Baldur's Gate 3: Astarion - T. Kingfisher // Book Review

   

Baldur's Gate 3: Astarion

T. Kingfisher || Publication Date - 29.09.2026

The legendary charlatan Astarion... beaten, enslaved and Hell's bent on revenge.

Fantasy | LGBTQIA+

Astarion was a smart mouthed, impeccably styled magistrate in the Faerûn city of Baldur's Gate. His duties mostly involved the lowlife scum of city criminals, and sentencing them when found guilty of their crimes... which usually involved death.

Little did Astarion know that his own sentence was closer than he would have liked. A severe beating, a lucky stranger and a gift that would last forever became his new reality. Along with this gift came new duties, enduring hours of torture and perpetual slavery.

What he also didn't know, was what his slaver Cazador had planned for one of his children. If they could bring him a vial of the most exclusive blood he'd tasted, he would provide the winner true freedom. To become a true vampire.

 

The Review (may contain spoilers)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me early access to this eARC for an honest review!

For those of you who may not have played 'Baldur's Gate 3', I do believe this novel is perfectly readable without having played it. I feel this would be a perfect starting statement as a lot of people may think it a requirement. As someone who is a massive fan of the developer (Larian Studios) and thoroughly enjoyed BG3, I am incredibly biased to already love this book. Pair it with T. Kingfisher as the writer and honestly I couldn't pick a better author to have penned Astarion's back story.

The writing captures his snarky personality perfectly. Everything that makes Astarion the man beloved by the community is there, and if there was one thing which could have gone wrong when writing this novel, it would have been conveying his particular style and demeanor. Safe to say, T. Kingfisher nailed it. It has a lot of elements within the writing as easter eggs to BG3 and Dungeons & Dragons too, so if you have played either, there will be a few times you will find yourself laughing over the dialogue or situations. I love the thought and detail which has gone into the novel, to me it was a feast for my hungry nerd heart.

As for the story and writing, removing my bias as best as I can, ultimately this is a work of T. Kingfisher. I love their writing, and their novels have always been a good time for me. It's witty, adventurous and funny without being overdone. The characters are fleshed out enough they feel unique to the plot, and those who are more established like Astarion and Cazador, have been written with the context of BG3 in mind. The lore of Dungeon's & Dragon's, and more specifically The Sword Coast, is vast to say the least. With city's including Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter and Waterdeep, each featuring various TTRPG campaigns, video games and source books there is a lot of material to draw from. Despite this, I do believe Kingfisher has done a great job of grabbing bits and pieces to set the tone for the novel and surrounding events. 

Overall Thoughts

I loved this novel. Hands down. I am aware I am biased as a fan of T. Kingfisher, BG3 and D&D. With that being said however, if you like queer main characters with questionable morality being forced into high stakes situations which could possibly leave them killed by either a cult worshipping a dead God or by each other, this would be for you!

I would highly recommend this book if you are also a fan of T. Kingfisher, BG3 or D&D as well. It was a great read, which didn't overstay its welcome and allowed us to gain more content for this beloved game and its characters. All I can hope is that each of the other main companions get their own novels too, because I know for a fact I will be reading and buying every single one of them.

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Ghosted - Amy Hutton // Book Review

 

Ghosted
Amy Hutton || Publication Date - 30.09.2025

A haunted house, an ex-flame and $10,000 for a job well done, would you do it?

Romance | Supernatural

Holly has an interesting style of day job. Not only are ghosts real, and people are haunted, but she has the ability to see and banish them from the mortal world. Her disdain for ghosts doesn't stop when her job is done either. One ghost in particular has been impossible to move on from her life... her ex-boyfriend Callum.

Unfortunately for her, he pops up again randomly asking to collaborate with her on a job he's been contacted for. An old manor house which is allegedly haunted by a woman who died over 200 years ago. The family estate want her gone, Callum has accepted to investigate and Holly is the only one who can move her on to the afterlife.

With this job however, brings up past feelings and unexpectedly a mystery which may link Holly to this house more than she could ever have imagined.

The Review (may contain spoilers)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me early access to this eARC for an honest review!

Amy Hutton keeps getting better and better as an author. I was a little skeptical going into this novel based on a few issues I had with 'Love From Scratch', however as I'll elaborate below these writing/editing errors appear to have been rectified.

Once again, the characters Holly and Callum are a delight to be with through this journey. They have a genuine feeling of awkward tension between them which perfectly makes sense for the story and what had happened 2 years prior to the events of this book. Their fractured relationship is taking its time to heal and I love that Amy is giving Holly her moments to actually think if this is what she wants. She is grieving multiple different relationships within her life and her future with Callum was one of them. That being said though, I do not think that Holly and Callum are a good fit. He definitely cares for her and wants more than anything to reconcile with Holly, however I feel this is entirely because of her paranormal gift. I do believe if she was a 'normal' person, her ghosting him for 2 years would surely have caused him to move on. I believe his excitement to reunite with her was purely out of an anticipation for closure, considering he got frustrated when he thought she was going to bring it up and didn't.

One of the main issues I had with Amy Hutton's previous novel was the time skipping. To quote my previous words:

I did at times think the editing might have chopped off bits of the story haphazardly. We would be reading about one scene and immediately the following paragraph could be hours or even the next day later. It was quite jarring and took me out of the book. 

For 'Ghosted' I am pleased to note that this has not happened once while reading. The time flow of the novel is significantly more balanced and the way the story moves is a lot more fluid. Not necessarily a distinctive element for the book as a whole, however, it is to me as someone who came into this novel with the above a genuine concern.

With the above, this novel is set in America, with the narration of American characters and Amy Hutton is an Australian author. There had been a few slip up's with American spelling having been overlooked. It is not so much of a huge deal, but something worth noting. Another error which had been noted while I was reading was the use of 'hung' instead of 'hanged' when speaking about people who were executed.

I feel nitpicky about the above, however these are mistakes which I feel should have been picked up and corrected during editing.

Overall Thoughts

While I really do like Amy Hutton as an author, I believe there is a lot of work to do with the writing she puts into her characters and their development. I appreciate the FMC's in her novels are aspiring women who have and can easily function on their own, but in turn this does make them come across as childishly stubborn or in the case of Holly, completely emotionally deaf.

While I believe everything is moving in the right direction in regards to her novels and her art as an author, some things are standing out to me as unpolished. I will continue to follow her novels as I genuinely believe in her and her writing. She's a fun author and writes contemporary romance which inherently doesn't make me cringe. I just hope that she continues improving and I'm looking forward to continuing to support her each and every release.

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