TOP PICKS – September 2024
Welcome back to Top Picks!
Every month, we’re going to share with you our favourite reads of the month. We’ve rounded up our contributors and asked them each to recommend just one favourite read of the month.
A big thank you to Nils for coming up with this feature, and our contributors for taking part!
Let’s find out what the team has read this month…
Nils: The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong
I had a much better reading month than the last and managed to read three very compelling books.
I have just finished The Scarlet Throne by Amy Leow and this is a well portrayed villain story arc which doesn’t shy away from the characters dark path. Binsa is a vessel for a goddess but unbeknown to all, she doesn’t have a deity inside her, she has a demon.
Polar opposite to Leow’s dark fantasy, I also read The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Bannen. This book follows middle aged Twyla and Frank as they navigate through parental problems, their messy feelings for each other and some rather curious dragons!
My Top Pick goes to The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong which I buddy read with Beth at the beginning of the month. This follows Tao, an immigrant, who travels from village to village telling people’s fortunes. This is such a cosy fantasy but it is also so much more. It’s about adventure, friendship, family dynamics, cultural roots and the struggles of being an immigrant. It’s definitely my outstanding debut of the year.
Nils and Beth’s Buddy read review | Pre-order here
Vinay: Performances of a Death Metal Bard by Rob Leigh
September was quite a month despite a slow start. I just read one book til Sep 10 and then breezed past five other books plus a re-read in the next 15 days.
Time-Marked Warlock by Shami Stovall is ample proof that books with time-loops are the quickest way to get my reading interest and the book is fun in a video-gamey sort of way.
My Top Pick goes to Performances of a Death Metal Bard by Rob Leigh. This novella is the sort of book that you never knew you needed in your life. If revenge had a music genre, it has to be Death Metal. While I am not a fan of that music genre, it is difficult to imagine what other music an enchanted lute looking for vengeance would play. Enlisting a struggling, starving elf, the duo travel across the land in their quest for revenge. This slim 146 page novella packs in four chapters that covers the classic get-to-know-each-other to learning-skills to enlisting-allies to the inevitable confrontation rather adroitly.
I was fortunate to get an ARC for this novella (out on Oct 1st) – and devoured it over a single setting – fun, brutal and darkly humorous, this is easily the most engaging read of this month. Reviewed here
Theo: Translation State by Ann Leckie
I’ve fitted in three spec-fic books around some historical and miscellaneous non-fiction reading.
Emma Newman’s The Vengeance is a fun YA-style read about corsairs and corsets as a young pirate explores the perils of a blood thirsty Parisian society in the seventeenth century.
Then there was G.R. Matthews latest release Last Winter Sun, with magic and mayhem in near future southern England as a desperate band cross a monster infested countryside in pursuit of vital information.
However my top pick for this month is Ann Leckie’s Translation State revisiting and extending the universe of she explored in her Imperial Radch trilogy. Elegantly written with some thought provoking themes, and a delightful trio of atypical protagonists.
Kat: Faeries by Brian Froud & Alan Lee.
My top pick this month has to go to Faeries by Brian Froud & Alan Lee.
I spent my childhood flipping through it and falling in love with the artwork and was given my own copy a couple of years back and while I have treasured the art, I had never taken the time to sit down and read it front to back.
This is an utterly magical art book filled with myths and legends about fairy folk of all shapes and sizes, and it taught me a lot about stories I half-remembered and snippets of lore about fantasy creatures that I can’t believe I had never encountered before. I absolutely adore this book.
Beth: We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida
My reading has been a little sporadic this month. I’m a mood reader, and this has been a difficult month mood-wise, and it’s reflected in my reading.
I absolutely adored my buddy read with Nils of The Teller of Small Fortunes, it was definitely a highlight. My lowest point was this month’s book club read, the non-fiction George: A Magpie Memoir by Frieda Hughes; we were all very disappointed by it. I’ve also read two Miss Marple books this month; one excellent, the other not as much, so I’ve been surprised to find Christie such a varying author.
As I can’t really discuss my current read (it’s something of a beta read and is still in edits etc), which would otherwise absolutely be my top pick, I’m going to choose the final book I read this month, which has stayed with me since I finished it. We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida is a bestseller in Japan, and has been translated by E. Madison Shimoda. It’s a heart-warming story about the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul and the six cats the Dr there prescribes to the people who manage to find the clinic. Each person has circumstances in their lives that are somehow changed once their cat enters their lives. Whilst not strictly a fantasy, there is definitely an element of the speculative to this clinic which is there one day, gone the next, and something definitely peculiar about the nurse and doctor who work there.
What was your favourite read of the month? Share with us in the comments!
