Serena’s Review: “The Art of Charming a Changeling”

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Book: “The Art of Charming a Changeling” by Sylvie Cathrall

Publishing Info: Orbit, August 2026

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

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

Book Description: On her first day working in the prince’s galleries, art conservator Florrie Hyverfell discovers that the most famous portrait in the collection is not only a fake-it’s also inhabited by Vern, a fairy trapped in the forged painting.

Tracking down the stolen original is the only way for Florrie to save her job and for Vern to escape his canvas. Yet as they journey to a famed fairy museum to find the missing artwork, Florrie finds herself taking more than an art historical interest in the changeling painting’s charming inhabitant.

Review: I know Cathrall’s first duology was a bit hit or miss for some fantasy readers, with people sometimes falling off the slower pacing and verbose style of writing. But I really enjoyed it, especially the epistolary format and the creative world-building that expanded in truly wild directions by the time the entire thing came to a close. That being the case, I was excited to pick up another book by this author, especially as this one seemed to have the trappings of a Regency romance novel as well!

It didn’t quite hit the same highs as the other duology, but I’ll go more into that later. But what it did do right, it did very well. From the start, I remembered why I enjoyed this author’s prose. She has a flowing, whimsical style that somehow elevates these sorts of “day in the life” cozy fantasy novels into a place where I am less likely to get bored. This is obviously a subjective point, but I often struggle with cozy fantasy novels that don’t have much plot balancing things out. And like those, this is very light on the plot. There are pages and pages where not much really happens, but because the author’s style of writing is so lovely, I was more than happy to just sit back and go at this more languid pace.

However, some readers may struggle here if they don’t connect with the writing as well. This is definitely one of those books where the author uses twenty words when one is only needed, and the plot is truly secondary to pretty much everything else going on on the page.

I also really enjoyed the main character, the love interest, and the cast of side characters we met along the way. The main character especially was incredibly sympathetic and compelling, nicely balancing a desire to do the right thing with her own struggles with her role in this kerfuffle and her larger artistic ambitions. The love interest was also lovely, though his niceness also left him feeling a bit one-dimensional at times. As the story went on, more depth was given here, but I did at times wish for a bit more spark beyond the simple golden retriever energy he was giving off. The side characters were also very good, for the most part. There was a cousin, Chary, whom I actively disliked through most of the story, and I’m not sure if that was intentional on the author’s part.

As I mentioned above, while the style of writing carried this book for me, I do think there were a few things missing here that were in the first duology. For one thing, the format in the first book, with characters exchanging letters back and forth, better played into this wordy style of writing. It added a little “oomph” to the proceedings, for lack of a better word. Here, there were times where even I began to struggle with the glacial speed of the plot and the detailed descriptions of almost everything.

Further, I also think that the world-building and general mystery of the first duology also better held up this pacing/style-of-writing issue. There, even if the plot itself wasn’t moving quickly, the reader was constantly learning new things about this world and being fed new little tidbits to piece together the mystery at the heart of that story. This book follows a much more traditional questing plot and is set in a fairly familiar fantasy world, so the slower moments didn’t have these extra bits to fall back on when things began to drag.

That said, I still very much enjoyed my experience with this book. Even with my quibbles, I enjoyed this cozy fantasy much more than I typically do with other books in this subgenre. However, much of this came down to my appreciation of this style of writing, and that might be hit or miss for some readers. If you enjoyed her first duology, though, I think there’s still a good chance you’ll like this book too!

Rating 8: A bit on the slower side, but I still enjoyed my time with this one!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Art of Charming a Changeling” isn’t on any Goodreads lists currently, but it should be on Cozy Fantasy Romance reads.

Kate’s Review: “Heart of Glass”

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Book: “Heart of Glass” by Jennifer Hillier

Publishing Info: Minotaur Books, August 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: A serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a small-town high school girl―and her then-best friends are forced to confront what really happened that night and what’s happening now.

Seaside is a small coastal town, known originally for the local amusement park. But twenty-five years ago, a serial killer dubbed The Carnival Killer confessed to the murder of a local high school girl. Now, he’s recanted that confession.

Barb, Nicolette, and Lorelei were best friends – then they met “Sam” at Wonderland, the local amusement park. After hanging out with him there, and accompanying him to the drive-in movie, where the twenty-something handsome drifter made out with Lorelei in the backseat. That night was the last time Lorelei was seen alive, her murdered body surfacing a couple of days later in a local cranberry bog.

Barb’s dreams of leaving Seaside and becoming a successful writer never materialized and she is a freelancer for the local newspaper and, secretly, writes anonymously about reality tv stars for a hugely successful gossip web-site called Reality Bitch. Specifically, she writes savagely about a long-running show set in Canada called Trophy Wives.

Nicolette left town shortly after Lorelei’s body surfaced, never to return. Ultimately, she married a very rich man, moved to Toronto and rebranded herself as Cole Lennox, one of the stars of Trophy Wives.

With the amusement park about to reopen, revitalizing the dying town of Seaside, the Carnival Killer recants his confession about killing Lorelei, the dead body of young woman washes ashore, and the truth about what happened that night twenty-five years ago – and what is happening now – threatens not only the carefully constructed lives of Barb and Nicolette, but the very fabric of Seaside itself.

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

It felt like it had been forever since a new Jennifer Hillier book had hit the ground, and I, for one, was really missing her thrillers and mysteries (while wholly respecting her writing on her own timeline and not my insatiable need to read her books, of course!). Basically every book of hers I have read I have enjoyed, and after waiting for about four years I was ever so happy to see that her new book “Heart of Glass” was finally coming out. It felt like the perfect read to start the send off of summer, and as I read it and enjoyed it I told myself that I needed to slow down and savor it…. only to tear through it in a couple days. What can I say? I really missed Hillier’s work!

“Heart of Glass” is another woman centered thriller with complicated protagonists and a dark mystery at its heart, which I have come to expect from Hillier and what I always look forward to most about her books. We are following two women in this story, both from Seaside, a tourist trap town with a defunct but soon to reopen amusement park, who share a dark secret from their past that has a link to a notorious serial killer. The first is Barb, who never left her hometown and is now not only a journalist for the local paper, but who also writes anonymous snark reviews of a popular reality show called “Trophy Wives”. The second is Cole, formerly known as Nicolette, who left Seaside as fast as she could after their friend Lorelei was murdered and reinvented herself into a trophy wife, who happens to be on the show Barb reviews. Both of them are haunted by their friend Lorelei’s murder, which was assumed to be killed by a notorious serial killer, who is now recanting his confession… which means Barb and Cole’s long held secret may be in danger of cracking open. It is SUCH a great hook, and I greatly enjoyed both of their perspectives, as messy, complicated, and traumatized as they were. Both Cole and Barb were such great characters, and I was wholly on their sides and cheering them on even if at times they were making TERRIBLE decisions. There is just enough messiness if them that their storylines were incredibly soapy, but then very upsetting at the same time as we slowly see what they were both going through on the night Lorelei was killed, and how these girls were changed forever into the walking disasters we see in the present day. I just loved them both.

As for the mystery, there are a few going on at the same time, which makes the read both deeply addictive, but also sometimes muddled. But muddled as it was, with some kind of wild reveals and some aspects that felt unexplored, it still reads incredibly fast, and I had a lot of fun with it. I figured out a few of the twists pretty early, but there were also a couple that did legitimately catch my off guard. I also liked the way that we jumped back and forth from the past and present to get a fuller picture, as well as seeing the transcripts from the interview that the Carnival Killer gives as he recants his confession. It has a lot of different storytelling devices and they all worked pretty well.

“Heart of Glass” was a fun breezy thriller that I definitely enjoyed. It was a great end of summer read and thriller fans, rejoice, because Jennifer Hillier is BACK.

Rating 8: Another fun and suspenseful thriller from Jennifer Hillier! “Heart of Glass” has suds, lots of twists, and some flawed but easy to root for heroines.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Heart of Glass” is included on the Goodreads blog post “Readers’ 60 Most Anticipated Fall Books”.

Diving Into Sub Genres: Liminal Horror

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We each have our own preferred genres of choice. Kate loves horrors and thrillers, really anything that will keep her up at night! And Serena enjoys escaping through hidden doors into realms of magic and adventure. We also read mysteries, historical fiction, graphic novels, etc. etc. And that’s not even counting the multitude of sub-genres contained within each greater genre. In this series, one of us with present a list of our favorites from within a given sub-genre of one of our greater preferred genres.

This past summer I ended up with a free morning as my husband took my daughter to her soccer practice/scrimmages , so I decided to check out the film “Backrooms”. I ended up enjoying it and the weirdness of the mysterious ‘backrooms’ of a furniture store taking over a man’s life and then that of his therapist as he drags her in, making it her problem as well. I did kind of wish, however, that we didn’t really get an ‘explanation’ to what the ‘backrooms’ was, as for me it was far creepier when it just WAS, and didn’t have rhyme or reason. When we don’t know what it is, that’s part of the terror! When you try to explain it, the weird unexplained menace kind of gets defanged at least a little bit, and it made me not as creeped out as I probably would have been if it just was there and we never understood why (I have the same gripe with the film “Us”, though I do really like that movie). It also got me thinking about ‘liminal horror’ as a subgenre, and how it finds ways to get under my skin.

Liminal horror is a subgenre that has to do with a building unease in an otherwise ‘familiar’ space that has been altered in some way, usually abandoned or bastardized from what we would expect the space to serve. Think empty malls, or strange rooms or mazes, or places that seem to go to nowhere even though they seem like they should have some kind of beginning and end. It’s more of an uncanny valley and slow burn of wrongness that grates and quietly builds and finds the horror there. I quite enjoy it when it’s done right. And since “Backrooms” was a pretty big hit this summer I thought it would be fun to list some books that fit in the liminal horror subgenre, just in case others liked it and want a readalike!

“House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski

Okay, ADMITTEDLY this is a bit of an undertaking of a book and kind of a wild one to start off with, but this, to me, is one of the ultimate liminal horror novels. And it is an incredibly complicated book with layers and layers of psychological unease, with multiple stories within stories like a relentless stacking doll that will either completely capture a reader, or make them tear their hair out. The true heart of this book, putting aside the footnotes, the weird scribblings, the format changes, and all the other crazy tangents it takes you on, is a family moving into a new home on a quiet street. But once they move in, they realize that something is off about the house. Somehow, impossibly, the house is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And as they try to explore and figure out why, things slowly start to spiral completely out of control. And yes, there are other narrators who are finding these stories and there are other stories on top of that and it’s incredibly wild, but the thoroughfare tale is a weird house that shouldn’t be possible. The entire book took me a long time to read, and it took a lot of patience, but ultimately I found it got completely under my skin and I kept it in my head long after I turned the last page.

“Horrorstör” by Grady Hendrix

This was the first Grady Hendrix book I read, and it was quite the introduction to who is now a very in demand horror author. And while “Horrorstör” doesn’t break a top three Hendrix book for me (maybe top five?), it’s a really enjoyable horror story with a creepy furniture store and unassuming employees who get in a bit over their heads when they are tasked to stay overnight to keep an eye out for strange happenings. Furniture stores after closing hours are creepy enough, but the employees find some weird things as the night goes on, and realize that not only is the IKEA like business SUPER haunted, it is also built upon the shell and land of an abandoned prison, and a long vanished mental asylum and the ghosts of the inmates are pulling them in and don’t want to let go. One of the most fun things about this book is the design, as it looks like an IKEA catalog, and even has advertisements…. that get more and more uncanny and creepy as the story goes on.

“The Babysitter Lives” by Stephen Graham Jones

I had to include one of my favorite horror authors on this list, so how lucky that Stephen Graham Jones has a creepy and liminalesque horror tale in “The Babysitter Lives”. We follow Charlotte, and teenage babysitter who is hired on Halloween night to babysit two children. Seems easy enough, but Charlotte starts to realize that not only are the charges a little strange, the house itself is perhaps not what it seems. Especially since the kids keep talking about a beanbag portal, and apparently this house was the site of a violent crime years earlier. This one has a weird alternate house, a portal that captures people and spits them into nightmarish scenarios, and a deeply unsettling slow build of dread as Charlotte is pulled further and further from where she is supposed to be and deeper and deeper into a strange other world and other timelines. It’s surreal and heart pounding, and just another great story from Jones.

“The Staircase in the Woods” by Chuck Wendig

Way back in the day Reddit used to have creepy stories about staircases that were randomly deposited in national parks, and I kept thinking about that as I read the book “The Staircase in the Woods”. But while those stories on Reddit stayed pretty much in the woods, Wendig’s story of childhood friends reconvening in the same woods their friend disappeared in years before after climbing up a mysterious staircase goes one step further: Beyond the staircase and what is found once you reach the top. I didn’t know what to expect of this one when I picked it up, but MAN, it really goes crazy from there with weird rooms, hallways, creatures, and a desperation to get out with no obvious way out in sight. Wendig can do horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, and he kind of gets to mix it all in this one with some really creepy staircases and some really complicated characters.

“The Hollow Places” by T. Kingfisher

If you are looking for a kinder gentler horror author but one who still knows how to craft a great and creepy story, T. Kingfisher is definitely a great choice, and her novel “The Hollow Places” brings her trademark creepy but not too upsetting take on horror to the liminal space. A woman named Carrot (it’s a nickname) has left her marriage and returns to her hometown and reconnects with her eccentric uncle, who happens to have a taxidermy and other oddities museum. One day while tending to the museum, she finds a hallway that shouldn’t be there, and finds that it takes her to another plane. Or multiple other planes. But while exploring these strange new worlds and the weird in betweens she encounters, there are darker things that could come out of the space and cause some real problems. Kingfisher always has fun stories, and this one is no different while also creating some weird uncanny worlds and spaces.

“Parachute” by Holly Rae Garcia

And now one that isn’t as well known but I read and really liked a few years ago: “Parachute”! What if a liminal horror story didn’t involve backrooms, weird houses, strange hallways, or staircases in the woods….. but a gym class parachute? A group of friends are about to leave high school for new pastures and are feeling nostalgic and nervous and decide to break into their elementary school gym for one last hurrah. They find a parachute and start to play…. but it transports them from weird place to weird place, and things get more and more dire and dangerous with each toss of the fabric. It is SUCH a creative idea, and it was one that just had me grinning from ear to ear as I read it while also being wholly unnerved by the very concept of it all. It’s definitely one of the most creative liminal space horror stories I’ve read, and I hope that more people check it out.

Serena’s Review: “A Trade of Blood”

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Book: “A Trade of Blood” by Robert Jackson Bennett

Publishing Info: Del Rey, August 2026

Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley!

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

Book Description: In the canton of Sapirdad, two of the Empire’s most powerful families are moments away from going to war with each other, their hundreds of retainers gathered with swords drawn. If blood is spilt, the whole of the empire may be plunged into starvation and chaos.

To de-escalate matters, someone must do the impossible: prove that one family’s eldest son is innocent of a gruesome and unforgivable murder, despite the incontrovertible evidence against him.

It is with this undertaking that the great detective Ana Dolabra is tasked, her assistant Din at her side—and the two find themselves racing with great speed and little dignity to the scene.

As ever, the impossible proves little obstacle for the deadly combination of Ana’s intellect and Din’s keen eye, and mere hours after riding into the dusty town, Ana glimpses the greater pattern behind the crime. A deeper, subtler web of death is being woven in plain sight, by a mastermind with an ancient magical technology at his disposal.

But even Ana’s uncanny insight is of little use when each new suspect she uncovers ends up dead–with each new killing calculated to bring tensions between the two rival clans past the boiling point. And as Din pursues their adversary through the canton’s wild ranges, sprawling ranches, and reeking slaughterhouses, he finds his loyalties divided in unexpected ways.

Previously Reviewed: “The Tainted Cup” and “A Drop of Corruption”

Review: Per the usual with this series, I finished the last page of this book and had to just sit for a bit. Partially to think through some of the deeper themes discussed in the story and how they relate to our world (this one deals heavily with food and the food industry, as well as the economy of labor), yes. But also partially to try to cope with the sheer amount of body horror that I’ve exposed myself to once again!

Like the other books in the series so far, the story starts out with Ana and Din traveling to another area of this realm and, of course, needing to solve some new horrific murder mystery. I really enjoy this general setup for the series, as this land itself and its half-forgotten history are so unique and veiled in mystery (even to the people who inhabit it) that this traveling setup really allows the story to expand into various corners of this world. Here, we’re further in from the wild and dangerous outer realms and instead focusing on the wealthier and more comfortable parts of society. But while they don’t need to worry about the massive beasts that accost this land so regularly, there is darkness beneath this sheen of civility.

This book in particular dealt with two feuding families who built their wealth around ranching, essentially. The murder itself is almost secondary to unpacking the disturbing elements that go into the way these two families operate and the way their businesses have been built. I don’t want to go into too many details, as there are quite a few surprises throughout, but the story quickly introduces some pretty horrific concepts. And even though you can see some of it coming, it’s one of those situations where you can’t look away. Instead, I was quickly turning pages in some sort of inner sick quest to finally see it all play out!

But while this original setup is the foundation, like in the first two books, by the time we get to the back third, the scope of the situation has expanded into the greater mysteries and history of this world. Even though it came late, I really enjoyed these later reveals and how they connected to Ana especially. There was also some great lore revealed about the history of this world, and I’m excited to see where some of it may go in future books!

Din, of course, as the main character, was also fantastic as always. We’ve had bits here and there about his past and family situation, but this book dives much deeper into them. I enjoyed learning more about him through these new perspectives. We also get a new layer exposed of his abilities. It’s only brushed upon here, but the foundation was definitely laid for new trials and tribulations in this arena.

There was also a fantastic set of side characters and potential suspects. I thought this book was a bit easier to piece together as far as some of the forefront dynamics went. But again, the book adds a late-game twist that does add a new and more unexpected layer to the entire mystery.

Overall, if you’ve enjoyed the first two books in the series, this is more of the same in the best way possible! Definitely check it out!

Rating 9: The horrors of family dynamics are only the tip of the iceberg in this terrifying new entry in the Din and Ana mystery series by Robert Jackson Bennett!

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Trade of Blood” is on this Goodreads list: Can’t Wait Sci-Fi/Fantasy of 2026.

Kate’s Review: “Ghost Wall”

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Book: “Ghost Wall” by Sarah Moss

Publishing Info: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 2019

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it

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

Book Description: In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age.

For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie’s father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.

The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?

A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the “primitive minds” of our ancestors.

Review: Every once in awhile I try to do a tidying up on my Kindle and pick a book I haven’t read yet that has been stagnating and read it. It’s probably no surprise that I have a tendency to get books and then kind of forget about them. During my most recent check in, I remembered that I had the book “Ghost Wall” by Sarah Moss, which caught my eye a couple years ago but then I never picked it up. I decided that it was high time to rectify that, and jumped in, devouring it in one sitting.

Now it’s partially true the ‘one sitting’ circumstance was because this is a novella, but “Ghost Wall” also kept me at rapt attention because of the slow burn build up on unease to discomfort to absolute frayed nerves. We follow Silvie, a teenage girl whose father, due to his eccentric and strict need to make his family live the way an Iron Age family would, is accompanying her father, mother, and a group of University students and their professor on an immersive field trip to ‘live like the Iron agers would’. From the very start we know that something is wrong with this family dynamic, as Silvie is always trying to remain small and unobtrusive while her mother is straight up terrified, and as we learn more about their history and her father’s control of his wife and daughter we soon realize that this is a very dangerous situation at hand. Add in academic outsiders who don’t realize the danger and the actual obsession that this man has, ESPECIALLY if they are women, and Silvie becomes more and more on edge as her father pulls more and more men from the expedition under his spell due to his ‘knowledge’ and manipulative prowess. As we charge towards the climax, the reader just feels like something dreadful is going to happen and it pulls itself so tight it could violently snap at any time. I was both scared to see how it would all end, but also needed to know.

But it’s also an interesting critique on toxic masculinity, power, and how history is held up as a pinnacle of a purer time for incredibly sinister reasons. For the professor and the students all of this is theoretical and they can separate themselves from it to an extent. For Sylvie and her mom they have to live with a man who is violent, especially when he feels disrespected and powerless, and who forced them into this role because he HIMSELF felt powerless and became obsessed with finding it anywhere he could, i.e. through a patriarchal Iron Age family structure (but like so many regressionists who love ‘the good old days’, it is more based on misogyny and racism than anyhting else). As we see more and more people start to become very invested in building a ‘ghost wall’, the academics and the psychopathic family abuser alike start to become more and more unhinged, and while it’s almost certainly a message of ‘in some ways humans aren’t so different from a more ‘primitive’ time’, I also thought it was a message about who gets power and who gets put in positions of power, sometimes to the detriment of others. I quite enjoyed that aspecf of this book.

My only qualm is that the ending feels a little rushed and maybe a little to neat. I didn’t need it to be super complex or muddled, but it did make me go ‘well… that’s pretty convenient’. Not a huge ding, but one I wanted to mention.

Overall I’m glad I finally read “Ghost Wall”! It’s fast and deeply unsettling, so if you are looking for a quick horror novella that will suck you in, give it a whirl!

Rating 7: An unsettling build up of suspense about walls, human nature, and what defines a primitive society (and how perhaps modernity doesn’t preclude us from that).

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ghost Wall” is included on the Goodreads list “Horrortok”.

Serena’s Review: “The Shadows That Listen”

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Book: “The Shadows That Listen” by Louisa Carmody

Publishing Info: Orbit, August 2026

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

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

Book Description: It’s been five years since the world was brought to its knees by an immortal war. Daemons crawled from the depths of hell and the sky bled gold as the angels arrived. Humanity thought it was saved, but the angels did not come to protect us.

Amara is a human warrior working for the Angel Intelligence Agency. She spends her days searching for those who don’t make it home after curfew. But when her boyfriend Jeremy goes missing, she decides to venture into the shadows to bring him back. Even if it means death.

Nathaniel is an archangel tasked with leading the destruction of humanity, for which he cares little. He doesn’t have time to protect little humans running around in the dark, especially those who stab him in the stomach.

But Nathaniel and Amara will soon realise they share a foe, one that lurks in the shadows and stalks them from the skies. She might long to kill him, but Amara knows that having an angel at her side is the only way to find the man she loves.

The shadows lengthen. They listen. Who will survive the night?

Review: I’ve always felt like fantasy books have been sleeping on angels. We have a bunch of demon stuff, but, as “Supernatural” proved, you can make angels just as badass as demons, if not more so! I also missed the train on “Angelfall,” which is one of the more popular angel series that currently exists. But I heard some comparisons being thrown around between these two books, so I thought I might get another chance at this sort of book with this series. Well, let’s just say the comparisons aren’t warranted, because this was a pretty big disappointment for me.

Honestly, there wasn’t much I liked about this one. I would say that the general idea was interesting, but, like I said, angels seem to be an untapped paranormal being in the current fantasy landscape, so their inclusion was always going to make this one stand out from the crowd. I’ll also say that this is one of those easily digestible romantasy reads that I know clicks with a lot of readers out there. The distinction between romantasy and fantasy romance is a big one, and I know that I fall more into the latter category. So this one, playing more toward romantasy (romance is the primary focus, fantasy secondary), was always going to be a bit of a tougher sell for me. However, readers with a strong preference for romantasy books and their current trends will likely connect with this one better.

But even still, this book was simply not well written. No other way to put it, really. From a technical standpoint, I’ve seen worse. But even on a line-by-line basis, it lacked any sense of voice or style, feeling flat and mechanical more often than not.

The worst sins of the writing came with the characterization, however. And, since characterization is king for me, this was a true enjoyment killer. The characters simply didn’t make sense. The world is set up in a very specific way, with a very specific dynamic between angels and humans. And yet, from the start, our main leads do not behave as if this is the case whatsoever. It’s one thing to have an almost all-powerful being come to appreciate those they have seen as beneath them and reflect on their own errors, eventually coming to a place where they are capable of forming a true connection with someone they would have historically seen as beneath them. But this wasn’t that. This was a being whom we were told saw humans as insects who immediately treats the heroine as anything but that, flirting away and in every way behaving as if she is not only worthy of any attention, but extra attention. Beyond that, this main romantic lead was simply boring. You know everything you need to know about him from the first introduction.

The same can be said of Amara. She’s exactly the sort of fantasy lead you’ve seen a million times before, especially in urban fantasy: feisty, seemingly competent, and the dreaded “not like other girls.” For all of her spunk, we’re never really given any reason that she should stand out to a being like Afriel. If anything, more often than not, Amara’s actions and choices don’t make a lick of sense.

The entire thing was boring, predictable, and, believe it or not, pretty cheesy. The dialogue was clunky, with characters randomly dropping tons of lore into responses in a context that makes no sense (the character to whom they’re speaking would already know this information, for example). And there were so many clichés it was almost a joke. Look, I’ve read some great paranormal romances. In fact, I’m right in the middle of reading Ilona Andrews’ “Burn for Me” trilogy and am absolutely loving it. Spunky heroines and overpowered love interests can work. But here, the author didn’t seem to have anything new to say and relied too heavily on tropes and clunky delivery to get her story across. Even for romantasy fans, I think there are better options out there that deliver on this same concept.

Rating 5: Not for me. Too many tropes, clichés, and poor characterization to really make any sort of impact other than an eye roll.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Shadows That Listen” can be found on this Goodreads list: Dystopias I Would Like To Make An Exception For.

Kate’s Review: “If We Survive the Night”

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Book: “If We Survive the Night” by Jo Salazar

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, 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: It’s kill or be killed in this heart-pounding apocalyptic horror. The first book in a new series, If We Survive the Night combines the ruthless zombie perils of The Last of Us with the every-woman-for-herself angle of Yellowjackets. What type of person does it take to survive the end of the world?

Sixteen-year-old Quinn is used to being told that what she feels inside isn’t quite right. After getting kicked out of multiple foster homes and narrowly escaping juvenile detention, she’s undergoing therapy at a residential treatment center for “troubled” girls. Looking for a night of freedom, Quinn sneaks onto the roof with her best friend Keisha, and what she sees changes everything…

She witnesses the start of the zombie apocalypse.

As zombies, or “carriers” as the news calls them, infiltrate the treatment center, escape becomes crucial. Quinn and Keisha make a pact to leave together, but several unexpected complications screw up their plans.

As the girls battle the carriers and wrestle with their doubts about each other, Quinn realizes she has never felt more alive. Maybe this is exactly the kind of world she was built for. And part of thriving in this cutthroat environment means cutting off the dead weight – even if that means putting other lives at risk…But even if she’s willing to sacrifice everything, can anyone really outlive the apocalypse?

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

It has honestly been a bit since I read a straight up zombie apocalypse story. I think that zombies kind of cooled off after they were basically everywhere, but we are starting to see a bit of a resurgence with “The Last of Us” and the “Walking Dead” spin offs we’ve seen as of late. I enjoy zombies but hadn’t dabbled in a bit, and when Jo Salazar’s book “If We Survive the Night” ended up in my mailbox I was ready to jump back in. I had certain expectations going in, as it’s a zombie story and it’s YA, but this one actually ended up surprising me in mostly good ways.

As a zombie apocalypse novel it hits all of the beats the sub-genre needs to hit, but finds freshness in the perspectives at hand and by focusing on teenage girls who are all suffering from various mental health issues and have been in a treatment facility for them. Having not only girls but teenage girls be the center of the story was a really compelling choice, and all of them having various mental health problems made for other conflicts that complicated the whole situation even more. We have teenagers who are already vulnerable enough by their age and their gender, and then you add in things like impulsivity, dysregulation, rigid thinking, and violent tendencies and that makes them all the more unpredictable in an incredibly dangerous situation, and Salazar isn’t shy to show how these kinds of difficulties can play out. It’s also pretty frank with how difficult it can be for people to interact with people with these kinds of issues, especially when they aren’t receiving the supports and treatments that they need or are being pushed away and silenced.

Which leads me to the aspect of this book that worked the best for me, which is the fact that our main character Quinn is a complete psychopath who is learning that she can absolutely THRIVE in the zombie apocalypse because of her complete lack of empathy. We meet Quinn with her fellow inpatients at the treatment center, and she is clearly troubled but somewhat held back because of being in the program. But when the ‘carriers’ as they are calling them start to overrun society and end up at the facility (and we have little explanation as to what has caused it to happen, but hey, that’s probably fairly realistic), Quinn starts to calculate who would be a good ally to have and who would be a liability, and starts to cull the herd with glee. It is such a great choice because so often in zombie apocalypse fiction we see good people not only trying to outlast and outrun zombies, but also outrun dangerous people while ALSO trying to hold onto their humanity. But Quinn? Quinn is more than happy to shed that part of her and really lean into her violent and psychopathic tendencies, and that makes the story all the more compelling, even if following her became more and more grating because of how terrible she can be. It is like if instead of following Rick Grimes “The Walking Dead” instead decided to put a spotlight on The Governor and had us follow HIS POV. It’s so daring and unique, and deeply disturbing at times as well. I don’t know how amped I am to keep following Quinn, as this is definitely a set up for a series, but props to Salazar for going there with this character, especially for a YA audience.

“If We Survive The Night” is fun and quick! It’s been a bit since I’ve picked up a zombie story and this one was a nice revisit to the sub-genre!

Rating 7: A fun new zombie apocalypse novel with a protagonist that feels more like a Governor than a Rick (if you know you know), “If We Survive the Night” is unique and gory zombie horror.

Reader’s Advisory:

“If We Survive the Night” would fit in on the Goodreads list “Zombie Apocalypse Books”.

Book Club Review: “As I Dream of You”

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We are part of a group of librarian friends who have had an ongoing book club running for the last several years. Each “season” (we’re nerds) we pick a theme and each of us chooses a book within that theme for us all to read. For this blog, we will post a joint review of each book we read for book club. We’ll also post the next book coming up in book club. So feel free to read along with us or use our book selections and questions in your own book club! This season’s theme is books with specific colored covers where we all drew a color and matched it with a book.

Book: “As I Dream of You” by Jennifer Lee & LeUyen Pham (Ill.)

Publishing Info: First Second, May 2026

Where Did We Get This Book: Kate owns it

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

Prompt Color: Blue

Book Description: Franny and Sam are each other’s entire world. So what do you do when your world ends? Frozen’s Jennifer Lee and Lunar New Year Love Story’s LeUyen Pham deliver a tour de force young adult romance with a supernatural twist.

Falling in love is supposed to hurt. That’s what Franny and Sam, two cynical teenagers raised on tales of heartbreak and loss, have come to understand. Yet when they fall for each other, they find the reality of love is something else it’s electrifying, all-encompassing, and easy. Theirs is a love that can conquer anything…perhaps even death.

But Franny and Sam’s quest to stay together—no matter the cost—soon blurs the line between reality and fantasy, and their shared dream threatens to turn into a nightmare.

Kate’s Thoughts

While I’ve been a Greek Mythology fan for practically my entire life, I highly enjoy Greek Myth retellings/reimaginings (given how much I’ve praised “Lore Olympus” on this blog the past few years this is probably not shocking). I’m always looking out for new ones, but I hadn’t heard of “As I Dream of You” by Jennifer Lee and LeUyen Pham until it was picked for Book Club. I don’t know if it’s because the Orpheus and Euridyce myth has never been a top myth for me, or because I just wasn’t as in touch, but I was definitely down to read it when I realized what it was.

And while it’s not a direct retelling/reimagining, the themes are there, and I thought that it was a nice foundation for the broader story at hand. After all, the heart of Orpheus and Euridyce is grief and the inability to let go. We have Sam and Franny, two teenagers who have difficult home lives but find love, passion, and companionship in each other. But after a fatal car accident separates them, they realize that they can see each other again through lucid dreaming, and keep running to each other, unable to let go, even though it becomes more and more dangerous as they hop between their worlds. The original myth definitely has themes, but I did like how Lee finds ways to tweak it and take it to places I didn’t expect. It’s emotional and incredibly sad, and I really enjoyed the themes of grief and trauma and being unable to stop looking back at the what ifs and the loss.

And I loved the artwork by LeUyen Pham. The use of colors were haunting and fit the theme perfectly, and I liked how before the accident things were uniform but still had splashes of color, but then after it was far more subdued and solemn as Franny and Sam were desperate to reconnect by doing so was causing damage and decay. I have seen Pham’s artwork before, but I feel like this was her at her very best. This just captured all of the emotions perfectly.

I enjoyed “As I Dream of You”! If you like Greek Myth retellings, seek it out.

Kate’s Rating 8: A bittersweet and aesthetically lovely reimagining of Orpheus and Euridyce with themes of love and grief and the inability to let go.

Book Club Questions

  1. What did you think of the art style in this book? Did you feel like it matched the tone?
  2. The Orpheus and Euridyce myth is a huge theme in this book. Once it was set up did it play out in the way that you expected it to?
  3. Did the nurse character that Sam meets over and over work for you? Why or why not?
  4. What did you think of the astral projection and astral plane and how it changed as the story went on?
  5. Do you feel like the two brother characters that Franny and Sam meet played an important part of the story?
  6. Have you every done lucid dreaming or had any other strange dream experiences?

Reader’s Advisory

“As I Dream of You” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Graphic Novels of 2026”.

Next Book Club Pick: “The Unicorn Hunters” by Katherine Arden

Serena’s Review: “Immortal Rose”

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Book: “Immortal Rose” by Alexandra Bracken

Publishing Info: Avon, August 2026

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

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

Book Description: Members of the ancient House Rosebourne have a strange gift born of a fairy ancestor: the ability to infuse fragrance with magic capable of manipulating mind, body, and emotion.

When a shocking murder leaves the kingdom of Albion vulnerable to a coup, royal spymaster Hugh Thornton seeks the one person who can help: Viola Lockwood, the last living Rosebourne and secret heir to a fraught legacy.

Livid at the silver-eyed aristocrat who had her thrown in jail to force her compliance, Viola nevertheless comes to an agreement with him. In exchange for crafting Immortal Rose, the singular perfume capable of saving Albion, illegitimate Viola can seize the life—and fortune—that should have been hers.

As Hugh and Viola race to find the perfume’s lost fairy ingredient, hidden deep in Albion’s dark underbelly, neither can deny the scorching attraction building between them—especially as the attempts on Viola’s life grow increasingly brazen.

But a terrible truth lurks in the heart notes of their kingdom—and while every bargain has a cost, Immortal Rose may demand more than Hugh and Viola can ever pay.

Review: Often when I talk about pacing, it’s in a negative light. But this book was one of those nice examples of pacing done right. What’s more, it was pacing done right across many aspects of the book, including individual character arcs, the romantic arc, as well as the world-building and storytelling itself.

To speak to the pacing in regard to the story and the world-building, I enjoyed the way the author introduced this world. Through some very clever early scenes, the reader is fed a boatload of world-building information, from how the magic of this world works, to the hierarchies at play within it, all the way down to some basic logistics about the sort of fantasy world this is (seems obvious, but I’ve read fantasy novels where I go in assuming it’s a high fantasy world and then am surprised around the 25% mark by some random mention of jeans!).

But all of this information is doled out carefully through a mix of dialogue, inner thought, and description, avoiding long info dumps. What’s more, the author does a good job of sprinkling in action throughout, so even while the reader is being inundated with new information, the story still feels lively and that things are happening at a steady pace.

I also really enjoyed the pacing of the character development. We aren’t told everything that drives the characters from the start, and instead must peel back layers as the story continues to discover what depths they contain. Notably, neither character is a perfect individual, and we see them grow and change over the course of the story.

This is particularly the case with the development of the romance. These two do not meet under the best of circumstances, and the story doesn’t rush the slowly changing feelings between them. It’s a true slow-burn romance, and part of it hinges on the characters reevaluating both themselves and their actions, as well as the other person. It made the payoff when things come together toward the end all the better.

That said, there were a few moments where I struggled a bit with the way plot points played out. There were times where characters behaved in ways that only made sense because the story needed to hit some particular beat. These were always frustrating to see, as so much of the rest of the book felt tightly written.

Overall, however, I enjoyed this read! I thought it was a refreshing example of a true slow-burn romance, and I appreciated the time and thought that the author put into the development of these characters and this world. Nothing felt like cardboard cutouts (either characters or plotlines) that are simply there to get the story to check off certain trope lists. Definitely give it a go if you’re looking for a more polished romantasy read!

Rating 8: A great example of a romantasy novel that commits to a true slow-burn love story!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Immortal Rose” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Regency Romantasy and whimsical romantasy books.

Kate’s Review: “The Night Mother: Volume One”

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Book: “The Night Mother: Volume One” by Jeremy Lambert & Alexa Sharpe (Ill.)

Publishing Info: Oni Press, October 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received a copy at ALAAC26

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

Book Description: Endless night befalls a sleepy seaside town, leaving it to young Madeline Tock to save her community from a threat known only as the Night Mother . . .

The moon is stuck like a broken clock in the midnight sky, the sun a distant memory. No one in this quiet seaside town can remember how long this unnatural darkness has lasted. No one, that is, except for the curious girl who lives in the graveyard, caring for the dead: twelve-year-old Madeline Tock. In gratitude, the departed whisper their worries to her, sounding just like her overprotective but loving father: beware this endless night and she who causes it.

Because there’s someone else who can hear the whispers, too . . . someone whose gown is a map of the cosmos, hair a tangled constellation, eyes like the lights of faraway stars. The Night Mother. Her elemental duty is to gather the souls of the dead in her lantern, then send them to their eternal rest as beautiful moonlight. But when her hunger for power drives her to take souls from the living, Madeline bravely stands up to defend her town and those she loves. Can Madeline help bring back the sun, or will she be lured by the starry promises of this mysterious woman?

Review: Thank you to Oni Press for giving me a copy of this graphic novel at ALAAC26!

My personal goal I made for myself this reading year was trying to do more graphic novels, as I feel like last year I didn’t really do as many as I could have. I made sure to pass by some of my favorite comic publishers while I was at ALA this summer, and a pile of comics caught my eye: “The Night Mother: Volume One” by Jeremy Lambert and Alexa Sharpe (Ill.) had such a captivating cover I had to grab it. It just looked so interesting! And I’m happy to say that when I picked it up, it grabbed my attention almost immediately.

The premise of the story is very unique. In a world where the moon has stopped as it has been taken over by a cruel being called The Night Mother, leaving the world in darkness, a little girl named Madeline Tock can hear the voices of the dead and tries to help them in any way she can. Her adoptive father Barnabus keeps them isolated and keeps her by his side in an overprotective manner, and when a stranger arrives and says that Madeline is the key to stopping The Night Mother, she has to go on a journey to try and save her home and community. For a first volume it has a lot of foundation to lay, and it does so in a very readable manner and in a straight forward way. I got a good sense of the seaside community, of Madeline and her relationship with her father, and the threat that is The Night Mother and how the magical systems in the book work with the moon, the souls of the dead, and the Night Mother herself. The audience of this book is probably on the younger teenage side, so it’s simple, but that simplicity doesn’t take away from the story.

I also liked the characters in this book, from intrepid Madeline to devoted Barnabus to the mysterious newcomer Nura, who has been sent to Madeline to warn her of danger and to help lead her to her destiny. I also have liked what we’ve seen of The Night Mother thus far, as she is scary and ethereal in her darkness and corruption. We haven’t really delved into all of them to much just yet, but I am hoping that now that we have a clear framework of where the story is going to go that in the following volumes we get to really delve into what makes them tick.

And the art in this comic fits the vibe so perfectly. I have seen some works of Alexa Sharpe before, and her style works well with this dreamy and somewhat dark story.

(source)

“The Night Mother: Volume One” is a solid start to a fantasy comic series! I am definitely interested in seeing where it goes from here.

Rating 8: A promising start to a new to me fantasy YA graphic series, “The Night Mother” is dreamy and ethereal with a strong premise and some well done world building.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Night Mother: Volume One” isn’t on many Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Fantasy Comics Books”.