Tales from the Circle

Gunpowder Alchemy is an excellent steampunk book set in 1800s China. In the midst of the Opium war a young woman named Soling, who is working as an assistant to a physician in a small town and trying to keep her family fed, ends up getting embroiled in the war between the Empire, the English, and a band of rebels that is growing into a dangerous army. She has to confront her past, her father's old position in the court, and her family's current disgrace.  It's an immersive, well-told tale with amazing characterization at the heart of it that drives the story. It's so rare when a protagonist's family relationships feel real. She goes on an adventure that takes her away from them, but she thinks about them and tries her best to make sure they're safe and to contact them and that makes all her interactions feel real and genuine.  There's action, there are interesting clockwork contraptions, gunpowder warfare, ships, and so many other exciting things. The story ...

Child of the Daystar by Bryce O'Connor is another great book I picked up in the r/Fantasy megasale. I picked it up based on the cover, which featured a humanoid dragon figure, and even though I had not read the description and didn't really know what to expect I ended up enjoying this book a lot. In fact, it's been one of the few books I've been able to actually enjoy in the past few months.  The protagonist Raz, the "Child of the Daystar" from the title, is a toddler from the dragon-like race of Atherians, who starts off at the beginning of the book in chains, being transported through the desert by human slavers. The boy is very strong, though, and in his bid for freedom he ends up seriously injuring some of the slavers and killing two of them. In the struggle, one of them hits him over the head and he is presumed dead and left in the desert next to the bodies of the two dead slavers. He is found, and eventually taken in, by a family of desert dwelling nomad...