Because of Covid-19 and because I’m not travelling, since I do most of my fiction reading while on the road, I haven’t read as much fiction recently. The most striking book, to me, was Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow, with a very different Mexican take on magic. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel was a dismal and depressing tale told exceedingly well, one which is mostly mainstream, except for the ghosts that haunt one of the main characters. I didn’t really like any of the characters, and I knew where the book was going early on, but still found myself intrigued. I finally got around to reading Witchmark, which won the World Fantasy Award last year. It’s a well-told tale with an interesting magic system and some truly despicable aristocrats. The House of Sundering Flames [Aliette de Bodard] is another dark and strong novel in her alternate Paris series. On a much lighter vein, I found Caroline Stevemer’s The Glass Magician utterly charming. As usual, there were also other books that I found far less captivating.