes. Stays true to the title by containing books, coffee, and a more than healthy side of adorable dragons. Episodic in structure, which makes it lack depth. Includes darker themes but they are just brushed upon. Might work better for younger readers. Was a bit too superficial for my taste, though. Plot Preview: In the scenic Sea Witch Cove, Luci runs Little Lighthouse Books, an indie bookstore, with her assistant August and her pet dragon for company. Next door to the bookstore is a coffee shop run by Aster, who also has a pet dragon. Luci has a secret crush on Aster, and this summer, those one-sided feelings are about to turn into a sweet relationship, cheered on by August and the dragons. The combination of author, that cozy ...

AUTHOR: Ciara Blume SERIES: Natural Magic #1 GENRE: Cozy Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: June 22, 2026 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary fantasy about a magical bookshop and some magical people connected to it. Somewhat cozy with a strong cottagecore vibe but contains a few dark events. Charming magic, some interesting characters. Second-chance romance and found family. Too cluttered with characters and subplots. Too slow-paced. A entertaining option as long as you keep your patience. Plot Preview: Thirty-five-year-old Maida has never been to Primrose Court – the hidden magical neighbourhood housing some interesting magical characters, including a witchy great-aunt she never knew about. But now this aunt has gone missing and the magical Mudpuddle bookshop – of which she was the caretaker – has also disappeared along with her. Turns out, Maida is the official heir to the shop so she is the only one with the authority to get the bookshop back. There’s just one hurdle – Maida has...

AUTHOR & NARRATOR: Bonnie Solomon SERIES: Pearly Gates, #2 GENRE: Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: March 24, 2026 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary fantasy combining the spirit world with the human world. Several returning characters, several new ones. Similar to the earlier book in plot structure, but somehow not as dramatic. The social commentary is a bit heavyhanded. The second book in the Pearly Gates series, and better if read in series order. Recommended to Pearly fans. Plot Preview: Pearly is now set in her role as a spirit guide, even though her new supervisor Mildreth disagrees. She has three new charges to take care of: sixty-five-year-old Lillian – a retired lawyer who's perennially grumpy after life dealt her a hard blow, seventy-year-old George – a friendly man who's worried about his closeted grandson, and twenty-five-year-old Raina – a product manager who can't figure out why she isn't inclined towards love and romance the way others are. In ...

AUTHOR: Angela Bell NARRATOR: Beverley A. Crick SERIES: Daughters of Genius Society, #2 GENRE: Historical Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: July 7, 2026 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical fantasy with a lot of cozy tweeness and also some romance and mystery. Wonderful whimsical characters, good touch of humour, great vocabulary. Excellent representation of chronic pain. Strong Christian elements. Some clever automations and automatons. A bit light on the mystery but gripping nonetheless. Second of the series, but works as a standalone. If you liked the first book, you will enjoy this one as well. Definitely recommended. Plot Preview: 1895. England. Margaret Kingsley is restricted to her wheelchair thanks to her chronic pain. She still uses her time and expertise to work with the ‘Daughters of Genius Society’ (D.O.G.S.), a covert team of lady inspectors. While most of the inspectors work on the field, Margaret is happy to contribute from behind the curtain, until one case needs her...

AUTHOR: Cynthia Pelayo GENRE: Historical Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: June 9, 2026 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical fantasy-horror combining ‘Peter Pan’ and ‘IT’. Lyrical writing and vivid imagery. Extremely slow-paced in the first half. Repetitive. Confusing shifts in timeline. More about atmosphere than about gore. The final quarter is the strongest. Recommended to those who don’t seek instant gratification. The official blurb is inaccurate. Plot Preview: 1914. Twelve years after the incident that changed her life and her family forever, Wendy Darling works as a school teacher and also volunteers with a local hospital, reading to soldiers who have returned broken from the Western Front. One patient in particular is her regular subject; he is unable to wake up from his sleep despite all the care. One day, when he utters the name ‘Peter Pan’ in his sleep, Wendy is taken aback, recollecting the dark days from the past when multiple children went missing from Kensington Park and...

AUTHOR: Peter S. Beagle ADAPTOR: Peter B. Gillis ILLUSTRATORS: Renae De Liz & Ray Dillon SERIES: The Last Unicorn Comics 1-6. GENRE: Graphic Novel PUBLICATION DATE: January 25, 2011 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A graphic novel adaptation of the classic fantasy story. Fabulous illustrations, but the story execution was too uneven to comprehend well. Perhaps I'd have liked this better had I read the actual novel instead of this illustrated version. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: A beautiful unicorn has been living around in a forest for as long as she can remember. But when she overhears some wandering humans talking, she finds out that they believe there are no other unicorns in the world. To know the truth of whether she is indeed the last unicorn, she sets out on a journey. But it turns out to be a far more dangerous and revelatory quest than she had anticipated. The fifty-year-old children's classic novel was adapted in a comic series of six volumes. This gra...

AUTHOR: Frode Grytten TRANSLATOR: Alison McCullough NARRATOR: Colin Mace GENRE: Literary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: November 18, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary fantasy-fiction set on a fjord in Norway. Introspective, not morbid. Too many characters, too meandering and monotonous for my liking. Some unnecessary triggering and crass content. Better for those who are more about prose than plot. Recommended, but not to all. Plot Preview: One morning, Nils Vik, a ferryman, wakes up and knows that it will be the day he dies. He still wants to follow his routine, so after his morning routine, he looks around his empty house for one last time, walks out, and boards his beloved boat that he has been ferrying on the fjord for many years. As he sets off, his dead dog joins him, and one by one, several other souls also make their way to Nils Vik one by one across each of the ferry stops. Each, including the dog, discusses several things from the past, sometimes offering the ferryma...

AUTHOR: Meg Shaffer GENRE: Fantasy-Romance PUBLICATION DATE: April 7, 2026 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A book-about-books fantasy featuring the titular book witch. After the super-interesting start, this absolutely didn’t go the way I expected it to. Too much of insta-love. OTT dialogues, absurd plot twists, and immature characters. I enjoyed this author’s first two novels but simply couldn’t connect with this one. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: Despite her youth, twenty-five-year-old Rainy March has been a book witch for more than a decade. She follows all the rules of the profession seriously, including the one about ensuring that fictional characters and the real world do not intersect. But when she is sent on assignment into the book series starring the Duke of Chicago, her favourite book character, she forgets all the rules and ends up in a relationship with him. When this is discovered by the head witch, Rainy is forbidden from interacting with the fictional characte...

AUTHOR: Gayle Forman GENRE: YA Contemporary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: January 7, 2025 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A YA contemporary fiction with mild fantasy elements. Could have been awesome but the FMC is too YA, if you know what I mean. 😬 Basic writing, annoying characters, convenient developments. Minimal and ad hoc fantasy content. The only thing I liked was the plot structuring. Can’t recommend this, sorry. Plot Preview: When Amber cycles home one spring afternoon, the last thing she expects is her mother to scream on seeing her walk in. The reason is horrifying even to Amber. It seems she has been dead for seven years, having lost her life in a hit-and-run accident while riding the very same bicycle she just rode home. But Amber doesn’t feel dead! The return affects not just Amber but her family and other acquaintances who were active in her life when she was alive. A lot has changed in the last seven years and Amber needs to be prepared to face those developments bas well....

AUTHOR: Lari Don ILLUSTRATOR: Elise Carmichael GENRE: Folktale Collection PUBLICATION DATE: June 16, 2026 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A collection of ten magical Celtic stories . Simply awesome tales! Only the illustrations didn't work too well for me. A great book for children (and adults) who love fairy tales. This book contains magical stories from the Celtic isles. There is a wonderful map of the isles right at the start. I have long known the word “Celtic” but only when I saw this map did I realise how the Celtic Isles are places. The introductory note offers a little insight into Celtic geography and its significance. The collection has ten stories, which is a bit disappointing to be honest. Each story was so delightful in its tone and content that I couldn’t help long for more. The stories come from varied Celtic Isles: : Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany. Each location contributes one-two stories. The text retains the original Celtic s...

AUTHOR: Annalee Newitz GENRE: Dystopian Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: August 5, 2025 RATING: 2.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A sci-fi dystopian novella set in the near future. Quirky robot characters. A whimsical storyline that is dark and cosy in turn. Goes overboard on the preachy themes and agenda. Lopsided in its allegory. Contains a subtle equivalence between robots and immigrants/enslaved people – weird. Suspension of disbelief and doubts necessary to enjoy the book better. Plot Preview: 2064. San Francisco, Independent California. A group of food service robots find themselves abandoned in a ghost kitchen. With no human around and with a desperate need to keep things going, they decide to take over their delivery app account, rebrand their food service, and serve the best authentic hand-pulled noodles in town. Just when it seems like they will be successful in their endeavour, someone starts review-bombing them, and worse, not all the one-star reviews are exactly false. Can the robots s...

AUTHOR: Samantha Mills GENRE: Speculative Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: April 21, 2026 RATING: 3.65 stars. In a Nutshell: A speculative fiction collection containing some truly imaginative stories. Introspective and dystopian – a strangely effective combination. I love the creativity but the random back-and-forth in some stories was a bit challenging. A great option for those who enjoy speculative SFF tales. This story collection contains thirteen stories from the speculative genre. The stories come from varied speculative set-ups such as dystopian, fantasy, science fiction and paranormal. The collection begins with an enthusiastic introduction by Meg Elison. I had no clue who she was, but her writing in this foreword impressed me so much! It's one of the most lyrical and heartfelt introductions I've read. I was happy to discover that she too is an author because it means that this single collection has given me the names of two talented writers I need to keep an eye...