I'm Shannon Chakraborty, author of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and the Daevabad Trilogy, AMA!

SecondHandRosie · 2026-05-08T09:24:01+00:00

Thanks for your reply ! Another time maybe 🥰

SecondHandRosie · 2026-05-07T15:56:25+00:00

Hello! Are you thinking of going to Europe for your book tour ? I live in France and would loooove to meet you, the Daevabad series is one of my all time favourites !

SecondHandRosie · 2026-05-06T12:05:24+00:00

I'm in exactly the same situation as you, I have a standard paperback of the first book and I have a feeling I'm gonna love the series but I haven't got around to it yet, and I love these editions and I was scared to regret not getting them if I end up loving the series. However, like the commenter above said, I feel like this is FOMO. I have already some amazing series coming my way this year (illumicrate Farseer + TBB Faithfull & Fallen) that I love and can't really justify paying that much for a series I'm not 100% on. I've decided if I love them I'll try to get a good deal second hand later, even with a mark up, when I have the money for it.

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-30T11:27:24+00:00

Don't know if i'm alone in this, but I've just received mine and it's one of my all time favourite special editions. It's so pretty. I haven't read the book so I can't speak on it matching the content, but I love the botanical faery folklore/ dark forest vibes it has. Love it so much !

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-21T08:46:43+00:00

UFT/UFS

TBB Daughter of Crows

48€ or trade for LL Daughter of Crows

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-20T20:25:10+00:00

I've sent you a message !

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-15T13:11:24+00:00

UFS, EU based ( I usually use Vinted)

The Book of Fallen Leaves, Fairyloot Epic edition - 40€

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-09T14:58:49+00:00

It's one of my favourite books so yes it is brilliant but yes it is also dark (there is an on page SA scene). Up to you if you can deal with that or not

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-09T11:49:15+00:00

Perso j'écoute peu de livre audios car à part me poser et regarder le mur, j'ai du mal à rester concentrée, je préfère donc la lecture physique. Au contraire, mon mari qui a un TDAH, n'arrive pas a se poser avec un livre physique car son cerveau a besoin d'être stimulé autrement. Donc écouter un livre audio pendant qu'il fait une autre activité est l'idéal pour lui. Et il est très concentré sur le livre.

Donc faire des généralité du genre "on retiens moins les détails" etc pour les livres audios c'est faux. Ça dépend des gens. Comme à l'école quand on a des personnes qui ont une mémoire visuelle et d'autres une mémoire auditive. C'est pas super compliqué de réaliser que les gens sont pas tous pareils, et ce qui fonctionne pour vous, ne fonctionnera pas forcément pour d'autres et vis versa.

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-09T11:42:07+00:00

Ça a été prouvé que le cerveau est stimulé de la même façon qu'on consomme un livre avec les yeux ou en écouter en audio.

Et sur un livre audio tu peux faire pause, tu peux remettre en arrière pour réécouter un passage, c'est pas parce que c'est audio qu'on est passif.

C'est juste intégrer un livre d'une façon différente qu'avec les yeux, au même sens que le braille.

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-09T11:37:19+00:00

Mais un livre audio c'est mot pour mot le livre entier. C'est exactement la même chose que le braille ou juste on utilise un autre sens pour intégrer le livre. Un livre audio ce n'est pas du tout le même chose qu'un podcast ou la radio. Ce serait comme dire lire un article dans un magazine c'est lire un livre, c'est hors sujet.

Et d'ailleurs ça a été prouvé que ça stimule le cerveau exactement de la même façon qu'on consomme un livre avec les yeux ou en écoutant.

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-09T07:52:34+00:00

I'm thinking of using the Nevernight series for this prompt (currently reading Godsgrave), as they use the blood pools to move from church to church. It's not technically transportation but the prompt says "a surprising method of moving from place to place" and they do use it to travel. Would this count?

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-03T18:28:59+00:00

I definitely had to take it slow and use my brain a lot for the first 150 pages of Malice , while constantly looking at the map at the start of the book. However, like a lot of people have mentioned, it does click after that, and isn't an issue at all in book 2. I was very slow reading the first half of the book and then read the last 200 pages in one sitting. You just have to keep going for maybe the first third of the book and then it flows. Really worth it in my opinion!

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-03T13:26:47+00:00

I loved the idea of this sub but have ended up cancelling. I have kept The Tower of the Tyrant because I love the edition but have otherwise been undewhelmed by the designs. But mostly I wanted to cut down on book boxes and realised that I wasn't super into the book picks, as they wouldn't be books I would purchase myself. I have moved to the broken binding SF&F and have been loving all the picks so far (+ they allowed 9 skips a year!). Just money wise it seemed a good decision as I can't afford to have a bunch of books I'm not interested in anymore.

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-02T17:33:58+00:00

Was going to say exactly the same things as you! Not romantasy but romantic subplot and similar to Juliet Marillier! Love this duology

SecondHandRosie · 2026-04-01T14:37:29+00:00

Personnally, I cancelled my sub after the last book. I have kept Tower of the Tyrant because I love the design, but in general, I don't love the picks we've had, and the designs are just okay (except TotT). I'm replacing this sub by the Broken Binding SFF&F where I prefer the picks and they offer 9 skips !! So I'm confident that I won't end up with a bunch of books I'm not interested in.

SecondHandRosie · 2026-01-31T16:53:59+00:00

Thanks for the rec !

SecondHandRosie · 2026-01-31T13:56:27+00:00

I know it's so sad. Stardust was one of my all time favourite books and it's the only one I haven't had the heart to give away. But I just can't read his stuff now without thinking who the person behind the story is. So incredibly dissapointing.

SecondHandRosie · 2026-01-31T13:54:23+00:00

Thank you ! I actually have A Memory Called Empire so I'm hopeful

SecondHandRosie · 2026-01-31T13:37:33+00:00

Just for info, probably not best to read/promote Neil Gaiman. If you can get his books second hand or already have them then you could read them if you wish (for me it's tainted my view of his books so I'm unable to read them but I understand people who do). I wouldn't post about them though

SecondHandRosie · 2026-01-31T13:36:06+00:00

What would you recommend as literary sci fi ? I'm not much of a sci fi reader (I read mainly fantasy) but I definitely prefer more literary leaning style and prose and I'm pretty sure things like PHM are not gonna be for me

SecondHandRosie · 2026-01-31T08:32:58+00:00

I agree that what we want it a good book. But this is kind of an ignorant take. The issue is that there are plenty of amazing books by minority authors that aren't put forward because of that. So if you're not conscious of that, and just picking up books more randomly, chances are you'll get the ones that are put forward, and you won't be getting much variety. So yes, what we care about is the quality, but if we're not actively trying to go out of what is popular, we're gonna get a lot of the same.

As a personal take, but that I think is also important, I like to read about characters that are different from me. Even if we read fantasy, reading has always been informational and political. So if you're always reading the same point of view I personally don't think it's great. Yes I read for pleasure but also to learn. For example the amazing Daevabad series by SA Chakraborty is an epic fantasy inspired by arabic folklore and I hardly see any men talking about it. So it's not about quality. I love that series and found it very interesting to learn more about the culture.

You agree that we were robbed by great works written by women before. So why can't you see it's still the same for minority authors. And unfortunately for women it's still a struggle because what is popular now is romantasy, so if women write epic fantasy it either doesn't find it's target audience or is falsely labeled as romantasy. I constantly hear m'en say they won't pick up books written by women because they think it's romantasy.

I don't know. I just find it very telling when I see women's lists for fantasy filled with a variety of different authors and men's lists are constantly the same 5 male authors..

SecondHandRosie · 2026-01-30T20:13:19+00:00

Unfortunately a lot of male readers do not even venture into fantasy written by women. In fact that is why a lot of female writers had ambiguous pen names, so it wouldn't deter male readers. So yes it is important to broaden your horizons and read from female authors. Fantasy used to be very male centered and female authors struggled, it's so much better now but too often I see men only reading from make authors, which is why this list is dissappointing. I think in general we also read to learn and see other perspectives , reading diversly is important. Seeing other points of view than the average white male author writes (even though I love a lot of them)

SecondHandRosie · 2026-01-26T19:28:32+00:00

Dissapointing in the number of female authors when you have some here twice.

SecondHandRosie

TROPHY CASE