#T Kingfisher

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

so the next Alex Easton novella cover goes hard as fuck 👀👀👀

[mycatwantstoeatpins]

Oh, I read this recently and loved it! It had one of the best opening scenes I've ever read; it was so incredibly horrifying. I loved Hester's character too as a normal person out of her depth but doing her best. I also liked having Hester's perspective - there was so much creeping dread from Cordelia's perspective it would have been claustrophobic otherwise (which would still be effective but I wouldn't have been able to read it all at once).

What are you currently listening to

An audiobook! A Sorceress Comes To Call, by T. Kingfisher.

I picked it up originally because it was initially described as a retelling of The Goose Girl which, like many Grimm versions, is...grim. Definitely ripe fodder for a retelling. Since it's not one of the fairy tales that gets a lot of attention (I literally cannot imagine a Disney version unless they went the Frozen route and just...yeah. Yikes. Though the idea of the severed horse head being a sidekick like the annoying snowman is deeply hilarious.)

You can look up a summary. It...isn't The Goose Girl. It is super good. The narration is excellent, too. I've never disliked any of Kingfisher/Vernon's work, and I've deeply enjoyed most of it, but this stands out as one of the better ones. Vernon does body horror well. And Falada? Jesus Christ. Deeply unsettling.

If you have parental or especially maternal abuse trauma, go in aware that it's heavy, but it's done very well and my friends and acquaintances in that situation have all said that it passes the "was it worth being poked in the trauma?" test. (My own mommy issues aren't that severe. Or aren't severe in this direction.)

Overall, do recommend!

[torpublishinggroup]

Tor Publishing Group is BACK with a guide of books to gift the people in your life…and yourself!

For the friends who love a good scare all year round…

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

Evil in Me by Brom

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

Escape with fantastical folklore…

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

When Among Crows by Veronica Roth

Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

Forbidden romance to keep you warm…

Swordcrossed by Freya Marske

The Stars Are Dying by Chloe C. Peñaranda

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

Beloved bestselling authors to add to your TBR… 

Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Not enough books? Don’t worry, we have another GET BOOKT: THE BOOKENING guide to help you out!

[msunitedstatesjames]

Most fairy tale retellings: The evil person in fairy tales is just misunderstood.

T. Kingfisher fairy tale retellings: Actually, the evil person in fairy tales is even more evil than you thought.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries below:

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children series)

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Guests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

Fantasy, portal fantasy, mystery, magical realism, boarding school, novella, series, adult

Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher (The Saint of Steel series)

Piper is a lich-doctor, a physician who works among the dead, determining causes of death for the city guard's investigations. It's a peaceful, if solitary profession…until the day when he's called to the river to examine the latest in a series of mysterious bodies, mangled by some unknown force.

Galen is a paladin of a dead god, lost to holiness and no longer entirely sane. He has long since given up on any hope of love. But when the two men and a brave gnole constable are drawn into the web of the mysterious killer, it's Galen's job to protect Piper from the traps that await them.

He's just not sure if he can protect Piper from the most dangerous threat of all…

Fantasy, romance, mystery, secondary world, standalone-ish within series, adult

[bookofthegear]

Oh, because I forgot to do this earlier and people asked, your total run avoided fourteen definite deaths and one Bad Choice that, while not outright fatal, would have meant that your luck would turn sour. (That doesn’t have, like, a randomized effect, given that much of this is improv, but ropes would snap, rungs would break, just how potable IS that water, maybe the pointy people did actually see your light and are lying in wait, etc.)

(Yes, there are actually things you can do to piss off the labyrinth. I won’t go into any details, because that would be too easy, but they do tend to be fairly obviously Significant Choices.)

Overall, you made it much, much deeper into the maze than any other players have, and a couple times I had to scramble to think “Jeez, what IS in that next room, anyway?” because you’d outrun my mental map.

Good job! The cabbages are proud.

[aizel-kon]

I will make a proper post for The Saint of Steel illustrations later, but for now here are some sketches and close-ups <3 After reading books, I convinced my editors to change their armor to how it described in books, so paladins on covers have chainmails and tabards! Just on the covers for Paladin's Strength and Paladin's Faith the armor is different because of the plot. Also, I spent too many hours painting Stephen because he deserves it, yeah.

[terapsina]

Let's talk books. Sorted in threes by vibes.

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I Support Women's Wrongs (murder, slaughter and body horror galore).

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How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ by Django Wexler - A woman from Earth is dropped into a magical realm, meant to save the Kingdom from the FoRCes of DaRKneSSss... except, unfortunately that might have been a thousand years worth of time loops ago, so it's rather time to lose one's temper and decide to become the Dark Lord herself.

Main character -> basically Deadpool (measured in sanity, humor and levels of bisexual horniness)).

Someone You Can Build a Nest In ⭐⭐⭐⭐ by John Wiswell - Shesheshen, a shapechanging monster who's rudely interrupted during her hibernation by hunters. Manages to to eat one of them, unfortunately she also gets shot by an arrow and falls off a cliff. On the bright side she meets a lovely human woman she might end up falling in love with so much... she'll want to build a nest in her (it's possible there's some Cultural Differences that need to be worked through).

Hench ⭐⭐⭐⭐ by Natalie Zina Walschots - Anna's latest temp job for a villain (because even supervillains need office help) ends with her carelessly injured by a superhero, laid off and with injured mobility for the foreseeable future (because human bodies don't see much difference between getting hit by a truck and getting moved out of way by someone able to pick up a truck). Angry, disillusioned, and looking for some vengeful payback she starts compiling the statistics of exactly how much suffering gets left behind the heroes and in quick order finds a new job working for one of the worst supervillains in the neighborhood.

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Extremely Competent Women Show Up to Fix Everyone's Shit (with a whallop of romance which was actually sweet instead of irritating)

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The Witchwood Knot ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by Olivia Atwater - Winifred Hall was invited to the Witchwood Manor under the pretense of being the governess for a very bratty kid, but when said boy suddenly turns into a very quiet and perfectly bland boy overnight it's very obvious her charge has been stolen by faeries (and it might have something to do with the actual reason she's there). Rescue however is complicated by some factors, one, there being something terribly dark and wrong about the house (normal houses don't have screaming faces in the walls), another, the faerie man posing as the manor's butler who would very much like to make her run screaming the way so many servants had before her (unfortunately for him, she's not even half as scared of him as she is the eyes of the father of her charge).

This one's about dealing with past trauma, and otherworldly terrors paling in comparison to mundane monsters, set in a very beautiful and dark and shiver-inducing Victorian time world where the Fair Folk are very real.

(Same world as her Regency Faerie Tales trilogy that Started with Half a Soul but it's not necessary to read that one first to enjoy this one)

Keeper of Enchanted Rooms ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ by Charlie N. Holmberg - Merritt Fernsby inherits a house only to be immediately taken hostage by what turns out to be a very stubborn and opinionated magical house. Hulda Larkin of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms goes there to facilitate the relationship between the house and its new owner.

It's supposed to be a very simple job. Unfortunately there's a third POV character in this book (no, not the Whimbrel House, though I adore that house and *insert here the Rosa Diaz gif about her new puppy and how she would kill everyone in this room and then herself if anything were to happen to that dog*). Anyway, they're a bit... uhhh... let's go with Bad News.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by Heather Fawcett - As one might expect from the title, Emily (a Cambridge scholar) wants to write the first ever encyclopedia of faeries. And she's brilliant enough to do it, what she's terrible at is people (*insert autistic character alert here*).

Someone else might then say it's lucky that a fellow scholar with a far easier time at charming people has stuck his toes in her reaserch trip into the Hidden Ones... that person however doesn't understand how irritating, frustrating and maddening her academic rival Wendell Bambleby actually is.

What follows is a story filled with winter snows, some terrible fae, some adorable fae, some not-very-secret fae, the goodest of good dogs, and lots and lots of squabbling. It's the best.

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Dark and Impactful Stories about Children Who Decide on Their Own Paths

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A Skinful of Shadows ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ by Frances Hardinge - Kate, an orphan and the illegitimate daughter of some stuffy (and evil) aristocrats runs away because being a bastard doesn't mean she didn't inherit the family magic that allows her to get possessed by the dead.

A dead bear ghost is one thing, a Get Out situation is something else entirely.

A Sorceress Comes to Call ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by T. Kingfisher - Cordelia isn't allowed friends or the privacy of closed doors, and whenever she's done something she shouldn't - a category too unpredictable to guard against - she's not allowed power over her own body.

Because her mother is an evil sorceress (think Regina and Cora... except somehow even worse). An evil sorceress that has found herself a Squire to lure into a marriage.

Hester is an old maid living with her brother, a Squire (well look at them coincidences), when said brother acquires a woman clearly set on his fortune. The plan is only to save her brother, except Hester can't help noticing how the woman's daughter keeps flinching in her mother's presence.

In The Lives of Puppets ⭐⭐⭐⭐ by TJ Klune - A family can be an android inventor, his human son (*homoromantic asexual alert*), a sadistic nurse droid, and a very emotional roomba.

And it can be a very happy family. Until one uncovers and wakes up an android that shares a very Skynet past with one's father, said father gets kidnapped, and one has to go on a journey to get him back.

(A book I like to call Sci-fi Reverse Pinocchio)

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Unraveling an Unjust System (and a hero that - on a scale from occasionally to constantly - hears a disembodied voice directly in their heads okay the connection between these three is a bit of a stretch but they're all great books so shut up)

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Hell for Hire ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ by Rachel Aaron - 5000 years ago Gilgamesh conquered the heavens, enslaved the demons and made it so that the only road to magic humanity had access, was through him.

Now, however a mercenary team made up of free demons gets hired by a Blackwood witch to protect him (and his familiar, the talking cat named Boston) while he puts down roots (literally) inside the new forest grove he's about to start so that he can stand up against the warlocks after him.

The witch quickly becomes the best client Bex and her crew have ever had (after all, warlocks under the rule of the Eternal King Gilgamesh are slavers of their kind, they are delighted at the chance to kill some).

Vespertine ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by Margaret Rogerson - In a world where the veil between the living and the dead has been kinda broken Artemisia (*another autistic character alert*) is training to be a Gray Sister (magic nun).

Until her convent gets attacked by possessed soldiers and she has no choice but to pick up a Saint's Relic containing a malevolent revenant to protect it.

Problem. Only a Vespertine is supposed to do it. Another problem. The only one "alive" who can teach her to be a Vespertine is the revenant. Another another problem. The revenant cannot be trusted and if she loses control to it, the death toll will be counted in cities.

Terminal Alliance ⭐⭐⭐⭐¾ by Jim C. Hines - Post Zombie Apocalypse, where some aliens showed up, sort of cured the zombies and took the (mostly) cured zombies into their military.

Which leads us to Marion Adamopoulos, also known as Mops, the Leutenant in charge of Shipboard Hygene and Sanitation of the Earth Mercenary Corps Ship Pufferfish.

Right up until a bioweapon turns the entire crew except her crew back into zombies. Congratulations, she's the captain now.

(Space Janitors save the universe story).

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[asexualbookbird]

CURRENTLY READING: MARCH 2025

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T Kingfisher

I'm always hyped for a T Kingfisher novel. Retellings are always hit or miss with me, but Kingfisher has never let me down before so I'm excited! Opting for physical reading over audio because who knows why my brain is the way it is.

[thenintharticle]

T Kingfisher somehow predicted the walrus vs. fairy debate months before it happened on tumblr

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

umm hi hello was anyone gonna tell me about these insane new covers for The Saint of Steel series by T Kingfisher? 😱

they're so gorgeous! they release July 8th in Australia, idk about the rest of the world, but I am so fling-flangin excited!!!!!

[designstack]

Kingfisher. Drawing.

Realistic Colour Pencil Bird Drawings. More art from Bele, on our site.

https://www.designstack.co/2024/03/realistic-colour-pencil-bird-drawings.html

[myriadofcolors3]

T Kingfisher is a spiritual successor to Tamora Pierce imo

You got girl heroes who succeed by wit and determination and being kind and some courage that they may or may not acknowledge, there's the kindest sexiest man who is kind and gentle and honest, and you have beautiful worldbuilding and adventure

[kneesntoess]

the white rat priests about the saint of steel paladins: if you can't get organic, home grown paladins, store bought is fine

[dessertgeek]

The Twitter Mari Lwyd sagas (2019)

So way back in 2019, @seananmcguire and @tkingfisher (and also later @kbspangler) got into a whole poetry/rap battle involving the poor Mari Lwyd (played by Seanan) just trying to get some cheese from Ursula's stores. This went on for a few years, and I can't find transcribed sources, only screenshots.

So, with X/Twitter being What It Is, I wanted a text source to exist. CW for food, alcohol, and all the caps, and full credit to the authors. If you want the original source it's here.

Seanan: WE'RE HERE TO SAY PLEASE WON'T YOU GIVE US SOME CHEESE SOME CHEESE AND SOME BRANDY OR PORT. THIS FESTIVE HORSE SKULL HAS BEEN SHOVED ON A POLE SO GRANT ME YOUR FINEST RETORT.

Ursula: BEGONE WITH YOUR POLE (YOU CAN LEAVE THE NEAT SKULL) DEMANDING MY FOOD IS EXTORTION FOR CHEESE IS QUITE DEAR AND WILL BE WORSE NEXT YEAR AND I CAN’T SPARE YOU EVEN A PORTION

Seanan: IF IT'S HEAD FOR A HEAD, I COULD TAKE YOURS INSTEAD, THAT SEEMS LIKE A TRADE THAT'S QUITE FAIR BUT DECAPITATION REQUIRES CONTEMPLATION, I'D RATHER THAT CHEESE OVER THERE.

Ursula: YOU COME ‘ROUND WITH THE BITS OF A HORSE THAT IS QUITS DEMANDING I GIVE YOU MY CHEDDAR BUT HEY, YOU HAVE SAID, AT LEAST IT’S NOT MY HEAD— I’M SUPPOSED TO THINK THIS IS BETTER!?

Seanan: I AM NOT A QUITTER, NO NEED TO BE BITTER, AND I'D TAKE YOUR GOUDA OR BRIE. YOU ASKED FOR MY HEAD, THINKING THAT SINCE I'M DEAD YOU COULD JUST KIDNAP PIECES OF ME. I HAVE INFINITE TIME AND THE PATIENCE TO RHYME AND I'LL STAND HERE LIMITLESSLY.

Ursula: AND WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT ON NOT-QUITE-LONGEST-NIGHT TO MAKE FREE WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S CHEESES? YOU THINK ‘COS YOU SHOW WITH A WEIRD SKULL IN TOW IT CAN ASK FOR WHATEVER IT PLEASES?

Seanan: THAT'S JUST WHAT I THINK, GIVE ME CHEESE, GIVE ME DRINK, AND I'LL NO MORE CAST DARK ON YOUR DOOR. I'M NO TINSEL OR TREE, I'M CELEBRATORY OF SURVIVAL ON HEATH AND IN MOOR.

Ursula: THERE’S NO HEATH AND NO MOOR BETWEEN HERE AND THE SHORE I COULD MAYBE GET YOU A BOG IN LIEU OF MY BRIE WHICH I’M HOARDING FOR ME WHAT IF—LOOK, SEANAN! A FROG!

Seanan: THAT WAS JUST DIRTY POOL, AND YOU KNOW THERE'S NO RULE THAT SAYS I CAN'T LEAVE AND COME BACK. NOW THERE'S MUD ON MY SHOES I WON'T LET YOU REFUSE THIS FESTIVE DIGESTIVE ATTACK.

Ursula: ALL’S FAIR, SO THEY SAY WHEN CHEESE IS IN PLAY ALTHOUGH I ADMIT TO DECEPTION WHILE YOU CHASED A FROG I SCARFED THAT CHEESE LOG AT PERSONAL COST TO DIGESTION

Seanan: THEN I'LL COME FOR YOUR BOOZE I'M NOT LONGING TO LOSE, AND THIS IS THE HOLIDAY SEASON. I'LL STAND HERE AND SING AS THE MORRIS BELLS RING AND YOUR GUTS CONTEMPLATE CHOOSING TREASON.

Ursula: I’VE NO BRANDY NOR GIN THE SCOTCH STORES ARE THIN BUT OF A SOLUTION I’M THINKIN’ THIS HOUSE’S LIBATION AGAVE’S CREATION WILL NEVERTHELESS GET YOU STINKIN’ IF IT’S BOOZE THAT YOU’RE FOR BONE HORSE FROM THE MOOR IT’S TEQUILA THAT WE WILL BE DRINKIN’

Seanan: WE'LL GET HAMMERED LIKE BOARDS WHEN THE LIQUOR GETS POURED, THEY'LL ASSEMBLE US LIKE WE'RE IKEA. THERE ARE WORSE THINGS TO DO THAN START DRINKING WITH YOU. I'M SO HAPPY THAT I CAME TO SEE YA.

Ursula: I LOVE EVERY ENTITY IN THIS BAR *falls down*

[bonesjaunst]

Of course my favorite is the middle aged solicitor having the weirdest week of their life