Happy Monday, everyone.

Welcome to Issue 2 of the 2PoundPaperback – your weekly dose of book-related insights, book news, and updates on my writing projects. This week has a fantasy focus – there is a very big release announcement.

What I'm Reading:

Mordew by Alex Pheby.

This is the first book in Pheby’s Cities of the Weft trilogy – but if you’re traumatised by fantasy authors not finishing things, don’t worry. The final instalment, Waterblack, was recently released. I'll say something about that in a future issue.

Premise: God is dead. His corpse is buried beneath the city of Mordew and the Master feeds upon it for his magic. A boy, Nathan Treeves, is showing signs of a different power – the spark – though he doesn’t understand it. His more immediate concern is the slum in which he lives – and the threat of incineration via firebird.

Points of interest: This is a fantasy novel, but unlike any other fantasy novel I’ve read. If you’ll forgive the snobbery – because it’s more literary. What normally passes for literariness in fantasy is an overworked, vaguely gothic style. But what stands out in Mordew is Pheby’s control on the line level.

Plus, the world building is tremendous. There’s a one-hundred page glossary at the back of the book which describes a magic system with the rigour of a philosophical theory. 

You can read a free excerpt from Mordew here.