Jo-Anne B

BookBrowse Reviewer

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BookBrowse Reviewer Jo-Anne is a BookBrowse Reviewer and has written reviews featured in The BookBrowse Review.

Jo-Anne Blanco was born in Brazil to an English mother and Spanish father. Holder of an MA in languages and an MPhil in media and culture, she is the author of the Fata Morgana series of novels, which follow the life and adventures of Morgan le Fay. Book reviewing gives her the chance to discover exciting new authors and share her love of literature with others. Visit her at jo-anneblanco.com.

BookBrowse Editorial Reviews (11)

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur
by Lev Grossman

(7/31/2024)

The Bright Sword is a vast, sprawling, entertaining adventure in true Arthurian tradition, encompassing influences from across the legend's immense spectrum. With its tumultuous depiction of a world in chaos, lacking in leaders of depth and vision, full of unreliable allies and unexpected enemies, and bereft of meaningful convictions, values, or moral compass, it can be argued that it reflects contemporary society's concerns. Some events that should be momentous are instead somewhat antic

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Foul Days: The Witch's Compendium of Monsters #1
by Genoveva Dimova

(7/17/2024)

Imaginative, exciting, and often darkly humorous, Genoveva Dimova's debut novel is by turns scary, funny, and poignant – a fast-paced, rip-roaring adventure across two cities, with monsters, magic, and a parallel supernatural realm rooted in Slavic culture. The Bulgarian folklore aspect of the story has the timeless qualities of dark fairy tales juxtaposed with contemporary sensibilities, witty comments, and sardonic observations, lending it a refreshingly original perspective and a haunti

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Alternatives: A Novel
by Caoilinn Hughes

(5/15/2024)

One stormy night, Olwen leaves her life behind, disappearing without a trace or explanation of any kind. After several months of hearing nothing from her, the other three sisters take time out from their careers to reunite in Ireland and try to find her. Unusual, thoughtful, and erudite, The Alternatives is a sprawling and densely packed novel encompassing a broad spectrum of themes: environmentalism, displacement, immigration, integration, interconnection, political upheaval, mental heal

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Last Bloodcarver: The Last Bloodcarver Duology #1
by Vanessa Le

(4/3/2024)

The worldbuilding of The Last Bloodcarver is vivid and potent, with picturesque, evocative descriptions contrasting the wealthy milieu of Theumas' elite with the gritty, often gruesome world of its underclass. Nhika is a sympathetic and engaging heroine, tough and resourceful owing to her circumstances, and also intensely lonely and vulnerable, believing that there is no one else like her left alive, and carrying with her the grief and guilt of being unable to cure her dying mother despit

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years: A Novel
by Shubnum Khan

(2/7/2024)

Hauntings are at the heart of this beautifully written and constructed novel. Both Akbar Manzil and Sana are haunted: the house by the djinn who loved and lost, and Sana by another ghost; though Sana's supernatural encounters are depicted in so skillful and ambiguous a way that her haunting could just as easily be real or a product of her own imagination and guilt. A tantalizing slow burn at first, the plot is superbly paced. Tension builds as the book travels back and forth through time, unveil

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
by Cat Bohannon

(11/1/2023)

A vast, meticulously researched, and often entertaining work encompassing an enormous amount of information, Eve takes the reader on an epic journey through the history and evolution of humanity, focusing specifically on the development of the female sex. Amongst the comprehensively researched facts and brilliant explanatory examples, the author occasionally adopts a colloquial style that readers will find amusing, but perhaps a little jarring at times. Bohannon's wit and humor prove none

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Secret Book of Flora Lea: A Novel
by Patti Callahan Henry

(6/21/2023)

Ultimately, it is the importance of stories and the necessity of storytelling that underpin everything in this beautiful, heartrending novel. Stories can bring us together, create an unbreakable bond between people, reveal things we might not otherwise be able to see about ourselves, our lives, and the world we live in; stories, even though imagined, can carry the truth.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Wings in the Wild
by Margarita Engle

(5/3/2023)

Written entirely in heartfelt, crystal-clear verse, Wings in the Wild takes the reader on a powerful emotional journey with two young people, who, despite the traumas and violence of their experiences, find strength and hope within themselves, joy and solace in their blossoming love for each other, and ingenuity and purpose in their determination to restore the beauty of the natural world being destroyed around them.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Weyward: A Novel
by Emilia Hart

(4/19/2023)

One of the most successful aspects of the book is its depiction of the Weyward women's mystical connection to the natural world. Their magical ability to communicate with animals and harness the power of nature comes across with poignant and delicate sensitivity, skillfully avoiding any potential magic-women-at-harmony-with-nature clichés. Weyward is an intelligent, hard-hitting, mesmerizing novel marking the auspicious debut of a talented writer and storyteller.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Magician's Daughter
by H. G. Parry

(3/15/2023)

The early chapters of The Magician's Daughter superbly evoke the beauty, wonder and fairy-tale aura of Hy-Brasil. The sense of place on the island is powerfully rendered, lending the vivid descriptions an air of enchantment and mystery while invoking a history that reaches far back into the mists of time. But, like all fairy tales, the initial idyll cannot last, and darkness must ultimately be faced and fought. Biddy's journey of discovery makes it clear that outside of Hy-Brasi

BookBrowse Editorial Review

After Sappho: A Novel
by Selby Wynn Schwartz

(1/18/2023)

For the women in Schwartz's debut novel, Sappho is the flame that kindles their creativity, the beacon that guides them, igniting their love and passion, turning their eyes toward the sea, and lighting the way into new, uncharted waters. The "we" used by the chorus of narrators becomes the "we" of all women who break new ground, transgress societal boundaries, love other women, and emulate Sappho by leaving lasting artistic legacies of their own.

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