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Phil Leader

@philleader.bsky.social
60 followers 71 following 106 posts

I'm a book reviewer and (very occasionally) blogger. Twitter/X refugee. Supporter of independent authors. On a mission to write and post a review of every book I've ever read. Always looking for new things to read

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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
First world problems panic this morning. Signing into Goodreads for the first time in simply ages and I couldn't remember either the email address I used or the password. About 10 minutes of frantic Phil before I managed to get in
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
5 star #bookreview repost Wanna Get Lucky? by Deborah Coonts www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "A sassy, sharp and sexy story set in the seedy and seamy world of the Strip" #lasvegas
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Wanna Get Lucky? (Lucky O'Toole, #1)
5/5: Lucky O'Toole is head of Customer Relations at the splendidly over-the-top Babylon Hotel and Casino complex in Las Vegas. That means she spends all of her time dealing with the gamblers, drunks a...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
5 star #bookreview repost The Taking by Katrina R Cope www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "These are not serene angels... these are kick-ass super heroes" #angels #demons #ya #thriller
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Taking (Afterlife, #2)
5/5: After her actions at the end of the first book in the series - Fledgling - the human-turned-angel Aurora has drawn the unwelcome attention of Separus, one of the most powerful of the demons. He c...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
5 star #bookreview repost The Midas Code by @boydmorrisonwriter.bsky.social www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "Morrison doesn't let up for one second and he relishes pushing his heroes to the limit" #thriller
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Midas Code (Tyler Locke, #2)
5/5: The story of King Midas is a Greek Legend warning on the folly of greed where everything the king touches turns to gold - including his daughter. But at the heart of every story is a grain of tru...
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Caroline Roodhouse @daddyblackbird.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
“Hope. It’s like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It’s a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it’s the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.” | Tahereh Mafi #DaddyBlackbird #BookSky #Hope 💛
A photograph showing a hand holding three copies of the book Daddy Blackbird against a field of grass and daffodils
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Brian M Rice @brianmrice.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
I’m on the radio! In Spain! have a listen on my website to a recent ‘Book Show’ interview where I shamelessly name drop Richard Osman and Stephen King. Just click below! brianmrice.my.canva.site/news-and-oth...
brianmrice.my.canva.site
News and other happenings
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
4 star #bookreview repost Each To Their Own by Diana J Febry www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "There are a number of twists to the plot, some quite sudden and shocking others more a realisation that things are not quite as they have seemed" #crimefiction #thriller
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Each To Their Own
4/5: When teenager Kayleigh falls to her death her de facto stepfather Dan is convinced that there has been foul play and sets out to discover the events that led to her death and also to find out why...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
5 star #bookreview repost The Ark by @boydmorrisonwriter.bsky.social www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "Positioned firmly in the adventure thriller mould this book is both a terrific example of the type and also refreshingly different" #thriller
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Ark (Tyler Locke, #1)
5/5: When engineer Tyler Locke rescues archaeologist Dilara Kenner from a helicopter crash he doesn't know whether to believe her story. She tells hum that a friend of hers was murdered by poison in f...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
4 star #bookreview repost Half a War by Joe Abercrombie @joeabercrombie.com www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "It is never clear who is going live and who is going to die, and who is going to win and who is going to lose." #ya #fantasy #grimdark
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Half a War (Shattered Sea, #3)
4/5: This is the third book of the Shattered Sea trilogy and takes place a couple of years after the previous book, Half the World. The long forecast war between Gettland and the High King commences w...
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STARVINITY @starvinity.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
#Starvinity #scifi #SciFiAdventure #scififantasy #spaceopera
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Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Good news! The Green Man's War is a Kindle ebook deal for October. You can get fully caught up with Dan Mackmain's adventures before The Green Man's Holiday is published on 30th October. www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Mans-W...
Cover art shows a lethal, pale-scaled serpent-dragon or wyrm lurking in woodland. It looks straight at you as its forked tongue flickers between open, sharp-toothed jaws.

Cover copy reads: THE GREEN MAN’S WAR

For a few years now, the Green Man has sent Daniel Mackmain to resolve clashes between ordinary people and the supernatural world. Dan has found allies among folk from myth and met other humans who can see the uncanny.

He has also made dangerous enemies. Someone has decided to put a stop to this interference once and for all. 
Dan and his friends are about to find themselves in the firing line.
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Zesmerelda @zesmerelda.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
"The Buffalo Hunter Hunter" -Stephen Graham Jones. Truly creepy, well-done vampire tale that interweaves Indians, historical events, massacre, revenge, bent clergy, gluttony, and a cat lady. It works well and is easily on of the best books I've read this year. #Booksky #194
Cover of The Buffalo Hunter. Side profile of a buffalo, or black horn, on a beige background.
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Ben Galley @bengalley.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
I have to show off this again because Denis Kornev has done such a good job, but here are two of my favourite pieces of art going into the next Emaneska hardcover. Which is yours, angry dragons or giant wolves?
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Joe Abercrombie @joeabercrombie.com · 01/10/2025
The Devils is ONE POUND on kindle right now. I'm cutting my own throat over here. www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-bigge...
amazon.co.uk
The Devils: 2025’s epic fantasy sensation – prepare for a wickedly dark and twisted adventure
The Devils: 2025’s epic fantasy sensation – prepare for a wickedly dark and twisted adventure eBook : Abercrombie, Joe: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
4 star #bookreview repost A Poison Tree by @johndolanauthor.bsky.social www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "Despite the dark tone of the story Dolan's light touch keeps things moving along"
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of A Poison Tree (Time, Blood and Karma, #3)
4/5: David Braddock has a happy home life and a successful business he enjoys running. When he runs into occasional acquaintance Jim Fosse in a bar, things begin to change. Jim makes him a surprising ...
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Kevin Gallant @kevin-gallant.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
Big thanks to everyone for the kind words on Beyond The Mark! A lot of reviews mention it feels like D&D, definitely not what I set out for, but it's awesome to see people having fun with it in ways I didn't expect. Guess that's just how all creative work goes! #dnd #fantasy #rpg
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost Half the World by @joeabercrombie.bsky.social www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "Abercrombie really does have a magic touch in providing characters that do not fit into the usual rough and tough warrior mould" #fantasy #ya
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Half the World (Shattered Sea, #2)
5/5: Father Yarvi has a problem. He is minister for Gettland but the High King is determined to engineer a war to remove Gettland from the map. Yarvi needs allies but with half the world swearing alle...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost The Loch Ness Legacy by @boydmorrisonwriter.bsky.social www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "The plot cracks along as Locke and his team uncover the secrets one at a time" #thriller
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Loch Ness Legacy (Tyler Locke, #4)
5/5: When Tyler Locke foils an attack on a summit of Middle Eastern leaders at the Eiffel Tower he suspects there is more going on than meets the eye. He is soon proved correct as delegates at the sum...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
4 star #bookreview repost The Hole Opportunity by James Minter www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "This book is a good and well thought out farce in the mould of Tom Sharpe" #humour #humor
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Hole Opportunity - Bronze Winner for Adult Fiction, Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2013
4/5: Colin Griggs is a farmer who tires of all the red tape and paperwork involved with traditional farming and decides to embark on a new venture - hole farming. Colin's lack of practicality is more ...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
I've been slower than I should have been reading this but you can't beat the Merriman Chronicles for historical high seas action
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The Merriman Chronicles @merriman1792.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
Thank you #Canada #bestseller #newrelease
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "This was written to entertain and thrill and it does that with ease" #thriller
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Great Zoo of China
5/5: The Chinese government have been working for years to create the ultimate tourist attraction, a very special zoo stocking with only one kind of animal - dragons. Long considered a myth the Chines...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost Jim Fosse's Expense Claim by @johndolanauthor.bsky.social www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "Once I'd read this book I had to let others at work read it. Terrific." #humour #humor #shortstory
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Jim Fosse's Expense Claim
5/5: I had no concept of what to expect from this (very) short story but that made it all the more fun. Told in a series of email exchanges, a letter and a newspaper report, things start innocuously e...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
4 star #bookreview repost Find My Brother by David Chilcott www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "The story moves at a good pace - Chilcott writes like an author on a mission with spare and clean writing that still conveys everything it needs to" #thriller
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Find My Brother (John McBride #3)
4/5: This is the third novel Chilcott has written featuring SAS soldier turned watercolour artist John McBride. In this he sees a woman looking distressed in a pub when he is out painting. She tells h...
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Bluemoose Books @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
This is going to be a big week for Bluemoose. I'm going to use the 'J' word. What a journey in the last 20 years. Leonard and Hungry Paul by @ronanhession.bsky.social From Dublin via Hebden Bridge, Hollywood to your BBC screens! Magic. @booksaremybag.bsky.social @foylesforbooks.bsky.social
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Adrian Tchaikovsky @aptshadow.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
This collects almost every short I ever wrote except: - Shorts set in the SotA universe (collected in the Tales of the Apt books) - Most of the 2013 Feast and Famine collection (2 reprinted here) - Recent shorts in the Tyrant Philosophers universe.
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost Fledgling by Katrina Cope www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "They don't fight evil with a kind word and good deeds, these angels are trained in martial arts and are very much not afraid to use it." #ya #thriller
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Fledgling (Afterlife, #1)
5/5: With the increasing population and growing evils of the world, the guardian angels are struggling to keep up and have started to recruit human souls to be angels. Those that meet the criteria are...
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Bob Mayer @bobmayer.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
New free and discounted books today including Shane and the Hitwoman; scifi, romance, historical fiction, audio & more #freebooks #amreading #sciencefiction #BookBuzzr #ebooks #RomanceReaders #romancebooks #HistoricalFiction #thrillerbooks www.bobmayer.com/free-books-u...
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Charlot King @charlotking.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
Check out The Cambridge Murder Mysteries at charlotking.com (all photos my own)
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
4 star #bookreview repost Universe: Awakening by D Ellis Overttun www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "The characters and the world they inhabit are something the author is clearly proud of - and he is right to be" #scifi #politicalthriller #socialcommentary
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Universe (Terra Nova Book 1)
4/5: In the far future an advanced society of post-humans launch an audacious exploration project - DEUS - to probe the edges of the universe. The mission is a success but one of the two pilots involv...
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Ursula K. Le Guin @ursulakleguin.com · 25/09/2025
🌟 Shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction 🌟 Nghi Vo’s latest novel, The City in Glass, is a story about deeply understanding and loving a place, and about the difficult, necessary, meaningful work required to rebuild when one’s world is irrevocably broken.
A copy of The City in Glass by Nghi Vo sits on a black shelf next to a small vase holding four brightly colored flowers. One of them is an orange very close to the orange of the flames on the book cover, which depicts an archway with two statues, behind which a city is in flames.“She had been given nothing. She had taken it, and it was hers to neglect and destroy if she so chose. Her family had learned that much from watching the humans that swarmed the world, that love could be a destructive thing. The angels understood love as destruction. She had chosen a different way to love Azril, and this destruction had nothing to do with her.” from The City in Glass by Nghi Vo
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Bluemoose Books @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Two Bluemoose Books adapted for BBC Drama Series in the last 2 years. Not bad for an Indy publisher! @thebookseller.com @independentpublishersguild.com @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social @thebookerprizes.com
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Forgotten Poets @forgottenpoets.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
. From 'My Lover Is a Woman: Contemporary Lesbian Love Poems' (1996) —Chaia Heller #poetry #poem #poems
AFTER LANGUAGE

When all the drowsy metaphors
about women and fruit
have been peeled
and devoured;

there's just you, me
a bowl full of summer peaches,
two parentheses
with nothing in between
              (just space)
for the tongue's imagination
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost God's Rough Drafts by Rob Scott philleader.blogspot.com/2019/05/book... "The vision of the future that is painted is all too real and possible" #scifi #socialcommentary #mustread #recommended
philleader.blogspot.com
Book Review: God's Rough Drafts by Rob Scott
Set around 100 years from now, this book considers a future where body part transplantation has become widespread, routine and big business....
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
4 star #bookreview repost The Wrath of Siren by Kurt Chambers www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "Chambers has set out to produce a modern day introduction to fantasy for young adult eyes and he has achieved this and in spades" #ya #fantasy
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Wrath of Siren (Truth Teller Series, #2)
4/5: Following her adventures in The Truth Teller where Charlotte discovered she could travel to another realm inhabited by elves and dwarves, she has settled back into her normal life and dismissed i...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost The Skull Throne by @pvbrett.bsky.social www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "The momentum builds throughout to a final few chapters that are simply jaw dropping in terms of storyline, pace and scope" #fantasy
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Skull Throne (The Demon Cycle, #4)
5/5: The fourth installment of Brett's impressive Demonwar books takes up exactly where the last book, The Daylight War, finished. With Jardir and Arlen last seen falling from a high cliff during a fi...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost The Kingdom Beyond the Waves by Stephen Hunt www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "The inventiveness Hunt showed in The Court of the Air is very much still evident with a fiendish plot and fantastic ideas zinging off the page together with very clever dialog"
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Kingdom Beyond the Waves (Jackelian, #2)
5/5: Professor Amelia Harsh is a discredited academic, shunned by any university she could work for because of her obsession for the lost city of Camlantis which is dismissed by most as a myth. When a...
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Popular Tripe @populartripe.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
“STILL of the Day, STILL of the Day” (sing it like the Alessis!) 🚫👻 Ghostbusters 2 (1989) #Ghostbusters
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superstardrifter, sentient stack of pancakes 🥞🌠 @superstardrifter.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
KJ Charles is one of my most favorite authors, so when I was given this opportunity to read her new book, I pounced on it!
superstardrifter.com
Review: All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles
KJ Charles is one of my favorite authors and so I can't help but throw myself at the request button every time I see her name on NetGalley. So, thanks to her, and to Poisoned Pen Press for the review copy! When Zeb Wyckham is summoned to a wealthy relative's remote Gothic manor, he is horrified to find all the people he least wants to see in the world: his estranged brother, his sneering cousin, and his bitter ex-lover Gideon Grey.
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost The Nightlife: New York by Travis Luedke www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "If you want your vampires sexy and powerful and your stories thrilling and full of action this is the story for you" #paranormal #vampire
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of The Nightlife (The Nightlife, #1)
5/5: When Aaron sees a beautiful woman being shaken down by two corrupt cops on the streets of New York he steps in to try to help her. But Michelle does not need his help and is well able to deal wit...
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SoulMuppet Publishing @soulmuppet.co.uk · 25/09/2025
DOOOOOMSPIRAL www.kickstarter.com/projects/sou...
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Ben Galley @bengalley.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
If you missed it, the illustrated hardcover for Dead Stars: Part Two is coming soon! www.kickstarter.com/projects/ema...
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Para 🌵 @paracactus.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
So, me, @sarareads.bsky.social and @dianthaa.bsky.social will be doing a thing over at r/fantasy. Please come join us! I AM VERY EXCITED AND VERY NERVOUS. #booksky
reddit.com
From the Fantasy community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the Fantasy community
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Alberto Pupo @authoralbertopupo.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
This is an excerpt from my novella Witching News. #booksky #readersky
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost Truth Teller by Kurt Chambers www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "My immediate reaction to this book was that it is flawless, in idea and execution" #ya #fantasy
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Truth Teller (The Truth Teller Series, #1)
5/5: Remember when you were 6 or 7 and first read The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe? Well I do and the whole 'you could go to another realm and be special' thing was such a key to drawing me into fa...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
4 star #bookreview repost Beyond the Red Mountains by Gregory A Johnson www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "A fantasy novel that is of epic proportions but avoids all the tropes and cliches of 'epic' fantasy" #ya #fantasy
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Beyond the Red Mountains
4/5: Kelvin has lived all his life in the city of Triopolis, a peaceful place between the mountains and the sea. After all there are no other towns or civilisations on the planet, not since the Dark D...
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Phil Leader @philleader.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
5 star #bookreview repost Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "A tight story with plenty of action interspersed with serious considerations about society, justice and religion and how they interplay" #scifi
goodreads.com
Phil Leader's review of Slow Bullets
5/5: I have been a fan of Alastair Reynolds since I picked up a copy of Revelation Space when it was first published. He is the master of telling stories that span solar systems while still maintainin...
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Dyrk Ashton @undyrk.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
SURPRISE! The Thunder Kraken (Kraken Rider Z #2) Audiobook has been released! David Estes and I had expected it in November - but here it is! The adventures of Zee and Jessup now continue for your ears, once again voiced by the fabulous Tim Gerard Reynolds. Link in reply! @wraithmarked.bsky.social
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Andy Adams @flakphoto.news · 23/09/2025
I'm spending more time on Bluesky and looking for artists, writers, and photographers. If that's you, please drop me a line. www.flakphoto.news/p/are-you-on...
flakphoto.news
Are you on Bluesky?
The web is changing. Again.
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