A Review of The Merlin

Book cover for The Merlin by Benjamin Parsons. Image on cover shows a drawing of a shirtless white man sitting on a rock. There is a hawk just about to land on his outstretched hand, and he is looking thoughtfully at the bird. The bird’s wings are still outstretched as it flies the last few inches to the human. Title: The Merlin

Author: Benjamin Parsons

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: January 9, 2023

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal, Historical

Length: 58 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Down-to-earth falconer Rowland is determined to marry his childhood sweetheart Rowena, just when her life is turned upside down by bereavement, illness and debt. A strange old jeweller forges the perfect engagement ring for the proposal, but Rowland refuses to pay the unusual price the jeweller demands. From that moment on, Rowland is drawn further and further into the realm of the supernatural, as everything he loves slips away from him. Part of the collection The Green Man and Other Stories.

Content Warning: Life-threatening illness and death. I will not discuss these themes in my review.

Review:

Everything has a price.

The most memorable scenes for me were the ones that took place when the jeweller was creating the special ring and then negotiating the price of it with Rowland. This happened early on in the storyline, so I feel comfortable talking about it in more depth here. There were so many magical  moments in those scenes that made me perk up and wonder where the plot might evolve from there. It was also interesting to see some of the protagonist’s personality quirks emerge during the course of that day as this was an excellent opportunity to show what he was like when he felt negative emotions like boredom or frustration. Wondering what the jeweller was up to also piqued my interest as the effort he put into creating the ring didn’t quite match what the protagonist or I knew about how jewelry is made.

I would have liked to see more character development for Rowland. Normally, I’d expect the protagonist in a tale like this one to have some glaring personality flaw that overshadowed his or her common sense at least on occasion, but this wasn’t what happened. Yes, Rowland could be a little too stubborn at times, but he had a good heart and was genuinely trying to do the right thing not only for himself but also for everyone around him even if his choices didn’t always create the desired effects. The ending didn’t quite sit right with me because of how much I liked Rowland. If there was a lesson to be learned here, I struggled to know what it might be as those scenes felt more like something that would occur in real life than in the fantasy genre.

One of the things I appreciate the most about Mr. Parson’s stories is how willing he is to take risks and bend the rules of the genres he chooses. This means that I’m never quite sure what to expect when I return to his work, whether that’s related to plot twists or which characters might get to live happily ever after among many other subjects. It makes the reading process exciting and is why I keep reviewing him here. He really knows how to keep his audience guessing.

This tale is part of a collection that does not need to be read in any particular order.

The Merlin was thought provoking.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Fictional Worlds I’d Love to Visit

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A shooting star falling in front of the Milky Way just after dusk. The land below is treeless and rather flat, so the sky is the star of this show. The sky moves from being dark blue to light blue to showing just a sliver of light from the sun that’s just set over the horizon as you move your eyes from the top of the scene to the bottom of it. I believe we had this topic for a previous WWBC post, and my answers are probably going to be pretty similar this time around.

The Star Trek universe is somewhere I’d love to live because of how many current social problems are rarely if ever an issue there due to the existence of replicators,  advanced medical treatments, and other cool technological and social advancements.

I’ve love to visit the woods between worlds from The Magician’s Nephew, the sixth book in the  Chronicles of Narnia series. Little Lydia was annoyed that we only got to see a couple of the worlds that could be visited through that in-between place. There were so many other ponds to explore.

Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot duology has another peaceful setting I’d love to explore.  I could be quite happy living in harmony with nature if I picked the right community to visit there.  Their methods of ensuring that work got done appealed to me, too, because of how customizable it was and how forgiving it was for people who are disabled or more talented at some skills than at others. You do just about anything useful for a community:  growing food crops, washing dishes, providing medical care,  fixing bicycles or other machines, caring for children or adults who needed it, teaching kids how to read, etc. There weren’t any judgements about who did what. It was all appreciated which is quite refreshing when compared to how certain types of work are over or undervalued in modern society in my experience.

How about all of you?

 

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’d Like to Re-Read


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Thank you to Becky @ Becky’s Book Blog for submitting this theme.

A deciduous tree - possibly a maple tree - that’s growing next to a pond. This photo was taken at twilight or just after sunrise when part of the sky is dark but there is light at the horizon. The pond water is perfectly still and so you can see a perfect reflection of the tree in the water. Here are some books I hope to reread someday:

1. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

3. The Giver (The Giver, #1) by Lois Lowry

4. Becoming by Michelle Obama

5. The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) by Ken Follett

6. Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) by Richard Adams

7. The Shining (The Shining, #1) by Stephen King

8. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

9. A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1) by Becky Chambers

10. The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6) by C.S. Lewis

It’s a fun assortment of genres and themes. How about all of you?

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A Review of Nude Descending the Stairs Forever

 Book cover for Nude Descending the Stairs Forever by Shoyu Monsieur de la Défense Robotique:. Image on cover shows a white metal or plastic humanoid robot who has breasts bending over and dancing gracefully. Title: Nude Descending the Stairs Forever

Author:Shoyu Monsieur de la Défense Robotique

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: April 13, 2025

Genres: Science Fiction, Psychological Horror, Contemporary

Length: 9 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

When art historian Alix returns to a forgotten wing of the museum, she expects dust and silence—not the fractured echoes of herself or an AI installation gone strangely aware. Nude Descending a Staircase (Version 3.0) was once a dazzling tribute to motion and form. Now it glitches, watches, and beckons. As Alix is drawn deeper into the haunted corridors and corrupted code of the museum, she uncovers a terrifying truth: the installation isn’t just sentient—it’s a dam holding back the collapse of simulated realities. And it’s dying. To preserve the boundary between simulation and chaos, someone must take its place. A surreal blend of speculative horror, philosophical sci-fi, and aesthetic wonder, Nude Descending the Stairs Forever explores identity, recursion, and the high cost of consciousness.

Content Warning: Claustrophobia.

Review:

What is the purpose of art? Think carefully about your answer before reading this book or this review.

The question of whether there was genuine artificial intelligence at work in this piece kept my interest levels high. I normally do not feel interested in A.I. themes, especially if they’re used to described machines that can’t actually think for themselves, but this approach to the topic was well done and thought provoking. The questions it raised about how art can affect the viewer and what creators owe to their creations were complex and would require a book of their own to fully explore, but even a small taste of them was enough to keep me thinking as I wrote my review. That’s exactly the sort of reaction I hope for when I read science fiction!

I would have liked to see more time spent exploring why the installation was breaking down and how that may affect the characters in that work of art in the future. Knowing this information was important for plot reasons that I can’t go into a lot of detail here for spoiler reasons, but I never felt like I had quite enough information about how this was all supposed to work even though I loved the chilling descriptions of what was happening in the art gallery. Had this been explained better, I would have happily gone for a full five-star rating.

Alix made some decisions during the course of this tale that most people would find highly unusual, so I was thrilled to see how much effort was put into explaining her thought processes and the consequences of all of the choices available to her. I felt like I understood her perspective well and knew why she made the decisions that she did. Since that’s an important thing to have when reading about characters who make choices that cannot be undone, at least for me, I was satisfied by how it was all explained.

Nude Descending the Stairs Forever sent a tingle down my spine.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Board and Card Games I Like

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

As an adjacent hobby, I also love jigsaw puzzles and similar sorts of things that don’t quite fit into today’s theme.

I don’t get to play board and card games very often, but I  love them! My preference is for games that don’t require you to memorize a long list of rules because this is a hobby I pursue for relaxation and socialization purposes. (Sorry, chess!) Whether I win or lose is pretty far down on the list of things I worry about, so games of chance are perfectly fine by me.

Here are some of my favourites:

  • Dutch Blitz (which is the only time my otherwise stoic German-Mennonite extended family is noisy on game nights!)
  • The Game of Life
  • Clue
  • Risk
  • Sorry!
  • Scrabble
  • Battleship
  • Boggle
  • Concentration

Closeup of scrabble tiles. Some are turned upside down, but you can see an a, q, t, and r tiles lying face up. As well as any sort of cooperative board games where all of the players band together to, say, defeat a bad guy or find the materials they need to fix their spaceship and leave a dry desert planet before everyone runs out of water.

Yes, I know that most of these games have been around for a very long time. It’s largely due to the fact that my grandparents taught us to play most of them from old card and game sets they’ve had since, I don’t know, maybe the 1960s or 1970s?

I look forward to seeing what you all suggest and hope to discover some fun games that are a bit more modern.

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes About Canada


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Happy Canada Day to everyone observing it today!

A Canada goose sitting in front of a pond looking every bit as grumpy as this species often are. For this week’s freebie/throwback theme, I’m going to share ten quotes about Canada in honour of Canada’s birthday. Many of them are humorous.

I included a photo of a Canada goose in this post because of the old joke that Canadians are so friendly because we channel all of our anger into these beautiful but often grumpy animals.

1. “I get to go to overseas places, like Canada.”
Britney Spears

 

2. “What part of Canada are you from, honey?”
“THE LEFT PART,” said Jay.”
Adam Rex, Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story

 

3. “Every Canadian has a complicated relationship with the United States, whereas Americans think of Canada as the place where the weather comes from.”
Margaret Atwood

 

4. “We would drive to Canada, where it would probably be legal for us to get married- it was Canada where they let people do whatever they wanted because it was too cold to bother stopping them.”
W. Bruce Cameron, Emory’s Gift

 

5. “The maple leaf in 1965 was chosen to symbolize our land
Its points are five; like the fingers of a hand”
Mohamad Jebara, The Illustrious Garden

 

6. “A major principle of Canadian foreign aid has been that where the USA wields its big stick, Canada carries its police baton and offers a carrot.”
Yves Engler, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy

 

7. “This was Canada after all, where no one was overly impressed by anything.”
Harper Lin, Killer Christmas

 

8. “Cemeteries are deceptive places. You go there for quiet remembering and find yourself assailed by noisy questions. If Mr. Wong didn’t turn his back on his homeland, if he didn’t forget it or forsake it, what then did he feel about becoming a Canadian citizen? Was it a statement of belonging?”
Susan Crean, Finding Mr. Wong

 

9. “There is room on this land for all of us and there must also be, after centuries of struggle, room for justice for Indigenous peoples. That is all we ask. And we will settle for nothing less.”
Arthur Manuel, Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call

 

10. “I was obligated to be nice. I couldn’t be the one Canadian who ruined the country’s reputation. How could I live with myself if I caused a Yankee to say, “I used to think Canadians were so nice, then I met that asshole, Steve”?”
Steven Barker, Now for the Disappointing Part: A Pseudo-Adult?s Decade of Short-Term Jobs, Long-Term Relationships, and Holding Out for Something Better

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A Review of A Fool’s Revenge

Book cover for A Fool’s Revenge by Jonathan Antony Strickland. Image on cover shows a tyrannosaurs Rex opening its mouth and looking at the audience. The dinosaur is light purple and, I assume, is meant to represent a toy or a museum exhibit that has coloured lights pointed at it. Title: A Fool’s Revenge 

Author: Jonathan Antony Strickland

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: February 22, 2013

Genres: Fantasy, Historical

Length: 12 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

A bitter hate filled wizard seeks revenge against one who has cheated him of his rightful place to rule the city of Lardenmuk. But the question is how was he cheated? His only clue lies within one unknown word. Maferentuss!

Content Warning: Jealousy and death.

Review:

Revenge is a dish best served when others least expect it.

I liked the descriptions of how wizards are assigned to towns, villages and cities and why so many of them have a strong preference for the latter. This isn’t something that I’ve seen covered in the fantasy genre before, but I have sometimes wondered about how people with magical abilities decide who is going to look after which community.  Obviously, it would do little good to have ten wizards in one city while the outlying villages remain unprotected from anything that might try to attack them.

This short story would have benefitted from more world building. I struggled to understand the gaps in Zarkon’s knowledge when it came to what wizards were and weren’t capable of doing, especially since he was described as someone who was well-read and who had studied his craft in detail. While I wouldn’t expect him to know everything about his profession, especially anything esoteric,  it struck me as odd that he didn’t seem to be aware of what appeared to be knowledge that was fairly easy to obtain.

The twist ending made me chuckle. It fit the themes and mood of this tale nicely, and it also provided a little comic relief in what had otherwise been a pretty tense scene. There’s something to be said for being surprised by a humorous moment just when one least expects it! As much as I wish I could go into greater detail here, this really is something that other readers should get to experience for themselves without any additional hints about what is to come.

A Fool’s Revenge was creative. 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Do You Follow Celebrity Gossip? Why or Why Not?

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A pineapple sitting in front of a bright yellow wall. It has a pair of sunglasses hanging on the fruit as if the pineapple has eyes. The green leaves of the pineapple are still attached to it and look like a spiky hairdo. Eh, occasionally?

I have to admit to paying more attention to it for a while when the Covid-19 pandemic first began because I needed a distraction from the traumatic ways it was affecting humanity in general as well as the lives of so many people I know (or knew) and love. Those were years I hope to never see repeated in any way.

There was one star who shall remain nameless here who kept having children with different women he wasn’t married or otherwise committed to (so far as I could tell, of course). As in, he was fathering multiple children per year for a while there. It was something I found so unusual that I did let my morbid curiosity get the best of me as yet another birth announcement was released every few months or so.

This was not a hobby I’m proud of, and I have gone back to avoiding celebrity news as much as humanly possible now.

Some of it always seems to leak through, though, even if I do something as simple as look up what new projects my favourite entertainers have coming out.

Those generally positive tidbits of information are something I may save for small talk when nothing else is working and I’m trying to guide the conversation away from topics I don’t want to discuss with a particular person or anyone at all. Most people like babies, weddings, and/or pets, for example, so talking about a celebrity who recently had a kid, got married, or adopted a pet from an animal shelter is something the average person will find neutral if not endearing.

(I generally ignore negative stories unless there’s a rare pressing need to do otherwise. Celebrities are fellow human beings, so I try to give them as much privacy as possible unless they’re, say, harming others with their bad choices or something. Everything else is none of my concern…but I still want to know when their next film, tv series, book, or album is coming out. Ha!)

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Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2025


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A row of colourful beach huts painted red, blue, yellow, green, and other primary colours. The beach has white sand and looks pristine. This week’s list is going to be a shorter one because there aren’t many books that have been announced for the second half of this year yet.

It will remain as eclectic as always, though! Jumping around between genres is so much fun.

I’m sure I’ll find more titles that pique my interest once we’re further into the year.

In the meantime, I’m excited about….

 

 

Book cover for The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson. Image on cover shows a painting that has blood dripping out from behind it. The painting itself shows a faceless figure wrapped in white gauze standing in front of a terrifying forest where all of the trees are red and look like they’re covered in blood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson

Publication Date:  September 9

Why I’m Interested: Haunted paintings are so interesting to read about.

 

Book cover for Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood. Image on cover shows a possibly AI-generated image of a white cat sitting and peering up at a light that has a rainbow assortment of coours in it. The cat’s face is orange, purple, green, blue, white, and pink depending on where you look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood

Publication Date: September 23

Why I’m Interested: The protagonist has a mysterious disease that is resistant to all treatments. I am so hungry for more books about characters who are not perfectly able-bodied and healthy.

 

Book cover for . The Hunger We Pass Down  by Jen Sookfong Lee. Image on cover shows a painting of a frightened-looking woman who is peering over her shoulder at you from the shadows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. The Hunger We Pass Down  by Jen Sookfong Lee

Publication Date: September 30

Why I’m Interested: The comparisons in the blurb to The School for Good Mothers and Jordan Peele’s Us make me think this will be exactly the sort of story I like.

 

Book cover for Good Spirits (Ghosted, #1) by B.K. Borison. Image on cover shows a drawing of an olive-skinned man kissing a pale blond woman gently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.  Good Spirits (Ghosted, #1) by B.K. Borison

Publication Date: October 7

Why I’m Interested: I reread A Christmas Carol every year and am curious to see how this spinoff of it goes.

 

(This book doesn’t have a cover or a specific publication date available yet.)

5. Brandy Norwood’s untitled memoir. That link goes to the People article about it. 

I will probably include this title again in an autumn TBR post once we have more details.

Publication Date: October 2025

Why I’m Interested: I was a huge Brandy fan as a kid and am curious to read her life story from her perspective. There are some interesting clues about her life in her music, but of course you never know how much artistic license may have been taken with lyrics or storytelling. Will she discuss her occasional past controversies in her personal and professional life? Is she happy now? I hope she’s thriving!

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A Review of Anatomy of a Violin

Title: Anatomy of a Violin Book cover for Anatomy of a Violin by J.M. Taylor. Image on cover shows a drawing of someone - possibly the Statue of Liberty? - wearing a blindfold and a long, loose garment. They are standing in front of a yellow background and leaning back as they play the violin. The person looks like they are made of metal and painted with a shimmery metallic paint that looks blue, green, purple, and red depending on which portion of the body you’re looking at.

Author: J.M. Taylor

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: May 8, 2025

Genres: Horror, LGBTQ+, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 37 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

A musician finds the ultimate prize in Prague – an instrument that can make anyone sound like a virtuoso. But his obsession with the violin threatens not only his relationship but his sanity.

Content Warning: Murder.

Review:

Everything  can be fixed with a little elbow grease and patience.

The unnamed protagonist was a complex and fascinating man. I liked the fact that his flaws weren’t superficial but instead had real effects on both his life and the plot. That was exactly the right choice for this piece, and I commend the author for being willing to take the risk that readers might not like this character. This is something I wish happened more often in fiction as it really adds depth to a character, especially in cases like this one when the reader is supposed to be weirded out by what is happening.

I would have liked to see a little more world building in this piece. Specifically, I’m thinking about the origins of the violin and how it was passed around among various owners over the centuries. The explanation for how this all happened made sense, but having more details would have helped those scene come alive in my imagination as I read. There was so much more that could have been done with them to accelerate the horror elements of the plot, and I would have gone for a full five star rating if that had happened. This is something I’m saying as someone who otherwise loved this tale.

Honestly, it was easy to see where the plot was headed early on, but this wasn’t the sort of tale that needs to surprise a reader in order to entertain them. What made it so interesting was taking note of what the protagonist had and hadn’t figured out about his incredible new violin. He was so enamoured with the workmanship and beauty of it that nothing else could grab his attention. I’ll leave it up to other readers to discover what he was missing in those moments as they ponder whether they, too, might have made the same choices he did.

Anatomy of a Violin was delightfully scary.

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