Month: July 2026

Serena’s Review: “Harbour of Hungry Ghosts”

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Book: “Harbour of Hungry Ghosts” by Eliza Chan

Publishing Info: Orbit, July 2026

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

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

Book Description: The Au family serve the people of Hong Kong as demon hunters and blessing shrines, honoring the dead and dealing with dangerous yiaoguai incursions. The expectations on eldest daughter Kiamling are high, which is not something her strict grandmother and mentor will let her forget.

However, when British colonists interrupt a hungry ghost ritual, and her grandmother disappears, Kiamling must step up and lead the search.

Her bumbling language pupil Archie and her youngest sister Jingling will offer aid, alongside Hoi Gor, Kiamling’s recently returned childhood crush from Canton.

But when British fables mingle with local Chinese monsters, how can Kiamling prove herself, when the old rules no longer seem to apply?

Review: I had high hopes for this one! While I didn’t love her “Drowned World” series, I still appreciated the creative world-building and was excited to see her exploration of ghosts and colonization. However, the book failed to really nail any of its elements, leaving me bored more than anything.

I think many readers’ experience of this book will come down to how they feel about the prose itself. I can definitely be drawn in by the more descriptive, flowery tone, but I am quite picky in how exactly it’s pulled off. “Voice” is a hard aspect of writing to really nail down, but I think it’s this quality that is lacking when I have trouble connecting to a more elaborate prose style. And, sadly, such was the case here. Instead of feeling drawn into this world and able to relish in the plethora of details given about location, characters, and other plot elements, I felt disconnected and bogged down by what felt like extra words that weren’t truly conveying anything.

This also made the pacing read as slower than I think the story truly was. Things were happening, and, on its face, this is an action-packed tale. But again, because of this stylized form of writing, the whole thing began to feel heavy.

But where I really struggled was with the characters, especially the love interests. Yes, plural. Neither of these characters worked for me. Partly, they were each too expected. Each shows up and you know immediately everything you could possibly need to know about them, simply based on previous experience with similar character archetypes. It was also supremely obvious from the very beginning which was the “true” love interest, which made any time spent with the other feel like time wasted, further contributing to the lagging pacing of the storytelling. There was also an over-reliance on simply telling the reader everything we needed to know about these characters and their feelings. All of this combined to leave me feeling very cool on any of them.

Overall, this wasn’t what I hoped for. Fans of this author’s other books may simply connect better with her style and will likely appreciate this one more than me. But for my part, I found the whole thing rather dull and the romance boring to the point of tears.

Rating 6: I struggled with this one. Fans of the author will likely enjoy it, but I found it slowly paced and featuring two romantic interests (already stopped me at “two”) who brought nothing new to the table.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Harbour of Hungry Ghosts” isn’t on any Goodreads lists, but it should be on Asian Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Kate’s Review: “Death in the End Zone”

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Book: “Death in the End Zone” by Lynn Slaughter

Publishing Info: Melange Books LLC, April 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received a copy from the publicist

Where You Can Get This Book: Amazon

Book Description: In this sequel to “Missed Cue”, homicide detective Caitlin O’Connor is once again faced with a puzzling case: the murder of two star football players whose bodies are discovered in a compromising position in the end zone of their high school’s football field. While Caitlin identifies several suspects who might have had reasons to want to harm the boys, no clearcut evidence points to the culprit. She’s worried that she may get pulled off the case if she can’t figure out who killed the boys.

Review: Thanks to Books Forward for sending me a copy of this book!

It’s always nice to have a procedural mystery series to keep up with, and I say that as someone who has long loved a procedural mystery series be it on my TV or on my book shelf. It’s also nice following women detectives, and it’s the woman detective at the center of “Death in the End Zone” by Lynn Slaughter that brought me back for a second book. Caitlin O’Connor is a detective who is savvy and bright in her work life, but a little more hesitant to say such things about her personal life, and I enjoyed her personal life so much last time around I was game for another round with her to see how she has grown from Book One to Book Two.

So similarly to the previous Caitlin O’Connor book, the mystery at the heart of the novel was interesting enough, this time involving the deaths of two popular football players who are found posed in a compromising position on the high school football field. Their sexuality may play a part in what happened, and Caitlin wants to not only figure out who murdered them and why, but also keep them protected as best she can after their death sparks rumors and gossip. It’s a compelling concept, though I once again found myself wanting a bit more complexity in the mystery and the twists and turns. Whether it was witness or suspects or family members, I felt like they were mostly pretty two dimensional and interchangeable.

But it’s once again Caitlin’s personal life that made this for me. We are not only still getting therapy sessions (I am still very pleased to see this, let’s give our protagonist some mental health support!) for Caitlin, we are also seeing her start to build a more healthy relationship with her boyfriend Hank and his son Jack, even though they themselves are having some tricky moments in their lives that she has to witness. While we do have some realistic anxieties on her part about being a good romantic partner, especially to a man who has a child from a previous relationship, it’s refreshing to see her do less self-sabotaging and more introspection and maneuvering around healthy boundaries and what she herself wants from the relationship. This is in contrast to her partner Stan, who had been experiencing some bumps with his sobriety in the previous book, and who seems to still be struggling but unable to confide in anyone about it, which adds to her stress as the case goes on. The personal life problems enhanced the story for me and strengthened it where the mystery was shaky.

Overall, I’m still all about Caitlin O’Connor in “Death in the End Zone”. Hooray for self aware hard boiled detectives!

Rating 7: I really enjoyed the personal life side of this book with Caitlin O’Connor having to deal with some difficult realities about her partner, as well as some daunting changes in her relationship.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Death in the End Zone” isn’t included on any Goodreads lists as of yet, but it would fit on “Women Who Solve Crimes”.

Serena’s Review: “Nobody’s Quest”

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

Book: “Nobody’s Quest” by Alyssa Day

Publishing Info: Entangled: Red Tower Books, June 2026

Where Did I Get this Book: from the publisher!

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

Book Description: Soli has spent most of her life being invisible—an indentured servant, a library mold-scrubber, the girl no one sees unless she’s in the way. So, when the king’s guards show up with swords drawn, she assumes it’s a mistake.

It’s not.

Moments later, she’s standing in the throne room while the king tells her she’s been chosen to retrieve a set of ancient keys—only the keys can save the goddess and stop the chaos beyond the palace walls. Because the world isn’t waiting to be saved.

It’s already burning.

And beside him stands Prince Kaelen: devastatingly beautiful, mercilessly cold, and certain Soli won’t survive the hard journey ahead.

He’s probably right.

But Soli’s survived a lifetime of hard everything. She may be a nobody—no training, no real power, and no idea why she was chosen—but she refuses to be expendable. Even if the quest ahead is anything but simple. When assassins, monsters, and impossible choices fracture the fragile alliance slowly building with the Prince, Soli realizes she can’t hide in the shadows anymore.

Because, for the first time in her life, she has something to lose…

Review: I ended up enjoying this one for the most part. It did read as a bit juvenile in the style of writing, and don’t think too hard about some of the plot developments or familiar character archetypes. But the writing was the definition of approachable, and the pacing was fast enough that even during moments where I came up for air to think critically about it, I was drawn forward fast enough to not get too bogged down.

While much of the fantasy elements will read as familiar to readers of the genre, there were a few aspects that stood out. I appreciated this author’s version of and depiction of depression. It was a nice touch to the story, and the author’s note further dives into her own experiences, acknowledging the fact that the slow recovery time often experienced in reality wouldn’t work in a fantasy novel; thus, we see our main character only truly mired down for a few days at a time.

I did like the main character as well. Her voice was steady throughout, and I appreciated that she didn’t come across as the typical “stabby” leading lady that we often see in books like this. Yes, there were moments that had me raising my eyebrow (she was quick to talk back to royalty, given that she’s spent her whole life as a lowly servant), but again, there was more to enjoy about her than there was to criticize.

I also really liked the found-family aspect of the story. The book starts out fast and throws characters at you at a mile-a-minute speed, it feels like. But once the quest aspect actually gets started, there is more time to settle into these characters and develop the various relationships between them.

I will say, the book blurb hypes this one as a “slow burn” and, um, that’s not this at all. Literally in the first scene we meet him, we see the prince immediately form a connection to Soli. The entire setup of this scene involves the search to find a “nobody” who can touch a cursed item. If you’re not the right “nobody,” you burn to death on the spot, as we see with another character early in the scene. And it’s clear that this is not the first time they’ve gone through this process. The prince is even described as looking “bored” by the proceedings (though there are plenty of hints given early that there is more to this character than meets the eye).

But then he exchanges, what, two sentences with Soli and goes on to have a massive reaction to her undergoing this process. It is pretty wild, honestly, to have this scene within the first 50 pages and then label it “slow burn.” This is insta-love if ever I’ve seen it! So I didn’t love the romance. I liked both characters well enough individually, however, which did manage to save it.

Overall, this book is exactly what you’d expect after reading the book description and other books from Red Tower. I will say that I’d put it on the higher side of my opinions on books from this publisher, so do with that what you will. The fantasy elements were fun, the pacing was fast with good writing, it was only let down by the unfortunate insta-love romance.

Rating 8: A fun, fast romantasy read! Though this is by no means a “slow burn,” so don’t fall for the marketing ploy on that one!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Nobody’s Quest” can be found on these Goodreads lists: All the New Romantasy Books Arriving in June 2026 and Romantasy TBR 2026.