Kiss of the Black Flame

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Book: “Kiss of the Black Flame” by Helen Scheuerer

Publishing Info: Atria Books, September 2026

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Saige Grayson has always believed stories could heal—even when her own body refuses to. As the most promising bookbinder in the capital, she’s learned to work through chronic pain and crushing debt, restoring other people’s treasures while trying not to fall apart herself. But when the man she owes decides her rare talent is worth more than her payments, Saige is traded to the Azkari—an immortal race forged by the gods for war—and imprisoned in their ancient stronghold.

Her only chance of survival lies with Archer, a fallen Azkari general imprisoned beside her —cursed, dangerous, and impossible to ignore. He offers her a way out, and in return, Saige must help him retrieve and restore an ancient book. But the book is made of living magic, powerful enough to stop a great evil—or unleash it. And as Saige works with Archer, the tome begins to awaken something dark and dangerous—both in the realm and within her.

As their enemies close in and buried memories resurface, Saige and Archer must decide what they’re willing to their freedom, their fragile trust…or the spark that could ignite the world.

Review: This was a frustrating read. At times, I was really clicking with the general style of writing, the concepts being introduced for this world, and the broad strokes of the characters we were following. But as the story continued, I was equally often thrown out of my reading experience with eye-roll-inducing instalove and weaker world-building moments.

Let’s start with what I did like. First off, the introduction of this world and its characters was very strong, as was the writing in general. I was intrigued by the greater stakes at the heart of the plot, but I also enjoyed the smaller moments, especially early in the story between the FMC and her friends. The idea of a bookbinder as a main character was also incredibly endearing.

Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that these broad-stroke introductions of the world, the magic, and, to some extent, the characters were all that the story was going to have on offer. This was especially egregious with the world-building and the overall stakes. There is a “villain,” yes, but they are absent for large chunks of the story. In theory, there were things happening, but the reader was never given enough information to really feel any sense of urgency or weight to the action happening on the page. As the story continued, I was increasingly lost behind an ever-growing pile of questions about how any of this worked. There were small contradictions sprinkled throughout the entire read, made all the worse by glaring plot holes and conveniences that popped up with increasing frequency.

The romance itself was also incredibly frustrating. The MMC literally gets one glance of her and then is obsessed for years. And then she, likewise, seems to fall in lust within hours of meeting him. Things don’t improve from there. The relationship between them lacked any chemistry, and I struggled to believe that either of these characters could possibly enjoy the other. He was rude and insufferable. And she was a 35-year-old woman who threw tantrums with the best of her teenage non-peers.

However, like I said in the beginning, the actual writing itself, on a line basis, was very strong. I do think the pacing struggled in the middle, and the plotting also was a bit starved. But I would still be interested in checking out another book by this author, simply on the strength of the prose itself. That being the case, I do think there are plenty of readers who will connect with this one more than I did. Romantasy readers in general will likely be pleased, but be warned that “slow burn” this is not.

Rating 7: While the writing itself was strong, the world-building was lacking and the main characters suffered from a pretty bad case of instalove.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Kiss of the Black Flame” can be found on this Goodreads list: We Fire the Darkness And Flame At Night.

Kate’s Review: “Trad Wife”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Trad Wife” by Sarah Langan

Publishing Info: Atria Books, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: From the three-time Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Good Neighbors comes a chilling tale of a journalist’s descent into horror as she uncovers the dark secrets behind a trad wife influencer, blending suspense with a critique of modern femininity and the manipulative forces of social media.

Every day, millions watch Mia Wright, the “trad wife” queen, on her idyllic 300-acre farm. With her handsome husband, seven perfect children, and a life of from-scratch meals and pastoral bliss, she’s an icon of modern femininity. But behind every perfect image is a secret. And in this case, the secret is a horror.

Desperate to save her tarnished career, journalist Jenny Kaplan arrives at Black Swan Farm to profile Mia. Jenny is ready to write a scathing exposé, determined to expose the deception behind Mia’s curated life. But soon, Jenny has more to contend with than staged videos and picture-perfect poses. There’s something wrong at the farmhouse. Something slithers through Jenny’s dreams, and at night, the children sing strange nursery rhymes.

She’s losing time. She’s losing her hair. She starts to worry that she’s losing her mind.

There is a horror at the heart of Black Swan, and it’s waiting just for Jenny. Trad Wife will make you question what’s real and what’s just a perfectly curated deception…

Review: Thank you to Atria for sending me an ARC of this novel!

2026 has been a stand out year for trad wife thrillers and horror. The books “Trad Wife” by Saratoga Schaefer and “Yesteryear” by Caro Claire Burke were both reviewed by me on the blog, and even though now some of the most visible trad wife influencers like Hannah Neeleman and Nara Smith are insisting that they AREN’T trying to promote a trad wife lifestyle (I scoff at this recent walking back from these women because you ABSOLUTELY WERE, I SAW THOSE VIDEOS!) it’s still a popular topic (and there will be more in the next couple of months). And the newest horror novel with a trad wife theme is “Trad Wife” by Sarah Langan, which is my third trad wife horror/thriller book I’ve read this year. And it is also the darkest one yet.

As a horror novel, “Trad Wife” has beats that I would expect from the set up. We have Jenny, a floundering journalist who is desperate to get a big story to save her career, who gets an invite from Mia Wright, a well known and well loved trad wife influencer, to write a large profile piece on her life on her property Black Swan Farm. Since this could be a lifeline, she agrees to meet with her, even though she doesn’t agree with her submissive wife and God first lifestyle she’s peddling to millions of followers. Jenny and Mia meet, and Jenny can tell that SOMETHING is off due to the way Mia behaves and the weird quirks in her videos, but agrees to stay the week to get the ins and outs of Black Swam Farm. As the week goes on, Jenny loses time, loses her hair, and has weird dreams and visions of a creeping doom. The dread takes its time, as Jenny sees more strange things, and learns more about the community and the connection to a string of murders of women that happened centuries before. Langan drops hints throughout the narrative and as things get stranger and stranger for Jenny, the tension tightens and tightens until it lets go in a crazy manner at the end. It’s mostly satisfying, though it will probably be pretty bleak for a lot of readers if they are expecting something more akin to “Yesteryear”.

But it is Jenny that really made this one stand out for me. In the aforementioned books I referenced in this review, the perspectives are from that of the trad wives themselves. But in this one we are following Jenny, a journalist who wrote a break out personal piece that made her a target for right wing violent misogynists, and who is flailing to find her feet again as the publication she writes for starts to crumble and want to cut her to try and appease angry right wingers and mens activists. Jenny is a very complicated and compelling character to follow, as she clearly carries a lot of trauma with her from multiple angles, struggling to keep her job and struggling to keep her life together. Whether it’s being parentified by a negligent mother in her childhood, having to play as on demand support system for the younger sister she raised (with little appreciation or understanding from said sister), or living with a man who became unstable and abusive during a mental health crisis which led to the end of their relationship, she’s been through it. And in a way, she is the exact audience that influencers like Mia hope to rope in because of the idealized life that is being pedaled, if only you submit to God and husband and patriarchy. For someone like Jenny, whose trauma has made her anxious about child rearing and family life, she is both someone you would think would be a terrible choice to do a retrospective on someone like Mia due to her incredibly different ideals and values, and yet a woman like her (who is ambitious, who rejects gender roles of being a mother and submissive wife) would almost be an exotic bird to cage for a far right movement and to use as an example. As Jenny is pulled more into the web of Mia and the forces behind her power, the more horrifying things get because we SEE her being taken in by a being that tries to convince its victims that this situation is, in fact, empowering, when it’s not. And if that doesn’t just sum up the veneer of the trad wife movement, I don’t know what does. It’s difficult and dark and it is incredibly unnerving, and it is a great metaphor for the insidiousness of the trad wife movement and who is pushing it.

On the whole I enjoyed “Trad Wife”! The trad wife themes continue on and they continue to be fresh and interesting in this novel.

Rating 8: The darkest trad wife themed horror/thriller book I’ve read yet, with a slow burn of dread and a searing point to make.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Trad Wife” is included on the Goodreads list “Tradwife Thrillers”.

Not Just Books: September 2026

While we do love us some books, believe it not, we do have a life outside of reading. So to highlight our other pop culture interests, on the last Monday of each month, we each will highlight three other “happenings” from the last month. Big events on favorite TV shows, new movies we’ve watched, old movies we’ve “discovered,” etc. Pretty much whatever we found of particular interest outside of the book world during the last month. Share your own favorite things in the comments!

Serena’s Picks

Video Game: “Ledgerbound”

This is a visual novel, tactical RPG, dating sim full of crude humor and ridiculous companions. It also features a story of a found family of insurance adjusters…I mean, heroes…going on crazy adventures. It sounds like a mess, but I absolutely loved it. The humor will definitely be the make it or break it feature for most players, as the story was the clear priority for the devs. But for such a small, Indie endeavor, I was blown away by the quality of the writing and the voice acting. I also found the brief battle sequences surprisingly challenging at times. It’s hard to even know who to recommend this game to, because it’s so unique. But it was such a fun time that I’m tempted to just say that if any of these elements sound remotely interesting, definitely give it a shot with the demo and see if it clicks! Currently, it seems criminally under appreciated, so I’m making it my personal mission to inform as many people as I can. You’re welcome.

Movie: “The Odyssey”

I have a bit of a hit-and-miss relationship with Christopher Nolan. I’ve really enjoyed some of his movies, but the Batman trilogy, especially the last one, drove me up a wall. “Inception” was great, but don’t get me started on “Tenet.” (My husband has re-watched that last one a few times in some odd effort to convince himself it’s good.) That said, when Nolan is restrained by source material, I think he is often better, and such was the case here. Whatever else you can say about the guy, he knows how to make a movie that is worth the ticket price at the theatre, which is a tough sell nowadays. This was a spectacle in pretty much every way, from sound design, to visuals, to the outstanding performances. It seems like everyone has seen it, but if you haven’t, and it’s still in a theater near you, I think this is one of those movies that really does justify itself as far as making a trip to the cinema goes.

Video Game: “Star Wars: Zero Company”

This is another video game that is out of my usual norms. While I’ve enjoyed other turn based games (coughBG3cough), I haven’t played many true tactics games. But when this one dropped, several of the reviewers I followed all raved about it. Between that and the high production value of the cut scenes I was seeing, I thought I’d give it a go. And it’s been a ton of fun! It’s taken a bit to settle in to the game play, but the story itself immediately sold me on the game. There’s something about the atmosphere of the game, from the voice acting, to the music, to the writing, that immediately draws you in. If you enjoy tactics games at all, I definitely recommend this one!

Kate’s Picks

TV Show: “Psych”

I watched “Psych” YEARS ago when it was on, and I did a rewatch probably ten years ago. It’s not a new show to me. But when Tim Curry died and my heart was absolutely broken I started looking into anything I could watch in tribute. I wanted to save “Rocky Horror” for that weekend at midnight and decided to watch the episode of “Psych” where he played a Simon Cowell-esque reality TV judge. And that led me to start an entire rewatch of “Psych” in the coming weeks because I had forgotten how damn funny it was. It follows Shawn and Gus, two best friends who run a private detective agency where Shawn pretends to be psychic, but is actually just incredibly perceptive and solves crimes that way. It is very 2010s in its humor and sensibilities, but James Roday Rodriguez and Dulé Hill have perfect chemistry as the sardonic Shawn and the neurotic Gus. It’s been fun rewatching a show that is quite humorous and low stakes.

Podcast: “Asking Autistics”

This month signaled the end of a months long process of me getting evaluated for autism, and I wasn’t totally surprised when the results came back as ‘yeah, you totally are’ after a few years of wondering/seeing similar things in my daughter that I see in myself. After getting diagnosed (and also learning that I was NOT ACTUALLY ADHD like I had been told when I was a teenager; THAT was a mindfuck) I decided to look into, what else, a podcast to try and learn more! And I found one that was not only by two autistic people, but two women who are more than happy to discuss their experiences. “Asking Autistics” is hosted by Lindsey and Rebecca, and they talk about being autistic in their day to day lives and what that looks like for them, as well as other topics and how it relates to their autism. They have guests, they have anecdotes, and I’ve found it interesting and a good starting off point while I kind of parse all this out in my own life.

Film: “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”

We all know that I’m a huge slasher film fan! I have an especially special place in my heart for both the “Friday the 13th” franchise and the cult classic “Sleepaway Camp”, both taking place at summer camps and being gore fests that left their marks on the slasher genre (for better or worse, depending on perspective). Clearly this meant that I was VERY interested in seeing Jane Schoenbrun’s new surrealistic horror film “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”. In “Miasma”, a young up and coming queer director has been hired to reboot the infamous “Camp Miasma” slasher series (considered a classic but deeply problematic as time has gone on), and seeks out the original ‘final girl’ actress to the first film who has become a recluse. But the film’s slasher, Little Death, may not be so grounded in fiction. This film is not only a fantastic love letter to 80s slasher films (with SO MANY Easter eggs across the entire genre), it also deconstructs some of the more problematic beats of the genre when it comes to sexuality and gender (especially the transphobic undercurrents of “Sleepaway Camp”, a film that I love but definitely doesn’t age well in regards to Angela’s gender dynamics). Gillian Anderson as final girl Billy Presley is engaging and mysterious and a delight, while Hannah Einbinder as director Kris brings earnestness and awkwardness to the perfect degree. I found it enjoyable and strange and very, very fun.

Serena’s Review: “Vengeful”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Vengeful” by V.E. Schwab

Publishing Info: Tor, September 2018

Where Did I Get this Book: copy from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she’s finally gained the control she’s always sought—and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She’ll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other.

With Marcella’s rise, new enmities create opportunity–and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.

Previously Reviewed: “Vicious”

Review: It’s an interesting experience reading this series for the first time as I am. That is, when the first book came out, people rightly assumed it was a stand-alone. And then many years later, here comes this book and it’s unclear whether it’s just a sequel or carrying over to a third book? Me, now reading the trilogy with the knowledge that it will be a completed trilogy here soon, I’m having perhaps a different reading experience than others. That said, while I think I would have been more frustrated by this book had I read it back when it came out and without the knowledge that there would be a third, I still found this book to be suffering from a rather stifling case of “second book syndrome.”

To start with what continues to work: the general vibe of this world and the new powers/abilities that were introduced. Like the first book, I still am very much enjoying the “dark superheroes” vibe that is going on. In many ways, this is just more of the same: more cool powers and more darkness. I did have a few questions about how certain characters’ abilities worked, but this was definitely one of those books where the general atmosphere was more important than the detailed ins and outs of how the magic system works. That being the case, I was fine treating the fantasy elements as a more “soft magic” system.

That said, when I say this book is more of the same as the first book, I mean that in every way, because in this book we all got even more characters and even more time jumps. Some of these worked ok, but I also think that the story, both in pacing and in overall theme, began to become muddled by the inclusion of all of this “more.” While a few of the new characters were interesting, I felt like it came at the expense of some of our existing characters. People who had been represented as complex and multifaceted began to resemble cardboard cutouts more and more.

One of the strengths of the first book was the interesting exploration of what it means to be a “villain” and the complicated layer of greyness that can be found therein. Here we were given a new character who I think was meant to further expand on this point, but instead, simply fell flat and almost reinforced the more black-and-white nature of the question. I feel like Marcella was supposed to represent some sort of deep thought exercise on misogyny, women, and power. But I don’t think this was successful at all. Marcella was just a villain, pretty much full stop. So any waxing poetic she did on this subject was always seen through the lens of a character who was a pretty clear villain, regardless of her gender, thus watering down any greater commentary on powerful women that was trying to be made.

I also think the overall pacing was harmed by all the constant time jumps and the increased number of cast members whom I was expected to keep track of. I simply began to not care about some of them and feel frustrated by the limited time I got to spend with those I did still have interest in. Beyond this, this book felt a bit directionless with regards to its overall theme. There were some good lines sprinkled throughout, but by the time I got to the end of the book, it failed to come together into a greater point overall. Given the strength of the message in the first book, this was all the more disappointing.

Now knowing that this is a middle book in a trilogy, it’s very easy to see “middle book syndrome” all over this one. Schwab is still a talented author, so I didn’t have a bad time with this book by any means. But had I read this one when it came out, I may have found myself wishing that “Vicious” had remained a stand-alone. We’ll just have to wait and see how the third book ties everything up to see which side I end up falling on for the trilogy as a whole.

Rating 7: A bit of a letdown from the strength of the first book. I still enjoy Schwab’s writing, but this book seemed to muddy the waters of this world and story more than it edified them.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Vengeful” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Can’t Wait Books of 2018 and Villain Protagonist.

Fire’s Catching: “Mockingjay: Part 2”

It’s been eighteen years since Suzanne Collins wrote “The Hunger Games”, the smash hit literary sensation that continues to feel relevant and capture the attention of readers. This ongoing series will be a review series of both the Suzanne Collins books, as well as the film adaptations of the novels. I will post my review on the last Thursday of the month as we revisit the totalitarian world of Panem and the hope of the Mockingjay.

Film: “Mockingjay: Part 2”

Oh good, the film that I’ve been kind of dreading in this revisit to “The Hunger Games” world. It’s not that I dislike the film. I actually enjoy it a fair amount. But it’s definitely the roughest of the series because of how it all ends, and because of that it’s the one that I revisit the least. And when I do revisit it I ALWAYS either skip the scene where the Capitol Children/Prim are murdered in cold blood by Coin’s bombing, or leave the room if my husband is watching with me because heaven forbid we skip any scene in a movie when he is there. But I steeled myself to watch it in its entirety for this series. And I did, but I definitely sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Which I guess means the film did what it was supposed to do!

When this first came out my husband thought that separating it into two parts was merely a cash grab, but I actually appreciate that by separating it we can take our time with some of the things that happen in the second half of the book. We get more time with Katniss and the Nut (I especially like the scene where she is held hostage by a loyalist who is also, clearly, suffering), and we get more time seeing the progression towards the Capitol and the final showdown. We also get to spend more time with other characters and what they are seeing (one of the strengths these movies have always had) as the war continues, whether it’s Snow watching his power slowly slip away as he is surrounded by sycophantic supporters, or Coin and Plutarch scheming (he SEES you, ALMA, HE SEES YOU). I do kind of wish that we had a little more focus on Johanna’s drug abuse and addiction in the wake of her being held prisoner and wounded (I had no clue this was a thing until I read the book), and less time on Gale and Katniss will they or won’t they (ugh, stop kissing him, why is this so emphasized as a potential thing in the films?). But overall the film doesn’t waste too much time and it doesn’t feel padded or like it has a problem with filler. And this is the film that finally starts to really show how villainous Coin is, I imagine to make it feel like a high stakes reveal for the second film as opposed to the first of the two, and while I wish that we had more evidence of how terrible District 13 as a whole is, at least there is finally acknowledgement of it (though it puts a lot of it on Coin when, to me, the entire District is a potential problem in the book).

Jennifer Lawrence is just a masterclass in acting in this one. She has always been good, but I feel like in this one she really captures how physically and emotionally exhausted Katniss is at this point. Gale is becoming more monstrous with every passing moment (I said what I said, I find Gale to be a monster by the end and even though he’s a victim of fascist oppression and violence he is STILL a monster), Peeta is brainwashed and still wants to kill her, and she is surrounded by people who, even if they do care for her (like Haymitch), are using her for their own ends. She has to keep putting herself out there as the Mockingjay, no matter how close it comes to killing her MULTIPLE times, and then she gets thrown back into another boobytrapped arena as the rebels have to maneuver through the Capitol. By the time Prim is killed by Coin and she has to go back to the remnants of 12, Lawrence lets out all of the pain and trauma in a scene that still gets me absolutely sobbing.

As for the other actors, another standout is Josh Hutcherson as he plays Peeta as not only a brainwashed potential liability, but also as someone who is fighting through that and slowly finding his way again and finding his way back to Katniss. He plays it really well when the team is going in the Capitol as it’s hard to tell if his resentment and anger towards Katniss is because of his brainwashing, or his probably justified frustration with how he feels like she’s played him for propaganda and/or survival throughout their two times in the arena. Donald Sutherland as Snow continues to be God tier (particularly the scene in his greenhouse where he tells her that he wasn’t behind the bomb that murdered Capitol children/Prim), Elizabeth Banks as Effie is so tender in this one, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Plutarch is also spot on (so sad that his last scene had to become a letter due to Hoffman’s death). Julianne Moore is also nasty and snakelike as Alma Coin. And as for new faces, we have Gwendoline Christie for about two minutes as Commander Lyme from District 2 (another franchise wasting her talents honestly, LOOKING AT YOU TOO STAR WARS), and then Michelle Forbes (known best to ME as Ro Laren on “Star Trek: The Next Generation) as Lt. Jackson. Jackson is prickly but loyal, and I liked Forbes’s portrayal of a character who isn’t around super long.

Another solid film adaptation! We are now done with the original film adaptations and will move on to “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”. It’s going to be time for, as my friend Michael says, LUCY GRAAAAAY!!! And just to note, my final two film reviews will be posted at the start of November and the start of December, as I have Horrorpalooza starting next week and running through October, and then I need to give myself time to see “Sunrise on the Reaping” when it comes out in late November.

Serena’s Review: “The Ice Beyond”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “The Ice Beyond” by Olivia Wildenstein

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Casablanca, September 2026

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: I had two childhood dreams: to shift into a wolf, and to win Nordin Stormsson’s forbidden heart. My first dream shattered the day my mother confessed I wasn’t a shifter, but a valkyrie—stranded in a land far from my people. My second was crushed when Nordin rejected me…only to claim another as his mate.

Heartbroken, I crossed beyond the wards in search of my birth clan. My freedom came at a cost. Dragons, vampyrs, and enemy wolves stalked me through the dark. They weren’t the only ones who came after me, though.

Nordin came too. He seized me before they could, stealing my body and then my heart. For a time, I dared to dream once more, to imagine a future with Nordin in the land of ice and wolves. Until I uncovered my beloved’s most closely guarded secret.

A truth about my past.

One that ruined us all.

Review: This was a very mixed bag read for me. There were parts that I really enjoyed, and then others that I really struggled to get through. I think the world-building was one of the most interesting parts. Of course, it’s hard to go wrong with Norse mythology and fantasy, and I think the familiar elements from this were used well, as well as some nice twists to things to build a more unique and individual version.

As the story continued, we were given more and more information about this world, and more and more little subplots were added in. On one hand, I was interested in many of these newly introduced aspects of the story, but on the other, it did begin to feel a bit overwhelming, with very little resolution coming to any pieces of the story. There were a bunch of questions left wide open, and at a certain point, this did begin to feel frustrating rather than interesting.

I also struggled to enjoy the main character and the love interest. The main character wasn’t a complete loss, but the author chose to include diary entries and letters written by this character between chapters, and these really didn’t help me connect to her. The tone of voice used by Zas in these written portions was so juvenile, so silly, that I had a hard time keeping it in my head that I was supposed to be reading about a new adult woman. I guess 19 is still fairly young, but if a character is written as a very young 19, it’s always going to give a bit of an “ick” factor to the spicy aspects of the romance. And such was the case here.

Beyond how young she sounded, Zas was frustrating in her focus. She learns she has this entirely unknown history, and while this should be a driving force for her story, instead her inner dialogue and these letters revolve almost exclusively around the romance. I get that this is a hard balance to strike, as this is a romantasy title, so the love story should come first. But be that as it may, something in the balance here between the romance and Zas’s own personal arc didn’t work.

I also didn’t love the romantic interest. Nordin was your typical bossy, possessive romantic lead. He wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it was frustrating watching the entire progression of the romance come down to him just deciding for them both when the romance could or could not happen.

I also didn’t love the first-person, present-tense style the book was written in. However, as this is so common in romantasy, it’s hard to really hold it against this book in particular. I, for one, just want this entire trend to die a quick death, as I think it makes even skilled authors come across as weaker than they are. But plenty of romantasy/romance readers seem to be fine with it or even prefer it, so I’ll likely remain in the minority on this one.

Me and the other hold outs for third person and past tense!

So this was just an ok read. I know this author is fairly popular, and I’m still curious to go check out her older books, as I think the world-building was interesting and there were aspects of the characters I liked. If you’ve enjoyed this author in the past, I imagine this will be for you. Also, if you enjoy most trending romantasy nowadays, this fits in well with many of the other currently popular titles.

Rating 7: The world-building was interesting and I had a whole lot of questions about where things were going. Alas, I didn’t get many answers, but instead had to spend way too much time reading juvenile sounding journal entries.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Ice Beyond” should be on this Goodreads list: Norse Fantasy.

Kate’s Review: “Better Than Revenge”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Better Than Revenge” by Bea Fitzgerald

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, August 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Their feud made them iconic. One decision made them infamous.

After all, where’s the fun in rivalry if there’s no bloodshed?

Nadine Heywood and Harper Moore have been rivals since their first days at drama school, a feud that has consumed them. A feud more passionate, more clawing than the gossip magazines ever note. Hollywood’s It-Girl versus the acclaimed starlet, caught in an obsession that can only lead to one someone’s downfall.

After beating out Harper in every category for best actress, Nadine believes she has finally done it. She’s won – completely and irrefutably. So why are thoughts of Harper still tormenting her? Why doesn’t victory taste at all sweet?

When a knock at her door reveals Harper covered in blood, Nadine realizes this could be the ultimate opportunity to bring her opponent down. Or change them both forever.

With flashbacks to Harper and Nadine’s infamous in-fighting building toward a murder that makes them iconic, and excerpts of an interview with Nadine for Harper’s upcoming true crime documentary, this is a salacious tale of scandal, ego, and infamy about two frenemies who may be more to each other than they would ever like to admit.

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Throughout the years I can think of numerous pop culture/Hollywood based ‘feuds’ between famous women that were rooted in some truth but were probably manufactured to an extent to drum up press and attention. For my elder millennial self I think of Hilary Duff vs Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears vs Christina Aguilera, and Jen vs Angelina, all having a grain of truth but all splashed on gossip sites and magazines to the point that SOME of it had to be made up or at least exacerbated. Probably in part due to misogyny and the constant need to pit women against each other. Hell, even today we see people commenting on modern starlets and who is or isn’t in their photos, or how they stand when near each other. I was thinking about this a bit as I read “Better Than Revenge” by Bea Fitzgerald, as two talented young starlets capitalize on their decades long rivalry, the lines between hate and love blur, and one of them ends up murdering someone and seeks out the other for help. How delightfully seedy! I was, of course, on board.

I will say off the bat that this is less of a thriller and more of a soap operatic character study in fame, jealousy, sexism to an extent, and rivalries and how the public LOVES a good rivalry. Our protagonist is Nadine, a movie star whose entire acting life has been entangled with Harper, a former classmate at theater school who is ALSO a huge star…. and whom Nadine has hated for their entire lives as they have been constantly pit against each other by others AND each other. It’s over the top in its constant needling and cattiness, with both Nadine AND Harper being generally insufferable but also just vulnerable enough that I was invested in their entire soapy journey from rivals to enemies to beyond. It is also an interesting take on the way that Hollywood gossip and fame loves a salacious story that will only bring MORE eyes to a person or topic, and how sometimes people take a narrative and lean all the way into it. It’s not really revelatory that celebrity culture and worship comes with perceived heroes and villains and the public enjoys watching a fight, manufactured or not, but this story is still fun watching Nadine and Harper be completely vicious to each other while they very clearly NEED each other in more ways than one.

I kind of wish there was a little bit more on the thiller angle. We don’t get the aforementioned ‘Harper goes to Nadine whilst covered in blood asking for her help’ until we are more than halfway into the story, and while we do get little sprinkles of hints about it throughout the narrative (mostly in the ‘true crime doc’ description interludes, which I did really enjoy), this is first and foremost a book about two women who will do anything tear the other down but who also are dependent on each other as their rivalry spirals and evolves and creates something passionate and incredibly toxic. It’s fun, but the parts around the murder and the cover up were a bit rushed as the story went on and started cyclings towards its conclusion. It’s fun and entertaining but the murder and the fall out takes a back seat to all of Nadine and Harper’s other drama. Not to say that it isn’t enjoyable, because it is. But if you want more of the murder and less of the Sapphic toxic back and forth, just know it leans more into the latter.

Overall, I found “Better Than Revenge” to be fun and the right amount of soapiness that I enjoy.

Rating 7: Soapy and catty with incredibly compelling and unlikable main characters, “Better Than Revenge” is a bit sleazy (in a good way) and a fun thriller, even if there isn’t much of a mystery to be found.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Better Than Revenge” is included on the Goodreads list “August 2026 Queer Releases List”.

Another Take: Summer 2026

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Don’t just take it from us, other readers like these books, too! And we have decided that we would like to showcase other reviewers and bloggers that have their own thoughts and feelings about books that we have loved. Here are a few of the books we’ve enjoyed recently and what other bloggers have to say about them.

Book: “Hopeless Necromantic” by Shiloh Briar

Book Description: Four years ago, Sikras ‘Catseye’ Nikabod had it all: a beautiful wife, friends and family, and the endless luxuries that came with being the all-powerful necromancer to the queen.

Now, his brother-in-law is a walking corpse, he’s wanted for tax evasion, his oldest friend, Vessik, has slaughtered thousands of the queen’s people with a skeleton army, and his wife is dead. Sort of.

With the kingdom under threat, it’s only natural for the queen to task Sikras with the totally normal, not-at-all-cruel chore of brutally murdering his dearest friend. Sure. Great. It’s not like he already failed to stop Vessik’s reign of terror twice or anything.

Turns out, it’s hard to kill a monster when you can’t stop remembering the good man he used to be. Harder still when you’re pretty sure his descent into madness is kind of, sort of, hypothetically … all your fault.

Raise a glass. Raise the dead. Just don’t raise your hopes.

Serena’s Review (8 Rating)

Lace and Dagger Books (5 Stars)

Book’d Out

The Constellation of Moon (4 Stars)

Book: “The Eye of Leviathan” by M. A. Carrick

Book Description: In an alternate Spanish Golden Age, the Council of the Sea Beyond has risen to unrivaled power, exploiting the Otherworld’s most precious resources for their own gain. Estevan seeks to uncover their secrets, but he risks the exposure of his that he is a faerie, masquerading as a mortal.

The Hungry Girl is the human whose place he took. Lost among the fae and desperate to find some purpose for her existence, she leaps at the chance to help a group of Spanish explorers in the Sea Beyond…only to be horrified at the atrocities they commit.

A faerie pact has separated them– but only together can they bring down Spain’s worlds-spanning empire and save the homes they have both come to love.

Serena’s Review (9 Rating)

The Lily Cafe (4 Cups)

Jam Reads

Realms of My Mind

Book: “Reliquary” by Hannah F. Whitten

Book Description: Sometimes, you just want to belong. When Claire’s fiancé mysteriously dies of an unknown neurological illness, seemingly destroying her chances at the belonging she’s sought, she’s prepared to sink back into the lonely life she lived before. Orphaned by a freak boating accident in her childhood, she never expected to find connection like she did with Elias, anyway. Even if sometimes, that connection seemed more like something he felt obligated to than something he wanted.

Their relationship wasn’t perfect—his coldness, his secrets, his strange aversion to the ocean—but what relationship is?

When Elias’s family reaches out—his incredibly wealthy family, from whom he was estranged—and invites Claire to a wake at their family home on a private island, Claire is given the chance to have connection again. To belong to something, just like she’s always wanted. Just like Elias knew she was desperate to have.

Even if that family is a little strange. Even if their home built partially into the sea stirs up memories of the accident that killed her parents and sister. Even if Ash, Elias’s older brother, seems insistent on Claire leaving as soon as possible.

Claire can’t bring herself to be lonely again. And as the strange circumstances of Elias’s familial connection with the sea becomes more and more apparent, her window for escape is rapidly closing.

Does she even want to?

Serena’s Review (8 Rating)

Winter Is Coming

Bewitching Books, Ravenous Reads (5 Stars)

Movies We Texted About (9 Rating)

Book: “Fabulous Bodies” by Chuck Tingle

Book Description: Fashion influencer by day and grave-robber by night, Poppy Stringer is on call when Eddie Michaels—a flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar and queer icon—unexpectedly dies. All Poppy has to do is retrieve Eddie’s body from the medical examiner’s office, but what starts as a routine delivery quickly goes off course when Eddie wakes up.

Poppy must fight for her life in a blood-soaked night of carnage and fabulous entertainment all across Palm Springs.

Kate’s Review (9 Rating)

Read With Me Sasha Marie

Capes and Tights

Just Read It Already

Book: “It Came From Neverland” by Cynthia Pelayo

Book Description: 1914, Wendy Darling works by day as a school teacher and by night, she assists soldiers who have returned home from the Western Front. There is one mysterious patient who despite all the care they’ve given him, is in a deep sleep, unable to wake up. One night, when he murmurs the words “Peter Pan,” Wendy is thrown back to a darker time, one that she wishes she could forget.

When one of her students goes missing, it brings back memories of when children went missing and were later found murdered in London many years ago. Wendy believes that Peter Pan, the entity that she believed killed those children, is back. She and her brothers had a close encounter with Peter Pan, after all. But her brothers only remember Peter Pan and Neverland as a fantasy of childhood games.

When another child goes missing and signs start to point to Wendy, Scotland Yard digs into old reports, finding that Wendy knew the names of all the children who had been killed. As Wendy tries to prove her innocence, she also has to find a way to stop Peter Pan once and for all.

Kate’s Review (9 Rating)

Books, Bones & Buffy (4 Stars)

Rami Ungar the Writer

Macabre Daily

Book: “Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II” by Shane Hawk (Ed.) & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (Ed.)

Book Description: They’re baaaaaaaaaack!

As any savvy horror fan the monster never truly dies. The team that brought you the bestselling dark fiction anthology Never Whistle at Night has risen, hungry, from the grave to summon more dark delicacies for your delectation. In these twenty-one brand-new, groundbreaking, gruesome stories—authored by both established and newly unearthed Indigenous talent—the contributors are fully embracing both supernatural horrors and the everyday horror of living under colonialist rule.  

Featuring stories of unspeakable yet satisfying terror, from twisted psychological tales to gore-filled monster hunts, this new selection of sinister stories will sate your darkest appetites and leave you slavering for more. Never Whistle at Night, Part Back for Blood is a further celebration of Indigenous survival and the enduring tradition of transforming adversity into art.

Kate’s Review (Rating 9)

The Horror Lounge

A.C. Wise

Rachel, Horror Reader (4/5 Stars)

Serena’s Review: “Scion”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Scion” by James Islington

Publishing Info: S&S/Saga Press, September 2026

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: My job, when you think about it, isn’t so different from a lot of people’s. I have to deal with a ton of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I’m really only clocking in to try and crawl out from beneath my debts.

The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the ‘killing people’ part, I guess, but that’s a them problem: it’s been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realised they had a way to live forever—limited resources be damned—there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent. So someone’s got to do it.

And luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, really good at it.

Still. This next job… I don’t know. It’s something I haven’t had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way.

I’m sure it’ll all go totally fine though.

Review: I was excited to jump into this book when I was offered a review copy by the publisher. I’d heard a lot of great things about this author, but hadn’t gotten around to reading his original series. So, instead, this seemed like a great entry point: a short and sweet sci-fi story in a new world. And, for what it’s trying to be, I had a lot of fun with this book.

A comparison that comes to mind when thinking about this book is Martha Wells’ “Murderbot” series. This is both a positive and speaks to a few of the negatives I felt reading this book. For the positives, the main character here has a unique, snarky voice that very much allowed the book to read at a snappy, quick pace, similar to “Murderbot.” The concept itself is fairly similar, too. While the premise talks about our main character being an assassin, they instead spent much more of their time as a bodyguard for a specific character throughout the story. I had fun with this idea, though I did wish we had gotten a bit more from the assassin angle that had been hinted at in the summary.

For the negative, while I think the voice of this main character was fun, by the end of the book, I still didn’t feel like I really knew much about Azure as a character. Instead, I felt like I knew a lot more about the character that Azure was tasked with guarding. Similarly, while the world was interesting, with hints of dystopian politics and cyberpunk stylization, there were a lot of little tidbits about how this world works that were simply dropped on the reader without much explanation. But, again, the comparison to “Murderbot” works well. There, too, the world and character are only briefly introduced in a short novella, but then the entire concept expands greatly as the series continues. I’m hoping that there will be a similar expansion here.

Like I said, this is a short read, and I did enjoy what we had here. But it did feel like a bit of an incomplete concept. There were hints of greatness in the character, hints of interest in the world, and hints of larger conflicts to come. However, as a self-contained work, it didn’t ever quite reach the highs that I was hoping for. That said, I think there is a lot of potential, and the story definitely ends on a high note with a wide-open door to future books that may expand on some of the weaker areas we had here. If you enjoyed this author’s previous work, I’m sure this will be a hit! And if you’re looking for something that could go the way of the “Murderbot” series, this also might be for you!

Rating 8: Fun, fast, and introducing a whole lot of potential, even if I was left wanting in a few areas for this specific book.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Scion” can be found on this Goodreads list: Best of Cyberpunk

Kate’s Review: “Mazywood”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Mazywood” by Tananarive Due

Publishing Info: S&S/Saga Press, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: When Johnny—a filmmaker and grandson of the famous Black actress Mazelle Washington—brings his family to Mazywood, the secluded California mountain lodge left behind by his grandmother, he expects a quiet retreat. Instead, he uncovers a legacy of rage, secrets, and terror that has haunted his family for generations.

Set primarily in the present day, with haunting flashbacks to Hollywood’s Golden Age, Mazywood explores three generations while following Johnny as he pieces together the true story of his grandmother. As a young Black actress whose career spanned from the 1920s to the 1940s, Mazelle brushed shoulders with giants like Lena Horne, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel. But beneath her public appearance, she carried a secret she had kept and nurtured since she was a child, when a dark wish came true and changed the course of her life forever.

Now, fifty years after Mazelle’s death, Johnny finds himself confronting the truth she buried—and the consequences she left behind. For a monster lurks outside Mazywood, hidden for generations, and Johnny brought his family to its hunting grounds.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing with with an eARC of this novel!

One of the first Tananarive Due stories I read was “Return to Bear Creek Lodge”, a short story that was part of a winter horror collection, and I had my curiosity piqued when I found out she wanted to expand upon that story (and the previous story “Incident at Bear Creek Lodge”). It was a weird and strange tale, and the thought of a full on novel about it was absolutely exciting. Fast forward a few years, and I find myself with her newest novel “Mazywood”. I loved “The Reformatory” so much it was a priority for me this year, and when I looked deeper into it I realized that THIS was the novel that was going to be the expanded lore of Bear Creek Lodge and the weird monster thing that lives in the woods. But not only that! It was also going to be a historical fiction novel following Mazelle Washington, the bitter grandmother from the previous stories who was also an up and coming Black starlet in the Golden Age of Hollywood, whose career was shaped, and destroyed, by racism. I was on board SO FAST.

Much like previous tales set at Bear Creek Lodge, the horror bits of “Mazywood” involve Johnny, the grandson of former movie star Mazelle Washington, who is at her mountainous and isolated estate in winter. But unlike the previous stories, Johnny is no longer a teenager, but a grown man approaching his sixties, who has become a successful filmmaker in his own right. His wife Tasha convinces him to take the family to his grandmother’s estate, long left empty, for a family weekend (but also so Tasha can research Mazelle for a book she plans to write, but ALSO to break the news to their teenage daughters that Tasha is pregnant). Johnny has bad memories of the lodge and his grandmother, but relents, thinking the OTHER memories of a monster have to be just made up from a scared kid’s mind. The horror here is the isolated cabin and the monster for sure, but Due takes us to places that I wasn’t really expecting as the snow comes down, the power goes out, and the family is suddenly in danger of potentially being eaten like others were in the past. We have some great monster moments, whether it’s the fleeting descriptions of the monster from the POVs of our characters, or hints to its presence, but we also have some great familial tension that adds to it (Tasha and Johnny feeling anxious about an unplanned pregnancy, their daughter Imani’s ADHD making itself known at not so good times, Johnny’s trauma about his grandmother bubbling over). I found the suspense top notch and the mystery about the monster well done. And I did find myself misting up at times because of COURSE things can never be so black and white and Due knows how to pluck at the heart strings when some realities are revealed, and that is all I will say about THAT, but just know I was crying a bit on and off.

The real emotional weight and meat of this story, however, is finally getting to follow Mazelle during her rise in Hollywood, and finally finding out how she transformed from wide eyed ingenue to the bitter and cruel elderly woman we knew from the previous stories… as well as her connection to the strange creature. We see how Mazelle was first a child performer with an amazing hook: a terrific (though strange) dog named Scout that could do almost any trick and seems to be completely in sync with her. As Mazelle gets older and still tries to find a big break, the cogs of old Hollywood and its corruption and racism are prevalent at every turn, whether she’s type cast into an incredibly racist caricature of a role, or has to work ten times harder than white performers but with little to show for it, or how she has to contend with criticism from the Black community for conforming when it’s clear that if she wants to make it she has absolutely no choice but to do so. The Mazelle that we have known from the previous stories is bitter and cruel and has created rifts between her and her loved ones that seem too large to cross. But the Mazelle here is so sympathetic and tragic as she deals with racism, misogynoir, humiliation, and sexual violence all the hands of powerful white Hollywood elites who see her as nothing more than a cash cow until she is tapped out. Due paints a stark and biting portait of the shit Black performers had to go through during this time, and also brings in real life people like Hattie McDaniel, Sammy Davis Junior, and Lena Horne to emphasize that this struggle and injustice wasn’t just limited to Mazelle’s youth during the silent era. I really loved seeing the real life people and how they were used to make these points (and I know that Clark Gable was a complete shithead in a lot of ways, but I enjoyed how Due touched on his relationship with Hattie McDaniel because it does seem like they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company).

“Mazywood” is another spectacular horror novel from Tananarive Due! If you haven’t read any of her books yet, you MUST pick this one up (and then go back and read the short stories that preceded it).

Rating 10: A searing story that is part monster in the woods horror tale, part historical fiction examination of racism in Hollywood’s Golden Age, “Mazywood” is a fantastic new book from Tananarive Due!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Mazywood” is included on the Goodreads post “Peek If You Dare: Our Guide to New Horror Books Coming This Fall”.