All Categories - Alyce Caswell - Author

Alyce Caswell - Author

Healing Fiction: Island Edition

5/6/2026

Hakuda Photo Studio by Her Tea Yeon
Translated by Shanna Tan

Jebi impulsively quit her job for a holiday on Jeju Island and is just about to return to her life in Seoul when her phone, along with her digital ticket, drops into the sea. But not all is lost. She stumbles upon Hakuda Photo Studio where she quickly accepts a job, not expecting to stay long. Jeju Island isn't known for accepting outsiders...but perhaps Jebi needs to find another type of acceptance.

At first glance, this might seem like your typical healing fiction novel, but it's a slightly different flavour - the issues it covers are quite serious and affecting, and Jeju Island stuns as a setting (and acts as a character in its own right). The author's love of the island is clear. I do think some parts could have been developed a bit better, but on the whole it's an emotional, thought-provoking read.

Content warning: mentions of child death, relinquishing a child for adoption, contemplation of suicide

Have Camera, Will Travel

2/6/2026

Island in the Sun by Katie Fforde

Katie barely arrives at her father's isolated Scottish home when he sends her off to hurricane-stricken Dominica, accompanied by Ranulph, her father's dishy neighbour. Katie and Ranulph need to locate a petroglyph of great cultural importance. But it won't be an easy journey. The island is in upheaval, a rival is trying to sabotage them and Ranulph doesn't return Katie's feelings. Or does he?

Katie Fforde's novels are always a pleasant dose of escapism and this one is no different. The Dominican setting is the real star here... admittedly at the detriment of the characters and the plot. Katie and Ranulph's relationship really didn't get the chance to develop properly and various other elements also felt unfinished. Still, it managed to be an enjoyable read at times.

Ableism, Ableism

27/5/2026

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

If Maddy leaves her home, the world could very well kill her. She's allergic to so many things and never knows what could trigger her. So she lives inside with her mother, never leaving, never seeing the world - that is, until Olly becomes the boy next door when his family moves in. He soon becomes her guilty secret. Will being with him be the very thing that destroys her?

This is your typical YA novel with a plot that certainly matches the genre, and I always enjoy it when authors use different formats and diagrams to add to the story they are telling us. It's a decent debut, but I know Yoon's work improved after this (I adored The Sun Is Also a Star). Unfortunately, this book is ableist AF. I won't say more because that'll take me into spoiler territory... anyway, perhaps skip to the other books Yoon has written.

Lightning Doesn't Strike Twice

24/5/2026

The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Scott Yambao

Raya boards the subway one night and finds herself catapulted onto the Elsewhere Express, a train that rides through another reality, all its carriages made up of weird and wonderful places. The reason she could come here is because her souls lacks purpose and weight. Alongside her is Q, a seeming stowaway. He wants to stay. She wants to leave. But it's possible that neither will get their wish.

I loved Water Moon, which I read last year, because the lush prose didn't detract from the story. Unfortunately, this was not the case with The Elsewhere Express. Beautiful writing should never come at the expense of everything other aspect of a novel... this time I found myself listlessly paging through the book, guessing what was going on with Lily early and not liking the author's attempts to mislead me, and wondering if I should disembark and DNF. Still, it was a magical journey with a few unexpected moments. I just don't think it was the journey for me.

Content warning: mentions of suicide, loss of sight, death of relative

Starry & Misty Eyed

22/5/2026

A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby

Safiya's mother ends up in a coma after they have an argument and Saifya regrets the last words they exchanged. Then she begins to slip into dreams that take place in her mother's past, a strange reality where Safiya discovers that she can collect lost items to unlock more memories. Will completing this game help Saify level up and save her mother - or will it be game over forever?

This is a heartfelt story that captures that awkward stage of adolescence. I really did feel for Safiya and got a bit misty eyed on her behalf. The game concept was quite clever, though it - and other aspects of the book - seemed unfinished, perhaps due to this being Bushby's debut novel. I also found Safiya's voice too similar to characters in other MG novels. That said, it suits its audience well.

More Than Merely Convenient

7/5/2026

Meet Me at the Convenience Story by the Sea (Convenience Store by the Sea #2)
by Sonoko Machida
Translated by Bruno Navasky

Sometimes you just need a bit of Tenderness...and by that I mean the convenience store by the sea, where the manager and his siblings could pass for movie stars. It also happens to be an unassuming place of healing and reflection. A grandmother and granddaughter grow closer, a store employee discovers himself, and a school girl finds herself receiving the same treatment she once gave others.

I was hanging out for this sequel for months. Happily, I can report that it did not disappoint in the slightest. Machida delves so deeply into her characters and their psyches that you feel like you have formed an intimate acquaintance with each and every one of them. I was particularly moved by Mizuki's tale. What incredible character growth...and her new friendship actually made me teary. Now can November please hurry up and arrive? I want the next book's English translation...NOW.

Legend Lost

5/5/2026

The Heart of the Jedi (Cancelled Star Wars Legends novel)
by Kenneth C. Flint

In the wake of the Battle of Endor, the Imperials are running scared - especially if they see Luke Skywalker heading the boarding party (a la Darth Vader). So some of them have proposed a ceasefire to the Alliance. Leia will of course be sent as an ambassador, with her friends in tow...except Luke, who has his own mission to follow. But both paths are perilous, since certain Imperial elements don't want the fighting to end.

The Heart of the Jedi is an oddity. Written in the early 1990s, it was meant to be published and might have become a beloved entry of the Legends canon ("might" is doing some heavy lifting, if I'm honest). But it was cancelled and superseded by The Truce at Bakura. Somehow, it returned... first by being posted online in 2015, then by being illegally sold on Amazon in 2021. For this review, I have read the most widely distributed ebook version. I believe some people are scouting eBay for physical copies. I won't be one of them.

Why not? Well, it's not official...and it's also not that great. The Truce at Bakura is thematically similar, in terms of Luke's Jedi journey, but manages to carry it off much better. No mystical "heart" on some mystical planet. Sure, I do like that kind of thing in small doses, but it was overused in Legends. Unlike Heart, Bakura also didn't turn Han Solo into a sniping toddler or use eye-rollingly obvious shapeshifters (I hated the fact that I spotted them so quickly lol).

This is a below average read that could have - and hopefully would have, if published - benefited from more editorial feedback. The plot gets waylaid while scene after scene is presented to us. Frankly, I don't mind that The Heart of the Jedi was cancelled.

You can absolutely give this one a miss. For completists only.

Princess Firebird Meets Luke Skywalker

3/5/2026

The Truce at Bakura (Star Wars Legends)
by Kathy Tyers

Right after the Battle of Endor, the discovery of a message pod intended for the Emperor sends Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie and the droids to far-flung Bakura, an Imperial territory that is under siege by aliens who use human souls to run their tech. Leia hopes that a truce with the Empire will be the first step towards something greater. But if they all end up dead, it'll be for naught.

Back in 2023, I - for some reason - took it upon myself to read every novel Kathy Tyers released in the 1980s and 1990s, so I have become well versed in her style from that period. I found myself noticing the usual elements she favoured back then, which frankly became repetitive in her original work, but here she does a decent job of adapting them to the nascent Expanded Universe (this book was published in 1994, just as the EU kicked into overdrive). The only exception is Gaeriel, who is not unique to Tyers' writing or particularly interesting. Ignoring that issue, I'd say the weakest element of this book was the battle sequence at the end. It felt a bit muddled.

As a kid, who hadn't yet discovered Firebird et al, I adored this book. The corners on the cover of my copy have fairly worn away. Even now I have to admit that Tyers' style does make it stand out among the others of its era. It's memorable. Interestingly, her use of an invading alien force is revisited later in Legends, while the concept of a religion where using the Force is seen to harm the galaxy has cropped up in Disney's High Republic project.

She was either ahead of the curve or extremely influential. That kind of wins my respect, regardless of the quality of this book.

Expanded Universe Round-Up #32

1/5/2026

Droids and Ewoks (omnibus)

I've never watched either of these shows, but I suspect they were typical of the era - and so are these comics. The Ewok stories are pretty cute. There are more of those than the Droids stories, which is a bit of a shame, though I wonder if they were running out of ideas because they foisted a retelling of A New Hope on their readers. The crossover doesn't make sense, but ahh... who cares? This is over 500 pages of amusing tales aimed at children.

Ewoks: Shadows of Endor

One could hardly expect to find a continuation to a 1980s show published in 2013, but here it is. I'm glad I read the other Ewoks comics beforehand so I could get a feel for the characters. This is really good! Giallongo competently bridged cutesy characters with dangerous situations - and he also managed to bring back the OG Nightsister from the Ewok movie The Battle for Endor(okay, Charal wasn't a Nightsister until a 1990s retcon, but still).

In a nutshell... this is a retro throwback with flawless execution.

The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader
by Ryder Windham

This is a Legends retelling of the original trilogy and prequel trilogy from Anakin's/Darth Vader's perspective, with some extra bits at the start. You'd think "what is the point of reading it, then?" but Windham does a good job of connecting the trilogies. Mostly, this works. The pacing is a bit odd at times since some moments are skipped over and others are played in full. I will say that some of Windham's retcons are clumsy (but was there any way to make Splinter of the Mind's Eye jive with a canon that outgrew it in the 1980s? lol); however, the real standout here is the scene Windham wrote for when Darth Vader discovered that the moisture farmers who'd obtained the droids in A New Hope were Owen and Beru Lars. Magnificent.

The Life of Luke Skywalker
by Ryder Windham

This is by far the weakest of the "biographies" that Windham wrote for the Legends canon. It starts out really well, but his decision to avoid rehashing the movies (potentially a good thing) was followed by his decision to devote entire chunks to the old Marvel comics (definitely NOT a good thing). I've only rated it this high because of the scenes where Luke is trying to find out more about his father on Tatooine. Oh, and that gem of a moment, courtesy of Han Solo right near the end.

Tales from the Empire

When I spent my pocket money on this book, back in the 1990s, it was so I could get my hands - and eyeballs - on the Corran Horn stories inside it. I didn't find the other stories all that relevant or interesting. Now, much older and wiser in that I actually read the introduction this time (lol), I can understand my initial reaction. The majority of these tales were inspired by role-playing games and were intended to provide inspiration themselves. I think they might be successful in that way... although not all of them were successful in holding my attention even as an adult.

Come for the backstory stuff (i.e. stories including Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, Thrawn & Corran Horn). Grit your way through the other stuff.

Tales from Jabba's Palace

As is always the case with an anthology, there are hits and there are misses. I do think a couple of these stories could easily have been excised, but there were other, much stronger contenders that made this book worth reading in its entirety.

"A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale" is probably the best... and the Dannik Jerriko one is just pain awful (and amateurish to boot).

Tales of the Bounty Hunters

All the other Tales books I've read before now had many more authors and hence shorter stories. This worked in their favour; if a story wasn't particularly good, at least it was short. Here we have what I would call 5 novellas. It's worth remembering that they were written and published in an era when we didn't know Boba Fett's cinematic origins. Unlike most EU/Legends releases, I had not previously read this one.

First up is IG-88. I wasn't a fan of this one and am glad his fate has been rewritten in the newer canon. As a child, I thought IG-88 was AWESOME... this story made him seem silly. What a pointless death.

Next we have Dengar. It's a weird and unconventional love story, but kind of nice? You really need to read Tales from Jabba's Palace before you attempt this story. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense. Once again, I prefer the Disney canon... particularly when it comes to how Boba Fett survived.

Bossk. You'll need to read a related story in Tales from the Empire first. Or maybe not. Why subject yourself to that? This story just felt so unnecessary. Also... Bossk is so much more fun in the Disney canon lol

Zuckuss and 4-LOM. I have come to LOVE these guys, thanks to the Disney comics. Turns out I love them in the Legends canon as well! What a pair. My clear favourite of the bunch.

Boba Fett. This is not the Boba Fett we know. He's not a clone. He's Jaster Mereel! But even so, this is NOT how I would have wanted him to be characterised in the 1990s. Awful story in every aspect. Refers to events from a story in Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Faulty Merchandise

25/4/2026

Hard Merchandise (The Bounty Hunter Wars #3)
(Star Wars Legends)
by K. W. Jeter

Boba Fett is on the hunt for fabricated evidence that might've been worth more when Prince Xizor was still alive. With him he still has Neelah and Dengar - and they aren't sure if hanging out with Fett is a good idea or not. Meanwhile, Kuat of Kuat tries to keep control of Kuat Drive Yards, intending for them to remain neutral, because of course the Empire will crush the Rebels at Endor. Won't they?

Oh wow. This whole trilogy was frustratingly unnecessary. I laughed out loud when Kodir and Neelah had their confrontation... seriously, why didn't Kodir just kill her? There was no reason to keep her alive, memory wipe or not. And that's just a small issue I had with the whole storyline throughout this poorly constructed trilogy. Did you hear about what's going on at Endor? It was mentioned enough times and, unfortunately, only served as a reminder of this book's glacial pace. Ugh. I feel like my time was wasted. At least Dengar's fate was what I wanted it to be... funnily enough, despite my annoyance with Tales of the Bounty Hunters, I am even more annoyed that Jeter discarded much of it for his own purposes, instead of properly building on those stories.

This might've worked as a single novel. There certainly wasn't enough story to fill three instalments.