Recent Reads – August 2025

I had a great reading month this August. Here are the highlights. Please, share yours!

Hedesa by Rachel Neumeier – the 10^th book in her Tuyo series. The first book in this series and the ninth, Rihasa, are my favorites, but Hedesa has the same thoughtful, immersive quality to the storytelling.

The Ninth Element by Sara Hatami – the first book in the Legend of Nohvan series. I’m not actually a big fan of trial fantasies, but the world building is solid and the protagonist’s insecurity compelling.

Towerbound by Samson Chui is the second book in a regression LitRPG series. The current rash of books where the protagonist starts out by dying/failing but then gets a chance of a do-over while retaining all their knowledge from the first time around fascinate me. This series, which celebrates the underdogs, is one of my favorites. There’s a roughness to the storytelling that suits the Scrap Rats, but it’s the compassion in the story that appeals to me.

Ilona Andrews published The Inheritance, which they’d previously shared in instalments on their website. It hit number one in the Kindle Store, which is awesome. It proves there are multiple paths to market. It’s also, simply, a great read. It’s a dungeon crawl with a mom as the protagonist … and I’m not sharing any spoilers!

I discovered that some of Phyllis A Whitney’s modern (as in written a few decades ago) gothic romances are in Kindle Unlimited and I went on a bit of a reading binge. I don’t love all of them, but they’re worth checking out. Hunter’s Green has a young American woman struggling to rescue her marriage to an English aristocrat in the Swinging ’Sixties.

Alex Karne released a new isekai novel (a Marine transported to a new world) that promises to be a series. It’s a little bit sweary and violent, but also funny and with a core of kindness and respect for Marine values. Magic Murder Cube Marine.

In non-fiction I read Homo Criminalis: How Crime Organises the World by Mark Galeotti which was fascinating for exploring the very blurry line between legal and illegal activity in different times and places. I’d already read his book The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia and I thoroughly recommend it.

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I also added a few things to the website. Most importantly, Ghosts Cry, the fourth book in the series is available for pre-order.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FNQV2314

Ghosts Cry book page on this site: https://caldryn.com/books/ghosts-cry/

I have added three new character pages: Landry Alsop, Francesca Razon (manager of the Caldryn Parliament press office) and Acacia Morrison (CEO of a luxury concierge service and woman of mystery). And a new location: Toady’s.