The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

You learn over time that the world isn’t broken. It’s just… got more pieces to it than you thought. They all fit together, just maybe not the way you pictured when you were young.

I have really mixed feelings about this book. There was a lot that I liked; the magic system was cool and I loved that the protagonist was a middle-aged mother who'd been hiding her light under a bushel for fifteen years. The complicated family dynamics were incredibly well done, especially the marriage between the protagonist and her husband, and there were some really powerful moments in the story.

However, there was a lot I didn't like. I was never totally on board with the worldbuilding. Most of the time the story seemed to be taking place in a feudal-Japan-inspired world so I found the mentions of modern technology and superheroes jarring. The pacing and structure of the book were also weird. The Sword of Kaigen took SO LONG to get started. The first third of the book dragged because of the constant, and mostly irrelevant as it turned out, info-dumping and dull conversations. 

The climax of the book had me gripped and genuinely hit me in the feels but it was in the middle of the book. Which is... an odd choice. The story meandered after that, although there were again some fantastically emotional moments, and then the story just kinda ended. 

The Sword of Kaigen is a really hard book to judge. There was a great story in there, it just needed a really ruthless editor to cut away all the unnecessary exposition and characters to reveal it.  

Recommended For: Fans of Asian-inspired fantasy and anyone who likes their fantasy full of complicated characters.

Read On: Other fantasies with Japanese-inspired settings are Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn and The Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin is a fantastic SFF story with a middle-aged female protagonist.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

 By the time Alex managed to get the blood out of her good wool coat, it was too warm to wear it.

Alex Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. A dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved crime, Alex was hoping for a fresh start. But a free ride to one of the world's most prestigious universities was bound to come with a catch. Alex has been tasked with monitoring the mysterious activities of Yale's secret societies who tamper with forbidden magic and raise the dead. Now there's a dead girl on campus and Alex seems to be the only person who won't accept the neat answer the police and campus administration have come up with for her murder.

This had everything I love about dark academia. Ninth House is full of secret societies up to no good, ghosts who hang around campus, a twisty murder mystery, and an underdog outsider who will not allow a girl's death to fade into obscurity. My only niggle was that it was a little slow at the start but it was absolutely necessary to create the rich and believable world of Ninth House.

Recommended For: Fans of dark academic stories with a touch of the supernatural

Read On: Not fantasies, but The Secret History by Donna Tartt and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova are other dark academia books I've really enjoyed. I also loved Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, a YA-fantasy duology.

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

"Absolutely not, What an utterly hare-brained idea, Annabelle."

Brilliant but destitute Annabelle Archer is one of the first female students at Oxford University. In return for her scholarship, she must recruit influential men to champion the rising women's suffrage movement. Her first target is Sebastian Devereux: cold, calculating and the most powerful duke in England...

Confession time: My guilty pleasure is enemies-to-lovers stories full of misunderstandings, witty banter, and prickly exteriors hiding hearts of gold. This cute romance had all of that but the spark was never quite there. All in all, Bringing Down the Duke was a sweet and funny romance, but fairly forgettable.

Recommended For: Anyone looking for a light-hearted and easy-to-read historical romance

Read On: The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare is another historical romance that has all the feels and is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.